Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.”
There cannot be a happy future with a sinful past. Your next step is closely related to the previous one.
Retribution lives in our nature. We say “give him back” when we see injustice, we teach children to say “thank you” in response to a toy given to them. That is, we want retribution and calculation to be present in everything, because this is how it should be, it is so fair. And yet we seek that this befall all the guilty, but not us. But the law is the law for everyone.
“We can guarantee that the wicked will not go unpunished.” Pr.11.21.
Asaph wrote: “God is good to Israel, to the pure in heart! And I - my legs almost shook, my feet almost slipped - I envied the fools, seeing the prosperity of the wicked (what a contradictory phrase. In our consciousness, wickedness is in no way combined with prosperity ), and I thought how to understand this, but it was difficult in my eyes, until I entered the sanctuary of God and understood their end. Thus, You placed them on slippery paths and cast them into the abyss.
Asaph calmed down only when he realized that retribution for these people was inevitable... “How we rebel when we do not see retribution for a crime. But before people see this, the Lord is watching over it, and if there is a place for retribution in the material world, then even more so in spiritual. And if the earthly court can be bribed and avoided punishment, then God’s Court “it is inaccessible to the ringing of gold, it waits...”.
So! If we consider that every step we take, every thought or word is a seed of sowing, then what does the overall picture of the harvest look like?
I offer three small illustrations on this matter.
1. Ahan
Capture of Jericho. Such a glorious victory, a miracle, a celebration, and SUDDENLY... defeat in such a trifle. The city of Ai, in comparison with Jericho, is just a village. The reason for the defeat, as it was revealed later, was the enemy in the camp.
Crime.
Achan, the son of Charmias from the tribe of Judah, took from the accursed thing, and the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel. Jesus from Jericho sent people to Ai and said to them: “Go and search the land.” They went and examined Ai. And, returning to Jesus, they said to him: “...let not all the people go, but let about two thousand or about three thousand people go and smite Ai; Do not bother all the people there, for they are few (there). So, about three thousand people went there from the people, but they fled from the inhabitants of Ai; the inhabitants of Ai killed up to thirty-six of them and pursued them and defeated them on the way down the mountain, causing the heart of the people to melt and become like water.”
Punishment.
Joshua and all the Israelites with him took Achan, and the silver, and the garment, and the bar of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his donkeys, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had, and they brought them out (with everything) to the valley of Achor. And Jesus said: “Because you have brought trouble upon us, the Lord will bring trouble upon you this day.” And all Israel stoned him, and burned them with fire, and threw stones upon them. And they threw a great heap of stones upon him, which survived to this day.After this, the fury of the wrath of the Lord subsided.
We look into the future with faith, FORGETING what is behind us, we reach forward, we make plans, set goals. We achieve great success, we are witnesses of amazing victories, AND SUDDENLY... how often does this completely unforeseen moment come, despite all luck, out of nowhere... Collapse... Failure... Defeat...
So, only a righteous person is allowed to “forget what lies behind”! The sinner needs to put everything in order. This is a very common concept: “forgetting the past”, since we are unable to change anything. “Time is a doctor,” “time heals,” but memory and conscience retain all information well. All that people can do with their past sins is not to think about them. They are confidently trying to build a happy future, but... alas! The most cruel deception. The past makes itself known. It's like sweeping trash under a rug. It's still in your house and you know it. You only removed it from your eyes, but you did not remove it from the house (from life).
The relationship between yesterday and tomorrow. Cause and investigation. If you secretly took something from “yesterday” with you to “today”, it will give you away, it will disrupt the whole plan and the “Rescue” operation may fail.
Bathsheba's child.
“For the mouth of another man's wife drips honey, and her speech is softer than oil; but the consequences of it are bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Proverbs 5. 3-4.
Crime.
“Thou hast slain Uriah the Hittite with the sword; You took his wife to wife, and you killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.”
Punishment.
“Therefore, the sword will never depart from your house because you despised Me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord: “...behold, I will raise up evil against you from your house and will take your wives.” before your eyes, and I will give it to your neighbor, and he will sleep with your wives before this sun. You did it secretly, but I will do it before all Israel and before the sun... Since by this deed you have given the enemies of the Lord a reason to blaspheme Him, then he who is born will die. you son." And the Lord struck the child that Uriah's wife bore to David, and it became sick. And David prayed to God for the child, and David fasted, and, secluded, spent the night lying on the ground. And the elders of his house went in to him so that raise him from the ground; but he did not want to, and did not eat bread with them... On the seventh day the child died...
Why does it hurt so much?.. Why so much?.. Exactly what you sowed, exactly what you brought to someone else’s house.
3. Semey.
Crime.
“And David and his men went their way, and Shimei walked along the outskirts of the mountain on his side, walking and cursing, and throwing stones and dust at his side.” 2 Kings 16.13.
Punishment.
“And King Solomon said to Shimei: “... you know and your heart knows all the evil that you did to my father David; May the Lord turn your anger on your head!’ And the king commanded Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and he went and struck Shimei, and he died.” 1 Kings 2.44-46.
Five important conclusions.
1. The harvest operates in all areas of life.
The sin of love of money. Haman.
The sin of adultery. David.
The sin of slander. Families.
This can be in any area of your life, wherever you sow, whatever you sow, the harvest will not be slow to come...
2. God is reaping the harvest.
Achan... The Lord is bringing trouble upon you this day.
David...I will bring evil upon you from your house, and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he will sleep with your wives before this sun; You did it in secret, but I will do it before all Israel and before the sun. The Lord struck the child.
Shimei... May the Lord turn your anger on your head!
Do not look at how and through whom retribution is carried out, but be wise in understanding that this punishment comes from God.
3. Different time harvest.
Achan... The harvest came in a few days or even hours.
David... The harvest came a few months later. A child was born.
Shimei... The harvest came more than forty years later.
It doesn’t matter at all how much time has passed, whether you remember it or have already forgotten it yourself - the harvest will definitely come.
4. The harvest exceeds the sowing.
Ahan... For taking several kilograms of gold and silver and one piece of clothing, he and his entire family paid with their lives.
David... For the sin of adultery, the sword will not depart from your house... the death of a son, wife,... concubines are given to another... announced before the whole state, and subsequently the whole world.
Shimei... Because of his slanderous tongue, according to David, “his gray hair went down in blood to the grave...”
Just as in the earthly, the harvest is many times greater than the sowing, so in the spiritual, the punishment is many times greater than the crime.
5. The harvest operates equally in the life of a sinner and in the life of a righteous man.
Achan was an ordinary, ordinary citizen of Israel.
David was the king of Israel, “a man after God’s own heart.”
Shimei was a wicked man.
This proves that there is no partiality with God.
Bottom line
The law of sowing and reaping. God swore to Noah that “sowing and reaping will never cease.” “WHATEVER a man sows, THAT he will also reap.” Do you understand the relationship?.. You have nowhere to run from your harvest, you have no one to be offended by. You have the right to sow whatever you want, but it is not in your power to reap whatever you want. You can only reap what you sow.
There is nothing surprising about this. Does it surprise you that an ear of wheat sprang up when you threw the wheat seed into the ground? But shouldn't the opposite be surprising? When would you sow wheat and corn come up?
Or are you wondering why the number of seeds in a spikelet exceeds the number of seeds thrown into the ground during sowing?
Remember! Just as it is impossible to change the flight path of an arrow fired from a bow, it is also impossible to change “tomorrow”, because it is a consequence of “yesterday”.
