In the sixties I recall sitting in a place called The Trip on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood listening to a new rock group called the Byrds. That evening the Lovin' Spoonful where there too. But, it was the Byrds I most remember, and their song, Turn, Turn, Turn. To the mystical, resonating sounds of a Dobro Guitar their music, like so much happening in that period of my youth, strangely attracted me. They sang:

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

There was a biblical feeling to the song. And, being on my own for the first time in a strange place the words were comforting. I didn't know it then, but it was the world that was calling me. As a result, by the time I came to my senses, there was a lot of the world that I had to overcome.

The song also said:

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

Looking back, I see things differently now. Now, instead of the world calling, I have a higher calling -- a heavenly one. Nevertheless, much of what the song said is true. To everything there is a purpose under heaven. There is a time for us to laugh, a time to cry, a time to die and a time to reap. In fact, after His encounter with the women He found while sitting at a well, Jesus had this to say to His disciples:

Do you not say, There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true, one sows and another reaps (John 4:35-37 New American Standard Bible).

Then Jesus said something I find most interesting. He said:

I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor (John 4:28).

What previous laborers was Jesus talking about? If you recall the story, the woman he met had brought up the subject of the then coming Messiah of prophecy (John 4:25). And, Jesus informed her that He in fact was the Messiah. So, when Jesus told His disciples that they were to reap what others have sown, He was referring to the work of the prophets and Bible prophecy.

If that was a true statement in Jesus' day, how much more in our day? Like Jesus' first disciples, we too have been sent to reap that which we have not sown. Today we see the prophecies of both the Old and the New Testaments being fulfilled and it is our calling to declare them to a lost and dying world. If we don't, then who will?

It's our time to reap.