Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #48 of Revelation, chapter 14 and we are going to be reading Revelation14:18:

And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.

We know the “angel” or “messenger” is Christ.  The one with the sharp sickle is Christ and the command to “Thrust in they sharp sickle,” means to “Send in they sickle,” or send in the reapers, the people of God, “and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.” Last time we were looking at the word “clusters” in a couple of other verses and we also looked at the word “vine.”  We saw that the Bible says of the Lord Jesus Christ, “I am the true vine.”  But we also went to Deuteronomy 32:32:

For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter:

This does not have to do with true believers that are of the true vine, but this is “another vine” and, in Deuteronomy, God is pronouncing judgment against the people of Israel that ought to have known better, so much of this language also has to do with judgment on the churches when they develop another kind of gospel, another Christ and another vine.  It is not the true vine, but it is “the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah.”  Therefore, “their clusters are bitter,” and they are not good fruit, but bad fruit.

We are a little curious why God is using this kind of language to speak of the unsaved people of the earth.  It is crystal clear that Revelation 14 in this passage about harvest is describing the judgment on the world upon all the unsaved people.  Yet, we are not too accustomed to God using the language like “gather the clusters of the vine of the earth,” and in the next verse it says of those vines, in Revelation 14:19:

And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.

This is how we can be sure that in our verse the elect are not in view.  It is the unsaved and it is language of the final judgment upon them.  Now in Joel, chapter 3, we find a passage that is very similar to Revelation 14.  It says in Joel 3:12:

Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat…

The name “Jehoshaphat” means “JEHOVAH judge.”

… for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about.

This is just like what we read earlier in Revelation 14:14-15, where the Son of man is sitting upon the cloud as He comes to judge the nations of the world.

Then it says in Joel 3:13:

Put ye in the sickle…

This is the exact command we have seen a couple of times in Revelation 14: “Thrust in thy sickle.”   Likewise, the Old Testament word for “put ye” is also translated as “send.”  For instance, the same word is used in Isaiah 6:8:  “Then said I, Here am I; send me.”

So, it says in Joel 3:13:

Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow…

The “fats” would be the “winepress,” just as in our passage.  What happens there?  The unsaved are tread underfoot by the Lord Jesus Christ and the blood comes out of the winepress.  Why did it come out?  It was overflowing and that is exactly the condition here: and we think of the fact that there are seven billion people in the world that are being judged and are under the wrath of God.  Yes, there are tens of millions of people that God has saved, but the tremendous majority of people in the world are unsaved and they are being trodden in the winepress of the wrath of God.  So, we can certainly see why the press is full and the fats overflow and the blood is coming out of the winepress, as it says in Revelation 14, “by the space of sixteen hundred furlongs.” 

Then it says, in Joel 3:13:

….for their wickedness is great.

Again, it is speaking of unsaved people being crushed in the wrath of the winepress of God.  The Law of God demands satisfaction and it is the day of vengeance, when the Law is exacting revenge and exacting its due for all of mankind’s transgressions against it.  Joel 3:13 helps us and we can be sure that even though the language is something we are not all that familiar with (as God is viewing the entire earth as if it were a vine that brought forth bad fruit), their fruit was cast into the winepress because it was not good fruit.  Just like the harvest in the churches withered away, now outside of the churches this other vine and its cluster of grapes are under the wrath of God.

One possible reason God speaks of the “clusters of the vine of the earth” and her grapes may have to do with the fact that God’s final climactic program of evangelization was carried out outside of the churches and congregations.  Remember, at the very beginning of the Great Tribulation, on May 21, 1988, the Holy Spirit left all churches and their harvest was ruined throughout the Great Tribulation and, finally, on May 21, 2011, they were all bundled as tares for the burning.  However, during the second part of the Great Tribulation, God was sending forth the Latter Rain, which fell outside of the churches in the world at large.  The rain was falling in the world and the rain did bring forth fruit, as God saved a great multitude out of the last (about) seventeen years of the Great Tribulation.  So there was language of harvest, but it was the “good fruit,” the people that God saved.  Yet, practically the entire world heard the message and, therefore, the rain fell upon them and they also had the seed of the Word of God sown upon their hearts.  Actually, it was such a tremendous sowing program that never before in the history of the world had so much spiritual seed been sown in the world.  The world had never experienced anything like it, so the Word of God went forth in an unparalleled manner into the nations of the world.  Judgment Day was put before their eyes and the message of the Bible’s appointed day.  This also indicated that there was a Judge and that we were sinners, worthy to be judged and found guilty.  The implication was there that God was warning the world and, yet, there was a gracious and merciful God that could be sought for before the decree and before the day passed as chaff.  All of this was implied in the message of May 21, 2011, Judgment Day.  So the “rain” fell and the “seed” was sown and God did save His people, but what about all the rest?  What about all the others that heard (many of them for the first time) the Gospel message and heard the news that was coming forth from the Word of God?  They were warned and, yet, they did not take warning; they did not repent; they did not turn to God and cry out for mercy; they did not seek the Lord while He could be found.  Instead, they went on with their lives and that describes what took place in regard to the overwhelming majority of the people in the world.  Well, it could be that God is looking at them as a “harvest” that went awry and one that was no good.  The seed was sown and the rain fell, but it produced no precious fruit.  Therefore, let us gather the “clusters of the vine of the earth” and cast it into the winepress of the wrath of God.  I think this is the general idea.

