His Perfect Love

Guest (Male): a much-needed wake-up call. Next, on His Perfect Love.

Matt VanderVen: He is telling everybody, wake up. Wake up, church. We're still here. We ought to be about His good pleasure, and that means get after it with intention. There are no excuses. He's telling those that are in the great tribulation, wake up. Your redemption, because if you don't, it's not going to be long, and you're going to find yourself in a situation where there's books being opened, and your name is not going to be written in there.

Guest (Male): Glad you've joined us today for His Perfect Love with Pastor Matt Vanderwan of Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore. We enter a new section of Revelation today. In chapter 14, the focus shifts to Jesus sitting on a cloud, and with a sickle in his hand, he's going to harvest the earth. Jesus will be given all authority to judge and separate the sheep from the goats. A good time for us to search our own hearts to make sure we're right with God. Here's Pastor Matt to help us with that.

Matt VanderVen: You can turn back to Revelation. Let's go on to this third section here this morning. So, he's giving great hope by telling you there's a reward and that ultimately the works are going to follow you. So, if if Jesus is telling you the things that you lay up, right? Cuz we're all going to do something with our time. Would we all agree with that? I think is that fair to say? We're all going to do something with our time. How we spend that time and how we invest that time is either going to be in the temporal or eternal.

One foot in the world or one foot in the kingdom, right? No, that that doesn't work. We can't serve two masters. We will hate one and love the other. I mean, Jesus just said it that plain. I really think this is important to the Christian because we can get so diluted and self-deceived to actually think we're pleasing God when really we can be like the Pharisees and the Sadducees. We can be whitewashed tombs. We can sound good. We can speak Christianese. But I remember when Jesus Christ was walking, uh as we read in the Gospels, and he was coming up and he was he was probably pretty hungry.

He was making his way with the disciples, and he comes up and there was a tree and looked like it would have fruit on it, and it was at the time of the harvest. You know, you would expect there to be fruit on that tree, and it had leaves and all the other thing. When you see leaves, you expect to see what? Fruit, because it's in season. That's important. In season. We're born again. We're now in season. Okay, every one of us here, we're in season. This is not when we weren't saved. We're now born again.

We're in season. And he goes up and he looks at that and he says, what? There was no fruit on it. And he turns and he what does he do? He curses that tree. Why? And he says over and over and I am going to tear down. I'm going to remove. And he's going to say the same thing here. And that's the third section we're going into. It is all in harmony with the rest of the Gospels and Scripture. I I'm just saying this because sometimes we come to Revelation. Yes, it's called the Apocalypto, right?

Which means the unveiling. That's what that word means in the Greek. But so often we we think it's John's Revelation. No, it's Jesus's Revelation. It's Jesus's Apocalypto. And he is making clear and it's it's in harmony with everything else he's ever said. Yes, there's prophetic things that we may not see in other passages, but everything he's talking about with the the sheep goat judgment, the weed and the tares, he is talking about it, and this is right before the bold judgment is going to come with the enormity of the rest of the full indignation of His wrath.

And he is telling everybody, wake up. Wake up, church. We're still here. We ought to be about His good pleasure, and that means get after it with intention. There are no excuses. He's telling those that are in the great tribulation, wake up. Your redemption, because if you don't, it's not going to be long, and you're going to find yourself in a situation where there are books being opened and your name is not going to be written in them. Revelation chapter 3 verse 5, I will blot your name out of the book of life. Well, the blot your name out, you got to be in it.

And so these are sobering. Let's look. Then I looked and behold, verse 14, a white cloud, and who sat on the cloud was one. Now, please notice that. That's italicized. That's put in there for our readability. That's not in the original manuscript. Okay? Sat like the son of man. So, I'm going to say one. I'll put it because it's in there for readability, but it wasn't in there originally. That was written in later. Having on his head a golden crown and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple crying with a loud voice to him who uh And I think this is important.

