After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. 2 And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.
Luke 10:1-2
And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
Matthew 9:35-38
Researchers tell us the church in the West, particularly in the United States, is in significant decline, and the younger generations have written it off. Because of this, many church leaders have a “Woe is me” attitude toward the church’s future. There is even a very depressing book titled “The Great Evangelical Recession” by John S. Dickerson. I’ve not read it yet, but I have read comments about it. Taken from the proper perspective, it can be helpful because it is always best to view the situation with facts and not just pie-in-the-sky hopes and positive attitudes.
The largest evangelical denomination in the United States, The Southern Baptist Convention, is in some decline, as evidenced by their recent convention that took a pronounced move toward unfaithfulness. This month the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) is facing some of the same issues, and we won’t know for a while how that denomination will fare in the decline. Will they reverse or continue down a slope that only gets steeper?
Things look bad for the evangelical church in America. Or do they? It depends on who you believe. It is foolishness to ignore reality. It is also foolishness to ignore Jesus.
While some are writing America off as a mission field, Jesus has a prayer request. Or, maybe I should refer to it as a prayer command. His command?
“…pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
Why would one waste laborers in fields that are not ripe? I was born on a wheat farm in Oklahoma. I know what ripe wheat looks like. It’s not green. It is golden colored.
When we look at the harvest field of souls in the USA, it doesn’t appear golden if you are looking through the eyes of researchers. But, if you look through the eyes of Jesus, the eyes of faith, the eyes of obedience to Jesus’ command, the fields are golden.
Jesus says that the harvest is plentiful. The problem isn’t that the crops are puny. The problem is a labor shortage. When the harvest is ripe, and no one harvests the crop, it rots in the field. It is wasted. We must put an ad in the paper for laborer workers in the form of earnest prayer for laborers.
Gospel laborers come from two sources. The most abundant but least productive source is the existing church. I won’t explain why, but it is clear that this labor force has not been activated to bring in the plentiful harvest. The other source for laborers is the harvest itself. The gospel harvest is the only one I am aware of in which that which is harvested becomes the future laborers to bring in more harvest. This has always, throughout history, been true.
People who have just come to know Jesus are in a social network of people who are also far from God. The new believer has good natural connections to these people. The gospel will spread much faster if the new believer is trained and released immediately to reach their social network. They make much more productive laborers in the harvest of fellow human beings who need to know Jesus.
Jesus commands us to pray for laborers. It doesn’t matter which labor force they come from, the church or the world. Earnestly pray for laborers.
Why?
Because Jesus says, the harvest is plentiful. There is more gospel work to be done than we can accomplish. We need help, and Jesus has given us the solution. Pray!
Please don’t fall into the trap that many are caught in thinking that since we are being overrun by neo-Marxist ideas, CRT, LGBTQ requirements, and soft-totalitarian censorship along with unconstitutional mandates that the battle is over. No. The harvest field is comprised of people now caught in the traps of neo-marxism, CRT, and the LGBTQ community, along with the average respectable, nice guy who just doesn’t know Jesus. The field is ripe and plentiful, according to Jesus. Pray for laborers to bring in the harvest. Pray for a disciple-making movement that will sweep North America. May we in North America join with the movements in India, China, Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle-East, and Iran. Let us not be left behind and allow our own people to go to hell. For the past two hundred years or so, Christians in America sent laborers to these lands who are now experiencing the greatest disciple-making movements in history. We rejoice in what Jesus is doing in these nations. It is part of the fulfillment of the prophecies of Revelation,
“Worthy are you to take the scroll
Revelation 5:9-10
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”
Every tribe, language, people, and nation. We will all be there, but we’re not quite through with the task, though we are getting close. The church of Christ is growing at the fasted pace ever in the history of the church. Pray for laborers in North America to keep pace with the spiritual children of our now deceased missionaries.
The harvest is plentiful. Jesus said so, regardless of what things look like on the surface. We need eyes of faith to see what Jesus sees.
