When the Bowls Fall: Revelation 16 Unveiled

We are actually going to focus on this first part tonight, so we'll pick up

with verse 1 of Revelation 16.

Here we go. Here's our adventure.

Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to 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 it became a loathsome and malignant sore on the people who had the mark

of the beast, and he worshiped his image.

The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became blood like that of a dead man.

And every living thing in the sea died.

Then the third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of

waters, and they became blood.

And I heard the angel of the water saying, Righteous are you who are and who

were, O holy one, because you judged these things.

For they poured out the blood of the saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink.

They deserve it. And I heard the altar saying, Yes, O Lord God,

the Almighty, true and righteous are your judgments.

The fourth angel poured out his bowl upon the sun, and it was given to it to scorch men with fire.

Men were scorched with fierce heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who

has the power over these plagues and they did not repent so as to give him glory.

Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast and his

kingdom became darkened and they gnawed their tongues because of pain and they

blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores and they

did not repent of their deeds.

The sixth angel poured out his bowl

on the great river the euphrates and its water was dried up so that the way

would be prepared for the kings from the east and i saw coming out of the mouth

of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the

false prophet three unclean spirits like frogs.

For they are spirits of demons performing signs which go out to the kings of

the whole world to gather them together for the war of the great day of God, the Almighty.

Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake and keeps

his clothes so that he will not walk about naked and men will not see his shame.

And they gathered them together to the place which in Hebrew is called Armageddon.

Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl upon the air, and a loud voice came

out of the temple from the throne, saying, It is done.

And there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder,

and there was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth.

So great an earthquake was it, and so mighty. The great city was split into

three parts, and the cities of the nations fell.

Babylon the Great was remembered before God to give her the cup of the wine

of his fierce wrath, and every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.

And huge hailstones, about 100 pounds each, came down from heaven upon men,

and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, because its plague was extremely severe.

That's Revelation 16 verses 1 through 21. Like I've told y'all before,

Revelation 16 · chapter mention

we're going to start this with a big overview and looking into other passages

of scripture as well throughout this, how they tie in as we look deeper.

And then we're going to go down to each of these, each of these balls of wrath right here, okay?

So the Bible provides the only true beacon of light and hope.

In the darkness and despair of the world. And in its pages, y'all,

are comforting, encouraging, affirming words of the peace, the goodness,

the joy, and the love of salvation.

Believers are reassured as they read the Word of God every day,

love and promises of their eternal inheritance in His kingdom.

But while the Bible is a book of hope, it's also a book of judgment.

And we heard that this morning some, too, in the passage we studied in Luke, right?

We need to fear him who has the power to throw our souls into hell after the

body's been killed, right?

Because God loves righteousness and faith, he must hate sin and unbelief.

He cannot love truth unless he hates lies. He cannot love goodness unless he

hates wickedness. he cannot reward unless he also punishes.

The Old Testament, y'all, repeatedly warns the coming judgment.

It warns of coming judgment, right? Particularly in those passages that describes

this place we're at now, the final day of the Lord.

Remember, back in Joel, Joel chapter 2, Zechariah 14, Malachi 4.

Joel 2 · chapter mention

The New Testament, though, also reveals God's judgment of sinners.

John the Baptist, if y'all remember, the forerunner of Jesus, right?

He preached a confronting, even harsh message of judgment.

In fact, he called some of those who came to see him seeking baptism in Luke

Luke 3:7

3, verse 7. You remember what he called them?

Snakes, right? And he threatened them with judgment saying this.

He said, I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming,

he's talking about Jesus, he who is coming after me is mightier than I,

and I'm not fit to remove his sandals.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clear his threshing

floor, and he will gather his wheat into the barn, and then he will burn up

the chaff with unquenchable fire.

That's in Matthew chapter 3, verses 11 and 12.

Matthew 3:11

John 3, 36. I had some of y'all read this the other week because remember I

said We love John 3, 16, and it is an awesome verse, and hallelujah, we all know it probably.

But in that same chapter, verse 36, it warns us.

It says, he who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey

the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.

So the Apostle Paul, even in Romans 3, verse 5, says, The God who inflicts wrath.

Romans 3:5

That's how he spoke of God.

He noted that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience in Colossians.

And it's described the terrifying time when the Lord Jesus will be revealed

from heaven with his mighty angels and flaming fire. That's what we're reading about, right?

Dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not

obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction

away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power.

That's in second Thessalonians chapter one, verses seven through nine.

And then if you remember from the study we did in Hebrews, the writer of Hebrews added this.

