1. "You can go to a bunch of churches that'll have a lot of topical teaching for you. We think if we teach you to read the Bible, that's more delightful. It's what's really going on. It's what Christians and non Christians are curious about."

2. "Jesus himself taught John that there were symbols in this book, that there were objects that you could see with the eye, that in fact stood for other realities. So part of how you and I are to read the book of Revelation correctly, intelligently, as God meant his inerrant word to be read, is to understand what the images that are being presented to us mean."

3. "Friends, the future will not finally resolve into anyone else's favor ultimately than Jesus Christ's. It is his perspective that we need to adopt to properly understand history and what it's all about."

4. "Another interesting thing for our age to notice today, all faiths are not good. We tend to use the word faith, especially in a place like Washington, D.C. as this generic token of goodness, faith or worship. And we somehow assume that our society is built on the fact of recognizing all of them to be of equal worth. Let me just say, as a Christian, I think the Bible thoroughly rejects that idea."

5. "Friends, in the light of eternity, there will never be one action of God which will be unworthy of our worship and our praise of him for it. God does nothing wrong in chapter 16 here. Nothing to apologize for."

6. "As we've noted before, you do no one any favor by trying to make God's judgment seem less than it is. In our congregation, in our hymns and songs, in our scripture readings and sermons, we try to be honest about the terror that is God's judgment."

7. "We think of mercy itself as good, but it really depends on when and how it's exercised and upon whom and by whom. God will one day say, enough. And until that time, we will experience trials and troubles and even calamities and tragedies."

8. "You're never going to get back last week. That's done. Hey, but you've got a week coming up. Spend it as if God really existed, as if Christ is who he said he is, as if he's coming back, as if all of his values are correct and what he's taught you is right."

9. "When you understand who Jesus is, his death may be more surprising than his resurrection. We celebrate a resurrection every Sunday. People around the world think of his resurrection, especially on Easter. But, friends, when we know that Jesus is the Son of God incarnate, how surprised can we be?"

10. "He, the spotless Lamb of God, was substituting for us. This was the death that he died and that he rose from. Friends, it's the resurrection of Jesus Christ that really acts as a seal to us that all we read in Revelation 16 is true."

Observation Questions

1. According to Revelation 16:2, who specifically receives the judgment of sores from the first bowl? What might this tell us about God's judgment?

2. From Revelation 16:5-7, what specific reasons do the angel and the altar give for declaring God's judgments "just and true"?

3. In Revelation 16:9, 11, and 21, what is the consistent response of people to God's judgments? How does this differ from what we might expect?

4. Looking at Revelation 16:13-14, what three sources are identified for the unclean spirits, and what is their purpose?

5. In Revelation 16:15, what specific warning does Jesus insert into the narrative? What two things does He say the blessed person does?

6. According to Revelation 16:17-20, what are the specific effects of the seventh bowl on the physical world?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why does Jesus use the metaphor of a "thief" in Revelation 16:15? How does this connect to His message to the church in Sardis (Revelation 3:2-3)?

2. What is the significance of the repeated phrase that people "did not repent" in response to the judgments? What does this reveal about the nature of repentance?

3. How does the imagery of "drinking the cup of God's wrath" (Revelation 16:19) help us understand both God's judgment and Christ's sacrifice on the cross?

4. What does the response of the angels and the altar in verses 5-7 teach us about the relationship between God's holiness and His judgment?

5. How does the drying up of the Euphrates River (16:12) and the gathering at Armageddon (16:16) demonstrate God's sovereign control over human history?

Application Questions

1. When was the last time you found yourself spiritually "sleeping" instead of staying alert? What specific changes could you make this week to increase your spiritual vigilance?

2. How have you responded to trials or difficulties in your life recently? Have they driven you toward or away from God?

3. In what areas of your life might you be tempted to compromise your worship of God for something else? What specific steps can you take to remain faithful?

4. Think about the people in your life who don't know Christ. How does the reality of God's coming judgment affect your urgency in sharing the gospel with them?

5. Looking at your schedule for the coming week, what specific changes could you make to live more intentionally as someone who believes Christ could return at any moment?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Matthew 24:36-44 - This passage expands on Jesus's teaching about His return coming like a thief, emphasizing the importance of watchfulness and preparedness in light of the unknown timing.

