Revelation 16:1-9

November 1, 2020

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

The sermon starts around 17:10 in the audio file.

Or, Par for the Curse

Series: Just Conquer Part 43

Introduction

How we do things communicates along with what we say about the things we’re doing. This is more than about body language, though that’s an example. We’ve talked a lot over the years about how liturgy affects us, the patterns and repetitions and attitudes along with the words. The same is true in good fiction; C.S. Lewis cared about the assumptions he could get his readers to carry with them as they followed the arc of the plot. We can’t read the Chronicles without feeling, if that is the apropos word, that certain things in the Narnian world are true.

The Apocalypse likewise weaves threads into the fabric of our worldview. All of God’s Word does, actually. There is never an argument God’s existence, it just begins with that reality and moves forward. The book of Revelation takes us to the other end of world history, and how it does so forms not only expectations about the future but also what sort of world we live in now. We are knit with weltanschauung whether we like it or try to work around it.

It’s been a great year for thinking about things we can’t see. Modern society has grown bad at that; our greatest invisible irritant is weak WiFi. But this year has provided perfect lessons on unseen things, like viruses, sure, but even the decision-making process of our political overseers. We’ve been given pause, especially when we were told to stay home, to question the cause of all this. When the greatest argument against conspiracy is incompetence of the presumed conspirators, you know we’re examining just what sort of world we live in.

It is good to look at more than just the things that are seen. It could go wrong, get too far-fetched, but Screwtape warned Wormwood not to let his subject think too much about what could be “true.” Distraction is much better demonic work, at least for now.

This circles us back to the book of Revelation. Revelation removes distractions. There are ways to be confused about it, but most of the confusion comes from wishing we lived in a different world that wasn’t so consequential. “Just let me be, man.” You don’t get to just “be.” There’s no neutrality; it is conquer or be compromised, even for professing Christians.

Working through John’s visions at this pace is sort of relentless; as Coach Boone once said, it’s like novocaine, just give it time. John’s visions leave no room for materialists who believe all we see is all there is. The visions leave no room for syncretists, who believe you can choose from the buffet of religious options. The visions leave no room for sentimentalists, who believe that people are pretty good and nice to each other if you just let them be. No, these are visions of heaven and hell, of faith and martyrs’ blood, of sun and moon and stars, of false teaching and fiery trials and even hotter fires of judgment. There may be a time to sing “This is my Father’s world,” but when angels sing, they sing about how the Almighty is true and just in all His judgments.

What kind of world do we live in? A world full of angels and demons, a world full of hatred toward God, a world trending toward a final conflict with God, a world that will be weighed in God’s righteous balances.

John introduced us to the “seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is finished” (15:1). He heard a great choir of conquerors, and then saw “one of the four living creatures” give “to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God” (15:7). All seven bowls are emptied in chapter 16, quickly and mercilessly. As with the seals and the trumpets, a pattern of four and three can[...]