Jesus sees horrible conditions as a massive harvest and that’s masculine to the core.

How’s that masculine?

Well, instead of being a negative little Nancy like many, Jesus understands the heart of the Father is to redeem this rabble and that where sin abounds, grace is there, in abundance, to crush it (Rom.5:20).

You see, when Jesus sees a tawdry mess, he doesn’t curl up in the fetal position and wet his robe but rather boldly goes to the rescue of those ravaged by the powers of darkness. A lot of chaos and pain means mega-millions in the soul saving department for the Son of Man.

Most of us, when we see a stack of people who’re more befuddled than Britney Spears during a Dostoevsky read at Barnes and Noble think, "Well this is the end of the world."

Jesus saw this depressed mob as prime Holy Ghost pickings for the Kingdom of God.

What made them look like low hanging spiritual fruit to Christ?

Well it was the following: they were distressed. Meaning, they were in great pain, anxiety, or sorrow. They were under acute physical or mental suffering, affliction and trouble, and they were dispirited. In other words, they were not feeling much hope for their lives.

When Jesus got an eye-full of this desperate throng he’s like, "Dudes … do you see this lost mob? This is perfect! There’s holy gold in them thar’ hills!"

Here’s what Matthew 9 screams to me: we don’t need favorable conditions to do the work of God. Matter of fact, this pretty much says the more things stink the higher the chances of great success.

Look man, revival comes when things suck.

Miracles come when you need ‘em.

Please note: Jesus said "cruddy conditions" precede a great harvest.

I believe if Jesus were tooling around this terra firma today he’d say the same thing ge said two thousand years ago about our hopeless and hapless hordes, namely, the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.

Here’s five observations from Matthew 9:36-38.

Number One. Jesus sees differently than most Christians.

Jesus sees a mega-harvest in hellacious mayhem.

My three-year-old grandson was over at our house the other day and we had a group of whitetail start pouring through the east end of our property. Within that group was a really nice free-range, low fence, Texas Hill Country, main-frame, eight point buck.

I could tell just with the naked eye that buck was a stud. I quickly grabbed my binoculars to get a better look at him and I was right. He was a beast.

With the buck still lingering under our massive oak trees, I gave the binocs to my grandson for him to have a look at the muy grande that had paid us a visit that fall afternoon.

After handing the binoculars off to him I looked back up at the deer that were still milling around and eating acorns and I asked him if he could see the buck. There was no reply. So I asked him again and nada. Then I looked down at Hamish and understood why he couldn’t see that epic deer: he had the binocs backwards. I chuckled inside and then scooped him up in my arms and held the binoculars properly for him and he finally got a big eye-full of that trophy whitetail. Most Christians look at cultural, political and familial problems with their biblical binocs backwards.

When they see "bad signs" they think "nothing can be done" and "it’s proof" God’s about to run the credits on this failed Earth flick. They believe in time, well … the devil wins and their only hope is to get raptured out of this mess.

Their Jesus is little.

Their faith is little.

Therefore, the zeal to work in inclement conditions is zilch because they see doom and gloom versus a Mighty God who is able to save in the roughest of waters.

Indeed, they see the devil and his anti-Christian minions as the winner on this planet, in time, and Jesus and his team only win in eternity.

Rarely will you hear a typical evangelical, when they are looking at crap cultural conditions, exclaim like Jesus did with a faith-filled affirmation that this "hopeless situation" is actually awesome soul winning conditions!

Again, Jesus sees harvest in mayhem because he’s not a defeated, forlorn tinkerpot.

What do you see?

Number Two. Jesus feels differently about other people’s pain than most Christians.

One way to know you’re morphing into a self-righteous toad that Jesus loves to hate is when you can callously look out at people trapped in sin and are getting beat up in life and say, "Well, that’s what they get for not being a good Christian like me."

I’ll never forget sitting in one of my high school classes bragging about something stupid I had done that weekend and this carpy Christian chick said, without a scrap of love, "You’re lucky you’re not dead and in hell." What was the message I received from that denunciation? It was this: Jesus hates me. Interestingly enough, there was another girl that too was very familiar with my evil path and she asked me if I knew that God loved me? I remember recoiling like Kramer would when he had his mind blown by something Seinfeld said.

What?

God loves me?

No, he doesn’t. At least not according to his people. "God hates me and I owe him money" was the message I received from 99.9% of the high school Christians I interfaced with. The revelation of God’s love for me, a notorious sinner, given with compassion by a lovely young lady was too much for me to handle. I didn’t get converted then and there, being the idiot I was it took me another two years, but the message stuck. Jesus, who could righteously, justly, and without hesitation end my life and send me to eternally fry on Dante’s hibachi instead extended love and compassion to me and I am forever grateful that he did.

