Prelude to the Bowl Judgments - Revelation 15:1-8

Welcome to God First with Brian C. Thomas, a program committed to encouraging you to put God first while viewing life through the window of the Bible.

Now, in honor of the one and only true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, let's join Brian C. Thomas for today's message. Well, this week we are continuing our series in the great book of Revelation, looking at the prelude to the bold judgment in Revelation chapter 15. And what we find is that this is actually the shortest chapter in the entire book, but we must not mistake the lack of size for lack of importance, because we're going to see three things here in this chapter. Number one, we're going to see that it concludes the events revealed in chapters 10 through 15 concerning visions in heaven or conditions on the earth to the middle of the tribulation period. Number two, it serves as an introduction to the great tribulation that is the latter half of the tribulation described in chapter 16, when the seven angels will pour out the bowls of God's wrath.

And then number three, it reveals important truths concerning the wrath of Almighty God. So before we go to the text, let us look to our Lord for a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord Jesus, for this day. We thank you, Lord, for your word. We ask that you would open our hearts and our minds to receive what it is you have for us in today's message. We pray, Lord, that all things are spoken, that it be nothing but sound doctrine. May you be honored and glorified in all things in your name, Jesus.

Amen. So turn your Bibles with me to Revelation chapter 15. And we're going to begin with verse one. Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous. Seven angels having the seven last plagues for in them, the wrath of God is complete.

We see that word another here. The apostle John is relating back to two signs that were revealed in chapter 12. The sign of the woman, which represented Israel and the red dragon representing Satan.

So here he's describing a third sign that he calls it great and marvelous, which indicates to me that this is the most significant of all the signs thus far. This is a sign revealing the final act of God's judgment upon the earth in this age. Thus, it has great spiritual significance. And we've seen God's judgment in history. We saw it at the Tower of Babel. We saw it at the flood in Noah's day. We saw it at Sodom and Gomorrah.

We saw it at Jerusalem in 70 A.D. And then the following dispersion for nearly 2000 years of the nation of Israel. So what we're going to see here is that God's final judgment of this age, the result of his wrath being filled up, is going to take place. Now, we also see the word sign there in verse one. That word sign is found 77 times in the New Testament. It is important, though, that we do not interpret sign to mean that Revelation is full of signs that are difficult for the average person to understand, because John used this term and related words in predicting our lowest death in John, chapter 12, verses 32 through 33. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself. This, he said, signifying by what death he would die.

That word signify has sign as the root word. So this was not a hidden sign, but a plain statement that Christ would be lifted up on the cross. We oftentimes will sing that song if I'm lifted up and we think about it as lifting up our Lord in praise.

And that is certainly something that we should always do. But this is talking about the fact that he would literally be lifted up on to the cross. And then we see this again in John 18, 32, that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spoke, signifying by what death he would die. And in John 21, 19, in reference to Christ's prophecy of Peter's death, this he spoke, signifying by what death he would glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he said to him, follow me. Our Lord Jesus referred to his own death, burial and resurrection as the sign of the prophet Jonah.

A period of three days and three nights, just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. So when we look at the book of Revelation, it is very important and it becomes so much more understandable when the word sign is recognized as a symbol of revelation. In Revelation one, three, it says, blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it for the time is near.

Revelation is a symbol of revelation, the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ and a special blessing is there for those who read and hear and keep the things which are written in it. And what we're going to see in chapter 16 is that the sign of the seven angels that are going to result in the literal judgment from God upon the earth as his wrath becomes complete, bringing the tribulation period to a close. And that is why we see seven angels. That is why we see seven last plagues. They represent the completeness of God's wrath for seven is the number of perfection. Seven is the number of completion.

It is the number of God. And then in verse two, and I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God. This is likely the same sea in Revelation four, six before the throne, there was a sea of glass like crystal.

And in the midst of the throne and around the throne were four living creatures full of eyes in front and in back. Now, if you've ever looked out on a lake on a calm day when there's no wind at all, the sun is hitting it just right. It really looks like a sheet of glass. And we see that it's not disturbed by the wind.

It's not being disturbed by storms. And that is what we see here. We see the conveyance of stability in this very well could represent the word of God. What we see in scripture is that the sea of glass in Solomon's temple represented the word of God. And we oftentimes see in scripture as well.

The the term sea refers to people. And then we see here that there is fire mingled with this sea of glass. This very well may indicate the trials of fire that were endured by the tribulation saints. We see here believers in Christ that have rejected the antichrist. It's important to understand that these are tribulation saints, not church age saints. The church age saints were raptured before the tribulation. But what we see here are those who came to know and accept Jesus Christ after the rapture.

