Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #36 of Revelation, chapter 14, and we are going to read Revelation14:13-14:
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. And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.
I am going to make a couple of final comments about verse 13 before we move on to verse 14. Verse 14 is, in a way, a transition verse, even though we have been talking about Judgment Day and God has been emphasizing the presence of the true believers in the world during the time of judgment. Yet, once we get into verse 14, from this verse to the end of the chapter, the focus shifts to picturing Judgment Day as the final harvest, the harvest at the end of the world. We will see the great emphasis the Lord places upon “harvest” in association with Judgment Day in those verses.
Of course, what is fascinating about this is that we know Judgment Day began on May 21, 2011 and in verse 20 we are going to read of “1,600 furlongs,” which the Bible allows us to understand as “1,600 days.” When we look at this as the very likely total time period of God’s judgment, which began on May 21, 2011, and when we add it to the 8,400 days of the Great Tribulation, it adds up to 10,000 overall days (of judgment). If we understand it as 1,600 days from May 21, 2011, the 1,600th day falls on October 7, 2015 and that day happens to be the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles and it is also the last day of the feast of ingathering, or harvest. And this is amazing because God is speaking of Judgment Day as a time of harvest in those verses and then He gives us a number (1,600) that fits so perfectly with the 8,400 days to form the complete number “10,000,” representing the completeness of judgment; it is also a number that falls on the very last day of harvest, which would also complete the final harvest of judgment that God accomplishes at the end of the world.
It says in the second part of Revelation 14:13:
… Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours…
We saw how this has to do with the labours of the people of God, first of all, during the church age when the Lord’s people ministered the Gospel through the churches and God brought in the firstfruits. Exodus 23:16 speaks of the time of harvest and the firstfruits of thy labours. That task was completed and then God gave His people a second task during the “little season” of the Latter Rain, in which the great multitude would be saved out of Great Tribulation and they would be brought in as the final harvest. They are the fruit that is in view with the final Feast of Ingathering.
Now God says, “that they may rest” (or “everyone cease”) “from their labours.” The firstfruits are completed and now the great multitude, the last fruits, are also completed, then the labour of the overall harvest of the early and Latter Rain is over. The Husbandman had waited for those rains and then He ceased to be longsuffering and patient with the unsaved of the world. It is finished and now it is Judgment Day and God, the husbandmen, is no longer patiently putting up with the sins of mankind, but He actively shut the door to heaven, an act of fury and punishment upon all the wicked of the world.
At the same time, God is addressing His workers and He says that they may rest, or cease, from their labour; and their works do follow them. As was described in 1Corinthians 3:9, God likens those involved in the work of the Gospel as being labourers together with God. How did God send His Word into the world? It was through His people and they were the messengers that carried forth the Word of God and through that Word God reached His elect and saved them, and so forth. Those that became saved were the “works,” and let me just read it again, in 1Corinthians 3:13-15:
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…
Obviously, if God puts the fire to “every man’s work,” that means He puts the fire to the “good” (the saved) as well as the “bad” (the unsaved). He puts the fire to all and the fire will reveal which work is worthwhile, as “gold, silver precious stones” that represent the truly saved, or as “wood, hay stubble” that have no value and are burned and consumed in the fire. In order for a “work” to endure, it must be put to the fire and, of course, that fits perfectly with the things we have learned from the Bible concerning the Lord’s plan to leave His people on the earth in the Day of Judgment to bring about the trial of their faith. (We have discussed this many times.) This is what is in view here.
Our verse says, “and their works do follow them.” In the Greek there is a word that is in this text that was not translated here. Literally, this should read: “And their works do follow with them.” There is a Greek word that should be translated “with” and it was not in the King James translation, but it is in the original Greek text. What is the difference? God has been speaking of the elect and their labour in the field in getting the Gospel out, and then this statement (“and their works do follow them”) makes it sound as if these people are following them. By the way, that is fine because the Apostle Paul said, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” But I think God would have us to know that it is actually saying, “and their works do follow with them,” and that indicates something different: these are people that ministered the Gospel to them and then these come and follow the Lord with them; in other words, they are following the Lord, also. I think that is a significant thing for us to understand.
Let us go on to Revelation 14:14:
And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.
