Well, let’s open our Bibles to the Scripture for this morning. It is the eighth chapter of the book of Revelation, Revelation chapter 8. And I’ve entitled this “Final Judgment Launched” because, in simple words, that’s what we find in this text. I was thinking about it even this morning, that people are so worried about what’s going to happen to the planet. They are obsessing about that. They are taking all kinds of angles and supposed precautions to save the planet. What they ought to be afraid of is what’s going to happen to them, to them. And that is why the Word of God gives us so many warnings about divine judgment, so many warnings. But this one in the eighth chapter of Revelation is really the launch point of final judgment, final judgment on this world before Christ returns and takes over and rules and reigns in His kingdom. So this is final judgment launched.

Now we already know that once we entered into chapter 6 of Revelation, we entered into the revelations that came to John, the visions that came to the apostle John, that look at the future final judgment. So the features of that judgment run all the way from the sixth chapter through the eighteenth; and in the nineteenth, Christ comes; in the twentieth, He establishes His kingdom; and then in chapters 21 and 22, the new heaven and the new earth. The bulk of this book is details about coming final judgment. This is a mercy on the part of God, giving us such a detailed prophecy regarding these features; and the details are stunning, as we will continue to see as we march through the rest of the book. Let me read you the opening five verses, which will be all that we can cover this morning.

“When the Lamb broke the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar, and threw it to the earth; and there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake.”

Now a little bit of background. The climactic final judgment, that takes Satan out of his place of dominion in the world and restores that dominion to the Lord Jesus Christ, is taking place in these visions that the Holy Spirit gives to the apostle John. The end of human control, the end of satanic control—it all comes to its conclusion as the seventh seal is opened. And one way to understand this seventh seal is to understand the judgment the Bible calls the Day of the Lord, the Day of the Lord. That’s a very important biblical title. It’s a term that describes God’s final, complete, comprehensive destruction, and death on the earth. It’s the finale of everything.

Before the Lord comes to return, which we’ll see in chapter 19, He wreaks havoc in the world in form of judgment. That judgment reaches its final stage with the breaking of this seventh seal. You could equate this with the launch point of the Day of the Lord.

Now there have been judgments already. We have seen them in chapter 6 in the first six seals—and it might be helpful to go back to that. When the final period of Tribulation, as our Lord called it, and Great Tribulation arrives, judgment will break loose. And that’s depicted in chapter 6. As the Lamb of God goes to the throne and takes the title deed from the Father—we see that in chapters 4 and 5, title deed to the universe and it is like a will and testament, sealed seven times, only to be opened by the heir. Christ, being the heir to everything, begins to unroll those seals. And this is describing a period of time at the first half of the seven-year Tribulation. And Scripture is explicit about a seven-year period, and the latter half of it being the Great Tribulation period of three-and-a-half years. This follows the rapture of the church. So we are taken out, and then the judgments begin.

Now the seal judgments, we have already looked at. The first four are the famous apocalypse, pictured in four horsemen. First, there will be false peace and the arrival of the Antichrist, then war, then famine, and then death. The fifth seal is a call for vengeance, a call for God to bring final judgment on the ungodly world. It’s an interesting thing to hear the saints praying for that at this point. Rather than the salvation of people who are lost, they’re praying for their final judgment.

And that brings us to the sixth seal. I want you to look at that. Chapter 6, verse 12, the sixth seal: “I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe fruits when shaken by a great wind. The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?’”

At the breaking of the sixth seal, you have the launch point of the day of wrath—not only the wrath of the One who sits on the throne, who is God, but the wrath of the Lamb, that most interesting statement in verse 16. Final wrath is not just the wrath of God; it is the wrath of the Lamb. And it is designated in verse 17 as “the great day of their wrath.” So when the Lord breaks that sixth seal, we know that the great day of divine, final wrath is about to come. That takes you into chapter 8 and the seventh seal. The seventh seal, as we note, describes those final judgments under seven trumpet judgments in the Day of the Lord.