He said, for if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth,

there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of

judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.

Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony

of two or three witnesses.

How much severe punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot

the Son of God and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which

he was sanctified and has insulted the spirit of grace.

For we know him who said, vengeance is mine, I will repay.

And again, the Lord will judge his people. It is a terrifying thing to fall

into the hands of the living God. That's in Hebrews chapter 10.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

So the wrath of God against sin and his final eschatological judgment of sinners.

Those are recurring themes in the Bible. They take center stage right here in

Revelation as we're studying.

That wrath displayed earlier in Revelation, if you remember,

in the seal and trumpet judgments, reaches this devastating full climax here

with the bowl judgments.

That's what we're looking at described in this chapter tonight.

These rapid fire judgments will take place in a very short period of time.

And it marks the final hour of the day of the Lord.

And so they are the final outpouring of God's wrath right before Jesus comes back.

This is it. And it's poured out upon the unbelieving world before the return of Jesus.

And they are the last expression of divine wrath against the sin,

unrighteousness, and blasphemy that is rampant upon the earth.

And so the return of Jesus, and that's going to be described to us in chapter

19 when we get there, immediately follows, like I said, the seven judgments.

In chapter 17 and 18, which is right after this one, go back in time to describe

the destruction of Antichrist worldwide political and religious empire of Babylon.

And so we'll take a look at that down the road.

But right here tonight, immediately following the seven bowl judgments,

the Lord Jesus Christ, like I said, will return,

destroy the world's armies, if you remember, at the Battle of Armageddon,

and establish his universal rule on the earth.

And in fact, the bowl judgments, don't miss this,

the bowl judgments actually foreshadow the Battle of Armageddon and the drying

up of the Euphrates River as a result of this sixth bowl that we read about

will pave the way for the forces of the east to come to that destruction, in fact.

And since these are the final outpouring of God's wrath, the bowl judgments

will be more severe than all the earlier judgments.

Their severity, by the way, is very strong proof of how God feels.

I don't want you to miss this tonight about those who persistently, willfully reject him.

Remember this morning in the passage we looked at in Luke about the blasphemy

of the Holy Spirit? This is what we're talking about.

There is no forgiveness because they have persistently, willfully rejected him.

We see that all throughout Revelation, right? I keep bringing this up every

week, but how much love God has displayed to this world, giving them time and time again to repent.

And yet you read it over and over in that passage earlier about how they blasphemed

his name and they refused to repent. That's a common thing, you know, over and over again.

And so this particular time in human history will be a fitting time for God's

wrath to actually reach its apex.

For God's wrath here, and to reach that point, and for mankind's rebellion against

God will also then be at its apex too, right?

And despite years of horrific judgments here, which they will acknowledge,

if you look back in chapter 16 of Revelation, mankind will acknowledge as coming

from God. They know where it comes from.

Sinners, though, again, will stubbornly cling to their sin and persist in their rebellion.

It tells us that in chapter 9, verse 21. We've already covered that,

but we need to be reminded. We need to realize tonight in context where we're at.

Going with a powerful preaching, if you remember, of the gospel by the 144,000.

We can't forget them, right? The two witnesses as well.

Countless other believers who got saved in the tribulation. And an angel from

heaven bring them to repentance in verses 9 and 11.

Instead, their rebellion, their defiance and rejection of God is going to increase,

isn't it, until the final judgments fall here that we see talked about in this passage.

This worldwide rebellion of sinful mankind will bring the worldwide judgments of holy God.

These seven plagues, remember I told y'all when we first read this,

don't think of these so much as diseases.

Think of them as blows.

God strikes these blows, these striking blows, these plagues.

These seven plagues, which are the last, had precursors, by the way,

and two other sets of plagues in Scripture.

You can probably think of some of these. The plagues that God brought upon Egypt,

remember those back in Exodus 7 through 12?

And the trumpet judgments, which we saw earlier in Revelation,

in chapters 8 through 11, there are similarities

and differences between the three sets of

plagues because the first plagues were very localized y'all remember that affecting

only where egypt the second set of plagues destroyed how much of the world earlier

in revelation do you remember chapter 8 9 remember how much was destroyed by those plagues,

A third, right? One third of the world. The final plagues that we read about

tonight will affect the entire world. Everybody.

All unbelievers, I should say.

Believers will be exempt. But all unbelievers, this will affect.

Now, all three sets of plagues include what? Remember? Hell.

Darkness. Water turned to blood. An invasion from the east.

