Revelation 14:6-13 | Three Angels & One Choice

We trace Revelation 14:6–13 through the three angel messages, moving from the eternal gospel to Babylon’s fall to the sobering warning about the beast and God’s full-strength wrath. We end with the call to endurance and the promise of rest for those who die in the Lord, then leave the question hanging about worship, allegiance, and eternity. 
• the first angel’s eternal gospel as a public call to fear God and worship the Creator 
• the gospel offered to every people group as evidence of God’s open invitation 
• Babylon the Great’s certain collapse as the downfall of a corrupt spiritual system 
• the third angel’s warning about worshiping the beast and receiving the mark 
• the image of undiluted wine as God’s intense judgment 
• Jesus as both gracious Savior and righteous Judge 
• annihilationism defined and weighed against Revelation 14:11 
• why sin is ultimately against a holy and infinite God 
• endurance of the saints as obedience and faith in Jesus 
• blessedness for those who die in the Lord as rest and lasting reward 
Choose wisely my friends because your eternity hangs in the balance

Transcript

Why Revelation 14 Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Well, thanks for joining as we continue in our study of Revelation chapter 14, where we'll cover verses 6 through 13 in this episode. And as I mentioned before, this chapter can be broken down into three different sections, and this would be the second section and describes three different angels and the message that they bring. Now, one thing to notice here as we transition into this section of the chapter, we're in a sense moving from heaven to earth, because the messages that these angels bring are addressed to those living on the earth. So let's take a look at the message of the first angel in verses six and seven where we read, Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. And he said with a loud voice, Fear God and give him glory because the hour of his judgment is come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water. And so John sees this angel flying overhead. Now some versions render this slightly different. For example, the King James Version translates it as the angel flying in the midst of heaven. Other versions may say in the midheaven, and I'm reading from an ESV, and all of those are correct because the word that John uses here is the Greek word mesuronima, which literally means mid heaven, with the idea that it's describing the peak of the sun's orbit in sky. So think of the sun's position around noon, where it's at its highest point, with the idea being that what is done can be seen and heard by everyone. In other words, the angel is visible to all people and is proclaiming a message that can be heard by everyone. Now before we press this and ask how that's possible, given that one half of the earth is dark at all times, remember, we're dealing with the vision here. We're not working for NASA, we're not teaching Astronomy 101 here. The visibility of the angel everywhere is a reference to the spreading of the gospel being universally and publicly proclaimed. In fact, it may not even refer to the angel being the one who literally spreads the gospel. That's the work of believers. That's the work of the church. And there's a thought that angels in Revelation correspond to realities here on earth. And so the spreading of the gospel by the angel in flight here, it may refer to the spreading of the gospel even through martyrs. And one other perspective here is that the good news here, it's not limited to the announcement that God is saving his people, but also that the enemies of God are about to be punished. And so in this context, the angel is announcing impending judgment on the earth dwellers. And remember, that term earth dwellers, it's a term used in Revelation for those people who refuse to respond to the gospel message. But also notice that the angel's message is for all people, to every nation and tribe and language and people. And you know, Christianity is often attacked and labeled by skeptics and nonbelievers as being exclusive. But here is a perfect example of the inclusivity of God. The gospel is open to all people, and Jesus makes himself available to everyone. All people are invited to be saved. But verse seven also says fear God and give him glory, and worship him who made heaven and earth. And so the angel is calling people to fear God, to worship him, to give him glory. And throughout Scripture, we're called upon to give glory to God. We should give honor and glory and praise and worship to God, who is the creator of all things. And the Bible begins in Genesis 1 1 by saying in Hebrew, and I'll butcher this, but it's Barashit Bara Elohim Shemaimaretz. It's in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And that Hebrew term Shemaimaretz, it refers to all of physical reality. And the angel here is reiterating, reminding us of who God is, and that we should have a fear and an appropriate respect and reverence and a sense of awe when we consider who God is. And the angel also reminds us that this same God who is the creator is also the judge. And judgment is coming. But those who fear God, those who worship Him and glorify Him, will be spared judgment. And so that's the message of the first angel. But let's move on now to the second angel in verse eight, where John continues by saying, Another angel, a second, followed, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality. And so the second angel appears and has a message that Babylon the Great has fallen. In fact, not only is Babylon fallen, but notice that the angel says fallen twice, fallen. Fallen is Babylon the Great. And the Greek verb that's used here is a paison, and it means just what it says, to fall. But it can mean it literally like something falling to the ground, or it can mean it figuratively, as in a prophetic sense, as in the sense of a complete downfall, destruction, judgment, and just the collapse of either a power or a system. And this is the sense in which it's used here in verse