REVELATION 36 – SEVEN ANGELS, SEVEN PLAGUES

A few weeks ago we finished up with chapter 14 in which we see the end of this vision of the three angels who are proclaiming in the vision of the enthroned Christ and then the three angels who are assisting Him. We looked at the fact that although when you read it very quickly it appears there is one thing going on here there is actually two. That in verse 15 it says …Put in your sickle and reap because the hour to reap has come because the harvest of the land is ripe. Remember that in the Greek of Revelation the word for “land” there is the word which is normally used of the land of Israel. So what’s being said here is that Christ is going to reap the harvest of the land of Israel. He is going to save His people, as it were. Then we see another angel come out of the temple which is in heaven, he had a sharp sickle, (v18) And another angel, the one who has power over fire (which is judgment in Scripture) came out from the altar and he called out with a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, “Put in your sharp sickle, and gather the clusters from the vine of the land, because her grapes are ripe. (v19) And he swung his sickle to the land and gathered the vine of the land, and threw them into the great wine press of the wrath of God.

            So we see here the salvation of God’s people by Christ, and we see the judgment of those who do not believe in Christ, they are the vine of the land. They are the “wild vine” if you will and they are thrown into the wine press of God and suffer His wrath.

Q: The historical time period you’re talking about is still…

A: 70 A.D. is the historical time period.

Q: The two events relative to each other are either happening simultaneously or relatively close to one another?

A: Relatively close to one another. Actually we’re talking here in Revelation about a period of about 40 years. From the death of Christ in 30-33 AD until 70 AD. So that whole time period really is in view in Revelation.

Q: The salvation that you’re speaking of and the judgment you’re speaking of is obviously spiritual salvation but also physical salvation and the judgment is condemnation eternally but also physical death.

A: Yes absolutely. There’s salvation for God’s people here. Remember that Josephus says that when the Romans came into and besieged Jerusalem, the Christians who remembered Matthew 24 which says when you see the army of desolation surrounding Jerusalem, flee to the hills. Don’t stop for anything including your coat. And the Christians realizing that, fled into the hills. They left Jerusalem and they survived. But the Jews, because Jerusalem was the focus of their religion, the temple was their focal point, they went to Jerusalem and there were some two million Jews who were trapped in the little town of Jerusalem and they were there for two years under siege by the Roman army. So yes, there is a sense in which the salvation is physical, there is a sense in which the judgment is physical in that there were literally tens of thousands of Jews who were slaughtered during that time. Not only by the Romans, but by themselves and by the zealots. So yes it spiritual, but also physical.

            Then we move on to chapter 15.

15:1 And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels who had seven plagues, the last because in them the wrath of God is finished. (2) And I saw, as it were, a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who had come off victorious from the beast and from his image and from the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, holding harps of God. (3) And they sang the song of Moses the bond-servant of God and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and marvelous are Thy works, O Lord God, the Almighty; righteous and true are Thy ways, thou King of the nation. (4) Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? For Thou alone art holy; for all the nations will come and worship before Thee, for Thy righteous acts have been revealed." After these things I looked, and the temple of the tabernacle of testimony in heaven was opened (6) and the seven angels who had the seven plagues came out of the temple, clothed in linen, clean and bright, and girded around their breasts with golden girdles. (7) And one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever. (8) And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from His power; and no one was able to enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished.

            Now remember that John is giving us a book of signs and symbols. So we should not expect these things to be literal except in the case where its very obviously literal. There are places, for instance when Jesus says write the words in the book. That’s obviously not symbolic. We don’t want to make everything in the book symbolic but where we see a dragon flying around in the sky, then that’s very likely a symbol and John tells us that that’s a symbol. Here he says: 15:1 And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous… This is the third great sign. He says over in Chapter 12:1 I saw a great sign, and another sign in verse 3, so the sign of the woman, the sign of the great red dragon and here we see a third great sign in heaven. Again we see this focus on sevens. If you go through the book of Revelation, you see seven, seven, seven. I’ve gone through and circled all the sevens in my Bible in green and so you can just go through there and see there is this incredible focus on seven.

C: I did a search yesterday on seven because I was looking for the seven days of creation and there are hundreds of sevens in the book of Revelation. There are a few sprinkled throughout the rest of the Bible, but there was a whole list of sevens in the book of Revelation.

R: Right, and with that preponderance of sevens in the book of Revelation, what kind of a connection could we make there, knowing what we know about the biblical use of seven, the Jewish use of seven? Why should that not surprise us?

