And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto 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 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. And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped. And 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, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.—Rev. xiv.
And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God. And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty: just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest. And after that I looked, and, behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened: and the seven angels came out of the temple, having the seven plagues, clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles. And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever. And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.—Rev. xv.
Does this vision also, I shall be asked, belong to the first century? Are we then to lose the fear and the hope which cleave in all our minds to the thought that the Son of Man will indeed come to judge the quick and the dead? Is there to be no future harvest of the earth? Is no angel to thrust in his sickle and reap it?
My brethren, it seems to me that the expectation of a judgment is far too weak in every one of us; that the preacher who could deepen it into a firm and abiding conviction, would be the greatest of all preachers; even as he who does anything to diminish what there is of it in any man, is to that extent most mischievous. I find that John the Baptist, that our Lord Himself, that every one of His Apostles, was a preacher of judgment, of a judgment nigh at hand, of one coming upon the generation of which they were speaking. I think it is because we have not taken their words literally enough, that we have been unable to speak in their spirit, to feel and make others feel that there is a judgment overhanging us, that the Son of Man will indeed appear in the glory of His Father, and that every one will have secrets of his heart, the deeds he has done, laid bare before him. No book, it seems to me, would bring this truth so home to us, as this book of the Apocalypse, if we read it simply. While I do not try to torture any of its words out of their obvious sense—while I accept them as explaining the sense in which John the Baptist, and our Lord and His disciples uttered their words—I am forced to feel and confess that the judgment is set, and the books are open; that nothing can be hid from the eyes of Him with whom we have to do; that every good and evil seed in every man and every society is ripening to its harvest; that the fruit of the one must be gathered into its garner, the fruit of the other burnt up.
I. We have just heard the message, “Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.” I supposed these words to sound very cheerily in the ears of one who was looking out upon a world which was worshipping the beast and his image. It assured him that there was a region in which another worship prevailed, and that there was a passage from this region into that. Then he looks, “and behold, a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of Man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.” The first thought of the prophet might be that the blessing of the dead consisted in this, that they left a world, not in which the Son of Man was not recognised, but one in which He was not reigning. This sight scatters that dark delusion. On a cloud that has been drawn up from earth, though the whiteness of it testifies of light and of heaven, he sees no strange form, but the form of Him who always claimed that human name to Himself, who in His birth, in His passion, in His resurrection, His ascension, had vindicated it as His. That the earth was passing through a fearful crisis was evident enough. Wise heathens saw it, and thought that the gods were busy in taking vengeance on men, and cared nothing for their safety or deliverance. To St. John the Saviour of men was revealed as Himself the reaper of the earth. He has won His crown; the Divine glory rests upon Him. But in His hand is the symbol that the work which is doing upon earth is His doing. It was that revelation which the exile in Patmos wanted. It is that revelation which we want. He did not need to be told that there was a consuming process going on; every one could perceive so much. But to learn who was directing that process, to learn that it was for the destruction of the destroyer, this was precious lore indeed. If we accepted it—if we interpreted by it the events which are passing in our age, and which will form the history of it for the ages to come, would not the lore be of some worth to us? On the white cloud sat the Son of Man then, on the white cloud He sits now. If the mists were scattered from our spirits, we should discern Him, and that would be an encouragement and a warning in our work, which nothing else could be.
II. “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.” This voice issued from the inner temple; it expressed the Divine purpose and will. That purpose and will the Son of Man had been fulfilling before the worlds were. That purpose and will He fulfilled in the act of creation, when all things came forth at His word, and man at the head of all, and lo! the whole was very good. That purpose and will He fulfilled in His agony and cross. That purpose and will He fulfilled in His triumph over death, and space, and time. And now that purpose and will is to be fulfilled in an act of judgment. All that He has wrought upon the earth for men, has not been in vain. The resistance to His work has not defeated it, as mortals might conclude. The end of the age is come. The results of the good and evil that have been working side by side are apparent. “The harvest of the earth is ripe.”
III. “And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle, and the earth was reaped. And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud voice to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel thrust his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.”
