Time to Stop Objecting
To the Harvest
Acts 11:1-18

† I.H.S. †

May the grace and mercy of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ inspire your work in the Harvest of all souls, as you rejoice in your own salvation!

 God is moving… are we?

I have to make a good confession. Over the last week I have had a number of things that I just wanted to do. Nope, no way. I had some great excuses lined up, but to be honest, I just didn’t want to make the drives, I didn’t want to sit in the seats and attend those meetings, I didn’t want to lay on that gurney, or drink that horrid stuff with nasty effects, and I didn’t know if I had anything left to minister to people I had never met before.

I was a bit of a grump…

And in each of the 7 places God was sending me to. I would see Him at work… even to the point of crying with a peaceful joy.

The reason I bring this up, is that I understand Peter, and the story he recounts to the believers in Jerusalem, who are little tired, a little paranoid of causing more trouble with their Jewish relatives, and to be honest, they didn’t think they had the will or desire to do what God was calling them to…the places He would send them anyway, just as Peter was sent to Cornelius and his family and friends.

But after the fact, the trips, both Peter’s and mine, even the colonoscopy, were incredible blessings. Because of the impact those moments had.

Even if we objected to the harvest, and tried to find excuses, and didn’t want to go…..

For as the title says, it’s time to stop objecting to the harvest!

• Dangerous words!

In this passage, we see Peter making two blunders far worse than the two classic blunders of “’getting involved in a land war in Asia,’ and ‘going in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.’”

Far greater.

The first we see in verse 8. Peter said to the Holy Spirit, “No”

Don’t ever do that. Nope, never ever said to the Lord, No.

You end up saying yes, but if you are unlucky you smell like you’ve been living in a giant fish for three days, or walking around the Sinai Peninsula, or maybe even, like Peter, have to eat some bacon wrapped lobster….

Wait… that’s what he said no to??

Yes… to prepare Peter to do something even more challenging, which for many silly reasons, objected to…

The other massive bunder… God responded to this way, Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.’

Peter learned the hard way, that God was in control, that He determined if something was clean or not, whether there was hope or not, and that God chose to whom He would offer salvation.

We don’t get to decide if people of this economic class, denomination, political affiliation or race, culture or ethnicity are saved or not… we get to rejoice in their salvation.

I want to repeat that, We don’t get to decide if people of this economic class, denomination, political affiliation or race, culture or ethnicity are saved or not… we get to rejoice in their salvation.

• The gift is for you and you and you..

And that is where God sends us, whether long term believers who are struggling and don’t quite “get” God…. Like Cornelius, who wanted to honor God, but because he didn’t know Jesus.

And we stop saying, “No, Lord.” Or “you can’t Lord – its against the rules…” and we see God at work. It’s amazing.

I didn’t know I would get three opportunities to encourage three women – my before, during and after nurses on Friday. All were related to pastors, a daughter, a wife and a sister. But all three needed encouragement from the bizarre pastor who they had to care for.

The same thing with the two funerals, both very different, both needed to hear God’s grace- one who had no idea of the peace of Christ, and one, they just needed to hear it again. Like the hymn, “I love to tell the story,” sometimes the ones longing to hear it are the ones who know it best.

You see we get to tell people the gift of God’s love is for them too! We will realize that just like Peter was called into Cornelius’ life to tell them “how you and everyone in your household can be saved!’”

That’s our job whether they are young or old, no matter rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, no matter the race, the ethnicity, the original nationality, or what language they speak.

And then, as we see God working in their lives, our own faith in God is strengthened as we realize those we might have thought beyond salvation have the Holy Spirit convicting them, and given them the privilege of repenting of their sins and receiving eternal life.

And as we see the harvest begin, we will rejoice with angels and archangels and all the host of heaven in the harvest.  Amen!