Revelation 16

1. Revelation 16 “The Seven Bowls of the Wrath of God”

2. Cycles of Seven

3. Cosmic Conflict theme (Rev. 12-14)

4. The 7 Bowls of God’s Wrath • “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.’” (Revelation 16:1)

5. (T) Trumpets and (B) Bowls: 1 and 2 • T: Hail, fire, and blood fall on the earth • B: The bowl is poured on the earth • T: A blazing mountain falls into the sea; 1/3 of the sea becomes blood, 1/3 of the sea creatures die • B: The sea turns to blood; Every living thing in them dies

6. (T) Trumpets and (B) Bowls: 3 and 4 • T: A blazing star falls on 1/3 of rivers and fountains • B: The bowl is poured rivers and fountains • T: 1/3 of sun, moon, and stars are struck: darkness • B: The bowl is poured on the sun, resulting in suffering

7. (T) Trumpets and (B) Bowls: 5 • T: Shaft of the bottomless pit is opened; sun and air are darkened with smoke; locusts torture people who are not protected by God’s seal • B: The bowl is poured out on the throne of the beast, plunging it into darkness. People “gnawed their tongues in agony.”

8. (T) Trumpets and (B) Bowls: 6 • T: The four angels bound at the great river Euphrates are released; 2 million cavalry kill 1/3 of humanity • B: The bowl is poured out on the great river Euphrates; kings assemble for war, Armageddon

9. (T) Trumpets and (B) Bowls: 7 • T: The seventh trumpet ends with loud voices in heaven that announce the coming of the kingdom of God and Christ; a scene at “the Covenant Box” and with “flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.” (Revelation 11:19) • B: The seventh plague ends with “A loud voice from the throne in the temple” and with “flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder, and a terrible earthquake.”(Revelation 16:17-18)

10. Satanic activity in the bowls • “And I saw three foul spirits like frogs coming from the mouth of the dragon, from the mouth of the beast, and from the mouth of the false prophet. These 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” (Revelation 16:13,14)

11. “Satan works through the elements also to garner his harvest of unprepared souls. He has studied the secrets of the laboratories of nature, and he uses all his power to control the elements as far as God allows. When he was suffered to afflict Job, how quickly flocks and herds, servants, houses, children, were swept away, one trouble succeeding another as in a moment. It is God that shields His creatures and hedges them in from the power of the destroyer. But the Christian world have shown contempt for the law of Jehovah; and the Lord will do just what He has declared that He would-He will withdraw His blessings from the earth and remove His protecting care from those who are rebelling against His law and teaching and forcing others to do the same. Satan has control of all whom God does not especially guard. He will favor and prosper some in order to further his own designs, and he will bring trouble upon others and lead men to believe that it is God who is afflicting them.” (GC, pg. 589)

12. “I was shown that the judgments of God would not come directly out from the Lord upon them, but in this way: They place themselves beyond His protection. He warns, corrects, reproves, and points out the only path of safety; then if those who have been the objects of His special care will follow their own course independent of the Spirit of God, after repeated warnings, if they choose their own way, then He does not commission His angels to prevent Satan's decided attacks upon them.”

13. “It is Satan's power that is at work at sea and on land, bringing calamity and distress, and sweeping off multitudes to make sure of his prey. And storm and tempest both by sea and land will be, for Satan has come down in great wrath. He is at work. He knows his time is short and, if he is not restrained, we shall see more terrible manifestations of his power than we have ever dreamed of.” (E.G. White, Last Day Events, pg. 242)

14. Key Questions • Sin: • Inherent natural consequence • External imposed penalty • God’s law • Descriptive of how things are • Proscriptive (imposed) • God’s wrath • Natural consequence • Imposed

15. Sin: inherent penalty • “Judah, you have brought this on yourself by the way you have lived and by the things you have done. Your sin has caused this suffering; it has stabbed you through the heart.” (Jeremiah 4:18)

16. God’s Law: The Law of Love • “The only obligation you have is to love one another. Whoever does this has obeyed the Law…If you love others, you will never do them wrong; to love, then, is to obey the whole Law” (Romans 13,8,10).   • “For the whole Law is summed up in one commandment: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself’” (Galatians 5:14).  

17. “Jesus answered, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and the most important commandment. The second most important commandment is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’” (Matthew 22:37-39 – GN)

20. “Whoever hits his father or his mother is to be put to death…whoever curses his father or his mother is to be put to death” (Exodus 21:15,17) • “Put to death any woman who practices magic. Put to death anyone who has sexual relations with an animal. Condemn to death anyone who offers sacrifices to any god except me, the LORD” (Exodus 22:18-20) • “Do not have sexual intercourse with any of your relatives. Do not disgrace your father by having intercourse with your mother. You must not disgrace your own mother…No man or woman is to have sexual relations with an animal; that perversion makes you ritually unclean” (Leviticus 18:7,23)

22. “We know that the Law is good if it is used as it should be used. It must be remembered, of course, that laws are made, not for good people, but for lawbreakers and criminals, for the godless and sinful, for those who are not religious or spiritual, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the immoral, for sexual perverts, for kidnappers, for those who lie and give false testimony or who do anything else contrary to sound doctrine.” (1 Timothy 1:8-10)

23. “What, then, was the purpose of the Law? It was addedin order to show what wrongdoing is…” (Galatians 3:19). • “The law was added because we needed it when we were such rebels. Until the time when we were mature enough to respond freely in faith (trust) to the living God, we were carefully surrounded and protected by the Mosaic law….” (Galatians 3:23-26, The Message).

