What Are the 7 Bowl Judgments? Revelation 15–16 Explained

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Good afternoon, and it's good to have everybody back once again. I think we've just lost Nancy, haven't we? And you can be turning to Revelation chapter 15, those of you here in the studio, and again we just want to address our television audience how we thank the Lord for you and your interest, your letters, and your phone calls. And I just happened to think while I was waiting for the camera to roll, I had an interesting call the other day. At first, he about gave me heart failure. I answered the phone, and he said, is this Les? And I said, yes, sir. And he said, I've just got two criticisms of your program, and I said, oh boy. And he said, number one, he said it's too short, and number two, I don't remember what that one was. Do you remember, honey? And I had it a minute ago, but I've lost it. But anyway, they were both not real criticisms, but anyway. So we always have to appreciate the phone calls and the letters that people send us. So we're glad that you're with us, and we trust you're keeping up with us as we come through Revelation as we have explained to our folk here in the studio. And I think I mentioned at the beginning of the last program, Revelation is not a book that you can just take verse by verse, but we have to follow the events. And so now we've come all the way from chapter 11 and finished the trumpet judgments, and now we pick up the bowl judgments in chapter 15. And we'll come right down into verse 1 where, remember now, we're going down toward that last year or year and a half of the three year and a half years of the last part of the tribulation. These judgments are going to get more severe, and they're going to be coming on the earth faster and faster. And so he says, I saw another sign in heaven, Revelation 15, verse 1, great and marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues. See now, this is the wind down. For in them is filled up, or is consummated, or is finished the wrath of God. Now you see how this is constantly emphasized, that we're not in a time of love and mercy and grace. We have nothing to deal with but the wrath of God. Well I guess, Monty reminded me at break time, realizing that we have a varied audience who probably some have never heard this taught before. We always want to realize that for those of us that are believers, we're not going to be here. We can read these things and we don't have to be worried that we're going to have to go through all this, because as I said in the last program, the church is insulated from these things. It'll be taken out before all this comes to pass, because Paul makes it so plain that we have not been saved to his wrath. We have been saved from it. And for those of you who know not the Lord, who have never experienced salvation, this of course is written, I think, as an instigation to get right with the Lord, because these are going to be awful. Now we know eternal hell is bad, and it's certainly beyond this because it's without end. But nevertheless, these folk are going to have to go through all of this with the physical emotions and the physical pain and the suffering, and no hope of escaping it. And so it is. It's a warning. It's an admonition for those who are not ready to meet the Lord and to be raptured out of all this to certainly consider God's offer of salvation while yet the time is available. All right, so now then the wrath of God is finally going to be consummated in these final or these last seven judgments or plagues, which are called the vials and the King James or the bowl judgments. Remember I explained at the last moment of the last program that the reason is you can pour out a bowl instantaneously, whereas a different container would take longer. All right, now then verse 2, we have a vision here in heaven, and I saw, as it were, a sea of glass mingled with fire, and them that had gotten the victory over the beast. In other words, we see the martyred tribulation saints already there in the presence of the Lord in glory. They had gotten the victory over the beast, or the antichrist and satan who is now indwelling him remember, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his mane, and they are standing on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. Now I guess it's a verse like this where people get the idea that all we'll do when we get to heaven is strum a harp. Now that's certainly going to be part of it, but it's going to be more than just strumming harps. But here they are, and then verse 3 is an interesting one, and they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb. Now those are two separate songs. The song of Moses, let's go back and look at it, I think we'll take time, Exodus chapter 15, and Israel has just come through the Red Sea, and they're gathered around Mount Sinai. Maybe they haven't even gotten quite to Sinai yet. No, they haven't even gotten there, but they're just through the Red Sea. And they've looked back and they've seen the carnage of the Egyptians, charioteers, and the horses and everything else, floating and what have you. From all practical aspects it wasn't a pretty picture, but when Israel could look back on their years of slavery and mistreatment and their suffering, and then be able to see what had happened to their adversaries, no wonder they could