The Three Angels Proclamation! !
Revelation 14:6-11
Proclamation of 3 Angels
Revelation 14:6-11, Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people— 7 saying with a loud voice, “Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water.” 8 And another angel followed, saying, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” 9 Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10 he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.” 12 Here is the patience of the
saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. 13 Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labours, and their works follow them.”
People in the world are hoping for a better day. You hear it all the time, The Prime minister would like to be able to promise and deliver on a better day for our people who rule our states and our cities. World leaders across the globe are endeavouring to meet and find a platform for common peace and harmony.
Everybody would like to see a better day. We would like to eliminate poverty, disease, and crime, all those things that blight our culture. To speak the truth there is not going to be a better day but a worse one. A better day is not coming.
What is coming is terrible and eternal tragedy. The society of the future will feel the judgment fury of God like no other has ever felt it. Things are not going to get better they will get infinitely worse. As we turn to the book of Revelation, this becomes clear to us because of the number of passages here that record the judgment of God to come.
Here we come face to face with three angels. The primary message from them is a message of judgment. No grace, hope, or even salvation, but the doom of the world is clear. Angels are very much involved in the economy of God.
They were involved in the giving of the law. They have been involved in the care of believers.
Hebrews 1:14 says they minister to the saints. At the time of the God’s final judgment, angels are very much involved in as well. The role of angels will be a major factor in God’s final judgment. In the gospel of Matthew in the parables of Jesus Christ that angels will be the reapers who will gather people at the end for judgment, as well as gathering the elect into the kingdom. Angels are involved in many of the aspects of the end time. Here we find the angels involved not so much in judgment or in gathering the elect. We find angels involved in preaching. Three angels each of them has a message to deliver. Occasionally, we see angels praising God in the book of Revelation.
Occasionally, we see them ministering His will. ➢ We see them fighting demons. ➢ We see them enacting judgments. ➢ We see them bringing messages from God. In the book of Revelation, angels are involved in every chapter from Revelation 4-14, with the exception of chapter 13.
The angels are incredibly involved in the activities and the messages of the end time. There are three angels bring astounding proclamations about the consummation of the age or the end of the world. Before the chapter is over, we will see seven angels, but the first three are linked closely together.
The role they play here is warning. Before they are the instruments of judgment, they are the instruments of warning. These are not sequential angels. They are not necessarily given in some kind of chronological order. They address certain issues and events which stretch clear across the time that we know as the Tribulation.
Now the three messengers which we have just read anticipate the judgment of the seventh trumpet. The seventh trumpet judgment was announced in Revelation chapter 11. Then there was an interlude. Now these three angels anticipate the seventh trumpet will be blown. When it was blown the seven bowls will be poured out as will be described in Revelation chapter 15 and 16.
So just before the final outpouring of the last seven judgments on the earth which come in rapid fire at the end of the Great Tribulation, we meet these powerful proclaiming angels.
What is their role? Their role is to make a last final effort to produce a remedial fear, a saving faith so that people can avoid the holocaust of the day of the Lord and the devastation of judgment and eternal hell. Some of the most terrifying language of judgment we have just read.
Before the final judgment hits, the last seven bowls which are the telescope out of that seventh trumpet. Before that last series of judgments, before the terrors of the Lord fall in their final form as the day of the Lord reaches its fever pitch, the Lord gives these warnings.
We sense the heart of God in one final last effort that men might hear. Now this stretches over a period of time that may exceed just the moment of the seventh trumpet blowing. But it certainly goes all the way up to that point so that people right to the very end can hear the truth.
1. The first angel. The first angel is preaching the gospel. V 6, Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people— This is the proclamation of God’s last message of warning, calling the world to faith, calling the world to salvation in Christ at the Great Tribulation.
“I saw another angel.” There have been many already. From Revelation chapter 4-14, angels appear except chapter 13.
Here is another one of them. There are surely millions of them.
Revelation 5:11, Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, To describe the indescribable or to count the uncountable. One of those millions of holy angels is here selected for a very unique purpose.
It shows him flying in midheaven. Midheaven is a Greek term that refers to the apex of the sun at noonday, to the point in the sky when the sun has reached its meridian, its high point. The very highest point in heaven where the greatest visibility will occur across the face of the earth, this angel will fly.
