Watchman on the Wall

Southwest Radio Ministries: Welcome to Watchman on the Wall, a daily outreach of Southwest Radio Ministries and swrc.com. God is still on the throne, and prayer changes things. Donald Perkins is back today with another lesson in his outstanding series, Understanding Revelation. For more than 90 years, faithful friends like you have made the ministry of Southwest Radio possible. Through your prayers and monthly support, we're proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, teaching God's word, and helping believers understand the times through radio, television, podcast, publishing, conferences, and digital outreach.

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Donald Perkins: We're continuing our series, Understanding the Book of Revelation, Part 39. And again, we're moving into chapter 14. I really love this. Chapter 14 is an action-packed book. All of Revelation is really action-packed, but now we're moving into chapter 14. I want to say something on the onset. We're going to skip verses one through five of chapter 14 because we've dealt with those already looking at the 144,000. But we're going to now pick up with Revelation chapter 14, verse number six. And what I'm going to do, I'm going to read verses six, seven, and eight to set it up, get the messages of these three angels, and then we will come back to them and begin to analyze and give some commentary.

We're going to start here in chapter 14 Revelation, verse six. John wrote, "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell upon the earth, to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people. Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and the fountains of water." Verse eight, "And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication."

Now again, this is an amazing set of events that will take place during the time of the tribulation. God is going to release three angels that's going to proclaim his messages. Now what's amazing about this, these angels will proclaim the everlasting gospel. These angels, we're going to see it, they're going to warn mankind about taking the mark of the beast and proclaim a judgment on the city of Babylon. So, let's go back to verse number six and we're going to start our study. John wrote again in verse six, "I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell upon the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people."

Here this first angel is going out and the Bible says here, he's going to preach the everlasting gospel. I love this. Angels for the first time will proclaim the gospel of God. I'm going to quote some scholars here and give you different views on this, but what an amazing event. We're going to literally see here again, this is the mercy of God during the latter half of the Great Tribulation. God, Father God, is giving mankind a chance to accept him, a chance to get their lives right by accepting his son Jesus Christ. God is giving them a chance by doing something he's never done, by allowing these angels to proclaim the everlasting gospel and the judgments that we're going to see.

So, I want to start off here by quoting from the book *101 Answers to Questions About the Book of Revelation* by Dr. Mark Hitchcock. Listen to what he says in reference to the eternal gospel that is spoken of here in verse number six. Dr. Hitchcock wrote, "We are not left to our imagination or speculation about the content of this eternal good news. When the angel speaks in Revelation 14:7, he reveals the nature of this gospel. It is not the everlasting gospel of God's redeeming grace in Christ Jesus, but, as the following verse shows, a summons to fear, honor, and worship the creator. It is a final appeal to all men to recognize the one true God. It is an eternal gospel; it sets forth the eternal purpose of God for man. It relates to judgment and salvation in the coming age."

He also says this: "During the tribulation, people will be told to fear the beast and worship him. But this heavenly messenger will call people everywhere to worship, honor, and fear God alone, who has abundantly revealed himself in nature, so that people who refuse to acknowledge him are without excuse." And he quotes Romans chapter 1, verses 19 and 20. I love that verse too because Romans 1:19 says that men will be without excuse because the creation of God testifies that there is a God. Here Dr. Hitchcock says that this everlasting gospel gives reference to them being summoned to fear God, to honor God, and to worship the creator.

I can agree with that as well, but I also do believe that it is the everlasting gospel as well. Now I want to quote another scholar here. This is from the book *The Prophecies and Symbols of Revelation* by Jimmy Swaggart. I like what he said in reference to this. He says, "This would take place during the last half of the Great Tribulation period. Will this be a literal angel? And will men on the earth be able to see him? Yes, it will be a literal angel; there is no indication in the word of God that men will not be able to see this angel. This is the reason the angel is sent. People are supposed to see him and hear the message he preaches."

