Three More Bowls Rev, 16:10-21
Revelation 16:10-21 · Vern Peterman · Aug 11, 2002
Revelation (2001-03), No. 42
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262246116498

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. Good to see you this morning. We're going to be looking this morning at Revelation 16, 10-21. This is the second part of what you had in your handout last week. You had the seven plagues that were the bold judgments. These are the last three, plus an interlude that we'll obviously be going into, and then the final one here. So these are the last three bold judgments and the interlude between that we'll be looking at this morning. Then the other thing that we addressed last week was this subject to these Egyptian plagues. There was a similarity between these plagues that were put upon Egypt and those that we read here in these bold judgments. One additional note I might make, we're going to be looking at a couple of these, but this one here, number two, there isn't actually a frog invasion, but as you'll notice, or may have noticed already in the passage, there is an involvement with these frogs, only not literal frogs, they are frogs as demons. So take note of that as we get to that passage, okay?

And one last thing to point out here, It's interesting, as the seals were broken, as we saw those judgments, the seals were simply broken. As the trumpets were blown, the judgments came out. These bold judgments are different in this respect. You may have noticed, and you'll certainly notice as we read through it this morning, that each of the bold judgments is poured out not just on the earth, but they're poured out on something specific. The first one is on the earth. but they have the sea, the rivers and springs for the next one, and the sun, and then the throne of the beast, which is in the passage we'll be looking at this morning, the great river Euphrates, and finally, the air.

So that's something to note. These bowl judgments, unlike the previous ones, have a specific target in each case. The bowl is poured out in a particular direction. So we'll be taking a look at that this morning. Now, let's take a look at verse 10. Let's start there.

Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne to the beast, and his kingdom became darkened, and they gnawed their tongues because of pain. And they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and they did not repent of their deeds.

Now, let's first make sure that we know where this judgment is directed. What we see is the very throne of the beast is the target of this judgment. It isn't just sort of poured out in general, it's specific to the throne of the beast. His very rule is challenged, his very character is challenged. His kingdom is saturated already with spiritual darkness, so what are we getting? The physical equivalent. That's what he's getting. Darkness, it's poured out upon the throne, from there it goes everywhere. Physical darkness, every place. His kingdom, the entire globe, is saturated with this darkness.

Now, one of the things that we note here, here's a passage out, and here's John, the author of the book of Revelation and the Gospel of John. This is in John 3, 16-19. For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. And notice, this passage underscores this, This is the judgment that the light has come into the world and men love the darkness rather than the light for their deeds were evil. You want darkness? You got it. See that? This theme of darkness and light comes out in a lot of New Testament passages. We've just picked on one here in John chapter 3.

In 1 John 1.5, he says, God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.

You don't want God? You're going to get the consequence. No light. God is light. Right now, as you and I live and breathe and walk around, in fact, those who are unbelievers receive many graces they don't even begin to appreciate. You see that? They receive many graces they don't even begin to appreciate, they take them for granted. What this passage is laying out real clearly is that light that you've taken for granted, God is the source. You're going to deny God? Let's give you a small sampling of what it means to deny that one grace that the Lord gives to you.

Then we see, here's another passage that comes out of Romans, Romans 1, 18-21. And this one really zeroes in on this particular plague. Romans 1, 18-21, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. Because of that which is known about God is evident within them. For God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world has invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse. Even though they know God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened." So what's happened?

The oppressive physical darkness of this fifth bowl is a physical representation of the suppressive spiritual darkness already true of those who live on the earth. You see that? Now, here's something else that's real interesting, characteristic of this darkness. Exodus 10, 21-23 is the passage where it describes this same plague brought for a period of time upon the land of Egypt. And incidentally, it was not brought upon all of Egypt because the areas where the Israelites lived was excluded. But notice the character, and this is from God's voice himself, even the darkness which may be felt. This isn't just, hey, the lights are out. This is an oppressive darkness.

