Revelation 15 and 16 are one of the most famous stretches of Revelation, but also one of the most misunderstood.

As Revelation 15 and 16 opens, John says something remarkable:

“I saw another great and marvelous sign in the sky: seven angels having the seven last plagues, for in them God’s wrath is finished.” — Revelation 15:1, WEB

This is a very important line, but also a very easy one to misunderstand because it uses the word last. A lot of times you hear preachers or teachers quote Revelation 15:1 and say, “This is the last set of plagues or the last set of judgments.”

They say that proves that the book of Revelation is written in chronological order. God pours out seven plagues called the seven seals. Then He pours out seven more plagues called the seven trumpets. And now finally He pours out seven last plagues called the seven bowls.

And they use that to build out a really complicated chart that’s meant to map out the entire history of the end times by treating Revelation like it is a play-by-play written in exact chronological order.

But there is a problem.

The Seals, Trumpets, and Bowls Tell the Same Story

The problem is that this word actually does not mean what we maybe assume it means the first time we see it. Because in the context of John’s series of visions, this vision of the seven last plagues does not literally refer to a different set of judgments than the seals or the trumpets.

This is once again John narrating the entire history of the war between the serpent and the Lamb from the time of Jesus all the way to the very end.

And we know that for a handful of reasons.

The most important is that the seals, the trumpets, and the bowls all end in exactly the same place.

They end with the end of the world.

At the end of the vision of the seals, the final seals literally describe a full-on cosmic collapse and a final judgment. Then again, the same thing happens when we read through the trumpets vision.

And now once again, the same thing is going to happen when we read through the vision of the seven bowls.

The seven seals end with the final judgment. The seven trumpets end with the final judgment. And then the seven bowls end with the final judgment.

This is telling us pretty clearly that all three of these visions are narrating exactly the same thing, but they are narrating it from different camera angles.

It’s kind of like that movie Vantage Point. It tells the story of an assassination attempt on the American president or something like that. It’s been a while since I saw it, so the details are a little fuzzy, but I do remember it tells it from several different perspectives.

You see it from the perspective of the president himself. I think you see it from the perspective of some Secret Service people. You see it from the perspective of one of the terrorists, and so on and so forth.

The same thing is happening here.

Revelation is giving us a whole bunch of different camera angles that show us the entire history from the time that Jesus came down from heaven to go to the cross in our place all the way through the day that He returns once again to finish what He started, to take the throne of this world back for Himself, to destroy the devil and the forces of darkness, to restore all things.

And with each new camera angle, we get a deeper and richer and fuller understanding of God’s work to redeem humanity and restore our world.

The Seven Bowls and God’s Covenant Lawsuit

As we dive into the bowls vision once again, we see this image of all of creation carrying out God’s righteous judgment against the cosmic mutiny that began with the serpent, spread into so many of the angels and other heavenly host, and then ultimately spread to humanity when Adam and Eve took the fruit.

God is pouring out His righteous judgment against this cosmic rebellion.

And we see that in a really fascinating phrase that he uses here in Revelation 15:5:

“After these things I looked, and the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened.” — Revelation 15:5, WEB

That is really important because that phrase very specifically is pointing back toward the wilderness tabernacle in the Old Testament. They would break it down and put it back together in each new place when they camped as they were wandering through the desert waiting to enter the Promised Land.

And inside the tabernacle, they had the Ark of the Covenant or the Ark of the Testimony.

Throughout the rest of the Old Testament, the prophets would use that image of the Ark of the Testimony in the wilderness tabernacle whenever they were describing God bringing something called a covenant lawsuit against His people or against the nations.

Whenever the Lord would pour out His righteous judgment or discipline on either His people or the nations that waged war on His people, it was called a covenant lawsuit.

We see an example of that in Micah 6:1–2:

“Listen now to what Yahweh says: ‘Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear what you have to say. Hear, you mountains, Yahweh’s controversy, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for Yahweh has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel.’” — Micah 6:1–2, WEB

He was announcing a covenant lawsuit.

He was holding Israel accountable for breaking His covenant, for rebelling against Him, and He was going to discipline them. He was going to pour out these warning judgments on them as a way of bringing them to Himself.

Now He’s doing the same thing.

He is bringing a covenant lawsuit, but this time against all of the nations, against rebellious humanity as a whole, to bring them back to Himself.

Warning Judgments Meant to Bring Repentance

Just like the seals and the trumpets, these seven bowls are warning judgments.

It says that they opened up the innermost covenant place. They open up kind of the holy center of the heavenly temple, and God’s judging angels come forth and bring out these bowls of God’s wrath.