We we need to understand there's multiple angels. There's going to be three angels again. So, let me just point that out. And another angel came out of the temple crying with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, thrust in your sickle. He's talking to Jesus. For the time has come to you to reap for the harvest of the earth is what? Ripe. You see, Jesus pays a lot of attention to those things. Ripe, not ripe, fruit, not fruit, in season, not in season. So, he who sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle, he who sat on the cloud, that's Jesus.

And you notice that in verse 16, you have two capital letters. So, he. He is capitalized for you to help you know that's Jesus. Who sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth and and the earth was reaped. Right? And then he continues on then another angel, this is our second angel, came out of the temple which is in heaven. Okay, different different. He comes out of a different place. He is not on the cloud. He also had a sharp sickle. Okay, so he's getting involved in this. And another angel come up from the altar.

There's a third angel. Okay, so we have another angel who had the power over fire and he cried out with a loud cry to him who had a sharp sickle talking to the other angel. He's not commanding Jesus. He's commanding that second angel that came out with a sickle. Thrust in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe. What are grapes? Remind me again. Fruit. It's produce. It's what you expect to see. So, the angel thrust in his sickle to the earth and gathered the vine of the earth and he threw it into a great wine press.

So, he's saying what should have been the fruit that wasn't, that looks one way, but it's another is actually going to be thrown in a wine press and it's really the wrath of God. Judgment's going to come to those people. And the wine press was trampled out inside the city and the blood came up to the wine press about the horses' uh bridles for 1,600 or 1,600 basically uh furlongs. Okay, and we'll talk a little bit about this. So, so we learned already our works follow us, right? Um God's going to reward our works. And now in this last section, um who is the one that John here refers to as sitting on the cloud?

Who is that? That's Jesus, right? He is the harvester of the earth. We need to understand His role in the end times. He's already been the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. As a matter of fact, we are going to celebrate that in moments. But he's also a conquering king and he's a righteous judge. And all judgment has been given from the Father to the Son, as we already read in John 5. So, Jesus is going to bring harvest to the earth. Now, are we here at this point? Please remind me.

We are not. Where are we again? We are with Jesus. The church has been raptured out. We understand that because of after these things in chapter 4 in the Greek, after means after. He's going to use three angels as part of the harvesting process, but but he's the ultimate one who harvests the earth. When we talk about harvesting the earth, we're talking about the harvest of souls. That's what he's really If you want to make a note in your Bible, it's the harvest of souls that we're talking about. There's going to be a great division of souls uh between believers and unbelievers, as we talked about.

There will be some that get saved. There will be a remnant. And that's what's meant by harvesting the earth. There there are presently people who are growing up kind of, you know, kind of like a picture, you know, of the harvest of wheat and maybe some agricultural product. So, again, he uses some figurative language here um that's going to come and it makes sense to us again like you know, when he says wheat is separated from the chaff, there's going to be a time when he talked about a separating of believers and an unbelievers. Okay?

Now, in Matthew's Gospel, he makes this very clear and this is what this is alluding to. How many of you have a cross reference in your Bible? Most Bibles don't have a chain or a cross reference like a Scofield. Don't have that. But this is actually what it is cross referencing the event that Matthew already spoke about in His word, right? So, in His Gospel, it talks about separating the sheep and the goats, right? There's going to be a great harvest time. And here it says that the Son of Man again, what we know, we see that, we know what that is.

That's a messianic title or a messianic reference. It's obviously talking to reference Jesus. And so we're seeing Jesus here and he talks about how he's sitting on this white cloud. And what's a white cloud? We talked about this last week. It's picture purity. Okay? You know, it says that he's wearing a golden crown. When you get a crown, that signifies victory. So, we see His purity and His victories on display. And very important now. Don't miss this. And then he's holding what? Before we saw out of his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, different. Now, he's got what in His hand?

