Our scripture reading this evening is taken from the book of the Revelation. The Revelation of Jesus Christ and chapter 16. Chapters 15 and 16 form a unit within the book of Revelation and they are the third and last of the big sevens. They have first of all the seven seals, secondly the seven trumpets, and now the seven bowls. So Revelation chapter 16. Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, go and pour out the bowls of the wrath of God on the earth. So the first went and poured out his bowl upon the earth. A foul and loathsome sore came upon the man who had the mark of the beast and those who worshipped his image. Then the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it became blood as of a dead man, and every living creature in the sea died. Then the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood. And I heard the angel of the water saying, You are righteous, O Lord, the one who is and who was and who is to be, because you have judged these things, for they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink, for it is their just due. And I heard another from the altar saying, even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are your judgments. Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun. Power was given to him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat. And they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues. And they did not repent and give him glory. Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast and his kingdom became full of darkness and they gnawed their tongues because of the pain. They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores and did not repent of their deeds. Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the greater river Euphrates, and its water was dried up so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are spirits of demons performing signs which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world. Gather them to battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame. And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon. Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple of heaven from the throne, saying, It is done. And there were noises and thunderings and lightnings. And there was a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth. Now the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. And great Babylon was remembered before God. Give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. Then every island fled away and the mountains were not found. Great hail from heaven fell upon men, each hailstone about the weight of a talent. Men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, since that plague was exceedingly great. May God bless the reading of his holy word. we have here the pouring out of the wrath of God. We've already been told in chapter 15 that the angels have these seven plagues and that, well, chapter 15, verse one, that I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues, for in them the wrath of God is complete. And these are bowls, verse 7, golden bowls for the wrath of God who lives forever and ever. And now they are to be poured out. And these sevens reflect, indeed, they are another aspect of the first set of sevens. Revelation, as we've seen, is not a linear book, but rather it shows the same scenes over and over again from different angles. And whereas we saw the seven seals, that is the unfolding of God's plan as the great scroll is opened, then the seven trumpets, we hear the warning that God sounds. And here in the seven bowls we have God's judgment poured out upon the earth. The wrath of God is, as Paul says in Romans 1, Verse 18, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold, that is, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. These are God's judgments in history. And they follow a similar pattern, in fact the same pattern, of the previous sevens. We have, first of all, there is a group of four. Then there are two, and then there is the final one, the seventh, which is the end, the final judgment. It is done, as it says. And first of all, we have then these four bowls of the wrath of God, the first four bowls. The first went and poured out his bowl on the earth. And this reflects again what happens with the seven trumpets. The seven trumpets. The first trumpet is sound. Sounded and hail and fire followed, mingled with blood, and they were thrown to the earth. The first judgment is on the earth. The second, the second trumpet, Revelation 8 and verse 8, the second angel sounded from a great mountain burning with fire through into the sea. It's on the sea. And a third of the sea became blood. And then the third angel sounded from a great star fell from heaven burning like a torch fell on a third of the water of the rivers and springs of water. And so again, it falls upon the rivers and springs of water. And the fourth angel sounded Revelation 8-12, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars. So here it is upon the heavenly bodies. These are the same judgments, and just as the judgments, the trumpets, are sounding through history, they're not something that happens right towards the end, something of the yet future, they are happening all the time. God's judgment, God's wrath is being revealed. We see it in the Old Testament. There's a reason why these plagues remind us of the plagues of Exodus, the plagues of Egypt. Because those too are poured out upon God's enemies. And you see here in particular that the