Continuing our sermon series in Revelation today, in the Bible, the church is often referred to in agrarian terms, agricultural kind of terms, sometimes as a field, sometimes as a vineyard, sometimes as a fig tree. and other analogies like that. You can probably think of some more yourself. The Lord is often referred to as the owner of these fields, vineyards, whatever they are, who tends to his church, which is the vineyard, and who expects us to bring forth fruit that is pleasing to him. He wants a harvest, wants a harvest from us. When the field is ready for harvesting, he is often seen as the one who evaluates what is there, the fruit that's there. And then he acts accordingly, bringing in the good fruit and rejoicing over it and bringing judgment upon the fruit that is not good fruit. This is what we see again and again in the scripture. In the passage that we come to today, which is Revelation 14, the last part of it, verse 14 through 20, we see our Lord reaping His harvest. He gathers in the good fruit, and He purges out the bad fruit. This is a work that He has done at various times, various seasons, all through history. There are periods when there's especially a time of reaping, and other periods when there is not. Jesus told His disciples when He was here that such a time was at hand. He said, the harvests are white, they're ready for harvest, so pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His fields. And He told them to seek that because the time was at hand for that. There's other times when it's not so evident that things seem to just go along, there's not an active manifestation so much of His judgment or His bringing people into salvation. As members of the church, we have our role to play on earth in this very important work that he does. But as we have often found as we've studied Revelation, in Revelation, we get to see these things from heaven's perspective. So we see a reaping period on earth and we see evangelists going out. We see people coming to be saved. We see wars going on, bringing punishments upon God's enemies, all of these kind of things in the world. But in Revelation, we get to see what's going on in heaven, which is very interesting. The things that are parallel to what's happening here on the earth with our Lord Jesus reigning there and with his angels carrying out their work. There are many different interpretations of Revelation 14, of course, as you know, in Revelation this is the case, about the period to which these particular matters refer, this reaping that we're looking at here. I am with those who see it as the harvest of the land of Israel, that occurred after the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, for about 50, 60, 70 years after that, there was this period that I think is what is described here. I'm not going to be dogmatic about that. In a previous sermon on the first part of this chapter, though, we saw the 144,000 Jewish believers who had been spared when Jerusalem fell. God had marked them out, He had sealed them, and He had delivered them from the city, just like Jesus said, to go and flee to the mountains when this judgment comes. And they had heard that, they had done that, they had gone to Pella, and they were spared. And it turns out that God preserved that 144,000 Jewish people to then come back and do evangelism in the land. Which is a marvelous thing, after the fall of Jerusalem, that he should then come and do evangelism again, among the people that had just been through those terrible, terrible judgments regarding the fall of Jerusalem. In 14, six through 13, we saw the angels who were involved in this work that was ensuing. One was said to have the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell in the earth. Now we've seen a revelation. There's the earth and the sea. The sea is the nations and the earth is Israel. The land is called the land. This is where the land is, where the people of God are. the Old Testament people of God. Another angel proclaimed that Babylon, in that section, that Babylon, which we saw refers to Jerusalem, we saw that very clearly, the place where our Lord was crucified, the great city it's called, that it had fallen. because of its spiritual adultery and fornication. So this is after the fall of Jerusalem, because that angel said Babylon has fallen. We saw very clearly that it was past tense there. So now we're looking at things that ensue after the fall of Jerusalem. And yet another angel warned of the wrath that would come to those who worship the beast. Because there were many who were worshiping the Roman beast, we saw that the Jews, almost to a man, by their leaders in the Talmud, some of the Talmud, things like that, had led them to worship the beast. Just like it said, the beast of the land, got the people of the land to worship the beast that had risen from the sea, the Roman emperor, the whole nation of Rome that has her emperors. We said, oh, that's the beast. I feel like I want to go into all these things that we've already gone into. I don't want to overdo this, but some of you have not been with us in these things. We saw that this work of the angels is a work that they do to prepare people to hear the way of salvation by encouraging them to receive the gospel and by warning them about rejecting it. And this is the kind of work we see angels doing. We see it today that even people that are in lands like sometimes Muslims and things like that, they'll have visions of a missionary coming and