Every action, word, thought or desire (“thou shalt not covet”), committed or just arose in your consciousness in the past, will undoubtedly make itself felt in the future.
You have deceived someone, so do not cry before God when they deceive you; you stole - don’t ask for blessings, you slander your father and mother - don’t ask for a prosperous long life.
You cannot beg God for happiness in the future with a sinful past before Him.
Ecclesiastes said: “Rejoice, young man, in your youth, and let your heart taste joy in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart and in the vision of your eyes; just know that for all this God will bring you to judgment.”
You must put everything in order in your past, if you are able to do so...
Remember, if you sinned and did not repent, no matter how much you asked God, God Himself will not be able to help you, for He will not be able to go against Himself and bless what He has cursed. He will gladly come out to meet you if you pull out these crops with your own hands.
Zacchaeus said: “Whoever I have offended, I will repay him fourfold.” If there is you offended people, atone for your guilt before them. And God will erase your sinful past and will not be held accountable to you.
Christ taught to pray: “Forgive us, as we forgive our debtors.” And then he said: “...if you do not forgive people their sins, then your Father will not forgive you your sins.” You can be forgiven only to the extent that you forgive yourself: “forgive as we forgive”... the same amount?.. Forgive others and you will be forgiven by God.
God has the power to restore your past.
God is outside of time. “With God one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.” It is just as easy for him to see into your future as it is into your past. Allow Him, through confession and recognition of your sins, to put your past in order so that you do not have to reap its fruits. There must be a new beginning in your life, a new birthday, from God. The past is left forever.
May the Lord admonish you to follow these spiritual advice in order to have happiness and prosperity all the days of your life on earth.
On this day we thank the Lord for the harvest, for the beautiful fruits of the earth.
Everything is great with God!
But how are things going with us? What fruits have we brought in our lives? Are they good or bad? What do we sow in our soul, what do we cultivate?
St. Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 12, 15v. writes: “See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness arise and cause harm, and lest many become defiled by it...”
Apostle Paul asks Christians to watch themselves. Why is it necessary to monitor yourself? Is it really that important?
Yes, it is very important! Because we can lose the grace of God, and without grace we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Moreover, we not only harm ourselves, but we can also harm others.
But how can you watch yourself so that this doesn’t happen?
Pay attention to how Apostle Paul shows the reason for the deprivation of grace for a Christian and the harm of this reason. It points to a root of bitterness arising in the soul.
The bitter root is the cause of human misfortune. But how does this root arise?
In nature, a root grows from a seed, and then itself produces a plant and fruit.
So it is in the spiritual sphere.
First - lust, then sin and as a result - death (James 1:14-15).
Using an example taken from Old Testament, one can trace how an evil seed is sown in a person’s soul, and then a bitter root arises, producing grave consequences in a person’s life. And the life of Saul can serve as such an example. This example is given in the 1st book of Samuel, beginning with the ninth chapter.
Who is Saul? A wealthy Israeli of noble birth. God chose him to be king of Israel.
What was Saul like at the beginning of his election? The way we see him at the end of his reign: - evil, disobedient to God, proud, an apostate from God?
No!!! And again no!
Saul was modest, did not dream of himself, and forgave mockers and personal enemies.
Saul did not pay attention to the fact that he was insulted. At that time he was full of love and forgiveness.
But how did he change so much beyond recognition? What happened to him?
Sadly, the devil found the key to Saul's heart.
Pride appeared in Saul’s heart and, as a result, disobedience to Samuel, who spoke from God, and failure to fulfill the Word of God (1 Samuel 13:8-14; 15:10-11,22-23). The grain that came from Satan was planted, nurtured, and a root of bitterness emerged.
Why did this happen? Saul allowed sin into his heart, did not stand guard, did not dominate lust, did not control his thoughts. All this led to the emergence of bitter fruit (1 Samuel 18:10-11).
But God is rich in His mercy and therefore Saul ruled Israel for a long time (Matthew 5:45 and Luke 6:35). The Lord gave him time to repent. Moreover, He once again gave him the opportunity to prophesy, although it was for a very short time. God wanted to show Saul His mercy and warn him from evil deeds (1 Samuel 19:18-24). The Gospel of Matthew 7:21-23 shows a warning against man using gifts (which are without love for God). So it was with Saul.
But Saul did not heed this and sank lower and lower in his pride and envy.
Saul insulted the Holy Spirit and trampled His mercy and gifts. He did this by not giving thanks to God and raising his hand against Jonathan and against David, who was filled with the Holy Spirit (1 Samuel 20:30-33). The entire further history of the relationship between Saul and David is based on Saul’s hatred of David.
A bitter root took root in Saul's soul, and as a result a huge tree of evil grew, which bore the evil fruits of apostasy and idolatry.
And most a shining example such fruits were Saul's appeal to the sorceress
(1 Samuel 28:7-25). It is an abomination in the eyes of God (Deuteronomy 18:10-14).
Instead of repenting of his sins, Saul turns to a medium and participates in seance. And just as at the beginning of our discussion we drew attention to James 1:14-15, so now we will read these verses again:
“First is lust, then is sin, and the result is death.”
The consequence of sin is death. Saul committed suicide (1 Samuel 31:4-6. 1 Chron. 10:13-14.).
So, let the example of Saul’s life be a warning to us against carelessness. Let us watch ourselves so as not to sin, so that no bitter root takes root in our soul and brings terrible fruits and disappointment. Let us follow Jesus Christ, fulfilling His commandments, reading and studying the Bible, praying and abiding in Him. May the Lord help us! Amen.
“And God said, Let the earth produce green grass, grass yielding seed, and a fruitful tree, bearing fruit according to its kind, in which is its seed on the earth. And so it became. And the earth brought forth grass, grass yielding seed according to its kind, and tree yielding fruit, in which is its seed according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning: the third day" (Genesis 1:11-13).On the third day, according to the word of God, the earth brought forth greenery, and every herb, and every tree bearing fruit. And on the sixth day man was created.
Do you notice how the Lord cares about man, about his creation? Long before he, man, appeared on earth, God had already prepared everything for him. The earth, by the will of God, produced everything necessary for our life on it. When God created Adam and Eve, He brought them into the garden. The garden was already cultivated, well-groomed and bearing fruit! Adam could use what the Lord provided for him. It has always been this way, from the very beginning. God, whose name is Love, takes care of everyone living on earth.
God still takes care of each of us today. We have visible signs to this: the earth is full of the fruits of God. Despite all the difficulties and unfavorable circumstances, we have everything we need. We have our daily bread today. Therefore, our heart is filled with gratitude to the Lord for taking such care of us that we have confidence in our lives. This is not self-confidence, but confidence in the grace and mercy of God. “The hand of God is not shortened to have mercy and to save,” this means that the Lord will continue to take care of us!
We live in a time when not all people are grateful to God. People tend to take credit for themselves, but that's a mistake. The life of every person depends on God. He created this life, it is in His holy hands, and God has the right to end this life. Therefore, “it is appointed for man to die once, but after this the judgment.” This is God's definition.
And a person in his life must make a choice: to come to the Lord, to recognize Him as his Creator, Heavenly Father and Savior in Christ Jesus. When people accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior into their lives, they have special grace and blessing from God. Grace and blessing extend not only to this visible, temporary, earthly life. The blessing of God extends to man's life in eternity, because by faith in Christ Jesus we have the salvation of our immortal soul and eternal life. This is the ineffable gift of God that the Apostle Paul speaks of. Everything we see and use in life is a gift from God. But the highest, ineffable gift of God is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, because only through faith in Him do we have the salvation of our immortal soul.
