Harvest Plenteous – Laborers Few

Introduction to Trinity Ministerial Academy and Student Introductions

0:05 The following message contains excerpts from the 1993 Trinity Ministerial Academy Introduction Service held on September 19, 1993, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now, as we have announced, and as many of you anticipate year by year, this night, each fall, is an hour of worship that we designate as our Academy Night. And we do so because on this night, any new students whom God has brought among us are given the opportunity formally to be introduced to you, and to give a little thumbnail sketch of who they are, and where they've come from, and why they're here, and what their expectations are as they come among us. And they are doing this in conjunction with what is formally designated as the Trinity Ministerial Academy. And for those who are newer among us, and for those who are visiting among us, just a word of explanation, I believe, will be helpful to you. I read from the latest edition of the prospectus of the Academy, where it is stated the name really sets out the heart of what the Academy is all about.

1:27 Trinity indicates an organic relationship with Trinity Baptist Church of Montville, New Jersey. The Academy is not, in fact, a separate institution associated with the church. Rather, it is one of the ministries of the church, and therefore, is under the church's direct oversight and control. The word ministerial emphasizes that the purpose of the school is to serve the church.

1:57 The word ministerial emphasizes that the purpose of the school is to serve the church. The word ministerial emphasizes that the purpose of the school is to train men for the gospel ministry. All the courses taught have direct bearing on the work of the pastoral ministry. This is why we do not offer a whole array of different majors.

2:13 We do not have women present in the Academy, since God does not call women to the work of pastoral ministry. And by the use of the term Academy, we seek to give further emphasis to the work of the pastoral ministry. We seek to give further emphasis to the fact that the purpose and function of the school is restrictive. An Academy is a school which offers special instruction or training in a given field.

2:38 For example, men are sent to the United States Air Force Academy to be trained for service in the nation's Air Force. Likewise, Trinity Ministerial Academy exists for the exclusive purpose of training men for the gospel ministry. And if you have never obtained and read through the prospectus, some of them will be available on the table at the rear as you leave tonight, we would urge you to do so, that you might understand the biblical perspectives that regulate and shape the life and ministry of this facet of the life of Trinity Baptist Church. The Academy has been a part of our life since the fall of 1977, and Dr. Robert Martin, who will be leading us in our worship tonight, begins his 11th year of instruction in the Academy. And we are sorry that Pastor Lamar Martin, who was to have shared in the leadership of the service, is not well physically unable to be with us. Now at this time, Professor Robert Martin will come to lead us in our worship together.

New Student Introduction and Prayer

3:52 As Pastor Martin has already indicated, we like to give opportunity on these Academy nights to new students, to give them opportunity to come and to introduce themselves and to speak a word of greeting to you. And we now ask Doug if you would come and say whatever the Lord has placed upon your heart for this occasion. My name is Doug Wright, and brought with me, my wife, Renee. We've been married almost 12 years.

4:22 We have two children, Paul and Janelle. Paul is almost 10, and Janelle is 5 1⁄2.

4:29 Before I get into the history, I guess, the short history, of what brought us here, I would like to say a short word of thanks. The hospitality that has been extended to us in being here, it would take more than the time I've been allotted to enumerate all of the expressions that have come our way. But we would like to say, the whole family and I, thank you so much for making us a part of your family and helping us to feel a part here. The history of how we did arrive here really goes back about five years.

4:56 To give you a thumbnail sketch of that, my employer that I was working for one day, introduced me to the doctrines of grace, and I had an initial knee-jerk reaction, as many Arminians do, and rejected, especially, the doctrine of predestination. But over time, after studying these things out for myself, came not only to believe them, but in due season also to love and to embrace them. And the Holy Spirit began to work in my heart at that time, and to create a real desire to know more and more of the Scriptures, from a biblical perspective.

5:35 And consequently, that led to a desire to see other people, whom I knew that didn't understand these things, also come to this knowledge as well. So we eventually, to make a long story short, heard about the work here at Trinity, and following through the application process, applied for admittance into the Academy. I came here in June, some of you will recall, for an interview and was accepted. We went home.

6:03 I went home, rather. We put our house up for sale, and it was sold in six days, just an added confirmation that the Lord was behind us. And so we packed up our things and headed over this way. I didn't mention, for those of you who don't know, we have come from the other side of the United States, from Washington State, almost as far away as you can get and still be in the same country.

6:24 But it was a very long and exhausting trip, but well worth being here. We are all excited to be here, and I, particularly, in the family, feel very privileged to be able to attend this Academy. There are many schools one could go to, but there's none like the Academy here, and I feel so grateful to be here. The goal that we have for being here is, Lord willing, to finish the Academy and to go back to where we came from, to start a work there.

6:53 There's a desperate need for a Baptistically reformed work in our area. There are some in Seattle, which is about 120 miles south of us. But nothing up where we are coming from. And indeed, there is a remnant of people there who truly would like to experience what we experience here at Trinity.