2. 2 Peter 3:3-13 - Peter addresses why God's judgment seems delayed and how Christians should live in light of the coming day of the Lord, connecting directly to the themes of judgment and preparedness in Revelation 16.

3. Romans 2:4-11 - This passage provides crucial context about the relationship between God's patience, human repentance, and final judgment, helping us understand the responses described in Revelation 16.

4. Philippians 3:17-21 - Paul contrasts those who set their minds on earthly things with those who live as citizens of heaven, awaiting Christ's return, providing practical guidance for maintaining spiritual vigilance.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Value of Ancient Wisdom and the Book of Revelation

II. Keep Worshiping God (Revelation 16:1–7)

III. Keep Repenting of Your Sins (Revelation 16:8–21)

IV. Keep Waiting on Christ (Revelation 16:15)

V. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the Call to Faith

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Detailed Sermon Outline

- Modern readers often avoid original works (e.g., Plato) in favor of secondary commentaries.  
- Lewis argues ancient works are clearer and more accessible than modern interpretations.

- The Bible, as an ancient text, offers direct access to divine truth.  
- Revelation provides a “clean sea breeze” to correct modern spiritual blindness.

- Jesus interprets symbols (e.g., lampstands = churches, stars = angels) (Revelation 1:20).  
- The book reveals “what is and what is to come” (Revelation 1:19).

- Modern culture elevates pluralism, but Revelation condemns worship of false gods (Revelation 16:2).

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- Sores, blood, and death target those who worship the Beast (Revelation 16:2–4).

- Angels and the altar declare God’s judgments “true and just” (Revelation 16:5–7).

- Worship involves agreeing with God’s moral perfection, even in judgment.

- True worship rejects syncretism and adheres to “mere Christianity.”

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- Plagues of scorching heat, darkness, and hail provoke curses, not repentance (Revelation 16:9–11, 21).

- Demonic forces gather nations against God (Revelation 16:13–16).  
- Babylon’s destruction symbolizes God’s wrath on rebellion (Revelation 16:19).

- Judgment hardens the unrepentant; only Christ’s sacrifice atones.

- Eternal punishment reflects perpetual rejection of God’s authority.

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- Jesus’ warning to Sardis applies to all believers (Revelation 3:2–3).

- Watchfulness involves obedience, prayer, and evangelism.

- Christians prioritize Christ’s values and mission daily.

- Spiritual sleepiness risks unpreparedness for Christ’s “thief-like” return.

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- Christ’s resurrection validates His role as Judge.

- Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath to save repentant sinners.

- Salvation comes through confessing Jesus as Lord (Romans 10:9).

- The sermon closes with an appeal to trust Christ and reject self-reliance.

- Historical accounts (e.g., empty tomb, eyewitnesses) affirm Christ’s victory.

- Robert Murray M’Cheyne’s warning: Prepare for the final accounting.

Toward the end of World War II, Sister Penelope Lawson wrote a new translation of Athanasius' classic fourth century work on the incarnation of the Word. Publishers would not necessarily be dying for such a treat to bring out in their spring catalog, so she contacted a friend of hers, C.S. Lewis, teaching at Oxford at the time, to see if he would write a foreword for it. And he agreed to. And that forward is one of my favorite forwards to a book I've ever read, and I'm going to restrain myself from reading the entirety of it to you right now.

Instead, I'm only going to read you a rather large section of it.

There's a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with modern books. Thus I found as a tutor in English literature that if the average student wants to find find out something about Platonism. The very last thing he thinks of doing is to take a translation of Plato off the library shelf and read the symposium. He would rather read some dreary modern book ten times as long all about isms and influences and only once in twelve pages telling him what Plato actually said. The error is rather an amiable one for it springs from humility.

The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said. But hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism.

It's always, therefore, been one of my main endeavors as a teacher to persuade the young that first-hand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than second-hand knowledge, but is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire. I'm not done reading this, but just note similarity in the way we're thinking through expositional preaching. You can go to a bunch of churches that'll have a lot of topical teaching for you. We think if we teach you to read the Bible, that's more delightful. It's what's really going on.

It's what Christians and non-Christians are curious about. Bible teach. That's why we preach like we do here. Back to Lewis.

This mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant than in theology. Wherever you find a little study circle of Christian laity, you can be almost certain that they are studying not Luke or Paul or Augustine or Thomas Aquinas or Hooker or Butler, but M. Berdyaev or M. Mertan or Niebuhr or Miss Sayers or even myself. Now this seems to me topsy-turvy. Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old.

And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet.

A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages and all of its hidden implications, often unsuspected by the author himself, have to be brought to light. Often it cannot be fully understood without the knowledge of a good many other modern books. If you join at 11 o'clock a conversation which began at 8, you will often not see the real bearing of what is said. Remarks which seem to be very ordinary will produce laughter or irritation and you will not see why.

The reason of course being that the earlier stages of the conversation have given them a special point. In the same way, sentences in a modern book which look quite ordinary may be directed at some other book. In this way you may be led to accept what you would have indignantly rejected if you knew its real significance. The only safety is to have a standard of plain, central Christianity, mere Christianity as Richard Baxter called it, which puts the controversies of the moment in their proper perspective. Such a standard can be acquired only from the old books.

It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one. 'til you have read an old one in between. And if that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones. Every age has its own outlook. It is especially good at seeing certain truths and especially liable to make certain mistakes.

We all therefore need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook, even those like myself who seem most opposed to it. Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that they both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should now absolutely deny. They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united, united with each other, and against earlier and later ages by great mass of common assumptions.

We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the 20th century, the blindness about which posterity will ask, but how could they have thought that? Lies where we have never suspected it and concerned something about which there is untroubled agreement between Hitler and President Roosevelt or between Mr. H.G. Wells and Karl Barth. None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it and weaken our guard against it if we read only modern books. Where they are true, they will give us truths which we half knew already.

Where they are false, they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds. And this can be done only by reading old books. Not of course if there's any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now.

They made as many mistakes as we.

But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing and their own errors being now open and palpable will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction. To be sure the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them. C.S.

Lewis there referring to the inaccessibility to us of the books written in the future was of course correct. We can't get at them. But the advice he gives is the advice we have only if there is no inspired text, only if God has not spoken. Now Lewis was not meaning to say that. He was writing on a secular level about human learning.

We as Christians realize that in one sense the books of the future are open to us, particularly the book about the future that God has given us in the Bible. And in the Bible particularly there is the book of Revelation that we've been studying this year which is very clear about this and which we want to turn to this morning. Open up your Bibles to Revelation, to chapter one. You're looking in your Bibles provided, you'll find that on page 1028.

The way this book begins shows us how useful it can be for us in understanding our lives and the world that is coming. Look there in chapter 1, beginning at verse 8.

And again, you'll find this page 1028 in the Bible's provided.

Chapter numbers, the large numbers, verse numbers, the small numbers, after it.

Chapter 1 verse 8, I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulations and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches. And then he names the seven churches, the seven cities. Verse 12, Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest.

The hairs of his head were white like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and His face was like the sun shining in full strength. When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as though dead.

But He laid His right hand on me saying, 'Fear not, I am the First and the Last and the Living One. I died and behold I am alive forevermore. And I have the keys of death and Hades. Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this. As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

Friends, much we could say about this, but I just read this because we're about to study chapter 16, which is full of truth about the future and also symbols. And what we see here in the way the book of Revelation opens are a couple of key things for us to keep in mind as we read it. And I just want you to notice those here in Chapter 1. First of all, notice right there in verse 19, this is clearly a book about events that take place in history. Right therefore the things that you have seen, those that are, and those that are to take place after this.

There are some people who say the book of Revelation is best understood only about interpreting things that were going on at the time. But here the words of Jesus himself seem to clearly contradict that. At least some of the things in this book ought to take place after what was going on in John's own lifetime. And then verse 20, it brings up another issue, the next verse. Some people don't like the idea of seeing symbols in a book.

They think that seeing a symbol is removing the immediate literal meaning and therefore you're sort of downgrading the authority, the truthfulness of the Word. I think you certainly could use symbols that way. But I just want to point out Jesus himself says in verse 20, as for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. Jesus himself taught John that there were symbols in this book, that there were objects that you could see with the eye that in fact stood for other realities. So part of how you and I are to read the book of Revelation correctly, intelligently, as God meant his inerrant word to be read, is to understand what the images that are being presented to us mean.