A: Seven is a term of completeness.

R: Right. Seven is a term of completeness. It’s a number which means completeness. God completed the earth in six days and on the seventh he rested. So we see throughout Scripture this focus on seven as completeness, everything is done. That’s what we see in the book of Revelation, that’s what its talking about. It’s talking about the completeness of what’s going on, what’s being spoken of.

            When I look at the first verse here, there is something here other than the sevens which might cause me to think in terms of the book of Revelation as being futuristic. Did anybody pick up on what that is?

A: The wrath of God is complete.

            The wrath of God is complete. The wrath of God is finished. So when people read something like this, they say Revelation has got to be futuristic, it’s got to be talking about the end of the world because it’s talking about the wrath of God being finished. How might I respond to that? How might you respond to that?

A: When Christ died, that’s when He suffered for all our sins, past, present and future and the wrath of God was poured out upon Jesus.

            Yes. And what were Jesus’ next to last words on the cross?

A: It is finished.

            Yes. In Greek, it’s one word tetelestai. It’s a word of commerce. You see it a lot in English. When you go pay you bill and they stamp on it, “Paid in Full.” That’s what tetelestai means in Greek. What Jesus was saying there is the debt has been paid. I have suffered all the wrath of God for the sins of all the people who will be saved. So we can look at that and say wait a minute, just because it says in English the wrath of God is finished, does not mean that that’s the end of the world. It’s talking about that act, that milieu that’s being discussed in this particular part of Scripture.

Q: There’s a problem with that because it’s relating this to the seven plagues. The seven plagues aren’t being related back to the cross.

A: The seven plagues are not being related back to the cross, you’re right. But the seven plagues as we go through them, and again…

Q: With that type of reasoning you can take any event and say in them the wrath of God is complete because it is completed.

A: Yes, except Scripture doesn’t speak that way. I could pick any event and say in them the wrath of God is complete. But that’s not what Scripture teaches. So what I have to look at is what is Scripture saying here. What are the seven plagues? Who do they relate to? And we haven’t gotten into that yet. Remember my position, and again I’m not trying to twist anybody’s arm here I’m just trying to get you to think in terms of looking at Scripture in a different way. Not accepting what you’ve been taught, what you’ve grown up, what you’ve heard all your life, but looking at what does Scripture actually say? Again my position is that Revelation has already taken place. If that’s true, then this must be talking about something that occurred prior to 70 A.D.

Q: You’re going to say that it’s the wrath of God complete on….

A: On the Jews, yes. I think it’s the wrath of God is finished on the Jews. Absolutely. I think that’s what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 24, and I think that’s what Jesus is talking about in Revelation. By the way, I’m not a kook on this. How many of you have seen “Table Talk.” This is a daily devotional put out by R.C. Sproul. If you’re interested you can get a free subscription to it for the first year, then they ask you to pay. It’s not very expensive, $18.00 a year and it’s really excellent. R.C. Sproul is coming around to the preterist position. He talks about when he was first a Christian he was from the sort of a-millennial camp. You know, the millennium was not literal, it was symbolic. He says, “Yet to my own surprise I found myself more and more attracted to an orthodox post-millennial position with a moderate preterist perspective.” As he has studied Scripture and as he has studied church history, what he has come to see as I did, is that by and large the early church saw Revelation as relating to the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. and that the Scripture hangs together much more effectively if you look at it that way, as I think we’ve seen going through this.

Q: It’s interesting because he’s one of the editors of my Bible and this is clearly not, according to what you’re saying. But also what I was thinking of last week is they want to say that it could relate to the Roman empire during that time period, also be a revelation about the second coming of Christ as well.

A: Yes, and again, one of the things that we need to remember is that we’ve had over 100 years of focus on Revelation as futuristic. That with the coming of the Scofield Reference Bible that kind of thinking about Revelation exploded. Prior to 1830, it was virtually nonexistent and you’ve heard me say that over and over again. R.C. Sproul has seven articles in “Table Talk” where they quote from the early church fathers and the writings up to about 1850 where those people were talking about Revelation as having already occurred. But we don’t see that much anymore, do we?

Q: So that means they’re preterists, but not necessarily post-millennial?

