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Revelation 16 New International Version (NIV)The Seven Bowls of God’s Wrath16?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.”2?The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the land, and ugly, festering sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped its image.3?The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it turned into blood like that of a dead person, and every living thing in the sea died.4?The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood. 5?Then I heard the angel in charge of the waters say:“You are just in these judgments, O Holy One,????you who are and who were;6?for they have shed the blood of your holy people and your prophets,????and you have given them blood to drink as they deserve.”7?And I heard the altar respond:“Yes, Lord God Almighty,????true and just are your judgments.”8?The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was allowed to scorch people with fire. 9?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.10?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 agony 11?and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done.12?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. 13?Then I saw three impure 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. 14?They are demonic spirits that perform 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.15?“Look, I come like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and remains clothed, so as not to go naked and be shamefully exposed.”16?Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.17?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!” 18?Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since mankind has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake. 19?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. 20?Every island fled away and the mountains could not be found. 21?From the sky huge hailstones, each weighing about a hundred pounds,[a] fell on people. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible.IntroductionSlide - 1Last time, we finished at the end of chapter 15 and therefore pick up again from the beginning of chapter 16. But last time we concluded with that:Wrath and judgement may not be concepts which sit comfortably with us, and perhaps rightly so, but they have to be there because God is a just God and righteous justice, is his nature.Slide - 2To quote 20th century theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, in his criticism of watered down end time theology:A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgement through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.Did Christ die on the cross or did he not?He did, so we can work the rest backwards. In righteous judgement, God will exercise his wrath in his time, even upon the events of this time.However, we have the hope that burns within us that he is with us and will stay with us until we safely reach that heavenly scene, or until the heavenly scene reaches us.Both are real and will bring to completion, what God has begun. Revelation promises and reveals that. However, the problem that we have, as we are people living in a particular point in history, in a time orientated universe; is chronology.In this apocalyptic vision, God has not revealed things in a chronological order as we understand it.Cracking the Code (Context)Slide - 3Therefore, we try to work out the bits that we can by interpreting the symbols in their historical context in order that we may make something of what they mean for us today.In chapters 15-16, we need to note the parallels with the judgements of chapter 8-11, and the seven trumpets. Bothe sets of visions are based on Exodus chapters 7 and 9.In both sets of judgements things are affected in the same order:The earthThe seaThe rivers and fountainsThe sunDarkness comes and torments humankindJudgement comes from beyond the EuphratesLoud voices in heaven, lightning, thunder, earthquakes, and hail climax the series of disasters.These new judgements are directed at those who follow the anti-Christ. They affect the whole earth, not just a third of it, as in the previous set of 7 trumpets. And although the two sets of 7 are kind of parallels, there is also progression.As one commentator has noted. The seven trumpets appear to be 7 warnings but the 7 bowls are final acts of judgement from which there is no turning back.Slide - 4The opportunity to repent has been given and refused, therefore, self-destruction is the only means left:… and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him. (Revelation 16:9)Slide – 5, + 2 clicksVerse 2: the land, festering sores just like the boils inflicted on the Egyptians.Verse 3: the sea, turned to blood, as did the river Nile.Verse 4: the rivers and springs of waters, are also treated in the same way, covers all water sources.Slide - 6Verses 5-7: “You are just in these judgments, O Holy One,?you who are and who were; for they have shed the blood of your holy people and your 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.”(Revelation 16:5-7)The angel declares that God is righteous in his judgements and seems to draw on the Old Testament idea that injustices will kind of backfire on the perpetrators, e.g. Haman’s gallows in the book of Esther. The ancient Jewish book entitled, the Wisdom of Solomon (not to be confused with the book of Solomon) says:“the medium of humanity’s sin is the medium of their punishment” (Wisdom of Solomon 11:5)I suppose a modern way of saying it may be, what goes around comes around, perhaps. The punishment fits the crime and I am a great believer that this Old Testament wisdom should be carried into our New Testament thinking.God’s righteous judgements should be seen as a great comfort to the afflicted, and that is one of the major themes of the book of Revelation.Slide - 7Verses 8-9: The 4th cup is poured out on the sun, causing its heat to intensify and note the affect that it has. Its as if the heat is turned up and the true intentions of the followers of the beast are revealed.These are not people who have merely had the wool pulled over their eyes. They are intent on worshipping the beast and denying God to the extent now that they now curse him. No matter what, some people just will not repent, and the extension of that grace has now been withdrawn.Slide – 7, 2 clicksVerses 10-11: The throne of the beast is destroyed, and his followers still refuse to repent and further curse God.Slide - 8Verse 12-14; now the fun starts. The 6th angel pours out his bowl on the great river Euphrates. Whenever we hear of actual places there are all kinds of temptations to take things literally, and understandably so.However, to be consistent, may I remind us of our study of chapter 9, where in verse 14 it said:2 clicksIt said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” … (Revelation 9:14)And from