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The Summer Is Over

  • | Chris McCann
  • Audio: Length: 48:45 Size: 8.4 MB
  • Proverbs 31:25, "The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer;"

I would like to read Ecclesiastes 3 and a couple of verses, and then I will go to a verse in Jeremiah a little later. To begin with, let me read Ecclesiastes 3:1-2:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

I will stop reading there.

Ecclesiastes is a book that God moved Solomon to write. God gave Solomon tremendous riches and glory and honor and wisdom, earthly wisdom. He gave Solomon much wisdom, and then God moved Solomon to write a true expression of his experience. Solomon felt this way. Solomon was not writing lies. God moved him to write: “vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”

The word “vanity” is a word that really means “empty”; it is vain. Something that is vain is an empty thing. If I am a vain person, this is not saying anything good about me; it is saying something pretty bad about me.

This is the idea concerning vanity in this life. All is vain and empty, and yet God had a purpose for this world. He had a purpose for permitting man, creatures made in His image, to fall into sin and for the world to see corruption and for all of this evil. God allowed this and permitted this in order for Him to finally at the end be glorified through His salvation plan.

We know that God likens His salvation plan to growing fruit, to growing vegetables, to producing a harvest. He has a few ways that He illustrates this. One way is through a building. We are “lively [living] stones,” and He is building a building or He is building a city, “new Jerusalem,” or He is building a wall, represented by Nehemiah’s wall that was built in 52 days. All of this building is representing those who become saved. They hear the Gospel and they become part of the Kingdom of God, part of this construction.

But He also speaks a lot in the Bible of vineyards and of fields and of planting seeds. Christ spoke a parable of sharing the Word. As the Word is shared, it is like throwing seeds. We read, “A sower went out to sow his seed.” He throws seed here and he throws seed there.

So God speaks of His Gospel as those who sow, which is like that excellent Psalm that Robert read just a little earlier. Psalm 126:5-6 says:

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

This is all spiritual language. Christ “spake by a parable” as He spoke of sowing seed. Then He explained this: “The seed is the word of God.”

So there is no question. God uses this kind of illustration to teach the spiritual truth that He is a husbandman. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus is “the husbandman” and “the true vine.” He is “the husbandman” who is patiently waiting for “the precious fruit of the earth.”

This is one way to summarize the reason why the whole world continues up until now, as it says in James 5:7:

Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman…

And John 15:1 tells us that “my Father is the husbandman.” James 5:7 continues:

…the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.

So God is “the husbandman” and there is fruit on the earth, because He sowed seed, and yet the fruit is not quite ready. Therefore, He is waiting for the fruit to mature, for the fruit to grow up to a point. No one harvests their field before the fruit is ready. This would defeat the purpose. It would not be a smart or wise thing for anyone to plant the crops and then be in such a hurry to make money or to bring their crops in that they harvest them before they are ready and before the time.

Well, God, of course, is not unwise. He is very wise, and so He has the field and He has planted His fruit and He is waiting to collect it. He is waiting to gather it. What is He waiting for? He is waiting for “the early and latter rain.”

However, He is not waiting for the early rain anymore, because this fell during the church age. God has already gathered in the fruit from the church age. He speaks of this as “the firstfruits” and He likens this to 144,000 in Revelation 7: 12,000 from 12 tribes; and in Revelation 14, He calls the 144,000 “the firstfruits.” Then in Revelation 7, after the 144,000 have been sealed, it says in Revelation 7:8-9:

Of the tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand. After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number…

The early rain fell. God began to collect the harvest, the 144,000. This is not a literal number, but it represents all of those saved during the New Testament church age of 1,955 years. This ended in 1988. This is when the church age came to an end.

So we read, “After this,” there is “a great multitude”; and if we would go on and read in Revelation 7, God speaks of this “great multitude” as those who “came out of great tribulation.” This is why we know that the church age ended and then the 23 years of the Great Tribulation began from May 21, 1988 until May 21, 2011. God has now turned His attention from “the firstfruits” to all of the rest whom He intends to save during this period that we call the “latter rain.”

We call this the “latter rain,” because “the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth…until he receive the early,” which He has, “and latter rain.” Then the implication is that He is not going to wait anymore.

He has been longsuffering and patient, but He is not enduring the world’s sins so that the world can continue on with its plans. This is not why the world is here. God is not waiting, for instance, for people to be able to go to college to get educated. He is not waiting for someone to get that job that they have always wanted. He is not waiting for someone to find marriage and to raise children and to have a family, because this would have always been the case whenever it was that Christ would come. It would necessarily have to interrupt people’s lives. Is this not true?

