Revelation 14

We studied through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel, and it's my joy and delight to be leading us through chapter 14 of Revelation, the last of 66 books in the library we call the Bible.

Special thanks to Scottie Smith for leading us through chapter 13 last week.

Really, really appreciate that, brother, and so grateful that he was able to be with us.

We've just come through, as you know, chapters 12 and 13, and chapters 12, 13, and 14 kind of form a unit together.

The apostle John is describing in his vision sort of an uh overview of this unholy trinity as Scotty uh cast them last week.

Um they are characterized by a red dragon, uh serpent type creature with seven heads and ten horns, a grotesque, hideous kind of a creature that uh looks as sinister and evil as it actually is.

As well, two of his minions, a beast from the sea, um, who also has seven heads and ten horns, and as well a beast who comes up from inside the earth, these vivid creatures, all uh representing really evil, deception, intimidation, violence, um, that Satan and his minions want to enact against God, God's people, and God's plan and God's purposes.

Uh, but while this unholy trinity knows uh the outcome is already certain, he's gonna lose.

He doesn't uh go down without swinging.

He's he's gonna do everything he can to fight against those who belong to the Lamb of God.

Um, so as we closed out chapter 13, what we saw, and if you've got your Bibles with you, you want to turn there, close out chapter uh 13.

What we saw is that all of those who belong to the beast, all of those that have fallen prey to his enchantment, um, and and his whole uh motif is to be anti-God, uh anti-Christ, and uh the disposition of heart is to deceive and intimidate, deceiving um humanity into thinking that it can be autonomous, it can be just like all the way back in the book of Genesis, back in the garden, you can be just like God, basically.

And we have you can see that in our culture as well.

It's all about you, it's all about uh, you know, no authority higher than the self.

And uh so we see that that actually permeates our culture.

Uh, and the mark of the beast is this Mark 666, which as Scotty pointed out is sort of this three times failing to reach seven.

It's it's just, you know, it's it's the uh utter uh failure on the part of those who choose to follow the beast, those who choose to go the route of self-sufficiency and say no to God, um, to reject God's offer and kindness of salvation.

Um, that number marks every person uh that would say no to God like that.

So the good news is, as we, those of us who have read all the way through to chapter 22, this is all leading to glory.

This is all leading to God setting all things right.

And so that's why we call our study of revelation the hope of glory, because in Christ Jesus, what we have in the Lamb who was slain, in the one who uh has been referred to already as the Lion of Judah, the root of David, and the lamb who was slain, but now lives to reign forever and ever.

This person, Jesus, who has all three of those kind of monikers, and and there are many, many other ways to describe Jesus, he's so uh beautiful and complex.

But that combination of three, being the lion of Judah, the the kingly figure, the the warrior, the champion, if you will, the root of David, becoming one of us uh in the line of uh King David in Israel, uh ancient history, and then also being the Lamb who was slain on our behalf.

Oh wow.

Uh so this is what uniquely qualifies Jesus to be our Savior and our Redeemer.

Now remember, Revelation presents not merely a linear sequence of events.

Uh it's not just a code to crack, a numerical thing.

Uh, it's not just a prophecy puzzle, a jigsaw puzzle that you've got to put together just right.

Uh, but what we see here really is a series of cycles of seven.

Especially we see um uh the the seven seals, the seven trumpets, and the seven bowls all really telling the same story, just in different ways.

But seven's an important number throughout the book.

We we began early on in chapters two and three with seven letters to seven churches.

And uh so the number seven just keeps coming up, and it seems to be that it's God wanting to remind us that he really is ultimately in charge.

Every little thing that happens, he's got control over it, and it goes just the way he wants it to, which is wonderful.

All right, so let's look then at chapter 14.

It overflows with fascinating images, um uh characters, events, which just like throughout the book, and it all draws the reader in and provokes myriad questions.

That's so true.

And it's this this wonderful combination of apocalyptic literature, prophetic literature, and epistolary literature.

That is, it's a letter.

Okay, so with all of those kinds of uh literature, genres of literature in it, it is wonderful.

It just, and that's the goal, too, by the way.

It's not meant to cause us to worry about the future, but to wonder and worship the Lamb who was slain, who lives again and reigns forever, and who is our Savior.

So um it does answer questions, really big questions, like who is ultimately in charge of the universe, who's ultimately in charge of history and of eternity?

