Harvest Only Happens By Our Praying

A ready field needs a supply of laborers that are sent by the Lord

Then he said to his disciples, “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.” —Matt. 9:37-38

I have several evangelism strategy books on hand, you might also, and one thing I find strange isn’t what is in them. It’s what isn’t.

While most of the ideas are good, helpful, and encouraging, what is lacking is an emphasis on prayer.

Recently I wrote about praying for unbelievers to be born again, suggesting seven prayers to pray. And another about our prayers being a tool Jesus uses to build His church. There have been articles about praying the word of God spread rapidly and be glorified. This is the preaching of the Word, the proclaiming of the Gospel, and asking for open hearts to receive it and be saved.

It’s apparent that God’s strategy to reach the disbelieving all around us involves—to no small degree, our praying. We are ask for the workers (those who labor) to gather in the harvest. In the Bible, these are people devoted to sharing Christ's message and disciple the spiritual growth of others.

The harvest is Gods. Saying"His harvest" highlights His role in gathering souls and His control over the process. This implies a collaboration between His divine sovereignty and our personal responsibility in evangelism.

Here are some prayer insights from Andrew Murray:

The Lord frequently taught the disciples that they must pray, and how; but seldom what to pray. This he left to their sense of need, and the leading of the Spirit.

But here we have one thing He specifically tells them to remember: in view of the abundant harvest, and the need of reapers, they must cry to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers. Just as in the parable of the friend at midnight, He teaches that prayer is not to be selfish; and here also is power through which blessing can come to others.

The Father is Lord of the harvest; when we pray for the Holy Spirit, we must pray for Him to prepare and send out laborers for the work.

Jesus could pray this Himself, and been a thousand times more effective than ours. But He gives us a command and opportunity to join with Him in the harvesting. Couldn’t He have just sent workers to harvest without prayers?

Surely, but the fact that He wants our prayers for it, will—as Murray writes, convince us that prayer is indeed a power, on which the in-gathering of the harvest and the coming of the Kingdom do in very truth depend. ¹

Prayer is no form or show, he says. It was when He saw the multitude, and was moved with compassion for them (because they were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd) that He called on the disciples to pray for laborers to be sent among them.

He did so because He really believed that their prayer was needed, and would help.

The veil which so hides the invisible world from us was wonderfully transparent to the holy human soul of Jesus. He had looked long and deep and far into the hidden connection of cause and effect in the spirit world. He had marked in God's Word how, when God called men like Abraham and Moses, Joshua and Samuel and Daniel, and given them authority over men in His name, He had at the same time given them authority and right to call in the powers of heaven to their aid as they needed them. He knew that as to these men of old, and to Himself for a time, here upon earth, the work of God had been entrusted, so it was now about to pass over into the hands of His disciples. He knew that when this work should be given in charge to them, it would not be a mere matter of form or show, but that on them, and their being faithful or unfaithful, the success of the work would actually depend.

As a single individual, within the limitations of a human body and life, Jesus feels how little a short visit can accomplish among these wandering sheep He sees around Him, and He longs for help to have them properly cared for. And so He tells His disciples now to begin and pray, and, when they have taken over the work from Him on earth, to make this one of the chief petitions in their prayer: That the Lord of the harvest Himself would send workers to do His harvesting.

The God who entrusted them with the work, and made it to so large extent dependent on them, gives them authority to apply to Him for laborers to help, and makes the supply dependent on their prayer.

How little we Christians really feel and mourn the need of laborers in the fields of the world so ripe for harvest!

The idea that the number of workers is reliant on prayer is not taken seriously, with the belief that prayer won't truly yield the required workforce. While the shortage of labor is acknowledged and occasionally attempts are made to address it, there's minimal acceptance of the responsibility to fix the situation through faith in prayer. It's overlooked that the answer to prayer could result in the provision of necessary laborers, and without such faith, fields ripe for harvest may be neglected and lost.

And yet it is so.

So wonderful is the surrender of His work into the hands of His Church, so dependent has the Lord made Himself on them as His body, through whom alone His work can be done, so real is the power which the Lord gives His people to exercise in heaven and earth, that the number of the laborers and the measure of the harvest does actually depend upon their prayer.

Andrew Murray

Conclusion

Evangelism, with all it’s strategies, plans, classes and material, is often missing the key element of prayer.

We need to be praying for the gospel to spread, for open hearts and doors for the good news, for preaching and teaching, for ears to hear and eyes to see, hearts to soften—and for laborer of the harvest.

This is part of the divine partnership Jesus has with us to do the work—first in prayers, then in the field. Our asking indicates our dependence on God and acknowledges that this mission is beyond our own ability.

If there are few souls being saved by Christ in our day, it is because we are not praying for laborers to harvest them!

Until next time, grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ…

1. This article adapted from portions of With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray, NINTH LESSON. Pray the Lord of the harvest Or, Prayer provides Laborers. Content has been lightly edited.

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