Let's open the scriptures to
the book of Luke, chapter number 10. This is actually a scripture
that we looked at last Lord's Day. And as I studied through the week,
I was going to go deeper into the chapter. Oh, midday Thursday, I felt like
the Lord was leading me in a different direction to go back to one of
the verses we had actually looked at last week. Luke chapter 10. I hope the Lord will enable me
to speak to you today on the Lord's harvest. Let's look at
the Lord's harvest. Chapter 10, verse 1. After these things, the Lord
appointed other seventy also. These men were chosen in grace
unto salvation. God also chose them to preach
the gospel. They didn't go forth preaching
their own message. He gave them the message they
were to preach, the gospel of the kingdom. We don't choose
our message. Our message has already been
selected for us. We preach Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. I come before you today with
no new message. We just start in a different
location. We just start at a different
verse and then we go to the same subject. We just have one subject,
don't we? And we love the Savior. He's our subject. He's our all
in all as we study His blood and His righteousness. Our Lord
chose these men. He ordained them to salvation.
Then He appointed them. Then He thrust them out into
the fields to preach the gospel. He said, you go out two by two.
These men would go out before His face. They were always before
His face. Always before His face. He was
always beholding His servants. In this passage, He promised
them protection. He promised them provision. He said, don't worry about what
you're going to eat. I'll take care of you. Don't
worry about packing up some provisions to take along with you. Everything
you need, I'll supply the need." He just sends them out. The only
thing they were concerned themselves with was setting forth the gospel
of the kingdom. That's all. That's all a preacher
of the gospel is supposed to do. I'm not worried about numbers. I'm not worried about finances.
I'm just concerned with one thing, preaching the right message.
The right message, if God the Spirit comes upon that message,
great things will happen. You know what? They might even
happen to you. Might even happen in you, by
the power of God's Spirit, making the Lord Jesus to be all in all
to you. So that you'll see that He's
altogether lovely. that He is the Great Physician
for your sin-sick soul. May God the Spirit lead you to
Christ Jesus today. Well, these men He sent them
forth two by two before His face into every city whether He Himself
would come. In other words, after they went
forth and preached Him, then He would go forth. This is the
emphasis in the Word of God. We preach Jesus Christ and Him
crucified, and on the heels of the preaching of Christ, the
Savior comes and reveals Himself. He never reveals Himself apart
from His Word that is set forth. So we always preach Christ. Now
look at the second verse. said He unto them, the harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. So He tells His brethren, you
men pray. You pray therefore the Lord of
the harvest. It's His harvest. And He's the
Lord of it. Because He's the Lord of all
things. He's the Lord over all, blessed
forever. God has made this same Jesus,
whom you crucified, Simon Peter said, to be both Lord and Christ. He's the Lord. He doesn't want
to be the Lord. He's not waiting on you to make
Him Lord. He's everybody's Lord. He's the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's the Lord, the Sovereign.
He's the King. He's Jesus. He's the Savior who
saved His people from their sins by His sacrificial death. He's
the Christ. He's the Anointed One. He's the
Sent One. He's the Messiah. He's the Lord
Jesus Christ and He's the Lord of the Harvest. If He is not the Lord of the
harvest, there is no use praying to Him. If He has done all He can do,
there is no use praying to Him. If the Savior's hands are tied,
then there is no use praying to Him. If everything is left up to the
sinner, there is no use praying to the Lord of the harvest. But all things are in His hands.
He's the Lord of the harvest. That's why we pray to Him. That's
why we pray for our children. That's why we pray for our grandchildren.
Oh God, gather them into Your kingdom. Oh God, reap them as
Your wheat. Oh God, take this gospel of substitution,
this gospel of sacrifice, this gospel of satisfaction, make
it real, make it precious to the hearts of those whom we love. Oh Lord of the harvest, gather
your wheat into the garner today. He's the Lord of the harvest. You pray to the Lord of the harvest,
that he would send forth laborers into, watch it, his harvest. It's his harvest. It's his seed
that we sow. It's his laborers that he has
appointed. And it's his harvest into which
he gathers the souls of men and women and young people. He's
the Lord of the harvest. And when we think in the Bible
of the word harvest, as we study the scriptures, in the Bible
it's got a two-fold meaning. The harvest. Number one, the
harvest refers to the end of the world and the judgment of
the Lord upon the wicked. And not only the Lord's judgment
upon the wicked, but the gathering together of His elect unto Himself. I want you to look at a couple
of Scriptures. Look at Matthew chapter 13. The book of Matthew
chapter 13. And look at verse 24. Matthew
chapter 13 and verse 24. This is where our brother left
off from reading. Matthew 13, 24, another parable
put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened
unto a man which sowed good seed in his field. But while men slept,
his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his
way. But when the blade was sprung
up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder
came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed
in thy field? The seed is always good now.
