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FOUR MONTHS

Jn.4:35 – Do you not say, “There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!

Sometimes the unthinkable happens. The planters are overtaken by the harvesters. Jesus may have had Amos’s prophesy in mind when He was describing this supernatural harvest. Amos 9:13 – “Behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “When the plowman shall overtake the reaper, And the treader of grapes him who sows seed; The mountains shall drip with sweet wine, And all the hills shall flow with it.” Amos was describing the harvest at the end of the age, Jesus was saying that this time had come. Here are some thoughts from Barclay on this supernatural harvest.

“For once, it is the contrast between nature and grace of which Jesus is thinking. In the ordinary harvest men sowed and waited; in Samaria things had happened with such divine suddenness that the word was sown and on the spot the harvest waited. H. V. Morton has a specially interesting suggestion about the fields white for the harvest. He himself was sitting at this very spot where Jacob’s well is. As he sat, he saw the people come out from the village and start to climb the hill. They came in little batches; and they were all wearing white robes and the white robes stood out against the ground and the sky. It may well be that just at this moment the people started to flock out to Jesus in response to the woman’s story. As they streamed out in their white robes across the fields, perhaps Jesus said: “Look at the fields! See them now! They are white to the harvest!” The white-robed crowd was the harvest which he was eager to reap for God.

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 man might expect. To the Jew sowing was a sad and a laborious time; it was harvest which was the time of joy.”

So maybe these are the days we are living in, the days when the reapers catch up with the planters. When that begins to happen look up because the Day of the Lord is at hand. Maranatha !!!

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ACCELERATED HARVEST

Amos 9:13 – “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “When the plowman will overtake the reaper And the treader of grapes him who sows seed; When the mountains will drip sweet wine And all the hills will be dissolved”.

The Bible is filled with prophetic proclamations of things that will happen at the end of this world as we know it. It speaks of everything from famines to earthquakes, it describes the deterioration of human decency as well as all sorts of catastrophic wars and natural disasters. Today’s verse is also a prophesy from one of the ancient Hebrew prophets by the name of Amos. Amos was unique in that he was not a priest or a king but he was a simple farmer that the Lord chose to speak through. This particular prophesy from Amos is not about tragic events from natural disasters and is not even talking about wars. This prophesy of Amos describes the most incredible spiritual season this world will ever know. From his knowledge of farming he says the most unlikely thing, “the plowman will overtake the reaper”. That is absolutely unthinkable but Amos believed it was true. He said a day of harvest that is so out of the box would come that the harvesters will not be finished gathering the crops in when the planters already are planting in anticipation of another future harvest. Of course Amos is speaking of the last day harvest of the souls of the earth. Here is how Barnes describes this verse.

“The harvest should be so copious that it should not be threshed out until the vintage: the vintage so large, that, instead of ending, as usual, in the middle of the 7th month, it should continue on to the seed-time in November…..He describes what is wholly beyond nature, in order that it might the more appear that he was speaking of no mere gifts of nature, but, under natural emblems, of the abundance of gifts of grace. ” The plowman,” who breaks up the fallow ground, ” shall overtake,” or ” throng, the reaper. The ” plowman” might ” throng,” or ” join on to the reaper,” either following upon him, or being followed by him; either preparing the soil for the harvest which the reaper gathers in, or breaking it up anew for fresh harvest after the in-gathering.”

So I say its time for everything to speed up. I feel the power of supernatural acceleration beginning to happen all around us. Get involved in the work of God, I think its time for the reapers to run.

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EXPONENTIAL GROWTH

EXPONENTIAL GROWTH! GOD’S WORD TO ME IN 2013!

MERRY MONDAY BY PARRIS BAILEY

“Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.” Amos 9:13

Exponential is said to increase or decrease exponentially if its rate of change must be expressed using exponents. A graph of such a rate would appear not as a straight line, but as a curve that continually becomes steeper or shallower.

