Just a bit about how we're going to proceed here through Revelation. Some have expressed to me, well, you're not going to be able to finish it, and that's true. However, what we're going to do is skip ahead to the end so that we get to those final chapters. Now, I'm still working out how that's going to look. We'll at least probably be in Chapter 21. 22, but we'll see how we can divide that up and look at the end. For now, though, Revelation 16, verses 1-11. This is God's Word. Let us give it careful attention. John writes, Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God. So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth and harmful and painful sores came upon the people who bore the mark of the beast and worshipped its image. The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea and it became like the blood of a corpse and every living thing died that was in the sea. The third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water, and they became blood. And I heard the angel in charge of the water say, Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments. For they have shed the blood of the saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve. And I heard the author saying, yes, Lord God, the Almighty, true and just are your judgments. The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun and it was allowed to scorch the people with fire. They were scorched by the fierce heat and they cursed the name of God who had the power over these plagues. They did not repent and give them glory. The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in anguish and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds. This is God's word, let us pray. Father in heaven, we do thank you for your word. Even in this sobering picture of your holy judgment, we praise you for what you have revealed to us. We ask now that your spirit would guide us into all understanding, that you would build up the faith of your children, those who know you through Christ. And Father, for those who have not faith, we pray that you would open their eyes, open their hearts, give them ears to hear so that in hearing they might believe and turn in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ as their only Lord and Savior. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. As we have gone through this book of Revelation, if there's anything that it has taught us is that God's wrath and judgment are most certainly part of God's character and his work in this world. So rather than ignore this important reality of who God is, of his very being, and downplay, or even worse, deny the truth that God is holy and just, who pours out his wrath even now upon sin in this earth, we ought to accept it and believe it. For this is who God is, and this is what God does. But what if What if we were to do even more than just accept this as a true part of God's character and work? What if we are to actually praise God for his justice that he pours out in judgment upon this world? What if we are to rejoice that God brings judgment upon the wicked? I mean, such a concept, no doubt, makes you, as it does me, squirm a little bit. After all, it doesn't sit well with our human notions of tolerance and acceptance. And we all have falls and failures, so isn't patience, kindness, a better way forward in this world? How can we rejoice that God would put His wrath on display in His judgment? It just does not seem right. And yet, that is the very thing we see God being praised for by the angels in this passage before us this morning. As God's judgment is being portrayed and all this symbolic language is being poured out upon the earth, a hymn of praise is sung in verses 5 through 7 where John said, the angel that is in charge of the waters declared, just are you. O Holy One, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments, for they have shed the blood of the saints and the prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve. And I heard the altar saying, that is where the church in heaven dwells. Yes, Lord God, the Almighty, true and just are your judgments. I mean, right in the middle of these horrible judgments of God being poured upon those who persist in their wickedness, there is this hymn praising God for His justice as it is manifested in the earth. And the reason for this hymn is not because there is a rejoicing over the suffering of the wicked. That's not what's happening at all. But it is thanksgiving being directed to God, for He has answered in equal measure the injustice of evildoers with His perfect justice. You see, God's wrath is a redeeming wrath. God does not simply walk away from His creation that is stained with sin and polluted with wickedness. Instead, He does what He must to remove that sin and restore His justice upon the earth. And He does that through forgiveness. The work of God that saves those who repent and in faith look to Jesus alone as their only hope, their righteousness. But He also does it through judgment, by dispensing His holy justice upon those who refuse to acknowledge God's holiness and His Lordship. You see, in order to bring out the salvation of sinners, There must be a judgment on all sin. Now, for the believer, that sin is already judged in Jesus Christ, who suffered the penalty of sin in the place of guilty sinners so that they might be forgiven and declared justified or right before God through their faith. Christ. But on the flip side, the remaining sin of this world, the sin of those who refuse to repent and turn to Jesus, must also be judged. For it is through judgment that sin and evil is dealt with once and for all. When we long for peace, we long for a world that is free from abuse and violence and evil. And God does that through His judgment. He brings that about. God's judgment, as portrayed in our text, is used by God to destroy the idols that people like to construct in place of worshiping the one true God. In other words, God removes the false saviors of this world so that people might turn to the only true Savior, Jesus Christ. Now, to help us see that, we need to go to the context behind this vision that God is giving John. In chapter 15, when we were there, we saw that Israel's exodus from Egypt is the Old Testament background for this vision of the seven bulls of God's wrath that God is giving to John. Just as God delivered Israel from the oppression and the bondage of Egypt, so God delivers his