Two Harvests
The Conquering Lamb • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
When I was a kid, my dad had all sorts of phrases that he said that I will never forget.
Squeaky wheel gets the grease
Money doesn’t grow on trees —usually uttered after I left a light on in a room I am not in
Early bird gets the worm
None of these are groundbreaking proverbs
They are common phrases that my dad catalogued through the years
But he didn’t know the Lord or read the Bible—these were the only proverbs he knew
And yet there was one proverb of Mike Howard that he taught me before he was a Christian. And then after he was a Christian, he kept teaching it to me.
You reap what you sow.
In fact, I can say this was the #1 Proverb of Mike Howard Sr.
In God’s common grace, the most regular principle that was taught in my home growing up by my unsaved father was a Bible verse.
How good is God!
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.
My dad didn’t figure out the part about revering God until October of 1998
But he was teaching me and my sister about sowing and reaping long before that
Even lost men know the truth.
You reap what you sow.
Nature has told them in the fields that this is the way it is.
The hard teacher of consequences has shown them.
You see them wrestling with it in the false religions they make up
They all know the inescapable reality, no matter how much they may want to deny it.
God will not be mocked. You reap what you sow.
Tonight, we see a reaping.
We see a harvest—two of them in fact.
One of wheat and one of grapes
And in these two harvests, what sown is going to be rooted up
What is planted will be pulled up from the soil and placed before the judgment throne of the One who owns the fields and vineyards
What is sown, will be reaped.
CONTEXT
CONTEXT
We are at the end of four of seven cycles.
Each cycle has shown up the entire age of the church from a different perspective
We saw the time between Christ’s first and second coming through John’s vision of Christ in the midst of the seven churches
We saw this age of Gospel witness again through the seven seals
Then in the third cycle, we saw this time described using the seven trumpets
In Cycle 4, we have seen this war between the Dragon and God.
And it has all led up to this.
If you side with God and the Lamb—the Lord Jesus Christ—then you will be a part of one harvest
If you side with the Dragon and his persecuting beast and his lying false prophet—then you will be a part of a different harvest.
This scene in Revelation 14 tonight is the end.
We have seen the end already in different language during the other cycles, but with each cycle, the language of judgment intensifies.
It is more vivid here than it has been thus far
For the believer, there is a combination of relief and burden to go and share the Gospel in these verses
For the unbeliever, there is an urgent warning to repent and believe in Jesus Christ
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. 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.” So he who sat on the cloud swung his sickle across the earth, and the earth was reaped.
Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. 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, “Put in your sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe.” 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. 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.
THE HARVESTER (v. 14)
THE HARVESTER (v. 14)
Chapter 14 began with the phrase, “Then I looked, and behold...”
What did John see when he looked up? Jesus the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion.
Then we had this message from the three angels, which were both a warning to the unbelieving world and a call on the church to hold on.
And now, we get to the final section of chapter 14 and once again we have that phrase— “Then I looked, and behold...”
We know who we should expect to see then, do we not?
Then I looked, and behold—it is Jesus again.
This time the picture is not of Christ the Lamb, but Christ the Victorious Harvester.
1. In the end, there will be a Harvester (v. 14)
1. In the end, there will be a Harvester (v. 14)
Jesus is seated on a white cloud as “one like a son of man.”
These are the same words that described Him in chapter 1.
Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest.
These are the same words that Daniel used to describe Him in His vision of the Ancient of Days:
“I saw in the night visions,
and behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed.
Despite the fact that the Gospels call Jesus the son of man eighty times, some have bristled at the idea that this is Jesus because of the fact that in verse 15, He will get a command from an angel.
They will say, “This can’t be Jesus because God the Son takes orders from no angel.”
But with John’s, “Then I looked, and behold...” phrasing and the “one like a son of man,” language—it is clear that this is Jesus and not just an angel.
When we get to verse 15, there’s no need to panic over Jesus receiving a command from an angel because we know who gives angels their commands.
The command to put in the sickle and reap is from the Father.
“But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
The angels don’t have this knowledge intrinsically.
The implication is that the angel comes representing the Father.
This shows us that we are definitely dealing with Final Judgment here.