7:12 And so my burden is to finish the Academy, and, Lord willing, to send us back that way and to begin to work there so that it might move westward, so to speak. Would you please pray for us? Pray on a couple of things specifically. Number one is, as the academic life and the rigors of it take a toll on the institution, the entire family, please pray for God's grace for all of us.

7:37 And not just for myself, but for the whole family as it's going to take its toll. And we'd also like to ask that you would just pray that we would grow, continue to grow, in the knowledge and the wisdom of the Lord Jesus Christ that, as Pastor Martin has said, I may not leave here less qualified than when I came. And so we'd appreciate that. Thank you for this opportunity.

7:59 Let us commend our brother and his family in prayer. Our Father, we do thank you.

8:15 You have been pleased to place the burden upon this church to be engaged in training men for ministry. We thank you, Father, that you have been pleased to own our labors by sending forth men who have been a benediction upon the church. And we do thank you that as this ministry continues, that you continue to send us men who show signs of being suited for the work in which we are engaged. And, Father, we thank you for the arrival of Doug and Renee and their children.

8:50 We pray, Father, that you will be merciful to them. We ask, Lord, that you would help them in the weeks and months and years to come, that they might profit from those means of grace that you are pleased to place in their path. Father, we thank you that you have been pleased to lay your hands upon our brother and our sister and to save them from their sins. And we thank you, Father, that in your kindness you have put a burden upon Doug's heart, to offer himself for the ministry.

9:21 And we pray, O Lord, that that aspiration might be tempered as he comes through these years of training, that he would search his own heart and that you would give discernment to your people, that we might be able to give our brother sound counsel. And, Lord, we pray that each day in the academy that he and the other students might profit from the lessons. We pray that you would be with the faculty and help us as we seek to guide these men in their preparation. Lord, be pleased to do as our brother has asked and to help him to grow in grace and in understanding and in the wisdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.

9:57 And, Father, do help him to be a diligent father and husband in these days. Help him to be sensitive to his wife and to his children and not become so absorbed in the academic matters of his life that he neglects his duty as a Christian man. And bless those special times of family worship and the time with his children and his wife, that they might be owned of you, bringing that family in the posture of growth and that they might indeed increase in their love for Christ and in their love for one another in these years. Lord, we do pray, even as our brother has asked, that you would allow him to leave this place in the years to come more qualified than he is as he enters.

10:42 Father, we do thank you for your mercy upon our sister Renee and we pray, O Lord, that you will help her to be a support to her husband. We pray for the children, that you will help them. We ask, O Lord, that you will be merciful to this family and bless them richly by thy grace. And, Father, we think of the other students as well and ask for these mercies upon them.

11:06 We pray that you will be pleased to send forth from this group of men mighty warriors for the gospel, to send to every place those whom you will send. And, Father, we also pray for those men who have already gone forth. We pray for those men now standing forth even this night to proclaim the glorious and marvelous gospel of your Son. We pray that you will bless them.

11:28 Help them to be good pastors, Lord. Help them to be sensitive shepherds of the sheep. Help them, O Lord, to be faithful and accurate handlers of the word. Lord, we do ask that you will bless them richly in their ministries and multiply their number, O Lord.

11:46 Be pleased. Be pleased to raise up faithful men that we might be able to pass the burden on to them and to pass the gospel on as that deposit which you have committed to the salvation of men. We do ask now your mercies upon us this night, O Lord. We pray that you would grant help to our pastor as he seeks to open the word in our ears.

12:07 Lord, give us hearts to receive the things that you have laid upon his heart. Lord, teach us, we pray, that we might not grow weary in this work, that we would not grow weary in well-doing. And, O Lord, we do seek your face with the confidence that you are pleased to hear us when we come with humility and come in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.

The Setting of Our Text: Jesus' Arduous Labors

12:34 Now will you turn with me, please, in the gospel of Matthew, the gospel of Matthew, and follow as I read the last paragraph of the ninth chapter of Matthew's gospel. Matthew 9, beginning with verse 35 and reading to the end of the chapter. And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were distressed and scattered as sheep, not having a shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest indeed is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth laborers into him.

13:56 Let us again plead with God that the Spirit may attend the opening up and the application of this portion of the word of God. Our Father, in a very real sense, we have already done what our Lord commands in this passage. We have sung together our prayer that you would raise up a mighty host throughout this land, whose great passion would not be to promote themselves or their own personal agenda, but to see those souls for whom the Savior shed his precious blood, brought to a saving knowledge of the Son of God. And, O Lord, as we as your people this night seek to understand more fully our personal and corporate responsibility in the great enterprise of seeing the gospel carried to the ends of the earth, especially by those whom you have raised up, equipped, commissioned, and sent forth, be our teacher, and may the Spirit take this portion of the word and write it upon the fleshy tables

15:22 of the hearts of all who are your own. And may it be a means in your hands even this night, to gather in some of that harvest. Hear our cry and meet us in the ministry of the word we plead, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

15:43 The verses to which I will direct your attention in a more focused way tonight are verses 37 and 38 in this portion of Matthew chapter 9, that our Lord did not speak these words in a historical vacuum. Rather, they are the direct outgrowth of what is described in verses 35 and 36, where the focus is upon both the activity and the disposition of the Lord Jesus. Verses 37 and 38 contain words from the Lord Jesus directed to his disciples, but those words grow out of what is said concerning the activity and the disposition of the Lord Jesus as contained in verses 35 and 36. So spend just a few moments with me considering the setting of our text as it is set out before us, first of all by drawing our attention to what I know not what else to call, but the draining or the arduous labors

17:07 of Jesus in verse 35. Jesus went about all the cities and the villages teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness. We read those words in a few seconds and often we import into them very defective theology. Big deal.

