Amen. Please turn with me to Matthew chapter 9. I want to say again that we count it a great honor and privilege to be able to take part in this conference with you this weekend. Lydia and I have been greatly encouraged to see God raising up you in this generation. We've been encouraged by the fellowship, the preaching, and we're thankful for it. I was just thinking back to 2004. I was able to be involved in a youth meeting in Wales in the United Kingdom and that dear faithful church there had been advertising the meeting, inviting and letting other churches know for months in advance. They'd been diligently praying for months in advance and groups came from as far away as an hour and a half. And there ended up being somewhere around half a dozen young people in that service, in that meeting that weekend. And about half of those had no profession of faith in Christ and seemed to be totally callous toward the Word of God and the things of God. And it was a blessing that those were there who were there, but it was eye-opening what can happen in a land that was once teeming and overflowing with young people with hearts ablaze for God's truth and masses converted during the awakenings there and now what is left. I'm trying to encourage you to be thankful for what you have, to be thankful for other like-minded young people, for solid churches and the fact that God is raising up people in this generation to carry on what has been passed down to us. And it's encouraging to my heart And I ask you to please look with me now at Matthew chapter 9, and we'll read verses 35 to 38. God's Word declares, And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. 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. Amen. Let's look to the Lord again in prayer. Father in heaven, again, we praise you. We adore you. You're worthy of all honor. You're worthy of all worship. You're worthy of all people's attending upon your word and hearing it with great eagerness to believe and obey it. We confess to You that we have not done this as we ought. We confess that we need to more deeply and more diligently hear and understand and to obey Your Word. We confess that as Christ has commanded His disciples to pray to the Lord of the harvest, we've failed in prayer. We confess this sin to You. We confess the sin of apathy many times being unmoved and not filled with compassion for the souls of men. And we ask now that by your spirit that you would enlighten us. We pray that Christ, our great prophet, would teach us by his word and spirit. And we pray now for your grace in this hour. In Jesus' name, amen. I want to preach on the subject of a call to go. a call to go. And dear believer, today we know that our resurrected, ascended Lord Jesus Christ, before he ascended, gave the Great Commission to his church that our brother read a few moments ago. As he's commanded there that as his disciples stood there on the mountain, he said to them to go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you. And he promises them, behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age. We know Christ has given this commission to his church. And we know that this great commission did not cease with the death of the apostles who first heard it because Jesus promises, I'm with you till the end of the age. Since these apostles have not lived until the end of the age, we take this as strong evidence that this commission continues until Christ returns. The question is, is the Great Commission binding upon all believers? Are all believers required to participate in the Great Commission? And if so, in what ways are they to participate? We realize that not everyone can go in the sense of going to preach the gospel as their life vocation, such as a missionary or a pastor does. We know from Romans 10 that they cannot go except they be sent. And it is Christ that gives gifts to men and who sends them to preach. We know that not everyone goes in that same sense. We know not everyone is called to Pastor, not everyone is called as a Christian minister. But if this is so, in what way is every believer to be involved in the Great Commission? I hope to answer these questions from Scripture. I want to give a little bit of background to build up to this passage. The Gospel of Matthew is focused on presenting Christ as the Davidic King who has come in fulfillment of prophecy. He starts out his gospel announcing the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham. When Jewish people heard that phrase, Son of David, Son of Abraham, their mind should start to think back through Old Testament prophecies and promises the covenant that God gave to their father David that he would raise up a son a descendant who would sit on his throne forever. They should remember that God promised Abraham concerning the coming seed that he would be a blessing to many nations and they should think back of all of the Old Testament prophecies, promises, shadows and types that pointed to this one coming Messiah upon whom all their hopes hanged. the one who would fulfill all of God's covenant promises to his people, the one who has come as he announces, as it announces in chapter one, his name will be called Jesus because he will save his people from their sin. And as Matthew opens up this book and showing Jesus as this promised Davidic king, he shows his ministry, his ministry of healing, his ministry of preaching the gospel of infallibly declaring the message of the gospel of the kingdom, of bringing up to the gates of men's hearts the kingdom