And I'll show you what the seed is in a little bit. Didst not
thou sow good seed in thy field? From whence then hath it tears? He said unto them, An enemy hath
done this. The servant said unto him, Wilt
thou then that we go and gather them up? We'll gather up all
these tares. But he said, No. No, lest while ye gather up the
tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Say, I can tell who's saved and
who's not saved. Really? Can you see the heart? Simon Peter didn't appear to
be very saved when he was denying the Lord three times. We might
have just, if his left up to us, we'd say, he's a tear, he's
out of here. You'd be uprooting some of the
Lord's wheat. You don't know, because you can't
see the heart. You can't see my heart. In fact,
you have trouble seeing your own heart. Because the heart
is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can
know it? The word desperately means it
is hopelessly wicked. Who can know it? Who can know
it? He says, just let them grow together.
Look at verse 30. Let them grow together, let both
grow together until when? Until the harvest. And in the
time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers, gather ye together
first all the tares, bind them into bundles to burn them, but
gather the wheat into my barn." Look down at verse 36. Then Jesus said unto the multitude,
verse 36, Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into
the house. And His disciples came unto Him,
saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He
answered and said unto them, He that sowed the good seed is
the Son of Man, and I would say the Son of Man and all of His
preachers. Because really, when I sow the
seed of the gospel this morning, as I'm spreading the good seed
of the good news of salvation in, through, and by the Lord
Jesus Christ, salvation, dependent upon His obedience unto death,
even the death of the cross. As I declare that message, it's
really the Lord declaring the message because it's His Word.
He said back in Luke chapter 10, He said, He that heareth
you, heareth Me. He that refuses to hear you,
refuses to hear My Father which is in heaven. Look at verse 38. The field is
the world. The good seed, they are the children
of the kingdom, but the tares are the children of the wicked
one. The enemy that sowed them is the devil. What is the harvest? Well, it's the end of the world.
There's going to come a harvest. The end of the world is dawning,
and the reapers are the angels. As therefore these tares are
gathered together and burned in the fire, so shall it be in
the end of this world. The Son of Man shall send forth
His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things
that offend and them which do iniquity." You see, His people
don't offend and His people don't have any iniquities. Why not? They've all been taken away.
In that day the sins of Israel and Judah, the transgressions
of God's people, shall be sought for and shall not be found. But He is going to gather, His
angels shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend,
and them which do iniquity and shall cast them in the furnace
of fire. There shall be wailing and gnashing
of teeth. And then shall the righteous,
the righteous. Who in the world are the righteous?
Well, lo and behold, it's us. It's us. Made righteous in the
Lord our righteousness. In fact, His name is our name. We are the Lord our righteousness. For He was made sin for us, that
one who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. We are righteous in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Then shall the righteous shine
forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father, shining in His
glory, shining in His brilliance, shining in His righteousness. Who hath ears to hear, let him
hear. There is coming a final harvest. Go over to the book of Revelation
chapter 15 with me. Revelation chapter 15. Let's
begin reading in verse 14. Revelation. Just one revelation. Just one revelation. It's not
revelations. It's one revelation. Because
it's the revelation not of Saint John the Divine. It's the revelation
of the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, all of the Word of God
is the revelation of the Lord of Glory, Christ Jesus our Savior. Revelation chapter 14. Chapter 14 and verse 14. John said, and I looked. And
behold, Revelation 14, 14. And I looked and behold, I was
amazed. Something caught my eye. Behold a white cloud. And upon the cloud one sat, likened
to the Son of Man. John saw him earlier in Revelation
chapter 1. John said, Behold, he cometh
with clouds, and every eye shall see him. This is his second coming
as John sees it with the eye that is given to him, the eye
of the spirit of prophecy. I looked, and behold, a white
cloud. And upon the cloud, one sat. He sat. Our Lord Jesus, after
He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, went back to
glory and did what? He sat down. Because the work
was done. In the Old Testament tabernacle,
of all those pieces of furniture, there wasn't a chair. because
the work was never done. Our Lord Jesus finished the work
of redemption to the Father's full satisfaction. He went back
to glory and the Father said, sit here at my right hand until
I make all of your enemies your footstool. John said, I saw him,
this one who sat. He's upon a cloud. He had on
his head a golden crown. Crown Him with many crowns, we
sing. And in His hand, watch it now,
in His hand a sharp sickle. The sickle is not only to cut
down, but to bring unto Himself. Verse 15, And another angel came
out of the temple. This angel is crying. He is entreating. He is beseeching with a loud
voice. To him that sat on the cloud.
