REVELATION 14
The company of saints brought before us in the first section of this chapter (verses 1 - 5) is a deeply interesting one. I think we might regard them as near neighbours to the assembly, and as having a special [p. 150] claim upon our interest and affection. It is a company of saints with whom we can be peculiarly sympathetic. The assembly has a heavenly place, and this company is so near to heaven that they can learn its song. My impression is that this company will be a peculiar compensation to the Lord for what He suffered in Judah and Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the city of the great King, but He had more reproach and sorrow and suffering there than anywhere else, and I believe the 144,000 on Mount Zion will be a Jewish company that will be specially near to Him as compensation for that sorrow.
They will have “his name and the name of his Father written upon their foreheads”. In the kingdom of the beast every one will have to carry his mark, will be compelled to take character from him; he will not tolerate anything else. But at the very time when the beast is impressing his character on all his subjects, Christ will have a company who will carry His mark; they will take character from Him and from His Father. It is a cheer to think of Christ and His Father being expressed in other families besides the church. These saints are not in heaven, but they are near enough to heaven to learn its song. They stand with the Lamb upon Mount Zion in the appreciation of sovereign mercy. Before the Lamb’s kingly glory is publicly known they will see Him in it, and stand with Him spiritually in the full recognition of it. They are “first-fruits” before the great millennial harvest is gathered in.
Scripture affords us light as to saints who will be marked by intimacy with Christ, as knowing His royal glory before the kingdom is actually established, in the Song of Solomon and in Psalm 45. There [p. 151] will be those in Jerusalem who will go to the lawless king with ointments (Isaiah 57: 9); but at the same time there will be “the king’s daughter”, “the queen”, who will be brought to the One of whom it is said, “I have anointed my king upon Zion, the hill of my holiness”. There will be those who will know Him as anointed upon Zion while nations and peoples and kings are still in rebellion “against Jehovah and against his anointed” (Psalm 2). It is a peculiar privilege to know Him thus before the day of His public glory.
It has been said that “the queen” of Psalm 45 is Jerusalem, and that “the virgins behind her, her companions”, are the cities of Judah. There will be an elect company from Jerusalem and Judah brought to know the King, and to be, with Him in a special intimacy as His companions, while it is yet needful for Him to gird His sword upon His thigh, and to make His arrows sharp in the heart of His enemies. I conceive that these correspond with the company we have in view in Revelation 14.
Bridal character attaches to other companies as well as the assembly. It is a figure signifying intimacy of affection and companionship. The assembly is Christ’s bride and wife — His intimate companion — in heavenly associations. Then the bride of the Song of Solomon and the “queen” of Psalm 45 will be in intimate relations of affection with Christ in connection with the earth before and during the day of His public glory. And Israel in millennial conditions will be the bride of Jehovah. Many have an idea that prophecy is “dry”, but if it is looked at in relation to the moral exercises and affections of which it speaks — and this is its true interest to a spiritual mind — it is anything but dry.
[p. 152] The Lamentations of Jeremiah should be read in connection with the Song of Solomon, because that book shews the deep exercises through which “the princess” (Lamentations 1: 1) will have to pass to prepare her to be brought to the King. It is nearly all heart work in the Song of Solomon, but preparatory conscience work is needed, and this is set before us in the Lamentations, which morally precedes the Canticles. There can be no true spiritual affections apart from the raising and settling of moral questions. The “princess” will have to learn that everything has failed her, that Jehovah has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions, that all her splendour has departed. All peoples will behold her unparalleled sorrow (Lamentations 1: 12, 18), and she will have to own that Jehovah is righteous in it all. He has had to cast off His altar, and to reject His sanctuary. There is nothing for it but to let tears “run down like a torrent day and night”, and to “pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord”.
But they will learn in that coming day that their Messiah has taken up all their sorrows in grace, and identified Himself with them in those sorrows. They will feel how indifferent they have been to His sorrows, which were really their own borne in grace. They will remember their sorrow as knowing it to have been taken up by Him, and in remembering this their soul will be humbled in them, but hope will revive (Lamentations 3: 19 - 21). Jehovah’s loving-kindness will become known to them (Lamentations 3:22; Lamentations 3:25; Lamentations 3:31,32). They will find that He is good to them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeks Him. It is all very touching, and we can understand their exercises in some measure by our own. In principle we have had to travel the same [p. 153] road. We have had to learn that there was no room in our hearts for Christ, and yet in His blessed love He took up our case and bore our sins. When we see this our affections begin to be drawn out to the One who has entered in gracious love into all the sorrow that was ours, and who has borne the death and judgment due to us.