of God. And as he did this, he spoke with an authority, he spoke with a spiritual weightiness, with a spiritual reverence and respectability about him that none of the scribes or Pharisees spoke with. the authority to infallibly interpret and apply the holy law of God in a way that the scribes and Pharisees could not. And as Matthew brings us here to this passage, he's showing how that Jesus has been healing people of different impossible diseases, of demon possession, of all kinds of ailments as Christ is doing the works his father has sent him to do. He is showing that he is the promised Messiah. And now as we come to the end of this chapter 9, Christ sends forth his disciples to do the same thing he's been doing. He gives them authority and commissions them to go out and cast out demons and heal the sick and to proclaim the gospel. Now here it's to the Jew first, it's limited to the Jews in this sending, but later it will be expanded to all the nations as we've read. Now in light of this, this call that we're speaking of, the call to go, the Great Commission, what is the nature and extent of this call to go? In other words, we could ask the question, is the Great Commission binding? on all believers or is it only binding on Christian ministers? And we note that while God has not called all believers to participate in the Great Commission in the same way, yet God has called all believers to participate in the Great Commission in some way, and every one of these ways is meaningful and is necessary. We know that concerning pastors and Christian ministers, pastors and teachers that Ephesians 4 speaks of, we know that these men are called and gifted by God, the ascended Christ gives them as gifts to his church to edify, to build up the church in a way that no one else can. Believers are commanded to edify, to build up one another, and we must do that. We can and must do that. But in a special way that is specifically gifted by God, pastors are to do this. But yet the people have their responsibility. Concerning the teaching in the church, we know that God gives pastors to teach the Word. But also among the people, Titus tells us that the older women are to teach the younger women. So there is a respect that they're responsible to teach one another. And Thessalonians, Paul reminds them that they are to build one another up. And many times we see this in the New Testament. It's the responsibility of all believers. in a certain way. That's within the church. What about outside the church? What about evangelistic? Activity. Well, Paul commanded Timothy. There's pastor at the Church of Ephesus to to do the work of an evangelist. We know that pastors are responsible. To preach the gospel to centers. But also the people members in the church, every member. is to be salt and light, as Jesus tells us in the Gospel of Matthew, in the Sermon on the Mount. He tells them, as He's speaking to the crowds in general, not only His disciples as the Twelve, but the whole crowd of disciples, He tells them that they must be salt and light among this world. They must have an influence for good, for the Gospel upon the world around them, and to let their light shine before men, and not to hide it. So this is the responsibility of all believers to make Christ known to sinners around them by declaring the gospel to them. And this is based on. This is platformed on. A life of good works. A life that is in keeping with the gospel, a life that. Every believer is to live in the power of the Holy Spirit. And by the strength of Christ and obedience to God's Word. We find this throughout the New Testament. Paul tells the Philippians that they are to do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine as lights in the world. This is to all believers we're to shine as lights in the world and our good Works are the platform for that that that gives an opportunity for people to have an ear to hear us because they say we're different from the world. But. Letting our light shine is not just living a holy life in front of people, there must be an articulate verbal. Declaration of the gospel. This can also apply in printed form by way of gospel tract. In order for people to be saved, we touched on that briefly last night. I've mentioned the phrase preach the gospel and if necessary, use words. And how this is complete rubbish that sinners cannot be saved and we have not preached the gospel unless we use words and declare the truth of it. So this is the responsibility as we let our light shine. This is the responsibility of all believers. We think about the Samaritan woman, the woman at the well in John 4. Within moments, within minutes of her salvation just a few minutes after she was saved. She goes straight back to the city where she had lived a life of debauchery and she begins to tell people, come and hear a man who told me all things that I ever did. Crowds and crowds followed her back down to the well to hear Christ preaching and teaching, and many, many others were converted. And on that day, this lady, who was not a Christian minister, who was not qualified to be, for she is a lady, but yet she told others of Christ, and as a result, many others were brought to faith in Christ. And that day, she outdid by far the very disciples of Christ who were not concerned with the souls of men. They just wanted to get a Big Mac and just a quick meal there in Samaria. They were not thinking about souls. And here this newly converted woman outdoes them all because she simply goes to tell others about Jesus. So