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It's Harvest Time!
Revelation 14:14-20
Skip Heitzig

Revelation 14 (NKJV™)
14 Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat One like the Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle.
15 And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, "Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe."
16 So He who sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.
17 Then another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.
18 And another angel came out from the altar, who had power over fire, and he cried with a loud cry to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, "Thrust in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe."
19 So the angel thrust his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the earth, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
20 And the winepress was trampled outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress, up to the horses' bridles, for one thousand six hundred furlongs.

New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved.

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66 Revelation - History's Last Chapter - 1996

One of the most common ways to make a living in ancient times was to "work the land." The early rains of October/November and the soft latter rains produced the wheat and barley harvest later on. Also, when vintage season began, almost the whole village could be found in the fields harvesting the crop. Such images would also provide a poignant way of depicting the final judgment of the earth, as in this section.

The book of Revelation exalts Jesus Christ as the soon-coming Lord over the earth. Skip Heitzig explains the amazing and mysterious prophecies that form God's final word to mankind.

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Outline

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  1. The harvest as a description
  2. The harvest of distinction (vv. 14-16)
    1. The earth is reaped: the wheat is separated from the tares.
  3. The harvest 0f destruction (vv. 17-20)
    1. The vintage is reaped: the grapes are crushed in the winepress

Key words: sickle, reap, harvest, ripe, winepress.

APPLY THIS STUFF:

  1. How does this picture of Jesus as harvester broaden your view of him? How does this help you to live, in light of what's coming?
  2. What right does god have to judge the earth he created? How does this comfort you? How does this motivate you?

Transcript

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Revelation chapter 14 verse 14: "Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat One like the Son of Man, 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 sat on the cloud, "Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe." So He who sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped. Then another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, who had power over fire, and he cried with a loud cry to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, "Thrust in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe." So the angel thrust his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the earth, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trampled outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress, up to the horses' bridles, for one thousand six hundred furlongs."

1958 was not all that long ago. I was three years old so see it wasn't all that long ago. In 1958, the president of IBM Corporation was a guy by the name of Thomas J. Watson, Jr. and he didn't see much of a future for computers around the world. In fact, this is what he said, the president of IBM, "There is a world market for about five computers." Guess where I read that? The internet. I found that posted on my computer in the internet. Now here's a president of IBM who said there's not a future worldwide for anything but maybe five computers. Back then something that is such a present reality and common to us was seen as far-fetched. And that's sort of typical, isn't it? It's hard to envision what is coming down the pike until it comes down the pike. There are things like that in the book of Revelation. I mean, the idea of reading chapter 11 and here we have a story of two witnesses who are persecuted, get killed, get resurrected, and the whole world is able to see the event at one time. That's staggering. That is far-fetched a few years ago. Today it's like old hat that satellite television--no big deal. The idea of everybody on earth receiving a number to buy and sell a few years ago was outlandish. Today it's known that we depend upon numbers with the Social Security system and so many other systems where buying and selling without a number is not that far-fetched. Then there are words like Armageddon, fire and brimstone, judgment, that some people would snicker at or say is far-fetched. But more and more, those ideas are coming of age. In fact, I found out this week that just one trident missile submarine has eight times more firepower than all of the bombs dropped by both sides in World War II.

I found out this week, I was going through my concordance on the computer, the computer concordance which gives you a list of words in the Bible quickly and you can find things rapidly. But if you were to take and search phone books around the United States, you'd come up with some interesting names. Names that are odd. They're funny, to say the least. For instance, if you did a search in Miami Beach of Castro Valley, California there is the name in the phone book Frank N. Stein. That's Mr. Stein's name--Frank Stein, his middle initial 'n'. Frankenstein. Other names in phone books the computer would reveal are words such as Robin Banks, Georgia Peach, M. T. Head (so empty head), Minnie Van is another one, I wonder what Miss Van drives, several women are listed in the phone book as Sunny Day, one is listed as Happy Day and another as Summer Day, men's names include Phil Harmonic, Lance Boyle, and James Dandy. And then there are distinctive names whose names really only work when they're put in the phone book order, last name first, first name last. For instance, Jack Cracker in the phone book is Cracker Jack and William Dollar is Dollar Bill in the phone book. Mr. Guy Wise is Wise Guy and so on. Now if you were to do a Bible search for key words like Armageddon, you'd only find it once. There's only one reference to the word Armageddon. It's not even here, though there is an allusion to it. But it's talked about so frequently as that last great battle on earth when the nations gather together in Israel and judgment takes place.