Let me give you a little background about the Day of the Lord. It’s a familiar term to anyone who reads the Old Testament. And there are occasions when the Day of the Lord refers to some historical judgment, like the judgment of the Babylonian captivity on Judah, like the judgment on Edom. Any act of God in history could be designed and defined as a day of the Lord, a day of the Lord, a day of the Lord’s judgment. But the most common use of the phrase “the Day of the Lord” looks not at a temporal judgment, but at the final judgment. And the prophets have much to say. Let me just give you a listing, very quickly, of prophetic statements about the Day of the Lord. This will define it for you clearly.

Isaiah said, “The day of the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything proud and lofty, upon everything lifted up—and it shall be brought low.” Isaiah also said, “Wail, for the day of the Lord is at hand!” And then he said, “Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate.”

Jeremiah said, “This is the day of the Lord God of hosts, a day of vengeance, that He may avenge Himself on His adversaries.” Joel says, “The Day of the Lord is at hand; it shall come as destruction from the Almighty.” Joel 2:11, “The day of the Lord is great and very terrible.” Same chapter, verse 31, “The sun shall be turned into darkness, the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord.”

The prophet Amos says, “Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! For what good is the day of the Lord to you? [Is not the day of the Lord] darkness, and not light[?]” Malachi writes that the day of the Lord is “a great and dreadful day.” Zephaniah says, “The great day of the Lord is near; it . . . hastens quickly. The noise of the day of the Lord is bitter.” Zephaniah chapter 1 also says, “That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble, distress, a day of devastation and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness.” Zechariah 14, the opening verses also defined it in similar terms.

Six times in the Old Testament, the Day of the Lord is called “the day of doom,” “the day of doom.” The prophets were saying there is coming a final day when the Lord will bring His final judgment.

The New Testament also refers to it—four times in the New Testament. But I want to draw you to one of those times. Turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. Paul, being familiar with the term the Day of the Lord, not only from the prophets of the Old Testament, but from the Lord Himself, writes in 1 Thessalonians 5, and we’ll just look at the opening three verses, “Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, ‘Peace and safety!’ then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape.”

What is remarkable about this from the apostle Paul to the Thessalonians is that he says, “You have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come.” This is part of apostolic doctrine and teaching. “You know full well.” He uses a Greek word akribōs, which means “accurately, precisely, exactly.” “You know about the Day of the Lord, and you know it will come like a thief in the night—suddenly, unexpectedly, devastatingly.” How do they know that? Because that’s what our Lord said back in Matthew 24:42, 43: “Be aware that the Day of the Lord is coming.”

Just something to note is if you back up into chapter 4 and verse 13, you have the wonderful revelation of the Rapture  of the church. And it’s positioned in a perfect way, really, because the Rapture occurs before the Day of the Lord—as we have already talked about many times. But listen to what it says in verse 13: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as [those] who have no hope.” So they didn’t need to be informed about the Day of the Lord; they knew about that. But there were some questions about the Rapture of the church, which then means that it’s a separate event—and indeed, it is.

So he says, “Let me tell you about it.” Verse 14, “We believe Jesus died and rose again, [and we also believe that] God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.” He will gather those who are believers and who have died. “This we say to you by the word of the Lord.” So this is a new revelation, really. This is a mystery, as far as the Old Testament is concerned. This is a completely different event than the Day of the Lord. And here is the word of the Lord: “that we who are alive and remain”—living believers—“until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”

This isn’t talking about judgment; this is a very comforting passage letting us know that the Lord is going to come and take His church out of this world. There’s nothing about judgment in that text at all. And beyond that, after the Rapture has taken place, comes the beginning of the judgments; and the Day of the Lord, of course, culminates that.

The Day of the Lord is seen to be near. Ezekiel says it’s near. Joel says it’s near. Obadiah says it’s near. Zechariah says it’s near; it’s coming; it’s at hand. There’s a sense in all of the prophetic writings that it’s a time we don’t know, we can’t know, we aren’t aware of; but we have to live in the light of the reality that it is coming.

Verse 3 of this 1 Thessalonians 5 portion says people are going to think everything is fine. “Peace and safety!” That’s the delusion that false prophets will produce in the time of Tribulation, and also the successes going on in the world under the leadership of the Antichrist.

But just when they think everything is going fine, the peace begins to collapse—as we saw in the seals. It starts out with a false peace under the Antichrist, and then comes war and famine and death, and the prayer for vengeance. And then the devastating things begin to take place—as we read—in the sixth seal because the great day of God’s wrath is unleashed.

