Reading the next passage in Revelation 14, think of it as slicing off more bread from the loaf of scripture. Revelation 14, 14-16, And behold, I saw a white cloud, and someone like a son of man sitting on the cloud, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple crying out with a loud voice to the one sitting on the cloud, thrust in your sickle and reap for the time to reap has come because the harvest of the earth is dry. So the one sitting on the cloud swung his sickle upon the earth and the earth was harvested. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word. And as we dig into it, I pray that you would quicken that scripture to our lives, that you would sanctify us, that you would cause us to stand in awe of your wonderful grace and your wonderful provision for us. Bless this your people in Jesus name. Amen. This year, the Egyptian churches have had wave after wave of terrorist attacks from ISIS. But the church leaders there are reporting that these attacks have actually opened the door for the greatest platform for the gospel that the church in Egypt has ever seen. They believe this has happened for three reasons. First of all, persecution has a tendency to purify the church. It draws believers closer to the Lord and it drives false believers away from the church. And a pure church really becomes a very powerful church. But secondly, every time an ISIS attack happens, Christians get interviewed on the radio and on the TV, and they're able to share the gospel, share their faith, and actually share why they are not bitter and why they feel sorry for these people who apparently are greatly angered and greatly bitter against them, and to share the gospel on the news. They've showcased love to their enemies. And then third, this has led countless Muslims to wonder how on earth these Christians are able to suffer such pain, have such loss, and yet show such grace and forgiveness. They know they can't do that. It's just impossible for them to do that, and it makes them jealous of what the Christians have. In Romans 11, Paul wanted his life to be so transformed by grace that those that he was talking to would become jealous of the gospel. That's what Romans 11 says. And this is true in other countries with even less freedom, less press coverage than Egypt has. Countries like Iran, it actually happened over and over again in the country that my parents spent 30 years ministering in and Dr. Lyle Nelson and Mary spent time in. You can see it all over the map that persecution does not guarantee the defeat of the church. Many times it becomes the platform for the growth of the church. Now today is the International Day of Prayer for the persecuted church and the topic of the message is evangelizing our persecutors. Do we have the heart of Christ to be able to do so. Let me set the context again for where we've been in this chapter. Three weeks ago we saw that God had raised up 144,000 missionaries in verses 1 through 5. And two weeks ago, we looked at how angels are involved in the spread of this gospel. They have the gospel. They possess it in some way. They're involved in it. They try to promote it. But we saw that even though angels promote it and are involved in some way in the advancement of the gospel, the actual message of the cross is left to men to speak. Even Jesus did not proclaim that when he gave his vision to to Saul he said, go to Ananias. And so the actual message is left to men. Then last week we looked at the kind of message that prepares people to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's not the kind of message of the gospel that you see nowadays. If we leave out God's message of wrath judgment, hellfire, we undercut our message. Until people understand the bad news, they cannot understand the good news. Well, in verses 14 through 16, we see the actual harvest of souls beginning to happen. And interestingly, it's Jesus who pulls in this great harvest. Now does he use angels? Obviously in context we're going to see that he does use angels. Does he use men? Well yes he does. That's why he starts with these men in verses 1 through 5 and we're going to be seeing that the sickle Jesus uses is a symbol for the missionaries, the human missionaries. But Jesus is the beginning and the ending of all true missions. He starts this chapter by standing in Mount Zion, ready to take action. And in this end of this chapter, he is very actively involved in reaping a harvest into the church and also reaping a harvest of judgment. We'll look at that next time, the judgment aspect. Both are parts of the result of the preaching of the gospel. So really this is an essential paragraph in this chapter of missions. It doesn't matter how many missionaries you send out into the field, If Jesus is not supernaturally working through them, there will not be a harvest. He is the Alpha and the Omega of all missions. And so this whole passage holds together. Now let's go through these three verses phrase by phrase. First two words, And behold, clue us into something that's going to be amazing, remarkable, almost unbelievable. Now, you'll remember, we have seen over and over it. Any time that John uses the Greek word idou, which is translated behold here, there's something extremely unusual that he wants us to pay attention to. It's something that is marvelous. In fact, one translator translates this word consistently, wow. It's bickering, actually. I've changed it to behold. I prefer behold. But WoW does