But if you took other key words, for instance the word judge is found 188 times in the Bible. Judgment, 190 times. Judgments, plural, 122 times. All together the word is mentioned over 500 times in the Bible. Judgment. Then words like angel or angels appear almost 300 times in Scripture. The word harvest or harvesting appears 71 times. And all of these concepts, and most of the words, are tied together here in these verses that we just read. Judgment, angels, harvesting. It is harvest time, the angels are involved, and it is definitely a judgment. These things are not far-fetched. We've already discovered that the Day of the Lord, as it is called, the great tribulation period, is so detailed an event the book of Revelation covers it in so many different ways, so many different shades of meaning are given in this section of Scripture. It is a day when God, though He has dealt with man in grace for so long, will put down the implements of grace and deal in wrath, in judgment. It's over now. It's harvest time. It's time to move on to a whole new way of doing things. There was a couple that was driving and he was going a little too fast and the policeman pulled him over. The policeman said, after the window was rolled down, I'd like to see your driver's license. And so the guy pulled out his license, gave it to the policeman, hoping that he would incur some good graces and leniency, the man said, officer, did you notice that yesterday was my birthday? The policeman looked at the card and said, well yes I did. In fact, yesterday was the day your license expired. And he gave him then two tickets--speeding and having an expired driver's license. No grace.

Now let's look at our text. Verses 14 through 20, there are three divisions, there are actually two, and I've given it three just to set the stage. First of all, the harvest as a description. There are some key words in this text. The harvest as a description of what's going on. Secondly, a harvest of distinction, making a difference. And then finally, a harvest where there is just destruction. That is the last vision. I want you to just to begin looking at verse 14 and look at the description of the Son of Man that is given in the first few verses. He is sitting with a sickle in His hand, verse 14. Notice He's about to reap with that sickle, verse 15. The reason is also given because the harvest is ripe. Move on to the second vision, you see that there is an angel with a sickle also, verse 17. And this time grapes are gathered and thrown into a winepress. All of these are implements of a harvest. One a grain a harvest, the other a grape harvest. Now all of this imagery of harvesting was very common to people who lived in ancient times, especially in the nation of Israel. They were common agrarians. They lived off the land. If you wanted grain, if you wanted vegetables, if you wanted fruit, you couldn't go to the grocery store. You had to grow it. If you wanted fish, you had to fish for it. They lived off the land, their income; their way of life was tied to the land. The festivals of Israel, so many of them were agricultural festivals. The festival of Pentecost, ingathering, firstfruits, all of them revolving around the agricultural seasons of the year. Sowing and reaping.

Then there were the parables of Jesus Christ. He spoke in terms they could understand. He didn't talk about microchips, though if He were here today perhaps He would. But He spoke about sowing and reaping, wheat tares, agricultural stuff. The harvest--that's what people there were used to. Now when we think of harvest time, at least in our culture as Americans, it sort of brings romantic ideas to the mind. Leaves falling, winter coming, friends gathering, Thanksgiving. It's a time for the harvest but the harvest time also has with it a serious note. That which is alive and grew is now dead and dormant. Things get cold and still. It's a little more ominous of a time just as a season. If you were to ask the average Christian about what harvest means, they would say evangelism probably. It's the time where we bring people in and harvest souls for Jesus Christ. And the reason we say that is because Jesus Himself said of the crowds that were gathering around Him in chapter 9 of Matthew, He said the harvest is truly plentiful but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray the lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. There is a wonderful harvest of souls and it's a wonderful occupation to be involved in whatever occupation you have in life to win souls for Jesus Christ, to bring them into the kingdom, to harvest those souls as it were. But usually in the Bible, almost invariably, the idea of harvest has the idea of judgment. That's really what it is. It's an image of judgment upon the earth, a final judgment upon a nation, upon an individual, or upon the world. It's the reaping of the earth, harvest time is judgment time. No matter what you have sown in your life, now comes the time to reap it--at the time of judgment.

I heard of a millionaire, though he had enough money to survive, he got involved for whatever reason in drug trafficking. I guess he wanted extra income. He was caught, put in jail, and picture the millionaire not sitting in a big, high-backed stuffed chair, but in a jail cell. He had a big yarn, long needle and he was sewing burlap sacks together. His friend came to visit him, put his hands on the icy cold bars of the cell, peeked his head in and saw his friend. The man standing outside said, you're sewing, huh? The prisoner looked at him and said, no I'm reaping. All that I have sown has ended. This is what I'm reaping for what I have done. He realized it was harvest time. What a man sows he will also reap. And really that is the idea of the harvest in the Bible. The harvest is the time of judgment. And here's a picture of the final harvest time. Let me give you a few other portions of Scripture that bear this out. God predicts the final overthrow of the nation of Babylon. Remember Babylon took over the Jewish nation and God held them accountable for it. Jeremiah 51:33 God says, the daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor when it is time to thresh her. Yet a little while and the time of her harvest will come. It's not of evangelism to that country--it's judgment. In Isaiah chapter 63 God says, I have trodden the winepress alone and from the peoples no one was with Me, for I have trodden them in My anger, trampled them in My fury, their blood is sprinkled upon My garments, I have stained all My robes for the day of vengeance is in My heart and the year of My redeemed has come. Then perhaps the most famous book about this whole period of time is Joel. He devotes the whole story to the time of judgment, the time of reaping, the time of harvest, the great tribulation period mostly. And he puts it this way: put in the sickle for harvest is ripe. Come, go down, for the winepress is full, the vats overflow for their wickedness is great, multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision for the Day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.

