Mary Fairchild
The following is based on the phonetic writing of the expository teaching tapes of Pastor Jim Mooberry.
This chapter introduces us to a series of short visions and concludes the parenthesis we have been in. There has been this parenthesis in the story in Revelation between the last trumpet judgment and the first of the last seven bowl judgments. During this parenthesis we have been given this series of explanatory visions to prepare us for what is coming; to prepare us for the final events before the return of Jesus Christ.
In chapter 12 we were introduced to five personages who occupied the attention of God on the stage of end time events. The woman represented Israel, the nation that is now back in its homeland. The dragon represents the devil and his demons. The male child is Jesus Christ. Michael the archangel represents the holy angels and the rest of the seed that is mentioned represents the remnant, the believers of this time. In chapter 13 we were introduced to two different individuals called beasts and these two are the foremost figures of Satan’s kingdom; the antichrist and the false prophet. They instituted this worldwide worship of the beast, the antichrist. In chapter 14 we are reassured now through this vision of God’s response to Satan’s tyranny and of the ultimate victory of the righteous and of the ultimate doom of the wicked. Revelation 14 reminds us that there is going to be a large group of people who will never give into the pressure and the persuasion of the two beasts. They will not bow the knee to the antichrist. Many will be martyred, but a 144,000 of them, converted Jews, that are evangelists will make it through the tribulation without losing one of their company. They were first mentioned in chapter 7. They have been given supernatural insight and wisdom so that they can spot the miracles of the beast for what they are and that is that they are simply frauds. They have been sealed for protection and preserved through the tribulation period.
John is carried in this vision to a time at the end of the tribulation and the beginning of the kingdom of God on earth. He sees on Mt. Zion, the mountain that Jerusalem is built upon, he sees the Messiah there with the 144,000. This is fulfillment of prophecy. Psalm 2:6 says as for me I have installed my king upon Zion my holy mountain. This 144,000 were first mentioned in chapter 7 at the very beginning of the tribulation period anticipating the persecution and the martyrdom and the struggles of this time and the fact that the Church has already left the earth, we have already been raptured out of this place. God concealed 144,000 Jewish believers. They were converted to Christianity to believing in Christ and they began to preach the Messiah. In Revelation 7:3,4, speaking to the angels, God says do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we have sealed the bond servants of our God on their foreheads. A number of those who were sealed 144,000 sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel. The next mention is at the very end of the tribulation in Revelation 14: 1-5. They are still intact, they are preserved by God through the fearful days of the persecution of the beast and now they are standing triumphantly with the Lamb. They represent the victory of the righteous and all of those who will stand firm against the beast.
Since they will be the most persecuted and hunted individuals of all of the world by the antichrist at this time, they will be unable to buy and to sell because they will not take the mark they will rely on being protected and hidden by many of their converts. In Matthew 25:1-46 we have a description of Jesus Christ when He returns to earth and He has a judgment. Those of them who are going into the kingdom of God, He says to them, I was hungry and you fed me and I was without a place and you gave it to me…. As many times as you have done it to one of these brothers (144,000) you have done it to me. More important is the cause of their survival is directly related to God. It is because they have the name of the Father and of the Son on their forehead. Compared with those who, in verse 9, have the mark of the beast on their forehead. The cause of their survival is because God willed it so. That is exciting for you and I. If you are a Christian, you have been sealed with the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 1:13, “In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the Gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise.”
So the day that you received Christ, was the day that you were sealed with the Holy Spirit. This seal is one that cannot be broken by anyone else other than God and He has determined He will never break it. It is a seal that will guarantee that you will be in heaven. We see the same situation that we see with the 144,000 in Romans 8:29, 30. There speaking of Christians he said “whom God foreknew He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son that he might be the first born among many brethren and whom He predestined, these He also called. And whom He called, these He also justified. And whom He justified, these He also glorified.” You’ll notice the same group that He started with and predestined them to be like His Son is the exact same group that He glorified.