eight. Not only that, but the doubling of the word is a rhetorical device used to stress the significance of the fall and how shocking it is, and how certain that fall will be. Now we'll get into more details about the fall in chapter 17, 18, 19, as well as the actual identity of Babylon in chapter 17, so I'm not going to press that right here. But suffice it to say that this fall is historic, because Babylon had a universal impact and effect on all nations. Verse eight says that Babylon made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality. It's a reference to Babylon's intense and passionate immorality, especially its sexual immorality. But remember, we discussed that in Revelation, this reference to sexual immorality and idolatry, it's usually referencing spiritual adultery. And so it's possible this isn't focusing on Babylon's sexual sin, but the rampant spiritual harlotry, her idolatry. And like we saw in the previous chapter, people are either going to side with the beast, the antichrist and the false prophet, or they're going to worship God. You will choose either the city of God or the city of man, Babylon. But for those who choose Babylon, the fall will be great. But let's continue with the third angel where we read in verses nine and ten, and another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, If anyone worships the beast and its image, and receives a mark on his forehead or in his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And so we see that the third angel has the most severe message. In short, those who have followed the beast and received his mark will face judgment. And so once again, we see the line drawn between those who worship the beast and those who worship God. And you know, in America, especially in more recent decades, we seem to draw the line between right and left, between Republican and Democrat, progressive versus conservative, and there is some truth to that. However, that's not the most important division. The most important division is that of good versus evil. Jesus said in Matthew twelve thirty, whoever is not with me is against me. He didn't leave room for a political, riding the fence sort of response to him. You are either with Christ or you're against him. There's no neutral ground when it comes to Jesus Christ. In fact, if you remember back in Revelation chapter three, Jesus said, I know your works. You were neither cold nor hot. So because you were lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spit or vomit you out of my mouth. This is part of Jesus' message to the seven churches in Revelation two and three. The Laodicean church was being criticized for being spiritually complacent, because hot water was useful for healing. Cold water was refreshing, but lukewarm water was kind of useless. It was nauseating. And so Jesus used this analogy to say he would prefer people be fully committed rather than being half-hearted or apathetic, you know, having this lukewarm faith. And the imagery of him spewing you out shows his strong rejection of mediocrity in your relationship with him. Remember also, Jesus said in Matthew 10 38, whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. But in verse 10, we see again that those people who receive the mark of the beast and worship the beast will experience the wrath of God. And so the image here is that they will drink the wine of God's wrath. We've already seen that Babylon calls others to drink the wine of her passionate immorality, but here the tables are turned, and those who do so will now drink the wine of God's wrath. And notice that we're told that the wine of God's wrath is at full strength. In the ancient world, wine was normally mixed with water so that it was diluted, and it was normally about three parts water to one part wine, and that was done for a variety of reasons, but typically it was to either control intoxication or to help maybe purify the water. But notice here that the wine these people are about to drink, the wine of God's wrath, it's poured out at full strength. It's not diluted to weaken its effects. It's not watered down, meaning God's judgment is intense. It's at maximum strength. It's pure divine wrath against those who worship the beast and take his mark. And we're told of the consequences for those people. They will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb. And when we get to chapter nineteen, we're told that the lake of fire burns with sulfur, and this reminds us of the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah where fire and sulfur rained down. And I want to make another observation here. So many times these days we hear people try to argue that Jesus of the New Testament is full of love, but the God of the Old Testament was full of wrath. And so they like the all forgiving, full of love, eat with the sinners, turn the other cheek Jesus, but they despise what they think is a vengeful, wrathful God of the Old Testament. But here's the truth. It's the same God in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. In our study of Genesis, we saw that the God of the Old Testament is also full of grace and mercy, and here in Revelation, we'll see that Jesus, the Lamb, is not only full of grace and truth, but also of wrath. And just because we may want to ignore or skip over those verses or turn a blind eye to scripture that doesn't fit our preconceived notions or the narrative of the day, it doesn't make it any less true. But one more observation here. In Matthew twenty six twenty nine, at the Last Supper, Jesus told the disciples, I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. Jesus was abstaining from wine from that moment until the consummation of God's kingdom, when he will drink wine again in heaven with all believers. So the people of God will drink wine in heaven with Christ. Those who worship the beast who receive his mark will drink a different sort of wine, the wine of the wrath of God. At the Last Supper, the wine represented the blood of Jesus. Jesus said drink of it, all of it, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. It was a