A sharp sickle. And what does a sickle represent? Because if he's the one that has the ability to cut down or not, who has all the authority? The farmer. The farmer that goes to the field that looks and decides I'm going to swing this or not swing this. What is this pointing to the fact? Jesus has all authority. And we've already read that in John 5. He is he is a righteous judge and he will judge. Now, in verse 15, if you just look back in your Scripture there, we read another angel that comes out of the temple uh to where Jesus is.

And again, we read there's another set of three angels uh for another three things they're going to do. We keep seeing this uh this pattern 3 3 3. Okay, he's doing it like that. So, the so the second set here and as we mentioned in verse 15 through 20, this angel number one is going to make an announcement. That's what we just read. He talks about the harvest of the earth has come and now he gives an account or he talks to Jesus and he says to him who's sitting on the cloud, he's wearing the golden crown.

He's got the sickle. And he's basically pleading with Jesus at this point saying the time is ready. The earth is ready for judgment. This last portion of the bold judgment, it's now the finality. There is no more going back. Now, in verse 16 it says that he who sat on the thrust His sickle and he took His sickle. And again, that's a picture of Him harvesting the earth. We understand this is a picture for us here in understanding. He's not going to literally have a sickle in His hand. We we get what He's doing here.

The earth was reaped and then enters all of a sudden angel two. And that's in verse 17 if you're reading in your Scripture. It says then another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven and he also had a sharp sickle. So, angel two gets deployed, if I can say it that way, and he comes um from the temple in heaven. He also has a sharp sickle. And now he's going to get dispatched and then angel three will come on the scene, which is verse 18. Now, angel three comes out, but he comes out from the altar who had power over fire, right?

And that's important here. It's pretty awesome power. This power of fire. He cries out with a loud cry to Him who had the sharp sickle, which is angel two, not Jesus at this point. And then what does angel two do? Angel two thrusts in His sickle into the earth and He gathered the vine of the earth and He throws it into the great wine press of the wrath of God, the judgment of God. Now, this wine press is trampled outside the city and blood comes out of the wine press to the horses' bridles up to 1,600 furlongs.

Okay? Now, I want to talk about this here before um just some comments before I keep going on here about the the idea of the wine press to the horses' bridle. I mean, we're talking about a few feet deep here, right? I think we all get that. And And again, this could be literal. This could be figurative. It seems to indicate to us again, I think, the climate, the sinful climate or what's going on in the great tribulation because of the battle of Armageddon. The Bible tells us that the battle Armageddon begins in Hamar you know, Guido there.

And this is on the uh mountain of Megiddo. And it's in the valley of Megiddo, the Jezreel. You might remember last week I talked about how even Napoleon stood up there. He was a type of Antichrist. And as he looked into that valley, he longed to fight a battle there. He decreed what a great battle filled he wish he could fight. And it starts actually in the Jezreel Valley. And it's going to flow all the way, if you've ever been to Israel, from the Jezreel Valley all the way to the Kidron Valley. Okay? So, familiarizing ourselves, Kidron Valley is right next to the city of Jerusalem.

If you've been or never been to there Israel. And it separates the Mount of Olives from the old city of Jerusalem. Now, in the Hebrew, Kid Ron, right? That means black or to be made dark. And it was given that name because it would run black from the blood of the animals that were sacrificed on that temple mount. Uh again, when you think of times like Passover, which we're going to celebrate here in a moment, right? You think about that. In the ancient times, that valley of Kidron would would black with blood and because of the slaughter.

Apparently, the battle of Armageddon that's going to happen during this great tribulation, it's going to be so horrific that the blood is going to flow from the Jezreel Valley all the way from Jerusalem all the way to the Kidron Valley. Now, I just want you to think about this. For 1,600 furlongs some of you had stadia. If you're using a King James translation, same idea. 1,600 stadia. That is, if you're making notes, roughly 180 miles. So, it's talking about having blood a few feet deep for 180 miles. Now, can blood flow 180 miles? Some believe probably.

