Thrust in thy sickle, and reap.
The harvest and the vintage
It is held by many that both these refer to the same fact of God’s judgment against sin and sinners. And no doubt, at times, the “harvest” does mean such judgment (Joel 3:13; Jeremiah 51:33). In Matthew 13:1-58. both harvests--that of good and evil alike--are told of. “Let both grow together until,” etc. Still more commonly the figure stands for the people of God and their ingathering into His blessed presence. And we think that here, whilst there can be no doubt as to what the vintage means, the “harvest” does not mean the same, but that gathering of “the wheat into His garner” which shall one day most surely be accomplished. For see the preface (verse 13) to this vision. It speaks of the blessed dead and their rest. And but for the plain pointing out that the vintage did not refer to them, that also would have been so understood. And the Lord Jesus Christ--for He is meant--is Himself the Reaper (verse 14), Himself thrusts in the sickle (verse 16), whilst the vintage of judgment is assigned to an angel (verse 17), indicating that it is a different work from the other. And the figure itself, the harvest, the precious corn fully ripe, belongs generally and appropriately to that which is also precious and an object of delight, as is the company of His people to the Lord whose they are. It is not the time of the harvest, but the corn of the harvest, which is spoken of here, and this is ever the type of good, and not evil. Thus understood, let us note--
I. The harvest. “The harvest of the earth.” This tells of--
1. The multitude of God’s people. Who can count the ears of corn even in one harvest-field? how much less in the harvest of the whole earth?
2. The preciousness of them. What could we do without the literal harvest of the earth? Our all, humanly speaking, depends upon it.
3. The joy of God in them. “They shall joy before Thee with the joy of harvest.”
4. The care that has been needed and given.
5. The “long patience” that has been exercised. Who but God could be so patient? We often cry, “How long, O Lord, how long?” But He waits--and we must learn the like lesson--for the harvest of the earth, for that which is being ripened in our own soul.
6. The evidence of ripeness. We know of the natural harvest that it is ripe by the grain assuming its golden hue. And when it is thus with the people of God, when the golden light of the Sun of Righteousness shines on them and they are transformed thereby, then the evidence of ripeness is seen, and the season for the sickle has come.
7. God will certainly gather in His people. “Harvest shall not fail”; nor shall this harvest either. “Look up, lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.”
II. The Vintage. Under the altar on which was “the fire,” over which the angel told of in verse 18 “had power,” were the souls of them that had been slain for the testimony of Jesus (Revelation 6:9). They had asked, “How long, O Lord dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” And now the answer is given. The vintage of vengeance has begun. For the “grapes” of the “vine of the earth” are fully ripe. It is the judgment of the whole earth, when “all nations” shall be gathered (Matthew 25:1-46.) before the Son of Man. The square of four--four ever the symbol of the earth--amplified by hundreds, the “one thousand and six hundred furlongs” of verse 20, likewise point to the universality of this awful judgment. Minor fulfilments--presages, predictions, and patterns of the final judgment--of these there have been many and will be many; but in this vintage of vengeance upon the world’s sin all are summed up and fulfilled. But will there be any such event at all?
1. Men have ever felt that there ought to be such judgment.
2. And now it is declared that such judgment shall be. Conscience assents to it.
3. Human law and justice strive after right judgment.
4. And the judgments that come now on ungodly nations, communities, and individuals are all in proof. (S. Conway, B. A.)
A coronation sermon
I. The illustrious personage intended. This we conceive to be no other than the Lord Jesus Christ, the exalted Messiah, who, for the suffering of death, was made a little lower than the angels, and is now crowned with glory and honour.
1. His characteristic designation--“The Son of Man.” This was the form or similitude He wore. The manhood of Christ is exalted to the throne of Deity.
2. His high exaltation. He is said to be throned on the clouds of heaven, and dignified with the highest honours.
3. The insignia appropriate to His office. He is advanced to the dignity and authority of a king, and therefore is invested with a crown of gold, and a sickle--an emblem of power, answering to a sceptre or sword, but put in this form, as having a relation to the service which was immediately to be performed in reaping the harvest of the earth. These are the regalia of His kingly office.
II. The magnificent appearance He assumed.
1. He is seated on a white cloud. On a cloud, to betoken His elevation and empire. On a white cloud, to signify the immaculate purity of His nature, as the Holy One of God; the unimpeachable rectitude of His administrations, transparent as the fleecy vapour of which these visible heavens are composed; and the blessed consequences of His government, when purity shall be universally established, and “white-robed Innocence,” returning to our forsaken world, shall take place of fraud and rapine, violence and blood. Furthermore, on this luminous cloud He is said to have been seated, as on a throne, expressing at once the high dignity and perfect repose which He enjoys.
2. On His head was a golden crown. The crown is an emblem of empire and dominion, and a crown of pure gold fitly represents the validity of His title, and the honour and glory by which He is encircled.