Even if this were to be put off for another thousand years, people would have lives just like we have lives today and there would still be those saying, “This is not fair! I am only a teenager. I am only a young man. I am only a young woman. I have not had a chance to live.” This would be said at any point in any generation in which God determined to end the world.

So this is not something that God is waiting for. He is not waiting for you or for me or for anyone to experience certain things in this world, especially since most of our experiences are rebellion against Him. Why would God wait for people to live up to the fullness of their rebellious potential? He is not doing this. He is waiting for one reason.

If we look at 2nd Peter, God actually states this matter-of-factly. 2nd Peter 3 is the chapter in which God describes melting this earth with “fervent heat” and the whole universe being dissolved. After making these statements, He says in 2 Peter 3:15:

And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation…

The husbandman waiteth and He has long suffering for the precious fruit. He is waiting for “the early and latter rain” because we can understand the word “account” as what it equals. Therefore, when God is longsuffering, the reason is salvation. The reason is the “great multitude” who have not come in yet in their fullness, in their completeness; and so the Lord still has some to save. I do not know how many, but He will complete this by May 21st of 2011.

So this is one way in which God views this world. It is like the whole earth is a field, and He is going to wait up to a point. For instance Mark 4:28-29 says:

For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.

He is not patient anymore. He is not longsuffering anymore. He is not waiting anymore, because He was only waiting for the fruit. Immediately, He then harvests the crop; and we know that May 21st will be the day of resurrection, the day of rapture, which is basically the day of gathering. God uses this phrase of gathering the elect where He says that He “shall gather together his elect from the four winds.” He gathers them together.

But what does He say about whom He is going to leave behind? He says, “They shall not be gathered.” They are left on the open ground. Those who will come up out of the ground, their remains will be left; they will be ungathered. They are like rotten fruit. One way that God speaks of this is that “their stink shall come up out of their carcases.”

So looking at this world as a field that will eventually be harvested is actually a major way in which God looks at His salvation plan in the Bible.

Turn now to Jeremiah 8 and I will just read the first couple of verses, and then I will go to another verse that I want to go to. It says in Jeremiah 8:1-2:

At that time, saith JEHOVAH, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves: And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth.

God is not collecting them. They are not “good fruit.”

Remember that we also have in Jeremiah God looking at “good figs” and then He looks at “evil” figs. The “good figs” were those who went into captivity. They went into Babylon. The “evil” figs were those who did not go into captivity.

This is one way in which God is saying that those who came out of the churches, which is figuratively what it means to go into Babylon, are like the “good figs.” This is referring to those who are saved and who have come out of the churches. Those who remain are like the “evil” figs, because they never went into captivity. They never came out of the church; they remained.

The other verse in Jeremiah 8 that I wanted to look at is Jeremiah 8:20. It says here:

The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.

“The harvest is past” and “the summer is ended.” Since we are approaching Labor Day, this is the unofficial end of summer, is it not? Summer does not actually end until September 20th or 21st. But also let me be clear that I am going to be talking about two types of summer. One is the season that we are familiar with, as in summer, fall, winter, spring; the seasons that cycle and return to summer.

Well, now, we are coming to the end of summer, the end of the last summer that will ever be like this. This is the last summer in which we could say that anyone could go on vacation; because even though there will be another cycle, the world will remain at this time next year. It will still be here and I am sure that the temperature will probably be similar. In this way, there could be one more summer season. But no one is going to be thinking about a vacation or the boardwalk or the beach, or anything of this nature at that time because the world as we know it will no longer be here. At that time, this world will be into the five months of torment, of great sorrow. The last thing on anyone’s mind will be sunning themselves on the beach. This is not going to happen ever again.

I have to be a little careful because there are places around the world that remain warm and have nice weather throughout the year: Florida, California, etc. I am just looking at this from the normal cycle in a climate like our own here in Philadelphia. We have this summer season and this will be it.

Does anyone else get a little melancholy because of this? Does anyone else get a little melancholy over this whole business of the end of the world? I just find myself thinking about seasons, about life as we have known it to be.

For instance, the beach has always been one of my favorite places to be, to go down the shore, to be on the boardwalk, to hear the sounds, to see the sights, to hear the ocean waves coming against the shore, or hear the seagulls flying around the boardwalk. You hear those gull sounds and the kids can imitate them pretty good.

I remember when I was a kid, this was like happiness for me, as much happiness as I knew as a kid. When it came time for this, June or July or August, we got in the car. At that time, there were long traffic jams to get down to the shore. It took a couple of hours at least, maybe three hours. But we went down to experience the beach, to experience the ocean, to experience all of the sights and sounds that are there. These are very pleasant memories.