And the angel said, thrust in thy sickle. Now this is not a
command. Because a created angel doesn't
give commands to the son of man who's been exalted. Rather he
is beseeching the son of man. He is entreating the son of man
to thrust in his sickle and reap. For the time has come for thee
to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe. Everything is ripe to be reaped. It's the time of the harvest.
Now watch verse 16. He that sat on the cloud thrust
in his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped. Of what? Or really reaped of who? Reaped
of His people. He reaps His wheat. He cuts His
wheat down, as it were, and gathers them unto Himself. He gathers
His wheat from the four corners of the earth. He does this Himself. These are His people. This is
His wheat. He chose them. He redeemed them. He called them. He preserved
them. Now He's gathering them unto
Himself where we shall be with Him forever and ever throughout
the ceaseless ages of eternity there in glory to praise Him
who is deserving of all praises. So there's the gathering of His
elect in verse 16. That's the reaping of the wheat. Look at verse 17. And another
angel came out of the temple which is in heaven. He also has
a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from
the altar which had power over fire. He cried with a loud voice
to him that had the sharp sickle. He cried out to the Lord of the
harvest. saying, thrust in thy sharp sickle,
and gather all the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her
grapes are fully ripe. Now, the Lord's people, His wheat,
we are ripe unto harvest. We are ripe, we are fit for glory,
not in ourselves, but in the beauties of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are worthy of heavenly glories in our Savior. These grapes that
are being reaped, that are fully ripe, they are ripe for the judgment. They are ripe for the wrath of
God. They are ripe for everlasting
devastation. And so the angel thrust in his
sickle into the earth, and he gathered the vine of the earth.
They are of the earth, earthy. They are of the earth. They are
men and women of the earth. They loved the earth. They hated
the things of God. They hated heavenly things. They
were attached to the earth. They were of the earth. They
were of the world. They loved the world. This angel
sent from Christ Jesus gathers the vine of the earth, casts
it into the winepress of the wrath of God. And the wine press was trodden
without the city, without the city of Jerusalem. That is, without
the people of God, outside of the people of God. And in symbolic
language, John says, the blood came out of the wine press, even
under the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred
furlongs, which is just another way of saying, it's an awful
destruction. That's the time of the final
harvest. Oh, my friend, will you be found
among the wheat or among the grapes ripe for His wrath? Oh, God, show us mercy. Oh, let us cast ourselves upon
the blessed Savior. There's no forgiveness anywhere
else. There is no righteousness anywhere else. There is no acceptance
anywhere else. Fall before the Son of God, the
Sovereign, the Lord of the Harvest, if you will! If you will, you can wash me. If you will, you can robe me
in your righteousness. I fall at your sovereign throne
of grace and I wait for you to do something for me, O God. And if the Spirit of grace brings
you to cry from your soul to the Lord of the harvest in such
a fashion, He who put the cry within you will hear that cry. There's coming a final harvest.
