Living With Judgment (Revelation 14:1-20)

 Sermon for Milledgeville & Whitestown UMC...

Living With Judgment (Revelation 14:1-20)

“Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come,
for the harvest of the earth is ripe.”
Revelation 14:15 

John’s visions from Revelation 10-14 follow the order of Jewish fall festivals. Rosh Hashannah, the beginning of Israel’s civil calendar, begins the Feast of Trumpets, a period of repentance and preparation to meet the Judge of the earth. John’s vision of the 7 trumpets calls the world to repentance. At the sound of the last trumpet Christ is announced as king. Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement) follows the feast of trumpets. The high priest approaches the ark of the covenant and makes atonement for the sins of the nation. John saw the ark in the temple in heaven. Mercy is outpouring perpetually through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. Following Yom Kippur is Sukkot, the Festival of Booths, or the Feast of Ingathering.

Israel just received the last group of living hostages on the final day of the festival of Booths (Oct. 13). Some view the return of the hostages as fulfillment of scripture, for the Feast of Ingathering has an ultimate hope of bringing all the scattered Jews around the world back home to the Promised Land. The feast also looks forward to the reign of Messiah, when all nations will gather in worship of Israel’s God.

The great fulfillment of Sukkot is the harvest of souls at the end of the age. All nations will be gathered for judgment. Books will be opened and judgments read. The redeemed will enjoy the glorious reign of Christ. Evil will be purged.

Consider Jesus’ parable of the wheat and weeds. A farmer discovers weeds sown among his wheat. He thought it best to let the wheat and weeds reach maturity. At harvest, they will separate the wheat from the weeds. Jesus explains the meaning.

 

The field is the world and the good seed are the people of the kingdom. The poisonous weeds are the people of the evil one, ³⁹ and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. ⁴⁰ As the poisonous weeds are collected and burned with fire, so it will be at the end of the age. ⁴¹ The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather from his kingdom everything that causes sin as well as all lawbreakers. ⁴² They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³ Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. 

Can you imagine living in a future with no evildoers or even causes of evil? This is our great hope in the kingdom of God.

Jesus spoke of Gehenna, which English translations call Hell, a terrible place of torment.

Jesus said in Mark 9:47-48,

If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out! It is better to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies and the fire is never quenched.

This is hyperbole, meant to grab our attention by overstatement. Jesus does not want you to harm yourself. He wants you to repent. Turn your eyes away from sinful temptation and turn to Christ in reverence.

Gehenna (Hell) is short for the Valley of Hinnom where Jerusalem dumped its garbage. Imagine the scene. Down below, outside the holy city walls stand mounds and mounds of rotting garbage. Anaerobic bacteria consume organic waste, creating methane gas. The gas burns constantly. Maggots find a ready food supply. The stench is unbearable. Fire and smoke burn the eyes. Hell is the garbage dump for the damned. Hell is one imagining of God’s ultimate justice.

What is justice? Is it simply a balancing of the scales, an eye for an eye? Is justice wanting to see your abusers suffer? I think of Mr. Filch, the Hogwarts caretaker, yelling, “I want to see some punishment!” But that is not true to the heart of God. God is love. God is more merciful than you and I can ever hope to be.

 

Ultimate justice is not retribution. God doesn’t want anyone to perish, but for all to come to repentance. (2Pt 3:9) Ultimate justice is right relationships fully restored.

 

In light of God’s mercy, how are we to understand talk of Jesus and the angels getting front row seats as sinners are tormented?

 

Revelation was written to churches experiencing persecution from Roman culture and Jewish synagogues. This vision may comfort the churches knowing those who maligned, imprisoned, tortured, and killed Christians will face justice.

 

2^nd Corinthians 5:19 says, “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s trespasses against them.” If God doesn’t count our sins against us, then why are we seeing visions of torment? It feels like a perversion of the gospel.

 

The Greek word translated as torment or torture can also be translated as testing or hard struggle. Those with the mark of the beast have foolishly given their hearts to Satan, who is behind world powers like Rome. Revelation 14:10 states, “They will be tormented (tested) with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb.”

