All right, Revelation chapter
16. This part here, this passage here begins what we see as the
actual pouring out of what the Bible calls here the vials of
the wrath of God upon the earth. Look at verse one. John writes,
I heard a great voice out of the temple. saying to the seven
angels, these seven messengers, go your ways and pour out the
vials of wrath, of the wrath of God upon the earth. That's
the title of this lesson, vials of wrath poured out. Some translations
say bowls of wrath. But what this is, here's the
ministers of Christ, the seven angels. Remember the word angel
means messenger. And sometimes in various contexts
you can determine are these angelic beings or are they ministers,
messengers? And sometimes you can't tell,
but it really doesn't matter. These are messengers from God.
These are agents of Almighty God that are sent to pour out
these bowls of wrath, these vials of wrath. And what they're doing
is they're announcing, you see, the wrath of God comes from God
himself as the judge of all. Doesn't come from us. Doesn't
come from any angels. But we are the proclaimers of
that wrath that is poured out against, in God's justice, against
the wicked, against the unbelievers, against this sinful earth. And
so, as you look at this passage, and I put in your lesson here
how commentators are divided as to whether these vile judgments,
these bold judgments, whether they run throughout the entire
New Testament age, beginning at the ascension of Christ to
his second coming, or whether or not they're just simply those
that will appear, the seven vials of wrath will appear right at
the very end. And they're divided. But here's
the key. Now, we know that there's always been manifestations on
the earth of God's wrath against sin. There's always been. And
even in the New Testament age, we know there's going to be that
wrath poured out and it's going to intensify as we grow closer
and closer to the time of the second coming of Christ. And
so we know that. And I put here that the important
thing to know is that John is writing of what will happen on
earth and its unbelieving inhabitants when Christ comes again at the
end of the age to judge the world. When Christ comes again, And
that's the finality of everything. He's going to not only gather
his people unto himself, you know the scripture talks about
that in 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, how when he comes he'll bring
those who were asleep, that's what the scripture says, because
sleep is a metaphor for death. The believers who have died in
the Lord, remember John said, blessed are the dead which die
in the Lord. their spirits are with him, and
they will return with him in the clouds, and then those who
are left on earth will be caught up with him. And there will be
a great resurrection. And I'm not going to get into
the details of all that, but the point is this, that when
we read about these bowls of wrath, we who are in Christ,
believers, by the grace and power of God, chosen before the foundation
of the world, redeemed by the blood of Christ, and regenerated
by the Spirit, we have nothing to fear. And the reason is, is
because we're washed in His blood from all our sins. What can wash
away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
And we stand in the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, justified
from all things, That's what the scripture says. We're justified. That means we're not guilty and
we are actually, not metaphorically, not pictorially, not some kind
of a pretend situation, but we who are in Christ, we stand actually,
literally righteous before God in Him. And that's what the imputed
righteousness of Christ is. Now, when we become glorified,
we will be totally free from the presence, the influence,
and the contamination of sin that plagues us today while we
walk on this earth. But when He comes again, we don't
have anything to fear from His wrath. But now those who are
found without Christ They have everything to fear. It's nothing
but wrath and hatred. God's hatred. And understand
now that that hatred of God is not like ours. That's why people
have such a distaste for saying that. The Bible says that. The
Bible speaks that way. And it's not God throwing a temper
tantrum or God doing something unjust or unfair. It's God's
justice. It is God's fairness. It is His
nature to punish sin. So here's the message. Flee from
the wrath to come. That's the message, isn't it?
Well, where are you going to flee to? Well, flee to the church. Flee to the baptismal pool. Flee
to religion? No. Those things will not help
you. Flee to Christ, the Lamb of God,
who took the wrath of God, the full measure of God's wrath on
the cross for His people. Somebody's asked me one time,
said, who did Christ die for? Everyone that comes to faith
in Christ. That's who He died for. And what
the scripture teaches? He said the good shepherd gives
his life for the sheep, didn't he? And he said, here's the distinction
of the sheep. My sheep, what? Hear my voice. What is that? That's the preaching
of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit. And they follow
me. He said, all that the father
giveth me, what? Shall come to me. And him that
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. So here's a command
issue from God. He tells these seven ministers.
