In Scott Brown's sermon titled 'Saved From What? Warnings of Doom, Promises of Rest,' he explores the Christian concept of salvation as described in Revelation 14. Brown emphasizes that salvation is not only being saved from the wrath of God and the collapse of worldliness, represented by Babylon, but also being saved to a life of obedience and worship of God. The sermon highlights the role of angels in spreading the everlasting gospel to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people, urging them to fear God, give Him glory, and worship Him. Brown discusses the fall of Babylon, symbolizing the inevitable defeat of the world's opposition to God, and the dire consequences for those who worship the beast and reject the gospel, such as eternal torment in hell. Conversely, believers who keep God's commandments and faith in Jesus are promised rest and blessedness. The sermon serves as a call to Christians to proclaim the gospel and to take comfort in the assurance of God's ultimate victory and mercy.

Please open your Bibles to the inerrant, all-sufficient, holy Word of God. To Revelation 14, find verse 6, and I'll read through verse 13. Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people. Saying with a loud voice, fear God and give him glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water. And another angel followed, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, if anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of his indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever, And they have no rest day or night who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the saints. Here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, right, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors and their works follow them. Let's pray. Oh Lord we thank you for giving us the truth about all the world and all that's happening. We're so grateful for your guidance.

Pray that you would lead us, lead this church, lead every individual by your word. Let every child see how dramatic and beautiful and true these images are for their whole life long and never forget them. Amen. Please be seated. So when you say I'm saved, you know what does what does that mean?

To say that someone is saved is something that Christians use all the time. It's code for something, but what does it mean? What does it mean to be saved? Saved from what? What are we saved from?

And these verses will show us what that means. They show us examples of various things that we are saved from and also not only that but what we are saved to. We're really, we're saved essentially from the collapsing walls of the worldliness of the world, Babylon, the world system, and saved from the wrath of God and fire and brimstone and the wine of his anger. This is the Christian message that we are saved from something and we're also saved to something. And both of these are revealed here.

You know, it's it's comforting. It's thrilling to know what's happening in the world and why it's happening and what is the end of all of it. And that's what we find here in the book of Revelation. It's been so encouraging to me just to be able to go through these revelations of Jesus Christ, because every verse in Revelation is a revelation of Jesus Christ in pictures, theology in pictures, Christology in pictures, and here you get the theology of hell in pictures. So now the world is filled with people who cannot believe that God would send people to hell.

And yet in this section in Revelation we are led actually to give thanks to God for hell, for the reprobation of the wicked. And the angel commands unbelievers to fear God and give glory to him and worship him. Why? Because the hour of judgment has come. And this is God's glory in reprobation.

God glorifies himself in the salvation of sinners and in the destruction of the wicked. And Christians often have a hard time thinking on both planes, but that's what the Bible leads you to both planes to give thanks that God would destroy the works of the devil, but also that he would have mercy on sinners. This is the message the church must preach. Now, where are we in Revelation? Again, Revelation is composed of seven visions or seven cycles.

We're in the fifth cycle. It is actually an interlude. I think there are seven sections to the book of Revelation. They all end in the final judgment in the second coming. And that is true with this one as well.

And of course, there are two major sections in Revelation, chapters one through 11, really speak to the struggle of the church under ungodly authorities, the tyrants of the world. The world is always attacking the church, but the church is protected and and will be avenged someday and then the second half verse chapters 12 to 22 where we are now the dragon and the harlot continue to try to overthrow the church but they are overthrown. And we're in this interlude text, this interlude section, right after the trumpet judgments and right before the outpourings of the bowls of wrath. So this is a vision again of God's glory, which finally ends in the final judgment and the rescue of God's people. And that's what we'll find at the end of this very section that we're in today, and it's expanded on in the last section of this chapter, which we'll cover next time, and then it's even expanded further in chapter 15, one through four, and that's the end of the section, and then we move into the bold judgments in Revelation.

