Rebecca Lightfoot
All of the purposes for Jesus giving us The Book of Revelation revolve around guiding us to know the REALITIES of ETERNITY-> the REALITY that HE has gone to prepare a place in HIS Presence for those that will trust in HIS Saving Mercy (John14:1-6,”Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God;believe also in me.In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.And you know the way to where I am going.”Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”). King David is an Old Testament example of knowing the REALITIES of ETERNITY, and he was severely distressed by what could separate him from the ETERNAL place that Jesus was preparing for him to live forever-> it was sin that could separate him from the presence of God forever. David knew this and he cried the prayer of Psalm 51-> ”Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.....Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.... Create in me a clean heart, O God,and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence,and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit...”! David knew the significance of the Great Harvest that Jesus describes in Rev 14:14-20, that Jesus Himself would eventually gather those to Himself those whom sincerely receive HIS Mercy & Grace to be with Him forever in Heaven. And that Jesus would also gather those that rebelled from HIS Mercy & Grace in their refusal of HIS Sacrificial Offering on their behalf ->”Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat One like 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 who sat on the cloud, “Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” So He who sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped. Then 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, who had power over fire, and he cried with a loud cry to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, “Thrust in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe.” So the angel thrust his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the earth, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.”.T his describes 2 harvests/2gatherings! 1 harvest/gathering of the earth (those saved by Receiving God’s Mercy&Grace through Christ); and another harvest/gathering of grapes/vine of the earth (those that choose to reject God’s Mercy&Grace through Christ)! The 1st harvest is destined to spend Eternity in Jesus’ presence where HE has gone to prepare a place/Heaven. The 2nd harvest is destined for the wrath of God & away from Jesus’ prepared place forever. The fact that there is a “Wrath of God” is used by Satan to create misconceptions about God and His Love! These trip us up from knowing the depth & breadth of God’s Love, which is The Reason that Christ gave EVERYTHING in our stead, & for us to know the AWESOME LOVE of God (Ephesians3:16-19,”I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”). Satan knows that if we fail to grasp the Love of God & that HE FIRST LOVED us,we will be more inclined to turn away from the Mercy & Grace Christ only can offer. Satan also knows that when we have “hangs ups” about the Character of God, we will wane from knowing how wide and long and high and deep is the Love of God! The devil is so clever as to even use well meaning Christians to paint an inaccurate characterization of God based on His Wrath, leading to many choosing to not receive His Mercy through Christ and to blaspheme the Name of God! This is why it is so important to both better understand God’s Wrath along with IT’s reasons for being. If not, we who do seek a relationship with our Father in Heaven through Christ will fall short of the immeasurable joy that God so greatly desires us to have in fully knowing His Awesome Love. And others will be turned off by the deceptive mischaracterizations of “A Loving God”/The Only Loving God!
SO, I found some trusted resources that talk about the wrath of God-here is 1 (the link of which is at the end of the excerpt)”.... One of the most common mischaracterizations about God stems from what many say about GOD being angry about sin, when they say, “it’s wrong for God to get angry like that” On the contrary, it is as much a part of His glory and perfection as is His holiness, His justice, or His love. In fact, it is required by all three. Sin is an outrage against God’s holiness; His justice requires that He punish it. And His love for His people demands that He destroy sin because it threatens their well-being. Wrath is God acting in love to destroy sin, to purge His universe of what is detrimental to its best interests. God cannot love what is good without hating what is evil and moving decisively against it, any more than a parent can love his child without acting quickly and ruthlessly to destroy a wild animal that threatens the life of that child. God’s wrath is the perfect response of His perfect being to that which poses a danger to His children. https://bible.org/seriespage/18-grapes-wrath ”Therefore, the fact that God does have Wrath is even more evidence of HIS Great Love for HIS children, those who will trust in HIS Great Mercy through Christ to be cleansed from all unrighteousness and become HIS sons & daughters. This also speaks to how Wickedly Bad sin actually is, & how deceptive all things are that set themselves up against the Heart of God as HE expresses through HIS Word and through HIS Spirit. This is what the apostle Paul is taking about when he says in 2Corinthians10:3-5, ”For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God (The Bible), and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. This battle begins in our mind/what we decide to believe about God. So! We need to be determined to know what the Bible truly says about the Character of GOD, and especially what the Bible truly says about the LOVE of God! Dear Lord,I admit that I have let wrong ideas about You and Your Love exist in my mind & heart without challenging them with what You truly say in Your Word about Your Love and the lengths You go to look after me, for my Eternal Security and my Eternal Well Being....and what You are doing to prepare a place for me.Let me not be remiss in allowing false ideas about Your Character and Your Love to keep me from knowing how wide and how deep and how long and how high Your Love is for me.