Stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross. Lift high his royal banner, it must not suffer loss. From victory unto victory his army shall he lead. ♪ Every foe is vanquished and Christ is Lord indeed ♪ Stand up, stand up for Jesus, the trumpet call obey. Forth to the mighty conflict in this glorious day. Ye that are men now, sir, ♪ Against unnumbered foes ♪ Let courage rise with danger ♪ And strength to strength oppose ♪ Stand up, stand up for Jesus ♪ Stand in his strength alone ♪ The arm of flesh will fail you ♪ ♪ Ye dare not trust your own ♪ ♪ But on the gospel armor ♪ ♪ Each piece put on with prayer ♪ ♪ Where duty calls or danger ♪ ♪ Be never wanting there ♪ Did I skip the second verse? Okay, just for a second there, I thought I'd done that. No, I was just all caught up in the song. Anyway, stand up for Jesus. You may be seated at this time. We're going to kind of deviate just a little bit. I hope Brother Eccles doesn't mind too much. I'm going to ask my boys, Levi and Neil, they've got a song that they would like to sing for a special tonight. So we're going to see if they come up and sing. Come on, Neil, Levi. I think this is my first time being up here. The second. Second? Yeah. OK. And my second time. Over here, so they can see you. There you go. There's my asking you, would you be free? Would you be free from your burden of sin, and bow in the blood? in the blood. Words you are evil, a victory win. There's wonderful power in the blood. There is power, power, one looking power in the blood of the lamb. There's power, power, one looking power in the precious blood of the lamb. They really like singing that part about the power right there. All right. Let's go ahead and get out our Bibles this evening. We're going to start in Mark chapter number four. I want you all to start looking that up while I... I don't have to touch anything, right Micah? You're good, alright. Just making sure. Mark chapter 4. And we're going to start down towards verse number 26. I've kind of, we're going to kind of continue some of the same trains of thought of the last few times I've preached and we're going to kind of get into this subject this evening of the harvest. This has kind of probably covered a few things the last time or one of the times that I was up here preaching before, but we're going to deal specifically with this thought here this evening. In Mark chapter number 4, we're going to start verse number 26. 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." Mark 4. That's a rarity right there. Okay, let's go ahead and pray and then we'll get into this thought this evening. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You for all that You've done for us. Thank You for Your many blessings, for Your protection for today, for bringing us here this evening, Lord, and to hear Your Word. We pray, Lord, that You would just guide and direct, give me the words that I need, Father, for Your glory and honor for Your people. and that we would all hear and understand your word, receive it, and apply it to our lives. In Jesus' name we do pray, amen. This passage of scripture, it's kind of unusual for me to start here, I understand, because whenever we talk about the harvest, we always go to the verses that say, the field is white in the harvest, right? Those are the main ones. But if we look at this, we kind of get a little bit of an understanding. I mean, we'll kind of go over this again here. The kingdom of God is as if a man should cast seed into the ground. Okay, we all understand the idea of planting seed, right? If you haven't ever done it before, you've probably seen it done either on a video on TV or, I mean, you can even see people doing it on YouTube pretty easily. I mean, the spreading or sowing seeds is pretty simple. You get a bunch of seed, throw it out there and let it, and sometimes it just goes straight and it gets planted and comes up. Sometimes you have to till up the ground in certain aspects. you have to actually dig a small hole, put the seed in, and then cover it up. However, the seed gets planted, it gets planted. And that just shows you that some places it's more difficult to sow the seed than others. I mean, there's places where you can go and you can preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, and it's going to be extremely difficult to get the seed into the hearts of the people who are listening. Could it be because of religion? Could it be because of, like we were talking about in Korea, busy lifestyle? And even here in America, that's one of the big problems that a person faces whenever you try to plant the seed in somebody's heart is the fact that people are just so busy, they can't even give you five minutes of time to sit there and hear the gospel. And then you go to other places, you hear about places like the Philippines or some of these third world countries in Africa where the gospel is preached and people come from hours traveling to hear the gospel and people get saved almost immediately, there is a result. So whenever we look at this passage, you can see that the seed gets cast into the ground. One way or another, it gets planted. And here's the thing, I mean, there's not much you can do once the seed is planted. You can go and you can pull weeds, which might be those little thoughts of the devil to try to distract somebody's mind, right? You can maybe get some water on the seed so it would grow, especially in times whenever there's not much rain. But for the most part in these times, I mean, it's not like you... have very many options to get your field watered. You know, if there's no water source nearby, you depend upon the rain that God would send. And that's what these verses are starting to talk about. You should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up. He doesn't know how. I mean, do we really understand how a seed, and sometimes even an itty bitty seed, can grow a plant that is really, you know, almost as tall as we are. I mean, you think about how big a grain of corn is, a kernel of corn, right? And that's a seed that you get