45: World News & Prophecy - Revelation 14:1-20

[McNeely] We are in the book of Revelation once again. Welcome back. Those of you that are watching us online, we know you're still with us. Today we're going to get into Revelation 14. So let's get our Bibles open and our notes out. You've got a handout, and those of you that are watching online, I think by the time you watch this, that handout will be all online. And along with everything else, we're working on that. But we're still in an inset chapter in the flow of Revelation.

So let's begin in chapter 14. And we've already covered this when we were in Revelation 7. So I'm not going to go through it all in detail, perhaps bring a little bit out that I didn't at that time. At the beginning of Revelation chapter 14, John records this: lang="EN">"Then I looked, and behold, a Lamb standing on Mount Zion"lang="EN"> (Revelation 14:1). Now this is understood to be Jerusalem, specifically a hill, one hill in Jerusalem on which the Temple stood—Mount Zion. So this is taken to be, at least in the vision that John has, that it is in Jerusalem on Mount Zion.

And the Lamb, Christ, is standing there and with Him 144,000, having His Father’s name written on their foreheads. Now we've covered what this means previously. I'm not going to go through it, but briefly, Matthew 28:18–20 says that those who are baptized believers, disciples, have the name of the Father with them. Christ prayed in John 17, verses 11 to 12. He said, lang="EN">"Holy Father, keep through Your name those You have given Me"lang="EN"> (John 17:11–12).

So that gives us a pretty good understanding—with the name of the Father on their foreheads—that we're talking about the Church. And we established that last time. This is what we teach in our Revelation booklet as well.

John goes on, lang="EN">"I heard a voice from heaven, like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of loud thunder"lang="EN"> (Revelation 14:2). We've been hearing this all along through the book of Revelation—loud noises, many waters, loud thunder. Something big is happening.

We've seen waters referred to the armies in Revelation 12 poured out against the Church. That's not what this is here. But it is certainly a tumult. It is a sign of action that is taking place, and it heightens your sense of awareness. Go to Niagara Falls. If you've ever been there, if you ever go to Africa, the big falls even bigger than Niagara is Victoria Falls.

And Victoria Falls is—when you stand there, both Niagara and Victoria—awesome. To just be overwhelmed by the thunder of those waters that are falling. But it heightens an awareness that something big is certainly in front of us in a gigantic waterfall. But in this particular picture, a big event.

And so he said, lang="EN">"I heard the sound of harpists playing their harps. They sang as it were a new song before the throne, before the four living creatures, and the elders; and no one could learn that song except the one hundred and forty-four thousand who were redeemed from the earth"lang="EN"> (Revelation 14:2–3).

And so in this vision—and keep in mind that this is a vision into, in a sense, into the eternal realm as John literally saw it in the first century. And even as we would look at it today, we haven't experienced this as well. So we're reading about it, and it is projecting us into an eternal picture into the future.

And if these are then the Church redeemed, firstfruits as we would say—in a sense, with Christ on Mount Zion on the earth in this vision—then they would be spirit beings, changed through the resurrection, the first resurrection, which other scriptures teach us, and these people learning a song that will be sung at that time.

Now, no one else is going to be able to learn that song, it says. No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who were redeemed from the earth, from among the nations of the earth. And so they've already been changed, which takes place at the blowing of the seventh trumpet. So these scriptures look forward to the main results for the saints that occur after the sounding of the seventh trumpet, and that would be certainly for the saints—the resurrection.

So really look at this as a picture, a picture of one of many, of the ultimate destiny of the Church. Firstfruits—those that are called now in this age before Christ's coming—to be firstfruits, as they're going to be called here. And that is to be with Christ, to be exalted, to be full of joy and jubilation through even singing. Just, you know, picture how great you feel when you've done your performance.

I'm looking forward to hearing your performance on this coming Sabbath in your songs. And you've worked hard. You want to praise God and you want to encourage God's people through what you're doing. You go through all of that, and as you move through those songs and everybody comes in, does their part, it just creates a great feeling. And, you know, multiply that out in this particular scene and you begin to understand—in the midst of what has happened with all the tribulation—a time of great rejoicing as God's plan begins to come to place here.

Well, verse 4 says, lang="EN">"These are the ones who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These were redeemed from among men, being firstfruits to God and to the Lamb"lang="EN"> (Revelation 14:4). So we have some very explicit details here about who this group is that helps us to identify it.

