Sermon from October 10, 1999
"The Final Exodus"
Revelation 15-16

The book of Revelation uses symbols. That is an understatement, but I want you to be careful about a dangerous way of thinking about symbols. It is possible, for example, to think that because Revelation uses symbols, we do not have to take it as seriously as we take writings that come right out and say what they mean. We are especially tempted to feel this way when someone says, "Of course, you shouldn't take symbols literally." That even makes some people think that symbols have nothing to do with anything in the real world; they are entirely imaginary.

But that is like saying we do not have to take the flag seriously, because it is only a symbol. We take symbols seriously, if we take the realities behind them seriously. The flag matters to us, because what it stands for matters to us. Calling Jesus the Lamb matters to us, because His sacrificial death matters to us. Jesus is not literally a lamb, but that is hardly the point.

The reality behind a symbol is infinitely more powerful than the symbol itself. But a well-chosen symbol gives that powerful reality access to our imagination and will in such a way as to affect our lives profoundly. To dispense with symbols almost always diminishes the power of the reality behind the symbols.

So, when I say later on that the judgments of God are symbols and not to be taken literally, I do not mean they are unimportant or unreal. The symbols represent something very real and very important. Chapter 15:1 introduces the last series of seven judgments in symbolic form.

I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues - last, because with them God's wrath is completed. Before we consider these last seven judgments more closely, John presents us in verses 2-4 with a vision of the Church that has overcome by bearing faithful witness to Jesus Christ, even at great cost.

And I saw what looked like a sea of glass mixed with fire and, standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and his image and over the number of his name. Chapters 12-14 showed us the combatants in the spiritual warfare for the soul of Man. These three verses declare that the Church has overcome the devil and the beast in that warfare.

I also want you to notice that John pictures the Church here as another Israel standing by a kind of Red Sea, the sea of glass mixed with fire. That prepares us for the Church to sing (in verses 3-4), as Israel sang in Exodus 15 the song of Moses, a song of praise and deliverance. It also prepares us to see in the last seven judgments echoes of the judgments on Egypt at the time of the Exodus. John clearly means for us to see in these last seven judgments the final Exodus of God's people from this present, evil world.

Verse 2 says first of the victorious Church, They held harps given them by God. We sometimes hear people say that if Heaven is just sitting around all day and playing harps, they don't want it. Here and Revelation 14:2 are where they get the idea of harps in Heaven. I would like to make three observations on their comment about Heaven.

First, neither here nor anywhere else does the Bible say that playing harps is all we do in Heaven. Here especially the harps accompany a specific song of praise. Second, people who say that have forgotten that music above all else suggests infinity to the human soul and therefore suggests Heaven as well or better than anything else on earth. If people cannot appreciate great literature any better than that, we need not take seriously what they say about Heaven. Third, I don't know about you, but I had rather have Heaven with harps than hell with an orchestra.

So, They held harps given them by God and sang the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb: "Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the ages. Who will not fear you, O Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy. All nations come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed."

First of all, just and true are your ways. In calling the Church to bear suffering witness, in pouring out His judgments on all the earth, and in seeking the worship of all creation, we too may utter the ancient cry of faith in Genesis that will hold true at the end of this world as we know it. Will not the Judge of all the earth do right? (Gen. 18:25).

Second, the praise song of the victorious Church asks with precise rhetoric, Who will not fear you, O Lord, and bring glory to your name? Do you remember what the whole world said in praise of the beast in Revelation 13:4? "Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?" But hell's imitation of Heaven has failed. John drives that fact home in this deliberate parallel to chapter 13.

Third, the victorious Church praises God for accomplishing the compassionate purpose of His heart. "All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed." In God's deeds of judgment and salvation the Church's indispensable task is to bear faithful witness to the gospel, whatever the cost. Their suffering witness has resulted in the conversion of the nations. We may expect that result even in the last judgments which now unfold in verses 5-8.

After this I looked and in heaven the temple, that is, the tabernacle of the Testimony, was opened. Out of the temple came the seven angels with the seven plagues. They were dressed in clean, shining linen and wore golden sashes around their chests. Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls  filled with the wrath of God, who lives for ever and ever. And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed.

Do you remember how chapter 11:19 brought to an end the blowing of the seventh trumpet? Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant. And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake and a great hailstorm. Only the end of all things did not happen then. There was to be another delay in chapters 12-14, while John went into more detail about the combatants in this spiritual warfare for the soul of Man.

But now, Revelation 15:5 links our thoughts back to the seventh trumpet, when it uses the same language as chapter 11:19: In heaven the temple, that is, the tabernacle of the Testimony, was opened. The difference is that this time John's vision shows us the preparations Heaven had made for the last expression of God's wrath on human sin - the seven golden bowls of wrath.

