Promises for Harvesters (Isa. 54:1-17)
Faith either moves mountains or finds a way to tunnel through any challenge.
The people of Israel were reeling mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually from a series of hardships. The northern kingdom of Israel suffered under the poor leadership of more than twenty kings. Judah only had eight good kings out of twenty men. They could have coined the phrase, "Looking for a few good men." The Israelites endured opression, dispossession, and displacement for centuries. Many of the people grow discouraged, disconsolate and distressed. They were like a woman forsaken, rejected and living in shame.
Yet, in the midst of adversity, God speaks through Isaiah to foretell of renewal, revival and a flourishing time to come. How sweet the return of God’s mercies toward us after a display of His chastening hand. Weeping may last for a night, but His joy comes in the morning. God’s gathering of His people becomes evident from His mercy not our own merit. God is in the recovery and reproduction business and He wants us to live in the light of His resurrection promises to cover the earth with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
The increase of God’s harvest will bring great joy, enrichment and encouragement to millions. Multitudes will be converted and tell of the greatness of our God by finding new life through faith in Christ and His substitutionary payment for the forgiveness of sin. Even in heaven there will be uncommon joy for sinners who repent and much more for the people groups that find the Savior. The boundaries of the church will extend much further than ever before. Just as God used the apostles to reach 10% of the earth’s population by the fourth century, so God is in the business of reaping a harvest of righteousness in our day as well.
Quote - Happiness will never come to those who do not appreciate what they already have in Christ and His promises.
Let us lengthen our cords and strengthen our stakes that they might bear the weight of the enlarged curtains required to contain the new multitudes that will be apart of God’s bigger tent inhabitants. It is proof of God’s power, prowess and productivity still working despite all of the negative news we hear every day.
This passage is filled with promises for harvesters who are willing to expand, extend and export their faith to the fields that are ripe for harvesting. It was this passage that launched William Carey and thousands of missionaries to experience the greatest harvesting in history. They took these promises and saw God do great things - can we believe and obey God in similar ways. Let us examine eight great promises for havesters to help us overcoming our fears, feeling of inadequacies, and insufficiencies.
After all we do serve the Lord of the harvest. We can anticipate the Lord bringing forth fruit in the proper time. (Matt 9:36-38)
1. Even though the beginnings of Christ’s harvest may be small they will eventually be great. Let us sing with anticipation of the great and joyful fruitfulness that we will see evidenced through the Spirit’s enabling power. "Sing O childless woman! Break forth into loud and joyful song. ... For the woman who could bear no children now has more than all other women. For the Lord says, "Enlarge your house and build an addition: spread out your home. For you will soon be bursting at the seams. Your descendants will take over other nations and live in their cities." (Isa 54:1-3)
"Sing unto the Lord a new song. For He is doing marvelous things. He right hand and His holy arm has gotten us the victory." Let us live, minister and envision the great things God will continue to do through us.
Faith gives us the courage to face the present with confidence and the future with expectancy.
Let us realize that Christianity has expanded greatly in the last 150 years thanks to people who took God at His word and launched out in to the developing world. Today, 80% of the world’s born again Christians live in Africa, Asia and South America. In 1850 they only represented 2% of the world’s believers. God is doing a great work by allowing many to reached the 24,000 people groups of the world so that we only have about 6000 to go.
Patrick Johnstone who wrote the monumental world prayer guide, "Operation World" writes about the most encouraging evangelical developments in the 1990’s:
World
Patrick Johnstone: the most encouraging news of the 90’s
The American mission agency GMI (Global Mapping) asked Patrick Johnstone, author of the recently updated prayer handbook ’Operation World’, to list the seven most encouraging trends of the 1990’s. This is his list:
1. Accelerated growth
In the 1990’s, the Evangelical movement grew faster than ever before, according to our massive database of detailed research reaching back to the 1960’s. Witnessing by local believers is best. Only 6.3% of the world’s population lives in a culture without a witnessing church - though in large populations many would have little chance to visit one such. To this 93.7% of the population with a church in their own culture could be added that 98% of the world’s population that has resident national or expatriate witness in their midst.