The reaping of the earth indicates, I conceive, the gathering in of the fruits of all the Divine seed which had been scattered over the nations, and in the hearts of men. Nothing that had been effected in society by laws, institutions, family memorials, traditions, by the voice of prophets, and the deeds of patriots; nothing that had been effected for the growth and purification of the individual soul by the myriad influences of nature, by the voices of mothers, by the power of mutual affection, by sorrows and separations, by reconciliations and hopes, no devout wish that had ascended in prayers and sacrifices, having first been inspired by Him to whom it was offered, was to be lost. The Son of Man has watched it all, has laid it among His treasures; all has proceeded from Him, and will now be owned by Him. That this is true in respect to each person, we shall be told hereafter. Now the words rather lead us to dwell on the great human results of all this Divine culture; those which are to survive in the age that is coming; those which are to give to that age its shape and character. If the reaping of the earth meant the destruction of the earth, it would of course be idle to speak of a new age as about to begin, when the old passed away. But reaping does not mean destruction in the ordinary discourse of men, nor in Holy Writ. And Holy Writ does speak of the end of an age, and of a better age that was to follow. And the very lesson which this passage teaches—and the whole Apocalypse teaches—is that God’s fires are not for the ruin of the earth, which is the work of His hands, but for the ruin of those who have defiled it by the work of their hands.
This is the subject of the words which follow. Not only the earth is God’s, but the fire. That is His minister. The message concerning it proceeds from the altar. It is to serve, as it has ever done, both for the kindling the sacrifice, and burning the offal. The vine of the earth here manifestly represents all that is not of God’s planting, all the thoughts and deeds of blood which have sprung from the rebellious will of man, and which have made the earth drunk and foul. The grapes of this vine, like the corn that has grown from the Divine seed, are now fully ripe. When the corn is reaped, it may have many processes of threshing and winnowing to go through. The grapes are cast into the winepress. What kind of winepress it is, we shall be told more distinctly hereafter. But the indications here cannot be mistaken. A horrible conflict between opposing factions, forerunning the ruin of a city or an empire, looks at first only a reason for despair. To see for a space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs nothing but blood reaching to the bridles of the horses—human creatures destroying each other, and the innocent animals perishing with them—is a sight to make an ordinary man weep; how much more a seer who believes that man was made in God’s image, and who has proclaimed the doctrine that God is Love! Utterly appalling the sight would be, if the seer had not that faith to sustain him. Holding it, he cannot find in the darkest of such spectacles the slightest excuse for despondency. The wrath, and fury, and wickedness of men, which have been accumulating for centuries, have reached their consummation, have come to their great trial day. Now they are to spend and exhaust themselves. Now they are to come into contact with another power. The winepress cannot only be considered as one in which the grapes of the earth are crushed. It is the great winepress of the wrath of God. The wrath of love, the wrath of goodness, is to encounter the wrath of hatred and evil. It is to be proved on this earth and throughout the creation of God which is the mightier.
And so we are prepared for the words which have been somewhat inconveniently, I think, separated from these, and made the opening of another chapter.
IV. “And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.” Much discussion has been in the Christian Church about the time when these seven last plagues did begin, or are to begin, how long they are to last, whether we are experiencing one of them now. I cannot regret that such questions should have been stirred, because I am sure that some have been led by them to reflect upon the plagues which were visiting themselves, their families, their country, or Christendom generally, and to ask, Whence came these, with what message are they charged? Those who have been used to receive one calamity or another with the thoughtlessness and stupidity to which we are all prone, may well be thankful if by any means through any interpreter of prophecy, through any ambition to interpret it for themselves, they are brought to believe that this or that event may have a Divine force in it, may be the sign and witness of the Divine government. For then will they not go on by degrees to say, “If this is true in one case, must it not be true in all? Dare I isolate any one of the transactions in which I myself have borne a part, or of which I have read, as affecting my country or mankind, and say: This I can attribute to the Lord of heaven and earth, but not that, or that; this deserves my earnest thought to penetrate its intention; those I may safely pass by?” I can imagine that the very uncertainty of these conjectures has led many serious persons into a truer habit of mind. They could not be sure that any plague might not answer the conditions of these Apocalyptic plagues; why then not act upon the conclusion that all had the same generic character, that not one lay out of the Divine orbit, that not one was an eccentric messenger, coming upon an errand of its own? But if any are tempted to a frivolous debating about the correspondences between particular visitations which occur in their own time, and those to which this passage refers, till they come to treat those in which they do not discover these resemblances as indifferent and profane; that atheistical opinion at once proves that they cannot have been sitting at the feet of the Apostle, that they cannot have been profiting by his revelations. It is nothing to say, “Oh, but he speaks of seven last plagues; we want to know which these are.” Surely he does. And that very word last, and the illustration of it in the expression, “in them was filled up the wrath of God,” shows that they were like in kind to all that had gone before; that they denoted the winding-up of a period; of a period which had all along been subject to the Divine culture and discipline; not a single event of which could ever be contemplated by an Apostle except as the indication of a purpose of God, or of a struggle against that purpose. Assume, if you please, that there is to be a winding-up of our dispensation; believe, if you will, that it is at hand. But the more you hold this opinion, the more should you be afraid of resting anything upon conjecture; the more should you wish to be in a state of calm, steady, habitual preparation for that which is coming—not as a new or strange occurrence, but as the catastrophe of the Divine drama which every previous step in it has been foretelling.