at least capture that idea that there is something that staggers the imagination. There's an amazement involved in this world. So here's the question. What is there about this harvest that is so amazing? It is that Jesus would continue to harvest souls for his kingdom from among those who had killed his saints, those who had vilified his name and hated him. Christ's love conquers the vilest and the most despicable of his enemies. And a second thing that's amazing is that the 144,000 would be willing to be instruments in his hand to go out into the harvest. They too had been persecuted by these Jews, and no doubt they had experienced some of their relatives and their friends being killed. But the love of Christ burns so strongly in their hearts that it overcomes their hatred, their bitterness, their anger, their frustration, their aversion, and their fear. It causes them to love their enemies and to be involved in evangelizing their persecutors. That is what is so amazing about this passage. It illustrates the supernatural love that we see in Christian evangelists in Pakistan and Egypt and Iran. Saudi Arabia and North Korea and so many other countries. You really cannot explain the kind of willing self-sacrifice that these men and women engage in, even willing to lay down their lives. You can't explain that from just human terms. There's something supernatural that's going on. It's Christ Himself who is harvesting these people through them. That's why this is emphasizing Christ is the one who is doing this through his evangelists. Now think of Paul in his pre-Christ days. His name back then was Saul of Tarsus. He hated Christ. He had actually devoted his life to destroying the Christian faith, rounding up all Christians and doing away with them. He was one of the greatest persecutors of the church. And in Acts 9 we have the amazing story of Christ drawing Saul to himself even after all that Saul had done against the gospel. And Christ used Ananias as his sickle to harvest one of Ananias' persecutors. So turn with me to Acts chapter 9, so that you can see the heartbeat illustrated. The heartbeat of Jesus, even for those who persecute him and bring pain into his life. Acts 9, beginning to read at verse 1. Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, Who are you, Lord? Then the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goats. So he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what do you want me to do? Then the Lord said to him, Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do. So Saul goes into the city, he waits, and in the meantime, God calls Ananias to preach the gospel to Saul. Ananias is going to be the sickle. Jesus does not harvest by himself. He uses the missionaries that he has set up in earth. They're prepared, they're sharpened sickles, and Ananias instantly, his first instant reaction in verses 13 through 14 is to object Saul is a persecutor of the church Lord. Why are you wanting to save him? He's our worst enemy Okay, but you read through Paul's letters and you realize we're all enemies of Christ, aren't we? Anyway in verses 15 through 16 Jesus won't take no for an answer He is sharpening his sickle. He's gonna send him forth. He will have his harvest so the Lord says Go, for he is a chosen vessel of mine, to bear my name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name's sake." So Christ is raising up yet another sickle who is going to be evangelizing his own persecutors. He too would suffer. He too would show forth Christ's supernatural love in reaching the lost. And so Ananias preaches the gospel to Saul. Saul gets converted and baptized. And in verses 20 and following, he powerfully preaches the gospel to the persecutors of the church. So there's backlash that immediately happens. There's a threat on his life. He's smuggled out of the city of Damascus. He travels to Jerusalem. And take a look at verse 26. And when Saul had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him and did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and he declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the road and that he had spoken to him and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus. Now our tendency is to run away from our persecutors and to avoid them, to have an aversion to them just like these first century disciples did. The natural response of Christians is not to be sickles in the hands of Christ. Now maybe we'll be willing to be sickles, you know, who will bring the harvest in verses 17 through 20, judgment, you know. Lord, judge them. And actually we're going to, just to anticipate the next sermon, which will be in three Sundays from today, I guess it is. Just to anticipate that, any time you faithfully proclaim the Word of God, it's going to bring either judgment or it will bring salvation. In Isaiah it says that when you faithfully preach the Word, it will never return to God void or empty. It will always accomplish the purpose that God sent it for. Some, it will produce judgment, and we should rejoice in the kind of judgments that verses 17 through 20 say flowed straight out of that mission's effort. And in others, it will save them. And we should rejoice in glory and the salvation that these three verses talk about. So anyway, this whole chapter hangs together beautifully. But Ananias tried to avoid Saul as did the disciples in Jerusalem. But what happens is God changes the hearts of His disciples one after another in the book of Acts