The Harvest Is Past — Dean Taylor

Hello, this is Brother Denny. Welcome to Charity Ministries. Our desire is that your life would be blessed and changed by this message. This message is not copyrighted and is not to be bought or sold.

You are welcome to make copies for your friends and neighbors. If you would like additional messages, please go to our website for a complete listing at www .charityministries .org. If you would like a catalog of other sermons, please call 1 -800 -227 -7902 or write to Charity Ministries, 400 West Main Street, Suite 1, AFPA, 17522.

These messages are offered to all without charge by the free will offerings of God's people. A special thank you to all who support this ministry.

What a song. Praise God. Thy mighty arm make bare. It gives the idea there of God rolling up His sleeves about to do some work. About to get involved in something that's heavy, something that takes some effort.

Speak with the voice that wakes the dead. Only this Word can do that. And make Thy people hear. Disturb this sleep of death. Oh God, disturb this sleep of death. Quicken the smoldering embers now by Thine almighty breath.

The idea there of God blowing on a fire that's about to go out. The embers that are there and blowing on Him until a flame comes back in. The sleep of death creates soul thirst for Thee. Do you have a thirst for God today?

Do you have a thirst for God today? Do you have a thirst for God? We're just saying that we pray that God would give you a thirst for Him. And hungering for the bread of life. We pray that God would give you a thirst for God.

It's a blessing to be here this evening. It's been an overwhelmingly full weekend. As we've heard so much of the Word of God, we've been encouraged by practical things. We've been encouraged by visions.

We've been encouraged by revivals in our hearts and thoughts and dreams. And my heart is overwhelming. My heart is overwhelmed with what I've heard already. As I thought about this, where I saw that I ended up on this speaking series here, you have to understand that I was trembling pretty hard to see that I was closing this.

If you could, I would ask for several of you to be able to pray for me during this time. Thank you, brother. And as I thought, thank you, brother. As I thought through this, I also thought of the summer.

This has been a very full and a very rich summer for many of us, haven't it? We've had this White Horse meetings. We've had special meetings. We've had all kinds of special meetings. And this has been a very rich summer.

A very rich summer. And when I thought of all the summer and all the different meetings that have been going on during this time, it hit me that at the very end of all that, there's going to be this little sermon tonight that pretty much brings to an end the summer season.

We all go back to some busy lives, some homeschoolings and different jobs and busyness. We've all made a time for this summer. And at the end of this little message here tonight, the summer is over. To be honest with you tonight, the way I feel, I don't feel like I really have a new sermon for you tonight.

You know what I feel like tonight? I feel like, you know, have you ever seen the image on the end of a caboose? And the train is going away and there's a young man or a boy on the end of the caboose and he's got this lantern and he's saying the train is leaving.

The Harvest Is Past and the Summer Is Ended

The train is leaving and he sees this little lamp. You see this little lamp and he's letting you know it's the very last moment and the train is about to leave. That's what I feel like tonight. I feel like the engines have already been through here tonight.

I feel like the engines have already been through this summer. That you've heard some preaching and you've been under the hearing of the Word of God in such a powerful and meaningful way that I believe that you've heard the engines already going by.

But here I am on the end of the caboose and the summer is about over. And I'm holding up that little light and I'm telling you that I believe that that summer, as it closes, I have one last word to say to you.

Let me ask you this. How many people here tonight, here in this last three months, have been to some kind of an extra preaching meeting? Other than Sunday and Wednesday. Raise your hand if you've attended an extra...

Look around at this. You've attended an extra meeting. Okay. Add to that how many people tonight have either listened to a tape, downloaded or even read an extra message during this summer, this three months.

Add that to the other number. Okay. Praise God. We are truly blessed people. And if we add that now to those who have been to the regular Wednesday night and the regular Sundays and the cell group meetings and the different things that we are constantly hearing the Word of God preached to us, I will think that you'll understand that we are a very, very spiritually rich people.

There's not too many people that could have raised their hand that in three months an entire room filled with people who not only get the normal food, but have been able to be giving a feast of things to be able to spiritually eat on.

