The Grain Harvest and the Grape Harvest

Well, if you have your Bible with you this morning, I hope you do. We're going to
be in Revelation chapter 14. So if you would turn there, 12 years ago,
back in the fall of 2012, I spent the better part of a week in a small town in
Western Nebraska, North Platte, Nebraska, with a population of 22 ,500 people.
It's the home of KJLT Radio, and I had gone out there because the radio station
was doing a fundraiser and they had asked me to come and help them with their
charathon on the radio. And I remember three things about my trip. First of all, I
remember the long flight, it was not that long, it was about an hour -long flight
from Denver to North Platte on a small airplane. I think there were maybe 12
passengers that could be seated on this plane. And the reason the flight was
memorable is because they had not informed me ahead of time that there was no
lavatory on the plane, and I wished about 10 minutes into the air that they had
informed me that there was no lavatory on the plane, so it was a very uncomfortable
flight all the way into North Platte. Second thing I remember is I had the
opportunity to have my one and only meal at the Runza fast food restaurant in North
Platte. Now, a Runza, according to Wikipedia, is a kraut burger or a kraut pyrrhoch,
a yeast dough bread pocket filled with ground beef, cabbage, sauerkraut, onions, and
seasoning. The runs of chain has 93 locations, mostly in Nebraska,
but also in Iowa, Colorado, and Kansas, and while the name of the sandwich and the
name of the restaurant comes from a German word, I think the founders should have
maybe thought through their name a little bit and then just reconsidered it.
Here's the third thing I remember about my trip. (audience laughing) Just gonna move
past that. Third thing I remember about my trip to North Platte, Nebraska, was that
I was there during the harvest season, and there was a supporter of the radio
station who also listened to our radio program, Family Life Today, and he had a
huge farm it was a an organic popcorn farm and when I say it was a huge family
farm it's acres and acres of popcorn growing there in North Platt and I just
happened to be there as I said during harvest season so when I got off the air
one of these days this station supporter this popcorn farmer came by the station
picked me up took me out to the farm and I spent an afternoon driving on one of
These bad boys, look at this, yes. That is a Gleaner Combine Harvester.
It can harvest 4 .5 bushels of popcorn per second. Every second,
4 .5 bushels. You have to climb up in the cockpit of the cab in order to drive
this thing. It's massive. I mean, look at the wingspan. Look at how far across, it
goes from row to row. So I'm driving out in the popcorn fields,
trying to make sure that I stay in a straight line and keep going as it's harv--
and as you drive the combine, there's a dump truck that drives along alongside of
you. And what you harvest gets sent by a chute into the bed of the dump truck,
and that's how they do it. And you wait when the dump truck is filled, you stay
put. They go dump that, come back and get more. It was an amazing experience. I
have to tell you, when I started a career in radio, I did not have on my resume
list drive a combine and harvest popcorn in Nebraska. So that was an unexpected
experience for me, but something that I've looked back on and remembered for many
years. So when I began reading the passage we're gonna be looking at this morning,
which is about harvesting, I was reminded of my popcorn experience and was also
aware that most Bible students and scholars have not had the personal experience that
I've had with harvesting so I bring that special sense of knowing what the harvest
is all about to you this morning and it really won't make any difference to our
Bible exposition but it's a cool story to tell you anyway. The Bible uses the idea
of a harvest as a metaphor regularly to talk about the,
well he uses it in a number of ways. Last week when we sang the hymn, "Come ye
thankful people, come raise the song of harvest home," we talked about how a harvest
can be a harvest of souls, how God harvests individuals like he did with Kegan and
Mariah, harvesting them, bringing them from sin into the kingdom. One other way it
talks about harvesting is by talking about the harvesting of the church. It's not
picking an individual apple off the tree, but it's the time at the end of the age
when God will come and will bring his own into his storehouse. He will gather up
all of his children and bring them into the storehouse. It's a collective harvest at
that point, a harvest where at the end of the age, Jesus comes and brings in all
who belong to Him. And this morning as we finish Revelation chapter 14, it's that
final harvest that is being pictured here that God wants us to have an understanding
of. So I want us to read through the passage together. We're going to dive right
into it and look at what it has to say. Let me pray for our time in God's Word.