they'll be warned about you need to listen to this. You know, you're going to be judged. You need to recognize where the truth is. They'll have these things and they'll be already ready. The angels do this preliminary kind of work, and this is what was done in this time. It is our job as believers to proclaim the way of salvation. But our work would not succeed apart from the angels doing their work. So they do a preparatory work. They have ways of bringing messages to people and things like that to bring convict, to help bring conviction and all of those things. Now, of course, it is the Lord alone who ultimately does that by his spirit. But just as he uses us as we preach the gospel, he uses angels in the way that they work to bring about these things. Angels are used to bring the truth to converts that convict sinners, not to converts, but to convict sinners. even before they hear the gospel, a preparatory kind of work. But the angels don't preach the gospel in terms of the way of salvation, because that is our responsibility. That is left to us to do. And so this all works together. Here they are doing it after the fall of Jerusalem to the Jews, who are where? Outside the city. Why are they outside the city? The ones in the city, the city was destroyed. And almost all of the Jews that were in Jerusalem during that great siege and the collapse of the city under the Romans were destroyed. And so here they are then outside in the rest of the land of Israel. So what this means is that everything is set Okay, as we come into this section we're at today, 14, 14 through 20, everything is set for this great work of evangelism that the Lord is getting ready to do. A gathering in of his elect, what Jesus said would happen after the fall of Jerusalem, that the people would be gathered together, and a consequent cutting off of those who reject his salvation. So once again, the gospel doesn't come also without judgment. That's what our text is about. So we see both the gathering, but at the same time when there's that gathering, there's heavy judgment that falls upon those who reject this administration of the gospel. That's always the way it is. So let's read the passage. Revelation 14. This is the Word of God. Revelation 14, 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. 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. So he who sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped. 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, who had the power over fire, and he cried out with a loud cry to him who had a sharp sickle, the sharpsicle, saying, thrust in your sharpsicle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe. 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. And the winepress was trampled outside the city, yes, outside the city, and the blood came out of the winepress up to the horse's bridles for 1,600 furlongs. Which, interestingly, that distance is the length of Israel from north to south. Very interesting. But thanks be to God for his holy word. How beautifully this passage opens. Look at how it opens. We see our gracious Lord Jesus ready to gather his harvest. Look at him here. Take a look. The first thing John speaks of is his seat. Where is he? He's seated on a white cloud. Then I looked, verse six, and behold, a white cloud. I'm sorry, I said verse six, verse 14. Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat one like the Son of Man. This is similar to when John was first brought up to heaven in his vision. He was brought in a vision to heaven. And you remember the first thing that he mentioned? When he saw all the things, the first thing he mentioned was the throne. It's very interesting. God then was seated on the throne or manifestation of God, the Ancient of Days. You know, there he was. The throne was the thing that that caught his attention. What does this show? It was to emphasize that the thing that was most manifest about the Lord there was his sovereign rule. That He is the One who rules over all things. He is the Father of Glory, the Ancient of Days. That's what was emphasized throughout the rest of that chapter. They praise God as Creator and Ruler, the Sovereign Lord, who does whatever He pleases in heaven and earth. Here we see Christ, then. What is the thing that is characteristic as soon as we see Him? He's on this cloud. Jesus prophesied of this at his trial, didn't he? Remember when he came before his enemies, when he was trying him for his crucifixion? He said that those who were trying him would see him, that they would see him in the clouds coming to judge them. You remember how they responded. They knew that was a claim to divinity. And so immediately they said, he blasphemes. We've heard him with our own ears. They were trying to get witnesses together. They couldn't get witnesses. They said, now we're the witnesses. We've heard him blaspheme. He said that he's coming in the clouds. And so, you know, they agreed that he should be crucified, deliver him over to be crucified, condemn him for blasphemy. They did not need witnesses. They never stopped to recognize whether what he was saying was true. It is what he said. But it wasn't blasphemy because he was indeed the son of God, and he was indeed going to come in clouds of glory, which he did. And they did see him, that generation, those people saw him, like he said. The cloud is white, representing his purity and his righteousness, as well as his divinity. As our Savior, he was perfectly righteous. No other