Passage
[Revelation 14: 9-12]
“Then another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, 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 and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.” Here is the perseverance of the saints who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.”
Introduction
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
This is the 18th session of Hell sermon series.
In the last session, I talked about a soul who would fall into the Lower Grave and receive his punishment by being tied to a wooden pole.
He would be bitten by those souls who will fall into the Lower Grave along with him for having blasphemed the Holy Spirit.
In the Lower Grave, sometimes the souls who are receiving the same kind of punishment torture one another.
The following is an example. This punishment is given to a person who did not give the tithe while professing his faith in God.
There is a chair at a certain place in the Lower Grave, and on the chair is a soul whose hands and feet are tightly bound.
On one side of his chest is a plate that says ‘thief’. This means he is a thief who robbed God.
There are many other souls standing around him with bamboo spears in their hands.
Along with this soul in the chair, all those souls around him are also those who stole on account of their tithes.
All these souls also wear the breastplate that says ‘thief’.
Behind them are messengers of hell, holding a whip in one hand and watching them.
With very scary and bloodshot eyes, they are overseeing the souls who are receiving the punishment.
The messenger that seems to be the director mocks the soul who is tied to the chair.
In a contemptuous tone of voice he says, “When you were in the world, you took the tithe for yourself to spend it for eating and drinking and satisfying your desires! Was it so good?”
Finally, he gives a signal to the souls standing around him. Upon the signal they begin to throw stones at this soul tied to the chair.
When he becomes bruised and bloody from head to toe from the rocks, he finally faints. But it’s not the end.
Now, they will pierce this soul with the bamboo spears without any mercy.
Seeing this cruel scene, they also become afraid thinking, “Who will be the next? What if it is me?”
It’s because all of them in their turn will receive the same torture of being tied to the chair.
But if a soul hesitates even for a moment, they would be mercilessly scourged by the fearful messengers of hell.
They are all in the same situation. Not only are they subjected to the torture of the messengers of hell, but they are forced to torture each other. This is the reality of the Lower Grave.
Whenever God the Father lets me know about the punishments in Hell in detail, I become very desperate.
Then I come to pray that none of our church members will receive such punishments.
In the beginning of this year of blessing, you listened to the message about proper tithes.
Now that you are facing the end of the year, in what ways have you changed?
It is meaningless to listen to the word of blessing or messages on Hell if you hear and forget.
Therefore, I urge you to keep the message you hear in your mind and make up your mind to change.
I pray in the name of the Lord that you will not have fear of Hell but have the fullness of the hope of the kingdom of Heaven in your Christian life.
Main
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today, I will talk to you about a person who has the choice of either falling into the Lower Grave or receiving the “Gleaning Salvation” during the 7-year Tribulation.
In other words, this person will receive the final chance for salvation during the 7-year Tribulation.
This soul received special grace of God to directly see and hear the deep and secret things of the spiritual realm.
She received spiritual gifts in the providence of God and performed many duties.
Her heart was full of evil and she had little faith. But when she received the gifts, at first she had great fervor for God.
She wasn’t really qualified to receive such special gifts and favor, but because of the fervor she was able to receive them.
But just like other souls who fall into the Lower Grave, she stopped circumcision of the heart.
As she was performing very precious duty, she thought her faith was great and she became arrogant.
She even came to think that the will of God couldn’t be fulfilled without her.
Meanwhile, she began to not give God the glory that was manifested through her gift, but she took it for herself.
She lifted herself up to make the believers serve her.
To enjoy what she craved with her greed, she began to spend God’s money and use God’s things at her discretion.
She continued to disobey God.
Just like King Saul was anointed and became king, but was forsaken through repeated disobedience, she did not hesitate to disobey God again and again.
As a result, she was forsaken by God.
Of course, to be forsaken here does not mean God first forsook her.
It means it was she who got out of the boundaries within which God could keep her for she did not turn back from her evil.
Likewise, even though we receive such a great gift, and even though we are used for a very noble purpose for God, we will only be forsaken if we do not cast away sins and live in disobedience.
Of course, she knew the word of God very well, so she knew how great the sins were that she was committing.
So, she repented many times from a fearful heart.
But as 2 Peter 2:22 says, “A dog returns to its own vomit,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire,” she repented only with her lips.