cup of grace, of mercy and ultimate joy, looking forward to eternal communion. But here in Revelation, people will drink of the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength. One cup is offered in love, leading to life and forgiveness and a future joy in heaven. The other cup is forced upon those who reject the first, leading to unending judgment. And it's the same Savior who promises both. Verse eleven tells us and the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name. Now we just read in verse ten about those who worship the beast and take the mark being tormented with fire and sulfur, and this verse gives us more details regarding that by saying that the smoke of their torment will ascend forever. Now I could have read this verse eleven with the previous two verses, but I wanted to leave it by itself on purpose, because there are some people who argue that the punishment here is not everlasting, but rather it points to these people simply being annihilated. And so I want to speak for just a moment about something called annihilationism. Annihilationism is a minority Christian theological view about the final fate of the unsaved people, people who die without faith in Christ. And so this view is in contrast with the traditional majority view of the unsaved people, which is that they will experience what theologians call eternal conscious torment, where the wicked suffer unending conscious punishment in hell. Now most of us, most people in fact, have probably always understood the thought of hell as being eternal. And so why would anyone believe in annihilationism? I mean, where does that thought even come from? Well, they believe hell or the lake of fire, it's not a place of ongoing torment, but a final extinction after their punishment. The wicked are destroyed, they perish or they're just burned up permanently. In other words, punishment is eternal in its consequences because it results in this everlasting non existence and it's final, but it's not an ongoing conscious torment and suffering. But the reason annihilationism appeals to a minority of believers is because they think that it avoids the moral difficulty of eternal punishment based on finite sins. In other words, they believe that it wouldn't be morally right of God to punish someone for all eternity because they refuse to worship God or accept Jesus Christ in this short, finite life. In other words, finite sins don't warrant infinite punishment. And so they argue that the punishment doesn't fit the crime. This is one of those arguments that many skeptics make about the God that they don't even believe in, arguing that they wouldn't worship a God who's so egotistical and vengeful and spiteful and jealous that he would punish someone in hell forever just because they wouldn't worship him. Well, just a couple of thoughts about that. First, nobody's going to hell just because you didn't choose to believe in or worship God. You will go to hell because you're a sinner and you cannot be in the presence of a holy God in that condition. So you can avoid the whole problem by simply not sinning. But your problem is summed up in Romans 3.23 where it says, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, which tells us that sin results in our failing to meet God's standard of glory. And so we've been separated from God due to our sin. And the bad news is that we're all in the same boat as far as that goes. We're all sinners. But the good news is that fortunately God loves you very much, and he has offered you a way to be saved, and that is through Jesus Christ. But in response to the skeptic or unbeliever, the second thought here is that although your sin was indeed only finite, the problem you have is that your sin was committed against an infinite God. And so it's like when someone's convicted of first degree murder and they're sentenced to life in prison or even sentenced to execution. We are meeting out as humans the most severe and lasting punishment possible. But couldn't they argue that it's unfair to suffer such a long or severe punishment for a sin that lasted only a few moments? But you and I know that it's not about how long a sin took to commit. It's about who that sin was committed against. And when you sin and take the life of a human, you're going to pay the ultimate human finite price with the rest of your finite life. But when you sin against God, an infinite being, you're going to pay the infinite price with an infinite penalty. I've always liked the thoughts of the philosopher and theologian Anselm regarding this issue. He argued that sin is fundamentally a debt of honor owed to God, whose majesty and worth are infinite. And so even a brief or finite sin constitutes an infinite offense because it withholds from God the absolute obedience and honor that's due to him as the supreme eternal being. And so sinning against the infinite God requires an infinite penalty. And humanity, being finite, cannot pay this debt. Our lives, our efforts are limited. So no amount of finite repentance or good works is enough to pay an infinite penalty. This is why the incarnation of God was necessary. In Psalm fifty one, King David's prayer of repentance after his adultery with Bathsheba and then the murder of Uriah, although his sins clearly hurt other people, he recognizes that his primary offense is against God. And so crying out to God, he says, Against you, you only have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight. And in Genesis thirty nine nine, Joseph, resisting Potiphar's wife, says, How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? He focuses on offending God, not just Potiphar, even in Numbers twenty three, but if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure, your sin will find you out. And so the Bible teaches that while sin can have what you might think of as horizontal consequences like hurting other people, they're ultimately vertical against a holy God whose nature is violated. And you were made, you were created in the image of God, and when you sin, you violate that nature. You violate the nature of God, and