Do you not say?

John 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!” While the harvest is growing, it is green, but when it is mature it starts to die and dry out and as it dries it turns golden and especially with wheat and barley, the heads with their beards turn kind of an off white color when it is fully mature.

In this specific instance Jesus is probably speaking of the Samaritans that are coming out to see him and are ready to believe in Him. Jesus had spoken just a few hours before this to a Samaritan woman and fruit was produced. She believed. Now she had the whole village coming out to see Jesus and a great revival would happen, only a few hours after the seed was planted.

The Holy Spirit is not limited by any natural or even spiritual law. As pietistic Lutherans we sometimes speak of the order of salvation. There is an awakening through the word and sacraments, the soul comes under conviction of sin and flees to the cross and is saved. For me that process took 4-5 years. Maybe for you it took less time. For some it can happen in a matter of minutes. I heard one guy give his testimony once where he said he was witnessed to seven different people over ten years, the seven sowers were not in vain, He finally came to a point in His life where He believed. I heard another testimony of a guy who was a rebel and angry at God and he was one minute racing down a road literally shouting at God at the top of His lungs and shaking his fist at the heavens, the next thing He knew he was prostrate in the ditch confessing his sins and praising a God who could save even him.

Do you not say, we are far from revival? Do you not say, no one gets saved anymore? Do you not say, the church seems to be ineffective? The Holy Spirit is not hindered. You and I may be hindered, but the Holy Spirit is not hindered. Do you not say, yes I witness, but it has no affect? Do you not say? ... Yes we say a lot of things. Don’t make excuses. Don’t say, we won’t have revival in my life time.

I’m probably the greatest offender. O, I reminisce about the small revival that took place in Hendrum amongst the youth. But it was so long ago, those days are gone, they will never happen again. Or I look at the Lutheran church of fifty to a hundred years ago and read about the revivals that seemed to spring up some where every few years and think in my mind those days were the good old days they will never happen again.

I think too many Christians look at the current apostasy and think that a revival would be impossible. Is the church becoming more and more apostate? Yes! Does that in any way hinder the Spirit of God in saving sinners and starting a revival? No! As a matter of fact, these are usually the very conditions where God show His might arm to save and revivals are born. “Lift up your eyes and look to the fields, for they are already white unto harvest.” That’s the thing we need to keep in mind. The Holy Spirit is working in our world today. He is preparing hearts and minds to hear the message of forgiveness of sins and salvation in the cross of Christ.

Another thing to keep in mind is that America isn’t the center of the world, and it’s definitely not the center of Christianity. It’s true that for the last two hundred years that a great missionary push has gone out for this country, God has blessed us and used this country in a mighty way to spread the Gospel. But if you look at what is happening in the world today most of the growth of the church is else where. If you get the Revival tidings newsletter, you read of wonderful things happening in the church in Kenya. I get a newsletter from the AFLC missionaries, Nate and Rhoda Jore, and the Ambassador Academy as they work with and train Pastors and lay leaders in Uganda and India and God is working in supernatural ways and sweeping hundreds into the kingdom of God.

But there I go again, we can talk about such things in a way that says, yes, it can happen and is happening over there, but it can’t happen here. Who say? Certainly not the Spirit of God. Jesus says lift up your eyes. Get your eyes off the ground. Get your eyes off yourself. Even, get your eyes off Hauge Lutheran Church; this is so much bigger than that. If we don’t lift up our eyes we won’t see that the fields are white unto harvest. If we don’t look with understanding and see that God is doing a work in the world we may miss it. If we only look at ourselves and our inadequacies we will never see what God wants us to see. If we never lift up our eyes to see, we won’t recognize the ripe harvest that is before us. We need to lift up our eyes and we need to expect that there will be a harvest.

The Morning Glory published by The Hauge Lutheran Innermission Federation is a great little magazine, but there is a big difference between it and say “The Christian Fellowship Banner”, published by the Hauge Foreign Mission, and the “Revival Tidings” published by the Evangelical Lutheran Bible Fellowship. Those two newsletters share stories of the present of how God is working in the world overseas. The Morning Glory has one or two current articles, but mostly is focused on how God has worked in the past with a hope that maybe he will do it again someday. “Lift up your eyes and see the fields are already ripe unto harvest.