while the burden of the work of the ministry, what Paul calls the work of the ministry, is limited to pastors, The burden of making Christ known to the world is not limited to pastors. It's the responsibility of all Christians. Now here in this passage, as we look at our text words, I want to look into the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ and see what was His activity among sinners. What were his feelings towards sinners? What was his command? Concerning what we are to do. In relation to this. Once again, Christ is primarily. Our mediator. Our penal substitute. To whom we look by faith and in whom we trust. as the one who bore the wrath of God for us. And that is Matthew's primary purpose of presenting this gospel is not primarily to show Christ as an example, but to show how that Christ came because we don't have the power to perfectly imitate His example. And again, Christ did not come for us to imitate Him to go to heaven. He came because we can imitate Him and we've all sinned. He is living in our place. He will die in our place to pay the price on behalf of His people. We look to Him. We trust in Him. The work is finished. God has pronounced us righteous based on the finished cross work of Christ as we have faith in Him. Then out of the overflow of this, as we who are saved are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, as we're justified by faith alone, by God's grace alone, as we find we've been chosen of the Father for the foundation of the world, out of the overflow of this, it is the desire of every Christian to live as our Lord Jesus Christ did. And we see this throughout the New Testament, the apostles holding forth Christ as the infallible example for believers. The Apostle Paul in Romans 14, after teaching on Christian liberty, he tells them afterward, let each of us please his neighbor for His good, to build Him up. For Christ did not please Himself. He holds forth Christ as an example for us not to be self-centered. In Ephesians, Paul holds forth Christ as an example for men in marriage that they should love their wives even as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. To the Philippians, the Apostle Paul holds forth Christ in his humiliation and commands believers to follow Christ's example in their mentality and to walk with humility. In Hebrews 12, the writer exhorts Christians to follow Christ's example when they're enduring hostility. He tells them, consider Him who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself, so that you may not grow weary or faint-hearted. And the Apostle John in 1 John 2, 6, Tells us whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. So in this I believe we can draw out. Implications and applications for all believers concerning our Lord's activity in this passage. This is not a. Moralistic example like the old. What would Jesus do series? It's not asking. The question what would Jesus do, but it is a faith that looks to Christ and trust is in trust in his finished work. And then we realize that we are saved and we are kept. Not by doing what Jesus did, but by what he did for us and then from the overflow. As a result, we seek. to live as he did. William Ames, in his sketch of the Christian Catechism, his commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, he says, In Christ we have the most perfect example of all piety, and likewise the most perfect doctrine, which is called the doctrine of piety, or the doctrine according to piety. Its use is for the refutation against those who profess belief in this mystery, but meanwhile profane it most shamedly and blaspheme through their own impiety." He's telling us as we study the doctrine of Christ that Christ is the perfect and the only perfect example of piety. And today, I believe that Remembering this will help us to avoid the dangerous pitfalls of sitting back and just simply relaxing and focusing only on what Christ has done for us to the exclusion of what he's commanded us to do for his glory. And while Christ is far more than example, he's our suffering substitute. who finished the work at the cross. Yet he is our example, and as Christians, our attitude towards sinners should reflect his attitude. We see him rebuking James and John. He called them sons of thunder. They wanted to call down fire on the Samaritans because they didn't have the same attitude and mentality towards sinners that Christ did, and he rebukes them for this. So I hope we can see under four different headings in this text some ways that our Lord interacted with sinners and what he commanded us to do and to see how we are to be involved in this call to go. First of all, I ask you to consider our Lord's evangelistic contact with sinners. This is verse 35. Consider our Lord's evangelistic contact with sinners. Verse 35 tells us, And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and affliction. As Jesus traveled to these different places, this was contact with evangelistic intent. He was here to give these people the gospel. That was His purpose. He went to where they were. He didn't expect them to come to where He is. And later in the Great Commission, he commands the church to go into all the world. He doesn't tell the world to come into all the churches, although sinners should come and hear the gospel preached. But the commission is for the church to go out there to where sinners are. He went teaching, articulating the truth of the gospel. He went preaching, authoritatively proclaiming and applying and exhorting and inviting men to