AND THEY WILL BE TERRIFIED, PAINS AND ANGUISH WILL TAKE HOLD OF THEM; THEY WILL WRITHE LIKE A WOMAN IN LABOR, THEY WILL LOOK AT ONE ANOTHER IN ASTONISHMENT, THEIR FACES ALFAME. Isaiah the prophet, chapter thirteen, verse eight.
Part 4 of 4 from Revelation 14:9-12.
PREVIOUSLY COVERED:I. Hell Is One of God's Great Passions. IN THE CROSS HAIRS.II. Hell Is Punishment. NO EXCUSES.III. Hell Is Public. THE DISPLAY OF THE DAMNED.IV. Hell Is Permanent. NO BACK DOOR.V. Hell Is Painful. NO RELIEF.VI. Hell Is Personal. GOD KNOWS YOU.VII. Hell Is Certain. NO WAY OUT.VIII. Hell Is Appropriate and Measured. NO APPEAL.Hell--is God having a tizzy? Is He a violent, vengeful brute, unstoppable, yet just angry because there is no bigger bully in the universe? Why would we not think so since it is beyond our comprehension just as much as the love of God is? The Bible says, “NO”. God isn’t an uncontrolled tyrant. He is a just king.
Though it is intense, searing, painful, dreaded, and violent beyond anything one can suffer on this earth, it is measured and completely appropriate justice. God has three cups that accurately measure justice and sin. All three of them will be filled with precision.
Notice first in the passage (Revelation 14:9--12) that the punishment is based on sin. Verse 9 says, “If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives the mark on his forehead or on his hand…” So the punishment isn’t willy-nilly. It’s appropriate and we have been forewarned We are to be punished FOR something. Then in verse 10 we read about one of the cups God is measuring with. It says, “Even he himself (that very one) will drink of the cup of the wine of the passionate anger of God, poured out unmixed into the cup of His wrath and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.”
Let's take this verse apart and find the absolute appropriateness of God’s hell in four ways:
First, though not spoken outright, the notion of the patience of God bathes the passage. When God spoke of the wine of His passionate, long-determined anger He was speaking of something that takes awhile. It’s not spontaneous. It’s thought out. Wine doesn’t happen over a weekend. The vineyard is planted. It grows over years and finally gives a harvest. But wait. Not yet. Now one must go and hand pluck grapes, gathering them for the winepress. Once in the winepress, another presses and squeezes out the blood of the grapes, each cluster, and each grape. This is planned. This is a process. This takes time. God isn’t having a fit of anger. It’s not that type of passion. It’s the passion that leads to planning, action, and a culmination. God will not acquit the wicked.
Second, notice that the punishment is only for the wicked. Verse nine says that God will torment “If someone worships the beast…” Those in hell are rightly there. God says that we all deserve hell. We all are under wrath.
Third, the end of verse 10 is chilling. “…and he himself will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.” Who is the Lamb? Well, it’s Jesus. This shows how appropriate hell is. I have already written of the public humiliation of hell. We have spoken of the pain of hell. We have begun to speak of the fact that hell is punishment for sin. In all these ways, the death of the Lamb pre-mirrored hell. The very folks who punished Him for His wrong (in their eyes) will find themselves being punished for the very sins for which He told them to repent. And this includes the sin of punishing Him. See Peter’s sermon in Acts 2. The same folks who publicly humiliated Him, including those who mock Him today, will shrink in shame in His holy, innocent presence. And the pain they will suffer will be in lieu of the pain He suffered, because they refused to repent so that His suffering would suffice for God’s wrath. Now they will suffer for their own sins--much more appropriate than the Lamb, who suffered for the sins of others, not for His own.
Hence, hell is appropriate. That fact will be shoved in the face of everyone in hell. Everyone else in the universe will know it and nod their heads accordingly.
Fourth, the appropriateness of hell is shown in the fact that God’s passionate, long-determined wrath is measured into a cup. While the passage doesn’t actually bring up the topic of measuring, the rest of Scripture does. There is a theme in Scripture of the Cup. Christ spoke of the Cup. The prophets spoke of the Cup. And the Cup may be considered as actually three cups, the Cup of Iniquity, the Cup of Wrath, and the Cup of Drunkenness. At times it seems that Scripture speaks of all three as one. Other times it seems to speak of the Cup of Drunkenness and the Cup of Wrath as one cup. Still other times it seems to speak of the three individually. In Psalm 16:5, we see that God Himself is the Cup that belongs to the saint. It says, “The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup…” The unrepentant, however, have quite a different cup to drink.
