The Grapes of Wrath

Series on Revelation

II The Viewpoint

C Cycle Three, Seven Symbolic Histories

4 The Person of Christ

Text: 14:17-20

Introduction

I have never worked on a farm and I know next to nothing about harvesting, but they tell me That there is a difference here between gathering God’s people for his glory in verses 14-16 and reaping his enemies for wrath in verses 17-20. The writer of Revelation uses two different verbs for gathering grain and garnering grapes. One is “therizein,” a standard word for summer harvest which survives in names like Theresa. The other, “trygan,” is so called because it is a triangular shaped sickle used to gather grapes, usually in the fall in the northern hemisphere. Moreover, here threshing is a single act and is not followed by winnowing. Gathering the grapes, however, is followed by treading them out in the winepress. Isaiah writes of the vengeance of the Lord executed on His enemies in 63:2 and 3, Why are your garments red, like those of one treading the winepress? “I have trodden the winepress alone; from the nations no one was with me. I trampled them in my anger and trod them down in my wrath; their blood spattered my garments, and I stained all my clothing. In Lamentations 1:15 the prophet Jeremiah bewails God’s judgment on His people, “The Lord has rejected all the warriors in my midst; he has summoned an army against me to crush my young men. In his winepress the Lord has trampled the Virgin Daughter of Judah. In Genesis 49:11 Jacob is prophesying concerning his son Judah who will be the royal offspring and the father to David and Christ and after he has said that he will bear the royal scepter until Messiah comes, he says, He will tether his donkey to a vine, his colt to the choicest branch; he will wash his garments in wine, his robes in the blood of grapes. It is not at all strange that the destruction of God’s enemies should be pictured as treading out the grapes from a harvest for in Isaiah 5 and elsewhere in the Old Testament God’s people are pictured as a vine He planted and tended and when it does not produce the fruit of righteousness God says in verses 4-6, What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. We look today in verses 17-20 at the commencement, the continuation and the consummation of this judgment. The commencement is at the sanctuary, the continuation is in the season, and the consummation is with the slaughter.

I The Sanctuary

The starting place from which this final judgment commences is the altar as we read in verses 18 and 19, Another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, “Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth’s vine, because its grapes are ripe.” The altar is the throne of God and the place where the blood of Jesus was shed for our salvation. As the author of Hebrews relates in 9:11 and 12, When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. Thus Christ did above what the high priest of Israel did once annually on earth on the Jewish day of atonement, and what Jesus did he did once for all eternity. The altar is also the place where the prayers of the saints find lodging at the throne of God through the blood of Christ. Again this is described by the author of Hebrews in 10:19-22, Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Thus the altar is the place where both the prayers of the saints and the blood of Jesus call out for vengeance, and from the altar vengeance comes. There are many angels involved in these scenes of judgment in this entire chapter but this is not their judgment. We know from Matthew 25:31 that many angels will accompany Jesus in judgment, When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory, but it is Jesus judgment to separate the goats and the sheep. In John 5:27 Jesus clearly stated that the Father had “given him authority to judge because He was the Son of Man.” In Acts 10:42 Peter, in his sermon at the house of Cornelius in Caesarea says that God, commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he (Jesus) is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. This is the same Jesus we see in Revelation 19:11-16, I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: king of kings and lord of lords. Thus out of the sanctuary where he shed His blood comes gentles Jesus meek and mild to wage war on His enemies and to declare, as the Mikado sings in Gilbert and Sullivan’s opera, “My object all sublime, I shall achieve in time —To let the punishment fit the crime —The punishment fit the crime.” The gospel is good news, but it is good news against the backdrop of bad news, so let us take refuge.

II The Season

The account of this final judgment continues in verses 18 and 19, “Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth’s vine, because its grapes are ripe.” The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath. The grapes are ripe, and the season for harvest has come. Most people walk around hoping it will never come. Even though they know deep within that God will judge they go about saying that he will not. They claim death is the end and nothing but annihilation. Most congregants in churches today prefer a preacher that does not mention such distasteful things. John the Baptist did and he was beheaded. Jesus did and he was crucified. Sadly, Christians today are much like the people to whom Ezekiel the prophet was sent. God describes them in Ezekiel 33:31 and 32, My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to listen to your words, but they do not put them into practice. With their mouths they express devotion, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain. Indeed, to them you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words but do not put them into practice. It was always Jesus’ intention to wait until the harvest was ripe and then to separate the wheat from the chaff. In Verses 14-16 we saw the wheat harvested, and here we see the chaff burned. Listen to the parable of the kingdom of God in Matthew 13:24-30, Jesus told them another parable: The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. The owner’s servants came to him and said, “Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?” “An enemy did this,” he replied. The servants asked him, “Do you want us to go and pull them up?” “No,” he answered, “because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.” If you are a hunter you know that there are seasons for hunting deer, and bear, and turkey and small game, waterfowl and pheasants and others. There are severe penalties for those who do not observe the laws of the seasons. As the writer of Ecclesiastes says, “To everything there is a season,” and he describes the seasons in 3:2-8, A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. These are our seasons under the sun but they are also God’s seasons. God is love but He is also holy and just and righteous and all of His attributes must come into view at some point. The God of the Bible not only promises, He warns, and it is wise to heed the warnings in this Word of His.

III The Slaughter

The climax of this last judgment is the slaughter in verses 19 and 20, The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath. They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses’ bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia. We tend to romanticize this picture, but this aspect of the vision needs to have one of those warnings from TV like, “Viewer discretion advised,” or “Strong, bloody, violence,” or “This show contains scenes that some viewers may find disturbing”. Of course our religious experience is pristinely non-bloody, but for the Jews it was anything but. Throughout the Old Testament blood is everywhere. At certain times during the Passover celebration there were over 250,000 lambs slain with blood everywhere, all over the Temple, with so much blood flowing down the brook Kidron that it was called a “horrifying sight.” Even the children saw the lamb which might have become a household pet for a few days, kick and scream and be slaughtered in the presence of the family. If you were not raised on a farm and have never seen animals slaughtered, this would be an object lesson that would forever haunt your dreams. Such is the picture we have in our text, but it is not a picture of blood shed for salvation and remission of sin. It is a picture of blood shed in judgment and the place is “outside the city” which means not in the city of God, not in the church, not the people of God, but the unrepentant world. The quantity of blood is indicative of the severity of the judgment; the level of blood and gore rises as high as the horses’ bridles. The length of this river of blood is 1600 stadia, that is, about 180 miles. In this part of the chapter filled with symbolism it is difficult to maintain that the number 1600 should be taken literally. Are the adversaries of the Messiah all in one locale, namely, in the land of Israel? The kingdom of antichrist is worldwide. The best explanation in my opinion is that 4, the number of the earth is squared to 16 and 10 the number of perfection is squared to 100 and so it signifies the entire earth, but it is only speculation. More importantly, the quantity of blood from the temple sacrifices was enormous, but it is dwarfed by this bloodshed. At the risk of offending our sensibilities we should observe that while it may make us cringe to see an animals throat cut, but it is our throat that deserves to be cut. That animal was standing in for us. The blood from the temple sacrifices mixed with water rushed down through the drains until it gushed out with definite force into the Kidron Valley. This valley is between the temple mount where Jesus taught and Gethsamane where Jesus prayed before his crucifixion, so Jesus and his disciples crossed it that night. As He crossed the valley he went over the profusion of blood from the temple. What a picture! The Lamb of God about to shed His blood for sinners, crosses over the blood of the thousands of sacrifices which are about to become null and void and outmoded because there is one sacrifice that will make all the others totally unnecessary. As the author of Hebrews writes in 9:24–28, For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.