Lord, we come to you. We need your help this morning. As we read through these
passages in Revelation, we confess that we are weak and frail and that there is so
much that we don't know. Give us clarity and understanding on the things that you
have revealed to us. Help us to know and understand them. Help us to believe them.
Help us to respond in such a way that our lives are transformed by our time in
your Word. We ask it today in Jesus' name, amen.
Revelation 14, we're beginning at verse 14. We'll go through the end of the chapter.
You follow along as I read, this is the word of God for the people of God.
John says, "Then I looked and behold, "a white cloud and seated on the cloud,
"one like a son of man, "with a golden crown on his head and a sharp sickle in
his hand. And another angel came out of the temple calling with a loud voice to
him who sat on the cloud, "Put in your sickle and reap. "For the hour to reap has
come. "For the harvest of the earth is fully ripe." So he who sat on the cloud
swung his sickle across the earth and the earth was reaped.
Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven and he too had a sharp sickle
and another angel came out from the altar the angel who has authority over the fire
and he called with a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle put in your
sickle and gathered the clusters from the vine of the earth for its grapes are
ripe. So the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest
of the earth and threw it into the great wine press of the wrath of God.
And the wine press was trodden outside the city and blood flowed from the wine
press as high as a horse's bridle for 1600 stadia.
Amen. May God bless this reading of his word. The grass withers and the flower
fades, but the word of God will last forever. So there are two scenes in this
passage that we're gonna look at as we go through it this morning. There is the
first vision of the grain harvest. That's in verses 14 through 16.
And then there is John's vision of the grape harvest, which is in verses 17 through
20. Now I don't see these as two, they're two simultaneously occurring events.
This harvest of grape and grain are going on at the same time, but they are
separated for us distinctively in this passage. And this first vision of the grain
harvest in verses 14 through 16 begins with John seeing a vision of one like the
Son of Man sitting on a white cloud. There are some scholars who wonder,
because John says it was someone like the Son of Man, instead of saying it was the
Son of Man. They wonder, is John seeing an angel who looks like Jesus,
or who manifests Jesus, or is it actually Jesus? I think based on this designation
that we see with a crown on his head and the sickle in his hand. I think it's
Jesus that he sees who is the Son of Man. That was Jesus' favorite designation for
himself. He called himself regularly the Son of Man. It's what Daniel called the
Messiah back in Daniel chapter 7 and there was a picture of the Son of Man coming
on a cloud. So I think this is Jesus that he's having a vision of sitting on the
cloud. Sitting on a white cloud and again that's straight out of Daniel 7. These
are not actual clouds, but these clouds represent heavenly authority and purity.
The Son of Man has a crown on his head, and he has a sickle in his hand. And
this is interesting. There are two different Greek words for crown, and this helps
us understand this passage a little bit. One of the Greek words for crown is the
word for a kingly crown. We get our word diadem. So when somebody becomes the king,
you put a diadem on their head. That's the kingly crown. There's another crown
that's a Stefanos. Your name's Stephen. That's what your name comes from. Stefanos,
it means the victor's crown. So when someone would compete in an athletic event or
in a battle and they were victorious, they would get the Stefanos put on their
head. They would get the victor's crown put on their head. So when John sees the
one sitting on the cloud coming, Jesus, he looks and he says, and there was a
Stefanus on his head. Not a diadem. Now Jesus is crowned with many crowns.
