Series on Revelation
II The Viewpoint
C Cycle Three, Seven Symbolic Histories
2 The Personages
f The Spirits
Text: 14:6-13
Introduction
Following the vision of the redeemed and the new song we have a vision of four voices. The first three speakers are identified as angels, the fourth is not. Clearly the first three are identifiable because John sees the angelic messengers who are speaking, but in the fourth instance he only hears the voice. Actually this Scripture together with the next section comprises another group of seven. First three angels, then the voice, then four angels. The first angels are simply announcing judgment while the second group bring the actual judgment in reaping the harvest. This harvest, as indicated in the Matthew 13:36-43, is the judgment at the end of the age, Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear. Thus the first three angels are identifying the weeds to be pulled up and burned. The voices are proclaiming the verdict regarding the vile and the villainous and the victory that is promised to those who endure.
I The Verdict
The verdict is found in verses 6 and 7, Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation, tribe, language and people. He said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.” The eternal gospel may sound like good news, but in this case it is not. When Jesus came declaring the fulfillment of God’s purpose in the kingdom of God, he said the kingdom of God has come near, “Repent.” John the Baptist preceded Jesus with the same message in Matthew 3:11 and 12, I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire. When Paul preached at Athens in Acts 17:29-31 he said, Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead. Thus the gospel comes first as an announcement of impending judgment and the necessity of repentance and that is what the angel is announcing here. It is God’s verdict. Of course the gospel also contains the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ, but to receive that, the world must first acknowledge its sin and repent.
II The Vile
The second angel exposes the vile world system in need of judgment in verse 8, A second angel followed and said, “Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great, which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.” Mounce calls Babylon “a symbol of the spirit of godlessness that in every age lures people away from the worship of the Creator.” Babylon is portrayed as a harlot or prostitute; an adulteress. They worshiped false gods. In Jeremiah 3:8 and 9 God speaks and says to His people, I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries. Yet I saw that her unfaithful sister Judah had no fear; she also went out and committed adultery. Because Israel’s immorality mattered so little to her, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood. In Revelation 2 Jesus is speaking to the church of Thyatira and he says, Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. In our time the adultery is not as obvious because we are not turning to gods of wood and stone but it is any time we turn from the living God to serve idols. Paul praises the church in Thessalonica in I Thessalonians 1:9 for turning from idols to serve the living and true God. We are not tempted to eat food offered to idols as were these early Christians, but we are tempted to serve many idols in our minds and hearts. Paul mentions many of these idols when recounting the works of the flesh in Galatians 5, immorality, impurity, hatred, discord, jealousy, rage, selfish ambition. dissensions, envy, drunkenness and gluttony, orgies and other such things. We can add dishonesty and doubt. Alexander MacLaren, carefully distinguished between temptation and trial. “Temptation conveys the idea of appealing to the worst part of man, with the wish that he may yield and do the wrong. Trial means an appeal to the better part of man, with the desire that he should stand. Temptation says, ‘Do this pleasant thing; do not be hindered by the fact that it is wrong.’ Trial says, ‘Do this right and noble thing; do not be hindered by the fact that it is painful.’” Satan tempts us to bring out the worst in us; God tests us to bring out the best in us. All this is done through the world system that surrounds us, and the angel announces that it is fallen.
III The Villainous
Our third angel announces the end of the villains and their followers in verses 9-11, A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name.” The beast and the false prophet mentioned in chapter 13 are Satan’s henchmen. The Devil is the “ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient,” and according to II Corinthians 4:4 he is, The god of this age (who) has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. If anything we are too likely to underestimate the scope of Satan’s activity through the antichrist, the false prophet and the world system as well as all the demonic beings that follow him. He challenged Jesus in the wilderness of temptation and he attacked the apostles in training. Jesus says to Peter after he says Jesus should not die, “Get behind me Satan.” We also read that Satan entered into Judas when he was betraying Jesus, most probably to guarantee success. That of course was the ultimate folly since Jesus’ betrayal and trial and crucifixion was the ultimate undoing of the Devil. He is mentioned often in the New Testament as the disrupter of the lives of Christians and of churches. Satan is an adversary but he is the ultimate adversary. A Christian Reformed missionary wrote, “In Buddhism, a thangka painting typically portrays the spinning wheel of life. Central to the painting is the circle of life, which has no beginning or end, with its endless reincarnations. Perhaps most ominous about the thangka is that the hands and feet of the devil grip the wheel from behind. It’s obvious who is in control of such a spinning history of futility.” But then he writes, “In my office I have a painting by a Christian from Tibet who created a very different thangka. In which the wheel of life has been invaded by Christ’s incarnation and transcended by Christ’s resurrection. The hands and feet of the devil are broken free from the wheel because Christ disarmed ‘the powers and authorities” and “made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.’” We are not helpless, but Paul warns believers in Ephesians 6:11-13, Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. The final defeat is set forth in our text, “And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever.”
IV The Victory
Our text ends in verses 12 and 13 with the reminder that those who persevere are rewarded, This calls for patient endurance on the part of the saints who obey God’s commandments and remain faithful to Jesus. Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.” We must remember that the first readers of this book were in the heat of battle. They were suffering and being martyred for their faith. This text is telling them that although they are still suffering, the triumph of the crucified and His own in the vision in verses 1-5 will be their victory as well. And there John wrote, And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. Verses 12 and 13 are telling those in the fight that the same blessedness awaits them as those who they saw in the vision. They are part of that symbolic number of 144,000 that includes all the redeemed. In this era of what we call “easy beiievism,” the emphasis seems to be placed mostly on you and what you have to gain. A decision seems to be the climax of the Christian experience. However a decision is the commencement of the Christian life, after that we have persevere, persevere, persevere. Jesus made this very clear, although modern evangelists seem to omit it. In Mark 8:34-38 we read the words of Jesus calling men into the kingdom, Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”
Dr. John P. Clark's Sermons & Writings 