And then their mouth was found notic, notic, no lies, no misrepresentation, nothing. lang="EN">"For they are without fault before the throne of God"lang="EN"> (Revelation 14:5). And any statement like this has to be understood in the context that the only way we could be—a first fruit could be—without fault before the throne of God is through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, His shed blood, and Christ in His role as intercessor, as our High Priest, as Hebrews shows, for the people of God. And so that's how we would be—with anyone—would be without fault before God.

So in regard then to 144,000, we can say that in one sense this can be looked at in one way as a symbolic number of completeness from the Church. Remember, we had 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel back in chapter 7 of Revelation with that particular group of 144,000.

We talked about the possibilities of understanding that one, but if we stay with the Church teaching as we have it, and that they're both groups here, at least we have a connection in that Israel, the Old Testament, was a pro-forerunner of the Church. And the New Testament Church is spiritual Israel, or as Paul calls it in Galatians, lang="EN">"the Israel of God"lang="EN"> (Galatians 6:16).

Keep in mind when that New Jerusalem comes down in chapter 21 of Revelation, there is the foundation of the apostles, and then the gates have the names of the tribes of Israel upon it (Revelation 21:12–14). And so on God’s whole family throughout eternity, the name of Israel is there. And 12 tribes, 12 apostles—the connection there. And so there’s a symbolic totality for the whole Church here in Revelation 14 regarding this.

So there’s prophetic application, there’s literal application in this that’s probably used between chapter 7 and chapter 14 to at least put us to the higher level of God’s complete plan. Begun in Abraham and his descendants, carried on into the spiritual reality of the Church. We’ve covered in our doctrines class here the promises to Abraham, one of our fundamental teachings, one of our fundamental beliefs in the United Church of God. We’ve gone through that to show the work that God began to do through one man, Abraham, and his descendants Isaac and Jacob and then ultimately the 12 tribes.

So in a sense, we have that kind of brought to a completion here in these chapters of chapter 7, chapter 14 in Revelation here.

And so, going on to verse 6: lang="EN">"Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people—saying with a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water’"lang="EN"> (Revelation 14:6–7).

So here’s an angel flying through the midst of the heavens in the vision that John sees, and he has the everlasting gospel. Now, then, it’s preached by this angel. Now, the gospel is a multi-dimensional aspect, the good news of salvation that the Bible talks about both in the Old Testament and then in the New.

The gospel can be preached from Genesis all the way to the end of Revelation. The gospel is not just a New Testament matter. It includes the entire announcement—the good news of God’s plan of salvation for mankind and what God is doing. And it involves the sacrifice, life, death, and sacrifice of Jesus Christ as part of that message. It involves as well the Kingdom of God, the message of the gospel of the Kingdom of God coming to this earth with Christ’s second coming and God’s reign on the earth, the thousand years, and all the time beyond all of that. All of that is a part of the package of the everlasting gospel.

It’s not a complicated thing to have to create, well, we’ve got another gospel here? No. It is telling us that even in the midst of the chaos of the ending of the—during and perhaps even the ending of the—tribulation, there’s going to be a knowledge of God’s truth. Now, there are many other scriptures that talk about the famine of the hearing of the Word back in the book of Amos.

There’s a talk about a famine of the hearing of the Word. In the book of Daniel—I believe it’s in chapter 7; I didn’t write that down—but lang="EN">"the power of the holy people being broken"lang="EN"> (Daniel 12:7). Maybe that’s chapter 12. It’s something that we’ve looked at to tell us that the ability to preach the gospel can be curtailed. Christ talked about working while it is day: lang="EN">"The night is coming when no man can work"lang="EN"> (John 9:4). He gave to the Church a commission to do the work. Amos 8:11–12 talks about a famine of the hearing of the Word.

So the point is: there is going to come a time when the Church will not be able to do its God-ordained, God-given work of taking the gospel to the world. That is not currently on us. We have the ability to do so through all the different means of media that we have, primarily the internet. But we can do that. But there will be a time when that work of the Church will be curtailed. We’ve gone over those times because of the events that will occur on the Church, as said in the book of Revelation.

But we’ve also studied in chapter 11 of Revelation the work of the two witnesses, God’s two witnesses, who will witness specifically to the beast and the false prophet (Revelation 11:3–7).

