God’s answer to the shortage of labourers is so different from what takes place today. Man has set up various systems to rapidly fill people’s heads with Bible information and then send them out into man’s harvest. People of questionable character, consecration and sanctification are sent out to go and labour. They go out to labour for the one who sent them – man.
God has one answer to the shortage of labourers. That answer is prayer to the Lord of the harvest. So we have whom to pray to, what to pray for and who may pray. Prayer is to God the Father. He is the Lord of the harvest. Prayer is by labourers. It was to the seventy, to those who were qualified to go that the Lord asked that they pray for labourers. He did not ask the multitude to pray. He asked those who met His qualifications as labourers to pray for other labourers.
If a man who has not denied and is not denying himself, who is not taking up his cross daily and who has not renounced all that he has, decides to pray, he is doing great harm. He is asking that God should raise people whose hearts are like his and send them into His harvest. If God heard that prayer, He would have to send out unqualified people into His harvest. Such praying is sin.
If a person knows that there is a shortage of labourers, he should first ask himself, “Am I a labourer? Can God send me out? If God sent people whose hearts are like mine, would it advance the harvest before God or hinder it?” On a careful examination, he may find that he is not qualified to be sent as a labourer and is, consequently, disqualified to pray for labourers. If he yet wants to be useful for the Lord, he will set out to pray that the Lord of the harvest should make him fit to be a labourer in the harvest. He will bring his whole life before God and obtain God’s verdict about it. He will then labour with the Lord to put that which is wrong right. After he has put things right, he will qualify as a labourer, and God will then “send” him out to pray for labourers.
The spiritual requirements in terms of purity, holiness and consecration that are required from those who labour by going or labour by praying or labour by giving, are exactly the same. The unconsecrated donor is doing the Gospel enterprise harm. His money will lead people to carry out projects that God has not authorized or cause people whom God has not sent out to go out and, as such, stand in the way of God.
Praying For Labourers
We have said that for an unconsecrated person to pray that God should raise and send out consecrated labourers, is to practise falsehood. God cannot use my prayers to do in the life of another person what I have not let Him do in my life. God cannot use a man beyond the level of his consecration.
Because there are so few in the Church whose hearts are pure and consecrated, the task of praying for labourers must remain the work of the very few. If you are one of those few, the following paragraph is for you.
You are important to God; you are needed by God. You are precious to Him. You belong to a rare class. The devil hates you. The devil will like you to compromise, fall into sin or into worldliness and be disqualified. You should therefore walk very close to the Lord and take no chances. Hate sin with all your heart. Love the Lord with all your heart. Hate falsehood with all your heart. Love the truth with all your being.
Make yourself available to the Lord. Formally tell Him, “Lord, here I am. I am prepared to go into Your harvest. I place myself at Your disposal. I am prepared to be a ‘going’, ‘praying’ or ‘giving’ labourer. Show me where You have placed me.” He will show you. He hears and He answers and He will show you.
If He makes you a going labourer, accept it with gratitude and ask Him what you should do in order to prepare to go. Also ask Him where He wants you to go to. As you prepare and as you go, you should know that you have the responsibility to pray not only for yourself and the field to which He is sending you but also to pray that other labourers should be found for other fields. When you get to your field of service, continue to pray that the Lord should send forth labourers into His harvest. So you will labour at your field with one hand and with the other, labour at praying that God should send forth labourers into His harvest.
If He makes you a “praying” labourer, you must give yourself in a more definite way to praying, both for more labourers and for those labourers who are already on the field. Wait before the Lord and receive instructions from him as to how you are to pray. He may want you to invest your life in praying for an unreached tribe or people. Concentrate mainly on that. Block those people from self-appointed or man-appointed labourers who might rush there and destroy the harvest. Plead that God should act quickly and prepare and send His own labourers there. Pray that would-be labourers who are still bound by sin or the love of the world should be released from these and made ready for appointment by God. Plead with God to release labourers who are being blocked from being made available by parents, relatives and social systems. Plead with God to move governments that make entry difficult. Pray that God should touch the hearts to whom the labourers are ministering and will be ministering. Pray that there should be a revelation of Christ and a revelation of His Word. Pray that young converts should desire the sincere milk of the Word and that they should grow. Pray that those who are converted should soon grow and become teachers. The Lord will lead you. Pray also that “giving” labourers should be raised. Pray that the Lord should protect the hearts of the “giving” labourers from the love of money. Pray that the Lord should bless their resources; so that they will have more to give. Protect the resources of the “giving” labourers from attacks by the wicked one. Plead with God that He should multiply the resources and make them enough for the work. Pray that the “giving” labourers should be kept from the seduction of projects that are not of the Lord’s creation. Pray that they should be kept from trying to imitate the lifestyle, methods and goals of other people in the vicinity who are actually the labourers of men sent out into the harvest of men.
There is so much to pray about that, were you to give yourself to twenty-four hours of praying a day, you would not be able to pray for all that needs to be prayed for. If you are a “praying” labourer, you are not exempted from giving sacrificially and not exempted from “going” within the limits where God has sent you.
Desperate Need
We live on the eve of Christ’s return. There is still so much that must be done. May the people of God arise, put all sin and all worldliness aside and consecrate themselves totally to the Lord and, thereby, qualify as labourers; so that God will have millions to go, pray and give and then the task will soon be finished and the Lord Jesus will come. Amen.