So that's where we are right now. Now, the scene here shifts from the scene in heaven in the previous five verses. That was a scene of heaven, of God's people rejoicing. They're singing a new song. It's absolutely wonderful.

But the scene shifts here in verse six from heaven to earth. And you have an outline in front of you. You can see exactly where I'm going with this and how I've divided the text. There are three angels. And then there's a voice.

The first angel is preaching the everlasting gospel in the world. That's verses six and seven. And then the second angel is proclaiming the fall of Babylon. And then the third angel is pronouncing the wrath of fire and brimstone that will come upon all those who have rejected Jesus Christ and then finally the end of it there's a voice from heaven in verse 12 and 13 and there's a promise of rest and and one of the Beatitudes there are seven Beatitudes in Revelation and this is the second one that's in the book so this is an interlude and we're standing in between these these two great great judgments now these are warnings God is faithful to war and mankind. And this should be a terrifying text, hopefully an alluring text to those who are dull to the Lord.

Are you dull to the Lord? And it's a great encouragement for a believer. It's an announcement of relief that's coming and that God is going to take down all the harmful forces that are at work in the world that have been working on you your whole life long. God is going to take them down. Praise the Lord for that.

And This is God's glory in reprobation and God's glory in his mercy. So the message here is that the gospel is going to be spread throughout the earth. That's the message of the first angel. Are you there with me? Verse six, verses six and seven.

Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people saying with a loud voice, fear God and give glory to him. For the hour of his judgment has come and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water." Well, what's the message here? The message is that the gospel will spread throughout the earth. The angels will be proclaiming that gospel. You do the same thing, don't let up.

Give glory to God, fear God, worship God. It's the greatest treasure. You know, don't slow down. The angels are flying around you know with this message it's very interesting that you have this imagery of an angel in the midst of heaven and you've seen this so many times already. Revelation unfolds a whole doctrine of angels and the activities of angels.

They are all over the place in this book. Angels are mentioned 53 times in these 22 chapters. And now you have these three angels emerging and they're going to preach the gospel, the everlasting gospel, to lure people out of the torments of hell. God is working, God is working through his angels and through his servants. You know, I was just at a conference where I heard our friend Conrad M.

Bayway preach. And he preached on the authority of Jesus Christ, the head of the church. And I'll never forget one thing that he said. He said, the head of the church is always busy. That's so true.

He is busy. He is busy here in this passage of Scripture. So you have these three angels who are working. They are ministering spirits to minister unto the heirs of salvation. That's what Hebrews chapter 3 says.

And these two verses, they should be very encouraging because God is calling. Somebody earlier in the service says it's not too late and it isn't. He's calling to every nation, every tribe, every tongue and people, calling mankind out of their rebellion. Why? Because the hour of his judgment has come.

And this is the message of the church. So keep at it, don't be silenced. Now this is an everlasting gospel and it's being preached to unbelievers in fact it's being preached to those who dwell on the earth that's code in Revelation for unbelievers every time you encounter that phrase those who dwell on the earth you're always talking about unbelievers And this good news is the good news to sinners that God is going to bring brimstone and fire upon the wicked, That's the good news. So flee, you have an opportunity to flee. Fear God and worship him.

And I was intrigued by the way that one commentator, William Hendrickson described this thing, these people who are dwelling on the earth, they're dwelling on the earth. He says they're pictured at ease with no concerns about their souls. Do you remember the pictures of the tsunami several years ago where the ocean receded and washed out and there were fish on the beach and people were just following the water and then the tsunami came they had no idea that's really a picture here judgment is coming and you don't want to be insensible to the way that God has rigged history. And there is danger, but people in the world are clueless of the danger. They hate the idea of God's judgment, and so they reject it.