Then we move from the Old Testament to the New Testament. And John the Baptist comes on the scene and he predicts the Messiah, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. But he predicts the judgment that will come as the Messiah, the Son of Man, comes. And John the Baptist says of Jesus, His winnowing fan is in His hand and He will thoroughly clean out the threshing floor. He will gather His wheat into the barn but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Then there's Jesus Christ who talked about that final judgment and He said this: the harvest is the end of the age. The reapers are the angels. Therefore, as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. Jesus taught the field of judgment is the world. The harvest, He said, is the end of the age or the end of the world. And here we see a picture, a cameo picture, even before the rest of the judgments ensue in the book of Revelation. Sort of again like a telescoping of the very end. The chapter opens up with 144,000 standing on Mount Zion, gathered together around the Messiah at the end of the tribulation, before the millennium, now the chapter closes with a gathering of people to be judged for harvest.

Let's look at verses 14 to 16, the first vision, the second point in our message, a harvest of distinction. "Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat One like the Son of Man, 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 sat on the cloud, "Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe." So He who sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped." Notice who the reaper is. It is One like the Son of Man. Now who might that be? Jesus Christ. He's called the Son of Man in Daniel, in the Gospels. You say why does John call Him one like the Son of Man? Probably he's making reference to what he already saw. In chapter 1 he sees a vision of the Son of Man. It's Jesus Christ. We already established that at the beginning. And now after all that he has seen, he sees One like the Son of Man, like what Daniel saw, like John sees in chapter 1. The harvest is personally supervised, superintended, by this Son of Man--Jesus Christ. Now that shouldn't surprise us. There are people who say well Jesus would never judge. This is what Jesus said. He said, the Father judges no one but has committed all judgment to the Son and has given Him authority to execute judgment also because He is the Son of Man. Now that's going to shatter some of our concepts of Jesus. The Sunday school concept: gentle Jesus, meek and mild, look upon this little child. That's true--partially. He was meek and mild. He did look upon little children. He was very gracious. He was very loving. But one day He will be the Judge of the earth and here's the picture. Notice He's not carrying an olive branch. He doesn't have a cross to go to Calvary. He comes with a sickle, the implement of reaping the harvest of the earth. Put another way, the first time Jesus came to earth, He came as a servant. The second time Jesus comes it will be as sovereign King. The first time Jesus came to planet earth, He came as One obeying. The second time He comes, He will be the One commanding. The first time Jesus came, He came alone to live with a Jewish couple in an obscure town in Palestine. The second time He comes; He will come with all the angels of heaven and will bear rule over all the earth. The first time He came, He came in humility. The second time He comes, He will come in glorious majesty, as we see here, on a cloud with a crown. The first time He came to seek and to save the lost, the second time He will come to judge and sentence the lost. Or to put it in the image of what we're reading, the first time Jesus came, He came as the sower. The second time He comes it will be as the reaper. He came sowing seeds; He will come reaping the harvest.

Notice why in our verse. The angel says, "for the harvest of the earth is ripe." Now I've called this the harvest of distinction and I'll show you why in a minute. This is a harvest where something is separated, differences made, because the word that is used here for ripe is the word dry, withered, overripe, rotten might be a translation. Look at the earth--it's rotten, it's dry, it's withered. And this was a word that was used in reference to the grain harvest, the wheat harvest. The sickle would be taken out and thrust into the dry stocks of wheat and they would be cut and then they would be separated. And so the idea is, look, the harvest is withered, it is dried, it is time to be picked, it is rotten. There was a guy who was traveling through the country with a buddy of his who lived in the country. This guy from the city, you know, he didn't really know a whole lot about how things grow and work in the country. He noticed driving by these fields that looked white to him, and he said what are these fields? What are you growing? He said that's wheat. He said wheat? I always thought wheat was golden. You know amber waves of grain, like the song says? He said usually it is golden until it's overripe. When it's dry and withered, it turns white and you gotta pick it quickly. Then the man finally understood what Jesus was talking about when He said to His disciples, look, the harvest fields are white, judgment is imminent was the idea. It's time to pick.