And the Lord spoke - and so it happened. The earth today, in our time, still produces its fruit according to the command of God. Blessed be the name of the Lord! We must never stop thanking the Lord, we are called to do this. The feeling of gratitude is inherent in the heart of every believer - do not forget to thank Him for all his blessings always, and not just on the Harvest holiday! And thank Him for everything, because those who love God to those who are called according to His purpose, all things work together for good.
Today we thank the Lord for the harvest, for His care for our earthly life. However, there is also an internal meaning of this holiday, its spiritual content. As believers, we must not ignore this greatest truth.
In addition to our body, which needs bread, we have an immortal soul, which also needs bread, but not physical, but spiritual, needs constant spiritual reinforcement. The soul lives only in contact with God. By abiding in the grace of God, we receive the sources of life, we can abide in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. By reasoning, observing, reflecting on earthly, visible things, we must acquire something for our immortal soul. God is not limited to the material. There is something more valuable, spiritual - our soul.
In terms of spiritual content, the Feast of Harvest and everything associated with the harvest contains important spiritual truth about the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. “The harvest is the end of the age, when the angels will come to gather the saints of God from all the ends of the earth.” This is the end of human history, when God will draw a line under the life of every person and all humanity. “The harvest,” Christ once said, “is the end of the age.”
When will the harvest come? When will we enter this final harvest?
The fact is that it started a long time ago. It turns out that we are waiting in vain for the harvest to come. We sometimes think that it must come someday, but the fields that turned yellow and were ripe for harvest were already ready for it during the earthly life of our Lord Jesus Christ. Even then, when He was on earth, saw people, the world, he saw that everything was ripe for the great Divine harvest, and said: “Pray the Lord of the harvest, that He will send laborers into His harvest.” The harvest is ripe; it requires working hands, God's workers. You and I are the continuers of this harvest. By the grace of God, the harvest is still ongoing. The seed of God is still being sown in this world. The Lord pours out the grace of God on everyone living on earth. This word ripens in our hearts. AND the time will come, when the Lord demands an answer for our lives, he will convene all nations from all corners of the earth, so that everyone will give an answer for everything that we did in the body: good or bad. There will be a moment when God's great harvest will come to an end. The day of God's grace, the favorable year of the Lord, will end forever. It won't always be like it is today. The time will come when the final moment of the great harvest will come. And depending on how people used their lives in the favorable year of the Lord, their further fate lasting for an eternity.
Therefore, when we talk about the Feast of the Harvest today, we must remind ourselves and those who are listening to us for the first time that there is a great Divine harvest. The moment will come when all people will appear before God. We need to think about what we are doing in the body: good or bad. We must improve our lives, serve more actively in God's field.
If there are those in our congregation who have not yet accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, have not taken advantage of the favorable summer, and have not repented of their sins and iniquities, the Lord will grant such an opportunity today. The harvest takes place very quickly, in a short period of time. When the Lord comes to earth, it will be too late to turn to the Lord, too late to call on Him holy name: The day of God's grace will end, the time of judgment will come. Who will stand in this judgment? Who will protect himself? Who can come to your defense? There is only the only possibility– accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, through faith in Christ Jesus, be reconciled with God.
On the one hand, today great holiday tells us about the mercy and love of God, about His care for us. On the other hand, there is a spiritual harvest, the question of our immortal soul. IN favorable time we must come to the Lord with a good sheaf in order to be able to enter the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. If the Lord is knocking on your heart, let today become a holiday for your soul, when it, having united with the Lord, receives special grace from Him. May the Lord help us in this. And let His name be eternal glory from all of us for His care and all the benefits that He shows to us. May His name be glorified from now on and forever and ever, the name of the eternal God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.
Harvest in different faiths
God the Creator annually gives people a harvest, because He promised after the Flood: “... henceforth, throughout all the days of the earth, sowing and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will not cease” (Bible, Genesis, chapter 8, 22 verse).
During the Old Testament, the Lord God established the Harvest Festival for those who wanted to live according to His laws. We read about this in the Bible: “Observe both the feast of the harvest of the first fruits of your labor, which you sowed in the field, and the feast of gathering in the fruit at the end of the year, when you have gathered your work from the field” (Book of Exodus, chapter 23, verse 16). After the end of the harvest, the Israelites thanked God for the abundance of fruits grown. These days they gave part of the harvest to the needs of the Temple and to charity.
Christians of various faiths today celebrate this holiday, offering prayers of thanks for the earthly fruits given by God.
IN Orthodox tradition Thanksgiving for the harvest takes place on holidays falling from August 1 to October 1, when the main agricultural work is completed (Honey Spas, Apple Spas, Bread Spas and others).
Christians in the United States celebrate Thanksgiving Day, when, according to tradition, festive table a roast turkey is being prepared - in memory of the fact that the meat of this bird, donated by local Indians, helped the colonists survive the difficult period before the first harvest, when they were in dire need of food.
It has already become a tradition in our churches that many parishioners on this day bring the best fruits grown in their own gardens. In this way, we testify to what harvest the Lord has blessed us with this year.
Feast of Harvest in the Old Testament
The Harvest Festival has an Old Testament history. The Jews celebrated the Feast of First Fruits, for which they thanked God.
We can remember the very first story of the Old Testament, when Cain and Abel presented their first fruits to God. Abel brought from his flock, and Cain from his fruits (Gen. 4:3-4). But God did not despise Cain’s gifts, because in Cain’s heart there was no true gratitude, true gratitude to God for His gifts to man (Gen. 4:7).
We see that the cult of offerings to God by man has the first gifts ancient origin. With such an offering, a person expressed his gratitude and gratitude to God, entering with Him into an intimate circle of relationships of reciprocity and love. This was the priesthood of man: by cultivating the life given to him, he was expected to bring this life, its first fruits, to God.
God is a self-sufficient Being. His existence is not conditioned by anything. He, as a Personality, expects reciprocal love from us, the free individuals He created. This love is tested and evaluated by God in our first fruits.
When the people of Israel emerge, God gives the new nation commandments. Among them we find instructions for Israel to observe the harvest festival: “Observe also the festival of harvesting the first fruits of your labor, which you sowed in the field” (see Ex. 23:14-16, esp. 16; and also Exod. 34:21-22 , Leviticus 23:15-16, Deut. 16:9-12). In Deuteronomy we read: “Count to yourself seven weeks; begin to count seven weeks from the time the sickle appears in the harvest; Then you shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God, according to the diligence of your hand, according to what you give, according to what the Lord your God blesses you with; and rejoice before the Lord your God, you, and your son, and your daughter, and your servant, and your maidservant, and the Levite who is in your gates, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow, who are among you in the place, which the Lord your God will choose for His name to dwell there; Remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and observe and do these statutes.”
From this we see that one of the characteristics of the feasts was remembrance (v. 12). Celebrating the “Harvest” on the fiftieth day (weeks - the number of complete weeks, hence the other name for the holiday “Pentecost”, according to the number of days after Easter) after the main and central holiday of Passover, the Jews had to remember what happened to them when they were slaves in Egypt. A similar idea of “remembrance” is also significant in Jesus’ commandment at the Breaking of Bread.
And again you can see close connection this memory with the idea of thanksgiving. Remembering their hardships and slavery in Egypt, the Jewish people thanked God for liberation from bondage and oppression in a foreign land. This remembrance was framed in a festive form as Israel rejoiced before the Lord!
