"This brings us to a statement over which multitudes have stumbled: concerning the blood flowing out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, for a distance of a thousand and six hundred furlongs. This is a scary scene for those who think this is literal or that there is a literal battle of Armageddon with hundreds of thousands of soldiers, horses, and rivers of blood flowing. Men who persist in teaching that this is a literal scene should stop to consider all the facts involved in what the prophet saw. We have a description of the harvest and vintage of the earth. No man can maintain other than that these are a figurative harvest and vintage of the earth, to be followed by the great spiritual feast of Tabernacles. Even the so-called “literalists” are not literal in this respect, for they don’t view it as a natural harvest or vintage of grain and grapes! We also find the reapers with sickles, gathering the clusters of the vine, whose grapes are fully ripe. No man can maintain that these are literal sickles, literal vines, and literal grapes! The grapes were cast into the winepress of the passion of God. However one interprets the scene, that winepress is not a literal winepress. No sane man can dispute these statements. Neither is the treading a literal treading. And yet in view of all these facts unspiritual men maintain that the balance of the prophecy has to be fulfilled literally, they doggedly persist in alleging, against all reason, that the predictions concerning blood, and horses, and bridles, and the sixteen hundred furlongs, must be fulfilled literally! In their folly they refuse to believe that this scripture is fulfilled unless it can be shown that such an impossible event has actually been seen by man!"
Much more on blood and wine in the link:
"Wine is a biblical symbol of joy, revelation, and life. Wine represents the inner essence of the fruit from which it comes. Grapes are the principle fruit which produces wine, but grapes are not wine themselves. There are grapes that never fulfill their true destiny! Grapes that remain on the vine harden, and after a time they are pulpy and dry. They will keep for months, dry all the time, and will still be nourishing, but the wine is gone, and the raisins excite a thirst for the juice that is not there. Such grapes are better than nothing, but they are not substitutes for wine! Today we know that both grape juice and wine contain healthy, life-giving properties above almost any fruit on earth. The fact is, the only way to preserve the essence of the grapes is to extract it from them in the form of wine!"
"Are you satisfied with grapes? Then you understand not the principle of the winepress! Be sure the grapes will dry up in your storehouse and will never flow out to quicken, nourish, and bless humanity! Wine brings lasting joy and strength and life, not grapes. And surely you can see that it is not possible to have wine unless the grapes are crushed! Oh, may God help all who read these lines to truly understand! Then you will comprehend the vision John gives us, and you will thank God for the winepress, and you will rejoice at the sight of the blood up to the horses’ bridles! Even the finest fruit will not yield its essence without this process. Indeed, the finer the fruit the firmer the skin, and the heavier the pressure must be upon it to burst its surface that the juices may flow!"
"To have wine you must have grapes. The natural man cannot bring forth the life of Christ or the ministry of sonship, because he has no fruit from which they can be produced. The world is filled with all kinds of vegetation and growth, but the harvest of the Lord is wheat and grapes. All the other “good” things represent something other than the Lord’s crop! Religion is the product of the natural man, but religion has no life! Only the new creation man of the spirit has within him the life of God. If you are walking after the fleshly mind you can bring forth no quickening life because you have nothing but thorns and thistles. Crush them and you get thorn juice and thistle milk which never made the heart of any man rejoice! The natural man can observe rituals and ceremonies, obey rules and regulations, and do many good religious works, but he can never be conformed to the image of Christ and he can never reveal out of himself the life of God that sets creation free. Imagine, if you can, should God cast some of these spiritually dead, dried up, thorny, sour old religious people into His winepress — imagine what would flow out! The true life-flow comes only from God’s wine; and this, in turn, is pressed from God’s grapes!"
"Those who look for the literal fulfillment of this portion of the prophetic vision are most certainly in error. That a river or lake of actual blood, two hundred miles in extent, deep as the bridle of a horse, all coming from a literal winepress in which grapes are being trodden by human feet is incompatible with either natural law or spiritual sense, and not in accord with the purpose and teaching of this part of the vision. The record tells us in the first verse of the first chapter that the things that were to come to pass were “signified,” or communicated in sign language or symbols."
