Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2054
“They repented not to give Him glory.” Revelation 16:9.
IN reading this chapter, dear Friends—this very terrible chapter—you must have been struck, I think, with the forces of God. How great are the armies of the Lord of Hosts! As the mighty Jehovah smote Pharaoh with overwhelming plagues, so does the Lord in this awful portion of the Apocalypse deal with the ungodly. Seven angels stood forth, each one with his vial full of the wrath of God, to be poured out upon the earth. Seven executioners were needed and seven were present—a perfect number for the accomplishment of the Divine purpose.
Behold, the angels of God are innumerable! “The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place.” Our Lord Jesus Christ, even in His humiliation, said, “Think you that I cannot now pray to My Father and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels?” The shining ones march in great armies and God accomplishes many of His purposes by them, without our observing it. Are not their great doings all written in the book of the wars of the Lord, which as yet no man has read? If there were no other powers at His disposal, Jehovah, as the Lord of all angels, would still be fitly called the Lord of Hosts.
What power resides in these mysterious beings! With what energy does the Lord clothe them! They are made to fly swiftly on the errands of His wisdom. “He makes His angels spirits and His ministers a flame of fire.” Here we find one of these angels pouring his bowl upon the earth and causing a noisome and grievous sore upon men. Another empties his vial on the sea and it becomes as the blood of a dead man. A third angel pours out his bowl upon the rivers and the fountains of waters are stained as with blood.
Here one ventures to pour his bowl upon the golden sun—that orb which is of this great world both eye and soul— and the sun, as though its flame were re-fed with the most brilliant oil, burns with greater fury than ever. And we read, “Men were scorched with great heat and blasphemed the name of God, which has power over these plagues.” What power, then, has God to accomplish His purposes when a single angel can do as much as this—and the Lord has myriads of them waiting to do His bidding?
Note yet again, how all men are within the reach of the Divine judgments. They proudly fancy that they can escape from God. Many a little Pharaoh says, in the hardness of his heart, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice?” Boastful worldlings dream that they, at any rate, are beyond punishment. They reason their careful forethought will secure them against the calamities which others bring upon themselves. They are ungodly but still they take good care of themselves and keep clear of vice and extravagant wastefulness.
They are far too prudent to involve themselves in the perils of the gamester or the profligate. They prefer safer sins and so they fancy that they are out of harm’s reach—though they do not acknowledge God. Poverty cannot reach them, for they have filled their houses with hidden treasure. Sickness cannot hurt them, for they have a vigorous constitution. They defy dangers which have thrown down others. They boast themselves in the glory of their strength and in the hardness of their hearts. These are the men who sit aloft, beyond the reach of the arrows of Jehovah.
What folly! No man is at any moment beyond the reach of vengeance. The Lord has but to remember the callous and secure, and immediately the joints of their loins shall be loosed and fearfulness shall take hold upon them—their proud hearts can fail them in a moment, even though no outward sorrow afflict them. In Providence the detectives of God never fail to find out the guilty. This angel, you perceive, poured his vial on the sun and by way of the sun, with his scorching heat, the proudest sons of men were visited. The noble and the great, the rich and the healthy, could not bear the increased solar heat—for the day burned as an oven.
We know not by how many doors God can come at the guilty, but come at them He will when once His arm is bared for war. When He says, “Ah, I will ease Me of My adversaries,” who shall withstand Him? This land is exceedingly haughty and some of its inhabitants talk as if they were demigods. Our insular pride makes us fancy that we shall prosper, come what may. But it is not so—we are great debtors to Divine favor and if we cease to acknowledge the Lord’s hand in our prosperity He may teach us humility by sharp methods. God’s right hand can find out His adversaries.
And He will punish sin in Britain as surely as He punished sin in Rome, or in Nineveh. If Jerusalem did not escape, shall London last forever? No country, no city, and no man, however rich, or strong, or great, can climb beyond the reach of the Divine hand. In the height or in the depth, God is equally present in power—in this state or in the next—He is equally able to dispense justice. No ivory throne can lift a monarch above Jehovah’s rod. No pillar of fame can place a mortal beyond His sword. Oh that all of you would have the sense to see this! And as you cannot fly from God, fly to Him. As you cannot resist the power of His justice, flee to the power of His mercy.