He has a diadem, but he's coming with the Stefanus. He's coming in victory. He's
coming as a notorious warrior who has been competing in battle and has won the
battle. He has the crown of victory. Again, the context for this passage, we have
to think of how this fits in with Revelation 12, 13, and 14. So when we started
looking at Revelation 12, we were looking, the first few verses, took us into the
history of mankind past and it showed us how God, this was a behind the scenes
look at what God was doing. So Revelation 12 begins by showing us a spiritual
battle taking place in the universe throughout redemptive history. Begins with a woman
giving birth to a child and a dragon pursuing the child, but it can't capture the
child. The child ascends to be with God in heaven and the woman flees into the
wilderness where she is pursued by the beast. So John is saying he's getting a
whole scope of redemptive history and in the first chapter of this,
the child comes, the child goes to heaven, and the woman who is the church flees
into the wilderness pursued by the beast. And then from the middle of chapter 12
through the middle of chapter 14, John is describing the church age where he is
saying that in the church age the woman representing God's people is going to face
persecution and ongoing assaults from the beast and from his allies the two dragons
and in the middle of that persecution John has a vision at the beginning of chapter
14 of what's going on in heaven where the Lamb is preparing his own to come in
battle in spiritual battle to wage war against the spiritual forces that are seeking
to oppress his people. And at the same time God sends angels or messengers to warn
people of the coming judgment. So that's the middle section of this broad sweep of
redemptive history. And now we come here to the end of Revelation and the scene now
shifts to a future event. The harvests are a future event, where the Son of Man
judgment is being executed. The Son of Man is coming in the clouds with a sickle.
The first harvest that we're going to see, the grain harvest, is the harvesting of
the redeemed. And then the second harvest we see, the grape harvest, is the
harvesting of the wicked. So back to verse 14, the Son of Man is now seen coming
in the cloud wearing a victor's crown on his head. We've been watching this battle
go on between the lamb and the dragon and Here comes the lamb with the victor's
crown on his head showing that the dragon has been defeated and as we see that
symbol and or that picture in our own mind John would have remembered the crown he
saw Jesus wear on earth Which was a very different crown The crown that was placed
on his head the night before he was crucified, or the morning of his crucifixion,
where the soldiers put a crown of thorns on his head and pressed it down, mocking
him, saying, "You're not a victor. You're not a king." The crown of thorns was
mockery. That was the last crown John saw Jesus wearing. Now he's coming wearing a
very different crown. The crown of thorns has been replaced with a regal crown that
shows his ultimate victory. Ever wondered why we sing crown him with many crowns?
Why is it not to crown him with his crown? Why is it many crowns? Well, it's
because in Revelation 19, the picture you see of Jesus coming, John says he sees
him wearing many diadems on his head, many crowns. And James Smith,
who is the pastor who preceded Charles Spurgeon at the New Park Street Chapel in
London, talking about the many crowns that Jesus wears. He says, Jesus passed through
many trials, engaged in many conflicts, therefore has gained many triumphs.
Now he wears many crowns. He wears the crown of victory, for every foe is or will
be overthrown. He wears the crown of sovereignty for he is king of kings and lord
of lords. He wears the crown of creation for all things were made by him and for
him. He wears the crown of providence for he sustains, supplies and rules over all
that God has made. He wears the crown of grace For he has redeemed his people by
his blood, he conquers them by his spirit, molds them by his truth,
and will bring them all into his kingdom. He wears the crown of glory for every
one of his glorified people owe their honor, happiness, and blessedness to him. We
crown him with many crowns and here in Revelation 14 we see the Son of Man on a
cloud, with a victory crown on his head, and also with a sickle in his hand.
And in verse 15, another angel appears, another angel like the first three angels
that we saw earlier who came to pronounce judgment, another angel appears. He is
coming out of the heavenly temple carrying a message that it is time to put the
sickle into the ground and reap The harvest and I don't want to presume here that
everybody knows what a sickle is when I was a kid Kids pay attention to this when
I was your age and words like sickle were used in church And they went over my
side. I don't know what that means. I just tune it out So I'm gonna show you what
a sickle is this morning. Here's what a sickle looks like an ancient sickle It's a
tool that's used in the harvest not now Today, we use combines, like the one I
showed you, the one that I drove. But in old days, you would use a hand sickle
like this to harvest, and in fact, it still goes on. I'm going to show you a
short video of workers, women, working in Nepal, and they are harvesting wheat in
Nepal the old -fashioned way using a sickle. So watch as these women do this.
So you can see them on the ground, kneeling down using the sickle to gather in the
harvest. They go and they just cut at the base and gather up and you'll see here
this woman as she bundles her wheat and gets it and is about to bundle it up she
turns around and look at what she's doing she is going through there and pulling
out what is the chaff what doesn't have any fruit on it before she bundles it up.