This is a darkness that goes deep in your soul. This is a darkness that creeps in and lets you realize something is seriously missing here. Something is seriously missing. Can you imagine a darkness like that? This isn't just slipping the light switch. This isn't just, oh, I wonder what happened to the power. This is a darkness that grabs you.

You see that? And that's why you see the response here in this passage. They are not simply saying, oh, well, it's dark, turn the light on. We'll get a few spotlights going. No, the response is much more severe than that. Look at the responses that they have. Responses to the fifth bowl judgment. They nod their tongues because of the pain. By the way, what pain did they still have? The boils.

Remember that? Okay? Now, there's nothing to distract you. You can't just turn on the boob tube or get some other kind of distraction. Somehow this light is really taken away. Things are just plain dark. The extent to which the people are able to overcome that with lights is not clear, but apparently this isn't just something where you flip a light switch and it's fixed.

They blaspheme the God of Heaven. What's amazing is they don't say, boy, you know, maybe we need to change our approach or thinking or, you know, boy, you know, we have been, you know, Kind of crazy here on planet Earth. They blaspheme the God of Heaven. They don't deny His existence. They just blaspheme Him. They insult His character.

And then the last thing, and we've seen this, it shows up four times during the Tribulation, this is the last time, they did not repent of their deeds. Remember the deeds we saw earlier? The deeds were murder, they were involved, one of the words that shows up in Revelation is pharmacia, A huge drug culture. Lots of drugs. And during a time like this, when people are going to be trying to deal with the pain, drugs will be particularly attractive. But notice the responses.

None of the responses indicate that they're coming around spiritually, that they're coming to spiritual understanding. Isn't it amazing that mankind will not be changed at heart, even with all these incredible things happening? People have gone through, by now, a dozen and a half and better plagues, and they're still not getting the idea? Isn't that just phenomenal? They don't get it. They don't understand. They know full well, because we can tell they blaspheme the God of Heaven, they know full well where these are coming from, and yet they don't come around. They don't seem to understand.

Verse 12, the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates and its water was dried up so that the way would be prepared for the kings from the east. This river Euphrates is a major river and it is one that through scripture has had a lot of mention off and on through scripture. This is the last mention of this river Euphrates. It's one that starts up in Turkey and then flows through Syria and then goes through Iraq and then finally exits into the Gulf there, right by Kuwait. So here's this river flowing through several countries, a major river, and it is a boundary and border that would be preventing troops coming from the east getting through easily, especially if there were large numbers of them. Bridges are limited, so The Lord apparently in this one is drying it up, making it available.

Something else here, these kings of the East, we have a translated Kings of the East, the actual literal Greek word there, Anatolis Heleou, it's the rising of the sun. These kings of the rising of the sun, they're coming from Asia. Coming from Asia. Now, truthfully, we're not told explicitly who these kings are. One fellow said he did a study of 100 commentaries and there were 50 different ideas as to who these kings of the east were.

One of the things that Hal and I were discussing was that at times people try to get more specific than scripture is, and that's where the problem lies. Where you see a multitude of interpretations among those people who are really trying to take Scripture seriously. What at times is the case, and this is one of them, Scripture is simply not giving us specifics.

So we don't know which ones. It's plural, but we don't know how many. And we're better off to simply say, these are going to be rulers from the East, and obviously they're accompanying troops. But aside from that, we aren't given specifics. So one thing we do know, and this is amazing, here's the world population This percentage over here, that's Asia. We're looking at it. Asia is more than, in population, all the other continents combined. So even though we don't know exactly who they are, we don't know which ones or how many explicitly, we know that there is a huge mass of people that would have to come across.

And therefore, lots of access would be needed to give them access here. And so that's the preparation. That's what this is about. Something else about this river Euphrates, and that is very shortly after this event takes place, Israel is taken into its millennial kingdom.