17:42 Jesus the Son of God, as much God as though he were not man, but we forget as much man as though he were not God. Jesus went about all the cities and the villages teaching and preaching and healing. These were the three major activities in which he was constantly engaged as Matthew describes this aspect of our Lord's Galilean ministry. He taught, he preached, and he healed.

18:21 And he did this not just on a Sabbath, but he was doing it continually, day after day. Some of the insights received from other passages, we realize that he was doing it from morning until night. Now this day and for several Lord's days, as was true last year, I'll have the privilege of ministering the word of God three times on a Lord's day in a very comfortable building. In the hot weather, it's air conditioned, it's well lit, there are no chickens cackling, there are no roosters crowing, there are no animals, there are no animals running around, there are no demon possessed people crying out.

19:05 I have the assistance of a microphone that takes my voice and projects it to the back row and to the corners while I speak in a normal preaching tone, but I don't have to use my street preaching voice where I began preaching on the street corner. And for any of us who've engaged in that, just to read that a man was going continually day after day from morning till night as his ordinary occupation, preaching from village to village, is to describe a tremendously arduous and flesh withering exercise with no microphones, out in the open air, with all of the distractions of rural life in the villages, with all of the din and the hustle and bustle and confusion of what we would call city life in the more densely populated areas, our Lord was pouring out His soul in the labor of preaching. I know what I feel like at the end of a Lord's day when I've done it three times in all of these favorable and restricted circumstances. I feel from the top of my head to the sole of my feet as though I have poured my very life into the labor of preaching and teaching the Word of God, especially when I've done it

20:33 after teaching for four hours in the academy on Friday and having a late elders' meeting Thursday night. I call it my marathon weekends. But that generally only goes on for a short period of time, and I go back to teaching two hours in the academy on Friday and preaching just morning and evening. But I believe that we pass over this altogether too lightly.

20:57 When it says that our Lord went about all the cities and the villages preaching the gospel of the kingdom, we must view this as a description of His training and arduous labors. But He not only preached, He taught. And as you know, in the synagogues, the teaching ministry would often be one in which there was dialogue, in which one would have to have all the concentrated mental energy of the lawyer who is defending his client without anything but his general preparation. He doesn't know what direction the cross-examination will take, and he must marshal all of his faculties to seek to pick holes in the arguments or in the evidence presented by the other attorney and by the other witnesses. And our Lord in these cities and synagogues situations would know something of that mental and emotional drain that would come as He would seek to teach in a setting where often there was tremendous hostility from the leaders of that synagogue, tremendous opposition. So there was the emotional drain, something of that which some of us had experienced when we'd have to preach and teach in a hostile environment. And our Lord's humanity was not insulated, from those realities.

22:27 As a true man, He not only felt the tremendous physical and emotional drain of the itinerant preaching, but also the mental exhaustion that comes from intense teaching situations and endeavors. But then added to this, it said He was healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness. And we learn from other accounts in the Gospels that Jesus did not heal dispassionately. He entered into the maladies of those whom He would heal.

23:07 He entered in empathetically to broken and to scarred humanity. And though I cannot pretend to explain precisely what is meant, you remember that when that woman touched the hem of His garment, in faith and was healed, Jesus said, Who touched me? I perceive that virtue has gone out of me. There was something that went out of the Son of God in His healing ministry.

23:40 We read of Him on one occasion sighing, as He is about to open the ears of a deaf man. We find Him on other occasions deeply agitated in the presence of the body of Lazarus that has already begun to decay. And a verb is used to describe Jesus both groaning and shuddering in the very depths of His being. There was a volcanic eruption in the presence of death, even though He came as death's conqueror and would soon say, Lazarus, come forth!

24:19 And Lazarus would come forth. But dear people, we mistake the nature of our Lord's humanity if we read a passage like this and think that Jesus just tripped around from city to village, preached a bit here and thought a bit there, and healed some here and healed some there, and then went tripping off full of energy without any sense of the tremendous drain upon all that made Him a true man amongst men. The Scriptures are not reticent to give us pictures of that exhaustion. In John 4 we read, at midday He was weary with His journey and He sat by a well.

