Reaping, & Then Reaping Rev, 14:14-20

Good morning. One of the things that I always rejoice in is when we get questions. Questions are good. I like questions. I hope you get the impression that I do. And one of the questions that came up last week, someone asked this. Once someone living during the tribulation period takes the mark of the beast, it seems like they have no more chance to be saved after that, when you read the text. Is that true? And looking at the few passages that seem to address it, the answer seems to be yes. Coupled with that in each case is the worship of the beast in his image.

But what we find out, there are two specific passages that spell that out. So let's take a look at each of them in turn. One of them is in Revelation 14, 9-11. This is a passage we looked at last week that brought up the question. It surfaces this truth.

And it even says so twice. Whoever worships the beast, anyone who worships the beast in this image, and whoever receives the mark. And it kind of places those side by side, repeating it twice in that one passage. There's another one that comes a little later in Revelation. We haven't gotten to it yet, but I'll bring it up now because it reinforces the same message kind of at a later point in time.

This is sort of the positive side of the same thing here. And it says, those who are saved are those who have not worshipped the beast or his image nor taken his mark. So these will reign with the Lord during the millennium. So here's the positive side of the same truth. Same thing stated positively and negatively.

So it's interesting to note the Lord allows a great many of this dispensation to make great errors and yet still be saved. Have you noticed that? There are even programs and books that I've seen that tell one account after another of the horrible things people have done and yet still have been saved. I personally have known people who have done all kinds of amazing things, not the sort of thing that anybody would aspire to do or proclaim publicly, but they say, the Lord saved me, just the same.

And yet here you see what appears to be something that's like, once you cross this line, that's it. Now, you even find in Galatians 6, the first five verses, it talks about if someone has fallen into a sin. And it uses a word that actually means fallen alongside a dead body. And even then it says those of you who are spiritual should restore them. So there's something interesting here. In the current church dispensation, there seems to be an ability to go to fall and yet be restored. Not so here. So what's going on here?

One of the things I think we need to keep in mind, Paul has made it clear, he takes pains in Romans to spell out that salvation is by faith. And that, I believe, applies to the tribulation period as well. As a matter of fact, chapters 13 and 14 each make reference to the faith of the saints. So that's not lost on us here. The truth is, we are blessed in this church age with a whole bunch of letters from Paul and the other apostles that explain the character of salvation in our time, aren't we? We have a great deal that we can read and study and learn from.

It seems like people living during the tribulation period, it's like it's so fast and furious and they're all running for their lives, they won't have the time to get real heavy into questions like this. But putting the facts together here, it would appear since the Lord bases salvation on faith, that the Lord makes those who have placed their faith in Him able to stand." Completely able to stand, since the dividing line appears so sharp here.

Now, with that, let's turn to Revelation chapter 14, okay? The events described in Revelation chapter 14 are in great part what we would call a preview. We've been looking at this chapter so far and been looking ahead, it's kind of given us four glimpses.

Now, if we think for just a minute, we're really actually pretty accustomed to these previews. We see them on television, sometimes ad nauseum, right? If you go to see a movie, what do they do? They flood you with previews until you say, okay, let's get on with it, right? So we're really accustomed to this preview.

John's doing the same thing in literary form. He's looking ahead to events that are going to take place shortly He's saying, here folks, here's a preview. I'm giving you the quick shot to give you a glimpse ahead of what's about to take place. You see that? So chapter 14 is this look ahead.

We've got our popcorn, we're sitting down in the seat, we're getting the preview of what's about to take place. Now, there's another perspective here we have to take a look at before we go into the passage. We're going to get into this passage and quite possibly we're going to be thinking, oh no, Vern's going to teach us about some more gory, ghastly, awful, bloody story that's in the Tribulation period. And this is just another one of these wretched messes. Right? Okay. Before we let our minds go in that direction, there's a few things to keep in mind. And that is that sin is an awful thing. Okay?

