"Be ashamed, you farmers,
Wail, you vinedressers,
For the wheat and the barley;
Because the harvest of the field has perished.
The vine has dried up,
And the fig tree has withered;
The pomegranate tree,
The palm tree also,
And the apple tree-
All the trees of the field are withered;
Surely joy has withered away from the sons of men."
Joel 1: 11-12
***************
Let's see the Lord this day.......
"Father, I thank You for today's lesson about your people and how You adopted the Gentiles into Your family. I praise You for sending Your Son to die for us all that we might know You and live.
I ask forgiveness of my sins this day. I know I have not done the work You have for me to do. I know I have let the harvest sit as I was busy doing other things of the world. I pray that You will forgive me of this sin and cleanse me.
I pray for each lady reading this study wherever she is, I pray that You will go to her and speak to her through Your word this day. I pray that she will take what she learns and teach her children or grandchildren Your precepts. I pray that she will be close to You and seek Your face each day.
in Jesus' name............amen."
******************
John 4: 35
"Do you not say, 'There are still four months and then comes the harvest?' Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!'"
Still on the topic of earthly food, the Lord uses the time of harvest to make His point to His disciples. In scripture, blessings of the Lord are often seen as agricultural. When the Lord brought rain, the people rejoiced because the land was harsh to farm and the sun cruel. When the harvest came, it was seen as a sign of the Lord's blessings:
Please read:
Deut 8:1-20
Notice in verses 7 & 8 is says:
"For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills; and of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pemegranates, a land of olive oil and honey..."
Now, re-read our opening verse above (Joel 1:11-12)-
So, we see harvest as a time of the Lord's blessings on obedience and we see the withering of the harvest and trees as a sign of the Lord's wrath on disobedience.
Ez 34:25-30
So why is Jesus saying here that the popular saying among the Jews was "Four months between seed time and harvest" ?
Because He knows that the sin of the Jewish people had made God turn to the Gentiles to provoke His people to jealousy:
Rom 2:5-11
Rom 10: 19-20
Deut 32:2
Rom 11:11
Jesus knows that the time of harvest is the busy time for the people of the land. They depend on the land for their lives. Their is an appointed time to reap the harvest and to miss it meant possible starvation through the harsh months.
Jesus is hinting to His disciples in a language that they would understand: the harvest time.
"Do you not say, 'There are still four months and then comes the harvest?'"
God, in His grace, promises the harvest every year. He has appointed the time down to weeks! Farmers know when to expect it and they prepare.
Sometimes it floods and the crops are ruined. Sometimes a tornado comes and the crops are ruined.....and sometimes the weather is perfect and a large crop is harvested. But the appointed time to reap the harvest never changes. The anticipation is great. For those of you who know farm life, the reaping of the harvest required great work, but also a time for celebration when the harvest was successful. The people used to pray in church and thank the Lord for the harvest because they knew it came from Him.
When we lived in North Carolina, we lived in a very small town that had a Harvest Festival every fall. There was a parade down mainstreet with floats followed by a chili cook-off. It was great fun to see all the people celebrate the harvest time even though the town was not a farm town. Yet the traditions had been passed down from generation to generation so that the time of harvest was still respected, still greatly anticipated. I know of many towns all across the world that still celebrate this way. But fewer and fewer take the time to praise and thank God for the successful harvest.
"Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!"
But Jesus, in His excitement as the Samaritan woman approaches with the townspeople, exclaims that the fields are already white for harvest and He knows the time for reaping is NOW otherwise the opportunity is missed.
The Jewish people had forgotten the purpose of the Law that God had given them. They were using it to oppress the people or they were not using it at all. They had not heard from God for 400 years. They were not anticipating the coming Messiah as the woman at the well was, but instead their hearts were hardened.
Like the disciples, they were more interested in their own needs. "Eat!" the disciples said to Jesus, but He tells them He has work to do: reaping the Harvest of the Lord!
Lift up your eyes and look at the fields!!
******************
Life Application
"All the trees of the field are withered; Surely joy has withered away from the sons of men."
Joel lamented the sins of the people and the wrath of God on the lands. God knows we need the land to survive, He created it for that purpose. That is why He will wreak havoc on the land in the end times because we tend to worship the land instead of the Creator of that land:
Rev 16: 1-21
Notice the judgments:
the sea will become blood
the rivers and springs will become blood
the sun will scorch man
darkness will cover the land
demons will haunt the land
the air will be full of lightnings and thunderings
earthquakes
islands and mountains are gone
great hail pounds the earth
The earth that we depend so greatly upon will no longer be a refuge for us as God pours His wrath upon it. No more harvest time....no more excitement and celebration. Is it no wonder we rely on bottled or filtered water so much? Sign of the times, I suppose........God sees this and will hit the rivers and springs we rely upon with His wrath.
We are the ones who forget that it is God who gives us the harvest......and it is God who takes it away.
"Surely joy has withered away from the sons of men."
Jesus' excitement should convict us of our loss of excitement and anticipation of lost souls being harvested to Him. Our joy comes from the Lord, so if it has "withered away" then that means we are far away from the Lord:
Heb 12:1-2
If that joy is gone, ask the Lord for it to return:
Rom 15:13
Rom 14:17
Gal 5:22-25
1 Thess 2:19-20
1 Pet 1:7-9
Ps 16:11
Ps 30:5
Ps 43:4
The joy and excitement of Jesus as He spotted the Samaritan woman coming with the townspeople should be contagious. Let us not become withered like the trees of the forgotten harvest. Let us lift up our eyes from the things of this world: work, cleaning house, changing diapers, paying bills, eating, drinking.....striving.
And let us look at the whitened fields before us: our homes, our children, our husbands, our family members, our friends, our co-workers, our neigbors.....
And let us work alongside the Lord to reap the harvest!
****************
Until next time.........
"What is the reason that many Christians are so unfixed in their thoughts of themselves and their conditions, and are at such ebbs and flows in their opinion of their estates, but because their eye is more upon what is in them and what is done by them than what is in Christ, and what He did for them; it is good to look at home, but not to rest here. Many men would partner with Christ's righteousness and God's free grace for their peace and comfort, but this is to have one foot on the firm ground and another in a boat, which is bad standing.....Christ's righteousness founded on free grace is the rock whereon we must build that peace which the rain and winds cannot overturn."
-Obadiah Grew (1607-1689)
(The Lord Our Righteousness, 2005, pp. 40-41)
Blessings,
Ruth
No comments:
Post a Comment