THE TWO HARVESTS
Revelation 14:14-20
James A. Gunn
Preached on October 21, 2007
Copyright © 2007 James A. Gunn
All rights reserved
Used by permission.
All By Grace
Sola Christus
Sola Scriptura Sola Gratia Sola Fida Soli Deo Gloria
Revelation 14:6-20
14 Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat One like the Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle.
15 And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, "Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe."
16 So He who sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.
17 Then another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.
18 And another angel came out from the altar, who had power over fire, and he cried with a loud cry to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, "Thrust in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe."
19 So the angel thrust his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the earth, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
20 And the winepress was trampled outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress, up to the horses' bridles, for one thousand six hundred furlongs.
John’s vision in Revelation 14 is in three parts.
There is heaven; there is the wrath of God; and there are the two harvests.
The first part in verses 1-5 is a scene of the entire number of the redeemed saints in heaven with the Lamb on Mount Zion [The Church: Hebrews 12:22-24]. The end of the world has come and God’s chosen from among guilty sinners have been called and justified.
Many saints over the course of time have passed through death.
“Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints.” [Psalm 116:15]
The rest of the redeemed, which are alive at the return of the Lord, will be taken up to be with the Lord and they will not die.
If I had the choice of dying or to be alive at the coming of the Lord I honestly do not know how I would decide. How would you choose? Well, the choice will not be ours to make.
Paul wrote about the final gathering of the saints; both the quick and the dead.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
13 But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.
16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.
18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
The first part is heaven.
The second part of chapter 14 in verses 6-13 is about the wrath of God. It is the end of the world and the gospel has been preached on the earth for the last time before Judgment Day to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people. Fear God and give glory to Him and worship Him as the Creator [6-7].
Babylon is fallen. At the Judgment the career of Babylon is over. Babylon is the symbol of man’s continuing attempts to live without God, from Cain to Nimrod; from the worship of the Caesars of Rome and the superstition of popery; and it continues in our day in the subtle and most wicked philosophy of evolution as it rejects God as the Creator. All of the manifestations of Babylon in history have religion at their foundation, and they all deny the simplicity of pure and sovereign grace.
Wait, someone says, Evolution is not religion! Oh, Really? Belief in evolution requires more faith than to believe, “In the beginning God created….”
How can an intelligent person believe that all of the complexities of the universe and the animal kingdom “just happen”?
The subjects of the wrath of God have the mark of the beast. The “Mark of the Beast” is not a tattoo or a birthmark or any other outwardly visible sign, it is the rejection of the revelation of the Creator in nature and of the Word of God and the internal devotion to sin and their refusal to submit to the gospel [9-11].
Those who have the mark of the beast and who are condemned are contrasted with the 144,000 who have the Father’s name written on their foreheads in verse 1. Neither is the Father’s name on their foreheads an outwardly visible sign.
Paul writes to Timothy:
2 Timothy 2:19
19 Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: "The Lord knows those who are His," and, "Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity."
So there is heaven and there is the wrath of God.
The third part is about the two harvests and that is our lesson for today.
Paul also wrote about the two harvests.
The first harvest of the justified is described in the passage we read:
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.
The second harvest of the condemned is described in 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10:
7… when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels,
8 in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,
10 when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed.
The three angels who announce the wrath of God are followed by three more angels who are the reapers in the Last Judgment according to the words of the Lord in the parable of the tares and the wheat. No doubt you have been taught that the grain of tare or darnel looks like the grain of wheat except that there is no useful fruit in the tare.
Tares
- the bearded darnel, mentioned only in Matt 13:25-30. It is the Lolium temulentum, a species of rye-grass, the seeds of which are a strong soporific poison. It bears the closest resemblance to wheat till the ear appears, and only then the difference is discovered. It grows plentifully in Syria and Palestine.
(from Easton's Bible Dictionary, PC Study Bible formatted electronic database Copyright © 2003 Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)
Matthew 13:24-30
24 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field;
25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way.
26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.
27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, 'Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?'
28 He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' The servants said to him, 'Do you want us then to go and gather them up?'