Well really that is the condition of the world, isn't it? It's ripe. It's rotten. It's overripe. Withered, dry. And it will be the condition that marks the world at the time of the end and the only response God could have to it is to put in a sickle of judgment because it's dry, it's withered. It implies that the world will be useless, you might as well hack it down is the idea of this harvest. It's time to reap, said the angel. Now I'd like you to turn to a section of Scripture, I think, to understand what this harvest is. Go back to Matthew's Gospel, chapter 13 for just a moment. These are parables, kingdom parables, agricultural parables that Jesus told, a few of them. And I believe that the parable that we're about to read is a reference to what we are reading presently in Revelation 14, that little section. Verse 24: "Another parable," Matthew 13:24, "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 and produced a 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?' He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' The servants said to him, 'Do you want us then to go and gather them up?' But he said, 'No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn."'"

Now look over at the next page or down the page to verse 36 of the same chapter: "Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field." They didn't get it. "He answered and said to them: "He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man." The same reference, the same description--the Son of Man. "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. Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it 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, and will 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. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!" I think that parable explains this first vision of the Son of Man on the cloud with the sickle ready to reap the harvest of the earth. It's a judgment of distinction. The separation of tares and wheat. Now what's a tare? A tare is a weed. In fact, it's the bearded darnel, which in ancient times looked just like wheat. Couldn't tell the difference. Even experts could not tell the difference between darnel and wheat--at first. At first there was no distinction. You had to wait until they grew. Later on, as there was a maturing, a ripening, you could start making out the differences. By the time of the harvest, it was easy to tell the difference. But to pull up the darnel, to rip up the weeds, could damage the wheat because the darnel would grow so close to the wheat that the roots would intertwine and to pull up a tare you would invariably pull up some wheat. And so the superintendent says no, no, no. Wait. Leave them alone until the end of the harvest. Why? Because reapers are more experienced than servants and can tell the difference between true wheat and that which only looks like wheat, meant to deceive--a tare.

Now that's a picture of where we live. In God's kingdom, even in churches across America, there's God's wheat but there are also tares sown among the wheat. You know, the devil is a counterfeit and there's nothing so sacred that the devil will not invade. In fact, I think his M.O. is the more sacred, the more I'm going to invade it. We have already seen he is the one who has a counterfeit trinity in the tribulation, a counterfeit Christ during that time, a mark meant to mimic the mark that God puts on the heads of His children. All mimicry. And he has fake Christians--tares that are sown among the wheat. Now we may be tempted, let's pull out those tares. The disciples were kind of in that mindset. It seems that they wanted the harvest to come now. They wanted to make a separation now. For instance, there was a man in Luke 9 who was casting out demons and the disciples proudly came to Jesus and said, Master, we saw this dude casting out demons in Your name and we forbade him, thinking they're going to get a pat on the back. Because he wasn't following with us. Jesus said don't forbid him. If he's not against us, he's for us. Then there was the time when, in Matthew 15, a woman of Canaan, someone outside the Jewish covenant, came to get close to Jesus Christ, it says that she said have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David, my daughter is severely demon-possessed. What did the disciples do? They said send her away, she's bothering us. Get her out of here! Make a separation! We're Jews--she's not. She's a woman of Canaan. Then there was the time in Samaria, remember Jesus goes through Samaria, Samaritans did not follow Jesus and so James and John called the sons of the fishermen, though Jesus renamed them sons of thunder, they were sons of Zebedee, they came to Jesus and they said, you want us to call fire down from heaven and smoke these Samaritans? In other words, you want us to take out the sickle of judgment now and thrust it in? Jesus said you do not know what manner of person you are. And he called them sons of thunder, the nuclear brothers in modern terms. I can picture these guys, leather robes, spiked bands across their wrists, you know, they're God's policemen. They were ready to have the judgment immediately--now. And I think there have been periods in church history when the church has been guilty of that. I think Constantine was guilty of that in the 4th century. He made everybody follow Christ his way or be killed. And many true believers were killed during that time. There was the time during the Middle Ages, the Crusades, where they thought, we better kill Jews and Muslims in the name of Jesus Christ because they're tares, they're not us. Then there was the Spanish Inquisition which was the Roman church's response to the Protestant Reformation and many believers were killed during that time and tortured. But here's the point of Jesus: now is the age not of the sickle of the judgment but of the net of evangelism. We bring people in now. We tell them the gospel of grace. We want the harvest to be the net, bringing them in, not the sickle of judgment. Today is a time of sowing, not reaping. There will be a time of reaping; the reapers will be the angels, which will be the harvest at the end of the age. God knows the tares, God knows the wheat.

