The bottom of our garden is often, beyond the bottom of our garden, there is often a field there that grows grain of various kinds. Quite often, when it begins to turn, I'll kind of look across that field and think, well, the farmer will be out soon and he will be gathering in that harvest. But you see, when I look at that field of wheat or barley, I could be wrong. I'm not a farmer. I just look at it and think, well, it's changed colour and it looks as if it might be ready to me. But when our farming brethren stand in front of a field of corn, they see it through farmers' eyes. They look at it different to me. They look at things that I don't see and don't know what to look for. They perhaps look for the more subtlety of the colour. They look at the size, they might pick an ear no doubt and test it for its water content and they look at the weather and they take all these things into account to see whether it's really ready for harvest. And just as the farmer knows what is happening in that natural harvest, so the Lord knows what is happening in that spiritual harvest. And I would like us for a few moments this evening to look at the harvest, if you like, through the eyes of the one who the scripture says is the Lord of the harvest. That title comes, doesn't it, from our reading, the Lord of the harvest. It's one that the Lord used in verse 38 where he says, pray ye therefore that the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest. Passage we read, those earlier verses, just put it into context that this is a a part of the life of the Lord Jesus where he is going round, he is performing, if you like, some great miracles there and the Pharisees are watching, they're trying to catch him out, they're trying to prove all the time that he is not who he says he is. And yet the people know and the Pharisees know that the miracles that were being done could only be done by one who was who he said he was, the very Son of God, the one who had come from heaven. And the fame was spread throughout the country after he touched the blind men's eyes. And then this dumb man came with a devil, and he was cast out, and he was able to speak again. Tremendous things were happening. And all the Pharisees could say was that, well, he cast out devils through the Prince of Devils, as if that doesn't count, and he is of the devils himself. They were just trying to discount these things. If you read the Gospel of John, we find there even more detail of some of the intricate arguments that the Pharisees put up to try and prove that Jesus wasn't who he said he was. And then we have those lovely verses here where it says, Jesus went through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness. Can you imagine the uproar? Where's Jesus today? Well, he went to this city, he's heading that way. We must go to that city and we must take this one with us and that one with us. There is the blind man, there is the lame man, there is the deaf. All sorts of people were going to try and be at a village or city where the Lord Jesus was going to be because it says he healed every sickness and every disease among the people. You can imagine how the noise spread abroad of this man who, not only did he heal me but I saw this one healed and that one healed and I heard what he said. This is from another world. But then the Lord Jesus looked upon these people, it says, when he saw the multitudes, you see the numbers were gathering. He was moved with compassion because they fainted, they were weary. He looked at them not just physically, but spiritually. He saw that they had no spiritual leadership. He saw that they were not, as it were, coming together as a people and welcoming him as the King of the Jews. And he said to his disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest. We sang recently, I think, whether it was this Tuesday or the one before, Jesus is Lord. Creation's voice proclaims it. For by his power each tree and flower was planned and made. The universe declares it. Sun, moon and stars in heaven cry that Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord. He is the Lord of the harvest. We know, and I'm bound to say some things I said this morning, but he created it. He designed it and he maintains it, doesn't he? These things, they seem to go on automatically, but it is only because he is the Lord of the harvest. And we're grateful for the harvest, as we said this morning, for all the different things he gave us. We were talking around the table here this morning and saying that some of these things that we like and some of them we don't. And I was saying this evening, when I was a child, and maybe you too, we had kind of large tables, people brought things for the harvest, and I remember as a child, you'd come in the door and we'd see all this display up there, and I can remember looking at some of those things and thinking, we don't get those at home, I quite like those, whatever they are. There'd be things on the table that you quite liked, but you didn't have for some reason. But these days, we have access, don't we, to so many different things. In fact, so much so that we begin to look around and say, well, I don't like that, and I don't like