And this vision is painting exactly the same picture that we see when God comes to rescue His people from Egypt, when God gives His law to the Israelites on the mountain, when God sends the prophets to draw the Israelites back to Himself.

When God warns His people to return to Him and repent of their rebellion when they chase after the gods of the nations or the wickedness or injustice of the pagan cultures around them, He pours out warning judgments.

In the same way, now God is going to pour out His warning judgments, not for the purpose of destroying, but in order to draw rebellious humanity back to Himself.

It’s the same story from another angle.

The Glory of God Fills the Heavenly Temple

It says that as God is preparing to pour these warning judgments out, the heavenly temple fills with His glory.

Revelation 15:8 says:

“The temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power. No one was able to enter into the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels would be finished.” — Revelation 15:8, WEB

Once again, this is basically a direct quotation from the book of Exodus.

Exodus 40:34–35 says:

“Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and Yahweh’s glory filled the tabernacle. Moses wasn’t able to enter into the Tent of Meeting, because the cloud stayed on it, and Yahweh’s glory filled the tabernacle.” — Exodus 40:34–35, WEB

Essentially, God’s divine presence descends into the tabernacle. He visibly shows them His presence, and it is so powerful, so intense, so glorious that nobody can stand to be around it.

And from the tabernacle, the Lord would lead and guide His people. He would pour out His verdicts. He would give His judgments on the issues they were facing. He would prepare them for battle and so on and so forth.

He would give orders to His people through the priests, through Moses, when He would descend on the tabernacle in this visible way.

And in the same way, now His glory fills the heavenly temple in this vision.

He gives orders to these seven angels to go pour out His warning judgments on rebellious humanity in order to draw them to Himself.

The Seven Angels Dressed as Priests

It says that these angels are dressed like priests.

Revelation 15:6 says:

“The seven angels who had the seven plagues came out, clothed with pure, bright linen, and wearing golden sashes around their chests.” — Revelation 15:6, WEB

This is almost identical to the priestly garments that we see described throughout the Old Testament. Exodus 28, Exodus 39, and Exodus 40 describe linen garments and sashes for glory and beauty.

And in the same way, they are dressed almost identically to the way that Jesus is described in Revelation 1:13:

“And among the lamp stands was one like a son of man, clothed with a robe reaching down to his feet, and with a golden sash around his chest.” — Revelation 1:13, WEB

What’s going on here?

In the ancient Near East, they associated these fresh white linens with purity. They associated gold with a whole lot of things, but one of the things they associated it with was sacred service, absolute purity, and the process of refining the gold into its purest form.

So essentially what these angels are doing for the Lord is the same thing that the priests in the tabernacle did during the Old Testament days. They are functioning as His agents. They are carrying out His will.

In this case, the will that they are carrying out is the judgments that He is pouring out on rebellious humanity in order to draw them to repentance.

The Bowls of God’s Wrath

Under normal circumstances, the priests in the tabernacle or the temple would have bowls kind of like these seven bowls of judgment, but the bowls would be filled with blood or with the incense that they would carry to the altar as part of the ritual system in ancient Israel.

But here, rather than being filled with blood or incense, it says the bowls are filled with the wrath of God.

Revelation 15:7 says:

“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.” — Revelation 15:7, WEB

And this is also important because we see a pattern starting to come together with this.

First, we saw God Himself declaring these judgments that He is going to pour out on rebellious humanity to draw them back to Himself. Then we see angels serving as kind of priests to execute that warning judgment to draw humanity back to Himself.

And now we see the four living creatures coming and handing off the bowls, participating in this judgment process.

Creation Participates in God’s Judgment

Why does that matter?

It’s because the four living creatures represent something very specific.

They represent essentially the entirety of creation: every different type of creature, animals, humans, birds, and so on and so forth. They are designed in this vision to look like kind of an amalgamation of all the different types of earthly creatures.

So essentially what we’re seeing here is that creation itself is offering itself to the Lord as a tool in His hands to crush the cosmic mutiny, to judge rebellious humanity, to bring humanity back to Himself, and to destroy the spiritual powers of darkness.

That is the same thing Paul is talking about in Romans 8:22:

“For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now.” — Romans 8:22, WEB

Creation has been eagerly waiting for the day when the Lord finishes His work of redeeming humanity and restoring the world.

Creation itself is cheering on God’s warning judgments and His redemptive work and is offering itself over to Him to help in whatever way it can.

Creation Turned Against Egypt

This is basically the same type of thing that we see in the book of Exodus.

In Exodus, the ten plagues that the Lord pours out on that earlier form of the beast and Babylon—that is, Egypt and Pharaoh—involve the Lord taking every different part of creation and turning it against Egypt.