Now here's the really good news in all of that story. The good news is that in this present age, before the harvest, any tare can become wheat. Any tare, any false believer, any hypocrite, any unbeliever, who would even try to come close to the church can become God's wheat. So that at the time of harvest, they will be separated and kept as His prize. That's the beautiful truth about this. Now before we get back to Revelation and see the second vision, since we are compared to wheat and unbelievers to tares or, in some cases, chaff, have you ever thought how Christians and wheat are similar? It's the metaphor Jesus gave. Here are a few areas in which wheat and Christians are very similar. Number one, when wheat ripens the full, rich heads become bowed down with weight. You can also tell that the wheat is ready to pick because the tops of them are bowed. At first, they're straight up. At the end, they're bowed down. Tares, on the other hand, when they ripen, stand straight up. That's how the expert reapers can tell the difference at the end of the harvest. One is bowed, one is standing up. You say, well that's wheat. It looks very similar at first, but it's obvious now. So it is with Christians. The more they grow in the knowledge, in the grace of Jesus Christ; they are bowed down in humility not in pride. An arrogant person is the mark of the tare, not wheat. In fact, anyone who has come close to God always has that sense of humility, right? When Isaiah saw a vision of God, did he say I'm going to go on television and tell people about my new book The Day I Saw God? No, he said, woe is me, I am undone! And Peter, when he saw that Jesus was God, said, depart from me, I am a sinful man. Paul the apostle, who once was very arrogant with his Jewish pedigree, said I am the least of all the saints. God has extended grace and mercy to me. It's a mark of wheat--there's the bowing down. There's another mark. The hot sun ripens the grain of the wheat. In fact, the hotter the sun gets, the quicker the ripening process gets. Or you might say, the better it gets. The trial of life, the hot sun of affliction, beat down upon the believer's life and makes him a better person. More valuable, more useful, because of the affliction. That's why P.T. Forsythe said rather than praying for pain's removal, we ought to pray for pain's conversion. God use this--ripen me. Make me more useful and valuable. There's a third way and that is, as wheat ripens upward, it dies downward. Let me explain. The head becomes ripe, the riper the head becomes, the stalk which holds it, the root which supports it, dies. So it has less of a grip on the earth, you might say, as it is ripening at the time of the end. And I think that's a beautiful description of the Christian. The more we grow in grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, the less earthbound we become. The things of the earth grow strangely dim, like the song we sometimes sing around here, turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely what? Dim. In the light of his glory and grace. All a picture of wheat. That's the picture Jesus as His own.

Let's go back to Revelation now and this second vision which is our third point here in the text and that is a harvest of destruction. It's sort of the same truth that Jesus just uncovered, but He's talking here about the utter destruction, the treading down of the winepress of God's wrath for unbelievers. The harvest of destruction. Verse 17: "Then another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, who had power over fire, and he cried with a loud cry to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, "Thrust in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe." So the angel thrust his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the earth, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trampled outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress, up to the horses' bridles, for one thousand six hundred furlongs." This is the second harvest. It is different from the first. The first was the reaping of the harvest of the grain. This is the harvest of the grapes. The winepress is mentioned. Now the vintage, or the harvest of the grapes, takes place in the summer from July to September. The summer was the time of the harvest for the grapes. People would leave the village, you'd see them all over the grape fields, they'd be picking, putting them in the buckets, taking them to the winepress. They would cast all of the grapes. They wouldn't separate them. They wouldn't say, good grape, bad grape. They'd just throw them all in. Then a whole bunch of people would get in this winepress which is a cistern cut out of rock with a channel and a hole that juice could drain through it, be collected in vats, and people would just jump, dance, all over the grapes. And the juice would be spattering all the way up, several feet, all over their clothes, all over the rocks and the surrounding places where these things were being treaded upon. And that's really the idea of this harvest. It's not a separation; it's just a total wipe-out. It is a total threshing--consummation of the wicked.

Now notice the angel makes request from where? The altar. The angel comes out of the altar and the angel has power over what? Fire. Now does that ring a bell? We've already uncovered in the book of Revelation, remember in chapter 6 there was somebody under the altar, it says. A whole bunch of people. They were the martyrs. The people who had to sacrifice their lives during the tribulation and it says in Revelation 6, and He opened the fifth seal and as He opened the fifth seal, I heard the voice of those under the altar crying with a loud voice, how long, O Lord, until You revenge our blood upon those who are on the earth? There's a cry coming from under the altar in heaven. Then do you remember chapter 8, the angel comes out from the altar having fire in his hand and he casts it to the earth? Remember that? Here we have the angel who has power over fire, presumably the same angel, coming out from the altar. Now what does all this mean? Well, again, remember this Old Testament. This is biblical language. Twice a day in the tabernacle and in the temple, was the time of the sacrifice, morning and evening. And each time the priest would go to the outer altar, the brass altar, where there was always a fire going on, and he would take fire from the brass altar, put it into a little golden censer, bucket, walk into the holy place, put incense on it, and incense would rise up. And that indicated the prayers of the saints. In fact, as he was waving this censer and incense was going up, the people were outside at that time praying to God. So the symbol of prayer in the holy place symbolized the actual praying on the outside. Well what's my point? The angel comes from the altar, has power over fire, and he says to this other angel, do it! It's time to reap! In other words, this time of judgment is the answer to the prayers of God's people. they've prayed for it, they've longed for it, they've said Thy kingdom come for so long, they have suffered at the hands of it, and now, in response to the prayers, God comes by His angel to judge the earth.

