Raymond Sheen
Member
Those being tormented in Revelation 14? Verse 9 - any man who worships the beast and his image and receives his the mark.
What, then, is the beast and what is his image? What is the mark? These things are subject to interpretation, of course, but IMO the beast is the kingdoms of men; history's superpowers culminating with the Anglo / American or U.K. and U.S.A. Their image is the United Nations. The mark is the mark of man; 6 being incomplete so 6 / 60 / 600 being as incomplete as it gets. 666.
I can provide evidence for this in my own interpretation of all 22 chapters of Revelation if asked to do so, below is my interpretation of problematic verses in chapter 14, but lets not get sidetracked. Revelation chapter 14:9-11 doesn't imply the Bible's teaching of hell, which is actually an apostate Christian pagan influenced teaching. Otherwise there would be a great deal of contradiction as indicated by my earlier post on hell in this thread.
Revelation 14:1-4 - Only 144,000 celibate men will be saved. (Those who were not "defiled with women.")
At 2 Corinthians 11:2 Paul likened his spiritual brothers and sisters to a promised virgin as a prospective bride for Christ Jesus. Revelation 14:1-4 is a similar comparison. The 144,000 are spiritual virgins; men and women, not literal virgins but virgins in the sense of being undefiled by the harlot, Babylon the Great. False religion. So when Jesus told Peter, who was married, that he would follow him Peter's literal virginity wasn't an issue. (John 13:36 / Mark 1:30)
Revelation 14:8 - "She made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication."
Here fornication has a symbolic application to a spiritual fornication similar to 2 Kings 9:22 / Hosea 6:10. Revelation 17:18 reveals the woman, the harlot that is Babylon the Great, as being over the kingdoms of earth. This is false religion. She gets her name Babylon from where most of the religious apostate teachings originated. The primary teachings of modern day Christendom, for example, comes, not from God's word but from ancient Babylon. The nations, for a time, feed from her power and even become drunk on it, but they will turn on her and destroy her.
Revelation 14:10-11 - "The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever."
See Earlier Post in this thread on hell.
Revelation 14:14-18 - Jesus sits on a white cloud with a sharp sickle in his hand. When the angel tells him to reap, he kills all the people with his sickle.
The harvesting that is taking place in these verses consists of the removal of Jehovah's people from Satan's system in order to serve Jehovah and his appointed King, Christ Jesus. (Matthew 13:37-43) It is a gathering of those who are on the side of God. A separation. If ultimately this separation will result in the destruction of those who are not on God's side, because as God had told Adam sin results in death, then those who don't listen or care can only blame themselves for their own destruction.
Revelation 14:19-20 - "Blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles by the space of a thousand six hundred furlongs."
A furlong corresponded with a stadium. It equals one eighth of a Roman mile, or 606.75 feet (185 m) so 1,600 furlongs equals about 184 miles (296 km). We are talking about the destruction of nations of people. (Joel 3:12-14 / Zephaniah 3:8) If Jehovah's purpose for man was to live forever in peace and harmony, and it is, but his purpose is thwarted by hate, dishonesty, greed, murder and all manners of corruption then it is going to take the removal of a great army of people to achieve that purpose.