And when that judgment comes, it is not an angel who will come on a cloud of glory and hold the sickle and wear the victor’s crown—instead, we know that is Christ.
And that is what we have Him doing in verse 14.
Let’s take some time with this picture of our Savior.
He sits at the right hand of the Father now. The glory around Him must be breathtaking.
He loves you and prays for you there.
He thinks of you moment and moment and watches over every numbered day you live.
But when He gets up for the harvest—this is what He will look like.
It is just as beautiful.
And all the tenderness you experience in your daily care is still there.
I want you to see that in every image that John gives us.
First of all, Christ comes on a cloud.
We are tempted to think of a fluffy white cloud
Or maybe you think of a dark storm cloud with majestic flashes of lightning in it
But in reality, we should think less about weather and more about the Old Testament.
This isn’t just a random cloud in the sky that Jesus ordained to be His chariot.
This is the glory cloud of God.
This is the cloud that fills Solomon’s temple when the ark is brought in for the first time:
And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord,
This is the cloud that tragically departed from the temple when the Lord’s glory was removed because Solomon’s temple was to be destroyed as a part of God’s discipline on Israel in Ezekiel:
Then the glory of the Lord went out from the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubim.
When Peter and James and John see Christ transfigured on a high mountain, his clothes are as white as light and his face is like the sun.
Moses and Elijah are there talking to Him, when behold, there is a cloud:
He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”
This is the same shekinah cloud that Matthew Henry calls the emblem of God’s presence and glory
So the picture here is Christ coming to judge the world on a cloud of glory, just as He said it would be:
Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
Christ has a golden crown on his head.
There are two types of crowns in the Greek:
One we get our English word diadem from
This is the sort of crown a king wears
But that is not what Jesus is wearing here
The word you see here would more accurately translate to “wreath.”
This is the Victor’s crown. The wreath placed on the head of the Olympic athletes who won their competition and stood above the rest.
They would get to sit with the emperor in the place of honor and wear their victory wreath upon their head.
Why is Jesus wearing the competitor’s crown and not the royal crown here in Revelation 14?
Certainly the King of Kings owns the ultimate crown of royalty as well
But that isn’t what He wears here.
Why not?
Because what John is seeing is that Jesus is uniquely qualified to be the Harvester. He is uniquely qualified to be the Judge.
He is the Son of man who has run His race.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Run your race with endurance because Jesus already ran.
He was punished for my pride.
He was massacred for the mire that I made for myself.
He was judged for my injustice.
He was a Substitute for my sin.
He rose from the grave.
He proved He is God’s Son.
He proved that His death was satisfactory to save.
He proved that He is Lord.
He ascended on high.
He is the Son that must be kissed, otherwise you perish.
He is the Lamb standing on Zion.
He is the Victor who competed and won, seated on the cloud of glory in the place of unparalleled honor, ready to judge the world in righteousness.
And finally, we see in His hand, the sickle.
The sickle is a farming tool.
It was used to separate the wheat from the chaff.
The imagery in play has an anchor in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.
Put in the sickle,
for the harvest is ripe.
Go in, tread,
for the winepress is full.
The vats overflow,
for their evil is great.
Joel 3:13 is a parallel text to this whole passage.
We are going to see two harvests play out in the rest of this passage.
One is a wheat harvest. The other is a grape harvest.
Joel is likely just speaking about one harvest, but John is drawing on this passage in general terms to explain what he is seeing.
Matthew 13 also gives us an important passage to understand what Jesus is doing as the Harvester:
Jesus tells a parable in v. 24-30 about a topic everyone is always eager to talk about: weeds
Only the Son of God could look at weeds and say, “Let me explain the whole church, every human and the end of the world to you from this.”
He says that the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sows seed in his fields
But at night time, he has an enemy sneak in and sow some weeds
When the grain comes up, there is wheat and weeds.
But the man tells his servants not to pluck up the weeds because they will harm the wheat in the process.
He says, let it go and at harvest, the reapers will separate it
The wheat is kept safe in the storehouse and the weeds are burned up
The disciples didn’t know what this meant so when they get alone with Jesus, they ask Him about it and here is what He says:
Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
So that is exactly what is happening here.