V. The real lesson which we have to learn from that which we see, and from that which we read, and the comparison of one with the other, is set forth in the next three verses. “And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy; for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest.” There was a time when those who stood upon this sea of glass, and sang these songs, had wished for some firm footing for themselves; had liked to think that they at least were safe upon some raft or upon some spot of earth, though the world were whelmed in the waters, or burnt up in the fire. That craving has been taken from them. The ledges of earth have been carried away, the planks have floated out of their reach. Now they stand by faith in God alone. The sea is all they have to rest upon; they may drop in a moment into the fires. Their one security is that God will hold them up. They can trust themselves and the universe to Him. And that is their victory over the beast and his name and his mark and the number of his name. Selfseeking, and the distrust which accompanies selfseeking, these are his characteristics, these are the marks which he sets upon his followers. Hard and tremendous has been the battle with them. Every moment it has been renewed; every moment the tyrant is threatening them, and may again prevail. Their victory stands in their faith, not in themselves. They can trust God upon the sea of glass in the midst of the fire. They know that the sea is His, and that He made it; that this sea of glass is before His throne, and reflects His image. They know that the fire is His; that it proceeds from His altar; that it is the fire of love, and will consume what is hostile to love.
Therefore these men have the harps of God, and they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God. “Moses said, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and the rider hath he thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation, my fathers’ God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is his name. Pharaoh’s chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea.” Here is the song of the old covenant, of the old world. It is the song of God’s victory over the oppressor, of God’s deliverance of the oppressed. It never can be obsolete as long as there are oppressors and oppressed in the creation. Woe to those who would take a single word out of it, who would try to make it more gentle to the wrongdoer, by making it less a witness for the sufferer.
But they also sing the song of the Lamb. That more than the other is a song of redemption. That more than the other is a song of judgment. Moses, the servant of God, declares the great and marvellous works of the Lord, how for ever and ever He wars against the tyrant, how for ever and ever He wars on behalf of the weak and the crushed. The Lamb of God, the perfect image of the Father, reveals not His works only, but His ways; He shows Him forth as He is. The Lamb not only fights with the tyrant, but submits to the tyrant; not only fights for the weak and the crushed, but becomes the most weak and crushed of all. He strips Himself of all power, that the eternal love of God may be seen through His emptiness. He clothes Himself with power that it may be seen that all the power of the universe is the power of love, and that they must beat down all which is contrary to it. With infinite delight and satisfaction, therefore, do those who have the harps of God contemplate His judgment. Redemption and judgment have become in their minds inseparable. All the plagues which are falling upon the earth are to glorify that Name which alone is holy. All are for the good of the nations; for they will at last come and worship before Him; they will renounce the destroyer, and confess the deliverer.
VI. “And after that I looked, and, behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened: and the seven angels came out of the temple, having the seven plagues, clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles. And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials, full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever. And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.” I need scarcely point out to you with what fondness the Apostle lingers over the old names and the old symbols that have been so dear to him and to his fathers; how he speaks of the tabernacle of the testimony, thus bringing back all the recollections of the wilderness; of the temple of which there was to be no relic upon earth, of the pure and white linen, and of the golden girdles of those priests whose last days had been days of sin, and whose end had come. He can bear to part with them, because each has found its signification, each has been transfigured. The tabernacle of the testimony in heaven is now open. There is no longer a shadow of the Divine Presence; there is a full, clear, authentic testimony of what it is. The glory of God is revealed without a veil in the face of a Man. And so there is now an abiding, unchangeable temple, in which has been heard no sound of axe or hammer, which no Chaldean or Roman can destroy. And the linen is indeed pure and white, and the girdles of these priests of the inner temple are indeed golden. The prophet never needed this vision of their purity and brightness more than now, for they bear with them the seven last plagues. He must have his own belief strengthened—he must strengthen ours—that what we call vengeance is indeed punishment, that judgments are verily for the separation of light from darkness, that the kingdom of light is to prevail for ever, and the kingdom of darkness is to be overthrown.
