The Three Angels' Proclamations - Revelation 14:6-13
Revelation 14:6-13 · Vern Peterman · Sep 6, 2009
Revelation (2009), No. 36
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926142425575

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, this is the last part of Revelation chapter 14. We call it verses 6-13, the Three Angels Proclamations. And one of the things we keep coming to with the book of Revelation is John is an amazingly consistent writer. He chooses his words carefully. Unlike Paul, he doesn't write in complexity. Paul wrote in complexity. Paul would use three and four part compound words. Paul would sometimes write in long convoluted sentences.

We've given the example in Ephesians chapter 1 verses 3 through 14, and the Greek is all one sentence. It is the longest sentence in any part of ancient or modern Greek literature. John, however, writes simply, he writes consistently, and we'll find that's true here in this passage that we're about to take a look at here. Revelation 14, starting with verse 6. And let me read that for you here.

And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, in every nation and tribe and tongue and people. And he said, with a loud voice, fear God and give him glory because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heaven and earth and sea and springs of waters." So John's doing something really remarkable.

What do you think would be the response if today over this Labor Day weekend, let's say just starting at noontime today through, just to pick a time, noontime tomorrow for the next 24 hours beginning at noon. What if there was a gospel angel that was up there kind of at bird flight or cloud level, going about the earth and giving people gospels and the gospel and giving people warnings.

What do you think would be the response? Think that might show up on the evening news? Do you think they might have a special, you know, news break? Suspending the regular programming in order to get... What do you think would happen? Initially, I think it would be really in awe. And afterwards, what an annoyance. There would be a lot of complaints. The difficulty is where do they complain? Now, where do they complain would be a real question mark. I'm sure lawyers would be consulted. Shoot it down? Shoot it down, yes. We need to get the Air Force involved here. You would have various atheist organizations protesting and saying that this is somehow unconstitutional.

Yes, you can imagine a number of different protests coming about. It would be talked about for weeks, perhaps even longer than Michael Jackson's passing. Who knows? But I'm sure it would be some extraordinary event. Anyway, you can imagine what that's like.

John says here another angel. One of the things, well a couple things we point out from previous times, this Angolos, we get our, for example, we say Los Angeles, which is a real distortion of the Spanish Los Angeles, right? But that's from the angels, and that's the derivation or the source for this word here. Angolos in the Greek is a messenger. Angels are given various assignments throughout scripture, but in this case most definitely a messenger.

Isn't he? He's giving a message essentially for people to turn to the Lord. Hey, this is your last chance. It's going to get bad after this, right? Not that it hasn't been bad, but it's going to get really bad. Yes? It's going to get hot. Oh, it's going to get hot. Yes, it will get that.

Something else, and usually angels as we see them in scripture, most of the time they're appearing to individuals or smaller groups. Let's take for example in Christ's first coming, an angel appeared to Mary, right? So there was an example of just appearing to one person. The angel and a group of angels appeared to the shepherds. By the way, it doesn't say the angels were singing.

It says they were saying. So they appear to a group of shepherds. We don't know how many shepherds, but there is a group. Here is an instance that appears to be unusual. An angel is talking to everybody. While the word angelos is very clear, it's an angel. He's definitely carrying a message, so that all fits. What is different is he's taught everybody on the planet with this. That's something different. Angels are not usually given that.

The other thing that doesn't come across in English, we pointed out before, is that in the Greek there's another of the same kind and another of a different kind. We have that come across in our language from the heteros, another of a different kind. For example, we have a term heterosexual. It's not the same gender, but a different gender. So this is heterost, it means different kind.

This is another of the same kind. So last week's handout, we pointed that out. This angel is not demonic, not a fallen angel. He has a different assignment than the others, but he's of the same kind. So that's interesting. Having a different assignment doesn't make you a different kind. Why is this angel of the same kind? Yeah, he is sent by God. He is one who is obedient to the Lord and under the Lord's command, not a fallen angel who would be another of a different kind, right? So this is very consistent here.

Flying in mid-heaven is something we see in the text box three times in Revelation. This is the second or middle of those three occurrences. Revelation 8, 14, and 19. So we're basically going to see it roughly earlier in the middle here and towards the very end. We're going to see that flying in mid-heaven.