A: Yes. They’re actually three preterist positions. There’s the liberal preterist, the moderate preterist and then the ultra-preterist. There are some like R.C. Sproul who look at Matthew 24 as mostly having taken place, and then part of Revelation as futuristic. And then there are others who look at most all of Revelation as having to do with the destruction of the temple. Then there are others, J. Stewart Russell is a name that comes to mind, who wrote a book called The Parousia, the appearing of Christ, and he was an ultra-preterist. He said that every thing in the Bible that talks about the coming of the Lord has already happened. I may have mentioned him before and that I don’t agree with all of what he says, I think he overreaches. Whoever wrote the article in “Table Talk” (I can’t find it right now) agrees that Russell oversteps and goes beyond what the Scripture is actually saying.

            It says: “As we consider the history of preterism we should be aware of its various branches, just as pre-millennialism has cultic (like Mormonism and Jehovah Witnesses) dispensational, (Scofield and Riley), and historic, (Ladd and Kromminga) expression. So preterism has three main divisions today. Liberal preterists like James Moffett (Expositors Greek Testament) generally view the prophecies of A.D. 70 as after the event.” I misspoke – the liberal preterist looks at, for instance the prophecy of Matthew 24, as something that was written after it actually happened and that they’re just writing down history as if it were a prophecy. “Liberal preterists correctly recognize the A.D. 70 focus of many judgment prophecies but wrongly deny the predictive nature of the inspired prophecy.” What they’re saying is the book was written after the event. In other words, they would look at Daniel 9 and say Daniel 9 is so specific, that it must have been written after the event. Yes it’s talking about the destruction of Jerusalem, but it must have been written after the event. That’s their focus.

       “Hyper-preterist J. S. Russell’s The Parosia provide many fine insights into preteristic passages. Unfortunately they go too far by extending valid observations gathered from temporary confined judgment passages (talking about the time words) to passages that are not temporarily constrained and that actually prophesied the future advent of Christ. This school of preterism tends to focus all eschatological pronouncements on AD 70.” That’s why I was saying he says in his book that like in Thessalonians where it talks about the coming of the Lord, that’s already happened. That it happened in 70 AD. “Including the resurrection of the dead, the great judgment and the second advent of Christ. Evangelical and reformed preterists take seriously the time texts of Scripture and apply those prophecies to AD 70. They argue that their God finely and conclusively broaden His redemptive focus from the Jews to all races, (Matthew 28:19 the great commission) from the land of Israel to all the world (Acts 1:8 where you see the focus is no longer Jerusalem but now go into Samaria and all the world) and from the temple based worship to a simpler spiritual based worship.”

       So all that to say you’ve got to be careful when you see something preterist. I think it was Ron that was telling me that there are a lot of preterist pages on the World Wide Web and I went out and there’s a bunch of them! I was reading some of it and was amazed! Some of them are the hyper-preterist type of people. They think virtually all the Bible has already happened. That there is no future coming of Christ, He has already come and gone and I think that’s tragic. Did I confuse everybody on that??!

       My constant refrain: when you read something, be a Berean. Go back to Scripture. Is it really saying that? If it agrees with Scripture then accept it because that is what God is saying. If it doesn’t agree with Scripture, don’t accept it. Even if I say it to you. I’m not telling you you’ve got to agree with me. I’m urging you to read it for yourself and let the Spirit work in your heart. Use what God has given you, the expertise around you. In other words listen to what I say as input, but not as gospel.

“      And I saw as it were a sea of glass mixed with fire…number of his name…holding harps of God. What kind of a vision do you think we’re seeing here? Does that bring up any connections in people’s minds?”

Q: Isn’t the sea of glass the big basin they had in the temple?

A: Yes. What we see in the Old Testament was there was a “sea of glass” as it was called in the temple. Gentry says that this is a different one. In the Old Testament temple, in Solomon’s temple, when you walked into the temple there was a huge bronze laver, baptismal font, and it contained so many baths, so many priests could bathe in it. It was on the back of the twelve oxen, remember. This thing was huge. They’ve calculated the size of it and we could not cast something in bronze that big today. We do not have the technical expertise to do that, and they actually did it. But there were other lavers throughout the temple that were smaller. Chilton discusses that in his book.

       But here, what did that sea of glass represent? It also talks about a sea in other places in the Old Testament. (Red Sea?) Yes, but I was talking about in conjunction with God and remember they’re standing on the sea of glass holding harps of God. Don’t you remember you see that in Ezekiel? In the vision of Ezekiel when he saw the throne of God he saw this transparent sea. Again, I think it’s in Isaiah, you see the same idea that God is enthroned and right before Him is this transparent sea and then all around Him are the worshippers.