Furthermore, those who have come to this point, and we'll see that very distinctly this morning, Those who have come to this point have actually totally and completely sided with Satan. We're not talking about being sort of nonchalant here. We're talking about those who have just entirely said, I'm throwing my lot in on Satan's side. I'm siding up with him. No mincing any words here. No straddling the fence. That's where I'm headed. There are those who have taken that position.

See, we're inclined to compare our sin to one another as human beings. but the Lord is saying no. My righteousness is absolute. So when we look at this comparison we have to keep it in mind this is in comparison to God's absolute righteousness and what we're seeing is absolute evil. That's the comparison, the contrast.

Now, what we're going to see this morning as we step into this passage is we're going to be seeing people who have in mind to be used of Satan to annihilate every last Jew on the planet. They're not talking about just making some disparaging remarks. We're not talking about just throwing a rock through the window of the synagogue. They aim to annihilate every last Jew on the planet. That's their intent. And so that's what he's opposing here. So we have to keep that in mind. It is a completely polarized situation. Totally polarized.

Those who have moved in this direction are totally sold out. Okay, verse 14, Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, sitting on the cloud, was one like a son of man, having a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand. Now this verse uses the phrase, one like a son of man. We saw some months back in Revelation chapter 1 that this phrase showed up there. And so here it is showing up again. John refers to it It's obvious that while Christ was on earth himself, he referred to himself as the Son of Man a number of times. And it was understood by all who heard to be a reference to the Messiah. And really this phrase, and others will be looking at it, comes straight out of a few Old Testament passages.

So one of the things I want to draw to your attention here, this I don't even begin to claim that you'll read the letters. If you do, congratulations. The idea is that it's on your handout, and so I want you to take note of that. And what we've done here is reproduce this passage, and then the three Old Testament passages that John draws from are on that page one. And what I've tried to do is to underline in both the subject passage above, as well as each of these Old Testament passages, either the words or phrases that tie them together. I'll use some color coding up here in the next sheets that I show. so that you can try to correlate them a little more directly. And I'll let you use whatever kind of codes and creative means you come up with to tie them together on your own handout, okay?

All right. Now the first one that comes up, this is something we pointed out in chapter one. Here's this reference in verse 14, and it ties into this Daniel 7 passage. And there is, first of all, the reference to clouds, or a cloud. And the other, one like a son of man.

And notice here, what's described in this, so we're not taking it out of context, is Jesus coming to reign, the Messiah coming to reign on earth. And so that passage clearly relates to that. The son of man. This is Jesus Christ, the Messiah himself. That's the one that's referenced here.

Now, a number of Orthodox Jews have, for centuries, seen this as a reference to the Messiah. Conservative Christian commentators have also seen this reference, since they believe Christ came already in His first coming, as a clear reference to the second coming. No doubt that that's what this passage is referring to. So in the early church, those in John's audience, who would have been of Jewish background but would have become believers, would have heard this. As soon as they saw this passage, they would have said, This is Jesus the Messiah John is writing about here. See? That's what they would have understood.

He is the one on the white cloud. White because white portrays absolute righteousness. That's true throughout the book of Revelation and it's true here no less. He is the one who is likened to a son of man. The next Old Testament passage that John draws from is this. Here's the same verse 14. Psalm 21, 3 and 4.

For you meet him with the blessings of good things. You set a crown of fine gold on his head. He asked life of you. You gave it to him. Length of days forever and ever. So here's another reference and that entire psalm is actually a messianic psalm. Here's the connection that's made again. And why the crown of fine gold? The crown of fine gold speaks of value, great value. It speaks of Christ's worthiness. He is worthy.

Remember one of the issues that came up in chapter 5? Who is worthy to open the seals? And John even got to the point of lamenting because he just couldn't stand to wait, right? He started crying and the elders said, don't cry. They said it a little more forcefully than that, but the reason being Christ was indeed worthy. And this gold crown indicates this indeed is a worthy worthy one. There's more to it than that. The gold is uncorruptible. That's one of the things the gold was valued for. You might have something of value but it decays over time. The gold is uncorruptible and pure.

