Revelation 14 (Apr.12, 2026)

You can go ahead and turn in your Bibles back to Revelation.

That's right.

We are going back to our series in Revelation 14 this morning.

So you can turn in your Bibles towards the end there.

And just as a refresher, because it might have been a little while since you've been with us and since we've been in the book of Revelation, just a reminder that this book is written for Christians scattered all throughout Asia Minor.

And these Christians here are under the threat of the Roman Empire.

They are scattered, they're persecuted, and life as a Christian is hard.

It's difficult for them.

And so Jesus gives this revelation or this vision to John so that they can see a heavenly perspective.

They can see God's perspective on their earthly realities.

So they wouldn't just be so bogged down in the things that are hard right now, that they would see God's perspective through these visions.

And he calls to these churches because there's an overwhelming temptation to compromise.

You know, the truth about compromise is that it doesn't always seem as bad as it sounds.

Compromise is often, it's really choosing what's easy over what's best.

That's what compromise really is.

But if if you're with me this morning, you might think there's some small ways that we might be tempted, and we may even, this week, have compromised in some small areas of life.

Maybe you're like me, and sometimes you can be tempted to stay up late to watch the game and trade a good night's sleep.

Or maybe you might be tempted to compromise.

You you might wash the laundry, dry the laundry, and throw it into a big pile on the floor.

Because, I mean, you gotta wear it anyway, so why even bother with having to pick it up and fold it and do all of those things?

Or or maybe some of you kids or you students, you've told your parents you're gonna clean your room, and what that really means is you're gonna shove it under your bed and into the closet.

That's what that really means.

Or or maybe you've been determined to eat healthier, and then you came to church, and those cookies just look so good.

And so, you know, it's just gonna give in a little bit, just another cookie.

It's really okay.

Or maybe some of you have gotten out of the difficult task of having to wash the dishes because they needed to soak.

They really do.

So we can get out of the things that really are best and better for what's easy.

And those things that I just mentioned, those are those are small things.

Those things are not gonna alter the course of our life, they're not gonna make this massive difference.

And so that's why we might be tempted to compromise, do something easier over what we know to probably be better.

But there are some aspects of life, some areas of life where compromise is not just about a small thing that's relatively insignificant, that there is something drastic that you're giving up if you trade what's easy for what's best.

And this is why we need Revelation 14, because in some ways, our faith is something like that.

That we could be tempted to think that we can compromise in some small ways, but actually it has big, eternal implications.

Choosing to trade what's easiest for what's best.

In the Bible, it's littered with all sorts of compromises made.

You can think about the serpent, uh, the serpent's words to Adam and Eve in the garden and how they listen to the serpent rather than to God.

Or you can think about how Saul, he he didn't listen to God's instruction, took all the spoils of war for himself to make himself a great king.

Or David, because he was king, he thought he could just take whatever he wanted.

In fact, someone else's wife, and murder to cover it up.

Or maybe the compromise of Judas, trading his master and lord for 15 pieces of silver.

See, these are in the moment, the people there would have thought, oh, these are these are small compromises.

This isn't really that big of a deal, but we know those are some serious compromises, and so we know we would never make that sort of trade ourselves.

But oh, we would.

We sometimes would trade what's best for what's easy.

Our lives demonstrate that we really want rest.

We don't want discipline.

We we want to avoid pain, suffering, difficulty at all costs.

And honestly, if we were given the choice between heaven and hell, we we know that we wouldn't make that trade.

But the thing about compromise is it never comes out by saying, Here's the trade you're making.

It shows and tells you that the trade is a little bit easier.

It's justifiable, it makes sense.

And so Revelation 14 is written for us to hear the danger of compromise.

Our main idea this morning is this don't trade your rest in Christ for the relief of compromise.

Don't trade your rest in Christ for the relief of compromise.

Remember what we've seen here before chapter 14, which we we saw this vision of a dragon who's trying to take out Christ.

