The Lord of the Harvest Sends Laborers Through Prayer

Our Lord Jesus commands: "Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest." The spiritual commission flows from deep sympathy for humanity's physical and eternal needs. Adonai alone possesses power to send forth laborers into His harvest—we rely too heavily upon our own agencies.

Consider the harvest-field: the world itself. It is precious because men are the fruit for which creation exists. The field is plenteous—pagans, Mohammedans, those in spiritual darkness—and ripe unto gathering, yet perishing without workers. All who win souls are reapers gathering wheat into the garner in the Lord's eye.

Yet laborers are few. Christ's heart, so enlarged toward a lost world, grieves at this scarcity—a stark contrast to the multitudes pressing toward natural harvest. In 1887, dense crowds of Irish laborers clustered like bees about the wharves of Liverpool and Glasgow, each man eager for work and reward. Men rushed aboard steamers with such force that a Londonderry captain was prosecuted for overcrowding, his defense being that workers took forcible possession of the deck.

Such earthly eagerness—yet how few answer the call to spiritual reaping! The harvest-field stands near; none can claim distance prevents service. Even at one's own family table, opportunity awaits. When additional laborers enter the field, they are grasped by the Providential hand of Elohim, sent forth in answer to the prayers of His people.