25:02 There is that other touching incident of our Lord being in the ship about to cross the lake, and in the middle of the day so utterly bone-weary that He drifts off into sleep and He goes into what the sleep experts would describe as the deepest of the three of us, of the three or four basic sleep patterns so deep that He is like a drunken man. And the slapping of the waves upon that little ship and the cracking of the sails with the unpredictable gust of wind do not disturb His rest. Even when the water breaks over the sides of that vessel and it begins to sink, it took the violent shaking of His person by the disciples to awaken Him. And they say, Master, do you not care that we perish? Dear people, this is the Jesus of Holy Scripture, not the plastic Jesus who moves about like some bionic man with utterly limitless supplies of energy and strength and no felt empathy in all of these situations. The setting of these words of our Lord Jesus addressed to His disciples is the setting in which our attention is first of all drawn to the draining labors

The Setting of Our Text: Jesus' Deep Compassion

26:27 of Jesus Himself and then secondly to the deep compassion of Jesus in verse 36. In whatever state He was found, while engaged in this intensive ministry of teaching and preaching and healing, we read, But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were distressed and scattered as sheep, not having a shepherd. Apparently at one point our Lord took a break from this threefold activity that was taking Him constantly from village to village and city to city. And perhaps while approaching one of those cities or the people coming out of the cities, while He is in a brief R&R with His disciples, He sees the sea of humanity coming and the Scripture says that when He saw the multitudes, when He looked upon the multitudes, He experienced that which is untranslatable from the Greek into English. It speaks of a disruption

27:53 and a disturbance of the viscera, of the liver and the spleen and the stomach. It speaks of a movement of the whole inner man as our Lord looks upon the multitudes and He experiences this compassion, this stirring of His inner being, this tremendous disruption and upheaval of holy concern for a specific reason. Look at the text. He was moved with compassion because they were.

28:33 It is because of their true state accurately perceived by our Lord that He was moved with compassion. If you and I were to have looked upon them, what we would have seen would be ordinary Palestinians with a broad spectrum of diverse economic and social standing. We would have seen people who for the most part had their official teachers and religious leaders in the person of the scribes and of the Pharisees, people who attended church, i.e. synagogue regularly, who would go up to the feast at Jerusalem or up in the language of a Jew, down in terms of the way we would point geography and they would be people that we would look upon as respectable ordinary villagers and city dwellers of that part of Palestine up there in the Galilean region but not our Lord. He was moved with compassion because He saw through that which these eyes could see and He perceived their true spiritual state and that state is graphically described under this simile. They were distressed and scattered

29:55 as sheep not having a shepherd and the two Greek words distressed and scattered could bring into a more wooden, a more literal rendering the concepts of torn, the concept of dead, flayed, in other words, sheep who have gone any period of time without the guidance and protection of a shepherd are a sorry lot. They have no one to pick out the thorns that have made their way up into their feet and the birds that have buried into their fleece. They have no one to protect them from predators, to guide them into safe green pastures and by waters of quietness. They are the picture of destitution and vulnerability and our Lord perceived them in their true state not as they appeared to one another and as they would appear to someone who were there in Jerusalem as a tourist. Looking over the Holy Land they would have seen just a mass of ordinary peasants from the village and city dwellers but that was all they would have seen but not our Lord. He perceives them in their true spiritual state.

The Sober Assessment: Harvest Plenteous, Laborers Few

31:23 Now that's the setting in which our text comes to us. Jesus, arduously involved in the draining labors of ministering throughout that entire region. Then this fresh outburst of compassion felt within his own breast as there is a light of a heightened perception of the true state of the masses. And in that setting our Lord sets before us two things.

31:58 I'm calling verse 37 the sober assessment expressed and verse 38 the solemn duty enjoyed. With his own heart, with his own humanity in the frame just described, our Lord then speaks to his disciples and he does so by expressing a sober assessment. Then saith he unto his disciples the harvest indeed is plenteous but the laborers are few. Now in the original there's a terseness by the absence of any verb.

32:42 There is no to be verb in the original and for you Greek students by the presence of the particles men and de which are used to make a contrast on the one hand meh de but on the other hand and what our Lord says in a more literal rendering would be this then said he to his disciples on the one hand the harvest plenteous on the other hand the laborers few. So that the contrast stands out in bold relief between a plentiful harvest but few workers to reap it. It would be as though a farmer were unusually blessed on one occasion he had planted a thousand acres of grain and in the kind providence of God the combination of rain and sun and humidity broadened up the optimum crop and perhaps he normally would have fifty men back before the days of the massive combines that sweep through thousands of acres at an alarming rate of speed but back in the days when it would all have had to be harvested by hand with a scythe or with a sickle and he normally would have fifty laborers

34:10 to get the harvest in in that short time when the wheat was ripe. Sickness came through all of his laborers. And all he had was two laborers and he would stand out looking at his fields of ripened grain and say my harvest plenty alas my workers few what shall I do a plentiful harvest but few workers that's the sense of our Lord's sober assessment expressed in verse thirty-seven. That's the sense of our Lord's sober assessment expressed in verse thirty-seven.

