Bill Johnson - It's Harvest Time
Oh my, thank you, thanks, thank you! Oh, sorry, yeah, I don’t transition quickly with anything in life, so just excuse me while I figure out why I’m up here. Let me get rid of my gum; that’s probably step number one. If you guys just didn’t have so many babies, we could do this quicker, you know?
Um, part two of our discipleship series starts next Sunday, and it’s going to kick off with the subject of prayer. My wife is going to be doing four out of the five morning services; she’ll be doing that here. I’m glad for a lot of reasons. I’m glad because of the word she’ll bring; it’s going to be solid, and I’m glad that she’s going to preach four times next Sunday and not me. That way, she’ll feel sorry for me next time I have to preach, and the pity level of my household will just skyrocket! Just kidding, just kidding.
Um, yeah, that’s going to be so wonderful. We’ve been having such good feedback from this discipleship series, and I’m just quite thankful. I have some things that should be read. If you ever hear me order decaf coffee, I’ve been kidnapped, and I’m trying to signal you. I just saw a guy today at Starbucks; he had no smartphone, tablet, or laptop. He just sat there drinking coffee like a psychopath.
I saw what it was! An old lady says, «I want my final words to be: 'I hid a million dollars in the…'» I think that’s funny! I just saw some idiot leave a water bottle in the Pringles holder on the treadmill at the gym. Instead of three wise men, if it would have been three wise women, they would have asked for directions, arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, cleaned the stable, made a casserole, and there would be peace on earth! I don’t know if that’s true; that’s probably enough, but I have more, believe me!
If the message doesn’t go bad, I’ve always got something to go to here. Or one more, I will do one more. It’s an old one, though; you guys have heard it before, but we have new people with us, so this is good. It’s right here. So, here it is.
A pastor had dinner at the home of a couple in his church. After he left, the wife said to the husband, «I think he stole our spoon.» This bothered her for a whole year. A year later, the couple had the Passover dinner again. Unable to resist, the wife asked, «Did you steal our spoon last year?» The pastor replied, «No, I put it inside your Bible.» Wow, I love that one! That’s maybe my favorite of all time. If I can’t get people to read the Word out of their hunger, I’ll scare them into it—I don’t care, just tease it!
All right, open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 9, the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 9. It will take me a few minutes to get there. We had such an amazing week this week with our Kingdom Culture Conference, and I think, in some ways, it may have been the best one we’ve ever had. At least it felt that way to me. I was just so appreciative of our team. We have so many gifted people who served so well, ministered the Word, and provided healing—everything was so good! I just had meeting after meeting and was beyond pleased with what was happening.
Of course, we’re so thrilled to have guests with us as a result. I don’t remember the year, but it was somewhere back in the 70s. My mom is here; wave your hand! Well, my parents pastored here at Bethel from 1968 until I think 1982. During that time, I was on staff for five of those years, 1973 to 1978, and I think it was somewhere around 1974—somewhere in that area—my dad began to teach out of the book of Ezekiel, and he talked about all believers being priests unto the Lord.
Of course, many of us, when we think of priests, we think of the white little collar, but it’s not that kind of priest. It’s the priesthood of the believer, which has three basic areas of ministry, and this is Christianity 101 for us. This goes way back into our roots, but it will set the stage for what I want to do today. He began to talk to us about the three areas of ministry that every believer has.
First of all, we have our ministry to the Lord Himself. He is not an egotist in need of our encouragement; no, He is not an egotist in need of our flattery. He is the Almighty God, and we become transformed as we worship. We always become like the one we worship, so this ministry to the Lord is first and most important. Second to that is our love for the people of God—for the church, not organizations, but for people. Thirdly, we have our ministry to the world.
It’s a right and true list of priorities, but if we’re not careful, it could lead us to misdiagnose or miss the conviction of the Lord regarding our third ministry. It’s not that it’s the least important; in fact, let’s look at it this way: in worship, I will worship God throughout eternity. I will be with you for all eternity, and I will love you well throughout eternity. But the only thing that is urgent and pressing in time is evangelism, because that’s only now.