this, or whatever. Well, this morning we were thinking about God's faithfulness in this harvest. The harvest that is natural, the harvest in our lives of the fruit of the Spirit, and then that great harvest at the end of time when he comes. And in these last verses of our reading, the Lord uses the illustration of the harvest to show us how he brings men and women to himself. And there are some lessons here for us. He gives us an insight to what it is to see the harvest of men and women in the eyes of God. You see, we go out amongst a multitude and we have various thoughts and sights, but here we're given an insight because these are the things that the Lord Jesus Christ said. He is the Lord of the Harvest and he's speaking in these verses. So we do get an insight into what he was thinking. And I want this evening to draw out five things, and they are quite brief. Five things that are revealed to us here about the Lord of the Harvest. And the first thing we read here is that the Lord of the Harvest has a heart of compassion. He has a heart of compassion. I suppose some farmers, they might farm with a passion. I don't know. Some farmers farm with a passion in the sense that this is their land, it was their father's land and their forefather's land and there is something in that and I can understand that, that they are continuing in the process of harvest that's been perhaps gone on in their family for many, many decades. Others perhaps are driven by the fact we need to make a living. And I suppose some farmers, it isn't theirs at all, they're working for perhaps a big company and there are a number of farms that belong to an estate. But you see, when the Lord looks at a harvest, he has compassion. He saves people because of his eternal decree to do so. That is true and it's a great truth and we talk about that from time to time. but his eternal decree to save a people is wrapped in a great mantle of compassion and love. God alone knows the true depths of what happened to Adam in the Garden of Eden. We use the word quite liberally, we say well that was the fall, fall of Adam and we fell in Adam and that of course is very true. And we talk about the fact of how sin came in and how it altered everything from the way that we do our farming and gardening to the fact that we die. But God alone knows the depth of that fall, if you like. When we think of depths, we think of those men in the mine in Chile. Quite amazing to think, isn't it? They're over two miles down. We think of two miles away and then try and put that into the ground. That's a great depth, isn't it? But it is no depth, is it? According to the size of the earth, it's not even a pinprick as it were. But we're not talking about a physical depth here, we're talking about a spiritual depth. God alone understands the great difference between Adam before he fell and us in Adam after the fall. It was a great drop indeed. And when the Lord Jesus walked on this earth, It was with an intensity of a knowledge of what happens to sinners should they go from this world without the intervention of His grace. He was aware of the far-reaching, eternal consequences of the fall. He says, when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them. When he looked at the crowd, he saw, yes, the potential in eternity. it says there he was moved with compassion, it literally means in the Greek here to be moved in the heart, to be moved in the heart. See we can be moved intellectually, you can move me intellectually if you like by I say we have a group of people, we might say none of those people are Christians and therefore I begin to think that unless the Lord saves them, they will go to a lost eternity, they will go to hell. That is an intellectual statement. I can base it on scripture, I can tell them that. But what I need is for that to be wrapped in a compassion. that I have a love for this group of people and that I would long for them to know the Saviour. I would long for them not to go to that destination, but I would long for them to come with me to glory. We need that compassion. And it's when I get that compassion that I move from the understanding of what's happening to them to the position of where I plead with God for their souls. That's where we have to do that shift. And it doesn't always come easy, does it? Intellectualism of scripture and knowledge of scripture and knowledge of doctrine is not enough on its own. There are many people who are not Christians that can have a knowledge of these things. We need to have that compassion for souls. And the Lord of the harvest has the greatest compassion there can be for souls. It is a marvellous thing to think here that when the Lord came to earth and he looked at a crowd of people, And some of these, of course, they were coming to him. What did they want? They wanted, heal me, heal me. Feed the 5,000 with the loaves and fishes. We'll have some of that. We'll follow this man. He's a star. When the Lord saw them, he had compassion on them. He realised that in many cases, that's all they wanted. That's all they wanted, things. But when he looked on them, he had compassion. My friends, how grateful we should be tonight that the Lord looked upon