The Cup of Iniquity is the pre-measured amount of sin God has decided a sinful person, a sinful people, or this sinful world will sin before they are brought to justice. They are brought to the bar of judgment at a predetermined time of God’s choosing. And this time of judgment is also the time at which the sinful person or sinful people have sinned the exact amount to fill the Cup of Iniquity. The judgment may be a miraculous thing like plague, war, or famine, or it may be simply facing God after “natural” death, or it may be the end of this age. All these are times of God's judgment when He will pour out His wrath.
This idea of a measured amount of sin is in some passages of Scripture without reference to the Cup. Once such place is in James chapter 5, where we read about the rich whose wealth was achieved by swindling laborers out of their wages. James 5:5 says, “You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.” So, just like a farmer who gives grain to fatten a calf for slaughter, the sinful unwittingly serve God by filling the Cup of Iniquity to the point that it becomes the appropriate time for the just judgment God has planned.
Interestingly, the judgment is both a response by God to the cries of the wicked (James 5:4: Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.) and part of God’s predetermined plan. And both of these seemingly contradictory aspects of judgment are obliquely mentioned in James 5. First, the predetermination of God’s judgment is in the fact that the rich oppressors are already under judgment, though they haven’t yet felt it. Verse two says, “Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten.” Notice “have rotted” and “are moth-eaten”. Both of these phrases are in the Greek perfect tense, meaning that they were rotted and had become moth-eaten long ago, even though they were not so at the time. It is like the English statement “You’re a dead man!” Obviously, if the man is alive to hear someone tell him he’s a dead man, he isn’t dead. What we mean is that it has been decided that he will die and there is nothing he can do about it. Thus the wealth of the rich of James 5 is already as good as gone. Second, the predetermination of God’s judgment is shown in the fact that, though sinning, the sinners have in fact worked God’s ultimate will (though not His moral will) just as the Jews and Romans did at the crucifixion of Jesus. Speaking of the sin of killing Jesus, Acts 2:23 states, “…this Man, delivered up by the definite counsel of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”
The Cup of Iniquity is sin of which God keeps an accounting for future judgment. It is mentioned in passages like these:
Revelation 17:4 The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality.
Genesis 15:16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete."
Job 21:19 You say, “God stores up their iniquity for their children.” Let him pay it out to them, that they may know it.
Psalm 32:2 Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
Revelation 18:5 for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.
In the same way, though, it is God’s plan that saints do an exact amount of righteous deeds before they are taken to their reward. II Corinthians 10:6,“…being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.”
The Cup of Drunkenness is part of God’s Cup of Wrath, but is such an important part that He mentions it separately and at times He mentions the Cup of Wrath and the Cup of Drunkenness, seemingly for emphasis. The Cup of Drunkenness is the numbing of the mind and soul to spiritual truth, sin, and God. Because of this spiritual stupor the sinner is unaware of the coming judgment. He ought to know because it’s obvious or because he has actually been told. He even looses sight of the personal bad effects of his own sin, much like the gambler, the drunk, or the womanizer. In Romans 1 we read that the sodomite is so morally drunk that he is physically violated in a way many would consider worse than murder and doesn’t even know it, “…receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”
Recall the example of the oppressive rich in James 5? They were unaware of the fact that they were building the fire for their own hell. Here are some more passages that speak of the Cup of Drunkenness:
Jeremiah 51:7 Babylon was a golden cup in Yahweh's hand, making all the earth drunken; the nations drank of her wine; therefore the nations went mad.
Jeremiah 25:15-16 Thus Yahweh, the God of Israel, said to me: "Take from My hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them."
Isaiah 51:17 Wake yourself, wake yourself, stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of Yahweh the cup of His wrath, who have drunk to the dregs the bowl, the cup of staggering.
Isaiah 51:22 Thus says your Lord, Yahweh, your God who pleads the cause of his people: "Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering; the bowl of My wrath you shall drink no more;
Zechariah 12:2 Behold, I am about to make Jerusalem a cup of staggering to all the surrounding peoples. The siege of Jerusalem will also be against Judah.
Lamentations 4:21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, you who dwell in the land of Uz; but to you also the cup shall pass; you shall become drunk and strip yourself bare.
When a man or woman no longer has guilt over his or her sin, and is happy without guilt pangs or fear of God, it's a sign that there is no hope for his or her soul. Notice the sarcasm of the quote from Lamentations. “Rejoice and be glad…” God wants the scoffer to scoff. All the more surprise when the flames of hell lick his face!
The Intro to Hell is not knowing you’re going.