We are a blessed people. Now, if I could call the notes serious right here off from the start. Could I do something tonight? Could I have each of you, if you have a place there you gather in, could I have each of you...

I'd like to ask a personal and probing question tonight. Could I have every one of you at this very moment bow your head and close your eyes? Now, I want you to think back on those meetings with me tonight with your eyes closed.

I want you to think about those meetings and what God was saying to you personally. Through all those meetings and all those sermons that you've heard this weekend, that you've heard this sermon, that you saw those extra sermons that you've listened to.

And now with every head bowed and every eye closed, I'd like no one looking around. I want you to raise your hand and put it right back down if during one of those meetings you knew that God was wanting you to respond.

You knew that during one of those meetings that you have been to that God wanted you to respond, but for some reason you just couldn't. Put up your hands real quick and put it down. Thank you. Thank you.

All over the auditorium. Thank you. Put your hands up. That's good. I'm not going to ask you to come up, but I just wanted to know what God is doing in the hearts here today. Many of you may have been scared.

Many of you may have been full of your hands with babies. Many of you may have felt that it wouldn't do any good. You feared what your friends would think. Let me ask you, if you knew, if you're here tonight, let me ask you right off here with not one eye looking, and you knew that God wanted you to respond to salvation, could you just lift up your hand real quick and put it right back down?

You knew that God wanted you to respond. Thank you. Do we have any others? You knew that God wanted you to respond to a message of salvation and come and receive the grace of God and to act upon it. Put your hands just up and put it right back down.

Thank you. Alright, you can put your head up now. Young people, and all of us, we've been hearing the voice of God. When I asked, first of all, how many of us have been feasting on these messages that we have heard over these last three months, you all practically raised your hand.

But when I asked how many should have responded to one of those messages, I want you to know that practically the entire auditorium raised their hand this evening. Something is not happening between what we hear and how we respond.

Hearing the Word Without Responding

So that's why I'm here tonight as that boy on the end of the train swinging that lantern and saying, the train is leaving. The grace of God, the harvest of God has come to you in a wonderful and marvelous way.

When I heard the message this morning, I was a bit overwhelmed by Brother Moses' message. The things that I wanted to bring to you tonight, I figured I didn't know if I could really even say these things.

And I heard Brother Moses preach them this morning. And I was astounded, frankly astounded. And I said, Lord, what do you want us to hear? What do you want us to hear? The name of my message tonight is, The Harvest is Past.

The Harvest is Past. I would like to take from my text that message from Jeremiah 8, verse 20. It's a small verse. You might want to turn to it because I'll be repeating it. You might want to mark it.

Brother Moses told us about what Jeremiah was dealing with there. In Jeremiah 8, verse 20, there is a stunning passage there that I think applies to us here tonight, sitting here at the end of this feast, sitting here at the end of this summer, the end of these three months.

In Jeremiah 8, verse 20, the Scripture reads this way. Jeremiah 8, verse 20. The Harvest is Past. The Summer is Ended. And we are not saved. The Harvest is Past. The Summer is Ended. And we are not saved.

Can we pray? Again, please pray for me. And pray for yourselves. Pray that God would make a different connection between those who heard the feasting and those who God wants you to respond. Let's pray.

Oh God, have mercy upon us tonight, Lord. Wake us from this. Lord, wake us up, Father. You want to take us further, Lord. I believe God in my heart. I believe You have placed us under some of the most anointed preaching on the face of this earth, Lord.

I set and I am amazed under some of the things that I am constantly hearing and receiving. And oh God, I pray for even myself here tonight as I preach. Dear God, help me to be able to put it to practice.

Help me to be able to apprehend, oh God, what has been placed before us by Your grace. Lord, I can't do this in my own flesh. Can You give us the grace of repentance tonight? Can You give us the grace of action tonight?

Oh God, can You help us tonight, Father? Speak to us, Father, we pray. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. What I'm going to be talking about tonight is that I believe as the harvest has passed, very similar to Brother Moses' message this morning, I believe that there is a time in your life when salvation is closer than at other times.

That there are times of harvest, and there are times of famine. I believe that in your personal life, there are times when God is going to speak to you in a more intimate and a closer way, and there are times when that closeness will be gone.

