But the word of the Lord tells a different story. Hope echoes throughout the pages of Scripture. Despite the mystery that surrounds it, the book of Revelation offers the people of God a clear message: fear not tomorrow.
Good morning, church. My name is Jack Drake, and my wife Ashley and I have served in the recovery ministry over the last several years. This morning, I'll be reading Revelation 14:12-16.
Here is the call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven saying, "Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on." Blessed indeed, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them.
Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like the Son of Man, with a golden crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. And another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, "Put in your sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe." So he who sat on the cloud swung his sickle across the earth, and the earth was reaped.
Thank you. Well, if you have your Bibles, I would love for you to grab those and open them. I am going to pull out and highlight some things from this passage that I personally found to be edifying, encouraging, and challenging.
We are in our last week of looking at what's called the interlude in the book of Revelation. If you're just now joining in, some of this might sound strange to you. There's a lot of images and meanings behind those images, and we've been swimming in that for the last seven weeks. If this is your first time, some of this might sound strange to you. If you've got time, go do the background work on it. Otherwise, you're going to leave here thinking, "These people believe in dragons and monsters, and that freaks me out a little bit." And we do believe that, but we don't think they're actual dragons or monsters.
Anyway, let's dive into this. The interlude here that we've spent the last three weeks on, this is week three of the interlude. If you remember, Revelation is not written in chronological order. It is a series of windows. So the question you have to ask yourself while you read it is not what happens next, but what does John see next?
And if you remember all the way back to week three, we were in the throne room of heaven, asking the question, "Who can open the seal on the scroll?" And we found out the answer to that question: it's the slain Lamb, the Lion who can open the scroll. It's Jesus who can open the scroll.
And as the scroll was opened, there were these seven trumpets. And at the blast of the seventh trumpet, silence filled the heavens. Do you remember that? If you don't, I don't have any other time, but that's all I got. That's all you get.
And then from there, you get this interlude. It's like it pauses there, and Jesus is like, "Oh, maybe they don't really get what they're caught up in. Let me remind them what they're caught up in." You get this interlude, and what happens in the interlude is Jesus pulling us into ultimate reality and helping us understand the world, the universe, the cosmos that we're actually in.
And so at this point, everybody's been brought to light. You've got, as we saw in week three, in the throne, all of creation is pointed towards this throne room. And in this throne room that you and I join in with, in what we call convergent space, when the saints of God gather, when we sing, when we rejoice in our salvation, we actually join in with what's going on right now in heaven. Not what's going on in the future in heaven, but what's going on right now in heaven.
And Christ is being praised and exalted and rejoiced in. We see God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. And then Jesus wanted to make sure we knew that's not the only Trinity at work here. That there was another Trinity that mimics this Trinity. It's weaker, it's jankier, it's like a terrible version of the real one. And that's the dragon, which the Bible tells us is Satan.
And then these two beasts that we learned about last weekend, which is dragon-manipulated political power and dragon-manipulated false religion. That both try to woo those things. By the way, that mimicking Trinity of the dragon and the two beasts, their sole aim, we talked about this last week, is to distract us from worshiping the real King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
So that's the role. The role is, "Hey, let's believe this that's false. Or, hey, let's put our hope in the state. Or, let's write that this is the game that is waged against us and has always been waged against us." And so now you've got everybody exposed. That's what the interlude is meant to do. It's meant to expose the whole game.
Now you know the game that you're in. Now you know whose side you're on. This is the purpose of the interlude. Because we've had the trumpets, and then we've got the seven bowls of God's wrath. I know you've been waiting for that in Revelation. You're like, "When do we get to the bowls? They're my favorite." And that's coming.
We're going to take a break next week, talk about resurrection, and then bam, bowls of God's wrath. And so what God wants, here's what the Spirit's doing in Revelation right now, with how we're going to close this out, because I have loved this chapter. Surprisingly, shockingly, here's the word I used on Instagram this week: "gospalicious." It's just the whole thing drips and oozes with the good news that Christ has ultimate victory over all the madness.