3. In His hand there is a sharp sickle. This I apprehend to be an emblem of His judicial authority and retributive vengeance. To Him the Father hath given authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man, and hath put all things into His hands. What havoc and slaughter shall be made by the sharp sickle, with which He is invested, when His irreclaimable enemies shall be made the helpless victims of His inexorable indignation! When the great day of His wrath is come, who shall be able to stand?
III. The practical lessons inculcated by the contemplation of the subject.
1. We infer the high and honourable conceptions we should form and entertain of the Lord Christ.
2. We infer that, “before honour is humility.”
3. Let us learn how important it is to ascertain whether we are among the subjects of this exalted Prince.
4. Let us learn to rejoice in the perfection of His administration.
5. Let us learn how terrible will be the final doom of all the enemies of this mighty Prince.
6. If such be the advantages and pleasures connected with the sight and contemplation of a glorified Saviour in this world, what will the beatific vision include? To see Him as He is, without the interposition of any obscuring veil, any dense medium! (G. Clayton.)
The harvest of the earth
The expression is a singular and, indeed, a striking one.
I. God prepared the earth for His seeding. Scientific men may wrangle over the ages and order of creation. It is enough for us to know that, at a given time, God had prepared the earth to be the scene of a moral trial for a new race of beings. The farmer cleans, and ploughs, and manures, and harrows, and ridges, his fields, in precise adaptation to the crop that he intends to grow upon it; and earth is the prepared field of God, made ready for His sowing.
II. God seeds His prepared earth with men. Scattering the seed all over the earth, that man’s probation may be carried on under every varying condition of soil, and landscape, and climate, and relationship. God keeps on seeding the earth with men; every seed with a great possibility in it; every seed set where its possibility may freely unfold, and where the God-provided influences all tend to the nourishment of all its best possibilities. Men, men everywhere are the seed of God. They are quick with Divine life, and sown in the earth to grow into a harvest for God.
III. The harvest God seeks from His seeding is character. God sows His earth with moral beings, in the hope of reaping moral character. But what is moral character? It is the proper fruitage of the earth-experience of moral beings. But can we understand it a little more fully than that? A moral being is one that can recognise a distinction between good and evil, and, when the distinction is seen, can choose for itself which it will have, the good or the evil. But a moral being must be put into such circumstances as will offer it the choice between good and evil. And substantially the test amounts to this: good is doing what is known to be the will of the Creator: evil is doing the will of the moral being himself, when that is known to be not the will of the Creator. The story of a life is the story of that conflict. It is the growth, through the long months, of God’s seed into the “full corn in the ear” of established moral character. It is the unfolding of what God would gather in from His seeding of men, the righteousness of the accepted will of God. One thing only does man take through the great gates--the character that he has gained. It is the full ear that heads the stalk, and ripens for the reaper.
IV. God has anxious times while His seed of men is growing into His harvest of ith. This is the true Amen; the Amen of souls who have heard the gracious words of Him who cannot lie, and who act upon these. But why should Amen be thus linked with faith? Because that which calls it forth is not simply a desirable thing, but a truth and a certainty. It has to do with such things as the following:
1. The free love of God. In every prayer we keep our eye on this; for without the recognition of this grace, this abundant grace, what would prayer be?
2. The truthfulness of God. God is true--truthful, faithful; we will not make Him a liar in any one thing, in any of our communications with Him-least of all in our prayers.
3. The power of God. What He has promised He is able also to perform. He is able to do for us exceeding abundantly, above all we ask. In addition to these things, to which the faith of our Amens attaches itself, we would only further say that it specially leans upon the Cross of Christ in connection with these three. It is round that Cross that this faith flings its arms; if is here that it sits down in quiet satisfaction.
V. The amen of hope. We say, “Hallowed be Thy name,” and we add the Amen of hope; “Thy kingdom come,” and we add the Amen of hope; “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven,” and we add the Amen of hope. We hear the Lord’s own voice from heaven saying, “Surely I come quickly,” and we add with the apostle: “Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Amen!” Each time we utter the Amen in connection with these blessed futurities, does our hope kindle up anew--the hope calling up the Amen, and the Amen making the hope to shine out with fresh brightness? In anticipating such a future, how can we utter a cold, heartless, passive, or despairing Amen?
VI. The amen of joy. It is the joy of conscious pardon; the joy of friendship with God; the joy of adoption and heirship; the joy of our whole new created being; the joy because of the blessedness in prospect. Past, present, and future--all furnish us with materials for joy. And in our thanksgivings for the past, we breathe out an Amen of joy; in our consciousness of present peace and heavenly favour, we repeat our Amen of joy; in our pleadings for larger blessing to ourselves and to our world, we say Amen with gladness; and in our pressing forward to the mark for the prize of our high calling, looking for and hastening to the coming of the day of God, we say Amen and Amen with ever-deepening joy of heart. (H. Bonar, D. D.)