While the other two are superior in the sense of their order of priority, they actually enhance and set the stage for us to be more effective in our heart for evangelism. It can be said that evangelism, in its purest form, is an overflow of worship. There are those who have this notion that if they really get locked into worship, they won’t want to do anything else, and that’s not what the Scripture teaches.
In Isaiah 6, you see Isaiah before the Lord, and he says, «I see the Lord,» and here is this stunning moment where he sees and is before Almighty God; then he hears Father, Son, and Holy Spirit converse together, and they say there’s a particular assignment. They say, «Who shall we send?» and Isaiah says, «Send me!»
In other words, anyone who truly worships sees the heart of the Father and doesn’t want to stay there; they want to take their heart to the people. They want to take that moment to many others; it’s causing people to taste and see the goodness of the Lord, and that’s the great privilege.
So worship is this great privilege. My dad would teach on this out of Ezekiel, I think 47, if I remember right, and talked about the ministry of the inner court, which is in the actual presence of God, and the outer court, where you’re with people. I remember after I–I think it was the first meeting. There was a series, but I remember the old Bethel Church was over on Pacelli Lane, and the sanctuary was long this way; there were two sections like this and then a balcony way in the back. I remember I was sitting over here, probably three, four, five rows back, right on the outside edge.
I remember when he was done with that message; it wasn’t a response time, there was no altar call, nothing of that nature, but I just remember when we came to the end of the message, I sat right over here, bowed my head, and prayed this prayer: I said, «God, I give you the rest of my life to teach me this one thing.» I knew I had just heard the word that was to define the rest of my life. Since that day, the Lord has been instilling in us His heart for worship.
He actually doesn’t even look for worship; He looks for worshippers because worshippers are transformed people, and that’s what He longs to draw us into. The Scripture says He looks for worship, for those who will worship in Spirit and truth. Since that day, that has become a standard for this church family, and today things are very normal for us that in that day were fought for, worked for very, very hard, to teach line upon line and restructure the priority system of the church.
But if we’re not careful, there is a misunderstanding on this sense of urgency for evangelism; we could get this list all messed up. In Isaiah 60, for example, it says, «Your walls will be called salvation; your gates praise.» It’s describing the church; it’s describing the people of God as a city, as a community. That’s the metaphor, that’s the illustration.
He basically says the salvation of God is what protects you—it’s the walls around the city that keep you safe. Then He says your gates are praised, so He’s describing this place through which God enters to engage and mingle with His people, and it’s called praise. We know biblically that we enter His gates with thanksgiving in our heart; we enter His courts with praise. There’s this progression into the presence, into the glory, and it should be the ambition of every believer.
We have service after service; they typically are called worship services in the bulletins all over the nation, and very seldom does worship actually happen because worship is this very tender, intimate place of interaction with God. I don’t say that for the purpose of shame; I’m just saying it’s something so deep, so long in this thing called divine encounter.
So here’s the picture I’m trying to draw for you: He says, «Your walls are salvation, and your gates, the place through which there’s this entrance into the presence, is praise.» It’s something like 15 verses later, He says, «Go through, go through the gates; clear the way for the people.» In the context, what are gates? Praise!
So now He’s exhorting, «Go through, go through the gates; clear the way for the people.» You’ve got to catch a picture of this. Something happens when the people of God become a worshiping people. There’s something that happens with an atmospheric shift over cities, over regions of the nation, because there are worshiping people in that environment. Just becoming a worshiper, one who stands before the Lord to worship in your home—I don’t know how to explain it, I don’t understand it, but I know this is a reality.
You stand on a regular basis just to exalt the name of the Lord Jesus; you have neighbors around you facing problems they never would have considered God as a solution, but because you’re a worshiper, something has changed.
Worshiping God is central to who we are, so I like to break it down this way: I don’t care for formulas in the presence, but it helps me to kind of put a handle on things. There’s thanksgiving, there’s praise, and there’s worship. Thanksgiving is our response to the acts of God. I don’t know if he shared a testimony this morning; I know Chris Gore shared with us the other night about this great miracle of healing. Candace shared a great story earlier about somebody with fourth-stage cancer being completely healed.