The first seals—the ones we’ve gone over, the first six—occur in the front half of the seven-year Tribulation. The midpoint seems to be the Abomination of Desolation, which our Lord spoke about in Matthew 24:15, in which the Antichrist sets himself up as God in the Temple. And this is an abomination that Daniel spoke about. That triggers a lot of things and is sort of the midpoint. And it’s at that point that the great Tribulation, our Lord said, the Great Tribulation will be unleashed, Matthew 24:21.

So all these details are given. What we have to understand here is this is something that was well-known and well-understood. And to see the extent of it, all you have to do is look at verse 3, “Destruction will come . . . suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape.” There is no escaping this. This is the final Day of the Lord, the final judgment of the ungodly. And by the time it is completed, there will be no ungodly people living on this earth, none. When Christ begins His kingdom, only believers will go into His kingdom in their human, natural form. All the ungodly will be destroyed.

So let’s go back, then, to Revelation chapter 8. The Lord spoke about this, the apostles spoke about it, to the point that early believers knew about the Day of the Lord and knew it was destruction that was inescapable.

So here is the vision that the Lord gives John that really is the beginning of the Day of the Lord. Now judgment from the Lord has been going on, as I said, through the first six seals, through the first part of the time of Tribulation. But this is the great Tribulation. This is the final judgment. This is the outbreak of the full force of the Day of the Lord.

Now there are four words that we’ll look at to kind of help you through this passage, just four words. The first word is silence. Look at verse 1: “When the Lamb broke the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” Now, we know what’s going on in heaven. We know that because if you go back to chapter 4, you remember we were taken into heaven in the vision of John. And what did we see when we went into heaven? We saw, chapter 4, a gathering of angels, a gathering of saints in heaven, and all of them, verse 8, “day and night . . . do not cease to say, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come.’ And when the living creatures”—other special angels—“give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, to Him who lives forever and ever, [and] then the twenty-four elders”—representing the church who are present in heaven—“. . . fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and . . . worship Him who lives forever and ever . . . [they] cast their crowns before the throne, [and they are] saying, ‘Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.’”

And in chapter 5 we see a similar situation down in verse 9. “They sang a new song . . . ‘Worthy are You to take the book and break its seals; You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every [tongue and tribe] and people and nation.’”

And then in verse 12, more praise coming from myriads and myriads and thousands and thousands of angels: “‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.’ And every created thing . . . in heaven . . . [is also responding,] saying, ‘To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.’” And then in verse 14, “The four living creatures [say], ‘Amen.’ And the elders [fall] down and [worship].”

What you have is this nonstop worship going on in heaven, nonstop, coming from angels and saints who are gathered around the throne. Heaven is a noisy place, and it is filled with unending praise—which then makes it shocking to see all of it stop. In verse 1, “There was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” In the vision, there was dead silence. Half an hour would seem like a long time, when unending praise halted. It would be very natural in the vision for John to say, “What in the world is going to happen?”

What could stop heaven’s praise? What could silence heaven’s angels and saints? Men and angels, glorified, holy, around the throne, doing what they will do forever, go dead silent. What could possibly cause that? What would be so awesome, so totally dominating, so significant, that it would silence the praise of heaven?

Well, the answer is given us in the words of Zechariah, chapter 2, verse 13. “Be silent,” Zechariah writes, “all flesh, before the Lord; for He is aroused from His holy habitation.” It seemed as if God was present, receiving all that worship, and something changed. God moved into action, and there was an arousal coming from His holiness. He was aroused out of that holy habitation; He’s going into action. This would produce an awesome, awful reverence. And that’s why there was silence in heaven. Something was about to happen that had never happened in all of human history.

Worship everywhere in heaven, four living beings, twenty-four elders representing the church, innumerable angels worshiping, playing harps—and all of a sudden, it all goes dead silent. What could be so dramatic to silence heaven’s praise, and to silence it in a prolonged way? The answer is that final judgment is about to hit, final judgment—and “final” I mean in the final sense. When it is over in a few months, there will not be left on the earth one living unbeliever, not one. They will all have been killed and catapulted into the lake of fire. This is the event that all of heaven has been waiting for, since Satan’s temptation took the human race down, in the book of Genesis. This is silence of, I suppose you could say, holy reverence, holy fear.