They will be talking about the gospel then. And so there's not going to be, during that period, a dearth, if you will, of truth made available. And then we can even look at this example here and understand that in some way that too will be a witness and a warning in the midst of the time of trial that will be putting out a message to the world. And so keep that in mind.

Verse 7, it says with a loud voice—well, we've read verse 7—but, lang="EN">"Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth"lang="EN"> (Revelation 14:7). Who made heaven and earth? Really, again, take this personally. All of us should read Revelation from a very personal here and now.

Yes, these events pertain to the future, but your personal application: learn to fear God now. Worship God now. Repent now before it's too late. Don't be like the examples that we are reading about here. Worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). And so we can avoid these plagues and the brunt of them as according to God's will and purpose. But this angel's message will be a warning at that particular time.

Verse 8 tells us, lang="EN">"And another angel followed, saying, ‘Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication’"lang="EN"> (Revelation 14:8).

Now, lang="EN">"Babylon is fallen, is fallen."lang="EN"> So here the scene now shifts through another angel to Babylon. Now keep in mind that this is speaking of—it says—lang="EN">"that great city."lang="EN"> We'll talk about that again in chapter 17, of lang="EN">"that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth"lang="EN"> (Revelation 17:18). John understood—would have understood—that great city to be Rome in the first century. And we hold the same feeling today in teaching that this is talking about not the ancient city of Babylon somehow resurrected.

There is a line of thought among biblical interpreters today that the Babylon of Revelation here in Revelation 17 and 18 refers to a rebuilt literal Babylon on the site of the ancient Babylon in what is today Iraq. We've never held that view, never taught that view. There have been excavations of ancient Babylon in Iraq, quite extensive in some parts of it, going on for a long, long period of time. I've shown you pictures of remnants of the Ishtar Gate that is in a museum in Berlin. But I've always thought, boy, I would love to see ancient Babylon, but I doubt that I will. I don't think I want to go to Iraq, at least not today.

So I probably won't go there, but you could walk into the palace of Nebuchadnezzar and know where it is. There's quite a bit that has been done there. But the interpretation of this Babylon here is not that rebuilt city on the ancient site. John would have understood it as Rome.

And that is the understanding that we have and always have had, and I think it's the correct understanding here. Babylon has fallen. It did fall once in the year 539 BC—we learned that when we were studying the book of Daniel—to the Persians. And it has fallen. There’s a duality here. This coming future Babylon is going to fall again because it has lang="EN">"made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication"lang="EN"> (Revelation 14:8). We'll talk about that again in chapter 17.

And so the prophets, particularly Jeremiah, had a lot of prophesying about Babylon of that day. And Jeremiah 51 and verse 7 talks about it. Jeremiah prophesies that ancient Babylon would fall. And it talks about a cup in the hand of Babylon (Jeremiah 51:7). And so this imagery of a cup that carries on into Revelation 17 of a woman holding that cup is found throughout the scripture here in that way.

And so as John sees this in the vision, again projecting ahead even literally to the future, God foretells in advance that He’s going to upend this coming Babylon. Now, just a word here. Let me introduce a thought, and I'll come back to it again.

This final revival of this fourth beast of Daniel—and all the heads of it and everything we've been studying—we’ll have one more run-through of that in chapter 17. But the final end-time appearance of this entire system the Bible calls Babylon—lang="EN">"Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots"lang="EN"> (Revelation 17:5). But it is a system, a political, religious, economic system that will arise. The Bible calls it Babylon. This is why all of this is so important beginning in Daniel chapter 1, all the way through to where we are here today.

A couple of years ago, I finished a manuscript of a booklet on this particular topic. We have not got around to publishing it yet. But the final chapter I call lang="EN">Slouching Toward Babylon.

And that chapter will talk about where we are now, as a world slouches almost like a beast. It’s a play on a phrase from a poem by William Blake. But the current world is slouching like a beast toward this final system. In our culture, religion, politics, economics—the totality of it—it’s forming, it’s developing. All a part of that root structure that Daniel 4 talks about, of that tree that was cut down with a band of iron put around it that will one day be released—if not happened already. And that life will spring forth that will encompass everything from the ancient into the modern into something that has not been seen likely in the history of the world, but it will contain all of the elements and the details that the Bible shows, and we have been studying.