Go back to our text in Luke chapter 10. The second harvest spoken
of in the Scriptures is that time of the conversion of the
people of God. You'll notice our Lord says in
Luke 10 and verse 2, the harvest truly is great. It's a great
harvest. It's a great harvest because
it's the harvest of the great God. It's a great harvest because
it's the harvest of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ
the Lord. It's a great harvest because
this crop is great in number. Oh, at any given time we see
it's a little flock. But John says over in the book
of the Revelation, He said, I saw all the saints gathered together
from every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue. He said, why, it's
a multitude which no man can number. This is a big harvest. The Lord is gathering His elect
into the kingdom of salvation and safely into the fold. He's
harvesting His people according to His will. It's a great harvest of a great
group of people. A great group of people redeemed
by the blood of the Lamb. Revelation chapter 5, John said,
I heard them singing. This group that were redeemed
out of every nation, kindred, tribe and tongue. These are the people to whom
the good seed of the gospel has come in life giving power. The
gospel is the good seed. Go with me back to Luke chapter
8. This is a parallel passage to
what our brother read to us. Luke chapter 8. Here we find
the good seed that falls upon different kinds of ground. But
only the ground prepared to receive the seed bore fruit. Luke chapter 8 verse 4. Luke 8 verse 4, and when much
people were gathered together and were come to Him out of every
city, He spoke by a parable. A sower went out to sow his seed. Now look down in verse 11. Now
the parable is this, the seed is the Word of God. We're not
guessing as to what the seed represents. The Lord tells us. The seed is the Word of God. Now, the Word of God, like little
seed, seems very unimpressive to a
lot of people. You take a little seed, it will
be springtime before we know it, hopefully. We will get rid
of all this snow and ice and slush. It will all be gone. You will be planting your gardens. Nancy taught me how to grow a
little bit of a garden. I used to plant silver queen
corn. And I'd put three little kernels
of corn in the ground. Why'd you put three? One for
me, one for my neighbor, and one for the crows. That's what
Nancy's daddy taught me. You know, it seems insignificant,
that little seed. You go sow grass seed and it's
just teeny bitty, little bitty teeny seed. So insignificant. Will anything come of it? And
to many people, the Word of God, the Word of the Gospel, it seems
insignificant. Will anything come of it? Well, if I just speak the Word
of God, And the Lord doesn't bless it, nothing will come of
it. But there's life in this seed
under the right conditions. Isn't that right? Under the right
conditions, there's life. It's when the Spirit of God takes
it. See, I can't make you alive. I can't take the Word of the
Gospel and make application of it to your soul. I can't plant
it deep within you. I can try my best to get it in
these ears. But that's as far as my words
can go. That's as far as the Word of God out of my lips will
go. It's an insignificant thing and
it's a little thing, but there's life in the seed if the Spirit
of God is pleased to make it life to you. And this is our great need, that
God the Spirit would take the things of Jesus Christ and show
them unto us. Oh God, make the errors of your
grace, make them be directed to my heart. Then I'll live. Then I'll live. It represents the Word of God.
Unimpressive to the natural eye. But there is life in it. Of His
own will begat He us. Is that the end of the verse?
No. With the Word of Truth. With the Word of Truth. I heard
a man preach one time. He said, you know a man can be
taken a bath in the bathtub. and the things of God be the
furthest from his mind, and the Lord can just regenerate him
just like that. And I asked him, I said, without
the Word of God? Well, he said, well, the Lord
can do anything He wants to. I said, He does things His way. And His way is life through the
Word. That's why we preach the Word
of the Gospel. If God's going to regenerate
sinners, He'll use His Word. He'll use the Gospel of Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. We preach His Word. There's life
in the Word of God when the Spirit of God comes upon it. Making
it effectual to our hearts. Our Lord spoke of the necessity
of being born again. He said you must be born again. Born of the water and of the
Spirit. The water. What's the water?
The water of the Word. The water of the Word and the
Spirit. Well, we go forth sowing good
seed. The good seed of salvation all
together by grace. The good seed of salvation and
redemption and reconciliation and righteousness brought in
by the substitutionary death of our Lord Jesus Christ. We
go forth sowing the good seed of salvation conditioned upon
the blessed Savior, of salvation which is received by God-given
faith, of salvation and mercy and grace for undeserving sinners. We sow the good seed of safety
and security, of the preservation of all of those who are brought
to believe on the name of the Son of God. This is good seed. It's always good seed. But let's
make sure we're sowing this seed. Because this is the only seed
that is good. The seed of the Word of God.
So the good seed is the Word of God. Here's the second thing.
Gospel preachers are like sowers. That man who is the preacher
of the gospel is like the man who casts his bread upon the
waters and waits for it to come back or to return after many
days. Solomon said, he that goeth forth
and weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again
rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. This is very precious
seed. The word precious means costly. It's expensive. This is not cheap
seed. This is expensive seed. The gospel
of good news, the gospel of your salvation is expensive. It costs Jesus Christ His blood. He died for our sins according
to the Scriptures and rose again the third day according to the
same Scriptures. This precious seed is costly
seed. Oh, it's free to us, but it's
not cheap. And we're not going to cheapen
the gospel either. When we preach the gospel, we
are preaching the riches of His grace through Christ Jesus. And like the farmer who looks
forward to the harvest, if he wants to see that harvest, he
will sow good seed. The good seed is the very pure
Word of God. We preach Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. We don't preach the traditions
of men. We don't preach confessions of faith. I was looking on the
internet on Sermon Audio one day this week, and one of the
messages that was being broadcast live at that time was a message
on the Heidelberg Confession. The Heidelberg Confession of
Faith. We don't preach the Heidelberg Confession of Faith, or the Philadelphia
Confession of Faith, or the Westminster Confession of Faith, or any other
confession of faith. We preach Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. That's our message. That's the
seed. That's the only seed God will
bless. It's the only seed that has life
in it. It's the only seed that will
germinate in the heart of a sinner when the Spirit of God takes
it and puts it deep within the soul and miraculously and mysteriously
makes it germinate, makes it bring forth life. This seed. Don't adorn it. Don't doctor
it up. Just give it out as it is to
sinners as they are and pray the Lord of the harvest that
He'll make it effectual. I had a Sunday school teacher a
few years ago came to me and talked about how to relate these
things how to break them down for the Sunday school class.
