The
Commands of Christ
Sermon
# 18
"Pray
For Laborers"
Matt
9:37-38
In our last
examination of the commands of Christ we looked at the command recorded in Matthew 7:15,
to "beware (prosechete) of false prophets." There
found that there were four things we need to know in relation to these false teachers or
false prophets; they are dangerous and they are deceptive, there are those who are
especially vulnerable to false teachers and there are ways they can be detected.
Tonight we
move on to Matthew 9 where Jesus discusses with his disciples the plight if the harvest of
souls all around them. The command is found in verse thirty-eight , ."therefore pray (deethete – 1st aorist
passive imperative) that the Lord of the Harvest to
send out laborers into his Harvest. " I difficulty in understanding why the
command is not to go to the fields but to pray that the Lord of the harvest that he will
send forth laborers, is removed if we see that this command is really a three step
command. We need to look at the parallel accounts to see the whole picture.
The first thing that Jesus says that we must do is we must "see the harvest."
In the
account found in John 4:35 we read, "Behold,
lift up your eyes and look at the fields for they are already white for the harvest.
" In fact three words in this verse are imperatives "behold"*' -(idou) "lift up"' -(eparate) and 11 see" (theasasthe). Jesus is
creating an image of a harvest so great that it boggles our mind. The harvest is all
around us bountiful, overflowing, ripe and ready to pick. Leon Morris in his commentary on
John says, "if wheat is not reaped when it is
ripe, it turns a whitish color (they call rotten ripe)... -Jesus is saying the harvest is
overdue. " [Leon Morris. Reflections
On the Gospel of John (Vol 1 - John 1-5) (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986) p. 150]
The latest figures by
George Barna (2002) state, "The number of
people in the United States who are not born again Christians is about 180 to 190 million
people. If that group were a nation unto itself, it would be the fourth most populated
nation on the planet... " [George Barna Grow
Your Church From the Outside. (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 2002) p. 221. With
the present U.S. population at 292 million that means that 63% of Americans are lost. Over
half of everybody you run into in the course of your day is lost. The fields are white all
around us.
The presence
of the multitudes both in the text and all around us, suggests the need for something
similar to the hard work that is required when a crop is to be harvested.
When it is time
to harvest everything else is secondary.
Psalms 126:6 'He who continually goes forth weeping, Bearing seed
for sowing, Shall
Not
only are we to see the harvest but…
The second step
that the
Lord suggests Is found In our text (Matt 9:38) "pray that the Lord of the harvest will
send forth laborers." But if the need is so great why are the laborers so
few? Seeing that the harvest is so abundant and knowing that the laborers are few,
shouldn't we just get up and go to work? So why does Jesus instead command, "Pray."
John
MacArthur suggests, "It is possible to pray
regularly for the salvation of a loved one, a neighbor, a friend or a fellow employee and
to let our concern stop with our prayer. But when we earnestly pray for the Lord to send
someone to those unsaved people, we cannot help becoming open to being that someone
ourselves. It is possible to pray for someone's salvation while keeping them at
It is through
prayer that we will gain the compassion we need to see the harvest as they really are and
it is through prayer that we will see the great potential in the harvest and it is through
prayer that we will moved to ask the Lord of the harvest to include us in those He is
sending forth.
Not only are we
to pray but…
The third step
in the process being laid out by the Lord is found in Matthew 10:5-6 "go (poreuesthe) rather to the lost sheep of
Israel." He was telling
his disciples to "go
first to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." The command
in this verse is to go.
In the days
of the Lord's ministry the laborers were "few"
and they still are today. How can we pray "Lord send out laborers" without
being willing to say, "Lord send me!"
But when it
comes to carrying out the command to "go,
" I am afraid that we are an awful lot like Moses. We may resist the call of God
for any number of reasons but it usually comes down to the fact that we are afraid. When
God appeared to Moses out of the fiery bush and said, "I am
sending you,"' (Ex. 3: 10) Moses' replied, "who me?" (Ex. 3: 11) He said, "what if
they have questions I can't answer, what if they don't believe me. "'
We seemingly
always have a reason for why we cannot “go.” But in the end they are the equivalent of
Moses “list of excuses” in Exodus 3 and 4.
Jesus command
is three-fold,
We must see
the harvest
We must pray for laborers
We must go to those that are scattered and lost
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