29 But he said, 'No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them.
30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn."'"
Then Jesus explained the parable of the tares and the wheat.
Matthew 13:36-43
36 Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field."
37 He answered and said to them: "He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.
38 The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one.
39 The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels.
40 Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age.
41 The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness,
42 and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
43 Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear! (See also Daniel 12:2)
See also the parable of the drag net;
Matthew 13:47-50
47 "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind,
48 which, when it was full, they drew to shore; and they sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but threw the bad away.
49 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just,
50 and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth."
For the substance of my exposition of Revelation 14:14-20 I again call on the commentary of the Revelation by Mr. Charles D. Alexander.
Final judgment is the subject of the remaining chapters of our Book of Revelation, but like all the unveilings of this great Book the figures are symbolic and repetitive, so that even the pouring out of the Last Vial, or Bowl, of the holy wrath of God (chap. 16:17-21) with its cry from the throne, “IT IS DONE”, and its spectacle of every island and mountain fleeing away, leaves us with the fact of a city surviving in three parts, and men still on the earth blaspheming God for their pains.
It is not possible to venture far into prophecy without being confronted with the fact of history repeating itself, so that at no time can an exclusive fulfillment be applied to any one phase of historic time. Hence, there are ‘many antichrists’
1 John 2:18-23
18 Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.
19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.
20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.
21 I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth.
22 Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.
23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
Just as there are many antichrists in history there are many crises in history when good men have seen the hand of God and the apparent fulfillment of some great prophetic word or symbol.
They were not altogether wrong who saw in the downfall of the Pagan Roman Empire some fifteen centuries ago, a fulfillment of the Book of Revelation. All the figures of the antichristian kingdom and its fall seemed to be appropriate to the empire of the Caesars.
Those who suffered, rejoiced when they saw, or thought they saw, in the symbols of the Apocalypse, the ruin of that city which had been their cruel persecutor.
Were they right or mistaken? We believe they were both. The deliverance in which they rejoiced was only the prelude to future tyrannies and similar deliverances which would succeed each other until the end of the days when the Last Judgment arrives and brings the mystery of God to a conclusion.
It will never be possible for any generation to say with certitude, “The next judgment is the last”.
Personally, I do not see how the Lord can permit America to survive its wholesale rejection of God and God may be even now gathering the forces of an evil fanatic religion to bring America down. If you think otherwise you simply have not studied the history of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome.
When is the end? Christ said to His disciples, “Of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father” (Mark 13:32). The Lord no doubt intended His people to understand that it was never a part of that perfect wisdom of God imparted to Him in His incarnation as the God-man, the Mediator of our salvation, to make known the actual time-scale of the divine purpose.
Later, after His resurrection, He warned His apostles that ‘it was not for them to know the times or the seasons which the Father had placed in His own power’ (see Acts 1:7). His rebuke stands over against all the calculations and prophetical almanacs drawn by worthy men who, like the apostles before Pentecost, think that their time is the time of the end and that the Kingdom of God is about to appear in its eternal glory.
The Book of Revelation; this last prophecy in the Word of God, is a perpetual guide to the people of God, and in all circumstances an assurance to ‘the little flock’ that the kingdom is theirs, in the good pleasure of the Father. Their kingdom is the only permanent and all-conquering empire on earth, as Luther so powerfully wrote at the end of his great hymn- “THE CITY OF GOD REMAINETH”.
This is the whole purpose of the Book of Revelation. It is the book of the Church’s consolation in all her historic trials, and the key to all her sufferings. John expresses it all, tersely and fundamentally, in the beginning of his book: “Your brother and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 1:9). We must ever go back to those words of John if we would understand the message of this great apocalyptic Book.
We betray all other generations of the Lord’s people, past or to come, when we appropriate to ourselves, or to our own time, or to any one time, the exclusive meaning and consolation of this Book. It belongs to all, throughout the entire history of the church.
The Historicist who regards Revelation as a complete history of the church, much like Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” has only a shred of the Book left for his comfort, as he discovers, or thinks he discovers, his own day described in one or other of the chapters, or verses, of the Book, having to discard all the rest as mere history, past or to come.
