“Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.”— John iv. 35.
Here is another Julie Byron picture -amazing.
We talked about Spurgeons frustration at people’s waiting for the harvest rather than trying to gather one. In one section of the sermon he imagines Luther in his time going wild. That is an interesting concept but here is more Spurgeon.
MANY unbelieving Christians have a very large stock of reasons for not expecting to see many conversions. They suppose that any present manifestation of the divine power in connection with the truth is not to be expected. They read the history of past ages and they wonder, and sometimes, when their eye is sufficiently clear, they look forward with some sort of hope to the repetition of these scenes in future years, that is to say, when they themselves are dead and buried, and a new age shall have come upon the world. But as to God working any wonders in the world now, as to the conversion of thousands now, they do not expect it; and if it were to happen they would be surprised, and beyond all measure astonished. They are for ever dwelling in the past, or seeking to roost in the future; but as for now, now seeing God’s arm made bare, now setting to work for the conversion of men, now expecting that God will win hearts unto himself, they are not brought up to this mark yet. Their common reason for expecting nothing now is this; that there are yet four months, and then cometh harvest. They say, “This is not the time; we must have patience; we must wait; this is not the man; this is not the hour; this is not the place; we must wait till, under other circumstances, other men being given, we look for grander results; but we must not expect them now; there are yet four months, and then cometh harvest.” You know that this is the general feeling at present in the Christian church: not to expect any great things now, but to be waiting and watching for something or other which may one of these days, in the order of providence, “turn up.” Meanwhile, it is true that death doth not cease to slay; meanwhile, it is a fact that our cemeteries and grave-yards are being crowded, and that multitudes are perishing for lack of knowledge; meanwhile, it is most true that error stalks like a pestilence through the land. It is true that, as yet, Christ does not see of the travail of his soul, and that few are the travellers who go through the strait gate; but these good people seem indifferent to the perishing millions, and only say, “There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest.”