34:53 Though he himself had been pouring out his energies in all of the cities and villages teaching preaching the gospel of the kingdom healing all manner of disease and of sickness though he is about to send forth the twelve chapter ten in verse one he called unto him his twelve disciples and gave them authority to cast over unclean spirits to cast them out to heal the sick and it's about to commission them non the less as he views the situation with a stark realism this sober assessment is expressed a plentiful harvest but few workers and as that assessment was accurate then when the in that harvest, the twelve whom he was training as apostles. There's a very real sense in which this sober assessment expressed by the Lord Jesus is true in every generation. To anyone who has eyes to see reality as spiritual reality exists. As we think of our own country, our brother has reminded us,

36:22 even tonight, a harvest that is plenteous. Hungry hearts way back there in that northwestern pit of our country. People want something more than plain church. Something more than piteous in their praises.

36:42 Something more than a skipping over the surface of the word of God. Who want large chunks of this book responsibly opened up with accuracy? And passion and power under the anointing of the Spirit of God. Who want churches that are more than a mere social club with evangelical respectability that's spattered around the fringes of its activities and its beliefs?

37:11 And when it comes to this whole matter of assessing the situation as it really is, as then, so now, there is a place, a plentiful harvest, but the workers are few. What is the call that comes to us from our own country? Pockets of people in many parts of this country who write to us when they are helped by the books or the tapes. And they say, is there anyone who will come and teach us the Word of God?

37:46 And it's not that they're being uppity and elitism in their spirits. They are just minds. weary of the very thing apparently many of these were weary with. They are tired of a scribal-type ministry, and they long for the voice of authority as they heard it in our Lord Jesus Christ. But if this is true of our own country, how much more of the places with which some of us are more intimately acquainted. What is the cry that comes to us again and again from our dear brother Pastor Steve Hoffmeyer in the Philippines? What is the constant prayer of our brethren there? Send us more men. Send us men with a servant's

38:34 higher hand, with a laborer's back and arm, ready to pour themselves out in the labor of preaching the gospel. We have more office buildings ready to have midday Bible studies than we have confident men. To put into those offices and preach the gospel without any restraints in office buildings throughout Metro Manila and other parts of the Philippines. The cry comes to us in terms of the sober assessment expressed by our Lord. The harvest plentiful. The laborers few. Our contacts in Pakistan.

39:25 Our contacts in the United Kingdom. Our contacts in the Caribbean. Wherever we have any realistic interaction with other segments of the Church of Christ throughout the world. Is it not the universal assessment. The harvest plentiful. But the laborer's few.

39:52 And here in verse seven, the sober assessment expressed by the Lamb, theUEena, l assistance, rpm by Christ. expressed is precisely that. But then note with me secondly the solemn duty and joy.

The Solemn Duty Enjoined: Pray to the Lord of the Harvest

40:07 What are disciples to do in the face of this sober assessment? This disparity between the plentiful harvest and the scarcity of workers or laborers. Notice our Lord does not say go out there for workers.

40:33 He doesn't tell them to do that.

40:37 And I tell you my heart is pained as I'm on the mailing list of a number of seminaries and I get their letters saying we have just appointed another man to our staff and he's to go out and be a student recruiter. They're allowed in beating the woods to get students to come to seminary to make preachers out of them. Jesus did not say go out and conscript laborers. Nor did he say go out and raise money and hire laborers.

41:15 He did not make them conscriptors. He did not make them promoters of anything. Nor did he cause them to go out on a mission of financial stewardship and seek to get people to throw money into the coffers to hire laborers. Nor did he say go out and raise money nor did he say go on out and organize the masses.

41:39 So long as they have some attachment to me everyone's equally competent to be a laborer in my harvest. Go out and mobilize the laity.

41:50 Now you who attend this place regularly know that we firmly believe that every Christian has both the responsibility and the privilege verbally to bear witness to his faith in Christ. Prayerfully to seize every opportunity and every contact in the providence of God according to gift and understanding and personality and the enablement of the Spirit to be a witness for Christ. However, it's interesting Jesus did not say the answer to this disparity between a plentiful harvest and the scarcity of workers was to send these specialists out to train the others.

42:30 Nor did he say sit back, it's God's problem. Watch what he'll do.

42:39 He said none of those things. Rather, he laid upon those disciples. And from the analogy of scripture I believe it is right and proper to say he lays upon all of his subsequent disciples who stand with him and view with realism the situation as it exists with eyes illuminated by the Holy Spirit. We make that sober assessment that there is a plentiful harvest and the workers are free.

43:11 He lays upon us the solemn duty to pray. Now notice as he lays this solemn duty upon the disciples, the object of these prayers and secondly the specific concern of these prayers. The object of the prayers and a usual description is given of God. He doesn't say pray ye therefore to the Father.

