Revelation 15-16
From:
www.gracethrufaith.com
The time of the Bowl Judgments is upon us. The full fury of God's Wrath, begun in
chapter 6, is coming. It's been building in stages to give all those who will,
the opportunity to seek and find Him before it's too late. But now the climax is at hand. Upon the
completion of the Bowl Judgments, God's righteous requirement for judgment upon
those who have rejected His earnest and unceasing pleas for reconciliation will
have been satisfied. At long last Planet Earth will be ready to receive Her
King, and enjoy the peace He alone can bring.
Revelation 15
I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven
angels with the seven last plagues—last, because with them God's wrath is
completed. And I saw what looked like a sea of glass mixed with fire and,
standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and his
image and over the number of his name. They held harps given them by God and
sang the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb:
"Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God
Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the ages. Who will not fear you, O Lord, and bring
glory to your name? For you alone are
holy. All nations will come and worship
before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed." (Rev.
15:1-4) What I've said before bears repeating. God's Wrath doesn't begin here; it ends
here. It began in chapter 6 at the seal
judgments as indicated by Rev. 6:17.
If you're looking for the pre-wrath rapture of the Church, you have to
look in chapter 4, where the pre-trib view has placed
it all along.
The conformity of man's will to God's, so long resisted,
will finally be achieved. Following the
certain and total defeat of the anti-Christ and his allies, every knee in
Heaven, on Earth, and under the Earth will bow, and every tongue will confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord. (Phil. 2:10-11)
After this I looked and in heaven the temple, that is, the tabernacle of
the Testimony, was opened. Out of the temple came the seven angels with the
seven plagues. They were dressed in clean, shining linen and wore golden sashes
around their chests. Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven
angels seven golden bowls filled with the wrath of God, who lives for ever and
ever. And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his
power, and no one could enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven
angels were completed. (Rev. 15:5-8) The fact that these angels are
clothed in spotless linen means that the judgments are righteous. The Earth deserves every bit of what's coming
and it won't be a pretty sight. The King
of the universe shuts Himself inside His temple to mourn the necessity for all
this, and once again we're shown that He'll do nothing to either shorten the
duration or lessen the impact of these final judgments. This is going to run its course and no one
can change that.
Revelation 16
The Seven Bowls of God's Wrath
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. (Rev. 16:1-2) Everyone was warned
about the dire consequences that would attend taking the mark. (Rev. 14:9-12) But as usual where God's concerned, lots of
people ignored the warning. They have
only themselves to blame.
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. (Rev.
16:3) One third of the sea had been struck in the Trumpet judgments. Now the rest is contaminated.
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." (Rev
16:4-7) And again the fresh water
supply is also attacked. Partially poisoned earlier (Rev. 8:11), it now
turns to blood like the sea.
For the second time, there's no "is to come" in God's name. But now the Name also indicates the plurality
of the Trinity. (Some translations add
the "is to come" phrase and some don't.) Those under the altar cry
out in support of these judgments. It's their blood the angel in charge of the
water is talking about. (Rev. 6:9-10)
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. (Rev. 16:8-9) In the USA 2006 is the hottest year on
record, so far. Overwhelmingly, the
number one cause of global warming is the increasing temperature of the
Sun. Regardless of man's
pathetic effort to legislate a reversal, this trend will continue until the day
people when actually burst into flame if they're directly exposed to its heat.
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. (Rev. 16:10-11) Now it's getting personal. Having plunged the Earth into Spiritual
darkness, the anti-Christ is treated to physical darkness, adding further
discomfort to the sores and the burns.
No lamp, no fire, not even the Sun will provide relief from darkness so
thick you can almost feel it. Satan's
effort to turn the truth into a lie has been so effective that men curse God
for their plight, hardening their hearts even further against repentance.
Believing that God is their enemy and that Satan's trying to save them, they
resolve to stand firm in their loyalty to the anti-Christ.
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. (Rev. 16:12-14) The Great Border between East
and West is finally removed and the coalition of victors from the Eastern Wars
of Rev. 9:13-16, their minds stirred up by the evil spirits, come
rumbling toward the Middle East for the final showdown.
