The Time of Harvest Has Come [Thanksgiving Sunday]

This passage covers the scene in which Jesus, seeing that the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few, is moved with compassion, and his command to ask God for laborers for it. Through this passage the sermon points out how urgently devotion to the salvation of souls is needed in the last days. In particular, it emphasizes that church members must not be satisfied merely with religious rituals or material giving, but must tend their own hearts in order to bear the true fruit of faith.

The fruit Jesus desires comes not from service or devotion that shows on the outside, but from a life that lays itself down on the cross and obeys God's word. It reminds us that this is a time when laborers are needed who will obey at once and share the gospel with people who are spiritually thirsty in a hardened world. We must cast off our own righteousness and greed, prepare a clean heart, and make ready to welcome the Lord at his return.

As we come to Thanksgiving, we look back on what true fruit we have offered to God over the past year. It also asks how we should tend our hearts in order to stand as laborers who save souls, and how we should make the decision of obedience that God asks of us at this very moment.