That's for God's help. Father, we always need your help as we come to your Word in particular this morning for such a hard text that speaks to us a hard word about a certain judgment to come. But though it is a hard word, it is the necessary word, and if we would feed its warning, it would be to us such unbelievable good news that even now there is yet a way of escape, that the day of salvation is now and that the door is not yet shut. In fact, they are strong wide open that as we've just sung, if we would come, you would run to us and with open arms would forgive us and give us the sure promise of eternal life. So we ask, O Lord, that you would give us ears to hear all that you have to say to us in your Word in Jesus' name we pray, amen. This passage that I'm about to read from Revelation 14 verses 6 through 13 is, except for the very last verse, a dark and dire passage, there's no way around it. Scripture has a meaning in each text, and each text also has a certain mood, and we flatten the contours of Scripture if we make every mood of the Bible the same, and if every mood is a word of judgment, or every mood is just a giant bear hug of God's grace, no, there are peaks and valleys, and this is one of those texts that if we are to be faithful to the meaning and the mood of Scripture, we have to come to grips with some hard things. And since this is a dire passage, let me start with what I admit is a bit of a dark and dire thought experiment. Imagine that some terrible calamity were to hit us tomorrow, and we would have advanced warning, remember several years ago, when there was that accidental advanced warning system that went out in Hawaii, that in incoming ballistic missile or some sort of catastrophic attack was on its way, only been to who I once and happen to be there, not that exact time, I'm grateful for, but just a few days before, and my wife and I have often reflected what we would have thought if we had gotten that message come through on our cell phones to seek shelter immediately, and my wife said, I think I would have just thought, surely this is an accident, this can't really be happening, this really isn't the end. And as it turned out, that would have been right, it wasn't accident, and it wasn't the end. But what if it was? What if we were given some advanced warning of some situation so dire, perhaps a lethal, deadly pandemic, even much worse than the one that we've endured, one that upon any sort of exposure, you might be dead by the evening, there are stories like that from the pandemic, the Spanish flu, so called of 1918, what if we knew that something like that was coming? What is the message that we would need to hear, or what is the message that you would want spoken to people that you love and care about, if somehow we knew that a bomb was falling a week from today, or that some infectious disease was so out of control that none of us had hope of life a few days from now. What kind of word would God want to speak to us? This passage that I'm about to read is another one of those passages in Revelation. It's hard to get the timing exactly right, because so much of this is both present and future. It's had a pulsing to the very end, and yet this is not the very end, but it's telling us to look forward to the end, which in God's timing, the end may be in God's watch, a day, a year, a century, but it's coming. His return and his judgment are coming soon. And so I ask the question, what would all of Charlotte need to hear if the end was imminent? Or what if it was not the end of the world as we know it, but somehow God gave you or gave me some supernatural insight that the end of your life was coming? And you knew that it was just days or weeks away. What would God want to say to you? What would God want to say on the loudest speaker possible to this entire city? If we knew that in the next week a bomb would drop and life would be over for all of us. Told you, it's a dire thought experiment, but this is a dire passage. And we read here in Revelation 14, the message that I think God would want all of us to hear. Listen as I read beginning at verse 6, then I saw another angel flying directly overhead. So here's the ancient equivalent of a text alert in e-blast, a loud speaker, you have an angel flying overhead with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. What is this message? He said with a loud voice, fear God, and give him glory because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth the sea and the springs of water. Another angel, a second, followed, saying, fallen, fallen, his battle on the great. She who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality. And another angel, a third, followed him, saying, with a loud voice, if anyone worships the beast, and its image and receives a mark on the forehead or on 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 the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest day or night. These worshippers of the beast and its image and whoever receives the mark of its name. 