targets, verse 2, the people for whom it is a judgment were those who have the mark of the beast and those who worshipped his image. Beast in this case is speaking about this ungodly world system, this system where you have the beast out of the sea and the beast out of the earth and the beast out of the sea represents corrupt government, it's when government becomes ungodly when government demands that it be worshipped, whether literally or metaphorically. And, of course, there are great examples in history of rulers who demanded to be worshipped. Rome, at the time that John was writing, the Romans said the people had to burn incense to the genius of the emperor. To worship, that is, the spirit, the god, who was believed to be behind the emperor. Rome taught that when their emperors died, they became gods. So the story is told of the emperor Claudius, who was a bit of a cynic when he was dying. He's reported to have said to those gathered around, I think I'm becoming a god, by which he meant I think I'm dying. We see today the worship of the Kim dynasty in North Korea, where Kim Il-sung and his son, and now his grandson, have ruled with equivalent divine power. In fact, the fundamental philosophy behind North Korea is a blasphemous distortion of the Holy Trinity, where Kim Il-sung is regarded as the father And he is still the president, even though he's been dead for quite a while now. Because again, it's the deification of the state in the person of the leader. You look at Nazi Germany. What is the whole Führer principle, but the deification, as it were, of Hitler. You find today there's footage of German children being taught to chant, Hitler is our saviour. That's how he was depicted. That's how he desired to be worshipped. And so that happens. And the mark of the beast, as we've seen, the mark is Revelation 13 and verse 16. He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads. That is to say, it's not a physical mark, it's a spiritual mark. It's a mark in terms of behaviour, in terms of thought, being conformed. to the ungodly system and they worshipped his image, they bowed down to it because there is with this a confusion of the state and God and corrupt religion in the service of a corrupt state and through history, we see the B system appearing again and again and again in the form of this empire and that empire. And God's judgment comes against this empire and that empire, whether it's Babylon, whether it's Assyria, whether it's the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire, all the empires of man. when they become ungodly, eventually God's judgment falls upon them. The third angel is on the rivers and springs of water and then we have the angel of the waters. It's unusual to hear an angel referred to in this way. The angel is identified in some way with the waters. He speaks on their behalf and he speaks of the righteousness of God. You are righteous, O Lord, the one who is and who was and who is to be, because you have judged these things, for they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink, for it is their just due. Now, we ought to think of this, of course, in terms of the literal transformation of waters into blood, but rather it is that in all these things there is a judgment upon God's enemies. That they who have shed blood then have blood to drink in the sense of judgment coming upon them. There have been cases of persecutors who have found themselves killed in their turn. They who have slain then are slain. They who have metaphorically gorge themselves on the blood of God's people, have then had their own blood shed. And there's an echoing voice from the altar. Now we're not told who it is speaking, but an echoing voice from the altar saying, even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are your judgments. And so we regard the judgments of God. We look at them in terms of those who are judged getting what they deserve. Now the voice from the altar is interesting, of course, because the altar here is mentioned several times in this book. It's mentioned in Revelation chapter 9 and verse 13. I heard a voice From the four horns of the golden altar, which the four gods stand, to the sixth angel, release the four angels who abound at the great river Euphrates. So there is a voice coming from the altar. What we find in Revelation chapter eight. And chapter three, we have an angel come to the golden censer from the altar. We hear the voice of Revelation chapter six and verse eight. When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held, and they cried with a loud voice, saying, how long, O Lord, holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? Is this the voice of the martyrs? Speaking of the, now here in verse 16, the voice of the martyrs, echoing this, even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are your judgments. And when we see these judgments in nature, the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and here, whereas previously, whereas in the seven trumpets we have the sun is darkened, here it's the opposite, the sun is increased in intensity, power was given him to scorch men with fire. And then we read, for the first time in this chapter, the response of those who are judged to the judgments. They blasphemed the name of God, who has power over these plagues, and did not repent and give him glory. Their response to their suffering is, God, you're awful. It's not to reflect upon themselves and what they have done. Remember, these are people who