He's talking about this first angel that comes on the scene. He said, "The Bible says that he will preach the everlasting gospel. This is the same gospel we are supposed to preach today: the great gospel of the grace of God through the precious shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. It tells us that this angel will preach to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. He will cry with a loud voice, telling the inhabitants of the earth, fear God and give glory to him." I really love that. Again, he's saying that this first angel as he's released, this angel is going to proclaim a solid, strong message, proclaiming the everlasting gospel. This angel's going to summon man to fear God and to give honor and glory to God.

This is a first in the Bible that God is going to release an angel to proclaim the gospel during the tribulation. What mercies of God that God is extending to those of the Great Tribulation. Now let's move a step further and look at verse number seven. This is still the first angel proclaiming when he is released. He says with a loud voice, "Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of water." So, this verse seven still pertains to the first angel commanding men to fear God.

Now we're going to talk a little bit in a few minutes about the fear of God because the fear of God is so powerful. A lot of people think that the fear of God is a negative, but it's not. The fear of God is to reverence God, to reverence his majesty, to reverence who God is. Let me give you a verse here found in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 10, verse number 12. It reads, and this is a word to the nation of Israel, but it applies to us as well. He said, "And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord God, and to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul."

The Bible says here in Deuteronomy 10:12 that God requires us to fear him or to reverence him. This first angel proclaims a message of a proclamation of fearing God. You ought to fear God; you ought to honor him; you ought to reverence God. The fear of God is good. You go through the scripture, there's a lot of verses about the fear of God. The fear of God is clean. The Bible says the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. To fear God is to reverence him and again, we must understand that.

Now we're going to move to the second angel. The second angel is found in verse number eight of Revelation chapter 14. Verse eight reads, "And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication." Now here this second angel has a unique message. He's making a proclamation to Babylon. We're going to learn about Babylon as we go into Revelation chapter 17 and chapter 18. There's some debate today in the body of Christ among scholars whether literal Babylon will come back into world history and will literal Babylon be judged.

I personally believe that literal Babylon will come back because the Bible says in Revelation we're going to see in chapters 17 and 18, especially chapter 18, that Babylon will have a visitation by God. God's going to judge the literal city of Babylon. We're going to find out a lot about that. But here in chapter 14, verse eight, this angel is making a proclamation in regards to Babylon saying, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city." He said, "Because she made all nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication."

Now I want to quote again Dr. Charles Ryrie from his book *Revelation (The New Edition)*. Listen to what he says in regards to this proclamation of doom to Babylon. He said this: "The rest of this chapter is something like a table of contents for the remainder of the book. Another angel now announces the fall of Babylon, which is described in detail in chapters 17 and 18. The repetition of fallen emphasizes the certainty of the complete destruction of Babylon. This is anticipatory since Babylon's actual fall is connected with the outpouring of the seventh bowl judgment found in Revelation chapter 16, verse nine." When we get into chapter 16, we're going to see the vial judgments or the bowl judgments, and this is what he's referring to.

He goes on to say this: "The reason for Babylon's judgment is twofold: because of her own immorality and because she has infected all nations with her sin." Now here again God is talking about Babylon. What we're going to see is that there again is a future judgment of the literal city Babylon. We're going to see that. We're literally going to see that God is going to judge the city. The Bible says in one hour. But here he dispatches an angel to make that proclamation. I want to say one other thing while we're here. We're in chapter 14, and remember we talked about chapters 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. These are parenthetical chapters, meaning these are chapters in parentheses that are giving a little more detail about what will transpire during the time of tribulation leading all the way to the second coming of Christ. So again, we're going to see some amazing things.

I want to quote one other scholar. This is Dr. Clarence Larkin from his book *The Book of Revelation* in reference to the fall of Babylon. Listen to what he says. He says, "Here is proof that the city of Babylon is to be rebuilt. Destruction of the literal city of Babylon, this proclamation is anticipative, but as a declaration that Babylon had fallen to fearful depths of wickedness and apostasy, and had become the habitation of demons and the hole of every foul spirit and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird, as described in chapter 18, verse two." Now in chapter 18 we're going to see the literal fall of Babylon at this time.

