Who Will Not Fear...?
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Introduction
Introduction
Your feet are sore, and you can feel a sunburn on the back of your neck, but you don’t care. The most incredible thing you have ever witnessed in your life just took place.
Tell the story of crossing the Red Sea.
As the Israelites start to come to grips with what has just taken place, Moses begins to lead the people in a new song. In fact, this is the first recorded song in the Bible.
Read Exodus 15:1-18
This is how the people of God rejoiced in His deliverance at a time that would become the single most important picture of the Gospel until the coming of Jesus. As God often delights to do, this experience from the past is going to be referenced again in the future. But to see that, we need to turn to Revelation 15 and continue in our study.
The Righteous Can Exult (1-4)
The Righteous Can Exult (1-4)
The Third Sign (1)
The Third Sign (1)
Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous,
This is the third sign we have seen in the book of Revelation. The first was the woman seated in heaven (Revelation 12:1), and the second was the great red dragon who attacked her (Revelation 12:3).
This sign is described as great and marvelous. It is hard to imagine topping the previous two signs, but this sign points to something even more significant than the previous two. Whereas the woman and the dragon depicted the ages-long struggle between the people of God and Satan, this sign signifies the end of that struggle.
…seven angels who had seven plagues, which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished.
The sign consisted of seven angels with seven plagues. We think of plagues as great diseases and epidemics, but the original word simply means a “blow” or a “wound.” These angels hold the final seven “blows” that God will deal to the beast in delivering his mortal “wound.” After these, there will be no more judgments because the wrath of God will be finished. We will see later a very short rebellion in the Millennial kingdom, but that will be overthrown immediately as a prelude to the Great White Throne judgment. This is the end of the cycles of God’s wrath whereby He demonstrates His holiness and fulfills His promises to His people through the complete destruction of this world’s wicked system.
The word of wrath is a very strong one, describing not a slow burning anger, but a rage or passionate outburst. God has patiently waited and withheld the judgment this world so richly deserves while His gospel goes throughout the earth, but the time for patience is now over, and these final judgments come as a burst of intense heat.
“Therefore wait for Me,” declares the LORD,
“For the day when I rise up as a witness.
Indeed, My decision is to gather nations,
To assemble kingdoms,
To pour out on them My indignation,
All My burning anger;
For all the earth will be devoured
By the fire of My zeal.
Applications:
Remember that the wrath of God won’t delay forever, and take heart
Just like John, we should be struck with how great and marvelous these visions are - don’t become jaded
Do you ever get discouraged because it seems like God just never gets around to fixing everything wrong in your world? How should this passage encourage us?
What about our look at Revelation so far has impressed you the most?
An Ancient Song
An Ancient Song
And I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with fire,
What we see here is a location that various prophets have glimpsed throughout the history of man. It is a sacred place and a beautiful one.
It was glimpsed by Moses.
and they saw the God of Israel; and under His feet there appeared to be a pavement of sapphire, as clear as the sky itself.
It was viewed by Ezekiel.
Now over the heads of the living beings there was something like an expanse, like the awesome gleam of crystal, spread out over their heads.
And it was seen previously by John himself.
and before the throne there was something like a sea of glass, like crystal; and in the center and around the throne, four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind.
What is unique about this vision is that it includes a fiery color mixed throughout. The wrath of God is so intense that even the massive pedestal upon which His throne stands is taking on the color of fire.
…and those who had been victorious over the beast and his image and the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, holding harps of God.
But wait, who is this? Standing on this sea of fiery glass are those who have been victorious over the beast. Their victory is a total one. Notice that they have triumphed over (1) the beast, (2) his image, and (3) the number of his name. They have triumphed in their hearts, in their worship, and in their interactions with the culture. Now they stand with God, on His wrath-tinged dias, armed with…harps?
Look at that! This isn’t the kind of rage we are used to seeing. This isn’t anger out of control. This is a wrath that is prepared, measured, and on time.
Visual Aid: Helicopter Clock
This is a situation where the proper response is singing! Notice also that the harps don’t belong to the saints, but that they are the harps of God. Imagine the scene where God sends and angel to get all of His harps from the harp closet and pass them out to the saints. “I’m about to wreak vengeance, final vengeance, upon the earth. But first, a song!”
What song are they going to sing? Well, we already looked at it!
And they sang the song of Moses, the bond-servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying...
New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update Chapter 15
3 And they sang the song of Moses, the bond-servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying,
“Great and marvelous are Your works,
O Lord God, the Almighty;
Righteous and true are Your ways,
King of the nations!
4 “Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name?
For You alone are holy;
For ALL THE NATIONS WILL COME AND WORSHIP BEFORE YOU,
FOR YOUR cRIGHTEOUS ACTS HAVE BEEN REVEALED.”
This song is a remix! It is a combination of two of the greatest hits of all time, the song of Moses, which is the first song in recorded Scripture, and the song of the Lamb, which features here in the last great song recorded in Scripture.
