Revelation 16:10-21

November 8, 2020

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

The sermon starts around 22:45 in the audio file.

Or, Blasphemy Such as There Has Never Been

Series: Just Conquer Part 44

Introduction

It seems possible to know something truly and yet be deceived, whether by one’s own sinful anger or by supernatural propaganda. The people who experience the final plagues know exactly who sent the plagues that are destroying them and yet they refuse to humble themselves, which you’d think would be the reasonable response. Many of them even gather to fight against Him, and this is a ridiculous response.

We are down to the final three bowls of judgment. Seven angels were given seven bowls which are the seven last plagues, and all seven are poured out in Revelation 16. The first four appear to affect individual men more directly, with sores and scorched skin and with blood to drink and clotted-blood clogging up the seas. The final three bowls affect persons, but are targeted at a higher level of cities and the anti-Christian systems.

God remembers all the faithlessness and fraud and idolatry and immorality of men. God remembers His people and His promises, and this is good news for the faithful; in fact we need to remember His faithfulness not to forget us. But here, “Babylon the great was remembered by God,” and they will wish He was forgetful. They will blaspheme His lack of forgetfulness, and it will be blasphemy such as there has never been.

Fifth Bowl: Dark Despair (verses 10-11)

The fourth bowl brought intense heat from the sun that caused burns on men, the fifth bowl causes darkness far as the curse is found. “The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness.”

There was a plague of darkness in Egypt that shut down everything under Pharaoh’s rule for three days (Exodus 10). This apocalyptic darkness targets “the throne of the beast,” the center of the Antichrist’s authority. The throne was a gift from the dragon, that is, from Satan, to the beast (Revelation 13:2). With visible irony, the darkness and blindness which come about from the beast’s deceiving work comes back onto the beast’s seat and extend throughout his dominion. While he wishes he could be the Logos of light, he can’t even keep the lights on over his throne.

A lot of bad things are done in darkness, and this is bad darkness. We can imagine the confusion and chaos of the dark; think of the response of the riffraff in a busy casino that loses power. At this point, it’s hard to imagine a bunch of compassionate idolators trying to help out their neighbors. They have become like who they worshipped, terrible in selfishness.

More time in the dark gives them more time to think about their favorite subject: themselves. And it’s a planet-wide pity party. “People gnawed their tongues in anguish and cursed the God of heaven for their pain(s)/sufferings and sores.” It’s strange that in English gnawing one’s tongue and biting one’s tongue do not mean the same thing. Biting your tongue means being quiet, gnawing your tongue means grumbling and whining in complaint. If there is any connection between people, it’s like rocks banging into each other in a bag about how mean God is.

John says they “blasphemed the God of heaven,” which means that they know the throne and kingdom of the beast is inferior. They know, and they hate what they know. So, they lie about God. Even now, with nothing else to do but consider their obligations to the Sovereign God who had come so intimately close in judgment, “they did not repent of their deeds,” deeds such as murders and sorceries and sexual immorality and thefts (9:21).

Sixth Bowl: A Lost Cause (verses 12-16)

This bowl is a scene-setting bowl. This judgment gets the pieces put on the board in the right place, so the bowl is poured o[...]