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that the main religions are Catholicism
and Protestantism. is the charismatic movement,
more than anything. The vast majority of the churches
that are in Santa Marta, apart from Catholicism, is what they
call the evangelicals. So, that's going to be one of
the biggest, I guess, challenges. People have asked that question
before, what's going to be your biggest challenge getting to Columbia?
Well, I'd say it's going to be convincing people that they're
actually lost. because that charismatic movement has such a hold on people.
And because of an experience or because they got miraculously
healed or something like that, it's their guarantee that they're
going to heaven. And we've got to show them what the Bible says
and show them the truth. So please be in prayer for us as we get
ready to go to Columbia. Lord willing, we would love to
be the whole family to be able to be there in July. So it's
just a couple months away and it's a big goal. We're getting
close to the end of our deputation as far as support. We're, I'd say, in the 90s somewhere
right now. And we've got a few churches
that we've been to, just haven't had any confirmation from. So
we're just kind of waiting to see what the Lord does there.
And we have that plan and that hope that we'll be there. in
July. So thank you for your prayers. Thank you for having us out tonight.
We're going to go into the message this evening. We're going to
take our Bibles and go to Mark chapter number 4. Now hearing you all having a car
show on June 7th, that kind of makes me want to stick around
for a little bit. but unfortunately won't be able to. Mark chapter number four. And we may be visiting a few
different passages of scripture tonight. So on a couple of occasions, I might
just go ahead and read it before you get there, depending on how
our time is going. And that's if I find it before
you do. So, you know, that all depends. But Mark chapter number
4, and we're going to start with verse number 26 this evening.
The Bible says, And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as
if a man should cast seed into the ground, and should sleep,
and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up,
he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth
fruit of herself, first the blade, then the ear, after that the
full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought
forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest
is come." And we're going to touch on tonight, this title
would be The Harvest. So let's go ahead and pray and
ask the Lord's blessing tonight. Father, we thank you for what
you've done in our hearts and lives. We thank you, Father,
for teaching us this morning from your Word. And we pray,
dear Lord, that tonight you would give the power of your Holy Spirit,
an understanding of your word, that the things that are said
tonight would be clear, and only what is your will, Father, for
your people, that you'd take me out of the way, Lord, and
just be able to use your message tonight to speak to your people
in your way. We thank you, Father, for all
that you have done and all that you will do. Be glorified this
evening, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Here in this passage of scripture,
we see the idea of somebody going, sowing the seed, and not knowing
how, but the seed comes up. I mean, we can control a lot
of things whenever we have a crop. We can control the time of planting. We can control how much water.
We can control several different aspects of everything. We can
make sure that there's no weeds getting in the way of the plant
to grow. We can put down fertilizer. I mean, there's all sorts of
things that we can control. But you know what we cannot control?
Is how that plant, or that seed, that plant starts to sprout and
come up. And from that, push through the
dirt, and then grow to its full potential and produce the fruit. We can't control that part, but
we can control the harvest. We can control the planting.
We can control the watering. That's what we can see through
this passage is we have a harvest coming up and if we want to get
to that harvest, there's gotta be somebody planting, planting
seeds. There's gotta be somebody watering
that seed. There's gotta be somebody that's
pulling the weeds from around that seed. There's gotta be somebody
that's out there ready to stick the sickle in and harvest the
fruit. Until it's all done, we can't
control everything. You know something? We can't
control the lives of the people that we try to reach to. Have
you ever knocked on a door of somebody's house and you start
talking to them and it's almost as though they were expecting
you to be there? And within just a couple of minutes
of presenting the gospel, they're ready to get saved at that moment?
And you're like, wow, that was easy. No, they were just at the
point of the harvest. They had been planted and watered
before. You don't know what the Lord's
already done in the life of that person before you knocked on
their door. You have no idea how God has already done something
through them or to them and they are ready to get saved. But then
you might go to somebody and you might knock on their door
and you might tell them about Jesus Christ and it looks like
they weren't paying a single bit of attention to you the whole
time. And then it may not be until years later. that they
come to Christ and they say, yes, I remember that one person
that came by years and years ago and they told me about Christ. I wasn't interested then, but
after all these years the Lord finally got a hold of my heart
and He showed me that what He said all those years ago was
100% truth and I needed Christ. and they got saved later. You
don't have any idea what everybody's been through before you knock
on that door, or you talk to that person on the street, or
wherever it is that you meet them, if it's at work. You know,
sometimes you think you know the workers that you work with
every day. You have no idea some of the private things that may
be going on in their life, and they might be ready to come to
Christ. You don't know until you start
telling them about Jesus. You give them that gospel. You
talk to them about Christ. And they could be ready at that
instant to come to the Lord and accept Christ as their Savior.