Those who were not born again but became saved during the tribulation to know our Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. And many commentators believe that these people are are standing here on this sea of glass because they have been martyred by the beast, by the antichrist for their faith in Jesus Christ. And it may appear to those on the earth during this time and to the antichrist that he is victorious because he's killing them. But what he is doing is actually sending them into eternal life. First Corinthians 15, 55 through 57 says, Oh, death, where is your sting? Oh, Hades, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have to keep perspective when we think about our lives. We have to be eternally minded.

That is something that I am always stressing. And as I mentioned before, I was talking to a friend of mine not too long ago who was a pastor. And he mentioned that this covid 19 pandemic has revealed how many people even within the church fear death.

And I agree with him because you see such irrational thinking, such irrational behavior, where people are looking at it as saving their earthly life is the most important thing there is. The folks we were made to live for eternity. And when we leave this earth, we are going to be in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are going to inherit eternal life. That is for those of us who have received him as Lord and Savior. So we should not fear covid or anything else that could bring about death because we have eternity waiting for us in the presence of our great and almighty Lord. And so these tribulation saints here are going to receive the martyr's crown.

We see it referenced in James Chapter one, verse 12. Blessed is the man who endures temptation for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him. Revelation 2 10. Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested.

And you will have tribulation 10 days. Be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life. So these tribulation saints are going to receive the crown of life and they're going to receive special positions during the millennial kingdom and likely for eternity. And we see that they are playing harps, which is often referred to as the instrument of heaven. And then in verses three and four, they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God Almighty.

Just and true are your ways, O king of the saints, who shall not fear you, O Lord, and glorify your name. For you alone are holy, for all nations shall come and worship before you, for your judgments have been manifested. Now, the fact that they are singing the song of Moses does not mean that these are Israelites.

There very well may be some Jews included in this group, but they are singing the song of victory, the song of victory that the Hebrew saying in the book of Exodus, chapter 15, when the Hebrew slaves rejoiced, went out of the clutches of Pharaoh and the parting and collapsing of the Red Sea. So likewise, these tribulation saints, they're rejoicing when they are out of the clutches of the Antichrist. And the fact that these saints combine the song of Moses with the song of the Lamb can only mean one thing, that Jesus Christ is God Almighty. There is no doubt to the deity of Jesus Christ. He is God in the flesh, God the Son who became one of us so that we could have eternal life. And then we see in these verses here in Revelation 15, three and four, we see the characteristics that are attributed to our Lord. We see the creation indicated in the statement, great and marvelous are your works, Lord God Almighty. Then we see his justice, just and true are your ways. Then we see him as the object of worship. O king of the saints, who shall not fear you, O Lord, and glorify your name? And then we see his holiness, for you alone are holy. And then his omnipotence and eternity for all nations shall come and worship before you, for your judgments have been manifested. So we see all these great characteristics of our great and wonderful Lord. So we're going to take a break for a brief announcement, but don't go away. On the other side, we're going to come back looking more at the prelude to the bold judgments.

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Welcome back to the program. My name is Brian Thomas, and we are looking today at the prelude to the bold judgment of Revelation chapter 15. And before the break, we are looking at these great characteristics, these attributes of our great Lord. And when I see the phrase great and marvelous are your works, Lord God Almighty, so many things come to mind because our Lord has done so many great things. Our King Jesus created all things. He created the entire universe.

But when I look at our Lord God, I must say the greatest thing that he's ever done was when he chose to become one of us, when he chose to become a man and come to this earth to die for our sins so that we could have the opportunity for eternal life. You know, I had a. Incidents a few months ago that I want to share with you in which I decided to relocate my home study, my home office to a different room in the house so that things would flow better with the dynamics within our family. And the room that I chose is a room that is adjacent to the bonus room. The bonus room is where the kids spend the majority of their time and this adjacent room, though, it did not have a door. It simply had a doorway, an opening, but there was no way to close it off.

And so I wanted to be able to make the area private so so that I could focus and concentrate and block out the noise from the kids when I needed to. And I researched and debated different ways to go about closing off this room and I settled on barn doors. So I called up a barn door maker and requested a quote. And when he got the dimensions, he suggested that we use two doors because it's a very large space. So these had to be custom made. Standard door sizes would not fit because, again, it's a very wide space.

It's very tall. So he gave me the quote and we proceeded to go forward with the order. And a couple of weeks later, he sent an email to me to let me know that the doors were ready and that he would deliver them. And so he gave me a date and time in which he would drop them off. And I informed him that the time in which he chose my wife was actually given a virtual sermon for a women's conference. And she had asked that I would watch the kids and keep everything quiet in the house so that no noise was picked up during the virtual zoom sermon that she was delivering. And so I told him that I would not be able to to answer the door, but to just stand them on the front porch. And I would come out and get them later.