us and had compassion. And when the Lord looks across the world, he sees more than we do. Here he saw a people. They were faint, it says, or weary. They were scattered, means they were actually cast down. They were sheep without a shepherd. Their shepherds were the Pharisees. They might as well have put a wolf in charge. as they were just turning the people away from the Lord Jesus. Here was the Lord Jesus come down from heaven, healing the sick, preaching the kingdom, telling people they needed to repent and all these wonderful things about himself and glory. And their leaders, their shepherds were saying, oh, he's doing this in the power of the devil. They were leaderless in that sense. When we look out across our towns and villages, we see many people Maybe we see people sometimes who appear quite comfortable without God. There are many like that. They're quite comfortable without God, they just don't do religion. They're decent, they're respectable people, but they kind of just don't do religion. But strip away their materialism, turn the telly off perhaps and, you know, the car goes wrong and the mortgage is called in or whatever. Look into their hearts and minds in a way that we cannot do and we will find insecurity. we will find a suppressed awareness of God. The scripture says that people have an awareness of time and eternity and they have a need to worship. They see these things and in the heart of hearts they know that a cabbage can't evolve, let alone a human. There is no true peace in the turmoil of their hearts. And my friends, that's what God sees. We see a people with a veneer of decency and just not really wanting to engage in the things that we do. God sees them for the turmoil that's going on underneath when you scratch the surface and he has compassion. We need to learn that compassion for people who it doesn't appear at first need our compassion. And then there are people out there who are trapped, aren't they? They're trapped perhaps in a drug culture or an alcohol culture. Some of those people perhaps seem very distant from the gospel. Kind of these decent people are in front of them in the queue for if they should come in. But again, we strip away the veneer of that which keeps them going. The alcohol, the drugs, whatever it is. Underneath you will find fear and despair. A people perhaps afraid to die and yet afraid to live. We see those people sometimes, we say, yeah, they need a saviour, but we don't kind of see quite how these things are going to click together. The Lord sees them and he has compassion. Compassion is a good starting place, isn't it? We have compassion, then all of a sudden we know someone like that, they cross our path, the Lord brings us together. If we have compassion, then we have a desire, what can I do? Then there are others that perhaps look like Christians. The Lord referred to them elsewhere as Tares. They weren't real Christians, but I'm told in the scripture that the tares that are spoken of there, that grew with the wheat, they weren't pulled up because they actually looked like wheat. They were very similar. That's why he said, don't pull them up. Yes, you disturb the others, but, you know, when you first look at them, you're not sure what's the wheat and what's the tares. Tares look like wheat. My friends, the Lord looks upon them and can have compassion upon people. Perhaps many of them have gone to worship today, but they don't know the Saviour. My friends, whoever the Lord looked upon, He saw their end and had compassion. He didn't just see a group of people who might or might not follow Him. Yes, there were times when people walked away from Him. There were times when He said harsh words. But when He saw the multitude, it said He had compassion. Remember, these are people who were refusing to accept him for who he was. He was about to go to the cross. But when he looked at these people, he saw them as individuals. He also saw them as a nation that in AD 70 would undergo terrific, horrific persecution. He saw a people who would suffer again under the hands of Hitler when millions of them would be tortured and killed. He saw them again further on in history as a nation that would go through so much in a time of what the Bible calls Jacob's trouble, a tribulation yet to come. And as he looked upon them, he had compassion. Oh, my friends, that we might have the compassion of the Lord of Harvest when we're out tomorrow, when you're in Lincoln, Boston, wherever you are, when you're in the high street and you see all these people and you think, oh dear, Have compassion. These people, many of them, don't know the gospel. And we might say, but they won't listen, they won't come and when Bill and others stand in the high street and preach to them, in the main they don't want to know. We should not prevent our compassion. Let's move on. The Lord of the harvest sees a harvest. He sees a harvest. We see a crowd of people. The Lord says, these people are ready for harvest. He saw the harvest that would be there one day. You see, we see the natural harvest that is sure because of the promises of God. We might spoil it by interfering sometimes in nature's laws. We might even suffer a poor harvest