She's throwing that away. That's going to be discarded or burned. Only the wheat
stalks that have grain on them will be kept or will be bundled up. Now to
understand what's going on in Revelation 14 with the harvest that is happening there,
you have to go back to Matthew chapter 13 and a parable that Jesus told about a
harvest. So turn in your Bible to Matthew 13, and while you're turning there,
some of you might be concerned, as you read in Revelation 14, about the son of man
taking instructions from an angel. How can this be Jesus if it's the angel who is
telling him what to do? Well keep in mind angels are messengers, they bring messages
from God, and Jesus told us when he was incarnate that he didn't know what hour he
would be coming, that it was only the Father who knew the hour he would be coming.
So in this scene, the angel coming out of the temple, out of the presence of God,
comes to the Son of Man and says, "Now is the time." He's delivering the message.
It's not that Jesus is taking orders from the angel, it's that Jesus is being
released from the Father to go execute this judgment. And the angel is coming from
the temple, he's coming from God's presence.
And I believe that what's being pictured here is the final harvest. There are
differences of opinion here. Some people see the harvest in chapter 14 that's being
pictured as a harvest that takes place before a thousand -year reign of Christ on
the earth, a premillennial harvest that's taking place.
I think what's being pictured here is actually the day of final judgment at the end
of the age when Jesus comes back. And some people will say, how can this be the
final judgment? We're only in Revelation 14. You got eight more chapters to go. If
this is the conclusion, why aren't we wrapping it up? And it's because as I see
this book, we are seeing the same story told over and over and over again, layered
on top of one another. This judgment that we're seeing take place in Revelation 14
is the same judgment I think that we'll see in Revelation 20 as God brings in the
harvest and judges the earth. So there are differences of opinion on that, but
that's how I see this. I agree with Grant Osborn, he was a professor who taught at
New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School for a number of years in his
commentary on Revelation. He says the picture of Jesus casting the sickle to harvest
the righteous here and the angel casting the sickle to harvest the wicked, parallels
the great white throne judgment of the saints in Revelation 20 and of the sinners
in 2013. So I see those as parallel events. Now all of that back to Matthew 13.
You've turned there, I told you a long time ago to turn there. Verse 24 in Matthew
13, here's what it says. It says, "This as Jesus telling a parable, he put another
parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who
sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping,
his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away." So when the plants
came up and bore grain, then the weeds also appeared also. And the servant of the
master of the house came and said to him, "Master, did you not sow good seed in
your field? How then does it have weeds?" And he said to them, "An enemy has done
this. So the servant said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?'
But he said, 'No, lest you gather the weeds, lest in gathering the weeds you root
up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest and at
harvest time I will tell the reapers gather the weeds first bind them in bundles to
be burned but gather the wheat into my barn. That parable is what's being talked
about in Romans 14 excuse me in Revelation 14 where we see Jesus coming to execute
that grain harvest and just as we saw the Nepali women who were separating the
weeds from the wheat, that's what Jesus will do at the end of the time. Remember
when Jesus told his disciples that the harvest was plentiful, but the workers were
few, that they were to go and spread the gospel. This grain harvest in Revelation
14 is a picture of God coming to gather up his own. So the separation between The
grain and the grapes are the separation between God gathering his own into his
storehouse at God gathering the wicked for judgment.
This is the harvest of God's people that we're seeing in Revelation 14, 15 and 16.
Now there will be weeds among the wheat because there will be some who have been
among the church for years who will prove to be weeds and not wheat who will prove
not to have born fruit in their lives. They are people who have been a part of
the church because they love whatever benefit might come along with being a Christian
or they love that being thought of as a Christian makes them feel better about
themselves but they're not really Christians and deep down they know that they don't
really love Jesus
But they don't like to think about that, they just like to be thought of as a
Christian. Either they like to think of themselves that way or for others to think
of that way. They know that they follow Jesus out of duty, not out of delight,
if they follow him at all. I came across this quote this week from A. W. Tozer
who said, "It is my opinion that tens of thousands of people, if not millions,
have been brought into some kind of religious experienced by accepting Christ,
and they have not been saved. If your Christian conversion does not reverse the
direction of your life, if it did not transform it, then you're not converted at
all. You're simply a victim of what he calls the "accept Jesus" heresy. Now that's
pretty strong, the "accept Jesus" heresy, but there's no language in the Bible about
accepting Jesus, and when you stop and think about it, accepting Jesus kind of puts
you in charge, doesn't it? And that's not how the Bible presents Jesus. Jesus is
not someone you accept. Jesus is Lord. Your decision is whether you bow before that
or not. One day you will, one day all will bow. But those who bow voluntarily
today, that's wheat. Those who will wait to bow, those are the weeds.
