When I need a little pick me up I sometime read a little bit of a Charles Spurgeon sermon. He is nothing if not exciting and can be challenging too. I received this picture from Julie Byron and stunned by the beauty I thought of Jesus harvest statements and Spurgeons statement from the last century that his people never really expected a great movement of conversion because, “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.”
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.
The wants of harvest are, first, many labourers. If many souls are to be converted, there must be many to preach to them. If we are to expect a great ingathering, as I think we ought, there must be much energy used and much effort put forth. “Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth labourers into his harvest,” and ask him to be pleased to stir up Christian zeal throughout the whole of Christendom that advantage may be taken of this auspicious hour. You cannot reap without labourers. I saw a reaping machine the other day doing the work very well and very fast, but somehow or other one liked the old-fashioned look of the field when the labourers were in it at work. Certainly there is no machine that can do this work of soul-reaping. It must be done by men, chosen men, who, filled with the Spirit of God, shall go forth to ingather souls. The first want, then, is more labourers. Who is there amongst you who will consecrate himself to God? I do not ask for young men for the College just now, we have enough; but I do ask for young men, old men, and all sorts of men and women too, to be labourers in the great work of ingathering souls. Many sinners perish, and many saints do nothing. Oh! you who know Christ, be indifferent no longer.
The next thing that is wanted is sharp sickles as well as more labourers. A labourer is no good unless he has got a sickle, and if he can keep his sickle sharp so much the better. You must get a hold, dear friends, of God’s truth. You will do nothing without that truth, and you must have that truth well understood. You must grind your sickles; you must go to work with such cutting truths as justification by faith, as the total ruin of mankind, as the hope that is laid up in the cross, as the energy of the Holy Ghost; and when you know these truths, and know how to use them, you shall then be made great reapers in the Master’s harvest. It is idle to say, “I will go,” and then go with no tool in your hand. Get the truth; get a hold of it well, get it sharp and in good order, and who knows, under the blessing of God the Holy Ghost, what you may do!
