He said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.” Revelation 14:7
Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, “Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested. Revelation 14:15-16
As it has been mentioned on previous postings, I too find the book of Revelation to be hard to understand. As I was reading the passage, the verses I noted above seemed to say the same thing, but in different tones (if I understood them correctly).
The first verse gave me the perspective and tone of fearing God because of what He has done. He created the heavens. He created the earth. He created the bodies of water. It lead me to ponder on other awesome and great things He has done; He leads, He directs, He loves, He heals, He forgives, He provides, He is merciful, He listens, and the list goes on and on. This perspective gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside that makes me want to do right for God because of how awesome He has been to me. It is the same sort of relationship that me and Pamela have in the sense that I feel that Pamela always displays love and kindness to me, so my desire is to reciprocate or even exceed those actions back towards her.
The second verse quoted above comes off as very authoritative, or forceful, or maybe even ruthless. Both passages indicate that the time has come, but this passage has a more descriptive and possibly a more accurate image of reality. God is loving, but He's also powerful and one day we will all see both sides of Him. We're no farmers in our family, but we have planted a garden; and when the end of the growing season has come, everything comes out. Fruits or vegetables that are ripe, ones that should have been picked before, and also the vegetables that are not ready for harvest. Everything comes out of the ground. We did not leave the vegetables behind that had not ripened to give them more time, they were tossed to the side. This memory and thought is what this passage brought to my mind. The time had come to harvest, and the whole earth was harvested. There was no 5 minute warning before going home, and no alarm clock to wake us up.
Two different ways of saying the same thing in a passage that is only separated by a number of verses. Must be important. Whether we choose to obey God because of His loving approach or His more powerful, authoritative approach, the time for harvest will come and we will all be held powerless to Him.
Will we be ripe and ready for the harvest, or will we be tossed to the side and not worthy to enter His Kingdom?
1 comment:
Great thoughts Conrad. We often want God to be only one side of that coin, but He both loving and holy, merciful and just.
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