We hear these stories, and we celebrate the goodness and kindness of God. There’s this thankfulness, and we express it; we cheer, we raise our voices, we become amazed at this Father who is so kind and so good to us. But thanksgiving is our response to what He’s done, whereas praise is our response to who He is.
There’s almost an indictment on the nation of Israel in the days of Moses, saying, «And Israel was acquainted with the acts of God, but Moses was acquainted with His ways.» In other words, they took the action and followed it until they discovered His nature. They followed what He had done; they weren’t just satisfied with water out of a rock, so to speak. They weren’t just satisfied with provision or protection or deliverance; they wanted to find this one who authored that very action—that very deliverance, or protection, or provision, whatever it might have been.
So we’ve got thanksgiving, which is our response to the acts of God, and praise, which is our response to His ways. Worship, I always think in terms of worship as my response to His presence. It doesn’t mean just emotionally discerned because sometimes worship comes at a very, very low point.
It’s not this overwhelming sense, always of a presence, but worship by nature—the word worship actually means, one of the words for worship actually means «to kiss.» That, by implication, signifies tenderness; it’s this profound interaction between you and the one you worship.
Something powerful happens to a group of people who live in that kind of atmosphere. Their authority, their awareness of the heart of God increases so dramatically that when they get into an evangelistic environment or into an environment to serve and help people, they are much clearer, much more precise, and have much greater confidence in the heart of God for a given situation.
So here’s what I want to do: I want you to read with me; we’re going to read out of Matthew chapter 9. We’re going to read several verses there, and then we’ll talk for a little bit. All right, Matthew chapter 9, verse 35.
Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them because they were weary and scattered like sheep having no shepherd.
Then He said to His disciples, «The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.» Verse 37: «The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.»
I’ve always been fascinated by this verse for this reason: He didn’t say pray for the harvest. I think there are other scriptures that lend themselves to that, and so I think it’s a legitimate thing to do. I know just driving out of my driveway this morning, I thought of certain people that I’ve become friends with over the last number of years who don’t yet know the Lord. I bring them up before the Lord just on a regular basis and pray, «God, let them know the goodness of God; let them taste of the kindness of God.»
I think praying for people to come to Christ is a no-brainer; that’s obviously legitimate. But when Jesus wanted to give instruction that was about to affect the course of history, He didn’t say pray for the harvest; He said pray for harvesters.
So I have to ask the question: Is it possible that the size of the harvest is actually determined by the amount of laborers? In other words, the harvest is there, but there have to be harvesters.
There are a lot of people, and it’s a deeper theological conversation that we can have in this environment, but many people say over and over again that God is in control and whatever He wants is going to happen. Well, He’s God; anything He wants to pull off, He can pull off—period. There’s no argument from me.
But there are a number of things that He has put in front of us that, without response, without embracing responsibility, there is actually unfulfilled potential—this unfulfilled promise. In other words, it requires our involvement. The nation of Israel is a great example: they were spoken to about this promised land, and God says, «It is yours! I give it to you! Now it’s all yours!»
He gives them this incredible promise of the promised land, but that generation didn’t enter into it. God promised them, but they didn’t enter into it, but it wasn’t God’s fault; they failed to co-labor with Him in His way to bring about His purposes.
And so now we have commandments like this; we have directions in prayer that are supposed to be taken seriously because it actually affects the outcome of things. How many understand Jesus doesn’t give us spiritual assignments to keep us busy? He doesn’t say, «Here, dig this hole; as soon as you get it done, fill it back in.» He’s not trying to keep us active in Christian busyness; quite the opposite. He’s trying to lead us into fruitfulness and effectiveness.
So He gives this assignment because there’s something in His heart that has to be touched by somebody made in His image that will bring that case or that need before Him. There’s something He longs to do, but He’s actually looking for agreement before it can be done because it will not be forced upon the will of humanity; it must come out of the will of humanity.
