The fantastic visions the Apostle John describes in Revelation 15 and throughout the whole book are meant to be profoundly practical and impactful to God’s beloved people. We are given pictures meant to assure us of God’s present reign from heaven and his authority to use every circumstance throughout all of time in order to accomplish his good, pleasing and perfect will. There are promises throughout the book about pain that is coming – greater and greater persecution for the church – but there also are promises about a salvation that will be revealed when we are with the Lord Jesus Christ and at that time, everything will be right and all our pain will be finished. Not only that, but we will be able to look back at our lives and realize that Christ has been on the throne all along and was using our pain along with our joys in order to ready us to be with Him forever.