And remember we also said earlier in our study there are three heavens. in the Bible. The one is the heaven that's atmospheric, and that's basically what this is talking about. There's the astronomical or stellar heavens, and then there's the heaven where God dwells. So this is the lower of those two, basically the atmospheric heaven, where birds fly, where clouds float, those kind of things. So here's this angel, and so this angel just kind of pops through and says, Hi, I want to tell you about Colgate-Palmolive products. I want to tell you about some things that Procter & Gamble sells, right?

No. This angel's coming across with what? What kind of message? What's this angel saying? It's a warning, right? It is a warning with good intent. I think that sometimes when we hear warning there's a tendency to associate a negative sentiment or feeling with it, but this is definitely of good intent. Anybody ever have a situation where they appreciate a warning? Watch out for this because, you know, like you're driving down the road and you see a sign that says bridge out. You'd probably appreciate the warning instead of discovering the reality for yourself. A warning may be something you look at and go, ugh, but on the other hand, it's a good thing. What's that? Caution! Haunt! Rather than getting burned and discovering, oh heavens, I wish I had a warning, you find that out. Let's take a look at the top of page 2 here. So this heavenly messenger, this angel, has an eternal gospel. Now, when we say the word gospel, what does gospel mean? A lot of times it gets lost in the meaning of the word.

Yeah. Gospel is basically good news. Good news. That's the bottom line message here. The gospel is good news. A gospel angel is telling good news even though it's wrapped around a warning. It's basically good news. Look, there's bad news coming, but you can be safe. It's not too late. If you'll listen and respond right now, it's good news. There's some bad things coming down the line. But this is really good news, I've got to tell you.

Let's think of something else. When you and I have an opportunity to tell someone the gospel, the good news of how they can be saved, we speak from personally experiencing the salvation, and we testify to that personally. Here's something interesting. Is this angel saying Is this angel saved? From what? From what? That's a good question. Are any angels saved?

No. Essentially, you'll have angels that will be around forever. All angels, like human beings, are spiritual beings. But interestingly enough, from anything that scripture describes, from anything that scripture describes, Human beings are the only ones that have the opportunity to be saved. Angels don't, from anything that's revealed to us, don't seem to have the opportunity to be saved. So this angel will spend eternity with the Lord, being obedient to the Lord. and being part of the Lord's angel army, if you will, but the angel isn't saved, that is, once having fallen, been brought back.

Yeah. But, like we talked about once before, they at some point in time did have the ability to make a choice. Yes, that's correct. They were given, as we are, they were given a window of opportunity. It appears from everything that scripture lays out for us, that that window of opportunity was presented to them And then the window of opportunity was ended.

Was that true of the fallen angel? Yeah, in other words, the fallen angel, there's no evidence that once having made that choice, that they have a choice to say, no, I changed my mind, I'm going back. It's real interesting that the fallen angels appear to have been locked in on their decision.

When the demons meet Jesus on the shores of Galilee, the book of Matthew says that the demons say, you're not ready to torture us yet, are you? They're afraid of that. But they don't come to Jesus and say, Jesus have mercy, save me. They know that their decision is locked in. Locked in.

So here is a gospel angel telling the gospel But while that's his assignment, and he's doing what the Lord wants, it is not something that he can testify personally to. Isn't that interesting? So that's something where we have a different perspective on the gospel than the angels do. Because they're not saved in the sense of having been brought back from a place of being lost.

They're certainly not condemned. No. They will be in the heavens. Yes. They will spend eternity with the Lord. But they haven't been brought back from a point of being lost. And that's something interesting. You go through both the Old and New Testaments and there's this picture of people being lost and then brought back. Some of the places that comes out.

Jesus said in Matthew 10 and 15. In Matthew 10 he says to the disciples that are going out two by two, I'm sending you only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, so that they might be found. Chapter 15 of Matthew, I am sent, Jesus says, only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Jesus tells the story of leaving the 99 to go get the one that was lost.