Go your ways and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon
the earth. And then we're going to go into
the first vial, the second vial. I'm not gonna get through all
of them today, obviously. But by the time these vial judgments
have done what God intended them to do, here's what the issue
of this portion of Revelation is. By the time that these vial
judgments have run their course, it'll be over. This is the finishing. That's why there are seven angels
here. Because they are announcing a work completed, fulfilled,
there's nothing more. This is God's final wrath upon
the wicked world. And then, and of course, what
that does for us, it really sets within our hearts an urgency
about this issue. Now is the day of salvation.
Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Don't waste time. Don't put it off till later.
That's what he's saying. Somebody says, well, what difference
does it make? If God's going to save him, he's
going to save him. That's not your business or my business.
We're not God. That's his business. Your business
is to listen to what God says, and he commands all men everywhere
to repent. because he's appointed a day
in which he will judge this world in righteousness by that man
whom he hath ordained and that he hath given assurance unto
all men and that he hath raised him from the dead and that's
what this is all about this is righteous judgment here this
is not unfairness this is not a temper tantrum this is not
god doing something that we don't deserve listen If God showers
or pours his wrath down upon a sinner, that sinner's just
getting what that sinner deserves. And that's why we beg for mercy.
God don't give me what I deserve. I don't want what I deserve because
I know what I deserve, the wages of sin, death. And so that's flee from the wrath
to come. And again, We who believe in
Christ, who rest in Him, who cling to Him, who plead His blood
and His righteousness, we have nothing to fear. Now notice here
in verse 1 it says that this came out of the temple, the voice
came out of the temple. And what that does, you know
the temple, you go back to the Old Testament, the tabernacle,
and then the temple, okay, which was the permanent location. of the tabernacle. Remember,
the tabernacle was a tent that they moved around in the wilderness.
But then God ordained that Solomon would build the temple in Jerusalem.
And inside there was, remember, the chambers. You had the outer
court, and in that outer court was the brazen altar of sacrifice
where the bullock, the lamb, was killed and the blood was
shed. And then you had the holy place marked off. That's where
all the priests of Levi did their work. In there you had the table
of showbread, the golden candlestick, and the laver. And then you had inside the Holy
of Holies, which only the high priest of Israel, a direct descendant
of Aaron, could go in one time a year on the Day of Atonement
with the blood. Now that's what this temple represents. And you
know what he's saying here. This voice comes out of the temple
and announces the wrath of God upon the wicked world And you
know what the standard of it is? The standard of judgment?
The sentence of wrath? Listen, the sentence of wrath
or the sentence of justification all come as they relate to the
glory of God revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how
it's all determined. Everything that God has for sinners,
whether it's wrath or whether it's mercy, comes as that sinner
relates to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so here's the issue of judgment.
When I come to judgment, do I stand before God in Christ, washed
in His blood, clothed in His righteousness, or do I stand
before God without Christ on my own? And if I stand before
God without Christ, Then I'm on my own and I'm doomed. Because the judgment of God will
be against me. And you say, well, I try to be
a good person. Well, you should try to be a
good person. But that's not the standard of judgment. And that's
not going to save you. How do you know that? For by
grace are you saved. Through faith. That's not of
yourselves. It's the gift of God. Not of
works, lest any man should boast. You ought to be a good person
in every way. You ought to try to be. You ought
to strive to be. You ought to be charitable, loving,
kind, all of those things. But that's not going to stand
for you as righteousness before God. The only one who can stand
for a sinner as righteousness before God is Jesus Christ crucified
and raised from the dead. No other. Well, look at verse
2. Now he starts with the vials,
the bowls of wrath. He says in verse 2, the first
went, the first messenger, the first angel. And he poured out
his vial upon the earth, and here's what he said, and there
fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark
of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image. A noisome and grievous sore.
The word noisome means worthless, bad, or evil. That's what it
means. Doesn't mean loud. That's what
you'd think it means as they translate it, wouldn't it? Noisome,
a big noise. But the idea is, is that what
happens here causes anxiety, trouble, and furor that cannot
be denied. It's kind of like, think about it like a cancer.