And it's this this dragon has made it his aim to wage war on the people of God.

And in chapter 13, we saw kind of two ways that he's doing this.

He's doing this through power, the allure and idolatry of power and also prosperity, seen in two beasts in John's day.

And though Rome and its power and its prestige is not our enemy today, these same promises can still be deceiving and deceptive to us.

You know, Satan's ploy is for worldliness to look normal and easy, and to make faithfulness to Christ look difficult, arduous, uncomfortable, and honestly strange, maybe even not worth it.

And that's why John writes this chapter.

Because we too can be tempted to compromise and not see the real trade-offs we are making with eternal consequences.

So this morning we're gonna see three reasons that we might be tempted to trade our rest in Christ for the relief of compromise.

And the first is this the first is that we shift our focus away from who we belong to.

We shift our focus away from who we belong to.

That might be a reason we are tempted to trade this rest.

And so would you look with me at Revelation 14, verses 1 through 5?

Revelation 14:1–5

Says, then I looked, and there was the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him were 144,000 who had his name and his father's name written on their foreheads.

I heard a sound from heaven, like the sound of cascading waters, and like the rumbling of loud thunder.

The sound I heard was like harpists playing on their harps, and they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders.

But no one could learn the song, except the hundred and forty-four thousand who had been redeemed from the earth.

These are the ones who have not defiled themselves with women, since they remained virgins.

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

They were redeemed from humanity as the first fruits for God in the Lamb.

No lie was found in their mouths, and they are blameless.

And what the beast would want these Christians to think is that they're defeated, they're crushed, they're done.

But what we see them here doing, these people who of God, they're praising God.

They're they're singing in victory as those who've been redeemed from the earth.

As we already saw back in chapter 7, these 144,000 refer to all of God's people marked out from the earth, all of those who don't worship the beast and don't take his mark.

These people are set apart as those alone who can sing this new song before the throne and before the four living creatures.

And John wants us to get a glimpse of this heavenly worship scene, so that we're not tempted to compromise in our faith, so that we don't shift our focus off of our heavenly hope and who it is that we belong to.

See, the danger here is that we might forget that we belong to God, that we've been marked out by God, and to then think that maybe some of the small things that we do, they don't really matter all that much.

You see, we might be tempted to compromise not by changing churches, from the church of Christ, of the living God, to the synagogue of Satan.

We might not be wanting to make that big of a change, but we might just be tempted to make life a little bit easier when there's persecution, when there's hardship coming at me.

And what we forget is that we are worshipers by design.

God has created us, He's hardwired us, so that everything we do is done in worship and service to someone or something.

And so that means your allegiance is always, at every moment and every day, being given to one or two things.

We will either serve the beast or the lamb, or either serve and worship the father or the dragon.

Paul Tripp says it this way He says, human beings by their very nature are worshipers.

Worship is not something we do, it defines who we are.

You cannot divide human beings into those who worship and those who don't.

Everybody worships.

It's just a matter of what or whom we serve.

We can think of worship sometimes as singing, just our praise, but that's missing it.

Worship here, what he's getting at, and really what this is getting at, is worship orients our lives.

It's it's the center of who we are, it's what we do most centrally, it's what we love, and we worship that thing.

We serve it.

It's what motivates us.

It's what gets our allegiance, it's what gets our love, it's what controls our lives.

And so worship ought to direct our focus and our lives.

And so we need this picture of heavenly worship so that we're focused on who we belong to.

In some ways, this picture gives us the right perspective.

It's maybe like wearing the right kind of glasses.

I I've realized that the fact that I wear glasses at my age probably means bifocals are coming down the road for me.

That's probably what's happening in the future.

And so, you know, I've done a little bit of research trying to figure these things out ahead of time.

And the truth about bifocals is that you kind of have two zones of vision, as far as I understand.

So you look up and out, and you can see things that are far and in the distance.

And when you're looking down, you can read things that are just right in front of you.

You can see things that are close up.

