The Harvest
I hear the Lord saying that the time all the earth has waited for, the season of harvest, is at hand. He is showing me our apple tree in the backyard. I hear Him saying that the time is like my apples, it ripens in a way that happens continually and gradually. The intensity of the ripeness would startle someone not from our time, but we have day by day eased into it and have stopped watching closely.
All fall God kept directing my attention to our apple tree. It was LOADED with apples this year. I hadn’t sprayed the tree or really pruned it correctly, because it had never really produced apples of any quality before. In the 5 years we have lived in our house, it only produced apples three times, and they were small and mostly inedible. This year, it was loaded with fruit. Many of the apples were large and pristine…I ate several of them, and Sam even made a dessert with some of them. Many of them went to waste, simply because I never really made a plan to harvest them.
Many are tired of watching. They don’t believe the promise will really come. Harold Campings, televangelist predictions of world events matching the Bible “symbolically”, Y2k, Mayan “doom” and every other false cataclysmic event…none of which were born out of a plain matter-of-fact reading of the Bible…have numbed many to the fact that a simple “Bible says what it means and means what it says” approach to prophecy reveals that many of the significant prophetic events marking the beginning of the Tribulation are happening right before our eyes. Failed false harvest times have left us woefully unprepared.
I hear the Lord saying the time is like those apples in my back yard. Beginning in early fall, I started watching for apples I might be able to eat. I noticed something unusual was happening with our tree in early summer, and that got my attention. Right now what God is doing actually has many people’s “attention.” They are waiting to see.
I had no real “harvest plan.” I was waiting to see what might happen with the apples. Because the tree had my attention, once a week, when I would mow the lawn, I would look in the tree and see a little red and think I had found a ripe apple, and then when I got close to the apple, I would see it was only red in one area, and the other side was green. Some apples were starting to appear ripe, but none of them were quite there yet. Frustrated, I would look all over the tree and not see any totally ripe apples, and then I would just go back to my usual routine and forget about the tree. The next week, when I would go to mow the lawn, I would find several totally ripe apples on the ground. They must have fallen the day after I searched the tree, because they had sat on the ground long enough to no longer be good to eat. It was actually very frustrating, because it seemed like I never timed it just right to find good apples ready to pick, they were either partially ripe and on the tree, or perfectly ripe and ruined on the ground. Hundreds of apples went out with the yard waste because I didn’t watch the tree closely enough to really get the harvest that was available. I had no harvest plan, because that tree had never really given me a reason to make one!
God is saying that we are in the time coming into the harvest right now. The fruit…and the time…is ripening by the day. First fruits are already available.
Many people are hearing the alarms, seeing the signs, and getting a little acquainted with what the Bible says about this time. Some are slowly starting to wake up to the fact that this is a unique time in history, but they don’t see themselves as harvesters. They don’t know the harvest plan. BUT, there is a harvest plan we are supposed to know. God has been telling of the harvest for 1,000’s of years!
The Lord says that every generation of His people…those that were truly His….those who longed for His presence on Earth, have longed to see THIS generation. BUT, many of those that claim to be His now are distracted by their “lives.” They don’t know His specific plan, they don’t care to watch, and they aren’t full time into harvest work. God is not pleased with this…at all. To not drop everything and find out agree with His harvest plan…to put off committing to understand what God is doing right now… is to reject His selection of you to live in the time of his great harvest. It really is.
The Lord says many of His people are quietly making this choice. They are not rebellious to His plans, but they also are not walking in zeal and excitement for His plans. Most haven’t even taken the time to learn His plan. They are mostly fearful about missing out on what the rest of the world is supposedly enjoying. They don’t watch like they need to in order to actually take in the harvest available to them. The Lord is heartbroken that many will cry tears of regret on the day He appears because so much fruit fell to the ground even though it could have been harvested.
Hebrews 12:17 For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.
