Intro / Review:
5 Incentives to Receive Christ Today. (Revelation 14)
God Keeps His WORD (Rev 14:1-5)
God Loves you. (Rev 14:6-7)
Earthly Things Will FAIL(Rev 14:8)
The Alternative is HORRIFIC(Rev 14:9-11)
You Can Face DEATHwithout Fear. (Rev 14:12-13)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:37-00:41
Open up your Bibles with me, please, to Revelation chapter 14.
00:41-00:54
We are in a sermon series called "Coming Soon." We're in Revelation chapters 12, 13, and 14, and there's sort of a flashback leading up to the future.
00:55-01:12
We saw in chapter 12, John saw a vision, and the gist of that vision was Satan has always waged war on Israel and on Christ, And at some point in the future, Satan and his angels are going to battle Michael, the archangel and his angels, and Satan is going to be thrown down to the earth.
01:12-01:19
And during the tribulation, this upcoming seven-year period, is going to usher in the return of Jesus Christ.
01:20-01:25
Satan is going to wage war on God's people, especially Israel, like never before.
01:25-01:32
Chapter 13, last week, describes two men that Satan is going to use to lead the assault on earth.
01:32-02:04
the Antichrist or the beast and the false prophet another beast that John saw in these visions the false prophet is going to force the world to worship the Antichrist through deception and false signs and through controlling the economy we talked about that last week so chapters 12 and 13 they sort of talk about what Satan is doing and I'm very thankful to get to Revelation 14 now again we're going to talk about what God is doing.
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Several years ago at the church which I served previously, I got a phone call.
02:11-02:36
The administrator said, "Hey, there's a todd online too that wants to talk to a pastor." So I picked up the call and I said, "How can I help you?" And he said, "I'm going to kill myself." And I just wanted to call a church and just make sure that I didn't go straight to hell if I did that because I heard that if you commit suicide, you go straight to hell and I just wanted to be sure before I did that.
02:36-02:45
I said, "How'd you get this number?" And he said, "I just opened up the phone book and went to the yellow pages." That shows you how many years ago this happened.
02:45-02:51
I'm like, "You have a phone book?" But he went to the phone book, went to the yellow pages, and just randomly picked a church.
02:51-03:20
And he said, "I just wanted to be sure I wasn't going straight to hell if I committed suicide." I said, "Before we talk about that, let me ask you a question." I said, "Have you received the salvation that God offers in Jesus Christ?" And he said, "I don't know." I said, "You don't know?" He goes, "No, I don't know." I said, "So you want to jump into eternity not knowing where you're going to land?" And he said, "You should work for Suicide Hotlines." Well, I ended up meeting with the guy.
03:20-03:22
It's absolutely a crazy thing.
03:22-03:25
Here, when I met the guy, I recognized him immediately.
03:25-03:29
I worked with him at a little greasy spoon diner when I was 15.
03:30-03:33
I wasn't old enough to drive yet, but there was a little greasy spoon I could walk and I did dishes.
03:34-03:36
And I worked with this guy.
03:36-03:38
And it's just like, what the heck?
03:38-03:41
There's a lot more of the story that I'm not going to bore you with this morning.
03:41-03:44
But I just wanted to point out this.
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You know, when you talk about the gospel, when you talk about matters of eternity, there's always a level of urgency, right?
03:52-04:03
But when you have a guy say, "I don't know if I know the Lord, but I'm about to kill myself," that really cranked up the level of urgency in that conversation, right?
04:04-04:35
I couldn't just read him some answer out of a book, like, "Well, here's what John Piper says about that, and have a nice day." Like, there's real urgency here, because this is a life-and-death thing, and while this guy was telling me, "Yeah, I'm about to kill myself, I have this health condition and my, you know, girlfriend left me or what..." I'm thinking to myself, the whole time he's talking, I'm like, "I gotta get this guy's attention." I gotta, over the phone, I gotta shake some sense into this guy.
04:35-04:38
And that's exactly what Revelation chapter 14 is about.
04:38-04:49
The earth at this point had seen horrors, ecological disasters and demonic attack, And at this point we saw Revelation 13, the line in the sand has been drawn.
