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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.
Evangelizing Your Persecuters
Series Revelation
This sermon discusses the supernatural way in which Jesus Christ reaps a harvest of souls through His evangelists.
| Sermon ID | 1241885374 |
| Duration | 45:08 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Revelation 14:14-16 |
| Language | English |
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