43:39 Many places in our Lord's ministry where he speaks of prayer, he emphasizes that we are to pray to our Father. When ye pray, say, Our Father who art in heaven, pray to the Father who sees in secret and the Father who sees in secret himself shall reward you openly. But here he says pray therefore the Lord of the harvest in the face of this sober assessment expressed the disparity between the plentiful harvest and the scarcity of workers when God is addressed in prayer in that setting he is to be specifically conceived of in his capacity and in his work the Lord of the harvest. Now the commentators differ and debate is this meant to be a prayer to Christ himself as the Lord of the harvest? is it a prayer to God the Father or is it a prayer to God the Holy Ghost and try to teach that from Acts 13 that the Spirit said to Saul and Barnabas separate them unto the work unto which I have called them and I believe really the answer is the Lord of the harvest is the triune God

45:07 Father, Son and Holy Ghost for it is only in the blessed gracious coming together of inter-trinitarian will and activity that there is any laying hold of men and making them into workers and forming churches that will then be the womb from which they are expelled in a proper and orderly way to go forth into that plentiful harvest and to do the work of love and be faithful so the object of our prayers is to be God God the Father God as revealed in Christ God revealed in Christ who has sent his Spirit to be the administrator of the affairs of the conquest of the gospel in this age until the return of the Lord Jesus but when our prayers would turn to this tremendous concern and we would occupy ourselves with a reverent fulfillment of this solemn duty. We are not primarily to conceive of God as our loving Father, the sovereign Lord of the universe, but the Lord of the harvest. The harvest is comprised of that multitude,

46:34 which from the analogy of scripture we know is a great multitude whom no man can number, out of every kindred, every tribe, and every tongue, and every nation. He is the Lord who has constituted the harvest. He is the Lord who is committed to bringing in that harvest. He is the Lord who has sent his only begotten Son that there might be a harvest.

47:03 He is the one who in sending his Son has pledged that on the grounds of the world, the work of the Son, the Son exalted to his right hand, would send forth the Spirit. The Lord of the harvest is God conceived of in terms of his particular relationship to this whole gospel endeavor of the calling out of God's elect and the bringing of them into that one fold and under the one shepherd. And he is the sovereign Lord. He is the Lord of the harvest.

47:41 Therefore, we never need in these matters to take the poor God, pity God approach in trying to stir up enthusiasm for the work of missions, for the work of gospel endeavor. How can we in any rational way know that he is the Lord of the harvest and all that that means and have the attitude, well, if I were to say, why don't hurry up and do something quick, poor God will be frustrated in his endeavors. No, there is no poor God theology in the words of Jesus.

48:18 Pray ye, the Lord of the harvest is the one to whom we pray, the mighty Lord who in the person of the Lord Jesus has all authority in heaven and upon earth, the one who can not only bring people out of darkness into marvelous light, but can take men who endowed with the gifts and graces that would make them useful in the ministry, could be useful and successful in a hundred different fields. This idea, if a man can't make it anywhere else, maybe the Lord is shutting him up for the ministry. Nonsense! The work of the ministry demands our best men with the keenest minds, with the greatest mental and emotional vigor and strength and passion.

49:12 The Lord of the harvest is the one who can take men who would otherwise use their God-given gifts and talents and spiritual endowments to serve themselves and for Christ's sake and for poor, battered, torn, flayed,

49:32 be willing to spend and be spent for the more they love, the less they be loved. It is the mighty Lord who can take natively selfish, self-serving men who have had the dominion of salvation broken, yet in whom there is much remaining sin and bring them to that point of sanctification where they count it their privilege and their joy to say no to every other endeavor of going in with a sickle or a sigh and weeping for Christ's sake. So the object of our prayers individually and corporately in this great concern as we undertake the solemn duty is the Lord of the Harvest. God conceived of in that unique capacity and function and what is to be the specific concern of the prayers?

The Specific Concern of Prayer: God's Activity in Sending Laborers

50:33 Notice that He would literally ek balo, ek out balo to throw, that He would cast out laborers into His harvest. That He, the Lord of the Harvest, would cast out, would thrust forth laborers, workers into His harvest. So the specific concern of our prayers is God's activity. That He, He would by His own almighty grace and power send them forth and that He would send forth workers.

51:18 Men who know what to do when they stand in a field of ripe and grain. They don't build themselves a little place to rest in. They don't concoct schemes by which to line their pockets with the sail of the crane. No, they are there to reap and to bring their seeds to the feet of the Lord of the Harvest.

51:44 And they're willing to spend and be spent that the Lord of the Harvest might have His harvest gathered in. And so the concern of our prayers is to be that God would do the work of thrusting out and that He would do the work of forming men into laborers, into workers who are in that sense counted worthy to be placed into the ministry even as the Apostle said.

Application: God Ordains Our Prayers as Integral to His Working

52:18 Now by way of application two things can be said or I should say observation. One, it is clear that God and God alone can equip and send forth the laborers. According to Jesus, God and God alone can do it. That's why we must pray.

52:37 We must not assume it will be done automatically knowing that God alone can do it. We do not sit back and say well if God alone can do it, God will do it with or without our prayers. No, as it is clear that God alone can equip and send forth the laborers, it is equally clear that He's ordained our prayers as an integral part of His working. As an integral part of His working.