Um, answers questions like Will there ever be a truly just world without the evils of hatred, uh of racism, of anarchy and violence, of human trafficking and political corruption, uh, moral bankruptcy throughout all of our social structures?

Um, will there ever be an end to things like natural disasters, like hurricanes, earthquakes, uh fires, plagues, pandemics, all of that?

This book is so wonderful because reminding us there's the hope of glory, because in the end, um God's purposes will be accomplished.

Now, uh, as I get ready to read chapter 14, I want you to know one of my favorite uh New Testament Bible scholars, D.A.

Carson, said this there are few passages more comforting and more terrifying in all of holy writ than this chapter.

Wow.

Okay, all right, so that kind of sets us up for Revelation 14.

More that it's very comforting, verses 1 through 5.

We're gonna see that real quick.

And then the rest of the chapter is really uh dealing with the wrath of God that's gonna be meted out upon all of those who follow the beast and who uh choose to say no to God and set themselves up to be their own little g gods.

Look with me then at chapter 14.

I looked, and that's always the way that John begins uh a new vision, if you will.

I think this is about the seventh or eighth time we've seen this happen.

But I looked, and behold, the lamb, this is Jesus, was standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000, having his name and the name of his father written on their foreheads.

So that's a great contrast, isn't it?

Um we just came through chapters that had two hideous beasts, and now we got a lamb.

And but the lamb is standing.

The lamb was slain, but the land is the lamb is standing again.

So there's a victory in this lamb.

It's such an interesting paradox, isn't it?

And a great contrast to these beasts that are uh already defeated.

Um, and so it starts with that, talks about uh he's standing on Mount Zion, which is boy, that's mentioned over, uh I think it's over a hundred times in scripture, but it's it's one of those um references that often is to uh uh a single mound of of earth uh in and around Jerusalem.

Uh it's also sometimes just refers to Jerusalem itself.

And sometimes it's the the people of God.

So there's lots of different ways.

But here is the Lamb standing in the vision, standing on Mount Zion, as I say, I think it's 163 times in the Bible.

You can look up Zion yourself in your computer Bible and you'll figure that out.

And with them 144,000.

We've heard that number before, and that kind of harkens back to the Old Testament, 12 tribes of Israel, and in the New Testament, the 12 apostles, times the thousand, which is sort of the number of completion.

And what you have is 144,000, which is really a number that represents all of God's people, okay?

And so this vision is the Lamb on Mount Zion, which is the mountain of God, the holy mountain of God, that uh collected with him all of God's people, right?

And their name is written, uh, the name of Jesus is written on their forehead, and the name of God the Father, in contrast to the 666 mark.

It's on all of those people who have rejected God and God's gift of salvation.

And so here they are with the name of Jesus and the name of his father written on their foreheads.

They belong to Jesus.

They're marked by his name.

I love that.

Um, sometimes it's a sobering reality to ask myself, okay, am I bearing his name?

Am I honoring his name?

It's a great, great image.

Though I heard a voice, John says, from heaven.

Like the sound of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder.

And the voice which I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps.

I've told you before, I think in this study, we've we've talked about how uh he has to resort to words like like and as, these comparison type words all of the time, because his uh everything he's seeing is eye-popping, mind-blowing, heart thumping.

It's just amazing.

And he doesn't know quite exactly how to describe it.

And so he says, well, it's it's kind of like you know, the sound of rushing water, so think Niagara Falls, you know, just lots of that.

It's also, though, like the the clap of thunder, that the kind, not just uh off in the distance, but the kind that shake, rattles, and rolls the entire house.

And yet at the same time, it's the sound of many harpists playing together.

And so it's fascinating.

Um, they sang, these uh 144,000, presumably, sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders, and no one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been purchased from the earth.

And I love that beautiful word purchased.

Here's the lamb who was slain, purchasing my salvation and your salvation.

He paid the price in full for you and for me.

And folks, that's just such great news.

Uh when we get into reading the rest of this chapter and see what happens to those folks who reject God and God's offer and gift of salvation.

Um, man, you just your heart breaks, you know, for them.

Um and it also fuels uh my desire to share the gospel with others.

Uh so these are the ones who have not been, and he says here in verse 4, it's a couple of things.

He says, they haven't been defiled with women, for they have kept themselves chaste.

Some of your translations will say pure.

Uh, some of your translations will say they are virgins.

Okay.

These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes.

These have been purchased from among men as first fruits to God and to the Lamb.

