We’ve been going through the Book of Revelation for three of months now. Here is a review:
Chapter 1: – John’s vision of the resurrected, powerful and glorious Jesus.
Chapters 2-3: – A look at His church.
Chapter 4: – A vision of Heaven with God the Father, the powerful Holy Creator is on the throne.
Chapter 5: -A vision of Jesus the Son of God, the Lamb who died for our sins.
This week, chapter 6: – A vision of God’s Holy justice.
Here is a verse to meditate on as I share this information.
“Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God.” -Romans 11:22.
In Revelation chapter 6 there are two distinctions of God’s severity. His holiness and His justice. People like to hear about His goodness, love and blessings, but they don’t like to hear about His holy justice.
In the book of Revelation there are three major judgments that come to the earth. The first wave is called the seal pronouncements which start in chapter 6.
This Scroll in chapter 6 is a document to be read and proclaimed to Creation. The Scroll symbolizes the Kings decree for His kingdom. Recall in ancient times the town Cryer would unfurl the decree and announce the Kings activity to all His subjects.
As the scroll is unfurled and the Lamb breaks the seals of the scroll, each moment that a seal is broken, it unleashes a new barrage of God’s pronouncement against a Christ-rejecting world.
Later, in chapter 8, another round begins as the angels blow the seven trumpets.
Finally, the bowl judgments begin in chapter 16, as the final measure of God’s wrath is poured out on a world which refuses to budge from its position of willful rebellion. Each series of judgments is worse than the other, and the bowls complete the work of the great Tribulation.
It is not pleasant to read about God carrying out His judgment. There are plagues, famine, war, and death. There is great suffering in the world as a result of what God is doing. There are many questions surrounding God’s activity and His purpose in all this. It all seems so terrible. Why would God do these things which cause such misery and pain? I’m going to present an answer this morning.
I’m approaching this chapter differently than normal. Instead of preaching through this chapter, making some observations and doing an exegetical treatise, I thought it would be profitable to share three purposes for the activity that we just read in chapter 6.
The first purpose of these pronouncements is:
- To Bring People to Repentance.
The purpose of these pronouncements are redemptive. It is an effort to get people to turn from their sin and turn to God — so that they might live. We need to remember that the Lord has said, “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die. . . ?” – Ezekiel 33:11.
The call to repentance is found throughout the book of Revelation. Jesus warned five of the seven churches in chapter 2 and 3 directly to “repent” and two of them were told to “overcome”.
As these pronouncements in chapter 6 are being carried out, their purpose is to turn people from their sin, so that God will forgive them. He wants to save, not to destroy. The purpose of these pronouncements is redemptive, not punitive. God seeks through these measures, to correct, not merely to punish. God desires reconciliation. In fact, the word for punish is finally found at the end of all these pronouncements in Revelation 17:1, and then it is speaking about the condemnation of the great prostitute who represents the evil, one-world government of the end times.
When we read of these events in the book of Revelation, we must remember that God cannot change…Amen! “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.” –Malachi 3:6
What has the Lord said….
Isaiah 55:7 “Let the wicked forsake their way and the evil person their thoughts. Let a person turn to the LORD, and He will have mercy on them, and to our God, for He will freely pardon.”
What is interesting is that the people of earth are experiencing all these opportunities and still remain willfully and stubbornly rebellious.
Ahead in Revelation chapter nine: “The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood — idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.” – Revelation 9:20-21
In fact, the people only seem to harden their wills further. We read later where it says, “They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify Him” – Revelation 16:9.
Their willful rebellion and stubborn refusal to submit to the God who gave them life, and acknowledge that He is King of the Universe, demonstrate how just God’s actions are.
Our stubbornness in regard to surrendering to God is a major problem of the human family. Listen to the warning of Scripture:
“But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when His righteous judgment will be revealed. God ‘will give to each person according to what He has done.’ To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, He will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.” Romans 2:5-8
The word for stubborn in the Greek language comes from the word σκληρός skleros. Skleros means callous, or hard. It is used in our modern medical profession, for example “arteriosclerosis,” which is the medical term for the thickening and hardening of the arteries which blocks circulation.
This kind of stubbornness happens when people develop a calloused will. Its hardening our heart toward God with no desire to repent.
And yet God in His justice continues to wait on people.
The second purpose of these pronouncements are:
- To Demonstrate the Patience of God.
Praise the Lord that God does not exercise this kind of pronouncement against our sins currently. We certainly deserve it. The book of Revelation declares that all people will be dealt with justly. Amazingly, God waits on mankind to bring about His justice.
