Revelation 14-1-20 Part 8
1) Then I looked and, lo, a Lamb having been standing upon the mount – Zion; and with Him a hundred and forty-four thousands having had His Name and His Father’s Name written on their foreheads.
2) Then I heard sound from the heaven as sound from many waters and as sound from great thunder; then the sound that I heard as harpers harping in their harps;
3) and they sing a new song before the throne and in the presence of the four creatures and the twenty four elders, and no one is enabled to understand the song except the hundred and forty-four thousands of the land who have been bought.
4) These are the ones not defiled with women, for they are chaste; these are the ones following the Lamb wherever He leads; these firstfruit were bought from the men to God and to the Lamb,
5) and falsehood was not found in their mouth; they are blameless.
6) Then I saw a messenger flying in mid-heaven having age-enduring proclamation to proclaim against those dwelling on the land, and upon the nations and tribes and tongues and people
7) declaring in a great sound ‘Fear ye The God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and do homage to The One having made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters.’
8) Then another, a second, followed saying ‘Fallen! Babylon the great, from whom the wine of the passion of her fornication all the nations have drunk, is fallen!’
9) Then another messenger, a third, followed them saying in a great sound ‘If anyone adores the beast and the image of it and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand,
10) he will also drink from the wine, having been previously prepared unmixed, of the wrath of God in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented in fire and brimstone in the presence of holy messengers and in the presence of the Lamb,
11) and the smoke of their torment rises into ages of ages, and they have no rest day or night.’ These are the ones who adore the beast and its image and anyone taking the mark of its name;
12) whereas the perseverance of the saints is in this: they are keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
13) Then I heard sound from the heaven telling me, write ‘Blessed the dead who die henceforth in Kurios; the Spirit says that they will receive rest from their travails for their works follow together with them.’
14) Then I looked and, lo, a white cloud; and on the cloud the seated likeness of Son of Man having a golden crown on His head and a sharp sickle in His hand.
15) And another messenger came out from the Holy Place crying out in a great sound to the One seated upon the cloud, ‘Send in Your sickle and reap for the hour is come to reap, for the harvest of the land is ripened.’
16) And the One sitting upon the cloud thrust His sickle upon the land and the land was reaped.
17) Then another messenger came forth from the Holy Place in the heaven, it also having a sharp sickle.
18) Then another messenger came forth from the altar having authority over the fire, and it called out with a great sound saying to the one with the sharp sickle, ‘Thrust your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the land, for her clusters have ripened.’
19) And the messenger thrust its sickle into the land and gathered the vine of the land and cast into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
20) And the winepress was trodden outside the city; and blood came forth from the winepress as high as the horses’ bridles for a thousand six hundred stadia.
When the Churches received this letter from John, The Son of Man has already been crowned King of Kings and Lord of Lords; and He is now called KURIOS – Mighty God the Son. He has assumed His dominion and authority over all that’s been created; and it’s a dominion that will never be defeated, but will put down all pretenders to world dominion. There will never be another – other than His.
The completed exodus of the lost sheep of the house of Jacob having been accomplished, the covenant law-suit (pronounced by Moses) against the apostate nation will be adjudicated; and the world-wide dominion of the fourth beast of history will be splintered and shattered and scattered throughout the nations.
His Own rebirthed people (all of the lost sheep of the house of Jacob) would also be scattered among the nations. It is His Church; and it proclaims the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the tongues of every nation and people and tribe. (That’s the case, since there were Jews from all over the world present at Pentecost who spoke the languages of every nation on earth.)
John hears that the Church will be “proved” in persecution and affliction and death; and in the midst of that affliction Jesus Christ’s Own rebirthed “little ones” will be manifest! They are “proved” and manifest because they are the ones keeping the commandments and holding the testimony of Jesus in adverse conditions. And they will all rest in the comfort and assurance that should they give their lives for the Faith of Jesus, they are “blessed”; for death is dead in the body of the resurrected Son of Man.
John is shown three of the cherubim from the mercy seat. They fly in mid-heaven with proclamations by the thunderous voice of The Lord of Hosts.
The first proclaims that the hour of Yahveh’s judgment upon the land has arrived; the second follows, crying out that the greater Babylon has fallen; and the third proclaims the wine of the cup of Yahveh’s wrath is to be poured out on all remaining in the land; for they have adored the beast and its image, and they have received its mark.