You're saying, wait a minute. Why would anybody pray for judgment? Nobody would do that! No true Christian. You would only say that if you've never been persecuted as a lifestyle. Living in America, I'm sure that you would say that, that would be your sentiment, but these are people under the altar who have suffered at the hands, who have watched God in His mercy go on and on and be gracious with the world and they say, ah, I've got a question. How long will You let this happen before You do something about it? And they cry out for it. You know, picture it this way. Do you ever read the newspaper and just get upset? You're like why do I even get this paper? It's just bad news! Murder, terrorism, rape. When you read about an adult raping a four-year-old girl, do you get ticked off? Does it make your blood boil? It ought to. Ok, now think of God seeing every news headline in every city of every country every day and all the hidden stuff that never gets published from the beginning of time to the end. And you wonder, God, when are You gonna do something? If you're really loving, You ought to judge people. Don't you think? You think it would be loving if God said, hey, Hitler, listen, come on into heaven, you're welcome. After all, you were a little bit deranged, you were a product of your environment, I know you killed 6 million people but hey, I can overlook such stuff, come on in. I wouldn't want to worship and serve a god like that unless there was repentance on the part of the person who has sinned. So God will judge in response to His saints.

Notice the expression here, "fully ripe," it's a different expression, not ripe or overripe, it's fully ripe. This is a word used of grapes. They're at the point of bursting. There's so much juice in them, they're ready to burst. They're prime. It can't wait any longer. And so He reaps the vine of the earth. Now in the Old Testament, the vine is Israel, right? In the New Testament, the true vine is who? Jesus Christ. I am the vine; you are the branches, John 15. This is the vine of the earth, this is the fruit of all the earth has produced, and the wickedness of the earth for centuries will be finally judged. And the spurting of the grape juice, if you were to watch a harvest, if you ever get over to the Middle East and watch them do this or even in places of Europe, the trampling of the grapes, the idea there's so much juice that flows into the vats and spatters everywhere, up several feet high, it looks like a bloodbath. Just the color and the brilliance. And that's the imagery, this spattering of the juice is like the spattering of the blood in that great and last battle that will take place in the time of the end. It's mentioned in verse 20, "the winepress was trampled outside the city," it's best to see that as the city of Jerusalem, by the way. I don't know if you understand but, in the Bible, Jerusalem is the center of everything. North in the Bible is North of Jerusalem. South in the Bible is South of Jerusalem. East and West have Jerusalem as the focal point. The city, as John would write and as people would listen, they would get the idea this is none other than the city of Jerusalem. And we're going to read about it in chapters 16 and 19 of Revelation, this battle of Armageddon, gathered outside of Jerusalem as the nations of the world fall upon Jerusalem to kill her but God preserves and protects them. The measurement here is one thousand six hundred furlongs, or about 180-200 miles, which is incidentally the measurement of Israel north to south if you take the Jordan Valley southward from Ezralon down to Edom, 180 miles, 200 miles. In other words, nations will gather in Israel at the very end of time for a battle but it's really not a battle, it's a winepress. You know people talk about the battle of Armageddon. It won't be a battle! It's a wipe-out. There's no struggle. Jesus isn't saying, call in extra troops, this is too hard! He will come again and tread like a winepress and the juice spattering, it will be a total wipe-out at His Second Coming. This is what Zechariah says, Zechariah 14:2-3: I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem. and then it says, then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as He fights in the day of battle. What we see here, then, in the second vision, is the prelude to Armageddon. It's outside the city, the measurement is given, the blood, as predicted, will flow up to the horses' bridles. What a frightening picture. I meet people all the time who say, you know, I don't even want to read the book of Revelation. It's so frightening. It's just like a Twilight Zone episode. Well, I guess that is really my point. The world is in for a frightening future but they don't know it. But you do. Think about that. Folks, think about that. We have information that they need to know about. They need to know that there's a God who loves them, who sent His Son to stop people from the destiny of destruction. That's why He came! That's what this age, the age of grace. There's coming a time when that is all ended and the sickle is put in the hand and the angel says, go for it! It's ripe! It's rotten! Hack it down! Trample it under in the winepress of God! You know, we live in a nation full of people trying to figure out the future, right? Horoscopes, 1-800-Psycho lines at night, find out your future, we'll let you know. Here is the future! It's all written about. There's no guess to this. It's detailed for us. We need to be about the Father's business. You've heard the term face the music, right? A lot of you don't know where it comes from, however. In ancient Japan, a couple hundred years ago, that's pretty ancient; there was a guy who was in the orchestra for the emperor. He couldn't play anything, though. He couldn't read a note of music. But, because he was a man of money and influence, he was allowed to sit in the second row of the orchestra with a flute in his hand and the time the band played he'd pucker up his lips and put the flute high and fake it like he was playing. Turned the music, but he couldn't read it. That deception worked for two years until the conductor was gone, he died, and a new conductor took his place and now demanded every one of the musicians to audition personally. Well this guy feigned sickness. Didn't show up for a couple weeks. The conductor said I demand, if you're going to play in this orchestra, that I know your level of ability, you have to audition. The doctor said there's nothing wrong with this guy and so he had to sit in front of that new conductor and confess that he was a fake. He couldn't face the music that was in front of him--couldn't read the notes. One day everyone will stand before God the Judge. God will say, in effect, what song have you got? What's your tune? And the world, many of them, will not be able to face the music. We know that. We know that information. We read about it every week. We study it every week. And know it's time that we share it. No one will be able to hide in the crowd in that day. It's a wonderful harvest now of salvation before that great and horrible harvest then.