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You're either going to receive the mark of the beast and be able to buy and sell and worship the beast or, or you're marked for death from the beast.
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The line in the sand has been drawn.
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Jesus Christ is in heaven one step away from coming back to the earth.
05:06-05:12
So to say that when we get to Revelation chapter 14, there's a real sense of urgency, that's, that's an understatement.
05:12-05:29
Because if you're alive at this point in these events and you've not yet aligned with the beast, but you're thinking about it, because you know, man, it'd be sure easier to align with Him, because I can buy and sell and I don't have to worry.
05:30-05:33
Man, it sure would be easy to just cash in with the beast.
05:34-05:35
You need to listen to this message.
05:36-06:35
And if you're sitting here today or listening to this on the podcast later, and you haven't received Christ, Oh, you've been going to church and you haven't really been opposed to spiritual things, but you haven't really been on fire embracing Jesus Christ You really need to listen if you're saying, you know, I haven't I I'm not one of these crazy You know radical followers of Jesus, but you know pastor Jeff give me one good reason that I should be give me one good reason that I should abandon Everything turn from my sin and receive Jesus Christ and allow him to transform me Give me one good reason I should do that and I'll do you better than that. I'll give you five That's your outline today and you're going to see these right in the text But these are five incentives to receive Jesus Christ today For the people that are going to be living during this age and that might be some of you Some of you sitting right here today on the fence Lukewarm. Five incentives to receive Christ today.
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Here's the first one. God keeps his word.
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God keeps his word. Look at the first five verses.
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John says, "Then I looked and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads.
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Then I heard a voice from heaven, like the roar of many waters, and like the sound of loud thunder.
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The voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps.
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They were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders.
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No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth.
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It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins.
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It is these who follow the Lamb wherever He goes.
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They've been redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb.
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And in their mouths, no lie was found, for they are lameless." The Lamb is on Mount Zion in this vision.
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Psalm chapter 2 verses 6-9.
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The Lamb on Mount Zion.
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Some people want to say, "Well, this is a picture of heaven and this is the heavenly Mount Zion." No, this is earthly Mount Zion.
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He is in Israel.
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And just as the unbelievers received the mark of the beast, these 144,000 received the mark of God.
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We talked about them in Revelation chapter 7.
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12,000 men from each of the tribes of Israel that God sealed and protected to carry out the work of evangelism during the tribulation.
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Now, people ask me all the time, can people get saved during the tribulation?
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And the answer is, there's never a period in history in which more people will be saved.
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But, most of the people who are saved during the tribulation will be killed for their faith.
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They'll be executed, but not this group.
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Every one of these 144,000 are going to survive.
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And they join the heavenly song of redemption.
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Do you notice it says, "The voice I heard was like the sound of harpists." What does that mean?
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He heard voices, but that was John's way of saying it sounded musical, the worship.
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And only these 144,000 were able to learn this song.
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Why were they the only ones able to learn this song?
09:04-09:12
I think it's because they served God during the absolute worst time of persecution and martyrdom in history.
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They not only praised Jesus Christ with this song, but they praised him with their lives.
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Did you see that?
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It says in verse 4, "They have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins.
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They follow the Lamb." During the tribulation, sexual sin is going to be more out of control than ever.
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And I had a whole thing I was going to talk about with that, but do I really need to sell anybody on that?
09:34-09:37
Aren't we getting a preview of that right now?
09:37-09:38
Aren't we just seeing a preview?
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The sexual perversion daily just gets worse and worse and worse.
09:44-09:46
How bad do you think it's going to be at this point?
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They're the morally pure.
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And some people say, well, it doesn't necessarily mean they weren't married.
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It just says they didn't defile themselves with women and you can be married and marriage isn't a defilement.
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And then some of these guys were probably married.
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And I don't I don't think so, because verse four says that they're virgins.
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If you read the Bible straightforwardly, you know, these are sexually pure men who didn't get married and didn't mess around with women at all.
10:16-10:17
They're the first fruits.
