Living Way Church
Preparing for the Bowls of Wrath

      • John 14.6ESV

  • Behold Our God
  • O Come All Ye Faithful (His Name Shall Be)
  • Glory (Let There Be Peace)
  • Hark The Herald Angels Sing
  • Good afternoon! For the last three chapters we have been in this interlude between the sounding of the seven trumpets and the pouring out of the seven bowls. Chapter sixteen, which we are looking at today is the last of this interlude. And it is going to serve as an introduction so to speak to the seven bowl and the final pouring out of Gods wrath upon this earth. And we need to remember as we look at todays chapter that the purpose of the Gods wrath is that Gods grace might be experienced in the forgiveness of sins. All of this wrath towards sin is meant to bring mankind to its knees before Christ Jesus before it is too late. With all of that said you might think well none of this is for me, for the church. All of this should be meant for the unbeliever. But that is simply not the case. The book of Revelation was written to the church. And it was written so that we might see the dire need that all of those around us stand in every day. And so if you have been uncertain or fearful of sharing the good news of Jesus. Which honestly is almost everyone in this room. This position right now in the Church in America is not the exception it is the norm. If this characterizes your walk with Jesus then this book is really for you more than anyone else. We all need to begin to see this world through eyes that are stained by the blood of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And that is more than anything else the purpose of todays passage.
    So let’s start with verse one where we read.
    Revelation 15:1 ESV
    Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and amazing, seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is finished.
    A sign is given in the heaven of what is about to happen. This is the grand finale we might say of the whole of history as we know it right now. A sign is given not for unbelievers, but for you and I to see the dire need that this world stands in, and they stand in this position completely unaware. They have absolutely no clue of what might be unleashed at any moment upon this world. We the church are the ones who have received the warning. And so none of us now may know the time of the end, but we will not be caught unaware if it were to come tomorrow.
    Revelation 15:2 ESV
    And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire—and also those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands.
    And so now here on the eve of the pouring out of the bowls of wrath, John is given a vision of those who overcame the beast and endured until the end and faced both persecution and martyrdom. All for the name of Jesus. The are called conquerers. They have conquered the beast through their faith in Christ Jesus. They stood strong in the face of the influence of the culture around them and they refused to worship the beast, they refused to bow before its idol, and they refused to take its number. And even though the beast is given the power to kill them, their deaths bring about their ultimate victory over the beast. Just as we are told that the death of Jesus overcame both sin and death. Their deaths are what ultimately bring about the eternal downfall of the beast.
    So what about this sea of glass there are a couple of way that this is interpreted and that interpretation is often times affected by the next verse which speaks of the song of Moses. And so we see an allusion to the Red Sea where the people of God crossed through the sea on dry ground in order to escape the Egyptian Army. I’m not certain if this is specifically what is in mind. If so then the sea of glass represents the escape of the saints from the beast, but the problem is that it is through their deaths at the hands of the beast. This makes the connection a bit difficult. I believe that the sea of glass that is mingled with fire is most likely symbolic of the fact that this is a time of judgment for those who dwell upon the earth. And that there will be some who come through that period by the grace of God. Again it is very similar to the idea of the parting of the Red Sea, but we just need to be careful to make clear the differences. In one none of the people of God were touched by the enemy and in the other those present were all martyred by the beast.
    Then in verse three we read.
    Revelation 15:3 ESV
    And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations!
    So this song is very interesting when compared to most of the songs that are sung within the book of Revelation, particularly those sung by the Church. Up to this point the songs that are sung by the church are songs of redemption. This song is a song that praises the mighty works of God. The other part is that this song is not attributed to Moses anywhere in the scriptures. That doesn’t mean that Moses wasn’t the first to sing it, but that we do not have any historical writing attesting to this. This is a very common theme found within the Psalms. And I would say that when we begin to see the world through eyes that are stained by the blood of the Gospel then our prayers will often times take on this quality. We will begin to see the work of God all around us and we will give thanks for those might works within our lives and the lives of those around us.
    The other thing that I want to point out is that there is a manuscript difference that is found within the greek texts that we have available to us. There are two primary families of texts. One of those is called the critical text which is what the ESV that we use most Sundays is based upon. The other primary text family is called the majority text which is the family that the KJV and the NKJV are both based upon. The majority text is called this because it represents the majority of the ancient greek manuscripts that have been recovered. The critical text is the older of the two going back about two centuries older and therefore closer to the original writings historically. Most of the differences in the manuscript families have little bearing upon how one translates a passage. However, in this passage we see a fairly big difference between the two.
