“Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision” (Joel 3:12-14).
At the end of the age the Lord God’s Word tells us a number of great harvests of mankind are to take place. These harvests will vary; some will bring boundless joy and others will bring weeping and the gnashing of teeth. Some will occur in the blink of an eye and others will take place over many horrific years. But in the end, all of the teeming masses of humanity will be harvested in one of these culminating end-of-days prophesied events.
One of the Lord God’s greatest masterworks which never receives mention, is one that God shaped in His infinite mind before He first formed the earth by His mighty voice—His magnificent harvest field of earth. Despite the fact we exist within and are part of this masterwork, His achievements elude us because our finite minds are so caught-up in the immediacy of the here and now.
In this article I hope we can all pause, reflect and give full honor and glory to the Lord God Almighty, the Lord of the harvests to come for the awesome grandeur and scope of this part of His grand redemption plan, His glorious harvest field.
A Biblical World Perspective
The naturalist, secular world looks at the broad scope of historical events and sees the acts of nature; the struggles between men for supremacy and the innovations of Man’s creativity. However, those of us who take God’s Bible as His Word know the world around us is not just a series of random occurrences of nature and Man, but a world being methodically and actively shaped by the Lord God to achieve His greater purposes and pleasure.
The Lord God’s Fields Are Ripe
The earth’s human population is bursting at the seams with a growth that is soaring ever upward. Here is a look at the staggering growth in the earth’s population since the time of Jesus’ birth. [1]
1 AD 250,000,000
500 AD 350,000,000
1000 AD 450,000,000
1500 AD 550,000,000
1800 AD 1,000,000,000
1930 AD 2,000,000,000
1975 AD 4,000,000,000
2000 AD 6,000,000,000
2015 AD 7,300,000,000
Wow! These numbers are pretty amazing and a little scary when you consider the finite resources of the world in which we live. What factors are behind that tremendous upswing in growth? What is in the future?
The secular world chalks up this phenomenon to the randomness of evolution and the greed of its current dominant species—Man. However, the truth behind this population surge is something far more wondrous than what the godless naturalists can imagine. We stand near the pinnacle of one of God’s greatest masterworks.
It is our sovereign Lord God’s pleasure and His grand design that the earth’s population peaks at just the right time, so He can reap the maximum number of souls during His final harvests.
Since He first formed the earth, the Lord God has carefully worked His harvest fields by setting the exact, most favorable conditions to enable the earth’s population to surge at the end of the Age. The earth and its riches, the churning nations, and Man’s ever-creating minds are all molded by the mighty hand of our Lord God, all with the foreknowledge of creating the prime salvation opportunity for the greatest numbers of mankind in His coming harvest age.
His Mighty Hand Shaped the Earth
In his brilliant book Guns, Germs and Steele, Jared Diamond concluded that it was the unique shape of the earth and the distribution of the domesticatable animals which brought about the rise and dominance of Western civilization. Here is a quick summary.
The Eurasian continent shared the same latitude and general climatic zones across its east to west orientation which allowed more favorable transfers of populations to commingle their animals, innovations, and diseases. The great boundaries of steaming equatorial jungles which ring the earth prohibited the north to south migrations of Man because his domesticated specialized plants and animals did not thrive in these highly dissimilar ecosystems. Additionally, the great technical and logistical difficulties of the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean boundaries prohibited early trade and mass migrations to the North and South American continents.
Western Europe was not only blessed by being in the favorable latitude discussed above, it offered smaller, more readily defensible land areas due to its unique mixture of mountain ranges, islands and peninsulas. In this environment a caldera of competitive creativity developed over time to press advances in trade and economics required to maintain a defensive and offensive technological edge against ones neighbors.
Eventually these technological advantages, derived from their geographic locations, exploded across the face of the globe as the less-advantaged tribes and nations of the world were overwhelmed by the technology and diseases that had incubated in this smaller, cultural cross road environment.
In summation, while Man developed the concept that Western European global dominance was due to racial intellectual or cultural superiority, in actuality it derived from favorable geography and biology. Brilliant, insightful stuff. [2] [3]
However, the prime point missing from this laudable analysis is the Lord God. For He alone created these unique conditions; the favorable climate, the unique geographic features, and the specific placement of animals.
It was God’s will that placed and then paced the growth of these nations so that at just the right time in history its peoples expanded into the sparsely populated and less technologically developed regions of the earth.
Through the multi-century Western European civilization’s (which eventually included the United States) domination of the less populated and undeveloped portions of the world, their technological advances in agriculture, medicine, economics and transportation (among other innovations), dramatically escalated the population densities of these regions; thus setting the general conditions for the Lord God’s harvest populations (Acts 17:27; 1 Tim. 2:4).