in order to spend eternity in God's presence, that has to be fixed. There has to be a remedy. That remedy is Jesus Christ. But getting back to those who believe in annihilationism, they argue primarily from a few different verses. So for example, they'll point to John 3 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. They argue that the word perish there is in contrast to eternal life, and that it suggests annihilation rather than eternal suffering. But they also point to Matthew 10 28 where it says, And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. And again, they argue that destroy there refers more to being annihilated than suffering eternal torment. But again, annihilationism, it's a very minority. poverty position within Christianity. And what many people fail to remember when they argue that the love of God couldn't bear to tolerate and watch eternal punishment is that they fail to think about the holiness and the justice of God. His love is perfect, but so is his holiness. But let's continue now with verses twelve and thirteen which read Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven saying, Write this, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Blessed indeed, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them. So in the verses that we've covered so far and the message from the three angels, we've seen a call for all people to worship and glorify God, and a warning of punishment and everlasting torment for those who worship the beast. But in these two verses John takes the time to remind all believers to persevere and endure. And again, it'll be easy when times get very hard to compromise, to give in to the beast, whether it's for economic reasons or maybe just to save your own life. But this reminds us of the early chapters of Revelation, where Jesus is writing to the seven churches and there's that consistent message of overcoming and enduring until the end, regardless of the cost. And so it's important to understand what endurance means here, I think. Well John clearly tells us that those who endure are those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. And we've seen several examples so far in revelation of what it means to overcome, like rejecting false teachings, confessing Jesus' name and holding to his testimony, turning away from idolatry, immorality, refusing to worship the beast and there's others. And John is calling us to faithful endurance because the consequences are severe. People's eternities are at stake. But we're told in verse thirteen that blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Blessed indeed says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them. And we read that, but what does it mean to be blessed? And I believe we may have discussed this briefly maybe back in chapter one, but it's not actually easy to translate. But some commentators explain that it essentially means good fortune and happiness and shalom in a deep and a profound sense. But we're told here that the dead are blessed. Well that doesn't exactly sound like good fortune and happiness. Death doesn't sound like a blessing at all, especially for the loved ones who are left behind. And death wasn't originally considered a blessing but a curse that entered and became the last enemy of man as a result of sin. But the important distinction here is that we're told blessed are those who die in the Lord. Not just those who die, but those who die in the Lord. There's a big difference. And there's a big difference between those who will be blessed and find rest versus those who worship the beast and who we just saw in verse eleven will never find rest. And we're also told here that blessed indeed says the Spirit that they may rest from their labors. Now that word for labors here it's the Greek word kapos, which carries the picture of just a weariness and the pain and troubles from simply living in the world. And sure, life is a gift and it can be beautiful but I also don't have to tell you how difficult and how painful it can be at times. And even in the Bible Job suffered great pain and misery and loss during his life. Paul experienced all sorts of trials and hardships during his ministry which proves that just because you're a Christian it doesn't mean that you get a free pass on the sufferings and hardships of life. But it simply means that if you die having already placed your faith and trust in Jesus, then death should not bring fear. Paul recognized this and he said in Philippians one twenty one to live as Christ and to die is gain. And Christians quote that verse a lot but oftentimes we forget about the very next verse but I think it's also very insightful because Paul continues by saying about life or death I'm hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ for that is far better but to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. In other words Paul recognized that it was better to die and to be with Christ but to live meant fruitful work for the kingdom and that it was beneficial to others. And all of that should comfort believers, knowing that as a believer death should not be feared but while we're here we all have work to do and as verse thirteen ends those good deeds will follow us they will not be forgotten but will be rewarded. And so when you step back and look at these verses that we've covered the message of the three angels should echo in your mind fear God, worship the Creator and Babylon has fallen. And their message really comes down to a single decision. Everyone will ultimately drink of one of two cups one cup offered by Christ, the cup of grace and forgiveness and eternal life. The other cup is the wine of God's wrath reserved for those who reject him and follow the beast. One cup leads to rest with Christ the other leads to torment without rest and the Savior who offers the first cup is the same judge who warns about the second. And so the question this leaves hanging in the air is this whose side are you on? Who are you worshiping? From which cup will you drink? Choose wisely my friends because your eternity hangs in the balance