Revelation 16:1

Why Does Heaven Care about Earth?

A sermon by Pastor Joe Haynes

Preached on February 2, 2020 at Beacon Church

And he began to speak to them in parables. "A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country.  2 When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard.  3 And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed.  4 Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully.  5 And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed.  6 He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.'  7 But those tenants said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.'  8 And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard.  9 What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. (Mk. 12:1-9 ESV; emphasis added)

Why does Heaven care about Earth? I want to give you three answers to that question this morning—three answers that I think can help us begin to appreciate the fearsome significance of a loud voice from God’s heavenly Temple calling for God’s wrath to fall on the Earth. Why does Heaven care about Earth? Because it is God’s; because it is hostile; because it is not holy.

So first, John writes that he heard a loud voice “from the temple” issue a command to “pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.” We see right away that Heaven cares about Earth. God in Heaven is not distracted. God is not absent-minded. God does not feel apathy or boredom with what is happening on earth. God cares. The loud voice John heard came from the Temple and called for wrath on Earth. When John’s original audience received this book, they would have immediately seen the connection between Heaven and Earth that explains why God is angry…

The Earth is God's

“Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, ‘Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God,’” (Rev. 16:1 ESV). As we learn about the seven bowls of God’s wrath in Revelation 16, we are going to see that they are meant to remind us of how God rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt by sending 10 terrible plagues until finally Pharaoh, the king of Egypt submitted to God. The final bowl of wrath in Revelation 16 echoes the seventh plague on Egypt—a terrible hailstorm. What I want to point out now is that when Pharaoh begged for the hail to stop, Moses told him, “As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will stretch out my hands to the LORD. The thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the LORD's." (Exo 9:29 ESV) The most powerful man on Earth, the King of Egypt at that time, needed to understand that he was God’s property; that his tiny little kingdom was God’s property; that the weather belonged to God, the elements were His, and all the nations, all the creatures, all the grass, and ground, and granite below are God’s. So Moses said, “…know that the earth is the LORD’s.”

David used the same phrase also in Psalm 24. The psalm was sung when God’s people came to worship God on Mount Zion, where David brought the Ark of the Covenant into the Tabernacle; where David’s son, Solomon, later built the Temple. When they came to worship God they came to that Temple because that’s what it was built for: for God to be worshipped. But the psalm says the whole Earth is the Lord’s!

The earth is the LORD's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein,  2 for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.  3 Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?  (Ps. 24:1-3 ESV)

Israel sang this when they went to worship in God’s Temple, in order to remember that the whole world belongs to God and so all people everywhere should worship the Lord.

We don’t just owe it to God to worship Him when we come to church on Sunday. There are six other days in a week. God deserves more than 1/7th of your life. When you go to work, the car you drive is God’s. The computer you use is God’s. When you go home, the food you eat is God’s. The bed you sleep in is God’s. The TV you watch is God’s. The air you breathe is God’s. Your lungs, your heart, your hands, your eyes, your mouth, your mind—they are not yours they belong to God. He gave them to you as a gift. And what have you done with all He has given you? In the beginning, God did not create the local Church as a place for you to visit just on the seventh day when occasionally you acknowledge God’s presence. God created the Universe in six days and rested on the seventh so that you too would remember, every seventh day, that “The earth is the LORD's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.”

Who should worship God? Everyone. Everywhere. All the time. That’s why God created the world. Heaven cares about the Earth because God made it so that it would be full of worship. There was a time when God walked in the Garden with His people--Adam and Eve. He commanded them to multiply and fill the earth so that the whole Earth was full of people who love God and worship Him. That was a very long time ago. In the beginning. But here is why this matters to you and me: God is coming back; to claim what belongs to Him—the world and the worship we owe Him. The earth is not ours; it belongs to God. Instead of worshipping God, our earliest ancestors, Adam and Eve, our first parents, rebelled against God. Instead of filling the earth with people who worship God, they and everyone after them have filled the earth with people at war with God. So when God comes back, to walk again among His people, what will He receive? Not worship but war. The day of the return of the Lord has been announced for a long time by the prophets of Israel. They often called it, “the day of the Lord.”

The Earth is hostile

“Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, ‘Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God,’" (Rev. 16:1 ESV). Heaven cares about what happens on the Earth which God created for worship. That’s why the loud voice from God’s Temple in Heaven calls for the pouring out of His wrath upon the earth.

The seven bowls are a symbolic way of predicting God pouring out His anger on the earth. The word for “bowl” here is a vessel used to serve liquids.[i] The idea of God pouring out His wrath is very old—the bowls are merely a symbol that fits with pouring something out. The Holy Spirit spoke through another writer in Psalm 79 and said,

O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple; they have laid Jerusalem in ruins. (Ps. 79:1 ESV)

5 How long, O LORD? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire?  6 Pour out your anger on the nations that do not know you, and on the kingdoms that do not call upon your name!  7 For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his habitation. (Ps. 79:5-7 ESV)

But it wasn’t just foreign nations that rebelled against God—it was His own people, the people who had the Temple, and the prophets, and the Scriptures. That’s why God drove Israel from the land He had given them—because they were supposed to fill the land with worship!