And in the millennial kingdom, look at the boundaries promised to Abraham. This boundary over here is Euphrates. Israel gets bigger, huh? None of this giving away country. Instead you have a huge increase in the land that is covered by the nation of Israel with Euphrates River as the eastern boundary. Now, so what's happening is these kings of the east are in truth stepping into the promised land, the land promised to Abraham. Alright, now, let's turn to verse 13. Oh, one more thing. See that thing there? Don't pay any attention to it. Alright, verse 13. Let's take a look at verse 13.

And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs, for they are spirits of demons, performing signs which go out to the kings of the whole world to gather them together for the war of the great day of God the Almighty. Now some people might ask, How on earth would you get all these kings from all over the world gathering towards Israel? How would you do that? People are trying to figure out what sense does it make?

If we look for plain economic sense or the normal political sense, we may have difficulty understanding it. But this gives us the insight. And the reason is this. What is happening here is not simply explainable on the basis of economics and politics and military power. It is explainable only on the basis of satanic enticement. You see the distinction there?

It's satanic enticement that is going to draw these people into this series of battles that we'll be looking at here in a little bit. What's also curious here is, here's this description and what you have is We talked some weeks back is this satanic trinity.

It's an imitation of the real trinity for the last three and a half years of the Tribulation. Satan, the Antichrist, and the False Prophet. All three of them are mentioned here in this verse. And what it brings out is all three of them are specifically said to have been spewing out demons that look like frogs. At first, you think of these frog-like creatures coming out of the mouth of the satanic trinity. It sounds a bit strange, don't you think? It sounds kind of odd. But if we take note of a few things, perhaps it makes a bit more sense.

First of all, the Jews considered frogs to be horrid creatures. Also, we know that the Egyptians and the Parthians, they were an empire just to the east, They also considered frogs to be absolutely detestable and disgusting. You may recall that the Lord sent a plague upon Egypt. And what was the plague? These disgusting, as they considered them, disgusting frogs that were put upon the land. Lots and lots and lots of these frogs.

Now, to someone who considered a frog detestable and disgusting, the idea of a frog being in the mouth, It doesn't sound very good. And if that doesn't sound disgusting to you, think of something else, but don't tell me. Okay? Alright. Go one step beyond that, and Satan and the Antichrist and the False Prophet aren't just putting something in their mouth disgusting, they're spewing it out. Out of their mouth, out of them, comes this disgusting, detestable thing. See? Then it looks really bad.

So, we read in verse 14 the explanation, they are demons performing enticing miracles to draw these hordes of troops into Israel. In spite of the fact that the demons are doing the drawing, enticing and miracles, it is the Lord Himself, God Almighty, who will display His power and sovereignty.

Isn't it interesting, Satan here, and Satan's co-workers, if you will, are being used of the Lord. Have you ever run across a Christian, and maybe you've had this experience yourself, who seems like terribly, terribly afraid of Satan? Ever run across that? I have run across people who at least claim to be believers, who get really involved in all sorts of things because they're afraid of the things Satan will do.

Satan is carrying out something here in which Satan thinks he's got the upper hand. But in fact, the Lord's in charge. The Lord is sovereign. We don't need to go about fearing Satan. Satan roams about as a roaring lion, like a roaring lion. But we're called to resist him, not tremble.

Let's look here at verse 15. Behold, I am coming like a thief. Now here's a real interesting parenthesis. Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake and keeps his clothes so that he will not walk about naked, and men will not see his shame."

Well, that's kind of what you would say, well, that's an interesting insert into the passage. You say, well, why all of a sudden are we here? What's the reason for this? Why is this put there? One thing is, as you're reading through these plagues, as we start thinking about them, it's real easy to kind of get earthly-centered. And to forget what it's all about, isn't it? So here in the middle of this, John inserts this statement. And as he's writing here, he's saying, wait a minute. I want you to understand something. In the midst of these plagues, what's your posture to be? What's your stance? What's your understanding to be? How am I to understand this? So he's giving us an insight here.

