Coming Harvest Includes Impending Judgment - Evangelical Caucus/Devotional

As Jesus changes the metaphor from shepherding to harvesting, He gives another motive for His ministry. He ministered because people face God’s final judgment.

Jesus ministered compassionately and tirelessly because He could see the ultimate consummation of divine judgment toward which every person was headed—every one in the multitudes who did not trust in Him. Paul said, “Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Cor. 5:11).

In 2 Thessalonians, Paul paints a vivid picture of God’s judgment: “The Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power” (1:7–9).

It is easy to lose awareness of the imminence and the inevitability of God’s judgment, but the Christian who loses sight of that judgment loses a major portion of his motive for witnessing.

When Jesus saw the crowds, He taught them, preached to them, and healed them—all for the ultimate purpose that they might come to Him and escape the harvest of judgment they could not otherwise avoid.

Think of the cost that sin has already extracted from you, here where God’s mercy is still available and the promise of His restorative forgiveness is actively in force. Imagine its cost on those who will be paying its price forever. Be sure that as you witness, you don’t minimize the cost sin brings.

It is not so much that by the threat of eternal death that the Holy Spirit draws people to the Christ of the Bible, rather than how so many of the false christs employ it (auto da fe, works-based salvation, being one of the 120,000, 1,000 brides, etc.).

More so, it is by the love--the agape--of Jesus that brought Him to the Cross to obtain the forgiveness of humans' sins that completely eradicates the burden of guilt for one's shortfall; and the act of sovereignly preferring someone above oneself and other persons or things, which is a compassion ministered to them, person to person, from the hearts and means of His Own Loyal Servants, that brings ultimate, permanent relief to an otherwise lost soul.

===== "Alas, And Did My Savior Bleed?" =====
Alas! and did my Savior bleed,
and did my Sovereign die?
Would he devote that sacred head
for such a worm as I?
Thy body slain, sweet Jesus, thine,
and bath’d in its own blood,
while the firm mark of wrath divine,
his soul in anguish stood.
Was it for crimes that I have done,
he groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity! Grace unknown!
And love beyond degree!
Well might the sun in darkness hide,
and shut its glories in,
when God, the mighty maker, died
for his own creature's sin.
Thus might I hide my blushing face
while his dear cross appears;
dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
and melt mine eyes to tears.
But drops of tears can ne'er repay
the debt of love I owe.
Here, Lord, I give myself away;
'tis all that I can do.
============
At the Cross, at the Cross!
Where I first saw the Light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away --
It was there by faith
I received my sight,v And now I am happy all the day!
(Isaac Watts/E. E. Nickerson)

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