53:04 Now that to me is one of the greatest mysteries of biblical revelation. There are many mysteries. One man of God said and I shall never forget it, he said there is no biblical doctrine which if you do not trace it upward far enough will eventually explode in mystery.

53:22 It will explode in mystery. Think of the mystery of the incarnation. How can God and man exist in one person yet two distinct unmixed natures yet one integrated person. Two distinct natures so that God does not die and yet we are said to be purchased with the blood of God.

53:47 A true man and yet the man Christ Jesus says before Abraham was I am. The mystery of the incarnation. The mystery of imputed sin. How can he so take to himself in a manner that means God is not playing games in the record books of heaven.

54:08 He is dealing with the stuff of reality. How can the guilt of our sin be so imputed and charged to the Lord Jesus in such an intimate way that the scripture is born to state he who knew no sin was made sin for us yet all the while be holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. The spotless lamb of God. Mystery.

54:37 And to me a mystery that's up in that stratosphere of category or category that is in the stratosphere is why the God who spoke worlds into being out of nothing never consulting the creature there were no creatures to consult only consulted himself. No creature with whom he consulted no creature who cried to him O God the universe O God speak into being a galaxy that God in the greater work of the new creation the work of redemption should come to creatures that he himself has redeemed and say your feeble cries are an integral part of what I'm going to do in my greatest work in all of eternity the redemption of my to mystery.

55:35 There are times I sit in the chair where I pray and I say O God why? What in the world can the feeble cries coming out of a mouth that maybe two hours before spoke a harsh word to my wife and had to speak words of confession to her and to you God? What can the words out of my mouth and out of this heart that still at times is so wayward and dull and has the capacity to think the foulest things and it wept to itself would move me to do the most unspeakable things Lord why? Should desires framed in this heart and passing over these lips be woven into the fabric of your eternal purposes O God I don't understand it but I believe it's true.

Call to Prayer for Laborers: Church, Families, Individuals

56:27 Plentiful harvest few laborers it is clear that God has ordained our prayers as an integral part of his working and therefore I issue a call to Trinity Baptist Church and my heart was smitten even in the preparation of the message that how little do we give this a central place in our stated seasons of prayer and I confess my culpability before you publicly as one who has the greatest responsibility for directing the greatest number of the prayer meetings I say to my shame why have I not more frequently brought forward these words of the Lord Jesus and called you on behalf of your elders and in the name of Christ as a church to cry to the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth laborers and could it be could it be I do not claim to interpret providence I only ask could it be that one of the reasons God has allowed a slowing down of incoming students so that this year we have but one to get our attention maybe we've just taken for granted that the Lord of the harvest

57:56 is out there somehow somewhere fashioning men and molding them and preparing them to come for a portion of his fitting of them to be true workers in preparation to thrust them out maybe we've just assumed it would happen and we've not cried to God we've not pleaded earnestly and fervently as a church and I have repented before God and I'm making my public confession before you his people and my fellow elders and I believe some structure needs to be worked into the very format of our regular meetings for prayer so that periodically we give ourselves to prayer in obedience to the Lord Jesus and then I speak to the families you who are the heads of families could it be that the reason why we don't see young men coming up into pre-pubescence and into puberty and young manhood at least with holy ambitions that God might be pleased to lay his hand upon them and fashion them and thrust them forth it's one of the things that has breathed me as I talk with some of the young men and find that they have what I would call noble ambitions to find a career in which they can serve God honorably there is nothing wrong with that and I'm not reverting to this silly notion that a seven or eight year old kid

59:25 can know he's called to the ministry because he's felt the flutter of the call in his left ventricle in the middle of the night that stupid unbiblical notion of wretched subjectivism that the call comes mystically as some heavenly vampire that bites us from our spiritual throat and leaves marks that only we can see and if anyone bears question that this celestial vampire has come and bitten us we'll be unto that no no we abominate that notion yet yet yet yet nonetheless it would be lovely to have to say to a few young men bless God you have holy ambitions to be used of God in the reaping of that harvest let us pray that as your manhood unfolds it will become evidence whether or not God is fashioning you at least that that ambition would be nurtured and I believe the key place is at our family altars when father is praying oh God not only save my sons my sons but also my daughter my daughters oh God if it please you lay your hand upon my sons and send them forth as laborers lay your hand upon my daughters and make them into men women worthy and competent to stand by a man of God and to be a helper answering to his unique needs there are several of us as fathers who feel that perhaps

60:55 the greatest contribution we've made is to give some man a God a man of God a man of God a godly wife amidst many of the pains and griefs that my wife and I have known as parents we have a singular joy and I meet with my son-in-law who is in the ministry and ask him very frank questions about my daughter which I as a father have a right to ask what a blessed thing it is to hear him say I don't know where I'd be without my wife I don't know what I'd be as a worker in the harvest without the wife that you and mom gave me dear parents may I urge you if you're not doing it regularly begin to incorporate into family worship this prayer to the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth laborers into his harvest and I appeal to each one of you as individual believers as I appeal to my own conscience and have determined before God to do whatever I must do that this will become a more regular part of my family and individual as well as the corporate prayers of the church and my closing word is this if you're here and you don't know this Christ

