Revelation 14:14-20

October 18, 2020

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

The sermon starts around 17:50 in the audio file.

Or, The Great Winepress of Wrath

Series: Just Conquer Part 41

Introduction

Many believers hold the balance between current events and end times as well as our presidential candidates compliment one another on social media. In other words, we swing wildly back and forth, and the swinging is usually ugly. Balancing is hard, whether we’re trying to rejoice in the promises for the future or to navigate the problems of the present. Christians tend to shine all their eschatological light on the immanence or remain in the dark of eschatology’s irrelevance. Living by faith, even in John’s fantastic visions, is different than getting lost in distracting fantasies.

We confess that Jesus is Lord and that Jesus will return; these things are true and good and gladdening. Our confession, therefore, must be more than nominal, more than a token, more than two-dimensional. We believe, and so we speak (2 Corinthians 4:13). We believe, and so we sow. The fruit of believing in April that there will be a harvest in August is planting. The fruit of believing in June that there will be a harvest in August is patience, perhaps alongside other sorts of seed spreading. All of this is a way to remind us that the Now and the Then are connected in more ways than chronology.

The one who connects them is the King. Jesus is the Lamb who ransomed people for Himself, and He is the Anointed who will inherit the nations after breaking them with a rod of iron (Psalm 2:8-9; Revelation 2:27; 12:5; 19:15). Jesus Christ is “the ruler of the kings on earth,” and “he is coming with the clouds” (Revelation 1:5-6). The book of Revelation is the unveiling of the things that must take place, and they must take place because reaping follows sowing. Jesus is the Redeemer, and He is also the Reaper. He has finished His work of atonement, but He has not finished His work of accumulating evidence. All authority is His now, He sees what men sow, and He will repay.

> Revelation 22:12 “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

So now does matter, and every “now” will matter until His return. The King is not mocked. The one who sows to his own flesh will reap corruption (Galatians 6:7-8), and all those on earth who get drunk on the depravity, indecency, idolatry, and degeneracy of the beast and his deceptions will be ripe for the great winepress of God’s wrath.

An angel blew the seventh trumpet at the end of Revelation 11, and chapters 12-14 are visions that explain the long war waged by the ancient serpent against God. In chapter 12 John told the story of the dragon’s hatred toward God’s people and especially God’s Son. In chapter 13 John saw the dragon rising like a beast out of the sea to blaspheme God and make war on the saints. John also saw another beast in chapter 13 rising out of the earth who served the first beast and led the earth-dwellers to worship and take the mark of the beast. In chapter 14 John saw a remnant redeemed from mankind by and for the Lamb (verses 1-5), but then he saw the consequences for those who sowed their lives for the beast: eternal unrest and torment (verses 6-13).

We are almost ready for the final series of judgments, the seven bowl judgments, to be poured out. Before that, John sees two similar visions in verses 14-20, a grain harvest and a grape harvest. The hour to reap has come, and the King’s sickle is sharp.

The Hour of Harvest (verses 14-16)

This is a vision of the final autumn of sin, of the world-field filled with those given over to their lusts and to serving the embodiment of their pride in the beast.

> 14 “Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and se[...]