Yet, a third angel in the fourteenth chapter of the Apocalypse arose and said: “…If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb” (Revelation 14:9-10).
It seems that this third angel announced the kind of judgment the enemies of God would receive. The false prophet and the other leaders of the Jews made war upon the servants of God who preached the Gospel, persecuting them and killing many of them, even into foreign lands. This was done, because the Lord’s enemies had an inordinate affection for the beast and his image. That is, the people of the Land had an inordinate affection for the nation of the Jews (with their Temple) and the false prophet’s family, which the people took to be the one’s through whom the Lord spoke (Revelation 14:8).
In stark contrast to this work or judgment of men, we have the work or judgment of God (Revelation 14:9-10). In other words, those who worship the beast and his image, and who receive the mark or doctrine of the second beast, will suffer the consequences, when the Lord comes to judge that nation and to vindicate his elect, whom that nation as a whole (i.e. the worshipers of the beast and his image and those who believe men over God) rejected, persecuted and killed. The Lord’s reward for his enemies would be similar to that, which they had done to Jesus’ disciples. The whole nation had disowned those who believed Jesus, persecuting and killing them, as many as they could, and caused people of other nations to do the same. Therefore, the nation of the Jews would be disowned by God, many dying in the war with Rome, while others would be led into slavery—persecuted, if you will, just for being a Jew. As they had judged the elect, so the Lord had judged them.
Jesus had warned the nation decades before all this occurred. The scribes and Pharisees had ridiculed Jesus and his Gospel, desiring from him a sign of their choosing and as often as they desired one (Matthew 16:1). Nevertheless, Jesus refused, accusing them of being able to discern the signs of the sky for the weather, but couldn’t discern the signs of the time in which they lived (Matthew 16:2-3). Understanding the signs of the times comes by observing world events and listening to what God tells one in his heart about those very things (Matthew 16:15-17). Men will always err when making judgments without considering the Lord (Matthew 16:13-14), but waiting upon the Lord and trusting his guidance will always prove true (Matthew 16:16-17).
Believing God, however, is an offence to men, and they will persecute anyone who trusts in the Lord (Matthew 16:24-26). Following Jesus will always cost us our lives in this world, if not literally, then certainly figuratively in that we leave behind our choices and goals to embrace the Lord’s choice for us and his goal (verse-25). In the end, however, he promised to come in the glory of his Father, with his angels and reward every man (both his servants and his enemies) according to his works (Matthew 16:27), and this would be especially true for people in the first century AD, in the context of Revelation 14:8-10, because Jesus promised to do all this within the time of one generation, the generation in which he lived as man (Matthew 16:28; cf. Matthew 23:34-36).
The angel’s claim that the Lord’s enemies would be “tormented with fire and brimstone” points to the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. There the Lord called fire and brimstone down from the Lord in heaven upon the cities in the plain (Genesis 19:24). In like manner, the judgment upon the Jews came down from the Lord in heaven in the form of the Roman armies that conquered and destroyed their city, which was spiritually called Sodom (Revelation 11:8), and which was also where Jesus was crucified.
All this was done in the presence of the Lord and in the presence of his holy messengers (Revelation 14:10). This means the Lord had come with his saints in the first century AD (1Thessalonians 4:14-16), and destroyed that “man of sin,” which is the false prophet of Revelation 13:11-18 (cf. 2Thssalonians 2:8-12). And, if this is logically so, all this was done at the time of the resurrection, when God vindicated his elect and judged his enemies (cf. Matthew 16:27-28).
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