2. The AD2000 movement
The AD2000 movement was the most effective and best-targeted global network for promoting world mission which ever existed. It helped initiate church planting projects among unreached people groups, created synergy in the Body of Christ and was instrumental in the birth of many missions initiatives. A church for every people program has enjoyed far reaching success. The challenge to all congregations and agencies to adopt people groups for prayer and ministry gained momentum in the 1990s. Progress was logged for the 1583 peoples listed in the Joshua Project list for Oct 2000 with the following results. There was a reported church planting team in 1084 of the people groups of the 1583 targeted and evidence of a congregation of 100 members in 487. This does not include the possible 2000 people groups under 10,000 in population that remain inadequately researched and may be needing pioneer work. Praie God for these achievements and pray for the momentum to increase. There are often weaknesses - inadequate mechanisms for hodling those committed to their promises for adoption, insufficient verification and over-simplication of the task - but thank God for the what He has already engineered.
3. The collapse of the Iron Curtain
The collapse of the Iron Curtain and the end of the USSR created completely new opportunities for mission in Central Asia. Brother Andrew’s 1984 challenge to pray for 7 years for the fall of the Iron Curtain was taken up and, to the astonishment of an unbelieving church, fulfilled.
4. Thousands of Muslims turn to Jesus
More than ever before, Muslims turned to Jesus: Northern African Berbers, Jordanians, Bosnians and Afghanis. In 1991, Brother Andrew called for ten years of prayer for the Islamic world to open to the gospel. The attack on the World Trade Center on 11th September 2001 could be a key moment for a divided Islamic world looking for an alternative belief system.
5. China’s Christianity
Starting with only 4 million Christians in 1949, the Body of Christ in China grew to over 90 million in the year 2000. The development of truly indigenous forms of Christianity, despite growing persecution at the end of the 1990’s, is one of the most important factors in 21st Century Christianity. Of the 28% (2.7 billion) of the world unreached peoples only 2% has no local witness at all. 4.3% is left without a resident witness to the people group and 22% are left without an indigenous church.
6. The astonishing and mostly undocumented growth of the church in India
The official numbers (2.34% Christians in 1991) are far lower than the truth, deliberately hiding the true extent of Christianity in the nation. The true figures are certainly far more than double, and look like only the beginning. The ’untouchable’ Dalits have started leaving Hinduism, which could lead to an immense growth of Indian churches. Gospel for Asia has 14,000 full time church planters out seeing approximately ten new churches started every week. They are now starting to broadcast Christian programming on TV throughout India in addition to their radio broadcasts.
7. Christian media’s decisive contribution
Christian media have changed the faith and world view of millions. Significant examples are the Jesus Film, satellite television such as SAT7 in the Arab world, Christian radio in China and India and the explosive growth of interest in using the Internet for evangelisation and discipleship.
Source: www.gmi.org , www.operationworld.org
The Jesus film has had 4.1 billion people view it and has yielded 128 million inquirers. The goal is also in translating the script of the Jesus film into every language spoken by 50,000 people has virtually been achieved by 2001. Well over 99% of the world population would be able to view the film in a language they know.
Christian radio can reach approximately 99% of the world’s population. This has practically meant that weekly broadcasts in 372 mega-languaes are done each week. IN the 1990’s 115 languages were added leaving only 164 with no broadcasts. It is estimated that the potential audience is now 99% (assuming good radio reception, availability of radios and power and the interest in seeking the correct frequencies).
2. Rejoice at the freedom from fear, shame and oppression that we will experience. "Fear not you will not longer live in shame. The shame of your youth and the sorrows of widowhood will be remembered no more." We can rejoice that God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind. (2 Tim 1:7) He alleviates our worry, fear and anxiety by helping us find equanimity in Christ Jesus and His precious and magnificent promises that supply us with everything we need for life and godliness by being partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption in the world. (2 Pet 1:3,4)
When we joyfully anticipate God doing great things through our seed sowing, caring and giving the word of the gospel to the lost, hurting and burdened people of the world, we can confidently continue despite natural feelings of pessimism when we see the devastation on the nightly news.
