?? Question: would you call WWIII "the wrath of the Lamb" ??

Most of the punishments in chapters 8 and 16 do appear to be supernatural, whereas (9:16) the armies are made of men.
The hail and fire, the great mountain falling into the sea, Wormwood, and locusts, water into blood-reminicent of Egypts plague, the burning sun, the darkness and the huge hailstones falling certainly don't appear to be man-made, seem perhaps natural occurrences-but are His punishments stored up for this time.

I don't think that means a nuclear war won't occur. That is man's folly, not God's judgement. There are a large percentage of people dying during this time, nuclear war may play a part in that. Such destruction may trigger His judgement since He will destroy those men who destroy the earth. (11:18)

My reference is in chapter 6, not later.

I'm seeing most prophecy teachers/ministers declaring Gog/MaGog war, equating it to WWIII and the start of "the GREAT TRIBULATION".

Just wish they would read The Bible FIRST and then come up with an interpretation instead of coming up with an interpretation and going to The Bible to get the verses they NEED.

Really messes up the TRUTH!

Interpretation: Look backwards to see...

"THE GREAT WORK COMPLETED"


The Grapes of Wrath is a novel published in 1939 and written by John Steinbeck, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature. It is frequently read in high school and college literature classes. A celebrated Hollywood film version, starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford, was made in 1940; however, the endings of the book and the movie differ greatly.

Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath at his home, 16250 Greenwood Lane, in what is now Monte Sereno, California. Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on a poor family of sharecroppers, the Joads, driven from their home by drought, economic hardship, and changes in the agriculture industry. In a nearly hopeless situation, they set out for California's Central Valley along with thousands of other "Okies" in search of land, jobs, and dignity.


[edit] Plot
The narrative begins from Tom Joad's point of view just after he is paroled from prison for manslaughter. On his journey home, he meets a preacher, Jim Casy, whom he remembers from his childhood, and the two travel together. When they arrive at his childhood farm home, they find it deserted. Disconcerted and confused, he and Casy go to his Uncle John's home nearby where he finds his family loading a Hudson truck with what remains of their possessions; the crops were destroyed in the Dust Bowl and as a result, the family had to default on their loans. With their farm repossessed, the Joads seek solace in hope; hope inscribed on the handbills which are distributed everywhere in Oklahoma, describing the beautiful and fruitful country of California and high pay to be had in that state. The Joads, along with Jim Casy, are seduced by this advertising and invest everything they have into the journey. Although leaving Oklahoma would be breaking parole, Tom decides that it is a risk, albeit minimal, that he has to take.

While en route, they discover that all of the roads and the highways are saturated with other families who are also making the same trek, ensnared by the same promise. As the Joads continue on their journey and hear many stories from others, some coming from California, they are forced to confront the possibility that their prospects may not be what they hoped. This realization, supported by the deaths of Grandpa and Grandma and the departure of Noah (the eldest Joad son) and Connie (the husband of the pregnant Joad daughter, Rose of Sharon), is forced from their thoughts: they must go on because they have no choice--there is nothing remaining for them in Oklahoma.

Upon arrival, they find little hope of finding a decent wage, as there is an oversupply of labor, lack of rights, and the big corporate farmers are in collusion. The tragedy lies in the simplicity and impossibility of their dream: a house, a family, and a steady job. A gleam of hope is presented by Weedpatch, the clean, warm camps operated by the Resettlement Administration, a New Deal agency that tried to help the migrants, but there is not enough money and space to care for all of the needy.

In response to the exploitation of laborers, the workers begin to join unions. The surviving members of the family unknowingly work as strikebreakers on an orchard involved in a strike that eventually turns violent, killing the preacher Casy and forcing Tom Joad to kill again and become a fugitive. He bids farewell to his mother, promising that no matter where he runs, he will be a tireless advocate for the oppressed. Rose of Sharon's baby is stillborn; however, Ma Joad remains steadfast and forces the family through the bereavement. In the end, Rose of Sharon commits the only act in the book that is not futile: she breast feeds a starving man, still trying to show hope in humanity after her own negative experience. This final act is said to illustrate the spontaneous mutual sharing that will lead to a new awareness of collective values.


