The Fields are White

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If you would, take out your Bibles and turn with me to John chapter 4. And this morning we're going to pick up where we left off last week.
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So our goal today is going to be looking at verses 27 to 42.
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The title of the message is The Fields Are White. I want to ask you a question as we begin, just a question for your own pondering as we're thinking through today's text.
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Have you ever seen real revival? Have you ever seen real revival?
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When I was younger, I would often see church signs driving down the road and they would say revival,
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September the 2nd through the 5th, or revival, December this or that. It would have it scheduled.
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There's revival coming and we know when it is. In fact, we know it so well we've even put the date on it.
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You guys remember that. You don't see that much anymore. I don't see revival and used to they'd have tent revivals, you remember that?
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Where they'd set the tent up outside and they'd bring the preacher in. I don't know how they ever did that in Florida and be carried away by the heat and the mosquitoes.
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But they would do it. They would go outside and they would have their tent revivals. And what most people think when we hear the word revival is we tend to think of a series of services where a gospel message is preached, usually by some kind of traveling evangelist and the people come and they hear the message and some of them respond and give their lives to Christ and this is an annual sort of church revitalization thing, have an annual revival.
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But the reality is when we study the scriptures and we look at genuine, true revival, we find that it's not something that is scheduled, but it is something that comes because of a move of the
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Holy Spirit of God. It's not something that we can put on our calendars and say this is definitely going to happen here or happen at this point.
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We know that the Spirit moves as He wills. Remember back in John chapter 3 when we read
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Jesus was talking about giving new life, being born again and He compared the Spirit to the wind and He said the wind blows where it wills.
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You know not where it comes from or where it goes. So too is everyone who is born of the Spirit.
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Revival is not something that we plan. Revival is something that we have to be ready for because God can bring it at any time.
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And so today as we return to the story of the woman at the well, we're going to see
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God use this woman, this woman of ill repute, to bring a gospel message to the people of her city.
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Somewhat confused message as we'll see. And yet God will use that to bring a city to Christ.
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So as I've sort of outlined, an unexpected encounter has produced an unlikely evangelist and that has resulted in an unscheduled revival.
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So let's stand and read the text beginning here at verse 27.
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Just then the disciples came back, they marveled that He was talking with a woman.
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But no one said, what do you seek or why are you talking with her? So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, come, see a man who told me all that I ever did.
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Can this be the Christ? They went out of the town and were coming to Him.
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Meanwhile the disciples were urging Him, saying, Rabbi, eat. But He said to them,
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I have food to eat that you do not know about. So the disciples said to one another, has anyone brought him something to eat?
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Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish
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His work. Do you not say there are yet four months? Then comes the harvest.
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Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life so that the sower and reaper may rejoice together.
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For here the saying holds true, one sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor.
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Others have labored and you have entered into their labor. Many Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of the woman's testimony.
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He told me all that I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to Him, they asked
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Him to stay with them, and He stayed there two days. And many more believe because of His word.
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They said to the woman, it is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is indeed the
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Savior of the world. Father, thank You for Your word.
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Thank You for this opportunity to preach and teach again. Lord, every time, every time, it is an amazing blessing and an amazing responsibility.
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So I ask You, O God, that You would keep me from error. Pray that as Your word is preached, that You would be glorified and Your people would be edified and those who are not yet Your people would be saved.
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That today we would understand the urgency of the gospel and the urgent need of revival in our land.
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And I pray, O God, sanctify me for this moment. Keep me from error, as I've said.
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And Lord God, may Your word be the lamp unto our feet and the light unto our path.
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May it go out into the ears, through the mind, into the heart. And may we not just seek intellectual satisfaction, but Lord, may we seek to be moved in our soul by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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We pray this in Jesus' name, Amen. Verse 27 picks up at the latter portion of this narrative that we have been studying now for several weeks, where Jesus has had this interaction with this woman from the
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Samaritan town of Sychar. Jesus had left
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Judea. If you'll remember, Judea is in the southern part of the land of Israel.
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Jesus had left that area to go to Galilee. And to get to Galilee, you have to go through the area of Samaria, unless you go across the
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Jordan, go up the valley and back across. And some people did that.
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Some Jews did not want to have any dealings with Samaritans, didn't even want to get the
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Samaritan dirt on their sandals. So they would avoid the area completely. But Jesus did not.
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He went through Samaria. The text says he must need to go through Samaria. That's the King James.