The Apostle John is being given another vision and another insight from God concerning Judgment Day. First of all, he sees a “white cloud.” Now we might think that is redundant; when we look up into the sky we often see white clouds, but by describing the cloud as “white,” God is making an important point about His judgment and that is that it is a holy, righteous judgment. It is the same point the Lord made in Romans, chapter 2, as well as in many places in the Bible. It says in Romans 2:5:
But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;
For something to be “righteous,” it must be pure, holy and without sin. God’s judgment is a just judgment and a righteous judgment. Mankind is the offender; we are the unrighteous ones; we are the sinners and transgressors of His Law; we are guilty and deserve the wrath of God for our sins. It is only by His grace and mercy that some of us are saved by the works and faith of the Lord Jesus Christ and God punished us in Him. That should teach us that the sins of the child of God were also deserving of the wrath of God. We were guilty and we were “children of wrath even as others,” and we had offended the Law of God. The Law demanded our death, but the Law of God was satisfied in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Law poured out the complete wrath that our sins deserved on the Saviour, our Deliverer, which freed us from the penalty of the Law. The Law has no more it can do to us. But the principal is that sin brings the wrath of God and mankind has actively sinned against God, in thought, word and deed.
Even before the flood, God looked down upon the inhabitants of the world and He saw that the thoughts of the hearts of men “were only evil continually.” Has that condition improved? Has mankind gotten any better since the time of the flood? No, we have not. Outwardly, the thoughts that were within our hearts have been coming to the surface more and more and men are not shy or afraid to speak their evil thoughts or to act upon their evil thoughts, and all the more in our present time. We know this is the nature of man: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” The things of our hearts in these latter days at the time of the end has been coming into view in an unashamed way; people are acting out their wickedness and basically shaking their fists at God and His Word, saying, “I do not care what your Law says about Sunday. I do not care what your Law says about marriage and divorce. I do not care what your Law says about homosexuality. I do not care what your Law says about speaking lies.” The Law of God is not even in their thoughts, for most people, as they have simply removed God out of the picture.
Yet God is presently and actively pouring out His wrath upon them, even if they are not aware of it, just as He did within the churches for 23 years; God removed His Spirit from the midst of the congregations and allowed Satan’s spirit to enter in. No one was being saved in the churches throughout the 23-year period of the Great Tribulation and that was the heavy hand of an angry God upon the congregations, even though they did not know it; they were “blissfully ignorant” of it and they continued on their merry way, Sunday after Sunday, even until today. Yet, we should not think that just because they did not know it that it was not the judgment of God upon them. It was. And it is the same thing now in the entire world. God is not concerned that mankind knows this, but it is what He has done. He reveals what He has done to His people and that is why the wise discern both “time and judgment,” but the wicked and evil men understand not judgment, we read in Proverbs 8:25, and as God said of the people of Judah long ago, “they know not the judgment of their God.” This is the nature of the natural-minded man when God reveals a spiritual judgment. It takes spiritual eyes to see it and to discern and understand it and the natural man does not have it. He can, perhaps, perceive to a certain degree that the things of the Bible are being spoken against him, as the Pharisees were sometimes able to see that Christ spoke a parable against them. But, for the most part, they cannot grasp what is being said in any kind of a real way.
As God is moving the Apostle John to write these things, it says: “And I looked, and behold a white cloud,” and the first thing we can know about the cloud is that it is pure and it is holy. Then it goes on to say in Revelation 14:14:
… and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.
The word “to sit” or “sat” in the Bible points to “ruling,” and we have learned from other Bible passages that as soon as Judgment Day began, Satan was put down and deposed and the Lord Jesus Christ began to rule the nations with a rod of iron. Likewise, here, this teaching of the Bible is further confirmed as we read of one that sat “upon the cloud,” which represents judgment, and “sat” means that the Son of man is ruling over those He is judging. Again, elsewhere we are told He is ruling with “a rod of iron.” Another thing I will mention is the word “sat” is an incorrect translation of the “tense” of the verb. This is actually a “present passive middle participle,” and if you look in Jay Green’s Interlinear Bible, you will see it is rendered as “sitting.” It says, “and upon the cloud one sitting like unto the Son of man.” The word “sitting” would give the idea of a continuous action, whereas “sat” indicates something in the past, like “He sat in the chair.” But, the word “sitting” means it is ongoing and continuous, so I think that will be more understandable as we look more at the “cloud” and some of the language the Bible gives us concerning “clouds.”
We are not going to have time to get into it in this study, but please look up the word “cloud” in both the New Testament and the Old Testament. God has a great deal to say about “clouds” and as we look at this word, we want to follow the Bible’s methodology for coming to truth and allow God to define His own terms through comparing Scripture with Scripture. We know what a “cloud” is, right? We just have to look up in the sky and see it is something that is floating along, or it may bring rain or it may block the sun for a little bit. We can get a definition from the world, but we do not want the world’s definition or our own understanding. What is God’s definition of the word “cloud”? We are able to find God’s definition when we look in other places in the Bible where the word is used and we will begin to see what the Bible means by a “cloud.”