The late Eugene Peterson, in The Message translation, morphs "felt compassion" into "his heart broke."

You know it’s easy to say, "Awww. Those poor bastards" when you see someone flailing in life.

It’s completely another thing for your heart to break over their plight. This is very convicting to me. My heart only breaks when things are not perfect for me and mine. Jesus’ "heart", on the other hand, broke over the distressed and dispirited masses.

This too is masculine to the core because it champions the protective trait that’s inherent in men who would be men. God help us all feel compassion for others versus callous indifference to those who are "dead in their trespasses and sins." Because "we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest" (Eph. 2).

Number Three. Jesus said this lost mob needs leaders/shepherds.

I love how easy Jesus made solving this big problem: his answer was two-fold:

1. They need leaders.
2. Pray that God would raise up leaders/workers to right this ship.

FYI, to all the indoor city boys: sheep without shepherds are dead meat to predators.

The distressed and dispirited peeps need leaders … shepherds to guide and protect them.

The problem is, effeminate, wussified Christians don’t want to do jack squat anymore but be coddled pastors. Very few are looking to dive head first into the fray and lead people to Zion.

Nope, we want to be entertained and pampered, ad nauseum, ad infinitum. And then we have the gall to blather about how bad things are when Jesus said it could be remedied by folks who’ll get off their butts and lead instead of complain.

Indeed, when it comes to leadership most Christians are like, "It’s not my job, man." They don’t feel "led" to help, you see?

True leadership/shepherding is hard work. But it’s what is needed in order to fix the stuff everyone moans about. True men will heartily take on the leadership mantle. Tinkerpots will flee from leadership. They don’t want to labor for others’ salvation because their "Christianity" is all about them.

Number Four. In Matthew 9:35 it says,

He preached the "Gospel of the Kingdom." That’s the message the workers/shepherds need to bring to the distressed and dispirited masses today. We need to preach and do the same thing Jesus did two millennia ago if we desire his kingdom results in our current conundrums.

Some of you are thinking, "Yeah … and?"

Well, a lot of churches have deviated from the message and the acts of the Gospel of the Kingdom and have tossed that aside for therapeutic nonsense and politically correct psychobabble. Consequently, we ain’t truly, eternally, helping anyone.

There are three things inherent in the Gospel of the Kingdom message: They are …

1. The message of repentance (Matthew 3:2; 4:17).
2. The healing of the sick.
3. The casting out of demons.

Question. When’s the last time you heard a preacher, without apology, trumpet a thunder-clapping message of repentance from sin from the pulpit? Also, when’s the last time in love of course, you told a friend or family member the needed to repent/turn from their sin?

Here’s another question. When’s the last time during a Church service have you seen the minister lay hands on people who’re sick and they get healed? Also, when someone’s sick in proximity to your person, do you pray for their healing? That’s what Jesus did.

Lastly, when was the last time you saw a demon cast out of someone? That long, eh? Is it because demons don’t exist anymore? Or maybe they’re not as active as they used to be? Or maybe we’ve strayed way off the essentials Christ preached and we’re off doing our weird ineffective PC stuff that leaves people in their sins, with their maladies and demon possessed. A true man of God preaches repentance, heals the sick an casts out devils. Effeminate snowflakes preach Oprah, sell the crowd supplements, and think ignoring, verses resisting, the devil will make demons flee.

Number Five. Jesus said to pray for workers, not the lost.

Here’s another way Jesus differs from us: We pray for the lost and he prays for us to get off our butts and get busy. To me, this is a hilarious contrast between what Christians pray for and how Jesus prayed for lost humanity. Christians feel very positively pious when they pray from their Christian playpen for all the unwashed masses. Jesus is like, "They’re ready to be harvested. Quit praying for them. They’re good to go. What I would like you to pray for is for workers to bring them into my fold." Please note: Christ said, pray for workers. Real men of God work. They work hard and long. Effeminate dandies don’t.

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Clash Ministries is here to do two things, namely, put brains and cojones on Christians. Yep, our holy job is renewing minds (Rom. 12:1-2) and emboldening hearts (Prov. 28:1). Your generosity helps us throttle the enemy by equipping God's people to live bold, wild and free in Him. You are a vital part of this ministry and we could not do this without you. Thank you for your faithful gifts and partnership and remember to always ... stay rowdy!

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Doug Giles is Pastor of Liberty Fellowship in Wimberley, TX, and is the founder of ClashDaily.com​

Follow Doug on Instagram and Twitter @TheArtOfDoug.

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