Rev II, tape 1 Malcolm Smith The Bowls of wrath

Revelation 14-16

And I looked and behold the Lamb was standing on Mount Zion and with him 144000 having His name and the name of His Father written on their foreheads, and I heard a voice from heaven, like the voice of the sound of many waters, like the sound of loud thunder, and the voice which I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps. And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the Elders and no-one could learn the song except the 144000 who had been purchased from the earth. These are the ones that have not been defiled with women, for they have kept themselves chaste, these are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes, these are the ones who have been purchased from among men as first fruits to God and to the Lamb, and no lie was found in their mouth, they are blameless.

We are coming now to the next vision in the series of visions that run through the book of Revelation. We began basically by seeing Christ among the churches and we rapidly moved to see that the Lamb, Christ has been crowned, crowned King of the Universe. Coronated Lord of All, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and therefore the message went out that all must repent, the whole earth must turn and acknowledge that there is one King and one Kingdom. The world responded to that with persecution. And they responded by turning against Christ by persecuting the Church, so that in the words of the Acts of the Apostles, when Jesus came to Saul of Tarsus, you remember, he said, ‘Why do you persecute me?’ Because he had turned against the church, he was in fact turning against the Lord Jesus Christ. One would have expected at that point that judgment would fall. But no, there comes one after another – the trumpets of warning. God warns the people and the trumpets sound in the world. The Church in the middle of that is proclaiming repentance. And yet is protected by God. Although the world seeks to shut them out and quieten them, it is impossible, they cannot be destroyed, even though their mouth is closed, they are not destroyed, nor indeed can be.

Very well, what is the next step. We have seen the unfolding of the 7 seals and we have understood this is the way it is, then we saw the unfolding of the 7 trumpets – and we realised, woe, woe, woe – unless you repent, and the word came that they didn’t repent, so we go back to the beginning and understand that when men do not repent, then the inevitable is judgment. And that is where we come to tonight – the judgment that falls on those who will not repent. As we go through these chapters tonight, I trust you will be impressed by one thing – there is awesomeness here. Prepare yourself to receive that awesomeness, feel it from the very beginning – instead of just coming in and saying, ‘Very well you did not repent, here is judgment’ it is not like that. Remember with the seals it was simply – he broke the first seal, the second seal. With the trumpets it says there were angels with trumpets and they prepared to blow their trumpets.

Now we come to what is known as the bowls of wrath – and those bowls of wrath do not just come on as ok, you didn’t repent, so now there is wrath. It is as if there is an awful solemnity in heaven, and very slowly we come to the pouring out of judgment. It is as if it is the last scene, and now God says I want you to see this, I want you to see that, judgment is coming, I want you to understand this, and understand that. By the time we actually come to judgment we are coming with a sense of awe, with a sense of worship, with an understanding that this was the very last thing God did. But He did it, there was no other way, men pushed past His goodness, through aside His mercy, cast off His grace and God said, all Heaven and all Church understand, I am left now with only righteous judgment.

It is a very solemn time, and therefore this section, or this Vision begins with another look at the 144000. It said they were standing on Mt Zion. Before we deal with a world that will not repent, God said, take another look at the Church, understand who they are, understand where they stand.. We have already met the 144000, they are no strangers to us, and I am not going over what the 144000 means. I shall simply state what we simply sought to prove when we met them in Chapter 7, the 144000 is the complete Church, the Church of the Old Testament, the Church of the New Testament, all those who have rested either side of the cross, and all those that have rested in the Lord Jesus. But there were some different things in chapter 14 to what we found in chapter 7.