Some believe this could also be figurative, maybe. As I mentioned before, Israel itself north to south is only 200 and uh 63 miles. So, I mean, you're talking basically from north to south almost the whole land in that area. But this angel is going to be used by God to bring about this time of judgment upon the earth. Now, it's interesting. If you just turn Hold your finger here. Turn to Matthew chapter 13, please. And look at verse 24. And as I mentioned, it was alluding to this in the Gospel. And if you're making notes, I'd make a chain reference for yourself.

Back to Matthew chapter 13. Cuz Jesus spoke about some of these things. Now, we have the fullness of that. We we can see how it it breaks out there. But Matthew chapter 13 verse 24. Do you remember how he's talking about the harvesting and uh the wheat, the tares, the produce? He talked about that in Matthew chapter 13 24. He says another parable he put forth to them saying the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in His field. But while men slept, His enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went His way.

But when the grain had sprouted up and produced crop, then the tares also appeared. So, the servants of the owner came and said to Him, Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares? And He said to them, An enemy has done this. The servant said to Him, Do you want us then to go and gather them up? He said no, cuz it doesn't happen till Revelation. Lest while you gather up the tares, you also uproot what? Some of the wheat with them. This is why. Let both grow together until the what?

Underline that in your Bible. That is exactly what we're just reading about the great harvest in the book of Revelation right there in chapter 14. He talked about this. We didn't understand it in the Gospels necessarily till the book of Revelation was given to us in AD 90 95. And He says at the time of the harvest, I will say to the who? Reapers. Is that not what we just read in Revelation too? Did you ever see this before? Gather together the tares and bind them in in bundles to burn them. Right? But greater But gather Excuse me, the wheat in the barn.

Okay. Now, He tells His disciples to come to Him privately. If you've been in this section, you know they had some questions about this. They didn't understand. They're like, what do you Jesus, what are you trying to tell me? And we get the answer to that in verses 36 through 43. He gives us the answer to the parable. He He translates it for the disciples and the apostles, cuz they they weren't following. They weren't tracking. Look at verse 36 just a few verses down from what we just read. Then Jesus sent the multitude away and He went into the house and His disciples came to Him saying, Explain us the parable of the tares of the field.

He answered and said to them, He who sows the good seed is the son of man. There's that messianic title. The field is the world. The good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age. And the reapers are the angels. Exactly what we just read in Revelation. Therefore, as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire Look at there. Revelation uh 20. The great white judgment, the great white fire. Right?

We know that's going to be the great uh as it says right up there, the lake of fire, the great white throne judgment. So will be at the end of this age. The son of man will send out His angels and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend. And those who practice lawlessness will be cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father who He has He says he who has ears, let Him hear.

Cuz that was exactly what Jesus is going to do right after, right? Right after that happens, after this final wrath and this judgment that's going to be poured out, the battle of Armageddon, the bold judgment, then what's he going to do? He's going to come back and Revelation 19, right? He's going to ultimately come back and there's going to be a thousand-year millennial reign in the kingdom where we're all with Him on the earth. Exactly what He said as it is in harmony with the Gospels. Isn't that amazing when you look at this? He's told us these things.

He didn't He didn't leave any of this open to interpretation. He's given us direct understanding of all this. He says he who hears let Him hear. And understand these things make a difference. And you might be saying, Well, I'm born again. I'm saved. I'm not going to be in the great tribulation. You know, well, how's that apply to me? Well, you know somebody who's going to. You know a prodigal. You know somebody who's going to go through this. Are you telling them about this? Have you had those kind of conversations or do you take out your Bible and crack them with it?

I'm just being honest, right? Like let's talk about it, right? We should always be honest with each other. Are we Bible thumping people or are we actually saying, Hey, you know what? I want to give you information that is going to inform your decision. I want you to make an intelligent decision. And therefore, I'm going to tell you about the things that are going to come. What you choose to do with that information I give you is certainly between you and Jesus. But I want you to make aware why uh why does the Scripture tell us be able to give a defense for the hope that lies within you?