Additional Messages in this Series

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6/9/1996
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Good News from a Bad Place
Revelation 1:1-8
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6/16/1996
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Catapulted into the Future
Revelation 1:9-20
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6/23/1996
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When Love Grows Cold
Revelation 2:1-7
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6/30/1996
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Postcard to Those in Pain
Revelation 2:8-11
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7/7/1996
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The Curse of Compromise
Revelation 2:12-17
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7/14/1996
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Corruption without Discernment
Revelation 2:18-29
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7/21/1996
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Church of the Living Dead
Revelation 3:1-6
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7/28/1996
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Body Building - God's Way
Revelation 3:7-13
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The human body has become the obsession of our modern culture. Much like the ancient Greeks, people are madly trying to fit the contemporary ideal of what is an acceptable shape and size. The church is metaphorically called the "Body of Christ" and His desire is to see it built up spiritually. The church of Philadelphia is a good model of a healthy, faithful church. Their example provides for us a template to follow in building up the Body - God's Way!
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8/19/1996
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Taking Your Spiritual Temperature
Revelation 3:14-22
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Ever since we were kids our moms stuck thermometers in our mouths whenever she suspected that we were sick. If our body temperature of 98.6 had climbed up just a few notches, it was always a good indication that an unhealthy condition was present. There is also a spiritual temperature that reveals the condition of our souls, and when the thermometer reads Lukewarm it indicates that something is wrong; it indicates the presence of danger. Let's see how Jesus, the Great Physician, treats his patient with this malady.
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8/25/1996
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Peeking into the Portals of Heaven
Revelation 4
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9/1/1996
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History's Greatest Real Estate Deal
Revelation 5:1-7
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9/8/1996
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Worship His Majesty - Part 1
Revelation 5:8-10
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In heaven there won’t be just three services in the morning and one at night with a midweek tacked on. There will be no need to be sensitive to time so we can go to lunch. Words will not have to be printed nor projected. Worship leaders will have no need prompting people to sing. It will be an all-consuming experience that will involve our total cooperation and enthusiasm.
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9/15/1996
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Worship His Majesty - Part 2
Revelation 5:11-14
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9/29/1996
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Four Riders with Bad News
Revelation 6:1-8
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10/6/1996
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The Cries of Heaven and Earth
Revelation 6:9-17
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10/13/1996
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A Blessed Interruption in a Tough Time
Revelation 7
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10/20/1996
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Trumpets of Doom
Revelation 8
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10/27/1996
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When All Hell Breaks Loose
Revelation 9:1-12
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11/3/1996
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Angels of Mass Destruction
Revelation 9:13-21
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11/10/1996
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A Big Angel with a Little Book
Revelation 10
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11/17/1996
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Two Powerful Preachers
Revelation 11:1-14
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11/24/1996
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Light at the End of the Tunnel
Revelation 11:15-19
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12/1/1996
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The Panorama of Spiritual Warfare - Part 1
Revelation 12:1-6
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12/8/1996
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The Panorama of Spiritual Warfare - Part 2
Revelation 12:7-17
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There aren't many people who like to fight. Confrontation is something most would like to avoid. But in the spiritual realm it's unavoidable. The question isn't, "Will I engage in spiritual warfare?" Rather, the question is, "How well will I fight?" As we saw last week, the war in the heavens makes its way to the theater of the earth. Let's see what else it entails.
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12/15/1996
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The Coming Global Leader
Revelation 13:1-10
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12/22/1996
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Evil's Right-Hand-Man
Revelation 13:11-18
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12/29/1996
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The Lamb Who Shepherds His People
Revelation 14:1-5
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After all that john has seen in his apocalyptic vision, seeing the docility of a lamb standing with his overcoming sheep is a welcomed sight. Although the dragon pursues god's people relentlessly, although the beasts are bent on ruling the earth, the ultimate winner will be the lamb and his followers.