Now, what I am not doing is trying to load up on you a bunch of, okay, now here's your list of things to do, okay? Vern isn't trying to do this, okay? Say, okay, now I want to load you up with a bunch of stuff to do and now I want you to feel real guilty, right? Now I want you to really feel piled up with things and you've got to really get on it and give it your best effort and it's all up to you. Something I heard this last week, if it's to be, it's up to me, right? That's not true. That's not the point.

Let's look and see what this verse is really telling us here. If we look at it, there are actually a number of passages in Scripture where this phrase, where the Lord is coming like a thief, is used. So this is one of the places, as a matter of fact, if we look at it, it's the last place in Scripture where this parallel shows up where it talks about the Lord coming like a thief. I think the key for us to keep in mind, it is not intended to say the Lord is ready to steal something. That's not the analogy that he's carrying across here. Instead, the idea of a thief, this picture of a thief is used so that we will not be spiritually surprised, that will have God's perspective. He wants us to maintain the perspective so that the Lord's coming will not be a surprise. Secondly, He wants us to maintain this perspective because He so greatly desires to reward us.

And unlike the guy holding up the rock, it's the Lord's doing that's going to count. It's the Lord's doing that's going to matter. It's God's accomplishment. He says those who keep His clothes, well, much earlier in Revelation, where did the white clothes come from? The clothes are His. It's His righteousness. It's His righteousness.

One of the things that we talk about frequently here, because it comes straight out of the pages of Scripture, is we have a position in Christ. He's not talking about doing anything with that position because our position is untouchable. What he's talking about here is he's addressing our condition. He's saying, I so desire to reward you. I don't want you to be surprised by this. I don't want you to try to look for your own clothes. I don't want you to be exposed here. I have given you clothing of righteousness that is from me.

Keep those. He's talking about our condition. And He wants our condition to be consistent with our position, our position that is untouchable. He's telling us here in this little parenthesis in verse 15 that He greatly desires that we behold Him, so that our condition is consistent with our position as we live our lives out here on planet Earth, as we live our lives out with our spouses, with our kids, our co-workers, among those here at Holly Hills, living here on the planet Earth by anything other than the position that we have in Christ will leave us exposed. See that? If we live by anything other than the position that we have in Christ, it will leave us exposed and naked. God desires to reward us fully.

The flesh cannot produce the life of Christ. Just like this picture is a little bit silly. This is the flesh trying to produce the life of Christ. It can't do it. It cannot do it. Just like this man would be crushed by this rock. The flesh is incapable of coming up with the life of Christ. It's not by the law. It's not by man-made religion. It's not by pleasing others. It is only Christ is our life. That's the only way that this makes sense. So please, don't carry the rock, okay? And don't carry that either. Don't pay any attention to that. Alright. Now, verse 16.

And they gather them together to the place which is in Hebrew called Har-Magedon. Now, one of the things that we've brought up some time back here is that this word, Armageddon, people have this vague you know, ominous sense of what this word Armageddon means. It even recently was made, you know, into a movie and they got this big poster related to the movie here. And it was about this movie, it was about this gigantic, you know, asteroid or meteor that was going to hit the earth, you know. And so the world has got a very confused idea.

It is not intended to be some vague, ominous word that means global gloom. That's not what Armageddon is about. What Armageddon is about is about a country, a land, and a people. Here, out of all of space, you've got a little tiny place right about here. That's what it's all about. It is about the people here. It is about the promise that God made. It's the land, the seed, and the blessing focused in on this particular area.

And, and you should have this also on your handout in a similar form, the key to this is people talk about the Battle of Armageddon. You ever hear that phrase? The Battle of Armageddon? Okay. Probably a better way to bring it across into English to get the idea is a campaign. It's not some singular military event. but it's actually a campaign.

