Would you open your Bibles please to Revelation 16? Revelation chapter 16. The last time we were in Revelation I think was four weeks ago, so it's been a little while. And at that time we covered the second part of chapter 14 and all of chapter 15. And chapter 15, some people describe as a prelude to the bowl judgments. It's a description of, it's leading up to. And for that reason, I'm gonna start our scripture reading in verse five of chapter 15, but we're gonna cover chapter 16 today. Hopefully that makes sense. And hopefully you've had a chance to find it. So would you stand please with me, and I'll read our passage, beginning with chapter 15, verse five. And there John writes, and after these things I looked. And behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened. And out of the temple came the seven angels having the seven plagues, clothed in pure bright linen, and having their chests girded with golden bands. Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bulls, full of the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever. The temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power. And no one was able to enter the temple till the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed. Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, go and pour out the bowls of the wrath of God on the earth. So the first went and poured out his bowl upon the earth and a foul and loathsome sore came upon the men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. Then the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea and it became blood as of a dead man and every living creature in the sea died. Then the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood. And I heard the angel of the waters saying, you are righteous, O Lord, the one who is, and who was, and who is to be, because you have judged these things. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink, for it is their just due. And I heard another from the altar, saying, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are your judgments. Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the power was given to him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God, who has power over these plagues. And they did not repent and give him glory, Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became full of darkness. And they gnawed their tongues because of the pain. And they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and did not repent of their deeds. Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up so that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are spirits of demons, performing signs which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame. And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon. Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air and a loud voice came out of the temple of heaven from the throne saying, it is done. And there were noises and thunderings and lightnings. And there was a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth. Now the great city was divided in three parts. and the cities of the nations fell. And great Babylon was remembered before God to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. Then every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And great hail from heaven fell upon men, every hailstone about the weight of a talent. And men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, since that plague was exceedingly great. Let's pray together, please. Our Father, this is a very sobering passage we are looking at this morning. It is a fearful thing to be exposed to the wrath of God. And I thank you, Father, that all of us who are in Christ have been sheltered from, prevented from experiencing that wrath because Jesus bore that wrath for us. Thank you for your sacrifice on the cross, Lord. Thank you for taking that wrath on yourself in our place. So may this be a sobering message to us today, either because we need to find shelter in you from that wrath or because we need to tell others. Father, I ask for the help of your Holy Spirit this morning, that he would be our teacher of this passage, and that he would anoint me to teach your word accurately and clearly. Give us understanding, and give us hearts that are willing to change and ready to obey. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you, you may be seated. A couple of times before, I have pointed out that this is a great chapter. We've had a few of those actually in Revelation. But this is the greatest of the great. This is the all-time great. Because in this chapter, this great chapter, we have the word great 11 times. insistent, you're gonna go through and you're gonna count them, you're gonna have a little bit of a struggle, because it doesn't appear 11 times in the New King James, and it may not in whatever translation you have with you, but there are 11 things described as great. Starting with verse one, we have a great, or loud voice. Then we have great heat in verse nine, the great river Euphrates in verse 12, the great day of God Almighty in verse 14, a great earthquake in verse 18, the great city in verse 19, great Babylon in the same verse, great hail in verse 21, and then a plague later in verse 21 that is exceedingly great. These judgments, the bold judgments, lead up to, these are what happened immediately before the second coming of Jesus Christ. Now, as I was reading that, some of you felt like, haven't we covered this before? There are a lot of similarities between these judgments and the trumpet judgments, which may lead some people to think, well, Is this just two different descriptions of the same thing? And no, I don't believe so. I believe these are separate judgments because if you look back, or if you recall, in chapters eight and chapters 11, when we were looking