Likewise the Futurist is similarly deprived: more so in fact, for he has not yet even begun to enjoy the triumphs and deliverances of this Book. According to his theory, he never will! His enthusiastic proclamation always is, “Not for the church - the church will not be here!” He is welcome to what personal comfort he can get out of that, but he must not be permitted to deprive the suffering church of her lawful consolation, as she stands with John, her brother, and companion in tribulation on the wave-beaten shore of Patmos.
The fact often alluded to by commentators that there is a close resemblance between these judgments and the ‘trumpet’ judgments of chapters 8 and 9, should put us on our guard against any ‘literal’ interpretations. The ‘trumpets’ sound whenever the church in her long history is about to be overwhelmed by her enemies, after the pattern of the ten plagues of Egypt leading to the deliverance of the earthly people in the time of Moses.
The ‘trumpets’ and the ‘vials’ alike derive much of their symbolism from those plagues by means of which the Lord brought down the pride of the heathen oppressors and set His people free.
Here again are the ‘boils and blains’, the bloody waters, the drying up of the river or sea, the invasion of frogs (which turn out in chapter 16 to mean devils and demons!), thunderings and lightnings and a great hail.
BREAD FROM HEAVEN
Who cannot see that the deliverance from Egypt was meant to be the pattern of the redemption of God’s people, the church? As Israel under Moses triumphed gloriously over all her foes, so does the church under her great Commander. The march through the wilderness to the Promised Land was led by the Lord Himself in the ‘fiery cloudy pillar’ and we have the words of a great hymn, “Let the fiery cloudy pillar, lead me all my journey through”.
The fire and the cloud are not visible to us as they were to the Israelites, but as symbols of the divine providential care and guidance they are well understood. So with the manna, the mysterious food of heaven of which the psalmist wrote centuries later – “Man did eat angels’ food” (Psalm 78:25).
Christ explained the mystery of the symbol of the manna when He declared, “Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.... I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:33-35).
He is our well of living water, our fountain in the wilderness, as the Samaritan woman discovered when she found Him at Jacob’s well: “He that drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst…it shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life”.
(John 4:13-14)
What was material and earthly in the Old Testament is spiritual and heavenly in the New. So is it with those judgments by which the enemies of the church are overwhelmed and a way opened up thereby for the deliverance of His people.
Here is the great error by which good men have been beguiled in their attempts to interpret the images of the Apocalypse. We are “marching through Emmanuel’s ground to fairer worlds on high” and the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds (2 Cor. 10:4).
Revelation is a spiritual book, and only so can it be understood. It is the Book of the church’s pilgrimage and warfare, and its figures must not be interpreted carnally, but spiritually.
When Euphrates is mentioned it is not the classical river so named. Jerusalem is not the earthly city, nor is the temple located on the Mount Zion dedicated by David for the purpose, but is the spiritual temple of Christ’s body, located on the heavenly Mount Zion, as Paul tells us in Hebrews 12:22: “Ye are come unto mount Zion and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem….”
There is another great difference between the type of Israel’s march through the wilderness, and the progress of the church to her final rest - the rest that remaineth unto the people of God - in the heavenly Canaan. The OT tribes under Moses marched through the wilderness as one nation over a period of forty years.
The tribes crossed the Red Sea in one night. They crossed over the Jordan into Canaan in one day. Not a hoof was left behind. The pilgrimage of the church has lasted nearly 2,000 years. Many generations have come and gone. We know not how many may still come. One by one we cross the Jordan, joining those who have gone before and leaving behind our nearest and our dearest.
What is presented in prophetic language as the events of one day may in reality be spread over many generations or centuries. In the divine view, the people is one and the church moves as one, but in terms of this world the one event is spread over a thousand years - two thousand years - perhaps more. Individual souls pass on to their rest. Their places are taken by others, yet the church is always to be considered as one, though consisting always of fresh generations which take the place of those who have gone before.