from time to time, either under the judgment of God or for whatever reason, but we are promised to have a harvest. And the spiritual harvest is sure, and we touched on this a little this morning. We have God's word, we have his saving work, Isaiah reminds us that the Lord will see the travail of his soul and be satisfied. That means he'll see the things that the Lord Jesus Christ has done, the travail is that which follows on. He'll see all of that and he'll be satisfied because his work was perfect, his work was done and the people are being saved. That is the travail of his soul. The harvest is sure in that sense. And the farmer will do all that he can to secure a harvest. our farming brethren are not going to go home and put their feet up, they have things to do, they have to get ready for the next harvest, they have fences to repair, they have machinery to repair, they have all sorts of things to do that don't seem to relate directly to actually bringing in the harvest, but of course they do. All sorts of things have to be done in order that at the end of the day a harvest may come in. It all works to that end. And so all that the Lord did was to produce a harvest that would be made fit for heaven. as soon as the Lord was born. It wasn't long, was it, before he shed blood at circumcision. It wasn't long before he become an awareness of a child of things to do, of questions to ask. He became aware of the fact that he had to keep the very law of God because he was without sin and he was without sin because he was God and he was to keep the law because he was there in my place keeping what I could not keep. Everything he did, The very fact that when the Lord got up in the morning, if I can say this with respect, and He lived that day perfectly under the obedience of the law of God, He did that because I can't do that. And it was all because that I would one day be a part of the harvest in glory and so would you and all His dear people. The Lord sees a crop of people, if you like, ready for harvest. And as the farmer, as I suggested at the beginning of this sermon, would look at that field and say, yeah, it's ready. It's today. Assuming that you can get the combine for the day. It's ready for harvest. So the Lord looks at us and says, ready for harvest. Or the Lord might look at us and see some ready, as it were, for harvest, for this day is a day of salvation. Of course, you can pick a crop that's not quite ready, can't you, in the garden? I picked a pepper a couple of weeks ago, a nice green pepper and I'm not so keen myself but someone in our household ate it and said, that's bitter dad, that's bitter. And I'm thinking, well I'm just rubbish at growing peppers. So there you are, put it down to experience. I don't particularly fuss about growing peppers. But you see there's another pepper growing there in the greenhouse and I looked at it the other day and I thought, that's changing, it's going red. You see the pepper I picked wasn't ready. It was picked too early, that's why it was bitter. Hope this one will go red and perhaps that will be as it ought to be. And you know when sometimes we, perhaps with people, and we try to persuade them to become Christians, and they're becoming Christians if you like, and I put that in inverted commas, through our persuasion, we have to be careful not to encourage people to make what we call a false profession. I would that there were more opportunities, I was going to say, to do so. Not that we should do it, but that we should gently, as it were, pray them into these things that the Lord might do a work. But you see, the day does come when someone the Holy Spirit is moving on. They are right ready for salvation. And if you like, they are harvested in that particular way. Oh, my friends, may we see the potential of harvest in the people we see around us. We have the boys and girls coming in and we're grateful to see a few more. And this week we did see another two new faces. Someone else brought them along and that's good, isn't it? And when you look at these children and you kind of listen about their families and all the things they're up to, you think these children are miles away from the things of God. But you see, it's within our responsibility to gently feed them the things of God, to explain to them about what the Bible is, to explain who the Lord Jesus is, to talk about some of these stories, and to plead with God that the Holy Spirit will take of these things and apply them to their hearts, and so in His time that they might come to know Him. that we might have hearts of compassion for these children, that we might not see them as just children, as it were, who we're going to teach something to, but we might have a compassion for them, that we might love them and bring them to the Lord in prayer. Thirdly, the Lord of the harvest then uses the prayers of his people. He uses the prayers of his people. When the Lord saw these people, he turns to his disciples and says they should pray. They should pray. An interesting word again that he uses here, it's not the word that's always used for prayer, it has two parts to it. Firstly, it means to look at the need and then secondly, to make that need