A Different Kind of Harvest

         The supplemental view of the rapture in Chapter 14 also helps us bring down another mountain that some have exalted in God’s end-time highway. Since the identity of the people present in God’s throne room is the same as those shown in Chapter 7, we know that this is the same event. This means that there are not multiple raptures as some teach. It also raises up a valley in this same highway, showing that there are multiple harvests and judgments, each at their appointed time.
      The rest of this chapter  highlights another harvest using figurative language. It happens to show us the “harvest” of the Antichrist. That is, how the Antichrist and his coalition of middle eastern armies is defeated and how Israel prevails. Each image highlights another aspect of this harvest.
         The first scene shows “One like the Son of Man” on a white cloud. John is seeing into the heavenly realm once again. Jesus is wearing a golden crown—a symbol of divine glory. He is holding a sickle, an instrument for harvesting and cutting down debris. Just then another angel comes out of the heavenly temple declaring God’s will for this moment. “Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.”
          This first scene highlights the timing of the Antichrist’s downfall. Take note of verse 16 because it will help us understand another view of this significant moment in another chapter. “So He who sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped” (emphasis added).
         The second scene shows another angel calling out to the One who holds the sickle, only this time to gather the grapes. The grapes are crushed in the “great winepress of the wrath of God.” The destructive scene is not surprising, given the coalition of armies that have gathered against Israel. This scene highlights the fact that the 3½-year war for Jerusalem coincides with God’s wrath against evil, the wrath of that Day.
       End-Time Lesson: What are we meant to see in this supplemental view? Note that the Antichrist is defeated AFTER the rapture, for the court is in Heaven. We do not come back down to this earth once we are in heaven. For God’s third heaven is the place of ALL authority, both in heaven and earth. As Ephesians 6:12 reminds us, we don’t fight like mere mortals. Our weapons are spiritual.
            Note that this war for Jerusalem is likewise AFTER the rapture, not before it. The war is not the tribulation; it is the wrath of that Day. Much of our end-time confusion has come by changing the definitions of the end-time events through our man-made views. Jesus taught that the tribulation covers
the entire 2,000 years (2 great Days) of the Church Age.  
            We don’t have to come back down to the earth to fight this Battle of the great Day of God Almighty because we have all authority in this spiritual warfare. Satan’s evil forces have already been pulled down from the heavenlies. Nor do we simply meet Christ in the air when He comes, and then together come right back down like a Ferris Wheel ride. No, we rule from God’s 3rd Heaven.
            Since we are definitely seeing the wrath of that Day again, it shouldn’t surprise us then that the next supplemental vision shows us the judgments of that Day in more detail. The trumpet and bowl judgments are the same. We like to call them “operation consume and destroy” as Daniel so aptly put it.