Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #55 of Revelation, chapter 14 and we are reading Revelation 14:20:

And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.

Let us talk about the “1,600 furlongs.”  As many of you know, EBible Fellowship has been looking at the possibility that these “1,600 furlongs” are to be understood as “1,600 days.”  As a matter of fact, it strongly appears that in writing Revelation 14 and its strong emphasis upon Judgment Day that the Lord has placed in this context of Judgment Day and the harvest of the end of the world a “number” that reveals the duration or length of Judgment Day.  This is the number “1,600” and it is said to be a “thousand and six hundred furlongs” that the blood flows from the winepress to the “horse bridles.”  Why give us a number at all and why this number?  This is a very special number in a few different ways, as it fits and harmonizes perfectly with some other information we have learned from the Bible.

Before we talk about that and before we look at how well and how neatly “1,600” fits in God’s overall timetable for judgment at the end of the world, let us first ask a question that I know many people wonder about and want to know.  Can we legitimately understand the “1,600 furlongs” as representing “1,600 days”?  Is that permissible?  Does God allow for that kind of interpretation? 

How can we respond but to say that the only way to prove something is to prove it from the Bible itself?  So what we have to do is to search the Bible, because the critique is that “1,600 furlongs” is not a time reference.  It appears to be a number that has to do with “distance” from one point to another and we saw that when we looked at how God used the word “furlongs,” when He noted that Bethany was about “fifteen furlongs” from Jerusalem or that Emmaus was “sixty furlongs” away from Jerusalem, and so forth; it is a distance.  And while it is true that it does take time to travel a distance, in and of itself, “furlong” is not normally an expression of “time.”  For instance, it is not the word “day,” “hour,” “week,” “minute,” “year, or “month,” or many words that God uses to express time.  So part of the critique is to ask why God did not just use the term “1,600 days.”  There are a couple of reasons:

1) We know God hides truth in the Bible.  It is how He wrote the Bible.  It is why He spoke in parables.  You have to uncover the information and dig into the Word.  God would especially want to hide the information concerning the time duration for Judgment Day, because a lot of other doctrine was hidden that also related to Judgment Day.  The doctrine of “Hell” has a lot to do with whether Judgment Day comes in a single day or whether it is carried out on earth over a span of time, which allows for a lot of the Biblical language where we read that the unsaved are experiencing “the weeping and gnashing of teeth,” or other Scripture that imply that there is a period of torment.  A prolonged Day of Judgment satisfies all these other Scriptures, whereas Christ coming in judgment in a single instant or day and the world is over cannot be explained or harmonized with these other Scripture.

2) Another reason God did not plainly describe it as “1,600 days” is because nowhere else in the Book of Revelation where a time period is given is it ever a “literal” time period.  For instance, when God speaks of the “three and one half days” that the two witnesses lie dead in the streets, it is not a literal “three and one half days.”  It actually represents a period of 2,300 days or a little over six years.  When God speaks of the “1,260 days” that the woman flees into the wilderness, He is speaking of the entire church age, which is hundreds and hundreds of years.  When we read in the Book of Revelation that Satan was bound for “a thousand years,” it is a figurative number which represents the church age of 1,955 years.  There is not a single instance of these time references being literal and that was our mistake with the “five months” of Revelation, chapter 9.

There are no instances in the Book of Revelation where a “time reference” is literal.  They are not to be understood exactly as stated.   They all represent other actual periods of times.  We had to learn that concerning the “five months.”  Once we passed October 21, 2011, we realized that the “five months” could not have been literal.  It was also a figure of speech, just as the “seven months” that the ark was taken by the Philistines was a figure that represented the complete time of the Great Tribulation, which was an actual 23 years.  So, too, the “five months” represents the complete time of Judgment Day.  It does not tell us how long it would literally be, but it is a figure that is a picture of the entire period, however long it turned out to be.  Then the “five months” agrees with everything else in the Book of Revelation as a figurative time period.  None of them are literal. 

