Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #43 of Revelation, chapter 14 and we are continuing to look at Revelation14:15:
And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.
We have been discussing God’s end time harvest, the final harvest that comes at the end of the world, according to Matthew 13:39: “The harvest is the end of the world,” or the end of the age. At that time, God will “Send in the sickle.” He will send forth His people, as it says, in John 4:38: “I sent you to reap.” He will send in His people to reap the harvest, to gather His elect and, at that same time, the unsaved will be gathered for burning or for destruction.
One interesting thing is that the Greek word translated as “harvest” is “therismos,” Strong’s #2326, and it comes from the Greek word “therido,” which is Strong’s #2325, and “therido” is the word for “reap,” so harvest and reaping are very closely related, which makes sense. But that word, “therido” comes from Strong’s #2330, which is “theros,” and this word is translated as “summer” in the Bible. We have pointed out before that “harvest” and “summer” are synonymous and they are also very closed related Greek words. So we can understand when we read statements like, “summer is nigh,” God is indicating that harvest is near or close at hand.
We also went to the Book of Proverbs last time and we saw a couple of very important warnings that the Lord gave concerning harvest. One was in Proverbs, chapter 6, where He talked about the ant and told us to consider her ways and to be wise, because it was pointed out that she provided her meat in the summer and gathered her food in the harvest. Along with that, God gave a warning about “sleeping.” It said in Proverbs 6:9-11:
How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: so shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man.
This is not the only time that God warns about “sleeping” at harvest time. It also says in 10:5:
He that gathereth in summer is a wise son: but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame.
And, remember, harvest and summer are synonymous, so we find very direct warnings here to God’s children (sons of God) to gather in summer. Now why would God say that when the harvest is the end of the world, unless, of course, God’s people were living on the earth at that time? Therefore, the command would have application to them and the task would be given to them and they should be going about their duty, obeying God as His servants to do His will in reaping the harvest, the great multitude saved out of Great Tribulation.
On the other hand, when Judgment Day comes (as it did on May 21, 2011) some people have turned back from even wanting to discuss Judgment Day and they have no interest in the coming of Christ and some of these same people that were loudly professing that Judgment Day would be May 21, 2011 will now tell you, “No man knows the day or hour.” Has this been an improvement for them spiritually? Has it helped them to be more diligent in their Christian walk and in being a servant of the Lord? No – from all we can tell, there is no activity; there are no tract trips and there is no one saying, “Hey, I am going to go hand out tracts. Why don’t you come with me?” I do not know of any of that happening among those I know of who think that salvation is continuing. Of course, there may be some here or there. It is not important even if people are doing that because God is not with them; God is not going out with them on tract trips, if they were to go. He is not with them as they are evangelizing and encouraging people to seek salvation. God is not involved with that program any longer and, ultimately, that is the most important thing. But as far as the spiritual condition of those that ought to know better and that profess to be true believers and maybe even acknowledge that the church age is over, it can only be said that they are in some kind of “stupor.” They are involved in a spiritual “sleep” because of their inactivity and, certainly, they are completely inactive in reaping the harvest, which can only be accomplished by continuing to proclaim the truth God has opened up to us. It was Judgment Day on that date of May 21, 2011 and salvation has ended. Now the messengers of God are gathering together the elect; they are feeding them with the information that is coming forth from the Word of God, but “He that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causes shame.”
In two key places in the New Testament, the Lord makes reference to “sleeping.” We read one of them last time, in Mark 13, where the Lord makes reference to sleeping in regard to Judgment Day, which would be harvest time, as we are seeing in Revelation 14; Judgment Day is likened to harvest. It says in Mark 13:33-37:
Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is. For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch. Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.
Here, God is relating the idea of sleeping in Judgment Day (when Christ is come in judgment) and some people are found “sleeping,” just as He warns about sleeping in harvest. It is a very dangerous thing because if you are found sleeping, it will lead to “poverty.” We saw the verse in Proverbs that said, “The destruction of the poor is their poverty.” It is basically language that is saying these are unsaved people that will be destroyed and, therefore, sleeping in harvest is an evidence of not being saved. We can see how that would be because it is the “wise,” like the ant, that gathers her food in summer. In harvest time it is the wise son that is busy in harvest and the other son (the foolish son) is one that causes shame. And it is the wise that will understand. It is the wise man’s heart that discerneth both time and judgment. So the child of God who is granted wisdom (the Lord Jesus) to dwell in them have discernment to know the “time” (May 21, 2011 as Judgment Day) and the nature of judgment, the spiritual judgment that is taking place. It is essential to understand these things in order to get busy laboring in the harvest at this time.
If you do not understand that May 21, 2011 was Judgment Day and that it was a spiritual judgment, then you will be caught in the malaise that has caught so many. You will be sleeping at this time and you will not respond to God’s command to reap and to “prophesy again,” as the Lord says, or to “publish and conceal not” that Babylon has fallen. There will be a lack of discerning “both time and judgment,” and, therefore, you will not reap. But God’s people, the wise, have been given discernment and they understand. As a result, they will be involved in the process of reaping. Once the true believers hear the command of God, they act and God makes sure of this, just as He did in the days leading up to May 21, 2011. It was the Lord who stirred up His people to work in getting out the Gospel, sowing the seed like never before, because God moved in His people to will and to do of His good pleasure. Likewise, it is God’s spirit within His people that will cause them, once again, to be involved in His work.