    In the critical text which is what most bibles use we have this last phrase that reads, “O King of the nations.” However if you are reading the KJV or the NKJV it reads in verse three.
    Revelation 15:3 NKJV
    They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying: “Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints!
    O King of the saints. So which is it. Because the truth is that these two interpretations have significant differences in meaning. I believe in order to come to the best understanding of the passage and the best possible translation. We have to ask which of these two fits best within the context of the passage and the book as a whole at this point. And, I think it’s pretty obvious in this instance that nations is a better translation. God has not at this point in the text declared himself simply king of the saints. But rather because he has both protected the saints eternally and is now pouring out his wrath upon the nations, he has shown himself to be the king of all mankind. And so believe that King of nations is a much better translation.
    Finally one last not on this phrase. There is another translation that you may find out there. It is found in the American Standard Version for instance and reads.
    Revelation 15:3 ASV
    And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, O Lord God, the Almighty; righteous and true are thy ways, thou King of the ages.
    Where this idea comes from I am uncertain. I believe that this is more of a contextual translation on the part of some rather than a word for word translation. The word that this version translated as ages literally means nations. So how they got to the translation ages I am uncertain. But, just something that if you study this passage you might find. The translation actually makes sense contextually but is not I don’t believe what the original intent was.
    Moving on though. I eventually have to stop geeking out about the details of the text. I just love this stuff though.
    So verse four reads.
    Revelation 15:4 ESV
    Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.”
    So, if all we had were this single verse to understand who it is that will be saved and who will worship Jesus we would say that it is all the nations. And so everyone must be saved. Oh! Didn’t see that did we? But on the surface it is there. We see something similar in Philippians chapter two verses ten through eleven which reads.
    Philippians 2:10–11 ESV
    so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
    Must be true right? In the end no matter what you believe everyone gets a pass and goes to heaven. Some of you are looking at me like. What the heck? This is the problem when we come to conclusions by picking and choosing what verses we want to support a preconceived conclusion that we simply want biblical support for. Look no one likes the other option right? Look even the end of our story says that all of the nations will be healed. We read in Revelation chapter twenty-two verse two.
    Revelation 22:2 ESV
    through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
    However this does not mean universal salvation. What this means is that the Kingdom of God will be made up of people from all the nations who will bend their knee in worship and devotion to God.
    Then in verse five we read.
    Revelation 15:5 ESV
    After this I looked, and the sanctuary of the tent of witness in heaven was opened,
    Now the seven bowls are about to be released and this picture of the sanctuary of the tent of witness which is a reference to both the temple in Jerusalem as well as the tent which was the tabernacle of God that Israel carried with them as they traveled from Egypt until finally placing it in Jerusalem. The dwelling place of God Most High is opened and from his very presence these seven angels will come forth and we read in verse six.
    Revelation 15:6 ESV
    and out of the sanctuary came the seven angels with the seven plagues, clothed in pure, bright linen, with golden sashes around their chests.
    These angels are clothed in the glory and majesty of the Lord that is what we should see here. I do not believe that the fact that they where sashes means that they are somehow acting in the place of the priesthood. The direction of blessing or cursing you might say is all wrong for that connection to be made. Right? The priesthoods primary function was to take the request of the people to the Lord. Not the other way around. That was primarily fulfilled by the prophet. Who brought the word of God to the people.
    Then in verse seven we read.
    Revelation 15:7 ESV
    And one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives forever and ever,
    The four living creatures stood next to the throne of God. This is a way of saying that the bowls of wrath are essentially sanctioned or sourced by the Lord Himself. I do believe that there is meant to be a connection between these seven final bowls of wrath and the bowls of incense that we saw in chapter five. There the bowls of incense were filled with the prayers of the martyrs calling for Gods justice and wrath. And now here in our passage we see seven bowls that are now filled with Gods justice and wrath about to be poured out upon the earth.
    And we are reminded that even though evil exists within this world it has a predetermined end date. And God almighty will see his plans for humanity through because he is the eternal one.
    Finally in verse eight we read.
    Revelation 15:8 ESV
    and the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished.
    In the Old Testament when God came before men he often appeared in such glory that men were unable to stand before the full weight of His glory. In Exodus chapter forty we are told that Moses was unable to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud rested upon it and that the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle of the tent. But please don’t be mistake that this is saying that none may come before the presence of the Lord. Instead God is here given to us a contrast between the greatness that is God Almighty and the truly mundane that is humanity.

