“Be confounded, you farmers! Wail, you vineyard keepers; for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished.”

Maybe we are tired of the mourning and the wailing! But this is stronger language. The prophet tells the farmers and the vineyard keepers, that they are accursed. They wail because the hand of the Lord is against them and they can’t help themselves or sort out their own problems. When they think on their situation all their plans are thwarted. 

They long for the food and nourishment of the wheat and the barley but the harvest has gone and the crops in all the fields have perished. 

In our day, there are many Christian believers who long for the strong meat of the Word of God, but cannot find it. The teaching is so shallow and perfunctory that it is hardly worth listening to. There is so much falsehood mixed up with the Scripture that the people are led astray and the land is in spiritual famine. 

The preaching of the life saving gospel is almost non-existent and there is an emptiness of true conversion experiences where people are turning to the Lord in the repentance of broken-heartedness. There is no change of heart because it is all about being friendly with God and no real understanding of who He is and what He requires from us. Sin is not talked about and we avoid the feeling of guilt, in case people are “put off.” The cycle of liberal belief is then perpetuated and there is a kind of religion born of easy-to-believe Jesus who will help us no matter what we are like. There is no holiness of life preached and so we are not holy.

The people wail for the Word of the Lord, but it has gone. 

Beloved, we must call out to the Lord of the harvest that He will again come down and visit His people with truth and the vigour of faith that leads to the reinstating of the gospel and the light will again arise and the crop of the church will again grow.