In Lamentations 4 we see the deplorable state of a people who have got away from Jehovah, and been disowned by Him. They have lost their value; the vessels of fine gold have become earthen (verses 1, 2). Their affections have disappeared; “the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness” (verse 3). There is no food; “the young children ask bread, no man breaketh it unto them” (verse 4). Their moral beauty is all gone; “Her Nazarites were purer than snow, whiter than milk ... their visage is darker than blackness, they are not known in the streets” (verses 7, 8). And the blood of the Righteous One has been shed in the midst of her (verse 13). But a point is reached in verse 22 when it can be said, “The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity”. The deep exercises have done their work in preparing her to appreciate the way in which her Messiah took up her sins and her sorrows. Her own sufferings prepare her to appreciate His, and to be drawn to Him as the suffering Lamb. He will have royal glory on Mount Zion, but the One who has it is the Lamb — the meek and lowly Sufferer.
In following the exercises of “the princess” we pass from the Lamentations to the Song of Solomon. The scene of this book is largely cast in Jerusalem or its environs, and it speaks of affections which will be [p. 154] found there before Israel at large has been wooed or won, and while her spiritual affections are, as yet, undeveloped. Chapter 8: 8 probably refers to this. The “prince’s daughter” is seen in the Canticles in another stage of her spiritual progress. The King has now set Himself to take her captive by His love, and to secure her wholly for Himself. Her movements of affection towards Christ and His movements towards her are beautifully delineated. It is clear that millennial conditions are not in view, for there are angry children, and she has to learn where to find the One whom her soul loves. She is “the lily among thorns”. It is a time in which she has to seek Him, and in which He seeks her, and does not always find immediate response, so that she has to suffer the consequences of her supineness. And though she does come up from the wilderness leaning upon her Beloved, the book closes with a call to Him to “Haste”. She is not yet with Him in abiding satisfaction, though she has tasted what it is like, nor does she yet follow Him wheresoever He goes. We do not get the actual presence of the King in the Song of Solomon; His presence, so far as it is known in this book, is known spiritually. It is the portrayal of the heart exercises of the “prince’s daughter” in regard to the King, and of His appeals to her affections, before He is publicly manifested. Such exercises as are depicted here will have no place after the kingdom is established. And it is just this which makes the book applicable in many ways at the present moment.
In Psalm 45 we go a step farther. It is “A song of the Beloved”. Read the Psalm. We have not here the mixed experiences of the Song — the alternations between the joy of conscious nearness and the [p. 155] sense of distance; it is a more settled state of the affections. The One who suffered is seen in His royal glory, and He becomes the Beloved of those who know Him. They appreciate all His Personal and moral and official glory. “Thou art fairer than the sons of men; grace is poured into thy lips: therefore God hath blessed thee for ever ... Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever”. He has shewn by becoming the Lamb, and by all that is involved in that title, how He “loved righteousness and hated wickedness”, for He suffered and died to establish the one and to remove the other. Now He is seen anointed with the oil of gladness above His companions; He has associates who can appreciate the fragrance of every perfection as seen in Him. “Myrrh and aloes, cassia, are all thy garments; out of ivory palaces stringed instruments have made thee glad”. And the queen is near to Him; she has left every other influence to be under His; she has true virgin character. She stands upon His right hand in divine suitability; she is brought to the King, and is all-glorious in the royal apartments. It is all anticipative, for His enemies have not yet been dealt with. Indeed, it is striking how little we get in Scripture about the heart experiences which saints will have when the glory is actually brought in. There is much about the exercises and experiences and spiritual possibilities of the faith period. In entering into that we know what the time of glory will be because we anticipate it in spirit. The actual future is made present to faith and hope.
