12th Meeting 08/30/09 Chapter 14 of Revelation

We looked at Revelation 14: 1-8 again and continued to finish the chapter. We had a lot of good discussions concerning the visions of this chapter. We have noticed that the visions focus on earth and then focus on heaven. Mount Zion mentioned in verse 1, would be part of the heavenly vision because the elders, and the four living creatures are there. For the 144,000 to be there they would have to be already dead, since we know that no one can be in the presence of God and live.

The new song they sing that no else knows is the song of compliance and unity with God. This song has not been heard since Adam ate the apple in the Garden of Eden. This is the start of the uprising against the anti-christ, Satan and the false prophet that starts as a trickle and will turn into a wave that will wash all evil away and prepare the earth for the 1,000 year millennium reign of Jesus Christ. Jesus is coming back to reign to show the world how much different a place it would be with God on the Throne instead of Satan running things.

Then you have the first of three angels all with a message. The first angel tells everyone on earth to "Fear God and give Him Glory". Do not put the mark of the beast on yourself, stand and be couragous for God and not Satan. The second angel comes and warns "Fallen Fallen is Babylon the Great". Babylon when mentioned in the Bible has the same connotation with it that Sodom and Gomorrah have; except Sodom and Gomorrah are known for only one type of sin(sexual) and Babylon was know for allowing all types of sin both material and sexual. That is why the word adulteries was used, you notice that it is plural meaning more than one. Here God uses the angel to expose Babylon's sins to the world. Babylon here is used to mean the whole world not the ancient city. The world has been made to know that they have sinned against God. The third angel comes close behind, and says that God's judgement is about to take place and advises who it will be that God's Wrath will be waged against. Notice he(the angel) describes all that will fall under this wrath. The beast, and anyone who receives the beast's mark. This warning is very clear. If you are alive during this time and you follow Jesus Christ, you have to stand for Jesus. Just like the martrys of old stood up against the Romans; "Trust and Obey" is the order of the day for believers. Jesus told us over and over again stay true to the end; this is also what Paul meant when "He said Finish the race".

Verse 14 gave a little trouble. It talks about someone seated on the cloud like the son of man. Most thought this to be Jesus, but if you keep reading the passage, you find that another angel is telling this son of man what to do, and he has a sickle in his hand. This son of man is another angel whose job it is to put God's orders into action. The crop he is harvesting are grapes, not wheat. In the parable of the "Farmer and his Enemy", we learned that after the farmer sowed his field, he went home, and that night his enemy came and sowed tares(weeds) into the field. The farmer not knowing continued to care for his complete field not knowing that he had been compromised. It was not until the field was almost ripe for harvest, that the farmer learned of his fate. He could not pull the tares (weeds) out at this time because he could damage some of his good wheat in the process. He chose to wait until the harvest, then he had his workers harvest the weeds first, and throw them into the fire. The good wheat was then harvested and put into the barn. This opened up a big can of worms in class. This seems to run in the face of what the pre-tribulation crowd believes. This parable comes from Jesus' own mouth, along with the explaination. These are not my words, but God's. Bible prophecy can not be fully understood until after it happens. This is why the Jewish scholars could find out where the Messiah was to be born. If the wise men were in Jerusalem looking for the child, He had to already been born! This is why they could tell where he would be born. There was no need to look for the child until then. You notice that even after they looked up the location, none of them went to see the child, unbelief it did not effect them at all. This is how sin works and how it can control us.
Back to the grapes, why grapes? I asked in class if anyone knew the "Battle Hymn of the Republic", we started to recite the words of the song until we got to "the grapes of wrath are stored". They all kind of said "Wow"! Then it was confirmed when they read further on in the passage. We closed with the last verse of chapter 14 with the vision of the blood rising to a level of a horse's bridle, that would be about 4 - 5 feet depending on the size of the horse, distance of 1,600 stadia about a mile and a half. This is a considerable large river or pool.