Thrust in Your Sickle

John recorded this vision of the last days, “I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.  And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe” (Revelation 14:14-15).  This symbolism of a sickle to represent the gathering out of God’s children in the last days is one that the Lord frequently used in the early scriptures of the Restoration.  In the famous missionary section, He revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith, “For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul” (D&C 4:4).  Six other revelations have similar language about the field being ready to harvest and the need for us to thrust in our sickles (see D&C 6:3, 11:3, 12:3, 31:5, and 33:7). The analogy was especially pertinent to Joseph and his contemporaries who were largely farmers and very familiar with the process of raising crops and harvesting.  Just as the Lord used the analogy of fishing to His apostles in the meridian of time to teach them about gathering souls unto God, He taught the early Saints using the everyday experience of growing food to encourage them to perform missionary work.

               So why did the Lord choose to use the “sickle” in particular as a symbol for missionary work?  The sickle is a handheld blade used to cut the crops and something that certainly wouldn’t be used at harvest time in today’s world of powerful machines.  I like the symbolism, though, because I think it implies a demanding kind of manual labor.  The Lord didn’t say, “The field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that sitteth in his harvester and runs the machine bringeth salvation to his soul”—rather he stated that we must labor with all of our might.  Harvesting using a sickle by bending down, thrashing, and gathering—over and over again—requires a whole different level of physical exertion than sitting in a machine and steering it through the fields.  And that seems to be what the Lord was trying to emphasize when He mentioned the sickle.  We are to “thrust in [our] sickle with [our] might” and “thrust in [our] sickle with all [our] soul” and “thrust in [our] sickles, and reap with all [our] might, mind, and strength.”  The message of the sickle is that we have to give it our all—laboring for the souls of men means that we need to work with all our might.  At the end of his fourteen year mission in which Ammon labored among the Nephites, he declared to his brothers and missionary companions, “Behold, the field was ripe, and blessed are ye, for ye did thrust in the sickle, and did reap with your might, yea, all the day long did ye labor; and behold the number of your sheaves!” (Alma 26:5)  That group truly did give their whole souls to thrusting in their sickles and bringing their brethren to the Lord, and they stand as an example of for us of true harvesters of the soul.  We may not be able to bring in as many sheaves as the sons of Mosiah, but we can in our own way thrust in our sickles with all our might.