at the trumpet judgments, we kept reading a third of this and a third of that and a third of that. These are complete. Here we read statements like every living creature in the sea. in verse three. These are total. These are complete. And I believe they are separate from, distinct from, the trumpet judgments in previous chapters. Some weeks I study and the main points I want you to remember are just evident. And there are some weeks I think, well, I could do it this way, I could do it that way. So here's what I have for you. If you don't leave with anything else today, please get point number one. God is a righteous judge. God is a righteous judge. That means he does things right. Back in the story of Abraham leading up to Sodom and Gomorrah, will not the judge of all the earth do right? Yes, he will. And it is hard for us to read these passages that describe the judgment of God coming on sin and sinful people. He is both holy and righteous and he is loving. And the focus of this passage is on his judgment and his righteousness. That's just a parallel passage for you in 2 Timothy 4 that says that he's a righteous judge. Number two, God commands everyone everywhere to repent. That's the command. We are supposed to repent. What does repent mean? It means to turn around. It means to have a change of mind and heart that's going to result in a change of action. a change of direction in my life. And that's what he has called us to do. When first confronted with our sin, the call is to repent. The first sermons of John the Baptist, the first sermons of Jesus in the Gospels are recorded as repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. Turn around, come back. And that's what he has commanded everyone everywhere to do, repent. Turn from your sin. Turn to God. Turn to Jesus for salvation. That is the heart cry of our God. Come back to me. But many people, and the vast majority of the people who are still on earth at this point, will refuse to repent, and they will face these judgments. As a matter of fact, three times in this passage, it says they did not repent. They continued to blaspheme. They continued to reject God and his salvation. Go with me please back to verse one and we're gonna work our way through these 21 verses. A verse or two at a time. In that first verse it says, then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, go and pour out the bowls of the wrath of God on the earth. A loud voice from the temple. I wanted to set the stage by reading the end of the previous chapter so that you would remember who's in the temple. Who is the only person in the temple at that point? God himself. God is in the temple. It is his voice that we hear as the loud or great voice coming from the temple. He is personally assigning these judgments. The seven angels received their bulls, and we talked about this as well, but these are bulls more like saucers, so they can easily be dumped out. They can easily be executed as judgments. The bulls of the wrath of God. Again, I'm trying to review, partly because of where we are in the book and partly because we haven't been here for a little while, but I've shown you this chart before of the seals and the trumpets and the bulls. So here are those references again. We've now made it to the bulls, and I'm showing you that to remind you that when we got to the seventh seal, that began the trumpets. When we got to the seventh trumpet, that begins the bulls. They spiral, they unfold, if you will, out of one another. And when we talked about the trumpets, we also talked about the three woes. The first woe, second woe, third woe. That's hard to say. First, second, third woe apply to the fifth, sixth, and seventh trumpets. That also is review if you've been here for our series or if you've caught up on it on your own. But then I would like for you to see one more slide to get this in your mind. The third woe, is the same as the seventh trumpet. The seventh trumpet includes these seven bowl judgments. Does that make sense? As best we can understand it. The third woe is the same as the seventh trumpet, and the seventh trumpet includes everything that we're talking about today in chapter 16. Now, these overall are fairly brief descriptions of these last seven judgments, and many believe that's because they're going to occur in rapid succession. They're going to come quickly. Another thing to notice, and it may have occurred to you already, is that several of these, in fact most of these plagues that are described as the last plagues, are similar to the plagues on Egypt back in Exodus. So I went ahead and made a table for that for you this week to show you what this looks like. There are seven bowl judgments, and several of them have an association with the plagues of Egypt. Not that you have to write all this down, but just think about it with me. There's a correlation in several places, and I went ahead and included the Red Sea. I know the Red Sea is not a plague, but when we get to the sixth one, and the Euphrates dries up, and an army comes across so that God can destroy that army, that's kind of similar to what happened with Pharaoh and his army at the Red Sea. They tried to pursue, and they were drowned in the sea in that case. And a little reference to frogs there, too, that were one of the plagues. I'm not trying to make more of that than simply observing for you that this is real. As a matter of fact, when we hit some of these in the trumpet judgments, there were similarities between what happened in Egypt and what happened there, and I pointed out to you, that's a historical event. And somebody even asked me about, well, just because that was a historical event doesn't mean that this is not symbolic. I believe these are literal. And even if they're not, the judgment that's happening is literal. It's going to happen. It's