sing. And so this is the song of Moses, Exodus 15, and again now you want to remember as I've made that analogy over and over as we've studied Revelation, it's such a repeat of that Exodus experience and that dealing with the Pharaoh and the plagues, only of course it'll be on a far grander scale. Now here is another parallel, these tribulation saints who are now removed from their suffering and they're in the presence of the Lord, they too will sing the song of Moses and the song of land. Now in Exodus 15, we won't take it all verse by verse, it's too long, but here's the gist of it. Exodus 15, verse 1. "...So then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and Spake saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously." I remember when I was teaching up in Iowa, I had a class of young people on Saturday night and the kids would bring their guitars and we'd always sing songs for probably 20-30 minutes before I'd start teaching, and one of their favorite songs was based on the song of Moses. It was called, How He Hath Triumphed Gloriously, I wish I could remember the words in the tune, but it was a copy off of this. And how he hath triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider he hath thrown into the sea. Now remember they're looking back at the Egyptians floating on the seashore, having been drowned of course by the Red Sea. And then they continue on in their singing, "...the Lord is my strength and song, he is become my salvation, he is my God, and I will prepare him a habitation, my Father's God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war, indeed He can be, and the Lord is His name, and so on and so forth." Then you come on down to verse 11, and this is all part of this song that the Israelites sang as they came through the Red Sea experience. Ephesians 2.1a "...Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? Thou stretchest thy right hand, and the earth swallowed them. Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed." You get the picture? They're singing that song of deliverance, of redemption. Now that's the song of Moses of course. Now I'd like to have you come and stop at Psalms chapter 22. And here again is a psalm of David, and David could also put some of his thoughts into song which of course always resounded to God's glory, words of praise and worship. Now in Psalms 22, which of course is the resurrection chapter and the crucifixion chapter in Psalms, but you come down to verse 22 of Psalms 22, "...I will declare thy name unto my brethren. In the midst of the congregation I will praise thee. Ye that fear the Lord, praise him. All ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him, fear him, all ye the seed of Israel." And so on and so forth the psalmist goes. Now turn on over to Psalms 86 and you'll see more or less that same theme of exaltation and worship and praise. And this of course is what will certainly be so appropriate for those in the very throne room of heaven having come out of that horrible tribulation experience. All right, Psalms 86, and just come on down to verse 8, much the same language as you saw back there in Exodus. Psalm 86, verse 8, "...Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O LORD, neither are there any works like unto thy works. All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee." Now remember this song is being sung just before the Lord will return and set up His Kingdom. You see how appropriate all this is? "...All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, and shall glorify thy name. For thou art great, doest wondrous things, thou art God alone. Teach me thy way, O LORD, I will walk in thy truth, unite my heart to fear thy name. I will praise thee, O LORD, my God, and so on and so forth." You see the praise and the exalting of that song? Well now come back to Revelation and this is exactly what they are going to be singing and proclaiming here in the very presence of God. Now come down to verse 3, and they will sing the song of Moses, the song of the Lamb, saying, "...Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty, just and true are thy ways." Remember in the previous two programs I've alluded to that no matter how awful these tribulation experiences are, God isn't being unfair, He's not unjust, they are getting exactly what they have deserved. And so this is the whole thought, that just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints, who shall not fear thee, O LORD, and glorify thy name, for thou only art holy. For all nations shall come and worship before thee, for thy judgments are made manifest. Now John says, "...after that I looked, and behold, the temple of the tabernacle of testimony in heaven was opened." We saw that happen once before back in chapter 11, and the seven angels came out of the temple having the seven plagues. Now here's your final bowl judgments. The seven angels with the seven final plagues, clothed in pure and white linen, having their breasts girded with golden girdles, and one of the four living creatures, now we've referred to them back early in the Book of Revelation, they are angelic beings, and one of the four creatures gave unto the seven angels seven golden bowls, full of the wrath of God. Do you see that? Every one of these seven bowls are full of the wrath of God. Now this is of course a symbolic picture again of how this wrath will be