And we've seen numerous examples of that as we've gone through the book. I just bring that out as a particularly clear example. So what we're looking at now over in chapter 16 is this account from John. Again, he was the youngest of the 12 disciples. Now we think he's probably the last one alive.

He's an old man on an exile on the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea in the late first century. And God tells him that he would see the future or parts of it. And John then in turn was to share this with the churches to encourage and instruct them. That's what happens in this book. So you have those opening scenes and the letters to the seven churches, chapters 2 and 3, chapters 4 and 5, the throne room of God.

He is sovereign over history. And then chapter 6 to where we are, 16, this three series of sevens.

Seven seals broken open, seven trumpets sounded, seven bowls poured out in our passage. And these 21 symbols are all showing an increasing experience of the wrath and judgment of God against the fallen world that's in rebellion against him. That's what we see finally and supremely here in chapter 16. During the last week of his earthly incarnation, Jesus told his disciples, Stay awake. For you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

Well friends, here in Revelation 16, Jesus speaks to his disciple John, who was there, who had heard him say that 50 or 60 years earlier. Now he says it again, stay awake. That's what he's saying in this chapter. Here's our hot take on the future for you this morning. Jesus said he was coming back.

So our question is, after the tomb was empty, He ascended, He said He's coming back. How can we be ready for that? Three things we see in this passage. Keep worshiping, verses 1 to 7. Keep repenting, the rest of the chapter, verses 8 to 21.

And then also, don't neglect verse 15, keep waiting. So keep worshiping God, keep repenting of your sins, keep waiting on Christ. That's what we want to see in chapter 16. So what can you do to be ready for the future? Let me read the chapter to you.

I'll take it section by section as we go through it. First, keep worshiping God. We see that in these first seven verses. 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 the people who bore the mark of the beast and worshiped its image.

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. The third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water, and they became blood. And I heard the angel in charge of the waters say, 'Just are youe, O Holy One, who is and who was, for your brought these judgments, for they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and youd have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve. And I heard the altar saying, 'Yes, the Lord God, the Almighty, true and just are youe judgments.

Loud voices like those mentioned here in verse 1 and Revelation or sometimes from angels or even choruses of people together. Here I think the loud voice coming from the temple means that this is God's voice, as the loud voice was back in chapter 1 addressing John. It's interesting when you look here, the object of God's wrath are not everyone. Though these are represented as worldwide trials, the very elements of creation, earth, seas, waters are being represented as being poured on or into. The ones receiving this as the beginning movements of God's condemnation of them are God's enemies.

He says in verse 2, you see, it's the ones who bore the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. Verse 6 shows us that they deserve these judgments because they had shed the blood of saints and prophets.

So if you and I are going to walk into the future that includes the as the punishment by God of wrongdoers, we have to know that that is nothing for us to be embarrassed about. It is not wrong of God to punish wrong.

It is not wrong of God. It's nothing for God to be ashamed of. It's nothing that we need to cover up or hide. We need to have the same attitude that the angel in the altar has here in verses 5 to 7. Just are youe, O Holy One, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments.

For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets. They give a reason, and you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve. And I heard the altar saying, Yes, Lord God, the Almighty, true and just are your judgments. Friends, the future will not finally resolve into anyone else's favor, ultimately, than Jesus Christ's.

It is His perspective. That we need to adopt to properly understand history and what it's all about. Worshiping God means hearing and understanding, it means agreeing and obeying all that Christ has told us to. What does God ever do that is not worthy of our praise? Listen to our hymns, listen to our prayers, consider the ruminations you have on your own life.

Read back through the Old Testament narratives or through the Psalms, through the Gospels. If we find ourselves morally compromised in our own being so that wrongs don't look so wrong to us, we're not surprised that sometimes we have to be matured spiritually to appreciate what is good and right and what God is doing. Friends, in the light of eternity, there will never be one action of God which will be unworthy of our worship and our praise of him for it. God does nothing wrong in chapter 16 here. Nothing to apologize for.

Now, I know some of you, when you read a chapter like this, you may be tempted to feel embarrassed by it. Maybe you yourself haven't been subject to that much wrongdoing in life. Maybe you haven't thought it's that important, significant, or significant if you have experienced wrongdoing. But friends, the God of the universe is not like us. He is morally pure and perfect.

He values us. He values you more than you value you. You are made in His image. You are a display to the universe of what He is like. And in so far as you take that instrument of yourself and you misuse it, you are misrepresenting, even blaspheming, God.

