We are moving closer and closer to Christ’s second coming to earth to set up His millennial kingdom. In chapter 14, we are given a sort of preview to the end of the Tribulation.
Here, John, sees Christ on Mount Zion(Jerusalem) along with the 144,000 previously mentioned in chapter 7.
These faithful servants, having God the Father’s name written on their foreheads (as opposed to the sinful whose heads carry the mark of the beast), now stand triumphant.
They have stayed pure and without fault (not sinless, but sanctified) during their time on earth and because of their commitment to the cause, many have been brought to Christ.
They now sing a glorious song of redemption before the throne of God.
6-11
In the next several verses, we see three of God’s angels, preparing the world for upcoming final judgment.
As you’ll recall, the seventh trumpet judgement was announced in Chapter 11, but since then we’ve had a bit of an interlude as we have dealt with other issues. With this judgement now about to be handed down, these three angels give three separate warnings in a final attempt to allow the truth of God to break the hearts of men unto repentance.
The first angel is declaring the “eternal” gospel to every ‘nation, tribe, tongue and people.
As he flies to the high point of heaven, where he can be seen by all, he gives one last plea for action on the part of those left on earth.
His words are short and to the point. “Fear God, give Him glory and worship Him.”
This angel is immediately followed by a second angel pronouncing judgement.
It is as if, he knows the inhabitants of the world will once again reject God and now the time has finally come for them to meet their fate.
“Fallen, fallen is the great Babylon,” he proclaims.
Babylon here is not the ancient city, but as MacArthur puts it, it is “the name for the whole Antigod system of idolatry that is the worship of the Antichrist.”
This whole godless system will fall. “Fallen, fallen, is actually how the angel describes it. The repetition of the word, as in many other places in the Bible, is intended to give greater force to the word.
The destruction of this idolatrous empire so entrenched in spiritual immorality will be complete and final.
On the heels of this angel, follows a third angel, this one pronouncing damnation for all who worship the beast and its image because who have the mark of the beast have rejected the gospel of Christ.
The angels warns that those who reject Christ will “drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength in the cup of his anger.”
None of God’s previous judgments – not Sodom and Gomorrah, not the plagues, not the flood – will compare to the suffering and torment and awfulness of hell.
Just as we will never see a greater display of His love than him sending His only Son to die for us, so will we never see a greater display of His just wrath than him sending those who’ve rejected that Son to hell.
They will be tormented with fire and sulfur, the angel says, and the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever.
In this short pronouncement, the third angel answers two questions the world seems confused about it today.
Yes, hell is a real place where real people will suffer intolerably.
Yes, hell, and all that suffering, is eternal.
12-13
Here, John pauses to describe to us a message he heard from heaven blessing the Tribulation saints who have died.
They are blessed because of the perseverance and continued obedience to God’s commands they showed while still on earth, and they will henceforth be blessed after death because they will finally find rest from all their persecution – eternal, complete rest in the Lord.
14-20
In verses 6-11, angels warn of the coming judgment and now in verse 14 until the end of the chapter, John sees a vision of that upcoming judgment.
John sees two separate reapings here, and many believe, two separate phases of judgment. “Here is the unprecedented final holocaust that gives the world its greatest bloodbath ever, the fury of Christ released in final and devastating judgment.” (MacArthur)
The bowl judgements, seven torments which come out of the seventh trumpet and fire in rapid succession, are referred to in verses 14-16. They will be discussed in full detail in chapter 16.
Here we see the Son of man, Christ, executing this judgement.
The second reaping pictures the Battle of Armegeddon which ends with Christ’s return to the earth.
In this vision, however, it is an angel who is doing the reaping, as instructed by the angel who came out from the altar and “which had the power over fire.”
I thought this was interesting because it immediately made me think back to Chapter 8 verse 3, “And another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand. The angel took the censer and he filled it with the fire of the altar, and threw it to the earth; and there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake.”
Then MacArthur’s commentary also hearkened back to chapter six where it talks about the altar. When the fifth seal was broken describing the judgment of God in the time of the tribulation, John says, “I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’ And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.”
MacArthur pulls the two passages together and concludes that in chapter 14, “The picture here is that this angel is not so much coming from the throne of God as the first angel did, representing the will of God, but this is an angel coming from the altar because he is coming to see that the prayers of the saints are answered. He comes from a place where the saints have been praying and praying and praying. And it’s now time to answer their prayers. It’s time for the grape harvest, just as it was time for the grain harvest.
And oh, how terrible and how bloody that harvest will be. At the Battle of Armegeddon, which will be further detailed in chapter 19, many upon many people – all remaining on earth who have rejected Christ -will be killed and the blood will flow.
I have done my best to summarize all the imagery and fantastic events that take place in this chapter, but if you really want to sink your teeth into this study and get a much more in depth treatment of it, you need to read or listen to John Macarthur’s sermons on the three angels https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/66-51/angelic-messengers and the final reaping https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/66-53/the-final-reaping-of-the-earth
Final Thoughts
The urgency, the pointedness, the brutal truths presented in the language of this chapter reminds me of some of the old “fire and brimstone” preachers and sermons I heard when I was young.
Some of those old fellas could leave me shaking in my little boots for weeks after a sermon.
Today, many people frown on that kind of preaching. They say it’s no good to scare people into heaven, that people should trust Christ because they have a full understanding of the gospel, not just because they don’t want to end up in hell. And while I understand their point, I can’t help but think that a healthy dose of fear is exactly what this world could use today.
Besides, it’s not like hell was the only thing these men talked about in their sermons. The majority of those preachers faithfully preached the word of God week in, week out. They taught about God’s love, our sin, Christ’s sacrificial death for that sin, and salvation by faith- through grace.
And when they did preach on hell, there was no need for emotionalism or scare tactics. All they had to do was preach the truth from the Bible. God makes it pretty clear – hell is a scary place.
There is nothing wrong with celebrating and preaching about God’s love, but I’m afraid these days, many churches emphasize His love to the exclusion of all his other attributes. In doing so, we’ve raised a whole generation of people who think there are no consequences for our sin.
Because all they ever hear about is God’s love, they don’t understand how a loving God could send anyone to a place called hell, and therefore, many of them don’t even believe in a real place called hell.
In not wanting to “scare” anyone into heaven, I’m afraid we’ve kept many out of it. Because in not sharing the whole of who God is, we have failed to let people see their need of him, or be able to fully appreciate just how amazing his love for us is.
Yes, God loves us with an all-consuming, unconditional love But God is also holy, and as much as He loves us, He hates sin, and his holiness must punish sin. And guess what? We have all sinned. Therefore, our sin must be punished.
God is also just, and his justice says that a fair punishment for our sins is eternal death in a real place called hell, where real people will experience real torment – forever.
But, because He loves us so much, He sent his son to die for us, to take our punishment, that if we believe on Him, we may escape hell and go to a very real place called heaven.
No, telling people about hell in order to help them understand their need for heaven is not wrong. At times, it is the most effective, the most loving thing we can do.
After all, what do you think God is doing in this chapter?