human being has ever been righteous. He is the only one. Nobody else has even come close. Our salvation depends entirely upon him being righteous, a righteous man, becoming flesh and being righteous in human flesh. If he was not righteous, he could not have procured righteousness for his church. He would have been condemned himself. This he did, though, procured righteousness for us because he was righteous. And then he died on the cross in order that we might have pardon. Without this righteousness, there would be no harvest. of redeemed people for him to gather in. There would be no one to be saved. Without this righteousness, he would not be able to judge Satan and all sinners who refuse him and his salvation. This white glory cloud then is foundational to all that happens in this passage. The white glory cloud characterizes this one who has come to gather in his harvest. It's a white glory cloud where judgment ensues and where gathering, sovereign gathering of people to himself ensues. The second thing that we see about him is that he is one like the son of man, it says. Now this title, one like the son of man, that was very familiar, of course, to those who knew God's word in the first century. It comes from Daniel 7, 13 and 14 where Daniel says, I was watching in the night visions and behold one like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. He came to the ancient of days, Father on the throne, and they brought him near before Him. Then to him, our mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, 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 in his kingdom, the one which shall not be destroyed. So this cloud represents him with that dominion to have authority. All the nations are given to him. This is where we see the son of man. The son of man is the title that Jesus used most often to refer to himself. He was the one that in Daniel who was to come and who was to be given this authority to establish his eternal kingdom. And he loved that title. This title distinguishes him from angels, and it also distinguishes him from ordinary men who do not have that place as the son of man that Daniel spoke of. They're not divine like he is. We see also that he has a golden crown on his head. This all ties in with it, doesn't it? The emphasis that he is the one Daniel spoke of as having authority in heaven and earth. He is the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. The Father has given him all authority so that he can rule, so that he can have a people for himself, the people that the Father has given him, and so that he can judge his enemies. This is important to what follows in the passage. He has authority to reap. He has authority to deal with the harvest and to bring judgment and blessing according to his will in his reaping. The fourth thing we see is that he has a sharp sickle in his hand. What is that sickle for? It is for harvesting people. It's a sharpsicle because it never fails. If you have a dullsicle, you might leave stuff behind when you're trying to cut the crops down. But when you have a sharpsicle, everything is cut. Not one is missing. Everyone will be judged. Everyone will be either brought to blessing or cursing. No one will escape. No one will be left out. No one will be flattened down. They didn't get cut. Every single one is brought in. A dullsicle then is not appropriate to him. Likewise, his enemies will try to hide from his wrath, but not one will escape. This is like Psalm 45. Where the bride of Christ, the church, is looking at him as he gets on his horse to ride forth for truth and humility and righteousness. And she's admiring him as he's going out to battle and war to bring this justice into the earth. And he has sharp arrows there that pierce the hearts of his enemies. So that they come and they bring either, again, where there's a judgment and hardening, or else there's a salvation, a softening and a turning to Him. Beautiful repentance and salvation, or shame and eternal ruin. His arrows never fail. Okay, so let this vision of His Majesty have its proper effect on you. I hope it already has as you've listened to it. These things should be exciting to us. Let it fill you with admiration for Jesus, the Son of God, coming with the clouds of glory. You know, He's come many, many times in the clouds of glory, and He's going to come at the end of the age. He is at work today in the world. Some places we see him working in a very manifest way. Other places, he's more not so manifest. He's always working, but with lesser visibility in one place, greater visibility in another place. There's times of reaping, and there's times of sowing, and there's all different things that go on. And he will come at the end of the world in all of his fullness. A lot of people see this as something that refers to the end of the world. Well, it certainly does refer to the end of the world. This is the kind of thing that's going to happen at the end, but it's also something that happens along the way. And again, I think it happened this time. Some people think it's referring to the time of the Reformation. It does suit all of those times, but if it happened in the first century and it fits all the time sequences that are mentioned and the things that are laid out, then it seems like that that's the way we should understand it and recognize that with God's word, when it speaks about a different time period, like it's in the time of the prophet, it has all kinds of meaning for us in future