In some ways, this heavenly perspective, these people worshiping God is meant to be like bifocals, and like the person wearing bifocals who looks into the distance and can see clearly what's coming out there, and that the things that are close actually become blurry, out of focus, insignificant.

That's in some ways what what this heavenly hope and this heavenly picture gives us.

It helps us to see what we should be focused on.

And yet, so often, I think it's true that we're just looking down.

We're just looking right in front of us at the things right before us, what's this week and this month and today?

And those are the things that weigh on our mind.

Those are the things that we wonder if we're gonna get rest from.

Those are the things that we're so often anxious and giving all of our attention to.

And so this perspective of heaven here shows us how to be this worshiping people.

What is it that is the character of these people?

This is what verses four and five show us.

First, we see that these are a people who are pure in their devotion to Christ.

This is verse four that says, These are the ones who have not defiled themselves with women since they remained virgins.

It's it's not talking here about literal virgins.

It's talking about what we've already even brought up a little bit today, that we we are, as the church, the bride of Christ.

We are to remain pure in our devotion and commitment to Christ above all others.

Which means we must keep our focus on him.

It describes our relationship with Christ as a union, as a marriage, that we are united to him and committed to him in relationship.

And so that means that we must maintain a love for him, a devotion to Christ above all others.

As the bride, we're to stay faithful to him.

In some ways, what it tells us is that to live or serve anything else is equivalent to spiritual adultery.

And the question is, maybe to think about that, is how is it that marital adultery happens?

Well, I think it happens like this: when the one who is married, when one spouse forgets who they belong to, and they shift their focus to another lover.

That's what happens.

And so the same is true spiritually, that if we shift our focus off of who we belong to, the one who has made us his, the one who loves us, who we are to be committed to, and shift it to something else, we will get off track.

We will not worship Christ.

And so I wonder, friends, how how much of Christ's, uh how much how much of your focus does Christ get?

Does he have first place in your priorities?

As you wake up daily each week, is he the one you're turning your attention to?

Does he have the affection of your heart?

Does he control the way that you live and the way that you think?

Is he the one that you speak about and talk about and talk with?

To worship Christ, we must love him and have this pure, undivided devotion.

But it also says that these people are ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes.

It says that these are people who follow the Lamb wherever he goes.

And this is to walk with Christ, to go where he leads.

It's to keep our focus on him in kind of a different way here.

It's in some ways watching the steps that he's taking, watching the way that he calls us to live and following accordingly.

Now, I don't like taking hikes in the woods.

That's not something that I'm super excited about typically.

One reason, among many, uh, is that I might get lost.

You have to pay really careful attention to where you are going if you take a walk in the woods.

If you want to know where you're going, you have to remember all of the paths that you're taking, or you're gonna end up being lost.

And the same way, we we gotta focus on Christ so that we know where he goes.

We're walking with him, we're we're in step with him.

And I think following him wherever he goes means two things.

It means following him no matter what.

Because sometimes the Lamb might lead us to what feels like slaughter, what feels really difficult.

Where Jesus might lead us, it might, he might lead us into suffering, into storms that feel overwhelming, into uncertainty that never lifts.

But we follow him wherever he goes.

In some ways, this is why compromise can be really tempting to us.

Because we might think that when I'm faithful to God, when I obey him, what it means is that God's gonna reward me.

God's gonna bless my life.

And maybe not materially.

We might not think that, but we might think that if we follow God, if we're faithful to him, he's gonna answer our prayers.

He's gonna bless us in certain ways.

We're gonna have an easier and a better life in walking with him.

But the truth is that sometimes that's just not the case.

Sometimes it's harder when we're being obedient.

Sometimes it's uncomfortable when we're being faithful.

And so sometimes we might be tempted to trade what's easier for what's better and make a compromise.

But those who worship God and belong to him, they follow the Lamb wherever he goes.

Even if that path is difficult, even if it's dark and they don't understand why God is taking them here, they trust him.