And I said, I understand you want to speak to your students
in a language that they can understand, but don't water down the gospel
in your effort to make it understandable. Because the regenerating power
is not in your ability to set forth the Word. The regenerating
power is the Spirit's power using the Word of grace. Just give
forth the Gospel. Trust the Lord of the harvest
to bring forth a harvest. He's the only one that can make
it understandable to the young or the old and to those in between
too. And we must be diligent in setting
forth the seed and spreading the seed. Isaiah 32, 20 says, blessed are
ye that sow beside all waters. We can't be distracted. This
is not only my responsibility to sow the seed, this is our
responsibility as a local body of believers, isn't it? This
is our responsibility to sow the seed as a church. Look with
me in Ecclesiastes chapter 11. Ecclesiastes chapter 11. And I'm going to find a good
place where I can stop and I'll restart tonight. Because I've
got more I want to give you and I'm just about out of time. But
look at Ecclesiastes chapter 11, I believe it is. Yeah, here
it is. Ecclesiastes 11 verse 4. Ecclesiastes 11 verse 4. He that
observeth the wind shall not sow. and he that regardeth the
clouds shall not reap." In other words, that one who waits for
absolutely perfect conditions to sow your seed, you may lose
your time to sow and therefore not see a harvest. You know what
the Apostle Paul said to Timothy? Preach the word, sow the seed,
be instant. You know what he said next? In
season, out of season. If conditions seem favorable
to you, preach the Word. If conditions don't seem favorable,
preach the Word. When people want to hear what
you've got to say, preach the Word. When people don't want
to hear what you've got to say, preach the Word, in season, out
of season. Whether they like it or whether
they don't like it, preach the same message. Maybe the Lord
of the harvest will come in power upon that seed. You don't regard conditions.
I had a Sunday school teacher one
time said, well, I think I'm only going to have one in my
class today. I think I won't have my class
today. I said, one? One soul? What a golden opportunity. You
get to talk to one person one on one. Don't cancel the class. Take advantage of the situation.
Sow the seed. Sow the seed. Don't look for
ideal conditions. Let me tell you something. They
don't exist. Just keep on sowing the seed.
If it's windy, sow the seed. If it's rainy, sow the seed.
Just sow the seed. The Lord of the harvest. He'll
bring in the harvest. You don't have to worry about
it. Isn't that wonderful? We don't have to worry about that. We
have one responsibility as a body of believers here. And that responsibility
is not to bring in a harvest. That's none of our business.
Our responsibility is to just sow the seed. That's what we're
doing this morning. That's what you did in your Bible
classes this morning. Just sowing the seed. That's
what I'm doing right now. Sowing the seed. We sow it liberally
too. We don't hold back. It's not
just three little kernels to a hill. Hey, I'm going to give
you the good seed over and over and over again. And I'll trust
the Lord of the harvest to do His work. This is the good seed
that will accomplish God's good purpose. And you may rest assured of this,
the seed of the Word of God, it will be sown and the Lord
will harvest His elect into the fold of salvation. Now, He will.
And He might use you, and He might use me, and if we say,
well, we're not going to preach to God, He'll use somebody else.
But His Word shall go forth. And we have this promise, it
shall not, it shall not, I love this, God says, it shall not
return unto Me void. It shall accomplish My purpose. and the thing where to I send
it." And whatever his purpose is, for you to be here today,
or for you to be watching by way of the internet today, whatever
that purpose is, I know this, it will be fulfilled. And this
good seed will be a savor of life and the life for some, and
a savor of death and the death for others. And that's why the
Apostle Paul said, who is sufficient for these things? And in the
next chapter, in 2 Corinthians 3, he said, the Lord is our sufficiency. Oh, He's the Lord of the harvest.
And we worship Him. Amen. Let's sing a hymn, brother.