3. Praise God for the union you have in Christ. "For your Creator will be your husband. The Lord Almighty is His name. He is your Redeemer, The Holy One of Israel, The God of all the earth." (Isa 54:5) Praise God for your new identity, security and standing in Christ. The Lord is your rock, fortress and your deliverer. The one in whom you can trust. Your shield, the horn of your salvation and your strong tower. (Psa 18:1,2) Praise God that He will never leave you or forsake you so that we can confidently say, The Lord is my helper, of whom then shall I be afraid." Praise God for the intimacy with God where you can find all your emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual sustenance. He is the bread of life. You will never be in need as all your goodness and grace and provisions are found in His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. (Phil. 4;19) Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us that we should be called children of God." (I John 4:10) Revel in your privileged position.
4. He constantly replenishes you with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. We can bless the Lord and forget none of His benefits. He repairs, renews and reinvigorates us with new energy, vision and projects that He will project into our mind’s eyes so that we will always be able to innovate fresh ideas into our ministries, relationships and activities. He never leaves us bored or stale. "For a brief moment I abandoned you but with great compassion I will take you back. In a moment of anger I turned my face away from you for a little while. But with everlasting love I will have compassion upon you says the Lord God your Redeemer." (Isa 54:7,8)
5. The Lord takes us out of our grief and infuses us with fresh purpose and guidance. "For the Lord has called you back from grief as though you were a young wife abandoned by your husband. There are times when we may experience the chastening hand of God to refine, purify and build godly character into our lives. Yet, the Lord will use these hard times to make us better not bitter, if we will continue to believe He is a good God and works all things together for our benefit.
6. Circumstantial conditions may worsen but God’s hand of favor, blessings and enrichment will always increase. "For the mountains may depart and the hills disappear but even then I will remain loyal to you. My covenant blessing will never be broken. says the Lord who has mercy upon you." (Isa 54:10) Thank God that we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us. We can overcome evil with good instead of succumbing to the pressures, problems and persecutions that come our way. Remember, that God chose that He would use suffering to perfect Christ and we can expect the same. Job said, "Even though He slay me, yet I will praise Him. For I will come forth as gold."
7. Praise God for His fruitfulness in both qualitative and quanitative ways that comes to those who trust and obey the word of God. Jesus said, "You did not choose Me but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain. That whatever you ask in My name, that I would do it that the Son may bring glory to the Father." (John 15:16) Thank God for these certain promises that He will use you to expand His kingdom and righteousness in ways that will redound for eternity with greater fruitfulness for His glory.
"I will rebuild you on a foundation of sapphires and make the walls of your houses from precious jewels. No weapon turned against you will succeed. And everyone who tells lies in court will be brought to justice. These benefits are enjoyed by the servants of the Lord; their vindication will come from the Me. I the Lord have spoken!" (Isa 54:16,17)
The Lord will fight the battles for you and refute, repudiate and rebuke all the evil forces that wage war against you. God promises protection and security for those who walk uprightly in HIs will.
When people speak against you and misrepresent the truth and falsely accuse you they shall be put to silence with your godly lips and life-style. God will use you to prick the conscience of multitudes as with Paul’s life and writings and preaching.
8. God will renew, restore and make beautiful the things which now may appear undesirable. The things that shall be honorable are not scorned and overlooked. Yet, the very image of God, will be manifested throughout the world through print, TV, radio, video, Jesus films, seminaries, relief ministries and outreach ministries that minister to the needy and lost people in all the communities of the world. "All children will be taught of the Lord." I believe that children and youth are the most over-looked mission field of the world. Let us expand our tents and enlarge our visions to give, witness and reach the lost of the young people of the world before it too late.
"Great will be the peace of the children." Children are hungry for love and are more open than any other age group to the offerings of people who are willing to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release from prison those who are in prison to provide comfort for those who are mourning. (Isa 61:1,2)
"It is the business of faith leaders to turn weakness into strength, obstacles into stepping stones and disaster into triumph."
