Jn.4:35-39 – “Do you not say, ‘There are still four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I tell you, raise your eyes and observe the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the one who sows and the one who reaps may rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have come into their labor.”
This passage has been an historic part of Victory since before it began. I guess you could say Victory was birthed by this word in a moment of time. I was returning to my home town of New Orleans from Bible School in California when the Lord spoke this word into my life. I was literally just entering the outskirts of the city after being away for four years when this word fell on me like a block of concrete, “Behold, I tell you, raise your eyes and observe the fields, that they are white for harvest.….I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have come into their labor.” In a moment I saw the direction of God for my life, I was called to be a harvester of souls in the city of New Orleans. That has been by role now since 1977. Here is how Barclay describes this word.
“Jesus went on to show that the incredible had happened. The sower and the harvester could rejoice at the same time. Here was something no one might expect. To the Jews, sowing was a sad and laborious time; it was harvest which was the time of joy. ‘May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy! Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves’”
In Barclay’s quote he made reference to Psalm 126. That Psalm speaks of supernatural joy that is somehow connected to harvest. David also said in that harvest Psalm that “our mouth would be filled with laughter”. There is a supernatural, heavenly joy that falls on us in those special seasons of outpouring from heaven. We have seen several seasons of outpouring and harvest over these last 47 years, it feels like we are moving into one of those seasons again. It’s time for the sowers and the harvesters to rejoice together in this time of God’s outpouring.