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I always like to say it because I like the way it sounds. He went through Samaria, and when he was going, he was wearied from his travel, and he stopped at a well there near a town called
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Sychar. Now, in the Old Testament, this is the area called Shechem, which has a great historical significance among the people of God.
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And so Jesus is there, and a woman comes at noon, the hottest part of the day.
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And Jesus asks her for a drink of water, and the woman, incredulous, says, why would you speak to me?
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You're a Jew. I'm a Samaritan. Our people don't have anything to do with each other. Who do you think you are, asking me for a drink?
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And Jesus said, if you knew who it was who was asking you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.
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And that begins what we have called the living water discourse, where Jesus begins to explain to her, he has come to give water that's not physical, but spiritual.
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Water that will wash you, not on the outside, but on the inside. Water which is going to change your life.
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And the woman said, give me some of this water. And Jesus said to her, go get your husband.
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Which sounds like an odd thing to say, if we didn't know the end of the story, which is Jesus is going to use this as a way to remind her that she's a sinner.
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Because to be saved, we must first recognize that we are lost. Jesus says, go get your husband.
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I don't have a husband. You're right to say you don't have a husband. You have five husbands. You've had five husbands, and the man you're with now is not your husband.
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The woman said, I perceive you are a prophet. Which was basically her way of saying, you nailed it. You got it right.
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So she then says, you know what? You Jews say we should worship in Jerusalem.
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And our people say we should worship on Mount Gerizim. Which is her way,
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I believe, and I've said this over the last few, her way of sort of changing the subject. Let's not talk about my five husbands and the fact that I'm living in fornication.
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Let's talk about a theological dispute among our people. And so Jesus uses this as an opportunity to tell her a very important truth, which we talked about last week.
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He said, there's coming a day when people aren't going to worship in Jerusalem, and they're not going to worship on Mount Gerizim, but they're going to worship not according to geography, but according to the working of the
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Spirit of God, because they will worship in spirit and truth everywhere. Jesus is actually prophesying about the time when the gospel is going to go out into the whole world.
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And it's no longer going to be geographically locked to Israel or to Jerusalem, but it's going to go to every tribe, tongue, and nation.
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At the beginning of the book of Acts, when Jesus is talking to his disciples, he says, you will be my witnesses in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
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This is the gospel message. The gospel goes out to all people who will worship in spirit and in truth.
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I want to remind you just by way of, since we're talking about this, we are going to do a short series on worship, and it's going to be focused on that phrase, worshiping in spirit and truth.
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That's why last week I didn't stop and spend a lot of time with that, because we're actually going to spend at least one sermon, maybe two or three.
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It's independent as I begin to write. Sometimes I write and it flows into two or three sermons. But we're going to deal with why we do what we do in worship.
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Why is it necessary to gather? Why is it necessary to come and worship
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God in spirit and truth? And why are the elements of worship, which are regulated by the scriptures, necessary for the believer?
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So be looking forward to that in the weeks to come. But this leads us to where we are today.
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After this talk about worship, the woman says, hey, we know that Messiah is coming who is called the
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Christ. The word Christ, remember, is just the Greek word for the Hebrew word Messiah. Both of them mean the same thing.
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Both of them mean the one who is anointed prophet, priest, and king. It's the same idea. And she says, we know that the
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Messiah is coming. We know that the Christ is coming. And when he comes, he'll tell us everything.
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And Jesus said, the one who is speaking to you is he. I am the one.
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I am he. The one who is speaking to you is that Messiah. The one you've been waiting for.
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The one you have heard about. The one that you are looking forward to who will tell you all things is standing right in front of you.
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And so, now we get to verse 27. Just then, the disciples came back.
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And they marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, what do you seek?
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Or why are you talking with her? This is a shift in the narrative. Up until this point in the story,
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Jesus and the woman are the only two interacting. And I mentioned this a few weeks ago. It's interesting that we even have this narrative because there was no one around to write down what was said.
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So as John is writing this narrative for us, he's writing this under the inspiration of the
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Holy Spirit so that we can have an accurate account of what Jesus said to the woman and what she said to him. Because there are no witnesses to their conversation.
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Now, it could be that later Jesus expressed to them and told them what was said. But right now, no one was around.
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But now the disciples have come. And when they come, the Bible says they marveled.
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And the Greek word here is picturing something in the imperfect tense.
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It's something that occurs over and over. It's the idea that they continued to marvel. What is going on?
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But they didn't say anything, so they were speechless. The disciples basically had that look that you have when you see something that you just can't believe.
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And you just sort of... You sort of... Your mouth hung open and your eyes are glazed. And you're, what in the world is going on?
