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The Harvest
Jim Cymbala

Jim Cymbala (1943 - ). American pastor, author, and speaker born in Brooklyn, New York. Raised in a nominal Christian home, he excelled at basketball, captaining the University of Rhode Island team, then briefly attended the U.S. Naval Academy. After college, he worked in business and married Carol in 1966. With no theological training, he became pastor of the struggling Brooklyn Tabernacle in 1971, growing it from under 20 members to over 16,000 by 2012 in a renovated theater. He authored bestselling books like Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire (1997), stressing prayer and the Holy Spirit’s power. His Tuesday Night Prayer Meetings fueled the church’s revival. With Carol, who directs the Grammy-winning Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, they planted churches in Haiti, Israel, and the Philippines. They have three children and multiple grandchildren. His sermons focus on faith amid urban challenges, inspiring global audiences through conferences and media.
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Sermon Summary
In this sermon series called "Vital Truth," the preacher emphasizes the importance of living the Christian life based on the truths found in the Bible. The focus of the sermon is on the last commandment Jesus gave before ascending to heaven, which is to go into the world and share the gospel with everyone. The preacher emphasizes that this task cannot be solely left to pastors or professional evangelists, but it is the responsibility of every believer to share the gospel with those around them. The sermon concludes with a reminder that it is harvest time, and believers should be actively engaged in doing the will of God and finishing His work.
Sermon Transcription
So in January, I started a series called Vital Truth, like the most important truths in the Bible, which is full of truth, to live the Christian life. And last week, Sunday, I began one that's gonna take two weeks, and it includes this past Tuesday. And it's about the last thing that Jesus said before he went back to heaven, which is the most important command for us as a church to remember as Christians, which is to go into the world and share the gospel with everyone. And what we learned is that that can never be done, billions of people on the earth, 320 million people in America, millions here in New York City, that can be not done, never, ever possibly be done by the clergy, by pastors or professional evangelists. That that was never God's plan, we learned. We learned that God's plan was all reaching all. We studied in the book of Acts, where when a persecution broke out, all the Christians were scattered except the apostles. The apostles stayed in Jerusalem for whatever reason, rightly or wrongly, but every place the believers went, they preached the word of the gospel, the good news about Jesus Christ. And the church was multiplying as members, whether they're in housekeeping, we have 300 people who do housekeeping here and hundreds in the prayer band. All of those people, you, me, everyone, we're the one, the band, sound people, we're the ones that are supposed to be sharing the gospel. And we found out that the word preach has nothing to do with what we've developed, which is a guy behind a pulpit or a woman preaching in some professional way, sometimes with a changed voice, and declaring only on a platform the word of God. That preach means to declare, to share, to publish, to announce, and to relate to someone your own experience and the truth about Jesus. So everyone was a preacher. The idea of you sitting and observing and one person preaching is totally foreign to anything to do with Christianity. But it's unfortunately the system we've developed in America, and it's hurting us badly as churches are shrinking, pastors are leaving the ministry. I was just in Pennsylvania where pastors, in many places, last two or three years, get burnt out why the congregation is null and void on life support. They have to do all the work, so then they just give up after a little while and has not at all what God's plan was. So we learned all of that, and that we learned on Tuesday night that they prayed the early apostles when they were persecuted. God, look at the threats, look at our environment, look at the hostile world we live in, because they had been warned. Stop speaking in Jesus' name. Don't mention his name. That's what the religious establishment in Jerusalem warned them. You know what happened to your leader. It could happen to you. We crucified him. It's not gonna be nice for you, so don't speak in his name. But Peter said, you'll have to judge whether it's right to obey you or obey God. We have to talk about what we've seen and heard. We met him, we saw him. Before he died on the cross, after he rose from the dead, we're gonna share about Jesus, whatever you threaten us. And then they prayed, Lord, grant your servants boldness to speak this word, grant us boldness to speak that word, because it takes courage in a hostile environment to bring up Jesus. Is it not in New York City, a hostile environment? Is it not now in America? I just saw on the news last night, ACLU is bringing a suit against something that went on in some organization which was open to everyone. Someone prayed and used at the end in Jesus' name. They're gonna shut it down. You can't say that name. Isn't that amazing? 