The second word that I would mention to describe this brief passage is the word sounding. We see that in verse 2. The silence is broken. “And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them.” Breaking the silence will be the sound of trumpets. Trumpet sound is a blaring sound, for intention, obviously; and these trumpets are going to be blown by seven angels. This phrase defines them: “who stand before God.”

You say, “Well, don’t all angels stand before God?” Yes, in a general sense. All holy angels are in the presence of God. But the language here indicates that these angels have a specific role of attending to God in close proximity. Some theologians have actually called them “presence angels,” “presence angels,” angels who stand always in God’s presence.

Now, we know there are all kinds of angels because they’re given different labels. There are, even among the fallen angels as well as the holy angels, there are those angels that are called “powers,” those that are called “principalities,” those that are called “rulers,” those that are called “dominions,” those that are called “cherubim,” “seraphim,” “archangels.” There is definitely a hierarchy of angels. But there are “presence angels.” We know one of them by name, and that is Gabriel, because in Luke 1:19 we read, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God.” This is an angel who deals with God directly. This is not a group of angels who get orders from other, higher angels; these are the angels who stand in the presence of God. You could say this is God’s angelic cabinet.

In the fifteenth chapter, we’ll see seven angels who pour out the seven bowls, but they are not designated as angels in the presence of God or who stand in the presence of God. So this is a unique group of angels whose function is to put the will of God into immediate action. They’re unique in their role, special angels; and in this case, they are committed to the seven trumpets.

What does that mean? Well, trumpets were used in ancient time, certainly in Israel, for those kinds of things that you wanted people to know, so you needed something to get their attention. A trumpet was blown, for example, to declare war. A trumpet was blown to assemble the people. A trumpet was blown to announce a festival or a convocation. Trumpet was blown to introduce a king. A trumpet was blown to declare attention to the king who was going to speak. And you have that use of trumpets exactly, here in Revelation. They are primarily used for the announcement that is urgent and involves the attention of everyone. And there will be a trumpet that will proclaim judgment. There will be a trumpet that will declare war. There will be a trumpet that calls the people to assembly. There will be a trumpet that calls for the greatest convocation: the kingdom and the reign of Christ. There will be a trumpet who will announce the return and majesty of the King.

So these trumpets, historically, were called for those purposes, and they are so used in the book of Revelation. Seven angels hold seven trumpets which unleash final judgment.

Now you’re thinking to yourself, “What are those trumpets?” And I’m going to give you a preview, because the trumpet judgments run into the next couple of chapters, and we’ll cover them in detail. But I think an overview would be helpful here, so let me just tell you what happened.

When trumpet one blows, one-third of the trees, plants, and all grass are burned up all over the earth. When the second trumpet is blown, one-third of the sea is polluted, one-third of the ships are destroyed, and one-third of the creatures that live in the sea are destroyed. When the third trumpet is blown, one-third of the rivers, the fresh waters, the springs are assaulted. When the fourth trumpet is blown, one-third of the sun, one-third of the moon, and one-third of the stars are darkened. All of these things have massive global impact, and no amount of environmentalism is ever going to be able to withstand this judgment.

When the fifth trumpet is sounded, demonic hordes are released from hell where they have been in bondage. They are released from hell to torture humanity. They’re not allowed to kill people, only to torture them. And when the sixth trumpet sounds, there’s a demonically driven army of several million that winds up killing off a third of humanity. And when the seventh trumpet is blown, this is the announcement of the kingdom of Christ. But out of the seventh trumpet comes seven bowl judgments in the last weeks and days of the Day of the Lord. So that is what is coming when the angels blow the trumpet.

Now what would you think that heaven would be doing? What would the saints in heaven—at this point, knowing this is the Day of the Lord? They have been silent for thirty minutes, awestruck by the reality that the Lord is now going to destroy every unbelieving person on the face of the earth, in the process, destroying the planet. What would be their response?

Well, you come to verse 3, and the third word: supplication. We find, here, prayer going on. You might think, “Well, there’s a prayer meeting going on in heaven asking the Lord to hold off. I mean, that’s how we’ve all learned to live our Christian lives in this world: asking God to be merciful, proclaiming the gospel, hoping the Lord is patient and allows time for people to repent, and of course, He does.”

