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Re 14:6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven (Lit. in mid heaven), having the everlasting (or eternal) gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, 7 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

In the book of Revelation, from chapter 4 to 14, with the exception of chapter 13, angels are very, very involved in the activities and the messages of the end time. In chapter 14, this is the first of six specific angels who individually participate in the events recorded in this chapter (vv. 8, 9, 15, 17, 18).

This particular angel is flying in mid-heaven, because in the providence of God, God wants nothing to hinder the people on earth from hearing His message, His commands and His warning. The loudness of his voice only magnifies the importance of implies his message.

• His message? The everlasting (eternal) gospel. His commands? Fear God and give Him glory & worship Him that made heaven and earth. His warning? The hour of His judgment is come.
• Also note beloved that in these 2 verses, The Holy Spirit ties together creation, The Second Coming (judgment), and the everlasting gospel.
  • The creation is the foundation of the gospel, the Second Coming is the hope of the gospel, the cross and the empty tomb is the power of the gospel. Dr Henry Morris

Jesus said in the Olivet Discourse: Mt 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

• According to Matthew 24:14, which is a verse that you should note within the context of our Scriptures in Revelation this morning because it tells us that the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations and then the end shall come. Before the end comes, the whole world will hear the gospel of the kingdom.
• And what an incredible way to make sure that everybody on the face of the earth hears the gospel before His Second Coming than to set an angel in mid heaven flying back and forth, day after day loudly proclaiming this eternal gospel of the kingdom?

• The words, in he midst of heaven actually means, mid heaven, which is a Greek term that refers to the apex of the sun at noonday. That is the point in the sky when the sun has reached its meridian, its high point, the very highest point in heaven where the greatest visibility will occur across the face of the earth, this angel will fly. The Psalmist declared: Ps 145:8 The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy.
• In the providence of God, this angels “pulpit”, if you will, will be the highest point in heaven, beyond the reach of the antichrist and the wicked angels who have been expelled (Rev 12).
• Here at the maximum point where the greatest amount of visibility is provided from the vantage point of earth, this angel is sent by God to preach the everlasting gospel or the gospel that provides eternal life.
• This everlasting gospel literally means ageless or from age to age. In other words beloved, it is a message which has been proclaimed since the beginning of creation and will continue on through the end of human history as we know it because it centers in the call of men to worship the sovereign Creator of the universe.
• This gospel is elsewhere called in the NT the gospel of grace. It is the gospel of Christ. It is the gospel of God. It is the gospel of peace. And it is the glorious gospel. There's only one gospel. The immeasurable grace and love of God for fallen man!

The proclamation of the angel about that character of God there in verse 7 Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters, is where I would like to camp for a few moments before we end up at the Lord’s Supper. Let’s read verse 7 again……There seems to be a serious problem of identity theft when it comes to the nature of God these days.

Art Linkletter saw a small boy scrawling wildly on a piece of paper and asked him, “what are you doing?” The boy replied that he was drawing a picture of God. Linkletter replied, “you can’t draw a picture of God because nobody knows what He looks like.” The boy replied, “they will when I am finished.”

A mantra of fallen man in today’s society is “I believe in God.” Unfortunately, as one author put it, the word God has become a canvas on which each is free to paint his own portrait of the divine.

• For some, God is psychic energy. For others, He is whatever is stronger than I am. For others God is nothing more than seeing ourselves in a full-length mirror.
• Because we live in a culture that denies absolute truth, many people today are out and about “god shopping” by visiting various spiritual malls and menus. But instead of looking for the True and Living God as He is revealed in both Creation and Scripture, they are looking a deity that is suited to their tastes. However my friend, when either you and I set out to “discover” or “select” a god that suites our own tastes, at the end of the day, we are no better off than when we began, because we have created a god in our own image and likeness.
  • Psalm 50.21 thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee.

Identity theft is also a problem in the visible, professing church today. Donald McCullough once wrote; the worst sin of the church at the end of the 20^th century is the trivialization of God…we prefer the illusion of a safer deity, and thus we have trimmed God down to more manageable proportions.

The Swiss theologian Karl Barth was right when he said there are only two ways to attain knowledge of God: one is to begin with man and reason upward (religion; humanistic philosophy); the other is to begin with God and accept His revelation to us as is found in Holy Scripture.

Beloved, the very essence of idolatry is when we make up a god of after our own image and likeness. One Reformer said that the human mind is an idol factory.

What are some of those idol gods that are so popular in today’s church?

• The god of my health and wealth. This is not the god of the bible, but the god of capitalism and the god of consumerism.
• The god of my self esteem. In many liberal circles today, the biblical definition of sin has been changed into a lack of self esteem….thus, I must find a god who will lift up my self esteem. Thus, this kind of a god becomes my cosmic therapist. Beloved, does anybody in their right mind go to the top of Mt Everest or look out at the Grand Canyon to lift up his or her self esteem?
• The god of my gender (Duck ladies). The radical feminist movement of the 60’s has refashioned a god after their own image and gender. God is not a male, he is our Eternal Mother. He is not King of Kings, he is a queen. And how about us guys? Many men think that God is like Tom Brady or Kobe Bryant or the latest UFC champion…..how vain…how wrong.
• The god of my sexual preference. My god approves of my sexual lifestyle, no matter what it might be. There is no such thing as sexual sin as long as it feels good you are not bothering anybody.
• But as I said a moment ago, here is the dilemma of “constructing” a god from man upward or after my own image and likeness…..by default, we disregard any claim of absolute truth, because the god that you construct may be totally different than mine. I have my god, you have your god, all religions have their own god….even Satan worshippers have him as their god. Created beings and things were not made to be our God.