respond to the terms of the gospel. He went forth healing and showing that He is the Messianic Davidic King who is to come and who is to heal their sicknesses. If our Lord Jesus spent so much of His time in contact with sinners, giving them the gospel, could we ever think that we're living in a Christ-like manner if we isolate ourselves from meaningful evangelistic contact with sinners. There's a danger of us becoming so insulated that we do not pursue evangelistic opportunities as we ought to. There is another extreme, and that is to spend time around sinners, to socialize with them, but never declaring the gospel to them. What a tragedy it is when a Christian is in a workplace and no one in that workplace has heard the gospel from them. Maybe people don't even know they are a Christian. This is the other extreme. And I ask you, dear friend, are you seeking opportunities to go among sinners with the purpose of evangelism, with the purpose of declaring the gospel to them? Do you view your station in life as A providential opportunity from God for you to witness of Christ in your family, in your school, in your work. So this is our Lord's evangelistic contact with sinners. Secondly, consider our Lord's heartfelt compassion for sinners. A heartfelt compassion for sinners. Verse 36 tells us, when he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, or compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Here Jesus sees the massive crowds, and he is moved with compassion for them. As the prophet said, as he looked upon the Jewish people, Jeremiah cried, my eye affects my heart was our Lord Jesus looked on these crowds of sinners. He responds with deep. Heartfelt compassion. It says they were harassed. They're troubled or distressed. Some copies read that they fainted either way, they were a bad in a pitiful condition. They were helpless, they were cast off, thrown down, thrown away. As Jesus saw them scattered as sheep without a shepherd, His heart is moved with compassion. Dear friend, today, would you think about the people around you, in your town, in your city, in your state, in our nation, and then throughout the world, who do not have a God-called minister among them, faithfully declaring God's Word? Sheep can't survive without a shepherd. They wander out and they're destroyed. They cannot survive without a shepherd. Here, Christ, Messianic Davidic shepherd has come in fulfillment. He will lead all his elect to glory. He will gather all of his sheep into the fold and he will not lose one of them. And part of his way of doing this, his main way in this age, since he is ascended, is to gift and call under shepherds to pastor and to faithfully declare the word. And you as believers also are responsible to share this word. Could you think about those around you, those far beyond you, even in other lands that do not have a gospel minister, who are perishing, who are wandering aimlessly through life, wasted lives, wasted in sin, on a downward slide to hell, They should be giving glory to God. He deserves it. They should be living their lives knowing Him and enjoying Him forever, but they're wasting their lives in sin. Would the Lord move our hearts to compassion today when we see this? This word for compassion is a very strong word in the Greek. Arte France. elaborates on this. He says that Jesus' response is described by a strongly emotional Greek verb which speaks of a warm, compassionate response to need. No single English term does justice to it. Compassion, pity, sympathy, fellow feeling, all convey part of it. But his heart went out, perhaps represents more fully the emotional force of the underlying metaphor of a gut response. This word is used many times, other times in the book of Matthew, and in each case, it's not just sympathy toward somebody's need. It results in activity to do something about it. And we see that here with Christ. He isn't just moved with compassion and then goes on. No, he does something about it. So we're not called to Just have a feeling about sinners, like just to feel compassion toward them. No, we're called to act in faith. And what does this teach us? Well, we remember that as believers, and in this context, as confessional Baptists, we reject the error of hyper-Calvinism. We plainly reject that. We confess. In our confession of faith that. Christ is offered to all in the free offer of the gospel and all men are obligated to repent and believe upon him. This hyper Calvinist deny. So though we are Calvinist, we're not hyper Calvinist. We we deny that falsehood. But still. Even with having a warm, vibrant, Christ centered. scriptural view of salvation. Even then, we have to beware of twisting the truth to have an unchristlike attitude towards sinners. In our depravity, dear friend, no matter how long we've been saved, no matter how much we've learned, we still, in our depravity, have a tendency to take beautiful truths of God and to twist them in a way that was never intended. Any perspective that numbs our compassion for sinners or reverses our compassion for sinners, that makes us feel like we're justified in not taking the gospel to sinners, any perspective that does this is not the scriptural perspective that God has given us. It's false. The glory of God And compassion for lost sinners go hand in hand. They're not mutually exclusive. They are complementary. One demands the other. God's glory is the higher motive. It is the highest motive in evangelism. We don't just go because men are perishing. We go because God is glorious. God