Hence in the prophetical language of Revelation, the experiences of God’s people seem to be those of one person (the Woman who fled into the Wilderness, for example), or 144,000 persons, or again, a great multitude which no man can number, yet always one army, one family, one people.
If then the events of Revelation concern the whole church it must be obvious that those events are repetitive in the experience of the church and cannot be confined to one time or one generation. This again is the genius of prophecy and for this reason the entire history of the Christian church recapitulates itself in every generation.
Appearances may change and there is an outward framework of history within which the prophecy works itself out to its ultimate fulfillment, but it concerns all the Lord’s people at all times.
Prophecy simply is not history written in advance: it is history spiritually understood in continuous fulfillment.
THE TWO HARVESTS
We will now address the double picture of the JUDGMENT in chapter 14:14-20. The figure in each case is of harvest time, but one harvest is unto life and the other unto death; one is of grain (though grain is not actually mentioned: it is implied in the word ‘ripe’ - a term which implies the nature of a grain harvest. The second harvest is a vintage- that is; it is of the grapes of the vine, here signifying the wicked, for the vintage is trodden in the ‘great winepress of the wrath of God’.
The vision of the Two Harvest begins at verse 14:
“And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle”.
This beyond doubt is a picture of Christ presiding over the judgment. Some have objected that the description might well be of an angel appointed especially for the task, but on the strength of Revelation 1:13 where John’s vision of Christ is presented as ‘one like unto the Son of Man’ this view cannot be entertained.
The imagery is very striking. The white cloud signifies Christ’s glory and power as the executor of the divine will and the upholder of the divine righteousness.
White is the symbol of glory as at the Transfiguration when His earthly garments became white and glistering as no fuller on earth could whiten them - a whiteness or brightness for which earth has no parallel (see Matt. 17, Mark 9, Luke 9).
“And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” - v.15.
The wheat has grown and matured (see Matthew 13:36-43) and the harvest of the earth must be gathered, when the Lord returns in the clouds of heaven with all the holy angels with Him; the dead shall be raised but with a division between the wheat and the tares. The living saints must be caught up to meet the Lord ‘in the air’ and the tares, the ‘children of the wicked’ are gathered to the judgment.
There is no room in the parable for any other judgment, no room for ‘millennial saints’, no room for an earthly and visible kingdom, and no distinction between Jew and gentile.
It has been argued that Christ cannot receive a command from an angel (see v.15), but we are in the region of symbolism, and the symbol here does not confer some superior authority upon the angel. Rather is the figure employed to indicate the solemn and deliberate nature of the Judgment. An Amen if you will.
Christ does nothing of Himself, even in His glorified nature, for always He is the Son of the Father, the Only Begotten, the Word, the Wisdom, the Power of the Father in the unity of the Godhead. It is proper for the Son to receive from the Father all authority and power as it is proper for the Holy Spirit in the same mystery of the divine UNITY to be the Spirit of Communion between the Father and the Son, proceeding from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified.
Thus the signal is given to Him who sits on the white cloud to begin His task of bringing to righteous and glorious conclusion, all that the Father ordained the Son to accomplish:
“And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.” - v. 16
THE VINTAGE
“And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.
And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.” - v. 17-20
Some of the best commentators, as Hengstenberg, hold that this harvest (or vintage) is identical with the first, there being only a change of figure, the one the grain harvest, the other the vintage, the harvest of the field and the harvest of the winepress. In each case say these writers; it is the final judgment of the wicked which is in view. Others including Bengel, Alford, and Bishop Wordsworth, see the harvest of the earth as ‘the gathering in of the godly’ while the vintage signifies the final judgment of the wicked.
Without hesitation it is my belief that it is the latter view, i.e. two harvests; one of the righteous and another of the wicked. It seems incongruous that in this one section of the Apocalypse it should be the harvest of the wicked which should be described twice. In the light of Matthew 13 we surely have here two separate harvests, and this conclusion is reinforced by the last parable which the Lord adds to the six preceding pictures in Matthew 13.