Or it could be that you work on it. There was a lady in our
church down in Mexico that she would work and talk to her husband
and try to win her husband. And she spent years praying for
her husband to get saved. And it wasn't until one night
whenever he hit rock bottom, me and another pastor went over
to his house and he was in kind of some trouble even with the
cartels and stuff. And he had hit as low as he could
go before he finally realized that he needed Christ as his
Savior. We talked with him and he was ready at that time. And
this was after years of people praying for him. The Lord works
in people's hearts. We do not understand how that
seed grows. But what is our responsibility?
It's to sow that seed. We've got to get the seed out
there. We've got to do our part. And if it's not planting the
seed, it's watering. It's reminding them, telling
them, maybe pulling a few weeds. Hold on a second. Remember what
I told you about Jesus Christ? This right here is not going
to help you any at all. That pack of cigarettes is not gonna
do great for your life. As a matter of fact, it might
bring you to death earlier. I mean, think about what could
happen if you were to die because of lung cancer tonight from smoking
that thing. Where would you be? You know,
pull a couple of weeds out from around that. See, let it get
to people's hearts. And you don't know what kind
of an influence you might be, but you are influential in the
harvest of that person's life. And that brings me to tonight's
goal. We're looking at the harvest
and there's three things I wanna look at tonight in relation to
the harvest. Number one, let's go to Matthew
chapter nine and we're gonna look at the problem of the harvest. Matthew chapter number nine and we're gonna look in verse
number 37 and 38. The Bible says, Then saith he
unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers
are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of
the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest. Then if you go over to Luke chapter
number 10, And you'll find that same thing repeated over here
in Luke chapter 10 verse 2. And this is right before he sends
out the disciples two by two to go and preach the gospel. So we have here this idea or
this understanding that there is a problem in the harvest.
And that problem is there's not enough laborers. And it's becoming
more and more obvious in our day and age as you look around
how many of us have seen on Facebook somebody posting such and such
Baptist church is looking for a pastor. And it could be anywhere
from California to Maine. There are churches looking for
pastors all across the United States right now. Many of them
have closed their doors because they cannot find a pastor. Because
the people have been coming fewer and fewer inside the church until
it just disappears. I mean, we're seeing that kind
of thing all over the United States today. And we haven't
even got onto the foreign field yet. I mean, we're talking about
a lack of people interested in serving God. And you know something? It takes something to serve God
for the right reasons. You know what a lot of pastors
have told me whenever they mention how they look for like an assistant
pastor or these other churches that are looking for pastors.
What's one of the main things? Well, the church can't give you
much money. So what happens? All of these
young guys coming out of college, they think that they're somebody.
They've got a college degree and they know something about
the Bible. Of course, they've never pastored a day in their
life. That's a whole different ballgame than just knowing something
about the Bible. And they get out there and they're
like, oh yeah, well, what's the first question they ask the church?
How much are you gonna pay me? To me, right there, they've just
completely and totally thrown out the window whatever years
of college that they've ever had. Because they've done forgot
the basis of what serving God is. And it has nothing to do
with money. And everything to do with the
souls of the people that you're trying to reach. You know something? Money is not the most important
thing. You know, I get upset whenever
I hear about people who want to do ministry, but they're like,
well, how much is my budget to be able to spend on the, it's
like, how much do you have? That's my first thought, of course.
I don't say that because I could get myself in trouble, you know,
open mouth, insert foot. But, you know, a lot of that,
it's like, well, how much are you willing to give to God? And
I'm not talking about the offering plate, I'm talking about of yourself. I want to serve the Lord, but
I mean, you know, what am I going to get out of it? Well, you're
on the wrong foot already. You know, what are you going
to give to God and He'll take care of the rest of it. Are you
willing to give your life, your time, your energies into serving
God? And this ministry is what I am
going to do for the Lord. I'll bring in kids so that they
can come to Sunday school. I'll do this, I'll do that. You
know something? That's what the Lord needs, is
laborers who are willing to do something out in the field. And it doesn't matter that the
field is right here or in a foreign country. the Lord needs laborers
in the field. Let's kind of go over a couple
of statistics here just because I can. We have fewer missionaries
on the field than ever before and the average age of the missionaries
on the field, missionaries on the field right now, the average
age is 65 years old. Now if you think about that,
And how many years is it going to take before the vast majority
of those missionaries are no longer in their places on the
foreign field? And who's coming up behind to
take up the reins? I mean, we've got to get that
number a little bit lower, don't you think? And how are we going
to do that? We've got to flood young people
ready to serve the Lord on a foreign country. You know something?