So there is this redemption, this bringing back from a state of lostness that's uniquely something that's been presented to us as humans. Ephesians 3.10 says that the angels learn about God's grace by looking to us for a saving.

Isn't that interesting? You as you walk around are angel college. They're studying you. God says you want to learn about my grace and my character? Look at what I did with those people. And so the angels are in a learning mode from the outside. We are in a learning mode from the inside, having experienced God's grace personally. The lost angels, initially, by their own choice, wanted to be like God.

And because of that, they'll suffer Punishment, or will they not? Yes, they will. And what's interesting, Jesus said that the lake of fire was prepared, that's perfect tense, in other words it's completed past action, ongoing results in the future, prepared for Satan and his angels. That was the original preparation at that point in the past. Yes?

If the King of Tyre is a picture of Satan, which people feel that it is, it doesn't say that he actually made the decision not to follow God, but it did say that something was found in him, right? So in other words, he indirectly made the decision to do something that was not in accordance with God's will. That's right. He decided, I'm going to step outside of God is the One. Angels like ourselves are spiritual beings, but created by God. They are God's creation. Any lack of recognition of that is a falsehood.

I choose not to follow you. He indirectly did not follow him through the actions that he took, correct? Yeah, it's interesting. It is not presented as if he stood God nose to nose, so to speak. He said, I'm doing this. He basically made his own determination in his heart and off he went. Then we get here and continue on page 2 there of our handout.

Yeah. We think about that. The problem is that they didn't believe God. Do you think that's the case? Does that seem to ring true? Faith is belief. So if you come to God through faith, you also come to God through belief. And so if you have false belief, or Mike Doyle always says, you know, faith has an object. And so if you have faith in a different object other than God...

There's always the question, where am I going to put my faith and trust and confidence? Where? Is it in God? And so we have various people on the planet, I'm going to put my faith and trust and confidence in my intellect, in my bank account, in what people think of me, all sorts of things. People can put their faith and trust and confidence in lots of different things, but every alternative apart from the Lord, that's a belief problem, isn't it? That's a faith problem.

We see again, those who dwell on the earth is the specific to the tribulation phrase. We reference here lesson 33 of the Revelation series from August, a couple weeks back here, page 7. What's slightly different in this verse is that a different but synonymous word is used in this specific verse that is used, then is used elsewhere in Revelation, but the basic meaning is the same.

Those who dwell on the earth. is a phrase that applies only during the tribulation period to those who are not saved. Isn't it interesting? It's not used of those who are on the earth but saved, but it's used of those who are unsaved, but living on the earth during the tribulation period. It is used of those whose life and security and perspective are locked onto planet earth.

Then we have the phrase peoples and tribes and tongues and nations with slight variation used in these various passages we have listed from Revelation chapter 5 all the way into chapter 17. This is the fourth of those occurrences. This is another one of those key phrases indicative of the tribulation period.

All the categories of humanity are included. What's amazing is that the angel assigned to preach this eternal gospel is carrying it to all of humanity. No group of people, no language is accepted. All the people are included in this message. What's curious is how does this get across? It must be practically miraculous. Yes? Isn't that similar to what happened at Pentecost? There you go. This is a miraculous occurrence that the gospel angel says what he says and everybody listening hears and understands in the language that they speak.

We have these ladies from Uganda here. They speak Lugandan. Ida, the mother, understands a few other African languages and, interestingly enough, has spent some time in Germany as well. But, looking through this, I think about Uganda alone has over 500 languages and dialects.

So all sorts of variations. So this gospel angel is not totally just doing something that's external. That is, it isn't just cranking out something in a specific language, hoping that everybody gets it. But all the languages hear what they need to hear in their own language.

So this is a miraculous occurrence. A comparison with Pentecost is a good one. It also has to do with the sovereignty of God because God was the one who created all these different languages at the Tower of Babel so that people would not be able to understand each other and be able to conglomerate as a unit like we are today where the whole world is full. So he's sovereign over that.

Yeah, God is able to confound the languages so that people are speaking all these different languages. And the number keeps rising. Earlier I heard 4,000 languages, now I'm hearing 6. But God is able to make these languages differentiate and spread into different language groups and different dialects.

