Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #49 of Revelation, chapter 14 and we are going to be reading Revelation14:19-20:

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. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.

This concludes Revelation, chapter 14, as we get to verse 20.  It is the conclusion of God’s detailed discussion of harvest at the end of the world in Judgment Day.  He concludes it by describing the vine of the earth whose “grapes are fully ripe,” and they are cast into the winepress of His wrath.

The “winepress” is mentioned three times – once it is mentioned in verse 19 and two times in verse 20.  This Greek word translated as “winepress” is Strong’s #3025, the Greek word “lenos.”  It is only translated as “winepress” in the New Testament.  It is found five times in the New Testament and three of them are in these two verses in Revelation 14.  It also appears once 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.

This is very similar language to what we are reading in Revelation 14, as it refers to the great winepress of the wrath God.

The fifth time “lenos” is used it is found in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 21.  In this parable the Lord is giving, we read in Matthew 21:33-34:

Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country: And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it.

This is the parable where servants were sent and the husbandmen beat the servants, stoned some and killed others.  Last of all, the householder sent his son, thinking they would reverence him, but instead they seized him and killed him.  It says in Matthew 21:39-41:

And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him. When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen? They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.

This parable was given to teach of God’s plan to plant a vineyard to produce fruit and it does say, “And when the time of the fruit drew near,” so there was a time when it was fruitful.  The purpose of the vineyard, spiritually, was to bring forth the Lord Jesus Christ.  The vineyard points to national Israel and Israel experienced the “early righteous rain” of the Old Testament and Christ was brought forth.  The “fruit” had to do with the death of Christ; it was the predetermined will of God that Christ must go to the cross to demonstrate the things He had done from the foundation of the world.  When Christ would do so, it was the fulfillment of the “first of the firstfruits” being offered.  So the winepress in the vineyard relates in some ways to the judgment of God or, at least it relates to God’s purpose in bringing judgment upon Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

There is an historical account in 1Kings, chapter 21, and we are not going to get into it in this study, but it really pictures what this parable is talking about because there was a man named Naboth, the Jezreelite, and he had a vineyard next to the palace of King Ahab.  King Ahab wanted Naboth’s vineyard and Naboth would not give it to him or sell it to him, so Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, arranged for false witnesses to rise up at a feast and to testify falsely that Naboth had blasphemed both God and the king.  Then they took him out and stoned him and King Ahab seized upon Naboth’s vineyard.  What is interesting is that the name “Naboth” means “fruit.”  It is Strong’s #5022 and it comes from Strong’s #5011 and #5108.  So Naboth, the owner of a vineyard, had his vineyard seized, just as we read in the parable where the husbandmen killed the householder’s servants and then when the son was sent, they said,  in Matthew 21:38: “This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.”  Just as Naboth’s name was “fruit” and Naboth was, spiritually, the fruit of the vineyard, so, too, Jesus Christ was the fruit that the “early righteous rain” produced of the Old Testament when Israel turned the Lord over to the Roman authorities to be crucified, and this was the “fruit” of the vineyard of Israel.  That was their purpose; it was why God planted that vineyard: to bring forth the Messiah, eternal God in the flesh, who entered into the human race and dwelt among us.  This is the idea of the parable where there was a winepress in the vineyard and the husbandmen seized upon the son, which pointed to Israel seizing upon the Lord Jesus.

There is a second way that we can prove that Christ is the fruit and relate it to the winepress.  It says in Matthew 26:36-39:

Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me. And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

We know that the Lord made this petition two more times – three times in total.  The word “Gethsemane” is only used twice in the New Testament and the other place is in Mark 14, a parallel Gospel account, where it says in Mark 14:32-36:

And they came to a place which was named Gethsemane: and he saith to his disciples, Sit ye here, while I shall pray. And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy; And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch. And he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.

Again, this is a parallel account but I wanted to read it to show that this word “Gethsemane” is used twice.  Notice it says in Mark 14:32, “And they came to a place which was named Gethsemane,” and, almost immediately, Jesus is sore amazed and very heavy and His soul is “exceeding sorrowful unto death.”  We can see that He began to suffer under the wrath of God in Gethsemane; that was Thursday evening and that fits what the Bible says about the son of man being three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.  It began Thursday night and it continued into Friday, Friday night, Saturday and Saturday night as He was in the tomb, and on Sunday, the third day, He arose from the dead, so it was three days and three nights.  It began His period of suffering the wrath of God and drinking the cup of the wrath of God and it began the moment that Christ entered into Gethsemane; this was the time God began to give the cup of wrath to the Lord that He must drink, but not to make payment for sin, because He had already accomplished that from the foundation of the world.  But He entered into the world to make manifest what He had already done and it was required by God that He truly suffer under His wrath a second time to show forth this demonstration.  It was a very severe wrath that brought Eternal God Himself to a point of “exceeding sorrowful unto death” and we can see how the Lord was jolted as He was experiencing these terrible things, spiritually, because there was no “literal cup.”  Anyone looking at the Lord from afar in Gethsemane would only have seen Him and there would have been no thunderbolts from heaven or a sword of God coming down upon Him, but just the Lord as He was kneeling and praying.  It was an invisible judgment and, therefore, spiritual judgment, but it was very real judgment that was coming upon the Lord Jesus Christ.