He will fly there continually in the sight of everybody where the greatest amount of visibility is provided from the vantage point of earth. His pulpit at that juncture will be beyond the control of Antichrist. It will be even beyond the control of demons.
Antichrist would have been cast down to the earth, as Revelation 12 says, along with Satan. This preaching angel is going to be unobstructed. There have been holy angels from the book of Daniel obstructed in their heavenly mission. There has been a battle going on even today in the heavenlies between holy angels and demons, but not at this time.
This angel will have absolute liberty and freedom because all the demons of the air have been cast down to the earth and he flies in midheaven. The world would have already experienced incredible devastation and judgment by God. Inconceivable and relentless holocausts will have spread themselves across the globe.
The sky and will have been shredded. All of that described from chapter 6 right on through. The people of the world will have heard the preaching of the 144,000 Jews mentioned in Revelation 14:1-5, who have been proclaiming the gospel surely since the midpoint of the time of Tribulation.
They will have heard the testimony of the two witnesses. The whole world will know about them as it written in Revelation 11.
Additionally, all the other people who come to Christ out of Israel and out of the nations who are witnessing everywhere. In spite of all of those preachers or angels, they will not believe. Here in one great dominating role, God identifies one angel to just fly back and forth in the midheaven as the earth rotates so that the whole globe can hear him preach.
What does he preach? V 6, “Having an eternal gospel to preach.” The word “preach,” euaggelizō, from which we get “to evangelize.” The gospel, euaggelion the good news. Eternal in the sense that it provides the means to eternal life.
It is good news that relates to eternity. Some people have suggested that the eternal gospel is one gospel and the gospel of grace is another gospel and the gospel of Christ is another. Then there is the gospel of God. The gospel of peace. The glorious gospel. All those terms are used in the New Testament.
They all refer to the very same thing.
They simply look at it from different viewpoints. The eternal gospel is the gospel that provides eternal life. It is the gospel of grace, it is the gospel of Christ, it is the gospel of God, it is the gospel of peace, and it is the glorious gospel. There is only one gospel.
The same gospel of salvation has all those elements. It is from God, it is about Christ, it is through grace, it provides peace, it is also the gospel of the kingdom. It is the good news that tells men and women how they can enter into the eternal kingdom of God, the kingdom that has been opened by Christ and all who believe can enter.
This angel is not preaching anything different than anybody who ever preached the gospel preached. This angel is preaching that good news that God has provided a kingdom, He has provided grace, He has provided peace, He has provided glory, He has provided it in Christ. God has provided entrance into His eternal kingdom.
Obviously, the implication here is that they would have understood that this is the gospel which they have heard. They have heard the truth about Christ. They have heard the truth about grace and forgiveness. They have heard the truth about peace and salvation.
They have heard the truth about a coming kingdom and that there is a way to enter that kingdom. All of that has been being preached by 144,000 evangelists all across the globe, by two witnesses, by many other believers who have been saved out of Israel and the nations.
They have heard this all through this time period. They have heard about the death of Christ. They have heard about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They have heard about the gospel which is so clearly defined in
1 Corinthians 15:1 to 10. According to Matthew 24:14, tells us the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations and then the end shall come. Before the end comes, the whole world will hear the gospel of the kingdom.
What better way to make sure that everybody on the face of the earth hears it than to set an angel in midheaven flying back and forth day after day proclaiming this eternal gospel of the kingdom? Good news, the door to the kingdom is still open.
There is still grace. There is still peace in the provision of Christ.
There is still the possibility of glory. It is not too late. The angel then is calling the people of the world to change their allegiance from the beast to the Lamb. There is still time to repent. There is still time to believe.
The message is to those who live on the earth. The people here living on this very earth still alive who have not yet repented and come to Christ. V 6, “every nation and tribe and tongue and people.” God is so gracious. To the very end He is calling people to salvation. He is doing it by men and by angels.
This is new because in our day, in our time, angels do not proclaim. In the Old Testament economy, they often came with a message from God. In the future, they will come again with a message from God, and the message is to turn from the Antichrist to the Christ.
Notice how directly this message comes. V 7, saying with a loud voice, “Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water.” He shouts.
The shouting indicates that he will be heard and it also is an indication of the urgency of the message.