Then John is shown a view of the ascended and crowned Jesus Christ in all His glory (which is where we’ll spend most of our time this morning).
And then, next Lord’s Day, we’ll see the three cherubim again (as John saw them), performing their duties in God’s creation, all at the will and Word of their newly-crowned Commander-in-chief.
So we see the three in proclamation over the land; then the view of the risen and ascended King of all creation; then the three again in carrying out that which has been proclaimed. From the perspective of God in His tabernacle, that’s the “form” in which these things are shown to John.
He sees the perfection of three proclamations and the perfection of three activities of cherubim in human history; and in-between the two “threes” John sees the likeness of “Son of Man” above it all. That forms a perfect seven.
We’ll be reminded again of all the “sevens” in what John is shown when we come to chapter fifteen, because there the seven bowls of the wrath of God are about to be poured out upon the land.
As we heard last time, what is shown to John in verse fourteen is right out of the prophecy of Daniel, who was in captivity to the first world-dominion beast of God’s history… Babylon.
In that great vision (chapter seven of Daniel), he is shown all four world-dominion beasts of history. And having completed a brief description of all four of them, Daniel then writes what he is shown in the midst of the fourth (which is the Roman empire). Please pay close attention once more to the One Who is revealed to Daniel. Here again is the last part of his vision:
11) I beheld at that time because of the sound of the great words which the horn spoke (that’s the dominion of the fourth beast); I beheld even till the beast was slain and its body destroyed; and it was given to be burned with fire.
12) And as for the former beasts, their dominion was taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.
13) Then I saw in the night-visions and, lo, there came in the cloud of heaven one in the likeness of a Son of Man, and he came unto the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.
14) And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and tongues should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.
And here is what the apostle John was shown here in verse fourteen of our text. He was surely to make the connection to Daniel’s vision.
“Then I looked and, lo, a white cloud; and on the cloud the seated likeness of Son of Man having a golden crown on His head… and a sharp sickle in His hand.”
You see, the vision Daniel was shown foretold exactly what would take place in the last days; and John has now been shown - accomplished - what Daniel foretold!
Daniel saw in his vision one like a son of man approaching the Ancient of Days seated over His cloud of glory. And John now sees that Son of Man [Himself] having been crowned and seated over the cloud of glory.
In Daniel’s vision, the son of man ascends to the cloud and approaches The Ancient of Days in order to receive His Kingdom and dominion (which endures into the ages); whereas John is shown the Son of Man having ascended to the cloud of glory, and already crowned and seated over the cloud… and ready to reap the harvest (which we see in the seven verses to come).
The view of the prophet Daniel and the view of the apostle John are unmistakably connected!
Now. The view of the glory cloud/tabernacle that is shown to John all through the Revelation of Jesus Christ and here in verse fourteen, is the same view that is shown to three other men in the history of God’s Revelation. And because of the continuity of God’s Word, they’re all connected; and they all provide us with great insight into what John is shown here in verse fourteen.
But since the first paradise on earth – the garden of Eden – there was no clear concept revealed to man of God’s tabernacle in the glory cloud until the earthly tabernacle was revealed to Moses and built in the desert of Sinai. Although Moses was in the cloud of glory atop Mount Sinai for forty days and nights, apparently he was not told to describe what he saw. What he was told to do was build the earthly replica of what he saw!
Abraham before him was allowed some concept of God’s glory cloud/tabernacle when he was told to sacrifice his only son on the dome of the rock in the place that would one day become Jerusalem, and would one day host the ark of the covenant and Solomon’s temple; but, other than that, the creation itself was the only “likeness” that there was until the tabernacle was built in the Sinai. There was no revealed description of it before that; and no man had seen it.
But since the tabernacle in the desert was to be built in that likeness of the tabernacle of Yahveh in the heaven, Israel would know what it looked like. Even though it was man-made; and even though it was temporal, all Israel was to recognize what it was, and understand what was required in order for man to be able to approach The Lord of Hosts above His glory cloud.
We need to review what that tabernacle looked like. Then we can see what John was shown here in our text; and we can also connect that with what two more men in all of God’s Revelation saw and described. We’ve spent time learning about the tabernacle before, so this will be a short review.
