Revelation 14:14-20
Last week we looked at the three angels who came from heaven to proclaim an “eternal gospel” it said, and that eternal gospel was this ~ 7 And he said with a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.”
The eternal gospel was “fear God” or receive his wrath. Now this obviously was to non believers. It was a last call of sorts, a last opportunity to worship the only true God or suffer the consequences.
Now this should tell us something very important. When salvation is at stake it is not necessarily love that should be preached to the unsaved first but God's wrath and hell unto the unrepentant sinner. This is what God does, and I am confident If God does this we are called to follow the same path.
God's wrath on the the unsaved is how we approach the unsaved and then we can follow it up with “but God loves you and as it says in 2 Peter 3:9 ~ The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
The Harvest of the Earth Revelation 14:14-20
14 Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand.
Now I have to be honest, I have never used a sickle before, and when I think of one I usually identify it with the Grim Reaper, you know that ghostly looking guy that goes around cutting peoples heads off.
When I see the sickle, I sense the power that comes with it as it sweeps across cutting in two anything that gets in its way.
Here Christ himself will wield the sickle to cut down the unsaved for not worshiping God and repenting of their sin. Christ the Savior of the world takes part in the wrath of God upon the lost.
The verse says the sickle was sharp, this means Jesus was ready for this day and he insured that the sickle he would use was sharpened properly in order to do the job it was meant to do, that is with great efficiency. If that sickle was aimed at an unsaved person it was going to do that job that it was created to do and with little effort.
15 And another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, “Put in your sickle, and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.”
This is interesting that an angel is giving instruction to Jesus on what to do. But this doesn't appear to be just any angel, it says that this angel came out of the temple of heaven or the temple of God himself.
This angel was given instruction by God to relay to Jesus to begin the harvest of the lost. This angel was a messenger of God the father.
Now I wouldn't think Jesus would need this to communicate with God, rather I would think that they are linked in a way where Jesus would know everything God the father was thinking at all times, but this isn't the case it seems.
This shows I think that God is the head of the trinity, the one in charge, this is the Fathers function in this relationship within the three. And within this it shows God is in some ways separate to an extent, or at least in part.
In the family or in the church we see a similar structure. The father of a family or the pastor of a church needs to have some separation with some knowledge to the family or flock for many reasons. Some may disagree with this but I think it is just part of the responsibility of one who leads for the protection and safety of those who they lead.
16 So he who sat on the cloud swung his sickle across the earth, and the earth was reaped.
I'm not sure this needs much explanation, the earth was reaped, by Jesus.
It is interesting that there is on one hand a sowing and reaping of the saved and also a sowing and reaping of the unsaved. Though there are two different means of this one is of God and one is of the world which is why it says “the earth was reaped”.
Matthew 13:3-9 ~ 3 And he (Jesus) told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, 6 but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away.
7 Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8 Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 He who has ears, let him hear.”
The road is narrow brothers and sisters and there is only one path. It is important that we “work out our salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12). That is that we must strive to be all scripture says we must be. Salvation is work, we do not gain salvation by works but our works are proof of our salvation, and they flow from us naturally.
17 Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. 18 And another angel came out from the altar, the angel who has authority over the fire, and he called with a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle (the angel), “Put in your sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe.”
This angel's sickle, is a little different than the sickle Jesus used. Jesus used a sickle that uses a large sweeping motion and cuts down large amounts at a time like wheat.
This angel's sickle is used to cut clusters off the earths vine, like grapes. It could be these unbelievers were a little more dug in and had banned together in small groups and thus needed a little different approach for their harvest.
19 So the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. 20 And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress, as high as a horse's bridle, for 1,600 stadia.
1,600 stadia is 180 miles. This is how far the blood flowed and it flowed as deep it says as a horses bridle. Also I would say that this deep flow of blood went out in all directions.
This is a violent and gruesome description of God's wrath justly applied to those unrepentant unbelievers.
This application of wrath was not applied gently but rather was crushed into and through the unbeliever, it was not lightly applied but rather it was applied with great force and with harsh intent. As a winepress squeezes the last drops of juice from the grape this press meant for wrath squeezes the last bit of anything that is earthly meaningful, and replaces it with the fullness of God's horrific wrath.