There is no leakage; no one is lost. That is the same thing that has happened with the 144,000. The reason it is so exciting to you and I; it is that you are one of these that have been sealed, you are guaranteed that God will take you to heaven. We stumble, we fall, we pick ourselves up, God’s Spirit works in our heart, but He has guaranteed that if you are sealed by the Spirit of God you are His.
Who is the identity of the heavenly choir? Most likely it is the martyred from the tribulation because they are always linked with the 144,000. Back in chapter when that group is mentioned, right after that another group is mentioned—the great multitude which is in heaven. These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation. It is they who begin the song and the only other ones who can learn the verses are the 144,000. In the Bible when we have songs of victory that are recorded it is always recounting the victories of God over His enemy. The 144,000 and those who are martyred are the only ones who understand the events that they’ve been through in the tribulation. The Church is gone. Only those who have suffered during that time. They praise God for their preservation.
Even today we can experience this delivering power of God in our daily life. We are all going through trials, troubles, and tests all the time and God allows them to come into our life because He is trying to teach us to trust Him. That’s why the unexplainable problems that we find so perplexing are really God’s best tools to teach us that we have no excuse and all we can do is just trust Him and believe that He is going to work this out for good for us. We too can sing praises to God for His deliverance of us in our trials. There are two verses that are most important when you are going through trials that you should always turn to. Romans 8:28, “We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” 1 Thessalonians 5:8, “In everything give thanks for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Not only is it His will that you give thanks, but it is His will what you are going through, that you are giving thanks for. No matter how rough it is, when we understand that God is in control it is ultimately for our good.
We are a peculiar people, those of us who know Christ as Savior. The world really does not understand us. These individuals have demonstrated to the world their devotion to God. As Hebrews 11 says, these are people of whom the world is not worthy. These are the ones who have not been defiled with women for they have kept themselves chaste. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These have been purchased among men as first fruits to God and to the Lamb and no lie was found in their mouth; they are blameless. It says three things about them. First of all, that they are faithful. When he speaks of them not being defiled with women he is talking about spiritual purity because idolatry in the Bible is said to be spiritual adultery. In the Old Testament Israel, many times, was called the virgin daughter of Zion and even in the New Testament the Church is said to be virgin. In 2 Corinthians 11:2 Paul says, “I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband (Christ). But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ (spiritual adultery). For if some one comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different Gospel from the one you accepted, you submit to it readily enough.” The Christian who remains true to God is the spiritual virgin and that is what the Church is to be. James 4:4 says, “Unfaithful creatures! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? We are called adulteresses when we compromise with the world; the friend of the world cannot be the friend of God. What is being portrayed here is that these have never succumb to any of the wiles of the beast and the false prophet, or any of the false worship of the harlot or beast worship.
Faithfulness is not a little thing with God. It requires dedication and putting God ahead of all the idols in our heart. We all have those idols of the heart that we occasionally put on the throne and the Spirit of God convicts us and we are told to repent of that and allow Christ again to become the head of our life. We need to put God at the very center of our life. Not only does it require dedication, it also requires diligence; a daily walk with the Lord.
John 12:24-26 says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there shall my servant be also; if anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.”
As we plant seeds we invest them. We know that as the seed decomposes a plant is going to come out and that plant is going to bear fruit and Jesus says the we are like a seed; if He is not the center of our life then we are like a seed by itself and there’s no fruit that comes. But if we allow Him to be the center of our life, in effect we die to our own will and become fruitful. It is Christ who is in us that is causing the fruit to come. For those who do this He says “my Father will honor them.”
Secondly, he says that they are the first fruits in verse 4. In the illustration of the practice of Israel, the first fruits in the harvest, when a mans was about to harvest his crop, take the corner of the field and harvest the first part of it, take that sheath into the temple as an offering to God of thanksgiving. He was thanking God for the whole harvest but he did it by bringing God part of it and thanking Him for it. So they are the first fruits of the kingdom. They are the ones that stand for all of the others that will be in the kingdom. The first fruits is a very important doctrine in the Bible. One of the reasons that it is important to us is that Jesus is the first fruits of the resurrection. 1 Corinthians 15:20 says, “But in fact Christ has been raise from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Because Jesus has a glorified body it is a guarantee that you and I will. You and I are the harvest and that harvest is going to be coming soon.