Just remember that Moses was there, in the Glory Cloud, on Mount Sinai. The apostle John was also there (as the Revelation makes clear), being shown all that was taking place in the last days. Daniel was not there, but was shown a vision while he was in captivity to the first beast. Neither Isaiah nor Ezekiel was there; but they were shown awesome things in the tabernacle by Yahveh of Hosts. After looking at the man-made tabernacle in the desert, we’ll read what these two prophets wrote.
But Moses was received into the glory cloud and spent forty days and nights there; and he was instructed in God’s Law-word and how to build the earthly tabernacle. The instructions were incredibly specific down to the last detail. Distances, length and breadth and height, colors, materials, all the utensils and their tables and places, stakes and ties and curtains, oils and perfumes – everything was detailed to the ‘nth degree!
And the awesome thing about this was that Moses was in the tabernacle of the Lord of Hosts as he was being instructed about how to build the earthly one. He saw, while being commanded how to build it, how every detail of the man-made one was to be a “reflection” of Yahveh’s tabernacle in the heaven.
Everything from the millions of the twelve tribes of Jacob being located in specific, designated places around the perimeter of the tabernacle complex, all the way to the inner “holy of holies” at the top of the tabernacle itself, all of it was prescribed in precise and definitive language; for it all had to “mirror” the perfections of the tabernacle of the Lord of Hosts.
Now. So as not to make this longer than it has to be, it is the inner “holy of holies” that is particularly pertinent to our text here at verse fourteen; for there at the top of the tabernacle was the Ark of the Covenant with its golden cherubim – OVER WHICH dwelled Yahveh Lord of Hosts.
Notice that there are no pictures of Him; no drawings of Him; and there were no objects representing Him in the man-made tabernacle. Moses was not told to make anything in any likeness to represent the presence of Yahveh above His tabernacle. The “inner room” – the holy of holies – had only the Ark of the Covenant with its cherubim.
So, what is reflected in the earthly tabernacle, and later in the temple on the mount in Jerusalem, is God dwelling OVER His tabernacle; over the ark and the cherubim, over the cloud of glory; for He is not contained by anything that He has created.
And that’s exactly what is described by the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel. Both of these prophets were shown these very things that the earthly tabernacle reflected, although neither of them was ever in the glory cloud as Moses and John were. Even so, they were caused to see these things by divine Revelation.
First I want you to hear from Isaiah in chapter six. This is the passage that our Lord quoted when asked by His disciples as to why He spoke to the judaists in parables. But, most important (for our purposes this morning) is His view of Yahveh Lord of Hosts. Listen to what Isaiah was shown:
1) In the year of the death of king Uzziah (about 750BC) I saw Yahveh sitting upon a high and lofty throne; and His train (i.e. the cloud of glory underneath) is the fullness of the tabernacle.
2) At the top of the tabernacle stood seraphs (cherubim); each had six wings; each had two covering its face, and each two covering its feet, and each had two to fly.
3) And one called to another and said: `Holy, Holy, Holy, Yahveh of Hosts, His glory fills the entire creation.'
4) …………..
5) And I say, `Woe to me, for I have been silent; I am a man of unclean lips, and I live in midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, Yahveh of Hosts'.
6) And one of the (cherubs) flies to me, and in his hand a burning coal that it had taken from under the altar with tongs,
7) and it struck my mouth with it and said: `Lo, this has struck your lips, and your iniquity is turned aside and your sin covered.'
8) Then I heard the voice of Yahveh saying: `Who do I send?’ and ‘who goes for Us?' (plural). And I said, `Here I am, send me.'
9) And He said, `Go, and say to this people, Hear! Hear, and do not understand! And see! See, and not know.
10) Declare the heart of this people fat, and declare its ears heavy, and declare its eyes dazzled, lest it see with its eyes, and hear with its ears, and its heart consider, and it turns and receives healing.'
11) And I said, `until when, O Yahveh?' And He said, ‘surely until cities have been wasted without inhabitant, and houses without man, and the land becomes utter desolation….
We’ve touched on much of this passage before, and there’s a lot of stuff there but, because of verse fourteen of our text, our primary interest is on Isaiah’s view of the tabernacle; for what is shown here to the prophet is Yahveh – KING of all His creation; and He sits enthroned above it all (just as the earthly tabernacle reflected)!
And then, other than John’s letter to the Churches, the most thorough description of the tabernacle in the heaven comes from Ezekiel. He wrote some two hundred years after Isaiah’s prophecy; and His writing was sent to Israel while it was in captivity to the first beast of history – Babylon.