They're unconscious of the peril that is coming upon the world. And so God here through these angels is calling for the whole world to embrace the gospel. And he calls it here, the angels call it the everlasting gospel. Now the Bible uses this word everlasting many times in a very similar way and they really give context to what this means to proclaim an everlasting gospel. For example, in Jeremiah 31, 3, he speaks of everlasting love.

He says, yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving kindness, I have drawn you this everlasting gospel is a word of kindness for everlasting love in Psalm 103 verse 17 David speaks of this as everlasting mercy, but the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him. And then in Deuteronomy 33 27, this is my favorite, everlasting arms and underneath are the everlasting arms. In Isaiah 26, there's an everlasting rock. In John 3, 16, whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

And that's the whole idea. In Psalm 145, there's an everlasting kingdom. In Jeremiah 32, there's an everlasting covenant. In John 414, you have water springing up to everlasting life in the heart of the believer. In John 640 we read this, and this is the will of him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day.

One more from Psalm 90 verse 2. Before the mountains were brought forth or ever you had formed the earth or the world even from everlasting to everlasting you are God. So there is this everlasting gospel from an everlasting God for everlasting life. What a beautiful thing. This is what God is saying to the unbelievers, to the hardened, to the insensible, to the ones that don't need God who are proud.

And what this really speaks of is the fact that we are sinners and we need to be saved from the wrath to come. And in salvation, God sent his son to suffer for our sins in our place. And the Bible makes it very clear that our sins were taken off of our shoulders and placed on his shoulders. And he bore the weight of our sin. And his righteousness, His perfect obedience, both passive and hectic obedience, were imputed to us, and our sin was laid upon him.

And this is this everlasting gospel. But the problem is that people don't really see themselves to be sinners anymore in this world. And when we tell people that they're sinners, but they don't like that, they don't believe it, and they'll just tell you their truth is all they need and it doesn't matter if you kill a baby in the womb, it doesn't matter if you commit adultery, it doesn't matter if you cross dress, you can be whatever you want to be. There is no sin. But here, this is an everlasting gospel that is preached.

And in 1 Peter 3, we learn that Christ suffered in the flesh, the just for the unjust. We are unjust and we need a just savior who would sacrifice for our sins. But, but Christians know that they're sinners. That's why, That's why they came. They were sick and tired of their sin.

They didn't like it anymore. They didn't like living by their own truth anymore. And so they recognized that they were sinners. And so then you have the people of God and they're battling the remaining sin in their life. And Christians often feel more sinful after they become Christians because they begin to see their sin more.

And it can be difficult because they often feel so guilty. And so that's why we have the Lord's Supper to remind them not to feel so guilty because Jesus Christ has sacrificed His life for us. When you have a church that's battling sin, you have a humble church and you have a happy church because they know what has happened to them and they have been forgiven and their righteousness has been replaced by his. So now this gospel is being preached throughout the world. Notice the language.

Every nation, tribe, tongue, and people. Now, this quadruple description appears several times in Revelation. The numbers matter in Revelation. You have collections of the number three all over, and you have collections of four, and this is one of them. The numbers mean much, the number seven, the number 12, the number 24, the number 144, 000.

All these are symbolic of particular truths. But this gospel is preached through the whole world. This is a missionary enterprise. This is why our dear Carrington family is in Turkey, is because of this command here that this proclamation of the everlasting gospel would be to every nation, every tongue, every tribe, and every people. And the Lord Jesus Christ, I think, referred to this in Matthew 24, 14, where he said, this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed to all the nations and then the end shall come.

This is the missionary enterprise and its local evangelism and its world evangelism and God's people are instruments to proclaim that message and the angels are flying about seeking to help those to to be saved and what are they preaching well there are three imperatives, three commands of what they're preaching. Fear God, that's the first one. Give glory to Him and worship him. And actually, this isn't necessarily the message of the everlasting gospel. These are the effects of the everlasting gospel.