He is the King of Kings. Now, the next passage that comes up here is from Joel chapter 3 and this is where this word sickle comes up and as we'll see In a little bit, Joel makes reference to it once, John makes reference to it seven times in this passage. It's like he's really underscoring it, okay? And we'll see more about how and why he uses that.

The sickles that we have are in pretty bad shape from 2,000 years ago. This is a Roman sickle, so this would be the idea. The handles rotted off, as you'd expect after 2,000 years, but they've got this rusty piece of metal. So this is a Roman sickle. They'd use that, of course, this one isn't sharp anymore, but they'd use a sharp sickle to do their harvesting. They would use it for harvesting all kinds of things, grain, even grapes. Go and use it to cut the clusters of grapes off.

All right, now, before we get into the next verse, this is a good time to take a pause, turn your hand out over, and take a look at these key words. Here's some key words that I think will help give us some insight And I'd like us to go through them because I think as we read through this, it'll give us some understandings that would be skipping past this otherwise. The first one is this word crown that we just saw in this verse. That's a Stephanos crown, okay?

That's a Victor's crown. And those especially of the Greek background who would be reading this verse would look at it and they'd say, aha, that's a Victor's crown. The Victor's crown given to one who had, for example, an Olympic race, won an athletic event, they would get this victor's crown. And John further describes it as golden. It's not a crown of royalty, although that's elsewhere used. In this case it's saying Jesus is victorious. And you'll see why that's important. When Jesus goes to reap here in the verses ahead, he won't do it haphazardly or by percentages. It will be total. He will be victorious.

Okay, that same word is used for the crown, that's Stephano's crown, for the 24 elders on more than one occasion. Now the next word is ripe. And here we need to make a distinction because there's two words translated ripe in this passage and they mean different things. One of them here, and the first one, carino, this is ripe referring to a withered harvest.

This is a harvest that is not satisfactory It's withered. It's not a joyous, bounteous harvest. This is a harvest where you come to it and you say, we've got to reap it, but it's not good. We're not rejoicing. This is bad stuff. We have not got a good harvest. At a withered harvest, because in those days they didn't have the opportunity to go shipping things all over the place, with a withered harvest, you knew there was months and months of trouble ahead. So as soon as people heard that word, they thought, uh-oh, this is bad. This is not good. And it says that this harvest falls short of expectations, as a matter of fact, exceedingly short. Way short of expectations. Disappointing in the extreme. The next ripe means fully ripe. Okay? So this is the one that shows up in verse 18. This is the other word, akmatzo. This word is for, it implies ripe at just the right time. Ripe at just the right time.

Now, we'll see in this context, it means that the evil and apostasy and wickedness has brought itself to full measure. It's there. It's completely arrived in terms of being fully wicked. The mass of humanity is at its diabolical worst. That's what is being conveyed here. The next one is thrust. That shows up in verses 15, 16, 18, and 19. And that's ebalen.

It comes from the Greek word balo. And we talked about this before. It's translated as thrust in many of your translations there. It's from the root word balo. And we've already talked about this. This is where we get our English word ball. That's where we talk about throwing a ball. That's where the word comes from.

Now, it conveys the idea of swinging with force, in the same way we talk about pitching a ball and throwing it, taking the sickle, swinging with force, going at it vigorously. This isn't some casual swing. This is a forceful swing. The next word, cast, is actually the same word, but just translated a different way. It means to pitch forcefully. Similar idea. That shows up in verse 19. It refers to the grapes being thrown into the wine press. They take them and chuck them into the wine press. This isn't a casual toss. This is something they're thrown into there. Now, enough introduction.

Let's turn to verse 15. And another angel came out of the temple, crying out with a loud voice to him who sat on the throne, Put in your sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has come, because the harvest of the earth is ripe. Then he who sat on the throne swung a sickle over the earth, and the earth was reaped." Now at first you might be puzzled at these two verses. Are you?