Listen as the prophet described what was shown to him… especially the “One” seen above it all:
4) I looked and there was a tempestuous wind coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing back and forth and brilliant light all around it. In the center of the fire, there was a gleam like bronze.
5) The likeness of four living creatures came from its midst. And this was their appearance:
Ezekiel is looking up into the cloud as it formed a great whirlwind all around Him and describing what is revealed to him. And at this point in his prophecy Ezekiel describes the cherubim in some detail. The description of these creatures and their wings and their activities as central figures in the history of God’s creation and mankind, has already been explored several times; so I’ll skip all of that for now (as interesting as it is); but he continues:
13) As to the likeness of the living creatures, they were like the appearance of burning coals of fire and torches, with fire going back and forth (up and down) between the living creatures; it was bright, with lightning coming out of (the fire).
14) In the likeness of flashes of lightning the creatures were darting back and forth.
22) And a likeness of an expanse (a firmament), with a gleam like awe-inspiring crystal, was spread out over the heads of the living creatures.
23) And under the expanse their wings extended one toward another. Each of them having two wings covering their bodies.
24) When they moved, I heard the sound of their wings like the roar of mighty waters, like the voice of the Almighty, and a sound of commotion like the noise of an army. When they stood still, they lowered their wings.
25) A sound came from above the firmament over their heads;
26) The likeness of a throne with the appearance of sapphire stone was above the expanse. There was a form with the appearance of a man on the throne high above.
27) From what seemed to be His waist up, I saw a gleam like bronze, with what looked like fire enclosing it all around. From what seemed to be His waist down, I also saw what looked like fire. There was a brilliant light all around Him.
28) The appearance of the brilliant light all around was like that of a bow in a cloud on a rainy day. This was the appearance of the likeness of Yahveh’s glory. When I saw [it], I fell facedown and heard a sound speaking….
Once again, the prophet Ezekiel wrote this to a people in captivity to the first beast of world history… a people that had lost its paradise/homeland; a people that had lost its temple on the dome of the rock in Jerusalem.
He shows them again, just as Isaiah had shown them two hundred years earlier, he shows them the tabernacle of the Lord of Hosts which the earthly temple in Jerusalem was to reflect… except the temple in Jerusalem was filled with idolatry… his treatise a lengthy one on the filth and ugliness and evil with which the temple was infested.
And then he reveals to them Yahveh’s tabernacle in the heaven that the Jerusalem temple was to reflect; and he calls them to repentance. Ezekiel’s description of the glory of the Lord above His heavenly tabernacle is set in contrast to the ugly reflection provided by the Jerusalem temple and its abominations, now destroyed by the very hand of Yahveh Himself.
As we just read from chapter one, that contrast is stark! Yahveh loathed and detested the image of His heavenly tabernacle that was the temple in Jerusalem. And He called up the first beast – Babylon – to destroy it, and the city, and send Israel into captivity for seventy years.
And even though Yahveh sent prophet after prophet to condemn all her atrocities, Israel never repented (she received the prophecies of Daniel and Ezekiel and Jeremiah while in Babylon); but she never repented. And three more beasts were then raised up from depraved humanity against her.
Israel would never repent and acknowledge the dominion of the Lord of Hosts and His Messiah, so Yahveh kept her under the dominion of satanically-motivated, pagan beasts for six hundred and sixty-six years until the final adjudication of the sanctions of the covenant.
But the building of the tabernacle at Sinai, and the view of Yahveh over His tabernacle by Isaiah, and a similar vision of the tabernacle by Daniel, and then this one in more detail by Ezekiel all reveal Yahveh Lord of Hosts above His tabernacle in the heaven.
Ezekiel’s detailed description of what was shown to him fills up what mankind is to understand about our Creator and His creation. The revelation of the vast and awesome firmament in which, and under which, the entire cosmos exists; and under which is the great “cloud” of creatures flashing forth at the will and command of God (ten thousands times ten thousands – that’s many ten thousands times many ten thousands of them); and the mercy seat with its enormous many-sided creatures that fill the cosmos with the sounds of their wings. And the lake of fire with its eternally burning coals underneath the mercy seat.
That firmament in the likeness of crystal is OVER the cosmos and over the cloud of glory and the tabernacle in the heaven. All created things are contained therein.
