Sunday Night, April 8, 2018 PM

And it's going to be everlasting, forever and ever and ever. And so also the punishment in hell. Two more thoughts. One of those, oh, let's see if I can find it.

The Everlasting Punishment of Hell in Revelation 14

Revelation, I want to make sure I get it right. Revelation 14, 11, and I'll begin in verse nine.

Then another angel, a third one, followed them saying with a loud voice, if anyone worships the beast in his image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink of me. This is not just exclusive to, however you understand those who worship the beast.

John would have been applying this to those who capitulate to Rome and worship the emperor and get the mark that, you know, Caesar is Lord, I'll throw the incense on there and deny Christ. He also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of his anger, and he will 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 goes up forever and ever. They have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast in his image, whoever receives the mark of his name. Again, these are all physical things.

Smoke, fire, brimstone, no rest. These are all physical concerns. I think the true terror of hell is this, it is an exile from the favor of God, but you're still in the presence of God. It's in the presence of the lamb and the angels.

So hell is not an absence of God, it's an absence of a mediator. Well, David and I were talking about this the other day, but, you know, the only difference between heaven and hell is a mediator. When you're in the presence of God and you have the mediator Christ, it is good, it is blessed, it is acceptance, it is joy everlasting.

When you're in the presence of God without a mediator, that's hell. And it's in the presence of the lamb, in the presence of the angels forever and ever and ever. Now, so that's a difficult thing. You know, we don't wanna be flippant with that and I think it has been made to be flippant and I think it's been misused and all those kinds of things.

But also, I forget who said it, but it struck home to me that we shouldn't dare pretend to be more compassionate than God. We shouldn't dare pretend that we are more compassionate and we are more merciful than God because we don't wanna talk about hell.

That's a terrible thought, that we pretend that we're more compassionate than God is and there's no one more compassionate, long-suffering and merciful than God. But then we pretend like we are because we're not gonna talk about hell and we don't wanna, you know.

And he says that's arrogance.

Yeah.

So it's arrogance.

Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. Absolutely.

Yeah.

Why We Should Not Pretend to Be More Compassionate Than God

Yes, Miss Barbara.

These clothes, and I was wondering why they did that. Of course, they said he blasphemed, which he didn't. But in the Old Testament, when they rent the clothes, wasn't that more of a perfect, a godly thing?

But this was not godly, the way they tore the clothes and wore them godly. I mean, the Old Testament's a different thing. Why'd they rent the clothes?

Yeah, that's a great question. I think the renting of the clothes, I was trying to read through and get a survey ready about this biblical theology of clothes, and I came across the first reference to that, and I forget where it is now.

But it certainly, I think, is, it's a sign of, oh, it's Jacob. It's Jacob when he's told that Joseph, when Joseph is dead. They bring him the shredded cloak, the coat of many colors, and it's covered in blood and all of that.

He sees the shredded coat of many, and then he does the same thing. Like, as he is torn apart, so am I. That kind of great expression of grief. And this becomes a sign, moving forward, we see great grief, great mourning.

You're greatly appalled. Something horrible has happened. There's this sign of the renting of the clothes. And so the high priest was appalled that Jesus said what he said, because he's so thoroughly opposed to Jesus and can't abide what's going on.

Sometimes it was done for show, to kind of stir people up, whip the crowd into a frenzy. But he was trying to show how righteous and pious he was. Well, I don't think it was wrong for them to do it. I would think it was just an expression of just how terrible it was.

Just kind of the, and again, when you think about the origin of clothes, the covering of our shame and our guilt, the renting of the clothes has this idea of, we're exposed in our great shame and our great emotion coming through.

There's nothing that can hide the ignominy of what just happened. And so there's just this renting of the clothes. Well, like I said, I mean, he may have been just trying to convince the crowd, hey, we've got to do something now.

It's time to go ahead and, we're the righteous ones so we get to murder Jesus. Yes, James. Yeah, that's a great question. So in chapter 10, we're already hearing that the separation of all the nations is according to language, but you don't hear about the confusion of the languages until chapter 11.

And so in that case, chapter 10 is kind of an overview and it even introduces some ideas. How did this happen? You read chapter 10, well, how did that all happen? Then chapter 11 explains. Yeah, it's kind of setting you up for the story.

And it's also, I think, a passage that Paul brings up when he's preaching at the Oropagus in Athens in Acts 17. God put all the different people by their languages throughout all the world. Okay, let's go to Genesis 17 and take a look at some of the things going on here.

Genesis 17, the Covenant with Abraham, and the Seed Promise

This is just after chapter 16 where Abraham and Sarah or Abram and Sarai tried, attempted to bring about the fulfillment of God's promises in chapter 12 and 13 and 15 and said, well, let's do this in a surrogate fashion.

And Abram took Hagar as his second wife to bear children in Sarai's name through her, which of course succeeded. They had Ishmael, but then it didn't succeed because Sarai and Hagar are at odds with one another.

Hagar runs away, God confronts her and she goes back. And this attempt was made when Abram was 86 years old. So 11 years after he was called to Canaan 75, he has attempts to go ahead and have this child through Hagar and it's something of a mess.

Now, timeline, chapter 17, when Abram is 99 years old. So 24 years after God first promises him, you will have offspring, you will have descendants, worship me, here's your land, so on and so forth. So 24 years later, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God almighty.

