SNBS - Revelation Part 14 - 7 Bowls

It was the blood of those and they asked God how much longer Lord?

Will you avenge our brothers?

God said just a little longer.

That's something going on on the 21st, don't we?

You mean March 21st?

Yes, I do.

Oh, are you talking about the spring break block party?

I am.

Where on earth am I going?

You're going to be at Witton Baptist Church, which is 6773 Macon Road.

It's right on the corner of Witton and Macon, across from the Walgreens.

We're going to have free hot dogs.

I like free.

Popcorn, snow cone machine, and cotton candy.

Also, it's not just food.

We're also going to have games.

All games.

So, you know, little hoops and we've got some other games going on.

The first 100 families to come to our spring break block party on March 21st

from 4 to 7pm will receive a free gift bag.

And that's actually what I was just working on right now.

Do we have a slide?

We do have a slide.

Should I post it right now?

Yes, post the slide right now.

Good evening.

Welcome to Sunday Night Bible Study with Pastor Josiah Shipley of Witton Baptist Church.

We're going to continue our study of the book of Revelation.

We are in chapter 16.

We'll get through probably seven verses tonight.

So let's go ahead.

This is part 14 in our series.

So if you're new to this and haven't been checking it out thus far, haven't had the opportunity, go back

at Witton Media Ministry on YouTube.

And there is an archive of all of this series on Revelation.

All 14 videos we've done leading up to this point.

We've gone in order, you know, an introduction to Revelation, different views, chapter one, two, as you know, we're going

on and on and on.

And here we are in chapter 16.

This is part 14.

And here we go.

I'm going to read verses one through seven of chapter 16 of the book of Revelation.

I'm reading out of the ESV.

Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling 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 harmful and painful sores came upon people who bore the mark of the beast and

worship its image.

The second angel poured out his bowl into a scene and became like the blood of a corpse and every living thing died that was in the scene.

The third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and springs of water, and they became like blood.

Then I heard the angel in charge of the water say, just are you a holy one who is and was for you brought these

judgments for they have shed the blood of saints and prophets and you've given them blood to drink.

It's what they deserve.

And I heard the altar saying, yes, Lord God, the almighty, just and true are your judgments.

Okay, very good.

So before we walk through that little bit of review, and then we'll walk through those seven

verses.

Well, first off, remember who wrote the book of Revelation?

It was the apostle John.

Apostle John wrote five books of the New Testament, the epistles of first, second, and third John,

the gospel of John and the book of Revelation, which we can be pretty certain was written in the nineties.

There are believers who try to date this pre -70 AD before the destruction

of the temple in Jerusalem.

I find that unconvincing doesn't mean I'm right.

But, and we've talked before, typically those who put it at a pre -70

writing are, have a preterist view, which go back to part one and two to learn about that.

At any rate, John is writing and we've discovered so far, the

book of Revelation is chronological, but not perfectly chronological.

There's a lot of flashbacks and skip forward flashbacks, just like the book of Genesis,

you know, chapter one talks about the six days of creation in the book of Genesis.

And if you read Genesis chapter one, I'll just read it the very end.

It says this, because remember, there's really only six days of creation, the seventh day God rested.

It says here that he made man in his own image,

male and female, he created them, Genesis one 27.

Well, Genesis chapter two talks about in detail the creation of man and woman.

That's not two separate accounts.

Genesis one is an overview of all six days of creation and Genesis chapter two, for the most part, is an in

-depth look at day six, the creation of man.

Well, you kind of have that in the book of Revelation.

You have them telling the whole story and then going back and explaining in detail.

What we're reading in chapter 16 immediately precedes the second coming of Jesus and the setup of

the millennial reign.

Well, that's not until chapter 19.

Chapter 17 and 18 are an in -depth look at the causality of what happens in chapter 16.

So chronologically, chapter 16 ends where chapter 19, the return of Christ

begins.

Chapter 17 and 18 are just an in -depth look at these bowls of wrath in chapter 16.

We, the majority of the book of Revelation, I believe, is

describing a seven -year event known as the tribulation, specifically

the great tribulation.

I believe the rapture already happened back in chapter four, but there's still Christians on earth

because there will be a revival and a, a, another

renaissance.

As there always has been and always will be, God will always have a remnant and those will be living

through the great tribulation.

Now, remember church, even if you are a pre -trib rapture guy,

you will live through tribulation.

Jesus promised that, John 16, 33.

What I'm referring to is the great tribulation, okay?

The day is coming church, or Pastor Jeff says it often, each other is all

we're going to have.

That day is coming as it already is for some of our brothers and sisters elsewhere in the world.

