We looked last time at the mark of the beast and the destiny of those that follow the antichrist and take his mark upon themselves, and it’s a devastating and ugly picture of punishment on those that do it. As I said last time, one of the most gruesome pictures, in all of Scripture regarding judgment is found in those verses.
In Revelation 14:12-13 we find another group of people. Remember back in Revelation 14:6 we had an angel proclaiming an eternal gospel. Many of the people rejected that gospel and took the mark of the beast, worshiped the beast, but there are a group of people who did not do that, and they have instead followed the Lord. Some of those were possibly saved out of that message from the angel, others perhaps came to Christ earlier. We know that we do have a group of people in the Tribulation, who have not bowed the knee to the antichrist and have not taken his mark. They suffer temporal consequences as a result, but not eternal consequences and we will pick up their story starting in Revelation 14:12.
It says in Revelation 14:12, “Here is the perseverance of the saints who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.” That is probably a commentary by John himself. He sees a group of saints and they are persevering. They are steadfast in following the Lord and in keeping His commandments and in their faith. So, this is a group of people that have walked with him and are walking with him.
Then he hears a voice from heaven in Revelation 14:13, “And I heard a voice from heaven, saying “Write, ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!’” There are seven beatitudes in the book of Revelation, or seven Blessed statements. This is the second one of them. “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!” Many of them are going to be martyred. Why? Because they refuse to take the mark of the beast. They refuse to follow him. This is picking up on Revelation 6:11. Remember back in the first series of Seal Judgments that were going on and we find in Revelation 6:11 that it says, “And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.” This is a picture there of the martyrs who had followed Christ and died for that reason . . .
