UNDERSTANDING
THE BOOK OF REVELATION
Part
Six
Chapter
Fourteen and the Fall of
By
Gary Ray Branscome
As chapter fourteen begins, John sees a “Lamb” (not a
man) standing on
Here, again, I want to stress the fact that we are not
interpreting the words of Scripture, for
those words only tell us what John saw in his dream (2Corinthians 1:13). What
we are interpreting is the dream/vision itself. For that reason, even an expert
knowledge of the Greek words that are used will not help us in understanding
the dream, for the words tell us only what John saw. Moreover, because we are
interpreting a dream, that dream should never be interpreted to contradict what
the Bible plainly says elsewhere. Furthermore, if we want the truth we should
never base our doctrine on interpretations, for interpretations are the word of
man not the Word of God. On the contrary, our doctrine should consist of those
truths that are clearly and explicitly stated in Scripture, and no
interpretation should ever contradict those statements of Scripture (Isaiah
Now, when we looked at chapter thirteen I pointed out
the connection between the beast, the false prophet, and
In verse eight, another angel follows, “saying,
In verse fifteen, John sees one, “like the Son of man,”
sitting on a cloud, “having a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in
his hand”. [Notice that john is not seeing Christ Himself, but a likeness of
Him (in his dream).] And, He uses the sickle to reap a mighty harvest (of
souls). However, this harvest is reaped in “the great winepress of God’s wrath”
(Rev. 14:19). And, the imagery used here, with its reference to blood, could be
reminiscent of the wars that followed the Reformation, as
As chapter fifteen opens John sees seven angels “having
the seven final plagues; that complete God’s wrath” (Rev. 15:1). Here again,
although the Bible is giving us a plain and literal description of what John
saw, John is not seeing earthly events. The things that John saw could be as
different from what is seen on earth as the red dragon in chapter twelve was different
from Herod’s soldiers.
For example: In chapter seventeen we are told that the
sea upon which
In chapter 16, verse 13 John sees “three unclean
spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon,
and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet”.
And, in verse 14 we are told that they “are the spirits of devils, working
miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to
gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty”. “And He gathered
them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon” (Rev.
16:16).
In the light of these
verses, it is interesting to note that during the past century many, if not
most, of the governments of the world have turned against Christianity,
including our American government. We have seen the Ten Commandments banned
from public schools and courtrooms, communities told to stop putting up manger
scenes, and towns forced to remove Christian symbols from their official seal.
As to the fact that these spirits come out of the dragon, beast and false
prophet, according to one source of information, Adam Weishaupt
(who founded the secret Luciferian order of
Illuminati in 1776) was trained by the Jesuits and came out of that
organization. Some years later, after a number of European governments had
suppressed his organization, some of its former members were instrumental in forming
the Communist Party. And, up to the time the iron curtain fell the Communist Party
was playing the major role in turning governments against Christianity. At
present, secularism, humanism, and atheism are playing that role, but Satan is
still hard at work.
Now, while the name “Mageddon”
(or Megiddo) suggests divine deliverance – because God fought against Sisera in that valley – the prefix “Ar”
or “Har” means mountain, and Megiddo is a valley not
a mountain (Judges 5:19-20). Therefore, just because John saw a battle there in
his dream/vision does not mean that is what the people living on earth will
see. However, it is interesting that the communist reign in
Chapter seventeen opens with one of the seven angels
taking John aside, saying, “Come with me; I will show you the judgment of the
great whore who sits on many waters” (Rev. 17:1). Now, in an earlier lesson I
pointed out that dreams recorded in Scripture sometimes consist only of what is
seen, but at other times include a spoken message. In chapter seventeen John is
given a spoken message. The angel explains the image of
John is told that the seven heads are the “seven
mountains, on which the woman sits” (present tense), but are also “seven kings”
(Rev. 17:9-10). The city of
John is then told that the woman he saw (
As chapter eighteen opens John sees another angel “come
down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was illuminated by his
radiance”. Now, that radiance could be symbolic of the gospel. If so, the
angel’s appearance could indicate another great outpouring of the gospel. At
any rate, as soon as the angel appears the cry goes out “
That being said, I want to point out a key parallel
between chapter fourteen and chapter eighteen. In both chapters John sees an
angel. One has the “everlasting gospel” to preach, the other illuminates the
earth (compare Rev. 14:6 with 18:1). And, in both chapters the cry “
In chapter seventeen we were told that the kings
[represented by ten horns] who were supposedly under
the authority of
Conclusion
Three things to remember are: 1) As we
read this account of John’s vision, we need to clearly distinguish between the
words of Scripture – which tell us only what John saw and heard (2Corinthians 1:13)
– and the vision itself, which is highly figurative; 2) The parallels between
chapters fourteen and eighteen suggest that they both may relate to the same
events; and, 3) The dreams that are recorded in Scripture always need to be
interpreted in the light of what the Bible clearly and explicitly says – never
in the light of other interpretations.
In the next section we will look at chapter
nineteen and the Thousand Years.