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It says, verse four, "The first fruits for God and the Lamb," meaning of everyone being saved in Israel.
10:24-10:26
This group is going to be the first fruits of that.
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They're going to be the down payment of salvation.
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Blameless people, not sinless people.
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No one's sinless.
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But in this day of worldwide falsehood, deception, these people are going to stand out.
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And that's really what blameless means.
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We're called to be blameless, by the way.
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That doesn't mean perfect.
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None of us are perfect.
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Blameless means this.
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If somebody's going to bring accusations against you, they don't have a leg to stand on.
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That's what it means to be blameless.
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Like, okay, I see all this stuff, Jeff, but what's the point?
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Here's the point.
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God keeps his promises.
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Because God's people are going to be attacked like never before.
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But you see back in chapter seven, God promised these 144,000 that they were sealed and they were protected.
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Nothing's going to touch them.
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And here, John gets a vision in Revelation 14.
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There they are in Mount Zion with the lamb.
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And the point is this, God kept his promise.
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Here they are, every one of them.
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There wasn't 143,999.
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Every single one of them, just as God promised.
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And you know, that's something that God and Satan have in common, by the way.
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Something God and Satan have in common is they both make promises.
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Satan, sin, promises pleasure and satisfaction and ease and comfort and control.
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And you know that's why we buy in.
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But it's deceptive.
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It's a trap.
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Because sin always takes us to shame.
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It always takes us to addiction of some type.
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Ultimately it leads to death.
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While God's promises are always and ultimately for our good.
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And I would just say this.
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Imagine if on your cell phone right now, you had the ability to call somebody that's in hell.
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And you had the ability to talk to them for five minutes.
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And ask them, you know, your life on earth, you wanted nothing to do with your Creator and you just lived for your sin and for your pleasure and for whatever the heck you wanted out of life, that's all you lived for on the earth. And then I want you to ask them, was it worth it? What do you think they would say? But on the other hand, if we had a phone that could call into heaven, I'm sure you could think of a list of people you'd want to talk to right now, right man? But imagine if you could talk to someone in heaven right now and say, you know what, in your life you sacrificed and you did without and you spent so much time serving in the church and being involved in small groups and out in your community and and studying God's Word. You spent so much time and there was so much hardship in your life but you were still so dedicated to Jesus Christ. Do you think it was worth it? What do you think they would say? Obviously. But the point with 144,000 is just simply this. God keeps His Word. He keeps His Word and that's an incentive to receive Christ today. But secondly, here's another one. God loves you. God loves you. I couldn't think of a different way to word this. Then I thought about the Timur and I thought, you know, maybe that's something we don't hear enough. Especially going through this portion of Revelation. But look at verses 6 and 7. He says, "Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. And he said with a loud voice, "Fear God and give him glory because the hour of his judgment has come and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water." Okay, so obviously the vision shifts here and we're back to earth. And you're going to see here in these next few verses, there's three angels that bring messages to those who are on the earth. You're like, "Well, I saw these verses you just read, Pastor Jeff, and you said God loves you, but I sure didn't see that in those verses. But this is just another example of God's love and grace because at this point in the tribulation the gospel has been proclaimed to the unsaved by the hundred and forty four thousand and people that come to the Lord through their ministry and the two witnesses remember them Revelation chapter 11 and this is wild stuff here because the Great Commission was given to man but at this point in history the conditions are so extreme that the gospel proclamation calls for a new method. God sends this angel because God is making absolutely sure that everybody hears the gospel message. God is being absolutely sure that every last person on the earth has a chance to repent and he sends this angel to give a two-part sermon, a two-point sermon that basically says, point one, fear and worship God. Point two, time is running out. Interestingly, you might want to circle the word gospel because this is the last time that word's used in the Bible. That's sort of chilling because what that means is for a lot of people, and I would think for most people still alive on the earth in this day, this is the last opportunity they have. Because of the timeline, because of what's coming, God is making absolute, absolutely sure every single person on the earth hears the gospel. So he sends an angel to proclaim it. We've discussed this many times throughout Revelation but if you see nothing else, if you see nothing else in the book of Revelation you have to see a God who never stopped pursuing people all the way to the end. If I were to ask you what's the book of Revelation about most people would say well Revelation is about God's judgment and that's true but I would also say that Revelation is about God's work of reaching people before the final judgment all through the book.