a corn stalk about that high and a few ears of corn off of it. Isn't it amazing to think about how God works that and that system is all God? You know, a lot of times we wanna take the credit for the number of people who get saved, you know? And it's not me that does it, you know? We might go out and plant some seeds, you might water it a little bit like the Bible says, but it's all God that does the process of working in somebody's heart. Because we don't know how it's done. I mean, you can present the gospel to somebody, but do you know their heart? You really don't. You don't know what situations they may have just been through that makes them think about what you just said a whole lot, or take it more serious than maybe at some other time in their life. You never know. So what do you do? You plant the seed, right? You get the gospel out, you tell others about Jesus Christ. And then when the fruit has come up, The Bible says immediately you put in the sickle because the harvest has come. You don't wait. Isn't it interesting how quickly this comes about? The fruit is brought forth and immediately after you discern that there's fruit, that the fruit is ripe, you stick in the sickle. Why? Why wouldn't you wait? You know, you could wait a week, right? Well, by then it might be too late. Yeah, some of it could actually go bad on the vine. You could have nice standing corn and full ears, you wait too long and then it starts to die and then you don't have anything except for seeds for next year. Or silage or something like that for the cattle. That's about all it's good for after that. So you only have a certain amount of time to get that harvest in. And so, whenever we look at this passage of scripture, we see that the harvest is come. It's not out there, like the Bible says in other passages, where, you know, four months and then come at the harvest. No, it's not out there somewhere. The harvest has come. We are at the time of harvesting. And really, you've got to, we do need to take and understand that there is a difference between planting the seed whenever we go and tell people about Jesus Christ, then you preach the gospel, but then there's a harvest time as well. Because sometimes the planting of the seed and the harvesting of the fruit doesn't happen the same day. And like we want it to sometimes. You know, you bring in the harvest, you bring these people to Christ, and it may be after the seed has been planted four years ago. You know, seeds can lie dormant for years in the ground until the right conditions come about for the seed to sprout up. And I even heard that they pulled up an old ship from like the 1700s or something out of one of the rivers, the harbors on the East Coast. And from that ship, they found a bunch of dirt and stuff that was at the very bottom, silt and things like that. But stuff that came from, from land and they pulled it and there was a bunch of seeds and stuff that was in that. And they planted it after, we're talking about hundreds of years at the bottom of a river. They planted those seeds and the seeds sprouted up and grew crops from the 1700s or the 1800s, whichever one it was. Why? Because seeds can lie a long time dormant. And then with the right conditions, because they were flooded, yeah, maybe had a lot of water, but they didn't have the sunlight or anything else to help them to grow. So whenever they were planted correctly and had the sun and everything else on top of them, they were able to produce. So sometimes that situation could come up where the gospel gets planted in somebody's heart and it may take years before you see the fruit, before they come to Christ. Patience is part of what we have to have as Christians, as laborers in the field. So we always really focus on that crop and how many people are we bringing in? How many people are getting saved? And we wanna take the credit for it. But at some point, the seed had to be planted. At some point, somebody had to do some watering. At some point, somebody had to maybe tend the garden just a little bit and reach out to them. And eventually, they may come to Christ. You stick in that sickle and you harvest. And it takes some time, and more often than not. In the time that I was in Mexico, I know for a fact, we went out and we covered every door in the whole town of Lismoya. And we knocked on every door, we gave them tracks, and sometimes John and Romans, and talked to people, and everything like that. And it's really strange to me, it always seems strange, that out of all the, you know, going around to every door in the whole town, we never got one person come to the church because of it. But you know something? At least the seed was planted. And you know, even, and it may be a few years later whenever that seed comes and brings forth fruit. So it got planted, but it doesn't always get harvested at the same time. Now, I'm kind of going into all this, this is a little bit more towards the introduction of things. Whenever we look at the harvest field and we lift up our eyes, outside around us is that harvest field, is the field. And the Bible says that they're ready to be harvested. But we find that there is a problem in the harvest. That's gonna be the first thing tonight. The problem of the harvest. Matthew chapter nine, let's go over there real quick. Matthew chapter nine. And we're gonna see verse number 37. These are the verses you expected me to read a while ago. Matthew chapter 9 verse number 37 the Bible says, "...then saith he unto his disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are..." what? "...few." We have all heard these verses before. "...Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest." So what is the problem of the harvest? Not enough laborers. Not enough people out there working. Now, we understand that if you have the harvest, what I mentioned before, is if the harvest time is now, you can't wait until next week to harvest your crops. You've got to get them in sooner rather than later. And this day and age, they didn't have huge combines and tractors that pull machines that'll cover about 20 rows at a time. Somebody was telling me one day that they even have tractors with like a GPS system and everything and you can set the, and the tractor will go over the field by itself. I mean. I'd be careful if that machine decided to run over a fence or something, you never know. But, I mean, they've got all this technology and everything for today, but they didn't have that back then. So if you have about 100 acres that you've got to harvest within a week, you don't just go get out the big old tractor and get her done. You have to go back and you have to hire more people to do the job. If you don't have enough people, you've got to go find more. That's where it comes in handy whenever you have those open borders and stuff like that and you can call up some friends and say, hey, you know, I got some work for you, let's go. You can get a lot of people to come, you know, but that's not the way, it didn't always work that way. You had so many people buying for money, buying for jobs back in these days. So you had to be able to get out there, find the people who will work before everybody else does, and get them into your fields. And if you start to thinking about it, that has a lot to do with missions. You have all the churches with their trying to reach the mission fields, they're different fields, but they can only do so much and then they start to hire I mean, I hate saying hire whenever you relate to missionaries, but it's got the idea of hiring missionaries to go and do the work where you can't go and do it. And that starts to bring people into your fields. And then they've got other churches that are hiring them to send in other places. And together we work to try to get all of the harvest in. And the thing is, We can't forget what's right around our area because that's where we work. I mean, you've got Nixa, you've got Springfield, you've got even a lot more of the communities that's even closer in, places that I couldn't remember to tell you the name of right now, but there's plenty of these little bitty towns and people spread out around here that needs the gospel. And that's where The church comes in to reach those people. And even at that, many times the church, you don't see very many harvesters out on a harvest morning. Right? Time to go witness, time to go sow in. And where's the laborers in the church? And then, you know, but we do expect our laborers to go to foreign countries because we're paying them to do that, right? So we expect them to go, but whenever it's our turn here, what are we doing? Oh, I've got to take care of this. I've got to take care of that. Oh, I witness throughout the week. Well, you know, there's a thing about getting the job done as a group. Have you ever worked with like a group of people to go out into the field or maybe even just picking berries or something like that, something, or the apple orchard, you got four or five people. The fun part of it is working and being able to talk and laugh and, you know, have some fun while you're out there doing it, right? What's wrong with that? That's great camaraderie and it builds unity, which is what a church needs. And that's just something to throw out there, but it's a very important thing is to work towards the goal of harvesting the fields. We find that Jesus mentioned this problem once again in Luke chapter 10. I'm gonna run over there real quick. Luke chapter 10. And verse number two, therefore said he unto them, the harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth laborers into his harvest. So here we have, once again, the same petition. You know, one thing that you notice about God and his word is if God mentions something one time, it's important. But if he mentions it twice, then it is really important to Him. And even more so if we go three and four and multiply the times. The more God talks about a subject, the more important it is to Him. And I think the harvest is a very important thing to God because this is the second time in the Bible that He uses the same wording to try to get the people out into the harvest. There's a lot to do and we cannot do it alone. There's a great need for laborers. We have fewer missionaries on the field now than ever before. And did you know that the average age of a missionary on the field right now is 65 years of age? So what's going to happen in a few years whenever those guys have to come home or the Lord calls them home? Who's taking their place? Here's a statistic, and I didn't get this myself. I got this from Brother Morrison from our mission board. But in 1950, the world population was around 2.5 billion people. At that time, there were over 100,000 missionaries being sent out of all religions, not just Baptist, of all denominations and everything, 100,000 missionaries. Of those 100,000, approximately 30,000 were independent Baptist missionaries. That's in 1950. In 2021, the world population was 8 billion. And I double-checked just to make sure those stats are correct. You can look them up on the internet. Eight billion people. And there were 30,000 missionaries being sent out by all religions, all groups, all denominations. And of those 30,000, only 10,000 were independent Baptist missionaries. So we see the world is triple the size that it was in 1950, but we're only sending out a third of the missionaries that we were in 1950. I don't know about you, but that's kind of scary. I mean, how many people are going without the gospel? Now, of course, there's a lot of other factors that could be taken into account. Right now, Mexico is stepping up to the plate, and they're sending out missionaries, especially to a lot of the Spanish-speaking countries, Central and South America. And even, I know at least one missionary who's in Turkey, doing the work of the Lord there, and they're doing a great job. Then there's some others that are going to parts of Africa that I can't go, because if they identify me right away from my skin color, they probably won't let me in or won't let me do much. However, because the Mexican skin color is so similar to the people