They are all standing on Mount Zion. The 144000, the Church are standing on Mount Zion. We could spend the rest of the evening expounding that one line. I think many of you have been with us when we have been studying Mount Zion. Remember it was when David brought the Ark out of obscurity, brought it to that little hill in Jerusalem which until that time had not been known. The hill called Mt Zion and there he placed the Ark in a tent especially prepared, and there the glory of God above the Ark filled the tent. And there David came and in a sense inaugurated a new expression of worship to God. He began in a sense, it was always there, but David (can I say this carefully) ‘exploited’ it. It was always there. In Deuteronomy there was the bubbling of hilarity in God, but David took it and ran with it. And coming up the road that led into to Jerusalem, remember David danced before the Lord, that is he leaped in the air, spun around singing Psalms as he did it. That is a trick if you can do it. And as he did that it was the beginning of a new era of worship in Jerusalem. From then on you read in the Psalms of clapping, raising hands, of leaping, laying prostrate – it was a worship of God by Spirit, Soul and Body. It was Mount Zion where man was exalting in God in the very presence of the glory, and from that time on Mount Zion ceased to be a geographical location and it became a sign word to describe a way of life. It was theological shorthand to describe men living in God’s presence rejoicing with a joy that cannot be contained, a joy unspeakable and full of glory as Peter said. The Church in all its perfection – the Church of Old and New – The Church as God sees them not one of them lost. That church is seen exalting in God on Mount Zion.

It says they were sealed, notice it saying having the name of the Lamb and the name of His Father written on their foreheads. Remember back in Chapter 7 it says they were sealed, and because they were sealed they could not be touched. Now we have a further understanding of the seal that they had in their foreheads. By this time you should know this is not a mark in their forehead, it was to do with their thought, where they were coming from in their attitude. It says the Name of the Lamb and the Name of the Father – right there in my head, right there where my thoughts and my philosophies and attitudes, my understanding of life, one might call it my world view – the way I understand where I came from who I am, what the Universe is, where it came from, where we are all going to – right there in my head it said that the Name of the Lamb’s Father was implanted. We had in our heads the mentality that God is our Father. That is into our thinking, into our thought-patterns has come the mentality of the Sons of God.

Do you want to know who these 144000 are? You will find them - they are the people who are having in their mind the mentality, because of what Christ did for me, because of the grace of God towards me, I have the mentality, I believe I know, indeed I know that I know, the Spirit witnesses with my spirit I am a child of God, so in my head I call Him Father. Do you remember in Romans 8 describing the born again person, the child of God, it says we look to God and say, ‘Abba, Father’ That is the mark – oh anyone can call Him God, in fact many, very lightly and tritely call Him Lord but it is only when the Spirit of Christ, and we saw that was the seal of the 144000 – only when the seal of the Spirit comes that we respond immediately with ‘Abba, Father’ and ‘Abba’ means Daddy. My Daddy, my Father. It is the name of the Father planted into our heads. We know that we are His children. We cannot always explain it. Not everyone of the 144000, the perfect Church, can explain it. But they are the sons of God. You might go 6 months as a Christian without being able to explain it, all you know there is a seal in your head, and you know that you know that you are a child of God.

But also right along there it says that the Name of the Lamb was in their head. You remember in chapter 2 of Hebrews it speaks of Christ as being the Elder Brother of the family. Again, we could spend all night there. In fact the Book of Revelation only teases us as we go through it because it holds out so many possibilities, so many road we could take. It says the Name of the Father is in your head but also the name of the Elder Brother of the family. If I know that I am a son of God by God’s grace, then I know that I am related to THE Son of God, the Unbeginning Son of God who has deigned to call Himself my brother. There is the Father, the Elder Brother, and I am one of their sons. And we know that and we don’t always understand that, but it is a seal in our heads. That is how we think of ourselves, that is how we know ourselves to be, all because the Holy Spirit has come in the New Birth and sealed us, and we stand on Mount Zion exultant in God, and all around us is an unrepentant world that would be very happy to remove us. We exalting God, that is what it is saying, it is saying – hold it, that is what Revelation is always saying, don’t go rushing ahead – I want you to see something else before going on. Judgment is coming – it is hanging – they had all their chances, they didn’t repent. Before we go on to judgment, take a look at the Church. Can you believe what God can do to a repentant sinner? Get the picture.