has commanded us to go. God is worthy to be worshipped and they're not worshipping him. So we go because God is worthy and whether they're saved or not, we still go because God is worthy. That's the main motive. But. Compassion for men is a second and a necessary consequence. Of this. God gave us the moral law, the Ten Commandments, and it's often referred to as the two tables of the law. The first table is focused on commandments and our duty towards God. The second table is our duty towards man. And Jesus summarizes the Ten Commandments as to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourself. And I have had to repent many times of the fact of holding to high views of God and the gospel and seeking to be pleasing to God in my mentality, and yet I'm not moved with love towards my fellow man, which tells me that my love for God is not right either. They're not mutually exclusive. Our love for our fellow man overflows from a true love for God. So though human need is not the chief concern or motive in evangelism, it yet is a concern. God brings glory to himself through the salvation of sinners, and he accomplishes this through human means of declaring the gospel to them. God held this human need before his servant Jonah. Jonah didn't even get upset about Nineveh being destroyed. but he did get upset about his little his little vine withering he was more upset about a little plant dying than he was hundreds of thousands of souls perishing eternally under the judgment of God and God rebukes him for this in Jonah four eleven he says and should I not pity Nineveh that great city in which there are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also much cattle the Lord holds before him. There's great need here. Can you not, Jonah, do you have no compassion? Do you have no pity? Do you hold me at fault for having pity upon these people and sparing them and bringing repentance instead of ruin to them? So our Lord Jesus was never stoic about perishing souls. Here he's moved with compassion. On the one hand, we must not be wild enthusiasts, merely sympathetic, or wildly running with, like the Old Testament prophets said, like a messenger with no message. We must not be that way. But on the other hand, we must never be stoic and emotionless about the condition of perishing sinners. We can become so complacent and comfortable in our groups within the church that while the harvest fields perish around us and abroad, we have no concern or little concern for it. We must guard against this. If we're guilty of it, we must repent of it. I think about a dear missionary that was in Bolivia, and as he began to tell me of an unreached people group there high in the mountains that There were 1.2 million people in that city and barely any known professing Christians whatsoever, a place of great darkness. And as he was telling me, he broke down in weeping, weeping over the souls of those sinners there that are without the gospel. I believe that's a Christlike and a scriptural response when we see crowds like this. Let us repent of apathy towards perishing center, just not really being moved or not really caring that much about it. Let us repent of lightheartedness about the condition of perishing centers. We should never think of or speak of this condition of centers in a lighthearted or trivial manner. May we repent even of spite or malice toward perishing centers. I've heard before the beautiful and glorious doctrines of grace made hideous by people twisting it and using it in a way, so to speak, as though they're glib and lighthearted and just thrilled about the damnation of souls. That's never to be the Christian's attitude. Yes, while we will praise and glorify and worship God as he pronounces his righteous sentence on sinners at the last day, there will be no glibness or smart aleck attitude from any believer. We will be filled with a holy awe, realizing that it's all of grace. It's not us that are perishing. It's all of God's grace. May we seek to follow our Lord in his heart yearning compassion for sinners. Third. Consider our Lord's evaluation about centers. Our Lord's evaluation about centers in verse 37. It tells us that he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Up until this time, the laborers in the harvest field, the ones preaching publicly the gospel of the kingdom, as far as we know, was limited to Christ and John the Baptist. And now John the Baptist's ministry has ceased publicly because of his imprisonment. And now Jesus is the only one going and publicly preaching the gospel. He says the harvest is huge, but there are only a few Laborers. He gives two analogies to describe these centers. He's already told us that they're like shepherd without sheep or sheep without a shepherd. Now he tells us they're like a massive harvest. Harvest of crops. In both of these analogies, there's a sense of urgency concerning the need of these centers. Sheep need a shepherd. The harvest needs to be harvested or it will perish. It cannot harvest itself. Like the tomato field in front of my grandparents' house there in North Carolina growing up, as it would be full of tomatoes when the time came and they would begin to turn red. If they were not picked, they would turn white and fall off and perish and be wasted. And Jesus uses that analogy in John 4. The harvest fields are already white to harvest. This is an enormous harvest. May we not get isolated in such a bubble that we forget that far beyond our reach, far beyond our view, there are billions, not millions, billions