We refer to the parable of the drag net with its full harvest of fish, ‘good and bad’, to be separated after the net is brought to shore. “So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (v. 49-50). The same angelic agency is shown in Revelation 14 as in Matthew 13.
The separate nature of this action is proven by the fact that the vintage harvest is reaped by “another angel” who emerges from the ‘temple which is in heaven’.
There is no temple as such in heaven, of course. The Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands. The temple in heaven is a symbol of the eternal holiness in which God dwells. He is the center of all worship and adoration, and that worship is founded on what the earthly temple stood for - the way of access to God opened by the offering up of Christ through the Eternal Spirit (Heb. 9:14).
That angels have a deep interest in the Atonement is an important, even a vital, truth. Being sinless they did not require an act of reconciliation, but it is also true that though the Atonement was for the sin of man, it is also the con¬ditioning factor of the whole creation. The security and the eternal happiness of angels depends upon it for it is the means by which God unveils Himself before all creation and becomes, in the sufferings of Christ visible to the whole world in His character of just and holy and righteous LOVE.
God having, by the Incarnation, entered into His own creation and become a part of it became its guarantor. Evil cannot arise a second time to destroy the new creation vested in Himself. This is the fruit of God becoming Man, and this is the eternal effect of the Atonement.
We should note the uncommon procedure in which a succession of angels is involved. The angel from the temple is armed with a sharp sickle, but awaits the command of yet another angel who proceeds from the altar and has ‘power over fire’. Here the figure carries us back to 6:9: “I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held”.
The altar is the typical altar where the atonement was made in the Old Testament. Here in chapter 14 those who comprise the world of the ungodly, because of whose enmity and hate the righteous were martyred, receive the just reward of their unbelief and cruelty. God avenges His own at the last; and judgment, though long delayed, is finally executed. “Power over fire” points back to chapter 8 verses 1-5, where the angel fills his censer with fire from the altar and casts it into the earth, symbolising the judgments of God on the wicked.
JOEL’S PROPHECY
There is a strong connection also between this passage and the prophecy of Joel:
Joel 3:13
13 Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe.
Come, go down;
For the winepress is full,
The vats overflow —
For their wickedness is great."
In Joel the judgment takes place in the Valley of Jehoshaphat (“The Lord will judge”). Nowhere else in the Bible is this valley mentioned by that name. In early Christian times (the fourth century) the deep valley separating the walls of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives was given this name, but entirely without warrant. It is hardly likely that the writer of the Book of Revelation would thus have anticipated a tradition which has no basis in Hebrew history, yet many prophetists today have grown fond of using this false location to illustrate their theory concerning future events in Palestine.
Joel’s prophecy was well understood by the apostle John as having reference to another valley, namely that near Engedi to the West of the Dead Sea where in the days of Jehoshaphat (one of the godliest kings of Judah) the enemies of the Lord’s people, the Moabites, Ammonites and Edomites, assembled in incredible numbers to destroy Jehoshaphat and his kingdom. Jehoshaphat prayed for deliverance, and God answered him through the prophet Jahaziel, “Ye shall not need to fight in this battle. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord” (see 2 Chron. 20).
So it came about that the three enemies of Judah set upon each other and destroyed themselves. Joel uses this history in his prophecy of God’s judgment of the nations. “I will gather all nations and will bring them into the valley of Jehoshaphat and will plead with them there for my people and my heritage, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations and parted my land” (Joel 3:2).
Why should the Joel prophecy have so obvious a connection with Rev. 14?
Because of the prophetic principle we have been at pains to put forward, that fulfillment is continuous, and to be spiritually understood. The armies of the
heathen are constantly in motion against the saints of the Lord.
The valley of Jehoshaphat is always the place where the Lord judges them and brings their assault against His church to nothing. All leads up to the Last Judgment which is the culminating point of all judgment and the final assurance to the church that God’s righteousness will prevail against her would-be destroyers.
