Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #35 of Revelation, chapter 14, and we are going to look at Revelation14:13:
And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.
We were discussing this in our last study. The “dead in the Lord” does not mean the physically dead, but they are the people Christ has saved and they are “dead” in Him as He died for their sins and that is how God views them. Those “dead” are “dying” (present active participle) in an ongoing way “from henceforth,” or from now, in the time of judgment.
This “dying in the Lord” has to do with taking up our cross. Each believer is commanded by the Lord to take up his cross daily and follow Him and, therefore, “as dying, we live.” We are still physically alive and each day, as we attempt by the grace of God to put away our fleshly desires, we are crucifying the flesh and the world, and so forth. This is what is in view in our verse in the time of Judgment Day: “Blessed are the dead which are dying in the Lord from henceforth.”
Then it goes on to say, in Revelation 14:13:
… Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours
This refers back to the dead which are dying in the Lord, the people God saved that are still living on the earth in the Day of Judgment. God says that they “may rest from their labours.” The Greek word translated as “rest” is Strong’s #373. It is a compound word and when we look up the two words that make up this word, it would literally state, “everyone cease,” so “everyone cease from their labours.” This same word is found in Revelation 6:9-11:
And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled.
This picture God is giving us in Revelation, chapter 6, of the souls under the altar that were slain for the Word of God; it is describing those that were saved during the church age. We can know that it has to do with the people saved during the church age because God says that “they should rest yet for a little season,” and that is a key phrase that defines it as the Great Tribulation. For instance, in Revelation 20:3, when Satan was cast into the bottomless pit, it says in the middle of the verse: “that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.” The time of Satan’s loosing was the period called the Great Tribulation, so these souls under the altar (which typifies Christ) are told that “they should rest yet for a little season,” or for the entire period of the Great Tribulation, “until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled.” These people that were saved by God during the church age had their period of ministering the Gospel to the world in the churches and congregations throughout the 1,955 years of the church age. Then “they should rest for a little season,” because the church age ended in 1988 and the Great Tribulation began at the same time. The end of the church age is the beginning of the Great Tribulation, so their labour (their efforts and work) took place in the churches during the church age and then their work ceased. They are identified with the “two witnesses” of Revelation 11, as God ministered the Gospel to the world through the churches and congregations. Then the “two witnesses” were killed. I am not saying that they were people, but it was the “witness of the Word of God” within the churches and congregations of the world and it concluded at the end of the church age, which would have simultaneously ended the “works” of God’s people within the churches, causing them to “cease” from their labour, or to cease from their work in the manner they had been working for almost 2,000 years, as they encouraged people to come to church. So they are to rest. Remember, it said “everyone cease” and “rest yet for a little season.” So they were to stop their work that had been going on in the churches for all those centuries and they would “rest” throughout the period of the Great Tribulation, because God had another plan for another group that He would call out of the churches to minister to the people outside of the churches during the second part of the Great Tribulation, in which a great multitude would become saved.
Then it goes on to say, in Revelation 14:13:
…Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.
Revelation 6 was speaking of those in the churches, but this verse in Revelation 14 is set in the context of Judgment Day. Judgment Day began May 21, 2011 and, therefore, this is speaking to the people God was utilizing to share His Word outside of the churches during the Latter Rain period in the second part of the Great Tribulation. They are to “rest from their labours.”
We are helped in understanding what this word “labours” means when we go back to the Old Testament. It says in Exodus 23:16:
And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.
Notice how the word “labours” is used twice and it is used in association with the “firstfruits” and it is used in association with the “final fruits” that come in at the end of the year in the feast of ingathering. We learned a while ago that God pictures His salvation program through “times and seasons.” We especially see this laid out in the Book of Joel, chapter 2. It says in Joel 2:23:
Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in JEHOVAH your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately…
The word “moderately” would be better translated as “righteously.”
… and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.
That final phrase is better understood: “and the latter rain as the first.” Here, God is laying out His program for “rain” and rain has to do with the Lord sending down from heaven His Word and that “rain” will bring in fruit. First, there is the “former righteous rain” and then there is the “former rain” or early rain, and then there is the “latter rain.” With these rains, God had a plan to bring in three seasons of fruit. By the way, each of these “seasons” is tied to the three main feasts wherein God required all the males of Judah to appear before Him in the place which He would choose. So, there was the Feast of Passover, in which the Lamb was slain; there was the Feast of Pentecost, which celebrated the firstfruits; and, finally, the third feast was the Feast of Tabernacles (held simultaneously with ingathering) in the Hebrew seventh month. It is very interesting how God fulfilled those feasts in what they represented. When the Lord Jesus went to the cross in 33 AD He was declared to be the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world; when He was hanging on the cross, it was at the time of the Passover. Then fifty days later, it was Pentecost, or “firstfruits,” and the Holy Spirit was poured out, as we read in Acts, chapter 2. It tells us “when the day of Pentecost was fully come,” to indicate that the spiritual meaning of Pentecost had always been the outpouring of the Spirit of God to evangelize the world and bring in the firstfruits. Revelation 14 tells us that the “144,000” are the “firstfruits unto God” and they represent all the people God saved during the 1,955 years of the church age. Then, the third and final feast was the Feast of Ingathering held at the end of the year and this would relate to the “little season” of the Great Tribulation in which the great multitude became saved out of every tribe and nation and tongue.