He turns the water against Egypt when He turns the Nile into blood. He turns the land against Egypt when He causes the crops and the livestock to die. He turns the sky against Egypt when the sky starts raining deadly hail.

He turns the insects against Egypt when the plagues of flies and gnats and locusts come. He turns the light and the darkness and the sun and the stars against Egypt with the plague of darkness. He even turns the human body against Egypt when He covers them with boils.

This is creation itself obeying the command of the Lord that says, “Turn against Egypt to reveal My judgment.”

And now the same thing is happening here on all of rebellious humanity.

The Poetic Justice of the Bowls

And in all of this, there’s a kind of poetic justice because these judgments are not random and they’re not arbitrary.

He doesn’t just pick these images in this vision because they sound cool.

He uses these specific images to illustrate His warning judgments because they have a kind of poetic quality.

Rebellious humanity is poetically receiving back what it’s been pouring out on God’s people.

We see that in Revelation 16:5–6:

“I heard the angel of the waters saying, ‘You are righteous, who are and who were, you Holy One, because you have judged these things. For they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. They deserve this.’” — Revelation 16:5–6, WEB

That’s pretty intense.

They say blood for blood.

They say an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Essentially, they are saying the judgments He is pouring out are measured. They are proportional.

Rebellious humanity has been oppressing God’s people, and now they are experiencing that oppression coming right back onto them. They have been destroying God’s creation, and now they are seeing that destruction come back on them.

They have been rebelling against God’s good created design that is meant for our flourishing, and now they are seeing that rebellion come back on them in the form of withering.

“How Long, O Lord?”

And this is the answer to the cry that the martyrs cried out in Revelation 6:9–11:

“When he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been killed for God’s Word, and for the testimony of the Lamb which they had. They cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, Master, the holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’ A long white robe was given to each of them. They were told that they should rest yet for a little while, until their fellow servants and their brothers, who would also be killed even as they were, should complete their course.” — Revelation 6:9–11, WEB

Now we see God responding directly to that cry of, “How long, O Lord?”

Revelation 16:7 says:

“I heard the altar saying, ‘Yes, Lord God, the Almighty, true and righteous are your judgments.’” — Revelation 16:7, WEB

He is now once and for all responding to the cry of His persecuted people through all of space and time, saying, “Now I will pour out My judgments, and I will bring rebellious humanity to repentance. And for those who will not repent, I will bring them to destruction. I will avenge your blood.”

The Goal Is Still Repentance

And yet in all of this, the goal is still repentance.

There was still an option for every single human still in rebellion against Him to repent and be redeemed.

We see it over and over throughout the story.

Revelation 16:9 says:

“The people were scorched with great heat, and people blasphemed the name of God who has the power over these plagues. They didn’t repent and give him glory.” — Revelation 16:9, WEB

Just like Pharaoh in Exodus, they received the warning judgments of the Lord that were meant to draw them to repentance. But instead of softening their hearts, they harden their hearts in the process.

And so we see this on repeat.

We see the same exact thing that we saw in the trumpet cycle and the seal cycle.

Revelation 9:20–21 says:

“The rest of mankind, who were not killed with these plagues, didn’t repent of the works of their hands, that they wouldn’t worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood, which can’t see, hear, or walk. They didn’t repent of their murders, their sorceries, their sexual immorality, or their thefts.” — Revelation 9:20–21, WEB

Here, in the same way, Revelation 16:11 says:

“They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores. They didn’t repent of their works.” — Revelation 16:11, WEB

These visions are hammering the same point over and over.

The problem is not that God did not send enough warnings. The problem is not that God didn’t make it clear enough to rebellious humanity. The problem is not that God didn’t try hard enough to bring humanity back to Himself to be saved.

The problem is that rebellious humanity refused to come back to Him.

Judgment Alone Will Not Bring Humanity to Repentance

The point is that there is no amount of judgment, no amount of warning, no amount of discipline that will shake rebellious humanity out of its rebellion.

Humanity is enthralled by the beast.

It has enslaved itself to the serpent.

And as a result, there is no amount of pain or suffering you can take away from the deceitful human heart that will bring it to repentance.

Instead, Revelation 16 says:

“Great hailstones, about the weight of a talent, came down out of the sky on people. People blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, for this plague is exceedingly severe.” — Revelation 16:21, WEB

Not even giant hailstones from the sky will shake people loose from their worship of the beast.

It says the goal of all these warning judgments is to bring them to repentance, but they won’t.

Bowl One: Painful Sores

The first image that we get in this vision is bowl number one: painful boils.