This is what happens to you when you embrace the everlasting gospel. You fear God, you give glory to him, and you worship him. That's what happens to you. So he doesn't really, these angels, at least in this section, are not proclaiming the message of the gospel. They're proclaiming what happens to you when you embrace the gospel, which is very, very important.

By the way, receiving the gospel and becoming a Christian is not accepting Jesus Christ into your heart. The Bible doesn't have anything to say about that, but the Bible does speak of the message of the gospel and the effects of the gospel here. And to receive the gospel really is to is to gladly receive his authority in your life and to bow before him so the first command fear God fear God what is the fear of God The fear of God is the desire to be faithful to God. It's respect for God in all of his ways. It's to find joy in God, in his commands, and all of his ways.

Now the people who have the mark of the beast in this text and in the other text that we have encountered and will encounter later, They fear the beast. They respect the beast. They follow him. They're afraid of the beast. They're afraid of what he will do to them.

They're afraid of what his followers will think of them. And so they follow the beast wherever he goes. And you know, it's interesting, a young boy asked me last week about the fear, what is the fear of man? And he said, what does it mean? And I gave him an illustration.

I said, you know, when you fear God, you reverence him above all. And you want to please him above all. And you want to obey him above all. And you find your joy in him. And I said, but to fear man is similar in this way.

To fear man, you reverence other people above all, and you want to please other people above all, and you want to please other people above all, and you want to obey them because you fear them. You fear their disfavor. And I think that's what these angels are crying out because the Christian wants to fear God. The Christian wants to draw near to God and this really exposes the false gospel that's preached to people today that all you all you need to do is to accept Jesus Christ into your heart and confess that he's the Son of God but the question is has your heart changed so that you fear him you love him you want to follow him wherever he goes you want his authority in your life. That's the effect of the true gospel.

The effect of the true gospel isn't that you get baptized and call yourself a Christian for the rest of your life. The effect of the gospel is that you want to follow him, as in our last text, to follow him, to follow the lamb wherever he goes. So the second imperative is give glory to him. Give glory. This is the effect of the gospel.

You want to give glory to God above all else. You know, the Westminster Catechism, of course we memorize this years ago, the chief end of man, what is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Well, that's another mark of a Christian, that's the effect of the gospel. You want to glorify Him.

This is a mark, this is the mark of Christ on your life. The mark of the beast is you don't want to glorify God. The mark of Christ is that you do. And you want to become like him. You want to represent him and his glory.

And it's the inclination of the heart to look at every moment in your life, not to glorify yourself, but to glorify God. Now I know that's difficult. Our sinful hearts are always leading us into sinful pride to glorify ourselves, to magnify ourselves, to please ourselves. Our sinful flesh is always at work there. But when the Christian realizes that that's what's happening, they repent.

They don't want to do that. They catch themselves and say, Oh Lord, have mercy on me and bring me back. So give glory to him. That's the second command that these angels are giving. And really the second manifestation of the power of the gospel in your life.

And then the third is worship him. And this has to do with our inmost inclination before God. We want to bow down to him. He uses, John uses the word here to bow down, to humble yourself, to make yourself lower, to worship God. And it's the desire to be in his presence and to give thanks to him.

So you have these three imperatives. And I just love the way this ends. Worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water. It's as if he's saying, give, fear God, give glory to God, worship God. Why?

Do you see how beautiful God is? Look at the heavens Look at the earth Look at the springs. It's ab he's wonderful that's the argument The argument that these angels are making is that God is the creator. He is astoundingly beautiful and good and he'll provide everything that you need. That's the argument that's here.

So that's the first angel. He's preaching the everlasting gospel to the whole world. Now the second angel is proclaiming the fall of Babylon. And another angel saying Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. So the first thing we've learned about the world is that the gospel is being preached throughout the world, and it's a beautiful gospel.

And the second thing that we learned is right here about our world. Babylon has fallen. And it's very important that we understand that in the world that we live in today. Here's the message. The world system will not prevail.