Third, they are faultless. Their ministry was truthful; there was no falsehood in it as they preached the truth of God and stood against the lying wonders of the antichrist and his prophet. Also they are blameless, they are found without fault in God’s eyes because they are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. God clothes us in His own Son’s righteousness.
Ephesians 2:8,9 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith it is not of yourself, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” There will be no boasting in heaven, only thankfulness. It has nothing to do with your own personal holiness in justification before God, it is because you have Christ’s righteousness on your account.
In verses 6-11 we see the judgment of the wicked. Of all the amazing events in this book, what you read now is one of the most amazing with the angels. We see six angels in this chapter. The first three are flying in the mid- heavens. And so we see the final call of grace in verses 6 and 7. The Gospel is fundamentally the same in all eras. The Gospel has always been salvation by the grace of God through faith in the substitute of God. All the way back to the Fall in Eden in Genesis 3:21, the very day that our parents fell into sin and deserved punishment from God, and it says, “God clothed them with the clothes of animals.” And we are led to believe that in that act alone that they were taught about the necessity of a substitute dying for them, of the grace of God initiating it, and of being clothed with the righteousness of another. By the time of Noah we know that was thoroughly inoculated into the godly because he takes along not only unclean animals, but clean animals for sacrifice. So right from the very beginning, that has been known, that it is salvation by the grace of God through the faith in the substitute of God.
Because of progressive revelation, through the years men and women found out more about this salvation by grace through faith in the substitute in God and the fullest, brightest illumination came when Jesus Christ came. He is the Word of God and in His death and resurrection we see the absolute fulfillment of the Gospel. In the emphasis of preaching the Gospel, it has varied at times depending on the facet of the Gospel that is being emphasized. If you look in the New Testament and do a study of the Gospel of God it speaks of its source.
The Gospel of His Son speaks of its content. The Gospel of your salvation, the Gospel of peace speaks of its result, the Gospel of the grace of God which speaks of its nature, and the Gospel of the kingdom of God which speaks of its sphere. There are some who make too strict a distinction about that and they’ll say that Paul’s Gospel and Peter’s Gospel are different. But that is really a very arbitrary and unsound theology because the Gospel of the kingdom of God is not entirely different from the Gospel of the grace of God. It is the Gospel. It is a different facet, or aspect that is emphasized. Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God in Luke 8:1.
When it says that He was preaching the kingdom of God he wasn’t talking specifically only about the coming earthly kingdom, but the governmental kingdom of God and the salvation that is available in that kingdom. You also see Philip the evangelist after the death and resurrection of Christ. After the coming of the Spirit on Pentecost in Acts 8:12. Finally you see Paul preaching the very same thing in Acts 20:25. In verse 24 he reminds the elders the he does not consider his life to be any count dear to himself nor have he finished his course and the ministry he has received from the Lord Jesus to testify solemnly of the Gospel of the grace of God. Paul’s Gospel is the Gospel of the grace of God. In verse 25 he speaks of preaching the kingdom because it is all part of the message of God to the earth. The very last thing we see Paul doing, in Acts 28 when he is in prison in Rome, is preaching the kingdom of God and teaching considering the Lord Jesus Christ. The Gospel is fundamentally the same throughout history; Salvation by grace through faith in the substitute of God. So here we have an eternal Gospel that emphasizes that the ramifications of this Gospel are eternal in nature. The people that are listening to this message are at the very edge of eternity and this message will have ramifications for them for eternity. We are all only a heartbeat away from eternity. Once we leave to go on to eternity our destiny is sealed. That’s why Jesus Christ has given the Church the mandate to preach the Gospel of the grace of God; the Gospel of Jesus Christ; the Gospel of the kingdom of God. What are you doing in your part of fulfilling that mandate?