I just thought I'd ask. Anyway, why is this angel telling Jesus the Messiah what to do? Huh. That's a little strange. Okay? What place does the angel have, especially since you read here he's just another angel, telling Jesus when is the right time to reap the harvest of the earth? Sounds kind of strange. And then Jesus the Messiah goes ahead and does exactly what the angel says to do. Seems a little backward, doesn't it?

Well, so we need to take a look at it, right? Especially if you have that many questions. At least I do. Okay. First thing to look at. This is the heavenly temple he's coming out of. Okay? not just this corrupted, violated one on earth. We'll see a little farther on, there's another angel that comes out of the heavenly temple as well, with more explicit detail to that effect. The heavenly temple is where God the Father reigns.

So this angel, and you remember from last week's word list that the Greek word for angel, angelos, means messenger. That's their nature, they're messengers. This angel, who is by nature a messenger, is bringing a message from God the Father to Christ the Son. We also take note of the fact that the Father knows the times and the seasons. Remember Acts 1-7? The disciples were ready to usher in the millennium, and so they're asked in Acts 1-6, is now the time you're going to establish your kingdom? It's not the time yet. The Father knows those things.

Here, the angel is bringing the message to Christ, and so it's very appropriate for the angel to be the messenger in this case. Now, verses 17-20, they're going to shift the picture a bit. It's like a reiteration, but with some other details. Up to now, the action has been that of Christ himself carrying out the reaping of this, remember, a wizard harvest. Once we get to verses 17-20, however, The action is carried out by an angel.

And we've seen this happen previously in Revelation. Places where angels are told to do various things, a similar kind of thing here. The angels are now given the right and authority to go out and carry out certain actions. We see the angels at times get called upon to be messengers, and at other times they get called upon to execute what they've been told to do. So let's look at verses 17 through 20.

Another angel came out of the temple, which is in heaven, and he also had a sharp sickle. Then another angel, the one who has power over fire, came out from the altar, and he called with a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, Put in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, because your grapes are ripe. And so the angel swung his sickle to the earth and gathered the clusters from the vine of the earth and threw them into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood came out from the winepress up to the horses' bridles for a distance of 200 miles."

As we've shown, and you see on page 1 of your handout, verse 14 draws from the image of the sickle here in Joel chapter 3, verses 12 and 13. Now that we've read these verses as well here, let's take a look at something. This word sickle shows up seven times in this passage, four of those times it is described as a sharp sickle.

And you think of it, the people who are first reading this is largely an agrarian population. In our society we now have a small percentage of the people actually involved in the whole food production and harvest, but in those days it was the other way around. The vast majority of the people were involved in some aspect of food production. So here, these people hear this and they're instantly thinking, as they see this, they're thinking reaping. This sickle keeps talking about, it's reaping time, it's time to pull in the harvest.

And four times John uses the word sharp, that word sharp is shown seven times in the book of Revelation, four times here with the sickle, the other three times that word sharp is used is the sword that comes out of Christ's mouth. So all seven times that the word sharp is used, it's associated with judgment. Every time. Now, we have another angel that comes out of Heaven's Temple.

This one is taking his orders from the Father as well. He too is prepared to reap having a sickle, but he is specifically directed to reap using the picture of the grape harvest. That comes out here in this particular passage, doesn't it? the picture of the grape harvest. Now, years ago I worked in the grape vineyards for a dollar and a quarter an hour. That tells you how long ago that was.

One of the things that they were particularly concerned about, they looked very careful at when is the exact moment to begin. They would go out among the grapes and they would gather samplings and they would run them through a sugar tester to find when is it optimum, when is it just right, when is now the time. And although they didn't have sugar testers in those days, they were looking for much the same thing. When is it right now the right time? And that's the exact same kind of thing you see coming out of this passage. Both the word for ripe that is used, as well as the statement afterwards, now is the right time. This is the right time. There's no question.