Q: When the seventy elders went up to the mountain in Exodus?

A: I don’t recall the sea being there.

Q: It seems like there was something like that.

A: Yeah, I’d have to look that up. But that’s the kind of idea that you see here is that the seventy elders went up and they were before God and they were worshipping God on the mountain.

Q: Where did you say it was in Ezekiel?

A: Ezekiel 1:22

       Who are these people who are standing on the sea of glass holding harps of God? They’re Christians. They are ones who had been marked with the name of God, they refused to be marked with the name and the number of the name of the beast. What does that represent? What are we saying there when we say that they refused to accept the number of the name and the name of the beast? We talked about that when we talked about the end of Revelation 13. They’re martyrs, they’re witnesses, they’re willing to die. Remember we talked about the fact that you could not buy and sell during the time of Nero and that the Jews were the ones who were saying to the Christians you can’t do that unless you burn incense to the Emperor and take upon yourself the name of the Emperor rather than the name of God. What does the name in Scripture represent? Belonging. Ownership. If I had the name of Christ upon me, I belong to Christ. If I had the name of the Emperor upon me, I belong to the Emperor. Remember that on the tomb of Jesus Christ they put a band across the stone and they put a seal on it. A lot of you are aware of the use of a signet ring, a ring that people used to wear that has a design on it and what they used to do is take a big glob of wax and they’d smack the ring into the wax and put their seal into the wax. That represented that it was owned by whoever the signet belonged to, in the case of the tomb it was the symbol of Caesar. It was saying don’t open this tomb, it belongs to Caesar. Of course, Christ paid a whole lot of attention to that. He opened the tomb anyway.

Q: What’s the significance of the fire mixed with the sea of glass?

A: To be real honest I’m not sure what the symbolism is of the fire mixed with the sea of glass. Chilton as I recall talks about the fact that it’s God’s judgment that we see in view here.

Q: You said that the sea of glass in the temple was used for cleansing and baptizing, doesn’t it say in the New Testament that you’ll be baptized with fire?

A: With fire, yes. Chilton does go into that whole idea that God cleansed with water at one point and He will cleanse with fire at the second coming. I’m preaching on baptism, blessing or curse next week and when you look at the flood, what was the flood to those people not in the ark? It was judgment and death, but it was also a baptism, wasn’t it? Very clearly it was a baptism. What was it to those people in the ark? It was a blessing. It floated the ark. It buoyed them up. So yes, the laver in the temple represented baptism which was a cleansing. But God also cleanses with fire and we see that in the Old Testament in some of the cases where God comes down and consumes the sacrifice, in Solomon’s temple for instance, representing the cleansing of the temple. So you’re probably right, there’s that idea of baptism mixed with fire is a cleansing for the Christian, but what’s the fire represent to the non-Christian? Death and destruction, just like baptism does. Of course Paul talks in Corinthians about the fact that all of our works will be purified by fire. So there’s very likely some of that there.

       Okay so they’ve come off victorious, they’re holding harps of God and they sing this song of Moses the bondservant of God and the song of the Lamb. This comes from Deuteronomy 32:44 “Then Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he, with Joshua the son of Nun.” What is significant about the name Joshua, anybody remember? The Hebrew name is Hosea or Yeshua, it can be pronounced either way. So Hosea is Yeshua is Jesus in Greek. So who is Joshua? He was a type of Christ, he was a type of Jesus. He was the conquering hero. What we see in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy is the song of Moses and Joshua. What do we see in Revelation, the song of Moses and Jesus the Lamb of God. So there’s this connection between what is going on in the Old Testament and the Jews being saved out of sin and bondage in Israel and the connection with what is going on in the New Testament with Jesus saving His people.