I'm going to say tonight with Brother Moses that I believe there is a time when you can grieve the grace of God so far out of your life that it is nearly, and we do emphasize the word nearly, impossible.

And I'll ask you to bear with us. It is hard sometimes to balance every sermon. You know, if you were to be walking with Jesus and you heard Him preach, hate your father and mother, you might have walked away from that sermon with a big question mark.

But when you walk with a brother, you can see where he goes and you can understand where he's at, and you can understand when you heard Jesus say, even love your enemies, and everything would have started to make some better balance.

So if you bear with us when we talk about these times when it is nearly impossible to be saved, no one here believes it is ever impossible while you still live. But the fact is, if we keep having to just say all the disclaimers and all the disclaimers, sometimes we miss out on a very important message.

And that important message is this, the very fact that there are times when the grace of God is close and a harvest is here. And there are times when it is not. And our burden here this evening is that you grab that harvest while it's here.

And as I gave you the text from Jeremiah, they waited too long. As we heard about Jeremiah this morning, you understand that Jeremiah's rebuke is to Judah. It's to Jerusalem. The city of David. It's not to the tribes of Israel.

It's to His precious people. It's to Judah. And Jeremiah is coming there to rebuke the people from Jerusalem and the tribe of Judah. And he's going there to rebuke them because of their idolatry, because of their covetousness, because of their complacency, because of their adultery, because of the things in their life which is apart from God.

And Jeremiah is sent there as a scathing rebuke to them for their idolatry and their sin. And then, he's there to pronounce the judgment of God that it is too far. You have pushed things too far. We heard that message this morning.

You have pushed it too far. God's harvest has passed away. The people of Judah were warned again and again by Jeremiah of the approaching captivity, but they would not repent of their sins. They kept thinking in their mind, you know, Egypt is going to take us out of this.

Egypt is going to somehow come in here and when the Babylonians come and try to besiege us and do different things, Egypt is going to rescue us. And even though Jeremiah kept warning them, in the back of their mind, they had a little lifeboat.

And they kept thinking, okay, but the fact is, Egypt's going to do this for us. Surely, before the ripening harvest, the siege would end. They could gather their harvest and have food and plenty. They fought.

They had a harvest out there. Surely, this will be all finished before the harvest is over and we can go out and get our food. But you know what the Bible reports that happened? And I hate to even repeat this here, but the word of Jeremiah and the word of God told us that when that siege came around Jerusalem, that it brought such festation, starvation stalked through the city.

It says here that mothers cooked their own children and ate them. It was rampant, salute, utter destruction. The crops that they had hoped to reap were wasted in the fields. And the Jews were left to starve or surrender.

And it is to that, it is to that that the cry went out. The harvest is past. The summer is ended. And we are not saved. We are not saved. The Egyptians did not come. We're dying here. I waited too long.

I didn't respond. I didn't walk forward. I didn't follow what Jeremiah had prophesied. And it's too late. It's too late. The burden of message is this. Again, that there are times in the person's life when God's offer of salvation is closer than at other times.

It's just a fact. Leave it to the theologians to figure it out. It's just a fact. And if my burden tonight is that after leaving a harvest season such as we've had this summer, that you have the wrong impression, if you think that you can just continually to keep the voice of God, that beckoning grace of God that you have sensed and felt in a cage like a canary to be brought out at your good pleasure, that after a while, the voice of God you will no longer hear.

You will no longer hear it. And my burden tonight is that I believe that in hell, at this very moment, there are multitudes who felt the exact same way. They'll wait. They'll wait for harvest. Surely something will turn out a different way.

In every single person's life, there are times when it is more likely that you will be born again than other times. So we may even say that there are times when it is possible for you to be saved. And listen.

Listen. There are times when it is nearly impossible. Nearly impossible. And again, we know that while we still live, there is hope. And you know, that line is drawn. And let me just say real quick here, in the Old Testament when there was a definite line, and finally God was at the utmost end and He pronounced His judgment, what was the one thing that could break that line?