And he is also able to reach around that and communicate to all these people in whatever language they think and speak in. It's not just around the world. Right here in Aurora, my school district services 90 different languages. Isn't that something? 90 different languages. And so imagine, here's the Gospel Angel going over Aurora and all these different languages and people are hearing it. Yes, yeah. Amazing stuff. Yeah? You said that this is convention specific to the sun, say. Yes. And how do you support that?

Okay, those who dwell on the earth, one of the things we're going to be looking at is those who dwell on the earth get sent to the lake of fire. Those who dwell on the earth are the ones that take the mark. In other words, if you start looking at the those who dwell on the earth phrase, and looking at each context, it points it out as being those who are not saved living during tribulation In other words, basically what you see, if you start going through the various contexts, those who dwell on the earth describes those who are unsaved. And one of the reasons was because that converted people who received the mark.

That's only one of the points. Matter of fact, we didn't go through it, we want to do it in this August 16th thing, so I have the detail there. But yes, it's definitely connected with those who dwell on the earth as being the unsaved during the tribulation period. I would say this is probably in contradiction to isn't it?

In Hebrews where it talks about that they were looking for a different city, a heavenly city. They were just aliens here on earth. Whereas conversely, the people in Revelations, these are earth dwellers or people who are connected to the earth or this is their city, this is their world. Yeah, this is their place and that's another part of the pictures Not only do we see that phrase, those who dwell on the earth connected to the unsaved, but we also see the connection, those who are saved, they're heavenly connected. They have a heavenly connection versus dwelling down on the earth, being stuck on the earth. So, You imagine this scenario, here's all these people, unsaved, and they're hearing the gospel in whatever language they're at.

Like Ruth pointed out, here in Aurora, 90 different languages, you know, in this one place. Ruth, I think you were telling me, when you were in Uganda, you saw that you'd go in one house and they spoke one language, and you'd go to the house that was the next one that you could see, and they spoke a different language.

But this gospel angel won't be limited by those variations. The message will get across. So let's look at how he presents the gospel for the people at this time, just at the midpoint of tribulation. First of all, the angel says it with a loud voice. I truly hope he doesn't whisper it. He's only talking to people that are unsafe. Is there any hope for him? Yeah. Oh yeah. So he's specifically given the last call to have a chance? Yes.

Remember the three major voices during the tribulation period, the 144,000, the two witnesses up to midpoint, and the gospel angel. So those are the three primary voices. There are those who are saved, but they're basically running for their lives. But nonetheless, there is an opportunity for them to be saved, even in the middle of this. And that's the reason why the gospel is presented in the ways that it is. Multiple ways, as we take a look at here.

Okay, so here on the top of page three, the angel was telling them, fear God, God is the one who decides your eternal destiny. You don't get to pick that all by your lonesome. God's the one who decides your eternal destiny, not the Antichrist. The Antichrist doesn't get to choose where you spend eternity. All that the Antichrist can do is to decide what happens to your body while you're on earth. That's all. and then only for the next three and a half years. But what the Gospel angel is saying is, look, verses three and a half years, measure that against eternity.

Which is longer. And it's amazing how consistent scripture is. Not amazing, but it's cool about it. Consistent scripture is because that's exactly the message that was in the book of Job. God gave Satan the authority that he could have, which is Joseph's flesh, and his family, and all the rest of this. But he could not take his life. So, the same message. And this fear God and give him glory? You see that, or variations on it, all throughout Scripture. All throughout Scripture.

What is glory? Let's ask that question. What's glory? Is glory when the Broncos again take the Super Bowl? It will be. Yeah, I guess that will be, right? If the Rockies go again to the World Series, is that glory? It's the essence of God. Yeah. Glory is the essence of God. One way to put it is the radiant essence of who God is. That's glory. The radiant essence of who God is. Isn't it Chicana? How do you pronounce that word? Chicana Glory. The radiant glory of the Old Testament.