In verse 7 the need for their response is emphasized because of the hour that they live in. Fear God and give Him glory and not the beast because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship Him who made the heavens and the earth and the sea of the springs of the water. It must be a great shock for the evolutionists to hear that from an angel. Then angel number two comes along right after him in verse 8. Do you need any more proof world that judgment is coming? Here is the second angel announcing it “Babylon is fallen.” Babylon is the city of Satan. It the city and its Rome and a religious system called the harlot. It is satanic rule over the world and its fallen. Politically it had the power of Rome, religiously it has the power of Babylon.
THIS HARLOT RELIGION IS CHRISTIANITY MIXED WITH THE NEW AGE because ancient Babylon and the mystery religions of ancient Babylon are exactly the same as what we see today called the New Age movement. With all of the witchcraft, the magic, the deification of man…. all Babylonian. THE NEW AGE AND CHRISTIANITY ARE GOING TO MERGE during this time. What is really interesting is WE SEE IT HAPPENING NOW. Then the angel number three comes and he tells about the beast worshipers.
Then angel number three comes and he tells the fate of the beast worshippers. The Bible has much to say about hell although many preachers refuse to preach it. The Word of God needs to be studied to and for the preacher to understand how he can translate this into our daily life. God’s Spirit does that, but you still spend time mediating on the avenues. When you mediate on hell it is an unpleasant experience. It is an awful thing to think about, yet it is in the Bible. The Bible has much to say about hell. Christ himself had more to say about it than anyone else. Matthew 25:41 says it was originally prepared for the devil and his angels, but now those who have fallen in live with him will go there too. Mark 8 says it is an eternal place.
If you don’t accept Christ as your Savior, you don’t have your sins forgiven, you’re not given the righteousness of Christ by God in grace, you are going to go to this place called hell for eternity. Paul, one time, said to the Galatians when he was trying to correct them and he was trying to tell them something they didn’t want to hear—“have I become your enemy because I tell you the truth?”
Hell is a reality that must be talked about. If people don’t understand that reality then they are going to stumble into it without ever understanding the love of God. The danger of false religion; don’t dabble in it for a minute.
Verses 12 and 13 shows the rewards of the saints. The evidence of true faith, of a true Christian is that they will continue on. We will fall down and stumble spiritually but we always seem to get up. That’s the work of the Spirit in our lives. He is causing us to continue to persevere and have patience. To those who have perseverance there is a promise. God’s Spirit said you are blessed if you die in the Lord from now on. Particular encouragement to them because they are going to go through mega persecution. Death should be of no fear for the Christian because death is simply the opening to go to the place of
our destiny. Some of us may be asked to give our testimony through our blood.
There may be a time coming soon when Christians will soon be called on to suffer again and die for their faith. During that hour we should ask God for courage and to make our testimony known clearly when we simply leave this place for a better place.
The wonderful Gospel of Jesus Christ. Think about what these writers have said in the great Christian hymns. “My hope is in the Lord who gave himself for me and paid the price of all my sin at Calvary. No merit of my own, His anger to suppress. My only hope is found in Jesus righteousness. And now for me He stands before the Father’s throne. He shows His wounded hands and names me as His own. His grace has planned it all. Tis mine but to believe and recognize His work of love and Christ receive.” That’s it. God has prepared it all. The Gospel is a totally sufficient Gospel and it is an available Gospel. No matter where you find yourself in this world, you’ll always find that God is ready and waiting for you to receive Christ.
WORKS CITED
- Revelation and Church History
- Church Age
- “THE VICTORIOUS AND THE VANQUISHED,” Revelation 14:1-13, #JMREV26;
The Faithful Word. Pastor Jim Mooberry. - Old Testament Study
- Receiving Jesus
- Heartland Baptist, Bellevue, Nebraska
- Broken Bow Berean Church, Broken Bow, Nebraska