He says, «Here’s My heart: the harvest field is rich with harvest, but you’ve got to ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers.» Now that word «to send out laborers» in verse 38, «to send out,» is a word that actually means to forcefully thrust. It’s the word used in the very next chapter when Jesus talks about casting out demons.
He casts demons out: there’s this demon in this afflicted individual, and Jesus comes and He thrusts, He throws that thing out. That’s the same word: to throw out harvesters. In other words, it’s almost a military term, like forcefully throwing us into the middle of this incredible, rich harvest field where we’re in over our heads, and we can’t help but bring the harvest in for the King.
The Moravians had this statement; I don’t have it exact, but it’s basically to «win for the Lamb the reward of His suffering.» It was this thing that they would pray and sing: we’ve got to win for the Lamb the reward of His suffering.
So we’ve got this passage; look at verse 37 again. It says, «The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.» What was He doing when He came into this moment of burden? If you can imagine Jesus standing on the edge of His promised land, and that’s this massive harvest, and He catches a glimpse of something.
What was He doing when He saw that? He was healing the sick; He was casting out devils; He was preaching, declaring the gospel of the kingdom. He was in that context when He was moved with compassion, and He then turned to the twelve and said, «Listen, you’ve got to pray. You’ve got to pray and contend for the Father to throw out harvesters, to cast forth harvesters into His harvest field.»
But look at verse 1 because there are no chapter breaks in the original manuscript of Scripture. Verse 1 of chapter 10: «And when He called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits to cast them out, to heal all kinds of sickness, all kinds of disease.»
Verse 7: «As you go, preach, saying 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons.' Freely you receive, freely give.» This entire 10th chapter is to equip these 12 disciples, if you will, to become the very harvesters Jesus told them to pray for.
I have a pastor friend of mine, years ago, who put flags of the nations all around the sanctuary, and then would be the names of the missionaries, the people that were part of their church that were in these various countries. If they didn’t have a missionary in that country where they would normally have names, they would put a mirror and say, «Go pray!» «Go pray for laborers.»
He would stand before that flag of that nation with a mirror—"Am I the one? Am I the one to be the harvest? Am I the one to go forth in Jesus' name?» I was reading this passage earlier today out of the Passion Translation. It says, «Jesus walked throughout the region with a joyful message of God’s kingdom realm. He taught in their meeting houses, and wherever He went, He demonstrated God’s power by healing every kind of disease and illness.»
When He saw the vast crowds of people, Jesus’s heart was deeply moved with compassion because they seemed weary and helpless, like wandering sheep without a shepherd. He turned to His disciples and said, «The harvest is huge and ripe, but there are not enough harvesters to bring it all in. As you go, plead with the owner of the harvest to thrust out many more reapers to harvest His grain.» Plead: pray with the Lord of the harvest to send out—that’s you, and that’s me!
So we have this mandate to minister to God, which is the most important thing, but there’s something that happens in that environment as worshipers where it actually sets the stage for evangelism.
In Isaiah 62, forgive me for just making reference to it, but I need to do that today; you can look it up on your own. It says, «Go through the gates; clear the way for the people. Remove the stones, remove the dusty rubble.» What is it describing? It’s describing worshipers who, in their worship caught up in the presence and glory of God, completely infatuated with Him, expressing their love and devotion to Him—not realizing that what they are doing is removing all the obstacles that have been raised up in culture and society.
Removing the obstacles—spiritual bulldozers, just creating pathways! Then it says to throw up a highway before God. What is a highway? It’s a place of quick, easy access; it’s the removing of the obstacles. How much of the devil are we focused on in those moments? Zero!
We’re focused on God, but we’re ministering to Him, and it has this effect. I’ve watched this for years; it has an effect on the evangelistic anointing of a group of people.
The second part of that story, or this assignment, is to minister to believers. There are many who are caught up just to care for people around them but never take it outside of that group. I’d like to say this: Jesus said in John 13:35, «They’ll know you’re My disciples because of your love for one another.»