Also, I grew up and had a family and I have taken my children down to the shore, down to the beach where I would sit down and dig in the sand with them. I remember when they were little and they would bring their toy trucks and we would make roads. We would build these big, wide holes and push the trucks into these areas that we built. These were very happy times, joyful times.

Well, what God is telling us in this verse is that the summer is ended, that the summer is over. All of this is over. We have a few more days, but then this is it. It is never going to be this way again. It is a sorrowful thing that this is coming to pass, that “the harvest is past, the summer is ended”; and so the summer is almost ended physically, but, actually, it spiritually will not end for a little while longer.

Let us now go to Matthew 24:32, which says:

Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:

We know “that summer is nigh [or near]” when the “branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves.”

We were just talking about how God illustrates salvation through fields and harvests and crops. Now He is talking about a fig tree and He actually tells us something right up front. He does not always do this; but He tells us that this is a parable.

So God is not talking about a real fig tree. He is not talking about the tree that brings forth the fruit of figs, actually, but this represents something. What does this represent? It represents national Israel. National Israel is what the fig tree represents.

It is really an amazing thing that Israel is in the land of Palestine. They are over there in the Middle East. They are a nation amongst the nations of the world once again. This is an incredible thing.

I grew up in the sixties. I was born in 1961. Then I began to become aware of some things. You eventually start to look around in this world and become cognizant of many different things. For all I knew my whole life, Israel was there. They were there. They became a nation again in 1948. In the late sixties and in the seventies, they were a nation. This was nothing unusual to me. They have been there 62 years now. However, we tend to forget that if we go back in history, they were destroyed by the Romans in the first century A.D. They were scattered all over the earth. They were not a nation anymore after the first century.

Then if we go forwards hundreds of years, like into the days of the Reformation when Luther and Knox and Calvin and all of those men were protesting the Catholic Church, Israel was not a nation at that time. If we go to the 17th century in 1611 when the King James Bible was written, Israel was not a nation at that time. If we go to 1776 when America declared its independence and we became an independent nation, Israel was not a nation at that time. If we go to the American Civil War of 1865, Israel was not a nation at that time.

For about 1900 years from the first century A.D., Israel was not a nation amongst the nations of the world; but God works incredibly in events and orchestrates all things. His Divine providence is behind everything really. There are things He allows and things that He brings to pass, and He allowed the Nazis in World War II to kill millions of Jews. He took His hand of restraint off a people.

This just shows us what man is capable of if God removes His hand of restraint to any degree. He is doing this today concerning sins all across the face of the earth, like the sin of homosexuality and all of the sins that are listed in Romans 1. He is lifting His hand back, but He could do this at any time. He could keep someone faithful, like Abimelech so that he did not touch Sarah. He could make sure that from the integrity of Abimelech’s heart that Abimelech would not get involved in adultery, or He could move His hand back a little bit and allow man to do what man will do if God were not restraining sin.

So the Germans, in hatred and out of the evil heart of man, built concentration camps and gassed and killed what has been estimated to be about six million Jews as well as others. These were all killed by the Nazis in World War II.

This war ended in 1945 and it really set the atmosphere for just three years later in 1948 for much sympathy to be shown towards the Jewish people, as well as for the formation of the United Nations. At that time, they were in support of this. England, the British Empire, was very instrumental in getting Israel back into the land of Palestine in order to form a nation once again.

It is incredible that this happened after about 1900 years, because these people were scattered across the face of the earth. Even the Epistle of James is written “to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.” They were scattered across the face of the earth, but then this awful destruction at the hands of the Nazis in the death camps really brought them back together. They were determined not to let this happen again, and so they were willing to go into this hostile atmosphere of the Middle East with enemies all around in order to form a nation once again.

So God is saying here in Matthew 24 that we should “learn a parable of the fig tree.” This is a similar way of saying what He says in 2nd Peter 3, “Beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing.” That is, we are to learn something so as not to be ignorant of it; and God is saying in Matthew 24:32:

Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves…

But there is no fruit. They have been back there for 62 years and they have not come one inch closer to recognizing Christ as Messiah. They have not made any steps in the direction of realizing that Jesus is Eternal God. Of course, there can be no fruit if they do not recognize Christ as Saviour. God is saying, though, that this is one big thing that all of us can learn. When we see the fig tree in leaf with no fruit, we can know that summer is near. Summer is near.

Let us now look at a few Proverbs. Let us go to Proverbs 6. It says in Proverbs 6:6-8:

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.