not just symbolic. It's not just a tongue lashing from God. These are things that I believe are going to occur, and this is the best way that John could describe it. There are a few similes in there, a little bit of symbolism that's obvious, and the rest of it I'm gonna take literally, as I have tried to do for most of the book. That brings us to this first bowl, and some of you are trying to write that down, so Carson can leave that up for you a few more minutes here. But we're gonna go to verse two. The first bowl, which is loathsome sores. So the first went and poured out his bowl upon the earth, and a foul and loathsome sore came upon the men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. Foul and loathsome, those two words, here's some definitions, some synonyms. Horrible, ugly, stinking, malignant, grievous, harmful, painful. So even if you didn't know what those words mean, you probably have a sense those are bad. That's not something that you want. Foul and loathsome, sore. Now that's an interesting word as well. In Alexandria, they translated the Hebrew, what we call the Old Testament, into Greek, that's called the Septuagint. The word they used for the boils, the plague in Egypt, the sixth plague in Egypt, they used this word, same Greek word. When we read about Job, remember he was afflicted with sores, boils, all over his body, head to toe? That's Job chapter two, same thing. They used the same word when they translated that into Greek. Jesus told a story about a beggar named Lazarus, and he had sores, and the dog licked his sores. Remember that? That's Luke 16, same word. So this is what MacArthur describes as an incurable, open, oozing sore. Nasty, not something that we wanna have any part of. Why does he say incurable? When we get to verses 10 and 11, it'll say that their sores are still there. They're still in pain from these sores when we get to the fifth bowl. And who is affected by these sores? Is everybody on earth affected with sores from head to toe? No. Very specifically, those who received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image, they are the ones who have these sores. God is making a difference. Again, I see similarities to Egypt. There were some plagues that did not affect God's people in Goshen. Second bull, verse three. The sea turns to blood. Then the second angel poured out his bull on the sea, and it became blood as of a dead man, and every living creature in the sea died. The second trumpet in some ways is similar to the first plague in Egypt, where the water of the Nile was turned to blood. But this is the oceans, the sea. This is more severe than the plague that was part of the second trumpet back in chapter eight, because that was a third of the sea turned to blood. Now it's all of the sea. Blood as of a dead man, what does that mean? It stinks, it's coagulated, it's gross. And honestly, I'm not sure what to make of this because it doesn't say it's like blood, it says it's blood. But then it says it's blood as of a dead man. So it's coagulated. Is this really blood? Some people have said no, this is red tide. Some of you who've lived near the beach are familiar with that phenomenon. It's microorganisms in the water that cause everything to die, and then if you eat fish that were killed by that, then you get poisoned. Nasty occurrence. It might be, I don't know. It may look like blood, it may be blood, but whatever it is, it's bad, and it destroys life in the oceans. Remember, we talked before about the fact that that affects the food supply. It also affects the oxygen for our planet when the oceans, and certainly our atmosphere, our weather, would be affected by that. The third bull. This is the fresh water turning to blood. Verse four says, then the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood. Someone wrote, as hard as it is to imagine, every creek, lake, and river will turn to blood. Every faucet, every hose, every drinking fountain will be blood instead of water. This is polluting the drinking water. And what's even worse, what was the first one? They have sores. and there is no fresh water in which to clean their sores at this point. None of us can imagine or would want to imagine bathing in blood, drinking blood, but that seems to be what's happening here. Back in chapter 14, we read about the angel who had authority over fire, and now we see there's an angel who has authority over water. Look at verse five. And I heard the angel of the waters saying, you are righteous, O Lord, the one who is and who was and who is to be, because you have judged these things, for they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink, for it is their just due. You see that first statement by this angel? You are righteous, oh Lord, God is a righteous judge. Now what does it mean, it is their just due? Well, they deserve to drink blood because they have shed the blood of the prophets and the saints. those martyrs that we've talked about throughout the tribulation and throughout time, but it will be a very common occurrence during the seven-year tribulation. Verse seven says, and I heard another from the altar saying, even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are your judgments. So there's a voice of agreement, similar statement, isn't it? Lord God Almighty, we have that name of God again, true and righteous are your judgments. So I'm reading you the New King James, and it says, and I heard another. Another what? Another angel? And it's really not clear. Your translation may fill in the blank a different way. Is it another angel? Is it the altar itself speaking, and we've talked about that before as a possibility, or is it the martyred saints who are under the altar? Going back to chapter six, those who prayed, how long, oh Lord, will you wait until you avenge our blood on our enemies