The Bowls Judgments

HUDDLE— PK

INFORMAL START— ANDREA SWISHER

CLOSING HOST— CHRIS CANALE

DEVELOP TEAM— CHRIS CANALE

WORSHIP LEADER— ANDREA SWISHER

WHAT THEY NEED TO GO HOME HAVING DISCOVERED:

<<KEYS BEGINNING>>

Total relief. It’s over. IT IS FINISHED!

The most hopeful expression of the goodness of God comes when we understand that one day all this will be finished, but it is exemplified in the fact that on the cross it was all completed.

When Jesus said it is finished, the wrath of God was satisfied, the salvation of God was established and the choice of humanity was declared. From that point forward, all of humanity was given the choice to believe in the goodness and completeness of God or to reject it.

For so many today the astounding reality is that they have made a choice. They have come to the realization that they don’t need God or that they don’t care. They’ve declared that he is less than what they need and want and they have given into the wrath of God.

The longsuffering and patient endurance of God is what is currently at play. God is endlessly patient with us as he allows the movement of church to encompass the globe and seek to connect with all of humanity about the love of the Lord and the fullness of the his salvation.

But the retaliation of the dragon is always fervently at play here.

Knowing he’s been defeated and knowing what is contained in his future, he seek to wreck havoc on all of humanity. His enemy is the population of Christ followers, but any breathing person will also do. Why? Because they were all made in the image of the creator.

What do we do with this?

We determine toward holiness. He declare sin dead in our lives and we live by the relentless power of the Spirit of God day after day.

INTRO- ME/WE: (a) The misconstrued element of God’s wrath.

The completeness of wrath and the guilty nature of all humanity.

We have desensitized ourselves to the point of not being guilty of anything. We’ve so steeped in the culture of acceptance that it’s become more and more difficult to see ourselves as sinners.

You can only accept the grace of God when you recognize your need of a Savior. Until that spot, you are convinced of your own perfection.

We must must must must must (5 musts) realize that until we see our own sin, we are under the wrath of God.

And you might think that awful.

You might think that’s no fair. No, not at all. What’s not fair is that the enemy retaliates in such crafty and creative ways to distract you and get you off track. To blind you to the truth of the gospel and the goodness of the Savior. That’s what’s not fair.!

Pray with me right now. I want you to repeat these words - God i need to see clearly. No more obscurity. No more distraction. I need clarity so I can see the full nature of my own sin, but so I can also see the completeness of your grace.

I want to see it God!

What’s happening at this stage of the conversation is that John is recording what he is being given and guided into. Remember he is unveiling this for readers as he sees it rather than as it.

We’ve got to remember that what we are reading and seeing through Revelation is the revealing of the nature of God. We’re seeing the deep love of God through the expression of this wrath. WHAT’S THAT MEAN?

It means that everything we have seen and studied about the goodness of God is true. If God was indifferent there would be no wrath and his love would feel half-hearted.

The pervasive, seemingly excessive nature of his wrath also shows us the tremendous dynamic extent of his love.

We also know through John’s writing that what we encounter in Revelation is symbolism rather than actual.

We must be cautious that we don’t take this figuratively. To do that, is to be totally confused about what is actually happening.

That’s why there are thousands of media portrayals of what the end times will be. Don’t be confused by what that is.

The reality is that we have been living in the “end times” since the resurrection of Christ. Ultimately we need to stop trying to figure out the times of when we think this might go down and start living as if it’s a real thing.

Are we actually going to see a dragon? No. But he’s like a dragon in his nature.

Are there actually beasts rising up out of the sea with multiple heads and horns and eyes? NO. Don’t be absurd. Mostly because the sea is symbolic for the events of the earth. When you go do the sea, what can you see? You can’t see anything!

Do you get it! He’s saying that it will come from a place you did not expect. It won’t be visible right up until it’s totally visible.

It’s like a whale cresting out of the ocean right next to a kayaker. - Video.. Total obscurity and then wham, it appears. We need to be sensitive to this because if we are looking for the actual instead of looking for the appearance, we too will be deceived and confused.