And I... It's another one of those weeks where in study, I got so agitated at how you've been robbed of this book. How you've been sold that you can't understand this, or this thing is scary, or that you can't get it, or that everybody dies and it's terrible and awful. No, this book was written to strengthen the saints in their darkest hour. And we'll see some of that.
But we've got work to do. So here's what we're going to see. Let's just write out the gate. Three angels heralding good news, two harvests, and then bookended around that are the redeemed saints across all time and space. That's your outline. So let's dive into this.
Let's start with angel number one. We're going to start that in verse six. "Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people." That should be familiar language.
Verse seven, "And he said with a loud voice, 'Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.'"
So you have this angel that's gone out with an eternal gospel, and who is he sharing this eternal gospel with? Guys, you've already seen this. We already read this in Revelation 4, as we saw the completeness of the saints in front of the throne. So who is he heralding the gospel to? This everlasting gospel to every tribe, every tongue, every nation on earth, that God is gathering his army unto himself by sending this angel to preach the eternal gospel to anyone who has ears to hear.
Now, here's the way I'm going to argue. John does not say here whether he believes this angel is something other than evangelism. Let me say it that way. Is this angel kind of doing his own thing, and it's not the church actively preaching the gospel to others? We see evidences of these kinds of things, right? We see angelic visitations even to this day. All over the world, people are coming to know Jesus through dreams and angelic visitations.
I mean, I know we've got books, so we don't need that, but other people, poor people, right? They need that kind of thing. And so these angelic visitations, they happen. So is that what John is alluding to here? Well, I think the whole counsel of Scripture would say no, not at all. What he's saying is that the church has divine help in the work of evangelism, and that the call on your life and mine, in regards to the great war, is to be heralds of the good news of the gospel.
So as we work through the question of whose side I'm on, I want to know how you see and understand the world that you're in. Like, do you herald the good news of the gospel? Because for those of you who got all full of adrenaline a couple of weeks ago, I want to fight, you want to make trouble, this is how you make trouble. Take the gospel to your neighborhood. You don't think that freaks out the enemy? You think you prayer walk in your neighborhood and it's a problem? You don't think there's some, "Oh, cruds going on among what Paul calls principalities and powers?"
Let me redeem Shelley. I used her as a bad illustration a couple weeks ago. Let me use her as a good one. So, like, you own this, right? You start going, "Oh, I've got divine help. God's uniquely wired me, uniquely placed me in this neighborhood for His glory, because I've been saying this for 20 years. You shouldn't be bored. I don't think Christians should ever be bored. Everything you do has some sort of eternality attached to it. So, you should be a problem on your street.
I'm not telling you to go anoint your neighbor's door with oil. That's weird. They don't know you. This is Texas. That's taking your life in your own hands. You know what I mean? But you don't think it's a problem for you to start walking down your street and praying over households? You don't think the enemy's going, "Dang it, Shelley just had some vague memory of something she heard as a nine-year-old at vacation Bible school. She's starting to get curious about the things of God. Let's try to distract her."
Stranger things, but there you are, walking down. You're laughing because you don't get that that's how it actually works. You're giggling because you don't know that's exactly how it works, which is why when you get the compulsion to study your Bible, you start thinking of 40 different things that you're supposed to do. This is the fight. I wasn't making a joke right there, okay?
Shelley's starting to wonder about the things of God. Let's distract her. Let's get her back to sleep. And then you walk some more, and then you're like, "You know what? We're gonna just invite Shelley into our house. We can knock at the door. Hey, we're your neighbors down the road. Listen, we've been walking down this street for the last few weeks, months. We've just been praying over your house, praying God blesses you, praying that you'd be aware of how much He loves you and delights in you. And we would love to have you into our home for dinner or anything like that. Is there any way we can pray for you? Would you be interested in having dinner with us?"
And then they're like, "Oh, crud, right?" Like, now you're actually a problem. If you're indifferent, you ain't a problem. Like, this is part of our fight. This is our warfare. We partner with this angel in the heralding of the good news of the gospel.
Here's the second angel. This is in verse 8. It's shocking. This is a shocking angel. Another angel, a second, followed, saying, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great. She who made all the nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality."
