Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #44 of Revelation, chapter 14 and we are continuing to look at Revelation14:15:

And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.

We have been looking at what the Bible has to say in other places concerning “harvest.”  We saw that God speaks of “harvest” as a time for His wise sons to work.  God points to the “ant” and tells us to be wise and consider her ways, because she gathers her food in summer and in harvest, according to Proverbs, chapter 6.

On the other hand, a son that sleeps in harvest causes shame.  Also, in Proverbs 6, where God speaks of the ant, He also strongly emphasizes that the sluggard needs to awaken; the sluggard is not to sleep because sleep brings “poverty” and poverty is destruction.  God is indicating that the time of “harvest,” which is a time to reap, is a time in which the wise will work. 

What will be the work that the wise perform?  What is their task?  It is to perform the role of the reapers: “I sent you to reap,” we read in John 4:38, as Christ speaks to His disciples that represent the elect of God. 

We also went to 1Thessalonians, chapter 5, as we were following the idea of “sleeping” in harvest or “sleeping” at the time of Christ’s coming in Judgment Day, and we read in 1Thessalonians 5:6-7:

Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.

This reminds us of the end of the 12-hour work day, as the 12-hour day points to the day of salvation in which men are to work or, more particularly, Christ performs the work of salvation.  But then the night comes, we read in John, chapter 9, where no man can work; Christ will not perform the work of salvation because the time of sowing the seed in order that people might hear and become saved has ended.  Now the “night” comes and night is related to harvest or to Judgment Day; it is a time when God warns against sleeping: “For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.”

We looked at the idea of “sleeping,” so let us just look at some verses in which God speaks of “drunkenness” in connection with Judgment Day.  For instance, in Luke 21, which is a parallel chapter to Matthew 24, in which the Lord answers the disciples’ question, “What shall be the sign of the coming, and of the end of the world?” we read in Luke 21:34:

And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.

The word “unawares” is the same Greek word translated as “sudden” in 1Thessalonains 5, where it says that when they shall say, “Peace and safety,” there will be sudden (or “unaware”) destruction.  Literally, this word means “not seen,” and that perfectly describes a spiritual judgment; it is a destruction that is “not seen,” and that is exactly what God has in mind here.  Any that are involved with “drunkenness” will be caught by the “unseen” judgment of God when He shuts the door to heaven – they do not “see” that because it is a spiritual door; none could see when that door was open and none can see now that the door is closed.  This is the problem with mankind.  When he does not see something with his eyes, he assumes nothing is there.  Yet, God’s entire kingdom is a spiritual kingdom; God Himself is Spirit.  God speaks of “seeing” with the eyes of faith or with spiritual sight.  That is why the people of God understood when judgment began at the house of God; they could “see” Satan standing in the holy place as the abomination of desolation; they could “see” Satan taking his seat as the man of sin.  They did not see it literally and physically, as no one can see a spirit being, but it is through the eyes of faith that God gives to His people.  God’s elect could see that the house of God was under the judgment of God, but those in the churches (not his elect) were the tares and they could not see this.  They were perplexed and disturbed about this kind of talk about the church age being over and that God’s wrath was upon them and Satan had entered in and God had departed.  They looked around and they saw their pastor that had been there for twenty years; they saw a good-sized congregation; they saw they still had the Bible and they were still singing their hymns with fervor and they were still praying diligently.  So where is the problem?  They could not see the spiritual judgment that had come upon them. 

The churches which had God’s Word should have been fully aware the Christ spoke in parables and they should have been fully aware of the spiritual nature of the Word God and if they could not see the spiritual judgment of God coming upon them, why would anyone think that the world (who denies the Bible and who live by sight and their other senses) would be able to discern a spiritual judgment coming upon them when God said it would on May 21, 2011?  Of course, we should not expect the people of the world to be able to see spiritually the judgment upon them, but the true believers can see it. 

