Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #20 of Revelation, chapter 14, and we are looking at Revelation14:10:

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:

It begins by saying, “The same,” and it is referring back to verse 9, which concluded with this statement: “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,” and this is the case with every unsaved person.  The previous chapter, Revelation 13, told us that all that dwell upon the earth shall worship the beast whose names are not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  Only God’s elect have their names recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life and that would leave all unsaved people to worship the beast.  During the Great Tribulation period, all unsaved people did worship Satan in one way or the other.  In the churches, it was obvious, as Satan, the beast, entered into the congregations as the “man of sin” and took his seat in the temple, showing himself that he is God.  As the churches believed the false gospels and the lies that were being put forth from the emissaries of Satan, Satan was receiving the worship every Sunday.  After God opened up the information that the church age was over and He sent forth that Word into the church world to get out of the churches, but they did not hearken and obey the Word of God, then they were no longer worshipping God.  God was not receiving the worship on Sunday mornings in the congregations of the world, but Satan was receiving the worship.  And, outside in the world, the unsaved of the world were going after the lusts of their hearts and their evil desires.  Now they were free to fulfill their lusts like never before and they, too, were caught up in the worship of the beast.  All the unsaved that dwelt upon the earth were now subject to drink of the “wine of the wrath of God.”

Wrath means anger and fury.  God has a reaction to sin.  When sins are committed and His Law is broken, the sins are against Him and they are acts of rebellion from creatures that ought to have been in subjection to Him.  God is the great King and all mankind are His subjects, created in His image and, as the King decrees our response ought to be, “Let us do the will of the King.”  But man, in his perverseness and tremendous wickedness, goes contrary to the commands of the King and says, “I will not do them.  I will not listen to you.”  Each act of rebellion is against the King.  Of course, if this was an earthly kingdom and people were rebelling in this manner, the earthly king would send forth his army and destroy all those miserable rebels.  But because God had a plan and program of salvation, He allowed the rebels to continue to rebel throughout time.  He put off the day of vengeance and the day of anger, the “evil” day, to an appointed time that would come at the end of the world, in order to allow Him to accomplish His salvation program of saving all those He intended to save.  It is only because the King is merciful, gracious, good and kind that He forebears and permits mankind to continue to raise their puny little fists against the great God and King.

Yet, when Judgment Day comes, the King has now accomplished His goal and He has done what He intended to do toward the “vessels of mercy.”  He put up with the sins of the wicked only while His salvation plan was still in effect, but His plan was completed by the end of the Great Tribulation when the great multitude was saved out of the “little season” and that finalized the entire company of the elect.  They were all saved and God no longer had to be long suffering and He no longer had to put up with the sins of the rebels.

Immediately, and with no delay, after the Great Tribulation, God acted upon His wrath and anger.  He shut the door of heaven.  He put out the lights of the Gospel, and the sun was darkened, the moon did not give its light and the stars fell, which is all spiritual language to indicate there was no more salvation.  This was an action God performed in His wrath and in His furious anger toward sinners.

The only hope that mankind had (from man’s perspective) was salvation.  The only thing mankind could hope for in order to have any expectation of avoiding the wrath of God and the death of total annihilation was the fact that God was a merciful God.  He had demonstrated great mercy all through history as He put up with the sins of man in order to bestow His mercy upon certain ones and this was the last hope for mankind.  Yet, when Judgment Day began on May 21, 2011, that hope was crushed.  It was ended.  God would no longer be merciful toward any sinner.  The time of His mercy had been fulfilled.  For those He had saved, His mercy endures for ever, but it is not mercy for all people. 

It is a ridiculous idea when people turn to the Psalms and find a verse where it says, “His mercy endureth for ever,” and, therefore, they say God could not shut the door to heaven.  They are not thinking.  Does that mean that God can never end the world because His mercy endures for ever?  Does that mean that God cannot finalize the things of this earth because His mercy endures for ever?   Obviously, that cannot be.  Those Scriptures have to do with God granting mercy to His elect people and that will never change because His mercy toward the believers will certainly endure for ever, and it is presently enduring for ever upon the great multitude.  But those verses never meant that God would always make available the possibility of mercy for all mankind; that has never been true, from the eternal perspective of God.  But salvation is over.  It is done.  It is finished.  God’s salvation program has been completed and now it is Judgment Day.  It is the day of wrath now and we have been in this time of judgment for over three years and there is the pouring out of the wrath of God. 

This is why EBible Fellowship continues to do these studies and to talk about these things.  Some people say, “Why do you not talk about something else?”  We do, as we go verse by verse, and by whatever the verse brings up in the Bible.  We will discuss it, but this is Judgment Day and, of course, the focus is going to be on judgment and not on mercy and not on God saving; that period of evangelization has come to a close, so we are not going to focus on those verses.  It is just like when the church age ended.  We did not continue to look at the qualifications for elders and deacons.  What is the point?  Why go over that?  Why go over church authority?  If it comes up in a verse or passage or if someone has a question, we will certainly look at it, but the period of application for those things has ended and now is a different time.

