Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #20 of Revelation chapter 21 and we are going to look at Revelation 21:8:
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
In the previous verse, God made reference to those that would overcome and inherit all things. They would be the elect. He is contrasting this with the rest of mankind, all the unsaved people of the earth. They are being described in this way: “fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable,” and so forth, and we can see this is a list of sins. To be unbelieving is a sin because God commands us to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, it is a sin to murder or to be a whoremonger. It is a sin to be a sorcerer or an idolater because we are to worship only God and to lie is also a sin because God would have every man to speak the truth.
We are fairly well acquainted with most of the evil things that God is listing here, except for maybe a couple of them. I thought it would be good to look at them. We do not have a great deal of time left before October 7, 2015 and I would like to finish going through the Book of Revelation, so we will look at two of these sins:
The word “abominable” is a word that is related to “abomination” and God speaks of the “abomination of desolation” that stands in the holy place and that is a related word. But, here, the Lord is speaking of people that are “abominable,” so we will take a closer look at that word.
We will also look at the word “fearful” because it is a complex topic in the Bible. When we think of being “fearful,” there is a good type of fearfulness that the Bible commands and there is a bad type of fearfulness. Since it is included with these other sins, it is sinful to have this kind of fearfulness. As far as “fear” being a good thing, it says in Proverbs 1:7:
The fear of JEHOVAH is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Or, if we go to the Book of Jeremiah, it says in Jeremiah 5:22-24:
Fear ye not me? saith JEHOVAH: will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it? But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone. Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear JEHOVAH our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his season: he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest.
In these verses, God is saying that some people do not fear Him. The Bible tells us regarding unsaved individuals that there is no fear of God in their eyes. Mankind does not fear God as it is commanded in Proverbs 1:7: “The fear of JEHOVAH is the beginning of knowledge.” The fear of the Lord leads to a departure from evil and that is the big way in which mankind does not fear God. They hear that the Bible says, “The wages of sin is death.” They heard about Judgment Day (as all the world heard in regard to May 21, 2011 as the appointed Day of Judgment) and they may have feared in a certain sense, such as a sense of anxiousness or distress of mind, but they did not “fear” in the sense of repentance and leaving their sins. That is not the nature of fallen man and that is why it was necessary for God to do all the work in salvation because man will not, and cannot, repent unto salvation without God interceding and performing the work.
However, God commands us to fear Him, but it is not a good thing that man fears anyone else except God. When we read in our verse in Revelation 21:8 that the fearful will have their part in the lake of fire, it is because God has commanded that they fear not others. Let us take a look at some of those verses. God says in Psalm 56:4:
In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me.
Also, it says in Isaiah 51:7-8:
Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation.
We are not to fear the reproach of men.
It also says in 2Kings 17:35-39:
With whom JEHOVAH had made a covenant, and charged them, saying, Ye shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them: But JEHOVAH, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and a stretched out arm, him shall ye fear, and him shall ye worship, and to him shall ye do sacrifice. And the statutes, and the ordinances, and the law, and the commandment, which he wrote for you, ye shall observe to do for evermore; and ye shall not fear other gods. And the covenant that I have made with you ye shall not forget; neither shall ye fear other gods. But JEHOVAH your God ye shall fear; and he shall deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies. Howbeit they did not hearken, but they did after their former manner.
Israel of old feared other gods. Again, “fear” of God is related to obedience to the commandments of God. If we fear God, we will be moved by His Spirit to do His will and to keep His commandments and we will be afraid when we fail to keep His commandments. God said, “Fear ye not me?” When the appointed Day of Judgment was proclaimed to all the world, God demanded repentance from all those that heard and the whole world heard that it was time to turn from their sins because there was the appointed Day of Judgment. As it says in Amos, chapter 3, “Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid?” Yet, most men had no fear of God.
God says to His people not to fear flesh, the reproach of men or other gods. Of course, “another god” does not have to be an idol carved of wood or stone and decked with silver. Those were ancient examples of “other gods” and they were idols, but today men make “gods” out of false doctrines in their churches and they set them up in their creeds and confessions and the commentaries of their favorite theologians. These are the “gods” of the churches and you must obey their “gods” or you cannot be a Presbyterian, a Lutheran or a Catholic. You must obey their idols, but God says, “Do not fear other gods.” He commanded His people to come out of the churches.
Or, in the world there are idols today. They are idols from the minds of men, like evolution or their form of morality. They say it is a good thing for two men to marry or two women to marry and have intimate relationship with one another, but the sin of homosexuality is called an abomination and we will look at that more closely when we look at the word “abominable.” But, here we have two positions put forth. First there is God’s command that marriage is only between a man and a woman that are qualified to be married, which means they have never been married and they have not been divorced from a living spouse. But the “new morality” that has been carved afresh out of the minds of men has been set up and they want you to bow down and obey what they say or you will be reviled and that is what God said in a very important verse in Isaiah 51:7:
Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings.