who have killed us? I don't know which one it is. Wherever the voice is coming from, it is agreeing with the first angel and saying, God is righteous. He is a righteous judge. The fourth bull. Men are scorched. Now this is a definite change because when we got to the fourth trumpet, there was darkness. It seemed like the sun did not shine for a third of the day, so it was darker. This, whether it's brighter or not, is hotter. Verse eight, then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and power was given to him to scorch men with fire, and men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God, who has power over these plagues, and they did not repent and give him glory. The sun will scorch men with fire. So the heat is intensified. And some of us suggested that this intensification, this hotter earth, this hotter climate, when they're being scorched and burnt by it, it is preparing them for what is coming. What is coming, eventually, when we get to chapter 19, is the lake of fire. These are the people who are going to the lake of fire. They have refused to repent. They have not accepted the free gift of salvation offered to us in Christ. If you're into science, and some of you are, There's a commentary by Dr. Henry Morris that looks at this book of Revelation in terms of the science. What would it look like? What could some of these things be? Here's what he wrote about this little section. The high temperatures will likely melt the polar ice caps, causing a rapid rise in sea level, which will inundate and destroy most of the great and wicked cities of the world, because most of them are situated at sea level, such as New York. and Tokyo, and Los Angeles, and Rome, and Amsterdam, and others. Throughout my lifetime, there's been lots of talk about global warming and gotta save the polar bears and all that stuff. I am a believer in global warming. All right, I don't necessarily believe everything that's being said about global warming, but there is coming a time, Peter said, the elements will melt with a fervent heat. There is serious global warming coming, but it's not gonna be something that we cause directly. It's gonna be something that the sin of unrepentant mankind causes, that there's gonna be sun. Some people said these are solar flares. I don't know. Maybe something about the power, the magnitude, the magnetic field of the sun. I don't know. But it's gonna get hotter, and it's gonna get miserably hot. and there's already no drinking water. Can you imagine how thirsty you're gonna be? This is going to be a miserable time. That statement, we've seen similar ones before. Power was given. Some of your translations make it sound like the son was given power, some the angel who's in charge of this. Either way, God is allowing this. God is still in control of all of this. He is the one doing the allowing. And you might think, this is the fourth one, we've had boils, we've had the sea turn to blood, we've had the fresh water turn to blood, and now the sun is scorching everybody. Think of the worst sunburn you've ever had. It's worse than that. It may be some sort of radiation burn. All of that has happened. Would you think that someone would turn to God? That someone would repent and cry out to God for salvation? What are they doing? They blaspheme. What does that word mean? To speak against. You can speak against another person, we think of that as gossip, or you can speak against God, and that's how we usually use that term, blasphemy. And they are shaking their fist at God, speaking against him, screaming against him in anger. And this is the first of these three statements in the passage. Verse nine there, they blasphemed and they did not repent. It's amazing. Because who are they mad at? Whom are they mad at? God. These are not atheists. I don't think there are going to be any atheists left on the earth at that point. They are angry at God and they know He's the one causing it and they will not turn from their sin and turn to Him. That's heartbreaking. Fifth bull is darkness and pain. Verse 10 says, Then the fifth angel poured out his bull on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became full of darkness. And they gnawed their tongues because of the pain. They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and did not repent of their deeds. The darkness begins at the throne of the beast. If that's literally his throne, could be, or maybe where his capital city is, whether that's Babylon or could be Jerusalem, it extends to his entire dominion. So really, it's covering the entire earth, the kingdom of the beast. And it is darkness, which of course is similar to the ninth plague on Egypt. That was the one before the last one. It was the one before the slaughter of the firstborn. And there was darkness, it says, that could be felt. And here there is darkness and there is pain. And that matches what Jesus said would happen. Matthew 25, Jesus spoke of eternal punishment that included outer darkness, separation from God and darkness, and weeping and gnashing of teeth. That sounds kind of similar to gnawing on your tongue, doesn't it? Out of pain. So what is this? Couple that with the heat. We have heat, we have darkness, we have isolation. We have another preview of hell. This is what is going to happen to those who will not repent. And did they repent? Verse 11, they did not repent. And when we get to that third one, it doesn't say anything about repentance, it just talks about them blaspheming. There is no more mention of repentance. There is no more repentance. There are people who think, yeah, I have plenty of time, I'm gonna get right with God later. We are not promised tomorrow. And these people, if there's any thought of it, then they're not ready to do it yet. They're not ready to decide to ask God to save them. They're not