Let us look at Revelation 14:10:

The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation…

The word “wrath” in the first part of the verse is Strong’s #2372 and the word “indignation” is Strong’s #3709 and that latter word can also be translated as “wrath.”  It is translated as “indignation” and “vengeance” and “wrath” and “anger.”  So it is emphasizing the same thing, but using different words to indicate that this is the period when God is punishing the wicked by pouring out His wrath into the cup: “the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation.”  When it says it is “poured out without mixture,” it means it is in a pure form; it is strong and we could say it is not “watered down” wrath, but it is the full force of the wrath of God and the cup is for the nations to drink.  The churches have already drunk from the cup of the wrath of God for twenty three years and now the world (including the churches) drink of this cup as well.  It is one of the reasons that God says there are more “stripes” for those that knew the Word of God, the professed Christians, than those in the world that had nothing to do with the Bible.  The churches drank already when God began judgment at the house of God and now they must drink again when the entire world is drinking of the cup of the wrath of God.

I would like to look at the word “indignation,” which is Strong’s #3709, the Greek word “orge.”

It says in John 3:36:

He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

This verse tells us that God’s wrath is on the sinner and has been on the sinner.  There are some people that say, “Well, the sinner is always under the wrath of God.  There is always judgment on the sinner, so why are you talking about a particular Day of Judgment?”  They go to this verse and they also go to Ephesians 2:3:

Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

Here, we can see how this goes with John 3, verse 36: “The wrath of God abideth on him.”  The wrath of God remains on the one that does not have Christ as Saviour.  Here, in Ephesians 2:3, God is looking at the wicked that walk according to Satan, the prince of the power of the air, and  they do his will.  Then God turns His focus to the elect and He says that we (the elect) “were by nature the children of wrath.”  This means that God’s furious anger was upon us, even when we were conceived in the womb.  Why?  It is because we were conceived in sin.  And when we were born, the Bible says, we were born “speaking lies.”  So we were the children of wrath and it abode upon us all our lives, until we became a child of God.  And it says, “even as others,” because this is the case of every person born into the world.  That is why people needed a Saviour, in order to remove that wrath of God from them.

But, again, if it is true (and it is) that unsaved people are always under the wrath of God, then why do we talk about May 21, 2011 as the day of wrath?  In some ways, it may not make sense, but let us look at a couple more verses.  It says in Romans 2:5:

But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;

Here, God is speaking to a sinner and He is basically saying, “Through your sinful acts you are treasuring up against yourself wrath against the day of wrath.”  So we see that because of your sin, wrath is upon you.  It abides upon you and all men, but these acts are, in a sense, being “treasured up” or “stored up” and counted together as a weight of guilt and shame.  It is being done “against” a certain day and that day is the day of wrath (Judgment Day).

Let us look at another verse in Romans 4:14-15:

For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect: Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.

Now I want us to think about this statement: “The law worketh wrath.”  It says in Romans 3:20:

Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

In other words, God teaches people through the Bible and the Bible is a Law Book.  Every time we read the Bible or hear the Bible, we are hearing the Law of God.  It ought to be convicting us and showing us that we have broken this Law and transgressed this Law.  It is developing within the reader or hearer of the Word the “knowledge of sin.”  It is showing us that we are not just in His sight through our own works; in fact, our works condemn us: “No man is justified by the works of the law,” in God’s sight.  Every time we read the Bible, we are being condemned more and more and the “law worketh wrath.”  The Bible says, “The wages of sin is death.”  The anger of God is upon us and we know that God is displeased with us and we know that He is not happy at all when we had that sinful thought or action – we are “treasuring” up wrath through the breaking of the Law.  The Law is working wrath and it will do so until the “day of wrath,” that appointed day God has selected to begin to pour out His wrath in an official capacity upon all the sinners in punishment for their sins to exact the payment the Law demands. 

We read in 1Thessalonians 1:10:

And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

Here it is very clear that God is speaking of the day of wrath in the future.  Anyone that tries to say there is no such thing as a Judgment Day, a day of wrath, is not reading the whole Bible.  It says in Revelation 6:16-17:

And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

So there was a “wrath to come,” according to 1Thessalonians 1, verse 10, and then Revelation 6:17 speaks of the day when His wrath “is come,” and the Day of Judgment has arrived.  And Revelation, chapter 6, has application to what is going on presently – it truly has come.  That day is no longer off in the future, but it is here with us today.  God is actively (and in an ongoing way) judging all the wicked of the earth.  Remember when the Bible says that “wrath abideth” on the sinner, it was true of every unsaved person and we were also children of wrath, even as others.  Again, that wrath that abided on the sinner and all unsaved people are children of wrath, but that wrath upon them was never visible.  It was an unseen wrath.  So when someone says that we were always under the wrath of God, whether they know it (or not) they are recognizing a “spiritual judgment.” 

God told Adam, “For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”  Eve ate and Adam ate, but they did not die physically on that day, but they died in their soul existence, which was a spiritual judgment.  The wrath of God abode upon them and upon their descendents who were born “conceived in sin” into the world and were the “children of wrath.”  That wrath that hung over the sinner all of his life long was never seen; it was never in the realm of the visible world.  It was an invisible, spiritual wrath.  If God could have His wrath upon all the unsaved people of the earth in the normal course of events, then why would people think that He could not bring the “day of wrath,” the appointed Day of Judgment, upon all the wicked, likewise, in an unseen way?