of souls perishing without Christ. The harvest field is vast. Now what does this teach us? Well, we believe, we confess, we know from Scripture, and we confess this, that we have a firm confidence in the sovereignty of God. God is fulfilling all His purposes and He will fulfill them. But we also believe and know that there is an urgency concerning the task at hand of evangelism. These are not contradictory, they're complementary. Christ is here to do the Father's will, to fulfill the mission upon which He has sent Him, to save all of the elect which the Father has chosen before the foundation of the world and whom the Holy Spirit will draw unto Christ. He will not lose one of them. He will save all of them. And at the same time, He expresses a deep, yearning, heartfelt pity for the masses of sinful men around him, and there's no contradiction. We must have both a firm persuasion in God's sovereignty and an urgent, heartfelt compassion for sinners. Our particular Baptist forefathers had this as they confessed and preached and believe without hesitation the absolute sovereignty of God. And yet they would gather for days of prayer and days of fasting to plead for the souls of men. They would preach the gospel with heartfelt gospel warmth and vibrancy. We think of this in George Whitefield as he adamantly affirmed and preached the sovereign predestination of God and salvation and God's sovereignty of all things. And yet, as he preached to sinners, he would weep and shed tears over them and say, if you'll not weep for your own souls, I'll weep for you. And he'd stand before them with tears running down his face, preaching the free offer of Christ to them. There's no contradiction in that and his view of the sovereignty of God. They're complementary and one is founded upon the other. You can see this in men like Charles Spurgeon and then many living today who know and believe and preach the sovereignty of God and yet preach the gospel with warm experiential vibrancy to sinners, plead with them to come to Christ, to turn from their sins now. There's no contradiction. This teaches us when Jesus says the harvest is plentiful, this reminds us of the harvest which is to come. Later, He'll talk about the harvest at the end of the age, not one of souls being gathered into the kingdom, but one of souls being destroyed. He'll send forth His angels to reap the souls of men that are still lost. Every day draws us closer to that harvest. Every second that ticks on the clock, we're one second closer to that harvest. And when that harvest comes, this evangelistic harvest will be finished. We must work while it is day, Jesus tells us, in another place. For the night is coming when no man can work. If you ask any pastor here, if you ask any missionary or church planter, What about the harvest field that you're in? Do you guys have enough laborers? Do you have a sufficient number of gospel ministers, of God-called, God-gifted pastors who are preaching faithfully the Word of God? I dare say every one of them would say we have not near enough of what we need. There's a need for laborers in the harvest field. The laborers are few. This teaches us that there is a need for more laborers in the harvest. Dear friend, look around you today with our generation crawling over each other's backs to see who can get into hell first, knowing that they must have the gospel preached to them. When we see these false Pastors false shepherds preaching a false gospel may grieve our hearts of the people Under those ministries being deceived and may it move us to pray God raise up ministers To preach the truth Nathan Hale said that if I had a thousand lives as he was being hanged by the British Empire because of his activity on behalf of the colonies. He said, if I had a thousand lives, I'd give them all for my country. Dear believer, is that your desire? If you had a thousand lives to live, would you desire to use them to make Christ known among sinners? You only have one life to live. What are you doing with it? What are you doing to invest your life in the evangelization of sinners? Fourth and finally, consider with me the Lord's command concerning sinners. The Lord's command, verse 38. He tells us, therefore, based on what we've seen up to this point, what are we to do about it? Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. We're to pray earnestly about this. This word means to plead and to beg with urgency. We're to urgently plead and beg God to raise up laborers, to call and to gift gospel ministers in this day and send them forth. God is sovereign over the harvest. He's the Lord of the harvest and we're to pray to him. All our evangelistic efforts can produce absolutely nothing until God blesses them. And that's why Paul said to the Corinthians, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. We must look to Him, the Lord of the harvest. It's His harvest. Belongs to Him. He must send the laborers. They can't appoint and send themselves. He must send them. May we pray that he would. May we be as the church in Acts 13, the church at Antioch, as they ministered to the Lord and fasted. They were fasting and praying. God separated Saul and Barnabas to be sent out as missionaries from that church. Pray the Lord of the harvest. Paul tells the Thessalonians, pray for me that the word of God may speed along, that it may have free course and take hold among the people that I'm preaching to, even as it did with you. Pray for this. We must be willing ourselves to go, because in the next chapter, we find