In those days, there were different kinds of wine presses. Some of them were made of wood. Here's an example of one of them from biblical times, where they would just simply make a thing of stone. In this case, it shows a kind of a canopy over the top. They could throw the grapes in there, and then the person would tromp them, and then the grape juice would come out into a container off to the side. And that was a pattern commonly used. They would, like I say, sometimes use wood staves in there and have a similar kind of design. But that was the general way it was done.

The words in Revelation 14, 17-20 are drawn so consistently from this Joel 3, 12, and 13 passage that John's message is unmistakable to those who are reading it. John is referring to God's response to Satan's campaign to erase all the Jews from the face of the planet. One of the words that we're going to see later on, we get into chapter 16 and then again into chapter 19, is Armageddon. And that word pops up. The reality is that it's a word that even the world has become used to.

Here are some passages where this campaign, actually people talk about the battle of Armageddon, in truth, It's part of a larger campaign, and it's probably better to think of it in terms of multiple attacks. And these describe several aspects of this campaign and its outcome, including this passage we're looking at here in Revelation 14, and we're going to be looking at it again in chapters 16 and 19, the final time. This campaign that extends over a period of time right towards the end of the Tribulation period, focused on dealing with Satan's attack in an attempt to wipe out the Jews.

There are three areas where this comes up. This is the valley of Megiddo, here, and you notice it is just west of the Sea of Galilee. The second place, the second area of this campaign is right around Jerusalem. And the third one is actually off the bottom end of this map here, and we talked about it in chapter 12, out in the wilderness.

So there'll be three areas that will be involved in this campaign that is related to Armageddon. This campaign of Armageddon, I guess, is the phrase I want to get across here. As we go through here, starting over in this area, this is the upper area, this is Har-Megiddo. We have this sort of anglicized form, Armageddon. The Hebrew is Har-Megiddo, it's the Valley of Megiddo.

This is a shot from up in the mountains. This is the valley, the entrance right over here, and it's a little hard to see perhaps, but in this area is the bay where it would be the entrance where troops would land. But here you see a fellow tending some cattle up in the mountains right up above it. And this would be an area where they would enter into this valley. Here is Harma Ghetto, viewed from the ancient fortress that's in that area. So this again is in the northern section of the land of Israel. Then looking farther on from the mountains, here's another view from those mountains. This again is the northern area.

Now, what this particular passage is talking about, and we'll go into the reasons why in a minute, it's referring instead to the campaign that's taking place around Jerusalem. So one of the things that's going to happen here, we've seen this picture before. Here is the Temple Mount, and here's the Mount of Olives.

The Valley of Jehoshaphat, that you read about in Joel chapter 3, is this valley right in between. It's the one that Jesus crossed on what's become known as the Triumphal Entry, and where He actually, as He came down the mountain, what was He doing? Sobbing, great sobs, and we're reading part of the reason why.

As He came down over that valley, He saw what they didn't. and this would be a place of great massacre. Now, here's another scene a little bit closer so you get a view of the valley itself. This is looking from the walls in Jerusalem. It's in this very valley. Let me read to you from Joel chapter 3 and then a small portion at the end of Revelation 14 looking at this and then picture what it's describing. Here it starts off with Joel chapter 3 verses 1 and 2.

For behold, in those days and at that time I will restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem. I will gather all the nations and bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat." Right here. Then I will enter into judgment with them there on behalf of my people and my inheritance Israel. Notice what he said? My inheritance Israel. Verse 11.

Hasten and come, all you surrounding nations, and gather yourselves there. Bring down, O Lord, your mighty ones. Let the nations be aroused, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat." Brings it up again. "'For there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations, to put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come tread, for the winepress is full, the vats overflow, for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision, for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.

And finally in Revelation 14.20, and the wine press was trodden outside the city. And here's the city walls right here that we're looking at. The wine press was trodden outside the city and blood came out from the wine press up to the horses' bridles for a distance of 200 miles.

