Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

As I mentioned last week, for many, many months now in our study of Revelation, we have been talking about the wrath of God.

And not a particularly common subject among preachers, not a common subject for preaching or discussion in our time today, but nonetheless one we’re bound to preach if we’re faithful to the Word of God.

Sometimes people think the wrath of God and the judgment of God is an Old Testament theme and not a New Testament one.

That, of course, is not true.

In John 3 and verse 36 we read, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abides on him.”

Romans 3 and verse 5 talks about the God who inflicts wrath.

Colossians 3 and verse 6 along the same line says it is on account of these things, that is immorality, purity, passion, evil … impurity, passion, evil desire and greed, it is on account of these things that the wrath of God will come.

All throughout the New Testament the wrath of God, the judgment of God is a recurring theme.

When you get into the book of Revelation, it takes center stage because now we’re focusing on the end time when God’s wrath really falls.

And it is not only the wrath of God that is discussed, but as I noted for you in 2 Thessalonians 1, it is the wrath of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Revelation 6:16 it is called the wrath of the Lamb … the wrath of the Lamb.

I.

A Great Command (vs. 1)

II.

A Great Canker (vs.

2)

III.

A Great Corpse (vs.

3-4)

IV.

A Great Commendation (vs.

5-7)

V.

A Great Consummation (vs.

8-9a)

VI.

A Great Cursing (vs.

9b, 11)

VII.

A Great Cloud (vs.

10)

VIII.

A Great Collection (vs.

12-17)

IX.

A Great Conclusion (vs.

17-21)

This is it!

This is the final tribulation judgment of sinners.

I think, that as we ending our journey tonight through the tribulation, that we contemplate the judgment of God and the condition of the sinner.

As I have said the previous sermons in this series, if they study of prophecy does not increase your heart for evangelism than it has been a waste.

I hope, that as we have gone through these judgments together over the last couple of year really, that a family member of a friend or a co-worker has come to your mind and your heart breaks because they have never trusted Christ and these are the things that are waiting for them.

I hope this has given you a new passion to tell those people that if they have not been covered by the judgment that happened on Calvary, then they are going to experience the judgment of the wrath of God.

You will experience it either eschatologically or eternally.

Men who have never come to the cross to have their sins judged in Christ will be judged for their sins in a devastating holocaust judgment that will last for eternity.

So as we sit here and enjoy the gracious and merciful provisions that Christ has made for us, let us never forget the judgment that awaits those who reject that provision.

Now, the seventh bowl finishes up the wrath of God on sinners on the earth as we know it.

After that, of course, Jesus Christ returns and sets up His Millennial Kingdom.

Now at the end of the one thousand years there is one last judgment that Christ pours out on all those that follow Satan’s rebellion after he is loosed.

But this is the most complete and devastating catastrophe that earth will ever experience.

The Pouring of the Bowl (vs.

17a)

The air encircles the globe.

This whole atmosphere will be affected by this judgment.

By the way, some have noted that is the judgment of Satan final dominion.

He is known, in Scripture, as the Price of the Power of the Air.

He and his demons throughout time have performed their acts of treachery and wickedness in the heavenlies.

There is perhaps a sense in which God is cleansing their last place of dominion, so that all that is wicked has been judged.

But I also think that the reason why we see judgment in the air is because there is going to be cataclysmic changes in the atmosphere.

What else is is going to produce hail the size that is going to be produce.

Certainly no weather pattern that we have ever seen.

So I believe that this is going to be a massive alteration of the atmosphere.

And I will say more on that as we go.

2. The Proclamation of the Bowl (vs.

17b)

Revelation 17:

The term loud or great is used seven times in this bowl, everything about this bowl is great.

This voice has to be the voice of God.

It can be none other than the voice of God, the Most High, possessor of heaven and earth.

He is the one executing this final wrath.

Here is the climax of the great day of the Lord, that spreads doom over the whole face of the earth.

And when God speaks He says, “It is Done”.

By the way, this is the same kind of expression that Jesus proclaimed on the cross when He said, “It is Finished”.

That was a judgment, too, a judgment to provide grace for sinners.

This is a judgment with no grace.

“It is Done”, “γίνομαι” in the Greek and it is a Perfect Tense.

γέγονεν

“It is Done”,

γέγονεν

It means it has been and will remain done.

γέγονεν

γέγονεν

This is it.

Christ then comes and sets up His Millennial Kingdom.

And just like the finished judgment that happen at Calvary where God punctuated it will an earthquake, He is going to do the same thing here.

Only this earthquake is not going to be local, it is going to be worldwide.

And it is going to remake the earth appropriately for the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ in His universal reign.

The curse will be removed.

This is when the Lion will lay down by the Lamb.

When a child can play with a snake and not be injured.

This is when people live to be very old, if someone dies as a hundred years of age, says the prophet, then they will die child.

This is when the configuration of the world completely changes, as we will see, for the Kingdom.

Then at the end of the end of the thousand years, the whole heaven and earth will be recreated.

Here you have a renovation, after the thousand years you have a recreation.

3. The Product of the Bowl (vs.

18-21)

In verse 18 is where the action starts to take place.

Now remember, this bowl was poured into the air, so whatever lightnings and thunders appear, it is not doubt a product the change in the atmosphere that the bowel caused.

Just another note.

Do you remember how the seventh seal were introduced?

Let me share it with you.

Do you remember how the seventh trumpet was introduced?

And here the seventh bowl is introduced the same way.

It’s to show the fury coming out of the throne of God as the final event in each of the series of seven unfolds.

Each of them is introduced with the elements of a storm.

And then it says that there was a great “σεισμός”, that is where we get the term seismograph, to measure earthquakes.

This is a great earthquake.

Unlike anything that mankind has experienced sense he has been on the earth.

This is going to be, imagine this, a worldwide shake.

This planet is not designed to last.