And I I want you to know, church, I'm so encouraged to see a number of you who are doing this even in your life right now.

Some of you who've taken responsibilities, that means that you have to die to yourself.

Some of you are trusting God in contentment, even though you wish that your circumstances would be much different than they are right now.

Some of you who ache, maybe for God to answer a prayer that you've kept praying, and yet you're still here.

You're still being faithful to him, you're still praying.

Some of you who show clear, obvious joy even in suffering, you're among those who follow the Lamb wherever he goes.

But following Christ also means that we obey his commands.

Because Christ has actually told us how we are to follow him, he's given us his word.

And so this means that we can't be committed to following the Lamb and keeping our focus on him if we don't love and read and have a habit of meditating on and thinking upon this book.

This is his word to us.

It's how we stay committed to him, it's how we stay focused on him by opening it up, learning how to live, being steeped in it so he affects our thinking and our actions and the way that we live.

That we live not on the basis of vibe or popularity or on the basis of secular psychology or on the basis of what Chat GPT says.

But we follow what the Lamb says and we know it, and we live that way.

Those who keep their focus on God also we see here, they speak the truth about God.

That's what verse 5 says, that no lie was found in their mouths.

They are blameless.

They actually know and worship the true God.

They know who he is, who he's revealed himself to be in his word, they worship him truly and they speak about him truly.

No lie is found in their mouths.

And so when our focus is on the fact that we belong to God, we're willing to call sin sin.

We're willing to call out evil and hold fast to the truth no matter what it means.

But if we're tempted to compromise, we shift our focus away from who we belong to, we we might think, I need to fit in, I need to blend in, I need to seek the approval of those around me.

And we can maybe value tolerance over truth, seek to be successful or influential rather than trust who we are to God.

And so we need this heavenly perspective here of who we are called to be as God's people and all of the hope that we have in him, that he would be the one who our lives are devoted to.

And one of the ways that we actually express this that we see here is that we live a life of worship, even by singing.

These are the people, they're singing this new song before God because they've been redeemed by God from the earth.

They sing because the only reason they find in themselves, in the presence of God, is because God has bought them, that he's purchased them for to belong to him.

And they worship God because they recognize that all that they have is from him.

Church, this is why we sing.

This is why we sing loud and often.

Because it's we express the joy that God has redeemed us, that he loves us, and we express that to him by our singing.

We praise and sing about that which we delight in, and so we must sing of God.

And when we worship God by these things in our lives, we're gonna give our undivided love and attention to him and not be so focused on the earthly realities that would want us to shift our focus away from him.

And when we do this, we won't be tempted to trade the rest in Christ for the relief of compromise.

But there's another reason we might be tempted to make this trade.

And the second is this that we count temporary suffering as more serious than eternal suffering.

That we would count temporary suffering in this life as more serious than eternal suffering.

Compromise might look appealing because the things that are hard in this life, they feel really hard.

They feel really difficult in the moments of suffering and of pain, of difficulty.

But the truth is that these things are not ultimate.

They are not the worst things that any of us could face.

And so these warning announcements in this next part of the passage show us of the worst suffering of eternal suffering in hell, separated from God.

Look at verses six to thirteen with me.

Then I saw another angel flying high overhead with the eternal gospel to announce to the inhabitants of the earth, to every nation, tribe, language, and people.

He spoke with a loud voice, Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come.

Worship the one who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.

And another, a second angel, followed, saying, It has fallen, Babylon the Great has fallen.

She made all the nations drink the wine of her sexual immorality, which brings wrath.

And another, a third angel, followed them and spoke with a loud voice.

If any one worships the beast and its image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he will also drink the wine of God's wrath, which is poured full strength into the cup of his anger.

He'll be tormented with fire and sulfur in the sight of the holy angels, and in the sight of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment will go up for ever and ever.

There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or anyone who receives the mark of its name.

This calls for endurance from the saints, who keep God's commands and their faith in Jesus.