[edit] Characters
Tom Joad — protagonist of the story; the Joad family's second son, named for his father.
Ma Joad — matriarch who tries to hold the family together. Her given name is never learned; it is suggested that her maiden name was Hazlett.
Pa Joad - patriarch, also named Tom.
Uncle John - older brother of Pa Joad, feels responsible for the death of his young wife years before when he ignored her pleas for a doctor because he thought she just had a stomachache. He tries to repress "sins" such as drinking, then fulfills them with gross excesses like binge drinking.
Jim Casy — a preacher who loses his faith after committing fornication with willing members of his church numerous times.
Al Joad — the second youngest son who cares mainly for cars and girls; looks up to Tom, but begins to find his own way. Over the book's course he gradually matures and learns responsibility.
Rose of Sharon Rivers ("Rosasharn") — impractical, immature daughter who develops as the novel progresses and grows to become a mature woman. She symbolizes regrowth when she helps the starving stranger (see also Roman Charity, works of art based on the legend of a daughter as wet nurse to a dying father). Pregnant in the beginning of the novel, delivers a stillborn baby, probably as a result of malnutrition.
Connie Rivers - Rose of Sharon's husband. Very young, and overwhelmed by the responsibilities of marriage and impending fatherhood, he eventually abandons her.
Noah Joad — the oldest son who is the first to willingly leave the family. Injured at birth, described as "strange", he may be slightly mentally handicapped.
Grandpa Joad - Tom's grandfather who is the first to express desire to stay in Oklahoma. He is drugged, and subsequently dies as a result of this. Symbolically, it is due to his spirit staying at the farm.
Grandma Joad - The religious wife of Grandpa Joad, seems to lose will to live (and consequently dies) after her husband's death.
Ruthie Joad - One of the younger children. She and Winfield get along well.
Winfield Joad - The youngest male in the family.

[edit] Symbolism
The turtle in Chapter 3 is a metaphor for the working class farmers whose struggles are recounted in the novel. The dangers posed to the turtle are those of modernity and business: the intrusion of cars and the building of highways endangers the turtle, and the truck that strikes the turtle is a symbol of big business and commerce. The struggling of the turtle also evokes the workings of narratives in general, since the trajectory of the turtle mimicks the trajectory of the novel: moments of action and pauses, slow process, peripetias. This land turtle becomes a proleptic device for the following chapters.

The turtle also is a biological organism in conflict with an increasingly mechanized environment, and Steinbeck's Joad family represent an answer to problems from the biological perspective. Rose of Sharon's pregnancy holds the promise of a new beginning which is broken when she delivers a stillborn baby. However, the family moves boldly and gracefully forward, rather than slipping into despair, and the novel ends in hope, albeit again with a fundamentally biological note, as a starving man is breast-fed to keep him alive.

There are numerous Judeo-Christian symbols throughout the novel. The Joad Family, like the Israelites, are homeless and persecuted people looking for the promised land. Jim Casy can be viewed as a symbol of Jesus Christ, who began his mission after a period of solitude in the wilderness. When the group first leaves for their journey West, there are thirteen of them, representing Jesus Christ and the twelve apostles. Like Jesus, Jim offers himself as the sacrifice to save his people. Jim's last words to the man who murdered him was: "Listen, you fellas don' know what you're doing," similar to Jesus's "Father forgive them; they know not what they do." Tom becomes Jim's disciple after his death.

A great flood at the end of the novel is related in the Bible as the story of Noah and the Great Flood. A flood symbolizes uncontained water, which has gone beyond the basic boundary between the earth and water. Floods also symbolize the end of one cycle of time and the beginning of a new cycle of time. Therefore, a flood symbolizes both death and regenerative birth at the same time. The image in which Uncle John disposes of the stillborn baby recalls Moses being sent down the Nile River, suggesting that the family, like the Hebrews in Egypt, will be delivered from the slavery of its present circumstances.


