Jn.4:35,36 – 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.
Everything about this passage was unexplainable to the disciples. Jesus went through Samaria, totally unexpected. He was talking to a woman alone, that didn’t happen in their world. He is talking about a harvest that comes unexpectedly and shockingly.
Harvest was supposed to be four months after the sowing, Jesus was saying forget about all of that, we are moving into different territory. The planter will overtake the harvester. Jesus is talking about the harvest specifically at the end of the age.
The amazing thing about this the harvest of souls in the last days is that it is also connected to unprecedented financial favor upon sons and daughters. I believe He will raise up a different kind of business person in these days, lovers of the gospel with a kingdom mindset. Here is how Barclay describes this.
“For once, it is the contrast between nature and grace of which Jesus is thinking. In the ordinary harvest, people sowed and waited; in Samaria, things had happened with such divine suddenness that the word was sown and on the spot the harvest waited……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’ (Psalm 126:5–6).”
When I returned to New Orleans in 1977 the Lord gave me this passage as I drove into the city. I had no idea of the implications of this verse, I know we have seen great things but I have a feeling the most shocking display of planters and reapers rejoicing together is still ahead of us. What the Lord is saying is you can’t go by past measurements, there is a different degree of blessing falling in this special season.