And it says they sing a song. I heard a voice from Heaven, it says I heard them singing. I want you to notice very carefully what it says, like the sound of many waters. Where did you hear that before? Right back in chapter 1, it says when Jesus spoke His voice was like the sound of many waters. God has spoken many times through this book, and it said that His voice was like a peel of thunder. And it says that when they spoke or sang, it was like the sound of loud thunder, and yet it was as beautiful as many harpists playing on their harps. What has happened? We began in Chapter 1 with the solitary Lord of the Universe, and when He spoke His voice was like many waters, but then we were introduced to all those who were redeemed by His blood, and He brought them into such union with Himself that when they sing and pray you can’t quite make up your mind, is it Him or is it them. They sing as one. When my voice speaks, it doesn’t just speak for my head, it speaks for my whole body. You don’t say, now that’s his mouth talking, no that’s his chest. No no, my voice is my voice, and the miracle which is so brought out in picture language in this book is that we have become united to Him whose voice is like the sound of many waters. And when He speaks, I say that is Jesus, but when the whole Church gathers together and speaks unto the Father, the Father says, that’s my Son. One body in Christ.

And it says they sang a new song. And we met that new song in Chapter 5. And as we said it was a song that was new in kind, that is a song that had never been sung before – a new kind of song. It makes a special point here, it says they sang a new song before the Throne etc and no-one could learn the song except the 144000 who had been purchased from the earth. You can’t go to a hymn book and sing this song. But when the seal of the Father touches your forehead, and when the seal of the Lamb, you know a song. There rises from within you a song, it has never been sun before, it is based on the fact that you have been purchased, remember Revelation 5 says, ‘You have redeemed us by your blood, out of every kindred tribe and nation’ It is a song that only those who are united to Christ and His finished work – they sing it because it is the song of experience, not the song of memory. You can’t learn it by rote, you learn it by experience. It isn’t a song sung out of musical chords. It is a song sung out the harmony of my experience now united to God. So the whole of life has become a Psalm unto God – not mere words and notes. It is the song of the redeemed.

Notice that it says there that they sang it before the Throne. Now I am really going to test how much you have understood what I have been saying. Remember we stated right at the beginning that this whole book of Revelation is booked on the idea of the Tabernacle? Remember we stated that the Throne of the Kings understood to be the Ark of the Covenant? And then we saw there was a veil in front of the Ark, and right in front of the Ark but the other side of the veil, remember there was the Altar of incense, and from that altar was rising clouds of incense which the people understood to be their praise and worship to God. So that at the highest peak of Israel’s worship each day, it would be when the Priest offered the incense, and all the praise of the people would raise to God in that incense. That incense, that golden altar, was right in front of the Throne of God, the Ark of the Covenant. Now it says that all these, the 144000 – the whole total Church, they stood before the Throne and sang praise to God. They were the golden incense altar in people. Every time the Jew joined together with your fellow believers and praised God, just remember you are the golden altar become flesh, and by the Holy Spirit, not incense but real praise that is borne out of the fact that you have been purchased by the blood of Christ, and by the very fact that the Spirit has united you to Him and now rising to God like incense, although now it is for real – that was the shadow of the real, and now the whole company called the Church is now found before the Throne – no longer the golden altar now. Incense no longer, now it is praise, and as they worship and praise they have become a living Golden Altar. Before the Throne, that immediately ties me into His sovereignty. He Who sits on the Throne – remember Him from Chapter 4, the Sovereign God Who rules the Universe, He is telling us that whatever is going on, I have got it all under control. Here is the Church, and if you remember where we were last week, the trumpet sounding, and everything seemed to be in chaos, and the world persecuting, but the Church stands before the Throne and in faith before Him Who sits there, worships the Sovereign God.