church, those who belong to him, from those who would persecute her and oppress her in this world. Now, God did this for Israel by judging Egypt through those seven plagues, and each of those plagues broke down the idols of Egypt. Each were directed at a specific Egyptian deity, and they demonstrated that God alone is the one who can deliver from sin, suffering, and oppression. By defeating Egypt's false deities, God showed himself to be the one and only true God deserving of worship. Now, as we come into Revelation 16, what John describes here in this vision of the seven bowls of God's wrath is that very same thing that happened in the Exodus, but on a cosmic scale. God is judging And through that judgment, tearing down the idols of the powers of this world. So that the only thing that we are left with is the truth of who is Jesus Christ. So consider then the first bowl that we see here. We read of it in verse 1. John says, I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God. And there are three things in this opening statement that reveal to us the character of God's judgment. First of all, God's judgment is holy because it does not come from a place of evil. It comes from a place of righteousness and truth. John says he heard a loud voice coming from where? From the temple, telling the seven angels to go and pour out God's wrath upon the earth. The temple is the symbolic place for where God's presence dwells. It is a holy place. This command that goes out is a divine command. In other words, the judgment of God cannot be an evil thing, for God can do no evil. Instead, it is good and holy and right. Secondly, regarding the character of God's judgment, we learn here that God's judgment is not a passive thing. It is a purposed, planned action of God. He is the one who issues this command for His judgment to fall upon the earth. It is not mere happenstance, but is determined by God's sovereign power as a response to all the sin in this world. Particularly, we see the persecution of God's people. Thirdly, regarding the character of God's judgment, We note that each of these judgments is described as being poured out of a bowl of God's wrath. And pouring out pictures this spilling out, this splashing around of getting on everything, flooding the area, drenching everything it touches. This is not just one of those old little plastic squirt guns that really did nothing. This is like a bucket being poured out drenching everything, soaking the earth in the judgment of God. And so there isn't a part of this world that can hide. There is no idol that humans construct that is not washed away by the flood of God's holy judgment. So the character of God's judgment is holy, it is purposed, and it is comprehensive. Now with that in mind, let us look to this first bowl, which corresponds with the sixth plague that fell upon Egypt. So if you go to Exodus chapter 9, verses 8 and 9, you read of that sixth plague, this is what it says. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, take handfuls of soot from the kiln and let Moses throw them into the air in the sight of Pharaoh and it shall become fine dust over all the land of Egypt and become boils breaking out in sores on man and beast throughout all the land of Egypt. Again, this judgment is aimed at a specific idol that the Egyptians would worship. This idol would be the Egyptian deity, Sekhmet. And Sekhmet was the Egyptian lion-headed goddess of plagues, who also had the power to remove those plagues, those diseases, from people. And the Sekhmet priesthood is amongst the oldest known fraternities of medical workers in the world, in the ancient world. And belonging to it were both doctors, those who practiced medicine on humans, as well as veterinarians, those who practiced medicine upon animals. And the priesthood of Sekhmet believed they had tremendous power over these diseases, that they could remove them and possibly even cheat death. But God inflicted the Egyptians with painful and festering sores that the priests and priestesses of Sekhmet could not cure. And in doing so, God pulls down her idol. as an idol represented the human worship of our own power to do great things to save us from all the suffering of this world. Now we can do an awful lot and we are thankful for that. But we must recognize that these disciplines of medicine and science are God's good gifts given to us from our loving Creator so that we might make our way through this life. They should never be idolized as the saviors of humanity from all the misery and suffering that life brings. Going back to John's vision, God's judgment upon all the earth, we read in verse two that the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth and harmful and painful sores came upon the people who bore the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. So as the angel pours out this first bowl of God's wrath, the inhabitants of the earth that worshipped the beast are inflicted then with these festering painful sores just like the Egyptians. Now remember, the language of the book of Revelation is symbolic. Who is the beast again? Well, the beast is a symbol of the worldly powers and systems that defy God and mock and persecute his church. And so this judgment is not falling upon believers, but the unbelieving world, those who refuse to fall before God and worship him. The sores that come upon them are also, of course, symbolic. They are not necessarily actual painful sores, though they could be, but they represent really any kind of disease and illness or injury that makes a person realize they have no control over their own mortality. Because that is the idol that is under attack here by God in this judgment. You see, the spirit of this present age is one where we think that as people, as humans, if we just work hard enough and study long enough and experiment enough, we certainly can accomplish anything that we put our minds to. We refuse to acknowledge that we are limited. Now it is a good thing, as I mentioned, to advance in our knowledge and our abilities to grow in these areas, especially in the area of medicine and science. We ought to be thankful for these things. After all, God gave us rational souls and reasonable minds. But when we glorify our humanity rather than worship the God who gives us these good things, we end up idolizing ourselves. I mean, for example, this becomes very apparent if you ever meet someone who is absolutely