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I mean, seriously, at what point seeing everything that's going on, at what point would you and I said, you know what, forget it, I'm done with them.
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I'm done.
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I am done.
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They've heard it and they're just getting worse.
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That's not God.
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God says, I'm going to, I'm going to give them another chance.
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And this time I'm going to, I'm going to send an angel to proclaim the eternal gospel.
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And you see, that's good news is hear me no matter what you've done.
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God loves you.
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And he wants a relationship with no matter what you've done.
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And I've talked to so many people and say, "Oh yeah, Pastor Jeff, you know, I thought about getting right with God, but I really did some bad things and I messed up my life so bad." And I've just talked to so many people that think they've sinned so bad that they've somehow disqualified themselves from God's love.
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But the death of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, both proved His love for you and provided the way for you to have that relationship.
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And you see, that's the good news of the gospel.
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Salvation is not based on what you do.
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Your salvation is based on what He did.
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Your sin, whatever you've done, it's not more powerful than the blood of Jesus Christ.
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It's not.
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You did not commit a sin that is so heinous that the blood of Jesus Christ can't forgive it 'cause God loves you.
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Your salvation is not based on what you do.
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It's based on what He has done.
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And you don't keep your salvation.
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You don't maintain your salvation by what you do.
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That's on God too.
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And that is such good news because if salvation was based on me, I'd lose it daily, countless times a day because I fail.
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But the reality is salvation is based on what God has done for you and He never fails.
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That's security.
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The five incentives to receive Christ today, the first one is this, God keeps His word.
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Secondly, God loves you.
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And thirdly, earthly things will fail.
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things will fail. Look at verse 8. Okay, so God during the tribulation sends an angel. Well, how do we know that's during the tribulation? Well, because it says he's proclaiming to those who dwell on the earth. God sends another angel. Verse 8 says, "Another angel, a second, followed saying, 'Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality. It seems like for the most part the first angel is ignored. This angel's following bringing the bad news. Like well what's Babylon? Babylon is the name for the Antichrist's Empire. It's a symbol of rebellion against God. The first Babylon was built clear back in Genesis chapters 10 and 11 by a guy named Nimrod.
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Do you know that name was in the Bible? That had to have been tough for him. Like became an insult. But he built the Tower of Babel. And what was his purpose in building the Tower of Babel? He wanted to unite the world politically and religiously. One center. God says, "Build the earth." And he's like, "No. Right here.
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We're establishing our own kingdom. We're establishing our own empire." And that was the first Babylon. And you see at the end of the world, that's going to happen again. The Antichrist is going to say, "No, I'm establishing my political and religious empire right here everything right here we're going to talk all about that in chapters 18 and 19 by the way but the whole world look at this picture okay so you have Babylon this religious political empire and described as she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality I'm not going to go into detail but you understand that picture right the whole world is it's a it's a crass picture just being honest The whole world is getting drunk and partying with this woman.
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And this angel shows up to say, "Hey, this empire is going down." It's going down because earthly things are going to fail.
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Even this incredible-looking empire that's coming, fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great.
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By the way, that thing that you love more than God, someday that's going to be ancient history too.
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You know, when people refuse to come to Jesus Christ, When you share the gospel or invite the church or the small group or whatever, and somebody's completely not interested, it's always for the same reason.
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It always is. People refuse to come to Christ, it's always the same reason.
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It's because they prefer their sin over Jesus. That's why.
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Whether it's sexual sin, like pornography, or being involved in a relationship they know they shouldn't be involved in.
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Maybe it's greed, maybe it's addiction, maybe it's selfishness.
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All of those things are going down.
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All of those things are going to crash down around you and ruin your life now.
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And it's going to cause you to forfeit eternity in heaven because no one has ever ultimately benefited from sin.
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Nobody, nobody.