And it will be glitzy, glamorous, inviting. It will be portrayed as the answer to human woe, and in a sense a new age, if you will use that term—finally—and peace. And it will hold out promise of everything. And it will have an image, it will have a mark as we've talked about, and it will be enforced. You will not be able to buy or sell unless you take part in that (Revelation 13:16–17). And there will be a religious dimension probably in some type of way that will even surprise us. We'll talk more about that when we come to it. I'll just hold my thoughts there that maybe whet your appetite for that.

But Babylon will fall again as we’ll see in Revelation 17 and 18, but this angel is in a sense prophesying of that.

Let’s go on to verse 9: lang="EN">"Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, ‘If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation.’"lang="EN"> (Revelation 14:9–10).

So this cup refers to God’s indignation—a little different from the cup of Babylon and what that woman holds in chapter 17. lang="EN">"He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name"lang="EN"> (Revelation 14:10–11).

Now, this is talking about an undiluted, full-strength indignation of God. Now, there's a historical illusion here that helps us at least to understand. In the ancient world—we're talking about a… and we'll see this when we get later on about the wine press and trampling out the wine press later. But this is a cup of wine, in a sense. So it's not grape juice, it's not Mountain Dew. This is a cup of wine. But the reference to full strength—John and his original audience would have understood, oh, this is undiluted wine.

In the ancient world, the ancients, when they would drink wine, they drank a lot of wine to all their banquets in Rome and everything, but they would dilute wine, either with one or two parts water. Now, we don't do that today. We open a bottle of wine to drink it for a meal, just pour it into a wine glass, and we enjoy the wine, but we don't dilute it with water. At least I don't. I know some people—I've encountered some who do—that's fine.

But that was the custom in the ancient world. It was probably a higher alcohol content, a little stronger, and they would dilute it. But in this case, God’s saying that it’s full strength, that the wine of His wrath is poured out full strength. And that would have been an arresting image for the audience in hearing this. So basically what He’s saying is, don’t take part in this Babylon to come. Don’t worship and receive that mark, because it represents a complete allegiance, total buy-in to that system. And here’s another final warning.

You’ll suffer. There will be suffering. lang="EN">“Come out of her, My people, lest you share in her sins”lang="EN"> (Revelation 18:4).

And that would be through a direct obedience to the teachings, to the entire encompassing system, including religious teachings that are part of a false, dark religion. God says, don’t do that. And so here then is an image, and we should spend a moment on what verse 11 says, that all of the system and those who take part in it will be tormented with fire and brimstone, with a judgment in the presence of the angels, holy angels, and the Lamb. lang="EN">“And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name”lang="EN"> (Revelation 14:11). Certainly while they live, there is no rest, and that judgment is poured out.

But whoever takes part in this is then—their smoke of this time of trial… We’ll read about those seven last plagues here in chapter 16 that will talk about that being poured out, and there will be a great deal of destruction and death.

Some people read this, and they read into it a preconceived vision or idea, because they already have a mental picture of an ever-burning hell fire, of a smoke of torment ascending forever and ever. But that’s not what is being described. We’re not talking about an ever-burning hell fire here. We’re talking about smoke, and it’s an imagery here that that torment, represented by the smoke, ascends forever and ever. Again, if you have a preconceived idea of an ever-burning hell fire, it would be easy to read that into it. But that’s not really what’s being talked about when you put it in the context of what the totality of the Bible says about the afterlife, heaven and hell, judgment, and everything else.

The byproduct of smoke that goes up is that it just continues to ascend. We’ve all watched a fire burn, whether it’s one in our backyard, as we’re sitting around that at night and enjoying a bonfire or whatever, or maybe watching a building go up, and you see that smoke go up and up and up, and it just disperses into the atmosphere. In that sense, that’s what is being described here. Ash and particles that are a part of that that go up into the atmosphere.

The Greek term that is translated here “forever and ever” is the Greek word lang="EN">eonoslang="EN">, A-I-O-N-O-S.

Eonos, A-I-O-N-O-S.