2 "I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth," declares the LORD.  3 "I will sweep away man and beast; I will sweep away the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, and the rubble with the wicked. I will cut off mankind from the face of the earth," declares the LORD.  4 "I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off from this place the remnant of Baal and the name of the idolatrous priests along with the priests,  5 those who bow down on the roofs to the host of the heavens, those who bow down and swear to the LORD and yet swear by Milcom,  6 those who have turned back from following the LORD, who do not seek the LORD or inquire of him."  (Zeph. 1:2-6 ESV)

Through Ezekiel, God called Jerusalem, which was supposed to be the Holy City, “the bloody city,” (Eze 22:2). The people of Jerusalem broke God’s laws; they abused the poor and the widows. The princes who were supposed to be like shepherds to the people were wolves instead; the prophets were liars; the priests were unholy: "Her priests have done violence to my law and have profaned my holy things. They have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they taught the difference between the unclean and the clean, and they have disregarded my Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them." (Eze 22:26 ESV) But if God was that angry with the betrayal of His own people, imagine the wrath piling up for those who were His enemies from the beginning? Jeremiah prophesied, “Pour out your wrath on the nations that know you not, and on the peoples that call not on your name, for they have devoured Jacob; they have devoured him and consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation,” (Jer. 10:25 ESV).  The bowls of wrath echo the judgements God prophesied to be poured out against Israel and against the nations because instead of worshiping God in the world He made, they hated Him. Revelation 16 is very fitting in symbolizing the final judgements of God “seven bowls of the wrath of God”—7 being a number of completion—because when these bowls are done, the Day of the LORD will finally arrive, when God will no longer be patient with rebels or show mercy to sinners:

17 I will bring distress on mankind, so that they shall walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the LORD; their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung.  18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them on the day of the wrath of the LORD. In the fire of his jealousy, all the earth shall be consumed; for a full and sudden end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth.  (Zeph. 1:17-18 ESV)

The Earth is not holy

“Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, ‘Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God,’" (Rev. 16:1 ESV). Heaven cares about the Earth, as Revelation 16 and the bowls of wrath show us, because the earth is the Lord’s, because it is hostile to Him, and because though God is holy, the earth is not. As we saw last Sunday, the holiness of God is the reason behind all the things Revelation predicts Jesus would do—when the Lamb judges rebels and when the Lamb saves sinners. The reason the book of Revelation reveals all of this through John to the followers of Jesus is so that we who read it will turn from hating God to loving Him; from warring against God to worshiping Him—and that we will keep on turning back to Him again and again when we fail.

"Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?  4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.  5 He will receive blessing from the LORD and righteousness from the God of his salvation.  6 Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob."  (Psa 24:3-6 ESV)

Do you feel the fear of the Lord? Do you want God’s help to clean your hands and purify your heart, to repent of your sins and seek Him, to seek His face, and to receive the blessing of the Lord, righteousness from the God of salvation? If you feel that holy fear of the Lord, then don’t wait another day. Turn from your war against God and ask for Him to forgive your rebellion. Ask Jesus to save you and make you a worshipper of God from this day forward.

Does Heaven care about the Earth? The earth is the Lord’s. It is hostile. And it is not holy yet, but the Lord has not returned yet. The Day of the Lord is coming. And when the Lord Jesus returns and claims what belongs to Him, I pray that you will not be shaking your fist at the One who died to save you; I pray that you will not be standing with the nations who hate God, with the kings who defy Him, with the proud who refuse to kneel. I pray you will be among the humble who bow in love and adoration and thanksgiving, the ones who worship God at last in the world He created.

Revelation 16 lifts the curtain one last time revealing the final act of God’s plan for the world. The seven bowls of God’s wrath are the result of the last trumpet. That trumpet was sounded by the seventh angel in Revelation 11:15. Everything between chapter 11 and chapter 16 was sort of like a long explanation while the action was paused. As soon as John heard the loud voice from the Temple, in Rev 16:1, it was like the “play” button was pressed again and the action continues. When you read Revelation 11:15 and connect it to Revelation 16:1 like that, then you realize John didn’t just hear one loud voice calling for wrath. First he heard many loud voices worshiping and thanking God:

15 Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever."  16 And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God,  17 saying, "We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was, for you have taken your great power and begun to reign.  18 The nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth."  19 Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.  (Rev. 11:15-19 ESV)

When the Lord returns, when the Day of the LORD comes, please, I beg you, let your voice be among the loud voices in heaven who give God the worship and thanks He deserves.