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Eugene Prewitt

Last Generation Theology Bible Study

Our Father in heaven, I ask that you would join us here this evening.

As we look at your beautiful Bible truth, I pray that you would help us to understand it truly.

We're going to spend a few minutes tonight looking at last generation theology in the Bible.

And then I'm going to open up for a question and answer period.

And I just really anticipate that you're going to ask some questions that will embarrass me.

And I mean, not that your question is embarrassing, but my inability to answer it will be embarrassing.

And yet, I'm going to give it my very best go, and I'll be happy to receive them.

Turn with me to your Bibles to Matthew chapter 13.

Matthew chapter 13, we're looking at verse 39.

Matthew 13 and verse 39, it's speaking initially about the tares.

It says, the enemy that sowed them is the devil.

We're going to begin our last generation study tonight with this idea.

You know, in the Bible, there are 2 significant harvests of people.

In the Jewish year, you had a harvest, and then you had a second harvest.

In fact, both in the spring and in the fall feast, there were harvest festivals.

And when Jesus was alive here on earth, he said that the fields are already white for harvest.

It was viewed at Pentecost, and there you had thousands converted in 1 day.

But it wasn't just in Acts 2, forward just a short space, and you have thousands of others converted.

Really, there was quite a harvest at that point.

But do you see in the verse we just read that there is another harvest?

The fall feast represents the events that take place at the end of this world and the final fall feast is the Feast of Tabernacles, otherwise known as the Feast of Harvest.

It was a time when there was a celebration over the grains being ripened and ready for gathering to the garner.

If you plant a seed, you might say the seed is perfect.

You might say that when it sprouts, the sprout is perfect.

You might say as it grows that it's perfect.

And in this sense, you could say that it's perfect at every stage of development, but you wouldn't say the seed was ripe, and you wouldn't say that the sprout was ripe.

You wouldn't say that it was ripe until it had completed its growing cycle.

We are going to look at tonight just a few verses that show that the harvest is timed on the basis of the ripening of the grain.

Turn with me in your Bibles to Mark chapter 4.

Mark chapter 4, and we're looking at verse 29.

But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately, what happens?

He putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.

So that should remind you of something in Revelation.

Revelation 14, and looking around verse 14.

What we just read in Mark is that the farmer puts in the sickle immediately when the harvest is ripe.

Revelation 14, 14, And I looked, and behold, a white cloud.

And upon the cloud 1 sat 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 that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle and reap, For the time is come for thee to reap.

For the harvest of the earth is ripe." If I can say this plainly, you would think very narrowly or poorly about a farmer who sowed his grains, irrigated his field, put on his calendar that he was going to harvest at August 9.

And when he got to August 9, because of some drought and other problems, they were still lacking, his grains were lacking a week or 2 of being ripe, you would think very poorly of the farmer who would say, I'm sorry, but it's August 9, it's time to reap.

According to the Bible, when does Jesus reap?

And it has been an illogical or poorly thought through fear on the part of many Adventists for generations that Jesus might come back when the church is half-baked.

If he was willing to come back when the harvest wasn't ripe, he would already have been here.

But the Bible is very clear, when does he come back?

It's why I don't appreciate and haven't appreciated for a long time when I'd hear sermons that would indicate that God has a timetable and when the clock hits midnight, he's coming whether we're ready or not.

That's just not the way the Bible presents his coming.

There are 2 harvests that are ripened at the very same time.

Matthew 13 and looking at verse 30, speaking again about the tares and the wheat.

Let both grow together until the harvest.

And in the time of harvest, I will say to the reapers, gather ye together first the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn." It is true that in the harvest there are 2 categories of ripened items.

There is the grain and there are the tares.

In Revelation 14 it uses different metaphors.

The righteous are represented by the grain, but do you remember right after what we read what happens next?

Another angel comes out and says, it's time for you to reap.

The grapes of the earth are fully ripe, and the grapes are reaped, and what happens to those grapes?

They're thrown into the wine press of the wrath of God.

Then those grapes, they're harvested at 1 point, thrown into the wine press, and then they are trampled in the wine press, and blood comes out of that wine press a long ways and very deep.

I'm just reviewing what you already remember from Revelation 14.

It says, put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe.

Come, get you down, for the press is full.

The vats overflow, Listen carefully, for their wickedness is great.

Do you see it in the verse, there are 2 harvests?

The grains are ripe and the grapes are ripe.

When men are fully righteous, other men are fully wicked.

And the harvest comes when that process is done.

I remember when I first heard last generation theology, and I'm going to define that for you because you might not think of it the same way I do, and I just want you to know what I mean when I say it.

I mean by last generation theology that while every generation has been sanctified or hardened by the truth, that the last generation on earth receives such a revelation of truth that they are either wholly sanctified or thoroughly hardened, so that they are ripe in either case, and that that thorough sanctification is such that they will not fall under temptation even under the pressures of the time of trouble.

That's what I mean by last-generation theology when I say it.

That can be taken further, and when it goes further, I think it probably is right, but because I can't prove that nearly as thoroughly as I can this, I don't go there.

And that is, I don't go in my teaching to the point of saying that the rightness of the last generation is what settles many of the issues of the great controversy over proving the or vindicating God's character in what he says can and can't be done.

But this is where I think we can prove our point biblically and settle it.

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Last Generation Theology Bible Study

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