2,000 years ago, Jesus said you'll be persecuted for my name's sake, and he was just a carpenter. How would he know that 2,000 years later, everything he said is coming true? Is that not proof he's the Messiah, the Son of God? Let's say amen to that, okay? How would he possibly know that? So they prayed for boldness to speak that word, and they also prayed, now God, you work with us. As we open our mouths, lay people, you, this week, tonight, neighbor, relative, friend, as God leads you and gives you an opening, give us boldness to speak that name. We know a lot of people don't wanna hear it, but give us boldness to speak it, and then work with us so that while we speak, you're working. Show your power, do something that the people will know it's just not our opinion, but that Jesus is alive. That's how they prayed. So now I'm gonna close, God willing, this section on evangelism, and this one is just called The Harvest. And I want you to look at some verses, and then I'm gonna speak briefly using some of the information. Let's look at 1 Corinthians first. This is Paul talking about his ministry. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 17. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, the good news, not with wisdom and eloquence. What seminary believes in that? What Bible school says, yeah, let's preach like Paul. Forget eloquence and worldly wisdom because that's not what's needed. And I wanna, isn't that a good word for all of us? I have no human wisdom or cleverness, and I'm not eloquent, maybe you're not either, but how many are happy God can use us just the way we are? Lift up your hand. Just the way you are, talking the way you are. I talked to a young man who's preaching his first sermon in a church this morning, elsewhere outside this country, and I told him, don't try to preach. You're not a preacher. God doesn't want you to be a preacher. He just wants you to talk from your heart. That's all anyone can do. The moment you see any minister get ministerial and become self-conscious and try to bring, has a self-consciousness of trying to perform with eloquence and all of that, now you are departing from anything the Holy Spirit will bless. He doesn't bless acting. If you want actors, go to Broadway. We're supposed to just be real. How many say amen? Just talk and be real. So lest, see, if we use wisdom and eloquence that the world lauds, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power, for the message of the cross, this is information for us, the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. The message of the cross is gonna be laughed at by those who are rejecting it and who will perish, but to those who are being saved, there's a number that will respond to it. It is the power of God, this message of the cross. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, all the intelligentsia, all the cleverness of the world, all the we-know-how-to-do things. God says, I will destroy it all in the end, and the intelligence of the intelligent, I will frustrate. The ones who look down their noses because they're so sophisticated and intelligent, you don't really believe that stuff, do you? God says, I will frustrate it all, and I will, through simple people, reach childlike faith, and I will build my church, not the world's way. I will build it my way, not using angels, not having Christ return again and speak in the clouds to the people on the earth. I will use my family, my sons and daughters, to propagate my message, and even though they're simple and laughed at, they're fishermen, tax collectors like in the New Testament, they clean houses and offices, they work in all different kinds of jobs, high and low, I will use them in their own simple way so that everyone will know it's not them, it's me. They're not the subject, I'm the subject. There are no superstars. My son is the only superstar, Jesus Christ. You get it? Totally different than the way the world thinks. But let's go on, something else I want to bring to your attention. And so it was with me, brothers and sisters, when I came to you, I came not with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaim to you the testimony about God, for I resolve, while I was talking, to know nothing, while I was with you, except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Every sermon, every talk, every everything, every teaching session has to end up on Jesus Christ and him crucified. Just think what's going on in churches today, how we've depart in the religious world from that simple message. It's too below us. We're gonna get principles and earthly wisdom and pastor as life coach, we're gonna show you this and that. Paul said, when I was with you, I didn't know anything except Jesus Christ and him crucified. That's the power of God. You can start anywhere you want in the Bible, but you gotta end up with Jesus Christ, him crucified, risen from the dead, pouring out the Holy Spirit so we can be God's people. Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, Rabbi, eat something. But he said to them, I have food to eat, this is John 4, that you know nothing about. Then his disciples said to each other, could someone have brought him food? My food, said Jesus, is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. What I get fulfilled by is not human food. I don't need a sandwich. I need a sandwich for my body. But my real food, the thing that sustains me and fulfills me is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. What work? Don't you have a saying, it's still four months until harvest, but I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest. Even now, the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. So here's what I wanna tell you now in closing about this pressing matter that we all have to take so serious. God help me to take it serious. Number one, I want you to notice that fulfillment for a Christian and growth comes only when they are doing what God told them to do. In other words, evangelism is not just good for the people we reach, that their souls might be saved, that they might be part of the harvest and God being pleased and we reach the people. That's true, but I want you to notice this because it probably is affecting your spiritual life right now. By doing what God told us to do, we grow and learn and mature in a way that nothing else will do. You can sit in all the Bible studies you want, sing all the music you want, it all has its place, but when you now look at the harvest field and say, we gotta do something to reach people. I gotta reach my relatives, I gotta reach my coworkers because they're facing eternity without Christ. Now, how do I do it, God? Oh, God, let me apply myself to this. Give me wisdom, give me the power, give me the words to say. I'm just simple, I haven't been to seminary, but I'm gonna talk to them. Now, God, and now that I sowed that seed, now let me water it with prayer. When you do that and make that your goal, there is a growth in Christian muscles. You begin to develop and learn because you are now part of the motion that Christianity demands. Listen, Christianity is not about opinions and doctrines alone. It's not about sitting around and worshiping and studying the Bible. It is an action word, Christianity. Jesus said, go, go. Everyone say, go. Go is action. Not sit, go. No, but I enjoy the services, I wanna learn more about the Bible. That's good, but go with what you get, go. Because if you just keep receiving and holding it in, you're gonna thwart God's plan for your life. Where you develop muscles and how you keep out of mischief of all kinds is to have the hardest goal of all, is winning souls. I know many preachers who are my friends who have opened up to me and they are expositors and some are very well known, but they've told me privately, I can open the word, I can analyze passages, I can't win souls. Jim, I need God's help, I can't win souls. We don't baptize people in our church. We gather Christians from other churches, we circle the wagons, we sing, but how do you win souls? That's the hardest thing, ask any pastor. Prepare a sermon, three points and a conclusion. That's simple after you've done it for a while. But win souls. Not get them just to the church. Preach the gospel and see their life changed. See them born again. Turn from sin, wanna serve the Savior. That's the hardest thing in the world, is it not? When we are applying ourselves to that, oh my goodness, what muscles you develop, what prayer time you develop. Why don't people pray more? Because they only pray about themselves and that gets boring. But when you're reaching after people, longing to see a harvest, you will pray like when your daughter is wayward and away from God, you pray all the time, you pray without ceasing. I want you to know there's a blessing of growth. You know, a lake that has no movement freezes first, but a brook that's moving, it doesn't freeze as quick. That's the way it is with churches and Christians. When you're just sitting still, you can get cold real quick. It's all about you, what you're going through and all of that. And look, we just prayed for people, what