consumed with the idea of fitness. Now again, it is good to get your body in shape and to be fit and take care of ourselves to maintain our health. But we should always be mindful of our own limitations. Not idolize our fitness, our own health. Recognize that disease and sickness and physical suffering in this world do happen. And that through them, God is tearing down this idol that people like to make. Confronting them with the reality that we are in fact limited. that our health, our life, ultimately is in the hands of our holy God. He is the one who holds the keys of life and death, and no amount of medical science can ever take away those keys from Him. So the first bull smashes this idol of mortality, or rather immortality, that humans think they can create. It reveals that death is something we will never overcome, and because of that, We need a Savior who can, and there is a Savior who has, and His name is Jesus. He felt the sting of death so that He might save us from the curse of death forever. And all this suffering in the world that results as God's judgments drives us to Christ who has overcome that suffering for us. Consider then now the second and the third bowls together. So the second bowl, we read the second angel poured out his bowl into the sea and it became like blood of a corpse and every living thing died that was in the sea. Then the third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water and they became blood. And these two judgments, of course, correspond with that first plague that God poured out upon Egypt, where the Nile and all the waters of Egypt were turned to blood. You read that in Exodus 7, verse 19, the Lord said to Moses, say to Aaron, take up your staff, stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over the rivers, their canals, their ponds, and all their pools of water, so they may become blood. And there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, even in the vessels of wood and the vessels of stone. Now, the Nile River itself was idolized by the Egyptians as a god named Hopi. Hopi was a picture of fertility and life. Ancient Egyptian writings praise Hopi as being the very lifeblood of Egypt, keeping the kingdoms alive. After all, not only did the Nile provide fresh water for drinking, but it also provided irrigation for the farmlands to flourish. It was also a place of great commerce. the Nile represented the very economy of ancient Egypt. Without the waters of the Nile, there would be no fishing industry. Without the waters of the Nile, there would be no farming in that dry desert place. And so you can imagine then how devastating it was for the kingdoms of Egypt when the one true God turned Not just the Nile, but as we read there, all the canals, all the ponds, all the pools of water in all of Egypt into blood. The economic impact would have brought that land to its knees. Fish would die. There would be no water to drink. So the loss of the Nile was God's way of proclaiming to Egypt that he alone, not Hoppe, not some idol they had made out of the waters of the Nile itself, but God alone, the creator of all that is, he is the source and the sustainer of all the life. Now coming back into John's vision of the third and fourth bowls of God's wrath that he is pouring out even now upon this earth, we see a similar judgment. The rivers, the springs, the seas, they all turn to blood and the impact upon the earth is disastrous. Everything dies. Now again, we know John's vision is symbolic and we interpret these symbols symbolically, not literally. And so we understand that what's being described here is not that Lake Michigan or the Huron River are actually turning into blood. but they represent something else. What do they represent? Well, when we go back to the trumpet judgments, if you remember them, the blowing of the second trumpet resulted in something similar. There, there was this picture of a burning, fiery mountain that is cast down into the sea and the sea becomes blood. And we learn that that picture spoke of an economic judgment. that God was judging this world economically. And so while we see that those judgments are the same, we observe then that there is a connection between the different visions of God's judgments in the book of Revelation. And we can interpret this second and third bullet graph in a similar fashion. This represents economic deprivation and suffering that occurs in this world as a form of God's judgment. It is God's judgment against those who worship what? The idol of wealth and prosperity. Now that does not mean that God wants people to be poor. There's nothing wrong with having money and being successful in this world. But an idol takes those things that are good that God gives us and bends them and twists them into an object of consuming desire to the point that people will worship it. Paul talks about this in Romans 1. Rather than glorifying the Creator, people glorify the creature. Rather than glorifying the God who gives us good things in this life, and gives us the money that we have, the success that we enjoy, we worship those things themselves. And that Fallenness of making money into an idol leads to so many other sins. Covetousness and theft and deceit and lust. Consider the fact that within the Ten Commandments, many of these sins are forbidden. Do not lie, do not steal, do not cut of it anything that is your neighbor's. These things, these sins, come from a heart that makes the pursuit of wealth and prosperity into a God itself. But Jesus warns us against this. And in warning us against this, he points us to a better way. Matthew 6, he says to his disciples, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal. That's God's judgment on these things. But lay up for yourself treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Earthly treasures do not last. They decay. They rust. They're stolen. They're lost. You buy a new car, and before you know it, there's scratches on it. things break down. So do not make those earthly treasures an idol. Instead, treasure those heavenly things. Treasure Christ above everything else. You see, even in the decay of this world, as things break down and they do not last, God is tearing down the idol of earthly treasures and proclaiming that we ought to repent and look in faith to Jesus Christ and so lay up those heavenly treasures of God's blessing and mercy. Finally, then, let us observe the fourth and the fifth bowls together. Both of these judgments, symbolically, we note here in the text, involve the Son. The angel pours out the wrath of God, the bowl of God's wrath upon the sun. And what happens? The sun then burns the unrepentant, causing them to further harden their hearts and curse God. This bowl appears to correspond with Exodus 9.22, where burning hail is said to fall upon Egypt, destroying the crops and the animals in the field. But the mention of the sun This fourth bowl, however, evokes another image from the Old Testament, that of a covenant curse. We are familiar here at Christ Church Ann Arbor with Psalm 121, 5 through 6. We use it frequently as one of our benedictions at the close of worship. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. That is a covenant promise that God is giving his people that he will protect him. And of course, that protection is ultimately filled in God's covenant of grace through Jesus Christ, our mediator. And the idea is that the sun is this picture of something that can burn and destroy with intense heats. But if you are part of God's covenant people, you are shaded by the Lord himself, who bore the heat of God's judgment in your place. Jesus is that shadow that protects you, that keeps you cool from the scorching sun. But here in verse eight, as this judgment of God is portrayed being poured out on all the earth, what happens is there is no shade. It has been pulled back. The sun is now scorching those who continue to break God's law and refuse to worship him. And their hearts are hardened. Instead of turning to that one who can deliver them from the heat, They grow angry and refuse to repent. Another way to view this fourth bowl is that the sun, many times, is portrayed as a source of blessing because it gives life and warmth. It's a place where we turn to find God's sustenance as he causes things to grow through the light of the sun. But now, It has become a source of affliction. Part of God's judgment upon humanity is this very earth itself. The very goodness of creation turns against sinful humanity. We saw that in the curse that came upon Adam. our representative there in the garden. God said that life would now be difficult on this earth. It would be no longer easy to find the sustenance you need to survive. There would be weeds and thorns to contend with. Water, which can give life, can also flood and drown. And the sun that makes things grow can also scorch and cause droughts. It is utterly foolish, then, to worship the creation to praise it rather than its creator. For to do so is to worship the very thing that can bring suffering upon him. Now this was true in Egypt during the Exodus. for the highest deity in the Egyptian pantheon, sort of like Zeus was to the Greeks, was Amen-Re, or Amen-Ra, as you would probably have heard him called. He was a personification of the sun. And God tore down the idol of Amen-Re through the plague of darkness that he brought upon Egypt. If you look in Exodus 10, we read, then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand toward heaven And there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt. So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was pitch darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days. And they did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days. And all the people of Israel had light where they lived. Amenrei was thought to be the very giver of life himself, and the sun rising in the east was to symbolize the life that he gave to people in Egypt. Consequently, when the sun would sink in the west, that was a symbol to the Egyptians of death and the grave. And so when God caused darkness to fall upon the land of Egypt for three days, It meant that Amenrei was powerless. He had been defeated. He could no longer rise and give life to his people. And the people, unable to make their chief god shine, are now given over to despair and hopelessness. Coming back to the fifth bowl of God's wrath to which the Egyptian plague of darkness corresponds, we see that God's judgment plunges the kingdom of the beast into darkness. So much darkness that it creates this incredible anguish and suffering. It's a darkness that injures and harms. What a frightening picture. Now remember, the beast symbolizes those satanically driven systems of the world that people follow after instead of obeying God. But their pursuit for joy in the pleasures of this world doesn't result in deliverance from the miseries of life. Instead, it leads them where? Into darkness. Deep darkness. A mind that has darkened the truth of God cannot know God. So those who continue in their evil deeds and refuse to repent will just curse God, the only hope that they have. And they curse Him. It's a stunning description of the nature of man, of our depravity as we are born into this world. with the stain of sin and original corruption upon us. And as that darkness comes, people lose all hope, stumbling about, cursing the very thing that can save him. However, There is a light that shines, even as this darkness brings down this idol of humanity that we are truly enlightened people. There is a light that shines in the darkness, and Jesus is that light. John 1, 4 through 5, in him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. Just as God tore down the idols of Egypt so that His people might be delivered from bondage, He is even now tearing down the idols of this world. The darkness is there and shining forth the light of the gospel as it is proclaimed into this world so that people might be delivered from those idols, from that darkness, from all the bondage of sin and suffering. Now, sometimes the idols of this world seem so powerful, and no doubt the gods of Egypt looked like that to Israel, because for hundreds of years they had suffered the oppression of slavery. And yet, God, through his servant Moses, broke down every deity. all those powerful gods and goddesses of Egypt, he showed them to be false. And through that judgment, he saved his people. See, that is what God is doing right now through these bowls of wrath, that he is even now pouring out upon this world. He is pulling down those idols. And as he does that, the kingdom of Satan, the kingdom of this world comes down, and the kingdom of our Christ rises up. And so then, church, sing with the angels. Sing with the church in heaven. Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments. Let us pray.