Published in Senior Experience, First Baptist Church, Norfolk, Va. Oct., 2005

The Hour to Reap on the Lastday – 7^th in Series – Rev.14:14-19. Outer Concentric

Path - Event #7 - Symbolic Act .Verse 20 Anticipates Literal Act of Rev.19:15.

Published to Lastday, 10/26, SIMCHAT TORAH (23 Tishri) - The holiday of

Rejoicing in the Torah on which the year-long cycle of Torah (the Pentateuch)

reading is completed and re-started. This day follows the Feast of Tabernacles.

We have seen that armies gathered to Armageddon and the emptied 7th Plague anticipate the opening of Seal 6 and 22 major events of the Lastday. The Signs of God’s Day of Wrath warn of the execution of that wrath on the Day Christ is revealed from heaven. Luke 17:27-30; 2 Thess.1:5-11. During the Outer Path events the three angels that flash their warnings of impending doom across the sky, and 3 more angels that aid the Son of Man in reaping earth’s harvest, speak of the Hour of Judgment and Hour to Reap on that Day. The Middle Path’s Three-Act Temple Drama on that Day results in God’s decree at the 7th Trumpet that “His Wrath has come; the time to destroy the destroyers of earth.” Rev.11:18.

Event #7 of the Outer Path involves “reaping” the wicked symbolically into the winepress of God’s great anger.” (Thumos = anger; not Orgay = wrath). Reaping the armies gathered to Armageddon sets the stage for the literal treading of the Winepress on the same Day. An act of “anger,” the reaping precedes Christ’s actual descent to “tread the winepress in anger and wrath.” Rev. 19:15. There seems to be a two-part “reaping.” The Son of Man reaps the entire earth. Rev.14: 15-16. However, three angels restrict their part of the “collection” process to those that are already gathered to Armageddon. Rev.14:17-20. They figuratively cast the armies into the “winepress for treading those who would destroy the earth.”

John saw a cloud and the Son of Man sitting on that cloud until the 3 angels came from heaven. God’s decree, Rev.16:17, signaled the “Day of Wrath *has come*”.   “The Hour of Judgment *has come*.” Rev.14:7. Now the angel sent from the throne in the Temple signals the Hour to Reap *has come*. Rev.14:15. This is the third event that “has come” during the Outer Path. Here’s the Action:

The first angel tells the Son of Man to reap. The 2nd, the Angel of Fire, directs a 3rd angel to “thrust in his sickle and collect (5166; Matt.13:39, 49) the clusters of the vine for its grapes are fully ripe.” This angel casts the “grapes of wrath” into the winepress of God’s great anger, for His patience is exhausted.  Rev.14:17-19. 

The Angel of Fire comes from the Altar in the Temple of Heaven. He will preside in the Court’s proceedings in Act Two of the Middle Path’s Temple Drama. He will render the Verdict by fire signaling the 7th Trumpet Angel to proclaim that “God’s wrath *has come,* the time appointed to judge (resurrect) and reward prophets and saints, small and great; and destroy earth’s destroyers.” Rev.11:18.

The reaping by the Son of Man and collecting by 3 angels occurs after the armies of the Evil Trio invade Israel and gather to Armageddon over a 180 mile area in Israel. Two-hundred-million soldiers fill that area! Verse 20 identifies this area and anticipates the literal act of destruction on that same Day! This important Key of anticipation looks forward to what is about to happen. Another Key of repeated “flashbacks” looks backward in various passages to what has been anticipated.

“Treading the winepress with blood reaching the horses’ bridles” requires the Tribunal of Seal 7 before the actual “treading of the winepress in anger (thumos) and wrath (orgay).” The Reaping is Revelation’s only act of great anger showing it is about to explode in wrath. The Treading anticipated in 14:20 is carried out in 19:15 where God's anger and wrath pour out on the Day of Christ’s Revelation. This word appears in I Cor.1:7; 2 Thess.1:7; I Pet.1:7 and Rev.1:7 (Rev.1:1).

God’s anger has reached the point of exhaustion. Anger is an element of patience; but “wrath” is void of God’s patience. For 1600 years, since the translation of Greek into the Latin Vulgate about AD 400, “Thumos” has not been recognized as a constituent of “patience.” The Latin “long-suffering” was substituted for the Greek word “long-anger” to carry the aspect of patience into English translations.

We must ask: Why did the King James translators never render “Thumos (anger)” as an attribute of God? Why have Greek scholars from Augustine to the modern era consistently translated Thumos as “wrath”? Thumos occurs 20 times in the N. T. with ten found in Revelation. In 3 of those ten times God’s anger and wrath are combined. Rev.14:10; Rev.16:19; Rev.19:15. But only on the Day Christ comes!