You know, they say pancreatic cancer. Most of you all have
heard of that. They tell me that usually by the time you have
symptoms, you feel the symptoms, it's usually too late with pancreatic
cancer. I don't know if all that's true,
but that's what I've heard. So you could say pancreatic cancer
is a silent killer. Well, man by nature, has a silent
killer within himself that he always denies and will not recognize
and that silent killer is sin. Sin. And the effects of it come
in various ways. But here you have a metaphor
and it's almost like here's the silent killer and here comes
the symptoms now and it's too late. That's what he's saying. Here's some trouble. And it's
bad, it's evil. And then he says it's noisome
and it's grievous. Grievous means hurtful. And I
think back, I've got listed in your lesson, you remember back
in Exodus chapter 9, I've got this listed in your lesson, you
don't have to turn there now. The reason I went back there,
you know, he's talking about plagues, that come down on people
in these vials of wrath? Well, you remember the 10 plagues
of Egypt that God brought down on Egypt before Moses and the
children of Israel were brought out of Egypt? And there were
10. 10 is the number of law, the
number of judgments. We have the 10 commandments.
And what were the 10 commandments given for and what was that?
To show them their sinfulness. The fact to show them the fact
that if that's the standard of the law, then I deserve nothing
but wrath and judgment. I need a substitute. I need a
savior. I need mercy. I can't be saved
by my works. No matter how good they appear,
no matter how good I try to be. And so that was the number of
judgment. Well, here you have seven plagues. And seven represents
a finished, completed work. So instead of having 10 plagues,
it's 7 because this is God's finished, completed work of judgment.
But sometimes they can relate to the plagues of Egypt. And
this one, if you go back to Exodus chapter 9 verses 8, remember
God struck the Egyptians with the plague of boils and it hurt. And that physical The disease
was a testimony of God's judgment against them, God's wrath upon
them, and the fact that there's no hope of salvation in this
physical body. There's no hope of salvation.
Listen, there's no hope. I want to be healthy. I want
you all to be healthy. And I want you to live long lives.
I don't know if you will or not. I want to live a longer life.
But it doesn't matter. You can live 969 years, and here's
the final testimony on you. That's Methuselah, you know.
What's the last three words you hear about Methuselah? And he
died. So Methuselah must have been
a pretty healthy guy to live 969 years. That's almost 1,000.
But you know what? He died. And that's what death
is, it's a consequence of sin. Now, for the unbeliever, for
the one who lives and dies in unbelief, all physical disease
is a manifestation of God's wrath upon them and just a foretaste
of something worse to come. As bad as it can get here, eternal
damnation and eternal separation from God is worse. Now, there
are preachers today who'll tell you, well, that all disease is
of the devil. That's not so. That's a lie. God's in control. And these are
manifestations of His wrath upon unbelievers. And there are false
preachers who'll tell you, well, if you're a believer, if you're
in Christ and you have enough faith, you ought not get sick.
That's a lie too. Now listen to me. I'm a firm advocate of positive
thinking, not the kind of positive thinking these false preachers
are doing. I've got a message that I preach called The Power
of Positive Thinking in Christ. Think about him. That's positive,
isn't it? Now when I look to me, it's not
so positive. Not positive at all. And I know
that people can make themselves sick with thinking wrong thoughts
and all that. But listen, in the end of it,
it doesn't really matter. It's all of God. And believers
get sick and believers die. I've had these Pentecostal people
and these charismatic people tell me that they don't sin anymore.
And I always tell them, I say, well, why are you getting old?
Why do you get sick? Because all that's the consequence
of sin. But for the believer now in Christ,
those are not manifestations of God's wrath. They're just
the consequences of sin living on this earth, which we're going
to be delivered from. But the Bible, you know how the
Bible says to look at them in Hebrews 12? They are the chastisements
of God. That is, they're not payment
for sin. but they're the correction of
God as they cause us to look more to Christ and to think more
of Him and His Word. Now, we get in trouble when we
try to figure it all out and say, well, now you're sick because
you did this. Now, sometimes that can be true.