Literally translated, it can mean “to the ages of the ages,” kind of an ongoing sense there. If you go back to the book of Jude, there’s similar terminology that is used here for Sodom and Gomorrah, who suffered an age-ending type fire or an Aeon-type fire. In Jude, verse 7, it says, lang="EN">“Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire”lang="EN"> (Jude 7). That Sodom and Gomorrah suffered the vengeance of eternal fire. That word for “eternal fire” there is another form of this word A-I-O-N, N-O-N. All right, but it comes from the same root, and it’s a form of that word.

So what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah? Well, they burned up. We know that from Genesis 19—smoke went up. Abraham saw that smoke burning as it went up, and that smoke—it was a big smoke, it was a big fire. I might just briefly call attention to lang="EN">Beyond Todaylang="EN"> magazine articles that we had maybe three years ago on excavations at a location in Jordan, right to the north and east of the Dead Sea, that an archaeologist has been working on for a number of years, excavating what he feels is the location of Sodom and Gomorrah, different from the traditional site which puts it on the south end of the Dead Sea. And there is evidence that he’s found there of tremendous burning, almost sudden-like, and high intense heat. I’ve sat and listened to his lectures, and it’s fascinating.

But those cities went up in smoke. And as far as the physical material from Sodom and Gomorrah, in one sense it did—poetically or whatever—go on forever and ever, and that city doesn’t exist and hasn’t to this very day. But neither are the people, the inhabitants, in a state of torment either. They were burned, and that took care of it. And that’s going to be the same for the wicked of the time of the end that take part in the beast system. They’re burned up as part of that judgment and then await the future judgment of the Great White Throne Judgment period.

And so looking at this, these are earth-shaking events and disasters that occur on the earth prior to Christ’s return—not an ever-burning hell fire in the afterlife. Other scriptures talk about what happens at death. But this is a warning describing the punishment of those who take part in the worship of the beast and his image. And it’s the smoke from this that ascends forever. It doesn’t say the people’s actual torment goes on forever and ever. We should note Psalm 37 and verse 20: lang="EN">“But the wicked shall perish; and the enemies of the LORD, like the splendor of the meadows, shall vanish. Into smoke they shall vanish away”lang="EN"> (Psalm 37:20).

The wicked. Again, written in the language of the Psalms. We can understand clearly what is being talked about, very similar to what is being spoken here. They're not tortured in an ever-burning hellfire. So this is the wrath of God. And rather than describing an eternal torment to people in hell, from this context and other scriptures we see that it's actually describing specific events that take place on the earth at the end of the age.

Let’s go on. Verse 12: lang="EN">“Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus”lang="EN"> (Revelation 14:12). Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, lang="EN">“Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on’”lang="EN"> (Revelation 14:13). And that has been true from the time of the first century to today. The blessing, lang="EN">“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.”lang="EN"> lang="EN">“The dead in Christ shall rise first,”lang="EN"> Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 4:16). Going on here, lang="EN">“Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them”lang="EN"> (Revelation 14:13).

Then I looked, verse 14, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat One like the Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle.

And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, lang="EN">“Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe”lang="EN"> (Revelation 14:15). And so He who sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.

So here’s a description of aspects of Christ’s return following the seventh and last trumpet that begins. Verse 14 mentions lang="EN">“One like the Son of Man,”lang="EN"> which is a term used for Christ back in Matthew 16. And we saw that when we studied that back in Daniel 7 as well, lang="EN">“For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works”lang="EN"> (Matthew 16:27). And Christ refers to Himself as the Son of Man.

In verse 28 of Matthew 16: lang="EN">“Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom”lang="EN"> (Matthew 16:28). And so what we’re talking about here in Revelation 14 is the reaping of the spiritual harvest into the family of God when Christ returns and sends His angels to gather His elect and bring them into His family.

So it’s going to be a time when that happens. Let’s go on to verse 17, and then I’ll come back and make another comment here. lang="EN">Then another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sicklelang="EN"> (Revelation 14:17). So we see that One like the Son of Man has a sickle, and then another angel has a sharp sickle.

Now this is a handheld instrument. We don’t use them too much today. We have weed eaters and other things. But a handheld sickle is usually a curved type blade, somewhat like this, but it has a very sharp point—very fine, sharp—this side would be sharp, and there’s a kind of wooden handle back here. That’s a poor representation of a sickle. But it’s a hand instrument, and I’ve used them in my youth many times.