Therefore, we arrive at chapter 16 and our series of seven judgments.

Remember, you have the seven seals, the seven trumpets, and the seven bowls.

And we've talked before, it's possible that the seventh seal just opens up the seven trumpets,

which just opens up the seven bowls.

So, really the seventh seal is all of those things.

It's different ways of looking at it.

At any rate, if you remember when we studied the trumpets, it's often a

third, like a third of the water turned to blood, and a third of people were this, and a third of the sun, and a

third, and a third, and a third.

The bowls typically are all of it, and most of them are directed only at the unbeliever, not the

believer.

Most of these are directed at people,

and it tends to be not the remnant anymore, whereas those

other plagues sometimes affected all humanity.

These typically, not always, as you'll see with the water, but typically

only affect the unbeliever, the ones who rejected Jesus and

sided with the Antichrist in his kingdom.

Verse one, 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.

The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth, and harmful and painful sores came upon the people who bore the mark of the beast and

worshipped its image.

That word sores there is the same word used in the parable in Luke 16, not parable,

the account in Luke 16 of the rich man and Lazarus who had sores, and the dogs came and licked them.

Also in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, it's the same word used to describe the sixth

plague of Egypt, where the sores came upon the people.

Verse three, the second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became like the blood of a corpse, and every living thing

died that was in the sea.

Notice, not just blood, not like the prince of Egypt, or just red food coloring, blood of a

corpse.

Big, dark, coagulated, separated.

Plasma and red blood cells separate.

I'm not intentionally being graphic, I'm just trying to read you what the text says, like the blood of a corpse.

And every living thing died that was in the sea.

I want you to think about that event.

Every living thing died that was in the sea.

And remember, in reality, there's only one ocean, not four or five.

That's just how we break it up to make sense of currents, and warmer parts of the ocean, and saltier parts of the

ocean, and regional, and all that kind of stuff.

But in reality, there's just one.

Verse four, the third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and springs of waters, and they became like blood.

And I heard the angel in charge of the waters say, Just are you, O holy one, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments.

For they shed the blood of the saints and the prophets, and you've given them blood to drink.

It's what they deserve.

And I heard the author saying, Yes, Lord, God, the Almighty, just and true are your judgments.

Guys,

if we elect a judge, or appoint a judge, I should say,

and that judge never dealt out judgments for people who broke the law,

we would call that a bad judge.

If we all agree with the laws of the land, and this judge's job was

to execute judgment, punishment, consequences, for

the breaking of that law, and this judge never did that, we would consider that a bad judge, because there'd be no

justice.

People would say, Okay, well, he stole from me.

I'd like my stuff back.

And if the judge said, Eh, no, we would say that's a bad judge.

Well, God is not a bad judge.

And as Pastor Jeff said in his sermon this morning, there will be an

eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth again.

There will be judgment.

There will be justice.

There will be justice in the end.

See, excuse me,

from a naturalistic worldview, from an atheistic, materialistic, naturalistic worldview, for

the overwhelming majority of people on this planet, there will be no justice.

I was just watching a debate with Dr. John Lennox and Dr. Peter

Atkins on Unbelievable on YouTube.

And John Lennox said this.

He said to the other gentleman, Dr. Atkins, who is an atheist, John Lennox is a Christian.

He asked the atheist, In your worldview, for the overwhelming

majority of people on this planet, who are not rich, wealthy, in power, they will never

see justice.

And the atheist said, yep, that's right.

They won't.

And he said, and there's also no purpose for them.

And the atheist professor said, yep, that's correct.

There's no purpose and there's no justice.

That's just the way it is.

If there is no God, and that God is not a righteous judge, there will be no justice.

You see, the Bible tells us there will be justice.

All will be made right.

The judge of all the earth will do what is right, says the book of Genesis.

One day we will see that justice poured out.

See, here's the amazing thing.

I've told you guys this before.

Actually, I think it was the last video we did two weeks ago, because we missed last week because of the snowstorm here in town.

Remember when it said, just and true are your ways, O kingdom of nations.

Revelation 15, three through four.

For you alone are holy.

All nations will come and worship you for your righteous acts have been revealed.

Revelation 15, four.

His righteous acts have been revealed, manifest and made known.

I've admitted to this to you guys before.

Sometimes I read the Bible and I'm like, man, Lord,

a lot of death, a lot of judgment.

Sometimes it seems harsh, God.

The flood, the Canaanites,

the Israelites.

Sometimes it seems harsh.

Sometimes I don't understand what God is doing.

And, you know, of course, you can say,

well, yeah, but he allowed this and he allowed that.

And I get all that.

And that's all true.

