The Great Harvest

[0:00] Has anybody been to a high school cross-country meet before? It's a lot of fun. What happens is you go and you're there to support a runner or a team of runners, and they're running this 3.1-mile kind of course, and what you do is you go to different points on the course, and you get ahead of the runners, and you see them coming, and you're like, you run, run, run, keep up, keep up, don't stop, don't freak out, keep going, press on, and then they run by you, and then you go to the next point, and you see them coming, and you're like, don't stop, run, run, run, persevere, endure, do it, do it, do it, and then you run to the end where the final push is going on, and that's usually the hardest point of the journey, tribulation, things get intense, and you say, keep going, don't stop, press on, Sunday after Sunday, the book of Revelation is cheering us faithful saints on.

[1:04] It's saying, keep going, stay focused on Jesus. Even when things get hard, press on, don't give up, Sunday after Sunday. Revelation is an ongoing encouragement for Christians who are suffering.

[1:20] Keep going on, but the passage that we're looking at this morning, Revelation 14, 14 through 20, it's not only encouragement to suffering saints, it's a wake-up call.

[1:33] Bling, bling, bling. Bling, bling. Hello? Good morning, this is Comfort in Sweets. This is your 5.30 a.m. wake-up call, Mr. Salvati.

[1:47] Thank you. Click. If you've ever received one of those wake-up calls before, your next two questions are this. Where am I?

[1:59] And what am I doing here? Revelation 14, 14 through 20, is going to be a wake-up call for many of us in which we need to ask the question, where am I and what am I doing here?

[2:18] You see, this passage that we're looking at this morning, this passage is all about the return of Jesus Christ and the great and final harvest of souls that He brings with Him.

[2:31] It's an encouragement for those who are suffering, and it's a wake-up call for those who have fallen asleep. It's good news for everybody, because we wouldn't want you to be asleep when Jesus comes, now wouldn't we?

[2:41] So here's how we're going to proceed. We're going to ask four questions of this passage, and we're going to then answer them.

[2:54] Question number one, who is this one coming on a cloud, because that's quite a ride? Question two, what will happen when this one riding on a cloud gets here?

[3:07] Question three, what is God's wrath, and why is it so awful, and is it fair?

[3:20] Question four, how do we respond to this, this vision of Jesus coming and bringing with Him full and final judgment of all?

[3:32] Like I said, for Christians suffering on account of Jesus, the coming of Jesus, and the coming harvest, that's good news.

[3:43] But if you've been lulled to sleep by the world, this is a wake-up call, and that's good news too. So let's look at verse 14.

[3:54] We're going to do a close-up. Imagine the camera closing, kind of bringing, focusing in on verse 14 of chapter 14. And we read this, 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.

[4:13] Who is this one coming on a cloud? One like a son of man. And when you read, one like a son of man, don't think comparison, like, like, think title.

[4:26] Son of man. It's a title. It's a messianic title. It's Christ's title. It's the title of a king. It was Jesus' favorite title of himself all throughout the days he walked on earth and all throughout the Gospels.

[4:43] Remember this, Mark 10, 45? Talking of himself. The son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

[4:54] He came to give his life as an offering to fully satisfy God's wrath for sinners. Behind this title, son of man, is Daniel chapter 7, verses 13 through 14.

[5:09] And here's what's going on in that passage. One like a son of man goes to the ancient of days on a cloud. And the ancient of days then gives this one, like a son of man, all authority over all peoples, all nations, all languages, an everlasting dominion to create a kingdom that will never be destroyed.

[5:33] The son of man is a title of a king. God's king. And what we see here is the king coming back to earth.

[5:49] And did you notice he's wearing a gold crown? That's no ordinary crown. That's the crown of a victor. If your name is Stephen, you're named after this crown.

[6:02] It's a victor's crown. What it means is this king coming on this cloud is victorious. And we already learn from chapter 12 that he's conquered through his death and resurrection.