So how can you know whether you're wheat or weeds? How can you know whether you're
real or not as a follower of Jesus? How can you know what's going to happen to
you when the harvest comes?
Well, ask yourself this question. Where does Jesus fit in the prioritization of your
life? Where is he on your priority list? When I was in high school, I took a
class, one of our English classes, was a section on existentialism. And we were
reading authors like Camus and Kafka and Sartre and other existentialists and learning
about existentialism. And one day in class, the teacher said to us,
"We're going to go around the room and I want you to tell me, tell your
classmates, what's the most important thing in your life and she started over here I
remember because I was number two over here I was sitting along the wall I was
number two so I was the second one to answer which put me on the spot I had to
think quickly what's the most important thing in my life and I I'm pretty sure when
they got to me number two I said music is the most important thing in my life I
was in a band I spent all of my money on albums or concert tickets, I went to
see concerts, I was writing songs, I loved music. Music was what gave my life
meaning and purpose. So I said music and explained why and then we kept going
around the room and about halfway through around the room, one of my classmates
said, "The most important thing in my life is my relationship with God," and I
thought, "Oh yeah, dang it, that's the right answer." It's really, I thought, Yeah,
yeah, I need to remember that's the right answer. And then suddenly it struck me,
if that's not the answer that came to mind,
maybe that wasn't the most important thing in my life after all. But I did tuck
away kind of in the back of my head. Next time anybody asks, I wanna make sure I
give the right answer, whether it's true or not. I wasn't converted at that point.
I liked being around Christians. I liked having, I like being thought of as a good
person. I knew what the right answer was, but it just wasn't really true about me.
And you see the point, God's not looking for people who can give the right answer
when they're asked, what's the most important thing in your life? God's looking for
people who have a transformed heart. And where it actually is true that the most
important thing in their life is their relationship with Jesus. He's looking for a
right heart, not the right answer. Has God given you a new heart?
Have your priorities changed since you professed faith in Christ? Have your desires
and affections changed? Has your relationship with him really,
is it really what matters most to you? Or does it often get crowded out by lesser
things? You remember the parable of the soils the one right before the wheat and
the weeds in Matthew 13 Where the sower goes out to sow the seed and some of it
falls among the rocky soil and some on the path and some on the thorny soil and
then some on the good soil In some cases those seeds sprout up But they get burned
out or they get distracted by other things. It's only the good soil where root
takes place and where fruit is born. Is your life rooted in Christ and is it
bearing fruit for Christ? If not, you need to reexamine and say,
"Has God given me a new heart?" You need to cry out for Him to transform you, to
change you, to
harvest is coming, and when it comes, real wheat, the true wheat, will be separated
from the weeds that are growing up together. When Jesus comes for his church, his
bride, wheat and weeds will be revealed, and the weeds will be tossed into the
fire.
You guys know who this is? You know who this picture, you know who this is? That's
the grim reaper, right? That's death personified. A day of reaping is coming. Death
is coming, judgment is coming, harvest is coming. But the reaper is only grim for
those who don't know Christ. When Jesus comes for his own, this is not what he
looks like. He comes on a cloud with a crown on his head in glory and our hearts
will rejoice at his coming. But for those who don't know him, the reaping will be
grim.
It is grim for those who refuse in this life, this life not just to accept Jesus
but to submit to Jesus, to worship Him, to follow Him, to serve Him,
to bow, to obey. And we don't do that perfectly of course. We're not trying to
score points to get into heaven. But, you start with loving Him,
supremely, and when you get off track, you get back up and you keep going in the
right direction again.