What does he shout? ‘Fear God and give Him glory.’” The message is so clear. Do not fear reverence, be afraid of, concern yourself with what Antichrist says, or Satan, but fear God. ✓ God is sovereign. ✓ God is in control.
✓ God alone has the right to be reverenced. ✓ God is the one to fear.
Matthew 10:28, And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Fear God! This assumes the knowledge of the gospel of grace, the knowledge of the gospel of Christ, the gospel of peace, the glorious gospel of entrance into the kingdom through faith in the Lord Jesus who died and rose again. That will be clear to everybody.
This message will be across the globe. Now this angel is simply calling day after day to the world. ➢ Turn from Antichrist to Christ, ➢ Turn from following Satan to following God. ➢ Fear God. The great theme of Scripture.
Proverbs 9:10, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Proverbs 23:17, Do not let your heart envy sinners, But be zealous for the fear of the Lord all the day;
1 Peter 2:17, Honour all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king. Fearing God means living in the reality of His holiness, His sovereignty, and His judgment of sin.
Honour God, respect God, hold Him in awe, reverence Him, adore Him, and worship him. Then the angel adds, “And give Him glory.” ➢ Fear God would be the negative side, ➢ Give God glory would be the positive side. Fear God means to live in the light of His sovereign holy judgment.
Is this angel trying to frighten people into faith? Yes! No question about it. But on the other hand, he is also inviting them to recognize the glory of God. This is the very heart of the problem of unregenerate people. When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God.
Romans 1 says because of the knowledge of God that is in them and around them, men are without excuse. Conscience demands a moral lawgiver, reason demands a creator. There is enough of the knowledge of God to make men inexcusable if they do not believe in Him, if they do not come to the place where they know Him.
Man’s great sin is when he knows God, yet he refuses to glorify Him as God. The angel, for the last time, calls on men to fear God. That is to live in healthy fear of His coming judgment, and that is to glorify Him. That is to honour Him because of who He is.
V 7, “Because the hour of His judgment has come.” The hour means the fixed moment for judgment has arrived. The seventh trumpet is blown. The seven bowls are to be poured out. Now is the last moment to believe. The word “judgment,” is used here for the first time in the book of Revelation.
We will find it again in 16, 18 and 19, but here it is used for the first time. It has the same meaning as another word that is used earlier in the books starting in chapter 6, and that is the word wrath. God’s wrath and God’s judgment is the same.
Here are the righteous judgments that are the result of the wrath of holy God against a stubborn and obstinate world.
How much warning does a world need? How many holocausts does it take before they wake up?
- A fourth of the population of the world dies,
- A third of the population of the world dies,
- A fourth of the seas are polluted.
- The fresh water is polluted.
- People die from famines, plagues, earthquakes, and wars.
- The sky rolls up.
- The stars fall.
- The earth is pelted with fiery bodies falling out of the sky.
- The crops die.
- The green grass across the face of the earth dies.
- Two hundred million demons go across the globe with devastation and destruction.
- People are given diseases and ultimately even death.
A world being massacred under the wrath of God and deceived under the guile of Satan and Antichrist. With all that going around, God is still calling and asking men to fear Him and give Him glory because the last judgment is about to fall.
V 7, “Worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters.” Worship, Proskuneō in the Greek means to do homage by kissing the hand. It means to bow in adoration. It means to
prostrate oneself, which people did before the throne of a monarch. Fear God, have a holy sense of fear, be afraid of His terrible judgment, glorify Him because He is a holy and glorious God. Fall on your face. Bow in adoration. Prostrate yourself before Him.
What is the angel saying? He is asking them to do for God precisely what they are doing for the Antichrist. They are doing all of this to the Antichrist. They are worshiping Him. They are bowing down to him. They are prostrating themselves. They are in fear of him and his great powerful killing machine. The angel says turn from him and turn to God.
Why? Because God is the one who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and the springs of waters. Here again we meet this continual approach to the pagans of the world. Whenever the preachers of Scripture approach unbelieving pagan people, they approach them from the viewpoint of creation because that is the great unanswerable question. That is the great proof of God, that for this great effect known as creation there must be a cause.
The Antichrist did not create the universe. Satan did not create the universe. God did. This is always the ground for worship, glory, fear and reverence, always the ground for faith. In Acts 14 and Acts 17 when Paul preached to the pagans, whether they were just the people on the street or the elite philosophers, he said the God you must worship is the God who made the heavens and the earth.