Hebrews 12:25-29 See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, (26) whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, "YET ONCE MORE I SHAKE NOT ONLY THE EARTH, BUT ALSO HEAVEN." (27) Now this, "YET ONCE MORE," indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. (28) Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. (29) For our God is a consuming fire.
God is speaking. There is MUCH to do in this hour. There is fruit in your family, fruit on your street, fruit in your Church…yes even in your Church there is much to harvest. Fruit at the pharmacy, and the gas station. Fruit at work and at your children’s school. Members of Jesus’ eternal family that He paid everything for and entrusted US to gather up are waiting to be brought in, ACCORDING TO HIS VERY SPECIFIC PLAN.
This is the fruit of the harvest plan. None of it looks totally ripe today, but, unless we know and make the plan our full time obsession, the next day it will have fallen to the ground. This is supposed to be our full time job. Once a week checking the tree isn’t enough. God wants wholehearted harvest workers that know His harvest plan.
God’s harvest plan IS the Joel 2 Harvest plan. It is the ONLY plan He has and it has never changed. Every Christian needs to KNOW Joel 2. Backwards and forwards. It follows a very specific, seven part order. This is the work plan for the harvest. Peter (and I’ll bet the rest of the disciples) KNEW IT BY HEART (he quotes it “on the fly” in Acts 2):
1. trouble appears on the horizon,
2. God’s people come together in “one accord,”
3. God answers by protecting their land,
4. trouble touches the places that don’t do the plan in devastating ways,
5. God pours out His spirit on those in agreement with Him,
6. signs and wonders draw attention to those in agreement with God, and
7. everyone who calls on the name of the Lord is saved.
This IS the work plan for the great commission. The Great commission was “commissioned” to Jesus’ Bride. He isn’t going to wave His hand and do it. Jesus isn’t going to do what He told His Bride to do. He wants US to do it. This is what started with the gathering in one accord in the upper room in Acts 2, 3,000 people got saved on day 1 of implementing the plan. Since then the Bride has gotten SEVERELY distracted and the plan has looked, off and on, like it was completely abandoned! BUT, the Bride is in the time where God is going to use anyone who will agree with Him to finish the plan. Those who remain too distracted to press into it will likely fall away as offense mounts.
The time is up. But the Joel 2 harvest plan is still the ONLY harvest plan there is. Right now, God’s people are starting to gather in one accord. Mostly in small ways. Most of the people gathering don’t even know why they are gathering. Night and day prayer is a “popular curiosity” right now. The newness will not last. God wants His people to search it out…figure it out…nail it down. It isn’t enough for someone to tell you what the Bible says about this time, you must invest the time to see it yourself…and then begin to teach it yourself to the people around you.
For 6,000 years the earth has groaned to see the next 10.
It is time to put away the distractions, make time to put up with the long explanations, sit down with the Chapters and concepts in the Bible that have continued to nag at you and elude you (those are the ones God wants you to search out) and get ready. It is time to figure out what to look for and start watching the news. Most Christians have turned off the news! This is because they are already starting to be offended by the initial pangs of what God is allowing to touch the earth. This is promised, by Jesus, to get MUCH worse. Rather than pray into what we are seeing, we would prefer to just stop seeing it. But that is a recipe for failure. How can you pray if you don’t watch?! How can you watch if you don’t know the harvest plan?! If you don’t watch, you will miss the immediate time that the grain ripens:
Mark 4:23-29 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear." (24) Then He said to them, "Take heed what you hear. With the same measure you use, it will be measured to you; and to you who hear, more will be given. (25) For whoever has, to him more will be given; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him." (26) And He said, "The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, (27) and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. (28) For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head. (29) But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come."
It is time to make 1. Knowing the plan, 2. Watching, and 3. Praying in one accord with the rest of the Bride your main life priority. It really is. If you don’t, you will miss the harvest. It is that simple.