It is blessed to know that there will be such a company as this in the last days. Before Jehovah destroys in Zion “the face of the veil which veileth [p. 156] all the peoples, and the covering that is spread over all the nations”, and before He swallows up death in victory (Isaiah 25: 7, 8), He will bring to pass that this company will be led through deep exercise to appreciate their Messiah as the suffering One, and to have their hearts touched by all that He has gone through in His love and in His pity for them. They will be called to follow Him spiritually, as His disciples were in the days of His flesh. In being “with him” these saints come into the place occupied by those who were with the Lord when here. Luke speaks of some who were “attendants on the word” (Luke 1: 2). These are the Lamb’s attendants in a future day. His name will be written upon their foreheads — His own blessed character as set forth in the beatitudes (Matthew 5: 1 - 12) will be seen in them — and His Father’s Name also (Matthew 5: 45, 48).
The bride in the Song of Solomon can speak of the King’s beauty, but He can also speak of hers; His features are reflected in her; and both are delineated in the sermon on the mount. The moral beauty of Christ will be seen in these saints, and their conduct will be patterned after the conduct of His Father. This answers to His Name and His Father’s Name being written on their foreheads. The sermon on the mount will have its answer in them in the face of all the power of the beast and the antichrist, and at utmost cost. Such is the power of divine grace. The disciples saw the kingdom on the holy mount; it is our privilege to be spiritually “with him on the holy mountain”, and it will be the privilege of these saints in Revelation 14 to be there also.
They are described as following “the Lamb wheresoever it goes”. They will have followed Him in [p. 157] mind and affection through His ministry here, and they will have taken character from it. They will have followed Him through Gethsemane and Calvary to resurrection, and to His royal glory on Mount Zion. They will stand with Him there while all the earth is wondering after the beast and doing homage to it. They will stand with Him in faith in the full light of the kingdom before it is actually established. It is ours to do so today; and thus will they and we be preserved in virgin character while all around are being corrupted. And while the denial that Jesus is the Christ will be in every mouth of those who have believed what is false there will be no lie found in their mouths. And they will be blameless, not here as in the Authorized Version, “before the throne of God”, but in their practical lives.
Then this company will be in sympathy with heaven; they can learn the song of heaven. I should suppose that the singers here in heaven may be the martyred saints of the tribulation period — the company referred to in Revelation 6: 11 — for they are not the elders, though the elders are in full sympathy with the throne and the living creatures in their appreciation of it, for it is sung before them. The great point is that it is a heavenly song. There are wonderful songs about the coming kingdom in the Psalms, but none of them could quite reach up to what can be sung in heaven. They are earthly songs, but this is a song of a new character. It is the celebration of all that is connected in the mind of heaven with the Lamb and Mount Zion. And it is blessed to see that there will be a company on earth who can learn that song. They will learn to celebrate the kingdom and the King according to heaven’s appreciation, so that they come very near [p. 158] morally to heaven. Though on earth they are in accord with the mind of heaven.
This is the privilege of the assembly today. Indeed, this company has many features in common with the assembly; amongst them, their virgin character; and the fact that they are first-fruits. Paul says, “I am jealous as to you with a jealousy which is of God; for I have espoused you unto one man, to present you a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11: 2). It is in keeping ourselves from the corrupting influences of the world that we preserve the virgin character. And the assembly is first-fruits also. See Leviticus 23: 17. “A certain first-fruits of his creatures” in James 1: 18 is probably wide enough in its bearing to take in saints of the assembly and the company in Revelation 14 also. I have no doubt that these saints will read and appreciate the epistle of James. There is a peculiar satisfaction in first-fruits; the husbandman sets special value on them; they speak of what is coming on a greater scale. The assembly is “first-fruits” today. We, like the saints we are speaking of, have come to Mount Zion; we see royal grace in Christ as risen; we see Jesus crowned with glory and honour. All that God and the Lamb will have in the day of the kingdom they have in a peculiar way in the “first-fruits”, and it comes out in circumstances which give it special value. “First-fruits” come early; they give the first and most cherished gratification to the husbandman. God’s “first-fruits” come out in adverse circumstances, in face of difficulty and opposition, in the assembly today, and in the company of Revelation 15 in the time of the beast and the antichrist. Fruit at such times is very precious to God and the Lamb.
“[p. 159] These are they who follow the Lamb wheresoever it goes”. Movement marks the Song of Solomon. “Draw me, we will run after thee!” (Song of Songs 1: 4). “Go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock” (Song of Songs 1: 8). “I compare thee, my love, to a steed in Pharaoh’s chariots” (Song of Songs 1: 9). “I will rise now, and go about the city; in the streets and in the broadways will I seek him whom my soul loveth” (Song of Songs 3: 2). “Who is this, she that cometh up from the wilderness?” (Song of Songs 3: 6). He calls her to “Come with me” (Song of Songs 4: 8). “Before I was aware, my soul set me upon the chariots of my willing people” (Song of Songs 6: 12). “Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?” (Song of Songs 8: 5).