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, right 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. Here we have an answer to that dire thought experiment. What would God want to declare to every people tribe, language, and nation on the earth? You know that when certain bombing campaigns take place, and if you have the the warring parties thinking along humanitarian lines, they don't hide themselves behind civilians, but they warn civilians to get out of harm's way. And so they may drop leaflets or find other ways of communicating with people. As says, trouble is coming, destruction is coming, but there is yet a way for you to escape. This bomb that is going to drop, this destruction that is coming in the next days or hours hence does not have to be for you. If you would listen and flee, there might yet be safety for you. That's what this passage is about. Notice a very clear outline, three words and one blessing, three words and a benediction, three angels with the three words, and then a voice from heaven telling John to write this benediction. So here's the first word, verses six and seven. It's a word of warning. The message is very simple. You see it in verse seven with a loud voice. He said, fear God and give him glory. You know the Old Testament, you may recall that Ecclesiastes, which can be a very complicated book. And vanity, vanity, all as vanity is the preacher there, explores all of the various explanations for the meaning of life. And he comes in chapter 12, verse 13 of Ecclesiastes. Here is the end of the matter after he's tried the route of pleasure and work and personal hedonism. Here's the end, fear God and keep his commandments. That's what life is about. And so here the angel gives this word of warning, fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment is coming. Now many people, even if they heard that warning, would think, well, I'm not a very bad person. That's nice for people who are really in the throws of absolute wickedness, but I'm just going about my business. I'm not a nasty person, like some of those folks out there. The remember, Romans 125 tells us our great sin is exchanging the truth of God for a lie. That's why it doesn't just say the warning is not be nicer people. Don't be mean to each other. No, it's a little more profound than that. Fear God and give him glory. We do not give God glory when we do not recognize who He is. We deny His holiness and we do not fear Him. We deny His splendor when we do not glorify Him. We deny His worth when we do not worship Him. We deny His true character when we do not honor the image of the invisible God in the face of Jesus Christ. So realize, friends, our fundamental problem is not doing bad things or merely thinking bad thoughts. Our offense, fundamentally, is the rejection of God. People don't think of it that way. They think, well, I just am trying to be a nicer, better person. But here in Revelation, we see the contrast of those who have the name of God written on their forehead or those who have the name of the beast. The peoples of the earth have treated the holy one and only God of the universe as a light and trivial thing. You don't have to knowingly hate God in your hearts in order to be on the side of the beast. You just have to ignore Him. What sort of husband would I be to my wife? I said, I don't hate you. I just don't want to ever see you or consider you or talk to you or be with you or if she did the same to me. So I don't really feel anything. But say, well, that sort of trivializing, that sort of ignoring is what unbelievers do to God. So the warning is fear God and give Him glory. Whenever this day of judgment announced in verse 7, whenever there is a day of judgment, the day of the Lord, it's often called in the Old and New Testament. Whenever it comes, it means fundamentally two things. Salvation for the righteous and judgment for the wicked. That's why the day of the Lord is, like we saw earlier in Revelation, remember the scroll that John 8 and it was both bitter and sweet because that scroll which unravels has God's plans for the world is sweet for those who trust in Christ and it is a bitter word for those who don't. There's no way around it. This is a warning of God's wrath to come. One of the good things about getting older now that I'm so old is I can remember the same sorts of bad ideas and bad books that I read 20 years ago and then read them again and they become a big thing and then everyone talks about anything. Wait a second. I read the same thing people saying this 20 years ago and you know what 20 years from now there'll be another hot, that's the same thing. And one of the perennial ideas that always resurfaces, at least in the last 150 years or so, is somebody who will tell you that we've really gotten the judgment of God wrong. You have made God out to be some big meaning in the fire and brimstone and sulfur and Jonathan Edwards centers in the hands of an angry God and it's not like that at all people will say. The question is not what we have an appetite for as 21st century Americans or wherever you may be from, the question is what God and his word has said and this warning and we'll see it even further in the verses to come is a warning of judgment. We can say we don't like it, we can blame it on the Puritans, we can blame it on the medievals, we can blame it on somebody else but it's right here in black and white in the Bible. And it's all over the Bible, Psalm 1, therefore the wicked will not stand in the day of judgment nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous, for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous but the way of the wicked will perish. You say what about John 3, 16 I've heard that often, well God so loved the world that he gave his only son, whoever believes in him should not perish with every eternal life. Amen, we believe that with all our heart. Keep reading, for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, that