Before we go on, it's time for a brief history lesson, courtesy of Daniel
11:40-45. When Alexander the Great died in 323 BC, the Greek Empire was
divided up among his four Generals. Cassander took the Eastern European territories around the
Adriatic Sea. Seleucus
took Turkey, Iraq and Syria. Lysimachus got the Eastern provinces stretching from Iran
to India. Ptolemy got Egypt. Cassander is not
mentioned in Daniel 11, and Seleucus later
defeated his friend Lysimachus, acquiring Iran and
the Eastern Empire n the process. The
story throughout Daniel 11 is of the Kings of the North (the Seleucids)
and the Kings of the South (the Pyolemys) fighting
each other for control of the entire Empire. These are the Kings in view in
verses 40-45.
Of course when Daniel wrote chapter 11 in about 539BC these men hadn't even
been born yet, and Alexander's Kingdom was still 200 years away. But in an overwhelming demonstration of God's
knowledge of the future, there are 135 historically verified fulfilled
prophecies in the first 35 verses of Daniel 11, all written from 200-400
years before the fact. That lends credibility to what He had Daniel write about
the end times beginning in verse 36. But
for now, we'll focus on verses 40-45.
At the same that the Kings of the East from Rev. 16:12 begin their
march another large force from the North begins mobilizing. Earlier, the King of the North, (mainly Iran,
Iraq, Turkey and Syria) had joined up with the King of the South (Egypt) to
oppose the anti-Christ's move to control the Middle East, but he had overcome
them. Only Jordan, the hiding place of
the Jews, remained unscathed. (Daniel 11:40-43) So this new threat from the north can't be
the already defeated King of the North.
Reports of the movement of this huge combat force from the East and North
greatly alarm the anti-Christ. What are
they up to? Is this a Russian Chinese alliance that the world has long
feared? Or is it going to be every man
for himself?
Setting up his headquarters in Jerusalem the ant-Christ readies his troops
to meet them in the last great battle for planet Earth. (Daniel 11:44-45)
By some estimates, up to 400 million combatants will be involved before it's
all over. The blood from their slain forms the river that flows from Megiddo in
central Israel all the way to Petra in Jordan, about 175 miles away. (Rev.
14:20)
"Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and
keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully
exposed."
Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew
is called Armageddon. (Rev. 16:15-16) The "come like a
thief" phrase has been used many times to describe the Lord's coming for
His church, but here I think it means that these human combatants are so
pre-occupied with each other that they don't notice the army they should really
fear, the one coming at them from out of the sky.
The name Armageddon comes from the Hebrew phrase Har
Megiddo, or Mt. Megiddo. It's a place in
central Israel at the western entrance to the Jezreel
Valley. King Solomon had massive stables there, and Napoleon called this valley
the most ideal battlefield on Earth.
Here it's used as the staging area for the troops amassed against the
anti-Christ.
Believers on Earth are cautioned to stay alert and keep their righteousness
intact because the time is very short and if they're not careful they'll be
caught unawares. In the Book of
Revelation, there's no indication of the indwelling Spirit guaranteeing the
security of Tribulation believers like He does during the Church age. As was the case with Old Testament saints,
they have to stay awake and alert and look after their position before God
constantly.
The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple
came a loud voice from the throne, saying, "It is done!" Then there
came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake.
No earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on earth, so
tremendous was the quake. The great city
split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered
Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his
wrath. Every island fled away and the
mountains could not be found. From the
sky huge hailstones of about a hundred pounds each fell upon men. And they
cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible.
(Rev 16:17-21) This passage defies description. God has given Planet Earth His most severe
judgment ever. Any more and the planet
would literally cease to exist.
Earthquakes level every city. Babylon, God's ancient enemy, is singled
out for special treatment that we'll tackle next time. The entire Earth is
being re-formed in this final cycle of judgment, partly to eradicate every
trace of man's evil intentions, and partly to prepare it for a complete
makeover when the Messiah comes.
The Biblical penalty for blasphemy is death by stoning. (Lev. 24:10-16) The anti-Christ and the people of Earth have
been blaspheming the Name of God since the beginning. Now comes the penalty phase. 100 pound blocks
of ice come crashing down out of the sky.
God is stoning the people of Earth for their blasphemy. And still they curse Him.
Next time, we'll cover the destruction of the three powerful forces that
make up Babylon the Great, and that have oppressed and enslaved mankind through
out most of his history. They are religious, commercial, and governmental in
nature and each is treated to a special measure of God's wrath. See you then.