What I'm trying to do, if you remember some of the rules that we laid out in week one, it cannot mean for us what it did not mean for them. Remember that. Super important. It's going to be super important all the way through the rest of the book. Babylon is code for Rome. Who do you think this angel is talking to? Communist China? You think he's talking to the USSR? No, this is Rome.
So this angel goes out and says, "Babylon has fallen." Now, nobody in 96 AD is looking around going, "Rome's in trouble now." That's coming, but it's not coming for another couple hundred years. So what's happening here? Well, the key to this passage is actually this idea of drunkenness around sexual immorality.
And so what this angel is doing is exposing the lies of Rome, specifically the licentiousness and perversion of Rome that people are beginning to wake up to. If you don't think sexual perversion has consequences, you've been living with your head in a hole. And what begins to happen is people start to wake up to the brokenness of their day.
By the grace of God, the Spirit begins to wake people up to the choices they've made, the way they've lived their life, the brokenness of the world around them. And it becomes this space in which you and I graciously and mercifully step into and encourage and love and compassionately fill in the blanks.
I think this is what happens every time we baptize. I say this a lot. I'm saying it a lot. If you're like, "He really repeats that a lot," that's usually intentional. If you've never been shocked at the testimony of people when we baptize, I would love for you to be shocked by it.
See, here's what I mean. By the grace of God, a couple of weeks ago, I got to teach at recovery. Lauren and I will always have a special place in our heart for the recovery ministry of the Village Church. Just so you can feel safe here. The first seven years of our marriage were awful. I'm awful. She's right here. I'm like, "It was awful." I laid in bed at night going, "Oh my gosh, is this the rest of my life?"
I think Lauren, if we gave her the mic, she wouldn't say she was laying next to me going, "All my childhood dreams have come true in this man." It was the kind of... Listen, it was the kind of brokenness that neither one of us could see it ever getting any better. And then, oh my gosh, how do we get help? I'm the pastor of this congregation. Where do we go? We're safe for us.
And so we came to recovery, and the Lord met us there. And He healed things in us. And just so you know, not healed things between us, but healed things in us. Are you tracking the difference between that? Like, He healed things in me that I didn't know were broken in me. Like, these deep, guttural, really deep, can't get to it, why do I act like that broken things? And He did the same in her.
And then once that was healed, we at least had a shot. And so I got to preach that. And then there was a testimony after I shared, and it was a grimy testimony. I mean, it was like nasty. And here's what I loved, and here's why I love those testimonies. When people get in this water and they say, "Here's where I was," what they're actually testifying to is the power of Christ to overcome what that was.
And what was meant for their shame then becomes a trophy of His grace. Right? And so that's... This is what... This is... You want to understand Babylon has fallen. You want to look around and look at all the perversion and brokenness of our day. You want to look at all the madness that seems to be hitting the news every 12 seconds.
Anybody have a couple of moments this year where you're like, "Are you serious? That's what we're doing? That is brain-broken." But take heart, saints, because Babylon has fallen. We begin to wake up from the drunken stupor of immorality, and we're there. We're their neighbor that has been praying for them. We're their coworker that has worked hard and encouraged them and hasn't seen them as somebody we have to compete with, but somebody that we can love and encourage and build up.
They've been in our homes, and when, as Jesus taught in Luke 15, the parable of the prodigal son, the prodigal son comes to his senses, we're there. Not because they were projects, but because we loved them. Not because we were looking for a scalp, but because we understand, because we have received the grace of God, that we should be conduits of that grace to all around us.
Now we partner with the divine. So I ask you again, since Babylon has fallen, whose side are you on?
And then lastly, as far as the angels go, look at... And again, this is one of those passages I'm like, "Guys, don't read this the wrong way." Look at verse 9. "And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, 'If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image and whoever receives the mark of its name.'"
Now, this is one of the most difficult verses in the entire Bible. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image and whoever receives the mark of its name.