 

Burning sulfur is fire and brimstone. Burning brimstone was thought of as divine incense because it purifies and wards off disease. If you visit the mineral baths of French Lick, you will smell sulfur. Because of the sulfur in the water, one feels revitalized. One possible way to understand what is happening in this scene is the purging and purifying of false worship from the unrepentant.

 

Jesus and the angels are not enjoying a show of divine wrath. He is overseeing justice, which will set the world right. Those who worship the beast are tested, suffering a hard struggle through the heat of God’s truth and the intensity of God’s healing love.

 

…the smoke of their (testing) will rise forever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast. (Rev 14:11)

 

No rest for the wicked. In comparison, those who die in the Lord, who love the Lord and bear His mark, which is symbolic of having the Lord in the forefront of our minds and behavior, will find rest.

 

“they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.”

 

The testing vision is followed with a direct message to the church. “This calls for patient endurance.” (Rev 14:12)

 

We are to patiently endure the continued troubles that evil brings. We must persevere before the world is set aright. We must patiently wait a very, very long time for evil to be purged.

 

In John’s vision, he sees the Lamb and the 144,000 on Mt Zion. This is Jesus and the faithful of Israel in Jerusalem. Revelation 7 lists 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. Ephraim and Dan are missing from the list. Why? They were sites for false worship.

 

After King Solomon, 10 northern tribes split from Judah and Jerusalem. They established a temple at Shiloh in Ephraim and another to the far north in Dan. They made a golden bull as an idol saying, “This is your god who brought you out of Egypt.” The reason Ephraim and Dan are missing is idolatry.

 

 

A disturbing description of the 144,000 is that they never defiled themselves with women. This sounds insulting to women. It’s not meant to be. The so-called virginity of the 144,000 is symbolic. They set themselves apart in singular devotion to God alone by blamelessly keeping His law. They gave their heart to no other gods.

 

 

John sees a vision of angels. The first angel calls for the true worship of God, for the Day of Judgment has arrived.

 

The 2^nd angel announces the fall of Babylon (Rome). Rome falls before the kingdom of God.

 

The 3^rd angel announces God’s wrath on all who worship the beast. Just as they gulped down in the adulteries of Rome, they will drink the cup of God’s full wrath. The false worship of Rome will be purged.

 

The Son of Man, Christ Jesus, appears riding on the clouds, a reference to Daniel 7. Jesus holds a sickle. A 4^th angel announces the time for harvest. Jesus reaps all human souls.

 

A 5^th angel also carries a sharp cycle for harvesting grapes. A 6^th angel calls for the harvesting and pressing of grapes in the great winepress of God’s wrath. This is an echo of Joel 3. The prophet spoke on God’s behalf:

 

“Let the nations be roused and let them go up
to the Valley of Jehoshaphat,

  for there I will sit in judgment on all the surrounding nations.
¹³ Rush forth with the sickle, for the harvest is ripe!
Come, stomp the grapes, for the winepress is full!
The vats overflow.
Indeed, their evil is great!” (Joel 3:12-13)

 

When Jesus first came to earth, he shed his own blood so that we might be saved from the winepress of God’s wrath. On His triumphant return, the unrepentant will shed their blood. Their blood flows from the Jezreel Valley (Joel’s Valley of Jehoshaphat in the region of Megiddo). 

The blood from the winepress is deep, up to a horse’s neck, and flows 1600 stadia which symbolizes total testing. When Noah and his family survived the great flood, it rained 40 days and nights. 1600 is 40 x 40, representing an intense period of testing.

 

The apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth,

 

“We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be paid back according to what he has done while in the body, whether good or evil.” (2Co 5:10)

 

How do we live our lives knowing that we will be judged?

 

John told us, “This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. (1Jn 4:17-18)

 

Instead of fearing God’s judgment, we trust in God’s mercy through Jesus Christ. Judgment may feel like passing through fire and brimstone or like being squeezed in a winepress, but we take courage in the gospel. God has reconciled himself unto the world through the death and resurrection of Jesus. God is not counting our sins against us. We shall not fear, for we trust in God’s forgiveness and love.

 

How do we live with judgement? With hope in the gospel of Jesus. With gratitude for God’s mercy. And with repentance we make it our ambition to please God in all we say and do. (2Co 5:9)

 

Benediction from Jude 1:24-25

To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.