So the city, I believe, has to be here again. Now again, there's some debate. Some scholars believe that Babylon fell back in history. We do know Babylon did fall back then, but there's a future Babylon that the Bible talks about that God is going to revisit during the time of the Book of Revelation, during the time of the Great Tribulation. And again, we're going to see that. Now Dr. Larkin goes on to say this: "It was already true for the city of Babylon will have been rebuilt at the time when this angel utters this proclamation. The angel's warning was that God's people might hear his voice saying, come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not her plagues. Revelation chapter 18, verse four."

Now again, this deals with the literal fall of Babylon, but this is one of the messages that the angels will proclaim. These three angels will be released. This is the second angel's proclamation. This is amazing and I can imagine that as these angels fly throughout the world, their voice will be amplified because God is giving man another chance to get things right. Now we're going to move on to the next angel. This is the third angel and this is found in Revelation chapter 14, verse number nine. Look what John wrote, "And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name."

What a proclamation. This third angel has a message that will be given to those of the Great Tribulation period. It's a warning for them not to receive the mark of the beast. He said in verse nine, this angel's going to cry with a loud voice, "If any man worship the beast and his image and receive his mark." We talked about in Revelation 13 that this false prophet, the beast coming out of the sea, he's going to have a supernatural ability to cause this image to come alive and men will be driven to worship this image. And as they worship the image, they're forming an alliance or an allegiance to Antichrist. But when they do that, they have doomed themselves.

I pray, if anybody listens to this message after the rapture of the church, if you listen to me now, don't take the mark of the beast as this angel will proclaim during the time of the Great Tribulation. I also said too and I want to reiterate this that if you're born again today, if you receive Jesus Christ, you won't face the mark of the beast because you'll be raptured before that. But there will be many people who will be left behind and what's going to happen, this angel will proclaim this clear warning to them. Now this is a very severe warning. He warns them against worshipping the beast, against worshipping his image, against receiving the mark of the beast in their forehead or in their hand.

He's warning them don't do it because he pronounces the judgment of the lake of fire on them. He said, in verse 10, "The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture." Now I want to stop there for a second. Here this angel is saying that if you take the mark of the beast, you're going to drink of the wrath of God. You know the wrath of God is really the anger of God and we're going to talk about that in a few minutes. God has anger. But here the Bible says that they will drink of the wine of the wrath of God. Listen to this: "Which is poured out without mixture." That means this judgment is without mixture, meaning that there's no mercy, there's no grace added to this.

You're going to get the pure, unadulterated, naked wrath of God because men have formed an alliance with God's enemy, the Antichrist and the devil. So as a result of those who take the mark and worship the Antichrist and his image, you have overstepped your bounds and God is going to judge them severely. They're going to get the full, unadulterated wrath of God or the anger of God without mixture. The Bible says, "Without mixture into the cup of his indignation." And then he said, "And he," this person who does that, "he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb." He closes out verse 11 by saying, "And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they shall have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name."

Listen, listen. My time is running out. I want to close by saying this. If you're not born again today, the Bible says so easy, "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord, they shall be saved." Simply receiving Christ as your Lord and Savior will give you eternal life. And guess what? If you die a born-again person, you will be blessed. Your death will be blessed because you'll be raised from the dead. Now what we're going to do, I'm going to move into the next program and we're going to pick up looking at the blessed dead. I want to say a few more things here and then we're going to move on into chapter 14. And what we're going to see next, we're going to see the harvest. We're going to see the harvest of the righteous, the wheat, and we're going to see the harvest of the unredeemed.