Whether that be by insects demons

or men all of them include that invasion from the

east and the seven bowl judgments will gather

together all the horrors if you want to look at it this way and

see in this text all the horrors and terrors from all the previous judgments

of god and they will completely inundate the world bringing it to the brink

of utter ruin in fact as the vision of the bold judgments begin to unfold here in Revelation 16.

If you look back at this passage, it says John heard a loud voice from the temple.

That startling impact of loud voices is heard some 20 times,

y'all, in the book of Revelation. We've read about this before.

The loud voice is certainly that of who. Who is it? God Almighty.

Since there was no one else in the temple, We saw that back in chapter 15, verse 8.

His loud cry of judgment is reminiscent of Isaiah. In Isaiah 66,

Isaiah 66:6

verse 6, he said, A voice of uproar from the city, a voice from the temple,

the voice of the Lord is rendering recompense to his enemies.

Magali, loud, appears half a dozen times in this chapter, usually translated

great, like a great voice, a loud voice.

And it just emphasizes, again, the magnitude of the judgments that are taking place here.

His loud voice is heard again after the seventh bowl is poured out.

We'll see that as we read tonight in verse 17.

So these seven angels were introduced in chapter 15, verse 1,

And then verses 6 through 8 of chapter 15, and there they were given,

if you remember, the seven bowls containing the final judgments.

And here God commands all seven of them, go and pour out on the earth the seven

bowls of the wrath of God.

Are all the judgments, the seven bowls, are all of the judgments,

the seven bowls here are actually supernatural acts of Almighty God, right?

And the text here in this passage here, it doesn't tolerate the attempts,

I guess would be a way to say it, of some commentators that I've read and maybe you've read.

Some commentators actually attempt to give them purely a natural scientific

explanation for all these plagues that came, so to speak.

They'll hit far too quickly, though, far too rapidly for any explanation.

I want y'all to know, according to this passage, other than that they come from God himself.

They come from him. And in fact, there's only a brief pause.

I want to remind us of this, just long enough for one of the angels here to

affirm that the bowl judgments are actually just and righteous.

God is just and righteous in doing it. And that's in verses five through seven that we read.

In fact, some writers have seen these bowl judgments here as recapitulating

the seal and the trumpet judgments even.

There are similarities between them, but many more differences,

I think, and especially in the degree of the devastation that's caused,

right, as we talked about earlier.

The fourth bowl, remember we're at a high-level overview to start with,

that fourth bowl has no parallel in earlier judgments.

No personal suffering accompanies the first four trumpets, but the bowls bring

torment. Did you see that tonight from the very start?

The bowls are universal. They're more intense than the previous judgments and

are called the last judgments, showing that they don't go back in time to repeat earlier plagues.

All right? So let's just, at least tonight, I think we have time.

Let's talk about the first bowl at least, okay? Let's see how far we get. You ready?

We're going to take a closer look. The first bowl, verse 2 of chapter 16.

So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth,

and it became a loathsome and malignant soar on the people who had the mark

of the beast and who worshiped his image.

So responding immediately to God's command here, that first angel actually went

and he poured out his bowl on the earth.

These bowls, by the way, do you remember I described them according to the original language?

When you think of them, they're not like these, you know, like this deep,

big, giant bowl. It's not the way we think of it. What's it like? You remember?

Well, they're like shallow saucers, right? And their contents are not slowly,

gradually poured out, are they? But they're dumped out all at once.

And the sloshing of the first bowl results in a loathsome and malignant sore that afflicts people.

I just got to ask, have you ever had any kind of sore before that afflicted you? Okay.

I don't know how bad yours has ever gotten or somebody may speak more to others,

but if you've ever had a bad sore, it's not pleasant.

But here, this is going to put that one to shame. I can tell you that.

And loathsome and malignant here, it really translates two general Greek words for evil.

So it's just like they're calling their evil.

I mean, they're loathsome and malignant. They're evil sores.

They're used together here. They stress that the sores will be festering, painful, incurable.

Sore actually translates that word Greek, hilkas, the Greek equivalent of that

Latin word there for the English word ulcer.

Think ulcer for a minute, okay? And it describes here inflamed,

oozing. I know this sounds gross.

Oozing ulcerous sores, such as those that afflicted the Egyptians, okay?

And also, you probably think of somebody else, Job, right?

Job and the ones that covered Lazarus the beggar.

They'll bring, unrelieved, according to this passage, unrelieved physical torment

to those who have rejected Jesus.

The swords will not affect believers whose names have been written.

He talks about in chapter 13, verse 8, their names have been written from the

foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.

They'll come only on those who chose to follow Antichrist, received his mark

to show their allegiance and worshipped his image.