times. God operates in a similar way in all different periods of history. Let this vision also delight you. Let it humble you. Let it give you confidence in his power to save. Here he is in the white cloud. Let it put fear of judgment in you. Let it stir you up to proclaim his gospel without flinching. Nothing to be afraid of when this one who is on the cloud. When you fear him, how can you fear what man might do to you? Our text goes on to show us how he employs his sharpsicle in two ways. I've already referred to them, but for gathering his elect and for cutting off the reprobate. Let's take a look at this. First, the gathering of his elect is described in verses 15 and 16. I'll read these verses again. Another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him who sat on the throne, thrust in your sickle and reap. For the time has come for you to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe. So he who sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth and the earth was reaped. So here an angel comes to declare the time of harvesting that it has come. The times and seasons are with the father. They are in his hand. Jesus told us that. The angel comes from the temple in heaven where the father is seated on his throne. to declare that the time to reap has come. It should not trouble us to see an angel declaring this to Christ. Jesus is the son of man, and the father often employed his angels when Jesus was here, and employs them to deliver messages to his people, and to deliver them to the Lord as well. Jesus had angels ministering to him through his days here. He did this frequently with Christ when he was on the earth. He is told to act now because the earth is ready for harvest, it's ripe. I've already explained why I believe this to be the harvest of Israel. Again, the three angels had just prepared the way for the gospel, just to review those ways. The three angels had just prepared the way for the gospel after the destruction of Jerusalem, subsequent to that destruction, and they had mentioned that in their bringing of message to people. There was conviction about that, you know, looking and seeing what had happened and the terrible judgment that would humble the people who are surviving outside of Jerusalem, the Jews that were surviving and cause them to think twice about where they were. Again and again, our text speaks of the earth. Gay. This is the world that is the words used in Revelation for the land of Israel. Again, the sea refers to the nations. And further, history testifies that this was indeed a time of harvesting. In Israel, after the fall of Jerusalem, there was this great harvest of many Jews outside of Jerusalem who were brought to salvation. And these Jewish people that were preserved through that time of the destruction of Jerusalem, they were used to bring the gospel to them. This happened. It occurred after the fall of Jerusalem. This work went on for over half a century. It was a very prosperous time, really, in that regard. Look at how the gracious harvesting work of our Savior is described here. He Himself does it. Yes, we've seen angels and humans are integral to God's work of evangelism because in His sovereignty He has made them integral. He's made us integral to His work. But nobody is gathered into Christ's kingdom, unless what? unless the Lord gathers them. He's the one that ultimately saves people, and we can't do it. Whatever evangelism we do, whatever the angels do, no one can change a human heart to bring them to salvation except the Lord himself. He works by his mighty spirit, this one seated on the cloud. This does not mean that the angels do not need to do their part, and it does not mean that we do not need to do our part. This is how God has appointed it to happen. Our Lord has chosen to involve both angels and humans in his saving work. And in Revelation, we get to see the role of angels and we see the Lord here. But he alone is able to do the work of conversion. It is a divine work. If you understand this properly, it'll make you more zealous for evangelism, not less zealous, because you'll realize God is going to save people. He's able to do this. He has authority to do this. And it will encourage you then to go out and tell people about his salvation. Christ will bring everyone of his elect into his kingdom. Not one will be lost. He tells us that himself. He told us that when he was here. Now this should affect you in other ways as well, to see this sovereignty in his hand. It should stir you up to pray for evangelism. Evangelism can't be done without the work of the triune God. So if his work is necessary, we don't just go out and start witnessing to people without praying. That would be foolish. We look to the Lord to do the work. It should also prevent you from using unbiblical methods of evangelism. How many have been unfaithful in their witness by trying to make the gospel more appealing to people? That's not right. You know, they'll avoid, oh, we're not going to talk about hell because it might turn people off and they might not want to come to Jesus. No, no, no, no. That's not at all what we should do. He is sovereign. He brings people through the message that he has given us, not through a message that we craft and shape that we think will be more palatable to people. Indeed, people might get very angry when we preach the whole counsel of God, but we preach it. Nevertheless, it is the truth. Some even try to entertain people into the kingdom. Some use tactics