If God had said “1,600 days” in our verse in Revelation 14:20, then we might be inclined to look at it spiritually and we might look for another time period that would be “actual days.”  So this is a good reason why God would not give us a reference to days, but when He says, “1,600 furlongs,” it has nothing to do with time.  But as we dig into the verse and search the Scriptures and as God opens up our understanding to how significant that number is and how perfectly it fits with the length of time for the Great Tribulation, then we are able to discern that the “1,600 furlongs” represent an actual “1,600 days.”  Then that is the spiritual meaning and it is not something, like the other time references, that needs to be understood as a different time period.  In other words, the “1,600 days” are the actual days that “1,600 furlongs” represent.

But, again, where in the Bible is our justification for doing this?  Let us go back to Genesis and we will read in Genesis, chapter 40, of Joseph, who was a very faithful man of God and was obedient to God even in the most difficult of circumstances.  He was cast into prison and while in the prison he was given charge of the other prisoners because he had found favor in the eyes of man due to the fact that he had favor in the eyes of God.  God gave him favor in the sight of others.  We read in Genesis 40:6-8:

And Joseph came in unto them in the morning, and looked upon them, and, behold, they were sad. And he asked Pharaoh's officers that were with him in the ward of his lord's house, saying, Wherefore look ye so sadly to day? And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it. And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God? tell me them, I pray you.

It is important that we keep in mind that “interpretations belong to God.”  God is able to interpret His Word and God is able to provide a definition or interpretation for something in His Word that we would not have thought related in any way.  As we think of things “naturally,” we would not come up with the same interpretation.  But God is God and the Bible is a Book in which God has hidden much truth.  Christ spoke in parables in order to teach us how to understand the Word of God, the Bible, so we have to look at God’s methodology, especially in relationship to the “1,600 furlongs.” 

It goes on to say in Genesis 40:9-12:

And the chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, In my dream, behold, a vine was before me; And in the vine were three branches: and it was as though it budded, and her blossoms shot forth; and the clusters thereof brought forth ripe grapes: And Pharaoh's cup was in my hand: and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand. And Joseph said unto him, This is the interpretation of it…

Joseph is giving the interpretation, but to whom does “interpretation” belong?  It belongs to God.  Then it goes on to say in Genesis 40:12:

… The three branches are three days:

Now, how is that possible?  The butler had a dream and he saw three branches and Joseph interprets the branches to represent days – each branch for a day.  Then Joseph went on to explain what will happen in three days.  The butler will be lifted up and restored to his office.  The baker is now encouraged because he heard a positive interpretation, so he told Joseph his dream.  It says in Genesis 40:16-19:

When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said unto Joseph, I also was in my dream, and, behold, I had three white baskets on my head: And in the uppermost basket there was of all manner of bakemeats for Pharaoh; and the birds did eat them out of the basket upon my head. And Joseph answered and said, This is the interpretation thereof: The three baskets are three days: Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head from off thee, and shall hang thee on a tree; and the birds shall eat thy flesh from off thee.

This was a horrible interpretation and, yet, it was true.  It happened that in three days time the baker was killed by Pharaoh.  But what we are looking at is how God uses things that are “non-time” words to represent time.  In the case of the butler, it was three branches.  In the case of the baker, it was three baskets.  The interpretation is that “three baskets are three days,” so each basket represented a day.  The three branches also represented three days.