Tell me. When God says, I'm going to judge this people. I'm finished with them. I'm done. Repentance. Amen. The people repented. What else would be the way to break through that? The intercession of God's servants.

Have mercy on them, God. Moses said, destroy me. Save them. If you're here tonight and you hear this message and there's going to be some hard things said, and in your mind you know of someone who as you believe has gone too far, intercede for them.

Beg God for them that that line will not be drawn. The book of Isaiah reads it this way. It says it this way. Seek ye the Lord while He may be found. Seek ye the Lord while He may be found. Call ye upon Him while He is near.

Apparently to Isaiah, there are times when Christ can be found. But there also seems that in Isaiah there is also time when He is far from the sinner. Far from those who have long rejected Him. Is this a New Testament concept?

Some of these things, you know them to be true. You've seen them in your friends. You older ones have seen those who have gone off in different tangents and different things and you've seen them and you knew a time in their life when they were close.

I mean, they were close. But now they're so... Oh, it's my burden tonight that there are some here tonight that are close. But if you rejected again tonight, I don't know. In the New Testament, the Gospel is presented a way.

The Gospel Demands a Response

In the New Testament, when Jesus Christ came and gave you the Gospel, it was presented in such a way that demanded a response. Did you hear that? The Gospel was presented in such a way that demanded a response.

A decision of either to receive it or to reject it. When Jesus came and preached, He gave His sermons, gave His warnings, gave His words in such a way that demanded a response. You must receive it or you must reject it.

Turn your Bibles to Mark 1. In Mark 1, we have after Jesus was baptized, after He received the temptations in the wilderness, then Mark tells us of the first cry of Jesus' ministry, of the first thing that He said when He went out and He preached.

And He also records the first response of the people. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. In Mark 1, verse 14, it says this. In Mark 1, verse 14. Now, after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.

As soon as John was put into prison, Jesus came preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and saying, the time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent ye and believe the Gospel. And there it is.

You see, in their minds, He wasn't giving it to them to say, well, just take this home and chew on it for a while, or I know you'll hear this again next week, or you'll hear it again, you can read it again in your Bible some other day.

Put it off to another time. Jesus gave it to them as a response needed command or declaration. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the Gospel. In verse 16, it says, Now as He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew, His brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers.

And listen to this. Couldn't this be our response, every one of us tonight? And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after Me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. Oh, look at verse 18. And straightway they forsook their nets and followed Him.

And when He had gone a little further then, He saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who also were in ships mending their nets. And straightway He called them. And they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants and went after Him.

And they went into Capernaum and straightway on the Sabbath day He entered into the synagogue and taught. Offered. Response demanded. And what a blessed response that was given. Jesus preached and He demanded a response.

These responded well. My question tonight is, why are you lingering so long in the boat? These heard and responded. Why are you staying there? James and John heard. They knew they were to respond. And they responded.

They knew it. The Gospel arrived at that place. The season, so to speak, had come. And they responded. The season came and they responded. To give you the biblical doctrines, I should say, or the backing of this sort of concept of there being a close time and a far time to the preaching of the Gospel, the New Testament speaks of this sort of thing and it calls it in the Gospel preaching a day of salvation.

It speaks of a season being in season or out of season. It speaks of an acceptable time. Let's just look at some of those just as a basis for this idea. In 2 Timothy 4 -2, the Apostle Paul is giving some instruction to the young ministers there and the young preachers.

I'm sure the street preachers as well. All the ministers there in the church. He was giving some instruction to them and he said this in 2 Timothy 4 -2. He said, preach the Word. Preach the Word. And then he says, be instant.

In season. Out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. And that was Paul's word. You must preach. And sometimes you'll preach in season. And brothers, sometimes we'll preach out of season.

But it doesn't matter if it's in season or out of season. Preach. Preach. In 2 Corinthians, we see another type of day of salvation brought up. A concept of a day of salvation. In 2 Corinthians 6, if you want to turn there.

In 2 Corinthians 6, at verse 1, Paul again speaking says, We then, as workers together with Him, hallelujah, beseech you also that you receive not the grace of God in vain. Now, that's not a very popular teaching tonight in the evangelical world, I'm afraid, in many of the world today.

