“This calls for endurance from the saints, who keep God’s commands and their faith in Jesus.” (v. 12)

It’s an important sequence:

Three angels, at the end of everything, depart heaven with tidings.

The first declares the “eternal gospel” over the earth: “Worship the worthy One, for judgment is coming and has come.”

The second sets the boundary: “If you are unrepentant—specifically of sexual immorality and all its forms—you won’t escape the judgment.”

And the third opens our eyes: “Actually, if you have gone after the world and given antichrists your heart, you’ll drink the judgment, too.”

(Curiously, the sexual immorality part can also be rendered as “passionate immorality,” which is what you find when you follow your deceitful heart.)

What, then, is the conclusion for God’s people?

Stay true! Guard your repentant morality! Worship the Lord—faithfully and convictionally and enduringly!

It’s so much easier to slide—but it’s a slide toward spiritual oblivion. I know we lean on grace—and we have to, because the grace of God in Christ is our only salvation—but we cannot let grace be our excuse for willful waywardness. You are called, in Him, to sanctification.

So hear the truth. Heed the warning. And worship rightly.

— Tyler