known. It's kind of something that's locked together and that's what the Lord was doing. He made the need known and he said no, we need to do something about this, you need to pray about this. It's a strange thing you might say. You say the Lord knew this, the Lord looks upon these people says they like a harvest and labourers need to go in, so the Lord knows that, then he tells the disciples, well now you pray about it. They could chuck themselves and say, we didn't pray about it, we're going to tell you about it, you already know about it, you've just told us about it. But that's the way the Lord works. He is the Lord of the harvest and he wants his people to pray because in mercy he loves to hear his people cry unto him, he takes the prayers of his people and he uses the prayers of his people to fulfil his eternal decrees. I was just writing the other day, and in the writing I saw a man there was saying that he'd been praying about a particular issue, thinking he needed some finance for some activity. And this finance was sent, and so the man sent a letter back, he said, thank you for being an answer to my prayers. And lovely if we can be an answer to someone's prayers. I don't mean in the financial world, but I mean in these things here particularly. You see, it is God's work, God's task if you like, or God's work to provide the seed. And here it is, we have it in the Scriptures, the seed of the Word. It's God's work to prepare the soil. It's the hearts of people, isn't it? We can't do that. We can't get into a heart and a mind and rearrange things in there so they think differently. The Lord says, I'll do that. That's something he can do. And indeed, again, he uses the Word of God, he uses his spirit. For the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword and reaches deep into the heart, doesn't it? It's God's work to water the seed. and to give warmth to that seed, as it were, that it might grow. It's God's work to bring Christ-saving work to people's souls by His Holy Spirit. Only He can do those things. But it is our work to preach the Word and to behave in that right way, to be witnesses. It's our job to plant the seed and it's then our task to pray over that matter, to pray over the harvest. And prayer cannot be overstated, can it not? And the Lord Jesus Christ says himself here that he wants us to pray about things that he knows, but that's how he'll bring it about. What does he pray here? He says the labourers are few, pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest will send forth labourers. All my friends, we do pray about a lot of things and I don't condemn each other for the things we pray for. on a Tuesday quite often our list is quite long and sometimes I feel perhaps it's too long, we have to just concentrate on a few things, but we don't very often pray perhaps in this particular way for labourers. Well let me move on, the fourth thing that brings us to our fourth point, that the Lord of the Harvest does use labourers. I remember, I don't know whether it was perhaps the last few years at school or whatever, but sometimes he used to ask you to write a list of what you want to be doing in five years' time. I remember as a young person, I was five years' time, I only worried about five minutes' time, about five years' time. But not many people would put on the top of that list they want to be a labourer. You know, they might have won a job in whatever bank or whatever it was, you used to be able to get jobs in banks in those days, and various other things they wanted to do, but they did not put, I want to be a labourer. Because when we speak of being a labourer, we tend to think of sweat and toil and hard work Well, if I speak for myself, there aren't things I particularly want to be engaged in, in that sense. Few might want to be supervisors, but not labourers. But you see, it is labourers that we're to pray for, and we are to labour in prayer, and we are to take up the task. And in one sense, what I'm doing tonight is classified as labouring in biblical terms. You see, to be a labourer in God's harvest is a most privileged job in the world. We know we're all called to be labourers in our different fields, and we know that if we were to be a labourer in the world, the pay might not be great, but we are not labourers for God for pay. The pay may be, in terms of pounds, nothing. The work will be hard, and for many it costs their lives. Reading, I think, this morning about some in Nigeria, that had lost their lives. They amounted to hundreds of people who professed a Christian faith in the last year, have laid down their lives. But you see, we are to labour here. That's what we're here for, for a short time, to serve the Lord, to labour for him, because there is eternity to come. We can rest in eternity. We can stop worrying, as it were, when we get to eternity. There is a joy of one soul When they repent, there is joy in heaven and there's joy for us to share, but there is eternal rewards that are beyond our comprehension. And labourers are not left alone. We read in 1 Corinthians 3 verse 9 that we are labourers together with God. That's a big difference, isn't it? Big difference. We're not left to