It says they are the purchased from the earth – the blood of the Lamb purchased us, that is the story – purchased. Who paid what price to whom? There are some people who still believe that Jesus paid the price to the Devil so that we might get off free. The Bible very definitely teaches that the price was paid to God. Again we could take off – but when I look at the Cross, before the blood of Jesus was for you, it was for the Father. God couldn’t forgive you, God could not forgive me until sin had been adequately perfectly paid for. God can’t sweep sin under the rug. How shall God do that? God shall pay the penalty to God. God became flesh and dwelt among us and whether any man excepts it or not, that is beside the point. God paid the price to God, sin must be paid for and Jesus paid it to God. The shedding of the blood of Jesus was primarily for God. Now it can be for you, now it can be for me. And so the second great song arises – you have redeemed us by your blood, you have purchased us. We now belong to you, we are owned. Of course that goes back again to the seal, remember we said the seal indicates you are owned. We are purchased, we are owned. Paul said, ‘You are not your own, you are bought with a price’ And in the light of that you respond whole-heartedly, ‘I beseech you by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice’ What are the mercies of God? That God did what He did. Very well, in the light of that you have no more right to your life.

The heart of Christianity is that I know I am purchased out of the earth and then it says, and for anyone who takes these verses literally, it becomes one of the most difficult verses – ‘These are the ones who have not been defiled with women. They are chaste. Now of course on this verse there has been a whole system of religion based. And I know that so me of you would be upset by my feelings about that. Nowhere in the Bible, nowhere in the Bible is celibacy put forward as something to be cried after as spiritual. It is only barely mentioned by Jesus and certainly not in the context of being something specially spiritual if you are celibate. The idea that you did not get married does not make you any more or spiritual or more liable for the blessings of God than anyone else. Now I know that we could enter into a long discussion about that. This is one of the verses that gave the idea that the celibate is more spiritual, and the idea that only 144000 made it, they didn’t get married. I don’t intend to be sarcastic when I say that. There are some people who really believe that. But we are back to the fact that this book is a symbolic book, and immediately I say that I believe you can here echoes from the Old Testament. Do you remember all through the Old Testament, so many references that we just don’t have time to quote them , but every time Israel went after another god, or they walked away from God, He said ‘ you have played the harlot, you have committed spiritual adultery. In the Bible there is not just one Scripture that says it, they all say it – it just simply says that to come and be part of the people who are united to God through Christ, and aren’t we going to see it as this book increases it becomes more and more – we are married to God. By the time we get to chapter 19, chapter 20, this book is talking about the Bridge of Christ, - the whole Church in the Bible is female. God is the male, and the idea of a marriage taking place between, and any time the Church or part of that Church will go after other gods, then there has been a committing of spiritual fornication or adultery. All that this symbolic statement is saying is that the Church, the perfect Church of all ages, are those who have not wandered off after every harlot that has presented herself, that is all the other gods and possibilities. In fact they are chaste, before God they have been cleansed in the blood of Jesus and they stand in His righteousness.

Notice it goes on to say that they follow the Lamb wherever He goes. They are the ones who have committed themselves, no strings attached to the Lamb and they now follow Him wherever He goes. Do you remember we skipped over one particular portion way back in Chapter 7. After John had heard the number 144000 – he only heard the number, we saw that was the number of the Church in all its perfection. Remember I pointed out that John did not see that, he only heard it. I have never seen the perfect church – I have never seen the Church of all ages, I have heard God say that He has got it. John heard it, but after he heard it in chapter 7 v 9, it says after these things, after he heard it, "behold I looked and saw a great multitude which no man could count from every nation, tribe, people tongue standing before the Throne, same place as the se we are talking of, and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, palm branches were in their hands, they cried with a loud voice ‘Salvation to our God Who sits on the Throne, and to the Lamb’".