Feast of Harvest in the New Testament
On the Feast of Pentecost a historical birth took place christian church at the descent of the Holy Spirit. The apostles and all those gathered in the upper room began to speak in different languages. All this testified that God was turning his gaze to the pagans, pointing to the universal dimension of the church He gave birth to. This prophetically pointed to the words of Jesus Christ: “I tell you that many will come from the east and the west and will sit with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11; Luke 13:29). Reclining is not a sleepy state, but an indication of the process of eating. The task of the Christian mission was to carry out and continue to carry out in the future the eternal celebration of that true Easter, the prototype of which was Jesus Christ.
Jesus speaks of a future Kingdom Feast, during which He will drink new wine (Matthew 26:29). To this Feast, the Marriage of the Lamb and the Church, all people are invited, all the ends of the earth are called. But blessed are those who come (Rev. 19:7-9).
We see that the festive side of the relationship with God after the tragic apostasy of man in the Garden of Eden finds its continuation in the development of the relationship between God (the Lamb Jesus) and His Church (the Bride).
According to legend, on the fiftieth day after their deliverance from Egyptian captivity, the people of Israel approached Mount Sinai, where Moses received the law. This serves as some type of what happened in that upper room where the apostles gathered. The Holy Spirit, descending on the Church, created a new society. It is significant that all this happened on the day when Israel celebrated the event of the descent of the Spirit of God on the mountain sung by the psalmists.
Harvest in the history of the Christian church
Over time, the Church adopted only some Jewish holidays (for example, the Feast of Tabernacles did not become part of the calendar, but entered a separate church calendar). Some holidays fell into the category of celebrations that were also celebrated by the pagans. As a result, a synthesis of pagan and Christian rituals occurs.
Since the Reformation, attempts have been made to return the Harvest holiday to its original place in church calendar, since before that it was associated with those festivities that took place in August-October, and during which the consecration of the Church took place. After the Reformation (since 1770), this holiday began to be celebrated as a liturgical holiday.
In modern times, Harvest Day is usually celebrated on the first Sunday after September 22 or on the first Sunday in October.
In all evangelical churches, regardless of denominational affiliation, the worship hall is decorated with flowers, compositions of vegetables and fruits, wreaths of wheat ears are placed, and braids of onions are hung.
By celebrating the Harvest, the Church expresses its essence and purpose - gratitude to God and love for Him.
The spiritual meaning of the Harvest Festival
“Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Bible, Galatians, chapter 6, verse 7). This law, known to everyone, applies not only to the material sphere, but also to the spiritual. He calls us to sow the blessed seeds of goodness, love and compassion because people need it.
Once the prophet Jeremiah noted: “The harvest is over, the summer is over, and we are not saved” (Bible, Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, chapter 8, verse 20). Material well-being is God's blessing. The lack of gratitude in our lives is a consequence of spiritual apathy, our worldliness and death.
Christian churches encourage people, you personally, to think about the fact that everything in this world is transitory and temporary. God gives us all the opportunity to communicate with Him. Harvest is a holiday of our joy and thanksgiving not only for earthly things, but also for the eternal life that God has given us in His Son Jesus Christ!
Sermon at Azusa Mission Centennial Conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma
(Luke:10:2) “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”
If there is time to develop this theme, “he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Rev. 2:7).
The harvest is truly ripe, but the problem is not with the harvest, the problem is with the workers. And this is what the church should pray for: pray that God will send out laborers who are able to recognize the ripe harvest and are able to gather it for God.
You may have never looked at it this way. What I tell you, I say by the Spirit of God, is not out of context of Scripture or teachings or doctrines early church. What we sometimes hear as new is not new, it is new to us, but there is nothing new under the sun. What God says today, He has already spoken. The trouble is that you haven't heard it before, it doesn't mean it's something new, it doesn't mean it's not a revelation, you just didn't know it. So, not everything is just confirmation, some things are revelation. And it disappoints me because we have a whole generation of people who say that God only confirms, and they have closed themselves off to the fresh Word, they have closed themselves off to God speaking to them, they have closed themselves off to what God continues to proclaim to have an ear to hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
The Bible says there will be a famine last days. But it will not be a hunger for bread or thirst, it will be a thirst for hearing the Word of God. (see Amos 8:11). There is no hunger for preaching, there is no shortage of preaching, there is a shortage of people listening.
We need to read our Bibles. Some of us need to quit Bible college and take phonics and learn to read because some things are so simple that you need a helper so you don't get them wrong.
So, the Bible says: “Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send out laborers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:38). In the Gospel of John, chapter 17: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; and if he dies, he will bear much fruit” (John 12:24). Later Jesus will say: “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to Me. He spoke these things, making it clear by what kind of death He would die” (John 12:32).
He affirms a spiritual principle. Here he is. The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Understand what you call glory and He calls glory - these are two different dimensions glory. For us glory is popularity; for Him glory was death. The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. If you have a grain of wheat, it remains alone, but if it is planted and dies, it will bear much fruit. He goes on to say, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to Me” (John 12:32). Exalted. He is not talking about our praise and worship services here. The ascension He speaks of here was His death. It is not what we do that attracts people, but what He does that attracts people. That is why our ministries are not created to attract you - they are created to attract Him. If we extol Him, He will attract. What exactly you tell Him is what brings Him into the house. Recognition of Him. We come to acknowledge, to honor, to extol His name: “Holy art Thou, O Lord, holy, O mighty one, holy art Thou, everlasting God.”
The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. He says, “If a grain of wheat remains alone, it yields nothing, but if it is sown and dies, it bears much fruit.” Jesus is the sacrificial Seed. Scripture tells us in Galatians that God spoke to Abraham, saying that He would bless his seed. He was not talking about a multitude of seeds, but about Christ, God never said, “I will bless your children.” But: “I will bless Christ who is in you, Abraham.”
All this time, God looked specifically at Christ, and through the people of Israel, God raised up Christ, Jesus, who was in Abraham. And these people were blessed because of the Seed that was there. It was the Seed that God chose to bless. That is why God is not only blessing Israel today, He is blessing everyone who has this Seed in them. He has a special attraction to Israel, but God honors His Seed, not His attraction. God is not emotional. That's not the point. God is not obligated to bless people He likes. He blesses the target. And His goal was always Christ. So Jesus is His divine Seed. He needed to find soil where to sow, land that would accept Him. Although a seed has life, it cannot produce a plant until it is planted in soil that is capable of containing it.
“He came to his own, and his own did not receive Him. And to those who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave power to become children of God” (John 1:11-12). So He is looking for soil to sow His seed, which is why the first Adam was created from the dust of the ground, because God knew He would sow seed into this ground. That is why, before God created Adam, He established the principle of sowing, creating every tree, every blade of grass, He said that every blade of grass would bear a seed, and every seed would produce according to its kind. In other words: an orange tree will never produce apples, a mango tree will never produce papaya, and an apple tree will never produce bananas. Every tree must produce according to its kind. It cannot produce in any other way. So God decreed that we would be made of the dust of the earth. And then He seems to tell us: “I will sow the Seed in you. And the Seed that I will sow in you, this is exactly what I want you to grow. This is the Seed that I will sow in you, this Seed is called Christ.” Because if He sows in us, He receives from us what He sowed in us. That is why He says to the serpent: “On your belly you will go, and you will eat dust all the days of your life” (Gen. 3:14). Adam was made from the dust of the earth. As long as Adam lived according to the flesh, Satan had the legal right to consume him. You can pour oil, you can sprinkle water, you can lay down blessed handkerchiefs, but if you feed this serpent, it will not go away. You can only get rid of it by stopping feeding it. Don't be angry that crocodiles keep coming to your door if you keep putting food there for them. Some want to get rid of the demonic presence in their lives, but continue to feed them. The first Adam was from the dust of the earth, and if you continue to feed them with this dust of the earth, then they have a legal right to be near you. Much of what we face in the church is something we bring upon ourselves because we continue to feed the lusts and appetites of the flesh instead of thirsting for the things of the Spirit.