And if you put together the various passages of scripture, and we will not have time to do it here today, we'd be here for weeks, but enough to point out this. There is not some one specific battle, but there is a series of battles that is more thought of as a campaign or a larger war, and that campaign includes the Valley of Megiddo, or Armageddon, okay, in the Greek, It includes Jerusalem, the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and the Mount of Olives. And then thirdly, the wilderness in the area of Basra and Petra. And then associated with this also, as we'll see mentioned in a little bit, is also the destruction of Babylon, which is off the map and to the east. So that's really what this is about. It is really a campaign, a series of battles that together are Armageddon. So if we put this together, here's one photo that you may have, I know we've showed it here before. And here is this mountain. This is the Valley of Megiddo, which you see a small portion of here. That's the bay that the Israeli city of Haifa is right there. And that's kind of the entry point to this valley. And it's a large, broad, open plain.

There's a lot of rich military history in this valley. This is where Barak fought battles recorded in Judges 4. This is also where Gideon defeated the Midianites in Judges 7. And also Saul and Josiah lost their lives in this valley. So this valley has a lot of military history. Even Napoleon walked through this valley and made some comments about it.

It also includes, because this is the northern part that you see on your map, in the middle part, and we've looked at this before, the Valley of Jehoshaphat. This is the valley that runs between Jerusalem, and this is a photo from the Jerusalem Wall, Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives. So that area is involved, the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem, and this valley that runs between.

Those are all included in this campaign that we call Armageddon. Thirdly, there's the area that is in the wilderness. It would include the wilderness area, probably the city of Petra. We know that nearby Basra is involved. And so there would be instances here in the southern part of Israel.

And the idea being that from one end to the other is about 200 miles. And that's why in a previous reference in Revelation, we read that there would be blood Scattered in this battle for 200 miles distance and that's the distance that we find here between one end to the other of these three sites where this campaign of Armageddon is taking place Okay, I Think the thing as we boil it down.

What what is this Armageddon all about? Armageddon again is not some vague global gloom Instead it has some specifics to it It's a satanically motivated force attacking on several different battlefronts. It is Israel, God's chosen people, who are the target. Those are the ones that are being aimed at in this series of battles that is summarized by what we call a campaign of Armageddon.

It's God's protection as God promised. Way back in the Old Testament, this protection was promised. So this isn't just some some afterthought where God says, oh gosh, I better help these people. He instead is saying centuries, thousands of years ahead of time, I will protect you.

And then lastly, God's wrath is revealed against those opposing Israel and opposing Messiah's reign. Psalm chapter 2 is about the end of this series of battles. At this point, we come to the seventh bowl judgment, and that starts in verse 17. So let's take a look there. Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl upon the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying, It is done. This final bowl, you will notice, is poured out upon the air. And fortunately for us, the Greek word is air. Got that? Alright. See, you know Greek. Alright.

It's the same word found in Ephesians 2-2 where we read, it talks about the course of this world according to the prince of the power of the air. There you go. Of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Same Greek word there. So here is the prince of the power of the air and where is the bowl poured out on? The air.

It's a direct attack upon Satanic power. It's an attack on his domain. That's what this is all about. It's a direct and explicit attack on the domain of Satan. Now, this voice, this loud one, comes out of the temple. It's the throne room of God. It's the throne from which God reigns. And a loud voice is the voice of the Lord Himself saying, It is done! The Greek words here are different from what Christ says on the cross.

Remember when he says, it is finished? Different Greek word, but the verb tense is the same. It's what's called a consummative perfect. Things have finally come to a head in this one final event, and that final event is a completion with ongoing results. See that? So when Christ said on the cross, it is finished, It is a completion with ongoing results. Same thing here. It's a completion with ongoing results. I am done with these judgments. I am done with them. But the results will continue.

Now, verse 18, it comes across like this. And there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder And there was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth. So great an earthquake was it, and so mighty. Now, as we have seen in the seal and trumpet judgments, the seventh judgment in each one of those series, and this is one as well, includes flashes of lightning and peals of thunder.