they're going through. That's part of a life, but that's not the calling. It's just to center on ourselves. We gotta go, we gotta talk. We gotta pray. We gotta fight. I'm fighting for three or four cases right now. I don't need ammunition to pray. Beside my own needs and my family that I'm always praying for and you, I got some cases right now. I'm running into a brick wall. I'm witnessing, I'm talking. They're not listening. They're gonna blow up their lives. This person is gonna blow up her life. Listen, look at me. She will blow up her life. I'm fighting now for her. I said, I'm gonna lay in front of that door. I won't let you leave my office until you listen to me. When you're involved like that, think of the mischief it keeps you from. Fighting, gossiping, talking. Who has time for that when you're fighting a fight? Come on, can we say amen to that? What is the message we're to share? How do we reap that harvest? We do it with the message of the cross. Jesus Christ and him crucified. That's what we tell people. Listen to me. You share this week. You look for an opportunity. Yes, invite them to church. Sometimes if they're self-righteous, being in the presence of God will break them down. Seeing other Christians, God uses that often. But here's the message. Whether I preach it or you tell it first. Jesus died for you. I know he died for you because he died for me. He died on the cross. He bore my sins. Listen, he died on the cross for me. He died for you. He loves you. Before you were born, he loved you. That's the way you can get your sins forgiven. He'll give you here and now, right now, peace and joy. You'll have a new life, a new heart, a new way of living. And for eternity, you'll live with him. If you'll just put faith in what he did on the cross. That's the message. And notice, it has power by itself. The message of the cross has power. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, Paul says. For it, that message, is the power of God to salvation, to everyone who believes. Will everybody believe when you share? No. Some will fight. Some will curse you. Some will turn around. Some will just tolerate you. Others will be open and then God will direct you. Our job is not to convert anybody. Conversion is God's business. Our job is to make contact with people. Talk to people, love people, challenge people, comfort people. Come on, one more time, let's say amen. How can they believe unless they hear? How can somebody hear unless someone tells them? And that's on us. That's on us. Not on Billy Graham, not on this one or that one. Some evangelists, that's all on us. Our relatives, our family, our neighbors, our mothers, our fathers, our sons, and our daughters. Someone has to fight for them by speaking lovingly, sharing Jesus, and then praying and interceding. Just before I give the last point, hey, wake up. Why are some of you here or why are a lot of us here today? Didn't someone fight for us? Someone had to share with you. Someone had to tell everybody about Jesus. And how many of us wandered and somebody prayed for us? So we're here today because someone told us. Nobody becomes a Christian without hearing the message. So if someone told us, shouldn't we tell someone else? That's why world missions, Philippines, Malawi, any place, every way we can get that word out around the world, and in our own country. Because in our own country, there are people who think they're Christians and they're not. This is what's complicated the matter. For us, back then, no one knew who Jesus was. There were no fake Christians because no one had preached the message. But now there's all kinds of dubious stuff going on. Am I correct? And people say, yeah, I'm a Christian. I was in Rome a couple weeks ago when the taxi cab driver was telling me between cursing and everything else that he's a Christian and he goes to Our Lady of Perpetual Health or whatever, and the Pope lives there, and he's got it all figured out. All right, so now to cut through all of that. That's something Paul and Peter and James and John didn't face as much as we do. We live in a pseudo-Christian world in some ways. What God wants to enlist us up in the balcony, he wants us to work. It's harvest time. When I was 15 years old, I went out to Wisconsin for a summer, very key summer. I skipped a grade and I was going into my senior in high school, and I was a basketball player, and I ended up working on this farm, a dairy farm, that my best friend's family owned, a whole bunch of farms, and they're hauling me out of bed at who knows what time, and I'm there, they had 40-something cows that they were milking every morning, and then I was out in the fields on a John Deere tractor, and I'm lifting bales of hay and doing all this stuff, and at night, I was playing against some older guys who were already in college, sophisticated players, pounding, breaking