And then I heard a voice from heaven saying, Write, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.

Yes, says the Spirit, so they will rest from their labors, since their works follow them.

And so here we have three angels giving kind of three different warning pronouncements of judgment, called to awaken people who would be tempted to compromise, tempted to give in in their faith.

He wants us, God wants us through these angels to see the eternal future consequences of compromise.

Now, some of you, you rem, you might remember the old movie store Blockbuster.

If that's the place where you went in to go get movies, like you would go in there, you'd pick out a movie physically, and then you'd pay for it, and then you'd take it home, and then you'd have to return it after a few days.

It seems kind of crazy now.

In some ways, it shows us just how quickly technology has changed in the last 20 to 25 years.

Blockbuster, they couldn't see the future and ended up ruined and bankrupt.

Well, you want to know one thing is actually in 2000, Blockbuster had the ability, the opportunity to buy Netflix.

For actually a small price.

And they passed.

Because they thought it was silly, irrelevant.

No one's ever gonna need that.

No one's ever gonna do that, and that's the way they're gonna watch movies.

No.

But what they couldn't see, they couldn't see the future.

And you know that Netflix now has millions of subscribers, and Blockbuster is bankrupt.

No one goes there anymore.

See, Blockbuster couldn't see the future, and they made a costly mistake.

Friends, God doesn't want us to make that kind of mistake.

He actually wants us to see very clearly the future and exactly what it holds.

So that we would not trade any current, present blessings, benefits, goodness for eternity.

We would not trade relief now for eternal rest.

So we see this first angel.

This first angel is flying high with the eternal gospel to announce.

This message is a proclamation of the good news, but actually of what will happen for those who reject the good news.

Verse 7 says, Fear God, give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come.

He calls out that judgment is at hand.

So all must turn and worship God, give him glory.

To fear God is to recognize that he is actually the creator, that we owe him everything, that he deserves and is worthy of our worship.

We don't get to just say how we ought to live.

And this warning is actually a gospel, a good news.

It's kind of hard because normally we think about the gospel and we think about the good news of Jesus and what he's done to rescue us.

We think about the free gift of salvation and presenting it like that.

But this warning of judgment is actually good news.

You might think about it like this it's like hearing sirens on the beach, hours or maybe even days before a tsunami or a hurricane hits.

Or it's maybe like a tornado warning cutting into your regularly scheduled programming, telling you there's a threat to your life, there is imminent danger.

Get out, seek shelter and safety while you still have time.

Someways, this is the good news of hearing God's warning of judgment before it's time.

Is that your eternity is at stake.

And God wants us to be clear that we are ought to turn from him, turn, turn from idolatry, turn to him, worship him because judgment is coming.

And this is what the second and third angel continue to speak of.

The second angel comes and declares that Babylon the Great has fallen, fallen.

Babylon in the Bible is a symbol of a city in organized rebellion against God.

That's in some ways what it pictures.

We see two kind of primary Babylons in the Old Testament.

And the first is at the Tower of Babel.

It kind of means Babylon there.

The people there rejected God as creator.

They wanted glory through their own accomplishments and rejected God.

They wanted to make a name for themselves.

And then again, we see Babylon as the enemy of God's people who takes them into captivity, out of the promised land.

And they thought that the reason they were able to do that was because they were God.

They were so strong, they were so awesome.

It's the height of pride.

And so Babylon, then here in Revelation, is the worldly system of unbelief, autonomy, rebellion against God.

And Babylon, it appears as this glorious and powerful city.

It promises life and prosperity and power and blessing.

The promise of this earthly city is much like today.

You live the way that you want to live.

You can have freedom.

You can have power.

You can have blessing.

Throw your lot in with Babylon, and you will be prosperous.

Your life's going to flourish.

You can have life your way.

See, those who live in rebellion against God, the truth is that they do prosper in some ways.

There is some ease, some comfort, some material blessings that they might have.

But God shows us that that's not what ultimately matters.

