"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 on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger,..."
(Revelation 14:9-10)
There’s another cup, a second cup that answers to the cup of Babylon’s pollutions. The cup of sin! Now there’s the cup of wrath! The cup of judgment! The cup of divine anger! That’s what John begins to speak about. It’s a picture of hell. Sobering! Horrifying even!
What is there in the cup of wrath that is poured out in hell? First of all, there is punishment. We’ve already seen that the cup of wine that Babylon gives to the nations corresponds directly to the cup of wrath. The cup of wrath answers Babylon’s cup. For every drop we drink from Babylon’s cup we will drink just punishment from the cup of God’s anger. Sin will be punished with exacting correspondence and accuracy. That’s the message. Also notice the population of hell is described- who are in hell? Those who worship the beast and its image; they are made to drink the cup of wrath. Those who reject Jesus and opt instead for false worship, and empty religion, they drink the hell of divine wrath. They are those, John says, who have the mark of the beast on their forehead and on their hands, their heads and hands. Their thoughts and deeds, their intellect and their actions and activity governed by a principle and an impulse that rejects the Lordship of Christ and so they are made to suffer the wrath of the Lamb.
(David Strain)
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