All those elements are in the book we have just seen, it is the same Company, the only difference now is that John is seeing them. Only when he sees the whole Church, there is no number to it, he says that it is innumerable – myriads upon myriads of people. Do you see the difference? When I look at the Church I see it is without number. God looks at it and says it is perfect, not one is lost, and I say, thank you Lord, that’s alright with me. We hear what he says about it, if I looked at it I would see a company without number. And he says they are clothed in white, palm branches in their hands and it tells us that the Tabernacle of God, v.15 – before the Throne of God serve Him day and night in His temple and it says God will throw His tabernacle over them, so here you have exactly the same picture, it is exactly the same language - they are before the throne, they serve before Him as priests, exalt Him on Mount Zion, and it says that His tabernacle is over them.

I refer to it at this point, this is a reference to the Feast of Tabernacles. Do you remember the first feast of the Jewish year? It was Passover, that began everything and you went right through the whole year, and the last feast, it was late in the year before you plunged into winter is the Feast of Tabernacles. And that Feast of Tabernacles was one of uninhibited joy, in fact the people had a saying, you had never seen joy until you had seen Tabernacles. And if we had time to go from Passover all the way through, the Feast of Atonement, all of those have been fulfilled, it has happened, Christ is our Passover, Christ is our Atonement, all of those feasts cannot ever be celebrated again, it would be blasphemous to celebrate them again, for they were only pointing to Jesus. On the last feast, in John Chapter 7, Jesus stood up and said, that ‘out of you shall flow rivers of living water’. Do you know what that feast was? The Feast of Tabernacles. And so Jesus Himself gave us the clue that the Feast of Tabernacles was to be fulfilled in the Holy Spirit. The Bible says of the Holy Spirit that He is the earnest of our inheritance and everything that you have ever known of the Holy Spirit is only the beginning of what you will know in the Heaven of Heavens, and so in that sense the Feast of the Tabernacles goes on for ever and ever and ever. Remember that at the Feast of Tabernacles they put little booths over them, little tents. It says here ‘He shall spread His booth over them’ And here is a picture of the Church rejoicing now in the Holy Spirit before the Throne in worship. We have come to the unending Feast of Tabernacles – right now with 144000 if you want to put it that way, but all the Church is involved. Or put another way, the company which cannot be numbered and we stand before the Throne in Mount Zion we worship and serve Him and He has spread His tabernacle over us. He has filled us with His Holy Spirit and we rejoice before Him waving the palm branch of tabernacles.

It goes on and says, ‘They shall hunger no more, neither shall they thirst any more, and for some of these that had been beaten, they had hungered in prison and they had thirsted, all the tribulation of this world, but it goes with the Kingdom of God to have tribulation with it. Neither shall the sun beat down on them any more, neither any heat, for the Lamb in the centre of the Throne shall be their shepherd and guide them to springs of living water, and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes. It goes on, - when shall that happen? It is happening now. But on the other hand it will be happening for ever. So remember whatever you have experienced of Tabernacles, Tabernacles goes on for ever. And it says the whole central idea is that the Lamb Who is on the Throne shall lead them to the springs of the water of life, and on and on and on, and the mark of this company in chapter 14, who are the same company, it says they follow the Lamb wherever He goes. So in the one case the Lamb leads the company who are rejoicing in the eternal feast of Tabernacles, and on the other hand that company follows Him, they are His bond slaves.

It says of this Company that they are the first-fruits. Not only do they follow this Lamb who leads them in waters of life and joy, but it states that they are the first-fruits. At the end of verse four, ‘These have been purchased among men as first-fruits to God and to the Lamb". Another feast. Do you remember the Feast of First-fruits. The Passover took place and it was stated that the first day after the Sabbath of the Passover was the Feast of First-fruits. So Saturday that was the first Sabbath, the first day after that a Priest and company would go down to the field and they would select a shock of barley and he would bring a special sickle and would cut it, and would say ‘This is the first-fruits to God’. No one would touch a harvest in Israel until that sickle had fallen and the first sheaf, said this is God’s and they would take that to the Temple and it would be used in worship.