Revelation 16:2 says:

“The first went, and poured out his bowl into the earth, and it became a harmful and evil sore on the people who had the mark of the beast, and who worshiped his image.” — Revelation 16:2, WEB

So essentially there are these horrific sores, lesions, boils, whatever. They are poured out, but they are not poured out on everyone everywhere.

They are poured out specifically on people who have the mark of the beast, who worship the beast’s image.

The Mark of the Beast

The mark of the beast is not a microchip.

It is not an implant.

It is not a barcode.

It is not any kind of technology.

The mark of the beast is not literally a mark on your head or your hand.

The mark of the beast is a metaphor for literally worshiping the beast.

It is worshiping a false god who sets himself up, who opposes the Lord and attacks His people.

In the first century, the beast took the form of the Roman Empire and the Roman emperor. Emperors like Nero. They referred to Nero as 666 and as 616, as well as the Roman Empire in general.

But the point of the mark of the beast image is simply that you are marked by whatever you worship, whoever you devote yourself to.

So if you serve, worship, and follow the Lord, then you are marked by the Lamb. That is literally what Revelation 7 says, and that’s a running theme throughout God’s Word.

If you serve, worship, and follow the beast, then you are in some sense marked by the beast.

God Distinguishes Between His People and His Enemies

The point here is that God is distinguishing between His people and His enemies, between the enemies who will be destroyed by the judgment and His people who will be rescued by the judgment.

We saw that exact same thing in Exodus.

Exodus 8:22–23 says God set apart the land of Goshen where His people dwelled so that no swarms of flies would be there.

Exodus 9:4 says:

“Yahweh will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt; and nothing shall die of all that belongs to the children of Israel.” — Exodus 9:4, WEB

The point here is that this warning judgment is not aimed at God’s people.

This warning judgment is aimed at what Revelation calls those who dwell on the earth.

That term those who dwell on the earth here in Revelation is a shorthand it uses to describe rebellious humanity. It’s not everybody on earth. It is people who are in rebellion against the Lord.

He is pouring out these warning judgments specifically on people who are continuing to reject and oppose Him, who are aligned with the serpent, aligned with the beast.

The First-Century Meaning of the First Bowl

In the first century, that took the form of the way that the Roman Empire trapped Christians into a state of permanent poverty and borderline slavery because they refused to worship the gods of Rome, worship the emperor of Rome, worship Rome itself.

By pouring out these boils on rebellious humanity, the Lord is clearly saying, “Look, your skin is covered in lesions, but My people are fine. This is Me declaring to you that you are on the wrong side of history. You are on the wrong side of the universe. You are in opposition to the God of all creation.”

But you can turn back.

You can come to Me.

Come find healing.

Come into My family, My kingdom, My covenant through the cross.

Bowls Two and Three: The Sea and the Waters Turn to Blood

We see that same thing happening in bowl number two and bowl number three.

Bowl number two is basically identical to trumpet number two.

In trumpet number two, Revelation 8:8–9 says a third of the sea became blood, a third of the living creatures died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

And now in bowl number two, Revelation 16:3 says:

“The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became blood as of a dead man. Every living thing in the sea died.” — Revelation 16:3, WEB

In both cases, God sabotages the sea.

It’s the image of God sabotaging the sea.

Remember, it’s not a literal prediction that He’s literally going to sabotage the literal sea.

These are two separate images where God sabotages the sea.

Another Exodus Image

This is just like before pointing back to the first plague in Exodus.

The Lord turned the Nile into blood.

That was the kind of life source of Egypt.

It was the economic engine of Egypt.

Without the Nile, so much of the Egyptian economy just completely fell apart.

And in the same way, when God sabotages the sea in trumpet number two and bowl number two, He is sabotaging the economic engine behind the Roman Empire.

The empire’s entire economy depended on the ability to trade by sea. It depended on fishing and sailing and shipping things across the sea.

And when every living thing in the sea dies and the ships are brought down, suddenly Rome’s entire economy, its wealth and its riches, which fund its ability to conquer all the smaller and weaker nations and secure itself as the most powerful empire in the world, are just suddenly taken out at the kneecap.

The Rivers and Springs Become Blood

But God goes even further than that because it says in bowl number three that He turns the rivers and the springs into blood.

Revelation 16:4–6 says:

“The third poured out his bowl into the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood. I heard the angel of the waters saying, ‘You are righteous, who are and who were, you Holy One, because you have judged these things. For they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. They deserve this.’” — Revelation 16:4–6, WEB

So now, not only the sea, but actually the rivers and the streams.

In other words, the drinkable water.

They have not just lost access to the engine of their economy, but they have actually lost their water supply.

They do not have clean water to drink anymore.

You cannot live without water.