of manipulation to bring people in. That's no way to do God's work. It should also prevent boasting if we have a lot of fruit, or discouragement if we do not, as long as we're faithful. That's a very important qualification. If you're not faithful, you see, it's His work and we're always victorious. The Apostle Paul said, when we're faithfully preaching the gospel, sometimes we have to shake the dust off our feet. Even though we were faithful, nobody listened. And Jesus had to do that. He talked about, woe to these cities that I've done my mighty works, and no one listened. And he said, it's gonna be worse for them in judgment than it was for Sodom and Gomorrah. That can happen if we're faithful. But then, you see, he was still victorious because his work in that case was to harden them. And we're saver of death unto death to some. But then other times, people come, and it's not about us. That's about God's doing. We're to be faithful, a steward is to be faithful. I have seen seasons in our church when there was a great amount of growth, great amount of God's working, and other times when it was much quieter, little fruitfulness. God asks us to be faithful, but unfaithfulness is another matter. We often are unfaithful in our witness and inconsistent in our living before God and before others. And because of that, it prevents others, as far as we're concerned, from coming to Christ. And that should humble us. We shouldn't say, oh, well, God's sovereign. No, if you were unfaithful, you should say I was unfaithful. I need to repent. I need to get right with God. We need to say we need to recognize that God will forgive us and we need to get things straightened out with him. What a grand thing it is to see the gracious work of in gathering that Jesus has done through the ages and a work that he himself must do and does do, but that we have an integral part in with the angels. Let's trust him and let's get to work. Let's get to work in the harvest as we have opportunity. Now, let's look at the reaping of those who refuse his gospel, how he reaps them. This work is described in verses 17 through 20. We're told of two angels who come to do this work. The first one comes out of the temple in heaven. It specifically mentions that it is the temple in heaven. Why? What happened to the temple on earth? It was destroyed. It's gone. Temple on earth has been destroyed. So this angel comes from the temple that he does shows that he is sent by God. He's come from God. There's something extraordinary here, too. You notice it. What do we see here? This angel comes with a sharp sickle. Like the Lord had a sharp sickle, this angel also has a sharp sickle coming from the throne of God. He does not come to tell Christ to use his sickle as the other angel did, but he comes to use the sickle himself. Now, why is there this variance here? The work of cutting and of reaping, of cutting off the wicked does not require the direct work of God. Everything requires the work of God, but it doesn't require the direct work of God. It can be carried out by angels who are sent by God. I said before that when it comes to converting a soul, it's his work. He has to do that. No one else can do it. No one can change their heart. Only God can do that. But Jesus is the judge and he is he gathers some to salvation and these other ones he didn't gather to salvation. And so then he sends his angels out, cut them down. This is what they do. He does not know them. Depart from me. I never knew you, he will say to them. He uses his angel to deliver them over to destruction. This is interesting, isn't it? The second angel, interestingly, does not come from the temple, but from the altar. where sacrifices were made outside of the temple. You remember what we've seen about the temple? The word temple here again is naos. That refers to the inner temple, the sanctuary, the holy place. And we've seen the altar before. It's outside of the naos, right? It's out in the courtyard. And we saw this back in Revelation chapter eight especially. Remember what happened there? We saw an angel Which I think, I told you, I believe to be Christ, so there's debate about that, but who offered up the imprecatory prayers of the saints. Okay, so the saints were being persecuted, they said, when will you avenge our blood? And the saints on earth were praying, the saints in heaven were praying, those who had been slaughtered for their faith. And these prayers that they brought were mixed with incense. We saw that that incense represents, of course, the intercession of Jesus Christ, which is mingled with the prayers of his people and makes them acceptable. And what did it lead to? Do you remember? It led to taking coals off of the altar and pouring them out on the earth. And then what happened? The seven trumpets that brought terrible destruction and the complete destruction of Jerusalem that we have seen that occurred. It was an answer to prayer. When we pray, your kingdom come, we need to realize we're asking for greater than an atomic bomb. Like we're asking, your kingdom comes means that Satan's kingdom is going to be destroyed. God's kingdom doesn't come without at the same time Satan's kingdom being destroyed. And our prayers are very, very powerful. Jesus talked about moving mountains by our prayers. This mountain that was opposed to him will be cast into the sea. because of your prayers. And so we need to remember this, that if we have faith like a mustard seed, then this will occur. So this is a