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And why would it be that such a thing would leave them speechless? Well, a rabbi speaking with a woman was unheard of.
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And not only were they in enemy territory, which was Samaria. But Jesus was breaking all of the cultural accepted norms by speaking with this woman, a
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Samaritan woman, at that. And yet they were smart enough to not say anything about it.
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They didn't come up and accuse him of doing anything wrong. They just stood there with their dumbfounded gaze.
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John MacArthur says, in Judaism, it was believed that for a rabbi to speak with a woman was at best a waste of time.
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And at worst, a distraction. That she was a
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Samaritan made the Lord's action even more astonishing. And had they known the woman's immoral background, the disciples would have been even more completely stunned.
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So the disciples come, they see what's going on, they don't know what's going on. And they're afraid to ask, or at least they're stunned beyond speech.
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And verse 28 says, so the woman left her water jar and went away into the town. Now, much has been made about that short phrase, that she left her water jar.
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In fact, if you read through the commentaries on this particular passage and this particular verse, many commentators have spilled tremendous amounts of ink to press into the idea of her leaving her water jar and how this represents a spiritual leaving of her old life and leaving her old self behind and going into her new life.
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And sometimes I think we can overemphasize certain minor points in the text, but we should never overlook them.
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There is a reality here that we shouldn't miss, and that is she came to get water and she left without water.
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She came for something physical, but she left with something much more valuable. She came to get water for her home, and instead she's bringing back living water for her town.
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So there is something here worth recognizing when John points out that she did leave her water jar.
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The very thing she came to do has been changed by her encounter with Jesus.
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And not to put too fine a point on it, I think that happens more times than we realize.
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Someone will come to a church service not realizing that that's the service that they're going to hear the gospel and be saved, and their entire life is going to change.
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And they're going to walk in with one idea and walk out with an entirely new idea. Walk in with one life and walk out with another.
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I'll tell you just a very quick story from my own life. When I was 21 years old,
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I was asked to preach my first sermon in this place. It wasn't this pulpit, but it was in this place.
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It was the Sunday after 9 -11. It was my first sermon. And I walked up here and I preached from Romans 13.
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The government does not bear the sword in vain. That was my text. And I preached that we need to pray for our government because we've been attacked and we're about to probably go to war.
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And we need to pray for wisdom and guidance. That was probably a pretty terrible sermon, and I'm glad it wasn't recorded.
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But I know what I said, at least the thesis of my message. But when
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I walked down from the pulpit that day, I said to my wife, this is what God wants me to do with the rest of my life. This is what
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God wants me to do with the rest of my life. He wants me to stand and preach His word. And again,
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God does that sometimes. He meets us at a crossroad where we were going one direction, and then we, as it were, leave our water jar and go a different direction.
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This woman showed up at the well that day, a social pariah, and she's about to go back to the town and be the greatest evangelist they have ever heard.
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Christ can change your life in a moment. No matter what your background, no matter what you've done, no matter your sin list,
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Christ can take the most wretched sinner and make them the most glorious saint.
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So yes, she left her water jar and she went away into the town and said to the people, and this is interesting, verse 29 is interesting.
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She says, come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. And you've got to think the people in the town who knew her said, really?
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Everything? Because we all know what you're about. I mean, again, why was she at the well in the middle of the day?
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Because nobody wanted to spend time with her, right? She's out there by herself because she is a social outcast.
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And she goes back into town and she says, I met a man who knew all about me. And you know what's funny?
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Jesus, we don't know everything that was said. The Bible sometimes condenses in things and we know that that happens.
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But based on what we read, Jesus told her very little about herself. You've had five husbands and the man you're with now is not your husband.
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But that was enough for her to know he knows everything. Because he knows the thing that is most deeply hurtful in my soul, that I know who
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I am. He knows everything because he knows that, which is the thing
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I don't advertise. Jesus knew everything about her from her own testimony.
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I met a man who knew everything I ever did. And then she asks a question.
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Can this be the Christ? Now, there are those who read her question and assume that perhaps at this point, she still doubts that he is the
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Christ. And certainly, that conclusion could be drawn because it is a question.
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Can this be the Christ? She's not saying he is the Christ. But she said, I met a man who did everything or knew everything about me.
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Can this be the Christ? At this point, is she still questioning? Possibly. But I want to provide an alternative consideration for why she would coax this in the interrogative rather than in the declarative.
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To ask rather than to proclaim. A woman with a reputation like this might feel as if her word would go unheard if it was a declaration.