[6:17] He threw down the ancient devil, the serpent of old, the dragon. And now he's coming back to complete what he started.

[6:28] And did you notice his ride? He's coming on a cloud. Again, it's a reference to Daniel chapter 7. If you started, if we read through the book of Revelation in one sitting, if we read it here this morning, we would have started in Revelation 1 and in verse 7, John says about Jesus, he is one who is coming on the clouds.

[6:54] And so, if we were to read what we're reading now in light of 1.7, we'd be like, oh, that's the guy. Jesus. Acts chapter 1, Jesus, after his death, after his resurrection, after he does his great commission, he tells his disciples that they're going to be his witnesses to Judea in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the age.

[7:15] After he gets done doing that, he ascends into heaven on a cloud. His disciples are like, what? Two angels show up and they say in 1.11, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?

[7:29] This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way you saw him go into heaven on a cloud coming back.

[7:40] The king. Let's put this in perspective. Let's just say you're throwing a final four party at your house.

[7:53] People start coming. They're showing up in their rides. Subaru pulls up, hey, come on in. Ford, yeah, hey, buddy, come on in. Toyota, nice car, come on in.

[8:05] And then someone shows up on a cloud. They drop in on a cloud. You're going to be thinking, you're not from around here, are you?

[8:19] Jesus is set apart. He's riding on a cloud. He's coming from heaven. We're getting a close up. John's giving us a close up of the returning Christ.

[8:33] And did you notice he's seated? It's the position of a judge. Judges at this time, even today, they do their judging in a seated position. And did you notice the sickle in his hand?

[8:46] It's a curved, crescent-shaped blade attached to a handle that's used for harvesting. thing. The victorious king who's going to judge riding on this ride is coming back to harvest.

[9:01] It's a picture of judgment. So in Revelation 14, 14, we are given this close up of the returning king, Jesus, ready to harvest the earth.

[9:15] But let's pan out for a second because you've got to see something. Remember in Revelation 4, 14, 1 through 5 last week, I pointed out that in this section, we see the 144,000, those with the name of the lamb on their foreheads gathered around the lamb, they're worshiping him.

[9:39] We have a picture of the redeemed worshiping the lamb. Now if you flip over to chapter 15, verses 2 through 4, what you see is people mingled around worshiping with harps, God, and they're singing the song of Moses and the song of the lamb.

[9:56] So on either side of this passage, Jesus, the son of man coming, you have the redeemed singing of the lamb. Now if you move in one step in verses, chapter 14, verses 6 through 11, you have three angels announcing judgment.

[10:18] If you look at chapter 14, 15 through 20, you have three angels enacting judgment. So what you have is this, you have the redeemed singing the praises of the lamb, and then you have three angels, six angels, announcing, declaring, enacting judgment.

[10:36] And in the middle of them is the son of man. It draws your gaze to him. Have you ever been on 75th street and you're driving by the Goodwill building by Hillcrest?

[10:49] Do you know what I'm talking about? And you're driving by and you're looking, what is up with that wonky roof on there? It's like this inverted roof. And so the eaves of the roof, the roof line, it draws your attention to the center, which brings your eye down to that column, which is the entrance of the building.

[11:10] The structure of that draws your attention to the entrance of Goodwill. The structure of this passage draws your attention to the son of man coming, who's going to judge all and he's in the middle of those being judged and those who are singing his praises.

[11:36] He's coming. He's coming. And he's bringing judgment with him. But I gotta bring you out one more.

[11:47] Let's pan out one more. Because there's a reason why God through John is reminding us that Jesus is coming as the returning king to judge everyone. Remember chapter 12 and 13?

[12:01] The anti-trinity, the dragon, thrown down, ticked off, declares war and wages war on the saints in chapter 13 through the beast and the false prophet, power, propaganda, seeking to mislead the nations and to cause conflict and hardship for God's saints.