[edit] Development

[edit] Title
Steinbeck had unusual difficulty devising a title for his novel. "The Grapes of Wrath", suggested by his wife, Carol Steinbeck, was deemed more suitable than anything the author could come up with. The title is a reference to some lyrics from "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", by Julia Ward Howe:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

These lyrics refer, in turn, to the biblical passage Revelation 14:19-20, an apocalyptic appeal to divine justice and deliverance from oppression in the final judgment.

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 winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.

As might be expected, the image invoked by the title serves as a crucial symbol in the development of both the plot and the novel's greater thematic concerns: From the terrible winepress of Dust Bowl oppression will come terrible wrath but also the deliverance of workers through their cooperation.


[edit] In popular culture

[edit] Adaptations

1940 film adaptation of The Grapes of WrathA film version was produced by Darryl F. Zanuck in 1940 and directed by John Ford. Ford won the Academy Award for Directing and Jane Darwell won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The film was also nominated for several other awards: Academy Award for Best Picture, Henry Fonda for Best Actor, Robert L. Simpson for Best Film Editing, Edmund H. Hansen for Best Sound Recording, and Nunnally Johnson for Best Screenplay Writing. It has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
The Steppenwolf Theater Company produced a stage version of the book, adapted by Frank Galati. Gary Sinise played Tom Joad for its entire run of 188 performances on Broadway in 1990,[1] and was shown on PBS the following year.[2]
An opera based on the novel was co-produced by the Minnesota Opera and Utah Symphony and Opera, with music by Ricky Ian Gordon and libretto by Michael Korie. The world premiere performance of the opera was given in February 2007, to favorable local reviews.[3]

[edit] Literature
Tom Joad appears as a background figure in the short story "Tom Joad" by Kim Newman and Eugene Byrne, in part of the short story collection Back in the USSA.

[edit] Music
In 1940, Woody Guthrie recorded a ballad called "Tom Joad". This ballad, set to the tune of "John Hardy", summarizes the plot of the book and movie. It was so long that it had to be recorded in two parts. Woody wrote the song after seeing the movie, which he described as the "best cussed pitcher I ever seen".
In 1995, Bruce Springsteen recorded his song "The Ghost of Tom Joad" on the album of the same name. The lyric is set in contemporary times, but the third verse quotes Tom's famous "wherever there's a ..." lines. The song was later recorded by Rage Against The Machine, José González's band Junip, and others.
'The Grapes of Wrath' was a popular Canadian alternative rock band from 1984 to 1994.
The English progressive rock band Camel recorded an album Dust and Dreams (1991) inspired by The Grapes of Wrath.
On Pink Floyd's 1987 album A Momentary Lapse of Reason, the opening lines for the song "Sorrow" are paraphrased from the beginning of a chapter in The Grapes of Wrath: "Sweet smell of a great sorrow lies over the land."

[edit] Television
The South Park episode "Over Logging" is an homage to The Grapes of Wrath, featuring the characters heading to Silicon Valley in California because of an Internet shortage in Colorado.

[edit] Critical reception
At the time of publication, Steinbeck's novel "was a phenomenon on the scale of a national event. It was publicly banned and burned by citizens, it was debated on national radio hook-ups; but above all, it was read." [4] Steinbeck scholar John Timmerman sums up the book's impact: "The Grapes of Wrath may well be the most thoroughly discussed novel - in criticism, reviews, and college classrooms - of twentieth century American literature." Part of its impact stemmed from its passionate depiction of the plight of the poor, and in fact, many of Steinbeck's contemporaries attacked his social and political views. Bryan Cordyack writes, "Steinbeck was attacked as a propagandist and a socialist from both the left and the right of the political spectrum. The most fervent of these attacks came from the Associated Farmers of California; they were displeased with the book's depiction of California farmers' attitudes and conduct toward the migrants. They denounced the book as a 'pack of lies' and labeled it 'communist propaganda'."[5] However, although Steinbeck was accused of exaggeration of the camp conditions to make a political point, in fact he had done the opposite, underplaying the conditions that he well knew were worse than the novel describes [1] because he felt exact description would have gotten in the way of his story. Furthermore, there are several references to socialist politics and questions which appear in the John Ford film of 1940 which do not appear in the novel, which is less political in its terminology and interests.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was an early advocate for addressing the plight of those featured in the book.