Give him glory and worship him who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and the springs of waters. He gives two kinds of two halves here. The heaven and the earth, that's the whole universe, right? and the sea, salt water, and the springs of water is the fresh water. The Antichrist is not the Creator. God made those things. The Antichrist steps into the world that God created and tries to take credit all in itself. He tries to turn everyone against the Creator. He is not the creator, but the great imitator. And what's going to motivate people to take this angel's message seriously? What's going to grab them? Why should they listen to this message, or why not just shine it on?

Yeah, yeah the gospel angel says because The hour of his judgment has come you still have a chance. You still have the opportunity, right? Fear God give him glory turn to him. You still have a chance. There is still opportunity The hour of his judgment has come Time's up folks. Okay, time's up After short period of time, it will all be over, but you still have a chance now. You've got an opportunity.

I'm fond of recalling my dad's mother, my grandmother on my dad's side. She grew up in a, well it's a long story, I won't tell it because it's too long, but she grew up in a home that was a combination of agnostic skepticism and Christian science. And as she got older and in her later 80s came down with cancer, those of us in the family who were Christians, a fair number of them, quite concerned for her. And various people would share the gospel with her, and she would just clam up.

No response. It wasn't like she would say, go away, don't talk to me. She'd just clam up. No response. And so, several people, myself included, tried to present the gospel to her, and she'd do the same, clamming up. No response. But we continued to pray for her, and quite unknown to any of us, she had some Christian neighbors. who helped take care of her, and also shared the gospel.

And to them she listened. About three weeks before she died, she became a believer. And I saw an expression on her face I had never seen in all the years that she had lived before that I'd known her. She, even though in pain, had an expression of joy that was amazing. And so she was one of, you know, the time's close.

You know, you're right near the end. And that's what this gospel angel is doing. He says, look, you don't have much time. And it's getting serious, folks. But there's still an opportunity. There's still a chance. Will you listen? And it also brings meaning to the Great Commission, because if the church is not going to be there to explain the gospel, and this means that any part of the world, because So, if the message has gone out previous to that, to all parts of the world, so that the gospel has been presented there, as you were saying, they can now refer back to that memory or that information that they had received at a previous time and be able to understand what this gospel angel is saying. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, we're given what the gospel angel, at least as quoted as saying, is not very lengthy, right?

But it's like, here are the essentials. You need to turn to God right now and fear God, not this anti-Christ nut job. And you need to fear God and give Him glory and worship Him, the One who really made things, not this other guy who's just a big usurper. He's a fake. He's a charlatan. You pick who you're going to listen to, because it really matters. The time of God's judgment has come. You're going to see it. You've still got time. but not much.

Verse 8, and another angel, a second one, followed saying, and another angel of what? Same kind? Different kind? Same kind, right? Another angel of the same kind, that's the meaning there. Allos anglos, And it even has the Greek word deuteros, deutero meaning two, here's a second one. This is given to reinforce for us the understanding that this angel is not the same as the first one, but a different one altogether.

This angel is announcing the fall of Babylon the Great. Since it's been many centuries since the empire of Babylon fell from power and even existence, we need to understand what this reference to Babylon is talking about. It had been, by the time John's writing this, five plus centuries had gone by. Five plus centuries, so half a millennium had gone by since Babylon fell. So there's no mistaking this is a new Babylon, not the old one.

There are various elements of the Babylonian system that are referenced in scripture about which we have gleaned even more from historical records and archaeological excavations. These include the original source of the Babylonian system under the Tower of Babel, as talked about, you made reference to that earlier, the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapters 10 and 11. That system is based on humanism. But what do we mean by humanism? Yeah, humans are what really matter. In the ultimate, it's people that matter. And people do matter, but people are not the center of the universe.

The Lord is. There's also a Babylonian religious system which has been spread around the globe. and that religious system relies on human manipulation of the pantheon of gods. You know that there are Christians who struggle with Babylonian thinking about God. Ever known anybody, maybe even yourself, been mad at God? God's supposed to do this and do that, and he's not doing what I want, and so I'm mad at God? It's actually Babylonian thinking. Because in the Babylonian system, I manipulate God so that God does what I want. That's not biblical. We don't manipulate God, do we? God is not there to make our lives easy street. And there is nothing we can do to manipulate God or get God over a barrel, so to speak.

