Harvest is Here
#newwineskinseries
(This Weekly Prayer Summary was written by Devi Susanto, from the CBC English Prayer Ministry Core Team, and edited by Brigitta Tedja)
Pastor Him Djuhana continued with the "New Wineskins" series for the month of August with a sermon entitled, "Harvest is Here.”
He began by reviewing the past month’s preaching focus that has led up to harvesting:
March: Fasting and Prayer
April: The Joy in Serving
May: Finding Your Place
June: The Holy Spirit
July: The Word of God
August: New Wineskins
We are all experiencing harvest in our churches. God has been adding to our numbers in all our churches.
John 4:35 NKJV "Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!”
Harvest of Souls
A Harvest of Resources
This translates to a Harvest of Answered Prayers
For harvest to manifest, we need more workers and harvesters:
This is the hand of God
This is the Lord’s doing
This is His agenda
This is His work
We pray “On earth as it is in heaven”—that is God’s prayer and He is waiting for us to move and run with Him:
It is His desire to bring Heaven on earth
It is His desire for His kingdom to come upon the earth
It is His desire to see His people living on earth as it is in Heaven
Are we ready for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit? Are we ready for harvest? The Lord is pouring new wine upon us, and new wine requires new wineskins.
Pastor Paul said last week: “The same as what Israel went through, we can never make an entrance into our new season until we were willing to let go of our old season.”
Every entrance is always preceded by an exit, you have to pass the old door to enter into the new room. Leave the old things behind and enter into your Promised Land.
Acts 2:13 NKJV “Others mocking said, “They are full of new wine.”
Acts 2:13 CSB “But some sneered and said, ‘They’re drunk on new wine.’”
This happened on the Day of Pentecost
The day that the Holy Spirit was poured out among the 120 who were praying in the Upper Room
They waited for 10 days, Jesus was with them for 40 days after the Resurrection and the Day of Pentecost is 50 days after His Resurrection (Acts 1)
500 people dwindled to 120 people who waited and sought God for 10 days
For those who stayed, they were filled with New Wine
Have you ever wondered, why not the whole 500, why did God only choose 120 or poured out the Holy Spirit on the first day?
Why were only the 120 who were filled?
Wouldn’t it be better if the whole 500 were filled?
Only those that were ready were filled
It was not to pass judgement on the 380 that left
They prayed, worshiped, taught, seek God, meditated for hours on end
After the third day and nothing happened, what would you do?
People started to leave
But Jesus said, stay in Jerusalem, wait for the Holy Spirit
Acts 1 NKJV “And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, ‘which,’ He said, ‘you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’”
The answer is because it requires new wineskins for the new wine to be contained.
Matthew 9:17 NKJV “Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
New wine has to be put in new wineskins
If not, the new wine will be wasted
There is a Move of God in Our Midst
It is not just because we will have the Training Center
It is not because you can see all the commotion after 4 years of waiting
It is not just because it will be a beautiful 20,000 square feet facility
With classrooms for our youth, children, multi-purpose rooms, lounge room, large kitchen, offices & more
October 22: Commitment Sunday - Two months away
Making a commitment/pledge for a certain amount for 3 years
If God calls you to be here, you need to invest
Do it together
Invest together
Invest in the KOG
Bring it to prayer
Plan for the next generation
God is Pouring Out His New Wine on Us:
It is not just because the presence of God is tangible in our services
It is not just because we have anointed praise and worship teams
It is not just because the Word of God is preached here
It is not just because there are signs, wonders, and miracles
It is not because many of you are engaged with the ministries that you lead or are part of
It is not because many more of you are praying
It is not just because our church is growing
It is not just because our ministries are growing
It is not just because that we are a healthy body
Not because some of you have received prophetic words
It is not just because some of you got back from Baltimore Compassion Commission
It is among us all
There is a new fire, a new passion, a new excitement
Can you see it?
Can you taste it?
Can you see and feel the momentum?
Can you see the Hand of God in this?
There is a fresh outpouring of His Spirit in our midst. This is the new wine that God is pouring unto us. This is the move of God. If God is pouring the new wine, then we better be the new wineskins, otherwise the new wine will be wasted.