and they begin to imitate Christ in ministering to their persecutors, winning them to Christ. And of course Saul will become the famous apostle Paul. incredible evangelist to both Jews and Gentiles. So he is now evangelizing his persecutors. He's imitating Jesus Christ, his Lord and Savior. Now all of this illustrates, I think, beautifully the heart of Jesus toward his enemies. And Christ's heart is most remarkably displayed in Romans chapter 9, where Paul says something that's absolutely amazing. Christ's love for the lost has so gripped Saul's heart, Paul's heart, that he says he would be willing to go to hell if it would mean that his fellow brethren would be saved. That's astonishing. Nobody would be willing to do that in their own flesh. I confess, I've never been willing to do that, to go to hell for somebody else. Christ's love has not yet gripped me that strongly. It has given me compassion. It has made me face difficulties. But that is absolutely supernatural that he would be willing to have that kind of compassion. So anyway, listen to Paul as he insists that he's not lying or exaggerating in any way. He says, I tell the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh. To be accursed from Christ means to be consigned to hell, to suffer as Christ suffered. That shows that Christ is working in Paul's heart to have this kind of compassion. He repeats that in Romans chapter 10. He says, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. So, brethren, sisters, that, I believe, is why Romans 14, verses 14 through 16, starts with a wow. Okay, after years of Jewish citizens rejecting Jesus, despising Jesus, persecuting Jesus, he still draws them to himself. It's amazing. No doubt many of these people that he was harvesting had tortured and killed his saints. They had been hateful to everything that Jesus had stood for. Their writings about Jesus that we looked at in previous chapters were absolutely blasphemous. It was common knowledge that the rabbis had mocked Jesus, had pronounced curses upon them. We read one of those curses saying, and that actually occurs several times in the Talmud, may Jesus boil in excrement for eternity. That's the kind of curses that these people were agreeing with and saying amen to. So Jesus reaches and draws these people as his own special possession. I mean, this is why there is a wow in this chapter. It's absolutely astonishing. It is a display of grace that ought to make our hearts melt. So last week, we saw the absolute glory of God's wrath and His judgment. And I'm hoping in today's sermon, you will stand in absolute awe of the depths of His love and mercy and compassion for the elect. They were just as much enemies as the non-elect were. Now I guess I should have pointed out before this why I believe that he's talking about reaping from Israel. It's because the Greek word teis geis, the land, is used three times in these three verses. Pickering translates it as the earth, but we've seen throughout the book of Revelation, teis geis is a reference to the land of Israel. There is nothing in them that would warrant such favor. So no wonder John wants us to behold or to gaze in wonder and awe at what is being described. He just stares himself at this vision with a wow, wow. Now verse 14 goes on, I saw a white cloud. Now we've been seeing that the white cloud was the glory cloud of God's presence, the same glory cloud that was manifested in the time of Moses. So it is God's kingdom coming to earth, his sovereignty manifested in salvation. That's what it symbolizes. The glory cloud in the Old Testament always rested over the mercy seat, which is God's throne in the Holy of Holies, right? So it's a symbol of sovereignty and kingdom. Meredith Klein's book, Images of the Spirit, and I don't recommend Meredith Klein for most things, but that's a pretty decent book. He shows that scripture ties millions of angels with the glory cloud. So it's not just going to be Christ invading planet Earth, it's going to be angels invading planet Earth. It's going to be the kingdom of heaven poised to invade earth more and more. And this idea that it's heaven invading earth is strengthened by the next phrase, and someone like a son of man sitting on the cloud. Now let's look at the second part of that clause, sitting on the cloud. Whenever God is said to be sitting on anything in the Old Testament, He is taking action. Very significant action. In fact, commentators say, just think of sitting on a cloud as God riding His chariot throne. Just think of it as a chariot throne. He's taking action. For example, He rides on the cloud to bring salvation. He rides on the cloud to bring judgment. Isaiah 19, verse 1, rides on a swift cloud and will come into Egypt. So he's either invading a nation to bring blessing or to bring judgment. And so Yeats says that this image of sitting must indicate that Christ is traveling or riding somewhere to take action. Well, that fits perfectly the contrast that we see between verse 1 And this verse, in verse one, Jesus is standing on Mount Zion, and we saw that was a referent for him being ready to take action, but here he's sitting on the cloud. Why the difference? Well, I believe it's because Jesus is preparing to ride his chariot cloud in full sovereignty and kingship to conquer the world for himself. And his sovereign actions involve not just a positive harvest of evangelism or salvation, but the treading out of the grapes of wrath in verses 17 through 20. So this is his beginning of the conquest of the land of Canaan, so to speak. And just to remind you, it's a picture you ought to have in your heads because it deals, it maps out all of eschatology. 