Our tender Shepherd who has guarded our souls from His Father’s side, now will judge the world from a cloud of glory.
The good grain will be separated from the weeds.
The sickle will gather the wheat into the barn and deal with the harvest of grain distinctly different than the weeds that do not belong in the storehouse.
And in the rest of these verses, we will see His grace toward the grain as He personally uses His sickle to gather it.
But we will also see the wrath He has for those who live in stiffnecked rebellion against Him.
We see the fate of those who reject the one like the Son of Man.
The fate of those who take the mark and bow down the the Beasts and the Dragon...
We will see the wrath of our Tender Victor.
One harvester.
Two harvests.
Let’s look at the first.
HARVEST OF REDEMPTION (v. 15-16)
HARVEST OF REDEMPTION (v. 15-16)
We begin with Jesus swinging the sickle in a harvest of redemption.
A fully ripe harvest of righteousness, brought forth by the saving power of God and loving death of the One with the sickle in His hand.
The angel in verse 15 calls with a loud voice to Christ and tells Him to put his sickle in into the harvest and reap.
This is one of three angels in verses 15-19.
These are the reapers who are coming with Jesus as He returns in judgment.
It is just as He said it would be in Matthew 13:39
and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.
The harvest is at the end of the age, but the reapers are the angels.
Well the hour to reap has come. Jesus is here with His reapers.
2. In the end, there will be a harvest of redemption (v. 15-16).
2. In the end, there will be a harvest of redemption (v. 15-16).
How do we know that the hour to reap has come? Because the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.
When grain is ripe it is dry.
It has a hard crust.
The farmer knew it was time to swing the sickle.
What makes the harvest of redemption dry? What lets Jesus knows that it is time for the sickle to swing?
The answer is connected to those who did not worship the Beast.
Who didn’t bow down to the Beast?
Who doesn’t take the mark?
Who doesn’t give in and give up and go with the world?
Who doesn’t buy the lie of the false prophet?
Who doesn’t reject the Gospel of the Kingdom?
It is those whose names are in the Book of Life from before time:
Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation, and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.
The harvest is ripe when every name written in the book of life has repented of sin and trusted in Christ.
The harvest is ripe when the full number of God’s sheep come into the fold.
The harvest is ripe when the Spirit works new birth in the final heart who will believe.
You and I have no idea when this time will come.
We have no idea how many names are in the Lord’s most precious Book.
We have no idea when the harvest will be fully ripe.
But we know that we are to tell the world.
And we know we are to pray for more laborers to bring this day to pass:
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
The harvest is plentiful and then one day, it will be ripe.
At that time, our work of spreading the seed of the Kingdom will be over.
It will be time for the Messiah to harvest.
The harvest comes in a single swing of the sickle.
It is different than the second harvest in verses 17-19
First of all, Jesus is the One swinging the sickle.
That shows how deliberate He is with His people.
Not that He is careless about His wrath.
Instead, we are to see that He is like the farmer who had tended his crop through hard weather and fended off threats and now it is His joy to purposefully and carefully gather up the grain for His barn.
In the second harvest, angels are doing the reaping. They reap at the Father’s command. They reap under the watchful gaze of Christ who judges.
But it is different from the way Jesus is directly seeing to the harvest of redemption as He gathers His people.
Secondly, Jesus gathers His people in one swing.
There are two actions that will be performed in the judgment of wrath.
But as Jesus gathers His harvested believers, He does it in one motion.
We will see the rebellious are gathered and then the rebellious are punished.
But there is no second action for the harvest of the earth that is fully ripe.
Believers have no punishment.
They are gathered by the sickle and then they rest.
Paul told us what it will be like when that sickle swings:
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
And so we will always be with the Lord
His harvest. His people.
A harvest of sheep.
A harvest of members of for His own body.
A harvest of living stones for His holy temple.
A harvest of ambassadors for his heavenly Kingdom
A harvest for the glory of the Harvester
HARVEST OF JUDGMENT (v. 17-20)
HARVEST OF JUDGMENT (v. 17-20)
But again, that is not the only harvest we see in the passage. In verses 17-20, we get another harvest—the one with two parts to it.