So when my wife was done that day, I did just that. I went out to the front porch to bring the doors in and I expected the doors to have some weight to them because I knew they were real wood. But as I went to lift the first door, the door did not budge. I mean, it was heavy.

It did not move at all. So I took a deep breath and I bent my knees and I got down low and I stood up and lifted the door. And again, let me tell you, this door was heavy.

I carried the door from the front porch around to the side door and into the house, into this room that I'm now making the study. And again, I was I was exhausted. These doors are heavy and I was I was huffing and puffing.

My heart is beating fast. And I was I had my hands on my knees and I was trying to catch my breath. And then I thought to myself, there's a second door that I have to go out and get. And so once I caught my breath to a to a degree, I went out to get the second door. And you know how when you you lift something heavy, you try to walk real fast so that you can hurry up and put it down to reach the destination. But you see, these doors are so big and bulky and heavy.

I couldn't take big steps. I'm taking these tiny little baby steps, but trying to go fast in order to get them into the house as I am buckling under the weight of these doors. And so with the second doors, I'm coming into the house.

I actually lost my balance. I sort of stumbled a bit and the door started leaning towards me as if it was actually going to come down on top of me. And thankfully, I was able to plant my leg and get enough leverage to keep the door upright. But I eventually got the second door into the house.

Now, I don't claim to be the strongest man in the world, but I don't think I'm a weakling either. And the guys that delivered the doors, it was two of them. But for me, carrying those doors from that short distance from the front porch to the side of the house and into the house, I did that on a Saturday. As of the following Wednesday, my muscles were still sore from carrying them just that short distance. So I stood the doors there and I was debating as to, OK, how am I now going to go about mounting these doors?

Because they're so big, they're so heavy. And I never actually mounted barn doors before. I was actually dreading it, I will admit, dreading the process because, again, I knew it was going to be a task. And so the doors stood there for over a month, for nearly two months. I was just putting it off and dreading it. So eventually I decided to contact a couple of contractors to see if they could actually install the doors for me. Because, again, I'm just thinking this this job is over my head and I want to make sure these heavy doors stay in place.

But neither of the contractors panned out. And so one day I decided, OK, I'm going to take the bull by the horns. I had some some free time.

I was on vacation between Christmas and the New Year. So I decided I'm going to take on the job and do it. So I began to put these header boards up.

And again, the length of these these header boards, seven and a half feet each. So I was having some problems doing it on my own, but through some starts and stops and trials and errors, I eventually got got it up. And so to make a long story short, I did eventually get everything installed. But as I got to the next to last step, which was to actually hang the doors and for anyone that's not familiar, the way these barn doors work is that you you you mount these rollers to the top of the doors. And then the doors actually roll on a track.

I had that done. And so I went and I lifted the barn doors up onto the track. And then to test them, I gently moved them from side to side. And then, you know, as I did that, I just chuckled to myself and I shook my head because I thought as heavy as those doors are, these doors weigh close to 200 pounds each.

But once I got them up on that track, I could with one finger open and close those doors. And as I stood there and I thought about our Lord Jesus. I thought about when Jesus was nailed to the cross. See, when our Lord was hung on the cross. Sin was hung there with him. The weight of sin was on our Lord Jesus. Sin from eternity past and into eternity present for all mankind. Everyone seeing who had ever lived or ever would live was placed upon our Lord Jesus. And as I thought about it, I thought to myself how amazing it is that the Lord took the weight of that sin and just like when I lifted those barn doors up and I could move them from side to side with so much ease. That is how it is with our Lord Jesus.

When we give our sin to him, when we become born again, when we accept him as Lord and Savior, because he already paid the price at Calvary by dying for our sins. He takes that burden upon himself. And so he gives us freedom.

We don't have that weight. But I thought about how many people are going through life and they're stumbling and they're buckling and some are even being crushed to the point of death under the weight of sin because they're trying to carry it themselves. And you see, folks, we can't carry sin. Jesus, though, has the power and the strength to do so.

So give your sin to our Lord. Let him carry that weight so that you can have freedom, so that you can have eternal life. But, you know, the most beautiful thing about it is our Lord did not stay on the cross. You see, he died, but he got up on the third day. And when he got up, he got up with all power.

He is now seated at the right hand of the Father. Jesus Christ is the way by which we inherit eternal life. He is the foundation that carries the weight of our sin.

