Harvest is the time of reaping the crop. The harvest, in the Bible, applies to humanity. Jesus applies it metaphorically to the end of this world, in the parable of tares among wheat. In Matthew 13:24-30, Jesus explains that the tares are the planting of the enemy, and that the wheat are his disciples, and that the tares are mixed in with the wheat. The disciples told him, ‘Do you want us to gather the tares?’ In place of the word ‘gather’, they could have used the word ‘harvest’. Jesus answered, “No; lest while you are gathering up the tares, you may root up the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest”. Well, the harvest is the end of this world, and the reapers are the angels (Matt. 13:39).

If Jesus tells us to leave the tares to grow, and that both, tares and wheat, should be together until the end of the world, it is clear that Jesus has never harvested anyone’s life. The angels are the ones that harvest people’s lives. If Jesus is life, he cannot kill (John 11:25,26). God, the Father, sent his only begotten Son to the world, not to condemn the world, but to save the world through him (John 3:17). And Jesus himself very loudly declares: “For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” (Luke 9:56).

If any harvest happened at all before the day appointed by the Father (Matt. 24:35,36), this harvest did not come from the Father or from Jesus, and it was against the project of the Father. As the reapers are the angels, if there was any angel who harvested precious lives, it was a murderous angel sent by the enemy of the souls, and therefore a fallen angel (2 Pet. 2:4).

Jesus says that he and the Father are one, in John 10:30. He also declares that he came to do the will of the Father, which is to cause to arise, and not to kill (John 6:38-40). He also reveals that the good works that he practices are works of the Father (John 10:32). So, the great slaughters of the Old Testament, the numberless reaping of lives go against what Jesus is saying. The angel of Jehovah was a great reaper of lives, and all of those were reaped before the time, that is, before the harvest established by the Father at the end of the world, that is, at the final judgment.  At a single time, the angel of Jehovah killed 180,000 Assyrians (2 Kings 19:35). At another , the angel of Jehovah sent a plague that killed 70,000 Israelites. That was an unjust slaughter, too, for David had acted in obedience to Jehovah (2 Sam. 24:1; 1 Chr. 21:12-14). They were two different harvests: The first one at the camp of the enemies of Israel, 180,000 souls, for whom Jesus died, who needed to be saved, or at least, to have a chance, which was denied them. The second, the injustice was so flagrant that David called on Jehovah saying that they were all innocent (1 Chr. 21:17). Jehovah of the armies was the one responsible for coordinating and commanding the slaughters, or premature harvests. “For though your people, O Israel, may be like the sand of the sea, only a remnant within them will return; a destruction is determined overflowing with righteousness. For a complete destruction, one that is decreed, the Lord God of hosts will execute In the midst of the whole land. Therefore thus says Jehovah God of hosts, ‘O My people who dwell in Zion, do not fear the Assyrian who strikes you with the rod and lifts up his staff against you, the way Egypt did. For in a very little while My indignation against you will be spent, and My anger will be directed to their destruction.’ And Jehovah of hosts will arouse a scourge against him like the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb; and His staff will be over the sea, and He will lift it up the way He did in Egypt” (Is. 10:22-26). The prophet Isaiah tells us in this text that it was Jehovah who killed the Egyptians in the Red Sea, and that the rod that Moses used belonged to Jehovah. They were three harvests before the time: the one of the Egyptians, the one of Israel, and the one of the Assyrians.

The biggest harvest in the history of humanity was the Flood. Billions of people died, and Job says that they were taken before their time (Job 22:15,16). Peter tells us that the longsuffering of the Father waited, but there was the interference of Jehovah, which destroyed them before the appropriate time, that is, no one had any chance of repentance. Old people, women, children, everyone was harvested at the wrong time. The moral situation of today is worse, but Jehovah cannot execute his slaughters because the cross of Christ hinders him. Let us number some of the killings of Jehovah to prove that his only thought was to kill.

1. Jehovah reaped the lives of the Sodomites from four cities (Deut. 29:23).
2. Jehovah reaped the lives of an entire generation of Israelites in the desert (Num. 14:29,30).
3. Jehovah reaped the lives of the inhabitants of Tyre (Ezek. 26:15-21).
4. Jehovah reaped the lives of 500,000 Israelites (2 Chr. 3:15-17).
5. Jehovah reaped the lives of the Deomites, that is, the descendants of Esau (Obad. 1:9).
6. Jehovah reaped the lives of the Moabites, descendants of Lot, Abraham’s nephew (Jer. 48:15).
7. Jehovah reaped the lives of the Ammonites, also descendants of Lot, Abraham’s nephew (Ezek. 21:28).
8. Jehovah reaped the lives of the Chaldeans (Jer. 50:23-27; 51:37-40).
9. Jehovah reaped the righteous and the unrighteous, for he was thirsty for blood (Ezek. 21:1-10, 14,15,22).

Every one of the slaughters of Jehovah preceded the Father’s harvest, so they were all unjust, because when you kill someone, you take away their right to a chance to a change, to repentance. Jesus also told us that the wicked men should remain together with the good men until the harvest (Matt. 13:30; 13:38-43).

Jesus, in fact, tells his disciples to harvest men in order to receive a reward in heaven (John 4:35,36). The truth is that the harvest of Jesus happens in a manner contrary to the harvests of Jehovah. Every one that is reaped by Jesus or by his disciples pass out of death into life. “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24). Jehovah brought men from life into death, but Jesus delivers them from death into life. They have ministries which are opposed to each other, as Paul says in 2 Cor. 3:6-9.

The Bible speaks of vanity of vanities, heaven of heavens, Song of Songs. Jehovah is the bread of death (Ex. 33:20). Jesus, though, is the bread of life (John 6:40-48).

By Pastor Olavo Silveira Pereira