8030, is kind of the equivalent. He calls it an exodus. 8030 is equivalent to Moses and Egypt coming out of Israel, which they came at that time of year, the Passover, right? So it's equivalent to that. Then the next 40 years from Christ to 70 AD is equivalent to the 40 years of wandering in Egypt. the wilderness, where there was some faithfulness, but there was a falling away of the church as well. There were some battles that were won, but there was also this apostasy. And what happened in the 40 years up to AD 70? There's a great deal of growth of the church, but there's also this major falling away, apostasy. And then this period, AD 70, would be equivalent to the Jordan Crossing, where they go in and actually possess the land for the future. So since clouds are associated with heaven, whiteness with the purity of heaven, this is a beautiful symbol of heaven invading earth for either blessing or judgment. But the unusual language used of someone like a son of man sitting on a cloud would have immediately made the readers, first century readers, think of Daniel 7 verse 13. And as far as I'm concerned, this completely settles the debate that you'll find in commentaries is whether this person sitting on a cloud is Jesus or is it an angel? I think it absolutely has to be Jesus. And the vast majority of commentators agree. Now, the objection of a few is that it is inconceivable that an angel would command Jesus to do anything. I mean, just think about it. The angel's coming, and he's saying, thrust in the sickle. And the man who is sitting on the cloud says, OK, he thrusts in his sickle. He's obeying this command. They say, that's not conceivable that an angel would speak to Jesus in that way. And I'm not going to get into all of the exegetical debates back and forth on this. In one sense it really doesn't matter because even those commentaries who say this is an angel say it has to be a personal representative of Jesus. But I agree with Dusterdijk who says, the objection that Christ himself could not have received a command from an angel is settled by the fact that the angel is only the bearer of the command coming from God. Now I'm going to have to skip ahead right now to explain what he's talking about there. If you look at verse 15, Where does the angel come from in verse 15? He's coming from the heavenly temple. He's coming from the throne of God. He's a messenger of God the Father. So it's really God the Father who's giving the command. So these verses illustrate what Jesus said over and over again in John chapter 6, that he would only save those whom the Father would give to him, and that his only mission is to do the Father's will. Let me just read you three verses from John 6. As examples, all that the Father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to me I will by no means cast out for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. This is the will of the Father who sent me that of all he has given me I should lose nothing but should raise it up at the last day. So Jesus perfectly does the Father's will. He only saves, in other words, he only harvests those whom the Father has elected." Now if you want to get into esoteric theology, there's a few of you guys enjoy this kind of stuff, this is one of many verses that settles the debate between four-point Calvinists, what some people call Amarildians, and five-point Calvinists. The four-point Calvinists say that there is this tension between a God the Father who elects just a few and Jesus who wants his atonement to save everybody. No, no, no. Jesus doesn't have His own will on this matter. He is only and always and perfectly fulfilling the Father's will. All those who are elect, those are whom He dies for and all for whom He dies He harvests. Okay, that's what this passage is saying. And this is symbolized by the angel bringing the Father's command from His throne, Jesus fulfilling the Father's will. Now we've kind of looked at verse 15 prematurely, but back to the identity of this one like a son of man. If you turn to Revelation 1 verse 13, I want to show you the two other times where this exact phrase is used. There's only three times in the Bible that exactly in this way. Now, the Son of Man is used elsewhere in the Gospels, but one like a Son of Man is only used three times. This is the first one. Revelation 1.13 says, and in the midst of the seven lampstands, one like a Son of Man clothed down to the feet and girded at the chest with a golden belt. Everybody agrees. I don't know anybody that disagrees that one like a son of man in this verse is a reference to Jesus, okay? Now turn to Daniel 7 and verse 13, and this is the other occasion, and this is actually the passage that's at the background of both of the Revelation passages. Daniel 7, verse 13. I was watching in the night visions, Behold, one like a son of man, of the New King James says, the son of man, but there's no article in the Hebrew. It's just like in the Greek of Revelation. Behold, one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He came to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. Then 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 the one which shall not be destroyed." So if this is fulfilled in AD 70 and the context talks about the beast being destroyed and