have been spoken of as persecuting, as killing the saints. But these people, instead of reflecting, do we deserve anything that's coming to us? They simply blaspheme God. And we see this again and again when people suffer, rather than asking, is there any reason for it? They simply turn around and say, well, it's God's fault, God is bad, because I'm suffering. But here are those who, for them, you see, these aren't trumpets that they hear that are warning them, because they don't repent, they don't listen. And so they do not repent and do not give him the glory. And they blaspheme the very one, the only one who could deliver them from his judgment. And thus, Father, the first four, the judgments poured out upon the natural order. But then we find the fifth judgment is not upon the natural order, it's directed at the beast himself. The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast. And here we see the fall of empires. Empires do fall, some fall spectacularly, some fall more quietly. Assyria, the first great empire, so terrible, so feared, is destroyed by the Babylonians. The Babylonians, who have become the second great empire. Babylon falls in a night. because the Persians divert the course of the river and are able to get into the city that's thought to be impressionable. The Persians themselves are defeated by Alexander the Great and his forces. Alexander's empire just falls apart after his death. There's nobody who could hold it together. He divides it between generals and they thought of fighting one another. And, of course, eventually the remnants of it are taken by the Romans. Rome again falls in a slow and painful way. Indeed, the very last remnants of Rome, the city of Constantinople, doesn't fall until the 15th century. But all these empires fall. Some fall amazingly. You have cases like Napoleon I, who goes against Russia and ends up wasting his army, being overthrown, comes back overthrown again. Napoleon III, who ends up being displaced by the Germans, the Germans decide they want to invade France and Napoleon goes out and reaches a rather pathetic point where he's trying desperately to get killed in battle and nobody's willing to do it. The German Empire, destroyed by the First World War. Hitler's alleged Third Reich, which rises and falls suddenly. The Soviet Union falling apart overnight, almost. And when these empires fall, the people, the people who support these empires, the people who love these empires, They gnawed their tongues because of the pain, they blasphemed the God of Heaven because of their pains and their sores, and did not repent of their deeds. There's no examination, there's no question. Why is the empire falling? Why is the empire collapsing? What has the empire done that it ought not to have done? Has it become corrupt? No. There's no reflection, there's no thought here. And every time an empire falls, Every time a nation's regime that has become beastly collapses, and we saw that in Syria last year, there are those who support the regime who don't ask the question that they ought to ask, and who don't turn to God, who is over all things. But then we come to the sixth bowl poured out here, and here we have the preparation for the end and this is something that is quite different from the the sixth the sixth of the trumpets here this is something that is very different indeed in its own way and yet there are connections because you see the sixth angel sounded revelation nine and verse 13 and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God saying the sixth angel who had the trumpet released the four angels who were bound at the great river Euphrates and the result is the that there is this last battle this is the preparation for the last battle and the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates his water was dried up not as a judgment in itself but so that the last battle can take place so the way of the kings from the east might be prepared. And I saw, and here he sees that the spiritual reality is here. Three unclean spirits like frogs, these creatures, again it's harking back to the plague of frogs in the Exodus, and these frogs, frog-like creatures, And the idea is that there is something loathsome and unpleasant about these spirits. Unclean, of course. And they're coming out of the mouth of the dragon, and the dragon is Satan himself. Out of the mouth of the beast, that is the corrupt government. And out of the mouth of the false prophet, which is the corrupt religion in the service of the corrupt government. And all of these have their message. that goes out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather them to the battle of the great day, of that great day of God Almighty, the last battle. And in the midst of this we hear the warning, and it's of a piece with the other warning passages in the New Testament, a warning to God's people to be ready to watch and pray. And of course, this is a spiritual message. It's not about physical things. It's about being spiritually prepared. It's about God's people having on, indeed, the robe of righteousness. And like all these warning passages, by the Holy Spirit, it is fulfilled in those who are truly God's people. They go, yes, I must be prepared. I must be ready, because no man knows the day or the hour in which the Lord will return. and they gathered them together to a place called in Hebrew, Armageddon. Now, Armageddon in Hebrew, Ha-Megiddo, means the Mount of Megiddo, or the Mountain of Megiddo. There is no Mountain