How can you receive the grace of God in vain? That means the grace of God is offered to you. It's there. And it just becomes something of no value. Vain means of no value to you. It doesn't profit you anything.

The grace of God in vain. Then he goes on to say, For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted. He's quoting here. For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted. In an accepted time. And in the day of salvation have I succored thee.

And then he tells them this. And I want you to hear it tonight too. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. In Hebrews. The last one I'm going to give you on this. In Hebrews chapter 3.

You might want to turn to that. I have several. 7 -15 here. In Hebrews chapter 3, the writer there is taking them to the example when the Israelites, the Hebrews rather, were there in the wilderness. And they had no faith in God and His promises.

And that was the problem. They did not believe the promises of God for them. They couldn't enter in because of their unbelief. And this provoked God. And he says there, and he speaks of this as a day.

Listen to it here. In verse 7. This is Hebrews chapter 3, verse 7. Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith, and that's important when you hear that. Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith, Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness, verse 9, when your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My works for the year.

Wherefore, I was greed with that generation, He said. They do always err in their heart. And they have not known My ways. Be careful with verse 11. I swear in My wrath, they shall not enter into My rest.

The writer of Hebrews is giving to this as a very severe warning. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief and departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest in any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

We should be encouraging one another with the faith and the promises of God. Encouraging one another to let us know we don't want to fall like those in the wilderness who stop believing in God. Verse 14, for we are made partakers of Christ, hallelujah, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.

Now listen to this. He repeats this. While it is said today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. So as Paul and the writer of Hebrews gives us the messages and gives us the warning and the encouragements to the preachers, to all of us as we go out and evangelize and we speak to our children and around the table, when we speak to different ones, we are to always, as we present the Gospel, we are always to preach the Gospel.

But like I said, there are times it is hard to preach. There are times when there is little conviction that you see coming over the people. You'll experience this. You'll be out witnessing. You'll be speaking to someone.

You'll realize there's not much conviction here. And then there are times when there just seems to be a presence of God and the Holy Spirit is working in that individual and there is a season that just makes someone ripe and ready to hear and to receive the Gospel.

And that's the fact. That's just the way it is. If you have any experience in sharing the Gospel or even speaking to your children, you'll experience this thing. Or look at your own life. There are times when it is closer and there are times when it is not.

The Word speaks of this as seasons. You know, we know this in our gardens. As I've come here to Lancaster County, I've tried to learn some of the... oh, how do I say this? These blessed things of families and the godly habits and structures that I see.

And one of the things that I've tried to do oftentimes is our family likes to do a garden, but I haven't been that successful in gardening. And as I do these things, I've learned and I've asked questions and I've heard about seasons and I've heard about what times that I'm usually putting my peas in too late or I'm waiting some time or I'm doing something and all those different things.

And I've begun just a little bit to learn that there are seasons where you can grow something and there are seasons that you cannot. And we're finally beginning to learn those things. And the Bible speaks that way of our salvation.

Now, isn't that a sobering thought? Because you see, I believe for many of us, the summer has passed. The harvest is over. And we're still not... we're still not saved. So as I come here at the end of the summer, it's a burden of my heart.

I remember one time, my wife and I and my mother, we were wanting to take a trip to Amsterdam. We were living in Germany and we wanted to take a trip up to Amsterdam and we got there and I'm not used to the 24-hour clock that the Europeans were using.

And I think we got there like 9 .30 or 9 .45 in the morning and I wanted to buy a train back to Frankfurt. So we said, okay, we'll take the train at 10 o 'clock. So they said, this will give us all day, you know, in Amsterdam and then we'll just enjoy and then take a late train home and get back to Frankfurt at 10 o 'clock.

We showed up about 9 .30 at the Amsterdam train station and realized the trains that left for Frankfurt had gone long ago. That to them, 10 o 'clock was 10 o 'clock in the morning and 2200 was 10 o 'clock at night and there was no trains going back to Frankfurt at 2200 o 'clock from Amsterdam.

And so my wife and my mother slept there on the floor of the Amsterdam train station waiting for morning to come. We had missed the train and there was nothing that was going to change that. Missed the train.