The seven bowls are included in the seventh trumpet. The seven trumpets were included in the seventh seal. John's presentation of these judgments is like a box within a box within a box. You finally get the wrapping off one box only to discover within it another box. You finally get the wrapping off the second box only to discover within it a third box. Only when you get the wrapping off that box do you find the prize.

Now notice some things. The first four bowls echo the first four trumpets. The number four is an important symbolic number in Revelation. It is the number of the creation. There are four corners of the earth, four winds, four divisions of the created universe. Perhaps you remember that the first four trumpets affected these four divisions of the created universe: earth, sea, rivers, and the heavens. The first four bowls of wrath do the same thing.

16:1-2: 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." The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the land. Verse 3: The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea. Verse 4: The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water. Verse 8: The fourth angels poured out his bowl on the sun. In both series of judgments, it is John's way of saying that God is sovereign over all creation, and the extending of all his judgments over all the earth points to that sovereignty.

Here is another thing to notice. At least three of the seven bowls have a judgment that directly parallels the plagues of Egypt at the time of the Exodus, two with blood and one with darkness. Verse 3: The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it turned into blood like that of a dead man, and every living thing in the sea died. Verse 4: The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood. Verse 10: The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was plunged into darkness.

John is saying again that, like Israel of yore, God was delivering the persecuted and martyred Church from her oppressors; only this time it was the final deliverance in preparation for establishing His kingdom over all the earth.

Here is a third thing to notice. The bowls have the beast and the Roman Empire in mind. Verse 2: The first angel went out and poured his bowl on the land, and ugly and painful sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped his image. Verses 13-14 say, Then I saw three evil 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. They are spirits of demons performing miraculous 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.

In verse 19 John refers for the second time in Revelation to Babylon. The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath. Babylon is John's name for the Roman Empire. He used that nickname for Rome, because the ancient nation of Babylon destroyed the nation of Israel. John saw the beast as trying to do the same thing to the Church. The seven bowls declare by faith that it will not happen. Instead, God will destroy Babylon.

Here is a fourth thing of note. Verse 16 says that the three evil spirits gathered the kings together to the place in the Hebrew is called Armageddon. Many modern people who know nothing about the Bible know this symbol. Armageddon means in modern consciousness the use of weapons of mass destruction to wipe out humanity from the earth. It is an appropriate use of the Biblical image up to a point. At that point the pitiful spirituality of the secular mindset shows its poverty, because it knows nothing of the New Jerusalem.

Here is a fifth thing to note. Look at the description of Armageddon in verses 17-21. 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!" Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake. 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. Every island fled away and the mountains could not be found. From the sky huge hailstones of about a hundred pounds each fell upon men. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible.

This symbol is not literal. It does not at all resemble the nuclear, biological, or chemical holocaust that we envision when we talk about a latter day Armageddon. You can see why I said earlier that the reality behind a symbol is infinitely more powerful than the symbol itself. But a well-chosen symbol gives that powerful reality access to our imagination and will in such a way as to affect our lives profoundly. It does so here.

Know this, my brothers and sisters in Christ! God judges sinners for their sins. Isaiah said, See, the day of the LORD is coming - a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger - to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it.

Furthermore, God passes judgment on the earth to vindicate His people as representing His eternal purpose in this world. That is what happened at the Exodus. God said to Pharoah, "You still set yourself against my people and will not let them go. But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth" (Ex. 9:16-17).

The angel says the same thing here in verses 5-6. "You are just in these judgments, you who are and who were, the Holy One, because you have so judged; for they have shed the blood of your saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink as they deserve."

Third, when God judges the Babylons of this world, He takes away their plausibility. That would seem obvious, but when Babylon is at full strength, when it controls the mass media and generates economic wealth, its way of life seems the most plausible thing in the world. People did not follow Hitler because he was implausible but because he gave meaning to a whole nation; as did Caesar or Stalin and many lesser men. God's judgment takes away their plausibility. The spell is broken. People are freed.

Finally, God judges in order to call people to repentance. It is troubling when evangelical Christians appear to take pleasure in God's judgment, as if punishment were the only or even the primary purpose of judgment. Even in judgment He is patient ... not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). The saddest words in chapter 16 are those at the end of verses 9 and 11: but they refused to repent and glorify him and they refused to repent of what they had done.

Let none of us here have a hard and repentant heart toward God. Let us not trifle with God's patience. We know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, "Peace and safety," destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape (1 Thess. 5:2-3). The outer bands of wind and rain have reached us from the storm of His judgment. Repent of your sins. Call on Christ for mercy. Bear witness to that mercy!