In 1962, the Nobel Prize committee cited Grapes of Wrath as a "great work" and as one of the committee's main reasons for granting Steinbeck the Nobel Prize for Literature.[6]


The Grapes Of Wrath



Be of fruitful ear, and remember the red river valley!

Genesis 40:10
And in the vine were three branches: and it was as though it budded, and her blossoms shot forth; and the clusters thereof brought forth ripe grapes:
Genesis 40:9-11 (in Context) Genesis 40 (Whole Chapter)
Genesis 40:11
And Pharaoh's cup was in my hand: and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand.
Genesis 40:10-12 (in Context) Genesis 40 (Whole Chapter)
Genesis 49:11
Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes:
Genesis 49:10-12 (in Context) Genesis 49 (Whole Chapter)
Leviticus 25:5
That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land.
Leviticus 25:4-6 (in Context) Leviticus 25 (Whole Chapter)
Leviticus 25:11
A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed.
Leviticus 25:10-12 (in Context) Leviticus 25 (Whole Chapter)
Numbers 6:3
He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of strong drink, neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eat moist grapes, or dried.
Numbers 6:2-4 (in Context) Numbers 6 (Whole Chapter)
Numbers 13:20
And what the land is, whether it be fat or lean, whether there be wood therein, or not. And be ye of good courage, and bring of the fruit of the land. Now the time was the time of the firstripe grapes.
Numbers 13:19-21 (in Context) Numbers 13 (Whole Chapter)
Numbers 13:23
And they came unto the brook of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff; and they brought of the pomegranates, and of the figs.
Numbers 13:22-24 (in Context) Numbers 13 (Whole Chapter)
Numbers 13:24
The place was called the brook Eshcol, because of the cluster of grapes which the children of Israel cut down from thence.
Numbers 13:23-25 (in Context) Numbers 13 (Whole Chapter)
Deuteronomy 23:24
When thou comest into thy neighbour's vineyard, then thou mayest eat grapes thy fill at thine own pleasure; but thou shalt not put any in thy vessel.
Deuteronomy 23:23-25 (in Context) Deuteronomy 23 (Whole Chapter)

No nuclear war. GOD's wrath comes from his creation. And when he pours out his wrath, he does it BIG.

I also expect it to be something we NEVER expect. Expect the unexpected

Great question! The wrath of the Lamb cannot start until after the 6th seal is opened. To claim otherwise would mean the souls reveled in the 5th seal (And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:) were killed by the wrath of the Lamb,impossible!

The wrath of the Lamb does not start until AFTER the 6th seal when this statement is made "Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:"

WOW! So what you've revealed here shows us that the Wrath is already over!

I guess that would have been WWII - Great Depression!

WOE be unto those that are expecting MORE DOOM!


That's great news!

That's why with "WWIII" being bantered about ... we are either VERY CLOSE to the Bridal call or ... have years to wait.

We are entering Sabbath now ... so I don't expect the Call until Sabbath is past. However as we get closer to the new moon, we could be told of a "space incoming" ... and then the folks will be saying it's the "wrath" ... not realizing the REAL WRATH comes Seal 7, trumpet 7.

And then the Seven-bowl-out-pouring-WRATH doesn't come until Seal 7, Trumpet 7!

When Seal 6 opens people will be sooooo confused because this will go againt what the prophecy "teachers/ministers" have been claiming. They will be adrift and rightly reject anything from these "sources"!