A second angel comes from the temple in heaven and he has a sharp sickle as well (v. 17)
Then a third angel comes out from the altar with authority over the fire of the altar (v. 18)
And he calls out to the angel with the sickle and gather clusters from the vines of the earth because the grapes are ripe (v. 18)
You can see why I say that we are dealing with two different harvests. I don’t think that is hard to decipher from the passage.
One is a grain harvest and one is a grape harvest
One is done by Jesus and the other by angels under He and the Father’s authority
One is done with one action, while one requires two
They are different
Joel—a passage that is an important parallel only shows one, but this passage, which is giving us details about the Final Judgment, shows us two
The angel with the sharp sickle comes from the temple.
The one who commands the reaping comes from the altar and has authority over fire.
Clearly, as we are considering Final Judgment, we are also to be considering these images of Old Testament worship.
Temple, altar and fire all make us think of Old Covenant practices which were performed before God at His instruction
In the Old Testament, the altar of sacrifice is where the lamb was killed.
It is where the fire consumed the lamb.
And that practice of animal sacrifice had a purpose:
And all its fat he shall remove as the fat of the lamb is removed from the sacrifice of peace offerings, and the priest shall burn it on the altar, on top of the Lord’s food offerings. And the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin which he has committed, and he shall be forgiven.
Then he shall offer the second for a burnt offering according to the rule. And the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin that he has committed, and he shall be forgiven.
Do you see the point of the sacrifices?
They are made in order that sin would be atoned for.
And yet, we know from the New Testament that those animals had no power in their blood to forgive.
For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
Instead, the Old Testament believers are making sacrifice according to the Law and trusting in God for forgiveness by faith.
And in doing this, they are actually believing in faith looking forward to the future Messiah, while we are able to look back by faith, having the mystery of the Gospel revealed
But either way, anyone saved by grace through faith is saved by looking to Christ, who secures an eternal redemption:
For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
The key is of course is that there must be faith.
And not just the sort of faith where one might believe with their head and live totally differently in their hands and feet.
This is a surrendering faith.
A faith in which you stop believing that there is anything in you or in the world that can save you or that is worth the full weight of your trust
And then you believe that Jesus is worth the full weight of your trust and you lay it at His feet
You give up on a life that you run
You give up on trying to work off your sin with good works
You give up on selfish ambition
You give up on the so-called natural inclinations of your flesh
It is a new creation.
It is a transformed life.
It is a night and day difference.
When saving faith has come as a result of a person being born again, the world will know it.
They will see a person going in the opposite direction of the masses.
The masses are following the Dragon and the Beasts and loving their life in Babylon because it is easier
The world is hard and lumbering around with the rest of the lemmings is easier than getting cut and bruised on the narrow road
So when you follow Christ on the narrow road and the direction of your life is constantly feeling the force of the stream going the other way—it is a sign that you live by faith and the grace of God has changed you
The sort of faith that sets you on this course is a gift of God and it is credited to you as righteousness.
It was that way with Abraham and it is that way with you.
When you believe God and trust in His Son, who bore your sin, you are given the gift of His righteousness in return as your new clothing
And when the Father looks at you, He sees the righteousness of His Son
That is why when the sickle swings for the redeemed, they are brought into the storehouse of God without any issue
They are covered in the perfect righteousness of the One sitting on the cloud
But these angels come from the temple and altar to show that there is still justice that must be done.
The fire of judgment rained down Christ.
Anyone who trusts in Him will not taste the fire of eternal judgment because Christ already bore that punishment on their behalf for their sinning
But if you reject that sacrifice, then the fire of judgment will come down upon you
Because God is just and sin must be paid for.
Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
If you reject the blood of the Lamb, there is no forgiveness.
So the angels emerge from the temple and the altar, the place where sacrifice is made, because if you reject Christ, there’s no sacrifice there for you.
There no fire to be poured out on the altar.
The fiery punishment and wrath stored up for your sin, will be your own.
3. In the end, there will be a harvest of judgment (v. 17-20).
3. In the end, there will be a harvest of judgment (v. 17-20).
You see exactly what this looks like in verses 19-20.
The imagery is hard. It demonstrates the absolute terror that will come with the wrath and judgment of God.