Jesus reigns. The devil is not, will not, and cannot overcome the plan of God for your life, for America, and for every nation in the world. The prince of the power of the air is doomed. You just need to know that. It's very freeing.

He's fighting a losing battle. We read earlier in Revelation, he knows his time is short. So he's desperately trying to do whatever he wants to do, but he knows his time is short and he's terrified. In fact, the demon said to Jesus, have you come to torment us before the time? They know the time is coming and they're terrified, they're tormented by it.

But the angels here are telling us that the whole world system will be torn down by God. The church has a message to proclaim, and that is the message of the fall of Babylon. We must say in the world that it's over for the devil. This should be part of your evangelistic message. It's over for him.

And he knows his time is coming. Now, if you notice in the language here, John is speaking as if Babylon has already fallen. And So he's talking about something that is going to happen that as if it has already happened and it's a foreshadowing of Babylon's final end. This is called a proleptic view. And this is common in Revelation and in the Bible to speak of something that will happen in the future as if it has already happened.

And yet at the same time some of these proleptic views indicate that there is this final fall, but there are multiple falls along the way. We've seen that in Revelation already in the previous sections, and particularly in chapter 12 and 13 where the devil is trying to wreck the church and he fails every time. He just can't get it right. The lamb comes in and swoops up his people for his glory. But fallen, fallen.

You notice the emphasis? Fallen, Fallen is Babylon. The Old Testament prophets say it the exact same way. I wish I had time to read all the sections of this use of this term, fallen, fallen. But in Hebrew, in the Hebrew language, there are no exclamation marks to show you that something is dramatic.

There are no bold caps to tell us something in these languages, But how something is emphasized in its dramatic form is to repeat it. Fallen, fallen is Babylon. This is why Jesus would say he would use the same mechanism. Truly, truly, I say to you, it's a term of emphasis. But what does Babylon symbolize?

Babylon is mentioned six times in Revelation. Babylon represents the seduction of the world. Now, we're just gonna touch briefly on Babylon today, because chapters 16 and 17 will take us to Babylon in depth. But we'll get what we can here. In Revelation 17, just a little foretaste here, Babylon is a city, Babylon is a woman, Babylon is a harlot, and many more things that we'll get to later on.

But Babylon in the Bible is a way of thinking and acting in opposition to God. When you're owned by Babylon, your portion is in this world. When you're owned by Babylon you seek the favor of the unbelieving world. When you're owned by Babylon you're concerned about your reputation in the world. When you're owned by Babylon the world's entertainments are entertaining to you.

You like them. And the original manifestation of Babylon appears early in the Bible in Genesis 11 in the Tower of Babel where the people were tired of God's authority. They were tired of God's name that marked people and they said let us make a name for ourselves. That's Babylon. When you want to make your own way, your own way, you've entered into Babylon.

And there are three elements of Babylon that I'll describe with scripture in a moment, but opulence, splendor, and beauty. Next, power, rage against the church, and tyranny. Next, sexual promiscuity and spiritual harlotry. Well, that's why the key word in the scriptures that gives us an understanding of Babylon is the word fornication. It's right here in this text.

The word ultimately refers to spiritual fornication, seeking after other gods, embracing foreign ways. Isaiah the prophet calls them Eastern ways. You've embraced Eastern ways. You've brought in a foreign thing into your life. These are the ways of the world.

And it's simultaneously physical and spiritual. Physical adulteries and fornications always go along with spiritual adultery and fornication, idolatry and fornication and adultery. In the Bible, they always go hand in hand. So when you read these words, you need to recognize that these are code words for worldliness. Babylon is the secular state in opposition to God.

Babylon is the secular culture in opposition to God. Babylon is big. Babylon is beautiful. The works of Babylon are amazing that you can find in all kinds of places. Babylon controls 99.999% of the music that is broadcast.