A lot of people are not as interested as they used to. In 1950, the
world population was around 2.5 billion people. And there were
over 100,000 missionaries being sent out of all religions. That's not Baptist, that's all
religions in the United States, 100,000 missionaries being sent
out. Of those 100,000, 30,000 were independent Baptists. That's
in 1950. In 2021, the world population
was 8 billion. And there are now 30,000 missionaries
being sent out by all religions and denominations. And of those,
only 10,000 are independent Baptists. So the world's population has
tripled while the amount of missionaries that we're sending out has been
reduced by two thirds. So tell me, is there abundance
of workers in the harvest? That's just the foreign field.
Now here's something I wanna tell you, and praise the Lord
for, because I don't like leaving us without much of a hope. Mexico
is sending out missionaries now. I can tell you of many Mexican
people that I know, I know of at least one in Turkey, one that's
preparing his family to go to Sudan, another that's, three
or four in Colombia, from Mexico and others who are ready to go
to Colombia from Mexico as well as other parts of the world.
Mexico is now sending out missionaries. The Philippines, one of the places
that we've been, the United States has been very adamant about working
in the Philippines and reaching the Philippine people with the
gospel. You know what? Now the Philippines
is sending out missionaries. Sometimes they're sending them
to the United States because we are now a country that needs
to be evangelized. Hey, it's the truth. But that's
what's going on. That's where there's a problem
with the harvest. Whenever we look at the Bible,
the Bible is saying that we need laborers. In Matthew chapter
20, there's a story here and I kind of take it out of its
literal interpretation just because there's an implication here that
is just as true. but it's not the purpose of this
story. Matthew 20, verses 1 through
9, the Bible says, For the kingdom of heaven is likened to a man
that is a householder, which went out early in the morning
to hire laborers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the
laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard.
And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing
idle in the marketplace, and said unto them, Go ye also into
the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And
they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth
and ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he
went out and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why
stand ye here all the day idle? They said unto him, Because no
man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also
into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive. Okay, so when even was come,
the purpose of the story is to talk about how some people complained
whether or not they got paid the right amount and all that
kind of stuff. Here's what I'm looking at. Why in the world
is that guy going out every so often and asking for more people
to go into the field? He's got a labor problem. And
he needs people to get that harvest in. Because here's the thing. There is a problem with the harvest
and that is a lack of laborers. But there's also an urgency of
the harvest. Let's take a look at that for
a minute. Because, I mean, this guy, he's just going out and
hiring right and left. He's like, bring them in. I mean,
I need you guys over here. Hey, you guys don't have anything
to do? Hey, get out in my field. I'll
pay you a good sum at the end of the day. Just go and work.
Hey, you guys, oh, you don't have anything to do? Why have
you been here all day long and not doing anything? Well, nobody
hired. Well, hey, I'll hire you. Get
out there in my field. Why is he doing that? Well, John chapter
number four. John chapter number four and
verse number 35. Say not ye, there are yet four months, and
then cometh harvest? Behold, I say unto you, lift
up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already
to harvest. Here's the urgency of the harvest. You know, whenever you think
about this passage of scripture, you know, you need some people
to kind of know a little bit about agriculture. And you may
know a lot more than I do because I get it on the fly. But here's
the thing. If you're going to go out and
you're going to harvest your field, the time you don't want to do it
is whenever the fields are white. Why? Because you're too late. If the fields get white, the
harvest isn't today, my friend. The harvest was yesterday. You
almost, as we say in the South, you almost done did wait too
long. Yes, I'm sorry, that was a on purpose English failure. We're almost waiting too late
to reach the harvest. You know, you can leave things
on the vine and they'll rot on the vine. You can sit there and
wait too long and people are gonna be dying and going to hell
without the gospel of Jesus Christ. You know, you can say, oh yeah,
I'll tell my coworker next week and they have a heart attack
the next day. You don't know. You could pass up the opportunity
to tell someone about Jesus Christ. The harvest isn't today. The harvest was yesterday. We're
waiting too long to get out there and get into the harvest. Why
is this guy trying to get all these laborers out into his field?
He has to get that harvest in in a certain amount of time or
else he's lost it in the field. We have a certain amount of time
before Jesus Christ comes back or we've lost whatever harvest
we're going to bring in. We only have a certain set amount
of time And you know something, we're not even guaranteed a full
life. Anybody in here guaranteed tomorrow?
