Rev. 14:15-20, Joel 3:13, Matt 13:24-39 A greater percentage of today’s Christians is driven by mundane trivialities, frivolous passions and insensible pursuit of such things that will boost their personal egos and earn them high ratings in their reckless desire for comfort and prosperity or greatness. A few believers who pretend to be conscious of a better kingdom than this side of eternity have not been delivered from the yoke of bondage of besetting sins, rational approach to life, denominational entanglements, scientific reasoning, and compromise when given the opportunity in leadership and lack of zeal to tell people about the gospel “that got them saved”. That today’s church has lost touch with the supernatural which gave birth to the early revivals is to say the obvious. We have almost lost our senses. I need to make more money! I should have a good time of rest! I should socialize! I need to have some fun! I wasn’t part of the looting; I only shared from our nation’s goodies. The adultery was my secretary’s idea, actually, I did my best to resist her. If God pardoned David, he will pardon me.

• Put in: A conscious move to get involved.
• The sickle: Implement used to cut the ears of corn near the top of the straw. (A war-like weapon)
• Ripe: Graveness of wickedness
• Harvest: Metaphorically used. Wickedness now multiplied and rendered the hope of our deliverance almost impossible. Iniquity has reached its full dimension and very soon, man’s eternal fate will be decided. Heb. 12:22, 25-26, Ps. 50:3, or Isa. 2:21, Haggai 2:6

Sickle: A tool with a short handle and a curved blade for cutting grain crops with a horizontal sweeping action. Many churches, life, ministry, family, and business places have been numbered, weighed in his scales and found wanting. We no longer bring in new wheat, but the older wheat in the barn is increasingly being choked out by the tares in the sanctuary. Truly, time is running out. Enoch was a pre-flood saint, he was distressed by the increasing wickedness of the ungodly but we are being entertained today by the reports and pictures of evil in our time. (What a contrast?) When we see sinners on our roads, we just look away from the cross. When we have a dilemma in business, we just link up with popular alternatives. After all, everyone does it and heaven does not fall. When we are convicted by God’s word, we just lock up our consciences. When we are invited into places where we can influence, we long for meat rather than seek God’s power to transform lives. When we are confronted with challenges we let out our inheritance because of physical needs. The triumph of the early church revolves around the fulfillment of their mandate to evangelize. They won their battles, finished their tasks and kept their faith. The power given was no exclusive possession of the early church. Acts 5:28 A preacher, Dr. Clyde Taylor, said, “All about us are warning signals that our opportunities for evangelizing the unreached areas of the earth are about over. Enter the wide-open doors before they are closed. Today, theological vagueness and denominational sentiments have beclouded the unfinished task. As the light of the world, you are expected to spread the seed of the WORD in your neighborhood and as the Salt, you are expected to give care and compassion with righteous living. Billions of people have lived and died. Every one of them will face judgement someday. Look around you, can you see men and women, with whom you work and live. Have they received God’s forgiveness? Have they been warned about the consequences of sin? If we understand the severity of God’s final judgement, we will want to take God’s offer of hope to those we know.

Putting your sickle to work

• Just like the Angel in Rev. 14:15-20 was applying the sickle of God to harvest a ripe world in judgement, God expects you before then to use your own sickle of supernatural prayer to birth people into the kingdom of God. Those who preached to us in the 70s and 80s were not as casual as most of us have become today. They remained on their knees till they were convicted by the Holy Spirit that our stony hearts had given way.

• Can you still pray like that today? What about the sickle of monetary resources: the money in your hand is meant to sponsor some mission work such that the unsaved may hear the gospel. Are you ready to part with it or invest in real estate or oil business at least to secure a good future for your children, even when you are not sure of what will happen to such properties when you suddenly die?

• I have preached the gospel before. I was vibrant then. We were in villages, I distributed tracts, and I did morning cry. But today, I am always busy. What happened to your mouth, legs, hands and health? Can’t you go out and witness again? Moses went to secure the Destiny of a people at the age of 80. How old are you? He served actively till he was 120. What is wrong with our generation? Who will evangelize the secondary school pupils, who will reach the politicians, Food vendors, Market women, Touts in motor parks NURTW, Teachers, Bankers, Engineers in oil wells, who will put in the sickle of his mouth, legs, hands etc. into campuses, herbalists, broadcasters, journalists, police, military, pilots, private school owners, Government schools, parastatals, university professors etc.

Why we don’t want to put in our sickle?

• We don’t want to risk persecution or be martyred. He who will save his life will lose it. For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
• We don’t want to give up our attachment to the world.
• We have compromised so badly.
• We have disconnected from the realm of the supernatural.
• Our spiritual eyes are blinded.
• We have traded our appointed kingdoms for worthless temporary properties we have on earth which may be swept off by one night of Hurricane or tropical flood.

What can we do to save the situation?

• Awake from our deep sleep of shame and depravity.
• Repent and return to our first love.
• Seek the revival fire afresh.
• Become daring, determined, disciplined, devoted and dugged in our defence of the testimony of the gospel.

We are in a world with no absolute values, only possible outcome is total chaos.

A few clips of World Events

• Millions have died in the ranging wars in Central Africa.
• 2millions have died within 2 decades of trying to eliminate Christians from Sudan and bring Muslim law.
• There is unspeakable genocide in Syria.
• Iran is now on the verge of creating nuclear weapons.
• The President of Iran claimed that Iran will destroy Israel
• The Palestinian terrorists may soon have their terrorist state.
• Tens of people and properties were destroyed over cartoons of Mohammed.
• In the Philippines and Indonesia, there is civil unrest.
• Parts of South America are run by drug lords and criminals
• Hundreds have died over riots in soccer games.
• 2 million are in jail in the US, 16,000 people are murdered annually and half of men in prison now get converted to Islam.
• Greece and Turkey threaten war with each other over Cyprus
• Russia is being run by criminals.
• Mubarak of Egypt was ousted by revolution and sentenced to life in jail.
• Mohammad Ghaddafi was ousted in a dramatic revolution that led to his death.
• Laurent Gbagbo of Cote d’ivoire was forced out of office.
• In Asia, war looms between China and Taiwan, North and South Korea, and India-Pakistan.

Back home in Nigeria 

• Boko Haram Bomb scare all over Nigeria.
• Biafra, MEND and the Niger Delta insurgency.
• Removal of Oil Subsidy and the scandal of the lawmaker investigative panel.
• Uprisings in Ivory towers over wages etc.
• Corruption is the bedrock of our woes in governance.
• Kidnapping and ritual killings.
• Yahoo-yahoo and the youth.
• Politically motivated killings.
• Churches with witchcraft practices.
• Anti-graft agencies and their selective arrests and prosecutions.
• Herdsmen and bandits killings.

Now, are you ready to put in the sickle? Or are you feeling like I’m too young I’m too busy I’m too much in love I’m too much in poverty I’m too tired I’m too old I’m too downcast to get involved in Evangelism, Discipleship and missions. Remember, very soon, it will be too late to go! Now, on your marks, get ready, and rise to your feet. Oh! Lord set me on fire all over again! Acts 1:8, 26:17-19, 14:21-23, Matt. 28:18-20, Mk. 16:15, Lk. 24:47, Jn. 20:21-23, Acts 26:17b, Acts 14:21-23.