Babylon controls 99.99% of all sports and entertainment in the world. Babylon is the entertainment news network known as CNN. Babylon is the policies and the mandates of the governments of the world. Babylon is the sensuality of Hollywood's films where there is no God. Babylon is the emotional power of the music of Nashville.

I'll use that as a term like Babylon. It's the delusional industrial Sports Complex. It's the whole world that makes, that gives you a little bit of inebriation so that you don't seek God and you're deceived by Babylon. And she is so big. You know, Ezekiel 16 shows how big and beautiful Babylon is.

It's so alluring. You know, don't be deceived by big and beautiful. Ezekiel 16 describes the beauty and the fame and the opulence of Babylon. Verse 15 and Ezekiel 16, But you trusted in your own beauty, played the harlot because of your fame, in other words, popularity and connection with the world, is with Babylon, And poured out your harlotry on everyone passing by who would have it. You took some of your garments and adorned multi-colored high places for yourself and played the harlot on them.

Facilities, opportunities, gatherings, big, that's what he's referring to. Such things should not happen or be, he says. You have also taken your beautiful jewelry from my gold and my silver, which I have given you, and made for yourself male images and played the harlot with them. You took your embroidered garments and covered them. You set my oil and my incense before them and my food which I gave you, the pastry of fine flour, oil and honey which I fed you and set and you set it before them as sweet incense and so it was says the Lord your God what what God is saying to Babylon is look I gave you gold I gave you silver I gave you food I gave you garments I gave you materials and look what you did you did it all for idolatry yeah you created beautiful things.

You sent rockets to the moon. You made beautiful fast cars. You did some of the most amazing things, and they are amazing, and they are beautiful. But you took what was mine, and you did it to glorify yourself. That's Babylon right there.

That's Babylon in your heart and mine. And you know when it rises up, it's there. But Babylon is big and beautiful. And the details are laid out in chapters 17 through 19. Jonathan Edwards called Babylon the anti-Christian church.

He says it was once eaten and it became Babel. And it turned into the anti-Christian church. You know, The Christian church is not the only church. The anti-Christian church exists as well. It's Babylon.

That's the church of most people that they go to. Now, so, but wrath is coming, why? Because she has made all the nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. What does that mean? It means that that she, the wrath that she deserves will be for everyone who drinks her wine.

Now, this passage is about the, the final judgment of Babylon, but there are many passages of the scripture which I've cut out of the sermon that speak of the temporal judgments against Babylon. When you follow Babylon, you bang your head against the wall. It hurts. A lot of bad things happen to you when you follow the ethic of Babylon. But the worst thing, the apostle Paul spoke to the Ephesian church, the Ephesian church that lived in the midst of Babylon.

If you've ever been to Ephesus, you'll see how idolatrous that city was in the first century. They were a worldly, highly sexualized city. Paul says to them in Ephesians 5 5 for this you know that no fornicator unclean person or covetous man who is an idolater as any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God Imagine the apostle Paul saying that right in the midst of all the idols of Ephesus. It would put him in danger. It did put him in danger.

And the whole city gathered in the amphitheater there and were screaming and they thought Paul would be torn apart. So that's the second angel, the fall of Babylon. Babylon is gonna fall, so you don't need to worry about it too much. Just get out from under the bricks that are falling, because they're falling, or walls are coming down, praise the Lord. And then the third angel is a pronouncement of the wrath of fire and brimstone.

And this is directed to those who love Babylon who have the mark of the world. Verse 9. Then the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, if anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand. So the message here is that that fire and brimstone and wrath are coming down upon those who love the world And we encounter for the second time the mark of the beast and we've said it before What's the mark of the beast the mark of the beast is the mark of the world don't expect a 666 to appear on your forehead if you don't love the Lord Jesus Christ, you already have the mark of the world and it's the mark of the world systems and philosophies. It's the fear of the beast.

It's to do what he wants you to do. And again, He's speaking here of those who worship, if anyone worships the beast. And worship is just simply appreciation. Worship is the desire to fit in. Worship is the fear of displeasing.