When we have replaced spirituality with culture and when church resembles ecclesiastical or moral obligations rather than spiritual thirst, when we come to church because we like it, not because we are obliged to come, not because we thirst for the Word. We come because we like the music and the choir. We choose churches that meet our carnal needs rather than our spiritual needs. We look for places where we will be entertained, not fed. The essence of truth is that there is a God, that is why we are here. And our worship is designed to bring Him here, it is not designed to lure you here. Because if you do not return, it will not depend on whether the sick will be healed or the dead will be raised. If you do not come, this does not determine whether the sinner will repent and be forgiven. But if He doesn't appear! We have become sensitive to seekers, but not sensitive to Spirit. We quenched the Spirit to make you comfortable, not to make you uncomfortable in order to attract God into the house.
He “came to His own, and His own did not receive Him, but to those who received Him” He gave power to be like Him. This seed, this life must be sown into the ground. The Bible says in 2 Cor. 4:7 that “we have this treasure in earthen vessels.” Where is God's treasure? It's in a clay vessel! Where is the bread of God, where is the holy thing, where is the tabernacle of God today? She is in people's hearts. Mary and Joseph lost Jesus during the Easter holiday, went outside Jerusalem for three days, and only then realized that Jesus was not with them. This is for preachers, this is how you can preach, many travel and do not even realize that the presence of Christ is no longer with them. And when they went to look for Him, the Bible says they searched the whole city. And the last place they went was the temple. And it is a shame that we were looking for Him everywhere, we should have gone first of all to His place, that is, to the temple, and look for Him there, where He is always in the realm of His Father, fulfilling the will that He had to fulfill. And Mary made the same mistake that we make today. She said: my father and I were looking for You! Joseph is not the Father. His Father was the God of Heaven. And we make the same mistake, we believe that we have some human attributes that attract the presence of God, but we cannot do anything to attract Him here. He comes here because He longs to come. He decides to come down from Heaven and come down into this hall, not because we sang the right song, but because it is our destiny that God dwells in the praise of His people. This is not witchcraft, this is not some kind of ritual or ceremony that if done correctly, He will appear. He is not a man to manipulate memorized phrases and our gorgeous-sounding music, and our curtailed organized programs.
What attracts God here? It is when His people thirst for Him that they say: we didn’t come to this room to look at Bishop Asha, we didn’t come to see what you were doing, we came to feel Him. You, who spent money on buses, on planes, spent a thousand, two thousand to be here, may God forbid you to leave here, saying: you had a good time! We need to leave here reflective, changed, and having seen the face of God, saying: I know why I came here, it was worth the investment and this was not a conference, this was a holy man, we came into the presence of God and we were changed.
1 Cor. John 15:49 tells us that “just as we have borne the image of earthly, we will also bear the image of heavenly things.” Heb. 1:3 tells us that Jesus is “the radiance of his glory and the image of his person.” And Colossians 1:15 says, “Who is the image of the invisible God.” Jesus is the expressed image of the Father, not physically, but human body was not an expression of the image of the Father, because God is Spirit, He does not have physical body. There was no beauty that Jesus possessed in the body, because the Bible says that there was no form or majesty in Him: “neither was there any form in Him that would draw us to Him” (Isa. 53:2). There is also such a definition: “I am a worm, and not a man, a reproach among men and contempt among the people” (Ps. 21:7). We had no earthly attraction to Him. What did He come to reveal here? This was the Divine nature of the Father. It wasn't a physical appearance, but it was the life that was in Him, that was the Father that was within Him. When He said: “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9); He didn't talk about His body. He did not speak of His earthly attributes. He said that when you saw what He does, when you saw how He lives, He left an example for you. The problem with the church is that we refuse to become like Him.
I have no other message. I can preach Him to thousands different ways, no matter where I may start, I will end with the fact that I want to be like Him. I found mine, what I desired from the Lord. If your prayer sheet contains more than one item, it is too long. Until you find the one thing that you desire and seek, you will never be able to abide in His house forever. There is a truth: to abide in His house forever, you just need to find one point. And if you're smart, this one point includes all the other points. The problem is that you are looking for all those other items so much that you neglect this one item. You are looking for things, and not for the One who possesses these things. If I find Him, I will receive things with Him; if I receive things without Him, I will not have the strength to hold on to them. But if I find Him, then He will bring these things with Him. It is His job to take care of them, pay for them, keep them new, and when things get old, give me new ones. We craved His things, not Himself. I want Him. May He give us His things and we will bear the image heavenly Father.
So Jesus comes. There is a unique text in Hebrews that I want you to grasp by the Holy Spirit: “You did not desire sacrifices and offerings, but you have prepared a body for Me” (Heb. 10:5). “Then I said, Here I come; in the scroll of the book it is written about me: I desire to do Your will, O God” (Ps. 39:8,9). Listen to how He comes: He comes in a scroll of a book. David said: “You have numbered my wanderings... - are they not in Your book?” (Ps. 55:9). Paul says that “you are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men” (2 Cor. 3:2). John in the last chapter of the Gospel in the last verse says, “if we were to write about this in detail, then, I think, the world itself would not be able to contain the books that would be written. Amen".
Can I prophesy to you today? It still comes in scrolls of a book. There are four Gospels in this book, but there are other Gospels that are being written down. They will never enter the holy canon of Scripture, but they are as relevant as what Paul, Peter, Matthew or Mark wrote. Your testimony is as significant as what they gave us. Sometimes when people pick up to read this book, your book in particular, they will read it and they will see and they will be changed by it. It still comes in a scroll. If the whole earth were filled with books, there would not be enough to tell the whole story, because although He lived only thirty-three years on earth, His story did not last 33 years. It still adds up because He still experiences and still touches and still works among His people. When we come to church and begin to worship, pray, preach, or praise, we step out of the time in which we live and enter into His presence. You are not here. From the moment you walked into this building and your purpose was to be in His presence, it earthly ministry joined with the endless heavenly, your worship simply merged with the song that has never ceased since the moment God stepped out of eternity and decided to reveal Himself. At that moment the Angels began to sing, the heavens began to worship. All of our earthly worship simply merges and extends beyond the space-time continuum, beyond the explicable and determinable of physics, and our worship joins the heavenly worship. That is why Scripture says: “let him come Your kingdom; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).
When our earthly worship begins to imitate and connect with what is happening in heaven, something supernatural happens and it is bigger than us. That is why the blood that was shed two thousand years ago is still effective today, because the sinner comes to the waters to be baptized, to the altar to believe and confess. At this moment the sinner does not come to the altar to be in this hall, but he comes straight to that altar, which is at the foot of the Cross. And that Blood that was so important then has the same power to deliver and heal today, because time does not exist by itself. It was created by God, serving only God's temporary purposes. Time is a cylinder that God created to place a person there, to give him some time to live, but God lives beyond the limit of time and God from time to time allows us to experience the eternal. That's what worship is. Worship is a temporary experience of the eternal.