Southwest Radio Ministries: Have you ever opened the Book of Revelation only to close it because it seemed too difficult to understand? Well, you don't have to wonder anymore. In *Understanding the Book of Revelation*, respected Bible prophecy teacher Donald Perkins guides you verse-by-verse through every chapter of Revelation in this comprehensive 24-DVD teaching series, featuring 71 in-depth television lessons.

With his clear, easy-to-follow teaching style, Donald Perkins explains the symbolism, prophetic timeline, and major events of the last days. Whether you're studying on your own, with your family, or in a small group, this is a resource you'll return to again and again. If you've ever wanted to truly understand God's final message to his church, this series belongs in your library. Order *Understanding the Book of Revelation* today at swrc.com or call 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144. Discover why Revelation isn't a book to fear; it's a book of hope, victory, and the soon return of Jesus Christ. *Understanding the Book of Revelation*, swrc.com or 1-800-652-1144.

Teacher and author Larry Stam comes next to help us share our faith with boldness and love.

Larry Stam: Shalom friends, Larry Stam here, so glad you are joining us as we continue in our teaching series, "Serving in His Court", biblical principles for personal evangelism from the heart of a coach. In our last segment, we introduced understanding and engaging different worldviews. We spoke about the fact that it's very important to understand our audience so that we will have both an informed and a more effective witness. In short, it's important to understand our audience so as to effectively contextualize the gospel.

I mentioned last time the example of the Apostle Paul in the scriptures, namely from the Book of Acts, when he went to the synagogues on the Shabbat. He would witness to Jewish people from the scriptures, the Old Testament. They were very familiar with the Word of God. If you remember Paul in Acts chapter 17 on Mars Hill at Athens, he witnessed to the pagans, the philosophers, and others by talking about general revelation, talked about all creation is created by the creator God and that all human beings are creations of God. For example, all creation proclaims his glory to specific revelation. So Paul would contextualize the gospel even for philosophers, pagans, and others.

Now we're going to continue as we think about understanding our audience. I want to help us understand that what we want to do with each of these worldviews that we're going to briefly examine is we want to ask four basic questions. First of all, theism. What is theism? Well, theism declares that an infinite personal creator God exists. He created the physical universe, yet reality is both material and spiritual. Next is spiritism and polytheism. Now, spiritism and polytheism profess belief in a world populated by spirit beings that govern all things. Within spiritism and polytheism, man is a creation of the gods, like all other creatures.

Number three, the third worldview we're going to explore is naturalism. Now, naturalism holds that the physical universe is all that exists. There's no spirit or soul. Therefore man is simply the chance product of evolution. And naturalism, by the way, is a worldview that dominates Western culture today. In contrast to naturalism, the next worldview we're going to explore briefly is called pantheism. Pantheism maintains that only the spiritual dimension exists; all else is illusion. Under pantheism, God is impersonal. He's more or it's more a concept than a person. And according to pantheistic thought, God is everything and everything is God. People worshipping the trees; the trees are God, I'm God, you're God, everything is God and everyone is God. So, there's a little of pantheism.

And then lastly, we're going to explore the worldview of postmodernism. Again, postmodernism asserts that reality is simply a construct of our particular cultural paradigms. In other words, truth is not objective. Rather, under postmodernism, truth is subjective even if it exists at all. Who can know? So, the postmodernist is going to say truth is in the eyes of the beholder. You have your truth, I have my truth, and Benny has his truth. And that is the truth according to the postmodernist.

So, these are the five worldviews that we're going to briefly examine and unpack in our next series of lessons. I hope this has been helpful to you as we get a grasp of worldviews and how they relate to our Christian witness. Again, we go back initially to the reason that we understand and seek to grow in our understanding of worldviews. The better we understand our audience and the worldview that they adhere to, the more informed we're going to be in our witness to them and the more effective we're going to be in contextualizing the gospel for them.

Well friends, that was a lot to say. Hope this has been helpful to you. Until next time, may the Lord Jesus richly bless you and keep you. Shalom.

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