In Deuteronomy 32:32 it spoke of their vine being the vine of Sodom, but there is another verse where God speaks of a vine.  I think Deuteronomy 32 is mostly describing God’s judgment on the churches, but there is another place in Isaiah, chapter 24, where we read of a vine.  Isaiah 24 is a special chapter in the Bible where God has focused completely upon the judgment on the world, just as we can turn to Jeremiah and we can read of God’s judgment on Judea or Jerusalem and it is language that concentrates on the judgment beginning at the house of God, and we do not really read too much about the judgment on the world.  But Isaiah, chapter 24, is the reverse of that – it is an intense concentration regarding judgment on the world and not on the churches.  The word “earth” is used many times and “world” is used, as we read in Isaiah 24:6:

Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.

This is speaking of God’s spiritual judgment coming upon the world and upon the inhabitants of the earth.   Remember what the last verse of Revelation 8 said: “Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth.”  It is a key phrase indicating the time of transition from judgment on the churches to judgment on the world.  Here, too, the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left,” and there are “few men left” because the elect are still living on the earth in the Day of Judgment, but all the unsaved are “as burned,” and their judgment came once God shut the door to heaven.  At the same time, the elect are not “burned” and we are not destroyed by the action of the door of heaven shutting because God has already saved His people.  Then it goes on to say in Isaiah 24:7:

The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth, all the merryhearted do sigh.

Now, here, in the context of the judgment of God on the earth, the “vine languisheth.”  What does that mean if the vine languisheth?  This word is defined for us in Jeremiah, chapter 14.  Again, in this chapter we read of God’s judgment on the churches, but it will help us to understand what it means to “languish.”  It says in Jeremiah 14:1-3:

The word of JEHOVAH that came to Jeremiah concerning the dearth. Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish; they are black unto the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up. And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters: they came to the pits, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads. Because the ground is chapt, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads.

It goes on with more ugly language of a dearth.  There is no water and this pointed to the fact that there was no Gospel in the churches during the time God’s judgment was upon them.  The “gates of Judah languished” at that time and it is pointing to the fact that there was no salvation. 

So when we read, “The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth, all the merryhearted do sigh.”  I think that is a reference to the true believers.  No child of God is happy or joyous that God has ended His salvation program.  Remember God said there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repents and now there is no joy in heaven in that regard and there is no joy among God’s people.   God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked and this is what is happening right now in front of our eyes.  God is slaying the wicked.  He is killing them with death and if God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, you can be sure the people of God take no pleasure in the death of the wicked.  As it says in Luke 16 concerning those associated with Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom when the rich man in “hell” requests a drop of water, part of the response is that those that would come from hence to him cannot.  That word “would” expresses a desire and, certainly, it is our desire because we thoroughly enjoyed (and were blessed beyond imagination) being able to go forth with the Gospel to bring the “water” to thirsty souls.  We took that message into the world and God found His elect through the efforts of His people, working in them to will and to do of His good pleasure.  And it was God’s good pleasure to save and that is why He predestinated an elect people chosen by the good pleasure of God and God’s people took pleasure in that activity.  But we take no pleasure now that there is no salvation and that is why “all the merryhearted do sigh.”  The Gospel we now proclaim is “bitter” water and, yet, we must obey God who has commanded us to feed sheep and to “prophesy again” and declare to the nations regarding Babylon’s fall, and so forth.

Just to get a little bit clearer picture of what “languish” means, let us go back to Joel, but this time let us go to chapter 1.  It says in Joel 1:10-12:

The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth. Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished. The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withered away from the sons of men.

It is not a pleasant thing at all.  Joel 1 is describing the judgment of God upon the churches and congregations of the world during the Great Tribulation, but it is the same cup of wrath that is now on the world and “the vine languisheth.”  The harvest is complete.  There is no more harvest; there are no more people to become saved, so God uses this picture to describe what He is doing to the “vine of the earth,” as it says in Revelation 14:19:

And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.

Again, the “vine of the earth” is thrown into the winepress and we see, in Revelation 19, that in the Day of Judgment, it says of the Lord Jesus, in Revelation 19:15:

And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

You see, here again is confirmation that Christ is smiting the nations, the unsaved people of the world and that is tied to treading the winepress of the wrath of God.  I think it is certain.  There is no doubt that this “vine of the earth” and the “cluster of grapes” that are fully ripe are picturing all the unsaved people of the world.  They were created in the image of God and God sent forth the Latter Rain and it fell upon them and, yet, they did not come forth as the precious fruit.  Then the time was done and the rain stopped falling on May 21, 2011 and now it is time to destroy this harvest of these clusters of grapes and to tread them under foot and to punish them for their sin.