The Harvest Is Now
Lay your life on the altar for God; He’s calling for you today.
Lay your life on the altar for God; this moment the Master obey.
The fields of the harvest are white; the labourers scattered and few.
Lay your life on the altar for God; He’s calling for you, for you.
(Hugh Mitchell)
This is a song of consecration but, before we can consecrate ourselves, we need to be sure of three things: that the harvest is ripe, that there aren’t enough labourers, and that God is calling us. Perhaps we’re used to thinking that the spiritual atmosphere around us is cold and dark, in which case it will be difficult for us to see ourselves in a field that is ripe for harvest. We may think that there are already sufficient evangelists, missionaries and witnesses to win the lost, and that our time would be better spent doing other things. We might think that God is calling us to do something other than share our faith with people who don’t yet know Him.
It's important to note that the call to share our faith is not exclusive of other callings on our lives. God may have gifted us in many areas so that we can minister in different ways and in various circumstances, but that doesn’t mean that we are at liberty to neglect the Great Commission to disciple people as we go into the world (Matthew 28:19). For many Christians, the Great Commission has become the Great Omission, as so many believers are omitting to share the gospel. We remember that Paul encouraged Timothy to do the work of an evangelist (2 Timothy 4:5), even though his ministry gifting was primarily pastoral rather than evangelistic.
We may need to repent of our lack of faith and reticence when it comes to reaping a harvest of souls. Let’s ask God to open our eyes to see the ripe harvest in front of our very eyes. As Jesus said to His disciples in John 4:35 - Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest - or, as the Message version renders it - As you look around right now, wouldn’t you say that in about four months it will be time to harvest? Well, I’m telling you to open your eyes and take a good look at what’s right in front of you. These Samaritan fields are ripe. It’s harvest time!
In the natural, it may well require four months to elapse between sowing and reaping, but that’s often not the case in the spiritual. Jesus sowed one seed in the Samaritan woman He met at the well, and immediately reaped a whole village of souls, much to the astonishment of His disciples who thought that this would be the last place for revival to break out. After all, the Samaritans already had their own religion, and they would be very suspicious of a Jew telling them what they should believe. Nevertheless, Jesus saw that these Samaritans were hungry for the truth, and He took the opportunity to reap a vast harvest.
The disciples were more focused on physical matters, like rest and food. Their eyes were blind to the urgent spiritual mission before them. As the disciples were returning from the village, the villagers themselves were already flocking to Jesus to receive salvation. Let’s ask God to open our eyes to see the harvest.
Let’s not allow our past experience to shape our future vision. We may have had a lack of success in the past, and we may have thought that our environment was unresponsive to the gospel, but spiritual breakthrough can come at any moment, and we need to be ready to put in the sickle when the harvest is ripe.
Jennifer Rees Larcombe, daughter of evangelist Tom Rees, shares a testimony of how a town once thought to be closed to the gospel suddenly opened up in a miraculous way. The town is Stonehaven, on the east coast of Scotland. When her father was trying to organise a gospel crusade there in 1959, none of the churches wanted to be involved, and he ended up organising his own publicity and hiring the town hall for the crusade. However, attendance was very low, and Tom left that place thinking that it was the most God-forsaken town he’d ever encountered. Nevertheless, when Jennifer was invited back to that same town 36 years later, she found all the churches to be alive, working together and seeing many people coming to faith.
After making enquiries, she discovered that God had called a particular woman to pray for the town. This woman was elderly and bedridden with severe arthritis. She couldn’t go out and evangelise, and she had very few visitors, but she was able to spend many hours each day in prayer. She would open a street map of the town on her bed and would use one of her twisted arthritic fingers to ‘walk’ the streets, praying for each household and, especially, for each church. By the time she died, nothing had changed, and there were only three people at her funeral but, soon afterwards, all the churches became alive and began to grow and to work together to reach out to the town. No doubt there will be some surprises in heaven when we see the greatest accolades being given, not to those who have been busy and active in the limelight, but to those solitary prayer warriors who shifted the spiritual atmosphere by battling in spiritual warfare behind the scenes.
As well as opening our own eyes to what God is doing in the heavenlies, God can also open the eyes of those who don’t yet know Him. The Holy Spirit is the One who brings revelation so that the eyes of those who are spiritually blind are suddenly opened to see the truth so that they can come to faith. Let’s pray for that to happen, knowing that prayer is one of our most powerful weapons in demolishing demonic strongholds and advancing God’s Kingdom.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, we thank You that Your Holy Spirit reveals truth and leads us into all truth. As we look to You, please would You open our eyes so that we can discern what is happening in the spiritual realm. Lead us into those fields that are ripe for harvesting, the places where You are revealing Your love to lost souls and opening their eyes to the truth so that they can come to faith. Please forgive us when we have been reticent or lacking in faith. Please increase our faith and expectancy so that we can see the harvest field from Your perspective. Lead us to those who are ready to receive the gospel, and may we be bold in our prayers and in our witness for You. Give us the lost as our inheritance we pray, in Jesus’ name. Amen!