all of the things that we've been going through in the previous chapter, If 80-70, when this is fulfilled, it means that 80-70 and beyond is the time when Jesus will gradually draw all nations, all peoples, all languages to Himself. This is a definitive turning point in receiving the nations. Like I said earlier, while the previous 40 years are equivalent to the 40 years of wandering, had they been given the kingdom, when Moses left Egypt, yes, but they hadn't gotten there yet, right? So 40 years of wandering, then when they cross the Jordan, that's equivalent to AD 70 where they're actually possessing the nations. in the book of Numbers. And beautifully Jesus starts with Israel. It has been treated previously in this book as a pagan nation. He's likened it to Sodom, to Egypt, to Babylon. So they need to be converted in other words, right? So that's what he's doing. He's converting Jews from the land to himself. Now he'll make it clear in verses 17 through 20 that the whole nation will not yet convert in these first few centuries that this is leading to. Only a remnant is going to be Converted throughout this period of time in God's program the conversion of the whole nation has to wait till the future But he starts with the conversion of an ongoing remnant now the next phrase in verse 14 of our chapter says having on his head a golden crown gold is a symbol for deity and Actually, by the way, I should have mentioned so is sitting on that cloud. I It's not an angel going to be sitting on that cloud. It's a symbol of deity as well. By the way, that was why when he was in his trial and he said, from now on, you're going to see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, they said, blasphemy. We don't need any further evidence. They knew that the Daniel 7.13 was a divine figure, even though he's called like a son of man. And so gold is another symbol of his deity, but the specific word for crown in the Greek is stephanon. It is a victory crown worn by the conquering general or a conquering king. And this is bringing good news or bad news. It could be either one. In this chapter, obviously, it's both. But where he is sitting on the cloud symbolizes his kingship and his sovereignty being exercised in very concrete, specific ways. His golden crown represents his victory. So the point is this is not going to be a futile attempt at harvesting and then not getting a crop. No, Jesus is going to harvest with victory. He always gets his harvest. He's never defeated in his purposes for evangelism. The next instrument was an instrument of harvest for wheat and in his hand a sharp sickle. Christ would begin reaping a harvest of souls from Israel and then later from every nation of the world. As I've already pointed out, that was a symbol for the 144,000 missionaries. So they're going to have their lives burned out in sharing the gospel. Now verse 15 continues. And another angel came out of the temple. Angels are messengers, so they're bringing a message from the temple, from God's throne, So Christ takes His conquest on behalf of His Father. There's an order, an arrangement here. And He also receives a message from His Father. His task is to do the Father's will. And that should be our goal as well, to serve the Father by serving the Son. And I already dealt with that phrase adequately earlier. Verse 15 says that the angel cries with a loud voice. That loud voice is symbolic of the urgency of the message. Missions in gathering is indeed an urgent task. God's glory depends upon it. Christ's honor depends upon it. The Great Commission is our central task in history. So a good question is, do we have that sense of urgency? Do we long to see the nations converted? He cries with a loud voice to the one sitting on a throne. So there's an order in missions. The Father gives the elect to Jesus. Jesus harvests the elect by sending out His missionaries and His angels. But the fact that Christ is the central figure of missions in this pericope here, shows that it could not happen without Him working through us supernaturally. When He calls missionaries to go to missions, they have to go, but He equips them. He sharpens them. He prepares them for the task. He is the Alpha and the Omega. And I've already talked about the implications of that adequately in my sermon on the first five verses. And then the message, thrust in your sickle and reap. For the time to reap has come because the harvest of the earth or land is dry. Now in light of the previous three sermons on missions, I find this statement very, very significant. God himself had prepared the elect to be ready to receive the gospel, and he did it by bringing his judgments. I find that very interesting. His elect had experienced God's wrath before, We're all subject to wrath, right? Now they're going to be experiencing His love and His grace. God had ground every idol that the Jewish nation had trusted in into dust. He destroyed those idols. When those citizens went to war, they think they're serving God, but they really had an idolatry in the state and in other things. And when God lets them down and they don't win their battles, and then the leaders of the nation that they trusted, like Josephus and Zechariah, No, whatever his name is, Ben Zakkai. When they let him down, they just had the wind taken out of their sails. Everything they had previously trusted in had gone up in flames, and it was because of that that they were ripe for harvest. They were spiritually dry, ready