wasn't the mission of Christ, but to save the world through him, whoever believes in him is not condemned but whoever does not believe, stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only son or Acts 17. In the past Paul says God overlooks such ignorance but now he commands all people everywhere to repent for he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. What do you do with that verse? On a certain day it will be a day and it will happen and on that day you can't blame the Puritans but say that's what that was just from white evangelicalism or that was just reform theology or Calvinists right here on that day he's appointed when he will judge the world with justice by the man he appointed. Now notice in Revelation verse 6 calls this message strangely enough in eternal gospel he say well that doesn't sound like the gospel just reading of one of these books this week that said you know what the gospel really is about this message of living a Jesus way and following the Jesus way of life and it's the best way to live well yes and amen it is the best way to live and Jesus does call us to be disciples but the word gospel can have a very narrow meaning and have a broad meaning here it has this broad meaning you say why is this gospel I thought gospel was good news and here all the angel says is fear God worship him well as good news because those who are worshiping God and who do fear God know that Jesus is returning that's good but it's also good news for the inhabitants of the earth who are disobedient why because they still have a chance you still have an opportunity to fear God and give him glory just like the preaching of Jonah and Nineveh he say well Jonah wow that was not a very good gospel message you all that's recorded is in 40 days Nineveh will be overturned now maybe that was a summary and he really gave much more of it that's all we're told he says he say wow talk about law no gospel but implicitly and maybe Jonah made it explicit and we're just not told but implicitly at least they understood if judgment is coming even the Nineveh's understood maybe if we relented maybe if we turn maybe if we call out for mercy to this God the destruction that has been worn will not fall upon us this angel with the everlasting gospel the eternal gospel is announcing to the world there is only one name under heaven given among men whereby we must be safe this is the way this is it this gospel the angel remember this is John C. V. I saw an angel this is his vision so it's not necessarily that the end of the world has three literal angels announcing this remember this is a vision just like we've seen a vision of beasts and dragons so here he has a vision of an angel it may be an actual angelic announcement or many commentators think this is a vision which corresponds to an earthly proclamation many people in fact they could good argument that the angel of the church of Ephesus the angel of the church of Smyrna that those are actually the pastors of those churches in the word Angoloi simply means messengers so it could be that what John sees as an angel in his vision actually corresponds on earth to the faithful proclamation of God's word which is chiefly through the proclamation and the preaching of his word but also secondarily it is through the gospeling that you do as his disciples and sharing this word with others fear God give him glory now that doesn't doesn't mean that's where you have to start I am from Christ covenant fear God and give him glory next house fear God and give I mean there are worse things actually but that's that's probably not you start you you earn a hearing you you have a relationship you have a friendship you look for an open door you practice hospitality all of that but if all we ever do is just be good friends or all we ever do is just set a good example and we never say like second currency is five be reconciled to God that's the hard part that's the very part that people need to hear we have we have a lot of good doctors in this church and they would not be good doctors if they gave to all of us when we come in only to diagnosis that we want to hear hmm so tell me pastor Kevin what's the matter oh yes you do need to drink more mountain do very good yes thank you how many marshmallows and lucky terms well more you need more if they if they only told you what you wanted to hear you yes smoke all you want don't exercise you don't have to lose weight everything is fine you want to have to go through all the years of training in medical school to just tell everyone everything's fine thanks for coming seeing me you would be a good doctor unless everything was fine but if there's a problem and you love someone and you can see it you say it and so it is with the most important things in life and eternal life if I never give to you the warnings I'm not being a faithful physician of souls you've heard me say this before and I will say it now again one of my deep and abiding prayers is that no one no member at Christ covenant church can ever stand before God on that final day and say no one ever told me there was a judgment to come it could be you're not paying attention I can't help that but honestly no one ever told me there are lots there are too many churches people can sit in year after year after year some of your stories maybe being in those churches never hearing this warning this very warning that the angel gives here fear God give him glory there is