I'll come back and pick that apart in a little bit.

No lie was found in their mouth.

Wow.

They are blameless.

Wow, that's quite a that's quite a resume there, verse six.

I saw another angel, so it's it's like a scene change here.

I saw another angel flying in mid-heaven.

And this is gonna be a great contrast, folks.

Um, having an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people.

So here's God still working at communicating, not hiding, not withholding, but doing everything God can to communicate through this angel, communicating the gospel, preaching to every tribe and tongue and people.

Okay?

He said with a loud voice, and I'm gonna do that, fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him with who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and springs of waters.

And so there it is, just this, you know, the idea is that it's it's it you you can't get away from there's no hiding.

This message has gotten across.

It's very clear.

Um, and uh it's it's offered to everyone universally.

So it's the this eternal gospel to preach that this first angel, and this first of three messengers that we'll read about is very clear message.

Anyone can understand that very thing.

Fear God, give him glory, give God glory, worship God.

So fear God and worship God, okay?

And another angel comes across, a second one followed, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great, she who has made all the nations drink of the wine of the passion of her immorality.

All right, and so there's this contrast between the 144,000 who have remained chaste and pure, who are described as virgins here, uh even, and these who have fallen completely in with Babylon and Babylon's way of looking at things.

And Babylon is another, uh remember, it was an ancient country, we'll talk about it in a little bit, but it becomes sort of a city in uh in the book of Revelation, and a city where uh culture is made, a city, a place where uh people are working uh for themselves, and it's it becomes self-destructive in every every kind of way.

But Babylon the Great has fallen.

She has made all the nations drink of the wine of the passion of her immorality, is the statement here.

Another angel, this is the third one, verse 9, followed them, saying with a loud voice, If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives a mark on his forehead or upon his hand, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.

And so there's so much there.

Uh, the smoke of their term torment goes up forever and ever, so it never ceases, never comes to an end.

Um, and it is in full strength.

This is not diluted wine, this is not, you know, a diluted beverage of any kind.

This is in full strength.

There are other things that have happened that have been a result of the wrath of God, but they, what he's saying here is they aren't even close to what's going to happen here.

Okay?

And the warning is coming.

It's coming clear.

Um, it's it's it's loud and clear.

Um, and even the results of what will happen if they dis, if they if they simply disregard the warning is said here.

The smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day and night.

Those who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.

And so again, the contrast between how are you marked, and Scotty brought this up last week.

I thought it was beautifully done too, to talk about that.

What mark who is it that you belong to?

Who is it that has your your heart's affections and the allegiance of your heart?

You know, great questions to ask ourselves.

Verse 12 here is the perseverance of the saints who keep the commandment, the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.

And I love that.

The perseverance of the saints are marked by two things.

They keep the commandments of God and their faith is in Jesus.

You know, at the end of chapter uh 12, uh, the same thing was said that the rest of the woman's offspring, the woman being the church, the woman's offspring in chapter 12, the rest of her offspring keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

And so those who are marked uh by God and by the name of Christ, the result of belonging to Jesus, not the requirement, but the result of that is that you begin to love his word, his ways, and his will, and to surrender your life to him on an ongoing basis.

Um it's really beautiful.

They keep the commandments of God, and their faith is in Jesus, not in themselves, not in the culture, uh, not in politics, not in anything.

Um, it's except for Jesus Himself.

Um I heard a voice from heaven, verse 13, says, saying, Write, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.

Yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow with them.

That is, their deeds follow along with them, and they're laying up treasures in heaven.

And I love this word rest in the middle of all of this, uh, with these three messengers that come and what we're about to read as well, uh, sort of the the this the sad results of what happens to those who reject the Lord.

So verse 14 begins, sort of yet another uh step of uh another scene, if you will.

And I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and sitting on the cloud was one like a son of man, having a golden crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand.

And another angel came out of the temple, crying out with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, put in your sickle and reap, because the hour to reap has come, because the harvest of the earth is ripe.

And so here we have a um seemingly a harvest of grain.

We're gonna be talking about grapes in a minute, but here we have grain, and a certain time has arrived now, is the idea.

And so the the message has gone out, and this one who is uh uh sitting on on this cloud uh receives this message and is told to put their sickle, uh, the sharp sickle into and reap, begin to reap the grain, to separate the wheat from the chaff, to be able to uh to collect the wheat.

Another angel came out of the temple, which is in heaven, and he also had a sharp sickle.