We are tested as to whether we have affection to discern and follow His movements. It is a constant exercise as each one hears Him say, “Follow thou me”. He will have an answer in that day to His mind and affections; His thoughts will be intelligently entered into by those who will follow Him wheresoever He goes. There are movements of Christ today which only affection can discern. Before He gets public recognition He gets private recognition from His own who are exercised to discern His movements and to follow Him. He is moving now in a spiritual way, and His movements put affection to the test. When He walked on the sea He “would have passed them by” (Mark 6: 48); in Luke 24: 28, “He made as though he would go farther”. His movements tested their hearts. When He says, “I am coming to you” (John 14: 18), or “I will love him and will manifest myself to him” (John 14: 21), what effect does it produce upon us? If we want to find Him today we must “go forth to him without the camp, bearing his reproach”. Happy are they who follow Him wheresoever He goes!
The second section of this chapter speaks of a heavenly messenger with glad tidings to men universally. It is a call to “Fear God, and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come; and do homage to him who has made the heaven and the earth and the sea and fountains of waters”. Even at a time when all God’s rights are being challenged by the beast and the antichrist He will send out glad tidings world-wide; it is a blessed testimony to His goodness. It is “the everlasting glad tidings” because it does not belong to any particular age or dispensation; it has always been open to man to fear God in view of coming judgment, and to give Him homage as the Creator. There will be a world-wide call to do this, and those who give heed to it will escape from the coming wrath. It is not the glad tidings of the grace of God as preached today. It does not speak of God as revealed in grace, or of redemption, but men are called to acknowledge what is due to God. The great effort of the beast and the antichrist will be to exclude all thought of God, but the everlasting glad tidings will bring Him in, and give men a last opportunity to escape from lawlessness by fearing Him, and giving Him glory. We learn from Matthew 25 that before the Son of man comes in His glory all the nations will have been tested by the presence amongst them of Christ’s brethren, and to have treated them kindly will secure the blessing of His Father and inheritance of the kingdom. It will be the practical evidence that such as do so fear God, and they will go into life eternal on the earth.
“[p. 161] And another, a second, angel followed, saying, Great Babylon has fallen, has fallen, which of the wine of the fury of her fornication has made all nations drink”. This is the first mention of a subject of divine judgment which appears in this book as being in a superlative degree an object of abhorrence and indignation to God and to heaven. The adjective “great” is always connected with Babylon; she is marked by greatness and splendour in the scene where Christ is rejected, and where His own are a “little flock”. We shall see later that she is described as “the great harlot”. All her characteristics stand in contrast to those which pertain to “the bride, the Lamb’s wife”, which is “the holy city, Jerusalem”. The two cities are put before us in obvious contrast. With which of them are our thoughts and affections identified? For both cities exist today, and we are morally citizens of one or the other. Are we attracted and influenced by what is “great” on earth where Christ died, or are we held by the power of what is “holy”? One city is earthly, the other is heavenly; one is full of the glory of man and of the world, the other has the glory of God.