back and forth with them, playing, slashing, pushing, shoving sometimes, and learning how to mature in basketball, too, but I remember, I realized the work it takes to get that farm thing going. That's what Jesus said. Don't say later you're gonna do it, you gotta do it now. The fields are ripe. What's few, he said? The laborers, the workers. Everybody wants to sit around in church and hear a song and hear a sermon. No, I'm talking to all of us. Isn't that much easier? There are some people that I know who are Christians, they can only exist in a Christian atmosphere. You take them out of church, you take them out of a Christian atmosphere, they don't even know how to function. I grew up around that, and to cover that up, they make the world their enemy, stay away from the world, don't talk to them, am I right? And yet, Jesus was a friend of sinners, so what are you gonna do with that? The light has to shine in darkness. We don't need light shining in the light. It's harvest time. We gotta do something. You know, I'm asking one of the leaders of the church to consider starting, develop an army of people so that once a month we have a rally somewhere in Brooklyn or this city. Get a hall, get a church, rent whatever we have to on a Friday night, Saturday night, blanket the area for weeks before that, invite everyone, and preach the good news of Jesus. Try to win the people, use the singers, use the choir, use whatever, and just do the work of evangelism while we're doing it here and you're doing it individually. We gotta do that. I've been mulling over seeing leaders develop, maybe deacons, pastors, who, developing teams that can go door-to-door. See, even that, you go door-to-door, people think you're a Jehovah Witness. They won't even open. I know that because I won't open, right? I know that. I get outta here. Get outta here, I don't wanna talk to you. In the name of the Lord, get outta here. But you know what I'm talking about. But we gotta do something. Brothers and sisters, am I right or wrong? What are you gonna do? Just live for time and forget eternity? On whose hands will that blood be? All the people who never even heard. They think they know, they don't even know. They think, try to live a good life, and if I'm better than some person in the street, then I'm gonna go to heaven. That's what 80% of America believes. You live a good life, you go to heaven. That's not the message of the gospel. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. More than 10 years ago, a minister was visiting with his wife here, and on a Monday night, I went to dinner, Carol and I, and this minister and his wife. We ate out in Queens, where I lived at that time. I came home, I don't drink coffee. I just drink decaf, no matter what time of day it is. Caffeine has a bad effect on me. So I went to bed, 11 something, 12, 12.30 comes. I'm tossing, I can't sleep. One o'clock, 1.15, around 1.15 or 1.20, I started to pray and say, God, you're not letting me sleep. I know this is you, there's no reason. I've been gifted by God, I'm thankful to him that no matter what pressures have been on me in my life, to speak, to see money raised or whatever, multiplied millions of dollars, he gives me sleep at night, that's a blessing. By the way, you can't live if you don't sleep, or you won't live right. So I got out of the bed about 1.30, and I started to talk to the Lord and I had a little study next to the bedroom. God, why am I not sleeping? I started to pray, and I started to pace around that study, and then I started to pace around the house. Carol was sleeping. And then as I opened the Bible and was just praying, now it's 2.30, three, 3.30, I read this verse from Proverbs chapter 10, verse five. He who gathers crops in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son. Notice, in summer, the only time you can get it, the crops harvested, the son who helps his father is prudent, he's wise, he knows what he's doing, father's proud of him, but he who sleeps, laying around, texting the universe, indulging himself, instead of working the fields during the harvest time, that's a disgrace, that son is a disgrace. So I began to apply it to myself. As I prayed, I said, I never really studied that verse. It's harvest time. He who gathers with his father is wise and prudent. He who sleeps, distracted by whatever, is a disgrace. Now it's four, now it's 4.30, now it's five. I can't sleep, I'm pacing, just praying. I'm totally alert. I am totally alert, alert, alert. I am praying now, I'm praying that the Spirit is helping me pray, I am praying, and all I hear in my heart and my mind, it's harvest time, it's harvest time. What are you doing, Jim? Not talking to you now, I'm talking to me. God, I felt, was saying to me, it's harvest time, what are you doing? Even though you're a pastor, do the work of an evangelist. It's harvest time. I got