So when you worship the beast, you don't want to stick out, you want to fit in with the flow of culture, secular culture. I heard somebody say about Babylon, the earth dwellers have killed the truth tellers. That's sort of the problem with getting out of Babylon in your heart. Well, then you read of the wine of his wrath, verse 10. He himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which has poured out full strength into the cup of his indignation.

And again, I think this is both temporal judgments, just the hard things that happen in your life when you turn away from God. But it really, those are just foretaste, those are just warnings. Those are just warnings of the final judgment. And if you do not fear God, you will face unmixed wrath from God and the angel is using these different words to describe it wine he uses the word wine wine influences the Wine influences the mind. Wine influences the conscience.

And the wine influences consciousness. And this kind of wine doesn't dull the pain this kind of wine is pain and it's full strength Psalm 75 but God is the judge he puts one down and exalts another. For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the red wine, and the wine is red, it is fully mixed, and he pours it out. Surely its dregs shall go down to the wicked of the earth and drain and drink it down. Revelation 1815 speaks of it, He will pay her double according to her works in the cup which she has mixed, mixed double for her in the measure that she glorified herself and live luxuriously in the same major give her torment and sorrow.

This is about endless pain and we read the language that describes that endless pain. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb. So you have fire and you have brimstone. Now fire, we can't imagine everlasting fire. We've never seen anything like everlasting fire.

The closest thing we've seen is the sun and people say that the sun is even losing some of its strength over time. And brimstone, what is brimstone? It's sulfur. It's usually in the form of, brimstone is usually in the form of small rocks that burn. It's a burning stone and it's soft and its smell is noxious and it burns cobalt blue.

And it burns cobalt blue, and it's a thick cobalt flame, and it is toxic, and it can give you permanent respiratory damage. It's bad news. I'm reading that the Earth's core is brimstone and that there's brimstone in the core of the Earth comparable to the mass of the moon. That's why when you have, they say that's why you have volcanoes, you have sulfur coming out of the earth. It's like this brimstone.

We encounter brimstone in Genesis 19 verse 24, fire and brimstone destroyed Sodom. And I'm told that if you go to the area where Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, you'll find sulfur nodules scattered along the whole Dead Sea Basin. These are remnants of brimstone. And it's the only place in the world where these sulfur balls can be found and David spoke of this in Psalm 11 verses 5 through 7. The Lord tests the righteous but the wicked and the one who loves violence, his soul hates.

Upon the wicked, he will rain coals, fire and brimstone, and a burning wind shall be the portion of their cup for the Lord is righteous he loves righteousness his countenance beholds the upright did you notice how many words in this in these verses are repeated in Revelation 14. Hear? Many of those words. Fire, brimstone, cup, righteous. It's astounding.

Well, we'll learn in Revelation 19 that the beast and the false prophet are thrown into the lake of fire, burning with brimstone. In Revelation 20, the devil himself who deceived them is cast into the lake of fire and brimstone. So this is a prominent theme. In Revelation 21 verse eight, but the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone which is the second death. It's horrifying.

It's absolutely horrifying. But what's most remarkable about this whole thing is that Christ is there and he's actually superintending these hell fires. You can read it right here in the text. This is all happening in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb. The lamb of God has ordained all this and he is observing it.

And by the way, I may launch us into a study of hell, but if you study hell and you look at the passage of scripture that describe it, And with the text about Abraham and Lazarus, you know, Abraham is looking into the Gulf, across the Gulf and seeing the torments of hell. You know, if you're a Christian, you may see that. And the Bible says that you'll rejoice. You'll rejoice that God has destroyed the wicked. But it's Jesus Christ who's been appointed judge and that's very clear in Acts 17 31 because he has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained.

That's Christ. He has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead. It's Jesus Christ who has been appointed for the day of judgment. You may have a wrong view of Jesus Christ, but he is the judge of the world and he is the one who's casting those who hate him into hell. In John 527 we learn, and again, that God gave his son authority to judge.