The angel here in our texts proclaims the True and Living God as a Creator God Who is to be feared, given glory and worshipped, for He is The Judge of all men…He is The One that made heaven, earth, sea and the fountains of the waters….

· Fear God- Eccl 12:13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. This not only means that we are to honor God, reverence Him and hold Him in awe: Fearing God is different than giving Him reverence….

o Heb 12:28 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: 29 For our God is a consuming fire. To fear God

o Lu 12:5 But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.

o The God to be feared is Our Creator, Maker of heaven and earth.

• Give glory to Him- The refusal to give glory to God is the very heart of the problem of unregenerate people.
  • Rom 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
    • Romans 1 says that the reality of creation and the undeniable existence of human conscience and guilt is proof that no one has an excuse for failing or refusing to worship the True and Living God and give Him glory. Conscience demands a moral lawgiver and the existence of this universe demands a Creator.
• Worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters. The Greek word for worship, means to do homage by kissing the hand. It means to bow in adoration. It means to prostrate oneself before The Almighty. Beloved, there is no debate in heaven over how the universe was brought into existence…the doctrine of heaven is the doctrine of creation.
• Whenever the preachers of Scripture approach unbelievers, they approach them from the viewpoint of creation because that is the great unanswerable question, that is the great proof of God, that for this great effect known as creation there must be a cause. John MacArthur
• The Antichrist didn't create the universe, Satan didn't create the universe, man didn’t create the universe, and the universe didn’t bring itself into existence…..Ge 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. God brought creation into existence and God is maintaining it to this very hour!
• Creation is always the ground for worship, always the ground for glory, always the ground for fear and reverence, always the ground for faith. In Acts 14, in Acts 17 when Paul preached to the pagans, whether they were just the people on the street or the elite philosophers, he said the God you must worship is the God who made the heavens and the earth because the creator, my friend, is the judge. Whoever started it will end it. Whoever created it is in charge of it. The Maker is the executioner, the One who brought it into existence is the One who will put it out of existence. He is the One to fear.
• For the hour of His judgment is come- The English word "judgment," is used here for the first time in the book of Revelation, but you'll find it again in 16, 18 and 19. It has the same meaning as another word that's used earlier in the books starting in chapter 6, and that is the word wrath. God's wrath and God's judgment is the same. Here are the righteous judgments that are the result of the wrath of holy God against a stubborn and obstinate world.
  • Heb 9:27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment
  • For each and every one of us here in this sanctuary today….an hour of judgment is coming, and the only hope that any of us have to standing before God on that day and be declared “not guilty” is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

Let’s take a “look” at The True and Living God for how awesome and powerful He is:

The earth where we live is a small planet revolving around a star called the sun which has a volume of 1.3 million times that of the earth. There are stars a million times brighter than the sun. There are about a hundred billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way, which is one hundred thousand light years across (a light years by the way is six million million miles) The sun travels about 155 miles per second, and so it would take two hundred million years to make a single revolution on its orbit of the Milky Way. There are millions of other galaxies besides ours.

• Ps 147:4 He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names. 5 Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.
• God not only created and ordained the placement of each and every star, He numbers them and calls them by name! Just like you and I name bunnies or puppies, God numbers and names each and every star.

Now what could possible impress a God as powerful as this?

• Ps 147:10 He delighteth not in the strength of the horse: he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man.11 The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.
• Imagine some Olympic weightlifter puffed up with pride because he lifted 500 or 600 pounds over his head. Imagine some brilliant scientist feeling proud because he figures out how one molecule could affect another one. And the questions about how we are prone to be proud can go on indefinitely…..look how beautiful I am…look how great I can play an instrument or sing a song…..listen to how articulate and philosophical I sound…beloved, it is an understatement to say that God is not the least impressed.
• But these two verses tell us that God takes pleasure in those that fear Him and hope in His mercy. Is that you this morning my friend?

Yes, the glory of God is seen in creation, but above all things, the glory of God in seen in the face of The Creator Himself, The Lord Jesus Christ. The cry of the angel to earth is a call for man to fear God, give Him glory and worship The One Who Created the heavens and the earth.

• John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
• Col 1:16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

In the mystery and providence of God, this Mighty God became Man and was made sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor 5.21). 1Pe 3:18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. Phil 2.8 He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

This Mighty God is also a seeking God….note the kind of person He is looking for

• Isa 66.2 to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.
• Ro 5:6 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. Ro 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Ro 5:10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

As we come to The Lord’s Supper, we are exhorted in Scripture to behold the saving grace of Our Creator and Redeemer. The bread and the cup are like eyeglasses in the sense that they help us to “see” the price that Christ paid to redeem our souls.

• 1Pe 1:18 Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; 19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, 21 Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.

The everlasting gospel is the gospel of God because it is from God, and not of man. It is the gospel of Christ, because there is no other name given under heaven whereby we must be saved. It is the gospel of grace, because salvation is by grace trough faith, and that not of works lest any man should boast.

• It is the gospel of peace. And it is the glorious gospel. There's only one gospel that can save a soul and provide complete forgiveness of sin, and that is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
• It is the good news that tells men and women how they can enter in to the eternal kingdom of God, the kingdom that has been opened by Christ and whosoever believes can enter.
• It is certain that one day all will give glory to God. Philippians 2:9-11 says, Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.