The Powerful Empire Becomes Powerless

What is the point?

God is turning the most powerful empire in the world into an absolutely powerless, completely helpless victim.

He is showing the wicked empire that opposes Him and attacks His people, that sees itself as all-powerful, just how powerless they are in the face of a righteous God pouring out His judgment on their wickedness.

Bowl Four: The Scorching Sun

We see exactly the same thing once again when we get to bowl number four.

Revelation 16:8–9 says:

“The fourth poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was given to him to scorch men with fire. People were scorched with great heat, and people blasphemed the name of God who has the power over these plagues. They didn’t repent and give him glory.” — Revelation 16:8–9, WEB

This is essentially a vision of God turning the sun against them.

The sun is normally a blessing.

It gives light.

It gives warmth.

It helps the crops grow.

But now it goes beyond blessing.

It actually becomes curse.

It scorches their crops.

It burns their skin.

It becomes impossible to go outside.

It reduces them all to homebound weaklings.

Once again, He is showing rebellious humanity just how powerless they are in the face of a holy God.

Bowl Five: Darkness Over the Beast’s Kingdom

And so it shouldn’t surprise us to find out that the exact same thing is true when we get to bowl number five, the plague of darkness.

This is kind of the inverse of that last one.

Once again, this is almost a direct quotation of the book of Exodus.

In Exodus 10:21–23:

“Yahweh said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand toward the sky, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt.’ Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days. They didn’t see one another, and nobody rose from his place for three days; but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.” — Exodus 10:21–23, WEB

In the same way here in this vision of the seven bowls, Revelation 16:10–11 says:

“The fifth poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was darkened. They gnawed their tongues because of the pain, and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores. They didn’t repent of their works.” — Revelation 16:10–11, WEB

Turning Out the Light on the “Light of Civilization”

And this one is really fascinating.

This one is basically a pun.

This is basically like a sight gag.

In the first century, the Roman Empire referred to itself as the light of civilization.

That was actually part of the imperial cult.

You worshiped the Roman Empire as the divine light of civilization.

You were required to worship Caesar, the Roman emperor, by calling him the divine light of the world.

But here the Lord lays bare this false worship of the empire and the emperor.

He literally shuts off the light.

In other words, He is saying, “You are not the light of the world. You are surrounded by darkness. You are filled with darkness.”

He says, “This is not the throne of light. This is the throne of the beast.”

You are not bringing light and order to civilization.

You are bringing confusion and fear and chaos.

You bring deep darkness with everything you destroy, everything you conquer, every people you subjugate, and every Christ follower that you persecute.

He says, “Here is what that looks like.”

And then He plunges them into absolute darkness.

He literally turns out the light on the so-called light of civilization.

Bowl Six: The Euphrates Dries Up

And in bowl number six, He takes that same basic reality and cranks it even further.

Revelation 16:12 says:

“The sixth poured out his bowl on the great river, the Euphrates. Its water was dried up, that the way might be prepared for the kings that come from the sunrise.” — Revelation 16:12, WEB

Just like before, we actually see a version of this playing out in the earlier visions, the seven seals and the seven trumpets.

This is God taking what the Roman Empire feared more than anything else and then kind of supercharging it in this vision by pouring out His warning judgments on rebellious humanity.

God is painting an image of conquest by the eastern powers.

That’s essentially what they would have thought.

The Threat of Parthia

The image that’s being painted here in this part of the vision is conquest by the eastern armies specifically.

So they would immediately have made any first-century resident of the Roman Empire think of Parthia.

It’s really important to understand that the Euphrates River was the eastern border of the Roman Empire.

On the other side of the Euphrates were the Parthian armies and a whole bunch of other enemies from the east.

And that matters because these were essentially the only serious military threat left that the Roman Empire still faced at this point in time.

And the only reason the Parthians had never marched into Rome to lay siege to Rome’s cities in the east was because the Euphrates made it logistically impossible.

Imagine what would happen, though, if the Euphrates suddenly dried up.

There would suddenly be nothing stopping the Parthians from coming in and wreaking absolute havoc on Rome.

Rome would have no way to meaningfully protect itself against the Parthian army marching over the Euphrates from the east.

That would be the end of the Roman Empire as they knew it.

The security of the empire, the most powerful in the world, which saw itself as all-powerful, actually basically hung by a single thread called the Euphrates River.

The Kings of the Earth Unite Against God

And yet something really strange happens here in this vision because the Euphrates dries up and these images representing the Parthian armies march over the Euphrates.

But rather than just marching into Rome and conquering Rome itself, it says the kings of the earth join together.

It says they join together with the dragon, with the beast, with the false prophet against the Lord and His people.

