Feast of Tabernacles

Excerpt

9/19/2005

Our prayer is that God’s people everywhere might quickly come to the overwhelming realization that we are still far, far from God’s desire for us, and that there might come into our midst a genuine spirit of repentance before the Day of the Lord breaks forth upon us. For truly we are very close to that hour. It is harvest-time, and the Husbandman walks through the fields, examining the fruit to see how good it is, and if it is ready yet for the sickle. For in this hour He is looking for one thing and for one thing only, and that is, “the precious fruit of the earth.” That is why he is faithful to send the latter rain where it is needed, and faithful also to send the sunshine and the heat and the drought, to hasten the maturing of “the full corn in the ear.” In harvest-time He desires one thing, and one thing only, and that is the FRUIT. In harvest-time everything else is chaff!

And what is FRUIT? Let any gardener answer the question. For certainly it is not just gathering what you can in a certain season called Autumn. Certainly it is not just coming to the end of a long, dry summer, and getting ready for winter. From the time he planted the seed the good gardener has been waiting patiently to receive something from his field that will be EQUALLY as good as the precious seed that He planted. Now the Lord is a good Gardener, and He is the Lord of the Harvest. And He cannot be satisfied until He comes into His garden and discovers the FRUIT that corresponds to the Seed that He became in the earth when He “fell into the ground and died.”

And so, let us remember that harvest time is threshing-time. Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you...and let us not be discouraged when we see all the devastation that is taking place, and will yet take place, in the political, the economic, and the religious world. For all must be crushed in pieces in this day when God is shaking “not the earth only, but also the heaven...” And let us remember that He is doing this for His own glory, and for your sake and mine. We have a kingdom which cannot be shaken; and we must be loosed from all the entanglements of this present world system. God has been very patient with us as He prepared our hearts, planted the good seed, weeded the soil, watered it with the showers of heaven, and then sent the sunshine to dry up the stalk and to mature the fruit. “Be patient also, establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”

(G. Warnock)