Eyes on Jesus, off everything else. – Nothing really shakes you when you keep your focused fixed on the Lord. Psalm 18:29- With my God I can…

Constant in prayer, God guide me, show me, give me clarity, understanding, discernment.

It’s somewhat strange how John sought to roll all this together. The content of what is delivered in Rev 15, actually begins in Rev 6.

In Rev 6. John begins to describe what he was given with the 7 seals. And one by one those seals were sliced through and a response happened. It was a cause and effect situation that was unveiling. We had the prayerful petition from the angel and a heavenly response that followed it.

Then we seem to take this long break. A lot of content is going to happen. We’re looking through the windows of this unveiling and John is seeing so much go down.

Rev 7:9- After this i looked, and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, SALVATION BELONGS TO OUR GOD WHO SITS ON THE THRONE AND TO THE LAMB!

And all the fanfare and celebration that would erupt following that. I can just imagine how that would go down and the tremendous celebration that would become of people.

(B) The nature of a repeating cycle. Again and again and again. The recapitulation of this story is what is happening over and over again. Because of our preconceived filter, we tend to miss this point. We end up thinking this happens, then this happens, then this happens and so we are looking for things that are not happening. When we see these three groups of displays of the wrath of God written, we are therefore looking for completeness of wrath, but if you look close that’s not what you see.

You need to look at the alignment of them. It’s as though John is recapturing the completeness, the severity of the fullness of God in three different ways.

In Rev 8:1 - Silence heaven, worship, finished!

Rev 11:15-19 Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” 16 And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God, 17 saying, “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was, for you have taken your great power and begun to reign. 18 The nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.”

19 Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.

Rev16:17- 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!”

But it’s not done! It just continues.

So what actually are we witnessing here. Trying to show you something at a deeper place.

Trumpet 1- effects the earth.

Bowl 1- Effects life on earth

2- the sea

3- Rivers

4- Sun

5- Pit of evil

6- Euphrates

7-

What we’re seeing in these bowls of wrath, we’ve already seen before, it’s just perspective. It’s not that there are 21 (7*3) instances of the wrath of God being unveiled. Remember everything here has meaning and significance and value. 7 = perfection. 3 = complete. The wrath of God is completely perfect. His intentions are fully thought through, function and necessary.

As we come to this passage in Rev 16 containing the bowls of God’s wrath, please remember and understand that we are not talking actually, but figuratively. There’s not actually an angel or 7 angels in heaven dumping out some dirty dishes soiled with something spicy. Not this is a figurative language that demonstrates the completeness of God’s passionate pursuit of humanity to recognize his goodness.

Look at this - Darrell Johnson says it this way. “The pouring out of the bowls is, therefore, the outworking of the natural consequences of violating God’s moral law.

When we violate God’s law we violate ourselves, we go against reality. We end up ruining ourselves and creation around us.

Theologian, T.F. Torrance explains it this way, “The wrath which the angels are about to pour out upon the earth is a pure and sinless wrath, priestly in its function and golden in its integrity. No bestial passion, no spite, no hate, no anger of sin at all in it.

He makes a comment here that takes us full circle and unless we are fully up to speed on the content of the bible, we miss it completely.

Rev 15:5- ​​After this I looked, and the sanctuary of the tent of witness in heaven was opened, 6 and out of the sanctuary came the seven angels with the seven plagues, clothed in pure, bright linen, with golden sashes around their chests.

Knowing your bible leads you all the way back to the book of Numbers and the period of the Exodus. I said last Sunday during our vision day that the picture of the Exodus and the promised land is also a picture of the pursuit of Eternity and heaven. Our Promised Land is heaven and we will be given perfect peace and rest once we get there. Keep your eyes fixed on that.

In Numbers 1:50 - But appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of the testimony, and over all its furnishings, and over all that belongs to it. They are to carry the tabernacle and all its furnishings, and they shall take care of it and shall camp around the tabernacle.

This is the same place. sanctuary of the tent of witness is the tabernacle of the testimony

This is the place where the establishment of God’s moral law was communicated and ratified. This is the place where God notified his people how he demanded our character fleshed out in our existence obey him perfectly.