This vision uses a really fascinating image.

Revelation 16:13–14 says:

“I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits, something like frogs; for they are spirits of demons.” — Revelation 16:13–14, WEB

Okay, that’s pretty weird.

But once again, this is an echo of the plagues from Exodus.

The Demonic Frogs

In Exodus 8, God sends this plague of frogs on the Egyptians that basically makes it impossible to live because they are everywhere.

This takes that exact same image except this time the frogs are not just frogs.

It says they are demonic spirits who come from the dragon, who come from Satan, who come from the beast, who come from Rome and the emperor, and from the false prophet, the imperial cult.

So you would expect at this moment that the Parthian armies would come and wage war on Rome.

But instead they join with Rome against a different common enemy.

Because Parthia may have been at war with Rome and Rome with Parthia, but both Parthia and Rome were at war with the Lord in a much deeper sense.

And so it says they gathered together the kings of the earth alongside the beast and the false prophet, Babylon and the serpent, to wage war against God.

How Literally Should We Take This War?

Now once again, how literally are we meant to take this?

I think the answer is that no one really knows.

And the reason nobody really knows is because, as always, this is apocalyptic literature.

Apocalyptic literature constantly describes ordinary events, mundane events, regular events, everyday events using military language.

Ancient Jewish apocalyptic literature would regularly describe something very simple using apocalyptic war symbolism.

So this piece of biblical apocalyptic literature called the book of Revelation is describing this great war between the kings of the earth and the Lord.

But the fact that it is apocalyptic literature means we really have no idea whether this is meant to describe some literal war that will literally take place on a literal battlefield using literal weapons at some point in the future, or it’s just an image meant to communicate something very different using, as is often the case, the imagery of warfare in a kind of symbolic apocalyptic way.

The Christian Life Is Already Described as Warfare

And at the same time, we don’t know exactly how literally to take this for another very important reason.

All of Revelation and really all of the New Testament describe God’s people in general using the language of warfare.

All of the New Testament from Matthew through Revelation describes the entire Christian life as being enmeshed in a great spiritual war against the devil and the forces of darkness who use the kings of this world as their weapons.

That is the way the entirety of God’s Word describes our entire life as followers of Jesus.

So this image of this great war in Revelation 15–16 might be pointing to a literal earthly battle or earthly war, or it may not be doing that at all.

It might just be an image of the great spiritual war that we’re already enmeshed in and have been since the beginning of history.

What Is Armageddon?

And at exactly the same time, we don’t know exactly how literally to take this because of a very specific term that it uses.

This is a really common term and it’s really misunderstood.

It’s the term Armageddon.

It refers to this as the battle of Armageddon.

There’s a bunch of prophecy-preacher-type books with Armageddon in the title, and almost all of them overlook the most basic fact about this that pretty much immediately undermines most of their predictions about Russia or China or Iran or America or whatever.

It calls this the battle of Armageddon.

And that really matters because the term Armageddon means something really specific, and it matters what it means.

It means the mountain of Megiddo.

The battle of Armageddon is the battle at the mountain of Megiddo.

So the word Armageddon does not mean weird end-times stuff.

The word Armageddon means the mountain at Megiddo.

The Problem With the “Mountain of Megiddo”

But that’s actually really strange.

And that should immediately cause us to say, “Wait, something weird’s going on here.”

Why is it really strange?

It’s because Megiddo was an actual historical place.

And there was not a mountain at Megiddo.

There is no way to put a mountain at Megiddo.

There has never been a mountain at Megiddo.

Megiddo is a massive flat plain.

It is a massive open field.

And because it’s a massive flat open plain, it’s a strategic military pass that armies would pass through because it’s relatively easy to get from one end to the other.

You can see your enemies from a long way off if you are passing through the plain of Megiddo.

It is not a mountain.

So when Revelation says the battle of the mountain at Megiddo, it is essentially talking about a location that flat out does not exist, has never existed, and literally there is no way you could cause it to exist.

You cannot put a mountain there.

Megiddo as the Site of Catastrophic Defeat

And yet the strategic pass of Megiddo, this big open plain, was one of the most important battle sites in the history of ancient Israel.

Read Judges 5.

Read 2 Kings 23.

Read about the death of Josiah, the good king.

The Israelites associated Megiddo with something very specific.

They associated Megiddo with their most catastrophic defeats.

They associated it with their most humiliating losses, times when they were gutted as a people.

So when Revelation takes the image of the battle site where Israel had lost nearly everything time and time again and juxtaposes that with the image of a mountain, what’s it doing?

What’s the point?