picture, then, of those who reject Christ, who bore the fire of God's wrath. This is what they must experience. The coals on that altar represent God's wrath. Jesus was crucified, God's wrath fell upon him. Either he takes that wrath or we take that wrath. So these same coals of God's wrath that brought Jesus, that brought the curse on him and brought destruction and judgment to him when he represented us, are brought on those who reject his salvation. Makes us realize how powerful our prayers are. See, this angel comes from the altar and is said to have power over fire. Notice that? In the original, it has a definite article. This angel has power over the fire. What fire? The fire that's on the altar. He's the angel that comes from the altar with the fire that is on the altar. The fire represents that judgment. The Lord uses this angel to unleash his judgment against those who have rejected the gracious call of God in the gospel. Now what is our work in this aspect of God's work of the harvest? Do we go and cut down the nations in that way? No, our work is to faithfully preach the gospel and to pray for God's kingdom. We are not, and this is a careful qualification here, we're not ordinarily involved in bringing God's judgment unless We are judges and executioners that he has appointed or in a just war who are his ministers of justice to bring God's judgment and vengeance upon his adversaries in the earth. Sometimes those executioners can even be people that are ungodly, like the Roman armies that brought God's judgment upon Jerusalem. So then we're to pronounce, if we are those judges, for example, and a civil magistrate, we're to pronounce God's judgment as ministers of justice, and sometimes that will be execution, it will be the death penalty for certain things. But the church itself does not bear the sword. We are to remove those from the church, though, by church discipline, which is a, in a way, a worse thing for someone to be cut off because of their rejection of the Lord than in their disobedience to Christ. See the way that this dreadful work of judgment is carried out, then it's not not again, it's mainly is not so much. We don't have as much of a hand in this as we do with evangelism and the gathering in of the of the lost. The angel from the altar tells the angel with a sickle to act. He cried out 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. The earth is ripe for judgment. The time has come for dreadful judgments to fall again. They'd fallen in 70 AD, and that's another 60 years later or so. At least when we look at what happened in history, we're not told that specifically in the passage. But for judgments to come again, this is what often happens. In verse 19 through 20, the angel with his sickle obeys. 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. And the winepress was trampled outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress up to the horse's bridles for 1,600 furlongs. It's a gruesome description, isn't it? All this blood. It speaks of judgment across the whole land of Israel. Look at the details. It happened outside the city. Not destruction of Jerusalem now. That's not what it's talking about. It's after that. There was tremendous bloodshed up to the horse's bridles. It extended for 1,600 furlongs, which I mentioned before is the length of Israel's land from north to south. And this number is also symbolic. Now there's more details we could look at that number. Chilton says that the number 1,600 emphasizes the land of Israel, four squared, the land, times 10 squared, largeness, 1,600 stadia. He says slightly more than the length of Palestine. The whole land of Israel is thus represented is overflowing with blood in this nationwide judgment. So it's not just Jerusalem. Now, before there had been a lot of judgment in the rest of Israel, too, but it was concentrated on bringing down Jerusalem. Now, though, this judgment was devastating to the whole land. I was amazed at looking at some of the history of this time period. Philip Kayser notes that this was fulfilled in the Jewish Bar Kokhba rebellion from 132 to 136 AD. And this rebellion of the Jews was squashed by the Roman Emperor Hadrian. These Jews led successful campaigns until Hadrian led a massacre of all the Jews in 49 fortresses all over the land, 985 villages, that the numbers of people, the numbers of Jews that were slaughtered here make the Holocaust look small. I mean, these numbers were probably exaggerated, but there are accounts of some of the Jews saying there were 80 million that were killed at this time. I mean, it was just devastating. They told about more specific details of schools, like all the schools of children. They didn't spare children, women, anyone were brought out of the schools. And there was only one that survived, they said, of all the children. It was this dreadful, dreadful judgment that is being spoken of here. Why? They had rejected the gospel for the second time, had another opportunity in God's wonderful mercy, and they rejected it again. You see, many were gathered in. There were some that were saved, but these ones that were not, this was a judgment that fell upon them. There are even accounts that specifically say, written by Jews who are not Christians, I have no sympathy with what's written in Revelation, that say there were places where there was blood up to the horse's bridles. And it's really remarkable to read all the different accounts that are spoken of this terrible period. The Jews know