Purchased from among men, the hundred and forty-four thousand are those who follow the Lamb absolutely and who have become the firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. That they are purchased from the earth indicates that they are redeemed ones, a part of the church. The phrase from the earth proves that they are no longer on the earth but have been raptured to the heavens (Rev. 14:3).
In Revelation 12 the rapture of the man-child, who fights against God’s enemy, is for a function before God. God needs the man-child to be raptured to the heavens to fight the battle with His enemy so that the enemy might be defeated and cast down to the earth for the fulfillment of God’s purpose. In the same principle, the firstfruits in chapter 14 do not merely enjoy the rapture but satisfy God’s need. God and the Lamb need enjoyment. God is hungry and thirsty. He desires some firstfruits to taste for His satisfaction. On the one hand, the man-child fulfills God’s purpose by defeating His enemy, and on the other hand, the firstfruits are for God’s satisfaction. As the firstfruits offered to God in the temple for His satisfaction, the living overcomers enjoy the rapture in order to take care of God’s need.
We should pay attention to our maturity so that we may be the firstfruits to satisfy the heart of God. For us to give God this enjoyment, we need to be matured. If we are still immature, how can we be the firstfruits and be raptured? Instead, the Lord will have to leave us in the field until we ripen.
In order to be the firstfruits, we must love the Lord Jesus. We need to tell Him how much we love Him, and we need to remain with Him in a loving way. We should spend our time in loving the Lord, saying, “Lord, I enjoy looking at You and talking to You. Lord, I want to satisfy You, to be one with You, and to stay in Your presence.” We should learn to spend time loving the Lord Jesus in an intimate way. If we have never had such a time, we are short. It is not adequate merely to be sinless; neither is it sufficient simply to be good or right. We must be in love with the Lord. We all need to fall in love with the Lord Jesus, telling Him, “O Lord Jesus, I love You, and You know that I love You. Because I love You, Lord, there are certain things that I will not do.” This is the way to be a living overcomer. Although the Lord certainly needs the man-child to fight against His enemy, even more He needs the firstfruits, His lovers, to be His satisfaction.
We have seen that in type, the firstfruits were brought into God’s house, the temple, for His satisfaction. This was even true of the Lord Jesus as the firstfruits (1 Cor. 15:20, 23). On the morning of His resurrection, the Lord did not allow Mary to touch Him. He said, “Do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father” (John 20:17). Here the Lord was indicating that He had to present His freshness in His resurrection to His Father, for His Father must be the first to taste the freshness of His resurrection. We should learn to present ourselves in a fresh, intimate, and loving way to the Lord for His enjoyment. If we decline to do or touch certain things simply because we are afraid of something, we are not on the high plane of being a lover of the Lord. Rather, we are down on a lower level. We must be on the highest plane, refusing to do certain things, not out of fear but out of love for the Lord. The sisters desire to be with their husbands instead of going home to their parents because they love their husbands. Likewise, because we love the Lord, we will refrain from doing certain things. We may have the liberty, and it may not be wrong to do them, but simply because of our love for the Lord Jesus, we would not do them.
We should be firstfruits, those who ripen earlier for the Lord’s satisfaction. We need to say, “Lord, for the sake of Your satisfaction, I want to ripen early. Lord, I don’t care for my rapture. I care for Your satisfaction. I want to be taken to the heavens to satisfy You. Lord, as long as I can satisfy You, it makes no difference to me whether I am on earth or in heaven.” This is the attitude of the living overcomers.
