The harvest is great.Did you help in any way in producing these bananas?
Or these bananas were already there,
and you are sent to gather them in?
James posted:
It's February already! Now's not the time to slow down - the Harvest is great but the workers are few. This verse helps me to stay alert and on target. ”A little extra sleep, a little more slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—and poverty will pounce on you like a bandit; scarcity will attack you like an armed robber.” Proverbs 24:33
Sing F Lau
The harvest is all ready to be gathered in.
God Himself by His free and sovereign grace HAS PRODUCED the harvest. And He gave us the command to go and gather in the harvest into the barn, the NT church, not heaven! By His own grace in effectually calling them out of the state of sin and death to that of grace and salvation, He has made each one perfectly fit for heaven and eternal glory.
God Himself has produced His children... we are called to go out and gather them into the NT churches. The means to do so is the gospel ministry, the sole means appointed by God himself. Many have substituted this ordained mean with social activism!
God's children out there, ALREADY born of God, and they alone, will hear the gospel, and believe the gospel, and be converted... be baptized and be gathered into NT churches. The gospel ministry is the means to IDENTIFY and SEARCH out God's children out there. They who will believe ARE God's children. All the beggarly substitutes will attract lots of 'banana and rice believers'. They attract the wrong type of people.
The harvest is ALREADY there by God's free and sovereign grace. We DIDN'T have anything to do with the PRODUCTION and BEING of the harvest. God does it alone, all by His own free grace. God gives us the means to gather in the harvest He Himself has already produced.
Yes, let's work while it is day. Amen.
James
They are waiting - "But how will they hear unless a preacher is sent?"
Sing F Lau
Who are waiting? Those whom God has given eternal life and are enabled to hear, or those still dead in their trespasses and sins?
Just who is the gospel ministry ordained for, and what benefits will it bring to those intended?
What does this rhetorical question presupposes, "And how shall they believe on Him of whom they have not heard?" Who are those under consideration: those that are able to believe, i.e. those already begotten with eternal life, capable of hearing spiritual truth, and believing it.
"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."
"For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which ARE SAVED it is the power of God... But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which ARE CALLED, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. 1Cor 1:18,23-24.
The harvest that we are commanded to gather into the NT churches are those ALREADY SAVED, ALREADY CALLED by God Himself. Such alone will hear the gospel call and respond.
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Concluding remarks
It is so obvious that so many do not understand the basic functions of the gospel ministry. So many see it as the ordained means to help God to produce the harvest, i.e. to aid God to produce His children; that the gospel ministry is the necessary means or instrument in the regeneration of those dead in trespasses and sins.
The gospel ministry is the appointed means to gather in God's children that God Himself has produced by His free and sovereign grace.