[12:20] Do you remember that? And then here, well let me, chapter 13 verse 14, we have those following the beast, they're singing his praises, they're boasting in him, they're saying, who is like the beast?

[12:36] Who can fight against him? Chapter 14 answers that. Who is like the beast? The son of man?

[12:49] Coming on a ride of a cloud? He's not on earth, he's coming from heaven? And when he comes, he's bringing judgment? The first time the son of man came, he threw the dragon down through his death and resurrection.

[13:04] The second time the son of man comes, he's going to throw the dragon into the lake of fire? He's going to throw the dragon if you read chapter 12 and 13 and you start getting scared, chapter 14 is like, hey, he's coming.

[13:21] Your king is coming. The hero of all time is coming. And he's going to make all wrongs right. So if you are reading this in the first century and you're feeling the pinch of publicly identifying yourself with Jesus, you're catching heat for it, this is a well-timed vision to put courage in your heart.

[13:50] He's coming and when he comes, he will vindicate you in his judgment. But it's also a bit of a wake-up call because many of us can get lulled into the sleep of thinking that there's no judgment coming, that it's just one day after the other of comfort and pleasure, nothing to worry about.

[14:20] He's coming. Bling, bling, bling. It's a wake-up call. What will happen when he comes? Jesus is coming.

[14:32] What will happen when he comes? We find that in verses 15 through 20. And what we see here is that the entire population of the earth that is on this planet, when Jesus comes back, they will be harvested with two separate harvests, with two different reapers, two different crops, two different destinations.

[14:55] Christians. Now, not all Christian scholars agree on the nature of these harvests. Some Christians think that this is just one harvest, a judgment of putting people into the winepress of God's wrath.

[15:10] Others, like myself, believe there's two different harvests going on, and I'm going to make that case for you right now. In verses 15 and 16, we see the first harvest. In verses 17 through 20, we see the second harvest.

[15:25] I want to help you see the difference in terms of the reaper, the crop, and the destination. In verses, in verse 15, you can't help but see, verse 16, excuse me, that the reaper is the son of man.

[15:46] Jesus. There's this angel that tells him to put in his sickle to reap, for the hour to reap has come. So he, the son of man who sat on the cloud, swung his sickle across the earth, and the earth was reaped.

[16:03] Now, if you look at verse 17, then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. Verse 18, another angel comes out and tells him to put in your sickle.

[16:14] Verse 19, so the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest. We've got two different reapers, two different harvests. We've got two different crops.

[16:31] Did you notice in verse 15, we read this, the angel telling the son of man, put in your sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.

[16:44] You see those words fully ripe? The Greek word underneath that literally means to ripen until dry in the ear. Speaking of a grain harvest, of wheat.

[16:57] And if you flip down to chapter 18, we read this angel from the altar is telling this other angel with the sickle, put in your sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe.

[17:09] That Greek word for ripe actually occurs only here in the New Testament and what it means is to come to its full prime. Let's like plump and ripe. It's the very opposite of being dried in the ear.

[17:26] Two different crops. We've got grain, we've got grapes. The grain represents those who belong to the lamb.

[17:38] the grapes represents those who have spurned the lamb. Destination.

[17:50] In verses 15 and 16, you don't read anything about where this grain harvest goes. But it's already been referenced. Look at 1414.

[18:02] those who are singing around the lamb, they are the first fruits of God and the lamb. They are the initial harvest of God, of the lamb.

[18:17] They are the ones in heaven singing to the lamb. The second harvest, we read of their destination. So the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.

[18:37] And the winepress was trodden outside the city and blood flowed with the winepress as high as a horse's bridle. That's what goes around a horse's head. Five, six feet for a 1600 stadia.

[18:54] that's 184 miles. Lake Michigan is about 118 miles wide. Gives you a sense of volume.

[19:10] The final destination for those of the grape harvest is the winepress of the wrath of God. What will happen when the Son of Man comes?