Now, you and I drink a steady diet of there being no anger or wrath mixed into love, and that love is me not caring at all what you do or what I do, and there's no consequences for it, right? This is a steady diet that we drink in. You can hear a lot of people right now that are really wrestling with their faith. This is one of the issues. This idea that God would do that, like the smoke of their torment rises up forever. What kind of cruel, wicked God is that?
So two things I want to lay before you before I tell you why I think this is good news. The first thing is, and we talked... I did a full sermon on this in December, so if you want to go back and look at it, because I only got a few moments for you here. God has such wrath because He is love. The more you love something, the more capacity you have for wrath. You tracking with me on that?
So the illustration I most frequently use is my children. I know I deeply love my children because I get a sense of my capacity for wrath if someone were to try to harm them. If I was indifferent to my children, you couldn't provoke any wrath out of me. If I was indifferent to my wife, you couldn't provoke any wrath out of me. But if I deeply love them, you can provoke wrath.
God, who is love, He doesn't have love. He is love. Therefore, He is infinitely capable of wrath. Why? Because to follow the dragon and the beast is to participate in the destruction of human flourishing, the deceiving and destruction of men, women, and children, the worshiping of political ideology and power, the zeal given to false religion, the disruption and destruction of the shalom that He designed the universe to operate in. What kind of God would He be if He didn't have wrath towards that?
So that's the first thing. You don't want an indifferent God. An indifferent God is far crueler than what we just read there. That's the first thing, right? Here's the second thing. And maybe we haven't talked a lot about this, so let's dive in. When the Bible talks about God and wrath, it always frames it as giving humankind what they actually want.
Now, whether or not there's sulfur and fire or whether or not that's imagery or not, that's just going to be debated until He comes back. Here's what we absolutely know: Hell is the absence of God and everything good and perfect is from God. So then, Hell, the absence of God, is the absence of anything good and perfect, any kind of comfort, any kind of rest, any kind of right.
And then now the imagery starts to make sense: sulfur, fire, torment, right? The absence of anything good. Think of anything good that comes down from God. It's from God. And Hell is the absence of God. So let me show you what I mean by wrath is giving human beings what they want.
John 3:19, and this is huge. So remember, if you know your Bible, right? You had John 3:16, "For God so loved the world." And then you had John 3:17, that Christ has come into the world not to condemn the world, but rather to save the world from condemnation. So if that's true, what judgment are we talking about? Glad you asked.
John 3:19, "And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil." So what's the judgment? Because Christ has come into the world to give Himself so that we might be saved from condemnation. Christ has come into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world from condemnation. He hasn't come to condemn. He's come to save you from condemnation.
And so what's the response of a lot of human beings? "Ah, man, appreciate that, but gosh, man, I love this darkness. I'd rather have the darkness than the light. I'd rather walk in what I want to walk in rather than submit to that." And so what does God do according to the passage? Okay, here's what you want. Take it.
We see this again in Romans 1:28. "And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done." And so here we go again. If we had time to walk through Romans 1, I'm going to do it whether we do or not. You would see these three big pieces in Romans 1. That you and I worship creation rather than the Creator. We don't want God. We want His stuff.
That you and I believe that we're smarter than God. The way that Paul writes that in Romans is that we believed the lie over the truth of God. It's that I think I'm smarter than God. I know how to do sex better than God does. I know how to do marriage better than God does. I know what money should look like more than God does. I know... Like, you set yourself up against God.
And verse 28 says, "Okay, turn you over to what ought not be done." But not before he made the appeal for you to come out of it. J.I. Packer says it this way: "Nobody stands under the wrath of God save those who have chosen to do so. The essence of God's action in wrath is to give men what they choose in all its implications, nothing more and equally nothing less."
Can we look... I don't... I don't know who's watching at home. I'm not even sure who all's in the room. The wrath of God is a terrifyingly real thing. It steadily increases over time until it's executed upon in its given time, and the consequences of it are more shocking than we can fathom.
