Section III The Messengers
Chapter 21 - The Harvest
Mat 9:35 And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.
Mat 9:36 But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.
Mat 9:37 Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few;
Mat 9:38 Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.
Bonhoeffer - 'The Good Shepherd protects his sheep against the wolf, and instead of fleeing he gives his life for the sheep. He knows them all by name and loves them. He knows their distress and their weakness. He heals the wounded, gives drink to the thirsty, sets upright the falling, and leads them gently, not sternly, to pasture. He leads them on the right way. He seeks the one lost sheep, and brings it back to the fold. But the bad shepherds lord it over the flock by force, forgetting their charges and pursuing their own interests. Jesus is looking for good shepherds, and there are none to be found.
The prospect grips his heart, and his divine pity goes out to this erring flock, these multitudes who surge around him. From the human point of view everything looks hopeless, but Jesus sees things with different eyes. Instead of the people maltreated, wretched and poor, he sees the ripe harvest field of God. "The harvest is great." It is ripe enough to be gathered into the barns. The hour has come for these poor and wretched folk to be fetched home to the kingdom of God. Jesus beholds the promise of God descending on the multitudes where the scribes and zealots saw only a field trampled down, burnt and ravaged. Jesus sees the fields waving with corn and ripe for the kingdom of God. The harvest is great, but only Jesus in his mercy can see it.'
'No man dare presume to come forward and offer himself on his own initiative, not even the disciples themselves. Their duty is to pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers at the right moment, for the time is ripe.'
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My thoughts-
'Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that HE will send forth laborers into his harvest.'
'The harvest truly is plenteous.'
We must PRAY!
We must pray and asked the LORD over all the harvest, over the entire harvest, over all those that would be HIS; that He, the LORD, will SEND laborers into HIS harvest.
Bonhoeffer mentions that NO MAN dares to presume to be the laborer sent, yet we know God WILL send laborers. Our focus however cannot and should not be on whether we are sent. We can't do that, we get all caught up in 'who is the greatest'. Maybe not in the exact same sense that the disciples had, but it's the same principle. When we focus on our standing, our place among God's chosen we are focusing on the WRONG thing! When we focus on whether or not we are among the laborers that God will send to work among His chosen, we are NOT focusing on God, or the harvest, but just ourselves.
We have to keep our minds OFF ourselves, to the point of DENYING ourselves.
Mat_16:24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
DENY HIMSELF. NOT focus on himself. But rather come after CHRIST. Picking up OUR cross, something we can only truly do when we deny ourselves, and THEN we can follow CHRIST.
It is our duty to PRAY.
There is constant reference to our praying. We must pray and Jesus tells us here a 'particular' thing to pray for. Pray that He, the LORD, will send forth laborers into the Lord's harvest. Pray that HE sends, not pray that we put ourselves out in the harvest.
Do you imagine the harvest is as plentiful today as it was two thousand years ago, or rather in the time of Jesus life upon earth prior to the cross?
Some might argue that there is no harvest to speak of, but ONLY CHRIST knows what His harvest consists of now in our day and age. If there is ONE bit of His harvest yet to be in need of a laborer, then HE will provide that laborer. He is the Shepherd that does indeed go after a single sheep gone astray.
All by HIS GRACE, through HIS LOVE! May we pray, may we be HIS!
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