This is the threat that mankind holds over others and it is how they get others to bow the knee and submit to their idols. That was what King Nebuchadnezzar did when he carved an image of gold and he had it proclaimed throughout the kingdom of Babylon that everyone in the kingdom was to bow the knee to that idol. They must obey and if they did not, there was a threat. The threat was that they would be thrown into a fiery furnace and destroyed and everyone in Babylon bowed the knee and that tells us the character of the people of the world – they fear other men and they fear for their lives and they fear the reproach and reviling of men. They fear being afflicted by the tongue of other people and they do not want to be the objects of ridicule or to be looked down upon and despised. It is a fearful thing to them. Man naturally wants to be liked and they want to fit in and be a part of society and other people and they hate the idea that people will look unpleasantly upon them and speak badly of them or revile them.
This was the case after May 21, 2011 when the church and the world were in unison as they mocked and laughed and scorned the people of God that had proclaimed to them, with absolute clarity, that May 21, 2011 would be Judgment Day. Then there was all that scorn heaped upon those that had said these things and it frightened a good many people that previously held to these understandings. They had never experienced anything like that and, of course, none of us had experienced it. But it really “hit home” for some of them because it touched on something that was within them. In the true child of God, God has given a certain “spirit” and He tells us about this in 2Timothy 1:7:
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
This would only refer to the elect. The elect do not have a spirit of fear.
God also says in Psalm 34:4:
I sought JEHOVAH, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
It says in Isaiah 41:10-14:
Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish. Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee: they that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought. For I JEHOVAH thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee. Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith JEHOVAH, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
God commands His people, “Fear not,” and then He gives them a spirit that is not “the spirit of fear,” but of a sound mind. Can God’s people ever fear? Of course, they can fear for a moment, but they will not continue in the sin of “fear,” just like David did not continue in sin when he fell into the sin of adultery and murder. A child of God might fall into a sin when they take their eyes off Christ, but they return to the Lord because the Lord will bring them back and then they realize, “I have nothing to fear of man. What do I care what the people of this world may think or what their attitude is toward me or if they revile me?” Just take a look at the world and consider the source. Does it matter if an insane world thinks you are insane? Does it matter if a world given over to evil thinks you are bad? Of course, it does not matter. The world itself is the problem. It is not the individual child of God. Everything is acceptable to this world except the truth of the Bible, so why should I be concerned about what the world thinks of me? They may think of me as a heretic, but they have no idea what truth is in the Bible.
But what if the church thinks I am a heretic? What if they think I teach heresy? So what? The churches today have no idea what the truth is and they stumble around in spiritual darkness. They are feeling for the “door” and they cannot find it. The churches are in total darkness. They are apostate and they have almost nothing right, so what does it matter what their opinion is of the child of God? It does not matter at all and that is why God says in Isaiah 2:22:
Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?
What does it matter what a mere man thinks? In his most glorious state he is still a finite, fallen creature. He has breath in his nostrils that God gave him and he has a puny, finite mind that is often set against God and His way. And would you elevate and esteem man? Are you going to submit yourself to ways that are in line with what man wants you to do, rather than God? He is the everlasting, Almighty God that created that man and they are not even good men. They are bad men with hearts of stone that are deceitful and desperately wicked. How can we, even for a second, fear them? What is their judgment? What is it to be reviled of men?
The Apostle Paul was a man that experienced much reviling and reproach from men of old and God moved him to say in 1Corinthians 4:3-4:
But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self. For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord.
The Lord is the Judge. Man may act (wrongfully and sinfully) and place himself in the position of God and point his finger and judge a child of God of whom God says, “there is now therefore no condemnation.” There is no wrath for that individual. But man comes, pointing his finger and trying to condemn and judge someone that God has not judged. What is that judgment? It is a very small thing. Maybe it will trouble us for a day or two, but when we consider the eternal judgment of Eternal God that is what ought to be feared. This is exactly what God says in many places, including Isaiah 8:11:
For JEHOVAH spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying, Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. Sanctify JEHOVAH of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
Here, God is contrasting the fear of man with the fear of God. Of course, it is obvious if we think about it at all. We realize it is nothing but foolishness to fear man, even for a second, or to allow mankind to impact us in fear. For example, a man may have feared his wife and he did not leave the churches because he feared his wife divorcing him, but God says, “That is no excuse. You are to fear me and not your wife.” Or, if you thought, “I will lose my job if I do not work on Sunday,” but God says, “That is no excuse. Do not fear the consequences of obeying my Law. Do not fear what man can do against you because you are faithful to the commandment to remove your foot from my holy day.”
We are bound and responsible to fear God and God says that we are to share these things (from His Word) and feed His sheep. But what if we respond, “Oh, but I was reviled and ridiculed by the world and I do not want to go back out there in the public eye and proclaim again.” But we are not to fear man or be afraid of him, as it says in Matthew 10:28:
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.