(week 14, 2007)
Olubi Johnson
In our article last week we saw that God wants us involved in Holy Spirit led evangelism in which we birth souls into the Kingdom by praying in the spirit with travail (see our book ‘A Practical guide to prayer’ for details) and are led supernaturally to them by walking in the spirit.
This week we will see that God has two types of laborers in the field of evangelism: the plowman and the reaper.
Amos 9:13 (NKJV): 13 “Behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “When the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him who sows seed; the mountains shall drip with sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it.
The plowman is the one who tills the ground and plants the seed: the intercessor who travails in the Spirit and plants the seed of eternal life in the hearts of men in the place of prayer:
Isaiah 66:8 (NKJV): For as soon as Zion was in labor, she gave birth to her children.
Colossians 4:12 (NKJV): Epaphras, who is one of you, a bondservant of Christ, greets you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers?
John 3:6 (NKJV): That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
1 John 5:10-12(NKJV): And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
1 Peter 1:23 (NKJV): having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.
The reaper is the one who goes out to preach the Word and leads people to Christ without much prayer or labour in the Spirit:
John 4:38 (NKJV): “I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.”
Hitherto the reapers have won more souls into their churches and ministries than the plowmen, but now in the time of the harvest of the fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles, in which nations will come into the kingdom, the plowmen will ‘overtake’ the reapers and win more souls into the Kingdom.
The example of this is the Lord Jesus and the Samaritan woman: she got some people to believe in the Lord Jesus through her preaching, but when Jesus came into Samaria more people believed on Him.
John 4:39-41(NKJV): And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of His own word.
Here, Jesus exemplifies the plowman and the woman the reaper: the plowman overtook the reaper.
So in this end-time while it is good to be a reaper, it is better to be a reaper and a plowman: by growing into the perfection and fullness of Christ!