But this is very different. Look at verses 3 and 4: “Another angel came,” another angel, “and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer.” This is kind of a priestly posture. It’d be what a priest would do as he was coming to the altar at the Temple to offer incense to God as a symbol of prayer. In this case, it’s an angel holding a golden censer. “Much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand.”

So now we find this is a beautiful, beautiful heavenly picture of intercession, with the imagery drawn from the priest offering incense on the altar and setting a fire. And the symbol of the flames and the incense rising speaks to the prayers of the people. That’s what it meant in the Old Testament economy. In this case, what this angel is doing, as if he were a priest, is added to the prayers of the saints who are also at the golden altar before the throne.

And the question is: The prayers of the saints that went up before God, sort of symbolized in the angel’s action—what are their prayers for? Well first of all, just a footnote. There are some people who’ve tried to identify this angel as the Lord Jesus Christ. There’s no reason to do that. Nothing says that it is Him. It is an angel. And in the Old Testament, He’s referred to as “the angel of the Lord,” but never in the New Testament is Christ referred to as an angel, never.

And in the book of Revelation, He is clearly identified. There’s no veiled identification of Christ. Just in the book of Revelation, Christ is identified as “the Alpha and the Omega,” “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, the ruler of the kings of the earth,” the “son of man,” “the first and last,” the Resurrected One, “the Son of God,” the Son of David, the Lion of Judah, “the Lamb,” “the Root of David,” “Christ,” “the faithful and true,” “The Word of God,” the “King of kings, and Lord of lords,” “the beginning and the end”—all those magnificent titles.

This is not Christ; this is an angel who stood at the altar—obviously a significant angel. We don’t have an identification for him. But he’s holding this golden censer with incense which, as I said, in the Old Testament was a symbol of prayer. And he “[adds] it to the prayers of . . . the saints.”

So what are the saints praying for? Well, we know exactly what they’re praying for. It’s the saints you see there; “the saints” are those saints who are at the altar before the throne.

Go back to chapter 6 of Revelation, and here we find these saints in the fifth seal. “When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, [he] saw underneath the altar”—here we are back at the altar—“the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained.” Here are saints who had been martyred and entered into heaven.

And what are they crying? Verse 10, “They cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’” This is most interesting. They’re praying for divine wrath. They’re praying for divine vengeance.

That’s not the normal prayer of the saints. The saints on earth, we pray for the salvation of people. We’re commanded to do that, to offer prayers for all, that they might come to the knowledge of the truth. We pray for grace. We pray for mercy. We pray for forgiveness and salvation. We pray, like Jesus did, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they do.”

But at this point in redemptive history, in the future, the saints who are around the throne have a different request. It’s time. God has been patient, but it’s time; and they’re praying for God to judge and avenge the blood of those who have been martyred—prayers for judgment, judgment to come.

You know you’re near the end when heaven is crying out for judgment. The shock of the judgment made them silent for a period. But as it began to settle and soak in, the depiction of this moment is that they began to realize it’s time. It’s now time. It’s time for judgment. And so the prayers of the angels, you could say, are added to the prayers of the saints.

And that leads to one more word in chapter 8, and that’s the word storm. Look at verse 5: “Then the angel took the censer, filled it with the fire of the altar, and threw it to the earth”—like some kind of angelic comet; “and there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake.” And with that, verse 6 says, “The seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound them.”

This is a divine firestorm, a divine firestorm. He takes all of this incense, symbolizing prayer, and wields it as a weapon of judgment. He turns away from the petition to be merciful and gracious, and throws it to the earth. It propels to the earth, symbolic of the devastation that is going to come in the final judgment.

Fire marks that. It reminds me of Matthew 13, where it pictures the angels participating in judgment. It says in verse 41 of Matthew 13, “The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” This is, essentially, the same responsibility that the angels have. They throw their fire to the earth. It consumes and catapults people into the lake of fire. As we’ll see in the book of Revelation, all unbelievers will end up in the lake of fire. The storm generated by this judgment is spoken of with some phenomena: thunder, sounds, and flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. This is just to let us know that everywhere on the planet, the result of this will be clearly understood.

Back to 2 Thessalonians for a moment. We find this a good parallel text. Verse 7 of 2 Thessalonians says that “The Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His power.” Again, the angels involved in judgment with fire. The horrendous judgment will be executed in some measure by angelic beings.