ready to turn from their sin. They're gonna continue right on in it. The sixth bull. is the Euphrates River drying up, and also mention of the War of Armageddon. Verse 12 says, So the Euphrates River, are you familiar with the Euphrates River? It's mentioned a lot in the Bible. In fact, it's called the Great River five times in the Bible. But here it is with a modern map. So we have Iraq and Iran, and it starts off in Turkey, Interestingly enough, the headwaters of this river are Mount Ararat. Now, where else do we hear about Mount Ararat in the Bible? Oh, yeah, that's where the Ark is, somewhere in the mountains of Ararat. That's a whole other topic, but that's interesting to me. And you can see the river flowing down. It starts off in Mount Ararat and flows 1,800 miles into the Persian Gulf. On average, it's 30 feet deep, and it depends on where you are, but either 300 up to 1,200 yards wide. So you can see in the picture on the right, hopefully you can see a little bit, it's not a trickling stream, it's a river. And in some cases, a very significant river. And what does it say? It doesn't say it's going to be dammed up, they can actually do that now. They have some dams built up in Turkey, and upriver, and they can divert it, stop it for a period of time. But this says it dries up. Remember, the sun is heating up the earth more than normal, and this seems to be a miracle that God is working to dry up this great river. Now, as you study, even go back to the book of Genesis, this river is mentioned in the Garden of Eden as perhaps a boundary for it, and it is the boundary mentioned to Abraham of the promised land of Israel, and its waters have been dried up so that the invading armies could come in. It was a natural boundary to protect against invading armies from the east. And now there's nothing stopping them. So who are the kings of the east? In one of my commentaries, it had, that person had reviewed 100 different sources, commentaries, study Bibles, et cetera, and there were over 50 different opinions on who the kings of the east are. So I am not gonna pretend to know or tell you definitively who they are. I'm gonna make two suggestions to you. A lot of conservative scholars believe that they're talking about the far east, so think going farther east, India, China, Japan, that part of the world, that very well could be. Some two or three weeks ago, we dealt with Matthew. And in most contexts in the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament, a lot of the time when it says from the east, remember there were magi from the east, where did that mean? That mean Babylon. That to me makes a lot of sense, especially if the capital is a rebuilt Babylon that would be built on, guess what river? The Euphrates River. Maybe so, I'm not gonna die on that hill, but that's my opinion. It is certainly east of Jerusalem, because that's the reference point. So what's happening here? Why did the Euphrates River dry up? The answer is that God is providentially allowing these kings from the east to come to a particular battlefield. God is orchestrating this so that all the nations are going to gather to one spot. That's what's going on, the battle of Armageddon. Verse 13 says, and I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are spirits of demons performing signs which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty. Unclean spirits like frogs, they are defined as spirits of demons. So these are wicked spirits, they work miracles, they work signs and wonders to convince the kings of all the nations to come wage war, and perhaps it is on Jerusalem, but ultimately it is the nations of the earth waging war against God. That's what's happening here. Why frogs? Frogs were considered unclean, check it out in Leviticus. Children of Israel couldn't eat frogs. If you like frogs' legs, I'm sorry, you're welcome to do that. All things are clean for us now. But also in Persian folklore, in their traditions, in their myth and legends, frogs were considered to bring plagues. And so frogs, spirits that somehow look like frogs, come out of what we've described as the unholy trinity. That would be Satan, the antichrist, and the false prophet. also in Revelation known as the dragon, the first beast, or beast of the sea, second beast, beast of the land. Hopefully these things are becoming familiar to you if they weren't already. This, however, is the first time the false prophet has been mentioned. I've been telling you, I believe that the second beast, the beast from the land, is the false prophet. This is the first time that term has appeared. I believe that that's the second beast, and he'll come up again. What are they coming toward? The battle of the great day of God Almighty. And perhaps your translation has the more literal word there, the war of the great day of God Almighty. It'll have several battles, including the final battle at Armageddon. This war of the nations against God. Not so much nations against nations. It may start off as east against west, or an attack on Jerusalem, something anti-Semitic. But ultimately it's gonna be the nations against God. And then we interrupt, so to speak, in verse 15, behold. In fact, if you have a red letter edition, you probably have this verse in red as the words of Jesus. Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame. I am coming as a thief. I'm gonna come at a time you don't expect. This is going to be a surprise. And specifically, the promises we have, the statements we have like that in scripture are toward unbelievers. that unbelievers are gonna be surprised by his coming. We believe he could come at any time. So in that sense, the rapture of the church, which I believe is what's next, that could be a surprise to us. We're supposed to be ready for it at any time. But this is saying he is coming, this is his second coming, coming at a time they do not expect. We also have here the third of the seven statements of blessed here in Revelation. In this case, blessed is he who watches. The one who is blessed is the one who's ready for the coming of Jesus. And that certainly applies to the people then, that applies to us now, that we would be ready, that we would be watching, that we would be prepared for him to call us to be with him. How can you be ready? Well, here it describes the person who is ready as being clothed, specifically clothed in righteousness, which God himself supplies. See it there? He keeps his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. So you're gonna be ready. This is a silly illustration, but maybe it'll help you. If we're gonna have a Bible study at our house, then I'm not gonna change into pajamas right after supper, because I have people coming over. So I'm going to remain dressed appropriately for people to come. Now here's the historic one, and this is what some of you are gonna remember out of my sermon today, and I understand that. But at the time, the captain of the temple guard would make his rounds during the night. And if he found a soldier who was asleep, if he found a guard who was asleep, do you know what he did? Either he beat him, or option number two, you set his skirt on fire. Now if somebody did that to me, I would never fall asleep again, for sure. But what's happening is, his clothes are on fire, and he's asleep, and he wakes up, and by the time he gets the fire out, he's probably close to naked. And that's the picture here. that you need to be prepared, you need to be awake, you need to be watchful so that nobody sneaks up on you and does a joke or a trick, set your clothes on fire. Again, what are the clothes that are required for us to be ready to meet Jesus? Robes of righteousness that he himself supplies to us. How do we get those new clothes? By believing in Jesus, by being saved, by coming to him for salvation. So God is the one who clothes us, who trusts in Christ. Someone said God's judgment is coming but there is refuge and that refuge is a person. The person is Jesus. And here's verse 16. Might be one of the best known verses in the Bible after John 3, 16. And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew Armageddon. You ask your friends, your neighbors, your coworkers, saved, unsaved, churched, unchurched, you mention Armageddon, they're gonna have an idea, right or wrong, they're gonna have an idea of what Armageddon is. Now, quick Bible trivia question, how many times does Armageddon appear in the Bible? Take a guess, you're not gonna be penalized here. You know that there's, it's there one, right? This is the only time Armageddon appears in the Bible. Now Armageddon is a Greek word that translates Megiddo, It is the hill of Megiddo, and you'll find that word a few times in the Bible, because that's a Hebrew word. This place that everyone makes such a big deal out of, and it's important, I don't want to minimize it at all, but everybody, we've had movies made, Armageddon, and we had a blizzard when we lived in Maryland, and two snowstorms back to back, and they called that Snowmageddon, and lots of plays on words about Armageddon. But this battle, remember what it is. It's really a series of battles that make up a war. It's gonna be fought, we learned in the previous chapter, it's gonna be fought the length of Palestine, about 180 miles. And we know who wins. And it really isn't much of a battle. Because when Jesus finally comes back, it's over. He wins. It's not close, it's back and forth. He speaks, he wins. And we'll get there in a future chapter. This is a significant plot of land. You can find multiple Old Testament battles that were fought there. Deborah and Barak fought there. Gideon with the Midianites. Saul and Josiah, kings of Israel, both died in that area. Napoleon came because he was gonna conquer that part of the world. And when he came to Israel and saw that battlefield, he said, this is the most impressive, perfect battlefield anywhere I've ever seen. It's a large plain. and the nations of the earth are going to gather there, gathered by God, they think gathered by the frog spirits doing signs, convincing them to come, and they're gonna fight against God, and they're going to lose, they're gonna be destroyed. Which brings us to the seventh bull. The last bull judgment is an earthquake like no other ever, and it is the end, in many ways, of the judgments. Verse 17, then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple of heaven from the throne, saying, it is done. David Guzik said the seals were followed by the trumpets, the trumpets were followed by the bowls, but there will be no more judgments upon the earth after this. It is done. Maybe that phrase sounds familiar to you. Jesus cried out from the cross. When salvation was accomplished, he said, it is finished. And here at the end of the judgments, God declares, it is done, it is complete, it is over, it is finished. And just as we saw after the seventh seal in chapter eight, and the seventh trumpet in chapter 11, we have lightning and thunders. And that's what verse 18 tells us. There were noises and thunderings and lightnings, and there was a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as has not occurred since men were on the earth. Some of you have lived in places where there were earthquakes, in Alaska, in California, and other places. And a lot of places where there are earthquakes, they talk about, is this the big one? When is the big one coming? This is the big one. This is it. It affects the entire earth, and there will be an earthquake like no other that has ever taken place. Verse 19, now the great city was divided into three parts and the cities of the nations fell and great Babylon was remembered before