The word “Orgay” was properly translated as “wrath” in Revelation. Rev.6:16, 17; Rev.11:18; Rev.16:19; Rev.19:15. But why is Thumos translated 7 times as “wrath”?  Rev.12:12; Rev.14:8,10,19; Rev. 15:1,7; Rev.16:1. When it appears in the same verse with Orgay, Thumos was translated as “fierceness” instead of “wrath.” Rev.16:19; 19:15. In Rev.14:10 Thumos was translated as “wrath” and Orgay as “indignation.” “Orgay” was downplayed to indignation or “righteous anger.” Not once was Thumos given its true meaning of “anger”!  

I searched diligently to find why translators, except for The New Jerusalem Bible, consistently reject “anger” as the translation of “thumos.” I had to find out since I knew that casting the wicked to the “winepress” was not yet an act of God’s wrath and that the 7 Last Plagues do not “complete His wrath.” Rev.14:19; Rev.15:1, 7; Rev.16:1. I found the answer in the Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, by James Hastings, D.D., Edinburgh and published by T&T Clark; Scribners, N. Y. 1915.

“Origen, Augustine and Neo-Platonist theologians followed Plato’s teaching that `we cannot attribute to God such perturbations of mind as suggested by the term anger.’” Vol. I., P.63. Plato taught that anger does not exist in God. Wrath in the N. T. clearly has an eschatological reference. Wrath is not a present condition with God and not even a reference to the great tribulation. Wrath is held in reserve until the “Day of Wrath.” Rom.2:5; Rom.9:22; John 3:36. In Rom.2:4; 2 Pet.3:9, 15 the word for “long-suffering” is “makro-thumos” (#3114; long-anger). 

For 5 centuries Plato’s misleading concept of God’s character has impressed itself on English translations of the Bible. Failure to see the difference between God’s anger and wrath has advanced the belief that Great Tribulation is a time of God’s wrath which the Church will escape via the Rapture. Instead of the 7 Last Plagues displaying or “completing God’s wrath”; they reveal His “long-anger and exhaust His patience” as correctly portrayed in one translation, The New Jerusalem Bible!

God’s great anger reaches the point of exhaustion at the reaping of Rev.14:14-19 since the armies are already “gathered together” over a 180-mile area in Israel for the battle of Armageddon. The context of Rev.14:18-20 isolates the treading-place where blood from the pressed vine of anger-induced-wrath flows to the horses’ bridles. On the day of reaping, Christ treads the winepress, made up of the armies of Satan, the Beast and False Prophet. “Trodden in anger and wrath, the flesh of millions will be fed to the birds at the great supper of God.” Rev.19:15-21.

Armies “gathered to Armageddon” in Rev.16:16 provide the setting for reaping the wicked to the winepress of God’s great anger. It is not just “great winepress” of anger, but the winepress of His “great anger.” Satan has great anger in Rev.12:12 and God has “great anger” in Rev.14:19. The “mixture of anger and wrath” brings destruction to the wicked at Armageddon. Also, the direct outpouring of the wine of the Cup of Wrath will extinguish the lives of all who refuse to repent or plead for mercy during the Lastday’s Hour of Trial. Rev.16:18-21. This dual aspect of God’s punishment allows millions of the grain harvest to escape His wrath.

None of the wicked will escape! One angelic messenger of doom anticipates the wine being poured out for all to drink who worship the Beast. The three angels dispense their warnings during the Outer Concentric Path. The five events of the Middle Concentric Path determine mankind’s guilt. During the Inner Concentric Path’s events, the Cup of Wrath snuffs out the lives of all who refuse to “look up, stand erect and beg to stand before the Son of Man.” Luke 21:28-36. The “good news” by the angels: "Mystery Babylon and the Beast will be totally destroyed." 

Peter reveals that God’s “long-anger” (patience; makro-thumeo; #3114, #3115)   explains why “1000 years to Him is like just one day to us.” Peter shows the Day of the Lord may be seen as 1000 years; but not 1003 or 1007! Paul reveals that God, “with much long-anger, has endured vessels of wrath having been fitted for destruction.” Rom.9:22. Peter concludes that, because of God’s “long-anger,” the wrath of the Day of the Lord will come suddenly, unexpectedly, “as a thief”. 2 Pet.3:8-10.

Christ “treads the winepress” in the Inner Concentric Path after “God’s anger has mixed full strength in the Cup of Wrath.” Rev.14:10; Rev.19:15. The armies of the Evil Trio invade Israel and gather to Armageddon. That setting triggers the Decree, out of the Temple and from the Throne: “It is Done; the End has come.” Rev. 16:17. The two preceding verses reveal the imminence of Christ’s coming: “Behold, I come as a thief; blessed is the one wearing his garments lest he be seen naked.” Invading armies are threatening and the Hour of Judgment is at hand! And ALL the Saints are about to meet Jesus in the air.  