She committed the same sin over and again making her wall of sin higher and higher.
Following her arrogance, greed, and lust she continually committed sins and finally God had to forsake her.
Satan did not miss the chance to capture her.
She used to be an instrument for the kingdom of God but now she became an instrument of Satan and stood against God.
She blasphemed the Holy Spirit and put the church in a very difficult situation.
Even now, her mind and thoughts are still controlled by the evil spirits.
She used to experience spiritual things all the time, but now her heart is stained with evil and she is living just like worldly people.
As you know very well, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will lead one to eternal death.
It’s a sin that cannot be forgiven forever, so at death, such a sinner will fall into the Lower Grave.
But why does God give this soul a chance to repent and receive salvation?
Of course, she betrayed God even though she had received such great grace from God.
And she forsook God’s glorious promise by quitting her precious God-given duty.
She committed so many grave sins that caused great damage to come upon the kingdom of God and it broke God’s heart.
Nevertheless, God is giving her another chance because He remembers what she had done to fulfill the providence of God.
God remembers the moments when she was beautifully accomplishing the kingdom of God, pleasing Him, and that is why He is giving her another chance.
This chance is to be martyred during the 7-Year Great Tribulation. Of course, this is not something easy at all.
I already talked about the 7-year tribulation in detail in the lecture on Revelation. So, let me just briefly go over it at this time.
About 2,000 years ago, Jesus broke the authority of death and resurrected.
After 40 days, He ascended into heaven before the many disciples who were watching Him.
Now, He is at the right hand of God the Father’s throne.
When human cultivation is over, He will come in the air with so many heavenly host and angels and those who are in the waiting place of Heaven.
At this time, those who received Him while living will be caught up to the air. It is the ‘Rapture’.
This will be followed by the Wedding Banquet in the air for the Lord our bridegroom together with the believers for 7 years.
On the other hand, unprecedented tragedy will be unfolded on this earth.
After the Rapture, the world will fall into chaos. There will also be World War III.
During the 7-year tribulation, earth will turn into ruins and most of the world’s population will die.
The environment will be destroyed. All nature will be polluted, and it will be difficult to get air to breath and water to drink.
Due to lack of goods, prices will skyrocket and it will be difficult to get basic necessities.
Also, there will be continuous conflicts among the nations during these 7 years. It’s the same among different areas and individuals.
This nerve-breaking situation will continue as if they have a time-bomb within the earth. People’s minds will become increasingly evil.
In this miserable world, people will live in fear of death and nervousness. They will find it painful to live.
Also, during the 7-years, there will be great persecutions against those who believe in the Lord.
There will be many people who will remain on earth after the Rapture and among them will be those who at one time attended church.
They won’t be caught up into the air in the Rapture because they are not really spiritually awake.
Also, there will be many people who didn’t attend church yet they heard and knew about the 7-year tribulation.
When they see the Rapture taking place as recorded in the Bible, they will be so afraid.
Only then will they repent that they didn’t live by the will of God. They try to find a way to receive salvation.
But it is not at all an easy thing to receive salvation in this world that is completely taken over by the enemy devil and Satan.
The evil spirits have their authority in the air.
But when it is about the time for the Lord come in the air, these evil spirits will be driven out to this earth.
Then, the power of darkness including these evil spirits will control the minds of people more strongly than before.
In particular, they will manipulate the anti-Christ to stand against God. It is their last resort.
After the Rapture, the anti-Christ will manage the world chaos with his political, economic, and military power.
In that process, they will assert peace and order to make people forget about the Rapture.
To do this, the evil forces will persecute those who believe in the Rapture. To stand against this power can end in martyrdom.
The power of the anti-Christ will be very determined in their persecution of the believers.
For example, they will use the 666, the mark of the beast, to keep the order in the world. Here, the beast refers to computers.
The 666 mark is like a bar code that contains personal information. The power of the anti-Christ will make everyone receive this mark on their right hand or the forehead.
This equipment is apparently for the protection of life and for convenience in business transactions.
But the anti-Christ uses this tool to put the entire human race into one system so he can watch and control every individual.
They manage all the data about every single individual through a central computer.
At one point, the anti-Christ will make everyone receive this mark.