in those countries, right on in and they're able to blend in a lot faster, a lot quicker than what I'm able to do and they're getting the job done. There's a lot of huge push on that 1040 window and stuff in Mexico and I know that because I've been to some of these missions conferences and I know of these missions conferences. Mexico is trying to get out now. I mean, they've received the gospel for many years. They've been a recipient of missionaries for several years and now, praise the Lord, they're doing a push to send out as well. The Philippines, they're sending out missionaries. They're going not just to the Philippines, but to other places as well. Thankfully, there's other countries that are kind of picking up this idea of the laborers are few, but that doesn't diminish our responsibility. we still have to get the gospel out there. We still have a lot to be doing. Where are the young people who are surrendering to the mission field? There's a whole lot fewer now than there were just even a few short years ago. If we look at Matthew chapter number 20, there's a story here. And of course, One of the great things about the Word of God is there's a lot of different parables, a lot of different stories that Jesus tells. There's one main application, interpretation, but there's many different ways you can look at the story and different applications to it. The main interpretation is going to be different from what my application to this story is today. But Matthew chapter 20, And we look at verses 1-9, 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 the ninth hour and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle and said 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. So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his servant, Call the laborers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. And when they came that were hired, about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny." And of course, if you continue reading, you find that everybody received the same amount. Now the point Jesus is talking about was some of the people were talking about how it was unjust that the others that worked less got the same amount as those that worked the most. But what I want us to look at is why in the world was he out there hiring so many people? I mean, have you ever thought about that aspect of it? I mean, he goes out and every third hour, Go work in my field. I need some people in my field. And if you look at it, of course, we're getting closer to that 11th hour, the end of the harvest, the time whenever the Lord is coming back. We're getting close to that time. And yet there are still a need for laborers in the field, in the vineyard. He's asking for help all day long. I mean, wouldn't you think that he had enough help with the first group that he hired? Nope. He went out and hired more. The Bible doesn't tell us how many were standing there idle. But I don't, I mean, have you ever seen, you know, like a group of guys standing out there about midday and don't have anything to do? And they're just kind of, you know, kicking the can around, just talking and just, you know, whatever. as well as something like we used to say around there, shooting the bull, and doing nothing. And he's like, hey, I need some help. Go run into my field and start working. Okay. That went and worked. You don't see anybody refusing to go into the field. They all went to the field. Everyone that he talked to, they all went. But he kept on hiring, and he kept on hiring, and he kept on hiring. Why? He has to get in his harvest. And if he doesn't, there's a big problem. Okay? So then we find this kind of transitions into our second point. We've got, first off, the problem of the harvest is the laborers. There are too few. The second thing we see is the urgency of the harvest. The urgency is it's got to come in now. I mean, we've got to do something now. There's no waiting for a week. There's no waiting for a year. There's no waiting for 20 years down the line for the Lord to do something. It's got to be done now. Why? Because the harvest, the fruit will die on the vine if it's not brought in. John chapter number 4, verse number 35, this is where one of these passages that's used quite often. The Bible says, Say not ye there are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eye, and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest. Okay? They are ready at this moment, and if we wait much longer, there's gonna be problems. waste. There's going to be people that are dying and going to hell because there's not enough labors. There's not somebody out there bringing in the harvest. That relative of yours that you love so much but yet doesn't know Christ, at some point they're going to die without Jesus if that harvest doesn't come in. If we can look at Joel in the Old Testament. Joel, Amos, Obadiah. In the Old Testament we have in the book of Joel. I want to look at a couple of verses over here. Joel chapter one. Joel chapter number one. We're going to look at verse number 9 and after the Bible says, The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests, the Lord's ministers, mourn. 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. The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth. 