This is similar to Jeremiah 8:20, where it said:

The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.

This is joining summer and harvest; so, too, here in Proverbs 6, as God is instructing us further to “go to the ant, thou sluggard.”

Who is He talking to? Are there any sluggards here? I think we may have one maybe here, one sluggard who is me.

Well, God is talking to people, because we are very lazy. We are slothful. We are a sluggard. No, maybe we are not this way in our jobs or in our homes, maybe not in any other area of our lives; but when it comes to bringing the Gospel, a “sluggard” is a good description.

Someone said to me just this past week, “I am worried about you. Are you overworked?” I guess they were asking this because they see me on Paltalk or they see me do this or that. I said, “I tell you what, when I stop wasting time, when I can look back on a day and not see large portions of it wasted, then I will say that I am maybe a little overworked.” But I definitely am able to waste time, even now, even today. Even knowing how short the time is, I can look back on a day and I can see time that I have wasted.

Why is this? Well, God knows us better than we know ourselves because we have a tendency to being a sluggard; and so He says in Proverbs 6:6:

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:

If we look at Proverbs 30, which is a similar Proverb, it says in Proverbs 30:24-25:

There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise: The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer;

Are ants a people, a wise people? It is unusual to speak of ants in this way. So who is God using the ants to typify? He is using them to typify the believers. The Bible says, “None of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand” and “I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.” The five “wise” virgins prepared themselves for their Lord’s coming, but the five “foolish” virgins did not have oil in their lamps.

In many ways, God shows us that wisdom is extremely important at this time. This is because wisdom is the understanding that He gives of the Scripture concerning the end of the world, as well as all of the other things that we are learning, as God has opened up the Bible to reveal these truths.

So when we are reading about the ant in Proverbs 6 and that we should “consider her ways, and be wise,” we can also look at the ants in our yards. We can see that it always seems like they are busy; it always seems like they are working. For instance, I was just talking about the beach. We never see ants laying back and kicking their feet up and relaxing. No, we never see ants doing this. We see them scurrying around. They scurry this way and then they scurry that way.

What are they doing? God is saying that they are gathering their meat; they are preparing for harvest. They are gathering their meat during this time of harvest and they are preparing for the time when the meat will not be able to be found.

Then it says in Proverbs 6:7:

Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,

We have looked at this before and have seen how this does fit with the true believers of our day because there is no pastor, there is no elder, there is no deacon, and there is no spiritual authority over the believers. There is no one to organize everyone. There is no one to oversee what Tony is doing from what Gary is doing. Tony goes up and down the East Coast. Gary feels led to go to Toronto.

There is no one organization. There is no one who is directing all of these things. There are a lot of things happening that we do not know anything about. There is a group going to Argentina September 7th for a week. I just found this out a little while ago. No one had announced this or had said anything about it. Believers are all over the world and God is the One who is directing their course. God is the One.

Remember what it also says in Proverbs 21:1:

The king’s heart is in the hand of JEHOVAH, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.

So He directs one believer to the East Coast and He directs another believer to the West Coast. Here locally, some go down a street while others go up the street. No one is orchestrating it all. Only God is doing this.

Even though we are sluggards, God is moving within His people at this time to work because there is a great task. We have this enormous task as a watchman of warning the world, of telling the world that Judgment Day is close at hand. God’s people are beginning to go here and to go there, to use their resources, to use their time, to use their money, to use whatever it is they can think of in order to bring the Gospel to the people of the world before it ends, before it is over.

If we also go to Proverbs 10:5, it says:

He that gathereth in summer is a wise son: but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame.

Again, we see summer and harvest. We also see gathering as opposed to sleeping.

What are you doing? What have you been up to? I think this is what God would want to know. This is what He would want to know of each one of us. We are all servants and we all have a task that has been given to us.

This is just like Abraham sent his servant to get a wife for his son Isaac. After Isaac’s mother Sarah died, Abraham sent his servant. This servant was very faithful and did what his master Abraham had wanted him to do. He did not go off to the left or he did not go off to the right. He was also in constant prayer that God would direct His steps, which the Lord did. The Lord led him right to the water where at the same time Rebekah was coming out with her pitcher at the time that the young ladies came out to bear water for their households. God led Abraham’s servant there, and we know that God is leading His people, His servants, to bring the Gospel to the world at this time because He has told us, “Occupy till I come.”

Another verse is Proverbs 26:1. It says:

As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honour is not seemly for a fool.

Again, we see summer and harvest together. We are seeing that they are basically synonyms. They are synonyms. They go hand in hand. God could speak of the summer and He is referring to the harvest.

