Although the Church of Jesus Christ is known as the Lord's heav enly people we are called upon to bring forth spiritual fruit in an earthly field. The whole world is our responsibility. What the har vest yields gives us a picture of our faithfulness in sowing and nur turing. The Holy Spirit desires us to begin an inward investigation as to the reason why there may be a problem with the harvest. Yet there are those who might counter, “ Is the Gospel not being preached more today than in the history of the Church? Are there not more missionaries? Is radio not hurling the message of truth to the uttermost parts of the earth?" The answer to all of these ques tions is "Yes." Yet, any farmer who had a yield of only 10 percent would consider it a poor crop in deed. Statistics show that the cur rent response is even far less than this. Still the world population continues to explode. Joel told the people of his day (vs. 4) that the reason for the fail ure was sin. It is interesting to see that "The Word of the Lord came unto the prophet Joel." His heart was being prepared to carry Cod's message to the wayward children of Judah. His first exhortation was to the elders (vrs. 2). Then it was for all the "inhabitants of the land." No one was to be excluded, in cluding children. This was total evangelism as the only solution to a fruitless field and a wasted har- est. The throbbing of the drums out in the distant village announced the death of another heathen. We knew it was the beginning of an ordeal which would last throughout all the hours of the night. There
would be little sleep for us. The village went to the very depths of sorcery. Death, in their supersti tious thought, was caused by the induction of the spirit world. Some enemy, by some means, had been able to induce the evil spirits to bring death to this member of their clan. The people had met to see if they could determine who was responsible for the death. The first one to be accused was the man's own wife. Every cup of cold water she had given him out of a heart of love, every bit of food she had prepared for her dying husband was now interpreted as an act of violence. She had to give an account of herself. Friends came from miles around to join in the mourning. It was not necessarily because they were sorry. They wanted to prevent anyone from pointing an accusing finger at them, so great does fear grip the hearts of these people. During the course of the night the people would go to the grain- eries of the dead man and open them up, only to cast his well- saved crops to the four winds. Their reason was that since the dead man had planted the grain by the sweat of his brow and now was not able to partake of it, neith er should anyone else. They over looked the work of planting by his wife and children. These were forced to sit idly by showing little emotion, as all of the precious pro vision for months to come were totally destroyed. What a picture this is of the end of every heathen man's life. Nothing else to show for it but a lost harvest. Let me tell you about a lost har vest that was reaped by one of our African evangelists. The Christian
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