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Not in the short term, not in the long term.
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There's nobody that can stand up and give testimony and say, "You know what?
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I saw what God said.
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I knew what I should have done, but I decided I was gonna do it my own way.
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I decided, you know, my sin, my selfishness, I'm gonna live for me, and it was awesome.
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You're not gonna hear that.
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Today's the day to repent, to turn from your house of cards Babylon, the unshakable kingdom of Jesus Christ.
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Because this angel reminds these people in the future and tells us today that thing that you're loving more than God, it's going down.
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Earthly things fail.
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That's another incentive.
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Fourthly, jot this down.
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Fourth incentive is the alternative is horrific.
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Like, well, I hear what you're saying, Pastor Jeff, but I'm just not interested.
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I'm just really not interested.
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Well, look at verses nine through 11.
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And another angel, a third, followed them saying with a loud voice, if anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath for full strength into the cup of his anger.
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And he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb.
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And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night.
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These worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.
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This third angel proclaims the consequences for following the Antichrist, which was shown by receiving the mark of the beast.
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At this point in Revelation, you know, the beast is threatened, right?
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Hey, if you want to buy or sell, you're going to come through me.
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If you refuse to worship me, worship the image, you're going to die.
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So he's threatened, but this penalty is even worse.
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And if there's a theme verse that everybody who comes to Christ must preach throughout the tribulation, it's this verse, Matthew 10, 28, jot that down.
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where Jesus said, "And do not fear those who kill the body, that cannot kill the soul.
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Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." This angel reminds us that if someone chooses to drink the cup of rebellion, he's also going to have to drink the cup of God's wrath.
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Did you see that?
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Verse 10, look at this.
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"He will drink the wine of God's wrath for full strength into the cup of his anger." Full strength.
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In other words, not diluted.
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about three weeks two or three weeks ago they're cleaning up the house and you know I'm like I'll clean the bathroom I know applause right no so I'm grabbing the supplies out of the closet and I grabbed this bottle of stuff this cleaner and I start to spray the cleaner in the bathroom and as soon as I took that first spray I about choked oh it's about that time I hear Aaron holler from the next room oh by the way if you're using this spray in the bottle that He's diluted.
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It's like you're gonna put one drop of that in like 10 gallons of water.
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People were complimenting how our bathroom smelled from Westmoreland County because it wasn't diluted.
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But you see here, God's wrath will not be diluted but poured full strength.
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What does that mean?
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Well, in the past, God's wrath was always tempered with mercy.
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And when you get to these last events in Revelation, mercy's over, it's done.
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God's like, I have given you every single chance to repent, even sending an angel flying over your heads telling you to receive the gospel.
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Mercy's over.
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And here we have yet another passage of Scripture that teaches that hell is eternal.
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And there have always been unsaved critics and skeptics that think that's fairy tale stuff, and that doesn't bother me.
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But the thing that does bother me is seeing the trend of more and more and more churches denying what the Scripture very plainly teaches about hell.
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"Oh, it's not eternal, it's temporary, it doesn't exist, it's just a scare tactic." Note this verse down, Matthew 25, 46.
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In that verse, you can look this up later, in that verse Jesus said, "Hell lasts as long as heaven." The same word "eternal" in the Greek.
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I've never met anybody that says, "You know, I think heaven's temporary, I think you go there for a while, and then you go somewhere else, and you stop existing." I've never met that guy.
25:13-25:20
Interestingly, Jesus used the same word "eternal" to describe heaven as he uses to describe hell, and people want to deny that hell is eternal.
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But here again in Revelation, this angel reminds us the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever and they have no rest day or night.
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This is the fate of all believers, all unbelievers, all believers in the beast.
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This is the fate of all unbelievers in Jesus Christ, however.
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If unbelievers in the past or unbelievers in our day lived during the days of the beast, they'd just receive the mark of death.
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The Bible says you need to consider the cost of following Jesus, but this angel reminds us that we need to consider the cost of not following.
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The alternative is horrific.
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And number five, another incentive, follow Jesus Christ today to receive Jesus Christ today.
