The Agony of Defeat

Series on Revelation

II The Viewpoint

D Cycle Four, The Seven Bowls

2 The Plagues

Text: 16:1-14

Introduction

Most of us are glad to affirm that God is true and just when we are talking about salvation. As Paul says in Romans 3, God is just and He is the justifier as well, because He is true to His promises of mercy to the repentant, and salvation to sinners. God presented him (Jesus) as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood… he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Revelation emphasizes these attributes of God here in our text in verse 7, “True and just are your judgments,” and also in chapter 19 where John describes Christ coming to battle riding a white horse he says, I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. The emphasis here is not on God being true and just in saving us, but on His being true and just in judgment. William Bennett: has written “Every saint has a past. And every sinner has a future.” When you read Revelation 16 the future for the impenitent is gloomy and alarming. On campuses and in conferences, and debates across the land, the question in these days seems to be what do we think of Christ. This passage makes clear that the day is coming when the question will be what Christ thinks of us. Lest we be lost in the violent details of the bowls of wrath, let us remember and Christ always judges with perfect knowledge, un-perplexed certainty, and undisturbed compassion. The vehicle used here is called a bowl of wrath in the New International Version. In some translations it is called a vial but the best translation is a cup, because in the Old Testament, the word cup is used in the Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah and the minor prophets for the dispensing of God’s punishments upon the nations. The cup of wrath is going to be emptied and that outpouring is continuous, complete, consonant, and confrontational. These characteristics are observed throughout our text. Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go, pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth.” The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the land, and ugly and painful sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped his image. The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it turned into blood like that of a dead man, and every living thing in the sea died. The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood. Then I heard the angel in charge of the waters say: “You are just in these judgments, you who are and who were, the Holy One, because you have so judged; for they have shed the blood of your saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink as they deserve.” And I heard the altar respond: “Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments.” The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire. They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him. The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was plunged into darkness. Men gnawed their tongues in agony and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done. The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East. Then I saw three evil spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. They are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty.

I Continuous

In the totality of the judgments in Revelation beginning with the seals, and then the trumpets, and ending with the cups we are being given an overall picture of God’s judgments throughout the age increasing in intensity, but part and parcel of the same picture. It might to be helpful to think of it as God’s judgment being brought forward in history. Yes there is a final judgment, but judgment is not confined to that. The judgment stretches out over the whole period from the first to the second coming of Jesus. Julia Ward Howe in the heat of the American Civil War caught this view of God’s judgments perfectly in her deservedly revered hymn, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Though it is regarded as a patriotic song it deserves the place it has in many hymnals. The Lyrics written in 1861 and first published in 1862 are most instructive. The first verse begins with identifying the present struggle as an episode in God’s judgments, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on.”The Hymn is full of Biblical allusions as we see in verses two through five, “I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps, They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps: His day is marching on. I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel: As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal; Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is marching on. He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat: Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on. In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me: As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.” Then in the sixth verse, not often printed in hymnals today we see most clearly how Julia Ward Howe connects the judgment of war in her time with the final retribution, “He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave, He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave, So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave, Our God is marching on.” This is an illustration of the same perspective that is offered in the book of Revelation. With the seals, the trumpets and finally the cups we have the increasing intensity of the very same punishments always ending in the final judgment. The Apocalypse from beginning to end reveals progressive parallelism. The areas affected, but not always in the same order, are the earth, bringing famine, the sea, the rivers and springs, the heavenly bodies and then the abyss or throne of the beast, and the sixth cup issues in the removal of a natural boundary, the Euphrates, resulting in war. These are continuous judgments and that is also clear from the degree of overlapping that seems to allude to a measure of simultaneity in the pouring out of the bowls. For example, the boils of the first plague are still active at the time of the fifth plague of darkness.

II Complete

That these judgments are complete is clearly shown in the universal nature of the calamities. They effect the land, the sea, the heavens above the earth and the abyss under the earth. There is no place in creation that is not affected by the outpouring of God’s wrath. The finality of the judgments is also reflected in the progression through the seals and then the trumpets and finally the cups of wrath: first a quarter and then a third and finally all of the people and all of the environment is involved The sixth and seventh seals and the seventh trumpet brought us to the end, but here we have come again to the end and as Paul says in I Corinthians 15:24-26, Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. In this Scripture as the consequences are elaborated and unfolded in the ensuing chapters, every enemy is destroyed and there is none left. We see the nations that opposed God, the men who denied God, the world system under the image of Babylon, the beast, the false prophet, the Devil, and death itself all brought to ruin and cast into hell. The earth is destroyed and made ready for renovation and renewal. This is complete judgment.

III Consonant

Let the punishment fit the crime. Often in our society the judgment is not fitting. Inequities abound because arbitrary, unprincipled and discriminatory judgments are made. For example, some white collar criminals who have duped people who should not have been so gullible in the first place are given lengthy prison sentences and also drug users while murderers and thieves and rapists often avoid them. This is just a symptom of our broken world. District attorneys and judges and advocates are sinners too. My point is, simply, that God’s judgment is perfect, fair and equitable. We should note here that the rivers and springs and sea are all changed to blood. That is certainly significant and our text tells us why. Then I heard the angel in charge of the waters say: “You are just in these judgments, you who are and who were, the Holy One, because you have so judged; for they have shed the blood of your saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink as they deserve.” And I heard the altar respond: “Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments.” How fitting for when we come to Babylon in chapter 17 we are told that the harlot is drunk with the blood “of God’s holy people,” and in her destruction in chapter 18 we are told that, “In her was found the blood of prophets and of God’s holy people, of all who have been slaughtered on the earth.” When Jesus comes in chapter 19 as the heavenly warrior to execute vengeance we are told that He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood. We must hearken back to the prayers of the saints ascending to God from the altar of incense that precede the blowing of the trumpets of judgment, and to the fifth seal which showed the martyrs in 6:9-11, When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been. “Vengeance is mine says the Lord, I will repay.”

IV Confrontational

The judgments are confrontational first of all because they turn loose forces of opposition to God and His people. We read Then I saw three evil spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. They are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty. Satan and his henchmen control the kings of the earth, that is human governments which universally oppose God and His kingdom. Sadly, they seem to understand better than many Christians that the real battle is religious in nature. In today’s world there is an enormous religious struggle of which many seem to be unaware. At least western governments are naive about it. The threat of Islamic aggression is constantly referred to either as a nationalistic conflict, or as a conflict fostered by fanatical extremists. Actually it is a religious problem. On the one side there are orthodox Muslims whose faith teaches the use of force to compel conversion, and on the other side are secularists or people who are Christian in name only. These nominally Christian or secularized nations have no clue as to the real problem. Their foreign policy demonstrates their lack of understanding. In reality the Muslims and the Secularists are on the same side. They are all opposed to God’s true kingdom in Christ. Only genuine Bible-believing Christians understand the real threat. Thus we read that these Satanic forces foster a great battle, and in that battle the kings of the earth, all of them, are engaged on the wrong side. This is the way it has always been as King David wrote in Psalm 2, Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One. “Let us break their chains,” they say, “and throw off their fetters.” The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. Then he rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, “I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.” I will proclaim the decree of the Lord: He said to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will rule them with an iron scepter; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.” Therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. This Scripture is fulfilled in Revelation 16 The wrath has been kindled and there is no refuge except in God’s King, Jesus. This is the critical moment in the battle which is being waged against God by the forces of evil all through the history of the world, from the fall of Adam until the last judgment day. All the preceding judgments were intended to warn men and bring them to repentance, but as we read over and over in our text, they refused to repent and glorify him.