Recall back in the second chapter of Revelation, Jesus reprimands the church of Thyatira for tolerating a false prophet who was advocating sexual immorality as being a part of an acceptable lifestyle for a Christian. This was a threat to the church spiritually, but Jesus said, “I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways.” – Revelation 2:21-22
The patience of God is seen when He gives us the ability to turn from our sin and turn to Him. He would be just if He did not wait. But, Hallelujah, He gives us time to turn — even the worst of people.
God is longsuffering: The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. – 2 Peter 3:9.
There is a Hebrew fable about Abraham sitting outside his tent one night, when he saw an old man walking in the distance. Abraham rushed out to greet him and invited him into his tent. He washed the old man’s feet, and placed before him something to eat and drink. Immediately, the old man took the food and began to put it into his mouth without giving thanks to God. “What?” said Abraham, “Aren’t you going to pray and give thanks to God for his goodness?” The weary old man said, “I worship only fire and reverence no other god.” Abraham became full of fury. He grabbed the old man and pulled him to his feet, and then began to shove him out into the cold of the night. Awhile later, God called out to his friend Abraham, and said to him, “Where is the stranger whom you invited in and shared your food?” Abraham said, “I cast him far from me, for he did not worship you and follow your laws.” Then God said, “I have put up with him these eighty years although he dishonors me, and you could you not endure him one night?”
Lets’ move from fiction to the Bible to see God’s patience.
Remember the story of Jonah? God was patient with the people of Nineveh. He had endured their evil rebellion and violence for many years. And then he asked Jonah to go and preach to them that they might be saved, and so that he could avert his justice. But Jonah was angry that God wanted to spare them, and refused to go — preferring to die in the belly of a great fish than help the Ninevites escape the judgment of God.
In the days of Noah, prior to the great flood, God wanted the people to turn from the error of their ways. He waited 120 years to send the flood while Noah preached to the people while building the ark. The Bible conveys that those “who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water.” -1 Peter 3:20
God saved all who believed, and it will be the same at the end of the world.
Two more quick examples: The woman at the well, had five husbands and a life of sin, yet Jesus drew her into discovering repentance and salvation. The thief on the cross lived wickedly, yet Jesus received him on the day he repented.
We need to be patient with others until that time, for the Bible says, “What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory.” – Romans 9:22-23
Which brings us to a third purpose of these pronouncement:
- To Establish God’s Justice.
We who live in the United States enjoy all our freedoms, privileges and protection by the law. But what if there was no law, we would long for justice. If no one had rights and were oppressed by those who had the power; if we lived where others took your property or abused your family without recrimination. In those situations a person would welcome the justice of God. If we were powerless, we would long for God to come to our defense. If there were no judges then we would long for someone before whom we could plead our case, so that we might receive justice.
During World War II, when the Jews were being systematically annihilated and no one seemed to care, they cried out for justice. But Germany was placing them in ghettos and eventually into death camps, and the European countries would not allow them to immigrate. The United States pretended not to notice. The Jews suffered more than any group of people in history, and no one came to their defense until it was too late for many of them. It was carefully planned genocide. They looked for justice anywhere they could find it, but only a few would come to help. When the nations of the world finally did respond against Germany and liberated the Jews from the death camps, there was a global sigh of relief as though the world had been set right.
That is the way it will be in the end of the world. God’s justice will be done against the cruelties, injustices and violence of the world, and those who have perpetuated them, so all will know that God takes sin seriously.
Hebrews 10:31 tells us “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
Perhaps historically people have so overreacted to the past where only hell fire and damnation were preached. But now I think we have swung too far to the other side in believing that sin is not serious, and God is not really going to judge it. That would be a serious mistake. We will all stand before the throne of God to give an account.
The Bible says that “man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” -Hebrews 9:27. We all belong to God, whether we want to acknowledge this is another matter. But the fact remains that we are accountable to our Creator.
The world is accountable, and a day is coming when God will justly judge all people. God will expose evil for what it is and show His power over it. God will redeem the world. Justice is coming and it will be a source of joy for those who sacrificed for Him. The Bible says, “Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God” – 1 Corinthians 4:5.
The May 1984 issue of National Geographic displayed color photos and drawings of the volcanic destruction that wiped out the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in A.D. 79. Mount Vesuvius’ eruption was so sudden that the people were killed in the middle of their routine. Men and women were at the market, the wealthy were caught in their luxurious baths, and the slaves were still at their labor. They died as they were covered by volcanic ash and superheated gases. It is hard to imagine the horror of that terrible day. The saddest part is that no one had to die. Scientists and historians found that the ancient Roman writers recorded weeks of rumblings and other signs which preceded the actual explosion. There was even a threatening pillar of smoke which could be clearly seen several days before the eruption.
There are similar warnings in the bible that God has giving to us. We are told in Scripture about what to expect. We are told that we are accountable to God.
Why do people fail to repent and trust God?
The end of your world may come before the end of the world? Are you ready?
“For the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” – Romans 10:12-13