“But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand.”   Ezekiel 33:6

Is the Smell of the Harvest On Your Hands?

“Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.”  (Lu 10:2)

                                                                                         November 2009

Dear Brothers & Sisters,

Harvest is a joyful time when we gather crops that have matured at the end of the growing season.  It is time to pick, to get the smell of the harvest on your hands.  I was reminded of the strong smell of fresh harvested crops while picking our tomatoes just before the frost.  And again while picking our apples-the sweet smell lingered on my hands. 

There is another kind of harvest spoken about in the Bible.  It is the harvest of men’s souls.  This is the harvest God personally oversees because Jesus Christ is the “Lord of the Harvest”.  (Mt 9:38).  Jesus left all His glory of heaven and came to this world of sin because of His desire to save lost souls for His kingdom. (Lu 19:10).      
         

Harvest is an important event in the Kingdom of God.  The players in the harvest include: God, laborers who are Christians, and angels.  As the laborers complete their work of winning a soul, the angels rejoice before God in Heaven over every sinner who repents.  (Lu 15:10). The angels reap the harvest of that person’s soul at the time of their death when they come and carry the person to Heaven.  (Lu 16:22).

God owns all the harvest fields of the world.  He desires to gather the souls from these harvest fields into His eternal Kingdom.  He sends out a call for laborers to come to work in His fields.  The laborers are ministers and laymen whom He calls to work in specific areas.  The laborers sometimes drag their feet in going, so He tells us to pray that laborers will be thrust out into the harvest.

I remember a couple we knew in California.  They knew that God was calling them as Missionaries, but they were dragging their feet about the matter.  Then the 49er fire came to northern California, and their home was one of the over 200 homes burned.  They knew that God was thrusting them out into the harvest field, and they went.

God could do the harvest alone, but He has chosen to use His people to work as laborers for Him.  He commissions us as His ministers for the work.  The call to be a laborer is not man qualified, but God qualified.  Gladys Aylward was called by God to be a laborer in China.  She was considered unqualified to be a missionary because of her academic background, but God qualified her, for He called her in her circumstances.   She obeyed against all odds and became a great missionary in China.  She was instrumental in the stopping of the foot binding of little girls, and miraculously led 94 children on a long foot trip over the mountains to safety during the Japanese invasion of China.

God calls us to be involved in His harvest as His laborers.  He wants the sweet smell of joy over a newly saved soul to linger on our hands.  He tells us in Matthew 9:37,38 to pray for Him to send forth laborers into His Harvest fields because there are not enough to get the job done.  He sees the great fields in the world that are in need of salvation. There are 6.792 billion people on earth.  Of that number, 4 billion people don’t know Jesus Christ, and 160 million are Americans who have never been born again. God sees lives in those fields going to spoil; daily men are perishing for lack of laborers with knowledge of the Way. 

In the natural realm of harvest, laborers know the field they are hired to work in.  They don’t run over to another field to labor, but they stay in the field where they have been hired for until their work is done. 

In the spiritual realm, the field of harvest is where we live, where we work, and who we come in contact with.  We touch people in many ways; by phone, letters, face to face, by internet, etc. I read one of the most inspiring articles a few weeks ago about a young man who had just passed away.  He always wanted to be in the service, but was unable to because of his terminal health throughout his life.  But rather than sit idle, he got on the internet and touched servicemen in Iraq.  He inspired them with emails and packages that were a great encouragement in tough times.  All of us have the opportunity to touch others, but we must go and make the effort in order to bring them into the Kingdom of God. 

The harvest field may be out of your comfort zone.  It may be visiting the widow down the street who needs to know Jesus. It might be the hard, crusty old man, your boss, who needs to get saved.  It might be reaching out to the neighbor who is high on drugs.  It might be the lost orphaned child in need of a family.  Perhaps it would be one in another country.  A few days ago I received a plea for a family to come forth and adopt a little six-year old boy named Raul who lives in an orphanage in Albania.  His sister was adopted, but he was left in the orphanage.  He struggles with CP, but has made great strides. In his country, when you turn seven, you are transferred into an older orphanage where your chances of ever being adopted are almost zero.   The opportunity for physical help to keep improving his condition will be gone.   Who will tell him about Jesus?  Who will rise up as a laborer in the harvest field of Raul’s life?

Laborers know how to pick the produce they are hired to harvest. They don’t twist raspberries off like they would corn. They know what a tomato looks like. They know how and when to harvest it.  They know they have to be careful with tomatoes during the picking.  So it is with people; you become sensitive to their needs.  You must seek the Lord of the Harvest on how to harvest the souls in your field.

            As we pray for laborers to be sent out, we should pray for them to be willing to go.  I prayed that way and God not only sent me to my neighbors, but He sent me to China.  In going, I was able to bring the message of salvation to the lost, an encouraging word for the brethren, comfort to dying orphans in orphanages, and to bring some home.  Where will He send you?  You will never know if you don’t pray to Him.  God asks in Isaiah 6:8, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

            Are your thoughts on the harvest?  The time of the final harvest is close.  The need has never been greater than now for laborers to go out into the harvest fields of the world.  The laborers are few. This is the time to pray that the Lord of the Harvest will force out laborers into the harvest field where He has already appointed for them to work.  The laborers God desires are those who will not sit proper in formal clothes, but they are those who will put their hands into the harvest field by touching the souls of unsaved men and women.  Most people are willing to labor for gain, but few are willing to labor for lost souls. Let us entreat God to send out holy laborers who will bring the message of salvation through Jesus Christ to the fields of the world.  Let us be open to be the laborers that we are asking Him to send.

The ripe smell of the harvest permeates the air.  You can walk in the harvest fields and smell it without ever touching the harvest and becoming a part of the harvesting.  But it is when you harvest that the smell lingers on your hands.  The smell in apple orchards at the time of harvest is sweet, but the smell is much stronger when you pick the apples.   The smell of the harvest must be on our hands if we are God’s laborers in His harvest field.  The one who sleeps in opportunities of winning souls misses the blessing of being a laborer in God’s field of harvest. (Pr 10:5).  The work in the field has to be when the crop is ripe.  It cannot wait past the time to harvest.  We must not miss any opportunities in men’s lives.  You can be sure the enemy of men’s souls will never miss that opportunity to snatch one to hell.  The harvest field of this world is ripe and ready.  (Joel 3:4).   God is keenly interested in the complete harvest; He doesn’t want any to perish.  (2 Pe 3:9).  God asks, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”   Will you answer, “Here am I! Send me.”

May God Bless You,

Sister Sandra