And as the original tabernacle in the desert reflected, Yahveh Lord of Hosts is ABOVE it all. Ezekiel is shown all of this clearly. And it’s critical to our view of God the Son, the Son of Man here in verse fourteen of our text.
The dominion of Almighty God is above His creation; His dominion is above His tabernacle in the heaven; His dominion is above the brightness of His glory cloud. He sits “over” it all – above the very firmament – the expanse – of the cosmos! He isn’t contained or constrained by it; He has complete authority over IT!
It has all been revealed to Israel all through its history; and now the Church gets to read what the apostle John has been shown! And what is revealed to him (and sent to the Churches) is The Son of Man above the brilliant white cloud of glory (verse fourteen)!
The Person – God The Word – has taken the form of man and has completed His work of atonement; He has marked, sealed and rescued the “seed of the woman” – The Father’s elect from the house of Jacob; this “Son of Man” has ascended to the glory cloud/tabernacle of the Father, and has been crowned King and Lord and given all authority over all creation.
And from what position does He exercise “all authority”? In the tabernacle? In the cloud of glory? No. The One with all authority in the heavens and the earth sits ABOVE it all; for He is not contained by it. And that’s what John is shown here!
It’s exactly the same as that revealed to Moses and the prophets sent to Israel. It is “Son of Man” – bodily arisen out of death (putting death to death for all who are IN HIM), bodily ascended in the glory cloud of the tabernacle of Yahveh, bodily passing into the very Presence of God the Father above it all.
John sees these things revealed to him – shown to him – and he writes what he saw (as Jesus had told him to do); and the Church receives it and hears it read and preached. And their hearts and minds are made strong for the intense “proving” that was at hand; for a “Man” – a “Son of Man” – had proved “faithful” to The Father, and had passed “through the veil” into His very Presence and had received His inheritance.
He had “overcome”; sin and death had been overcome; the curse had been overcome – by a Man – God-man. And In Him humanity was redeemed from the curse and sin and death.
And this “Man”, into Whom humanity has been rebirthed and admitted into the Presence of The Father, is seen by John as ruling over all things, crowned King of Kings, and enthroned above the cloud of glory.
It is this view of our Lord Jesus Christ that is so lacking in many Churches of our time. Those occupying the pulpits fall very short of the Gospel that Moses wrote… or that of Daniel, or of Isaiah, or Ezekiel, or the apostle John.
It is a Gospel that omits the Son of Man presently reigning above the creation, having all authority in the heavens and upon the earth.
It seems to me that any preacher or teacher of Christianity that has read the prophetic Word of God, and that has read what John has been shown, and has an IQ of 25, would know the Gospel… that God The Word became flesh; and that upon accomplishing the work of atonement He entered – ONCE – into the Presence of the Father above all things; and that He - a man like us – is presently King of Kings and Lord of Lords!
There’s no comfort and assurance and perseverance in the Faith of Jesus Christ without the Gospel of God concerning His Son. And the omission pervades everything. The omission has left the modern Church with the Gospel of a “personal relationship with Jesus”. And there’s no view, like John’s, of the glorious reign and rule of the Son of Man above all the creation.
So there’s no preaching of the death of death in the death of Christ; there’s no preaching and teaching of obedience to His commandments; there’s no preaching of holding the testimony of Jesus in times of provocation and adversity; and there’s no preaching and teaching of the whole earth bowing to His sovereignty. And the omission permeates everything!
A good example of that (here at the end of our time today) is the intense provocation that we’re experiencing right now in our political system. The Gospel of Jesus Christ proclaims His Kingship and obedience to His Law-word; but what’s being taught to Christians and other conservatives right now is “freedom”!
Whatever happened to “obedience to the presently reigning Ruler of all things”? The Church is so weak in its view of the Gospel that a mormon-led, false gospel of “freedom” is being followed by those who are called by His Name. But there’s no “freedom”, you see, outside obedience to the King of Kings! Without obedience to Him and holding to His testimony, there is only “captivity” and slavery to a false, man-conceived dominion. Wherever you find disdain for His Law-word, structures of family and Church and civil government erode and fail, and the struggle for freedom from tyrants is a futile endeavor.
Next Lord’s Day (Lord willing) we’ll see the newly crowned Son of God/Son of man above the cloud of glory (as the apostle John was shown), filling up His Own prophetic Word as King over all the nations of the world.