poured out. Verse 8, "...and the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from His power no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled." Now here they come, just boom, boom, one right after the other. Each one getting more severe than the one just ahead of it, leading up to the very battle of Armageddon, and I don't know that we'll have time this half hour, but we sure will the next one, and we'll be discussing the battle of Armageddon, and the bringing of the nations to the Middle East. But first chapter 16, verse 1, "...and I heard a great voice out of the temple, saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, pour out the bowls of the wrath of God upon the earth." Verse 2, "...and the first angel went, and poured out his bowl upon the earth, and there fell a noisome and grievous sore, upon the men who had the mark of the beast, and upon them who worshipped his image." Now remember that early on, just as soon as people accept that mark of the beast, that number which I feel is a computer number, a credit card type thing, or a transaction card. In fact, in one of my classes the other night, someone had a card that is now being used in Europe, and that card has everything on it that pertains to your everyday experience. In other words, it has your health record, it has your bank balance, it has everything, and it's already in common use in Europe. That too is just a stepping stone to, I think, this so-called mark of the beast, which will be much the same thing, where they cannot buy, they cannot transact unless they have this card and this number, which of course will be put upon the forehead or in the hand. But anyway, now the whole world will come under this plague of grievous boils, misery, and they had it in Egypt, and we don't have any problem believing that. But now it's going to be worldwide. Now verse 3, how long this will last? Your guess is as good as mine. A couple of months, who knows? And then the next angel poured out his bowl upon the sea. Now I think the sea here is not referring to the sea of humanity, but rather the oceans as we know them. And it became as, not literally, but as likened unto the blood of a dead man. And every living soul, or every living thing, that is all the fish and all the creatures living in the water, died in the sea. Now you can imagine what that does to the shores and to the oceans. We talk about pollution. We know nothing of pollution as it's going to be here. Verse 4, the third angel poured out his bowl upon the rivers and fountains of waters, and they became blood. Now this is literal blood. Now the reason, of course, you remember, go back to Egypt again. You remember that when Moses placed his rod over the river and the river became completely unpalatable, they couldn't drink it. What did the Egyptians immediately begin to do? Well they dug fresh water wells, you remember, and tried to get fresh water that way. Well, here you see God is going to turn all drinkable water into blood. Now why blood? Well, again, look at the human race tonight. They're bloodthirsty. You know, I've always put it this way. When God created Adam, He created him a human being, didn't He? But as soon as Adam became a sin creature, he became inhuman. And all you have to do is look at your newspaper tonight and what has mankind become? He has become an inhuman being. See there isn't another species on earth that misuses their own species as man does his. You don't see wild animals tormenting each other. You don't see anything in all of the wild kingdom that torments its own, only man. And you can see that, well, like even in the Middle Eastern nations. We used to think back at the time of Desert Storm, I suppose we were more or less made aware that the Iraqis were the masters of torture. But the Jerusalem Post made it so evident their second class when it comes to torture is the Syrians that are masters at it. In other words, that's the ones that we're trying to sally up to their present day government and so forth and make peace between them and Israel. But see the Syrians are adept at torture. They can dream up things that no one else can dream up evidently. But whatever, man has that intrinsic ability to somehow just be bloodthirsty. And so what God is saying, all right, you've been bloodthirsty now for 6,000 years, now drink it. Now drink it. And it becomes a plague. You see that? Verse 5, and I heard the angel of the water say, thou art righteous. You see that? Even the angels will never come back and say, well now God, why are you doing this? Why are you bringing such devastation upon your creation? But instead they say, what? You're righteous, Lord. They're getting what they deserve. Oh Lord, who art, who was, and shall be, because thou hast judged this. And here it comes, what I've just explained. Now in verse 6, for they, that is the whole human race, they have shed the blood of saints and prophets. Now again, let's go back to history. History tells us that during the Dark Ages, that period of time from about 500 AD to 1500 at the time of the Reformation, that'd be about 1,000 years, wouldn't it? During that 1,000 years of human history, they now estimate that again 50 million Christians were put to death, martyred, many of them horrible deaths that we can't even imagine, and yet they did it gladly for their faith. All right, you bring it on up to recent