You thought you were losing your mind because people want to be saved just to get to heaven, to be saved just to avoid hell. And for some reason you don’t want to be saved “if only, only.” There's something in you that says there must be more. There must be a greater level and another dimension in God.
And where other Christians are just trying to make their way, you are trying to do something worthy for the glory and purpose that God has placed in you. And you struggle, thinking that you're going crazy because nobody understands you, and when you go to your bullshit prayer meetings; they pray to just check in and run from there, but you pray for the harvest to come. You pray for revival to come.
I am here to prophesy to you: You are not crazy, the Lord of the harvest is coming and He needs people who can tell when the harvest is ripe. I'm almost finished with my introduction.
You are the body of Christ. I will read Matthew. 13:44 for your edification. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid, and out of joy over it he goes and sells everything he has and buys that field.” This parable doesn't talk about salvation, because you don't buy salvation. Salvation is free, you don't pay for it. But this is not about salvation. This is Jesus who buys a whole field. Scripture says, “For you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God both in your body and in your soul, which are God’s” (1 Cor. 6:20). So it is Jesus who buys the whole field. He doesn't buy just the treasure, He buys the whole field. Understand that some people only want to be with you when you are doing great. Some people only want to pay attention to you when they know that you are completely liberated and all is well with you, when you are blessed and prosperous and all is well with you. But Jesus is not like that. He doesn't just buy the treasure, He buys the whole field, for He wants your whole life. Not only the part of your life that you're trying to fix, He wants the dirty part, He wants the part that no one else wants to mess with. That's why God, after He changed Jacob's name to Israel, He continues to say, “I am the God of Jacob.” Why does He continue to say, “I am the God of Jacob,” even though Jacob was his sinful name? Because God is not ashamed to be identified with you, even when you are “at your worst,” when others don’t want to sit next to you at church. This is good, because they will leave this place empty, so that when He enters the meeting, this place will be for Him. Because the value of the treasure is determined only by the value of the field. What God does in your life is great just because of the pain you went through. You are only allowed to reign with Him if you suffer. This word: Luke. 22:28-30.
So when He comes, He buys the whole field, not just the part of the field that has the treasure, because He wants all of you. He wants the part of you that your family doesn't want, He wants the part of you that almost got you excommunicated. For those of you who don't read the Bible, a righteous man falls seven times, but what makes him righteous is that he gets up every time. Sometimes the song we sing is theologically incorrect. But let me say something about singing. Singing does not have to be theological. Singing does not come from the head. Singing comes from the heart. And I know there are many songs that we sing that are theologically incorrect. For example: “Oh, I am a poor sinner...” or: “Do not leave me, my Savior!” I know that He will never leave me and will never forsake me, it’s just that some of you are God’s in-laws and you don’t understand us. Many of us know that we are saved, that God is with us, but when I reach out to touch Him, there is often no immediate evidence of His presence. And then I don’t sing theology, I sing how I feel, because when I sing simply how I feel, God is not looking at theological correctness, He is looking at the sincerity of my heart. Because it is not your intellectual sophistication that impresses God, it is not your theology and not your soterology, and not your chromosology, and not your Christology, and not your pneumatology, and not your eschatology that impresses God, but only your heart that impresses Him. But there is a problem in our ego, which makes us afraid of identifying with sinners. Something is terribly wrong with us. I know that some of you are God's fathers-in-law because you have never fallen. But do not deceive yourself, your lean face or clean clothes do not impress anyone, because every day we struggle with our flesh, every day we have problems. And if you say that you are not sinning, then you have already sinned, you have deceived yourself.
So He buys the whole field. When Judas betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, the Bible says he took the money to the high priest and said I don't need it. They refused to take it back because it was blood money. And it was Saturday. And they could not defile themselves. And when Judas hanged himself, they took the money and went and bought the potter's field.
The potter's field is where outsiders, non-Jews, were buried. Also, if the pots failed, if they were broken or useless, they were thrown into this field, which was a cemetery. They had to buy the potter's field because you and I were in that field. We were broken pots that no one could use. No one thought worthily of us, we were strangers, unworthy to be in the presence of God, but by the grace of God and the disobedience of one man, God still found favor and took his sin and turned it to our glory. He bought the field because we were there. Judas' disobedience brought us into a relationship with God. Unless the grain of wheat dies and is planted, it will not bear fruit. But if it falls into the ground and dies, it will produce many after its kind.
The first Adam was a living soul. But the Bible says he was from the earth; there was no life in him. Dirt has no life in it. Although it contains nutrients, which contain life, in itself it is not life. The seed contains life within itself, but it needs soil to transmit the inherent life that has always been within it.
So, Jesus is the Divine seed sown into the earth. And when it is sown in the ground, it will produce according to its kind. God had an Only Begotten Son. But He wanted many sons. And so He allowed One Son to die and be sown, so that when He rose again, God would have more than one son. One Son brought many sons to glory. And so God, having consciously given His Only Begotten Son, now receives many sons by allowing the Son to be sown. Now many of us are becoming like Him. When this seed produces after His kind, It gives us all the power, becomes like Him, like a spectrum in our lives to manifest the Divine nature, so that the likeness that was lost in the garden will now be restored. The image was never taken from us, only the likeness. Adam was created in the image and likeness of God. He lost the likeness, but not the image. That is why we are now children of God, but it has not yet been revealed what we will be. Because when He is revealed, we will be like Him, because we will see Him as He is. You will be like Him. This is how He regains our likeness. We receive back our likeness to Him. The image has always been with us, that's why the devil hates you.
Let's also say this, let me correct this theology too. Stop telling sinners that the devil loves them but hates you, the devil hates everyone. Have you heard, right? "He doesn't mess with you because you're out in the world." How connected! It is not only the saved who go through hell on earth. He hates everyone God's image. And God will never allow him to take the image just to continue to irritate him. It doesn't matter how low a person stoops in life. Doesn't matter. How low they will lower their dignity. Doesn't matter. No matter how much he can desecrate them, he will never be able to touch the image. So here they are, on a dose of drugs, unable to live without it, in sin, whatever it is, alcoholics, drunkards, whatever, addicts, whatever the problem is, in the midst of all this, the devil still hates them, because he cannot get rid of the image. Why? Because you will always be a spirit. No matter how much you can defile the body, he can never modify the spirit, which is the original breath that God breathed. It is his. And you will never take this away from Him. And no matter how much he fights with you and attacks you, this is the only thing he will never destroy.
Now, when we come to Christ, we learn to add likeness to the image, so that the image, which has never been defiled, has the value and likeness that belongs to Him, so that we grow into His likeness and do what He does.
The Gospel of John says that He: “was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, and the world did not know Him.” The disciples received the revelation that He was the Son of God, but did not know how to live at this level of sonship. They did not know how to live up to this mandate of the spiritual walk. Understand, the reality is that most of us know about Him, but there is no practical life associated with this knowledge. And it is not enough for the head to know about Him and not be able to sense what He left for your experience. And this is the point: “I could not speak to you, brethren, as spiritual, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ” (1 Cor. 3:1), says Paul, “for you were not yet in strength." God's church had a five-fold ministry, had all the gifts, all the gifts in action, and yet they were carnal. An abundance of spiritual gifts does not equal spirituality. It's not about gifts, it's about life. It's not about living a perfect life, it's about living a humble life. It is not a matter of a man who makes no mistakes, but a man who is obedient to Christ at all times. Whose perfection, and even submissive obedience in the fear of God, causes their base bodies to be changed into the image of His glorious Body.