       So what is the focus then that you see in this first part of the passage? What are they doing? (Separating the saints). Okay. What are the saints doing here? They’re worshipping! They’re gathered around the throne of God. They’re gathered around this sea, they’re standing there worshipping God, and what are they worshipping Him for? His works. His judgment. Their salvation. What should our worship be like? Like this. Remember I’ve said all along and that Chilton says, and I agree with him, that Revelation is a text book on how you should do worship. We see over and over again that people are gathered around the throne of God and they’re praising God. Why do most people come to worship in the world today, particularly in America? Guilt? Routine? Social habit? Get their spiritual batteries recharged. Where is the focus? Me! What do we see in Scripture? The focus is God and that’s what I keep preaching to people and that’s what I think is so important to get a handle on. When we gather out there in a few minutes the focus ought not to be on me, the focus ought to be on God. Even when I’m singing, should I be worried about whether or not I sound good to the person next to me? No. What should I be worried about? God doesn’t really care how I sound to Him, does He? It’s glorifying God. Where is my heart? Where is my mind? Am I truly singing to God or am I worried about that person next to me and what they’re going to think? See the difference? I tell people this all the time… if you are standing in the worship service and you feel like raising your hands to God, (by the way the Bible says and that’s a command - raise up holy hands to God) - if you feel like you should raise your hands in a worship service, you should raise your hands! Should you be worried about what the person next to you thinks? Absolutely not. By the same token if you’re in a church where everybody’s raising their hands and you feel uncomfortable raising you hands, should you raise your hands? No. You do what is between you and God. That’s what we need to recognize. That’s the picture of worship that we get in the Bible.

       (5) After these things I looked, and the temple of the tabernacle of testimony in heaven was opened Remember that what we see in the tabernacle in the Old Testament and in the temple of Solomon, they were patterned from God. Did God just put the idea into Moses’ mind or give him an architect’s drawing? No. It’s what he saw in heaven. In his vision when he was on the mountain and he was with God, he saw the vision of what we’re talking about in Revelation, what we see in Ezekiel, what we see in Isaiah. They all saw the same idea. Here it very clearly says the temple of the tabernacle and testimony in heaven was opened and so the tabernacle on earth was patterned after that heavenly vision that all of the prophets saw.

       (6) and the seven angels who had the seven plagues came out of the temple, clothed in linen, clean and bright, and girded around their breasts with golden girdles. Where have we heard that before? Revelation 1:13 and in the middle of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to his feet, and girded across His breast with a golden girdle. So what’s the connection here? What are we seeing? We’re seeing these people that are dressed like Christ, they are Christ-like. They are serving with Christ. So these seven angels are working for Christ, as it were.

       (7) And one of the four living creatures  (Remember these are the four living creatures that are around the throne of God, so again here we’re in the worship context) gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever. Here we see the beginning of the judgment sequence in Revelation. We’ll talk more next week - beginning in chapter 16 we’re going to see the judgment upon Israel, or upon Rome depending upon where you’re coming from, we’ll talk a little bit about both of those things.

       (8) And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from His power; and no one was able to enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished. Again, if you’re coming at it from a futuristic point of view, then this says that the plagues are still future. Obviously we haven’t seen all these horrible things. I disagree with that, I think we have seen all these horrible things and we can prove from Scripture that they’ve already happened. But again, remember that I think the context of Revelation is judgment upon the Jews and His wrath upon apostate Israel. Remember I’ve said all along that Christ was the ultimate sacrifice. The Bible is very clear about that. Hebrews equates Christ with all of those Old Testament sacrifices and says that He completed, or He finished all of that. After the death of Christ, what did the Jews continue to do? They continued to sacrifice animals. Now, put yourself I the place of God. If you send your son to die for the sins of all of the people and they still continue to sacrifice animals for their sins, what might be your position? Pretty upset, right?! I think that’s what we see in Scripture. Because the Jews refused to understand that Jesus Christ was the ultimate sacrifice and because they continued to sacrifice animals for their sins, God says Okay, and He had already said this in the Old Testament - remember back in Daniel - because you’re doing that I’m going to remove your ability to sacrifice.

Q: Is there some connection specifically with the Jews regarding apostasy?

A: How do you mean?

Q: Like in Hebrews chapter 6 - those have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit.

A: I think very clearly that what you see in Scripture that by and large the Jews were apostate and by and large that the Jews…

Q: Apostate means somebody who has some experience or some knowledge beyond your normal ordinary believer?

A: Yes, one who had the training, who had the teaching, who had the understanding and yet refused to do that and turned away from God. One who knew who God was and said I’m not going to do that.

Q: All the Jews during the time of Christ’s crucifixion and after that continued to be apostate?

A: Yes, by and large the nation of Israel was apostate from the word go. Remember that in the desert with God there, the pillar of fire and pillar of cloud there they were worshipping their star gods. Apostasy means turning from God to other gods, basically. So we see that in the church today. That people had the word of God but they refused to believe the word of God. They believe what some person tells them and that person picks and chooses what they want from the Bible to prove their point and so those people are worshipping an idol. They’re turning away from God.