Mark 13:28-37 "Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender, and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. (29) So you also, when you see these things happening, know that it is near—at the doors! (30) Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. (31) Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. (32) "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. (33) Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is. (34) It is like a man going to a far country, who left his house and gave authority to his servants, and to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch. (35) Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming—in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning— (36) lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. (37) And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!"
All fall God kept directing my attention to our apple tree. It was LOADED with apples this year. I hadn’t sprayed the tree or really pruned it correctly, because it had never really produced apples of any quality before. In the 5 years we have lived in our house, it only produced apples three times, and they were small and mostly inedible. This year, it was loaded with fruit. Many of the apples were large and pristine…I ate several of them, and Sam even made a dessert with some of them. Many of them went to waste, simply because I never really made a plan to harvest them.
Many are tired of watching. They don’t believe the promise will really come. Harold Campings, televangelist predictions of world events matching the Bible “symbolically”, Y2k, Mayan “doom” and every other false cataclysmic event…none of which were born out of a plain matter-of-fact reading of the Bible…have numbed many to the fact that a simple “Bible says what it means and means what it says” approach to prophecy reveals that many of the significant prophetic events marking the beginning of the Tribulation are happening right before our eyes. Failed false harvest times have left us woefully unprepared.
I hear the Lord saying the time is like those apples in my back yard. Beginning in early fall, I started watching for apples I might be able to eat. I noticed something unusual was happening with our tree in early summer, and that got my attention. Right now what God is doing actually has many people’s “attention.” They are waiting to see.
I had no real “harvest plan.” I was waiting to see what might happen with the apples. Because the tree had my attention, once a week, when I would mow the lawn, I would look in the tree and see a little red and think I had found a ripe apple, and then when I got close to the apple, I would see it was only red in one area, and the other side was green. Some apples were starting to appear ripe, but none of them were quite there yet. Frustrated, I would look all over the tree and not see any totally ripe apples, and then I would just go back to my usual routine and forget about the tree. The next week, when I would go to mow the lawn, I would find several totally ripe apples on the ground. They must have fallen the day after I searched the tree, because they had sat on the ground long enough to no longer be good to eat. It was actually very frustrating, because it seemed like I never timed it just right to find good apples ready to pick, they were either partially ripe and on the tree, or perfectly ripe and ruined on the ground. Hundreds of apples went out with the yard waste because I didn’t watch the tree closely enough to really get the harvest that was available. I had no harvest plan, because that tree had never really given me a reason to make one!
God is saying that we are in the time coming into the harvest right now. The fruit…and the time…is ripening by the day. First fruits are already available.
Many people are hearing the alarms, seeing the signs, and getting a little acquainted with what the Bible says about this time. Some are slowly starting to wake up to the fact that this is a unique time in history, but they don’t see themselves as harvesters. They don’t know the harvest plan. BUT, there is a harvest plan we are supposed to know. God has been telling of the harvest for 1,000’s of years!
The Lord says that every generation of His people…those that were truly His….those who longed for His presence on Earth, have longed to see THIS generation. BUT, many of those that claim to be His now are distracted by their “lives.” They don’t know His specific plan, they don’t care to watch, and they aren’t full time into harvest work. God is not pleased with this…at all. To not drop everything and find out agree with His harvest plan…to put off committing to understand what God is doing right now… is to reject His selection of you to live in the time of his great harvest. It really is.
The Lord says many of His people are quietly making this choice. They are not rebellious to His plans, but they also are not walking in zeal and excitement for His plans. Most haven’t even taken the time to learn His plan. They are mostly fearful about missing out on what the rest of the world is supposedly enjoying. They don’t watch like they need to in order to actually take in the harvest available to them. The Lord is heartbroken that many will cry tears of regret on the day He appears because so much fruit fell to the ground even though it could have been harvested.
Hebrews 12:17 For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.
Hebrews 12:25-29 See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, (26) whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, "YET ONCE MORE I SHAKE NOT ONLY THE EARTH, BUT ALSO HEAVEN." (27) Now this, "YET ONCE MORE," indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. (28) Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. (29) For our God is a consuming fire.