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 the sons of men. Gird yourselves and lament, ye priests. Howl, ye ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God. For the meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God. Sanctify ye a fast, 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. Why? Because the harvest is perished. And you know something? Sooner rather than later, this part of Scripture is going to be coming to pass. And it's not just talking about the actual vineyards and everything out there. We're talking about people and souls. There are people all over the world that are dying without Christ. And it's heartbreaking whenever you hear stories of missionaries, how they come to a group of people, a village somewhere in Africa or in the jungles of South America, and they preach the gospel, souls get saved, they come through, and then you see one or two people that are crying and lamenting, and the missionary says, what's wrong? He says, why weren't you here sooner? Because so and so just died without Christ. One of my family just died without Christ. I get to hear the gospel, but they didn't. Why didn't you get here sooner? You think about how many people, that's going to be the story. Because the harvest is perished in the field. There are too few laborers and the harvest is now, it's not later. Each laborer can only do so much and the fields are soon to lose that harvest and Christ is coming back. We should be looking around for the people who are from other countries, other places. Have you thought maybe I mean, there's people that it's because of the open borders that have come into our area. And a lot of times we complain because they take the jobs because they do that. What about if we were to win them to Christ? They were to see that coming across illegally is wrong. They decide to go back home and they take the gospel with them and they share it with their people. I mean that's another form of missionaries in getting the gospel out. It's an option. It's a possibility. It's something that we can work out. Of course, it all has to be subject to the Lord's will, but we do know that the Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. His will is that we reach as many as we can, because the harvest is now. And then lastly, You can't go out there to the harvest without seeing the increase of the harvest. And 1 Corinthians chapter number 3, 1 Corinthians chapter number 3, the Bible says in verses number 6 and 7, 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. At the end of the day, the fruit that abounds comes from God. God is the one that has to bring the people in. It's God who has the harvest, who is the owner of the harvest. He is the one that causes the increase. However, isn't it going to be kind of neat to be able to see the people that we've had an effect in their lives whenever we get to heaven? Isn't it going to be kind of neat? There's that song. It's a southern gospel song. It's Faces. He'll show me the faces of all of those that I've had part of them coming to Christ. And that's an interesting thought, it's an interesting idea, because it's the truth. Every soul that comes to Christ because of every dollar sent, soul won, and missionary aided, is treasure to your account. Philippians chapter 4 and verse number 17, the apostle Paul here is talking, he says, not because I desire a gift. He's talking to the Philippians. They sent to Paul time and time again to help him in his ministry. He said, not because I desired a gift. I wasn't asking for your money, but I desire fruit that may abound to your account. Because they gave to help Paul The fruits of Paul's ministry is also their fruit because they had a hand in helping Paul with the ministry. It is fruit that abounds unto your account. And that goes back to that observation we made before. You have one kernel, one grain that you plant in the ground. How many ears of corn do you get from that? And how many kernels extra do you have from one little one that you plant in the ground? One thing that you sow, one little bit that you give to God, that you put and you trust into God's care, and you plant those seeds one after another. Somebody else may come through in water, but the increase is of the Lord, and we have treasure that abounds to our account. That is what the Lord does for us. You have no idea who you could be reaching just by praying for a missionary. You have no idea the number of people that could come to Christ even if all you do is pray for a certain missionary. That's part of your reward as well. Jesus is coming soon. What are we doing in relation to the harvest? Are we going? Are we laboring? Are we sending? Are we trusting? Are we planting? Are we trying to harvest? What are we doing in relation to the harvest? Because it's not good to sit idle. What was it that the homeowner told the group at the 11th hour? What have you been doing sitting here all day idle? Nobody's heart will get out into my field, go, get a move on. We've got work to do. Let's not be idle. Let's not wait. Let's be busy doing the Father's will. Every head bowed and every eye closed. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you and we praise you for all that you've done for us. We pray, dear Lord, that you would speak to our hearts and help us, Father. I'm sure that nothing that was said tonight was new, maybe looked at from a different perspective, Father, but the truth is still the same. There is a need that only you can fulfill. There's a need for laborers in the harvest. You are doing the hiring, Father. You're looking for those people who are willing to serve. And Father, there's that urgency that we must not only know about it, but we must feel that soon you're coming back and this time of harvest will be over. We pray, Father, that you would just encourage us this evening to be witnesses, to be testimony, to go forth and help with the harvest in any way that we can. to look to You and what You would have for us in our lives. We thank You, Father, and we praise You for all that You have done and all that You will do. We leave in Your care and in Your trust every person here tonight. In Jesus' name we do pray. With every head bowed and every eye closed, you can stand Have thine own way, Lord. If the Lord works in your heart, take a moment, you can pray right there, come forward to the altar, whatever it may be that the Lord leads. But let the Lord have his way in our heart and our life. The harvest is plenteous. There's plenty of harvest out there. There's a lot that can be done. But the laborers are few. We must be about our Father's business. We must seek His will, seek His face. The Lord's encouraged you tonight or maybe even just something that He's been dealing with you about. Don't let this moment pass without just trusting and trusting it to Him. Let Him be glorified. so so