Jesus was crucified as Passover. Do you realise that as the Priests went down to cut the first-fruits, Jesus rose again from the dead, and He was the first one, He was the first-fruits, He totally fulfilled in Himself the Feast of the First-fruits. Now it says that these are the first-fruits. Do you remember what it says in Ephesians 2 when Christ rose again, we rose again. It says when He ascended, you ascended? The first-fruits was not just Jesus by Himself, but every person who would come to believe in Him was included in that, and so you have Jesus and every believer united to Him by the Holy Spirit. And God says, you are mine, you are the Feast of the First-fruits, you are taken into the Temple, and there you are offered as a praise offering to God exactly what these were doing. Leave the rest of the harvest, we will get to that in a moment. But the first-fruits of the harvest of all the earth, God says they are mine. When Jesus rose again every person that is alive with His resurrection life, rose with Him, and God says ‘You are mine’ even as that first sheaf of the barley harvest belongs to God, so every person who is united with the resurrection of Jesus belongs to Him.

What about the harvest. We are going to read at the end of this chapter – it says that the harvest of the earth is ripe. And God put in his sickle to the harvest and reaped His judgment. In that sense the whole harvest belongs to God. He said the first-fruits, those who are united to God in the resurrection of Jesus they belong to God and glorify His love and His grace and His mercy, and all those that are unrepentant and believe that they have fooled God, God says, no you belong to me to, you are my harvest, and you will exhibit and glorify and exhibit His wrath, His justice, His righteousness. But all belong to God. I think as you read this chapter you will understand that.

It says that no lie was found in their mouth. The grand lie – you shall be as God. That is THE lie, and when we repented of that is what we repented of. You did not repent of getting drunk, quite frankly that is a very small thing, you did not repent of getting high on heroin, that is a mere result of sin. You didn’t even repent of murdering someone, that is a mere result of it – sin, that we repent of is that 'I will be as God'. That is sin, and once I have established that I can be as God, I am capable of all those other things. Repentance gets to the heart of it. Of these people it was said that no lie was found in their mouth – they have met with the Person Who said, I am the Truth, and once I have met with the Person who says I am the Truth, I have repented of the lie and all the results of the lie will then drop off. And so this company of the True Church, there is no lie found in their mouth, for they have turned and come united to truth by the Spirit of truth.

And it says they were blameless. Read Ephesians 1 – it says that in Christ, because of our union with Him, we are accepted by God as though we had never sinned. Blameless. It is very obvious we could have spent another two hours just on that Company that stood before the Throne, but remember God’s building here.

God says, now there‘s my Church, there they are, and at that he said another angel flew in the Heavens and he speaks of this angel preaching the Gospel, the eternal Gospel, calling upon men to fall before the Creator. Worship Him and glorify Him as such because His judgments are about to be known. It is as if God is loathe to go ahead. We have already had the warnings, now God gives us a list of all He is going to do. Surely they should have known that by now? God says I am going to warn them, I am going to warn them, one more time, and the Gospel goes outs that they should repent and worship God because His judgments are going to be made manifest. Any person that ever goes to hell goes there pushing and shoving past the mercy and goodness of God. But notice how it is received, in the New American Standard, verse 6 it says, Those who lived on the earth. In the margin it says those who sit on the earth. I won’t make much of it, but it is a picture of a whole lot of people sitting carelessly on earth, unaware that the judgment of God is about to fall.

In verse 8 it says that Babylon is fallen, is fallen. It is an anticipatory notice that Babylon is about to fall. We shall come to that in our next hour. It goes on to say that all those who gave allegiance to the beast, there is no hope for them. And again, we shall come to that soon. This is God saying, ‘this is what is coming, this is what is coming, this is what is coming’ as if holding men back from going on, then it says, verse 14, ‘I looked and behold a white cloud, and sitting one on the cloud like unto the Son of Man with a golden crown on His head. We don’t need to define Him – the Son of Man with a golden crown – spoken of in Daniel, spoken of in this book. And it says a sharp sickle in His hand, a reaper. The idea is that this is the harvest, already the first-fruits have been taken, the Church. Now He says the harvest has come – verse 15, it says, put in your sickle, reap, the hour to reap has come – the harvest of the earth is ripe.