If you were going to weed a patch or a garden, you could take that sharp point and you could go in and gather just the weeds. And this is the point. You could just cut off the weeds, but you leave the fruit, the flower, what you’re wanting to grow. And so there’s a reason that this is being described as harvest with a sickle, because Christ and His angels are going to be very, very careful in reaping the harvest of this time. His people are going to be spared.

The weeds will be taken out in that sense. And so that helps us to appreciate this.

It goes on in verse 18: lang="EN">“And another angel came out from the altar, who had power over fire, and he cried with a loud cry to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, ‘Thrust in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe’”lang="EN"> (Revelation 14:18). So it’s a time of harvest and the clusters are big, the grapes are full, and there’s going to be a winepress.

lang="EN">So the angel thrust his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the earth, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trampled outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress, up to the horses' bridles, for one thousand six hundred furlongslang="EN"> (Revelation 14:19–20).

And so the best way to understand this—and I think commentators put it quite well—the amount of space that is being described here is roughly the modern, let's say, the land of Israel today where all these events take place, from about Megiddo all the way down to Jerusalem. And it’s kind of understood that these events of Revelation are taking place over quite a wide area, some of these key events here. And there’s a time of reaping that’s going to take place. There’s a time of punishment, testing.

The book of Joel, chapter 3, talks about this period of time. Back in Joel 3, beginning at about verse 11, this prophecy applies to this period. It says, lang="EN">“Assemble and come, all you nations, and gather together all around. Cause Your mighty ones to come down there, O LORD. Let the nations be wakened, and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat”lang="EN">—that’s in Jerusalem—lang="EN">“for there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations. Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, go down; for the winepress is full, the vats overflow”lang="EN"> (Joel 3:11–13). And so you see the relation to what we read in chapter 14 of Revelation. And so it’s judgment of God falling upon the wicked, and God’s going to shelter His people at that time. And that is going to be done quite well.

Matthew 13, beginning in verse 36, has an illustration of Christ in regard to a harvest situation that Joel 3 mentions, Revelation 14 mentions, in God’s time of judgment. Look at Matthew 13, verse 36, where Christ is explaining the parable of the tares to His disciples. lang="EN">Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.”lang="EN"> This is where a sower went out and he sowed seed, good seed, but weeds or tares grew up among the wheat.

And Christ said, look, let them grow together until the time of the harvest. And here’s the explanation: lang="EN">He answered and said to them, “He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world; the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels”lang="EN"> (Matthew 13:37–39). So it fits very well with what we are studying here in Revelation 14.

It goes on by analogy to explain what’s going to happen to the wicked in that harvest. In verse 40, lang="EN">“Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear”lang="EN"> (Matthew 13:40–43).

And so when you put this together with the parable of the tares, then the picture here seems to be complete. And you know, my crude picture of a sickle makes more sense as Christ and the angels use this to separate the wheat from the tares, which gives rise to the illustration that we often use to separate the good from the bad, the righteous from the unrighteous.

And what’s the point? Well, make sure you’re wheat. Don’t be a tare.

Tares are sown by the devil. Sometimes we can act like a tare. And the thing about wheat and tares is—and the parable shows this—they both look alike. And that’s why Christ says, wait till the harvest. God’s judgment is perfect. And there’s a lot more that could be said on that in terms of just even how we should apply that today among ourselves.

Just apply it to yourself. Make sure you're growing, producing fruit, some 30-fold, some 60-fold fruit for God’s kingdom so that when this harvest takes place, we’re not caught up in the mark of the beast. We’re not caught up in unrighteousness.

Again, that’s the primary application. I’ve been kind of focusing on that as we go through Revelation—from the messages to the churches to here. Look, what does it mean for us today in the Church? That’s the most important interpretation of the book of Revelation. Worship God now. Fear God. Recognize the slouching beast that’s moving toward a Babylon around us today.

Be like a modern Daniel resisting it while we live in an emerging Babylon. And some case can be made that we’ve got a Babylon today. I don’t think it’s the final Babylon, but we’ve got a Babylon of religious confusion, and we have a system that we have to resist like Daniel today.

Focus on that and all of us will receive the blessing of reading the book of Revelation, listening to its words and heeding what it says and getting the real kernel and core essence of what God intends for us.

That takes us to the end of chapter 14. Next class we’ll pick up chapter 15 and go forward into what looks like probably get done with chapter 16 as well. So we will see you in the next class.