You're saying things that are not true about Him. Friends, it's so interesting to look through this and see how to those speaking here it is clear that these judgments are deserved. Another interesting thing for our age to notice today All faiths are not good. We tend to use the word faith, especially in a place like Washington, D.C. as this generic token of goodness, faith or worship. And we somehow assume that our society is built on the fact of recognizing all of them to be of equal worth.

Let me just say, as a Christian, I think the Bible thoroughly rejects that idea. Now that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be rights accorded that are equal. That's a different question about how you work in a pluralistic society like our own. But as far as what is ultimately true, friends, it's clear here that the people who these judgments come on are worshipers. It says expressly that they worshiped, but they worshiped the wrong God.

They worshiped the beasts. And its image. Friends, they were worshiping the ones who were opposed to God, and misworshiping is as serious a sin as you can get.

So, my friend, the question for you here this morning is, how do you know you are worshiping the right God?

How have you become convinced of that? Maybe you're here and you're not sure. You're not very religious. You're here because it's Easter. You're here with a family member.

Then a good question for you to set out for yourself is, How can I know if there is a God and who is the right God for me to devote myself to? Those are good questions. Part of the irony of these first few bowls of judgment is that the elements that God gave to Man, as part of the very means of his living, now become a means of his destruction, of his judgment of them. Throughout these first verses in chapter 16, elsewhere we've seen it in Revelation, it seems like the Creator has now turned to de-creating. He's going to take apart this thing that he built.

Friend, we don't need to worry that God will make any mistake in the way he does this. He knows exactly what he's doing. And what he calls us to do is to repent and to trust him, which brings us to the rest of these. So worshiping him, worshiping him is part of what we want to do to be on the right path, to be prepared for the future. Keep worshiping the true God, the real God.

But what we see in the rest of the chapter is the seriousness of the sins that are being committed. Let's go on and read the rest of the chapter.

Revelations, chapter 16, verse 8. The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire. They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give Him glory. 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 anguish and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and the sores. They did not repent of their deeds. The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates and its water was dried up to prepare the way of 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 demonic spirits performing signs who go abroad to the kings of the whole world to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.

Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed. And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Harmageddon. The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying, 'It is done. And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake, such as there never has been since man was on the earth, so great was that earthquake.

The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of His wrath. And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found. In great hail stones, about 100 pounds each, fell from heaven on people, and they cursed God for the plague of hail because the plague was so severe. Friend, if you look in this passage in verses 9 and 11 and 16, 21, really our lesson.

We should do what they didn't do. We should repent. What they did not do. You see that? They did not repent.

They did not give glory to God. Instead, they cursed the God of heaven. What they should do, they did not. Give glory to God. What they should not do, curse God, they did.

And if neither of these nor whatever their earlier sins were, like worshiping the beast and its image, Of none of them did they repent. Friends, because we are erring and rebelling children of Adam and Eve, we must begin our preparations for the future by repenting of our wrongs. We must begin our preparations for the future by repenting of our wrongs.

I wonder if you've entertained the illusion that God's punishment purges the sinner of their sins.

That doesn't seem like what is going on here. They kept refusing repentance. They kept refusing to glorify God. They continued to curse Him. Hell was not some kind of spiritual reformatory school.

No, the response of sinners here to punishment is simply to double down on cursing God.

The last two bowls are distinguished by their severity. You see that word there, the very end of chapter 16, that characterizes this plague of hail so severe. There's no mention in bowls six and seven of them not repenting, but six is organizing the nations in rebellion against God, so that's clearly not repenting. And seven, well friends, seven is just the last act. It's where all are judged.

The cities of the nations fall through this great earthquake, and then, lest you think any individual might escape, verse 21, the personalized hailstones would take care of any individual who may not have repented. Throughout this passage we see the severity of the trial this final day will be represented in so many different ways. Plagues and sores and blood and death and scorching and searing intense heat and darkness and agony and pain and war and shame and lightning and earthquakes and hail. You see that explicit reference to God's wrath there in verse 19.

Consider that carefully. The God of the universe, our Creator and Judge, being wrathful. And if that were not enough, His wrath is pictured here as wine in a cup, and that it means to be drunk by the object of God's wrath. And note how that wrath is described here, the fury of His wrath. The cup we see is filled with His furious wrath.