In other words, they will see how you compassionately walk through conflict; they will watch you as you respond to the person who’s in crisis need; they will watch you care for them; they will see how you practice community, how you learn together to reign in life. It’s not competition with each other; it’s a true communal community pursuit of glorifying God by reigning in life together. They will see that, and they will come to the conclusion: «You are My disciples.»
Let me put it in this language: they will see your love for each other and will be convinced that Jesus is raised from the dead—He is present in the midst of His people!
A while back, there was a family in the church that picked up a homeless man and brought him to church on a particular Sunday, sitting right back there. There weren’t very many people in the sanctuary at the time. I was walking around just talking with people, welcoming them, and I saw them, so I made a beeline for him. I noticed he had a cast on his arm and was obviously in pain and discomfort, really protecting that arm.
So I went back and talked to him and to the family that brought him just to see how they were doing, you know, just being social and wanting them to feel welcome. I asked the guy with the broken arm, the homeless guy, «So what happened?» He said, «Oh, I fell off a bridge.» I think it was like 35 feet or something crazy and fell onto this wrist, shattering it completely, and it had just been done, so he was very tender and protective of that broken arm.
I asked him, «Do you mind if I pray for that?» He looked at the people that brought him, you know, like, «Is this normal for you guys?» and they were good with it, so I just tenderly prayed for him and asked the Lord to heal his arm.
He began to move it, and I wish I had a video of this, because his eyes went wide, his jaw dropped, and he looked at the people who brought him because now he has absolutely no pain and has full movement in the use of this arm. Well, it’s a wonderful thing to see happen; we’ve seen that happen countless times over the years.
Soon after that prayer, I came up, and people began to come in, and we started the service. We worship the Lord as we love to do; we pray for each other; we do the stuff we like to do; we open the Word. When I was through, I invited people to come to know Jesus—guess who was first? The guy who had just tasted of the kindness of the Lord!
See, we want people to buy into a whole meal, but we don’t give them samples. It says, «Taste and see that the Lord is good.» The Bible says it’s the kindness of the Lord that leads to repentance. It’s in conflict with the goodness of God to think we can come to God without repentance.
There’s this notion that, well, Jesus is the door to the Father, but anyone who is sincere—no! Heaven is real; hell is real; eternity is a long time; it’s a long time! And it helps nobody for us to dilute and ruin this simple gospel message that out of the kindness of the Father, He laid down His own Son as an offering to pay for to atone, to cover the one issue that was destroying all of humanity—sin! There’s only one possible solution!
There are not many roads to God; if that were true, then He was unusually cruel to His Son, Jesus, to require that death. It was done because it was the only possible solution; that is the message! But because of that extravagance of a Father to love people, it means that broken arm is in His target zone, and He would love to restore that.
It means the cancer we heard about this morning—fourth stage, people dying, ready to die—are prayed for, and God completely heals and delivers them. I spent some time yesterday with a friend who is actually in a coma, but things haven’t been going well for him: life is not treating him kindly; organs are shutting down, heart, liver, and I had a chance to be with him and his wife, hold his hand, and just talk to him as though he were sitting up in bed.
I remember Ray Larson, who pastored here before I did—a wonderful man of God, wonderful friend—had such an unusual gift in evangelism. I brought him back after I pastored here, and I told him to preach on a Sunday. I said, «Man, make sure you give an altar call!» He had so many people get saved that, you know, how many remember the Jesus People movement? You could just about sneeze, and people would get saved!
It was one of those moments in history where people just gathered—where the fish were jumping into the boat! So I was with my friend at the hospital, standing next to his bed and talking to him. I remember Ray Larson’s story; he was in a car accident, and he went down to the hospital to pray for a young lady who was in a coma, near death. He just talked with her as though she were awake because the spirit man was awake.
I remember that, going into a hospital room. He shared the gospel with her and prayed with her to receive Christ, and when he was through, he looked up, and there was a tear coming down the side of her face.