that Jesus sent the very ones who he commanded to pray. There must be a willingness. Maybe God would call me. Maybe God would call one of my children or grandchildren or loved ones to go. And concerning this, I think about a story that Dr. Ranahan shared recently in 1649 with a particular Baptist. at the Glass House Church in London. They set aside a day of prayer that God would send laborers into the dark corners of their land that were un-evangelized. The whole day the church met together to pray. The next day, two men showed up at their doorstep from Wales and answered that prayer. Those two men were baptized and sent out, and as a result, souls were saved in that dark corner. And the next October, Forty-three people had been baptized, and within a year of the first baptism, two more churches had been formed. May we pray the Lord of the harvest. Pray that IRBS Theological Seminary, Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary, Other places that are holding forth the word of life, that pastors who are training pastors in their local churches, that these places would be bursting at the seams with young men who have been called by God and gifted by God for ministry. Maybe some of them are you. Maybe God has been putting in your heart that burning desire for ministry that Paul describes to Timothy. Maybe God has gifted you, dear man. Pray the Lord of the harvest and be willing if he would call you himself. May we be able to say like Spurgeon in coming years as he spoke to his people about their Bible college and their pastor's college. And he said at this very moment some 300 of your sons nursed at your knees are preaching the self same gospel which we're preaching here for which God be praised while we give Let us pray, and when we have prayed, let us give, that God may send forth laborers into His harvest. God is well able to raise up laborers, and we must pray to Him. Laborers, men who will exert great effort and great energy for this task. It's strenuous work. Now this teaches us that God's people must pray. God uses the prayers of his people to accomplish his purposes. God's people must be willing to go if God would call them. And I ask you, dear friend, would you commit more wholly? In a greater way, would you commit to pray for the evangelization of perishing sinners? Would you consider the harvest field the shepherd with sheep all around us even here in the bible belt all across north america all across the world right here in north america one one field among many is the tribes the native american tribes there are one thousand two hundred and seven tribal offices tribal headquarter offices in north america including canada and alaska over 1,200, and only a handful have a gospel witness among them. Would you pray? There are 220 native villages in Alaska, isolated, dark, high suicide rates, hopelessness, and only a small handful, maybe less than a dozen, have any kind of gospel preaching work among them. Pray the Lord of the Harvest. Over 2,000 unreached people groups still in the world, and most of them in the 1040 window, pray the Lord the harvest to send forth laborers. Look how plenty the harvest is. Who will go? Pray that the Lord will call and send laborers. Though not every believer can go in the fullest sense, every believer must pray for laborers, and every believer must shine forth the gospel light to those around them. Dear friend, are you shining forth the gospel light? Spurgeon reminds us, the great question is not, will the heathen be saved if we do not send them the gospel? But are we saved ourselves if we do not send them the gospel? The man that never cares about the perishing heathen, is he saved? Is he like Christ? If he be not like Christ and have not the Spirit of Christ, then he is none of his. I would say amen. As a believer today, would you be able to say, I cannot give more effort and attention to declaring the gospel to sinners than what I'm doing right now? Could you say that? Would you be able to say right now, I'm praying plenty. sufficiently for the salvation of sinners and for God to send forth laborers. Could any of us say, I cannot be filled with more compassion or greater compassion for sinners that I'm filled with right now? Different, I think none of us could answer any of those in the affirmative, and this is need for us by God's grace. To increase and to be increased in this. Are you aware and conscious of the great urgency of the harvest and the size of it? Are you moved with compassion? When's the last time you wept tears over souls of men? Are you praying earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send laborers? Are you willing to go yourself? Are you using the opportunities that God gives you to share the gospel? Today, Would you seek to look to our Lord Jesus and to follow his steps in this? Dear friend, if you're lost without Christ, I exhort you again. You are part of the perishing harvest. You are as a sheep without a shepherd. You desperately need him this moment. Do not go on. Don't go on another moment. In your sin and your rebellion against God, look to him. Look to Jesus. He's a wonderful, compassionate shepherd. He's a loving and willing Savior who's able to save you this very moment. Look to Him. Let's pray. Father, I commit now this word that's been preached unto you and pray that you would accomplish your purposes by the power of your word and spirit. And we do pray that from this very room, this very gathering, you would send forth laborers into your harvest fields. In Jesus' name, amen.