Here we are in September 2021. September is the month of new seasons; students return to school, football season, pumpkin spice flavored everything. In the region where I grew up, the apples are just about ready to be picked.

I know very little about our Hebrew heritage in Christ, but this is year 5780. Rosh Hashanah, the civic new year, begins September 25. There are indications that this is when creation took place. Some scholars also believe it is when Jesus was born.

In the land of the Bible, like in North America, this time of year is also called “harvest time.” My father in law lives in South Carolina and he would grow a spring/summer garden, and then after the reaping of that garden in early fall, he would plant a “winter garden.” The winter garden would be a shorter season, and would grow crops based upon the richness of the soil that had previously produced crops in the spring/summer.

It doesn’t take a Hebrew calendar expert or an agrarian expert to recognize that we are nearing the end of the “final harvest.”

One of the saddest verses in the Bible is Jeremiah 8:20, “the harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” May I tell you that the prophet wasn’t talking about crops! God was speaking to His people of their ultimate ignorance of His commands and statutes.

God’s people had been called to follow His ways, and with following Him came a promise. These were outlined by Moses, some two thousand years previously. Today, some 2,000 years ago God made a way through Jesus that all of the world, (John 3:16) could be saved.

Only do not ignore the harvest.

I was a farmer for a minute. My parents had a few acres of land to grow vegetables. Here’s what we were required to do: break up the ground in spring, plant the seeds, weed the garden, harvest the produce. We had no control over the rain, the temperature, the sunlight, or what happened under the soil.

The harvest was our job. In fact, if we didn’t harvest, we would go hungry.

Now should be the time, especially after such a long spiritual drought, for the church to prepare and gather the harvest! Corn doesn’t walk into the silo. Wheat doesn’t walk into the barn. WE are to go into the field and harvest.

The summer is coming to an end.

Let’s not the words “the harvest is lost” roll off our lips.