The Eternal Gospel

Revelation 14:1-20

Welcome! Today we continue our series on the book of Revelation. To put today’s passage in context, here is a summary of where we have been. Chapter 1 contains a vision of Christ moving among His church, His body, His followers. Chapters 2 and 3 consists of personal letters to particular churches, pointing out both weaknesses and strengths, and giving warnings and encouragements. Chapters 4 and 5 shift the scene to God’s throne in heaven, with countless worshipers around the throne, and at the center, the Lamb, who alone is worthy to open the seals of a special scroll. Chapter 6 describes the opening of 6 of 7 seals on this scroll; accompanying each are judgments of God.

The opening of Chapter 7 is particularly relevant to today’s passage, so I want to present that to you now.

After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree. Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea: “Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel. – Rev. 7:1-4

So there were 144,000 people, servants of God, on whose foreheads were placed some kind of seal, or mark. This was followed in Chapter 7 by a great multitude in white robes worshiping God. Chapters 8 through 11 return to describing judgments of God.

Chapter 12 describes a woman giving birth to a son who (Christ) would rule the world, the great dragon (Satan) who wanted to devour the child, war in heaven between Michael and his angels and the dragon and his angels, the casting down of Satan and the angels who followed him to the earth, the failed attempt of the dragon to kill the mother who gave birth, and the dragon’s declaration of war against all of the “children” of the son, those who follow after Christ.

Chapter 13 describes further actions of the dragon in that war. A beast came up from the sea, and the dragon gave him power and authority. The beast uttered blasphemies, cursing and slandering God. Because of the beast’s power, people worshiped the beast and the dragon.  And then a second beast arose, out of the earth. It had a seemingly fatal wound but healed, and it had the authority of the first beast. An image of the first beast was made, and the second beast gave the image the power seemingly of life and required all to worship the image. It also forced people to receive a mark on their right hands or foreheads. This mark was the name of the beast and also the number of its name, also described as the number of man, 666.

Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with Him 144,000 who had His name and His Father’s name written on their foreheads. – Rev. 14:1

So again, as in Chapter 7, we have the 144,000, presumably the same 144,000. They have the name of Christ and the Father written on their foreheads. I mentioned at the beginning of this series that Revelation is filled with allusions to Old Testament ideas and images; indeed, there are almost as many allusions as there are verses in Revelation! The idea of writing something on a forehead is one of those phrases that has multiple allusions in the Old Testament. For example, from Exodus 13, while describing several observances that the Israelites are to keep, Moses uses such a picture twice:

“This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead that this law of the Lord is to be on your lips. For the Lord brought you out of Egypt with His mighty hand.” – Exodus 13:9

“And it will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead that the Lord brought us out of Egypt with His mighty hand.” – Exodus  13:16

And from Deuteronomy:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. – Deuteronomy 6:4-8

Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and He will shut up the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you. Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. – Deuteronomy 11:16-18

Some Jews would do this literally; ultra-religious Jews do this even today. Called tefillin in Hebrew, and also called phylacteries, these are a set of small leather boxes containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah worn by men at one time (in the Middle Ages) through the day, although now usually only during morning prayers. 

Now, I am not suggesting we all go buy tefillin; in fact, I am not sure these verses in Deuteronomy were meant to be taken literally in this fashion. Certainly, the Exodus passages were not literal, as it says “and it will be like a sign on your hand and symbol on your forehead…” The point was that your lives should be filled with thoughts of God and His Word all day long; not just your thoughts, but your conversations, too. And of course, also, your actions.

The allusion goes further in Ezekiel 9:

Now the glory of the God of Israel went up from above the cherubim, where it had been, and moved to the threshold of the temple. Then the Lord called to the man clothed in linen who had the writing kit at his side and said to him, “Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it.” – Ezekiel 9:3-4

So here too, a mark on the forehead is associated with those who are faithful, who follow God.

Back in Revelation 13, as we discussed last week, Satan also required people to have a mark on their hands or foreheads. This is just one of countless ways that Satan is the great imitator. Jealous of God, he sets up his own counterfeit versions of almost everything God does. A psychiatrist would have a field day with Satan. Although Freudian analysis certainly has its limitations, and as a human system, its outright errors, it is humorous to imagine how such analysis on Satan might go. I can just imagine the psychiatrist telling Satan that he has very serious Daddy issues!