In Genesis, chapter 41, the butler had been restored to his office and forgot about Joseph for a couple of years.  But now Pharaoh is troubled by some dreams and we can only understand that God is the one that gave Pharaoh these dreams that troubled Pharaoh to no end – he must know what the dreams mean, but no one in his kingdom can interpret them, until the butler remembered his fault and remembered that there was a Hebrew in the prison that had interpreted the butler’s dream and the baker’s dream.  So Joseph was called and it says in Genesis 41:15-28:

And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it: and I have heard say of thee, that thou canst understand a dream to interpret it. And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, In my dream, behold, I stood upon the bank of the river: And, behold, there came up out of the river seven kine, fatfleshed and well favoured; and they fed in a meadow: And, behold, seven other kine came up after them, poor and very ill favoured and leanfleshed, such as I never saw in all the land of Egypt for badness: And the lean and the ill favoured kine did eat up the first seven fat kine: And when they had eaten them up, it could not be known that they had eaten them; but they were still ill favoured, as at the beginning. So I awoke. And I saw in my dream, and, behold, seven ears came up in one stalk, full and good: And, behold, seven ears, withered, thin, and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them: And the thin ears devoured the seven good ears: and I told this unto the magicians; but there was none that could declare it to me. And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is about to do. The seven good kine are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years: the dream is one. And the seven thin and ill favoured kine that came up after them are seven years; and the seven empty ears blasted with the east wind shall be seven years of famine. This is the thing which I have spoken unto Pharaoh: What God is about to do he sheweth unto Pharaoh.

I will stop reading there, even though it is a wonderful historical account and one of the more beautiful stories found in the Bible.  For our purposes, we are trying to see if there is Biblical justification for taking a word like the “furlongs” and understanding it as “days.”  What do we see as Joseph interprets the dreams of the butler, the baker and Pharaoh?  So far, just in the Book of Genesis, according to the interpretation of God, “three branches” may represent “three days.”  God says that “three baskets” may represent “three days.”  God says that “seven good stalks of corn” may represent “seven good years of plenty” and “seven withered stalks of corn” may represent “seven years of famine.”  Likewise, God says that “seven fat kine” may represent “seven good years of plenty” and “seven ill-favored kine” may represent “seven years of famine.” 

So let us ask the question, as we asked in Revelation 14, verse 20.  What do branches and baskets and kine and stalks of corn have to do with time?   The answer is, “Absolutely nothing.”  Of themselves, they are non-time words and they are things that have nothing to do with time.  In giving these dreams, could God not have had the butler dream of three days or the baker dream of three days or Pharaoh dream of seven years?  God could have given the actual time references in the dreams, but for His own purpose He gave dreams in which items that have nothing to do with time and He had Joseph interpret them as “time” in each case.  This gives us Biblical precedent to understand that it is possible that God may give a word a different meaning.   Understanding parts of the Bible is just like understanding a dream and, in fact, God gave dreams to some of the writers of the Scriptures and they wrote those things down and it was divine revelation.  That was one of the ways that God brought divine revelation to have it recorded in His Word, the Bible.  When we are looking at Scripture, the Word of God, we have precedent in the Book of Genesis. 

I recently talked to someone that mentioned someone they knew that is a lawyer.  I said, “You know, the Bible is a Law Book.  The Bible is like a Book of Law and we have to search the Bible, just as lawyers do when they are trying a case and they want to make a certain point; they go over similar past legal cases and they try to find “precedent.”  They try to find a case that was tried in a court of law where a legal precedent was established, in order to introduce it into their trial to give them some sort of advantage.  That is the idea when we are studying the Bible.  When we find that God gives allowance and interprets certain things that are not time related items as “time” (like the three branches), then that gives us Biblical precedence and justification for understanding the possibility that God is giving us a time reference with the “1,600 furlongs.”  

In the context of Revelation, chapter 14, God is laying out the final harvest of the world and Judgment Day, it so happens that when we go “1,600 days” from May 21, 2011, it goes to the last day of the feast of harvest, October 7, 2015.  Other things also begin to fit and harmonize together and we begin to wonder if the “furlongs” could represent “days.”  Given the precedent that we just looked at in Genesis, the Bible says that we may proceed.  This is basically what we were looking for and that is permission from God to continue with the idea that “1,600 furlongs” might represent “1,600 days.”  The Bible allows for that possibility.