And I want to love you enough to tell you right now that you don't have to stay under the wrath of God. Right now, if you aren't a follower of Jesus Christ, if you haven't submitted your life to Him, you are right now actively under the wrath of God. And the Bible, and I because of the Bible, it doesn't matter that you're such a good dude that doesn't do this or doesn't do that. Did you know that the Bible says that all of our righteous deeds are but filth to Him? They're filthy rags to Him.
You can't earn your way out of this. You can't claw your way out of this. Which is why you see us worshiping like we're worshiping, because we're saying we didn't climb out. We were saved out of this. We were pulled out of this. The gospel that's going out is that we have been saved from that wrath, and that wrath has been replaced with divine pleasure and delight, even as we struggle forward.
And that's available to you. And godly, it rocks my brain and my heart that some of you are so stuck in it, and that you think you're somehow gaming the system. Is nobody terrified of what Jesus said in Matthew 7? The "woes"? Are you not nervous at all that Christ has said, "Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord,' and I will say, 'Who are you?'"
Do you really think your moral betterment has purchased for you something? Hasn't. You're under wrath. But Christ has come. The angel says, "I've come." The invitation is to step out. We join this angel by graciously and compassionately telling the truth about sin and not capitulating to culture.
Look at me. I don't think you should lead with this. Can we not just have a real talk? Because I know some of you, like, I'm in. You already are switching your Twitter handle. The wrath of God has come, suckers. No. But here's what I would tell you. You can have the kind of loving, compassionate, safe relationship with people who are far from God and have this conversation.
You lead with love. You lead with example. You lead with hospitality. You share the good news of the gospel. And you get to wrath. My concern today is that I think some of you right now are sitting under it in here. And so I want to do my part to say, "Please come out from under the wrath of God."
I'll tell you why I can be so confident that that's true for you here in a moment. So those are our three angels, right? They're out there. They're sharing the gospel. They're partnering with us to let everybody know, every tribe, tongue, and nation. It's going out.
And now we've got these two great harvests. But we've got to talk a little about these. Like, the first question is, "When do these harvests take place?" Because, right, this isn't linear. Are these harvests taken at the end of all things? Well, man, that would be problematic if this is some sort of future harvesting.
Here's why I would argue that. Like, the harvest takes place according to this text when the fields are ripe. But when did Jesus tell us the fields were ripe for harvest? I think that was in John 4:35. I'm kidding. I don't think that's where.
Now, what does that mean? If Jesus is saying in John 4 that's not Jesus on the cross, that's Jesus right after the woman at the well who says to his disciples, "Hey, the harvest is ripe." Jesus' issue won the harvest. It was the workers. The harvest is ripe. The workers are few. She's like, "Man, I can't get anybody to get on the harvest. It's right there. It's white. You just got to bring it in."
Again, I ask, "Whose side are you on? You can be a problem or you can go back to sleep." What I'm trying to describe here, miss some problematic brothers and sisters, right? So when does this harvest take place? It's been taking place. Look at me. You and me, we're part of this harvest. I'm part of it. You're part of it.
And whatever, if I go back and look through these angels, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, totally happened. First angel presenting the good news of the gospel. I got that. Second one coming, "Hey, the way you're living life's not working. Got that. Third one, "You're under wrath. I got that." Right? And then I was brought in on this great harvest.
And so here's what I want to do. Both of these harvests are about reaping. And again, this is one of those things where our fear of Revelation makes us read this text in a way that I don't think you should read the text. Quick note, never in the Bible is harvesting spoken of as judgment. Isn't that interesting?
Never. There's not a single passage in the Bible where the imagery of harvesting is used as judgment. It's always a redemptive theme. When God harvests, when the harvest comes in, there's always celebration. There's always delighting. There's always rejoicing in the harvest.
And so there's two harvests here. I'm going to spend a minute on the first harvest, and we've got to do some work on the second one. Harvest 1, 14 through 16. It's clear this is Jesus harvesting among every tribe, tongue, and nation on earth, those who would believe in the Son.
I'm going to say this, and I want it to go as deep as it can. Jesus did not die on the cross for those who might believe. He died for those who will. And this is what should embolden evangelism. He has purchased with His blood men and women from every tribe, tongue, and nation on earth. We get to participate in that with divine help.