His Mighty Hand Sealed its Riches
As the Lord God created the earth, into its depths He sealed tremendous riches, locking below its surface treasures to be slowly brought forth in there due time by Man. All the varied elements of the periodic tables in stones, minerals, gems, crystals, metals, and precious metals were buried for mankind to be brought forth to support the rise, growth, conquest and destruction of countless kingdoms upon the earth. Our age is no different.
In these last few centuries we, too, have discovered, exploited and built our modern civilization on the resources the Lord God had laid in store for this specific age—treasures of oil, gas, and coal. The industrial to the digital ages were built upon these resources. Without these treasures locked deep beneath the earth’s surface our modern life built around transportation, electricity, large scale food production, assembly produced goods, and life-saving medical products would never have been made possible.
Despite all the hype about renewable energy, it is only through these abundant, low cost fuels laid in waiting for us since the foundation of the world, that the earth could experience the abundance which in turn created an accompanying population surge across the planet.
His Mighty Hand Shapes the Nations
Throughout the ages our Lord God has established and controlled the people’s movements and boundaries across the face of the earth by setting up kings and removing them, and blessing and removing His blessing from nations. (Daniel 2:21, 5:21; Psalm 47:8, 99:1-2, Proverbs 8:15; Isaiah 40:23; Matt. 9:37-38; Matt. 24:7). He is sovereign and He has allowed the nations to rise and fall, to conquer and be conquered, and to expand and contract.
At this time The Lord God is conducting His final placements so every race, tribe, and nation is aligned to maximize His end-time harvests. (See my articles which further examine this topic.) [4]
His Mighty Hand Shapes the Creativity of Man
“But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased” (Daniel 12:4).
God has overseen the gradual accumulation of Man’s knowledge of the underpinning laws on which He created our world and our universe. Contrary to secular thought, God does not suppress science, but in fact from the beginning His hand has guided and His Spirit has inspired men to gradually unveil the truths behind His intelligent design (Genesis 4:20, 21).
Over the centuries men’s discoveries and creations have allowed the gradual increase of knowledge to the point new technical advancements in agriculture, medicine, transportation, communications, mining, energy, mass production and in many other fields, are now expected. Whether scientists and inventors acknowledge it or not, God’s is the inspirational source of every viable creation of man (James 1:17) The Lord’s pleasure is to shape discovery and invention to set the perfect technological conditions to maximize the Lord God’s coming harvest.
His Mighty Hand Holds the Whole World – Be in Awe!
“He’s got the whole world in His hand,” is not just a line from a Sunday school song, it is foundational biblical, gospel truth and is the general summation of this article.
I am awe struck by the Lord God’s power, wisdom, love, grace and His long enduring patience as He works His perfect salvation plan for mankind through the building of His harvest fields. It is our sovereign Lord God’s pleasure and grand design that the earth’s population peaks at just the right time, so He can reap the maximum number of souls during His final harvests. Praise God!
The apostle John related to us in Revelation chapter four, the 24 Elders (representatives of the raptured Church in heaven) shall throw down their crowns at the Lord’s feet and proclaim, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created” (Revelation 4:11). This masterwork is worthy of that same praise.
His Mighty Restraining Hand…Shall Be Loosed!
The Lord God’s hand has indeed shaped the earth, shaped the nations, and shaped the mind of Man to bring us to the point where His magnificent harvest fields are nearly ripe.
For now His mighty hand is the only thing that restrains the full unleashing of Satan evil upon Man. And for now His steadying hand continues to tamp down powder-keg regional conflicts, keep Man’s fingers off the nuclear winter triggers, stanch the spread of global pandemics, still the mega-volcanoes and earthquakes and hold the comets and meteors in their orbits.
But soon, very soon He shall reap His first harvest, and His Son’s Bride shall be removed.
Then, the Lord God shall loosen His mighty restraining hand. Tribulation shall reign.
Come Lord Jesus, Come!
Endnotes
[1] United Nations Sustainable Scale Project Institute, NationMaster.com.
[2] “Racism – An Inside Story,” Southerland, https://www.raptureready.com/soap2/southerland10.html.
[3] Not coincidentally, Western Europe is the exact location where God planted and nurtured the true seed of the gospel, which the Lord God would free from its Roman chains and then allow to be spread across the globe as these technological nations expanded across the globe.
[4] “Our Lord God and Our Nation,” Southerland, https://raptureready.com/soap2/southerland5.html.
jojoekwaj@yahoo.com J&J Ranch Ministries – “But as for me and my [ranch], we will serve the LORD” (Dueteronomy10:12).