What it marks is the end of all grace, the end of all patience, the end of all tolerance. And the question you ask after looking at that, even before you get into all the rest, is, Why would people reject their only hope of escape? When the gospel, preached by God’s people, and even in the Tribulation by angels, the gospel being preached in the end times by Jews and Gentiles all over the world, as we saw from chapter 7—why, when salvation is being offered in the midst of the outbreak of the seal judgment, why do people reject? Why do they turn their back on their only hope?

The answer is in John chapter 3, John chapter 3. You know verse 16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” All the sinner has to do is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s not something he has to spend a lifetime earning and achieving. In the face of judgment, in the face of immediate judgment, like the thief on the cross, the sinner is called to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; and believing in Him, he escapes the lake of fire and is given eternal life.

Verse 17, “For God did not send [His] Son into the world to judge the world”—first time He came—“but that the world might be saved through Him.” And it’s this direct: “He who believes in Him is not judged”—comes down to that—“he who does not believe has been judged already.” In other words, if you don’t believe, your judgment is already set. Your eternal destiny, heaven or hell, is all based on one thing: Do you believe in the Son of God? If you do, you receive eternal life; if you don’t, you enter into eternal death.

But “this is the judgment,” verse 19, “that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.” They were so in love with their evil that even in that last generation—like the present generation—but even in that last generation, with judgment flying all around them, they were so attached to their sin that they did not want to give it up. In fact, he says in the next verse, “Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear his deeds will be exposed.” He doesn’t want his sin exposed, and he doesn’t want his sin exchanged for righteousness.

Why don’t people come? Because they don’t want to exchange their sin for righteousness.

So what is repentance? It’s saying, “I don’t want my sin; I want righteousness. I turn from my sin.” That’s why the prophets ask, “Why will you die?” “Why?” they say. “Turn, turn, turn. Why will you die?” This is the message the world needs to hear. You’re not going to hear it in many places, even in many churches—most, I’m afraid. They’re afraid to preach judgment because it might push somebody away. You would want to think that you would preach judgment because it might push somebody toward Christ. God provided sacrifice in Christ so that we do not need to die in our sins in any age and be sent to the lake of fire.

As we bring this to a close, go back to 1 Thessalonians 5 one more time, and we’ll pick it up in verse 4. The Day of the Lord is coming, coming like a thief in the night. Destruction is coming; no one can escape. And then this wonderful section: “But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness.” This doesn’t apply to us. It’s why, as we saw in the first part of the service, Psalm 27, we run to God, not away from Him. We want to be as close to Him as we can get. We want to seek His face, look Him in the face. And we have no fear because He is our salvation. He is our defender. He is our rock, our refuge, our hiding place.

So, since that is true, verse 6, “So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober.” How could you not be alert and sober when you know this is coming? “For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we are of the day, let us be sober”—sober-minded, serious in our thinking—“having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep”—that is to say, when He comes, whether we’re alive or dead—“we will live together with Him. Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.”

The world should look at the judgment to come with sheer panic. We look at it with hope, because we’re not destined for wrath but for obtaining salvation. How do we know that? Because “Christ . . . died for us, so that . . . we [would] live together with Him.” It’s either with Him forever or without Him.

Our Father, again, Your Word comes to us as divine light, divine truth. Its power is palpable every time we read it. It is alive and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. It pierces, it cuts, it clarifies, it cleanses, it sharpens, it comforts—depending on our relationship to You.

For those who are unbelievers, those who have not come to Christ, may the Word terrify them. But for those of us who belong to You, may the Word be comfort to us, that we are not destined for wrath. That will never come to us. We are children of the day, not the darkness; children of the Light, not the night; and we should live as such.

Thank You for rescuing us from eternal punishment and giving us eternal life. We’re unworthy, but we are grateful. And we, even now on earth, as the saints militant, living in the world, join the saints in glory, praising You, praising You, honoring You, glorifying You at all times, that You have rescued us from sin and death and judgment, and made us Your beloved children, and given us the promise of a home in Your presence in the glory of heaven. And may that truth take hold of every heart here for salvation or for sanctifying thankfulness, we ask in the Savior’s name. Amen.