about this terrible judgment that fell. Now, I'll leave it to you to check out the details. We could go on and on about that, and that's not really our purpose is to do history here so much, is to say, God's word is always fulfilled. That's what you need to know. Whatever time period this is talking about, God's word is always fulfilled, and these are the ways he works. Okay, he brings his gospel again to people that have already been judged one time, nations and such. He brings it again. There's a period of harvest. Many people come in, but that period of harvest leads to this reaping where there's those that are brought in and there's those that are brought to judgment for rejecting all over again. So in this passage, we see a pattern of the way that our Lord works in history. You have people to begin with who deserve his wrath and judgment. It's always the case. He sends his angels to prepare them for the gospel. This is how he works. Then he sends his church to preach the gospel, and he himself goes with them, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age, and brings many souls to salvation. And after that, he sends forth, and even along the way, he sends forth judgments upon those who have rejected his salvation. He does this in one place, another place, another place, Big scale, smaller scale, all different times in history, this is how God works. And at the last day, he will bring a final judgment to all, gathering in his people to their everlasting habitation with him in glory, and delivering over the reprobate to his fiery judgment. The same eternal wrath that fell on Christ when he went to the cross will fall upon those who have rejected his salvation. Unspeakable horror will be the result. Let us then be sober-minded. Let us believe the gospel and let us preach the gospel. God doesn't mess around with these things. We need to take him seriously and soberly, and we need to do what we have been called to do by him. Please stand, and let's ask for his help. Oh Lord, our God, as we come before you, it is with recognition of your tremendous mercy. that those who had rejected you, who had delivered you over to the cross, that for those 30 years after that, that the gospel went out to them and they rejected it and they persecuted those who did believe and cast them into prisons and killed them. We think about all the apostles that were killed by the hands of those who had also crucified our Lord. But we see that those of Israel that believed were gathered in, they were forgiven. We think about Peter preaching there in Acts 2 and how that he told him, you crucified the Lord of glory. And many of them believed and they were welcomed into your kingdom. They were cleansed from all their sin. What mercy, what mercy you have. But then you did bring the judgment that you said you would bring in 70 AD. You brought that great judgment that fell upon Jerusalem so that the city was destroyed, yet you marked out your people and delivered them from that city that they might be spared. And we see then how that they went forth in history, we know these things happened in history, that they went out and they evangelized the land of Israel. And that many people did believe in that time, mercy coming again, another opportunity for salvation. And we see that those who rejected fell under a more devastating judgment that killed more than even the 1.1 million that were killed when Jerusalem, the city, fell. And we marvel, Lord, to think about these judgments from your hand. We look in history. And we see how your hand continues to operate. Nations that once knew you fall into confusion, and they ruin themselves in many ways, and you bring judgment upon them, you bring their enemies against them, you bring them down. And Father, you're so patient though, you wait so long, and you continue to extend the opportunity. And we pray, Father, that You would help us to rejoice in our Lord Jesus, seated on the white cloud, coming in judgment to do His work. We pray that we would do the work that we have been called to do. We pray that we would trust You, Lord, that we would cry out to You for the help that we need. Oh Lord, have mercy on us. We do know that we fail so often in doing what you have really called us to do. We pray that you would forgive us, Lord, that you would be tender toward us, Lord, and restore us that we may return to your way and that we may walk in the truth. Oh, fill us with your spirit, Lord. We're so dull. We're so dull. Many times we don't see you. We don't see your glory. We pray that you would open our eyes, that we would feed upon our Lord Jesus Christ, that we might be filled with the fullness of your truth and that we might delight in you and that we might walk with you. We need your grace every day. Father, we cry to you. Help us, Lord. Help us even this coming week. Help us now, Lord, to know that for all of our sins that we come to you and confess them, that we are fully forgiven, that we have hope that we can go forward knowing that you are with us, knowing that you will continue to prevail with us and continue to work with us. Thank You so much, Lord, for the salvation that You bring. We think about those that are lost, that we know. We pray, Lord, that we might see them come to salvation, for it will be terrible if they don't. Oh, Lord, we commit these things to You. In the name of our Lord Jesus, Amen. Now to the king, eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. What a difference that makes. Amen.