Upon whom the seven vials were poured out, and what were the effects of them, the next chapter is to tell us. What we learn here is that they are full of the wrath of God. I have wished you seriously to consider that expression, and to give it all the force which it can derive from the adoption of it by the last of the Bible seers. A Jew himself, he must be taken as the interpreter of its use by his fathers; the man who has set forth all the mysteries of Christian theology, may tell us what place it holds in that theology. He does not see less wrath burning through the universe than Moses or David saw; in his visions it penetrates more deeply to the centre of things; it is spread over a larger circumference. Everywhere the consuming fire is at work; it will not cease till its task is accomplished. The wrath is of Him that liveth for ever and ever. That which is true of one time is true of another. The same Being must be carrying on the same war; that winepress which His Son trod in the wilderness, in the garden, on the cross, must be fully trod. What He died and rose to vanquish, all the powers of creation must be fighting against. Let us understand it and believe it. They are fighting against it in you and me, and in the whole world; whatever in us loveth and maketh a lie, whatever lie is usurping dominion over men, the God who liveth for ever and ever hates with an unquenchable hatred; this in each human creature, in the whole of human society, is encountering His fierce and eternal wrath. Would you ask that it should be less fierce? Would you like to fix a time when it shall not burn? Oh, then, you pray for your own ruin and the world’s; you pray that you may be left to your own lies—to the father of lies; you pray that the Infinite Love to which you owe every joy that you ever had or can have, shall come to an end, shall give place to that other wrath which cherishes everything that is evil, which seeks to devour everything that is good. Let us hope, and stedfastly believe, that that shall never be! Let us receive this assurance of God’s word that it never shall. There are moments—the prophets say so—when the plagues that darken the world appear to close even the temple of God, so that none can enter into it. But they are sent forth from that temple; they are to clear the air of the mists which have hidden it from the spirits of men. It may be that on this day, as you have listened to the news of the Father of an Infinite Majesty, of the honourable, true, and only Son, and of the Holy Ghost the Comforter, dwelling in blessed and eternal Unity, visions have floated before you which have concealed that beautiful and glorious vision. Why, you have asked, am I to be told of an eternal wrath which is about those who confound the Person, or divide the Substance? And if by an eternal wrath—a wrath of God—you have meant an earthly wrath, the wrath of an evil, selfish man, or of an evil spirit, you may well ask how can goodness and wickedness, light and darkness, be brought into such close proximity? Or if by those against whom this wrath is directed you have understood some neighbour in this time, or some one who has passed out of the world in the times gone by, you may well have trembled lest you should be bringing down upon yourselves the dreadful sentence, “With what judgment you judge, you shall be judged; what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” But if you have given to eternal wrath that sense which it bears in this Divine book, that which connects it with the God who liveth for ever and ever, then surely you cannot but desire for your own sakes, and for the sake of mankind, that there should be no mitigation of this wrath till there has perished utterly and for ever whatever in men’s hearts, or will, or reason, tends to confound blessed distinctions, or to rend asunder that which is one. We shall find how much there is in ourselves which leads to that confusion and that division; we shall perceive how it mingles with all our thoughts, darkening and dividing the forms and operations of the outward world, the intercourse of life, the contemplation of the history and character of men, as well as the Nature of God. We shall desire God’s judgment to search us, that we may see all things as they are in God’s Divine light, not mixed together by our fantasy, not rent asunder by our incapacity of tracing their inward harmony. We shall be sure that the same causes which make us refuse justice to the differences of other men, and shrink from fellowship with them, interfere with our apprehension of the perfect Unity which is revealed in the Persons of the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit. We shall not doubt that the full revelation of that Mystery of Love which in words we have confessed to-day, will be a revelation of the glory of God in man, and through the whole earth. We shall not doubt that when we enter thoroughly into that revelation, we shall have gotten a victory over the selfish power which seeks to set heaven and earth at war; that we shall be able to sing the song of Moses and the Lamb, the song of triumph over fallen tyranny and division, the song of a redeemed and reconciled universe.