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So instead, she comes and says to them, You all, you people,
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I've met a man who knew everything about me. And you know about me too. Do you think this could be the
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Christ? And now she's putting the burden on them. I'm not telling you who he is.
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I'm asking you, do you think this could be him? So now she's laying at their feet and she's saying to them a very simple thing.
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Come and see for yourselves. Come and see for yourselves. You're not going to believe me.
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You know who I am. You know my history. You know me. But I will tell you this. He told me everything
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I ever did. You think this could be him? You think this could be the
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Messiah? You think this could be the Christ? And guess what the people did?
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They heard and they came. Verse 30. They went out of the town and were coming to him.
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Later on, just to notice what it says in verse 39.
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Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me all that I ever did.
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So it tells us some of them actually did believe just from her testimony. But then they came and they heard his word and it was confirmed.
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Unlikely evangelist. Unscheduled revival. Alright. So this is the narrative of the woman.
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She's run to Sychar. She said, can this be the Christ? The people hear her testimony and they run to Jesus.
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And as we saw in verse 39, many believed. But meanwhile, and I love that.
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I don't know if you, when you read fictional stories or you read narrative accounts.
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Meanwhile, back at the ranch, right? Like the idea of there's something going on while that's going on.
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While the woman is running to the city, talking to the people, getting them to come. Meanwhile, verse 31, the disciples are with Jesus.
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And we don't know how long it took her to get to Sychar and back. But we can assume it was at least an extended period of time.
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Long enough for them to have this conversation. So verse 31 says, meanwhile the disciples were urging him.
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Saying, Rabbi, eat. But he said to them, I have food to eat that you do not know about.
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Now, why would they be urging him to eat? Well, they were urging him to eat because he was tired and weary from his journey.
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Remember, that's what started the whole story. The whole story started when Jesus was exhausted, he was tired, he was weary.
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He got to the well, he sat down, he didn't have any way to draw water. So he sees this woman coming and he says, hey, give me something to drink.
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This whole interaction started out with Jesus being parched. And so the disciples see him still parched.
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By the way, he still didn't have any water. And so they say,
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Rabbi, eat. And Jesus says to them,
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I have food to eat that you do not know about. So the disciples said to one another, has anyone brought him something to eat?
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They're looking at each other. Did you bring him something to eat? Where did he get the food? Where did he get the sustenance?
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And Jesus said, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
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The disciples were persistent literalists. And this is something that Jesus ran into a lot.
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Remember when Jesus talked to Nicodemus? Nicodemus said, unless a man is born again.
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And Nicodemus said, what, am I supposed to climb back up into my mother's womb? Persistent literalist.
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He talks to the woman at the well. He says, I have water that is living water that will spring up into you eternal life.
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And she says, well, give me some of that water so I don't have to keep coming out here to get water. Persistent literalist.
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Jesus is now talking to the disciples. He says, I have food of which you know nothing of. And the disciple says, who gave him food?
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All right, who's sneaking snacks to Jesus? And Jesus says, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
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I want to say something about that. Would it not be an amazing thing if we genuinely felt the nourishment of God when we obeyed his will?
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We should. Service for service sake should be enough.
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Because we're serving the greatest master that could ever be served. And the opportunity to serve the master should be looked at as a tremendous gift.
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Over in Botswana, there's a proverb. And the proverb is this, the fat of a child is to be sent.
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The fat of a child is to be sent. Now that sounds odd in our language, so let me break it down into more of our way of speaking.
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When it says the fat of a child is to be sent, the fat is referring to the choicest part of the food.
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The fat, like if you look at a steak that's well marbled, that marbling is the fat that's through the meat, right?
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That's the best part. That's what gives it its flavor, gives it its juices, makes it taste good. And what this proverb is about is about how to raise children.
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It says the fat of a child is to be sent. What that means is it is a delight of children to have their elders or their parents or whomever involve them in work and send them to do things and give them jobs.
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Like it's the joy and the delight of a child to be sent by their parent. Why? Because when they go and do what the parent says, they come back and what do they get?
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Good job. Right? Your parent gives you the encouragement that you've done well.
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The fat of a child is to be sent. And Jesus said, it is my food to do the will of him who sent me.
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It's like choice meat to do what my father has called me to do.
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It's my food and drink, or may I say it this way,
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I am satisfied when I do the will of my father. Do we consider it choice food to serve the living
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God? Do we consider it the blessing that it is to have the opportunity to serve
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Christ? Jesus did.