to bed about six, the phone rang after I had slept three hours or so, and it was my daughter, Sue, on the phone. She said, Daddy, turn on the TV. It was Tuesday, 9-11, and I saw the plane go into the building, and I saw the buildings go down, 3,000 some die, it's harvest time. We lost four people in our church, but I know where they are, so we didn't lose them. They're in heaven, four. Another girl from Trinidad who was living wrong with her boyfriend, living in immorality. She was on the fifth floor landing. There was an error in the computer, and they told everyone to stay where they were, even after both building towers had been hit. She was on the 60-something, 50-something floor. Finally, boyfriend called and said, you better get out of there, and she started down these smoke-filled stairways. EMS and cops, firefighters going up to die. They didn't know that, passing her. Everyone panic-stricken, smoke, people crying, walking quietly, but some yelling and crying, walking down the stairway after stairway after stairway. And then around the fifth floor, she couldn't take it. She had high heels on, and she went off out of the line and on the landing, and she kicked her high heels off. They were digging into her feet, and suddenly, as she's kicking it off, she heard a train, but the train was above her, and the tower came down on top of her. And she was thrown into one in a billion air pocket, crushed in her feet, a beam two inches above her head, one arm trapped, and she lay there, heard one scream in the blackness, then after that, nothing, and she lay there. And she thought about, after the hours went by, she didn't know what had happened. No one knew what had happened, but she just knew that something horrible had happened to her. She didn't know when she woke up that morning that there would be 9-11. You never know. It's like the coming of the Lord. In an hour that you think not, that's when he's gonna come. She lay there, and then she started thinking about the messages I preached, and I had preached the gospel, and she had said, no, not now. I'll get this straight later. I'll get this thing right later. Not now, though. I'll live right later. I'll repent later. And she lay there. Hours went by. She asked God to forgive her. She received Christ as her Savior. If you don't get saved at the bottom of the World Trade Center, you're most likely not gonna get saved, right? She received Christ. Hours went by. Mary Giuliani was saying, we've pulled a few out in the first couple hours. Now eight hours, 10 hours, had passed 15 hours, and Giuliani said, listen, listen, don't give up. We could still pull someone out, you never know, but after a while, cynical New Yorkers said, hey, it's over. Whoever was in there, they're gone, but not her. She lay there 27 hours. She's the last person pulled out. She heard them digging and then yelled up there, and she's the last person pulled out. Time Magazine did a two, three-page spread on her and all that, took a picture of her right here, right, sitting in the choir risers. That was the picture. She came into the church limping because she had surgery. We didn't know her from anyone. She just had been visiting three or four times, if I remember, and she told the pastors, I wanna get baptized, and they said, okay, we'll baptize you. What's your testimony, and she gave it to them. They broke down, they brought it to another pastor. Then he broke down, then they brought him to my office and said, here's this lady, she wants to get baptized, and I said, okay, so baptize her. No, they said, it's not like that. It's something else, so good. Let me hear your testimony. She was about five minutes into it, and I was a puddle of tears. The good news saved her, saved her soul, saved her life. You know what got me mad last night, and this is just total, I'm just, no, total transparency. See, there was a song I heard growing up, and it went like this. I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord, over mountain, land, and or sea. I'll say what you want me to say, dear Lord, I'll be what you want me to be. So I looked it up on YouTube. I just felt like hearing it. You know, the only recordings that I could find on YouTube, the first five or seven, the Mormon church, because they all give up a year to go with their cult teaching and their false gospel. They're going. Yeah, the best athletes, the prettiest girls, all the guys, they're all going. They give up a year of their life. Am I correct? If you know anything about the church of the Latter-day Saints, they go, and we have the truth, and we're sinning in many cases. It just grieved me. I told my wife, she walked by. I said, Carol, didn't your dad used to sing that song? She said, yeah. I said, all the recordings, they're not by Christian churches. It's all Latter-day Saints. We gotta go. Whether God calls us like he did the