I am impressed by the long-suffering of God There is a ripeness to sin’s harvest. Do you remember in Genesis 15 where speaking to Abraham he said, you will inherit this land but you won’t have it yet. Do you remember why? Because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. If I were God I would say that in my foreknowledge in 400 years time these people would not have repented, so why not get it over with now? God says no, there is not one man that falls under God’s judgment who does not have to admit, ‘you are right’ God says go on your way Amorites, in 400 years the harvest will be ripe. Right now it isn’t. There is hope for repentance. His foreknowledge knows that they will not accept that, but man must always be left with his freewill because God knows what will happen that does not mean that you will lose your free-will. God knew that it would come to a hideous ripeness, but He said they had to come to that by their choice. The command goes forth – the harvest of the earth is ripe, the first-fruits have been taken. Now put in your sickle, the harvest is ripe, so God is seen as reaping the harvest of the earth.

It goes down to verse 20, and says the wine press was trodden. It jumps from the barley harvest to the vintage the harvest of grapes which is a common expression of the Old Testament to describe the wrath of God. And then it says in verse 20 the wine-press was trodden outside of the city. When you have reaped the harvest and tread on it, the juice flows out – and it goes on to say that the blood came out from the winepress. These are no ordinary grapes. This is blood, death, judgment. And it says up to the horses’ bridges up to a distance of two hundred miles. Now I have an argument with every translation on this, because that is not a translation from the Greek. Whatever it says in your Living Bible or whatever, it gives a Western measurement there, and they miss the whole point. I searched all around before this meeting looking for a King James’ version, and I finally found a Gideon Bible which had it. And in it it said 1600 furlongs – that is the Greek, and that is where the symbolic number is, not in our 200 miles. That may be 200 miles but God is not telling us a measurement, He is telling us a symbolic number. 1600 furlongs. What is 1600? 1600 is 4 x 4 x 10 x10. 4 is the four corners of the Universe , the world, Universal. x 4 that is Universal Universal x 10 – completion – x 10 total completion 1600 furlongs is telling me in the symbolic language of Revelation that this is the universal, complete and utter judgment of God upon unrepentant men.

One would think we are going to get on with the judgment now. No. He said I saw another sign in Heaven – chapter 15 – great marvel of seven angels, they had the seven last plagues. But we don’t get on with it. Still we are building this up – the awesome righteousness, mercy of God and His goodness and His judgments. V. 2 it says I saw a sea of glass mixed with fire. Remember that sea of glass before the Throne and remember that He who sat on the Throne was like jasper mixed with sardias fire –the awesome holiness of God with His judgements and it says beside that sea, those who had come off victorious from the beast and its image and the number of its name standing on that sea holding harps of God, and they sang the songs of Moses the bondservant of God and the Lamb. It says standing on that sea and singing by that Throne was the Company and they sang the song of Moses and the Lamb.

Do you remember the song of Moses? Exodus 15 – When was Exodus 15? The plagues were all over now. God had warned and warned and warned Egypt. In fact His judgment of Egypt in the death of the first-born had fallen. But then God lured Egypt. I use that term advisedly. His judgment was going to be final. His judgment on Egypt will be Universal. This is IT – and He says, Come Pharaoh, you wanted this, now you shall have it, and Pharaoh like and insane maniac follows after Israel to the Red Sea and there the final judgment came upon Egypt. I mean the final of the final, and all the troops of Egypt, men that had dedicated themselves to defy God had died in the Red Sea, and the next morning as Israel stood on the far side of the Red Sea, having come through it, and they saw everyone who had sought their destruction, and defied God to the end, they saw them laying on the shore, and it says, then they sang. Miriam grabbed the tambourines and said, ‘The Lord has triumphed and cast our enemies into the sea.’

