Where we live, the rich farmland produces lots of wheat. Although other crops are also grown, nothing is as beautiful as the rolling hills covered in golden, waving grain, awaiting harvest.
In mid-summer the combines start up, sweeping back and forth across the huge fields. They cut the wheat, collecting the grain and blowing out the straw. Trucks haul the wheat off the field. Some farmers store the wheat in grain bins back at their barns, but most have their truck drivers take it right to the grain elevators to be sold. The grain company fills their tall elevators with truckload after truckload of wheat, until they are full.
Uncle Bob worked for the grain company, tending one of these elevators. During harvest, he would weigh the trucks as they came in, and then weigh them again after they had unloaded, to see how many bushels of grain they had brought in. Other months, he moved grain around between bins or loaded the wheat they had collected onto big trucks to be hauled to the river for shipping. There was always work to be done at the grain elevators.
Jesus talked about another kind of harvest. He said, “The harvest truly is great, but the [workers] are few” (Luke 10:22Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest. (Luke 10:2)). He was not talking about wheat harvest; He was talking about gathering up people of all ages to save them from their sins and take them to heaven to live with Him some day soon. We want all who read this story to be sure they are trusting in the blood of Jesus for their salvation. Once they belong to the Lord Jesus, they can work in His harvest field by telling the lost around them this good news: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:1515This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. (1 Timothy 1:15)).
One January day in 1975, Uncle Bob parked his pickup truck beside the towering elevator and got to work with a special conveyor belt, moving wheat from one storage bin to another. He had stopped and was walking around outside checking on things when some little chunks of concrete hit the ground in front of him. Looking up, he saw a small hole high up in the side of the tall grain elevator. Immediately he thought, Wow! This could be a serious problem!
Uncle Bob hurried to the phone and called his boss. He had just started telling him about the hole and raising the alarm that a bigger hole could break open, when he felt a rumble and heard a loud “whoosh.” “There it goes!” he said.
Rushing back outside, he was amazed to see that a large part of the side of the elevator was gone! Through the gaping hole and tangled rebar, tons of wheat had poured out and lay in a pile on the ground right where he had walked a minute before! In fact, there was so much wheat on the ground that it had spilled across the road in front of the elevator.
I’m sure Uncle Bob, who had accepted the Lord Jesus as his Saviour, had a thankful heart as he considered how he had been spared from getting badly hurt or even killed that day. What if Uncle Bob had ignored the serious warning of falling chunks of concrete? If he had stood around there trying to figure out how he could fix the leak himself, he might have been buried under a pile of wheat. Instead, he hurried to call for help, because he realized the problem was too big for him to handle alone.
Further inspection showed that whoever built that elevator had ignored safety rules. Among other faults, they had left out many of the reinforcing steel bars that are needed to give concrete structures their strength.
The first small pieces of broken concrete warned Uncle Bob of trouble, and we see a lot of serious events happening that warn us God is speaking to this world. He wants people to wake up and think about Him before it’s too late! Unexpected storms, more violent than usual, have surprised whole towns and taken lives. Angry mobs have attacked people as they went about their regular living. Men have suddenly lost jobs that they thought were secure and now they can’t provide food or a home for their families.
Man’s sin and rejection of Jesus, the Saviour of sinners, has doomed this world to judgment. Where can we go for safety from the awful storm of God’s wrath that is about to break on this world? We should run to the only refuge available, the Lord Jesus Christ. “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it, and is safe” (Proverbs 18:1010The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe. (Proverbs 18:10)).
When we run to Him and accept Him as our Saviour, He saves us! We will neither have to pay for our sins by spending eternity in hell, nor will we be around when a time of trouble falls on this earth—a time like nothing that’s ever been seen before. He will take all who are trusting in Him up to heaven before then. No wonder those who are saved like to sing, “Hallelujah, what a Saviour”!
But time is short. The last book in the Bible tells of another harvest soon to come. It describes the Son of Man, Jesus, with a sharp sickle in His hand. An angel says with a loud voice, “The time is come for Thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe” (Revelation 14:1515And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. (Revelation 14:15)). This harvesting for judgment will be so awful that we don’t want anyone reading this story to be left behind for it. Trust in Jesus today and you will be safely in heaven.
ML-07/20/2008