It's tempting to see the benefits of Babylon and be intoxicated.

Like, look at all this goodness, look at all these exciting things.

But it tells us that it only leads to wrath.

Intoxicated, I think, is such a good word picture here.

That those who live in Babylon, who love the ways of the world, they're drunk.

They're under the influence.

They cannot think straight.

And so these people in love with the world, they hear God's warnings of judgment and they think they're silly.

They're like, psh, there's nothing coming for us.

Look at how we live.

Look at how great our lives are.

Look at how we get to do whatever we want to do.

If there really was a God, our life wouldn't go so well.

He surely wouldn't let us get off the hook like this.

They're intoxicated by the pleasure and power of Babylon.

And the angel warns God's people that Babylon might look strong, but it has fallen.

That fallen is in the past tense.

It's as if it's already happened.

And so we don't see right now, in our present day, even, the fall of the ultimate Babylon, those who oppose God.

But in God's view of history, all rebellion against him will be squashed, will be wiped out.

So don't throw your lot in with Babylon.

She's already fallen.

And the third angel then shows us why this is a terrible trade.

The third angel comes and shows the fullness of this judgment and disaster, the horror of those who compromise and trade temporary benefits and relief for their eternal rest.

The angel warns of God's wrath being poured out on sinful and rebellious humanity.

Those who worship the beast and its image and receive a mark on their foreheads, they are those who are going to drink the wine of God's wrath, poured out in full anger.

This is those who refuse to worship God.

And these images, they're grave.

They're honestly terrifying.

We see the severity of eternal suffering.

So we wouldn't think that some temporary suffering is worse than that.

Look at what it's picturing here.

It says that it's to drink the cup of God's anger in full strength.

It's to be the object of God's wrath, to be utterly hopeless.

And it says they'll be tormented in pain with a likeness of fire.

This is a physical, emotional pain in every way.

They'll have no rest.

Any rest that they enjoyed on earth is completely gone.

And the worst aspect of this is that it's eternal.

It's forever.

God's wrath poured out upon those in hell is awful and eternal.

It's severe.

And God lays it out for those who would be tempted to compromise here because He doesn't want us to.

Two things that God's wrath shows us.

God's wrath in the Bible, it is just, but it's also a warning.

First, we see God's wrath, it really is just.

God's wrath is not hidden flying off the handle, being disproportionate.

No, it's righteous.

The punishment fits the crime.

You notice that those who drink the wine of the sexual immorality, the pleasures of Babylon, are also the same ones drinking the wine of God's wrath.

It fits the crime.

Though we would like to ignore it, sin is an offense against a holy God, the one we just sang about this morning.

He is infinitely holy and worthy of glory and beauty and goodness.

And it's hating him.

It's thinking that we are better than him.

Jim Hamilton says, hell lasts forever because God is infinitely important.

Hell is about the worth and the majesty of God.

And if you understand what it means for God to be God, you will understand why hell lasts forever.

See, those who hate God in sin and continue in that, rebelling against him, they offend his goodness.

They they reject the perfection of his character, they deny his goodness, they deny that he even exists, they reject his ways.

And all of these things are perfect, righteous, glorious, lovely.

And so God's wrath is just.

It's the only right response to evil and sin in a world that's been broken by it.

God couldn't be good if he wouldn't judge sin and evil in his good world.

See, none of us would want a God who would overlook suffering.

In our own hearts, when something wrong is done, we cry out for justice.

That's what we want.

We want something to be done, something to be made right.

And the fact that God is just and has wrath shows that he is good, that he's like that.

And so hell is not a place where God punishes unjustly.

It's deserved wrath for sins.

There's no one who does not deserve to be there.

There's no one in hell who who wants God, who loves him, who sought him.

Hell in some ways is the eternal end of a life rejecting God's goodness and authority.

But friends, God's wrath is also a warning to us.

This message of the third angel is not here just to scare us, not just to hear to give us a doctrine of hell.