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It's my food to do the will of him who sent me. It's my nourishment.
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It's my strength. Now, verse 35,
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Jesus gives an illustration. It's not really a parable.
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John really doesn't use parables the way the other gospels do. John doesn't really record Jesus' parables.
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You know, a parable, a man went on a journey in this, or a king did this, or whatever. John gives more illustrations and metaphors, which is what we see.
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Which is similar to parables, but not always the same. And what we see beginning at verse 35 is
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Jesus is going to use the metaphor of agriculture to teach his disciples a lesson.
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He says,
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Do you not say there are yet four months and then comes the harvest?
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Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest.
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Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper may rejoice together.
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For here the saying holds true. One sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored and you have entered into their labor.
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What is this talking about? Seems to come out of nowhere. But Jesus moves into this agricultural metaphor to prepare them for what is about to happen among them.
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See, they don't realize that just over the way, there's an entire town heading to them.
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They don't know that there is a dust cloud behind a group of people who are making their way to see this man, who this woman has told them about, and they are ready to be harvested.
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That woman took the seed, even though it was an interrogative seed, could this be the
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Christ? She took the seed to that town, and some of them have already believed, and the rest are following behind to hear what is going to happen and see what's going to happen.
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And Jesus is prepping them for a moment. He says, there are yet four months.
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And then comes the harvest. Well, what is that referring to? That's talking about how when a farmer goes out and lays his seed in the ground, he knows that that is the first step of a process that he can aid but not control.
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Now, I know we got some good farmers in this room. We got some people with gardens, and I'm looking at y 'all.
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They all sort of gather over there, our farmers and gardeners.
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They plant their seeds, they water them, they tend to them, they fertilize them. But guess what they can't do?
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They can't command them to grow. All they can do is wait.
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But they'll know when the time comes, because the plant that has been planted has a way of telling us that it's ready for the harvest.
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Jesus uses the term, the fields are white. The fields are white was a reference to the fact that when grain, like wheat, ripens, the head becomes pale and white, and it signals that it's ready for the harvest.
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Farmers plant, they wait, and they watch for harvest time. And when God is preparing hearts to receive the truth, we need to be watching for when they are ready to be harvested.
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We need to be prepared. Jesus is talking about the urgency of the moment.
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The disciples did not know they were about to see a tremendous revival, and they needed to be ready.
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We never know what a day will bring.
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We never know what opportunities a day will bring. We never know if we're going to find ourselves a dying man preaching to dying men.
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In 1996, a jetliner was hijacked, and as the hijackers forced the plane to fly, it ran out of fuel and crashed in the
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Comoros Islands. On that plane was a man, his name was
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Andrew Meekins. Andrew Meekins was an elder in the International Evangelical Church of Addis Ababa.
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And on November 23, 1996, as he was taking what he did not know would be his final flight, and the hijack happened, and the plane began to circle the island, and finally it went down.
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As the plane went down, Andrew Meekins, those who survived, and there were some survivors, said that over and over he was crying out to the people, believe on the
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Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. And one of the stewardesses who survived the crash said that she saw many people praying with him as the plane went down.
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Andrew Meekins understood the urgency of the moment. Sometimes I think we forget urgency, and we say sometimes, yeah, we'll get to this another time, with our neighbor, with our family member, with our friend.
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D .L. Moody was preaching an evangelistic message in Chicago, and while he was preaching, he chose at the end of his message, he said,
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I am going to complete this message next week, and I want you all to think about what
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I've said, and he concluded. That night, the
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Chicago fire broke out. Over 300 people were killed, and thousands of people left homeless.
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And the story goes, and this is in biographies and other writings about Moody, he said, I will never again tell a man to wait, but I will say, today is the day of salvation.
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There's urgency in evangelism. We never know when someone's ready, but we need to be ready.
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We never know when their time is going to come, but we need to be ready to be there, to encourage them, to walk with them, to pray with them.
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But something else Jesus says, and this is very awesome, and this is something I think should always be remembered.
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Notice what he says, he said, Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, that the sower may and the reaper may rejoice together.
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For here the saying holds true, one sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap, for that which you do not labor. Others have labored, and you are entering into their labor.
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What's he talking about? He's saying that sometimes salvation is, in fact, most of the time, let me back up and say, most of the time, salvation is not something that happens to somebody the first time they hear the gospel, but rather it is after multiple times of hearing the gospel, over sometimes several years, and the disciples are right there.