Ildefonsos to the Philippines, you gotta be available to go. We gotta go. We gotta go in Brooklyn. We gotta go to Fulton Street. We gotta go wherever we have to go. We have to go. Am I wrong or right? Look at me. What I preach here so far, how many have understood what I've said today? Could you lift your hand? Is it biblical or is this unbiblical, what I'm saying? How many believe it's biblical? Just lift your hand. And it applies to all of you. None of you say, no, I'm not a member here. I don't go to church. If you're a born-again Christian, and this doesn't move you, you're probably under misapprehension. You're not a born-again Christian. How could you be a child of the Father and hear the Father say, who will go for me? Who will just go and talk? You don't have to go a million miles. Just go down the block. Go to your relatives. Go to somebody, talk. No, but I sing in the choir. That's fine. That's singing to Christians. And else other avenues God gives you. But you gotta share. You gotta talk. You gotta talk. You gotta share. You gotta love. You gotta fight. Otherwise, what am I living for? What am I living for? Listen, he woke me up, kept me up a whole night. It's harvest time. And now even more so, because we're one day closer to Jesus coming back again. Let's bow our heads. Join hands with the person next to you, please. Would you begin to pray? Just one thing I want you to pray. God, make the person on my right a soul winner. Make the person on my right bold, strong, to speak your gospel, Christ crucified. Pray right now. Pray out loud. Go ahead, pray so they can hear you. Pray just the one on the right. Just pray. God, use them. Use her. Use her. And if they're not a Christian, God, save them before they get out of the building. Grant us boldness. Stretch out your hand. Open our mouths. Don't let us be ashamed. Don't let us fit into this world, this corrupt system. Sanctify us. Pull us out, Lord, so we can be an influence. We can't influence something if we're like it. Change us, God. Now pray for the one on your left now. Just, come on, turn your heart around to the left here and pray out loud. God, use her. Use him. Please pray. In the balcony, pray. Open your mouths, pray. My house shall be called a house of prayer, and when you call, I will answer. I will answer when you call. Pray. Pray. Now pray for yourself out loud. Say, God, use me. Use me. Give me boldness. Use me. I have to win someone to you, Lord. Lord, we pray that maybe even before the sun goes down today we can talk to someone about you. Christ crucified. Your love, your patience, your faithfulness. Eternity, heaven, hell. Fill us with love and make us bold. Or maybe we can bring someone, even before communion is served on Tuesday, we can bring someone, or by next Sunday, someone to the house of God that we've won or they're opening up, we can bring them to your house. Help us to be like your servant, D.O. Moody, who filled up whole rows with people that he found in the street. Such was his zeal to work for you. Thank you for your word. Thank you for saving us. It's a privilege to represent you. Now send us into the harvest field and give us a spirit of working, laboring, sharing, boldness, prayer, love, mercy, wisdom. And we'll give you all the praise and we'll give you all the honor and glory. God, the missionaries that are sitting in front of me that you're gonna raise up, raise them up. The people with a special gift of evangelism, raise them up, raise them up. A person's gift makes room for themself. God, let that gift flourish in them. But use us all, for we pray it in Jesus' name. And everyone said. Everybody who loves the Lord, put your hands together and let's clap. Everyone who loves the Lord. Everybody stand and give someone a hug, amen. Give someone a hug. God bless you.
The Harvest
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Jim Cymbala (1943 - ). American pastor, author, and speaker born in Brooklyn, New York. Raised in a nominal Christian home, he excelled at basketball, captaining the University of Rhode Island team, then briefly attended the U.S. Naval Academy. After college, he worked in business and married Carol in 1966. With no theological training, he became pastor of the struggling Brooklyn Tabernacle in 1971, growing it from under 20 members to over 16,000 by 2012 in a renovated theater. He authored bestselling books like Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire (1997), stressing prayer and the Holy Spirit’s power. His Tuesday Night Prayer Meetings fueled the church’s revival. With Carol, who directs the Grammy-winning Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, they planted churches in Haiti, Israel, and the Philippines. They have three children and multiple grandchildren. His sermons focus on faith amid urban challenges, inspiring global audiences through conferences and media.