The Great Tribulation under the sixth seal (Revelation 6:12-17) is when the 144,000 Jews of Israel’s twelve tribes will be called and sealed by the ministry of the two Jewish prophets (Revelation 11:3; Revelation 7:2-4). John sees the sealed group of 144,000 Jews standing with the Lamb on Mount Zion, having the name of the Lamb’s Father written in their foreheads.
The Lamb is Christ who came in His Father’s name (John 5:43). The revealed name of the Father is the Lord Jesus Christ, for Jehovah of the Old Testament is Jesus Christ of the New Testament. The Father’s name written in the foreheads of the sealed Jewish group shows that they will have received the revelation of Jesus Christ by the opening of the Word in exactly the same way as the Gentile Bride did. No longer are they under the Mosaic Law which was represented by Mount Sinai, but will have come into the Grace covenant, represented by Mount Zion.
After the Jewish group has been sealed and united with Christ, a Voice then booms from Heaven, Its sound being as many waters and as the sound of great thunder (Revelation 14:2). The sound from Heaven is the Voice of God who makes Himself known by the mysteries of the Word being revealed. The reference to many waters is how Jesus’ Voice is described in Revelation 1:15, because Jesus is the visible expression of the invisible Father who is Spirit (John 4:24). Jesus’ Voice was heard through the multitudes of witnesses, who by the Holy Spirit all through the ages have testified to Christ and preached His Gospel. All of them were the Voice of Jesus Christ by the Holy Ghost down through the ages.
The Voice of God being likened to a great thunder gives further confirmation to the seven thunders of Revelation 10:3 being the Voice of God making known to us the mysteries contained in the seven seals. The thunders in their essence are the revelation of Jesus Christ to the individual personally, and is what each member of the 144,000 Jewish group shall have, a personal revelation from the Father (the Holy Spirit) of who Jesus Christ is to them.
As a new song was sung when the Lamb took the Book and opened It (Revelation 5:9), so a new song is sung by the Jewish group (Revelation 14:3) who have experienced a very personal and unique salvation, for they are the only ones who get salvation, sanctification and the Spirit infilling during the Tribulation. No wonder it is they alone who can learn the song and sing it, for nobody else has ever undergone an experience as exceptional as theirs will be.
The 144,000 Jewish group are virgin eunuchs, in that they were not defiled with women (Revelation 14:4). Being mostly made up of Orthodox Jews, they have kept themselves separate from the corrupting influence of the denominational churches which are harlots in the sight of God (Revelation 17:5). As spiritual eunuchs, they will be in the Millennium, and will be attendants to Christ and His Bride during the thousand-year reign on the earth.
After seeing the 144,000 Jewish group united with Christ, John then sees three angels, each having a specific message to the inhabitants of the earth (Revelation 14:6-12). The three angels are Martin Luther, John Wesley, and William Branham, who were the earthly messengers to the church ages of Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. Martin Luther had the everlasting gospel in his preaching of salvation by grace through faith. Instead of fearing the tyranny of Catholicism, Luther put his trust in God to boldly preach his message, for only God can forgive sin, only He is to be worshipped, and only He will judge all things (not the false church).
John Wesley expanded upon what Luther brought by preaching a message of holiness and sanctification, because the false church had committed spiritual fornication and had fallen far from what the scriptures actually teach. In referencing the wine and fornication of Babylon, John Wesley was against the natural consumption of alcohol and sexual immorality. He had high standards of holiness, and by his methodology, the Methodist movement was established.
The prophet William Branham and the unparalleled supernatural that followed his worldwide ministry was unquestionable confirmation of his ministry being the final message to the final age, even as Moses was given two signs as confirmation of his ministry. The prophet’s message would scream out against the false church and the denominational systems (the Beast and its image), and would call out a Bride, to escape the Mark of the Beast and be sealed into the Kingdom of God.
But for all who take the Mark of the Beast and worship the Beast and its image, they shall drink of the wine of God’s wrath (Revelation 14:10) by being cast into the Great Tribulation, wherein the seven vials of God’s wrath will be poured out upon them. Having been destroyed in this life, they will all be cast into the Lake of Fire that follows the Great White Throne of Judgment (Revelation 20:11-15).
Their torment will be in the presence of the Lamb and his holy angels, for when God sent seven messengers (earthly angels) to the seven church ages, their message was the blood of mercy to each age, in that it was where the Throne of Mercy could be found, and is where Christ the Lamb was. But when the Word for the age was rejected, then the Throne of Mercy became a Throne of Judgment to those who turned It down. Their names having been struck off the Book of Life, they will be cast into the Lake of Fire in the sight of the Lamb and the seven earthly messengers.
John then sees one like unto the Son of Man seated upon a cloud with a golden crown on His head and a sharp sickle in His hand (Revelation 14:14). The sickle speaks of harvest; namely, Israel’s three harvests of barley, wheat and grapes. These three harvests corresponded with Israel’s three major feasts each year; the first was Passover, the second was Pentecost, and the third was Tabernacles. Barley harvest took place during the Passover season in the early Spring, the wheat harvest took place during the Pentecost season in the late Spring, and the vintage harvest took place about the time of Tabernacles in the Autumn.
These three harvests represent God’s dealings with the Jewish Church, the Gentile Church, and those who rejected the Word for their age at the end time. Barley harvest had its fulfillment in the resurrection of the Old Testament saints at Calvary according to 1 Corinthians 5:7 and Matthew 27:50-53. Wheat harvest has its fulfillment in the resurrection and Rapture of the New Testament saints according to Matthew 13:24-30 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. The vintage harvest has its fulfillment at Armageddon according to Isaiah 63:1-6 and Revelation 14:17-20.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the Angel of the wheat harvest that John saw sitting upon a white cloud. It was the Lord Jesus who showed His face in the Cloud above Arizona on February 28, 1963, revealing Himself as the Supreme Judge and Warrior King. In verse one of Revelation chapter fourteen, Jesus is seen standing as the Lamb, but in verse 14 Jesus is seated on the Cloud in His office as the Warrior King and Supreme Judge to execute judgment upon those who rejected His Word.
The great Warrior King has a golden crown upon His head whilst seated on the cloud, for when the Cloud appeared in Arizona, It moved over Sunset Mountain in the Coronado National Forest. The word “coronado” means “crowned” in the Spanish language. The crown upon Christ’s head looks forward with anticipation to the time when He is crowned by His saints when we are all gathered before His Throne.
Jesus has a sickle in His hand to gather in the great wheat harvest of His Gentile Bride in the last days. The coming of this great One is described for us in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17: For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. From this we learn that the ingathering of the wheat harvest would happen in three parts under the Shout, the Voice, and the Trumpet.
The Shout is the reaping of the harvest from the field of souls in this world. It is the cutting of the wheat stalks; in other words, a people are being called out in the last days by the message of God’s prophet (Malachi 4:5; Revelation 10:7). The Voice is the threshing of the wheat where the stalks are beaten off, followed by the winnowing of the wheat where the chaff is blown away. This is the part we are in now, whereby the character of Christ is being formed in us as more and more of the sinful flesh nature is made subject to the Word and we come more and more into Christ’s image and likeness, being His Voice to this final age under our church age messenger.
Lastly is the Trumpet, which represents the garnering of the wheat (its ingathering into the barn after having been threshed and winnowed). This represents the perfecting of the Bride and the fulfilling of Her heavenly commission (Revelation 10:8-11), after which She is taken into Glory in the great translation of seven ages of New Testament saints.
Christ crowned as King shows that His Throne of Mercy has become a Throne of Judgment, for after He has harvested the wheat Bride, He will then harvest the vintage. This is made known to us in Revelation 14:15, whereby another angel came out of the temple to announce that the time is ripe for the 144,000 Jews to be killed. Christ then reaps in the dead who belong to Him. The foolish virgins and the 144,000 Jews will all be gathered into the presence of the Lord, for they are seen standing on the sea of glass in Revelation 15:2.
Next, we see another angel who also has a sickle in his hand, and with him is another angel who has power over fire (Revelation 14:17-18). Whereas the two angels of Revelation 14:15 and Revelation 14:17 came out of the temple, the angel with power over fire came out from the brazen altar. The brazen altar was where the sacrifices were killed and the blood of those sacrifices was poured out. It is under the brazen altar of the heavenly sanctuary that the fifth seal Jews are waiting to be avenged (Revelation 6:9-11), showing that the brazen altar is connected with the avenging of Jewish blood (at Armageddon) upon those who rejected the blood of Christ.
The use of the word “sickle” appears seven times in Revelation chapter fourteen. This is no accident, for God is demanding judgment upon the world because all seven church ages rejected the Word. As each church age had a plague dropped on it for rejecting the Word, the last church age will get the seven plagues of the seven vials poured out upon it, because the last age is the one that rejected the fullness of the Word, and in rejecting the fullness of the Word, it will be punished with the fullness of judgment.
Now the scene is set for the cutting down of the wicked at Armageddon. The wicked are not quality grapes, but are wild grapes who are ripe for punishment and shall be cut down without mercy. The angel with power over fire and his connection with the sickle-wielding angel shows that the bloodshed of Armageddon will be coupled with the fire of nuclear and volcanic activity, bringing immense destruction upon the planet.
The Bible tells us in the books of Joel and Jeremiah that a sickle will be used to gather the vintage for the trampling, and that the Word of God as a hammer will break in pieces all that would resist It. Joel 3:13: Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Jeremiah 23: 29: Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? The harvest of the vintage is representative of the Tribulation and Armageddon wherein God will destroy the Gentile nations that have opposed Israel and rejected His Word. So in the last days God has specially prepared a nation to bring His Word to pass and will use it to execute His judgment upon America and Rome for turning down the prophet and his message.
It is the nation of Russia that God has chosen as the vessel through whom His wrath will be executed. The Communist flag of Russia (when it was the Soviet Union) bore the symbols of a sickle and hammer to represent the unity of the working class, of the industrial worker and the agricultural peasant. But these symbols on the flag do not just speak of unity and strength, but point our attention back to the scriptures, and to the words of Joel and Jeremiah, of the sickle and the hammer God will soon use to ignite World War Three.
Russia and its armies along with the Beast and its armies will all be gathered in Israel for Armageddon. It is then that the vintage will be trampled, and the ripened wild grapes shall burst forth their red juices, having being strongly squashed by the Almighty. The red juices of the grapes symbolize the violent shedding of blood that will ensue in the nation of Israel at Armageddon.
The winepress of God’s wrath will be trodden outside the city of Jersualem (Revelation 14:20), and the bloodshed of Israel’s enemies will be spilled in a two-hundred-mile (1600 furlongs) circumference around Jerusalem. Having ignored the blood that was shed for them on the cross of Calvary, the Gentile nations shall pay with their own blood, and torrents of it. The blood shed at Armageddon will produce so many corpses that it will pool-up to the depth of one-and-a-half meters in some places!! No wonder John said that the blood would reach unto the horse bridles! The immense bloodshed in the nation of Israel at Armageddon will soak into the soil of the Holy Land and will act as a very rich fertilizer for the land around Jersualem to bloom in the Kingdom Age.
Proceed to Revelation Chapter 15