It's because it's not just for you. It's for you to be able to explain all these things. It's not just I'm going to go to church and you can talk to the pastor. No, you're a royal priesthood. You're ministers. You will be held responsible for being ministers. You have the same Holy Spirit I do. I am no different than you. My calling is to stand here and be up here and to handle the word of God with you, but I am no different than you in regards to my responsibility to give the Gospel. Your responsibility to give the Gospel.

We are a royal priesthood. We will give an answer for that because we've been given so much. We've been given so much. Now, I I I understand. I'm not being blasphemous. I know there's the covering of the church. I I know the Scriptures. I teach the Scriptures. I know the covering. I know the roles and responsibility, the authority of a pastor. I'm not negating any of that. I know that all to be true and biblical. But I am saying that we all have the ability to give the word of God as ministers. Right? And I just think that's important.

Right? We We read very clearly. Men teach men. Women teach women and children. Men can teach children too. But that's already in the Bible. It's right in Timothy. I wouldn't have mind if you says, Okay, ladies, you you're the teachers. I'd say, Okay, Lord, I'd go step down there. I'd sit with you and I don't mind either way. I wouldn't have cared either way. Whatever I just want to do with the Lord wants. I don't have an opinion on it. My opinions don't matter. What I believe doesn't matter. What God says is all that matters.

It's the truth. Right? So, Matthew 13 tells us that again, there's going to be coming a time. It's at the end of the age. Angels are going to be used to distinguish the distinguishing process to separate the righteous and the wheat, the sheep from the unrighteous. Right? The tares from the wheat uh the weeds that way or excuse me, the chaff and the wheat. The goats. All of this is part of the judgment in the end. You know, Jesus is going to be the great harvester, but we need to know He's going to use angels as part of the harvesting process.

Part of the judgment is going to come forth on the earth. So, these are the things to come and a reminder to us that we that God shows mercy even during all of this. That God has a heart of mercy even during His wrath. And that's a good word for all of us this morning as well when we go to somebody that's not living according to the Scriptures. When when these things aren't being done, we don't go we're not Phinehas. How many of you know what I'm talking about? Well, I'm zealous for my nation. So, I'm going to go take the sword and I'm going to or the javelin or the whatever I'm going to strike it through.

No. And we have Jesus Christ. We have a new covenant. We're not terrorists. We're not terrorists. No. We're to be zealous for Christ. We're to We're to take the word of God and we're to bring it in truth and in love. And it must be the fullness of both.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Pastor Matt Vanderwan on His Perfect Love. You can hear the study from Revelation again when you visit His Perfect Love dot org. That's His Perfect Love dot org. We've expanded our podcast, too. Look for us on oneplace.com and most of the major podcast platforms. The Calvary Chapel Harrisburg mobile app is another great way to listen to Pastor Matt's messages shortly after they're delivered. We can help you get started when you visit His Perfect Love dot org. We're thankful for the listeners that come alongside of us with their prayers and financial support. If you're interested in supporting this radio ministry, there's a place to do that at His Perfect Love dot org.

Together we can reach people with the love and truth of God in these last days. Pastor Matt loves to hear from His listeners. Even just a quick hello telling Him where you hear the program and how you're blessed by it means a lot. Email us there at the website His Perfect Love dot org. And whether you live in or around Mechanicsburg PA or we'll be visiting the area soon, we'd love to have you join us for a service at Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore. Sunday morning services begin at 8:30 and 10:30. We have a midweek service, too, Wednesdays at 7 p.m.

You'll find us at 28 North Locus Point Road in Mechanicsburg PA. Go to cc harrisburg.org for more information. Well, that'll do it for today, but come back next time when Pastor Matt will again study the book of Revelation with us here on His Perfect Love.

Matt VanderVen: His Perfect Love is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore.