God’s people standing next to a “sea” and singing “the song of Moses” in victory over a defeated foe. What does that sound like? You got it, Revelation 15 represents the final exodus of God’s people, a recapitulation and ultimate fulfillment of Exodus 15.

The comfortable first-world reader of the book of Revelation as a whole may ask (or at least be tempted to ask): how could a good God allow all of these harsh punishments? Much less, how could He actually ordain and will for such things to take place? Much less, how could His followers accept or even approve of such things? Much less, how could the saints actually pray for and serve as witnesses in proactive support of His acts of judgment?

The answer chapter 15 supplies: Pharaoh won’t release his stranglehold on Hebrew slaves apart from mighty plagues forcing him to. This world was created to be a happy home where God and His people would dwell together. Our rebellion spoiled that. We gave authority to the beasts we were meant to rule over. We “filled the earth” with evil rather than with glorious reflections of God’s image. Jesus came and achieved salvation and redemption. But the fulness of Christ’s kingdom, the restoration and upgrade of the original state in which God dwells with man in peace and harmony, requires eradication of the corruption and sources of darkness which mankind sadly introduced.

For a slave suffering under deadly bondage, the message that your Defender is manifesting His power over your oppressor is indeed good news (cf. the “gospel” of Rev 14:6-7). The dragon, the beast, and the prostitute are invaders, temporarily holding sway over this world, over the home that God built for His bride and His family. Like Pharaoh, they have been and are being given a series of escalating warnings, but at each stage only harden their resolve and resistance further. The world will be set free to be what it was meant to be, the city of God and His image-bearers, only through a global-scale operation akin to the Exodus.

In Revelation, the trumpet and bowl judgments are the answers to the prayers of the saints because God’s people are anxiously awaiting their deliverance. They are “overcomers” rather than “earth dwellers”—i.e., the present state of this world is not their home. If this type of groaning for deliverance from Pharaoh (cf. Ex 2:23ff) seems strange, offensive, and foreign to someone, that may be a sign of the degree to which he is at home in Egypt.