for the refreshing grace of Jesus. All humanistic solutions that they had tried had let them down. and they were now ready for Christ's true solutions. And I love the way, I think it's a wonderful thing to watch humanism crumbling of its own way. Amen? The question is, are we prepared to pick up the pieces and to give Christ solutions? Actually, I think some of you guys are ready. I'm just so amazed and pleased with the way I keep hearing you young people talking about biblical blueprints and how they apply. It's almost like it's the natural air that you guys breathe. and to see some of you guys out there reaching out and teaching others and giving them some of these blueprints like Marianne and other people do. To me, this is cool. You're, in a sense, waiting. Lord, do you want me to be a harvest? Do you want me to be an influence in some way? And that's good, but all of us need to be prepared to give an answer to those who ask us of the hope that is given to us. That's what Peter tells us. to be a sickle getting into the harvest. So from my perspective, these verses are a wonderful conclusion to all of the preparatory work for evangelism that verses 1 through 13 has gone through. With nowhere else to turn, first century Jews had two options. They could increase their anger against Christ because of these judgments and hate him and end up in hell and end up under his wrath, verses 17 through 20, or they could break and they could say, Lord, I deserve these judgments. I repent, I come to you and be reaped into the kingdom. And obviously these are the ones who are being reaped and received into the kingdom. Verse 16 says, the one sitting on the cloud swung his sickle upon the earth and the earth was harvested. When he swings his sickle, the harvest always happens. As soon as Jesus unleashed his instruments of harvest, the 144,000, he unleashed them back into Israel, people started coming to Christ. So this was the beginning of Daniel 7, 13 through 14 being fulfilled. This was the beginning of the harvest of the nations into the church. It's a quite different harvest from the harvest of verses 17 through 20, which is judgment harvest, trampling out the grapes. Caird's commentary points out that the Greek word for harvest is always used for a positive ingathering, not a mowing down of the enemies. Now that may be overstated because I think it's exactly the same message that results in judgment or hardening or in softening. It's the same message, but certainly the language that is used here is used in Luke 10 verse 2 and John 4, 35 through 38 as a metaphor for evangelism. Metaphor for evangelism. So I agree with Karen and others on that point. I'll just read Luke 10 verse 2. Then he said to them, the harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go your way. Behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves. They're being sent out to evangelize their persecutors, right? And their work is called a harvest. Another clue we have of the positive nature of this harvest is given by Ian Boxell. He says, the harvest of the earth picks up on the description of the 144,000 as firstfruits for God and the Lamb, chapter 14, verse 4, while the treading of the winepress associated with the grape harvest explicitly picks up on the wine of Babylon and the corresponding cup of God's anger, chapter 14, verses 8 and 10. In short, the vision described here is a vision of salvation in contrast to what is yet to come. So to sum up, this begins a harvest of evangelism that will not culminate until our age is finished. The age we are living in right now is the age of the Feast of Tabernacles. We're in the age started by that and I think Zechariah 14 and other passages make that so clear. In fact, let me just go down a rabbit trail. And because all of the festivals of Israel are woven into the book of Revelation, it's probably good to remind you of this from time to time, but the Feast of Tabernacles was the last feast associated with the temple. And it prophesied that once the temple was destroyed, the Jews would be scattered among the nations. That's why they lived in these makeshift booths made out of branches, right, that don't last very long. It symbolizes the fact they don't have a home. They're wandering amongst the nations. But it's also the festival in which there were 70 bulls that were slain for what is metaphorically known the 70 nations of the world. It's all of the Gentiles. It's a symbolic figure. So What it's doing is it's not only showing the destruction of the temple, the scattering of Israel to the winds, but the great in-gathering, it's a harvest festival, great in-gathering of all of the Gentiles into the church. Okay? And it's not until the next festival which is Purim, that Israel gets converted, and then there's even greater blessing to all of the Gentiles. Purim is the last symbolic feast. So just working through, let me go in order all of the things. You guys ought to have these in your head. Very first festival is Hanukkah. It points to the birth of Jesus Christ. The next three festivals, Passover, unleavened bread, and firstfruits represent the death, burial, resurrection of Christ. Pentecost is the next one. It refers to the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Then you've got the Festival of Trumpets, which is declaring the warnings and the actual armies going to destroy Israel. That's the war against Israel. Then the festival of atonement, not only showing Christ's atonement, but