The cup of the wine of the fury of His wrath, it will be drained. Oh, my friend, if you are not here as a Christian, then I would just ask you, what is your plan to take care of what your sins have brought about in your Creator? God is wrathful here because of the sins of people. Why should God not give to you a cup of His wrath upon the day when you're brought before Him to be judged? As I read this passage, I can only think of that even worst of the suffering that we've seen in this world seems diffused and diluted and passing compared to the suffering that's depicted here.

As we've noted before, you do no one any favor by trying to make God's judgment seem less than it is. In our congregation, in our hymns and songs, in our Scripture readings and sermons, we try to be honest about the terror that is God's judgment. Doesn't the Bible, even in our age of overstimulated imaginations, still bring about awe?

These things we're reading of here are not matters that you hear about every day in every setting. They're not things you think of all the time. Christ Himself is the judge who will pronounce, He told us Himself in His own words, that final statement, Depart from Me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Surely our responses as we see God's holiness displayed would be like the response of Moses just to hide, or Isaiah, or the elders in Revelation who fall on their faces, or Job, who simply at the end of it all says, My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.

Friends, the threat of God's judgment may bring conversions.

But God's judgment itself brings only condemnation. We see here that those under God's wrath finally will not repent and glorify God, but curse Him and refuse to repent. And this is in contrast with what we've seen earlier in the book when less complete judgments happened. Back in chapter 11, God's partial judgment brought about different results, terror and God's glory. But here none of them who are convicted and punished glorify God.

Dear friends, what we are to learn from this is that even as worrying does not give us wisdom and pain does not by itself bring prudence, so our own suffering, as bad as it may be, can never cleanse us from sin.

That's not the point of suffering in our lives. Here we see that even as the delivered praised God, so the condemned cursed Him as they suffered. And so we see something of the continuing cycle of sin and rebellion and judgment, repeating on and on. People sometimes wonder why hell is eternal. Could it have something to do with the fact that people are eternally sinning, are eternally rejecting God and His right rule?

We think of mercy itself as good, but it really depends on when and how it's exercised, and upon whom and by whom. God will one day say enough, and until that time we will experience trials and troubles and even calamities and tragedies, and they may be used by God to turn us from serving ourselves and relying on ourselves to trusting in Christ alone. For our salvation. But there will come a day when that offer is done and when the day of grace is over and the day for displaying God's justice has come. And Revelation 16 shows us that day.

This is why, my friend, if you're here and you're not a Christian, you can be delighted that we are not finally and fully in this chapter of Revelation 16.

As much as some things that happen in our world may be explained by some of these bowls, this is a good day to stop fleeing from God and start fleeing to God. He has given you this day. He has given it to all of us to hear this truth about what it means to be saved. You don't come here today in church because you are worthy to be in God's presence. None of us are.

We come only as those made in God's image, yes. All who do good things, yes. All of whom are sinful, yes. All of whom deserve God's judgment. Our only hope is what God has done for us in Christ.

It's in Jesus Christ who lived a perfect life, who died on the cross, a death in the place of all of us who would trust in him, that we come and we can sing hymns of joy knowing that Christ's righteousness is counted ours by faith if we trust in Him alone. Friend, stop wasting days of your life trusting in your own goodness. Turn to Christ. Look and see what it would mean for you to repent of your sins. Find God before He comes and finds you as your judge.

Brothers and sisters, if this is the case, we should think carefully about what we will fill our days and our hearts and our minds with. What have you spent your last week on? Who are all the people you have not shared the gospel with that when this day comes, you may wish you had told them about the good news of Jesus Christ. We prepare ourselves for the future by repenting ourselves and by calling others to repent. One more clear direction.

Maybe the point of this whole chapter is verse 15. It's for the faithful. Keep waiting on Christ. Do you see that little insertion there? Verse 16, Behold, I am coming like a thief.

Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed. So this is that teaching that Jesus gave during the last week of His earthly incarnation when He told His disciples, Stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. Well here he is in Revelation chapter 16 speaking to his disciple John again, giving him motives for staying awake, for living in the knowledge of Christ's soon coming again and with him the coming of God's judgment. And through this old disciple John, Jesus is repeating his message to later followers: Stay awake, stay alert, keep waiting. What an interesting command.