So when we read in Matthew 24:32 about the fig tree being in leaf, we can know that summer is near. The harvest is near. It is the time for the husbandman after He receives the “latter rain” to immediately put in the sickle to gather His crop, all of the “precious fruit of the earth,” and to take it up into His presence in Heaven. This is what God is saying.

Again, going back to Jeremiah 8:20, we read:

The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.

When will the summer be ended? Yes, Labor Day is coming up. In just a couple of weeks, this summer will be over. But, spiritually, the summer will be over on May 21st of 2011. The harvest will be over then. There will be no more salvation after this point. No one else will become saved after this point. There will be no more rain. The “latter rain” will be gone.

Do you remember what God said in Zechariah 14 concerning the Feast of Tabernacles? It says in Zechariah 14:16-19:

And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, JEHOVAH of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. And it shall be, that whoso will not come up…

This is language of the rapture. It continues:

And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem…

This is referring to “the heavenly Jerusalem.” It continues:

…to worship the King, JEHOVAH of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain. And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith JEHOVAH will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.

On May 21st, God will collect His people. He will bring them up into Heaven in order to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles will conclude on October 21st, 2011. This is the last day of the Feast. This is the day that God has determined to destroy the world.

But some people have a wrong understanding of God’s salvation plan. They think that salvation will continue up until October 21st of 2011, but it will not. It will not. They think this because John 7:37 says:

In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.

They believe that Jesus will be sending forth the Gospel one last time on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, which will be October 21st. Therefore, they believe that salvation will obviously continue until the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, and yet this is not true. This is not true.

God said in Exodus 23:14-16:

Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year. Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:) And the feast of harvest…

Jesus said in Matthew 13, “The harvest is the end of the world.” Exodus 23:16 continues:

And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours…

God breaks up the Feast of Harvest into two parts: the firstfruits that we mentioned earlier, which are the 144,000. This is associated with Pentecost. It continues:

…the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering…

The Feast of Ingathering is the Feast that is held at the same time as the Feast of Tabernacles. It continues:

…and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.

You do not collect the fruit on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Ingathering. You bring the fruit in. Then you hold your Feast. You do not send forth the Gospel on the very last day, October 21st. The fruit is already gathered in. It is not going to be gathered in then.

Look at Deuteronomy 16:13-14. It says:

Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered…

This is past tense. It continues:

…in thy corn and thy wine: And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast…

It is afterwards when we will then hold the Feast of Tabernacles. This is important because God is taking His people up on May 21st. He is taking His people up months before this Feast even begins, because the Feast begins several days before October 21st.

But God is saying that He is going to collect His fruit. Then they go up to keep the Feast where His people need to be. They need to be in spiritual Jerusalem. They cannot be on the earth. If you are on the earth, you cannot keep this Feast. There is no rain on the earth, because the “latter rain” is over. It will cease to fall on May 21st. If the rain is not falling, there can be no more salvation. There can be no more fruit. There can be no more deliverance of any kind.

So what is God saying in Jeremiah 8:20? It says:

The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.

Some people are going to experience this. They are going to realize this because the harvest has come. The sickle was put in. The fruit was gathered and taken up and out of this world. There are the dead everywhere and they are lying ungathered. It is rotten fruit; it is now sending forth a literal stench in all the earth, because the dead are lying out. Many will die on that first day from earthquakes worldwide. They will definitely give this good analogy of being rotten fruit, of being corrupt fruit, of fruit that God had no use for because He never saved them.

Just like this summer is coming to an end, this verse is a little preview. In just a few days, this summer is ending, this physical summer; this season is coming to its close. Not too long after this, we are going to come to the close of the spiritual summer, the spiritual harvest, and that will be it. That will be it. There will be no more time. There will be no more opportunity.

So here in Jeremiah 8:20, the final conclusion is:

…and we are not saved.

This is the realization that sets in to anyone who is left behind. This is why their cry is, “Lord, Lord!” This is why there will be torment for so many. It is because they thought, in their relationship to Christianity, that they would be raptured, that they would go into Heaven; and yet they remain and it is very obvious that they were not saved.

Today is still the day of salvation. It is still possible. It is still possible and there is still a great hope right now. There is a tremendous hope for God to save His people. We do not know who they are, and so there is hope now for someone to use this time to go to God and to say, “O Lord, I love the summer season, but now it is gone and I know that very quickly the open door will be shut and the possibility of salvation for maybe me or for my family or for my friends or for my neighbors, for anyone, will end. So could You have mercy and could You grant me Your salvation.”

Let us stop here.