His Method (Matt. 9:37b-38)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/11/2021 9:00 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                          Focus:  “His Method”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matt. 9:37b-38

 

            Message of the verses:  “but the workers are few. 38 “Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.’”

 

            In the last part of verse 37 we see the problem that Jesus had in His ministry while in Palestine, and the problem that is still here today and that is “the workers are few.” 

 

            MacArthur writes “The ‘workers’ should not be confused with the angelic harvesters mentioned in 13:39 and 49.  These are rather the ergaten, who are identified by the same term in 10:10 as the Twelve.  Nor are the ergaten sent into the vineyard (20:2) necessarily identified as harvesters.  They work in the field headed for the harvest, and that is what our Lord is calling the disciples to do.”

 

            I am not sure which gospel the following comes from but Jesus told His disciples that it was best that He go back to heaven, for while Jesus was on earth He was in a human body that could only be at one place at a time, but when He went back to heaven and sent His Holy Spirit to those who were believers then the work could actually be more effective than when Jesus was in His human body.  Even as the Son of God, Jesus could not reach all the people who lived in His own country or His own lifetime, so the first part of His training method, therefore, was to give His disciples the insight that the need for the gospel to be brought to a world headed for judgment far surpasses the outreach of those who are seeking to minister it.

 

            Now the question is who can reach the lost, hell-bound world of sinful, hurting people who need to hear and to accept the gospel?  Who are the ones who tell them of their plight and who show them the way of escape?  Who are the ones who will share with them the love of Jesus and His compassion and power?  Who will warn them of the ones who are the false shepherds that would lead them deeper and deeper into darkness and hopelessness?  These are all very good questions to ask and even better to find out the answer to.

 

            We have mentioned that in His own days on earth Jesus’ workers were few, and today they are also few.  Now the first need in ministry is for workers, and there is an important thing that those workers must understand and that is that their numbers are few and that they can be increased only by God’s provision and by His power.

 

            MacArthur writes “After right motives are established in compassionate concern to reach the lost for Christ, God’s people need to look at their world as Jesus looked out at the multitudes in Galilee and over the city of Jerusalem.  We need to observe the people around us as Ezra observed his fellow Israelites on the way from Babylon to Jerusalem (Ezra 8:15) and the way Nehemiah inspected the walls of Jerusalem before he began to rebuild them (Neh. 2:13).

 

            “The next step in Jesus’ method is prayer.  His disciples are to ‘beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.’ Christ’s ‘workers’ are to ray for more ‘workers.’”

 

            In our last SD we talked about judgment and the term “The Lord of the harvest” is a title of God that represents His role as judge.  “The Lord of the harvest’ is the One who is the Judge of the unsaved who will one day stand before Him in the last day and be condemned to hell, and we are the ones who are to “beseech” Him in order to send out “workers” to lovingly warn them so that they may be a part of those harvested to eternal glory.  Can you think of a better task to be a part of?

 

            MacArthur goes on:  “The Christian’s first responsibility is not to go out and start working as soon as he sees a need but to come to ‘the Lord’ in prayer.  Waiting on the Lord is a crucial part of serving Him.  Before the disciples had received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, they were not prepared to witness for Christ, and He therefore instructed them ‘not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, ‘Which,’ He said, ‘you heard from Me’ (Acts 1:4).  Before they embarked on their ministry in ‘Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth,’ they were to stay where they were for a while.  And in the upper room where they were staying, ‘with one mind [they] were continually devoting themselves to prayer’ (v. 14).

 

            “It is interesting and significant that Jesus did not command the disciples to pray for the lost, although that is certainly appropriate (cf. 1 Tim. 2:1-8).  Their first prayer was to be for ‘the Lord of the Harvest to send out workers into His harvest.’

 

            “It is possible to pray regularly for the salvation of a loved one, a neighbor, a friend, or a fellow employee and to let our concern stop with our prayer.  But when we earnestly pray for the Lord to send someone to those unsaved people, we cannot help becoming open to being that someone ourselves.  It is possible to pray for someone’s salvation while keeping them at arm’s length.  But when we sincerely ‘beseech the Lord’ to send someone to witness to them, we place ourselves at His disposal to become one of His workers in that ministry.”

 

This has been a lot of food for spiritual thought.

 

7/11/2021 9:39 AM