[19:25] He's going to harvest the earth. He is going to sweep His sickle across the earth and gather unto Himself all those who've called upon His name.

[19:38] All those written in the Lamb's book of life before the foundation of the world. All those who've endured to the very end for the glory of His name. That's who He's reaping.

[19:49] They're the ones that are singing around the throne of the Lamb. The Lamb and the second harvest the harvest of grapes are all those who opposed the Lamb.

[20:02] All those who follow after the beast. All those who are giving allegiance to something anything but the Lamb. Even themselves. Two harvests two judgments two reapers two crops two destinations.

[20:19] what will happen when the Son of Man comes? The earth will be judged. When you start seeing God's wrath show up what does that do to you?

[20:44] I'm going to come back to that in a second. but let me just make two points in application of this harvest. Jesus coming and harvesting His own is good news for suffering saints.

[21:00] It's good news because A. it tells you Jesus is coming. Second He knows His own. He's coming for us.

[21:11] And what this also does for us it helps us to remember that vengeance belongs to the Lord.

[21:22] He will carry out His justice on His time. We can trust Him for that. If you're catching hate for being a follower of Jesus and you want to fight back and trust it to the Lord.

[21:42] He's coming. He's coming for His saints. It's good news for suffering saints and it's a wake up call for those who are maybe adrift maybe asleep you're hitting the snooze button you don't really care about Jesus you may profess Jesus but what you're practicing is opposed to Jesus this is your wake up call.

[22:05] Judgment is coming. this corresponds with Jesus teaching in Matthew 13 of the parable of the wheat in the weeds. He explains that parable in verses 36 and forward and what he says is at the end of the age there will be a great harvest that separates the sons of the kingdom from the sons of the evil one and that is exactly what we're seeing here in chapter 14.

[22:34] the sons of the kingdom are the grain harvest and the sons of the evil one are the grape harvest. It really does beg the question if Jesus were to come back this afternoon what harvest would you be gathered in?

[22:52] Would you be gathered in the grain harvest or would you be gathered in the grape harvest? The difference is Jesus. Do you belong to him?

[23:04] Has his blood covered you and satisfied God's wrath? Have you decided to follow Jesus? If you have grain harvest, if you haven't grape harvest, you're destined for the wine press of God's wrath.

[23:28] But I have some good news for you. God's wrath. But in order to get there, I got to answer a really difficult question. What is God's wrath? And why is it so awful?

[23:45] Why does it not seem fair? Why would God send and punish with everlasting torment an image bearer of his?

[24:00] Why would he do that? That doesn't sound loving, does it? When you think about the wrath of God, when you hear about people having to drink down to the dregs of the wrath of God's wine, when you hear about the fire in the sulfur that will torment people for everlasting days without remission, when you hear the winepress of God's wrath, where do you go?

[24:33] Where do you go? J.I. Packer in his book Knowing God, chapter 15, the wrath of God.

[24:44] He defines God's wrath as this. His, God's right and necessary reaction to objective moral evil.

[24:57] God's right and necessary reaction to objective moral evil, and objective moral evil would include idolatry, living for anything but God.

[25:12] God's wrath is a judicial response to evil, because God is a just God.

[25:27] His wrath is an outworking of his justice, and God's justice is an outworking of his moral goodness.

[25:38] God is good in all that he does. His ways are good and righteous always. So when you walk in his ways, you experience his goodness.

[25:51] But when you cross God, you cross his goodness, you cross his justice, you provoke his wrath. And so in order for God to remain morally good, he must, as an exercise of justice, pour out his wrath.

[26:09] God for God not to do that, he would cease to be God. We can't make the mistake of our culture.

[26:22] I'm convinced this is propaganda of the false prophet. To think that you can pick and choose the attributes of God that you want to fit your lifestyle.

[26:33] God says, no, I am holy, I am just, I am good, and I am watching all that you are doing.