Paul goes on to say in Hebrews that you were supposed to be teachers, but I need to teach you again. Why? You should eat meat because meat belongs to the mature ones, but you are on milk again! That's the problem. Jesus says to His disciples: “I still have many things to say to you; but now you cannot contain it” (John 16:12). The reality is that there are places with God that He has predestined for us to enter, but we will not be allowed in, we will not see them, we will not understand them, we will not accommodate them until we are ready to grow. The problem is not talent. The problem in the church is that we continue to seek gifts, constantly trying to outdo one another, instead of seeking to grow in Him to the full measure of the stature of Christ. Everybody wants to be a great evangelist, wants to be great.
But anointed service is a secondary consequence of personal commitment. The people who are used by God did not seek to be used by God, they sought Him, and they were overtaken by the One whom they hoped to comprehend. They tried to find God, and God found them. Oh, how could they find Him?
He was in the world, but they did not know Him. They received a revelation of Him, who He was, but they did not know what it meant to them. They knew that He was the Son of God, but they didn't know what it looked like that He revealed to them, how to grow into Him.
“When the days of His taking from the world drew near, He desired to go to Jerusalem; and he sent messengers before him; and they went and entered the Samaritan village; to prepare for Him; but they did not receive Him there, because He appeared to be traveling to Jerusalem. Seeing this, His disciples, James and John, said: Lord! Do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and destroy them, just as Elijah did? But He, turning to them, rebuked them and said: You do not know what kind of spirit you are; for the Son of Man came not to destroy the souls of men, but to save. And they went to another village” (Luke 9:51-54).
That's what I'm getting at. Luke 9:51-54 says that His disciples came to a Samaritan village to say that Jesus is coming into the city, look, Jesus is preparing to preach. But they did not want Him to enter, “because He appeared to be traveling to Jerusalem.” The disciples say: “Lord! Do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and destroy them, just as Elijah did?” What they said sounds like some of us. We continue to think that our job is to protect God, as if God cannot protect Himself. We still act like the Old Testament prophets, not like the New Testament sons. We wanted to call down fire from heaven instead of realizing that these things were just meant to be. Instead of choosing the path of sonship, instead of choosing the path of obedience, submission, we continue to choose the path that brings death into our lives. For example, Peter’s confession: “You are the Son of the living God!” As Jesus goes on to say what He must endure, Peter says only through my dead body. Tell them to just try and deal with me. Jesus tells Peter that you: “think not about the things of God, but about the things of men” (Matthew 16:23). In other words, “You don’t understand this; you move according to the flesh, and not as the Spirit of God moves.” We are cursed in this generation because the church continues to deal with things according to the flesh and not the way Christ wants to deal with them.
You can brew wine all day long for the worldly community, people don’t turn because we don’t have what they crave. There are no attributes of the Kingdom worth converting. You can't say, "Repent!" if you can't finish the sentence. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2).
We have crowds of people for whom repentance is preached, but there is no personification of the kingdom. People will not come until they see the kingdom. And it is not our ability to bring them, but our ability to represent God's Kingdom that will cause people to repent. If there is no repentance, then there is no kingdom. Where the kingdom of God is personified, people will repent and begin to come.
You need to understand that this is a lonely place when you yearn for more high level in the things of God. It's a lonely place where you start to say: there must be something more. This is a place of loneliness, when you strive more for the truth than for preaching, the whole value of which is self-satisfaction. It is a lonely place where you begin to long to preach, not for the sake of preaching, but you long to preach so that the truth may be revealed and people may be changed. It is a lonely place and there will be very few people with whom you can sit down and enjoy covenant relationships. Who doesn't care what shoes you wear, what car you drive, what house you live in, and how much money they pay you to preach (In the West, this is of paramount importance. Editor's note). But people who say, I do it because I have the authority to do it. I preach not because it makes an impression, but because I have something to say. This is a secondary result of my clinging to God. I haven't been looking to preach, to prophesy, to be an evangelist, none of that, but I'm hungry for Him.
We have created a generation of people in the churches who are hungry for anything but Him. We count people rather than thirst for God. This is a lonely place. Jesus says there are thirtyfold spheres. When you sow a seed, it brings forth some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, some a hundredfold. The dimension in God to whom you strive will bring something else at thirty, and you can stop there if you want. The outside courtyard is amazing if you've never been there. But after you have sat in the outer court for thirty years, you should begin to wonder what is there in the sanctuary? After spending twenty years in the sanctuary, you might wonder what happens in the Holy of Holies? The problem with the church is that it's so enthused about what's going on in the outer court that we don't even think about the inner court, and if you start saying that you want to know what's going on out there, they'll start saying there's something wrong with you. this is not it, you are digging too deep, such deep revelations are not required. And you don't have to be so deep, keep it simple.
Tell me one thing Jesus said that was simple. Jesus was one of deepest people known to me. There is nothing simple about what He said, if you are not willing to deny your mother, daughter or sister, you are not fit for My kingdom. If you want to live there with Me, you will need to lose them. I have come to bring a sword, I have come to turn you against your family. What's so simple? Whoever does not eat My flesh and drink My blood will have no part in Me. What's so simple? There is nothing simple about what He said.
The problem is that we had simple, narrow-minded preachers who were afraid to call to move to deeper levels, because they themselves were afraid to go to those places. That's how they treated us like simpletons, telling us that we didn't have to dig deep.
How many of you have received the Holy Spirit? How many of you speak in tongues as the Spirit gives utterance? Let me say something about the Holy Spirit. He floats above the abyss, above the depths of the water. It doesn't hover over shallow puddles, it only hovers over deep oceans. If you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you are already deep. You are deep enough to contain God Himself. If you can accommodate God, as Paul says: “and understand the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:19). You are not small if you can be filled with the fullness of God.
God's decree(that's what He expects from us) for us to reach another level. We can't stay where we are. God spoke to me tonight in my room. He spoke these words to me so clearly: “Until My people fully understand who they are, until they fully understand who they are, they will always be subject to the forces of the enemy, they cannot free themselves from his frenzied attack, until they regain understanding your personality in Me."
That the devil attacked in the garden was an area of self-awareness of the first people. And the serpent said to the woman: “On the day that you eat of them, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods.” They were already the image and likeness of God, they had the breath of life from Him. He attacked only what was already theirs: “And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female he created them” “and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” Let me tell you this because it will set you free. The devil is allowed to attack and sow doubt only in what God has already established in the spiritual realms.
Now I come to the Lord of the harvest, that's where we're going. “Therefore, brothers, be patient until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, and for it he endures long, until he receives the early and the latter rain” (James 5:7). What is He waiting for? He is waiting for the precious fruit of the earth. Mark 4:28,29 says, “For the earth itself produces first a green plant, then an ear, then a full grain in the ear. When the fruit is ripe, he immediately sends in the sickle, because the harvest has come.” First the greens, then the ear, then the grain in the ear. The gentleman does not expect greenery. We taught and taught, sincerely believing that the harvest is when souls come into the Kingdom in large quantities. This is not a harvest. Harvest is not souls. Do you know a farmer who, at the moment when the greenery comes through, calls the workers and says: it’s time to reap? He does not reap the sprouts of greenery, he continues to watch and he continues to wait for the field to begin to bear fruit. He doesn't go out to reap green grass. He is waiting for a ripe harvest. The harvest is not new souls. Harvest is a mature church. He is not waiting for the coming of many souls. He is waiting for someone who has been here for a long time, who has stopped playing childishly and has grown into Him. He is tired of you pretending to be a child, talking like a child and living like a child. He is waiting for you to grow into Him, putting aside your childish things. So why does the Lord of the Harvest come? He looks around a field where the harvest is ripe, but there are few workers who are able to discern the ripe field, few workers who are ready to recognize the harvest. He's not looking for quantity, He's looking for fruit.