God to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. The great city. Back in chapter 11, I told you the great city was Jerusalem because that's how it's described there. I do not believe that this is Jerusalem. If it is, then it's some sort of division that's preparing it for what God has for the New Jerusalem. But I think what's here is described in the same verse, the next sentence, that the great city is great Babylon. And if you check out, I did a word search using an online concordance, if you look at the great city in the book of Revelation, There's only one time it's Jerusalem. The rest of the time, it seems very clearly to be Babylon, and I believe that's the case here, that it's Babylon. Now, where is this Babylon? Some people think it's figurative and that it's Rome, and it's a spiritual Babylon. Maybe it could also be Babylon rebuilt on the Euphrates. That's the way I'm inclined to believe. I don't know, but wherever it is, it's gonna be destroyed. As a matter of fact, this is the focus that is coming. We're going to have two chapters about the destruction of Babylon and we'll describe what that means in the context of the next couple chapters. What's more, the cities of the nations are destroyed. The major capitals of all the world are destroyed. Verse 20, then every island fled away and the mountains were not found. The upheaval from this earthquake that affects the entire globe The earth is not gonna be recognizable. Some people think that this is putting the earth back together in more of a Garden of Eden state. I don't know. But we haven't talked about the United States in the book of Revelation, because I don't think it's clearly there. Don't know what that means. But just to give something that we can relate to, the islands are gone. So those of you who've been to Hawaii, imagine Hawaii's gone. Those of you who have been to Alaska, Alaska no longer has Denali. Mountains are gone. This is just not recognizable to us anymore, whatever's happening because of this earthquake and everything else that has been happening through these bull judgments. The islands fled away, the mountains were not found, verse 21, and great hail from heaven fell upon men, each hailstone about the weight of a talent. Men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, since the plague was exceedingly great. Great hail about the weight of a talent, great, how much is that? It depends. I found ranges from 56 up to 130. I learned that a Greek talent is 56 pounds, a Hebrew talent at 114. If one of them falls on you, I don't think you're gonna care whether it's a Hebrew or a Greek talent, because it is going to wipe you out. It will devastate you to the point of not being recognizable, or it will kill you, or both. It is going to crush whoever it lands on. And what is the response? Men blasphemed God. Men spoke against God. Why are hailstones falling? Well, we have another plague of Egypt. We have the seventh plague that's similar. But beyond that, if you think of Old Testament law for God's people, what was the punishment for blaspheming God? It was stoning. This is basically supernatural stoning for these people who keep speaking against God, they will not repent, they will not turn. So to recap from the beginning, God is a righteous judge. He will do right. He commands all of us everywhere to repent, to turn from our sin, to come back to him. But those who refuse to repent will face judgment. and that gives each one of us a choice. Are we going to repent? You say, I repented a long time ago, I'm a Christian, praise the Lord, I'm glad. Christians have to repent repeatedly as well, as the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin. But we have a choice, there's not middle ground to play with here. Someone put it this way, will you believe in him or blaspheme him? Will you confess him or will you curse him? Will you repent? or will you rebel? If there's anyone here in this room, if there's anyone watching or listening online, accept the free gift of salvation. Let today be your day of salvation. Turn to him. Call on the Lord while he is near. And for believers, that promise in verse 15, it's addressed to a different group of people in a different time, but I think it has application to us. Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame. We need to be ready to meet the Lord. Is there something, some sin that is unconfessed, some habit that you are living in right now, that you would be embarrassed if Jesus came back and found you saying that or doing that or even thinking that? If he convicts you, you need to repent. You need to confess that sin, forsake that sin, and do what he's leading you to do. Would you bow your heads and close your eyes? Quickly, as we end this service, I'd be glad to pray for you. Without embarrassing you, I will pray for you as I close. Is there anyone who would say, God is speaking to me today in a specific way, something I need to change, something I need to confess, repent of? I know what I need to do in response to this sermon, to this study of God's word, and I wanna do it, but I'm asking you to pray for me that I would do it. Does that describe anybody this morning? If it does, Raise your hand, put it back down. Look up at me, make eye contact with me and look back down. Yes, anyone else? Our Father, you know our needs. Thank you again for loving us enough to send Jesus to be our Savior, to rescue us from the mess that the world will be in by the time we get to this point. Father, I pray for the one who has expressed a need. You know the need, you know the heart. I pray for courage to obey what you are leading him to do. Lord, may we obey, may we be ready. May we purify ourselves because of the hope that is within us. And Lord, we look forward to your return. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.