[26:47] The image of a wine press is of this stoned in pit that has channels dug out in the bottom of it.

[26:57] And so after a grape harvest, you put the clusters of grapes into this stone lined vat, and then you have people trod the grapes.

[27:10] Their weight pressing down on the grapes squeezes out the juice. The juice falls to the bottom of the wine press and then travels through those little channels out to the bottom of the wine press where there is some kind of hole or spout, and it fills a bucket, wine skins, and from there you make wine.

[27:29] It's a violent picture. And the reason why it's used is because the juice that's produced looks a lot like blood. It is violent and it is gruesome.

[27:44] And if that weren't enough, if you read ahead in your Bible to Revelation 19.15, what you read is that the returning Christ is the very one who is trotting on the fury of the wrath of the wine press of God.

[27:59] Jesus is the executor of God's wrath. what's up with this?

[28:15] Does the punishment fit the crime? Why is this so awful? Why is it so extreme? Well, instead of trying to say, well, there's something wrong with the understanding of God, how about we take this line?

[28:33] There's something wrong with our understanding of our sin. We fail to recognize the seriousness of our offense against God.

[28:46] And as we gather the seriousness of our sin against a perfect, matchless, priceless God, God, we're going to begin to understand that this punishment fits the crime of rejecting him.

[29:08] This past week, Jenny and I brought our younger son, Mark, to New York City. And we did it as a way to honor Mark's grandparents, who would have took him, but they died.

[29:21] And so we brought him in to honor them. We flew in on Monday, and on that first day, we made a beeline to the Museum of Modern Art. And we cruised up to level five, and on level five are all these different masterpieces.

[29:35] This, on level five, is where Van Gogh's Starry Night is. Beautiful. But that's not, that's not the work of art that stole the show from me.

[29:46] The work of art that stole the show, you can put it up there, was this piece. This is a Monet, water lilies. And if you've been to Chicago and seen the water lilies in Chicago, Monet's work, there's these little paintings.

[30:03] And what this is, is this panoramic, there are these like three, four by eight drywall sized panels that are put end to end together, and so you stand in front of it, and it is overwhelming.

[30:17] It's beautiful. Monet's use of color is lovely. Recently, there was a Monet sold in 2016, it was a fraction of the size of this for 81 million dollars.

[30:33] So I'm guessing that this Monet on level five of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City is going for 200, 250 million dollars, a quarter of a billion dollars.

[30:47] Unique, one-of-a-kind, unmatched worth. Could you imagine this? Yours truly. I sneak a hot dog from a street vendor into the Museum of Modern Art.

[31:02] I'm walking on level five. I stand in front of this Monet, and I'm like, yeah, this is pretty cool. I'm a little hungry though. Pull out my hot dog, pull out my ketchup packet, and start to try to open my ketchup packet.

[31:13] It's not opening. So I put my hot dog in my armpit to keep it warm, and then I start working the ketchup packet to see if I can open it, and I realize the only way that this is going to open, if I squeeze the bottom real hard.

[31:26] I squeeze the bottom real hard while I'm standing in front of the Monet, and what happens? Ketchup all over the Monet! Could you imagine that? I can imagine that!

[31:40] The gallery goes aghast. Woo! Woo! I pull out, I got it with me, I pull out my cheapo vendor napkin, and I'm like, it's just ketchup!

[31:53] It's no big deal! And I just make it worse, don't I? The museum curator runs out, what are you doing?

[32:07] It's just ketchup! It's a five-cent ketchup pack! And she says, you have no idea. You have no idea what you've done to that Monet.

[32:20] That's a quarter of a billion dollars, and you defaced it with your five-cent ketchup pack! God is so much more valuable than a Monet that was worth a quarter of a billion dollars.

[32:38] God is one of a kind, matchless in his value, unsurpassed sin is worth, priceless in his manifold attributes of perfection and holiness. And what we do is we pop our little ketchup packets of sin and deface and defame his character.