25. “Do not cook a young sheep or goat in its mother’s milk” (Exodus 23:19) • “Weave the tunic of fine linen. Make the turban of fine linen. The sash will be the work of an embroiderer. Make tunics, sashes, and hats for Aaron’s sons to express glory and beauty. Dress your brother Aaron and his sons in them. Anoint, ordain, and consecrate them to serve me as priests. Make linen underwear to cover their nakedness from waist to thigh. (Exodus 28:39-42 – The Message) • “Don’t use steps to climb to my Altar because that will expose your nakedness.” (Exodus 20:25,26 – The Message)

28. Three types of obedience • “We obey for hope of reward and/or for fear of punishment” • “We obey because we love God” • “We obey because we agree with God and see that everything he has asked us to do makes sense.”

29. “And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples.” (John 13:34,35)

30. The Law of Love: giving, serving, loving • “Whoever sins is guilty of breaking God's law, because sin is a breaking of the law.” (1 John 3:4 GNB) • A-nomia • “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.” (1 John 3:4 FBV)

31. Sin • Sin is a state of internal rebelliousness against God and his law of love • “How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You clean the outside of your cup and plate, while the inside is full of what you have gotten by violence and selfishness. Blind Pharisee! Clean what is inside the cup first, and then the outside will be clean too!” (Matthew 23:25-26) • This leads to external “sinful actions”

32. Bacterial Meningitis • Symptoms: headache and fever • Treatment: narcotics, NSAID’s • Root cause: bacterial infection • Treatment: antibiotics • Treating the root cause is what ultimately leads to resolution of the headache and fever • Untreated: death

33. Sin • Symptoms: murder, selfishness, stealing, lying • Treatment: Rules • Root cause: breakdown in our trusting relationship with God; rebelliousness against God’s way; “Anything that is not based on faith is sin.” (Romans 14:23) • Treatment: restored trust and relationship with God • Untreated: death, self destruction

34. God’s Law: Descriptive or proscriptive? • Is God’s law is an imposed legal decree? If so, the punishment is externally imposed • In this model, Jesus saves us by suffering God’s imposed punishment for the breaking of the law • Is God’s law a principle of how God’s universe operates (the law of love)? • In this model, God seeks to save us from the sin that inherently seeks to destroy us; Jesus restores our trust and the broken relationship; Jesus reveals the terrible consequences of separation from God caused by sin

35. “I will punish” (28 times, NIV) • “But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, then I will do this to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and drain away your life...I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you. If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze…If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve. I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted.” (Leviticus 26:14-22)

37. “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Exodus 20:4-6)

38. “A son is not to suffer because of his father’s sins, nor a father because of the sins of his son. Good people will be rewarded for doing good, and evil people will suffer for the evil they do.” (Ezekiel 18:20) • “Turn away from all the evil you are doing, and don’t let your sin destroy you.” (Ezekiel 18:30)

39. “We are not to regard God as waiting to punish the sinner for his sin. The sinner brings the punishment upon himself. His own actions start a train of circumstances that bring the sure result. Every act of transgression reacts upon the sinner, works in him a change of character, and makes it more easy for him to transgress again. By choosing to sin, men separate themselves from God, cut themselves off from the channel of blessing, and the sure result is ruin and death.” Letter 96, 1896

40. What is being held back? • “After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds so that no wind should blow on the earth or the sea or against any tree.” (Revelation 7:1) • “Then another angel, who is in charge of the fire, came from the altar. He shouted in a loud voice to the angel who had the sharp sickle, ‘Use your sickle, and cut the grapes from the vineyard of the earth, because the grapes are ripe!’ So the angel swung his sickle on the earth, cut the grapes from the vine, and threw them into the wine press of God’s wrath.” (Revelation 14:18-19)

41. God’s wrath in the Bible • “My anger will flame up like fire and burn everything on earth. It will reach to the world below and consume the roots of the mountains. I will bring on them endless disasters and use all my arrows against them.” (Deuteronomy 32:22,23 ) • “They fail to see why they were defeated; they cannot understand what happened. Why were a thousand defeated by one, and ten thousand by only two? The Lord, their God, had abandoned them; their mighty God had given them up” (Deuteronomy 32:29,30)

42. Babylonian Captivity • “I will fight against you with all my might, my anger, my wrath, and my fury. I will kill everyone living in this city; people and animals alike will die of a terrible disease…. Anyone who stays in the city will be killed in war or by starvation or disease... • It will be given over to the king of Babylonia, and he will burn it to the ground. I, the LORD, have spoken.” (Jeremiah 21:5,6,9-10)

43. God’s anger is revealed from heaven against all the sin and evil of the people whose evil ways prevent the truth from being known. God punishes them, because what can be known about God is plain to them, for God himself made it plain.” (Romans 1:18,19)

44. “They say they are wise, but they are fools; instead of worshiping the immortal God, they worship images made to look like mortals or birds or animals or reptiles. And so God has given those people over to do the filthy things their hearts desire, and they do shameful things with each other. They exchange the truth about God for a lie; they worship and serve what God has created instead of the Creator himself, who is to be praised forever! Amen. Because they do this, God has given them over to shameful passions….Because those people refuse to keep in mind the true knowledge about God, he has given them over to corrupted minds, so that they do the things that they should not do.” (Romans 1:22-26,28)

45. The Romans destroy Jerusalem • “In this way they have brought to completion all the sins they have always committed. And now God’s anger has at last come down on them!” (1 Thess. 2:14-16)

46. “Because of our sins he was given over to die…” (Romans 4:25) • “At noon the whole country was covered with darkness, which lasted for three hours. At three o'clock Jesus cried out with a loud shout, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why did you abandon me?" (Mark 15:33-34)