So just to be clear, if you look at all of Revelation 16 and all of its very interesting things, so this is the only chapter in the Bible where the Battle of Armageddon is mentioned. And if you noticed, I've said nothing about it. It's incredibly unimportant compared to this keep waiting, keep awake. This is the point. Verse 15 is what's going on in this chapter.

This is what So, John is being shown all of these bowls in order to encourage us in this. We are to keep waiting. You look back in chapter 3 of Revelation, if you turn back a few pages, chapter 3, the beginning of chapter 3. This is how he exhorts the church at Sardis. He says, Revelation chapter 3, and to the angel of the church in Sardis write, the words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, I know your You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.

Wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die. For I have not found your works complete in the sight of God. Remember then what you received and heard. Keep it and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.

Yet you still have a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments. They will walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot out his name from the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Staying awake is tough work. That's why homeowners buy security systems or pay for guards. That's why ancient cities had watchmen specifically posted on the walls overnight. As I've gotten older, I've appreciated even more how hard it is to stay awake. Many of you when I'm not preaching will enjoy occasional sounds from me.

It's hard work to stay awake. But friends, it's a good image from our common human experience about what we have to work to do if we're gonna follow God, if we're gonna continue to repent of our sins and trust him. This is the third blessing that's pointed out in the book of Revelation. In chapter one, there is a blessing promise on all who hear and keep the words of the book. A second blessing was given out in chapter 14 on those who die in the Lord.

Now this is the third blessing, this time on those who stay awake. That is spiritually in the sense of looking for the coming of the day of the Lord and the return of Christ. Now this doesn't mean we need to try to figure out the date of Christ's return. No, Jesus is saying to stay spiritually awake, to be praying regularly, you, Kingdom come, to encourage each other. With instructions that Christ has given us to help each other, to consider how we can stir one another up to love and good deeds.

We're to be those who are waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. We're to be like those who pray a few chapters on in Revelation, Come, Lord Jesus. This is to be us. The true Christian lives watching, going about exactly what his Master commanded him to do. Whereas Fake Christians simply don't watch.

They just sleep. They just ignore him, including his master's instructions, showing himself to be no true servant. Friends, being spiritually awake is faithfully serving the Lord, as Jesus said with each with his assigned task. So we Christians are Christ's disciples. We're his servants and his slaves.

For us the challenge maybe how long it's been since Jesus gave this instruction to John. Therefore we have to keep staying awake. But then watchfulness is part of his plans. Did you notice how God gave his promises to his people Israel in the Old Testament over centuries and yet none of them are false.

The time that it took might tempt them to think, oh, he's not really going to keep his word. Ah, but he did that deliberately, I think. Because he knew he would be faithful. And he was allowing us to be tempted to think he wasn't, but he was all the time. He would always keep them at just the right time.

Friends, that's what God is like. He makes his promises to us and he keeps them. He keeps all of them. But some of them, he doesn't keep them in what we would consider timely fashion. But he knows exactly what he's doing in order to build our faith and trust in him.

We are to live watchfully as if Christ were coming back as if we could be at any time in such a way that we cannot assume he won't come back tomorrow or even today. So we're called to watch in the sense of being vigilant and faithful, always to be ready for the end by the way we live today with the end in view. So brothers and sisters, that's my big question for you from Revelation 16. It's not figuring out what's the great city, it's Babylon. Well, what's Babylon?

It's just the world system. We'll see that in the next chapter. It's not figuring out lots of little details that you're gonna wanna ask me about at the door. Uh, and I'm, I'm, I'm not in a hurry. I'm happy to stay here and answer your questions as best I can.

But the point of it all is for you to stay awake, to stay ready. It's there in verse 15 because we do have a savior who's coming back for his own.

Talk with your friends over lunch today. Talk with your small group this week about how your last week reflected you being spiritually awake or not.

You're never gonna get back last week. That's done. Hey, but you've got a week coming up. Spend it as if God really existed. As if Christ is who he said he is.

As if he's coming back. As if all of his values are correct and what he's taught you is right. See what that would mean and strategize for staying awake spiritually this week. Do you know how easy it's gonna be for most of you to stay awake spiritually this coming week? It will not be easy at all.