The word “Gethsemane” is from the Old Testament.  It comes from two Hebrew words, “gath” and “shemen.”   The word “shemen” is Strong’s #8081 and it means “oil” or “olive” or “fruitful.”  The word “gath” is Strong’s #1660 and it means “press” or “winepress” or “wine fat.”  So, in putting it together, “Gethsemane” is the “oil press” or the “fruitful winepress.”  There is a combination of words we could put together because God uses these different words for this word.  But it is the idea that the Lord Jesus is the “fruit” that Israel produced or the “early righteous rain” produced.  There is the time of the rain and then there is the time of the famine and then there is the time of the “winepress” or “oil press,” where Christ will be trodden and crushed under foot by the wrath of God.  The idea of an “oil press” is fitting because the Holy Spirit is typified by “oil,” so as Christ is crushed and trodden under the wrath of God, the oil comes flowing forth and it would not be too long (fifty days later) before Pentecost arrived and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (the oil) went forth into the world.  Then there was the second outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the Second Jubilee in 1994 during the second part of the Great Tribulation which was also a result of what Christ did when He experienced the wrath of God.

The Hebrew word, Strong’s #1660, which is “gath” is also found five times, just as the Greek word “lenos” was found five times.  The Hebrew word is found five times in the Old Testament.  One place it is found is in Isaiah 63:1-4:

Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat? I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.

Here, I think we have a dual picture.  First of all, Christ is the one that treads the winepress alone and He is Melchisedec.  He is the one that offered up Himself after the high priestly order of Melchisedec.  Remember how He made an appearance in the days of Abraham.  Melchisedec (who is Christ) existed from the foundation of the world and as the Lord submitted Himself to the will of the Father in taking the sins of His people upon Himself and dying for those sins, He performed the action of the High Priest, Melchisedec. 

Christ tread the winepress alone and, yet, He was the one trodden.  But it also says, “I will tread them in mine anger,” and I think that is a future reference to the final judgment of kind and the “day of vengeance” that is spoken about in verse 4.  God speaks of Judgment Day as a time of vengeance.  So we see that the “winepress” has everything to do with the wrath of God.  Christ experienced, spiritually, being crushed in the winepress and crushed under foot in Gethsemane and Isaiah 63 makes reference to that.

Also, we read in Lamentation 1:15:

The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.

This is “gath,” the Hebrew word #1660.  Here, God is historically referring to the judgment upon Judah and the assembly He called against them was the Babylonians led by King Nebuchadnezzar.  That judgment that was due to Judah’s unfaithfulness pictures the judgment that began at the house of God at the beginning of the Great Tribulation at the time of the end of the world when the church age ended.   That began in May 1988. 

Again, the “winepress” is in view and God is crushing the young men and treading the virgin, the daughter of Judah, in a winepress, which means that God is likening the judgment on the churches to a time of placing them in a winepress and being trodden under foot.  Again, the wrath of God is likened to a winepress.

Something else we are seeing is that just as Christ experienced being crushed by the “winepress” in Gethsemane and it was a spiritual judgment, so, too it was a spiritual judgment on the churches and they are also identified with the “winepress” here in Lamentations 1:15.  This helps us to see that the final judgment on the world that we are reading about in Revelation 14, where the Lord uses the figure of gathering the clusters of the vine of the earth and casting them into a “winepress” and treading them underfoot, also teaches a spiritual judgment.

Let us turn to one more place in Joel, chapter 3, and again we will see how similar Joel 3 is to Revelation 14.  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; for their wickedness is great.

The “winepress” is full and the fats overflow because their wickedness is great.  God is picturing placing billions of people under his feet in the Day of Judgment.  Christ is ruling with a rod of iron, but the image here is as if God has cast them all into a winepress, just as the Lord Jesus was trodden under foot in Gethsemane and just as the churches were trodden under foot by God.  (Remember that the hand or foot indicates the “will.”)   So, too, are all the unsaved people of the earth placed in a “winepress” to be trodden under foot and crushed.  And what comes out while they are experiencing the wrath of God?  It says in Revelation 14:20:

And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.

Leviticus 17 tells us that “the life is in the blood.”  God is crushing the life out of them, which will kill them and, yet, their blood flows forth for space of 1,600 furlongs.  There is a strong likelihood that their “death” in the Day of Judgment as they experience the wrath of God will last for a period of 1,600 days (if we are correct).

Lord willing, when we get together in our next study, we are going to look at a couple of things in verse 20.  Why is the winepress trodden without the city?  Do we have Biblical justification for relating the number “1,600” (which speaks of furlongs) to time?  Can we understand “1,600 furlongs” to represent 1,600 days?  We will consider these things in our next study when we return to Revelation, chapter 14.