history. Again, during the 70 years, now that's interesting that communism reigned 70 years, because the number 70 I think is indicative of something. But communism ruled Russia 70 years, and again that same figure keeps popping up. Again, 50 million people were put to death in communist Russia in that 70 years, 50 million by their own government. All right, so indeed they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and now the angels say, you've given them blood to drink, and hey, it's what they had coming. They're worthy. Verse 7, and I heard another out of the altar say, even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are Thy judgment. Now do you see the emphasis here? Because I know the first thing that we humanly think is, well God isn't being fair. I mean after all, why does this one generation have to come under such terrible cataclysmic events? Well it's because this generation is just simply bringing to a head everything that the previous generations have been sowing the seeds of. And you see God has always done that, and again we can't always reconcile it. Why does God bring judgment and chastisement upon this generation because of something that three or four generations back they were guilty of? Well it's just the way God does it. You remember back in the verses that contain the Ten Commandments, what does He say? And I will visit down to the third and fourth generation. See that's the way God does things. Well time is moving on, let's go to verse 8. Now the fourth angel poured out his bowl upon the sun, and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire, or intense heat. Now let's go back to Isaiah 13, because you see I always like to help people realize that even the book of Revelation, there are some groups who think it shouldn't even be in our Bible, but it still fits with all the rest of the Old Testament. Isaiah chapter 13, oh let's come down to verse 9. Isaiah 13, verse 9, Behold, the day of the Lord cometh cruel, both with wrath and fierce anger. Now this is Isaiah, written 700 years before Christ. To lay the land desolate, and he shall destroy the sinners out of it. Now here comes verse 10. For the stars of heaven, and the constellations thereof, shall not give their light. The sun shall be darkened in his going forth, the moon shall not cause her light to shine. I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity. I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to stop, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. Now that's what Isaiah wrote clear back there. Now in another place, and I just can't think right now where it's at, but it's in Isaiah where the earth will be moved out of its orbit. And we know from our science and astronomy that if the earth was tilted just 2 degrees off of what is normal, the earth would either burn up with heat, or would freeze up in the cold. Just 2 degrees variance. Well now you see the Lord will actually cause the earth to move in and out of its orbit. What's it going to do to weather? It's just going to throw it into total mayhem. We're already seeing just a little bit of it, of the bizarre weather on various places around the world. But you see all He has to do is move that planet just a degree or so, and the earth will come under intense scorching heat. Alright time is going fast, let's come back again to Revelation. I'd like to finish the six bowls, and I want to be ready then for the battle of Armageddon in our next lesson. Revelation 16 "...and the fifth angel poured out his bowl upon the seat of the throne of the beast, which is now in Jerusalem, and his kingdom was full of darkness." Now again because of what God will do with the planet in its orbit, it will lose the light of the sun, or it will burn in its heat, but now it comes into total darkness. What happened in Egypt? Same thing. It got so dark that they couldn't even see their hand in front of their face, and so they gnawed their tongues for pain. But verse 11, what does it cause? Not a repentance, but a total arrogant blasphemy, and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and they repented not of their deeds. Now verse 12, "...and the sixth angel poured out his bowl upon the great river Euphrates, and the water thereof was dried up." Remember I told you a couple of programs back that the Euphrates is the biggest natural barrier to that great army coming from the east? Well I'm sure you all read the other day the same thing I did. The Turks are building a high dam up there on the headwaters of the Euphrates, and what are the Euphrates going to do down river? Dry it up, and indeed it will. The Euphrates will be dry as a bone, and the rivers will be such that the nations of the east can come. Now then verse 12, "...and the great river Euphrates, and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared." In other words that last obstacle will be removed for their 200 million man army as I see it coming from that other chapter. And then verse 13, and we're going to have to stop here, our time is gone, but it will be a good place to begin our next lesson. Here in verse 13 we now see the satanic powers literally go out to all the heads of the nations of the world in order to send their armies where? To the Middle East, to Jerusalem in particular. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time, for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.