How Wine is Made:
Harvesting requires harvesters and workers. Harvesting is down and dirty
To make wine, grapes were harvested and then spread out in the sun for a few days to increase their sugar content
Then they were crushed in large stone vats
First people will stomp barefoot on them to press out the juice, followed by more pressing using a wooden plank that are weighted with stones
Historians tell us that typically “the new wine was left in the vat to undergo the first fermentation, which took from four to seven days”
After that, the wine would be strained and stored in wineskins or jars to complete the fermentation
New Wine Process: harvest crushed pressed fermented aged bottled
Because new wine continues to ferment and emits gas inside its container, it is therefore crucial for it to be stored in new and supple wineskins:
That way, the flexible nature of the wine container would allow it to expand and stay sealed as the fermentation process progressed
Partially fermented wine was stored in wineskins, but as the fermentation process continued, it produced more gases and so it stretches the wineskin which was made from the hide of a goat
An old skin which was no longer elastic could not stretch for this new wine, so you needed to use new skins for the new wine production
The idea of putting new wine in an old, inflexible wineskin would have been regarded as foolishly wasteful because the old, dried-out wineskin would simply crack and drain out all of the new wine
We cannot put new ideas into old mindsets. We cannot get new results with old behaviors. What does it mean by new wineskins?
Joshua and Caleb Fit the Narrative of the New Wineskins:
With new wineskin, you will possess the promise
With new wineskin, you will experience harvest
You will be challenged but the Word of God says that you will overcome
You are more than victors in Christ Jesus
The story on the Twelve Spies, as recorded in the Book of Numbers: A group of Israel leaders, one from each of the twelve tribes, were dispatched by Moses to scout out the Land of Canaan for 40 days as a future home for the Israelites.
Genesis 13:14-15 NKJV “And the Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: ‘Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are—northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever.’”
Numbers 13:1-2 NKJV “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel; from each tribe of their fathers, you shall send a man, everyone a leader among them.’”
Numbers 13:3 NKJV “So Moses sent them from the Wilderness of Paran according to the command of the Lord, all of them men who were heads of the children of Israel.”
God gave the instruction to Moses to explore and scout out the land
God gave the land to Israel
Every one of those 12 explorers was a leader
God Promised Abraham that There Would Be a Promised Land for the Nations to Come Out of His Son, Isaac:
The land of Canaan that the spies were to explore was that Promised Land
You have a Promised Land from God (you are a spiritual Israelite)—a land flowing with milk and honey
Possess that Promised Land
Ten of the twelve spies showed little faith – they gave negative reports about the land
Numbers 13:27 NKJV “Then they told him, and said: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.”
We did what you asked us to do
We explored
We saw
Yes, it flowed with milk and honey
Yes, the fruits were gigantic
Numbers 13:28 NKJV “Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there.”
Nevertheless …
BUT - Negates everything that was said earlier
They were slandering what they believed God had promised them
Yes, you promised us but we cannot fight them. They are too big, too strong and live in fortified cities plus they are the descendants of giants
They did not believe that God could help them, and the people as a whole were persuaded that it was not possible to take the land
As a result, the entire nation was made to wander in the desert for 40 years, until almost the entire generation of men had died
Joshua and Caleb were the two spies who brought back a good report and believed that God would help them succeed
They were the only men from their generation permitted to go into the Promised Land after the time of wandering
Numbers 13:31 NKJV “But the men who had gone up with him said, ‘We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.’”
We face problems in our lives and can feel overwhelmed.
Isaiah 40:29 NKJV “He gives power to the weak and to those who have no might He increases strength.”
He will strengthen you
He will enable you He will give you strength
1 Peter 5:10 NLT “In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So, after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation.”
The same with us today:
The whole Bible is full of His promises
The Bible is a book on instructions and promises
There are promises that have yet to be fulfilled in your life and in my life
Say “yes” to God
Numbers 13:32-33 NKJV “And they gave the children of Israel a bad report (AMPC: evil report; ERV: discouraging report) of the land which they had spied out, saying, ‘The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.’”
You are not a grasshopper!
Psalms 18:17-18 NKJV “He delivered me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me, for they were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my support.”