So this is the harvest that is coming for the wheat. It is the harvest where God
is going to gather His own into His storehouse. The second harvest we read about in
this passage this morning tells us about a judgment that is coming for those who
are outside of the church, those not connected with the church. There's the grain
harvest and then the grape harvest and as I said, they are happening simultaneously
on the last day. Now this time there are two angels. One comes from the temple in
heaven, bringing another sickle. The other angel comes from the altar. Now this takes
us back to Revelation chapter six. We saw a picture in Revelation 6, where those
who had been martyred for their faith were said to be beneath the altar of God,
and they were crying out to God, and they were saying, "Lord, how long must we
wait? How long before you avenge our death and you bring justice? How long?" And
God said to them, "Just a little while longer. Be patient." So this angel who is
coming from the altar is coming, and he's about to answer the prayers of those
martyred saints. Their blood is about to be avenged. The angel is also said to have
authority over the fire that could refer to the fire on the altar, where the
incense of the prayers goes up. But it's also could be that this is the angel who
will release God's judgment and the fire that we read about back in verse 10 of
Revelation 14, the fire that will rain down on the wicked. And here this angel is
sent to use the sickle to gather up the great clusters. Angels are not just
messengers. Angels are deployed in spiritual battle as well. So this angel comes to
accomplish God's purpose. And you should not think that the Son of Man is not
involved in this great harvest. We saw him involved in the grain harvest with the
sickle. The angel is doing the reaping, but the Son of Man is overseeing this.
He, in fact, in Revelation 19, pictures him as the one coming on a white horse and
doing the harvesting and the judgment in Revelation 19. So the grapes are ripe. It's
time for judgment. And it says that the grapes, as they are gathered up, are thrown
into the wine press of God's wrath. Now let me show you what a wine press would
have looked like back in ancient times. So this is where you would put all the
grapes in the big pit here and you can see the two people who are stomping out
the grapes. That's how you did it. You washed your feet, you cleaned them up and
then you got into the grape pit and you stomped on the grapes and you smashed them
out and the juice that would come out of the grapes, would flow through a trough,
and would go into these vats. And the juice would sit in the vats where it would
ferment. It would take a couple of days for it to ferment and for the fermentation
process to happen. So that's an ancient wine press. The grapes are gathered up and
stomped out, and then the juice comes out of that. And this wine press that's being
pictured in Revelation 14, where the grapes are being gathered, it's actually
referenced back in the Old Testament book of Joel, when Joel the prophet says in
verse 13, "Put in the sickle for the harvest is ripe, go in, tread for the wine
press is full, the vats overflow for their evil is great." John says that what he's
seeing in his vision is God gathering up the grapes which represent the wicked and
they are being pressed here, they are being trodden down. The wine press,
by the way, it says this happened outside the city, Revelation 14. The wine press
is happening outside the city, which is a symbolic representation of these people
being outside of Zion. They are outside of the covenant of God.
It's also a reminder that Jesus, when he was crucified, where was he taken outside
the walls of the city to be crucified, because that's where evil is cast outside
the city walls. And John says the blood that flows from the wine press is as high
as a horse's bridle and it goes on for 1600 stadia. So a horse is bridle.
If I got a horse here, it's up to here, right? That's a lot of blood for 1600
stadia, that's 200 miles give or take. And people have speculated on why it's 200
miles or 1600 stadia that's being pictured here. That's about the distance from Egypt
to Syria, the distance of Israel, the nation of Israel. So it's covering the land
of Israel. That's perhaps what this is referring to. Some have thought that the
number 1600 is four squared times 10 squared to get to 1600,
and four represents the four corners of the earth, and 10 represents completion. So
some have seen this as a symbolic number representing-- the whole earth is
overflowing with the blood of the wicked. You can pick what you want that to but
it's it's a lot of blood as high as a horse's bridle covering the whole earth.
Whatever that conveys it is vast and it's widespread as judgment will be.
This scene also is a fulfillment of what the prophet Isaiah saw in Isaiah 63 where
this is God speaking he says I have trodden the wine press alone and from the
peoples no one was with me I trod And in my anger and trampled them in my wrath,
their lifebloods spattered on my garments and stained all my apparel for the day of
vengeance was in my heart and my year of redemption had come.
And like with the description of the wrath of God that we read last week in verses
10 and 11, the fire of hell and this picture of God's trampling about the vintage
where the grapes of wrath are stored.
Like both of those pictures, these are hard things for us to imagine and believe
and to think about God. I mean, is not God the God of love? The God of grace?
The God of mercy? The God of loving kindness? Does his mercy not go forever and
ever? Is he not a God of justice and righteousness? Yes, it's all that's true.
We have no problem thinking of God in those terms. But a God of wrath, a God who
tramples out the wicked in the wine press of his wrath. Does anybody else struggle
with that as an image of who God is?
Well, this was helpful for me as I read this from J .I. Packard this week. Packard
says, "God's wrath is righteous anger." He said,
"It is the right reaction of moral perfection in the Creator toward the moral
perversity of the creature. It is right for God to have wrath for wickedness.
So far from the manifestation of God's wrath in punishing sin being morally doubtful,
the thing that would be morally doubtful would be for him not to show his wrath in
this way. You look at God and say, "How could God do this?" And Packer says, "How
can he not do this? How can he not execute judgment with wrath?" He says,
"God is not just," hang on, he says, "Not is God just, is not just." That is,
he does not act in a way that is right. He does not do what is proper to a
judge unless He inflicts upon all sin and wrongdoing the penalty it deserves.
We can't say that God is just unless he pours out his wrath on the wicked. We
can't say that he is righteous unless he comes to judge in righteousness.
Anybody here long for wickedness to come to an end? Long for hate to be put away,
for injustice to end once and for all, for evil to be extinguished,
anybody long for that? The only way for that to happen is for God's wrath to be
poured out on evil and hatred and injustice and wickedness. He has to trample those
things under his feet for them to be done with once and for all. And as we read
these passages and think about the horror of God's wrath being poured out on the
wicked, we have to remember that we would be among the wicked experiencing the wrath
of God if it were not for the grace of God in our lives.
This is the destiny that all of us deserve because all of us with sinful wicked
hearts have said to God, "We will run our own lives. We know better than you,
we'll do it our way. And we're it not for the grace of God giving us a new
heart, inclining our heart toward him, causing us to be new people.
We would be experiencing the wrath of God, and we would deserve it.
You and I, if we know and love Christ, will never have to face the wrath of God.
That's good news.
Jesus absorbed it for us. What is pictured here happening to the wicked, God poured
out on Jesus.
On the cross, when Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" It
was because the wrath of God was being poured out on his son So that in love you
and I would not have to experience that We deserve his wrath
Mercy means you get or you don't get what you deserve and God has been merciful
toward us There are two harvests coming a grain harvest where God will gather his
own to be with him forever a Grape harvest while God will trample out the wicked
and put it into wickedness. We don't know when this is gonna happen. It could
happen today. It means that right now is the right moment for you to make sure
which harvest you will be a part of. It's the right moment for you to make sure
that your heart is inclined toward God, that he has given you a new heart, that
you are among his chosen people. And all you have to do is cry out to him and
say, Lord, I want a new heart, save me. I know I'm a sinner, I know I deserve
your wrath, I know I don't deserve your grace, but Lord, would you save me? And
God will respond to that prayer, he's promised to do that. The right reaction
coming, the revelation of the coming of God's wrath and his judgment, is to turn to
him, to worship him, to follow him, to serve him, and to warn other people about
what is coming. Let's pray together. Father,
it's sobering to read about these things. We confess that to you and
help us to be appropriately, rightly sobered as we read these words, as we meditate
on these things. Help us to read these passages with gratitude for the grace that
you have poured out in our lives. But help us to be reminded and sobered by the
thought that our friends, many of them, have not inclined their hearts toward you.
They've not been given new hearts. Lord, help us to be bold to proclaim, help us
to continue to pray for them, and would you save our friends? Bring them in.
And Lord, for any here this morning who might have been
pretending for a long time,
I pray that this morning would be a transformational morning where they would say,
"I don't want to pretend any longer. I want a new heart. I want new affections.
I want God to save me.
Lord, would you do that work in any unregenerate heart here today?
We ask it in your name. Amen.