Because the creator is the judge. Whoever started it will end it. Whoever created it is in charge of it. The Maker is the executioner, the One who brought it into existence is the One who will put it out of existence. He is the One to fear.
This stern warning comes from a heavenly angel, hoping as Jude put it, to snatch some out of the fire. The message of the angel then is the eternal gospel, the foundation of which is to worship God, to glorify Him and fear Him by acknowledging Him as Creator and Saviour through the Lord Jesus Christ.
What a gracious God we have with an earth that is burning and smouldering. Across its face is death in every dimension from the plants to man. The frightening, smouldering devastated universe gasping its last breath is still the object of God’s gracious warning.
God is calling people even then from the kingdom of darkness that is really dark into the kingdom of light. 2. The second angel. V 8, And another angel followed, saying, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.”
Here is an angel not preaching the gospel but pronouncing judgment. This sadly implies the rejection of the first angel’s message. If everybody in the world responded to the preaching of the first angel, the second angel would not have to say this. It implies the rejection of the message of the first angel, so in that sense there is a certain flow here.
It feels as if the second angel interrupts the first angel because nobody is really responding to the first angel or at least there is
no great worldwide response, and so angel number two moves in and pronounces judgment. “Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, Babylon refers to the worldwide kingdom of the Antichrist. It is just the name for the whole Antigod system of idolatry that is the worship of the Antichrist.
They erect an idol that supposedly comes to life in the city of Jerusalem and the whole world worships the Antichrist in the form of that idol. But in the very end time there is no reason to assume that the very kingdom of the Antichrist finds its capital in the actual city of Babylon.
Numerous books were written dealing with the prophetic significance of Babylon. Babylon may serve to be the capital city of the Antichrist in the final kingdom. His image will be at Jerusalem. There will be a certain focal point there, but the system will be called Babylon in its totality.
It may well be that its capital city is a restored Babylon. Back to the fertile crescent, back to the very place where Eden was.
The same location where the two hundred million demons had been bound and were finally released. It is almost as if that part of the earth became the seat of Satan because it was there that he corrupted the human race and established his kingdom.
But Babylon, by the time you get to the end of the Great Tribulation, is not just the city, it is the Antichrist operating a whole complete, political, economic, and religious world empire. The angel is simply predicting its entire collapse.
Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great. Brief history. The first Babylon was a city founded by Nimrod. Nimrod was a God-hater. He was a rebel. We can read about him in Genesis 10 and 11. Nimrod founded this anti-God city early in the book of Genesis.
It became the first place where idolatry was introduced. The first indication of idolatry we know as the Tower of Babel. That was the birthplace of idolatry. The Tower of Babel was what would be called in ancient times a ziggurat. It was an edifice attempting to reach high into the sky, not to climb physically up to God, but it was a monument to false deity.
There the first world power of idolatry was designed and built. The first Babel united men around a false god, a false system of religion, unspeakable idolatry, unspeakable spiritual adultery.
What happened? God came down, Genesis 11, confusednded their languages in judgment so they could not understand each other. There had never been any other than just one language until then and then scattered them all over the globe.
What did they take with them? Idolatry. Their false religion, their rebellious hearts. Babel then spawned all worldwide false religion. All the idols of the world were the children of Mother Babylon when the people were scattered.
The source of idolatry, it all came from Babel. It is where it all originated. In the end, it will all be reconstituted back in a final Babylon which will again become the container of one-world idolatry that marks the last form of what began in Babel.
History goes full circle!
All humanity was united in the first Babylon, and it will be reunited in false religion and idolatry in the last Babylon. To show you how encompassing the influence of the final Babylon is pictured as, a harlot. V 8, because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.”
It intoxicates and deceives the whole world. This is the final Antichrist system, and it engulfs the whole world. The Antichrist is going to rule the whole world. Everybody is going to come from all over the globe and bow to him.
But the angel says, “Fallen, fallen.” That is the end, divine destruction. The repetition serves to make the statement with great finality and great force. It shows the intense nature of the judgment, the comprehensive and complete nature of the judgment and the tragedy of it all.
Fallen, fallen, is treated as if it were a future tense, although it is not because it is so certain that it is going to happen, it can be spoken of as if it has already taken place.
“This evil system has made all the nations drink of the wine of the passion of her immorality.”
What does that mean? Immorality in the spiritual sense. Certainly, there will be sexual sin like the world has never known. But the real issue here is what you could call whoring fornication on a spiritual level, that would be unfaithfulness to God.
The people of the world get involved in the system and they drink the wine of the passion of spiritual immorality. The word “passion,” thumos, anything inflammatory, exciting, or passionate, out of control with desire. It pictures an orgy of rebellion, an orgy of idolatry, an orgy of animosity and hatred toward God.
The entire world will drink the wine of the passion of this spiritual defection from the true God. When we get to chapter 17 and 18, we will see that in detail. First angel comes and preaches the gospel and offers people an opportunity to respond. Those who will not believe will not be saved and will fall with the system of which they are a part.
First angel preaching the gospel. Second angel proclaiming the judgment.
3. Third angel
The third angel is pronouncing the damnation. Here is another angel, not preaching the gospel, not proclaiming the judgment, but pronouncing the character of damnation. V 9, Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, We see that each angel is successive.
Each one reinforces the previous one and advances the truth to the next logical step. The gospel being rejected results in the pronouncement of judgment, which comes to pass in damnation. But God is just and God is gracious and He does not damn people to judgment by whim, or by decree.
God damns people to judgment because they reject the truth they know. That is why they are without excuse. Both second and third angel’s warnings there is still being given the effort to frighten men into faith.
Cause them to have enough panic to do some soul searching and pursue the truth. Chapter 13 how that the Antichrist will mark out his people on the forehead or on the hand with his number. The whole world will worship the beast and the image that the false prophet sets up. Pagans were often marked or tattooed by the name of their God or with the name of their god. Kings often marked out their own soldiers.
The people of the world will take some mark on their hand or their forehead which indicates their loyalty to the beast. What this angel is doing is saying that you have heard the 144,000, the two witnesses, all the people who have proclaimed their faith in Christ, Jew, and Gentile, and some of them were martyred.
Certainly, in the very martyrdom itself, they gave testimony of the grace of God in Christ. You have heard an angel flying in midheaven. You have been warned by another angel who has pronounced doom. If you still will worship the beast, his image, if you are still going to maintain your identification clear on out through all of this then the following will happen to you surely.
V 10, “You also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God.”
You will not just drink of the wine of the passion of the immorality of the system, but you will also get another cup, and it will be a cup filled with the wrath of God. You who have drunk the first cup, the passionate immoralities of the system Babylon, you are going to drink the wine of the wrath of God.
There is only one human being in the history of the world who ever drank that cup and survived.
Who was that? Jesus Christ! Jesus said in the garden of Gethsemane fearing the very moment which He had to experience, “Father, let this cup pass from Me, but nevertheless, Your will be done.” Then He drank it to the dregs.
They have voluntarily drink the cup of the passion of the immorality of Antichrist. Now God will force this cup down their throats, the cup of God’s wrath. A term that we find in several occasions in the Old Testament, the wine of God’s wrath, or the cup of God’s wrath.
Psalm 75:8, For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, And the wine is red; It is fully mixed, and He pours it out; Surely its dregs shall all the wicked of the earth Drain and drink down.
God is going to pour wine down the throats of the ungodly. Isaiah saw that same very dramatic and vivid reality.
Isaiah 51:17, Awake, awake! Stand up, O Jerusalem, You who have drunk at the hand of the Lord The cup of His fury; You have drunk the dregs of the cup of trembling, And drained it out. Jeremiah, several occasions, makes reference to that same cup.
Jeremiah 25:15-16, For thus says the Lord God of Israel to me: “Take this wine cup of fury from My hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send you, to drink it. 16 And they will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them.”
Jeremiah 51:7, Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, That made all the earth drunk. The nations drank her wine; Therefore the nations are deranged. V 10, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.
Sometimes when you read about wine being mixed, it is mixed with water. Not in this case because it is not mixed to be diluted, it is mixed in full strength.
What does this mean? Strong wine. Unmixed with any water was made even stronger by spices that made it more pungent, more potent. The unmixed wine of God is made stronger, given full strength in the cup of His anger. Unmitigated vengeance.
V 10, He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. Will be tormented with fire and brimstone. Tormented refers to the ceaseless infliction of unbearable pain.
Tormented, no relief, pain that is unrelenting and unmitigated, never lessened, never diminished and no split second of respite or rest. It says in the words of our Lord in Luke 16, “The rich man in Hades lifted up his eyes, being in torment.”
Unrelieved, unmitigated infliction of unbearable pain. It tells us that the torment will come with fire and brimstone.
Those two things are often associated with divine judgment in Scripture. The prophet Isaiah makes reference to that in Isaiah 34:8-10. We find the same kind of reference made in the New Testament
Luke 17:29, but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.
It takes us back to that monumental experience of Sodom and Gomorrah back in Genesis when fire and brimstone rained on the earth and destroyed those cities in the judgment of God.
Revelation 19:20, Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone.
Revelation 20:10, The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
Revelation 21:8, But the cowardly, [e]unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
Hell, the final resting place of unregenerate people, is a place of ceaseless, unbearable, unrelenting, unrelieved torment that is brought on by fire and brimstone. Brimstone being something like a hot molten burning lava, belching out of the fire of a volcano.
All of this in V 10 is in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. This casting of those who reject the gospel into the fire and brimstone will be in the presence of the holy angels. They are going to view this torture.
This is a most devastating blow to the wicked. It certainly will add to their suffering that they must suffer while utter holiness and absolute purity is watching. How embarrassing, how shaming. Not only in the presence of the holy angels, but in the presence of the Lamb. Even though we often would assume that the ungodly are cast out of the presence of God.
2 Thessalonians 1:9 says they will pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His power.
There it says they will be away from His presence.
Here it says they will be in the presence of the Lamb. The point is this. They will be away from His presence in terms of any kind of care, relationship, comfort, mercy, pity, and compassion. But they will not be away from His presence in terms of His omnipresence.
After all, Matthew 10:28, “Fear not Him who destroys the body, but fear Him who destroys both body and soul in hell.” It is still God, the sovereign God of glory who is doing the destruction in hell throughout eternity. It is never out from under His control.
The lake of fire is outside the presence of God.
Revelation 21:27, But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Revelation 22:15, But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie.
The ungodly are outside the holy city and they are outside the eternal new heaven and new earth.
But what they are not outside, the pervasive omnipresence of God and Christ. For it is God and Christ effecting their eternal punishment. This angel has something else to say. V 11, And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.”
Some people would try to argue that hell is not forever. This angel would not be on their side. This angel would like to debate those who believe in annihilationism, who believe in universalism, who believe in any form of conditional immortality.
There are people say that nobody is ever going to go to hell. That is not what this angel said. There are others who would say that they are going to go to hell for a little while and after a little punishment they will be released. That is not what this angel said.
Some others would say that they are going to go to hell and they are going to suffer a while and then they are going to be annihilated. That is not what this angel said. What this angel will proclaim is that the smoke of their torment will go up how long?
Forever and ever. Hell is forever! It has no end.
Mark 9:48, where ‘Their worm does not die And the fire is not quenched.
There is no end to it. It goes on forever. John the Baptist talking about the judge who would come and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Matthew 3:12, His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
Matthew 25:41, “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire
prepared for the devil and his angels
So sad, tragic, unthinkable, unimaginable fate of those who continue to reject Christ right to the end, along with all others who reject Him, their smoke from the burning torment will go up forever and ever.
Some might think that maybe there will be some times of rest, some times of solace. No, they have no rest day and night. It is relentless! V 13, Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’
” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labours, and their works follow them.” Unending torment for those who reject Christ! Forever and ever and ever, without any rest.
Matthew 13:42,and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Those are the indicators of the unrelieved agony. V 11, “those who worship the beast and his image and whoever receives the mark of his name.” Simply, those who will not turn their allegiance from Antichrist to Christ.
What a warning? Madonna has a song. It repeats one line repeatedly. I happened to hear it, and it just made me shake. This is the line, “I don’t give a damn if I go to hell.” A hit song.
This is going to be the attitude of a whole lot of people in this society and in the society in the time of the end. It seems to me we are already programming people for this kind of mentality who can endure all this gospel preaching and still say, “I don’t give a damn if I go to hell”?
I hope you do! There is no joy that heaven ever knows greater than when a sinner repents.