There are times when this harvest is ripe and there are times when the harvest is over. My burden tonight is that I believe that for many of us we're about to miss the train. We're about to miss the train.

Paris Reedhead who preached the famous sermon Ten Shekels and His Shirts in another different sermon spoke of his prison ministry. He said that one of the things he was amazed there is that every single person in the prison had their own plan of salvation.

Another thing he noticed is that no one did the crime. He said it was a travesty to think of all the people that we've stuck behind bars because no one has confessed hardly anyone to their crime. They're all saying they're innocent.

And each person he talks to all have a plan of salvation. He says in that sermon, he says that everyone on earth has a plan of salvation. Everyone does. If you're an atheist, your plan of salvation is you have solace in your soul by just telling yourself over and over again that there is no God.

And that you're just going to go on and you just keep reminding of yourself that hopefully, maybe, you'll just believe it. To those who believe in works, you just believe that if you keep on going and do things just the right here, just the right there, that you're going to work things out just the right way and that's your plan of salvation.

Everyone has a plan of salvation. But many of you here today have a right theology to a degree about your salvation, but for some reason, you've told me here at the beginning of this sermon, you've decided to wait.

You've decided that you're going to do it another time. Another very famous sermon, Jonathan Edwards, when he preached Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God, spoke of that time. That he says that many people today in their minds are somehow thinking that they are wiser and they're using their somehow thinking that they have a plan that's just going to work it out just the right way.

And that he said that if we could go to hell, and if we could go there and speak to them one by one, each and every one of them would say, I had no idea that I would come here. You see, I had it worked out.

I had thought that I was going to do it another time. Another sermon. I was going to wait one more time. I was going to read one more book or I was going to go get one more counselor or I was going to go do one more thing.

And then I was going to do it. But death caught them. The wrath of God caught up with them. Each one flattering himself that he would escape the wrath of God. Oh, you know. You have heard. Jonathan Edwards encouraged us.

You have heard over and over again that there are very few that are actually saved. We've heard that the road is narrow. Is that correct? And you've heard and you've known that the great vast majority, he charges us, the vast majority of those who have died today have gone to hell.

Very narrow. And the vast majority of all people living on earth has gone to hell. Yet, you will dally with this thing and think that somehow you've got a better plan and that it's going to be able to time this thing more correctly and to be able to do this just right when all those have perished.

All of them. It's a serious warning that he gives us there. It was unexpected. Death outwitted me, they cry, from hell. God's wrath was too quick for me. Oh, my cursed foolishness, they cry out. What prevents you tonight?

The Parachute and the Necessity of Action

What prevents you tonight? I am asking you tonight to make a decision. If you know in your heart tonight that you should have responded, not for sake of my sermon, but for the sake, I'm here as an altar call that goes on for an hour, that you have heard this engines go by and I'm telling you, I'm here with the light saying, don't keep just putting it off.

Make that decision. If God's grace has been working in your life and you know, make the decision. And I don't mean a light decision. You know, in my background, we made decisions. We made decisions. We talked a lot about decisions.

I'm not talking about a decision like that. I'm talking about a decision that causes you to get up and follow after God. Just a decision in your mind is not enough. You know, if you have the three people and they're up in a plane tonight and they're up there in the plane and suddenly the plane starts to shake and they realize that something's going to happen and the plane is going to go down and they realize it.

And as they're there in the plane and they realize the plane is going down, one of them makes a decision to put on... He's going to make a decision to put on a parachute and jump out. He makes a decision to put on a parachute and jump out.

He makes a decision to put on a parachute and jump out. Now I ask you, in that plane, how many people are left out of those three? Three! Three are left. If you're here tonight and you've merely made a decision that you're going to give your life to God, but something has stopped you from actually jumping out of the plane, you're going to go down and you're going to crash with everyone else.

Everyone else. Don't just make a mental assent. Repent and believe the Gospel and respond to it. Respond to it. Respond to it. Okay, when is the harvest times? I'm going to talk to you about four, I believe, times of harvest.

The Harvest of Gospel Preaching