of Megiddo. Megiddo is on a plain. And so, why is it called the Mountain here? Well, it's a sign here that the language here is a symbol. Mountains are places of strength and power. Megiddo is a place associated with many battles. And the reason it's associated with many battles is because here's a plane. It's an obvious place if you're going to invade Israel that you go through the plane of Megiddo. Megiddo was where the forces of Sisera were defeated back in Judges. Judges. Judges chapter 5, verse 19. The kings came and fought, and the kings of Canaan fought in Tanach by the waters of Megiddo. They took no spoils of silver. They fought from the heavens. The stars in their courses fought against Sisera. So the first reference here to Megiddo is the defeat of Sisera by Barak's army directed by the prophetess Deborah. back in Judges. It's one of the great victories that God gave his people through the Judges. But the second reference to Megiddo is very, very different. It's found in 2 Kings, chapter 23. It would help if I was in 2 Kings, not 1 Kings. 2 Kings, chapter 23. And it deals with King Josiah, King Josiah. So 2 Kings 23, we're reading from verse 28. Now, the rest of the acts of Josiah and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? In his day, Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, went to the aid of the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates. And King Josiah went against him, and Pharaoh Necho killed him at Megiddo when he confronted him. And here, of course, he's the last godly king of Judah, killed at Megiddo. Megiddo is a place of decisive battles. And so the use of the name of Megiddo means this is a decisive battle. This is the last battle is about to take place. And we are not yet given the details. That will come later. Because then the seventh angel, poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came from the temple of heaven from the throne, saying, It is done. It is done. That's the end. That's all, folks. There were noises and thunderings and lightnings. There was a great earthquake. Such a mighty great earthquake has not occurred since men were on the earth. It is the ultimate earthquake. And what does it do? The great city was divided into three parts and the cities of the nations fell. Now when it says that, it's not talking about the city is just split apart into three. It's saying the city has been annihilated. It has been wrecked. The city has been destroyed by the greatest earthquake ever. And great Babylon was remembered before God to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. And that will be elaborated upon in chapter 18. God's judgment falls upon great Babylon, the great world city. And every island fled away and the mountains were not found. So we're back here with Revelation chapter 6. Revelation chapter 6, reading from verse 14. Then the sky receives a scroll which is rolled up, and every mountain island was moved out of its place. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and the rocks of the mountains and said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of his wrath has come and who is able to stand? And just as we have them trying to hide from the wrath of the Lamb here, the wrath of the Lamb is depicted, verse 21, as massive hailstones, each hailstone about the weight of a talent. That's a huge hailstone. My brother works in car insurance and he's had cases, some years ago there was a case in Leicester where they had golf ball sized hailstones falling and people phoning in, my car's got these great big dents in the roof. Well, this is cannonball sized hailstones. In fact, these are big cannonball sized hailstones. These are cannonballs bigger than what would be fired out of the normal cannon carried upon an 18th century man of war. And if you've seen films about Napoleonic combat, so watch Hornblower or Master and Commander and you see that the damage these things do, well that the kind of damage we're talking about here, these great big hailstones falling out of heaven and they are great cannonballs made of ice. These are absolutely destructive of everything they hit. These are the sort of thing that will go straight through your roof and just annihilate your roof. Each hailstone about the weight of a talent and again the result is what? Men blaspheme God. When the judgement comes, the last judgement comes, these people are still blaspheming God. God is not fair. Well of course the reality is as the voice, as the angel of the waters has said, as the voice from the altar has said, no God is absolutely fair. He is true and righteous in his judgments. And the point of this chapter, as with all of the judgment passages in Revelation, is to tell God's people who are suffering unjustly God cares. God will deal with everything in his time. That the present situation will not go on forever, but there is an end, and after the end, there is the age to come. And so the rest of Revelation is given up. First of all, we have the picture of great Babylon and its fall in verses 17 and 18. We then have the final battle in Revelation 19 and 20, and then 21, 22, the new creation. And so, God willing, we shall look at these passages in their turn. But now we dwell upon the fact that God works in judgment, even in this present age, that there is a last judgment to come when all those who hate him shall be confounded, and when God's people shall indeed see the holy and just judgment of our God, let us encourage one another with these things. Amen.