the description of the army that then crossed the river:The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulphur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulphur… (Revelation 9:17)We discovered that the thing that the Romans most feared at that time was the Parthians, and there were similarities between the symbolism of chapter 9 and actual facts about the Parthian soldiers which matched up.The Euphrates never actually dries up. Therefore, this was a prophecy of divine intervention with God himself acting upon the natural world, to bring about the destruction of Babylon. (Rome)The frogs of verse 13, are again reminiscent of events in Egypt, but frogs were often portrayed as unclean spirits, not only in the Jewish custom but elsewhere. Frogs coming out of other creature’s mouths were seen as an evil omen and Nero, according to one school of thought, was believed to have been reincarnated as a frog, so that he could continue singing.These evil spirits, verse 14, summons the whole world to one final battle, the day of the Lord.Verse 15: links the great Day of God with Jesus, who had said that he will come like a thief in the night. These events then can creep up suddenly, and like described in other verse of scripture, catch the evil by surprise, without warning.Slide - 9Verse 16: like the number of the beast, Armageddon is one of those frequently debated images from Revelation.The word can be interpreted two ways, and I am not clever enough to debate with the experts but they are divided between the spellings:Har-Magedon, which could be the mountain of Megiddo, an actual place or it could mean, ‘mountain of marauding attack such as in Jeremiah 51:25:2nd click“Before your eyes I will repay Babylon and all who live in Babylonia for all the wrong they have done in Zion,” declares the Lord.?“I am against you, you destroying mountain, you who destroy the whole earth,”declares the Lord. “I will stretch out my hand against you,… (Jeremiah 51:24-25)Therefore, Rome would be Babylonia.3rd clickOr, it could be Ar-Magedon, in which case the last battle will be near the city of Megiddo, and I guess this is the translation with which most of us are more familiar with.However, Ben Witherington III suggest that what John is saying is that this cosmic battle will be as crucial as all the other battles that have happened on in this place, even more so but the imagery is meant to conjure up the image of a climatic battle, not a place.Witherington is not saying that there will not be a last battle, at the climax of history, but that his interest is more history than geography. Verse 17: then, it is finished! Verses 18-21: and there is no place to hide, as this scene describes the very rocks and cities being split apart, as God visits the earth, in the same manner as Old Testament descriptions of creation quaking in his presence. And yet, there is no repentance.If that then – What now? (Contextualise)What do we make of this today?Perhaps you are waiting for a sequence of events, a kind of domino effect, which will result in a great battle on earth, preceded by a period of unrelenting torment for its inhabitants, as would appear to be the case, if all of this is taken too literally.Like I have said before, I am not claiming to be an expert, in predicting when, and how, all of this would be but I would say that we ought to be careful of what we wish for.Do we desire God’s justice?Or do we desire justice tempered with mercy?Of course, it ought to be the latter, as we are all recipients of his mercy.In this chapter, as throughout Revelation, there is a great spiritual battle between good and evil going on. We can always see something of its manifestation here on earth.However, we need to be careful in desiring any of these punishments on others, whether they be countries of different origin, politicians of various persuasion, or individuals that we disagree with.After all, remember the principals at work here, that judgement can be turned around on those who act unjustly.Rather, we should desire mercy and pray for those affected by many difficult situations in the world we live in, the world that is being exploited by the dragon and the beasts of Satanic powers and principalities.I find it interesting that many of the very things mentioned in this chapter, which we highlighted earlier, are things to the fore in our world today:The earthThe seaThe rivers and fountainsThe sunDarkness comes and torments humankindJudgement comes from beyond the EuphratesI am not suggesting that John prophesied the exact ecological problems that we have today in detail but using the same biblical principal, we might say thatWe have exploited the earth, the sea, the rivers and all the earth’s natural resources so that now it is coming back to bite us.However, in keeping with the tone here in Revelation, there is plenty of hot air, and perhaps even some good intention on some people’s part, but is there real repentance.When will humans learn, that the answer to our problems, our over consumption, our economical struggles and exploitation of the poor, cannot be found on our own. But in turning back to God.We can kind of see that being played out, can’t we. Its as if humanity has reached an awareness that we are at a crisis point. That, if not addressed, the natural world may well return to just that and humans may become extinct.That is what we hear on the news but what do we have to offer in response.Of course, we know that in the end, God triumphs. But that does not mean that we are to be passive.Its difficult to be positive sometimes, when we break Revelation down into individual sections; but when we take it as a whole then we can see the hope that there is, in what God is doing.We are dealing with difficult sections here in these chapters. But the end is coming, the glorious Revelation of a new world coming from heaven to earth.No wonder then; Jesus taught us to pray that His kingdom come, His will be done on earth here as in Heaven.None of us really believes that prayer to be only for the future, do we?Rather, we take it to mean doing God’s will, as it is done in heaven, in the here and now. And in that sense we keep on going, as God himself works out the nitty gritty of dealing with all that opposes us.We can engage with the politics, the economics and the ecology of this world, as agents of the one who is on the throne in heaven. That promise of renewal, deliverance and salvation then, which is coming with the return of the king, is what compels us, and shapes our very being.…whether we have to choose whom we vote for in a general election, how we respond to environmental and ecological disasters, how we love our neighbour, that is, right to the end.May he guide us and bless us in all that we do, as the recipients of his grace and mercy. munal Discernment (Conversation) ................
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