We find another passage where the Lord is describing Judgment Day, in 1Thessalonians 5:1-10:
But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
We are familiar with this passage in many ways, because this is one place where God spoke of Christ coming as a thief. And when He does so, it says “that day should not overtake you as a thief,” and that is because the people of God will have foreknowledge and they will be forewarned about that day (as we were). Then God speaks of those that are in darkness as those “that sleep sleep in the night,” as it says in verse 7.
What else have we learned? God speaks of a work day that is 12 hours long and the last hour, the 11th to the 12th hour, typified the Great Tribulation. The 12-hour day pictured the day of salvation and it is the “day” Christ referred to when He said that while it was day He must work the works of Him that sent Him. And according to John 6: 27-29, what was that work? The work is that they believe and this was the work that Christ must work throughout the day of salvation – he worked that particular work of granting belief or faith to those He saved. But, then it says in John 4, “the night cometh when no man can work,” and that is picturing Judgment Day. Christ comes as a thief in the night; He comes at the end of the work day and it is Judgment Day. Of course, it is a spiritual judgment, at first, and that is what took place on that date of May 21, 2011, and yet it is spiritual night time. Let me read that verse, again, in 1Thessalonians 5:7: “Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.” Notice how God is connecting “sleep” to “night,” and as we saw at the end of the work day the spiritual night came (at the end of the Great Tribulation). That is why the Bible says, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven,” and these are the lights that are in the heavens; without the lights, you have darkness. In many ways, it is a “darkness which may be felt,” because it is so spiritually dark: “For they that sleep sleep in the night.” Do you see how God is emphasizing sleeping in harvest and sleeping in judgment? He comes and finds men sleeping when He comes in harvest, in Judgment Day, and they are sleeping in the night, because they lack spiritual light. They cannot perceive what is happening as God brings spiritual judgment upon the world.
On the other hand, the Bible says, “but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.” Notice there is also a tie-in with “drunkenness.” It is interesting that as far as “sleeping” when Christ comes, we only find that kind of language in Mark 13, but Mark 13 is a parallel passage of Matthew 24 and Luke 21, but we do not find “sleeping” mentioned in those passages, but we do find “drunkenness.” For instance, let us go to Matthew 24:42-51:
Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh. Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Notice how God ties together the statement that the evil servant is saying in his heart, “My lord delayeth his coming.” Why would a professed servant of God say that unless he had thought that the Lord would come at a certain time? But when the Lord does not come at the expected time, then this servant says in his heart, “My lord delayeth his coming,” and then notice what that thought of the heart leads to, in Matthew 24:49: “And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken;” Since it says that he begins to smite his fellow servants, we can assume he was not smiting them before this, but after thinking in his heart that the lord delayed his coming, this allowed him to smite his fellow servants and eat and drink with the drunken. Can you see how perfectly this fits with the situation that happened in the time after the Tribulation ended, after May 21, 2011?
I have to admit that there was a time when I was shocked and I had not thought anything in the spiritual realm could shock me any longer after going through the Great Tribulation, with so many in the churches so angry and hostile to the true teaching of the Bible that the church age was over. There were cries of heresy and it was said it was a teaching of Satan and there was much reviling of God’s people and we at EBible experienced this, along with many others. Yet, after a while, you get accustomed to it and it really did not bother me at all. But, then after May 21, 2011 came and went and especially after October 21, 2011 came and went, I was stunned, I will admit, but not so much stunned by the fact that I was being reviled and EBible was being reviled or Mr. Camping was being reviled, but I was stunned by who was doing the reviling. It was the same people that just a few weeks earlier had (seemingly) been in perfect agreement with us and we were walking hand in hand in our understanding of the Word of God. But these same people were turning against those that were continuing to trust in the same teaching that these people had once trusted in and some of them were even teachers of these things. First, there was this one (falling away) and then another, and another, and another. It was initially shocking. It took a little while, but then God revealed what He was doing. He revealed that He had a program of testing His people; He was “trying” the house to see what the foundation was and He was testing each individual believer to see if they were “gold, silver, precious stones” or “wood, hay, stubble.”
Then God laid out His whole program of judgment and then it all made sense. Once we understand from the Bible, then it helps us in our lives to deal with things. After not too long, once again, this sort of reviling became just as expected as the reviling of those within the churches during the Great Tribulation. Of course, there was anger and “weeping and gnashing and teeth” against the true believers in the Day of Judgment because the judgment had come to them, just as previously it had been focused on those in the churches and they, too, had reacted angrily. But now God brought the judgment “home” to individuals, some of which had perhaps thought they could escape the judgment of God simply by leaving the churches. But we cannot escape the judgment except through the mercy and grace of God in salvation and these people began to give evidence that, perhaps, they were not saved. I will not go so far as to say they are not saved, but it can certainly be evidence when someone professes to be a true believer, but then turns on their fellow servants and reviles them and beats them and begins “to eat and drink with the drunken.” It is evidence of “sleeping” in harvest and of being “drunken” in the harvest time.
Next time we get together, we will look a little more at what God means “to be drunken.”