Revelation 14 verses 6 through 13. These are God's words. 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 the springs of water. And another angel followed, 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. 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 for ever 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. And I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, write, 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. Amen. So far the reading of God's inspired and inerrant word. Well, we had a view of Earth during the time of the Rage of the Dragon, and we saw, as it were, the unholy trinity, the dragon exercising his power by the two beasts, the beast that rose from the sea, political, military, governmental power. and the beast that rose from the earth, the false religion that makes people to fall in love with and worship earthly power and influence. And so the dragon and the sea beast and the earth beast form something of a counterfeit trinity. And they have something of a counterfeit baptism, not necessarily with an actual sign and seal mark on the hand and the forehead, so that a lot of time and thought has been wasted trying to figure out what is the mark, that they wouldn't take the mark. But the point of the mark was identification with the world, identifying with worldly power, identifying with invented religion and idolatry that desire to be accepted by and approved of and admitted into the Economy of the world this is what it is to take as it were the mark of the beast or the mark of his name to give honor to creatures instead of to worship the name of the Lord and to fear and the Lord and him only and his name only. And so that was what was taking place on the earth. And then the first five verses of chapter 14, we have a simultaneous, as it were, like a split screen view, what's going on in heaven. Well, the lamb is sitting on his throne and there's 144,000 worshiping him. And we find out in, A couple of chapters, not just worshiping him, but reigning with him. Those who have not taken the mark of the world, but they've had the lamb's name and his father's name written on their foreheads. Again, not tattoos that say father and lamb, but a reference to baptism and the pouring out of water on the head, the anointing upon the head, in this case the washing with water upon the head, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And they are not just marked unto God in their water baptism, but these are those who have also received genuine spirit baptism, whom the Lord Jesus has made alive by His Spirit and given new natures and been brought to faith in Him, genuinely saved. And we know that because of their conduct in the last part of the previous passage. They are not defiled with women, they follow the Lamb wherever He goes, and their mouth is no deceit. They give themselves to the praise and worship of God. Well now we have a bridging occurrence across the two split screens as it were, the one split of the screen on earth and the one split of the screen in heaven, and we have now in verse 6 an angel flying in heaven preaching to those who dwell on the earth, which is to say, proclaiming the message that is occasioned by seeing things as they really are, not being taken in with the counterfeit unholy trinity and counterfeit blessing and power and counterfeit identification and being identified with the world, not being taken in with those things, And we have three angels that proclaim, and the first proclamation on the earth is, to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people, the everlasting gospel. Now, you can preach the gospel as forgiveness of sins, which you are saved from. forgiveness of sin and guilt and hell. You could preach the gospel as believing in Jesus Christ, what you are saved by or through, being united to him and having him as your life and his death and his cross take away Your guilt and having him Counted as your righteousness and you being counted righteous in him and with him But this particular preaching of the everlasting gospel is not what they're saved from or what they are saved through But that unto which they are saved and so this is fear God give glory to him Worship him who made heaven and earth the sea and springs of water in other words for those who were sinners through the righteousness and sacrifice of Christ, you can be recovered, redeemed, reconciled unto God, made again, not a worshiper of the creature rather than the creator, which is, according to Romans 1, all the unrighteousness and ungodliness of men and the worship of the creature rather than the creator, all those things that come with identifying with the world and living for earthly power and prosperity and pleasure and all of those idolatrous things. But rather than worshiping the creature than the creator, you can be restored by Jesus Christ who is our sacrifice, who is our righteousness. He brings us back into right relationship with God and he restores us not just into right relationship, but united to him, he begins to cleanse us and conform us to his own image, by his own spirit, until we are again those who worship and fear God alone. And that is the ultimate end of the gospel. Just like sometimes we repeat the first catechism question, what is the chief end of man? You can also say, what is the chief end of the gospel? To restore us to glorifying God. To restore us unto enjoying Him forever. And the wonderful proclamation of the first angel in this everlasting gospel is that there is another option. There is another religion. There are ultimately just two religions. Worship of the creator in right relationship with him, and then worship of the creature. And whatever it is, whatever flavor of man-made worship and worshiping the creature, it's ultimately a worshiping of the beast and his image. The beast takes on many forms, as it were, but the unholy trinity of the dragon and the earth beast and the sea beast are all joined together for anything other than worshiping God. And so the first angel says, fear God, give glory to him, worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water, worship the creator rather than the creature. And so the reversing of what had happened to mankind as Romans one describes it. And that is wonderful, good news. Because as the angel says, for the hour of his judgment has come. And in the hour of his judgment, you will either be with the true religion, restored to God in and through Jesus Christ alone, that's the only way that it happens, and a fearer and glorifier and worshiper of him, in which you will be blessed with him forever, or you will be a member of the false religion, and you will come under his wrath. And so that's the message of the first angel. The second angel is also proclaiming from heaven to earth and giving a warning. that although all of mankind be seduced together by the same pride and power and prosperity and pleasure, that all of these turn out to be the wrath of the dragon, the wrath of Babylon. When it says Babylon has fallen, has fallen, it's not talking necessarily about the empire