I mean, if I eat too much, I feel miserable these days. I used
to be able to eat and eat and eat. But if I eat too much now,
I feel miserable. So I know, I know that feeling
of being miserable is directly connected to my own gluttony,
you know. But you can't always do that. You know, that's what
Job's three friends tried to do. They're trying to figure
this out. Job, why are you suffering? You must have done something
really bad for God to do this, and that wasn't the case at all.
So be careful there. But here's what he said. Look
at verse two. He said, all this fell upon those
who had the mark of the beast. Remember the mark of the beast?
That's the false doctrine of the world. That's what that is. It's the false gospels of false
religion. It's the mark on their forehead
which represents the mind. It's the mark on their hands
which represents their efforts. And that's what it is. Any gospel
of salvation by the works or the wills of men is the mark
of the beast. Mark it down. That's what it
is. You remember the difference between
God's elect? They are sealed in their foreheads. Sealed with what? Sealed with
the grace of God. Sealed with the gospel. That's
the difference. And that seal means not only
just an identification mark, but it means a security that
we have in Christ. And he says that worshiped his
image. That is, any manifestation of
a false gospel, a false God, a false Christ is his image. It's not just bound down to a
tree or bound down to a statue or anything. You know, that's
all idolatry now. But his image is any false gospel
that identifies and distinguishes a false savior. And that's who
the wrath of God is poured down upon. And we have to be careful
to understand that that's what we've been saved from. We didn't
listen. That's what the new birth is
all about. It's coming to repentance of dead works. I mean, even in
my religion, you know, I grew up thinking I was a Christian.
I was on the cradle row and all that stuff. But I didn't know
Christ. And the Christ I was hearing
was a false Christ. And when I first heard the true
Christ, I didn't like it. I didn't like Him. But God changed
my heart. And He brought me to faith in
the true Christ and repentance of dead works. Now look at verse
3. He says, and the second angel,
now here's the second vial of wrath. He poured out his vial,
his bow, upon the sea. Now remember what the sea represents
in a worldly sense. The sea represents trouble. The
sea represents the nations. So in other words, this is not
just concentrated on one particular nation, it's all over the world.
The sea represents death. And you remember the difference
between these upon whom these vials of wrath are being poured
out and the children of God? The children of God, where are
we? We're standing on a sea of glass. That's a firm foundation,
you remember. That's Christ. So here's the
sea, and it says, he poured his vial out upon the sea, and it
became as the blood of a dead man, and every living soul died
in the sea. So there's death. Not only disease,
but death itself. You see, there's no eternal spiritual
life outside of Christ. He is the life. It's what he
said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by me. And all this world has to offer,
ultimately, is death and decay. Isn't that right? Corruption. I've got cited in your lesson,
1 Peter 1, 24, where it says, All flesh is a grass, all the
glory of man is the flower of grass. The grass withereth and
the flower thereof falleth away, but the word of the Lord endureth
forever. And this is the word which by the gospels preached
unto you. How many times you see on television
these programs that offer different different natural things and
exercises and food choices that are designed to keep us looking
young. And how many people go through
surgeries to keep themselves looking young? Now, and some
of them do a good job for a while, but it doesn't last. That flower
is going to wither, isn't it? Sometimes it gets to the point
where it's ridiculous, isn't it? But look at verse 4. He says,
And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and
fountains of waters, and they became blood. Remember back in
Exodus 7? The Nile River, that's in Egypt. It was the life of Egypt. And
what happened to it? One of the plagues was the Nile
River was turned into blood. Death. That's what blood represents. That's why we sing about and
rest in the precious blood of Christ. We're talking about his
death. When we say, what can wash away
my sins? Nothing but the blood. That's
his death, you see. Christ died that we may live. Christ died under the sentence
of the wrath of God against the sins of his people. And out of
his death comes life. But here in the world without
Christ, what is it? Just like the Nile River back
in Egypt became blood, death. Death. Rivers. You know, rivers and fountains
of waters. When I see that, I think about
Christ, who is the river of life. I think about Christ, who is
the fountain of living waters. But this world, it's only temporary. Blood, which is his death, that
was shed for his people, is our life. But, without him, nothing
but death. That's the vows. Now those are
the first three vows, and we'll pick up with the next week.