Title: Last Harvest Judgment/Revelation 14:14-20
Contents
(Explanation of Revelation 39)
The Last Harvest Judgment/Revelation 14:14-20
Today's verse begins with a vision in which the son of the crowned man stands with a sharp sickle. At the angel's command, he took the sickle and harvested the ripe crops. Another angel appears with a sickle, gathers the ripe grapes and throws them into the winepress of wrath. These two harvests speak of two kinds of harvests at the end of the human race. One is the harvest of believers and the other is the judgment of unbelievers. This harvest refers to the reward of the saints and the judgment of the unbelievers that will be accompanied by the second coming of Jesus.
Today's Bible compares judgment to a harvest. This judgment has already appeared in (Joel 3:12,13). “Let the nations move up and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will sit there and judge the nations all around them. Use your sickle, the grain is ripe, come and tread on it. The winepress is full and the wine is overflowing, for their wickedness is great.” It clearly separates the grain harvest and the grape harvest. We will closely observe this and listen to the voice of the Lord.
harvest of grain
The Executor of the Grain Harvest is like a Son of Man. The harvest of wheat is done by one like the Son of Man himself, and the harvest of grapes is done by an angel with a sickle. Here, grain refers to believers and saints. First, let's look at the harvester. It is described as “the one who sits on the white cloud”. Christ of holiness and glory. This situation has already been foretold. (Daniel 7:13) “And I saw in a vision in the night, and one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and was brought before him” (Matthew 24:30) “Then the sign of the Son of Man came And at that time all the peoples of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” You can see this prophecy being fulfilled.
He also said, “He is like the Son of Man.” It refers to Christ as the mediator, the incarnate Lord, and the risen and ascended Jesus. “On his head is a crown of gold.” The victory Jesus, the word that expresses the kingship of Jesus. Here he had “a sharp sickle in his right hand.” He is the one who has the instruments of harvest and judgment. John the Baptist had already prophesied about this judgment. (Matt 3:11,12) “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire, and with his rudder in his hand he will clear his threshing floor, gathering the wheat into the barn, and burning the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
The fact that Jesus himself takes up the sickle and reaps shows that Jesus is directly related to the salvation of the saints. This judgment separates the saints from the unbelievers, and gathers the saved saints. It is the resurrection of the lowly body into the body of glory, and it is the arrival of rest in heaven. Jesus is the One who brings the saints who have been saved by the shedding of blood to the end, and he is involved in judgment as well.
The command of the harvest is given by another angel from the temple. This is an explanation that shows that the subject of that judgment is God. The source of judgment is God. (Ecclesiastes 12:14) “God will judge every deed and every secret thing, whether good or evil” It is said that the harvest is possible because the grain is ripe on the ground. The gospel has been preached to all nations, and the elect have already been saved. The wheat and chaff harvests occur almost simultaneously. Ripe means that the grain for harvest is completely ready, and it refers to the state in which the bride is dressed.
The saints who belong here are those who washed their clothes with the blood of the Lamb and made their clothes white. Another group is those who, although not able to enter the reserve, repent during the great tribulation, keep God's commandments, and have the testimony of Jesus (Rev 12:17). They are also the remnant of Israel who finally repented at the second coming of Jesus. These are all those who have been written in the Lamb's book of life since the creation of the world. In the end, they are the ones who kept the fidelity of their faith in Christ by rejecting the mark of the beast (Revelation 13:8). Some say that there will be a public rapture of the saints classified as wheat at this time. However, this is an issue that needs to be approached with more caution.
harvest of grapes
(Verse 17) Below is the grape harvest. Unlike the harvest of wheat, Jesus does not do it, but it is executed by another angel who appears from the temple with a sharp sickle, and is thrown into the great winepress of wrath so that the blood from this mold may reach the bridles of horses. Jesus compared us to the branches of the true vine (John 15). The vine mentioned here is not referring to the true vine. A judgment like today has already been prophesied in (Joel 3:13). “Use the sickle; the grain is ripe; come and tread it; the winepresses are full and the wines are overflowing, for their wickedness is great.”
Although it is God's judgment, it is different from reaping the grain. Jesus didn't do it himself, he did it through an angel. An angel with a sharp sickle does it at the command of the angel who rules over fire. The ‘angel who rules fire’ is just a message from God. Harvest because the grapes are ripe. It means that evil has reached its peak. It is the same situation when God judged the flood in the days of Noah. (Genesis 6:5) “When the Lord sees that the iniquity of man is pervasive in the world, and that every plan of the thoughts of his heart is only evil always,” he decides to judge with water. Likewise, he judges the grapes because they are ripe.
He puts them in a winepress and tramples them down to judge them. It is said that the blood from the large winepress was spread over 1,600 stadia. (Isa 63:3) “I tread the winepress alone, without any one among the nations, and I trampled the crowds in my anger, and trampled them in my wrath, and their blood splashed on my garments and defiled all my garments.” This is similar. On this day, the entire earth becomes the great winepress of God's judgment. The fact that the blood from the great winepress spread over 1600 stadia means that God's final judgment will be global, not limited to any one place or a few places.
What is “1600 stadia”? The joint translation translates as “a thousand li”. 4 is the number of original lands. It symbolizes north, south, east and west. The square of the number 4 of this land is 16. Multiply this by 100, which is a perfect number, to get 1600. One stadion is 184 meters. So, literally, 320 km. It means all the wide world. It is a universal judgment.
Unbelievers will be completely annihilated by God's judgment. It is a prophecy already in (Zep 1:2,3). “I will annihilate all things from the face of the earth, says the LORD; I will destroy both man and beast, and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea, and the stumbling blocks, along with the wicked; I will annihilate man from the face of the earth, saith the LORD.” Out of the city” There is such a thing. The city here refers to the city of God, that is, the kingdom of heaven. “The darkness outside” (Matthew 8:12) is right there.
Dear saints,
We will go through the harvest of the wheat or the harvest of the grapes. Which judgment we choose is entirely up to us. (2 Peter 3:12,13) “Look and yearn for the coming of the day of God; in that day the heavens will be burned and dissolved, and the elements will melt with scorching fire, but according to his promise we will live in righteousness, new heavens and new We look to the ground.” We should all live with this hope of Peter in our hearts.