"Now in vision John sees the process of fruitage begin. Clusters of grapes from the vine are gathered. In the eastern countries even today, and more so in ancient times, where grapes are grown, the rich clusters are thrown into a huge winepress outside the city walls. There the juice is released by the men who trample the grapes in bare feet to the rhythm of the vintage songs (see Psalm 81) sung by the women. Each winepress has a spout, and the grape juice, or life of the fruitage, flows out into jars, as a stream of water might flow. In verse twenty we read that as a result of the harvest and its exceeding bountifulness, the mighty stream of the life of the fruitage is as blood. In other words, the life is released from the clusters in the same way the grain is separated from the chaff — the juice by treading, and the grain by threshing. It all bespeaks the heavy and powerful dealing of God in the lives of His people in the time of harvest!"
"The great purpose of the harvest now under consideration is so that the husbandman may gather that final harvest of the age, for the harvest is the end of the age, not specifically to plant more seed and extend his fields, but for the purpose of gathering the wheat into the garner, and creating a new kind of bread for the new order to come forth. Thus the bread is a word and a people created to satisfy the hunger of the groaning creation! In like manner, the grapes are for the purpose of yielding wine, and wine is the life-blood of the grape. As the grain is made into bread, that is, a word and a people, so the husbandman oversees the treading of the grapes that there might be also a new and abundant out-flow of the spirit of life unto creation. The winepress is not evil but good. The Son of man did not come to destroy grapes, but to obtain grape juice. He did not come to squash men and destroy them in a winepress so that their blood will be squeezed out of them in some horrible judgment and execution. He came instead to bring forth a life-flow from them so that the new wine of the kingdom can be poured out as a drink offering and a transforming, life-giving power to all men everywhere!"
"This poem reveals the fact that the time of harvest, and treading of the winepress, was a time of JOY! There was great merriment, rejoicing, and satisfaction with the gathering of the vintage and the flowing of the juice! Most commentators see only wrath and vindictive savagery in the mention of the winepress and the blood flowing to the horse bridles — but when understood by the spirit we see a positive picture of joy and blessing upon all! It is the time of the feast of Tabernacles, the feast of Ingathering, and the feast of Joy! It is indeed incongruous how the carnal mind insists on seeing judgment and viciousness where there is only blessing and abundance! In fact, it is the absence of the treading of grapes that is the sign of judgment and cause for concern and consternation! Isaiah points out that the time of treading the winepresses is a time of shouting. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Hosea all, speaking of Israel say that because of Israel’s sin, “Israel is an empty vine” (Hosea 10:1). “I have caused the wine to fail from the winepresses: none shall tread with shouting” (Jer. 48:33). “In the vineyards there shall be no singing, neither shall there be shouting: the treaders shall tread out no wine in their presses; I have made their vintage shouting to cease” (Isa. 16:10). "
This poem reveals the fact that the time of harvest, and treading of the winepress, was a time of JOY!
To arrive at such a conclusion, one has to toss out the entire remaining Bible. God's wrath is a "time of joy?" Yes, I'll be genuinely happy to see evil being wiped out but that ain't what this dude is talking about. And why is he teaching this? He doesn't want to hurt your feelings? Why are we hiding God's vengeance? Are men free to murder, rape and kill children, rob the poor? Why not, God's wrath is a "joy," there's no just recompense. Have at it.
Yes they are Andy, it is up to man to put a stop to that stuff. I fully support just men bringing justice to murderers, rapists, and whatever other type of criminals are out there. The book of Revelation is not about God's wrath on the world directly, it is indirect in that Jesus Christ is revealed, and taking captive captivity. Jesus Christ is taking what is His, you, your heart, the life you have given to Him, that is what Revelation is about. The literalists who interpret the book as God’s retaliation on His creation are coming at it from a carnal perspective.
Hey Andy, the harvest is God’s joy, wine symbolizes joy, blood is the life of the fruit of the vine, blood symbolizes life.