God is speaking. There is MUCH to do in this hour. There is fruit in your family, fruit on your street, fruit in your Church…yes even in your Church there is much to harvest. Fruit at the pharmacy, and the gas station. Fruit at work and at your children’s school. Members of Jesus’ eternal family that He paid everything for and entrusted US to gather up are waiting to be brought in, ACCORDING TO HIS VERY SPECIFIC PLAN.
This is the fruit of the harvest plan. None of it looks totally ripe today, but, unless we know and make the plan our full time obsession, the next day it will have fallen to the ground. This is supposed to be our full time job. Once a week checking the tree isn’t enough. God wants wholehearted harvest workers that know His harvest plan.
God’s harvest plan IS the Joel 2 Harvest plan. It is the ONLY plan He has and it has never changed. Every Christian needs to KNOW Joel 2. Backwards and forwards. It follows a very specific, seven part order. This is the work plan for the harvest. Peter (and I’ll bet the rest of the disciples) KNEW IT BY HEART (he quotes it “on the fly” in Acts 2):
1. trouble appears on the horizon,
2. God’s people come together in “one accord,”
3. God answers by protecting their land,
4. trouble touches the places that don’t do the plan in devastating ways,
5. God pours out His spirit on those in agreement with Him,
6. signs and wonders draw attention to those in agreement with God, and
7. everyone who calls on the name of the Lord is saved.
This IS the work plan for the great commission. The Great commission was “commissioned” to Jesus’ Bride. He isn’t going to wave His hand and do it. Jesus isn’t going to do what He told His Bride to do. He wants US to do it. This is what started with the gathering in one accord in the upper room in Acts 2, 3,000 people got saved on day 1 of implementing the plan. Since then the Bride has gotten SEVERELY distracted and the plan has looked, off and on, like it was completely abandoned! BUT, the Bride is in the time where God is going to use anyone who will agree with Him to finish the plan. Those who remain too distracted to press into it will likely fall away as offense mounts.
The time is up. But the Joel 2 harvest plan is still the ONLY harvest plan there is. Right now, God’s people are starting to gather in one accord. Mostly in small ways. Most of the people gathering don’t even know why they are gathering. Night and day prayer is a “popular curiosity” right now. The newness will not last. God wants His people to search it out…figure it out…nail it down. It isn’t enough for someone to tell you what the Bible says about this time, you must invest the time to see it yourself…and then begin to teach it yourself to the people around you.
For 6,000 years the earth has groaned to see the next 10.
It is time to put away the distractions, make time to put up with the long explanations, sit down with the Chapters and concepts in the Bible that have continued to nag at you and elude you (those are the ones God wants you to search out) and get ready. It is time to figure out what to look for and start watching the news. Most Christians have turned off the news! This is because they are already starting to be offended by the initial pangs of what God is allowing to touch the earth. This is promised, by Jesus, to get MUCH worse. Rather than pray into what we are seeing, we would prefer to just stop seeing it. But that is a recipe for failure. How can you pray if you don’t watch?! How can you watch if you don’t know the harvest plan?! If you don’t watch, you will miss the immediate time that the grain ripens:
Mark 4:23-29 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear." (24) Then He said to them, "Take heed what you hear. With the same measure you use, it will be measured to you; and to you who hear, more will be given. (25) For whoever has, to him more will be given; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him." (26) And He said, "The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, (27) and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. (28) For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head. (29) But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come."
It is time to make 1. Knowing the plan, 2. Watching, and 3. Praying in one accord with the rest of the Bride your main life priority. It really is. If you don’t, you will miss the harvest. It is that simple.
Mark 13:28-37 "Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender, and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. (29) So you also, when you see these things happening, know that it is near—at the doors! (30) Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. (31) Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. (32) "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. (33) Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is. (34) It is like a man going to a far country, who left his house and gave authority to his servants, and to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch. (35) Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming—in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning— (36) lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. (37) And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!"
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