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1/5/1997
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Angels Set The Record Straight
Revelation 14:6-13
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1/17/1997
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Getting Ready for the Grand Finale
Revelation 15:1-8
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1/26/1997
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What's in the Bowl? - Part 1
Revelation 16:1-11
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We now come to the "seven last plagues" of God in the Great Tribulation that is coming upon planet earth. These judgments come in the form of "bowls" being poured out swiftly and completely-the judgment will be swift and thorough. Yet through all the mercy as Well as wrath of this awesome era, people will persist in having a hardened heart. Open your heart 'right now to these truths.
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2/2/1997
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What's in the Bowl? - Part 2
Revelation 16:12-21
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What will the end of the world be like? What are the final events just before Jesus returns and takes over to set up His millennial reign? That's what this section tells us. There will be increased warfare activity in the Middle East, massive deception, and unheard of destructive cataclysms on earth. In the midst of foretelling these events, Jesus has a word of encouragement.
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2/9/1997
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The Coming World Religion
Revelation 17
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It was Karl Marx who stated, no doubt cynically, that religion was the opiate of the masses. The fact is, he was right-it is! People are driven to worship something or someone. This desire will be exploited to the hilt in the Tribulation period and will be under the umbrella of the world dictator-the Antichrist. What are its roots and how does it end?
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2/16/1997
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Get out of Babylon!
Revelation 18
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Someone once said, "Money can't buy you friends but your enemies treat you a little better." Though meant to be tongue-in­cheek, that won't happen when the entire world economy collapses. God's shakedown of the earth will include everything that the Antichrist's kingdom will embody, from the sacred to the secular.
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3/2/1997
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Marriage Made in Heaven
Revelation 19:1-10
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3/9/1997
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The Return of Jesus Christ - Part 1
Revelation 19
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Even in the dome of our capitol in Washington there is an inscription which seems to point to the return of Jesus Christ. It says: "One far-off divine event toward which the whole creation moves." It is that event which we will be studying in the next two weeks. This is what all Christians of all ages have looked forward to - His return and reign of His creation.
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3/16/1997
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The Return of Jesus Christ - Part 2
Revelation 19
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Even in the dome of the capitol in Washington there is an inscription which seems to point to the return of Jesus Christ. It says: "one far-off divine event toward which the whole creation moves." it is that event, that Christians of all ages have looked forward to-his return and reign of his creation. We will conclude our study of the return of Jesus Christ, today.
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4/6/1997
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Paradise Regained
Revelation 20:1-3
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4/13/1997
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The Devil's Last Stand
Revelation 20:1-10
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A typical question is, "Will evil ever get its reward?" What ever happened to ethics and justice? Well, we see here that God will not turn His back on this issue. He will deal with the source of all evil (the devil himself) and then judge those who revel in it. This section gives tremendous hope to anyone concerned about injustice in our world.
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4/20/1997
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Life, Death, and Resurrection
Revelation 20:5-6; 20:11-15
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5/4/1997
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All Things New - Part 1
Revelation 21:1-3
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5/11/1997
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All Things New - Part 2
Revelation 21:4-8
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"It's like nothing you've ever seen or experienced before." That's how John describes the emotional experience of heaven. So that we can relate, he tells us that all of the pain, sorrow, and moaning we've endured here won't be there. By the way, only those who want to go there will go there. Heaven is not a destination by default, reservations are made here and now!
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5/18/1997
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The City of the Future
Revelation 21:9-22:5
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There is no architect or builder like God himself. Even the patriarch Abraham "was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God." (Heb. 11:10) he didn't find it in his lifetime. "You won't find you're "happily ever after" here either, but the New Jerusalem will be God's answer for man's longing to live in a perpetually peaceful stare.
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5/25/1997
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He's Coming - Now What!?
Revelation 22:6-21
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There are 43 additional messages in this series.
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