“Great Babylon” is unfaithful herself, and she is a corruptress of others. Instead of presenting God to men, and being the vessel of holy and purifying influences — instead of having “a river of water of life, bright as crystal”, flowing through her — she leads all nations into idolatries, and makes them “drunk with the wine of her fornication”. If we had not been forewarned by the Lord and by the apostles that it would be so, no one could have imagined that Christianity as set up in this world by the labours of the apostles would become what it is today. But the [p. 162] Lord told us that the mustard seed would become “a tree, so that the birds of heaven come and roost in its branches”; and that leaven — always in Scripture a figure of what is evil — would work until the whole mass was leavened (Matthew 13: 31 - 33). And every inspired writer in the New Testament has warned us of the departure and corruption that would come in. “Great Babylon” is the result, and it becomes a special subject of divine judgment. God would have His saints to know it as “fallen” before it is actually overthrown. Just as the 144,000 stand with the Lamb on Mount Zion in faith and affection before He is actually there, God would have Great Babylon to be “fallen” for His saints long before it is actually destroyed. She will have wonderful eminence for a time as riding upon the beast (chapter 17: 3), yet to faith she will be “fallen”. The Lord beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven in Luke 10: 18, but he will not actually fall thence until the time spoken of in Revelation 12. So the great corruptress — the false church, the rival to the bride — who by carnal glory and magnificence has deceived men, and who has ministered to idolatrous self-gratification, is to those who have ears to hear the voice of the second angel “fallen” even now. None are clear of its influence who do not see it as fallen. For it has splendid architecture, imposing ritual, exquisite music, and everything that appeals to the imagination and religious sentiment of the natural man. It is an immense divine deliverance to know it as “fallen”. The elements of Babylon are in every one of us according to the flesh, and we have to judge them there. Babylon includes every element of human glory — everything that glorifies man in the flesh — and her wine stimulates [p. 163] and elevates the flesh. But God has nothing for the flesh; the new wine is for the new man. As Christ and the Spirit get place with us — and we come under the influence of what is of God — we get away from the influence of “Great Babylon”. The twice-repeated “has fallen, has fallen”, is very emphatic. The third section of the chapter is an intensely solemn warning as to the consequences of doing homage to the beast or receiving his mark. “The endurance of the saints” will be severely tested, but there will be those “who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus”.
Then “a voice out of the heaven” comforts the faithful. They might have to die for their fidelity, and it might seem very sad to die just so near to the kingdom being set up, but such would be “Blessed”. They would obtain rest from their labours, and what labours saints will have in those dark days! They will lose nothing of what they have wrought; they will carry with them the honour of all they have done and suffered. We see them in the next chapter on the sea of glass. They have been tested in the fiercest fires of persecution, but the fire that tested them purified them so that no defilement remained. The laver — no longer needed for their cleansing becomes a crystal pavement on which they stand.
The last two sections of this chapter give final results — harvest and vintage. When the Son of man as the crowned Reaper puts His sickle on the earth, things will have come to full maturity. “The harvest is the completion of the age” (Matthew 13: 39). The age has witnessed the sowing of the Son of man, and also the sowing of the devil, and there has been no public divine dealing on earth to make manifest the [p. 164] judgment of God as to what has resulted. But the harvest is the end of that period. It does not take place until things have fully developed and ripened even to the point of being “dried”. Then the age closes by the gathering out of the kingdom of the Son of man “all offences, and those that practise lawlessness”, while the wheat will be brought together into His granary, fruit gathered unto life eternal. Everything that is worthless for God will be cast into the fire, while all that is pleasurable to Him will be gathered for the garner of blessing in the age to come. The harvest is the time when everything will be perfectly discriminated, and dealt with according to its true character. Lawlessness is permitted to continue in this age, but none of it will pass over into the age to come. The harvest will finally close the present order of things. The darnel will be gathered first, and bound into bundles to be burnt. The binding into bundles seems to speak of confederacies and combinations. How careful Christians should be not to be tied up in any bundle that is going to be burned!
Then the vintage is the destructive judgment of that which has been professedly in the place of fruit-bearing for God, but which has become only fit to be cast into the great winepress of His fury. The angel who called for this judgment “came out of the altar, having power over fire”. The altar speaks of the death of Christ, which is the ground of blessing now, but it will call for judgment then. God has shewn in the death of Christ how He could deal with sin in such a way as to provide for His own glory, and open a door of blessing for men. But His having done so is the greatest proof that He cannot be indifferent to [p. 165] sin, and that if men do not enter the door which He has opened there is nothing for it but judgment. If God has judged sin in the death of Christ it is impossible that He can allow it to go on permanently unchecked. In the case of “the vine of the earth” it is not merely that men have disregarded the divine way of escape, but after having been in professed relation with God they have become apostate and blasphemous. For I believe “the vine of the earth” would include apostate Jews, and possibly Gentiles who have become identified with them after giving up the truth and falling under the power of the beast and the antichrist.
“Her grapes are fully ripened”. It is the matured fruit of enmity against God borne by those who have had a place of privilege, but who have gone out into the dark night of apostasy. Judas was the great apostate, and with the price of his treachery the field of blood was bought. It remained as a solemn witness against him, and of the fact that he had gone to his own place. There will be another terrible “Aceldama; that is, field of blood”, when verse 20 is fulfilled. It is the final destruction of the proud adversaries of God and of His Anointed. Compare Isaiah 63: 1 - 6.