Lack of Prayer Means Lack of Help

“Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.” (Mt 9:38 AV)

 

An interesting verse indeed.  When using this verse, we usually apply it to the one who is sent unto the harvest.  However, the one being addressed whose responsibility the harvest is is not the one being sent.  It is those who are supposed to be praying that harvesters are sent.  The fact of the harvest is well established.  Jesus asks His disciples to look upon the harvest of almonds.  That is why the field is white.  Almonds are a type of Israel.  The LORD then makes the statement the fields are white already unto harvest.  There are a great number of souls willing to repent and receive Christ.  The only thing lacking is laborers who will take the initiative to harvest those souls.  The onus is then placed on the disciples to pray for harvesters.  If they pray, then the LORD will send.  This is profound.  The supply, or lack thereof, of those willing to go into the harvest, is tied not to the surrender of the laborer, but rather, to the prayers of God’s people.  If we have a lack of laborers willing to seek souls, it is because souls are not a priority to the church and we are not praying for laborers to be sent.

Third shift is a hard shift to work.  Most people do not want to work that shift.  They would rather work first shift while their children are in school and their spouse is at work so when the clock is punched, they can be home with their families.  Completely understandable.  Third shift is difficult because your family is sleeping while you are working and then rolls are versed after twelve hours.  This means turn-over for third shift is high.  The employee can do one of two things.  He can work his tail off because he is understaffed and grumble and complain that management is not doing anything about it.  He can work twice as hard without any breaks and think himself to be a better employee because of it.  Or, he can share his concern and pester his manager to hire more help.  Third shift meant we had a lot of temporary workers.  If they lasted long enough, they usually were hired full-time for first or second shift.  Then we would start that process all over again.  If our production numbers didn’t suffer and we never said anything, we would always run understaffed.  When our weekly safety meeting rolled around, third shift operators routinely heckled the manager to hire more help.  If we really didn’t care how our production numbers looked in comparison to other shifts, the number of safety incidents logged, or quality complaints received, then we really didn’t care if more help was coming.  We would simply shut down lines and do what we could do.

What really struck me this morning is the intimate implied by our LORD.  He is speaking to His disciples.  These twelve men (or should we say eleven) were already separated unto the work and committed their lives to it.  They were the laborers.  They were not going to go back from the vision the LORD gave.  But that wasn’t enough.  There had to be more.  The LORD is willing and able to send laborers.  But there has to be a desire of God’s people to see them sent.  This is why a vibrant missions ministry is so vitally important to the church.  If they do not have a vision for world-wide missions including their own back yard, then they will not be busy praying for more laborers.  Many pastors and church members complain about the low turnout at soul-winning days.  But are we praying the LORD to send forth more laborers?  We are concerned the people of God are becoming more and more introverted and not taking initiative to impact their world with the gospel of Christ.  Yet, are we praying the LORD to send forth a revival that laborers would be stirred to the work?  Maybe the biggest single reason our churches are dying is we have no vision for the great commission and have ceased to pray for more laborers.  The LORD is waiting to call.  All we need to do is ask!