Series: Revelation: The Best is Yet to Come

Title: “Why worship God for Armageddon?

Scripture: Revelation 16:1-21

(Main commentary helps listed at the end)

Bottom line: God is glorified in his just wrath as he brings is awesome wrath on his enemies—wrath that fits the crime. (Just ask the heavenly host)

Intro/Opening story:

The year was 250 CE and Rome found itself facing, invaded even, by a different kind of enemy. It was not an army it could simply defeat on the battlefield, but a plague that swept through parts of the empire.

Most historians think the invader was akin to Smallpox or Bubonic Plague, based on the early descriptions of symptoms. Whole households were disappearing to the ravages of the disease. Proximity was spreading illness at unprecedented rates, causing fear and panic as people saw their friends and family quickly falling ill, only to escape symptoms by death.

Plague and Panic

Bodies were left in the streets, being removed from houses so that remaining inhabitants could hopefully live in relative safety from whatever was attacking. The sick were driven out into the public areas to die a slow and painful death. It caused panic among the public, resulting in many fleeing to the countryside to escape the confines and tighter living of city neighborhoods. At one point, up to 5000 per day were falling in Rome alone. The empire was dying in epidemic proportions!

However, as many fled, there was one group of people that stayed. They cared for the sick, buried the dead, attempting to thwart the plague by burying bodies and covering them in lime, or burning bodies that had been piled in the streets. Who were these lunatics that stayed and cared for those who were dying? Who was this group that ran into the plague instead of fleeing in panic? They were known as Christians

Love and Loyalty

These so-called Christians that lived within the Empire were found with the sick and dying, not running from them. As people suffered in the community, they responded with love, care and concern. They put their hands on the hurting and brought comfort to their suffering.

In 260 CE Dionysius wrote a tribute to their efforts saying, “Most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves and only thinking of one another. Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ…”

These anomalies of common sense stayed to care for the wholeness of the community, dealing with the ravages of death and infection rather than running to the hills in search of safety. The Christians lived in search of love and in search of a response that looked like Jesus’ life. A life where love triumphed danger and where the values of the kingdom of God overruled the safety of one’s life.

These values resulted in a bravery that was not witnessed in the rest of the community or in the civic rulers. Only the Christians were brave enough to love, in spite of the dangers.

A Growing Faith

Most historians reflect on this era of Roman history as a critical time in Christian history as well. This response of the Christian community is often cited as one reason that this faith in Jesus grew among the population. Even pagan observers noticed a constant charity and love for others. During these times of plague and great need in Roman history, Christians were observed to be standing in the gap where the empire failed to bring wholeness.

The emperor Julian complained in a letter to his pagan priest in Galatia that the virtues and responses of the Christians were out matching their own citizens. He observed that recent Christian growth was partly due to, “benevolence toward strangers and care for the graves of the dead.” He goes on to say, “The impious Galileans support not only their poor, but ours as well, everyone can see that they lack aid from us.”

Curious Values

The early church, as it lived in Rome, gained notice as a community that lived under a different set of values that were based on love and care for neighbor. They brought human care to situations in ways that other philosophies and belief systems did not, and so people were drawn to it. They were drawn to a community that cared for them in spite of their outsidedness and differences in beliefs. And so, the Romans noticed this strange band of brave people that were connected by a Galilean named Jesus. They noticed these oddities because they lived by virtue of a particular verb…love.

Teach the frame reminding us about Rev 11:15 that Jesus will be king. (Time permitting)

Read through and explain Rev 16 as the last 7 judgments of God on his enemies.

We must read Rev 16 from God’s perspective—not ours. Explain why…

Each plague:

The place

The punishment

The promise or perversion

1st 3: response of the righteous

2nd 4: response of the wicked

If time…

Final thoughts with help from Nicky Gumbel:

I. Jesus is coming back. He tells us this in his beatitude. Second coming of Christ—

are you ready? We’re one day closer to it than we were yesterday.

II. Jesus took your judgment. “It is done” reminds me of “It is finished” from Jesus on the cross where he died for my sins so that I wouldn’t have to. (John 19:30) Cf. Romans 6:23 and John 3:16

III. Judgment is delayed. (But this is his final warning) Judgment is for those who “refused to repent and glorify him.” (16:9) …but not forever. It is right and good that God would judge those who deny him giving them what their actions and attitudes deserve. Are we ready? Are we warning others?

IV. Judgment will be totally just. 16:7 (heaven praises him for this too) And we’re reminded that God’s judgments are “true” and “just”. That’s because he is truth and he is holy. This is consistent with his perfect and unchanging character.

Conclusion

As Greg Stier says, let’s keep our eyes on the clouds and on the crowds as we wait expectantly for his imminent return. Let us not walk in fear but in love rooted confidently in the faith we’ve received in Jesus Christ.

Read 10 commandments (Exodus 20); 2 Peter 3:8-9; 1 Thess 5:1-11.

Invite people to repent and believe.

Tell someone.

If you want your name written in the book of life, pray to God something like this,

Dear God, thank you for revealing your word and ways to me today. Thank you for helping me understand better who you are and what you are doing.

I believe that Jesus Christ, the son of God, died for my sins in my place so that I could receive mercy and have life in his name. Forgive me for my sins and fill me with your Holy Spirit to overflowing. Help me read and obey your word daily as I learn to walk in step with you. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.

Pray

Other Illustrations:

“Keep your eyes on the clouds and the crowds.” —Greg Stier

Live in light of his imminent return.

“Jesus didn’t give the Church the book of Revelation so we’d build ourselves bigger bomb shelters, but so we’d would build longer dinner tables” - @RayOrtlund

Other thoughts wrt joy and circumstances and Jane / Nightbirdie

“Sow a thought, you reap an action;

Sow an action, you reap a habit;

Sow a habit, you reap a character;

sow a character, you reap a destiny.”

-E. Stanley Jones

The Framed Picture of Revelation 11-16

144,000 sealed—6 trumpet plagues (7-9)

True Prophet John (10:1-11)

Persecuted Church (11:1-14)

Christ is King (11:15-19)

Persecuted Church (12:1-13:10)

Satan’s False Prophet (13:11-18)

144,000 sealed—7 bowls of wrath (14-16)

Notice the symmetry and how it purposefully points to the most important truth in the book of Revelation. Just another way God reinforces the idea that he’s purposefully revealing himself to us for our good and his glory.

Other notes:

References:

Main commentary help:

• Exalting Jesus in Revelation by Daniel Akin

• Revelation by Jim Hamilton

• Revelation by Paige Patterson, New American Commentary series

• Breaking the Code by Bruce Metzger

• 2020 Sermons by Matt Chandler

• ESV Global Study Bible

• Bible in One Year by Nicky Gumbel

• Bible Knowledge Commentary

• The Book of Revelation, NICNT, Robert Mounce

• The Outline Bible, Wilmington

• Bible in One Year reading plan, Nicky Gumbel

• Exalting Jesus in 1 Kings by Tony Merida

• Discipleship on the Edge, Darrell W. Johnson