Sermon Tone Analysis

Brief Background

For those who are just joining us, we are working our way through the book of Revelation.

John the son of Zebedee was in exile on the isle of Patmos.

Yeshua was revealed to him there, and John was commanded to write to seven communities in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey).

Over the last two weeks we have discussed the first Six Bowls of Wrath, and today we will cover the seventh bowl and introduce the judgement of the Beast and Babylon.

Let’s go ahead and read, Rev. 16:17-17:2 .

Similarities of the Sevens

It would appear that Adonai likes to end with a bang!

In all of the sets of seven, the Seven Seals, the Seven Trumpets and the Seven Bowls we see that God ends with a climatic light show, thunder and earthquakes.

As a reminded, here are the Seventh Seal and Trumpet.

So to start with we see that thunder, lightning and earthquakes are all present, however they grow in magnitude each time.

The Trumpets include hail, and then the Bowls take the earthquakes and the hail to an extreme.

The Cup of God’s Wrath is Done!

When I first read this passage, it reminded me of Yeshua on the Cross.

John wrote in his eyewitness account, John 19:30

John was the only one of the male disciples to have seen this, as the rest had already fled away.

Yeshua was completing the work that He had been sent to do.

Earlier that day (or the night before), Yeshua had been praying to the Father, Luke 22:42

This cup that Yeshua refers to was the cup of Adonai’s fury against sin.

Yeshua drank it to its dregs so that we would not have to.

However if we refuse to trust in Yeshua and in what He has done for us, then we will be forced to drink the cup ourselves.

Jeremiah’s Perspective

This just judgement of Adonai is spoken of by Jeremiah in 25:15-38.

This whole passage applies to the Judgement we see in Revelation, so lets start with Jer.

25:15-17

Here we see Adonai commanding Jeremiah to take His judgements and to give them out to the nations to whom Adonai sends him.

Now we should pay careful attention which nations those are.

This is expounded on in the next few verses: Jer.

25:18-26

So while this prophesy certainly applies to “all the kingdom of the world which are on the face of the earth,” how much more does it apply to the nations that are listed?

When the Scripture says that judgement begins with the House of God, we are declaring that Adonai is even-handed in how he measures out that judgement.

We are saying that He is fair and just and right.

We see that Adonai starts by declaring the judgement that is coming against Judah and Jerusalem.

However just as Adonai has brought correction to Israel and Judah, so also he will bring correction to the nations.

Jer.

25:29

There is an old preacher saying that goes like this: “If Adonai does not bring judgement on America, then He will have to apologise to Sodom and Gomorrah.”

I think that we could reword that saying and apply it to us today by stating, “If Adonai does not bring judgement on Australia, then He will have to apologise to Judah and Jerusalem for the Babylonian Captivity.”

As we see in Revelation, there is a loud voice “out of the Temple from the throne” that is making a declaration of the completion of His judgement.

This is the same as the next few verses in Jeremiah 25:30-31

Jeremiah continues to declare that on the Day of Adonai, that a “great storm [will be] stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth,” and that the “slain on that day will be from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth.

They will not be lamented, gathered, or buried.”

Adonai continues to bring specific judgement on the leaders of those nations who come against Him

Specifics of the 7th Bowl

There are two unique attributes of the 7th bowl judgement, firstly the largest earthquake “since mankind has been on the earth,” and secondly enormous hail 1 roman talent each (about 100 lbs or 45 kg).

This earthquake causes the cities of nations to collapse and causes islands to sink.

We are talking about a huge tectonic shift that decimates the world.

For this reason I am not afraid of Global Warming causing the islands to sink and flooding the cities of the world, I fear that God is going to do this Himself.

There is not much explanation as to how He will accomplish this, but let’s just say that He plans on accomplishing His own Global Reset.

As for the hail, we need to remember that this is not the first time that hail has been specifically used to bring judgement.

We need to remember a story from the book of Joshua 10:8-11.

This is the time when Joshua asked Adonai to make the sun and moon to stand still in his battle against the five Amorite kings.

Here we have Adonai pausing the rotation of the earth, and individually targeting all of Israel’s enemies with massive stones.

More of the Amorites died from the hailstones than those that Israel killed.

Later on in the passage the author states that there was no day like this one before or after it, where Adonai listened to the voice of a man, and Adonai fought for Israel.

Adonai will have no difficulty accomplishing His word.

Sentencing of Babylon and the Beast

I wanted to end with the first 2 verses of Rev. 17, for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, we see that John directly connects this chapter to the 7th bowl, by telling us that one of the 7 angels who held those bowls has now come and provided him some explanation.

The second reason is this, the chapters and verses are not in the original language, and some people want to try to say that the “great city” that is split into 3 parts is Jerusalem and not Babylon.

It is true that Jerusalem is judged and is called “a great city” one time in Rev. 11:8 when the two prophets are killed.

However the surrounding context of the 7th Bowl is certainly the judgement of the world, and from this point on in the story Babylon, the capital city of the Beasts empire, is called “the great city” seven different times.

The next 2 chapters give us a detailed description of the judgement that has just been measured out in the 7 Bowls.

This also reminds us that although God has said “It is Done!” there are still some flow-on effects of that judgement.

Going back to our original example; when Yeshua said “It is finished!”

was that the end of the story?

Absolutely not!

It represented the completion of Adonai’s plan for dealing with sin, and the final atonement sacrifice, but for us, and for Yeshua Himself, it was just the beginning.

Three days later Yeshua rose from the dead.

The same is true here in Revelation.

While this statement of Adonai is the declaration of the completion of His wrath against the sinful wicked world and its ungodly leaders, in the big picture, the best is yet to come!

Application for Today

Last week we covered the warning of Yeshua in Rev. 16:15 ““Behold, I am coming like a thief!

How fortunate is the one who stays alert and keeps his clothes on, lest he walk around naked and they see his shamefulness.””

This is very similar to what Rav.

Sha’ul said in Rom.

13:11-14

From these two passages we are warned and encouraged to do several things:

Stay spiritually awake and alert

Put off the works of darkness

Put on the armour of light

Walk soberly without carousing and drunkenness

Walk holy without sexual promiscuity and sensuality

Walk in peace without strive and envy

Put on the Lord Yeshua our Messiah, He is our perfect provision