This is similar to what we saw in Exodus 19.16 and Exodus 20.18. where we saw, this is where the Lord is with Moses on Mount Sinai, and what is there? Flashes of lightning and peals of thunder. Very similar kind of expression here. We see that in the seventh of each of the three series of judgments. Here is the same, but with some differences too.

One of the other things that we note here is that it mentions great earthquake. Great earthquake. As we look at the history of different earthquakes over time, what we find is that we've got this Richter magnitude scale, which of course they didn't have in biblical times. But what it turns out is if you had a San Andreas-like fault, San Andreas fault is what they call a strike-slip fault. It's moving sideways like this. If you had a San Andreas-like fault that encircled the globe so that the whole earth had an earthquake based on this massive surface shifting, It would be the equivalent of a trillion tons of TNT.

A huge earthquake, that would be a 10 on the Richter scale. What's described here I would envision would be that or greater. This is a huge, massive earthquake. Just think of the impact here. Look at this in verse 19 and 20. That gives us the insight into what's the impact of this massive huge earthquake.

The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. Babylon, the great, was remembered before God to give her the cup of the wine of his fierce wrath. And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found." Now this phrase, the great city, is used in several different places in scripture, but there are a few reasons why I believe that this, the great city, is Jerusalem. For one thing, there's another reference to Babylon, just right after that, right? So it indicates that Babylon is something different. The other thing is it says the cities of the nations. Well, the nations were the Gentiles, right? So that would be the Gentile nations, and obviously Jerusalem is not one of those.

And then Zechariah 4.14 says that when the Messiah comes to the Mount of Olives, that it will split from east to west. So you have a description there. It's probably a reasonable conclusion that these are one and the same events, if not a related event. And so Jerusalem is definitely involved.

No doubt, but what this great massive global earthquake will turn man's creations into ruins. One of the things when I was in the engineering realm, we dealt with building codes and this much earthquake load and this much seismic force. And going through the exam for the engineers registration in California, that earthquake loading is a required part of the exam. You can't skip over it. You must do it. Everyone must do it. But guess what?

It's not going to be enough. It's not going to do it. There's still going to be massive, huge damage. There's no way that even the very best codes available, and by the way, the ones in Japan are 100% of the weight of whatever the structure is sideways. I mean, you're talking massive earthquake. Still, it's not going to be enough. It's going to tear it to pieces.

Now, it says then Babylon will be remembered before God. Now, this shouldn't be understood that God suddenly remembered after forgetting. But Babylon was brought to the surface as this is critical. At this appointed time, the Lord is saying, now Babylon, this is your time. You're going to be destroyed. We'll talk more about that when we get to chapter 17 and 18, which address Babylon specifically.

Then it says, islands fled away. Basically, islands were knocked down to nothing. We don't know the size of the islands that get included or excluded from this, but certainly smaller ones are just knocked out of existence. Something else that's interesting, most of our Greek translations talk about the mountains, but in the Greek there is no article there. So it really simply says, and mountains. It comes across, and mountains were brought down, were not found. A great many of them just simply were destroyed. Let's take a look at verse 21. And huge hailstones, about a hundred pounds each, came down from heaven upon men, and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, because its plague was extremely severe.

Now, remember this white balloon I told you not to pay attention to? Now I want you to pay attention to it. You see this? This is about the size of a hundred pound hailstone. You've had hail hit you and none of you feared death from getting hit by the hail. But the hail you've seen has been the size of a pea or maybe a marble at worst. This is the size you're looking at.

And something very interesting, scientists being fascinated by such things have done an analysis of these hailstones and developed the formulas. And what they've determined, not by measurements because they've never seen anything like this, what they've determined is that a hailstone about like this would have what's called a terminal velocity, a top speed, 210 miles an hour. So here's this hailstone, weighs about 100 pounds, about this size, coming down, hitting the earth, 210 miles an hour. It would, in the average earth conditions, not solid rock, not sloppy mud, but average earth conditions, make a crater Every place it hit, about seven feet across.