And then a short time later, she died. See, I want to make it hard to get to hell from Reading! Why? We make it hard. We’ve done this in times past where we’ve prayed, especially for the emergency room workers, for the people who are with the dying in hospitals, the convalescent care places, ambulance drivers, police, firemen—all these different folks who are more likely to be with somebody when they’re dying.
I want them to be mindful of God—who are not timid in that moment. Because I stood on the edge of eternity with my friend, reminding him of his purpose in life. I believe the Lord is going to raise him up, but apart from that, on the edge of eternity, I remind him why he’s alive. What he was bought for—what his assignment is—affirming that place in Christ that he’s to give all for.
His wife was there; she told me that she knows he heard because while I was praying for him, he opened his eyes and looked at me. The whole point is, eternity is a long time, and it’s not a paranoid parent position; it’s not fear-based. It’s my goodness! We love people; we love people; we love people!
It’s the lepers that went into the enemy’s camp. If you remember the story in the Old Testament, the enemy had been driven away, and there’s all this riches, all this food, and they’ve been starving to death.
The people in the city were starving to death, eating all this food, and they said, «Wait a minute, this isn’t right! We can’t enjoy this all for ourselves! We have to go back and let the city know what we found!»
So they run back as Old Testament evangelists and tell them that there is a meal waiting for them, and they can go and have as much as they want, and that’s the gospel! That’s what we do: we take this incredibly good news, this joyful news of a King and a Kingdom where there’s true forgiveness of sin, a fresh start, and empowerment to live entirely for Him—this living offering where we get the privilege of worshiping God, loving people, making a difference, and increasing the size of the harvest!
It’s not about membership at Bethel; it’s not even about you and me being able to put another notch on the back of our Bible. It has nothing to do with that! It has to do with He is worthy of a sizable harvest; that Moravian phrase: to win for the Lamb the reward of His suffering.
This is why we’re alive! If it wasn’t for that one thing, Jesus easily could have just caused us to breathe our last the moment we received Christ, taking us to heaven for our eternal reward. He is looking to see His own glory manifested on the earth with a harvest that is appropriate to Him!
One last illustration: how many of you remember where you were when you heard the Iron Curtain fell in the Soviet Union? I was actually—now I was actually in Redding, but I was pastoring in Weaverville, and we were down here with a group of men doing a men’s retreat, staying at one of the local hotels.
I remember going into my bedroom at the hotel and seeing on TV these people pouring by the thousands through this place—the Iron Curtain. The wall that divided East and West Germany. There was a section of the wall that was taken down, and they were pouring through by the hundreds and, actually, by thousands! They were singing—hundreds of people pouring through this gate, singing: «This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!»
They began to sing this song as they poured through that gap in the wall. They began to sing this incredible song, «This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.»
I found out sometime later that at that very place, where that section of the wall was removed, the symbol of division between East and West Germany, there had been a very significant and powerful prayer meeting at that place—the actual place in the wall—where there was a gathering of believers the night before, and that’s when it broke loose, man!
You never know when your next prayer is going to be the prayer that brings breakthrough. These people who had probably gathered for who knows how many years prayed again, and there was liberty!
During that period of time, I remember myself; I ministered a bit in Europe, but I remember going through different parts of Europe. I even remember making the announcement: «I believe the Iron Curtain is going to fall.» You know, no ism can stand against Christ, and whether it’s communism or socialism or any ism that people come up with, nothing can stand against the power of the gospel.
And you know, it’s the kind of thing you say that’s absolutely true, and it gets a lot of amens, but it doesn’t always give preparation. Here’s what happened: this Iron Curtain fell. Right previously, a couple of years before this removal of the Iron Curtain, prophets and prophetic communities had been announcing that the Iron Curtain is going to fall!
And that’s the kind of thing everybody says amen to. It’s the kind of thing we’re excited for; it’s the kind of thing we say, «Boy, that’s right! That’s what’s going to happen!» But the point I want to make is, I don’t want to make the same mistake as was made all those years ago for the Soviet Union.