I'm reading the next chaper now, hear's a quote of interest:
"This pouring is called the plague, for the outpouring of God’s determined passion, zeal, or wrath, as the King James Bible terms it, is indeed a plague to the carnal mind, the soulish disposition, and the flesh life! We must always remember that the code-word "wrath" in the Greek language of the Bible simply denotes "passion," not vengeance."
So, yes this is very exciting revelation, that God’s passion is to save all mankind, it is not about killing a bunch of people, Grapes make wine, a wole bunch of good wine. The carnal mind wants God’s wrath (passion) to be similar to it's wrath (anger). God is good my brother!
So Noah's flood that killed EVERYTHING that moved was a joyous occasion? Weeping and gnashing of teeth is akin to party favors?
Noah's salvation and the demise of the whole world was used on me when I was 10 years old. Scared me into being saved, I begged God to not kill me like that. I was raised in a legalistic Baptist Church and cried my eyes out about the fate of the unsaved. I had a real encounter with God in my late teens, and found a real relationship with our creator through the teachings of Jesus Christ. He did kill me, just not the way I begged him to do if I ever backslid again. He taught me to put to death the carnal man.
I'm no teacher of the Old Testament, I just know God through the love of my lifelong teacher, Jesus Christ. Weeping and gnashing of teeth does happen as we experience the wrath of God, we are God's passion, and we will be conformed to the image of His loving Son.
Yes, we are all born dead in our sins and born again/ made alive in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have been made adopted sons of God. We accomplished this Joyous Rebirth by believing that Jesus Christ died for our sins.
Some people do not believe as we do. They have the Words of God, the same as we do, but they let pride, the world, money, etc lead them astray. They have no excuses. They will stand before God in Judgement. If they had knowledge of God but rejected Him, they will be rejected. And cast into the fire. This is the purification of the wheat and of the gold. Believers are the purified wheat and gold, without blemish before God.
Rev 14 is the judgement of nations, that is why the whole vine is thrown the press and trodden down. Those nations who bless Israel do not go into the press. Those who cursed Israel do go into the press. And it's not grape juice coming out of the press.
Adam and Eve ate grapes in the garden temptation and the blood of the grape defiled their blood. Christ was crushed as a grape and His Blood, perfectly sinless, paid the debt for our sins. If someone does not believe on this, their blood is the payment for their sins.
It's not literal nations, nations signify something outside of Jesus Christ's domain in the individual. Revelation is not written to warn the world of God’s furry, it is written to the church, that is captivated by Babylon(confusion), the beast of the sea, and the second beast of the earth(fleashly or carnal Christians). The second beast has two horns "like the lamb", it looks like the Lamb......sectarian Christianity, but has "the voice of the dragon", all It's teaching, wrong doctrines enslave the beloved of God, God’s passion is to unenslave the people of God, the world has practically nothing to do with Jesus Christ being revealed in His people. It's a spiritual book, a spiritual work, and it is happening all about us, in those being instructed by our Lord. Stay tuned, the plegues are next, and they are to fully rid the carnal Christian of his carnality. The unbelieving world would benefit nothing from plagues. It's a very exciting chapter comming up.
Revelation 20:4 KJV And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Jesus Christ sitting on a throne (individuals) where before He was sitting on a cloud (nations.)
John 15 KJV 1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. 2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
The fruit is the individual, the vine beareth the fruit.
Psalm 80:8 KJV Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it.
The nation of Israel, planted.
“And he began to speak unto them by parables. A certain man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a place for the winefat, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country. And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard. And they caught him, and beat him, and sent him away empty. And again he sent unto them another servant; and at him they cast stones, and wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully handled. And again he sent another; and him they killed, and many others; beating some, and killing some. Having yet therefore one son, his wellbeloved, he sent him also last unto them, saying, They will reverence my son. But those husbandmen said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be our's. And they took him, and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard. What shall therefore the Lord of the vineyard do? he will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others. And have ye not read this scripture; The stone which the builders rejected Is become the head of the corner: This was the Lord's doing, And it is marvellous in our eyes?” Mark 12:1-11 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/mrk.12.1-5.KJV
All good points, it looks like a picture of the Jews who rejected Jesus, and the Church who has received him, to the one death, to the other life.