Yet, there were many that joined forces with the true believers and God allowed this because it served to accomplish His purposes in the days leading up to May 21, 2011.  God was busy with the great task of warning the entire world and saving the last of His elect, so He used some of the unsaved for various purposes to fulfill His Word.  For instance, He used the news media to expand the sending forth of the message, even though they were, for the most part, very negative, but they were used to get the Word out in a greater reach.  Also, God used unsaved professed believers and we would have to say there were a good number of them, even though we do not know the numbers, but considering how many have fallen away since then, we would have to say there was a good number of people that “joined up,” for whatever reason: they were attracted to the idea of knowing the date of the time of the end or they may have been attracted to the idea of the end of the church age and being on their own.  In order to go along with this, they went along with the other time information.  Whatever the reason, they were not saved.  When the time came God used them to hand out tracts; God may have used them to go on tract trips or used their financial resources or used them in other ways to accomplish His purposes.

Then the day came and when nothing (apparently) happened, many of them reacted angrily.   They reacted bitterly and they reacted in a way that God’s people would not react and that was by getting angry about the whole topic and becoming so frustrated that they turned their backs on Scripture that indicated that May 21, 2011 was the day.  They did not want to talk about it any more and they did not want to look into it any further.  “That is it.  ‘No man knows the day or hour’ and I accept that now.  I am going to reject the timeline.  I am going to reject the date and I am going to reject many of the doctrines I previously held.” 

But the Lord’s people do not react that way.  The Lord’s people were tried, just as others, but when God’s people are confused (and we were), we wait upon the Lord.  We wait on the Word of God.  We wait, searching the Scriptures and praying for wisdom, even at the time when the world was reviling us and the churches were rejoicing over us and some of our (supposed) fellow believers were turning against us, denouncing us and denouncing the very doctrines that God’s elect were waiting upon.  Yet, the true child of God cannot turn his back on these things because he knows, “I heard the voice of Christ.”  When we use God’s methodology of comparing Scripture with Scripture and we come to harmonious conclusions, they are not to be rejected.  In these circumstances, we search even further: “What did God do?  Why did it not happen as expected?”  The true believer continues in the Word and continues to abide in the doctrine of Christ, whereas the unregenerate heart that is within a professed believer does not find it necessary to do that.  Their reaction is, “I did not see anything and that is it.”  They reject the Word of God and that is the test.  The child of God waits upon the Lord and those that rejected His Word due to what their eyes were not able to perceive are failing the test.  This is all involved with spiritual “drunkenness.” 

It says in Luke 12:45-46:

But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken; The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.

Here, notice that God is speaking of what a servant says in his heart, so this is a very intimate and personal thing – he may not even say it out loud, but in his heart he says, “My lord delayeth his coming,” and then he takes a position that is contrary to the truth and contrary to the true believers that hold to the truth.  This is the equivalent to beating the menservants and maidens and eating and drinking with the “drunken,” the rest of the unsaved people.  They have joined hands with the churches or with the world and now they stand with them.  They have learned their lesson and they think this is where the power is and this is where the strength is – to be on the side of those that just bided their time until the date passed and then they pointed the finger and said, “False prophet!”  They can revile and they can feel very proud that they were right.  They were correct.  Of course, it takes nothing to do that.  It is the world’s natural position to be in disbelief and it is the church’s natural position, in their apostate condition, to doubt the true teachings of the Bible.  Now for these servants that were once hand-in hand, it seemed, with the true believers have joined with the world and they are all prepared to gainsay and to be the skeptic, because now the skeptics seem so powerful to them after May 21, 2011.

Notice that the servant said in his heart, “My lord delayeth his coming,” and that reminds us of something we read in the Old Testament.  We find in the Book of Exodus that God severely tried the Israelites that had come out of Egypt in that great deliverance where not a single Jew was left behind; all Israel was delivered out of the bondage of the iron furnace of Egypt and they came forth with a great deliverance.  We can see the parallel with May 21, 2011, as the Bible teaches that God saved the great multitude out of Great Tribulation and, therefore, all of spiritual Israel was delivered out of the Satan’s kingdom and out of their bondage to sin.  Pharaoh of Egypt typified Satan and God delivered all of spiritual Israel, not leaving one spiritual Jew behind in Satan’s kingdom. 