The last cup is the Cup of Wrath, part of which is the Cup of Drunkenness. The Cup of Wrath is that measure of hell or of earthly judgment that is determined by the preordained will of God to most glorify Him. The point in time when a sinning person or people fills the Cup of Iniquity, God pours out the Cup of Wrath, starting with drunkenness, ending with violent destruction. The Cup of Wrath is exactly proportional to the Cup of Iniquity for each individual in hell, for each nation, and for the world all together. In the Revelation the Cup of Wrath becomes a “bowl”. This is a broad flat vessel used for offerings.
Psalm 11:6 Let Him rain coals on the wicked; fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.
Psalm 75:8 For in the hand of Yahweh there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and He pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.
Isaiah 51:17 Wake yourself, wake yourself, stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of Yahweh the cup of His wrath, who have drunk to the dregs the bowl, the cup of staggering.
Jeremiah 25:15-26 Thus Yahweh, the God of Israel, said to me: "Take from My hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them." So I took the cup from Yahweh’s hand, and made all the nations to whom Yahweh sent me drink it: Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and officials, to make them a desolation and a waste, a hissing and a curse, as at this day; Pharaoh king of Egypt, his servants, his officials, all his people, and all the mixed tribes among them; all the kings of the land of Uz and all the kings of the land of the Philistines (Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod); Edom, Moab, and the sons of Ammon; all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the coastland across the sea; Dedan, Tema, Buz, and all who cut the corners of their hair; all the kings of Arabia and all the kings of the mixed tribes who dwell in the desert; all the kings of Zimri, all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of Media; all the kings of the north, far and near, one after another, and all the kingdoms of the world that are on the face of the earth. And after them the king of Babylon shall drink.
Jeremiah 25:28 And if they refuse to accept the cup from your hand to drink, then you shall say to them, “Thus says the Yahweh of hosts: You must drink!”
Ezekiel 23:32-33 Thus says the Lord Yahweh: "You shall drink your sister's cup that is deep and large; you shall be laughed at and held in derision, for it contains much; you will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow. A cup of horror and desolation, the cup of your sister Samaria;
Habakkuk 2:16 You will have your fill of shame instead of glory. Drink, yourself, and show your uncircumcision! The cup in Yahweh’s right hand will come around to you, and utter shame will come upon your glory!
Revelation 16:2-12 So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth, and harmful and painful sores came upon the people who bore the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became like the blood of a corpse, and every living thing died that was in the sea. The third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water, and they became blood. And I heard the angel in charge of the waters say, "Just are You, O Holy One, Who is and Who was, for You brought these judgments. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and You have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve!" And I heard the altar saying, "Yes, Lord God the Almighty, true and just are Your judgments!" The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire. They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God Who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory. The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in anguish and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds. The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, to prepare the way for the kings from the east.
Revelation 18:6-7 Pay her back as she herself has paid back others, and repay her double for her deeds; mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed. As she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning, since in her heart she says, “I sit as a queen, I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see.”
XI. Hell is barely avoidable. JESUS DRANK MY CUP.Being under the Cups of Iniquity, Drunkenness, and Wrath is unnecessary. In fact, Jesus underwent the Cup of Wrath for us. He spoke of it many times in the gospels and we commemorate it at communion. In the garden He asked if He could accomplish the will of the Father without drinking the Cup.
He is our Cup.
So, there is a ninth characteristic of hell mentioned in Revelation 14:9-12. Hell is avoidable, but barely. Verse 12 says, “But here is the perseverance of the holy people--those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” Notice the phrase “the holy people”. Most translations say “the saints”. And that’s a good translation. The problem is that we’ve forgotten what a saint is. “Saint” is a translation of the Greek word for “holy”--one set apart from all others by a righteous God. The New Testament writers used this word more than any other to describe the believers. More than “believer”. More than “the elect”. Over twice as many times as any other title, the New Testament refers to God’s people as “the holies”. As we would say in English “the rich”, “the poor”, “the whites”, “the blacks”, “the disadvantaged”, or “the privileged”, the Scripture uses a description for a name. God’s people are those who live up to the description “holy”. The holies “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.”
So what are the two qualifications for escape from hell? First, repent. Begin to keep the commandments of God. Second, obey the “faith of Jesus”. There are no other ways. All other religions are false. The only faith that will get you to heaven is the faith of Jesus. And this is the message that Jesus had. Matthew 4:17 says, After that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for near is the kingdom of heaven.” When the Jews were convicted of the sin of murdering the Christ, they asked Peter what they ought to do. In Acts 2:38 Peter answered this way:
Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 "For the promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself.
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