Sermons

Pinebrooke Community Church                                                        6 July 2025                “Scene 5: Punishment of the World”                                                Revelation 15:5-16:21      

Recently, an article was written in a major Christian periodical criticizing the use of emotion in confronting the spiritual needs and life of young people.  I am grateful that as an adolescent I was exposed to retreats ending with bonfires, and meetings with Christian films, and other more regular meetings like Youth for Christ, and Bible camps that confronted sin and our need for salvation.  All of these had an emotional component.                 

Emotions are just as much of our humanity as is our thinking.  The article describes emotions as manipulation.  It seems to me that in The Chosen what Jesus did for people and said to people elicited an emotional response, consider the leper on the road or Mary Magdalene.                         

When Daniel was exposed to the vision of the future by God he couldn’t eat for days as he was sick of soul.  Sounds emotional to me!  As we have been exposed to the seals, the trumpet messages, the seven visions, and now the seven bowls of God’s justice, it is an emotional journey.  As we track with the screen play set before us, I am going to read all of Chapter 16, it is only 21 verses long.  The title set before us for Scene 5 is the “punishment of the world.”

Revelation 16

Scene 4 was a message of grace, doom, and warning.  One of the great forces that are in conflict through this age is referred to as the ideology or philosophy of the Christian faith.  That is grace.  The second part of the message (doom) is that Babylon is remembered by God and how they treated the exile of God’s people.  The warning includes the whole of Scene 4 and the perennial spiritual conflict throughout history.  The fifth vision in Scene 4 shows that in the end God is in control.  He will not allow the struggle to continue indefinitely.  He will act when the harvest is ripe.  God is to be reckoned with as a God who punishes evil.  The remaining Scenes lead to Jerusalem, the Holy City.  Scene 5 opens behind the veil, and God’s inescapable wrath (15:5-16:1).                                                                   

The first bowl (16:2) declares that the earth is stricken.  The plagues poured out of the bowls are total because the opportunity for repentance has gone.  All who have not been sealed as followers of the Lamb are irretrievably marked as worshippers of the beast and they are to suffer.  There are no longer warnings but punishments.  When warnings are refused consequences follow.                                                                                          

The second bowl (16:3), the sea is stricken.  In the trumpet/warnings the suffering was of a failed economy or worsening environment.  In light of the second bowl, the sins of men are coming home to roost.  The sins of men now lead to total destruction.                                                                   

From the third bowl the rivers are stricken (16:4-7).  Our mentor noticed that “The angel that represented the waters did not respond in pain but acknowledged that this was divine justice.  In response to this judgment the voices representing both God’s world and God’s church speak with approval of His righteousness and justice and the deserved retribution meted out to God’s enemies (p. 145).”                                             

The substance of the fourth bowl (16:8-9) reveals that the sky is stricken.  Sinners who would not repent when the sun’s light was darkened are now punished by having its heat intensified.  It is like dying from sunburn.  Again, and again trouble will sweep the world with the seals; whenever suffering is caused, God warns that it cannot be caused with impunity (trumpets), that is, exemption from consequences; whenever His warning goes unheeded, He will in the end punish the wrong doers (through the bowls). (p. 146).                                                                                     

The fifth bowl is the bowl of torment (16:10-11).  When Bowl 5 is poured out, the entire human system is thrown into disarray; darkness falls upon it, like the 9^th plague of Egypt.  The disarray is because Satan has invaded the whole structure of society. The structure was planned by God for man’s joy and delight, but once again perverted by the evil one to his own ends to steal, kill, and destroy.  Reminiscent of Sodom and Gomorrah.  This the world that is the organization of human society without reference to God.  Torment is the result.                                                                      

As our mentor observes, “God is grimly vindicated when godless society, which rose so proudly against Him and His church, and claimed to provide a viable alternative is shown to be unequal to the task (p. 147).”Daniel is a great example as he witnessed to the true God in the midst of the heathen world system of his day (Dan. 4:17, 25, 32) (p. 147).               

This leads us to the sixth bowl: destruction (16:12-16).  The drying of the water to make way for men to pass over is commonplace in biblical history and philosophy.  The frogs (remember them from the Exodus) in biblical times as an example of an unclean creature.  The beast here being synonymous with the world or the godless state system.                                   

Bowl 6 is the next and last stage of divine punishment, and in it the purpose of God and Satan converge.  Satan is saying, “I will destroy”, and God is saying, “So you shall.” Satan’s purpose is to assert his power; God’s is to prosecute his justice.  The result of the two is the same, Armageddon!  Armageddon, therefore, is the end.                                            

The 7^th bowl then “the world is no more.” (16:17-21).  The pouring out of bowl 7 sweeps away time and history and replaces them with eternity.  That which God created – earth and heaven and that which man created – cities and manmade things will collapse.  It reminds me of Psalm 46.  The great city referred to here is Babylon, the symbol of the whole Satanic structure.  Bowl 6 brought wholesale destruction; bowl 7 brought total erasure.                                                                                               

It is hard for us to remember that the items in John’s vision are not chronological but instead are logical.  Chronology has to do with time and sequence.  Remember John saw one thing and then he saw and heard another thing in seals, trumpet messages, visions, and now bowls.  It is easy for us to get confused because we are limited in our paradigm to chronology.  One thing follows another thing.  As John writes down what he sees and experiences he uses numbers in sequence to describe what he experiences.                                                                                                 

What can we take from this episode this week?  To begin with justice is defined by God.  We tend to view God’s anger as harshness; He defines it as justice.  We understand so little of God holiness or righteousness because we have so little natural interest in it like we have with love and mercy.  The fact is God is equally interested in righteousness and mercy and holiness and grace.  Justice is the correct consequence that holiness demands.                                                                                                         

Grace and mercy precede holiness and justice in God’s dealing with us, but they do not assuage (satisfy) either holiness or justice.  By the way justice is not defined by our sense of fairness, but rather God’s definition of righteousness.                                                                                                    

What sets us apart from these bowls if we were on earth when they were poured out is what sets us apart today.  When we repent and submit to Jesus there were two things that we were provided for as Jesus hung on the cross.  The cross of Christ satisfied the holiness of God.  The theological word is propitiation.  Jesus fulfilled the righteous demand God has for sin.  The other thing that Jesus accomplished on the cross is called expiation.  Jesus fulfilled the anger God has for sin.  When Jesus experienced God abandonment, “why hast Thou forsaken me” it is because holy God cannot tolerate sin.  Jesus’ death assuaged God’s wrath for sin.  When we are in Him there is no longer any judgement or anger that would make us liable for the seven bowls. 

Every day until Scene 5 there is an opportunity for repentance.  Everyone in our families have the opportunity to repent and believe while they remain alive or until the Bowls of Revelation are poured out.                                 

Readiness is about living in light of a different system, the kingdom of God system which is never the commonly held system on earth and seeking the redemption of those who God places before us.     

Whether a visitor to this site or a member looking to catch up on a missed

worship service we invite you to read or listen to a past sermon by clicking here.