Babylon was also culturally anti-semitic. The Babylonians took the Jews into their country and what did they do? They gave them Babylonian names. You can't keep your Jewish names. They gave them Babylonian food. You can't eat your Jewish food. And you have to come and live in our land and not your land. And we're going to tear down your temple and your houses and everything.

Much like Muslims today. The Muslim religion has some similarities to it. Babylon was saturated with materialistic and humanistic commercial trade and enterprise. It's not that business is basically evil, but it's the philosophy that's the problem. That if I have enough stuff, that that's going to solve everything. Rather than seeing the stuff as God's provision, people, and this happens even in our culture, people look at material things as the answer. If I only had this, if I only had that, then I would be happy. Then I would be satisfied. Then I would be at peace. If I only had, if only, if only.

Now, we're going to look more at Babylon in chapter 16 and especially in chapter 17 and 18. We're going to look at the details. For now, this angel, this second one, is telling everyone that Babylon is going to fall. The Greek verbs here, interestingly, are past tense. Past tense was a way that even the Old Testament prophets would use in order to say something is certain. And we in fact use that, we use that as a figure of speech in our own language to talk about something that's already certain. Ever heard the threat, maybe it's on a, you know, a TV show or a movie or something like that? Somebody says, you are dead meat. They're saying it for the person, the person listening, right? The person is not dead meat.

Why do they say that in the past tense? Why do they put it in that tense? It is a way of saying, even in our own culture, this is so certain to take place in the future that it's spoken of in the past. And that's what happens here. Babylon has fallen. Has it fallen yet? No, we're going to see how that's going to happen. But its fall is very certain. Page 5.

So we get into more detail on Revelation 17 and 18. Verse 9 through 11, Then another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, another loud voice, right? If anyone worships the beast in his image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he will also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of his anger, and he will 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 goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast in his image and whoever receives the mark of his name. Wow. So what did the first angel do? Remember? What was the task of the first angel? The Gospel.

So here's good news with a warning. Your time is getting short. This third one then gives specific warning. The first one is saying fear God. The first one is saying, worship the Lord. Then this one, this third one is now laying out, here's the consequences, if you choose not to.

Okay? If anyone worships the beast in his image and receives a mark on the forehead or on his hand, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of his anger, and he will 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 goes up forever and ever, for they have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast in his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name. authority of the earth, right? After this third angel or whatever.

So what you have is mid-tribulation and now it's, look, this is how this is going to play out for the rest of this time. God's judgment is really getting serious now. There is still the opportunity and there is also great danger and here's how that's going to work out. If you take this mark of the beast, you're done forever. You might improve your lot for three and a half years, sort of.

But after that, it's going to be really bad for eternity. So you need to understand what the consequences are, what the situation is. At the same time, don't you think the Antichrist and his followers are presenting rebuttals to all that they can. Can you imagine what they would be trying to do? Don't listen to that guy, you know. He said the judgment is coming, follow me and I can get you out of it.

I mean, I can think of all kinds of things. Yeah. I promise. But you can imagine him saying, hey, do you want to eat? Yes, of course. Look, you can listen to that angel if you want, but do you want to eat? It's going to get cold this winter. Do you want some heat? You know? You want something to wear? Would you like to have your house heated?

You make a choice. And so people will make their choices. And there will be a lot of yabbats. A lot of yabbats. Yeah, I'd like to follow the Lord, but I'd like to I'd really like to follow the Lord, but I'd like to eat in my house. And your children? Yeah, I've got kids to consider.

I was going to say, I can't find it right now, but some place in Amos it says that God will never bring destruction on his people without forewarning them. I don't know where that's at in Amos. And usually he's talking about through his prophets. But here he's talking about through his angels. So before the final destruction actually takes place, he's giving three, which is the purpose. He's giving three warnings. Here's also something to consider.

Right now in Israel, the majority of the population is kind of secular agnostic. Most of them are not observant Jews, so they don't have any real considerations. So here are these people in Israel, let's project ahead to what might be as soon as three and a half years from now. About time we're having another presidential election. So that's far away. But just only three and a half years from now it's possible.