So an angel actually described their ultimate fate, actually,

back in chapter 14, verses 9 through 11.

Listen to what it says again. It says, Then another angel, a third one,

followed them, saying with a loud voice,

If anyone worships the beast in his image and receives a mark on his forehead

or on his hand, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God,

which is mixed in full strength in the cup of his anger.

And he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy

angels and in the presence of the Lamb of Jesus.

And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever.

They have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image and

whoever receives the mark of his name.

So that passage describes eternal judgment.

And the present one tonight in Revelation 16 describes temporal judgment.

And Antichrist followers are suffering the consequences of having rejected the

preaching of the gospel and the warning that followed that the angel gave fear

God and give him glory because the hour of his judgment has come.

Boy, that's very similar to this morning's passage, isn't it?

In so many ways, when we get the fear of God right. We don't have to fear anyone

or anything else, right?

So these inflamed, incurable sores, they may be similar to those that Zechariah actually wrote about.

Listen to this. He said, Now this will be the plague with which the Lord will

strike all the peoples who have gone to war against Jerusalem.

Their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet.

This is not beautiful. I'm going to warn you.

Their eyes will rot in their sockets and their tongue will rot in their mouth.

That is in chapter 14, verse 12 of Zechariah. So that is the first bowl.

A little about you, but I do not want any of that bowl.

And I don't want anyone to have any of it, but it is going to be poured out.

It is going to be poured out. Let's try for another one, the second bowl.

Verse 3, the second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became blood

like that of a dead man, and every living thing in the sea died.

You know, one of the reasons the bowl judgments will be so devastating is that

their effects are going to be cumulative.

And before the sores of the first bowl could heal, do you get the picture?

Remember I said rapid fire? before those sores can heal, the second angel poured

out his bowl into the sea and it became blood like that of a dead man,

it says, and every living thing in the sea died.

So this judgment is similar to that first plague in Egypt, right?

And the second trumpet judgment even. But this time, the effects will be much

more intense, much more widespread since the oceans cover approximately,

70 percent of the earth's surface right

and and effects of this judgment is going to be not

just localized it's going to be what worldwide after the angel dumped his bowl

the sea which is vitally important by the way to all life on earth became blood

like that of a dead man to the amazement to the horror to the despair of the world,

the oceans will no longer be fluid,

but will become thick, dark.

Coagulated like the pool of blood from somebody who's been stabbed to death.

Exactly what supernatural means of God that he'll use to destroy the oceans,

it's not revealed here in this text.

But the effects is going to resemble those of the phenomenon known as the red

tide. Y'all know what that is, right? You've heard about that?

Actually, commentator John Phillips writes this on this.

He says, from time to time, off the coast of California and elsewhere,

a phenomenon known as the red tide occurs. The red tide kills millions of fish

and poison those who eat contaminated shellfish.

In 1949, one of these red tides hit the coast of Florida.

First, the water turned yellow, but by midsummer, it was thick and viscous with

countless billions of denoflagellates.

I guess that's how you say it.

Tiny one-celled organisms, 60-mile windrows of stinking fish fouled the beaches.

And he went on to say, much marine life was wiped out.

Even bait used by fishermen died upon the hooks.

Eventually, the red tide subsided, only to appear again the following year.

Eating fish contaminated by the tide produced severe symptoms caused by a potent nerve poison.

A few grams of which distributed aright, he said, could easily kill everybody in the world.

An unchecked population explosion of toxic denoflagellates, flagellates,

something like that, would kill all the fish in the sea.

That was his commentary on this passage. And just think, though,

for a moment, just imagine the smell, the stench from the dead,

decaying bodies of every living thing in the sea.

Only partial death, if you remember, occurred at the second trumpet.

This is going to be unimaginable, y'all. Henry Morris said this.

He said, in this toxic ocean, nothing can survive.

And soon all the billions of fishes and marine mammals and marine reptiles and

the innumerable varieties of marine invertebrates will perish,

thus still further poisoning the oceans and contaminating the seashores of the world.

The oceans will have effectively completed their age-long function in the earth's

physical economy and will die.

As God had created every living soul in the waters, Genesis 121,

so now every living soul died in the sea.

So again, step back. The transforming of the world's seas into what?

Putrid pools of stinking death is going to be a graphic testimony to the wickedness of who?

Man. And the reverse of the day when God originally gave life to all the sea

creatures, you remember back in Genesis?

It'll be a reverse to that. Well, that's a lot tonight.

So I'm going to pause there after the second bowl for a little bit.