We should always be experiencing an abundance of spiritual blessings in heavenly places. We can be replenished with the graces, and goodness of Christ’s house everyday as we eat his bread and drink his wine. But are we? This scripture is talking about a supernatural abundance of blessings that will exceed belief and even the course of nature. E. Stanley Jones calls it the “explosive power of a new affection.” Revival can come when we stay at our posts keeping faithful. The seasons come and the seasons go but suddenly the crops become so copious that the time of ploughing and gathering all run together. This is exponential growth!
What I like about Amos is that he begins to speak hyperbolically when he speaks of mountains dripping with wine, but he paints a beautiful picture of the rain of God upon our lives.
Spurgeon says, “Man’s promises even at the best, are like a cistern which holds but a temporary supply; but God’s promises are as a fountain, never emptied, ever overflowing, so that you may draw from him the whole of that which they apparently contain, and they shall be still as full as ever.”
The next thing about exponential growth is it not only happens in our personal life but Amos is talking about a great ingathering of souls. The harvest is to be so great that, before the reapers have fully gathered it in, the ploughman shall begin to plough for the next crop – while the abundance of fruit shall be so surprising that before the treader of grapes can have trodden out all the juice of the vine, the time shall come for sowing seed. One season, by reason of the abundant fertility, shall run into another. Now you all know, what this means in the church. Spurgeon calls it ‘the rapidity of the work of grace”, so that the plougher shall overtake the reaper.
Notice that God does not promise that there shall be fruitful crops without labor; but we read of ploughmen, reapers, treaders of grapes, and sowers of seed; everyone doing their part. The ploughman doesn’t wait, nor the sower but they all go out into the field to work! They have all their guns ready so to speak and are standing, shoulder to shoulder, ready to make a tremendous charge against this world system. We operate in
a different dichotomy than the world. “Enlarged effort should always follow an increased hope of success.” Spurgeon

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OVER AND ABOVE

OVER AND ABOVE

Amos 9:13 “Behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD,“When the plowman shall overtake the reaper, And the treader of grapes him who sows seed; The mountains shall drip with sweet wine, And all the hills shall flow with it.

Some of God’s promises are so huge that they are hard to conceive as being real, but they always are. In today’s scripture verse, Amos speaks of a season at the end of the age that will include a supernatural harvest of souls. He says that the plowman will catch up with the reaper, the harvest will be so huge that the reaper will still be harvesting when plow season returns! That can only be described as supernatural, above and beyond, almost impossible to even think of. Matthew Henry had some interesting observations about this prophesy.

“The plowman shall overtake the reaper, that is, there shall be such a plentiful harvest every year, and so much corn to be gathered in, that it shall last all summer, even till autumn, when it is time to begin to plow again; and in like manner the vintage shall continue till seed-time, and there shall be such abundance of grapes that even the mountains shall drop new wine into the vessels of the grape-gatherers, and the hills that were dry and barren shall be moistened and shall melt with the fatness or mellowness of the soil.This must certainly be understood of the abundance of spiritual blessings in heavenly things, which all those are, and shall be, blessed with, who are in sincerity added to Christ and his church; they shall be abundantly replenished with the goodness of God’s house, with the graces and comforts of his Spirit; they shall have bread, the bread of life, to strengthen their hearts, and the wine of divine consolations to make them glad-meat indeed and drink indeed–all the benefit that comes to the souls of men from the word and Spirit of God.”

If you pay attention and observe closely the miracles of Jesus, you will see this “over and above” nature is what He is all about. Think about the boat sinking harvest of fish for Peter and his friends, or the piles of leftover bread and fish after Jesus fed the multitudes with a little boy’s lunch, or the shock when the huge barrels of water were turned into wine. He has always shocked the world with His sudden displays of His glory. As the miracle of turning water into wine taught us, He loves to save His best for last.
What does the future hold for you? Have you ever imagined what your life would be like if God came down, I mean really came down in your life? There would not be words strong enough or big enough to describe the impact He would have on every part of your life. From your health to your finances, from your ministry to your family, everything would be impacted in unprecedented ways. Don’t sell yourself short, start looking for the over and above characteristics of God. I think something beyond your fondest dreams is about to happen to you.