Because if you are, I'd like to know how. Because I can't
even, my dad, sorry about this, this one might hurt me a little
bit more than it's gonna hurt you. My dad just passed away
in February, 61 years old, had a heart attack. That morning
he was talking to my mom, And just after that he went into
the bathroom to get ready for his day and he just fell over
on the floor dead. I hate using that as an example.
But you know something? It's a proof of how we don't
have any guarantee that we even have today to finish out. We don't know. The urgency of
the harvest is we've got to get it in because the time is running
out. The harvest is almost over. And
where there's fewer laborers, a lot more harvest, and we're
sitting here worried about who's going to be the next missionary
to go out on the field. Well, volunteer, brother. Get out there
and do it. because the harvest was yesterday. We're already trying, you know,
they didn't have tractors back then that you can get out there,
program in, you know, how many rows they want done, and then
let the thing ride by itself while they go get another one
and do it over here. They didn't have the technology, they didn't
have all of the work to the ability to do things as fast as we do
today. But you know something? Even
today, if you wait too long, you can have all the technology
in your tractor that you can find, and you're still going
to be pulling in a harvest that is overripe and not fit to be
used if you wait too long. You have to do it at the right
time. And that's what we need to understand
as Christians. Our time is now. We've got to
work with people now. We don't have tomorrow. We don't
have next week. We don't have next month. We've
got now. And now is whenever we need to
be the best laborer that we can be in the field working towards
that harvest. Joel chapter number one. I'm
going to go over here and read just a small passage here that
it may not be the literal interpretation of this
passage. And I know I say that in a way that sounds like I'm
kind of just going through my Bible, throwing things out here.
But this right here, it just kind of got a hold of my heart
a little bit, just made me think. Joel chapter number 1 and we
see it from verse number 9. The Bible says, the meat offering
and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord.
The priest, the Lord's minister is mourned. Joel is talking about
destruction coming to Israel for their wickedness. For the
wicked things that they've done and part of their punishment
is these things here. The field is wasted. The land
mourneth, for the corn is wasted, the new wine is dried up, the
oil languisheth. Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen,
howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley,
because the harvest of the field is perished. You know, that'll
just get you to think about it a little bit. It may be that
that was a punishment for Israel for some of the sins and stuff
that they've done. But if we look around today, what do you
think would be one of the greatest punishments that we could have
as Christians? And that could be that the people
that we love, that we're trying to reach with the gospel and
we wait too long and they die and they go to hell because we
didn't tell them about Christ. That could be one of the biggest
punishments that we'll face in eternity because they won't be
there. and we had a chance to tell them
and we didn't. If we think about that, that's
very sobering. The vine is dried up and the
fig tree languishes, the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also. and
the apple tree, even all the trees of the field are withered,
because joy is withered away from you, sons of men. Gird yourselves
and lament, you priests, ministers, those who should be in the field.
Howl, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth,
you ministers of my God, for the meat offering and the drink
offering is withholden from the house of your God. Sanctify ye
a feast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the
inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God
and cry unto the Lord." Look to God. I mean, if we're waiting
too long, we're going to see people dying that need salvation.
Just one person that dies and goes to hell should be enough
of a kick in the pants for us to help us to say, hey, I don't
want to ever see that happen again. Let me tell somebody else
about Jesus. Let me do something about that.
Lord, forgive me for that person that is lost and let me go out
and tell others about Christ. Maybe that's what we need to
get us to go. I don't know. I hope not. But that's the urgency
of the harvest. Look around you for people who
are from other countries. Win them with the gospel and
send them back to their country to be a missionary. That's a
possibility. I mean, you can't do that every time, but because
the Lord has to be the one leading them. However, there's nothing
wrong with winning someone to Christ, teaching them about,
discipling them, and then them going back to their country and
telling others in their country about Jesus. Sometimes they may
be the only ones that could win some of those in other countries,
especially the closed ones. So work, let's work, because
we have the problem of the harvest, the urgency of the harvest, but
then we have number three. And this one isn't quite so bad.
We see the increase of the harvest. You know something? You plant
one seed, you don't just get one back. You get an abundance back. Plant that seed. and the fruit,
the Bible says, some tenfold, some thirty, some a hundred.
We want to see the increase of the harvest. First Corinthians
chapter number three, of course, this is one that everybody here
has probably heard many times over. First Corinthians chapter
number three in verses six and seven, the Bible says, I have
planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then, neither is he that planteth
anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase.