If I knew the circumstances in all your lives, I could just start naming, I could call out an individual and start saying, you got this coming up on Tuesday, you're worried about that on Thursday, you've had this going on for quite a while now, you know, but thank God he's not giving me that gift of prophecy. But you understand that in this fallen world there are challenges, which is why Jesus would have to give a command like stay awake, which is why he would have to repeat it like he does, which is why we have to give such attention to keep waiting for Christ.

So how can we be prepared for the future? We can keep worshiping God like we see the response of the angels is, these first three bowls. We can keep repenting, which is what the people don't in that fourth and fifth bowl, and certainly don't in that sixth and seventh bowl. We can keep repenting for our sins, and we can keep waiting for Christ. That's the shape of the true Christian's life.

To keep on worshiping God, to keep on repenting of our sins, and to keep on waiting on Christ. When you understand who Jesus is, his death may be more surprising than his resurrection.

We celebrate a resurrection every Sunday. People around the world think of his resurrection, especially on Easter. But friends, when we know that Jesus is the Son of God incarnate, how surprised can we be? Obviously the women were surprised, it was a surprising thing, the disciples were surprised. But once we take that all in theologically, the really surprising thing is that he got there on the cross and he died.

That's the shocking thing. How could the second person of the Trinity, incarnate Son of God, die? It's the extreme measure God went to in order to account for the sins of his people, in order to love us as he has. Jesus himself understood the extremity. That last night in the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.

Remove this cup from me. The cup of God's wrath, the fury of his wrath that Babylon will drink. Yet not what I will, but what you will. And so the Son submitted to his Father's will and drank the cup of the fury of God's wrath. Against all those who would ever come to take Christ as their Savior and Lord.

In showing us something of the extent of human sin, God's wrath in Revelation 16 shows us something of the depth of His love, of what Christ bore on Calvary. He, the spotless Lamb of God, was substituting for us. This was the death that He died and that He rose from. Paul explained it to the men of Athens in Acts 17. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent, because He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed, and of this He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead.

Friends, it's the resurrection of Jesus Christ that really acts as a seal to us that all we read in Revelation 16 is true.

Do you have any questions about whether Jesus was raised from the dead? Pursue those today. You've still got most of the day left. What better thing to do with an Easter than to figure out whether or not Jesus got up from the dead? A spoiler, he did.

There would just not be groups of people like this all around the world if he didn't. And if you think that's an extreme claim or an ignorant claim, we've got a number of copies of Val Grieve's book, you, Verdict on the Empty Tomb. Late British lawyer wrote this short little book in which he does a great job just marshaling facts. So he begins saying, listen, my proof of evidence, I say that history tells us three facts about Jesus Christ. Namely, one, he's a historical figure.

Who lived nearly 2,000 years ago. Two, he was crucified on a cross and died. And three, after his body had been buried, his tomb was found to be empty three days later. From that moment onwards, the early Christians claimed that Jesus had risen from the dead. He works from those three facts to try to help you, the reader, reason to understand that Jesus was raised from the dead by God.

So friends, if you'd like a copy of this, we have this as a gift from us to you. Just speak to any of the folks at the doors on the way out afterwards. As you think about this question more. What is it Paul wrote to the Romans in Romans 10? If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

One Sunday morning the fiery young Scottish preacher Robert Murray M'Cheyne, whose hymns we still sing, said to his congregation, Changes are coming. Every eye before me shall soon be dim in death.

Another pastor shall feed this flock. Another singer lead the psalm. Another flock shall fill this fold.

Two months later, the young 29-year-old minister contracted typhus and died. He was more right than he knew when he was saying those words. To prepare for that accounting we must all give, we must be saved. How? How?

By virtue of our own obedience? No. But by the simple confession that Jesus is Lord. That's a confession that you could make now. Will you come to the faith in Him who has died for everyone who will trust Him, for sinners like you?

Let's pray.

Lord God, we thank youk for the way youy have not caused youd goodness to go awry. Lord, how youw've done nothing wrong or unpraiseworthy. We give youe praise that yout are committed to the right. You're committed to youo own holiness and goodness. Lord God, thank youk for not letting us pervert or distort yout creation finally.

Lord, thank youk for cleaning up after us. Thank youk for loving us. Thank youk for providing a way that yout could be both just and also the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. O Lord, give gifts of repentance and faith, we pray, for our good and youd glory. In Jesus' name, Amen.