When Jesus “descends in flaming fire to destroy the destroyers of earth,” all the Unbelievers who continue to reject God’s mercy during the Hour of Trial will “drink the wine of His Cup of anger and wrath.” Rev.16:19-21. The armies must be gathered first. That is why Rev.16:12-17 occurs before the Lamb opens Seal 6 ten chapters earlier as seen in Rev. 6:12-17. God’s Decree, “It is Done,” signals the Lamb to launch the Day of Wrath. Left Behind books misleadingly put the opening of Seal Six 63 months before the Lastday. Book One, P.310-312.

Some believe the Saints are reaped in the passage of Rev.14:14-19. This conflicts with the parabolic teaching of wheat and tares wherein the tares are reaped “first.” Matt.13:30,49. The disciples learned that the “tares are the sons of Satan and the wheat are sons of the Kingdom. Jesus will reap the earth. Angels collect the tares at Armageddon to be trodden and burned. “The righteous will then be gathered and shine forth in the Kingdom of their Father.” Matt.13:38-43.

The symbolic and literal gathering of the wicked must occur prior to the gathering of Saints from earth. The symbolic gathering includes two groups. One includes the wicked gathered to Armageddon for total annihilation. They stand defiantly as their frames rot in their tracks. Continuing to blaspheme the Creator to their last breath, they glorify God inadvertently as blindness fills their eyes to match their hardened and cynical souls!

The 2nd group, represented by the grain harvest of earth, includes millions who repent of taking the mark of the Beast. Toward them God will relent of punishing evil. Isa.55:6-11; Joel 2:11-14. They face the Hour of Trial during which they will be “kept alive” by praying to escape God’s wrath. Luke 17:33; Luke 21:35-36.

The clarifying verse, Rev.14: 20, is one of several pivotal texts that determine the events of Revelation are not fulfilled in chronological order. Though John uses the aorist tense, indicative mood, to indicate the action is done; he anticipates the literal “treading of the winepress outside the city as blood flows to the level of the horses’ bridles for a space of 180 miles.” This text points to Inner Concentric Path events that finally see the birds assembled and gorging themselves with 7 kinds of “fleshes” at the feast called “the great supper of God.” Rev.19:17,21.

So we see the reason for inserting the “treading” (passive tense) less than halfway thru 100 Lastday verses. It separates the total destruction of the grapes of wrath from the grain reaped over the entire earth. The wicked cannot escape. Mystery Babylon will fall by history’s greatest quake. All mankind who refuse to beg for mercy will be destroyed by its aftershocks. Mountains and cities disappear and islands will have moved to the mainland. Rev.16:18-21.

These separate acts of God’s anger and wrath climax the Hour of Trial “coming on all inhabitants on all the face of all the earth.” Luke 21:35. All Believers will be kept from that Hour (Rev.3:10) and those Jews “pleading to escape will prevail and be kept alive to stand before the Son of Man.” Two thirds of the Jews will have perished and wherever there are “Twosomes, one will be taken and one left.” Luke 21:35-36; Luke 17:30-37; Joel 2:32; Zech.13:8-9; Rom.11:26.

The Reaping completes #7 of Ten Outer Path events. Next month, in event #8, one verse (the 250th verse in Revelation) introduces the song of Moses sung by the Martyrs while they stand on a sea of fire before God. Also the 144,000 “Firstfruit unto God and the Lamb” will sing the song of the Lamb. Like the launching of Seal 6, these events occur after 6 of the 7 last Vial Plagues have demonstrated that God’s deeds are “holy and just” and the wicked have refused to repent. Just so they will have refused to repent upon killing a third of mankind in the 6th Trumpet. Rev.16:9-11; Rev.9:15-21.

The Great and Wonderful Sign of Rev.15:1 unveils what I consider the most astounding Key of Revelation for the order of Lastday events. We have completed 35 of 40 verses in the Outer Path. During the G & W Sign the singers present the Son of Man to the Ancient of Days. The Temple of the Tabernacle of Testimony opens for the spectacular Drama in heaven. All these events occur while the sun remains dark and the 7th Plague remains suspended in the air.

At the G & W Sign the Martyrs sing the song of Moses and 144,000 Jews sing the song of the Lamb standing before God in event #9. Their songs act as catalysts for opening the Temple, event #10, and for the Three-Act Drama of the Middle Concentric Path. The Temple Drama climaxes with the 7th Trumpet announcing that “God’s wrath has come.” The Inner Concentric Path events describe the unprecedented explosion of God’s wrath…except on those who plead to escape!

Mel Miller