[32:58] And we say, it's just ketchup! It's just a little sin! Having no idea of the matchless worth and glory of the one true God.

[33:13] And in his economy of things, just one little sin packet is eternally treasonous in his sight.

[33:25] That's how glorious he is. we fail to recognize the seriousness of our offense to God.

[33:37] But when we start to recognize and we start to understand God's glorious unmatched worth, all of who he is in his holiness, his perfections, his moral glory, he does nothing wrong.

[33:56] He's always right, always just. When we start to recognize that and then we start to see our sin in light of that, now you're starting to feel the weight of sin from God's perspective.

[34:22] When we sin against God, it is always a capital offense. For the wages of sin is death. When we sin against a holy eternal God, there is always a holy eternal consequence for that sin.

[34:48] If you are unwilling to forsake your sin to follow Jesus, you are forsaking Jesus in order to follow after your sin.

[35:05] Did you follow that? If you're unwilling to forsake your sin to follow Jesus, you are forsaking Jesus to follow after your sin. You are saying, my sin is worth more to me than your glory, Lord Jesus.

[35:20] slap. It's an offense. sacrifice. And one of the things that you become clear of as you work your way to the book of Revelation is that as God discloses his wrath and he does that gradually, incrementally, starting with the seals and one quarter of the earth, then the trumpets and into one third of the earth, and then eventually the bulls, which will hit in a couple weeks, all the earth, he pours his wrath out on.

[35:57] Every time he pours his wrath out, you think people are going to repent, but they don't. You see it in Revelation 9, verses 20 through 21, the six trumpets, the people will not repent.

[36:16] The fourth bull, 16, 9, scorching with heat, the people curse God, and do not repent. The fifth bull, 16, 10, 11, it's poured out, the people curse God and do not repent.

[36:34] The seventh bull, poured out, thrown down, the people don't like it and they reject God, they do not repent.

[36:46] According to the book of Revelation, everyone who will be thrown into the wine press of God's wrath and crushed by the very feet of Christ, they themselves refuse to repent of their sin and give God his due glory and it's eternally treasonous.

[37:04] The punishment fits the crime. The wine press of God's wrath is due punishment for rejecting God as one's Lord and Savior.

[37:26] These are hard truths, aren't they? Well, let's just bring it home this way. if you're a Christian in the room, we too once were under the wrath of God.

[37:47] We were under this wrath, fully exposed and then we were given eyes to see what the Lord Jesus came and did on our behalf on the cross on that first Friday.

[38:07] As the clouds gathered and it got dark, God poured out his wrath on the Son of Man in order to ransom many so that we would not have to bear this wrath ourselves.

[38:26] What is this wrath? It's God's judicial response to moral evil. Why is it so awful? It's because it's against an eternal just God.

[38:42] You may not like to stomach it, but it's right. It's true. Now, what do we do in response?

[38:53] how do you respond to this vision of the Lord Jesus coming, the Son of Man, and he is going to harvest for himself his own, and then those who have rejected him are thrown into the wine press of God's wrath.

[39:10] How do you respond to this? Well, first is this. You've got to realize that we're actually one day closer to his coming, one day closer to the great and final harvest.

[39:28] And so, if you are seeking to be faithful to Jesus, you press on. Keep going. Don't stop. Don't compromise.

[39:39] Stay true. Follow after his ways. Keep bearing testimony to him. Rejoice. Jesus, give glory to the lamb for what he's done on your behalf.

[39:51] He's borne the wrath of God for you. You're part of his grain harvest, and so your words should echo the words of Revelation 2220, come Lord Jesus, come.

[40:08] But if you're not pressing on, if you're more like snoozing, this is your wake up call. It's time to repent.

[40:26] It's time to turn from living for things that are not worthy of your life or worthy of the lamb. If you're unwilling to forsake your sin to follow Jesus, you are forsaking Jesus to follow your sin.