This is describing a mass disaster. A mass disaster. So you can envision this huge gathering. This huge gathering, finally, once and for all, Satan thinks he's going to take them out. Instead, he will be totally lost. The valley that you see before you will be filled with those cooperating with Satan, seeking the annihilation of the Jews whom God chose as his people. God himself will bring judgment on them. The Jews will recognize that it is God alone who has saved them. Moreover, it will be Jesus Christ, their Messiah, who will do it. and the Jews will finally recognize their Lord.

When people of this world hear the word Armageddon, they think of some global catastrophe, some massive cataclysm. It's because they don't know the Scriptures. Once we know the meaning of those words in Revelation 14, we don't need to think of just some global catastrophe. It's actually quite specific.

We can instead think about a God who will miraculously intervene on the side of the Jews, His chosen people, keeping them from annihilation. This is a text that speaks of God's miraculous intervention on behalf of the Jews. It is but one example of how God will intervene on their behalf during this time. The Jews are a people to whom God has made a great many promises. Now, if we think about it, Every believer here this morning might be thinking, well, that's very interesting, Bern. And I'm sure those Jews who will be saved will be really thankful for it.

But what does this mean to me? I personally had just a little tiny fraction of Jewish blood in me, so it's not really significant. So why the difference? Well, I have placed my faith in Christ. So I'm not even going to go through this. Why does it matter? So if you're asking these questions, making those observations, good! That's a good start.

You've recognized that your hope and your position and your relationship to the Lord is different from that of the Jew during this coming tribulation period. As a church-age believer, you recognize then that your blessed hope is not in the deliverance from this satanic attack, but that your blessed hope is in Christ coming for you before this ever comes about. You know where your hope is if you're a believer here this morning. The Jew of this coming tribulation has their hope in the Messiah.

There's no doubt. They're going to be saying, we're dead unless the Messiah comes right now. Unless God does something, we're cooked. And they will recognize and realize exactly that. They will finally realize that only God can save us. All the very fine armaments we have and the best intelligence organization in the world that's not going to save us from this one. As a church-age believer, however, your position is untouchable in the heavens, no matter what happens here on planet Earth.

See the difference there? The Jew of this coming tribulation has a future position with the Messiah. That's where his position is. With the Messiah. On the Earth, in the millennium to come. That's what the Jews of this time are going to be hoping for. and they'll have a right hope. It won't be false. But as a church-age believer, you've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ already, totally, and irreversibly.

See the contrast there? For the Jew of this coming tribulation period, his blessings are still to come. He has to wait for them. We don't. We've been blessed already, 100%, totally, irreversibly, with every spiritual blessing. A sharp contrast. a wonderful contrast.

Though God has chosen to deal with different groups in history, different people in different ways, one of the things that this passage does show is that God is faithful. The initial promises to deliver them from this came about 3,400 years ago, and yet God's still faithful.

He's going to follow through on every promise he makes, even if it's Been a long time. He's going to follow through. Because he is faithful. That's his character. He is forever faithful. He'll be good to his promises to the Jews. And he will be good on his statements already made for us. Already made for us. Statements of salvation and blessing and provision and position. For every people of every time. But especially for us.

The Lord will be faithful to it. Everything that he's promised us, everything that he said he's already given us, is there, and we can thank him for it. Let's pray. Lord, as we read about this, it is amazing, and I'm sure those Jews who will see it will be absolutely astounded at what they see. And yet, we see ahead of time, and perhaps not many years ahead of time, but we see ahead of time, Lord, that you are indeed faithful to every promise that you've made, and faithfulness is who you are. It is your very character, and we can count upon that. And Lord, as we read this this morning, we recognize their position, and we also, in contrast to that, recognize our own, and recognize that we can stand on the things that you've done and accomplished, and the place that we have seated with you already, right now, fixed in the heavenlies. untouchable and irreversible. We thank you for that, Lord. What a marvelous hope we have. In Jesus' name, Amen.