It's here to show us, in some ways, like a fatherly warning.

Don't go there.

Don't trade what Christ offers.

The fact that we even opened our service.

He says, Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Don't trade the rest you can have in Christ for the relief of any compromise.

Don't overlook it.

Friends, I wonder if you've maybe thought that God's storm of judgment is not coming for you.

I thought maybe I'm a pretty good person.

Maybe I've even grown up in the church, or my family is a Christian, and so I'm good.

I'm gonna be okay.

Because I do mostly good things, and there's other people who are far worse than me.

I want you to hear the warning sirens of God's judgment this morning.

That God is calling out to you to give him glory that he deserves, and he will save those who come to him.

I think there's two ways that we we respond to this.

The first is what verse 12 tells us if we're in Christ, this calls for endurance from the saints who keep God's commands and their faith in Jesus.

And we must endure in our faith.

This is a warning of future wrath.

Hold on to Christ.

Don't think that worldliness or anything that you could get is better than having Christ.

In some ways, God warns us here of the seriousness of eternal suffering so that our souls would see it and say, Don't leave Christ, don't trade him for anything.

Because he is so precious, and eternity without him is so awful.

But God's wrath also must compel us to evangelize, to share that you don't have to find this judgment.

Church, we know that this is a weighty truth.

We even feel it right now.

Like I felt as I thought about it this week.

This is a weighty truth because we know people, we know family members, we know friends, we we go to the grocery store and see people.

We're gonna spend eternity separated from God.

And that is an awful and serious thing.

And so we must, knowing this truth, we must tell people about this good news.

It's been said that Christians care about all suffering, but we care most about eternal suffering.

I wonder if that's true about you.

That you would be willing to suffer rejection or awkwardness or humiliation or uncomfortableness or maybe slander or maybe even persecution or maybe even losing your job, all forms of temporary suffering.

Because you know how grave eternal suffering is, and you want people to know that there is hope to be saved from the wrath of God.

So we must warn people of this wrath to come, and we ourselves must hold fast to it, not trading Christ for the relief of any compromise.

And this brings us then to the final reason we may be tempted to compromise, is that we don't consider the reality of judgment day.

This goes hand in hand actually with the belief that maybe suffering in this world is worse than eternal suffering.

That if we don't consider that judgment day is coming, there's gonna be a day where all of what we did will be judged, then we would think that this life is of utmost significance.

I need to protect my life now.

I need to preserve my life now, I need to live my best life now.

But if there's eternity and a judgment day, then we'll live every day in light of that day.

Look at verses 14 to 20.

Then I looked, and there's a white cloud, and one like the Son of Man was seated on the cloud, with a golden crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand.

Another angel came out of the temple, crying out in a loud voice to the one who is seated on the cloud Use your sickle and reap, for the time to reap has come, since the harvest of the earth is ripe.

So the one seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.

Then another angel who also had a sharp sickle came out of the temple in heaven.

And yet another angel who had authority over fire came from the altar, and he called out with a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle Use your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the vineyard of the earth, because its grapes have ripened.

And so the angel swung his sickle at the earth and gathered the grapes from the vineyard of the earth, and he threw them into the great wine press of God's wrath.

Then the press was trampled outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press up to the horses' bridles for about a hundred and eighty miles.

See, the end of our passage shows that there's only two groups of people in the end.

The earth will be harvested, and people will find themselves in one of two categories.

The first reaper here is obviously a reference to Christ.

It's one like a son of man seated on a cloud with a golden crown on his head.

He is the one reaping this first group.

In some ways, this has to do with God bringing all those who belong to him safely into his kingdom.

Because at the same time, there's another reaper, maybe likened to the grim reaper, the harvest of the wicked, preparing them for the wrath of God.

And actually, this image of reaping is pretty significant in the Bible.

There's this kind of term or this idea idea that we reap what we sow.

That's actually what Galatians 6.7 says.

Don't be deceived.

God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that he will also reap.