But here, in Chapter 14, we do not have the counterfeit, but the real thing. Although we don’t know exactly how literal to take this sealing, or what a literal interpretation even means in this case, we can marvel on the symbolism. These people have clearly refused Satan’s mark described in Chapter 13. They do not worship the beasts or the dragon. And yet, Satan has been unable to destroy them, either. They are intact, survivors, more than survivors, as we will see.

And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps. And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. These are those who did not defile themselves with women, for they remained virgins. They follow the Lamb wherever He goes. They were purchased from among mankind and offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb. No lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless. – Rev. 14:2-5

So how did they survive everything from Chapters 7 to 13? How did they not succumb to worshiping the beast? How had they remained pure? How had they not lied? How were they blameless? I believe the mark was more than a mark; it was a sealing, a protection of God, protected by the very power of God.

And is this not the truth within the gospel? We do not remain in Christ by our own strength, but through the power of God. We commit ourselves to Him, confessing our sin and our need for Him to save us, telling Him that we accept His offer of forgiveness, paid by His own blood. And what happens next, and happens throughout our lives, is that we grow in faith and obedience to Him empowered by His Spirit. We too are marked, or sealed, with the Holy Spirit, if we have truly given our lives to Him. And then He leads us, protects us, grows us, matures us.

And so what are these triumphant ones doing? Worshiping! This too should be our response to Him; our hearts should be filled with thanksgiving because of what He has done and is doing in our lives. We should be singing “new songs.” I don’t mean that we all need to become songwriters, although for some of us, perhaps that is exactly what God would have us do. What I mean is that through our lives we should be continually praising and worshiping Him, not with rote or “canned” prayers, but out of genuine praise welling up in our hearts.

Have you wondered how nobody but the 144,000 could learn the song that they sang? The passage doesn’t tell us explicitly, but this makes me think of an area of research I have worked in from my earliest days in graduate school: military spread-spectrum communications. Now I’ll make this simple, okay?  The military uses a wireless communications technique that uses codes to prevent others from eavesdropping on their conversation. These codes affect the very behavior of the communications signal in time and frequency. How is it that nobody can figure out their “song”? It is because their “song” basically never repeats. That is, their code does not repeat for a full day, and each day, they change the code. I don’t know that this is how nobody could learn the song of the 144,000, but it makes sense to me. These worshipers are singing a continually new song; the Spirit directs them continually in what to sing. As a result, nobody can figure out their song, because it keeps changing.

Now I hesitate to share this, because I really don’t want any attention on me, but, and this is the absolute truth, I basically dreamed something very like this years before I became a Christian. At this point I had absolutely no exposure to the New Testament. But in my dream, I was in a large orchestra in a room so large that you couldn’t see any of the walls, and in what I guess was the center was a glowing light, incredibly bright. This sounds strange, but I was in the harpsichord section, among at least dozens of harpsichords. In the dream it became clear that it was time to begin to play, but nobody had any music, including me. I remember feeling somewhat panicked about this, not wanting to be “found out.” So I put up my hands to the keys, I guess to pretend to play, to fake it, I guess to play “air harpsichord,” and what happened next is hard to explain precisely, but as the music started, I knew what to play. It wasn’t like reading music, where you are actually a little bit ahead of what you play. It was more like I was being played through. There were several other parts to this dream, which I am not going to share with you, and there were other things that happened while I played that I am not going to talk about, at least not today, but years later, as I really read the Bible and began to become convinced it was true, I was reading this and other passages and as absolutely blown away by how my dream was so like Scripture, Scripture that at the time of the dream, I had never read or heard.

Now do I think I am one of the 144,000? No. I don’t think that was the point of the dream. And I actually think it is pretty dangerous to ask that question. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and Mormons all think they are the 144,000, despite the clarity of 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes of Israel in Revelations 7.  No, I don’t think we need to go around thinking we are part of the 144,000. But I do think we can in important ways identify with them.

This picture of playing a song that no one else can learn is a great picture of being led by the Holy Spirit. I truly believe that God desires to lead us, to use us as agents of the gospel, every single day. He whispers through the Spirit to “go talk to this one” or “help that one” or “tell this one you will pray for them” (and then do it) or “show love to that one” or “forgive this one” and so on and so on. I’m not just talking about strangers, although He does sometimes lead us to reach out to strangers. I am also talking about the people already in our lives. He has a song to play through us, and if we will let Him, He will help us to sing it, to sing His song of love and redemption.