But at the end of the day, he's God.

Okay, I, um,

there's a lot of music nerds at our church.

And one of them, our music minister, Andrew Cook is a very dear and close friend of mine.

And when we were in college together, there were several times where I went to his,

uh, orchestra thing.

And, you know, he was in marching band and then he was in the symphonic band.

And then he was in the wind ensemble, which is supposed to be, you know, the best of the best.

And Andrew was great.

Okay.

Well, on some of these, um, and, you know, we would all come and like,

and like, uh, cut off shirts and painted up with posters.

Go, Andrew, because we loved them.

Well, I'd get there a little early and get seated and everyone would be practicing individually.

And it sounded terrible.

I mean, it sounded like that campfire scene from Blazing Saddles.

I mean, everyone was like, brr, brr, brr, brr, brr, brr, brr.

I mean, there was no unison.

It was a cacophony of noise and it sounded awful.

And I was like, man, these are the best of the best.

This sounds terrible.

And then somebody stood up and pulled out their little stick

and started counting.

I'm probably not doing it right.

Just started doing that.

And then everyone who was playing individually, who individually sounded like

there was no purpose, no rhyme or reason.

Started playing in unison together.

And the best way I can describe it is it sounded like one noise.

It sounded like one noise.

And the trombonist who was practicing by himself, it sounded like there was no purpose to it.

I didn't understand.

Now I could hear the purpose in that one beautiful cacophony of noise.

And the girl with the little flute who, when she was playing by herself, it made no sense.

Now it made sense to me why she was doing it.

And over here with the tuba and over here, you know, and I'm just seeing all this.

I'm like, wow, now I get it.

Now I get what was going on.

See, individually, when you looked at certain events, they don't make sense.

But one day, guys, according to Revelation 15, 4, his righteous acts are going to be revealed.

And we will all see and agree that it was the good, righteous, just, and

merciful thing to do.

Now how that will happen, I don't know, but I know it will.

And I've got to trust that right now God is writing that symphony.

And when I see the individual pieces that don't make sense, I just got to trust that they're part of a bigger symphony that I don't understand.

He's done it time and time again.

Time and time again.

Think about Genesis 50, 20.

Joseph said to them, to his brothers, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring about this present

result of survival of many people.

Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, and they meant that for evil.

But God meant that for good because he was sold into slavery, because he rose to power in Egypt, because he knew about the

famine and he had the storehouses.

He was able to provide food for his family, those 70 people that would be the nation of Israel.

And their bloodline survived when they should have died.

Because Joseph was sold into slavery.

You know, sometimes when I read the book of Revelation, I'm like, man, Lord, that's a lot of judgment.

Yes, because God is a just God.

He's a God of wrath, just like he's a God of mercy.

He's a God of love, just like he's a God of everything.

But he is writing a symphony.

And we're going to get to hear it all one day, according to Revelation 15, 4.

In Revelation 16, 5.

And we're going to agree how I see it makes sense.

You don't have to understand that all right now.

You just have to believe it's true.

The evidence is written in the pages of history.

That's what he's been doing all along.

And if we can look back and see that, we should be able to look forward and believe that.

You know, just like the first plague in Egypt, when the water was turned to blood, that's what's happening here.

But now it's all the sea and all the freshwater.

The voice from the altar in verse 4, I'm sorry,

in verse 7.

Remember the voices of the martyrs under the altar in chapter 14, I think it was.

It was the blood of those.

And they asked God, how much longer, Lord, until you avenge our brothers?

And God said, just a little longer.

That's what's happening here.

All right, we'll pick up with the fourth bowl, verse 8, chapter 16, verse 8

next week.

Guys, remember, God is writing a symphony.

And just because you don't get to see all of it right now, just like me sitting in there listening to them warm up,

doesn't mean there's not a symphony.

You just haven't heard it yet.

But the symphony writer will reveal it in his timing, not yours.

That's okay with me because he knows what he's doing.

I don't.

Thank you guys for listening.

As always, with these Witton videos, if you find any particular helpful, share them on

your private page.

As always, go and subscribe to Witton Media Ministry on YouTube.

Like us on Facebook, Witton Baptist Church.

I love you guys very much.

Don't forget to tune in Tuesday nights for Tuesday Night Bible Studies Live.

You know, we have wow moments.

We have music lyrics with Brother Andrew.

We've got the wow moments on Thursday night.

We've got Q &As on Saturdays, Sunday morning sermons, Sunday evening.

We try to do a lot on social media.

We do the best we can here.

We have fun doing it.

I love you guys very much.

Tune in next week for the rest of Revelation chapter 16.

And I will see you guys next time.

Bye.