This is the first harvest. Jesus on the cloud, sickle in His hand, swings it down because it's ripe for harvest. Because you and I participated in the great call to make war against the dragon and the beast and be a real problem for the powers and principalities that be.
But it's this harvest too that wigs us out a little bit. So let's dive into that. Let's start in verse 17. "Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, the angel who has authority over fire. I would underline that.
And he called with a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle, 'Put in your sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe.' That's a problem, because you don't harvest grapes with a sickle. More on that in a moment.
So the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress as high as a horse's bridle. That's about four feet, okay? Not always, depending on how many hands a horse is, but it's about four feet high and about 1600 stadia, which is about 200 miles.
So you and I, because of how we grew up, because this book is so scary, we read that and we're like, "I'd rather be raptured out first. That sounds terrifying." And really, this is absolutely gospalicious. So let me try to unpack it.
See, the key here is just to see what's happening and what's not happening. The first is, this isn't Jesus swinging the sickle. He's swung the first one. Jesus has not swung the sickle here. This is an angel, and the angel who has authority over fire.
Now, now, what does fire represent nine times out of ten in the scriptures? The presence and power of God, was it not? Through a burning bush, not being consumed, that Moses heard from the Lord and delivered God's people out of slavery. Was it not through a pillar of fire that God led His people through the desert into the promised land?
Was it not tongues of fire that fell on top of the apostles, breaking loose the Holy Spirit on the church of Jesus Christ? This angel has authority over fire, over presence, over power. The second one is the vine of the earth. That phrase is mentioned six other places in the scripture, and it always references the people of God.
Vine of the earth, on repeat, six times. The only place this is used six times. Every time it mentions the people of God. Jesus, in John 15, says, "I am the vine, you are the branches. You dwell in me, and you will bear fruit, fruit that will last."
And then lastly, you see this phrase, "outside the city." So here's what's going to happen. When all things are said and done, there is definitely an outside of the city that you don't want to be in. That's the wrath of God. Those who have chosen the wrath of God will be outside the city.
In fact, some pretty graphic language comes over there. They're trying to get in, they cannot get in. Which is why I'm trying to appeal to you today to come out from under the wrath of God. But outside the city, before we see this, is used in various ways in the scripture. Certainly in the book of Numbers and stuff, outside the camp is a negative. You've got to be... It's unclean out there. You go to the bathroom out there. You kick people out there that have defiled a holy and living God.
But by the time we get to the New Testament, specifically we get to first century preaching, that this idea is starting to shift. It's starting to change. So Jesus tells the parable of the son of the vineyard owner who was killed where? Outside the city. Jesus is crucified outside the city.
In Hebrews 13, if you haven't really understood the book of Hebrews, the book of Hebrews is a first century sermon. It's a first century sermon. It would have been read as a sermon. In fact, some guys would argue that a sermon should be 45 minutes because that's how long it takes to read the book of Hebrews.
I mean, I don't know, elders. I'm just saying that's what certain theologians say. And so here, what you see in Hebrews 13 is the reminder that Jesus was crucified outside the camp and we should join Him there.
So here's what I want you to see here. This harvest is Jesus Christ on the cross, the wrath of God's winepress being poured onto Jesus on the cross, which is why He's not the one swinging the sickle. And He is absorbing all of God's wrath towards those who would believe, past, present, and future.
And this grotesque blood thing that's going on is letting you know that there's enough blood for you. Four feet high, 200 miles wide. 200 miles, by the way, is the length of ancient Palestine.
So what's this communicating to first century followers of Jesus Christ? There is enough blood to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. That Christ's death on the cross has fully absorbed God's wrath toward you. So now you are free. You are clean. You have right standing before God. You are no longer condemned but delighted in.
This would have energized the saints of God, not terrified them. Jesus isn't trying to terrify His church. He's trying to say, again, in a different, more vibrant way, "I've got you. You're mine. You're secure in My love. You have not screwed up beyond repair. You have not outpaced My forgiveness."
And that is the good news of the gospel.
on Nov 05, 2023