It is of interest to note that Joel varies the name of the valley in one instance - in verse 14 (chapter 3) where he calls it “The valley of decision” – “Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision”. Not as some have used the term, in description of some evangelistic effort. Not “decision for conversion” but the place and time where the Lord’s judgment comes into action and decides or settles the fate of those powers which oppose the divine work.
The range of Joel’s prophecy is very great. This is shown in Peter’s use of it on the Day of Pentecost when he gave a gospel interpretation to that great passage in Joel’s second chapter and thereby settled the interpretation of Joel as being a prophecy of Christ, the church, with the sun going down in judgment on the old order, and the new covenant kingdom arising on the ashes of the old. “For in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord will call”. (Joel 2:32. See also Acts 2:16-21)
Peter’s unerring inspiration which taught him that Joel’s second chapter was descriptive of the church’s inauguration at Pentecost is balanced with John’s vision concerning Joel’s third chapter which teaches that all the enemies of the Kingdom of Christ will be brought low when the Lord arises to judge the cause of His people.
TREADING THE WINEPRESS
We come to the concluding verses of our chapter 14:
“The angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.”
Clearly this is a picture of the last judgment. The “vine of the earth” must be considered in contrast with those familiar words of the Saviour – “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman” (John 15:1).
In Isaiah 63, Christ is presented as the judge of all enemies of His redeemed people, and He comes from Edom with garments dyed in the blood of the foe, declaring, '”I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with me. I will tread them in my anger and trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment'”.
The first sentence of this verse is often taken as a picture of the crucifixion, but the remainder of the verse shows how mistaken is that view. Christ appears in this chapter of Isaiah not as the Deliverer, but as a Judge, visiting vengeance upon the apostate nations who oppress the Church: “The day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come”.
In Revelation 19 we have a similar picture of the final judgment – “He treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God”. Christ appears, as in Isaiah 63, ‘clothed with a vesture dipped in blood’ (Revelation 19:13-15).
1600 FURLONGS
The final verse has given much difficulty to those who favour the literal interpretation of Revelation. The winepress is trodden outside the city, and Hengstenberg points out that in the Apocalypse this city, unless otherwise designated can only mean the City of God, the Church.
In Revelation 20:9, we have the last view of the conflict between the city of God and the inhabitants of the world’s city. There John calls the Church, “the beloved city” and views it as surrounded by the deceived nations, Gog and Magog, upon whom the fire of God’s judgment descends. In the last chapter of Joel also, the judgment is against the enemies gathered against Jerusalem, and this, says Hengstenberg expresses the idea that ‘hostility to the Church is the occasion of the judgment’.
“Blood came out of the winepress even unto the horse bridles, by the space of 1600 furlongs”. The blood is the juice of the vine trampled in the process of the divine judgment.
The tide of blood is so copious that it rises to the level of the horse bridles. The mention of horses could mean either the horses sometimes employed in the trampling of the grapes in the winepress, or as some prefer, the symbolic white horses on which ‘the armies of heaven’ ride forth with Christ to the destruction of the enemies of the people of God (Revelation 19:14).
The 1600 furlongs (almost equivalent in Greek, Roman and English measure¬ment) show the limitless extent of the judgment - 200 miles in every direction and deep enough for a horse to swim. [A furlong is 220 yards, times 1600, is 200 miles.]
The significance of the number 1600 presents no difficulty. The Speaker’s Bible points out, “Sixteen hundred is the square of 40, or the square of four multiplied by the square of ten; and thus as four is the signature of the earth (see Rev. 7:1), and 10 is the number of completeness, this symbolic number denotes a space of vast magnitude”.
Thus we have in Revelation 14 a scene of heaven, a scene of the wrath of God, and a scene of the two harvests – the wheat and the tares – the just and the unjust.
When Judgment Day arrives where will you be found? Will you be among the wheat or among the tares? Our gracious Lord commands you to repent and believe in the Gospel. If you have not trusted Christ and discarded every shred of self-righteousness what hinders you? What do you find in Jesus Christ that is so objectionable? Is your sin more precious to you than the free pardon of sin in the blood of Christ?
Repent and believe in the Gospel.
Download This Sermon