Because it does not matter to the firstfruits where they are, we are not told that they are caught up; instead, we are simply told that the one hundred forty-four thousand firstfruits are standing with the Lamb on Mount Zion. As we have pointed out, this surely is not the Zion on earth but the Zion in the heavens. If we are one of the living overcomers, it will make no difference to us whether or not we are raptured. Because we are already in the Lord’s presence, the rapture will not come as a surprise. It does not matter to us whether we are in His presence here on earth or there on Mount Zion. When we get there, we will not be surprised. Those who are raptured as the firstfruits will have no feeling of surprise. Rather, they will say, “Lord Jesus, I have been with You continuously for years. Lord, it makes no difference whether I am on earth or in the third heaven. I have no special feeling about being here because I have been in Your presence for years. I have lived in this atmosphere for a long time.” To the outsiders, it would come as a surprise if they saw us standing on Mount Zion, but it should not be a surprise to us. It should be a common experience. If we truly love the Lord and live in intimate fellowship with Him, the rapture will not come as a surprise; it will be an ordinary experience.
The church as the testimony of Jesus is God’s farm to grow the divine crop (1 Cor. 3:9). This crop is first the one hundred forty-four thousand firstfruits, a small number, and then the harvest, the majority (Rev. 14:1-5, 14-16). This indicates that in the church life we all need to grow. Verse 4 shows the way to grow. This verse says concerning the firstfruits, “These are they who have not been defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are they who follow the Lamb wherever He may go.” In order to grow, we need to stay away from any kind of defilement. Daniel and his three friends were offered the best food in the royal palace in Babylon, but Daniel purposed in his heart not to defile himself by eating food that had been offered to idols. In this way, these young men kept themselves from being defiled (Dan. 1:5-6, 8). Everywhere on the earth today there is defilement. We must be careful not to be defiled, and we must also follow Jesus wherever He goes. If we follow Christ, we will not go to places of defiling worldly entertainment, because Jesus never goes there. If we separate ourselves to the Lord, we will grow every day, and we will be the firstfruits produced by the church life.
If we mean business in the church life, we will grow in life. In the local churches, the crop is growing. If we simply come to the church meetings and follow the flow of the divine life, we will not remain the same but will grow in life. The church in our locality must be fertile soil, and we must all grow in life.
The church is a farm to grow Christ. If we attend the church meetings, the divine life within us will begin to grow and sprout. The divine life within us will make us glowing and shining persons because the church is God’s farm. Some on this farm will be the firstfruits. They will ripen first because they are growing more quickly. In a wheat field the grains which ripen first are those nearer the center of the field whereas the grains on the edges ripen last. They need to be left for a longer time in the field to be scourged and burned by the bright sun. Then they too will be ripened and ready to harvest. If we desire to ripen early to be among the firstfruits, we need to be in the center of the church life. We should not stay on the edges of the church life. If we remain in the corners of the church life, we may miss the rapture of the firstfruits and be left to ripen on the earth during the great tribulation.
Today God is moving in the overcomers by growing in them (Col. 2:19). He is making them mature to arrive at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13; Col. 1:28b). The maturity comes out of our growth in life. In Ephesians 4 we see that we are growing up into the Head in all things and that all the Body causes the growth of the Body (vv. 15-16). This growth comes from God’s growing in us. The growing is God’s operating, and the operating is God’s moving.
According to the description in Revelation 14, the firstfruits are the saints who are saturated with the Lord Jesus. They are the ones who have been fully occupied with Christ and taken over by Christ until they are matured. Our heart should ache for many of the Lord’s children who seem to be ignorant, careless, and dull concerning the need to be matured. How serious it is that we are God’s farm, God’s crop! We need to consider how mature we are. Will we be among the firstfruits or the harvest? We need to take this word seriously and bring this matter to the Lord.
We all should heed the warning and realize that we need to be mature. We all need to pray, “Lord, have mercy upon me that I would be a part of the firstfruits and that I would be an overcomer.” We need to see God’s purpose and intention, and we need to see our responsibility to cooperate with Him. We should enjoy Christ, participate in Him, and take Him in until we are matured.
Christ is the seed, He is the growth, He is the transformation, and He is even the firstfruits and the harvest. Whoever gains Him the most will be at the top of the harvest and will be among the firstfruits. Those who are the firstfruits spoken of in Revelation 14 will be among those who will be co-kings with Christ in the millennium.