Evangelistic Appeal: Behold the Compassionate Savior

62:23 you're part of that multitude that he sees in its true state I don't know how you look upon yourself you may look upon yourself as a fairly nice guy fairly nice guy pretty decent kid pretty respectable man woman respected in the community respected by your peers you've got a nice intimate circle of friends you may look upon yourself with the attitude well compared with others I'm doing fine my friend Jesus sees you for what you really are if you're outside of the orbit of his saving grace you're a sheep that's gone astray from the heavenly shepherd you've turned to your own way and the fact is you've experienced all of them not just to your own self but you've also you've experienced the first time you've suntanned the state of the earth where you have these horrible results brilliance this image and this field it's situation there's almost nothing in the unit which makes you close up it's wind the day sun sprouting beach ripples you cannot see that in the life that there is Canians as heads harvest. And I would seek to reap tonight. And I would say to every man, woman, boy or

63:51 girl who is out of Christ, behold the Savior with his yearning heart, compassionate to sinners, looking upon you in the misery that is yours now, which is only, only a faint preview of the miseries of hell that awaits you. And I plead with you to see in this compassionate Savior, the one who eventually, held by cords of love, would carry a cross to a place called Golgotha, and there would lay down his life for the sheep, that they might be gathered in to himself. And I would beseech you in Christ's name to be reconciled to God, to recognize that it's not enough that you feel okay about yourself and others think you're all right. The issue is, how does God feel about you? How does God feel about you? How

64:43 does God feel about you? How does God feel about you? How does God feel about you? How does God feel about you? How does God feel about you? How does God feel about you? And out of Christ, God views you lost, undone, helpless, guilty, the yawning mouth is to swallow you up in righteous judgment, flee from the wrath to come, flee into the arms of the Christ, who delights to show mercy to polite, respectable sinners, to down and out vile and wretched and abominable sinners. He says that he came, sinners, to do good to say sinners of all kinds and stripes and sizes and backgrounds take your place for what you are and you will know Christ to be all he says he is

65:28 to those who in the felt consciousness of their lostness go to him as the great shepherd those who in the felt consciousness of their guilt go to him as the great sin bearer those who in the consciousness of their alienation from God go to him as the only mediator between God and man my friend, man, woman, boy or girl get to Christ and take the shortest route there the route of repentance and faith to the Savior who comes to you in the word and promise and command of the gospel don't wait for anything more Christ will never come to you in any other way but in the word and promise and command of the gospel and promise and command of the gospel and promise and command of the gospel so he comes to you and so I urge you to embrace him as we conclude this academy night many would laugh they would look at our endeavors operating a full scale four year broad spectrum program of theological education two years of Greek and two years of Hebrew three years four years of systematic theology and three years of theology pastoral theology and biblical theology and exegesis courses and they say what in the world are you going to do with your little itty bitty pipsqueak outfit

66:55 my friend this summer some of us have been privileged to hear the fruit of our labors and I have felt like old Simeon I've played the tapes I'm not quite through all the tapes of the preachers who formerly were academy students who ministered to you this summer and I tell you as I've listened to them those men my heart is burned within me and I said oh God there's another worker out there who's skillful with his sickle he knows how to reap in your harvest and I say the prayer of Simeon has been on my lips more than once now Lord let thy servant depart in peace mine eyes have seen my salvation I've been wondering for years will the God raise up men who are workmen men who don't care about what they do about being marked by intellectual finesse and by social polish of men who are pending all of their powers to be workers useful in Christing may God grant that their number shall be multiplied that as God is pleased to bless the word preached tonight the sober assessment of our Lord will grip our hearts the solemn in duty and joined by our Lord will be enlightened by his own grace and the peace of God and that with renewed intensity

68:22 and sustained persistence there's the real catch not with temporarily renewed intensity but sustained consistency we will pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth workers into his harvest let us pray our Father we thank you for this portion of your work word. We thank you for our Lord Jesus Christ. We marvel at his selflessness, pouring himself into the labor of teaching, preaching, healing, and then making himself vulnerable to all of the complex need of lost, distressed, torn, and rent humanity until he was moved in his inner being and felt the pains of true compassion. Oh, we pray that what he felt and what he did may not be lost upon us, but that hearing his own words of sober assessment, we may embrace the solemn duty that he enjoins upon all of his disciples. Oh, God in mercy, make

69:51 this night to be a watershed of your dealings with us as a people in our faith. We thank you for your presence in our homes, in our families, in our own individual closets of prayer, that from this assembly will go up into your presence a renewed volume of sustained persevering prayer that you, great Lord of the harvest, will cast out laborers into your harvest. Hear us and answer us for the honor of your name, for the glory of your name. In the glory of your dear Son, we plead through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.