Sowing for the harvest

'For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.'
(Isaiah 55:10-11 NKJV)

In a discussion on Facebook a few months ago, a friend said, regarding the sharing of the gospel:
'The issue isn't whether they're willing to listen but whether we're willing to speak.'
What a great way of summing up our gospel responsibility. Thanks JC!

We are sowers and God is the harvester. Our role is to scatter the seed liberally on all the earth and it is God's role to make it work, make it accomplish what he pleases. I say this because, sometimes, I'm guilty of this, we decide who to share the gospel with. We don't consult God and we exercise our own judgement alone in deciding who needs to hear the word of God. We try and identify 'willingness' in our gospel candidates!

I think the big issue that we have is imagining that it requires people to be 'willing to listen' to receive the gospel. Get this right, it is our natural, default setting as human beings to ignore and hate the gospel. Romans 3:10-11 says this of us: 'There is none righteous, no not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God...' and then in 18: 'There is no fear of God before their eyes.'

Before we understand the gospel, it requires a miracle. It requires God to soften our hearts and actually change our fallen nature. To understand the gospel, the good news that Jesus has suffered and died for our sins and made a path for us, clothed in his righteousness, to approach God - to understand that is a miracle. It is the only way that gives God the full glory he deserves for his work of salvation (for salvation belongs to the Lord) and it's the only way that fits with what the bible tells us about ourselves. The gospel is not glow in the dark. To a hardened heart and the spiritually blind, it is nonsense - pure and simple! It requires the light of God and the softening of the heart to be visible and sensible to a person.

This should tell us something about how gracious God is to have revealed himself to US and to have lifted the veil from OUR eyes so that WE might see him. It should also tell us about our gospel responsibility. God will do the whole work of revealing the truth of the gospel to people, but only when they hear it from our lips!

We do not convince people of the gospel's truth. God does.
We do not lead people to salvation. God does.
We scatter the seed though. Rain may fall on the soil but if the seed has no been planted, nothing will grow. We cannot make it rain, we cannot make that seed take root, we cannot improve the quality of the soil, this all happens by the sovereign, perfect will of God. What we can do is to plant the seed.

It's not whether they're willing to listen but whether we're willing to speak.