when that atonement is rejected, that Israel and its temple would end forever, so it's the ending of the temple. Then the festival of booths is the scattering of Israel, the ingathering of the Gentiles, until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, and then you've got Purim, which is the entire nation of Israel will be saved, and that results in such massive changes, it's almost like life from the dead, and there's going to be a glorious period of victory in history. So just the festivals themselves give you a beautiful bird's eye of God's entire eschatological program. Now, enough said on the meaning of this passage, but let me end with three more applications. First, if Christ and the 144,000 could harvest a remnant from this wicked nation despite their persecution, we ought to be willing to share the gospel to people who are mean to us. You know, we tend to avoid people who are mean to us, but no, we shouldn't. We ought to be willing to be the sickle that Christ uses. Now, of course, that takes Christ's heart to be able to do that by His grace. We can't do it on our own. The incredible compassion Paul had for his fellow Jews in Romans 9 is not something we can do on our own. By the way, you can have the love of Christ should have broadened your heart without wishing you go to hell. I think that's a stupendously unique situation with Paul. But you can have a compassion that moves you to go out and get beyond your comfort zones, but it's Christ doing that through you. It's the King of the harvest loving the harvest through you. And you could pray that God would do that more and more. Romans 8 says we can pray that He would shed abroad His love in our hearts to enable us to love the unlovable, to be kind to those who are mean to us, to basically involve ourselves in this harvest of our persecutors. Second, if Christ is wearing the victory crown, and if we live in the era that Daniel 7, 13-14 prophesied would end with the Christianization of the entire planet, then we can have incredible hope that the Great Commission will be a success. Jesus said, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Now, some people think of themselves as cowering, and the gates of hell are chasing them. Gates are stationary. We're battering down the gates of hell. They're defensive mechanisms. He says, we don't want any vestige of Satan in this world. We're binding demons to the pit, down to hell. Every vestige of Satan will eventually be removed from planet Earth. That is the call that Christ gives. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church. He wants us to be on the offensive. So there's really no excuse for pessimism or discouragement. This is a passage that calls people to have faith and hope. Even the demonic is no match for a church of faith. Third, be sensitive to those who are ready for the harvest and those who are not. If even Jesus was sensitive and He waited till the grain was dry and ripe for harvest, we should not pick green fruit. In other words, there's no point using high-pressure sales techniques to try to get people to convert, you know, to make professions of faith. That's so man-centered. That's an Arminian approach. And that's only going to produce psychological conversions. Well, you might have some genuine ones along with it because God uses Arminians in Reformed. He uses everybody to evangelize, right? But it's so easy to produce psychological conversions instead of genuine conversions. So look for those whom God has prepared to be receptive and confidently share with them. Say, Who do you want me to talk to today? I want to be prepared to be a witness to your elect. And when you share with them, you can have a confidence God will draw his harvest to himself. Now, I didn't mean you can't share with everybody. You can share the gospel with everybody. Just don't be surprised if some of those people hate you for it and start persecuting you for it. You know, there may be your message is going to harden them for judgment that we're going to look at in verses 17 through 20, but here's the point. Don't get discouraged. Pray to the Lord of Harvest to open up divine opportunities for you to share the faith, and as he prepares people for the gospel, be confident that Christ will use you as his sickle. Amen. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you that you sought us long, long before we ever thought to seek you. that you regenerated us before we could even have faith. That you drew our hearts to you before we became a people who would seek after you. And Father, we glory in your sovereignty. We glory in the riches of your grace, your mercy, your love. We worship you for having saved us. As we look at our evil hearts and how easy it is to drift as Asa drifted and to depend upon ourselves as the disciples at the Last Supper depended upon themselves, we are so thankful that even when we are faithless, you prove to be faithful to us. And Father, we don't want to be faithless. We want our faith to be encouraged. We want to be a Gideon's army, who doesn't just get involved when the going's easy, but who are willing to lay down our lives for your cause. Help us to be a people who seeks first your kingdom and your righteousness, and we receive your promise that you will add all of these things that the Gentiles seek after to us when we don't seek them. Father, help us to be sold out for your kingdom, to be a sickle in the hands of Jesus, and it's in his name that we pray, amen.