A Final Confrontation Doomed From the Beginning

Most likely the point is that the whole rebellious world system is being drawn into a kind of final confrontation with the God of the universe by deception, the deception of the serpent king, the demonic influence of the devil and the forces of darkness.

And that confrontation is absolutely doomed from the start.

Just like all of those humiliations and catastrophic defeats that Israel faced on the plain of Megiddo, now all of rebellious humanity and the beast and Babylon and so forth are about to suffer their own abject humiliation and catastrophic defeat when they go up against the God of the universe.

And we can be pretty confident in interpreting the image in this way because that is exactly what the vision says happens.

Bowl Seven: “It Is Done”

As we cross over into bowl number seven, it is no longer using a specific historical or symbolic event as its image.

Instead, bowl number seven is literally just the destruction of the serpent.

Bowl number seven is the destruction of the serpent’s kingdom.

Bowl number seven is the destruction of the devil and the forces of darkness.

It is the final victory over all things.

The voice from the throne says:

“It is done!”

And I love the way that it describes this.

Lightning, Thunder, and Earthquake

It uses that same imagery that we saw earlier in Revelation 4, which itself was pulled from Exodus 19.

The imagery of lightning, thunder, and earthquakes.

All of this paints a picture of God’s overwhelming presence as He reveals Himself in power and glory and prepares to destroy the forces of darkness and rescue His people.

It says there was an earthquake like no earthquake that had ever occurred.

The whole cosmos shakes.

Hailstones rain from the sky.

It is a vision of unstoppable and totally crushing judgment.

It’s an image of the entire world coming apart at the seams.

It says:

“Every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.”

This sounds bizarre to us, but it’s an extremely common standard piece of apocalyptic language.

We see it in nearly every ancient apocalyptic writing, and we see it throughout the Old Testament prophets like Isaiah 24 and Micah chapter 1.

The Old Order Is Being Unmade

The old order is being unmade to make way for the new.

The fallen and broken world is being melted down and hammered into something new.

It’s being taken apart and put back together.

It’s being refined and renewed, beginning with the destruction of the devil and the forces of darkness.

It says Babylon, the great city, was split into three parts.

It says the cities of the nations collapsed.

It says they drank the cup of wrath.

Remember, Babylon is a catch-all image throughout Scripture that describes the wicked empires and wicked rulers who oppose the Lord and attack God’s people under the guidance and influence of the serpent.

This is a recurring tool in the devil’s hand to try to derail God’s plan and mission to redeem and restore the world.

And yet now Satan’s chief weapon is smashed into pieces.

His cosmic rebellion is eviscerated once and for all.

This is a description of the end of all things.

The Victorious People of God Beside the Sea of Glass

And in the wake of God’s victory over Babylon, over the beast, over the serpent king, we see another glorious image.

We see God’s people gathering around His throne to dwell joyfully in His presence forever.

In the wake of God’s victory over all the forces of darkness, we see every follower of Jesus who has ever been killed because of their loyalty to Him joyfully gathered around the throne.

John says that he saw what looked like a sea of glass glowing with fire and a multitude of people standing beside it.

We’ve talked about the sea of glass as kind of an image of God’s power to subdue chaos, death, destruction, and darkness.

In the ancient Near Eastern worldview, the sea was an image of chaos and evil.

But here, the sea is calm like glass.

And now it is glowing with fire.

Judgment, Refinement, Peace, and Joy

Fire was an image of judgment and refinement.

And so what we’re seeing is how the Lord has poured out these judgments.

These judgments have destroyed His enemies.

They’ve rescued His people.

And they’ve drawn many who were once His enemies out of rebellion and into repentance so that they became His people, rescued by the judgment rather than destroyed.

And the result is peace and joy.

God is surrounded at His throne by all who lost their lives out of faithfulness to Him.

Those who endured under the beast and did not bow to its system now stand in victory before God.

They overcame by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

They didn’t love their lives even unto death.

The Martyrs Sing the Song of Moses and the Lamb

Surrounding the throne is every person who has ever been killed for their faith.

And so surrounding that throne is Antipas, the martyr from Pergamum that John mentions at the beginning of the book.

Surrounding that throne are the believers from all seven churches who were captured and arrested and tortured and killed for King Jesus.

They refused to worship the gods of Rome.

They refused to worship the emperor.

They refused to worship the empire.

They stayed faithful to Jesus even to the point of death.

So they are not sad.

They are not traumatized.

They’re joyful.

And in their joy, it says they are singing.

They sing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb.

They sing a victory song just like Israel sang after the Exodus in Exodus 15.

They sing out one iconic line after another from Scripture.

They quote Psalm 111:

“Great and marvelous are your works.”

They quote Deuteronomy 32:4:

“Righteous and true are your ways.”