Jesus says that his father quote, has given him authority to execute judgment because he is the son of man. But the evangelical church is kind of slipping away from the doctrine of God's justice and the doctrine of hell. There's so much to say about this, but notice the physical anguish. Again, this is just so heartbreaking. Verse 11, And the smoke of their torment ascends forever, and they have no rest day or night who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.

The torment permeates every corner of your consciousness, every part of your body in the audience of the saints and the angels and the Lord Jesus Christ himself. It's an astounding picture. It's hard to grasp. Hell is unrestrained wrath, it is undiluted fury, it is physical, it is emotional, it is mental. That's what we've learned here.

And so the third angel pronounces wrath of fire and brimstone. And then there's a voice. The angels have been proclaiming all this, but now there's a voice in verse 12 and 13. And it speaks of the blessedness of the rest that God's people experience. And if hell is horrible this is beautiful and so verse 12 here is the patience of the Saints in other words don't give up don't give up weight It might look so bad out there, but don't give up.

Wait. God is in control. Here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. These are the people who humble themselves before God and they said, Lord, not my will but thine be done they said Lord I don't want to do my will anymore I want to do your will they keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus that's what it means to be a Christian is that you love to keep the commandments of God If you don't love to keep the commandments of God, then you will find your place, yourself in this place of unrestrained wrath. That's just the reality.

And then in verse 13, then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, right, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. John is saying this, you know, there in the first century, and he's saying, blessed are those who die in the Lord from his day forth. To die in the Lord is the most precious thing. To die in those everlasting arms, to die in the Lord having, you know, the moment of your death. You might get in a wreck in a moment.

You might die. There might be a long season of dying and declining, but you'll either die in the Lord or you'll die out into outer darkness. This is what the Bible teaches. Now, I said at the beginning that one of the seven beatitudes in Revelation are here. This is it right here.

Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. The Beatitudes, you know, they're like the Beatitudes in Matthew 5. They begin with the word blessed. So I'm just going to read them to you and I'm going to close this message with these Beatitudes. They're so beautiful.

Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things which are written in it for the time is near. Chapter 1 verse 3. The second beatitude, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. 1413. The third beatitude, blessed is the one who watches and keeps his garments lest he walk naked and they see his shame." 1615.

The fourth beatitude, blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb. 1919. The fifth beatitude, Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection over such the second death as no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years. 20 verse six, the sixth beatitude. And behold, I am coming quickly.

Blessed is he who keeps the words of this prophecy in this book, 22 verse 7. And then the final Beatitude. Blessed are those who keep the commandments of God, that they may have the right to the tree of life and they may enter through the gates into the city. Chapter 22 verse 14. And the spirit says, if they'll rest from their labors, you'll rest, you'll rest forever because you feared God, because you glorified God in the flesh, and because you worshiped God.

And that's what happens to all those who love him and are called according to his purpose. You know, I read a poem a couple of weeks ago, three or four weeks ago, I think. What will happen if you die? Rejecting the truth and trusting a lie. Where will you go and what will you do if the mouth of hell opens wide for you?

Cast into the fire that will not cease. There shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, everlasting torment and everlasting shame to those who lived this life like it is one big game. Rebels will not recover from their fatal error and eternity waits them full of terror flee flee from the wrath to come you who have the gospel shunned so are you saved save from what say from the falling walls of Babylon that are going to come down all around the world. Saved from the fire and the brimstone and the wine of his wrath. And don't sit back.

There's an everlasting gospel to proclaim. They're everlasting arms to fall into in the world. So fear God, give him glory and worship him. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it. Would you pray with me?

Father, these words are so difficult in their force. Pray that you would use them to drive us to yourself every moment of the day and to proclaim this glorious gospel throughout the earth joining with these angels who are doing it that we might do it. Amen.