And so as I think about those barn doors and how they're hanging on that track and how a transfer took place, you see, when I hung those doors there, the weight was transferred into the studs and down through the floor and through the floor into the foundation, and the foundation is carrying the weight of those doors. And our Lord Jesus Christ, when we give our lives to him, he takes on the weight of our sins and that foundation that is our Lord, he carries that weight for us. But you see, what's also beautiful about it is when we come to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, it doesn't mean we won't have to deal with sin anymore at all because Satan is still going to throw some things in your way. But when you're walking along and you look ahead and you see sin in front of you, all you have to do is just take one finger and move it to the side because, you see, you're not carrying the weight. It is our Lord. Jesus is carrying it for you.

And you can just walk right on by. And then you can turn and look back at that sin and you can say, thank you, Lord Jesus, for carrying my sin. Thank you for dying for me.

Thank you for taking that burden off my shoulders. And so great and marvelous is our Lord's work. That is why our Lord is worthy to be praised. That is why he is worthy of all the honor and all the glory, because he takes the weight of our sins. He died as the perfect sacrifice. And so I encourage everyone today, if you've never received him as Lord and Savior, do so today.

Give it all to Jesus Christ so that you can have freedom and not have to carry the weight. And the beautiful thing about it also is not only does our Lord carry the weight of sin, but when you are suffering through grief from the loss of a loved one, when you are suffering through sickness, give it to Jesus Christ. He'll give you a joy and peace, even in the midst of it, that surpasses all understanding, because our Lord can carry the weight. So as we look at verse five, after these things, I looked and behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was open. John sees the Holy of Holies. The temple is referenced 15 times in Revelation. It refers to either the temple in heaven or the absence of the temple in the New Jerusalem. Here it refers to the tabernacle and the Holy of Holies, where the ark of the testimony was kept. In the ark were tables of stone. Now, both the tabernacle and tables of stone were duplicates of originals in heaven. And so the testimony that emanates from the tabernacle is seen in the ark of the covenant. Our God always keeps his covenant with Israel and anyone who enters into a covenant relationship with him, including the church who entered the new covenant by the blood of Jesus Christ, because our Lord is true.

Our Lord is faithful to his word. And then as we move on to verse six and out of the temple came the seven angels, having the seven plays clothed in pure bright linen and having their chest girded with golden bands. This is the third time we see a group of seven angels at once. We saw seven angels, one each that were assigned to the seven churches in chapters two and three. Each of the seven angels were given trumpets in the trumpet judgments. And so these angels come out of the temple. So apparently they were given access to the presence of God.

The Old Testament, tabernacle and temple were patterns or symbols of this true heavenly temple. Now, if you remember in the earthly dwelling places of God, no person was permitted except the high priest once per year to enter into the Holy of Holies. And only then it was after meticulous preparation. And if you recall, that is why the high priest would wear bales on his robe. And that is why they would tie a rope around his his foot, because if he went in there and he was not properly prepared to be in the presence of God, he would die. And they couldn't go in to get him or else they would die as well.

So they would have to pull him out by the rope. So we see the importance of being in the presence of our Lord and what we see in verse seven. Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives forever and ever. So as each angel exits the temple, one of the four living creatures gives each a bowl full of the wrath of God. And the wrath of these bowls will be revealed in chapter 16. And then our final verse of the day, the temple was filled with smoke and the glory of God and from his power. And no one was able to enter the temple till the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed.

So the temple fills with smoke and no one is allowed to enter the temple until God's wrathful judgment is completed at the end of the tribulation. God is now dealing with mankind and judgment as opposed to mercy. So as we look at this brief chapter in Revelation, it opens and closes with the wrath of God.

It depicts the scene in heaven of God sending out his angels for judgment to perform his last act of bringing people to himself. So have you received our Lord Jesus today? If you have not, I encourage you to do so because you don't have to be here to face this wrath.

You can be taken away by way of the rapture because God says his wrath is not appointed to those who put their faith and trust in him. So I want to encourage you today, if you've never received him, just like I told you earlier about those barn doors, give it to Jesus Christ. Give your life to him.

Give him the scene. You know that you are buckling under the weight. You're buckling under the ways of the world and you don't have true peace and true happiness. Give it to Jesus Christ so that you may have true freedom and so that you may inherit eternal life. Well, we are all out of time for this week. I want to thank you for joining me. Please come back next week as we continue to encourage you to put God first while viewing life through the window of the Bible. Until then, remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Bless God's great nation of Israel. To the only wise God, be glory through Jesus Christ forever.

Amen. You've been listening to the Bible teacher, Brian C. Thomas, founder and president of God First. Brian and God First reserve all copyright protection under applicable law. Our copyright policy is available at our website, Godfirst.org. Until next time, remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Bless God's great nation of Israel and seek first the kingdom of God.