They quote Jeremiah 10:7:

“You King of the nations.”

They quote Psalm 86:9:

“All the nations will come and worship before you.”

They say, “You are the same God who judged Egypt and saved Israel. And now You have judged Rome and saved us. You have judged the beast and rescued us.”

This is a vision of the glorious victory of the Lord and His people.

This is the end of the great spiritual war.

This is the happy ending at the end of history.

How Do We Prepare for the King’s Return?

Which immediately forces us to ask a very important question.

How do we get there?

How do we arrive at that happy ending?

Revelation 15 and 16 tells us exactly.

We prepare for the King’s return by consciously cultivating faithfulness amidst suffering.

We prepare for spiritual battle by consciously cultivating faithfulness rather than compromise.

“Behold, I Come Like a Thief”

There is this really fascinating kind of interruption in the middle of the vision in Revelation 16:15.

Jesus says:

“Behold, I come like a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his clothes, so that he doesn’t walk naked, and they see his shame.” — Revelation 16:15, WEB

In other words, He says, “Stay awake.”

Don’t fall into spiritual sleep like the church in Sardis has.

Don’t be lulled by the wealth and power of the modern Babylon, Rome.

He says the church in Sardis is asleep, and you need to wake up from your sleep.

And in the same way, He says that the church in Laodicea is naked, and you need to put your clothes back on.

Laodicea’s Nakedness

Remember Revelation 3:17–18:

“Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing,’ and don’t know that you are the wretched one, miserable, poor, blind, and naked; I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich; and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see.” — Revelation 3:17–18, WEB

The church in Laodicea has been actively compromising with Rome by worshiping the gods of Rome, worshiping the Roman Empire, worshiping Caesar so that they won’t be persecuted, so they can buy and sell in the marketplace, so they can be part of the trade guild, so they can access the wealth and power of the Roman Empire.

Jesus says, “By compromising with the idolatry and the wickedness and the injustice of Rome, you have made yourself naked.”

You need to be clothed in My righteousness rather than naked with the shamefulness of this beastly world system.

What the Bowls Say to the Compromising Churches

If you were one of the seven churches that John wrote to, the takeaway would have been clear.

If you’re one of the compromised churches, the churches that have been unfaithful to Jesus in order to avoid persecution like Sardis and Laodicea and Pergamum and Thyatira, what you would be hearing right now is that the world system that you’ve been trying to buddy up with is under the wrath of God.

And if you continue, then you will be too.

What you’d be hearing is that the same God who pours out these bowls of judgment onto rebellious humanity will discipline you to bring you back to Himself if He needs to.

If you’re one of the churches that’s been seduced by luxury and respectability, and you’re desperate to stay afloat in the Roman economy, what you’d be hearing is that all these things you’re trying to cozy up to are going down with the ship.

God can take away the maritime travel that makes the wealth you get from Rome possible in an instant.

He can bring down the imperial centers that have made you wealthy in an instant.

He can break the empire into pieces and plunge you into poverty.

Because if you stake your hopes on Rome or on any other form the beast takes from one generation to another, you will drink the plagues that Rome drinks.

There is only one way to be safe.

There is only one way to protect yourself.

And it’s not by compromising with your persecutors.

It’s by faithfulness to the Lamb.

What the Bowls Say to the Faithful Churches

But at exactly the same time, if you were one of these seven churches that was suffering because of your faithfulness, then what you would have heard in all of this is going to be very different.

What you were going to hear is that you are not on the wrong side of history.

Rome is on the wrong side of history.

The beast in every generation is on the wrong side of history.

What you’re going to hear is that none of your blood, none of the blood of your brothers and sisters, none of the blood of your fellow followers of Jesus in the church who’ve been taken away, persecuted, and killed for their faith is going to go unanswered.

God is either going to bring your persecutors to repentance or He’s going to break them over His knee.

Your Suffering Is Not a Loss

What you’re going to hear is that all of the suffering and struggle and loss and grief and persecution you’ve been put through by the beast, by Babylon, by rebellious humanity is actually not a loss.

It’s a victory.

It is your victory.

Your patient suffering amidst persecution as you proclaim the truth about the Lamb is what is going to lead the nations to recognize His holiness and submit to Him.

That’s why Revelation 15:4 says:

“Who wouldn’t fear you, Lord, and glorify your name? For you only are holy. For all the nations will come and worship before you. For your righteous acts have been revealed.” — Revelation 15:4, WEB

It says your suffering at the hands of rebellious humanity is what will ultimately bring rebellious humanity to repentance and faith, to worship the Lord alongside you as you reveal His righteous acts through your persistence and your love.