I am God almighty, walk before me and be blameless. I will establish my covenant between me and you and I will multiply you exceedingly. Abram fell on his face and God talked with him saying, ask for me, behold, my covenant is with you and you will be the father of a multitude of nations.

No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make nations of you and kings will come forth from you.

I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout the generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting position and I will be their God.

Now, one thing to note is the word descendants, every time where it's used is the word seed. Remember the key term of Genesis? Makes his covenant with Abraham and his seed over and over and over. The term seed keeps on popping up, right?

Because we're supposed to pay attention to that keyword from Genesis 3 .15 and the promise of hope, promise of the gospel, the seed, the victorious seed of the woman who will crush the head of the serpent.

And we just keep on getting reminded of that and our attention focused back there at the seed. Now, when Abram is too old to have children by any possibility, when Sarai is too old by any means to have children, once it's absolutely certain, and everybody knows that a 99 year old man and an 89 year old woman cannot have a child, once that is absolutely clear, then in God's good timing, he comes to Abraham and says, I am El Shaddai.

He appeared to Hagar, El Royi, God who sees. He comes to Abram and says, I am El Shaddai. I'm God Almighty. Now, the idea of the term is that he is God all sufficient. Nothing he can't do. You see the point?

Okay, 99 year old man, I am God Almighty and you're gonna have a child now with your wife, Sarai, and it'll be proven that it was all of me, not of you. The timing is impeccable. The timing is everything.

Just so that it's clear that it's not by the power of man, but by the power of God. So he says, I am God Almighty. So he introduces himself in a new way, a new name of God, and he gives Abram a new name.

You were Abram, high father. Now you're gonna be high father of a multitude. Not just a father, but a father of a multitude, Abraham. Not just Abram, but Abraham. And he says, my covenant is with you and your seed.

My covenant is with you and your seed. And he speaks about the seed in terms of a multitude.

Of nations, a whole lot, isn't it?

How many is that anyway? Has God given Abraham any clue about how many that is? The stars, can you count them? So shall your descendants, so shall your seed be. As much as the dust is in the land, as much as sand on the seashore, that's how many your descendants will be, father of a multitude of nations.

So your seed, your descendants are gonna be numerous. He says, I will multiply you exceedingly. I will make you exceedingly fruitful. I think it's interesting here as we get into chapter 17, the echoes that we're getting from Genesis one.

What is God doing here as he's talking to Abram, Abraham? Abraham, you notice any terms in verses one through six that pop up in Genesis one, when God talks to Adam and Eve, talks about humanity, Adam and Eve.

Any terms that pop up, it's an echo, Genesis one.

Fruitful multiply.

Yeah, isn't that what he said to Adam and Eve? He blessed them and said, be fruitful and multiply, which is saying he blessed them.

And this is what you will be.

You will be fruitful and you will multiply. This is who you are meant to be.

And you're supposed to,.

The idea is that they would fill the earth full of his image, full of his glory, be fruitful and multiply. And your God's saying it again. He's saying it to Abraham. And by extension, he's saying it to Sarai, which changes her name to Sarah.

Both names mean princess. She's got a royal name. And Abraham has a royal name too, high father of a multitude. He's got a royal name as well. I think it's important that we understand that as we look at the covenant that God makes with Abraham, he's not doing something incredibly, radically new.

This is not something that is ex nihilo, like creation out of nothing. This isn't a covenant and an agreement and a way of him dealing with Abraham and Sarah and their descendants that is absolutely new.

This is an extension of what he began with Adam and Eve. When he told them to rule and exercise dominion and be basically the vice regents upon earth, he gives Abraham and Sarah royal names. High father of a multitude.

Kings are gonna come forth from you. You're gonna be a father of a multitude of nations. And your wife's name is princess. You know, heir to the role of Eve, because from her comes all these multitude of nations, more than you can count, the stars and this.

I think just it's very important that we understand this is not something radically different and new as if God had not been thinking about this before. And this is brand new with Abraham and God's going an entirely new direction.

This is all in agreement with what God has already been doing with Adam and Eve, be fruitful and multiply. And here's the garden of Eden for you to take care of. Abraham and Sarah, you're gonna be fruitful and you're gonna multiply.

And here's a land for you to take care of. That's nothing new. That is very much in agreement with what God had already been doing. And I think that's important for us to understand that God is still about dealing with those that he has made in his image, calling them to relate to him, to worship him.

He gives them this condition, this command, walk before me and be blameless. He says, this is who I am to you. This is who you are to be to me. And as he explains how things go, he's gonna talk about their relationship with others.

He's gonna talk about how they deal with the land. And we'll save that for the next opportunity we have to look at. But we're still dealing very much with the image of God at the center of what he's doing here.

He's dealing with them as he, and not in the exact same way, because sin is in the world. Things have moved along. The families are confused by their languages and there are some things that have changed, but he's dealing with Abraham and Sarah much in the same way he dealt with Adam and Eve.

And even the way he dealt with Noah and his family right out of the ark, because he told them, be fruitful, multiply. And here's a new way to take care of the creation around you. I mean, so this is nothing radically new.

And we have to be thinking about, as we move forward in Genesis 17, how God is extending his original designs for creation and with Adam and Eve into this arrangement that he makes with Abraham and Sarah and their descendants.

That's where we'll leave it. And I just want to say, really enjoyed our time of fellowship today. Really experienced the joy of the Lord today.

Hope you have too.

Let's close by singing the doxology.

Praise God from whom all