    So What?

    I have a few brief points that I want to make for us this morning.
    First is the idea of Spiritual Warfare.

    Spiritual Warfare

    The world sees the victor in warfare as the one who comes out with all of the physical advantages. Right? Essentially they are the ones who survived until the end. However, throughout the book of Revelation victory come through physical defeat and sometimes death by enduring the world’s persecution. The beast see victory in every death that he brings to the martyrs. But the truth is that those deaths actually mean victory for the martyrs. They conquered the beast because he was incapable of causing them to deny their Christ, their Jesus. This is victory for a believer. Loyalty to Christ in all things. And we can only achieve this by being able to see the lies and temptations of the beast through eyes that are tinged by the blood of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
    The more we preach to ourselves and remind ourselves of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the more we are transformed into His image the more we will begin to see this world clearly through eyes touched by Christ Jesus.
    And what will happen is that like an onion God will begin to peel back layer by layer our sin filled lives so that we might see what He sees so clearly. And the more we see clearly the more we are able to overcome that sin that keeps us from a deeper relationship with Christ. And all of this is possible by the grace of God so that we might stand victorious in the end.
    Next I want to look at the bowls that are about to be poured out.

    The Bowls

    We need to see within the bowls both Gods anger and the prayers of the saints as well. Within the bowls of wrath we should begin to see just how important our prayers truly are. In the bowls we can see the impact that the prayers of the saints have in the way that Good moves history and ultimately brings about His plans. I believe that this suggest two things for us. Particularly when we begin to see this fallen world through eyes touched by the Gospel. Jesus is calling for a generation of people to become radical witnesses of His gospel, even if it means our lives. But there is in the bowls also a call for His people to become a people of radical and fervent prayer.
    Throughout the scriptures we see God using the prayers of the saints, which is moved by His Spirit, in order to prepare for the fulfillment of many of His plans and purposes throughout history.
    When we see that the pouring out of the bowls is preceded by this glorious vision of heaven we should be reminded that God is sovereign over all of history. Every catastrophe whether small or great occurs under His power. And each one of them is meant as a wake up call for the world to see. Each of these judgments that come upon the world her today are simply a foretaste of what is yet to come in the final day of Judgment. Each of these catastrophes are meant to warn people that they need to be ready at any moment for the end to come. And they need to be ready before it is too late.
    The world can not and will not see this. Why? Because they see with eyes clouded by sin. But we see clearly through eyes touched by the blood of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
    And we need to each one of us begin to look upon every human life that stands before us through eyes that have been tinged by the blood of the Gospel. Because when we do we will begin to see people who will be spared the wrath of God and those who will feel the full weight of His wrath and anger.
    And when we see this world through eyes touched by the gospel we will begin to become willing to give all that we have to see the gospel go forth into this world. Even if that means our own lives to see one soul saved from the wrath that is yet to come. Because the blood of the martyrs is simply the seed of the Gospel.
    Amen.
    Amen.
    Preparing for the Bowls
    Prayer
    Benediction
    Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
    ​

      • Revelation 15:1ESV

      • Revelation 15:2ESV

      • Revelation 15:3ESV

      • Revelation 15:3ESV

      • Revelation 15:3ESV

      • Revelation 15:4ESV

      • Philippians 2:10–11ESV

      • Revelation 22:2ESV

      • Revelation 15:5ESV

      • Revelation 15:6ESV

      • Revelation 15:7ESV

      • Revelation 15:8ESV

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