"It's Harvest Time" - 9 November 2025

Cultures throughout the world have long traditions of some form of Harvest Thanksgiving festival from the Moon Festival in China, Chuseok in Korea, Pongal in South India, Thanksgiving in the US, and even Pentecost in Jesus time. There’s much celebration and grateful thanks when the first harvest comes in and then when the final fruits are brought into the storehouses to prepare for a long winter. It means survival, the hope of being fed and not going hungry, life into the future is possible. I noticed living in the Eyre Peninsula that when the harvest is good (and the grain prices are too), spirits are high and lifted up.Throughout the bible the image of great and final harvest has been used as a metaphor for the final “Day of the Lord”. Jesus talked about this final day of judgment when the harvest would come, the grain kept while the separated chaff is burnt. In the second half of Revelation Chapter 14 we see this metaphor of the Day of the Lord coming like 2 harvests. One of grain and the other grapes that are then pressed into blood in the winepress of wrath. This echoes the same message of the prophet Joel Chapter 3: 13-14Swing the sickle,    for the harvest is ripe.Come, trample the grapes,    for the winepress is full    and the vats overflow—so great is their wickedness!”Multitudes, multitudes    in the valley of decision!For the day of the Lord is near    in the valley of decision.We are then left in the “valley of decision”. God is slow to judge and will give us every opportunity. To follow Jesus in our actions and beliefs or to ignore God and go our own way. As Jesus said the harvest is plentiful and cause of festival celebrations throughout the world. When the harvest comes people celebrate at the promise of life.Your brother in ChristBenji