a judgment that is coming look at the second word it's a word that was a word of warning here's a word of woe verse eight a second angel says fallen fallen is Babylon the great now what is Babylon Babylon is shorthand for this fallen wicked world the first beast was really the perversion of this state so this isn't exactly the state you might think of this as the system or worldliness whatever is is broken and fallen and geared against God and toward immorality that's Babylon now we'll have much more to learn about Babylon in the chapters ahead because Babylon is likened to a prostitute and we see why at the end of verse eight because the nations are drunk on the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality now it's not just that Babylon is marked by sexual sin though it is but sexual sin is also a kind of representation of all spiritual harlotry called Babylon because in the Old Testament Babylon swept in and they took the people of Judah into captivity and they had to live as exiles in Babylon and there did come a day can read about it in Isaiah when the real Babylon shell was wiped out well in the same way we live as strangers and aliens as exiles in the world however much we want to make our nation to be influenced by Christian ideas and Christian principles yet we must never forget that here we have no lasting city our lasting city is the one to come we live as strangers as aliens we always live in the midst of Babylon that is a fallen world a fallen place so do you understand what this second angel is communicating to us Babylon is fallen see the people on the earth maybe some people even in this room we we we fool ourselves into thinking that all of all of these goodies in life this way of the world it's way of sin and idolatry and adultery and all of this this is this is going to last you see the metaphor here drunk on the wine of the passion of Babylon it'd be nice if temptation wasn't appealing wouldn't it be nice if temptation wasn't tempting but then it wouldn't be temptation it'd be nice if sin wasn't ever enjoyable but it is enjoyable at least for a time it's like addiction addiction satisfies you at first and it becomes an addiction because what little bits you get then you need more and you need more of a hit and you need more explicit images and you need harder stuff and you need riskier behavior and an addict will tell you that there is this this love hate with this thing that has control over their lives I don't want this I don't I don't want to be an addict to sex or drugs or alcohol I don't I don't want to be addicted to gambling I hate it and yet I'm drawn to it compulsively I can't seem to put it away that's the spirit of Babylon the wine the intoxication of her passion and we all come to points in our lives maybe you're at one this morning where obedience to Christ seems very hard and very strange there are times where even as Christians who obey Christ will feel unnatural like this can't be the right thing to do to love a cheating husband to forgive a bad wife to refuse to nurture bitterness against your parents to turn off the trash that's in your ear in front of your eyes we come to those spots in our life where we do not want to be different than the world we like living in Babylon that's why this message this word of woe is what we need to hear this Babylon will fall are you and I living for a way of life that has already been judged destined to be destroyed are you living for a city that has no foundations remember when your kids or when your grandkids now maybe are over and they want to build a big fort I do admit I'm a bit of a grump with the big massive forts in the house I say to my shame I'm sure I like them when I was a kid but you get all the couch cushions and you move the tables around and you get some blankets and you put books on top of them so they don't fall off and you have this massive fort this ram shackle fort put together and you go in there with flashlights and even this illustration means this is what I have later today I'm putting it into their head it's my own fault this massive fort and the thing is kids love the fort or is that can I keep the fort another day could please don't but you need that to sleep on we don't have anywhere to sit and the things a big mess but they just want can I can I live if you ask them they would choose to live in the they would make plans they would the wedding in the fort the college in the fort the they're they're living they're just in the fort this is life of course you know as adults there is no lasting city there you that's fun for a moment that fort is coming down all I have to do is say the word come through in a whirlwind of parental grumpiness and the fort is over so you would be foolish to make plans for the rest of your life based on a childhood fort of couch cushions and yet adults adults do this as if the Babylon of this world and all the ways of the world are going to last forever let's let's make our whole plans for all eternity as if this is going to last this is why it's called good news actually that you might receive this word of warning and receive this word of woe less we become intoxicated with the maddening wine of Babylon's adulterer he's and then there's a final word in the next paragraph a word to the wicked this calls you see verse 12 for the endurance of the saints we are called to endure not despite the power of the wicked but because of the fury of God's judgment to come in other words saints of God hold on judgment is coming uses this familiar image of the wine of God's wrath verse 10 see it there drink the wine of God's wrath for its full strength into the cup of his anger do you see that just the position you if you want to live in Babylon and you just say pass it around give me another gulp of all of the good stuff of Babylon I'm going to get drunk on all of her adulteries all of her immorality the way of the world I'll drink that down God says okay you're going to drink of that cup just know I have a cup for you to drink from poured full strength into the cup of his anger so I'm 75 verse 8 in the hand of the Lord is a cup full of foaming wine mixed with spices he pours it out and the wicked of the earth drink it down to the very drags it is a drinking of judgments that's one image it's also tormented verse 10 with fire and sulfur so the coming judgment is likened unto drinking a chalice of God's wrath and here it is likened to fire and sulfur if you don't like that image it's here in the bible you need to take that up with God because God has revealed to us what this judgment is like will it be literal fire and sulfur I don't know this is a vision but it's described as fire and sulfur because it is as painful and as miserable as fire and sulfur and notice verse 11 the smoke of the torment goes up forever and ever it is a hard doctrine we recognize that and yet it is revealed to us here the eternal conscious torment of the wicked because for all time they are implacably opposed to God and so he pours out his judgment some have tried to soften this doctrine and some have used verse 11 in particular they say well the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever and this is likened as a kind of destruction but perhaps it's just the smoke so their torment doesn't last but just the smoke goes up forever and ever after all does an Isaiah refer to the destruction of edam as the smoke rising up forever and ever and there it meant just a long time and so some have argued for a position that's called conditional immortality or annihilationism it's the view that says those who don't go to heaven go to hell where they are annihilated they're they're literally destroyed they simply cease to exist most famously John Stott for the end of his life argued for this position of annihilationism and you can see a certain appeal to it it even though that's bad news that sounds a little more palatable you either get all the good stuff of heaven or you just don't get anything and you cease to exist and yet i don't think we can come to that conclusion if we deal fairly with scripture this word torment bossanizo in the Greek it's always used of conscious suffering never for the removing of existence we read in revelation 2010 the devil who deceived him was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur where the beast in the false prophet had been thrown and there they are tormented day and night forever Jesus himself and mark nines is if your eye causes you to sin pluck it out it is better for you to enter the kingdom of god with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched all of this imagery smoke rising from their torment forever a worm that never dies a fire that is never quenched gives us no grounds for concluding that the wicked simply cease to exist in our snuffed out and annihilated but rathering rather we must conclude with great soberness and gravity that the punishment of the wicked continues forever and ever just why this angel announces this gospel this chance this opportunity and as the third angel said if anyone worships the beast in its image he will drink from the wine of god's wrath the smoke of their torment will go up forever forever it's a painful hard doctrine but it's right here there's another euphemism some of us like to talk about hell is eternal separation from god that there's a half truth there second set the Thessalonians one nine says that judgment is to be separated from the presence of god but there the presence of god is his his covenantal presence of blessing his peace his shining face that's what it means but sometimes we use the phrase well hell is just the absence of god's presence to sort of make hell sound more palatable as if again hell is just you don't have the good things of god's blessing you just don't have his presence well how is that even a warning to the non-Christian if you're non-Christian here this morning and you don't believe in god and you don't worship god in someone's issue here's the warning if you don't believe in god now you won't ever get god okay so i'm already on that track no it's not the absence of god as if god is not there in any sense no god's holiness and glory is very much present for all eternity present in heaven for the ever lasting joy of his saints in present and hell for the everlasting torment of the wicked Jeremiah 2324 can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him declares the Lord do not I fill heaven and earth Psalm 139 tells us there is no place we can go to flee from god's presence no hell will very much be full of god and his justice and his righteous wrath we'll see later in revelation that heaven is a new creation and a literal new garden of Eden and what happened to Adam and Eve when they sinned in the garden well they were exposed they became afraid their nakedness was uncovered and they were expelled they didn't cease to exist but they were expelled from the presence of god as his blessing and they were made to walk east of Eden and now to live in the midst of the fear and the judgment of death three words a word of warning a word of woe a word to the wicked thankfully that's not the end of this passage for there is a final blessing verse 13 and I heard a voice from heaven saying right this and there's a benediction there are we'll find actually seven benedictions in the book of Revelation this is the second of them the first is in chapter 1 verse 3 from now on it says now this is meant as an encouragement to future martyrs to future Christians who will die before the Lord so it doesn't mean that this is a new way of existing but it's an encouragement to all the faithful Christians in John's hearing and here today and for all time that if you die in the Lord your life of faithfulness will not be a waste no matter how insignificant you may seem to yourself no matter how quickly you will be forgotten and let's be honest all of us will be quite quickly forgotten by 99.999 repeating percent of the world but notice the good news their deeds follow them God will not forget their deeds will follow them and will be for all time in the glorious echo chamber of heaven redounding to their honor and ultimately to the glory of the God who saved them and transformed them so even in the midst of all this woe there is the opportunity for blessing the cup the cup of the wrath of God that the third angel warned about can you think of another cup you remember Jesus in the garden when he asked his heavenly father father might this cup pass from me Jesus understood what it was Jesus was was no liberal modernist theologian he understood what this was this is a cup of wrath and he said nevertheless not my will but yours be done and so submitting himself to the father he drank that cup of God's wrath for his people for his sheep for his bride for his church for all of you who will fear God and give him glory you need not drink the cup of the wrath of God because Christ has drunk from it already when you need to run to him how are you going to experience true and lasting happiness because that's what this is about blessed I know it's a very spiritual word but happiness be true to yourself that it make money spend money avoid aging and all costs stay young never grow old be famous be loved be feared be powerful how will you have true and lasting blessedness here it is die in the Lord some of you many of you in some very recently have had the occasion to bury a loved one in the Lord and may this be your great hope and comfort that that loved one who died in the Lord is even now experiencing this eternal blessedness that they are all the richer for though we mourn for them here on earth because they belong to Christ the question the eternal question is to whom do you belong if someone and I said before it's not a visible mark on the forehead it's a spiritual mark but if someone were to categorize your life right now to whom do you belong would you be confident that the people who know you best your kids your your parents your your loved ones your friends would they say about you oh absolutely written on the spiritual forehead of her life is the lamb god the father and the lamb and the spirit that's written or might they wonder there's a lot of Babylon in her he sure is enticed by those two beasts because we all would like to think there's some some third options I don't really want to I got to be all in on this Jesus thing I don't want a beast that's not scary can I just kind of be normal you only got two options you only got one of two names written across your forehead there's a lot of judgment and revelation there's more judgment to come but we must deal with it because you can stick with us for the next month it is going to make revelation 21 and 22 all the sweeter and notice here in closing this last line with all of the cacophony of sound and activity and thunder and fire and all we've seen there's armies and locusts and pyrotechnics and dragons and beasts with all of that don't you love with the end of verse 13 says that they may rest yes the spirit says at war now but on the other side rest if you would give up on yourself now you can have rest then even rest now in preliminary measure this Sabbath rest which we prefigure looking forward to that great and glorious rest to come rest from all the dragons all the Babylon all the beasts but you have to give up don't give up the fight against the dragon but you have to give up holding on to your own self die to yourself that part of you that says I don't need this warning I don't need these angels overhead that's for somebody else that's for somebody who didn't grow up in the church that's for some really bad person out there not me if you would but give up on yourself and give yourself over to Christ then and only then can you know this benediction what is your only comfort in life and in death your only comfort that I am not my own but belong body and soul in life and in death to my faithful savior Jesus Christ let's pray father and heaven we give thanks in his name that there is yet hope for any here who have wandered from the path any within the sound of my voice watching this online some years from now pulling up seemingly by chance this sermon on the internet who have not bowed the knee to Christ who are mired in all of the maddening adulteries of Babylon would you set them free and give to us the rest and the hope and the only comfort that comes through Christ we pray in his name amen