But those who believe in the Lord will resist receiving this mark.
To receive this 666 mark is to agree with the ideology of the anti-Christ who denies Jesus Christ.
Revelation 14:9-10 says, “Then another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, [10] 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.”
As written, those who receive this mark of the beast will not be saved but fall into Hell.
But it is not easy to resist it.
By that time, it will be practically impossible to live without receiving this mark.
For example, no one can buy or sell without this mark, so they cannot even buy necessities.
Because their ID is not verified, they cannot move to other places.
Above all, the people of the anti-Christ will find out those who didn’t receive it and force them to receive it.
At this time, not only their neighbors but also their family members will report these people.
They will make fools of those who don’t receive the mark. People will even consider them an abomination.
Some believers may go underground or go deep into mountains to escape from these people of the anti-Christ.
They live together continuing their lives in faith.
But even though they are so far away from cities hiding in deep mountains, the people of anti-Christ will find them.
With cutting-edge technology equipment, they can find those people even though they are in deep mountains or deep under the ground.
Even nowadays, we can easily locate somebody through cell phones or satellite.
We even have navigators in the cars so we can easily find the place we want to go.
All these forms of equipment that we invent for our convenience will someday be turned into a means to control people.
When the anti-Christ finds these people, they will try to persuade them first, but if they don’t listen, they will take them to places of torture.
They will torture the believers very harshly and miserably in an attempt to make them deny the Lord.
If they become martyrs, they can be saved. But these people will not just easily leave the believers to be martyred.
They will devise all kinds of evil methods to give them the greatest pain possible within the boundaries of not killing them.
Let me briefly explain it to you.
Before those people take the believers to torturing places, they will show a video first.
It is the video of the previous tortures given to other believers.
They can also hear the mourning and sharp screaming of those who are being tortured.
After making them watch this video, they will persuade with sweet words, saying, “If you will deny Jesus we will let you live as if you were in the heaven that you are talking about.”
There will be believers who will be so terrified and deny the Lord. Others will listen to those sweet words and deny the Lord.
If they stand firm, the tortures await them.
As one goes into the torturing room, he will see a very fearful torturing machine.
This machine will automatically torture the believer, receiving the data about that person from the computers.
Before the tortures begin, the person lying on the torturing machine can hear from a loud speaker at one corner of the room, urging him to deny the Lord once again.
If he still doesn’t deny, they will very slowly peel off the skin from the fingers.
Some people will immediately submit without resisting so much, denying Jesus.
But if they do not deny Him, while the torture is going on, they will continually hear that they will live if they deny Jesus.
Other than this kind of torture, they also break all the joints of the body, cut off the fingers and toes or arms and legs, or pour boiling oil on their body.
Some believers overcome the tortures, but when they see their elderly parents or little children being tortured before their eyes, they finally submit.
They cannot bear with seeing their dear ones screaming and suffering so much.
A very few people who have upright and firm hearts will overcome all tortures and temptations.
Those who keep their faith by being martyred this way will take places in the ranks of the saved.
Then, what kind of torture would this soul that I mentioned today will receive?
I will continue with that in the next session.
Conclusion
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, God is the God of justice.
When He gives the chances of salvation, He doesn’t discriminate against or show favoritism toward anybody.
He gives the opportunity to receive salvation according to the justice and each one’s deeds.
Revelation 2:23 latter part says, “all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts: and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.”
Of course, our God is the God of Love as well as the God of Justice.
The soul I mentioned today committed sins that couldn’t be forgiven and broke the heart of God.
But if it could only be possible, God wants to give such a soul a chance.
In Psalm 35:11-13, David said, “Malicious witnesses rise up; they ask me of things that I do not know. They repay me evil for good, to the bereavement of my soul. But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth; I humbled my soul with fasting,”
Even a mere man can show kindness to even those who pay him evil for good. When those people were sick, he humbled his soul with fasting.
So, how much more kindness would God want to show to us? He is far more merciful than any man!
I want you to remember His love, depart from evil, and only do good.
I urge you to become God’s children of who can give comfort to His heart who is concerned over the evil persons.
Also, I pray in the name of the Lord that you will have the goodness and love of God the Father and become the fruit of New Jerusalem to give Him eternal joy.
[Amen]