About enough to bury somebody. So we're not talking a little bit of hail here. We're not talking something minor, something that's insignificant. We're talking about something of huge significance. Now, one thing I can guarantee is that you're not going to want to have this hit you. As a matter of fact, with a seven foot hole, you're not going to want to have it be hitting near you. You're not going to want to have it hit your car. Okay. And you won't want to hit your house either.

It's going to be severe. This is going to be something that people are going to, if they live through it, if they live through it, they're going to look at the destruction and just be struck with awe. But look there. Here is the response of mankind. Amazingly, the response of mankind is not to repent, or to feel remorseful, or to think, oh my heaven, I guess God is serious. No, instead, the response is to blaspheme God. Previously, they blasphemed the name of God. Here they just blaspheme God. They just directly insult God. not even using his name in vain, but just blaspheme God.

Now, we've been through some intense plagues, and been through 21 of them to be exact. But if we step back from these plagues, I think we're going to see some spiritual insights here. Last week, I went to the optometrist. An optometrist did, as a lot of you I'm sure have noticed, What do they do? They put these great big things in front of you. You know, I'm glad I don't have to wear those things. Anyway, they put these great big things in front of you. And what do they do? They play this game.

What's better? This or this? This or this? This or this? You've been through that? You know what I'm talking about? Okay. What's better? This or this? And they flip it and neither one's good, right? But anyway, they go this or this, which is better? This or this? This or this?

Isn't that really what the Lord's doing here? He's trying to get us to say, which is better, this or this? You'd rather be seated in the heavenlies or go through this thing? That's what He's trying to do here. He's trying to get us to choose, which is better, this or this? One of the things we brought up in the elective on how to say the Bible just before this is the world is inclined to tell us that the spiritual decisions that we make really don't matter too much.

You have your truth, I have mine. That's true for you, but it's not true for me. That's nice for you. I'm glad for you that you have that, but I don't need it. Ever heard those kinds of statements? What this is saying is, uh-uh. That doesn't cut it. The distinction is huge. When the optometrist goes this or this, a lot of times you may have a hard time telling the difference. What God is saying here is, see the difference? Huge difference.

We have a position in Christ that is there regardless of the circumstances. But if you don't want that, how about some circumstances? The circumstances will make you grow, or they'll make you blaspheme God. Which one do you want? The Lord has made a huge fork in the road here. And He said the fork in the road matters. If we look at these here and kind of draw some contrast, This passage here really talks about spiritual consequences.

Which is better? This or this? Darkness or the light of the world? Which is better? Which is better? Drying up the Euphrates or having living water? Which is better? Which is better? This or this? Which is better? An Armageddon war or peace with God? Which is better? This or this? How about an earthquake and hail? Or being established upon the rock and seated with Christ in the heavenly? Which is better? This or this? See that?

I think that's the contrast the Lord is trying to get us to see. Spiritual decisions and which spiritual factors are depending upon make a huge difference and the Lord is underscoring that big time here. He's trying to get people to answer the question.

Even in our daily walk, because he inserted that kind of a comment right in the middle of this passage, even in our daily walk, is it better for you to walk with the Lord and trust in His righteousness or trust your own? Which is better? This or this? That's the question the Lord's asking.

Let's pray. Lord, we give you thanks that you have, by your grace, given us these forks in the road where we can say an answer, which is better this or this. And we just pray, Lord, that the eyes of our hearts might be opened, that we might understand the huge, huge, eternal contrast between the choice of depending upon ourselves and depending entirely upon you. And we just pray that you would teach us the depths of that. We just pray that we would learn ever more each day, Lord, the marvelous blessings that we have in you. That we would say, yes, Lord, that is not only better, but it is far, far better. We give you thanks in Jesus' name. Amen.