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You understand the people of Samaria, they had the prophets, or the Old Testament, they had the first five books of Moses, they knew a
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Messiah was coming, a seed had been planted. Jesus tells the woman, I am the
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Messiah, and she goes back to town, and she says, is this the Christ? The seed has been watered, and now the disciples are there, and they're about to reap the harvest.
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And Jesus' point is simply this, you never know where you are on that scale. You may be the seed sower, you may be the waterer, or you may be the harvester, but you need to be ready to be whichever one you are, and if you're the harvester, you need to remember the seed sower.
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And if you're the seed sower, you need to not be worried if you're not the one who's the harvester. Y 'all know
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Adoniram Judson? Adoniram Judson took the gospel to Burma, lived a life that many of us couldn't imagine, living a difficult life of a missionary in Burma, and through his life did not see a tremendous amount of converts, but today there are over one million
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Christians in Burma, all of whom trace their spiritual lineage back to the preaching of Adoniram Judson.
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You may be the sower, and you may be the reaper, and let the reaper not forget the sower, and let the sower not be sad that he doesn't get to reap, but let us all understand,
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Jesus said, where we are in the process is where God has us. And you're about to reap.
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And just about as soon as Jesus says that, others have labored, and you've entered into their labor, that's what He's saying, others have labored, and you're about to see it.
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Just then, verse 39, many Samaritans from the town believed in Him because of the woman's testimony.
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He told me all that I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and He did.
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The text says He stayed two days. Y 'all understand how big of a deal that is. The Jewish people wanted nothing to do with Samaritans.
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The Samaritans see Jesus, they believe in Jesus, they say, stay with us, and He stayed two whole days with them.
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You might say, boy, I wish He'd have stayed longer. I tell you what, I wish I had two days with Jesus just right here.
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This is a tremendous gift. He's headed to Galilee, but He stops in the presence of His enemies, and He makes a home for two days among them so that they can believe.
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And notice verse 41, and many more believed because of His word.
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They said to the woman, it's no longer because of what you have said that we believe, for we've heard it for ourselves, and we know this is indeed the
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Savior of the world. You know, they probably didn't understand everything at this point.
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They had so much theological baggage, they had so much social history and spiritual problems, but they recognized who
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Jesus was. They received Him as Savior, and the city, the town, experienced revival.
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We see this throughout history, sometimes in the most improbable of times.
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In the Old Testament, God sent a prophet to a town called
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Nineveh, and you remember what happened. The prophet went the other way.
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Why? Because he hated the
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Ninevites. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, Assyria was the sworn enemy of the
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Jewish people, and so he went the other way. And God, through the miracle of the first submarine ride, escorted him back, and he preached to his enemies.
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And from the top to the bottom, a revival came. In our nation, there have been great revivals.
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Sometimes in town, sometimes across the whole nation. The Great Awakening was a tremendous revival.
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Beloved, we can't schedule it, but we can pray for it. We can't make it happen, but we can plant the seeds and be ready for when
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God is going to do what He is going to do. Because let... Okay, it's okay.
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Oh, yeah. Do you all need help? Do you need... Brother Jordan? Go ahead, brother.
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Thank you. Stand down. No, it's fine. It's fine. Okay. I'll close with these words.
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I asked you earlier, have you ever seen real revival? I believe we have here.
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Many, many years ago, we saw revival here. We saw a time where God opened our eyes to the theological needs that we had.
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We saw a change occur in this church. We even changed our name. We changed our entire direction. God has brought revival, and He can do it again.
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God can do it again. May we be ready, knowing that revival is not what we schedule, but rather it's what we be prepared for.
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We sow, we water, and we watch. As the apostle said,
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I planted, Apollos watered, and God brought the increase, so too.
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We sow, we water, and we watch. We can't make revival happen, but we can be ready.
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And maybe your heart has been stirred today. Maybe your heart has been moved today.
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When you hear the words of that woman, can this be the Christ, what is your answer? He certainly is.
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And maybe up until this moment, you haven't trusted in Jesus. You know what
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D .L. Moody said after the Chicago fire? He said, I'd rather cut my hand off than ever preach again and give a man the opportunity to wait another week.
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So I'll say to you, if you have not believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what are you waiting on?
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Today is the day of salvation. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the opportunity to preach again. Lord, I know this is a blessing undeserved, and I'm so thankful for it.
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May we be urgent in our evangelism. May we be ready to reap the harvest in its time.
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And may, Lord, we continue to plant and water. And Lord, if there are those here today who have not believed on the
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Lord Jesus Christ, may you open their hearts to believe and draw them to yourself.