That sounds to us, almost terrible. Let me say this, and I hope you understand it. But our ideas of the terribleness of God’s judgment and the way sometimes we talk about His judgment as if we are saying – do you know God I do not think you are so much love. I have a problem with your judgments. Hold it, think about it for a week. Those ideas we have about God’s judgment in our sloppy sentimentality about it is borne out of the fact that we live in a society which has no absolutes and there are no laws, and any man can do what he wants and get away with it. And if we do believe in law, then I am the absolute. If a man is as good as me, he has got to be alright. And I can’t see why God should judge, he is as good as me. Aren’t we really made at God for judging him because if he is judged, I’ve had it too. So I get mad at God for judging him. When I walk into the Bible I meet a God who says, this is absolute. You violate that and you have violated life. Violate life and you meet death. You violate that and you violate love, and that is death. Violate light, you are in darkness and confusion. A God that doesn’t judge is not God. I stand with horror and awe before the judgments of God but I have to join with the song of Moses and sing, ‘Great and marvellous are your works Oh Lord, Righteous and true are your ways’ If God did not judge we would not have a God. If God does not judge there are no absolutes, there is nothing right there is nothing wrong, it is all neutral, it’s a blur.

It is not easy to take. When I come to the Bible I do not find a God created by Hollywood. He is a God Who is Holy, and He upsets me sometimes. But I have to admit that is right. ‘Righteous and True are your ways’. Why does it say the Song of Moses and of the Lamb? - The first time in the Bible that God punished sin in a nation was in Egypt. You read your Bible and you will find God did not punish nations before that. It was as if his long-suffering held Him back, but in Egypt He punished them and when Moses stood on the shores of the Red Sea that was the first time that men could look at the absolute evidence of God’s righteous judgments. There was the embryonic thought that God will vindicate His holiness, and whoever defies Him, God will not be mocked. Song of Moses, and the Lamb? – In the death of Jesus you have the finale, Moses was the first, the Lamb was the last, and in the resurrection of Jesus is guaranteed the salvation of every believer and the damnation of every unbeliever. The song of Moses is the Alpha, the song of the Lamb is Omega. The beginning and the ending. The judgements of God are righteous and true and the Lamb shall triumph, unquestionably.

And then we move into chapter 16. You have there the outpouring of the wrath of God. As we move into it, understand that this happens in time not only at the end. There is a building up. As we look around us we see the wrath of God. In these bowls of wrath it says in the first one that the bodies of men were affected. Please don’t run with that – it doesn’t say that all sickness is the judgement of God. Doesn’t say that all sickness comes because men do not repent – it just sometimes, and I have yet to meet a person when they do not know when that sometimes is. It is none of your business – don’t go around knocking on the doors of the sick saying they are under the judgement of God. There are people who are like that – some will blackmail you and say if you repent you will be healed. Nonsense – are you trying to play the Holy Spirit? When God’s judgment comes, the man knows it, it is none of your business. Keep your nose out of things which are none of your concern. Leave a man with his God, God has a loud enough voice.

It goes on to say that the sea (we have seen that as a picture of the restless nations), and their ships upon them their commerce and all their dealings, then it goes on to say the rivers, and we have seen that as the philosophy, it says they were turning to blood. Remember the River Nile? Life turned into death. Blood. The great death of God’s judgment, and we will see that in our next hour with the fall of Babylon. We come up to that strange and wonderful time called Armageddon. It says that is the judgment of God. God lured them out even as He lured Pharaoh out. He dried up the River Euphrates and some of you know what that means, and it said that these foul and evil things drew all men do together, the battle of Armageddon. – God says, come on, come on, and then the judgement of God fell. We shall deal with that in our next hour in detail, with the judgment of God on which is mystically known as Babylon.

The original set of 12 tapes can be obtained from Malcolm Smith's web site.
They are suitable for group study.

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