Perhaps my favorite verse in this chapter is “They follow the Lamb wherever He goes.” Don’t you want that said of you? I know some of you think this is morbid, but I cannot think of something better (if it were true) to have on your tombstone: He followed the Lamb wherever He went. You and I were purchased from among mankind, and our lives should be are a kind of firstfruits offering to God. We should want to do this, to follow the Lamb wherever He goes. Why? Because we should want to be with Him, experiencing His presence, always! Why would anyone want to go where He isn’t?

One last thing on these verses, or we’ll never get to the rest of the chapter: Verse 5 alludes to Zephaniah 3:12-13:

The remnant of Israel will trust in the name of the Lord. They will do no wrong; they will tell no lies. A deceitful tongue will not be found in their mouths. – Zephaniah 3:12-13

Indeed, I encourage you in your own quiet times to read all of Zephaniah 3:9-20, as it is prophetic and seems to deal with the same events we are seeing here.

Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation, tribe, language and people. He said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come. Worship Him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.” A second angel followed and said, “‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great,’ which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.” – Rev. 14:6-8

What is the eternal gospel? It is simply the gospel. It is the good news of Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection, and what they mean. It is the eternal gospel because the eternity of every person depends on what they do after hearing this truth. The angel is calling the people to repentance, to turn to God. The hour has come. I cannot think of more sobering words. We have already seen so much in the way of judgments in Revelation, but the end is coming, soon. We are no longer in the last days; this is the last hour. This is the living out of Matthew 24:14 which says, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

Despite the world system of Rev. 13, in which Satan and his beasts seem to be in complete control, the angel gets out the message of the gospel, telling the people not to fear Satan and worship his image, but to fear God and give only Him glory. This is not the fear of terror, such as that Satan uses, but a holy fear, a reverence, an awe of God. Proverbs 9:10 says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and Proverbs 23:17 says to live in the fear of the Lord always. Fear Him and give Him glory, worship Him, for He alone is Creator. The word for “worship” in this passage is proskyneo, which literally means to bow down to, to kneel, to lie on the ground before. Note that this is exactly what Satan was making people do to his image in Chapter 13. We are to bow to no one but the true King.

Let’s talk about the second angel. Babylon the “Great” refers to the entire world system set up by Satan and his beasts. More generally it refers to any anti-God government and culture. We will see Babylon fall later in Revelation, but for now focus on the reason given that Babylon will fall: Babylon has forced others to drink the maddening wine of her adulteries. What does it mean? It means that like the Babylon in Daniel’s time, it has caused people to worship someone other than God. And this is exactly what we saw in Chapter 13 and will continue to see. Adultery is perhaps not the word you might expect to use for this, but we are all made to worship God, and to worship another is to be an adulterer to God. The Greek word used is porneia and it is used both to describe adultery and other deviant behavior as well as the worship of idols. This second angel is prophesying the certain fall of Satan and his entire world system. The repetition on the word “fallen” may be for emphasis, or it may describe a “double” kind or nature of falling that will happen.

A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.” – Rev. 14:9-11

Strong words! The image of the cup of God’s wrath, like a cup of wine, appears frequently in Scripture; some examples are Psalm 75:8, Jeremiah 25:15-16, and Jeremiah 51:7-8a. In fact, that last verse is particularly relevant; indeed, all of Jeremiah 51 focuses on God’s wrath against Babylon. But verses 7-8a says, “Babylon was a gold cup in the Lord’s hand; she made the whole earth drunk. The nations drank her wine; therefore they have now gone mad. Babylon will suddenly fall and be broken.”

Note how Revelation turns this around: Now it will be Babylon that is forced to drink from God’s cup, His cup of fury, and this is not like the typical watered-down wine people drank most of the time, this is the strong, undiluted stuff.