You know something? This brings us to another point
about ministry that you can really think about. You've got somebody
that just wants to be in the limelight the whole time and
say, look what I've done. That person is not truly in the
ministry. Because anybody that is worth their salt knows, I
may have done something, but he also did something. And then
the Lord is the one that gives the increase, not us. We're nobody. We're nothing. We just did our
job as his servants. And whatever the Lord gives as
increase, that is forever. If you think about it, one day
we're going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ and we're
going to have either wood, hay and stubble or gold, silver and
precious stones. And they're both going through
the fire. And you know what's going to be the thing that comes
out on the other side are all the faces of all the people that
we've touched by what we've done for the harvest. Think of all
of the people that you've had. And you know something? You can
probably think of a few, but there are many, many, many more
that could have been reached because you reached just one. Remember the Sunday school teacher,
the one Dwight L. Moody? Think of all the people
that's to his account because of what Brother Moody did later. For everything that you give,
do. For every dollar sent, soul won,
missionary aided. That is treasure to your account.
Philippians chapter number 4. And with this, this will be the
last verse that we're going to look at tonight. Philippians chapter
number 4, verse number 17. The Bible says, not because I
desire a gift, and you can look through the whole chapter of
Philippians. Sometimes we kind of forget the purpose of what
Paul was writing here. But it says, not because I desire
a gift, but I desire fruit that may abound to your account. I want you to do something for
Christ, not because it makes me look good. The pastors of
the church here, they want to see you going out there and doing
something for Christ. Not because it makes them look
good, but because it's fruit that abounds to your account.
Every person, every life you touch is something that goes
into your account for eternity. Whatever you give to help a missionary
get out there on the field, whatever person you tell the gospel to,
every track you hand out, every person that you encourage, you
never know you could encourage somebody. And that person that
was just about to be completely into depression, because of your
encouragement, turns around and wins somebody to Christ. You
know something, a little bit of that fruit is yours. You never
know who you can touch, who you can help by praying for them,
by listening to them, by encouraging them. Minister to other people
in whatever way that the Lord has given you to be able to do
so. And you can think of all of the increase that abounds
to your account because of one or two little things that you
may do and God gives the increase. The harvest is plenteous. The
laborers are few. Are we a laborer? Are we one of those going out
in our own area, our own little world? The Lord could be calling
you. Is there anybody that would say, here am I, send me. And maybe it's just send me to
the person that I work with. Maybe it's send me to my neighborhood.
Send me to another country. Send me to Lancaster. I don't
know. Wherever the Lord wants you to
work. Wherever the Lord is looking for you to minister. Are you
ministering? Are you going to see the increase
of the harvest? Every head bowed and every eye
closed. Let the Lord have His way in
your heart and in your life tonight. May He be glorified. But what are we doing to make
sure that that harvest is coming in? As the pastor comes up to
finish this invitation, we're going to go ahead and pray. Let
the Lord work in hearts as He sees fit. Dear Heavenly Father,
we thank You for this day. Thank You for Your blessings.
Lord, be glorified tonight in the lives of Your people and
in their hearts. We thank You, Lord, because You are a wonderful
God and we leave everything in Your hands tonight in Jesus'
name. The Lord has to work in the hearts
of Christians to go, and then he works in the heart of the
lost that they might receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
But it really starts with us, our yielding, our being willing
to help in the spread of the gospel, casting out of the seed
that the Lord might use it for his honor and his glory. I was
thinking as he was preaching, I thought, man, it's how many
baseball players they send home because they just aren't good
enough. How many football players, how
many other athletes are sent home year after year wanting
to play. But for the Lord, the labors
are few. There's probably very few, relatively, that are volunteering. but may each of us volunteer,
may we each be willing. So with heads bowed and eyes
closed, I'm gonna have Karen play a song of invitation, allowing
each one of us to surrender ourselves, saying, Lord, what would you
have for me to do this week? As Karen begins to play. Lord, will you send somebody
into my path that I might be able to share the gospel with
them this week? Is there someone in my school? Is there someone
in my workplace? or somewhere in a place of business
that I might run into this week. Father, can you use me to share
the gospel with someone even this week? Man, just start this
week. Just ask the Lord to give you someone. I volunteer to go
out into the harvest field this week. Would you allow me to connect
with someone that I can share the gospel with? Play one through one more verse.
The Harvest
Series Mt. Zion Baptist Church
| Sermon ID | 525252312526005 |
| Duration | 36:23 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Language | English |
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