And so our works, our deeds, the way that we are living now, is ripening us for Judgment Day.

It's ripening us for one of two harvests.

The reality of Judgment Day reminds us that what we do in this life matters.

It matters for eternity.

And that means that even our small acts of trust in Christ, doing good to those in our church, raising your kids in the fear and discipline of the Lord, persevering and suffering, all of these matter eternally.

But there are also those who are being ripened for the second harvest by the way that they are living, by the way that they are living in rejection of God.

Those who are worshiping the beast, they're ripening for the harvest of God's wrath.

It's everyone who compromises in their worship, everyone who turns from God and does not wholeheartedly give themselves to Him.

Those of us who even David prayed this morning that we are like that.

In fact, the truth is that all of us ought to find ourselves in that second harvest.

The one where we are under the wrath of God.

Because the truth is that we're not sinners just by action, but by nature.

That's what we are since Adam and Eve.

We all reject God's rule.

We all want to be king instead of God.

And all of us stand condemned as deserving objects of the wrath of God.

And yet, amazingly, there are two harvests.

Because there is one like a son of man seated on the cloud.

One who didn't just stay in heaven, but came down to gather people all from all the earth who would be saved, to save them from the wrath to come.

Sin deserves a punishment, and God's wrath is the right response to all of our sin.

And so actually on judgment day, the question will not be, do you deserve the wrath of God?

Because the truth is we do.

Answer is yes.

The question will not be, do you deserve the wrath of God?

But rather, will you drink the cup of God's wrath?

Or has someone else already drank that cup for you?

That's what Jesus came to do, to save from the wrath of God.

Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane prayed, Father, let this cup pass from me.

Yet not what I will, but what you will.

What cup was he talking about there?

I think Jesus is talking about this cup.

He was treated as a rebel on the cross, and the hammer of God's judgment came down on his son instead of us.

At the cross, Jesus threw himself into this great wine press of God's wrath.

And as Isaiah says, he was crushed for our iniquities.

The punishment that we deserve was laid upon him.

And Jesus did this because he knows that judgment day is coming for all of us.

And without his sacrifice in our place, without him there would be no second harvest.

Jesus died on the cross so that the wrath of God could be taken away from those who trust in him.

He died so that God's wrath for your sins would not be yours to have to pay, would not be yours to have to be crushed under, but that you might be saved.

This horror of final judgment that this passage lays out, that doesn't have to be your eternity.

You can look to Jesus, trust in him, worship him.

He came to rescue you from the wrath of God so that now God can be just and forgive you and give you mercy and grace all the days of your life.

So if we trust in Christ for salvation, if we worship him, then what will happen on judgment day is that that cup of God's wrath for your sin will be empty, already drained by Christ.

Friends, this glorious news of God's warnings here, it's serious and significant.

It shows us that our only hope of rest, our only hope of blessing in eternity is in Christ.

And so if you aren't a Christian in here this morning, I plead with you to hear this warning that the way you're living is ripening you to a harvest.

And if you're living apart from God, that's a harvest that I don't want you to face.

There's no relief, no blessing, no good in this life that that's worth trading that for.

Turn to Christ.

In some ways, this this wine press image is such a gruesome one, and yet it also displays that the blood of Christ was shed and shed far and wide enough to cover all your sins.

No one too bad, no one too far gone for Christ to save you from the wrath to come.

And so if you've trusted in Christ this morning, then this salvation is yours.

You you get life, you get rest in Christ.

So the call is don't trade it.

Don't trade it for anything.

Hold on to Christ.

He's worth it, he's better than anything that you could give it up for in this life.

Because we want to hear on that judgment day, we want to hear what the gospels tell us through our works that we would rest and hear, well done, good and faithful servant.

You've kept my commands.

You've kept your faith in Jesus.

Friends, I pray that you would be among those.

When we see what we deserve and what Christ has done to save us, we will refuse to trade our eternal rest in Christ for the relief of any compromise.

Let's pray.