We will talk more about the torment and sulfur later; Revelation 19, 20, and 21 also speak on this. I will just mention one thing as I have thought about what this might be like (although it is hard to really imagine it) – have you watched the Hawaii volcano stories over the past month? Have you seen videos of this slow moving river of lava that nothing can stop? The whole time I keep thinking, surely you can stop it, surely you can save the homes in the path; just move a bunch of dirt, create sand walls, etc. But the lava just keeps coming. It’s not like a river that rises above flood stage; the lava hardens and more lava comes on top of it, higher and higher, and it eats what it touches. Without being too graphic, just let me say that I know that I would not want to be caught in that lava.

I know people are very uncomfortable thinking about hell, about it being eternal, about it including torment. But I read these verses and I don’t see how an annihilationist view makes sense. (An annihilationist argues that hell is temporary or that you are just destroyed and don’t go to hell at all.) And I read these verses and I don’t see how universalism makes sense. (A true universalist argues that nobody actually goes to hell.)  

So do we need to fear that we, if we live at that time, go “weak” and choose to go along with the system of the beast? I believe the answer is no, if we are truly saved, if we truly believe in Christ. I trust Him to make me faithful just as I trusted Him to save me when I first gave my life over to Him and just as I continue to trust Him to save me.

Jesus said the same thing, didn’t He? An example is when He explains the parable of the weeds:

Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ – Matthew 13:24-27

“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’” – Matthew 13:28-30

And Jesus’ explanation:

He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. – Matthew 13:37-39

“As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear. – Matthew 13:40-43

If you trust in Christ, you are the “people of the kingdom,” so somehow, you will stand for Him.

Many verses speak to this; theologians actually have a name for it and call it the doctrine of the preservation of the saints – and we have limited time, but here is one I really like:

To Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. – Jude 1:24-25

Let’s keep going…   

This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus. Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.” – Rev. 14:12-13

Blessed are the dead? That’s not something you hear very often in our culture, is it? In the gospels we call statements like this beatitudes. This is the second beatitude in Revelation. Do you remember the first? It goes back to Chapter 1, verse 3: Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near. There are actually seven “Blessed is…” or “Blessed are…” statements in Revelation. By now I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised – there have been so many sevens already. But blessed are the dead? Why? Because of how they lived, patiently enduring, keeping God’s commands, remaining faithful to Jesus, and because they will rest and their deeds will follow them. The number of Satan is 666, three sevens missing the last number, because under him there is no rest. He gives no rest, and as we have just seen, no rest will therefore be given to him.

But believers will rest. We will rest. The Sabbath was made for man, and like all things on this side of heaven, the Sabbath is a shadow of something else, something greater. There is a greater Sabbath ahead for us. And then there is more – Jesus talks about rewards in heaven; that is what is described here as well. And God will richly reward His faithful; we have no idea, no conception of what will be lavished on those who served Him faithfully, building the kingdom.

I love how the Spirit says, “Yes!” It feels almost blasphemous to say this, but I think it is rare that we see the Spirit get this excited. The Holy Spirit is excited about our future of rest and rewards. We should be excited too.

I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like a son of man with a crown of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, “Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested. – Rev. 14:14-16

The Messiah coming from the clouds is a repeated theme in Scripture. Matthew 24:30 and 26:64 say you will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven. The sickle is a long curved blade with a long handle used to reap grain. You simply sweep the sickle and it cuts down everything close to the ground. It is fast and sure. The Greek word for ripe here is xeraino which actually means overripe, withered, dried up. The man with the withered hand in the gospels – it’s the same word. The picture is that of a dead earth, with only dried out stalks remaining.  

Another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, “Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth’s vine, because its grapes are ripe.” The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath. They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses’ bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia. – Rev. 14:17-20

And another harvest: Notice the angel who comes from the altar; recall that this is the altar of incense, the prayers of those who have been martyred. This was described earlier in Revelation, in Chapters 6 and 8, where they were asking “How long?” The answer here is “No longer; it is time.” And so, at last, all of the blasphemies against God, all of the murders of God’s people, all of the tortures and other abuse, all of it comes to an end as everything comes to an end with this great and terrible harvest. The 1600 stadia, by the way, is a distance close to 200 miles.

These events sound terrible to us, and they are. But God is a God of both mercy and justice. Those who refuse His gift of mercy – forgiveness through Christ – are only left with His justice. Every sin against a person is a sin against God, and every sin is met with God’s justice. His justice is either poured out against the sinner, or against the one who took the punishment of sin for us, Jesus Christ. Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world!