The victorious saints die "in the Lord." They are "beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God" (Revelation 20:4). This means they have abandoned their own thinking and plans concerning their image, their relationships, their fruitfulness, and their dominion. They have entered the Amen of God.

They have ceased from their own works. Therefore the works of God follow them wherever they go. They have attained the glory, the union with God available to all who are willing to turn aside from their own life and follow Christ wherever He goes.

This is why those who die "in the Lord" are blessed and why their works follow them. It is because they now have entered the stream of God's power and wisdom. They are resting in God and with God, and the fruit they have been foreordained to bear is beginning to come forth (Ephesians 2:10).

One cannot grow fruit in the wilderness. It is only as we are abiding in the rest of God, in the land of promise, that we can have our "farms," so to speak, and grow the fruit of God, the spiritual perfections the Lord is seeking.

The reason Revelation 14:13 specifies a time ("from henceforth") is that we die in the Lord and rest from our own labors as soon as the "Babylon" in us has fallen, our attempt to be God has been burned in the fires of tribulation, and we have learned the patience of keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus to the point of rejecting entirely the Antichrist spirit of our fallen nature.

As we have stated previously, "Babylon" represents the mixture of religion and the world, and the efforts of men to reach Heaven by their own efforts (Revelation 18:2). It includes the worship of churches, of religious institutions.

Notice once again:

And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. (Revelation 13:13-15)

The "beast and his image" signify, according to our understanding, the attempt of man to be god, as we see today even among some Christians (Revelation 13:15).

King Nebuchadnezzar desired to be worshiped as God. He made an image of gold and commanded throughout his realm that his subjects should bow down and worship the image of gold he had made. Those who did not worship were to be killed immediately.

Then an herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, O people, nations, and languages, That at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up: And whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. (Daniel 3:4-6)

To be continued.