When the word of the Lord comes forth, it means I must position myself for what God just said. I must be about the Father’s business; I must be in the harvest and pray for the harvesters. What’s happening right now in various places around the world, I’ve never seen anything like.
It’s been common in Christian circles, especially the organizations that I work with around the world—various ministries, streams of churches, and missions organizations. Europe has all but been given up by many as the dark continent.
And yet something is exploding there that is so amazing! They said it couldn’t happen, and it is happening! Just a couple of weeks ago, Ben Fitzgerald, one of our own—you know, we were in Austria and thousands of believers are on the streets sharing the gospel. People are getting saved! People are running from the back all the way to the front just to meet this Jesus and come to Christ.
There is something— they said it couldn’t happen, not in places like that! In Germany a few years ago, in Nuremberg, they chose that place because that’s where Hitler announced his thing, and they wanted to go right back to the root of that movement and see a redemptive turnaround, where a generation is raised up not to promote Nazism, but the Gospel of Jesus!
Something has happened in Germany since that event; something’s happened, and it’s rippling through various parts of Europe. What’s happening right now is stunning! It’s the beginning of the billion-soul harvest, Charlie; it’s already started!
But let me tell you, there’s not enough room in all the churches in the nation to contain what God wants to do! We’ve got to think differently; we’ve got to position ourselves better. It’s not just sending them to a discipleship class, as much as I believe in those. It’s you, the believer, caring for the new believer—discipling, teaching them everything you’ve learned!
This is the privilege of the gospel, and the billion-soul harvest has started! I don’t want to stand in heaven looking at what could have been possible so many years ago.
I wrote a song; it was actually, I think, a part of a chapter in a book or a poem or something that somebody else put a song to, but it came down to this: some people want to live within the sound of chapel bells, but I want to run a mission a yard from the gate of hell! Yep! Right on the edge—the time, the eternity, right there! It’s worth it!
Pray this with me: Father God, let’s pray this together: Father God, I receive the privilege, I receive the opportunity, I receive the assignment to be a harvester and to pray for harvesters! Give me Your heart, Your eyes, Your touch to redemptively see the most broken situations in life turned around for the glory of God! We say yes to the billion-soul harvest. Increase our capacity to be in the middle of what You’re doing, that the Lamb of God would receive the reward of His suffering. Amen! Amen!
Before I dismiss you, I know just by sheer odds the number of people in the room, there’s a good chance that there are people here who don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus. I’ve actually been talking about you as one who could come to know what it is to be forgiven—to know what it is to live as a follower, a disciple of Jesus, to know what it is to be born again—that’s changed from the inside.
If there’s anybody in this room who is in that position, you say, «Bill, I don’t want to leave until I know I’m right with God,» then I want you just to put a hand up where you are. We’re just going to make a moment of celebration to honor your wonderful! Anyone?
Okay, I see your hand way in the back there. Is that why your hands are up? Alright! Anyone else? Anyone else? Okay, all right, I’m going to ask you to stand. Stand with me, if you will.
And I want to ask our ministry team to come to the front. The two who raised their hands that I saw, plus anyone else who would just say, «I’ve walked with the Lord, but I’ve been going east and He’s been going west, and I want to get things restored.» Anyone in that place? I want you to come right now, up front with my friends at this banner on my left. Come to them; they will talk, they will pray with you. Let’s have the ministry team come quickly and help us by getting ready to pray for yet again more miracles!
Leslie, help us out. Thank you, Father, for Your heart! Amen!
Well, if you need prayer in any way, if you want healing in your body, I’m sorry; I’m just so rocked by that message. How many here feel—let’s just take a minute and just—oh, thank You, God! We say yes! Just put your hands up right now. We say yes, God! Yes, God! Yes, God! We say yes, God! We say yes to what You’re doing on the earth! We will be a part of Your harvest, God! We say yes!
Thank You, God! Thank You, God! Amen! Amen!
All right, God bless you, church! If you need healing in your body, if you need a miracle today, we would love to pray for you, so come on and join us up front! God bless you, church, as you go into the harvest! Amen! Bless you!