And so here's this gospel angel saying, fear God. God, but God. We don't believe in that. But then the gospel, and of course this is a rather extraordinary thing to see, you know. Maybe that'll get their attention. Fear God, worship him, the one who created everything.

And a great number of them are going to say, nah, I'm not going for that. And a great number of them will reject what the gospel angel says. But there will be some. There will be some who respond. Here's something else that we bring up in the middle of page 5. Do people have a right to go to hell? Are you going to fight for your rights? Are you going to stand up for your rights? Do people have a right to go to hell?

What do you think? Isn't that interesting? We think of rights and, you know, they are important in our country, but when you start thinking in spiritual terms, I guess people can demand their rights only because God's given them that. You know, alright, here's where you're headed.

And if they want to, they can demand their rights and go there. That's what they choose. And do people have a right to their own opinion? You can have your own opinion for all eternity. You know? Yeah. People can choose that. It doesn't change the facts, but you can have your own opinion. You certainly can have your right to your opinion.

Verse 12, Here is the perseverance of the saints who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven saying, Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit, so that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow with them. So this is an encouragement for those who believe. There can be a lot of believers who don't make it alive through the rest of the tribulation period. He's saying, blessed are those who die in the Lord from now on. Why would it be blessed to die in the Lord? Why would that be a blessing? Pardon? I said, I'd like to get out. Yeah, one thing is, it's over. I was having trouble finding anything to eat. And now I'm home. Yeah.

Firstly though, the ones who do live through that period of time will see the second coming of Christ. Yes, that's right. From the earth. Millennial Kingdom with Christ. It is those who survive this period as difficult and as trying as it has been and who have their trust and faith in the Lord who will populate the earth during the Millennial Kingdom. You're quite correct. So here's an amazing thing. Blessed are those who die in the Lord from this time.

It's over. I was having a tough time feeding my family. I was having a tough time keeping myself alive. It was tough to even get water. And these guys were constantly chasing me and looking after me. Not looking after like caring for me, but chasing me down, pursuing me. And finally all that thirsty, starving, running is over. I'm home. I don't have to worry about that anymore. So it's an encouragement for them. Paul writes this in Philippians to the Church of Philippi.

For me to live as Christ in the diocese, but if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me, and I do not know which to choose. But I am a hard press from both directions, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better. Blessed are those who die of the Lord during this time. It is an extremely difficult time that may be as close as three and a half years from now. For all those who believe, for what's presented to them as the choices of life are all extremely difficult. And I think that's one of the reasons why the Lord puts these 144,000 in there. Because a lot of the believers will just die. They'll end up dying under the system of the Antichrist. So there's 144,000 who are untouchable.

There's the gospel angel which they may wish to fire missiles at them or some other assault but it doesn't work. There's the two witnesses up to this halfway point providing the gospel because the saints, those who are saved, as soon as they're saved they're running for their lives.

Yes. And also there's a group of people that are which we were talking about when you were talking about the brothers. It's a possible place that they are taken out. They're saved there and protected there. So there is a group of people and the 444,000 are probably there with them. Likely or possibly so, yeah, could be. So the 144,000, they're going to see the Millennium?

From every appearance, 144,000 will all survive because remember it says there in chapter 7, before anything gets disturbed, let it seal these 144,000 and protect them through this period of time. You can imagine the Antichrist puts guys out to try to hunt these guys down and you know, nothing happens. These guys are protected and kind of like the two witnesses up until that halfway point, It's like, do anything you want, these guys just keep walking. But they have a special preservation, a great many of those who are saved don't get.

Let's pray. We've run out of time. We've got people waiting at the back door. Lord, we thank You as we look to this time which could be very close. We don't want to presume, but it could be very close. We thank you that you have shown your grace and your mercy with this gospel angel. You've shown plenty of warning. And you've also, even in this last set of verses, shown comfort.

And Lord, we thank you that whether we live or whether we die, you are faithful and we are yours and nothing will change that. How comforting that is. How wonderful that is to cling to. How wonderful, Lord, to walk in fellowship with you. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.