Both the first song and the last song in the Bible have a common theme:
The enemy is defeated;
The saints await the future;
The Lord is exalted.
(Exploring Revelation, John Philips, Chicago: Moody, 1987; quoted in Revelation 12-22 by John MacArthur)
This is the peace that comes with being a child of God. Remember, they are standing on the flame colored sea of glass that represents an outburst of wrath greater than the power of every super-nova this universe has ever seen combined, and they are singing! They aren’t the enemy, so they do not fear being treated as one. They are on God’s side, so there is nothing by glory to look forward to. They now see the Lord as He truly is, and they declare that He is the Almighty God, King of the nations!
Every line of this song is true for these saints and will be fulfilled, and every line of this song directly echoes promises in the Old Testament. God never changes, and therefore the hope of His people never changes.
The same can’t be said for those who remain on the earth, though.
Applications:
Don’t forget that even though Satan still moves about the earth, he is already defeated
Don’t let the intimidating pressures of life cloud your view of how mighty God is above and beyond all those things
Stop to remember all that you have to look forward to, especially if you are in the middle of a trial
What things in your life most easily discourage you or cause you to lose sight of the “big picture” of God’s plan for the world and you?
How would you explain your hope to someone who was feeling despair? What are you looking forward to specifically, and why?
The Unrighteous Can’t Escape (5-8)
The Unrighteous Can’t Escape (5-8)
After these things I looked, and the temple of the tabernacle of testimony in heaven was opened,
After these things introduces a new vision, as it has throughout Revelation (Revelation 4:1; 6:2, 5, 8; 7:9; 14:1; 19:11). We are moving away from the “sign” that we were looking at, and are returning to events as they unfold.
The word for temple here is a special one that refers not to the whole temple, but to the innermost sanctum - the holy of holies. This is where on earth the ark of the covenant was stored. The ark of the covenant is what stored the testimony of God to man, and it was where man could plead with God in prayer on behalf of that testimony. For this reason, the whole tabernacle was sometimes called the tabernacle of testimony because it’s purpose was to house the revelation of God to man. Here we see that the heavenly counterpart to the earthly temple is opened, and we peer right into the holy of holies where God abides.
…and the seven angels who had the seven plagues came out of the temple, clothed in linen, clean and bright, and girded around their chests with golden sashes.
The angels that we saw in the vision of the heavenly sign come trooping out from the opened temple of heaven. They are not looking sickly and “plague-ish,” but they are looking like you would expect servants of the Most High God to look - clothed in clean and bright linen as a symbol of their purity, and girded with golden sashes as a symbol of the royal authority they represent. The unfolding of God’s wrath here is not a dark and spooky affair, it is bright and bold.
Application:
Revelation is not just a revealing of the plot for the end of time, which it is, but it is also the revealing of God to us
Don’t go about dreary in life as a servant of God, have a royal aire about you
How should be a servant of God and representing Him in this world affect your “swagger,” the way you present yourself in public?
Then one the of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever.
To these seven angels the bowls of judgment are given by one of the great Seraphim who circle the throne of God. The bowls are the means by which their plagues will be carried out on the earth.
The word bowl is not the word of a deep dish that you might pour a steady stream from, it is the word for a shallow dish that you might heap with something and then fling it all down at once. Think of it more like God is serving up His justice on a silver platter. What is about to happen will be sudden, not a slow drip over time. Remember, God is bringing things to and end. This is the final push to total victory. The seriousness of what is going on is seen in how God now manifests His wrath visibly from the temple.
This underscores how important it is to fear God as we should. It is sad to me to see how often people rebel against the authority of God and of everyone else He has granted authority to.
Share story about Arlington Shooting.
There is a 17-year-old girl in critical condition tonight because she didn’t fear the authority of the police, and she didn’t fear the authority of the police because she didn’t fear the authority of God. Respecting the power of God is not something to put off or take likely. It could get you shot now, but it will get you destroyed later. We see another visual picture of how seriously God takes all of this in the last part of our passage.
And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from His power; and no one was able to enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished.
As the angels depart to carry out their mission, the temple suddenly fills with billowing smoke and glory. Even the heavenly atmosphere begins to react to the incredible power about to be unleashed. Even the angelic beings now must keep their distance because the glory of God and the smoke in His presence are impenetrable. From now until His Son comes down to earth, the temple of God will be masked from view and inaccessible as the wrath of God boils around the throne of God, a whirling column of smoke and glory, pulsing in fiery beams of light through the glassy sea beneath Him.
Do you want to see what happens next?
Application:
Leave vengeance up to God, don’t go about plotting and scheming for how to even the score
If you don’t already, fear God! The only thing more powerful and inescapable than His wrath is His grace in Jesus Christ.
Don’t be afraid to get excited about what God is doing in this world - He is telling us all about how things end so we can live in light of the awesome ending now!
When should we seek justice now, and when should we wait and trust the Lord to make everything right?
What is one thing you want to walk away with tonight to affect the way you live?