that was the Babylonian empire. And it's not talking about subsequent entities that followed according to some of the same principles of power and worldwide domination like the Roman Empire or the papacy. or perhaps Islam, or now the kind of socioeconomic empire that is kind of ruling the world behind the various governments, or the American empire, the British empire, whatever it is. When it talks about Babylon, it's talking about that which is especially exemplified in the city that became later. the great empire of Babel and Babel, where all of humanity was gathered together for its own name, by its own power, to accomplish its own prosperity and obtain its own pleasure. And that has a great seduction to it. But you have to remember that the sin into which man fell, and especially the earth beast, sorry the sea beast and the earth beast of chapter 13 these are these come from the rage of the dragon this is how he attacks and murders the bulk of humanity by seducing And so notice that Babylon here is not portrayed as a ruthless man who crushes with his might. Babylon is portrayed as a seductive woman who allures and seduces by the appeal, the promise of pride and power and prosperity and pleasure. Yet the seduction her fornication is The wrath of the devil and those who give in to it will fall with the rest of humanity as as The whole of humanity is either with God or against God Babylon will fall angel number two and And angel number three Babylon and those who fall with her will suffer not just To be seduced by the cup of the fornication of the cup of the wrath of the fornication of Babylon but they will be made to drink the cup of the wrath of God. 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, he himself shall also drink the wine of the wrath of God, which has poured out full strength into the cup of his indignation." Now, this is over against all of those breakings into history that we saw, especially in the trumpets, the breakings into history of whispers of the wrath of God. There's a day coming when those who are outside of Christ, who belong to the other religion, who belong to the whole of the rest of humanity, who have not been identified with God in the Lord Jesus Christ, they will drink full strength the cup of the Lord's indignation, the cup of God's wrath. Notice, again, just like we have pointed out many times from 2 Thessalonians 1 verse 9, this is not separation from God. This is separation from God's grace. This is separation from being identified with Him and reconciled to Him. but it is wrath that comes from his presence forever. He, that is the one who is identified with the rest of the world, who has fallen for the unholy counterfeit trinity and their unholy counterfeit blessing and unholy counterfeit sacrament of identification with the world. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And this wrath is forever and this wrath is continual. There is no end and there are no breaks. The smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever. And they have no rest, day or night, who worship the beast in his image, whoever receives the mark of his name. And so if you fall for the counterfeit worship and the counterfeit identification, you suffer the fullness of the true wrath of God. And so the saints are not afraid of the wrath of the dragon, or of the sea beast, or of the earth beast, or of the whole of the world taken together. For they know that when they overcome by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they love not their life even unto death, then their death will usher them into the presence of the Lamb in glory. And their souls, which are alive, will reign with Him for a thousand years, until the day of the resurrection and the day of judgment and wrath, when they finally come into the fullness of their blessing forever in the resurrection. And so they have patience, or better translated in verse 12, endurance and perseverance. They keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. They live by faith and obedience, even if that means that rather than being identified with and approved of, and brought into the economy of the world, that this will often cause them to be hated and condemned and shut out. And yet they persevere in faith and they persevere in obedience. And they're not afraid to die. And that's how verse 13 concludes this section, with this encouragement not to be afraid to die. Don't be afraid to overcome by the blood of the Lamb. Don't be afraid to overcome by the word of His testimony, even if this means you die, because it's a blessed death. And I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, write, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. And this voice, I think, turns out to be the spirit. I don't think it's two different voices in verse 13. I think the second half of the verse identifies the speaker in the voice of the first half of the verse, yes, as the spirit, that they may rest from their labors and their works follow them. not only will they finally have rest from the difficulty of believing in Christ and obeying the commandments of God in a world that hates and opposes them for it, you'll have rest from that, but you'll also be rewarded. The works aren't lost. The works aren't meritorious. They're not good enough to deserve blessing from God. But because those works are done in the Lord, just as they die in the Lord, so they lived in the Lord. And so the good works of believers are rewarded because they were done in union with Christ. And they're rewarded on a principle of grace, not because you've done so well enough, so well. to deserve, or because you've done well enough to deserve a reward from God, but because, as Hebrews 6 says, God is not unjust to forget those labors that have been done, because they've been done in Christ, and He deserves, He is worthy, He has done well enough. And so the good that you do in this world, dear Christian, your works will follow you, even when you rest from your labors. You can't see into heaven, But you can hear into heaven the preaching of the Word of God as these three angels preach, as it were, these three parts of the message of the scripture. And as you hear the whole council of God preached by his servants, the angels in the various churches, to use the language of the seven letters earlier in the book, As you hear the whole counsel of God preached, you hear into heaven, so that you may live by faith and not by sight, and persevere in keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. The Lord give you to live by faith. to live by what you hear from the word, not to be identified, not to be intimidated or seduced by the world. Amen, let's pray. Father, thank you for this portion of your word. Thank you for giving us, to us, to hear it and consider it today in our family's worship. We pray that your spirit would preserve us in Christ and protect us both from the intimidation and the seduction of the counterfeit that all other men must worship if they are not yours in Christ. Grant that we would genuinely be yours in Christ we ask in his name. Amen.