He wants to see those who walk in spiritual maturity, who walk in spiritual authority. Not just the masses, He wants those who are fully grown, who have put aside childishness and are becoming like Him. That's the point. The point is that it is time to grow up, stop playing with toys and come to spiritual maturity. The harvest is ripe, there are people who are leaving places of spiritual immaturity. It's disgusting to see a mother spoon-feeding a sixteen-year-old child. And he needs to grind the meat because he does not have the ability to chew and digest it. He has to mix it with Baby formula for his 16-year-old boy, thirty-year-old husband. It is not right. But the baby can add solid food to formula and he grows. You give the baby meat, and although he is not able to eat it, he will suck every drop from it. Is not it? And we are so scared: oh, what about the babies? We don’t want to offend, we don’t want to go into depths for the sake of babies, they say, they won’t understand it. The reality is that it is the new ears that have the ability to hear. And those of us who have been in the faith for a long time and think that we already know everything... Attacks on the ministry never come from babies, they always come from those who have been with us for a long time and think that they have taken a key place in the market. Those who think they understand God who is beyond understanding and who think they can...
In the Lord, restoration is when you lose something. Restoration is when God gives you back more than you lost. Exactly when God. He lost the first Adam, but by restoring, he received a whole garden. The first Adam died by sinning in the garden, the last Adam was buried and resurrected in the garden. The first Adam sinned on a tree, the last Adam atoned for the sin of the whole world on a tree. The first Adam produced thorns; the last Adam was given a crown of thorns. The first Adam was a thief, the last Adam was crucified among thieves. The first Adam brought death, the last Adam brought life. The first Adam gave a bride, the last Adam marries the bride. The first Adam coveted his wife and envied her, the last Adam covers his wife. You see, by losing the old, we are restored and receive back God's. We were lost, but we came as babies. I always ask God: “There was a tree of life in the garden, why didn’t they eat from it?” God spoke to me: “Because they were not mature enough to eat from this garden. They weren't mature enough to recognize the tree." Only adults can handle the tree of life. The unripe eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. How do you know it's a baby? He goes everywhere and says: this is bad, and this is good. This is the tree of knowledge and you are a baby when you make such decisions, but those who eat from the tree of life, they say: “God, in Him I live and move. My whole nature is in Him.”
I always ask the question, why did Adam eat from the tree? Why didn’t he tell Eve: “Honey, you’re crazy! Something is wrong with you, how could you eat this? You're caught! But Adam knew: Eve is his wife, he is responsible for her, therefore, when God comes, He will kill her, but I am her husband, which means my task is to protect her: so he told her: dear, give me this fruit here! He ate from him because he said: if God comes for you and wants to kill you, it will only be through my corpse. I am your husband, and although I love God, I will protect you. But if the first Adam could do this. What then with the last Adam? Jesus looked at the bride - the Church, He saw our sin, He saw our mistakes and said: I love her and give Myself as a sacrifice for her. “But He was wounded for our sins and tormented for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed” (Isa. 53:5).
There is an area in which we are growing. Why? I feel the pain of growing up. You are growing up, there is no more infancy. The church wants to preach the depths of God, but we can't, because every week we have to teach everyone how to tithe, every week we have to teach how to get along with a neighbor, every week we have to teach how not to gossip. We teach basic life skills in church instead of deep truths. We have to teach many people how to reduce their loans, teach them how to open savings accounts, teach them how to love their wife, teach them how to be a good father, but there are deep things in us that we want to preach, but we cannot, because you so busy playing with cars and dolls. But, Lord, do not leave us in this place! Raise us up, let us grow up! Raise us! The harvest is ripe! Pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers who discern! It is time for us as a church to come to a place of spiritual maturation. Let the church know, let us preachers know that you are no longer satisfied with milk, you want meat, you demand meat, you need meat.
The Bible says that when Jairus' daughter died, when she was already dead, Jesus came to her, and the Bible says He laid His hand on her, and she was healed. Everyone else said she was dead, but He said she was not dead, but sleeping. I don't care what the world says, I don't care what the Christian magazine says, I don't care what the Christian council says, the reality is that we may look dead, but God says the church is not dead, it's just sleeping . “I am getting ready to lay My hand on her, and she will get well.” And the Bible says when Jairus' daughter stood up, He commanded that she be fed. Hear me, when the church rises, this time it won't expect milk. When she rises from this grave, when she rises from this bed, she will want meat, she will want the deep things of God, she will want the great things of God. The harvest is ripe! This is for adults and adults only.
I want to be an adult, that's what I want! I'm tired of playing church, I know why I'm here. God is challenging me to reach another level. You are not crazy, you are exactly where God wants you to be! There must be a different level, there must be a different sphere, there must be a different dimension! He is planting a seed in you right now. If you sow an apple, you get an apple. He planted Jesus in your bodies. Some pastors have been waiting for churches to grow quickly, but God says: I don't send just anyone. “And God appointed others in the Church, firstly apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers” (1 Cor. 12:28); None of these ministries are for non-believers; neither a prophet, nor a pastor, nor a teacher - they all belong to believers. The reason we need to do soul winning events and altar calls is because the church members are not doing their job. All you did was invite someone. An invitation is not a service. Anyone can invite someone, but only a mature person shares his life and allows the Divine exchange to take place. By the time we preach, they should already be in the kingdom, and we should only confirm what has already been done. But we cannot do this because many of us continue to dwell in a place of immaturity. Ps. 132: “How good and how pleasant it is for brothers to live together! It is like precious oil flowing down onto the beard.” The anointing does not belong to babies, it belongs to those who can grow a beard. You must grow if you want to receive the anointing.
I was reading the label on a bottle of chlorine one day and it said, “Dangerous in the hands of children!” And I thought about all the wonderful things that chlorine does: it whitens, it cleans, it disinfects, and no matter how wonderful this product is, it is dangerous in the hands of children. No matter how wonderful the anointing and presence of the Holy Spirit is. God did not pour out the Holy Spirit on Azusa Street to redefine the Holy Spirit, because He doesn't need to be redefined. God poured Him out that He might refresh us, not that we should bring forth new denominations by Him, but that fire might touch those who were dead and withered. Instead, we took this precious gift and shared it over and over again for stupid and unimportant reasons. And God says today, “I am pouring out the Holy Spirit on this generation anew, but this time I am not giving it to the children. I pour It out on those who have matured. Not on those who want to bring down fire, but on those who want to eat from the Tree of Life. Some of you are so desperate; you come year after year, first to one conference, then to another. There's something in you that says there must be something greater in God than my level, there must be a great anointing, and you're frustrated because you know you should be somewhere else, you know you must be in another sphere, and you just can’t enter there. But today the Holy Spirit speaks in this place. Heaven and earth are united together, the earth so that it turns out to be a mirror image of what is already happening in heaven. And people would be able to see the glory of God as never before, and they would be changed “from glory to glory.”
Whoever owns the harvest, He does not reap the soul, He reaps those who produce the fruit. He reaps not those who practice the gifts, but those who bear fruit.
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