[40:40] God's wrath hangs over you, and your only hope is the lamb who was slain, who bore God's wrath. So turn from that sin, turn from whatever you're living for, and turn to Jesus.

[41:00] Today, say, I'll take it. Jesus, I believe. I'll follow you all my days.

[41:10] thank you for paying for me what I could never pay for eternity. Realize we're one day closer to Christ's coming in that great and final harvest.

[41:29] The second thing is to reset your priorities according to God's plan. Reset your priorities. priorities. We don't know the day or the hour that Jesus is going to come back.

[41:43] Jesus himself did not know. That's why an angel was sent from the temple to tell him now's the time. God, even though we don't know the exact day or the hour, we can be a part of the harvest.

[42:04] We reset our priorities according to this coming return in harvest. We're laborers in the harvest field.

[42:16] we are planting gospel seeds. We are about our father's business. So here are some specific steps you can take to reset your life accordingly.

[42:36] Go pray. Tomorrow morning when you wake up, open your Bibles to Revelation chapter 5 verses 9 through 11 and pray it.

[42:48] Go pray. Pray, our father and heart in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your will be done in my life on earth, just as it is in heaven.

[43:02] Go pray. Go invite. Easter's coming. You've got all sorts of people in your life. Say, hey, what are you doing for Easter? They're like, I don't know. Come with me.

[43:13] We've got a service, 10 a.m. in our church. And they're like, no, you're a doofus. You get to say, okay. Bless you. Or they might say, I'll come.

[43:31] Could be the day of salvation. Go pray. Go invite. Go public. Here's what I mean by that. Start putting something like this in your explanations to people.

[43:44] They're like, hey, you want to look at this porn thing on my phone? You get to say, you know what, as a follower of Jesus, I don't want to have anything to do with that. And they're going to be like, oh, you're one of them. You're like, yeah?

[43:57] Start going public with identifying yourself with Jesus. Get into the harvest. Go throw a party. get to know the people around you.

[44:12] Summer's coming. It's starting to warm up. Great opportunity to have people over to your home, your apartment, your mobile home, your tent, wherever you are. Have people over.

[44:23] Get to know their names. Turn the soil over for the harvest. Revelation 11. Go prophesy. Go speak of Jesus to people.

[44:37] Go tell them of who God is, of that we as man are made in his image, and that we've sinned against him, and we need help, and that's why Jesus came, and you got to respond to that message.

[44:48] God, man, Jesus, respond. Go prophesy. And one other specific thing is, on Friday, April 26, we're hosting Secret Church here.

[45:02] it'd be a great use of a Friday night to come, hear God's word, preached full and fast, pray together, be encouraged, strengthened, compelled to go into the harvest field.

[45:21] Reset your priorities according to God's plan. God's plan. God's plan. God's plan. When you realize we're one day closer to Christ's return in that great harvest, you've got to reset your priorities.

[45:33] Jesus, be found faithful when he comes. There's only two people in the world according to this passage. Those who will be in the grain harvest, and those who will be in the grape harvest.

[45:51] This is good news for Christians who are suffering on account of Jesus. Jesus is coming. Vindication is coming. And for those who have fallen asleep, to the great spiritual realities that are true, this is your wake-up call.

[46:10] And that's good news too, because we wouldn't want you to be asleep when Jesus comes. Let's pray. God in heaven, thank you so much for your word.

[46:22] God, would you cause your spirit to fall upon us, your people, that we would be a people who are faithful to you, who endure unto the end, and who prioritize our lives in light of this great harvest.

[46:36] God, would you, over the next six months, would you save people, help us to rescue people from the fire, Jude 23. Would you help us to be a people that are speaking boldly on your behalf, and that more and more people, God, in your great mercy and kindness, would be transferred from the grape harvest to the grain harvest harvest because of your grace.

[47:02] God, add to our numbers for the glory of your name. Amen.