But what happened, historically, after all Israel was delivered out of Egypt?  Did they come out of the gates of Egypt and then all was wonderful?  Was it all joyful, as they marched right into the Promised Land?  No, it did not happen that way.  I am sure many of those Jews had expectations along those lines.  “Everything is now going to be super wonderful.  We are no longer slaves.”  Yet, what did God have in store for them?  It was a severe trial.  They came out of Egypt and it was not long until they were tested with the Egyptian army following after them.  Then God made a way to cross the Red Sea.  Then they were tested with thirst and tested with hunger.  It was test, after test, after test.   God told them to send spies into the Promised Land and the spies came back with an evil report, after searching the land for forty days.  All the spies, with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, were too afraid of the inhabitants of the land and they said, “They are too much for us.  We cannot overcome them.”  As a result of their evil report, God judged Israel and caused them to wander in the wilderness for forty years until that evil generation died out and their carcasses fell in the wilderness.  So that entire period of wilderness sojourn was a forty-year period and “forty” points to testing.  Within those forty years, Moses went up to the mount to receive the Ten Commandments and he was there for forty days and forty nights.  He did that, not once, but two times and, here, in Exodus, chapter 24, it is the first time Moses went up, as it says in Exodus 24:18:

And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.

This was a time of testing for Israel.  They had been left at the base of the mount and they were being tried, although I am sure they were not aware of it.  Yet, God was watching them.  God was observing how they would react.  Apparently, Moses “tarried” and Moses did not know (and Israel did not know) how long he would be in the mount, but they felt it had passed the time.  Then it says in Exodus 32:1:

And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.

Then it says in Exodus 32:5-6:

And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to JEHOVAH. And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.

After their great deliverance, they were tested and they failed the test.  They began “to eat and to drink, and rose up to play,” and we know that God wanted to destroy them, but Moses interceded.  Again, we can see a tie-in with these days after the Tribulation, which ended on May 21, 2011, with 1,600 days, which is the probable duration of Judgment Day (these days after the Tribulation), as “1,600” breaks down to “40 x 40.”  Right after May 21, 2011, on the very next day, God began to try all of those that professed to be believers outside of the churches and congregations.  He is not trying the people that remain in the churches; they had their period of trial during the Great Tribulation and when they failed to come out of the churches, they failed their test.  Then God brought the judgment upon them at the very beginning of Judgment Day, as they were all bundled as tares for the burning.  But, for those that had come out of the churches or for that great multitude saved outside of the congregations, God also had a testing program for us, in putting us through the “fire” of a fiery test for the 1,600 days, the very likely duration of Judgment Day.  It is a prolonged period of time.  He did so by bringing about a spiritual judgment and for those that are not spiritual, but carnal, they cannot perceive it, and this will lead to their denying it and turning from the doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of the Bible, while those that have spiritual eyes “see” it and they trust in God’s Word and continue to trust in the doctrine of Christ and they will endure to the end.  The rest will not endure.

We see that when Moses delayed, the Israelites failed their test and God brought further judgment on them.  The word “delay,” in Luke 12, where the servant said in his heart, “My Lord delayeth his coming,” is the same Greek word we find in Hebrews 10:36-37:

For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.

The word “tarry” is Strong’s #5594 and it is the same word translated as “delay” in Luke, chapter 12.  So , “he that shall come will come, and will not tarry,” and this is taken from Habakkuk 2:3:

For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

The pronoun “it” should be translated as “he,” rather than “it,” which greatly helps our understanding: “but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though He tarry, wait for Him; because He will surely come, He will not tarry.”  Now how is that possible that “though He tarry, He will not tarry,” or “though He delay, He will not delay”?  There is only one possible scenario that answers this question.  On May 21, 2011 Christ seemingly tarried, but, in fact, He came in spiritual judgment and He will complete the judgment on the last day (in all likelihood, on October 7, 2015) and He will not tarry.  There is no tarrying involved at all because it was all part of his overall plan for judgment on this world.