And another angel, the one who has power over fire, came out from the altar.

And he called with a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, Put in your sharp sickle, gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, because her grapes are ripe.

And again, there's this idea that, and using these agricultural metaphors, and I love Revelation for all the mixed metaphors, because man, if you if you can't get it with one, you'll you'll maybe you'll understand it another different way.

If one of the symbols in motion doesn't speak to you, certainly one of the others will.

And here we have grain, here we have grapes, um, and and they're ready.

And and the idea is that the time has come.

Um, and and the time has come for that that final reaping, if you will.

And so the angel swung his sickle to the earth and gathered the clusters from the vine of the earth and threw them into the great winepress of the wrath of God.

And the wine press was trodden outside the city, and blood came out from the winepress up to the horses' bridles for a distance of two hundred miles.

Again, total and comprehensive is the idea here.

Um at just the right time, all of this under the control of God, who loves justice, um, who um wants to set things right in a world that has just broken away in rebellion and is reckless.

Uh and you know, you you may you may have heard, you may have friends or whatever that have you know don't believe in God or not sure if they believe in God or not, and they're just sort of they you sort of trivialize the whole thing and just say, Oh, I guess I'll just end up in hell.

That's where all my friends are going.

And the reality is, folks, there will be no friends in hell.

No one will be friends, like you mean friends.

Um because uh the effect, the influence of all of this evil will be given its way in people's lives in hell.

And their torment, it says here in verse 11, will go up forever.

And ever.

And God's wrath in verse 10 is mixed in full strength here.

And this is very sobering to even talk about.

It's the kind of thing I think a lot of pastors wouldn't talk about.

A lot of churches wouldn't talk about.

The uncomfortable part of this, though, is inescapable in Scripture.

As a matter of fact, nobody talks about hell more than Jesus, actually, in the four gospels.

Nobody talks about, you know, the wrath of God without, I think, having to at least be sobered up in the whole process because it's a serious thing to fall into the hands of a holy and righteous and awesome God.

What do we learn here?

Well, let me throw a couple things up on the screen for you.

First, the Lamb and those who belong to God, verses 1 through 5.

We've met the Lamb, of course, we know this is Jesus.

We know he's the Lamb of God, the Lamb who was slain on the cross.

He gave his life for us.

He became the ultimate Lamb of God, the ultimate sacrifice in our place.

So that you, so that I might be reconciled to a holy and righteous God, not based on our merit, not based on us being good little boys and girls, or being good little village chapel people, or good little, you know, people from one country or another, whatever.

It's not about what we do, it's about what Christ has done.

And he's the Lamb of God who was slain, lives again, and will reign forever and ever.

So there's the Lamb.

We meet him right at the beginning.

He's on Mount Zion, as I say, and that that can sometimes stand for any number of different uh, it can stand for a range of mountains.

It can stand throughout scripture.

It's mentioned so many times.

And it in in the context of uh uh of Revelation here, anyway, it'll be mentioned uh I think it's about 12 or 16 times.

Um who are the 144?

Are they different from the other 144,000 that we've read about before?

No, I th I, as I said earlier, I think it represents all of the people of God, Old Testament, New Testament, those tribes, the apostles, really just representing us in this number uh times a thousand, which is certainly the number of fullness, if you will, and uh sort of completeness.

What characterizes them though?

We we read that, I read that a little bit slower.

I wanted to make sure to emphasize those things.

I think it's so important.

Uh look up on the screen.

They bear the name of the Lamb and of his father.

Again, ownership, they're redeemed, they're protected, they belong, they're provided for, their salvation is secure.

Why?

Because they belong.

And and because they have the mark of the name, the name of the Lamb on their foreheads, meaning they belong to to God and and to uh to Jesus and his salvation, his his uh he purchased their salvation, he's redeemed them once and for all.

They also are characterized by another thing, they sing.

I love this about them.

Uh it's the, you know, I've said before the most often repeated command in scripture um is do not fear, and that is the most often repeated negative command.

In other words, don't do this, don't fear, don't be afraid.

Uh fear God, but don't be afraid of anything else.

Um, and and in the case with God, it's it's a reverence, it's an awe, it's an astonishment at who he is and how much he loves you.

Um but we don't need to fear anything else.

The most often repeated positive command in scripture, sing.

And you say, Well, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't have a very good voice.

You know what?

Neither do I.

I'm kind of I'm kind of croaking.

Every now and then, you know, you hear me singing a song in these Bible studies and stuff like that, which I'm gonna up and do one in a minute.

But but the idea is that we're to lift our voice as an expression of worship and praise and delight in our God.

And the people of God sing here, and it's a new song.

Um, and it's beautiful.

What song were they singing?

I love to imagine the songs we'll sing in heaven myself.

Uh, I speculate that because they are experiencing time not as chronological or chronos, uh, but rather as sort of the eternal present now, Kairos.

Um, it's not sequential, in other words, for them, but as every moment a present opportunity.

They might even sing some of the same songs that we sing uh in our own day and time.

A couple weeks ago we closed the service with a song by Eliza Hewitt, uh, who uh lived around the turn of the 19th and 20th century.

I told you she had been um unfortunately had had a real difficult uh back injury and was bedridden for a number of years, but she took that time to study uh literature and to learn how to write lyrics and poetry.

And many of her poems uh put it turned into hymns.

And we we sang that one uh at the end of the service a couple weeks ago.

I need no other argument.

I need no other plea.

It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me.

Well, um, maybe maybe that's the kind of song the 144,000 are singing.

Um, or or maybe it's one of our other songs uh Eliza Hewitt also wrote, along with her friend, her good friend Emily Wilson.

Um, sing the wondrous love of Jesus.

Ah, sing his mercy and his grace.

In the mansions, bright and blessed, he'll prepare for us a place when we all get to heaven.

Yeah, what a day of rejoicing that will be.

When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory.

And here's the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, victorious.

Um, and even as the previous chapter we had the beasts scrambling and going down swinging, and we'll see again, this will be uh shown uh to us again in other images, but again, these are these are just uh the way that apocalyptic literature works.

Uh we get all these mixed metaphors, and we get told the story more than one time in lots of different ways, and it's wonderful.

So, as they're singing the song of redemption, uh it sounds like um Niagara Falls, it sounds like the clap, the loud clap of house shaking thunder, and yet it's it's also these harps, you know, a section of harps playing.

What is that, what do you think that might show us about that music?

Um I think those mixed metaphors uh mean to to tell us, to pass along to us anyway, that this is a song that is beautiful.

This is a song that is melodic.

Uh think of all those harps playing.

Uh this is a song that's powerful, like thunder or like rushing water.

This is a song that could be heard everywhere, even though everyone couldn't learn it, but it is a declaration that's unavoidable.

Um and so it's the sweet song of salvation.

I don't know what song it is.

I wish I I wish I did know.

What else characterizes the 144,000 in verses 1 through 5?

They're chaste and pure.

Um, they bear the name of Lamb and of the Father, and they sing, and they are chaste and pure.

Um, what does verse 4 mean when it says, not been defiled with women, for they have kept themselves chaste, or um, they have kept themselves pure.

In ancient times, when Israel went to war, their armies were all male.

Um, and they were instructed not to have relations with their wives before the battle.

Uh additionally, pagan deity, so so you had that on the on the Hebrew side and on the Jewish side.

And then here we have these seven churches that are in this Gentile region called Asia Minor, that this letter Revelation is going to, this encyclical.

And throughout that region, what you have is you have a bunch of pagan temples where there are all these prostitutes, and so when they go to pagan temple worship, they're engaging in all kinds of prostitution, all kinds of sexual immorality, and that's even mentioned in the seven letters a couple of times.

And so the idea is the people of God are to remain chaste and pure.

So it's not so much about um um just physical sex, though, or or the f the physical uh experience of that.

It's really cuts to the heart when you get when you start to think about people who are marked by the six six or marked by the name of Jesus.

Who do you belong to?

Who does your body belong to?

You know, we're we're taught in the New Testament that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, you see.

Um it's it's much more than just 98 cents worth of chemicals.

You, as a as a as a a person, are worth so much more than that.

And you're so much more precious to God than that, and more precious to God than anything any of us have ever done with our bodies in the past.

All of this, see, can be redeemed and forgiven because of who the Lamb is.

See, he came and took my sin upon himself.

He came and took your sin.

He he came and he understands what suffering is like, even if we've suffered at the hand of someone else, you see.

He knows what it means to be rejected, to be reviled, to be hated, um, to suffer injustice of the worst kind.

Why?

Because he was guilty of nothing.

You know, if I suffer some kind of injustice, I mean, I have to admit there are times I'm I'm just an idiot, you know, and and in this world that I live in, I'm constantly struggling with my, you know, the world of flesh and the devil and my own sin.

But Jesus didn't do it, he who knew no sin, the apostle Paul would write, became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ.

And so this really beautiful, this purity.

Um and I and I know people talk about in our culture and all that sort of thing.

And and the word pure is not a bad word, I guess is what I want to say.

And uh whether we're talking about sexual purity or whether we're talking about moral purity or even intellectual purity, or we're talking about purity when it comes to when we go on the internet or when it comes to the way we relate to others, the way we we think of other people, the way that we treat other people.

Um you see the scriptures um uh present a God whose justice and his mercy and his love and his redemption.

See, all of that is to go for a complete transformation.

That's why the New Testament uses words like there are terms like this born again, um, new creation in Christ, you see.

So all the old is passed away, and there's no more room for me, you know, as I surrender to Christ, his heart becomes my heart.

There's no more room for me to demand my own way, to push others out of the way so I can get my own way, or to leave my responsibility to care for others and just selfishly live my life the way I want to live my life, disregarding the needs of others, disregarding the honor of God and the name that I see think I have on my forehead.

So the the 144,000 are also marked by this.

They follow the Lamb wherever he goes.

Okay, that's awesome.

Do I do you?

Okay, I gotta keep moving.

They've been redeemed.

Okay, that's very important.

Have I been redeemed?

Have I surrendered?

Great question.

Ask yourself and myself too.

What's the requirement their requirement for you to be redeemed?

Need.

Do you need to be redeemed?

Come to him.

He's eager to redeem.

Turn to him.

So Jesus recorded in the Gospels, John the Baptist recording the gospels, two words they both of them begin their public ministry with repent and believe.

And that's the proper response to this gift of grace and redemption that God offers throughout the scriptures.

Gotta hurry.

They speak the truth and they are blameless.

That's how it kind of closed up at the end of uh verse five.

Yeah, they do they tell the truth and they are blameless.

Am I?

Will I tell the truth?

Oh.

Will you?

There's a public and missional aspect to our faith, folks.

Tell the truth.

Yeah.

Live a blameless life.

These are our responses, proper responses of worship to the one who has redeemed us.

Um, belief is real, it will translate into behavior.

All right, so verses 6 to 13, three angelic messengers.

What's meant by the image Babylon?

Uh, it's the first of six mentions it will get.

I had that number wrong earlier, but it's it's going to get six mentions in the book of Revelation.

Uh, we have uh read about before the ancient Babylonian Empire and King Nebuchadnezzar, and he's the one that comes and literally destroys Jerusalem uh and destroys the temple and uh ransacks Jerusalem and carries away all of Israel's brightest and best into a land of Babylon marked by synonymous throughout scripture with idolatry, immorality, arrogance of humankind in pursuit of uh uh autonomy and worshiping at the altar of autonomy.

Um one of his teachings on this chapter, New Testament scholar uh Don Carson, who I quoted earlier, sums up the the uh the whole Babylon image with a poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley.

I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.

And some of you probably studied that when you were in college or in high school or something like that.

Or as uh as Frank Sinatra would have sung it, I did it my way.

Yeah.

And that's Babylon, representing all those who prefer to be their own God and will not have the real God.

Now, granted, much more of this chapter is given to what God wants us to know about his judgment.

And I think it's fair and right of God to tell us these things, to give us um wise warnings.

Um and this might be, like I say, one of the passages some people would ignore, but I think we do so at our own peril.

And I'm glad that we're going through it today.

Jesus never hesitated to speak about such things, and we should not either.

Verses 14 to 20 really are about the final reaping, these two agricultural images, grain and grapes.

God's judgment will come at the right time.

God's judgment will be comprehensive and final.

And so here are my four summary points for you.

One, humanity's greatest problem is the unavoidable reality of one day having to face the wrath of God.

Our greatest problem is not, you know, lack of money.

It's not lack of, you know, there's so many things that are temporal problems.

Um, there's so many things that are societal problems.

It's not that they aren't real.

It's just that our greatest problem, our eternal problem, is that someday what the Bible teaches is that we will have to face the wrath of God.

The question is, will we face that wrath of God on our own, or do we want to have someone else face it for us?

Um yeah.

So the wrath of God is referenced 600 times in the Bible.

Jesus, as I say, speaks about hell more often than anyone else.

And the wrath of God, we need to see it this way.

It's not just that God is a troll under the bridge who gets upset when anybody crosses the bridge.

Or he's not just the, you know, the sort of a uh curmudgeonly grandfather in the sky that looks down, sees us having a good time, and wants to stop us.

Get off my lawn! Yeah, it's not that's not the God of the Bible.

Um, but the wrath of God, the wrath of God is his settled opposition, his consistent and settled opposition to all that is evil and works to separate God and his creation, any part of his creation, you including you and including me.

Number two, God's greatest solution is the provision of the gospel of grace.

And this is an eternal reality not to be ignored.

The severity of God's wrath against sin makes his grace all the more brilliant, luminous, and amazing.

And when we read stuff like this, I want to keep pointing back to those who have the name of Jesus marking them and the name of God the Father.

Why wouldn't you want to be numbered among them?

You know?

And there's God's solution, the provision of the gospel of Christ.

Third, the Lord continues to offer ample warning and a universal invitation to the entire unrepentant world.

These angels are flying through as messengers and they're shouting it out.

It is not quiet, it's loud, we're told, and it's clear.

Repent and believe, be reconciled to God.

Yeah.

The Lord continues to offer ample warning.

He's doing that for some of you even right now.

I don't know where you're at uh spiritually, I have no clue, but I'm just telling you, this is here you are today, and here you are hearing this now.

And so I encourage you to turn to him.

Fourth and finally, no matter what's going on in the world around us, those who belong to the Lamb can rest in his love and in the shalom of God.

And shalom is it's peace, but please make no mistake, it's not merely the absence of conflict, it's more than that.

Shalom is a flourishing soul, a soul that can rest because of its confidence not in itself, not in its own ability to do stuff, but its confidence in who God is and what God has done.

I hope today you belong to the Lamb.

Um if you don't, uh, wouldn't you want to do it right now?

Why not?

Why wait?

Um He's a beautiful Savior.

Um, Jen Wilken in her book, in his image, Ten Ways God Calls Us, to reflect his character.

She says, While I can identify with a desire to edit God's wrath from the Bible or to contain it to the Old Testament, to do so would compromise his holiness and my posture before it.

There's no way to reach genuine repentance without striving to grasp the justice of God's wrath.

As long as I view his wrath as excessive or cruel, I labor under a limited understanding of the danger and depravity of sin.

And I labor under a limited understanding of Calvary.

See, no matter what you've done, no matter how great your sin, no matter how dark your heart has gone, if you're hearing the call right now to repent and believe, that's for you.

Why wouldn't you respond to that?

John Stott says we may, and I think we should, preserve a certain reverent and humble agnosticism about the precise nature of hell, as about the precise nature of heaven.

Both are beyond our understanding.

But clear and definite we must be that hell is an awful eternal reality.

It is not dogmatism that is unbecoming in speaking about the fact of hell.

It is glibness and frivolity.

And he says, and I think he's right here, how can we think about hell without tears?

So chapter 14 briefly asks and begins to answer these two questions.

What ultimately becomes of those who belong to Jesus, to God the Father, and who endure suffering and some death before he returns.

What ultimately happens to them?

Doesn't deny the reality of that.

It asks that question and gives us the answer.

We'll end up standing on Mount Zion with the Lamb.

We'll end up singing eternally to praise and bless his name, because one day he will come and set everything right.

The other question that uh the book of Revelation asks, I think, and answers in this chapter specifically, what will happen to the beast and to all of those who are marked as his?

We see that in verses 6 through 20.

What response is called for?

Um, if this shakes you a little or disturbs you a little or sobers you up a little bit or whatever, maybe that's the Lord calling you uh to him.

Maybe that's him inviting you in some way to trust and hope in Christ.

Because you see, the offer for us, for those who trust and and um uh and rest in him, is as in verse 13.

The Spirit says they may rest from their labors.

See?

That's the rest our hearts are longing for, from striving all the time, from the pressures of the world outside and from stuff inside of us as well.

We can rest in his love, we can rest in confidence in God's mercy, that Jesus has accomplished everything necessary for our salvation.

God, have mercy on us and Lord, turn our eyes upon Jesus, fill us to overflowing with the faith and and the and the hope and the joy uh that we will find in Christ.

And Lord, to uh give us a to increase our vision as well as we read through Revelation of what you tend to do, what you intend to do one day to set all things right in this world.

You are our hope of glory.

Amen and amen.