There are two actions in this judgment of wrath:
The gathering
The pressing
The gathering takes place in verse 19.
The unbelieving of the earth are gathered up like grapes and thrown into the winepress of God’s justice. The winepress of His wrath.
It should be said that this is not a quick wrath. This is not a knee-jerk wrath. This is not a wrath that must be vented irrationally at the moment it is detected.
This is a wrath that is longsuffering. It is slow.
How many rainbows have appeared since the days of Noah, showing over and over that God is merciful not to destroy humanity for the plethora of sin they heap up every waking second?
How many nights have come and gone where even in dreams humans are filled with lust and hate and yet God is resolved to judge only when the harvest time has come?
God is so kind in His patience that His wrath can only be seen as rightful and even merciful in how He dispenses it.
But the patience of the One who is wrathful does not take away from the gravity of His anger.
In verse 20, the winepress is trodden outside the city.
“Outside the city” is a sign of judgment.
Christ was crucified for you outside the city and you rejected His death in your place
Now, you will die outside the city as you receive judgment for your sins
And as if that is not bad enough, when you realize what city John is talking about, it is even worse:
Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
They die outside the eternal city, in winepress of wrath.
The image of the winepress is from Joel 3. It is a symbol of God’s judgment.
And as He judges, and those in the press of His wrath are crushed for eternity, the blood flows as high as the horses’ bridle and fills 1600 stadia.
The horses’ bridle is a picture of absolute carnage.
For a battlefield to be filled with blood to the point that the horses are starting to drown in it because their heads, the place where the bridle is placed, are being submerged
The 1600 stadia is even wore
1600 is the square root of 40
40 is 4 X 10
Four = the number used in the Bible to describe the completeness of the earth
Ten = the number used in the Bible to describe the completeness of man’s kingdom
So you get John’s point with the 1600 stadia—the blood covers the earth
This is a global judgment
This is earth-wide devastation
This is the end of the world as you know it.
YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW
YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW
God will not be mocked.
A man will reap what he sows.
A life lived rejecting God, the One who made you, and rejecting Christ, the One given to die for you, and rejecting the Spirit who calls out to you, is a life that is sowing destruction.
And what we are seeing in this passed is that the destruction will be reaped.
It will be harvested.
A harvest of redemption or a harvest of judgment—There’s only two ways to live and there’s only two ends to the sowing that we do in our living
I urge you to deal with this passage squarely tonight.
Don’t play around with it.
I think it is easy when we are alive and doing well to think that things like this are far off or will never come
My job requires me to sit at death beds quiet often and I can tell you that men do not talk like that in the end
They are very aware that what they did in their lives matters
They are very aware that you reap what you sow
They have fears about what their life meant and whether it counted for anything
You don’t need to wait for that. This text has fast-forwarded you to the end.
In his sermon series, The Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live, Richard Baxter, said that if I could take you to the moment of your death and say, “In a few minutes you will be in heaven or hell. Make your pick,” we all know what you are choosing!
Everyone is taking heaven.
Baxter then says, “Why wait?!?”
If you would have the wisdom to repent at the hour of your death, then repent now and get the joy of living the rest of your days with the peace of salvation!
You reap what you sow.
Sow faith.
Turn from sin.
Believe on the Lord Jesus tonight.
For as Baxter says, “You are not shut up in the darkness of heathenism, nor in the desperation of the damned.”
Life is before you; and you may have it on reasonable terms, if you will; yea, on free cost, if you will accept it. The way of God lieth plain before you; the church is open to you; you may have Christ, and pardon, and holiness, if you will. What say you? Will you, or will you not? If you say nay, or nothing, and still go on, God is witness and this congregation is witness, and your own consciences are witnesses, how fair an offer you had this day. Remember, you might have had Christ, and would not. Remember, when you have lost it, that you might have had eternal life as well as others, and would not; and all because you would not turn.
Richard Baxter
And indeed you will remember.
On the day when the winepress closes, you will remember that you heard this day was coming.
That terrible scene does not need to be.
Wrathful, but tender Jesus longs to give you the gift of eternal life.
Trust in Him. Turn and believe.
For God will not be mocked. You will reap what you sow.