Revelation 14:19
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 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.
The angel thrusts in his sickle and gathers the vine of the earth when its wickedness is fully ripe, taking the wicked multitude as ripe grapes and clusters for destruction. The great winepress is the outpouring and execution of God's judicial wrath in terrible judgment upon the world that opposes Him. That gathering follows the reaping of the earth and comes after the proclamation of the third angel's message of warning and mercy, when the Son of man comes in glory on the white cloud with the sharp sickle at the angel's call from the temple. It stands in contrast to God's commandment-keeping people who have the seal of the living God upon their foreheads. It belongs to the chapter's series of five angels, each representing a distinct message given before the advent, and to the special movement under the first, second, and third angels relating to Christ's closing work in heaven and His people's work on earth as a warning against deception.
Meaning of the Winepress
The angel thrusts in his sickle and gathers the vine of the earth when its wickedness is fully ripe, taking the wicked multitude as ripe grapes and clusters for judgment. The great winepress into which they are cast is the outpouring and execution of God's judicial wrath, a picture of terrible judgment when His wrath breaks upon the world that opposes Him. That gathering follows the reaping of the earth and comes after the proclamation of the third angel's message of warning and mercy, when the Son of man comes in glory on the white cloud with the sharp sickle at the angel's call from the temple to reap the earth immediately after the final message.
The scene is distinct from and stands in contrast with God's commandment-keeping people who have the seal of the living God upon their foreheads. The world thus gathered stands on the brink of perdition under a hanging cloud of wrath, boasting of progress and enlightenment while seen in inward guilt and depravity. It is filled with violence and crime, with wealth gained by robbery of men and of God and His means used to gratify selfishness and greed, with avarice and sensuality prevailing, with the attributes of the first great deceiver cherished, with Satan accepted as God and his spirit imbued as a demon-worshipping world. The gathering and punishment of the fully ripe vine contains the same destructive elements that destroyed Sodom.
These solemn events reveal the consequences for those who have built their lives on an unstable foundation. The following verse portrays the winepress being trodden with blood flowing out. The gathering follows the third angel's warning against worshiping the beast and receiving his mark and drinking the wine of the wrath of God, the revealing of the saints who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, and the blessing on those who die in the Lord. The final gathering of the vine and its casting into the winepress belongs to the ripe harvest at the end, placed with the coming of the Son of man on the cloud, the deliverance of God's people, the resurrection to life and to contempt, Christ's coming as KING OF KINGS, and the final judgment according to works, giving reason for expecting Christ's second advent.
Place in Final Warning
The verse belongs to the chapter's series of five angels, each representing a distinct message given before the advent. It belongs to the work of the last two angels, whose messages are messages of prayer and will be better understood when they are fulfilled. It belongs to the special movement under the messages of the first, second, and third angels, which relates to the past and the future and to Christ's closing work in heaven and His people's work on earth, given as instruction and warning against deception and as confirmation of faith in the messages' past work. Those messages cut God's church off from the churches and from the world to bring them into sacred nearness to Himself, and the angels represent the people who accept the light of God's messages and go forth as His agents to sound the warning throughout the length and breadth of the earth, made keepers of His law and of the great truths of prophecy for this time as a sacred trust to be given to the world, moved by the love Jesus showed in His sacrifice for their redemption to carry this all-important work for time that reaches as far as eternity and let nothing hinder it.
The three angels' messages are present truth and light given after the disappointment, together with the sanctuary truth and the Sabbath truth concerning the near advent of the Lord, to be carried from city to city and from town to town, with the cities of the East given that light which some receive gladly while others turn from the light and lose their hold on God and on His truth. The verse belongs to the prophecies of Revelation 12 to 18 that are being fulfilled, as part of the last message of warning that all are to hear before the very last call in chapter 18 and the destruction of the beast, false prophet, dragon and all the wicked and the final triumph and reign of Christ pictured in chapter 19 and after. The chapter is to be studied because it presents the final warning against worshiping the beast and its image and receiving its mark, a warning given by those who keep God's commandments and the faith of Jesus, calling its hearers to show genuine faith and spirituality and to separate from worldly practices. It is part of the special warning messages that call people out from the world and must not be made secondary to medical missionary work, and those who have heard it are to come to their senses and make their lives an expression of genuine faith and spirituality, gaining an experience opposite to the unbelief and worldliness of the Jewish nation in rejecting Christ.
The third angel's message in which the verse stands belongs to the closing harvest that follows the warning about worshiping the beast and receiving his mark and drinking the wine of the wrath of God, the revealing of the saints who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, and the blessing on those who die in the Lord, showing the vine of the earth gathered and given over to the great winepress of God's wrath as part of the ripe harvest reaped by the One like the Son of man on the white cloud with the sharp sickle at the angel's call from the temple, and it is present truth to be unitedly proclaimed by all who cooperate with God and to be made the subject of meditation in preparation for Christ's soon coming. That message is now to be proclaimed not only in lands far off but in neglected places close by where multitudes dwell unwarned and unsaved, calling for a long-delayed work in which decided efforts are made to enlighten those never yet warned, with work in the cities now regarded as of special importance. That city work is to be done by carefully selected workers laboring two and two in the cities in harmony with the counsel of experienced leaders and under the direction and commission of Jesus Christ.