But that was never possible was it?

No, not ever.

So we come to this place with the trumpets, the seals, the bowls and we are given this glimpse of the completeness of God’s demand toward holiness, something that we would never be able to attain. And so what?

Jesus is what.

Jesus would come and resolve the problem of humanity by appeasing the wrath of God by putting himself between God and us and take on the entirety of the wrath so we could have life. It was the plan, it was a perfect plan and it was resolved completely.

NOW, we live in a place where we do everything we can to help others see the goodness of God and the reality of his wrath.

I’ve already said this before, but we need to experience it again.

The wrath of God is real and just.

We tend to think the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. But that’s because our view point is not from the place where God is communicating it.

Lets to back to the sanctuary of the tent of witness.

John says, that he’s about to see the revealing of the bowls from the sanctuary.

What happens in the sanctuary? Nothing but holiness.

When the tabernacle was establish, it was created with two spaces, outside and inside. There you go. Genius.

Inside was known as the holy of holies and no one was allowed to enter there save one single person who had dedicated his whole life to the service of the Lord’s temple. They would go in one time and offer the sacrifice for the people, they would advocate for the sins of humanity and temporarily appease the wrath of God by obeying his commands.

It’s from this place that we are given this glimpse of the justice of God. From the place of holiness. We seem to think sometimes that God is this irate teenager or toddler who is on a tirade of destruction and nothing can calm him down except the blood of a perfect lamb. Um gross weird and strange.

No you see when you are discussing the creator, you also must encouraged the method and manner in which he rules. He says we must obey but when we don’t we need to do this…

So why do we think it needs to be any different?

When we talk about the punishment fitting the crime, we also must understand what we are comparing. We’re not comparing two people and their different various sins, we are comparing our sin against the holiness of God. And when you line yourself up next to the perfection of the Father you can instantly see the devastation.

God is unveiling this content of wrath through the bowls poured out from the place of holiness so that we can see our own vast depravity against the striking white perfection of his goodness.

Crystal picking out whites for our house.

We’ll pick up from here where we left off last time, I mentioned you Romans 1:18- For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth."

IN that moment I used that phrasing, suppress the truth, to reflect the statement of the culture that denies the truthfulness, the holiness of God.

But the other reality is that we too can suppress the truth of God with our own lifestyles. This is the place we go when we deny the word of God in our lives and live for the dragon when it’s convenient or we become indifferent.

This is the place of our lives where we drowned our life in insignificant decisions that corrupt our thinking and shallow our sorrows rather than living for the Lord day after day.

This is the place where we get and become addicted to think that shopping and affirmations on FB, insta, or whatever your favorite platform may become. You sink your life into the throws of abuse with alcohol declaring that you’ve got a handle on it and that it's no big deal. Or that you’re tied into the tensions of porn for your whole existence and to you it’s someone else's fault.

You need to see the strategy of the enemy when he comes at you with these things.

His effort, tactic and goal is to get you to corrupt yourself against the holiness of God because in that, he can corner you with guilt that you will never be good enough, so what do you need to do but dive farther into that cycle of sinful mentality and distance yourself form the love and grace of almighty God.

When your stuck in this place of destruction, now he can control you with fear because he wants to tell you that God doesn’t yet know of your sin but once he finds out, oh he gonna be mad and so you need to hide. Hide yourself from this church, from his people and from this truth.

And yet the grace of God that is poured through the conviction of the Spirit say, come here, I know you. I see you. I yearn for you and your freedom and rest. I know you’re beat up, broken, abandoned and defeated, just come to me, I’ll take care of it.

The wrath of God is revealed against ungodliness and unrighteousness who believe the lie of the devil and suppress the truthfulness of the lovingkindness of the Lord.

No one is under the wrath of God except those who choose to be.

John 3:16-17

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

<<Keys beginning>>

The wrath of God will be finished

Rev 15:1-

Rev 16:17-

John 19:28-

If you could ever get to the place where you fully grasp the grace of God and know that he is