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Number five is you can face death without fear.
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You can face death without fear.
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Look at verses 12 and 13.
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It says, "Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus." And I heard a voice from heaven saying, "Write this, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.
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Blessed indeed says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them." So in the midst of this judgment, John gives sort of an interlude here, and is told to write down this reminder to assure believers of who they are, and encourage them to persevere.
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But I want you to look especially at verse 12.
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Here is a call for the endurance of the saints.
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Those who... I want you to see here, I want you to see this.
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This is how saints are defined according to God's Word.
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They do two things. Do you see it?
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First of all, those who say it out loud, "Keep the commandments of God," right?
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What's the second thing? Say it. "Faith in Jesus." Do you see both of those?
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Because most people, most Christians that I talk to, seem to go to extreme ends and totally miss the biblical view of what it means to be a saint or a follower of Jesus.
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You have one side that says, "You're saved by good works. You've got to do good.
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You've got to do good works. You have to do good works and that's how you're saved." While the other side says, "Look, all you need is faith." Works are not important and even encouraging works is legalism.
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If you're encouraging people to work for the Lord, you're being legalistic. Shame on you.
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Well, the reality, as we've already discussed, you cannot earn or keep your salvation by keeping the commandments.
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It is by faith alone.
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But faith is never alone.
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You need to see faith in works like fire and smoke.
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You don't have smoke alone, but you never have a fire without smoke either.
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And here's how Jesus put it.
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How does faith and keeping the commandments, how does that gel?
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Here's how Jesus put it in John 14, 21.
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It doesn't get any more straightforward than this.
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Jesus said, "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me." Do you love Jesus? Do you love Jesus?
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Like, "Yeah, I love Jesus!" Well, Jesus said if you do, you keep his word and you keep his commandments.
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And you can make that backwards too.
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Like, do you keep the commandments of Jesus?
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Like, "Nah." Okay, well then you don't love Jesus, according to him.
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I'm like, are you diligent about keeping God's word and striving to live the kind of life that God's called his people to live?
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Like, yeah, that is the...
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I feel, I feel pastor Jeff, but that's my passion is to always try to grow and to do what the Word of God has to say.
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Well, that's evidence that you love Jesus.
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Faith without works is dead.
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And so are works without faith, just as death.
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Alright, that part was bonus. Here's what I wanted to say about that.
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Believers during the tribulation, like all true believers, are going to persevere.
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And those who die in the Lord, look at this.
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Those who die in the Lord receive, verse 13, rest and reward.
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They may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them." There's nothing to fear in death if you're a believer in Christ.
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Nothing to fear.
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Death is just a glorious graduation ceremony for you.
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And the reward? The reward is according to your labor, not the apparent fruit of your labor.
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The fruit of your labor might come long after you're gone.
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So if you're sitting here today and you're like, "Yeah, Pastor Jeff, I see what that's saying, but I'm going to be honest with you.
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I'm no Francis Chan, I'm no Charles Spurgeon, I'm no John Piper, I'm not really making this huge impact.
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I'm just sort of faithfully serving the Lord in this little church, and I teach the kids, and I lead a small group.
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I don't really see the impact. Well, you don't know the impact that's going to come from the people that you're impacting.
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Some of our labors, think about this, might actually bear fruit after the rapture.
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Some of our labors might actually bear fruit during the tribulation.
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Urgency. There are so many incentives to receive Jesus Christ today.
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In church, there are so many incentives to serve Jesus Christ today.
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Urgency.
Small Group Discussion
Read Revelation 12
GROUP
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
For what purpose did God send the 3 angels (v6-11)? What does this tell you about God?
Some people believe “you must keep the commandments” to be saved, while others believe that it is legalism to even encourage “obedience to the commandments”. The latter would say “faith in Jesus is all that matters”, not obedience to God and God’s Word.
Read verse 12 carefully, considering the context.
How does “keeping the commandments” and having “faith in Jesus” seem to coexist?
How do you reconcile the two being side by side in this verse?
BREAKOUT
Pray for one another. Pray for the expansion at HBC - for God to provide the funds and the workers!