These “rains” would produce each one of these crops. The “former righteous rain” fell in the Old Testament, especially when the nation of Israel was formed and the Lord Jesus was the “fruit” which that rain produced. Then the rain fell again, as the “early rain” during the New Testament church age to bring in the “firstfruits unto God.” Following this, came the Latter Rain during the (about) 17-year period of the second part of the Great Tribulation, which brought forth the great multitude. That would be the third and final rain; there is no other “season.” This completed God’s salvation program.
It is also interesting that following each period of rain and fruit, there would come a period of famine. For example, when the Lord Jesus was declared to be the “Lamb of God” by John the Baptist, it signaled the beginning of his three and one half years of ministry (we know it was exactly 1,335 days, according to Daniel, chapter 12) and it was a “spiritual famine,” because virtually no one was becoming saved, despite the fact that Jesus was the perfect preacher.
Following the 1,335 days, it takes us to Pentecost and there was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and another period of rain, the “early rain,” and that rain would fall for almost 2,000 years. Then in 1988 the “early rain” ceased and all the firstfruits had been brought in and then God brought a famine of 2,300 evening mornings, the first part of the Great Tribulation period. Then in 1994 that famine of the 2,300 evening mornings ended and in the Jubilee Year of 1994 God stretched forth His hand a second time to recover the remnant of His people. It was the outpouring of the “Latter Rain” and the Word of the Lord went forth in an unparalleled and unprecedented way – the entire world heard the Gospel message: “Fear God and give glory to Him,” and God used the message of “May 21, 2011, Judgment Day” to warn the world and to draw His people unto Himself and save that great multitude. Then after the 23rd full year and the 8,400th day, the Latter Rain ceased and the Great Tribulation ended.
Notice the pattern:
Then what followed? It was followed by the famine of Judgment Day, which we are presently in and it very likely may be 1,600 days in duration. It follows the pattern God has established of “rain, fruit and famine” in each of the three seasons. The rain which produced Christ as the fruit was followed by famine; the rain that produced the firstfruits was followed by famine. The Latter Rain, which produced the fruit of the great multitude, is followed by a likely 1,600 days of famine during Judgment Day.
The “labour” that Exodus 23:16 speaks of is labouring in the firstfruits and of labouring in the final fruits and then, in Revelation 14:13, it is saying that your labour ceases and this is in agreement with what it says in James 5:7:
Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
The implication is that once He receives those “rains” (the early rain during the church age and the Latter Rain, the 6,100 days of the second part of the Great Tribulation), then patience has come to an end and God will then judge the world. That is what He did and He ended His evangelization program as a major part of His overall judgment.
Back in the last part of our verse, it says in Revelation 14:13:
Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours…
We have already seen, in Revelation 6, the ones that were saved during the church age were told to rest for a “little season.” They were the workers that laboured in the vineyard (or in the field) to produce the crop of firstfruits. Once they accomplished that job, now they were to rest and cease from their work. Here, in Revelation 14:13, now the overall work of the harvest is complete because, as Exodus 23:16 says, you are to bring in your labours of firstfruits and the labour of your final fruits and then that work is done. Those that laboured in the fields ministered the Gospel to the people of the world and warned them of the approach of Judgment Day and warned them that God would shut the door and end His salvation program. God used their testimony and witness to save all those He intended to save. Once the Great Tribulation (the “little season” of the final season of rain and the ingathering of the final fruits) ended, then these can “rest from their labours,” also, and it goes on to say, in Revelation 14:13:
… and their works do follow them.
And this is a significant way to put it. If we turn to 1Corinthians, chapter 3, we find that God looks at His ministry and the efforts of those that minister the Gospel on His behalf as a “work.” It says in 1Corinthians 3:8:
Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.
If we have shared the Gospel to any degree at all, we have laboured in the Gospel. In time past, maybe we were used in the churches at the time when God was using them or maybe we were used outside the churches more recently during the period of the Latter Rain. Here, God is talking about our labour. And what was the labour it spoke of in Exodus 23:16? It was the firstfruits and final fruits, so this has to do with planting and watering the precious fruit of the earth, God’s elect. Then it goes on to say in 1Corinthians 3:9:
For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.
God is now joining together two different figures – one of “husbandry,” where He is the husbandmen that waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth and is long patient, until He receives the early and the latter rain. There is also another longstanding figure the Bible uses of the construction of a temple, or building a city or building a wall; there are several images that point to bringing together the elect that were predestinated to salvation from before the foundation of the world. They must hear the Gospel, be redeemed and be added to the Holy City Jerusalem, or be added to the wall, or be added to the spiritual house of God, “whose house are we,” as it says in Hebrews, chapter 3.
Here, God is stating it plainly: “For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.” In case there could be any mistaking the word pictures God is giving us (in Exodus 23:16) of the firstfruits, the rains and the seasons, this verse helps to clarify it. Then it goes on to say in 1Corinthians 3:10-15:
According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
The “work” is not physical labour like building a physical building or bringing in physical crops, but it is all spiritual. It is bringing in the souls of God’s elect. So, when we read, “Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them,” it has all kinds of meaning. God is indicating it has to do with those people that were saved – their labour in the field.