labour on our own. We have many different gifts in the work. Some of you can visit the sick and elderly. Some of you can reach the young. Some of you can give a word in ministry. Others with acts of kindness. But my friends, all can pray. All can pray that we are to work together with God in this harvest field. And the prayer is, pray that the Lord will send out labourers into the harvest field. That verse there in Corinthians also says, he that planteth anything is not really that important, as it were. Neither is he that watereth, but it is God that gives the increase. That's where we need to pray, isn't it, for the increase. Now, he that planteth and he that watereth are one. You're visiting the sick, I'm preaching the word tonight, you may be helping in a different way tomorrow, and all these things are put together. He that planteth, he that watereth, we are one in the work that we're doing, in labouring, in the harvest field. And every man shall receive his own reward according to his labour. There are degrees of reward in these things. Notice that the Lord says that these labourers are going to be sent forth. That was the prayer. Lord, send forth labourers. And we can pray for one another in this, but we can also widen it because we generally speaking think of this as ministers going out, being raised up as pastors. And my friends, how our land needs that today. We're under great judgment in our land and so are some others that there are not the men available. The Word of God is not going forth as it once did. Send forth. Pray ye, the Lord of the Harvest will send forth labourers. And that sending forth, those words are very similar to where we read in Scripture that devils were cast out. They were thrust out. When the Lord said, come out of him, then there was nothing they could do but they were thrust out, literally. And he uses the same words here. He wants people to be thrust out. It isn't a case of You know, people thinking, well, perhaps I could kind of do this or whatever. This is something that God lays upon our hearts. It's almost as if, I think it was Spurgeon and others have said it, that if you can manage without preaching the word, then do that, do manage. But if you can't do anything but preach the word, then you must do that. Thrusting out then is what God will do. He will do it. He will send forth the labourers. We are to pray. And the last point I've got here tonight, which is a brief one, The Lord of the harvest will gather in his end harvest. And we again touched on this this morning. Revelations 14, 15. An angel came out of the temple crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud thrust in the sickle and reap for the time is come for thee to reap for the harvest of the earth is ripe and he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth and the earth was reaped. Lord Jesus said in Matthew 13 The harvest is the end of the world. There will come a time when the Lord will draw things to a conclusion that he might be with his people. And the signs we see of his coming, they are small compared to the great outpouring of his wrath in the time of tribulation that we read of in the book of Revelation. And in that day when he comes to reign, there will be a great division, won't there? The tares and the wheat, the wheat from the chaff, And so the Lord of the Harvest will gather in his people. Those outside of Christ will, in his time, be raised to judgement. And my friends, in that day, everyone will own him as the Lord of the Harvest. Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. So then tonight, what have we seen? The Lord of the Harvest is a heart of compassion. The Lord of the Harvest sees a harvest when he sees a crowd of people. The Lord of the Harvest uses the prayers of his people. The Lord of the Harvest uses labourers and he sends them forth. And the Lord of the Harvest will gather in his harvest. So what can we do with these things? My friends, do we have the compassion of the Lord Jesus? We're meant to be like him. We'd have a heart like his, to have a compassion for the harvest. Can you pray? Yes, you can pray. Let's pray that the Lord of the Harvest will send forth labourers. Are we willing labourers in that task which we've been given? You know, to share in the work and joy of a harvest is a tremendous thing. I read a story, I'm sure I've told you this story before when talking about perhaps revival, but a story of Jeremiah Lamphere. I'm not sure whether I've pronounced his name right. L-A-M-P-H-I-E-R. He was a preacher, pastor in New York in the 1850s. and things were very low spiritually there, but he had a compassion. He caught something of this. He had a compassion for the people. New York was a smaller city, obviously what it is now, but it was growing. There were people coming in. We were still in cowboy days, I suppose, but there were many in poverty. There were not support systems for people, and he saw the need of prayer. He saw that these people were not only poor in the things of this world, but they had no time for God. And so he started a little prayer meeting on a Wednesday for one hour at lunchtime for anyone that had come and just pray for the people. And he got there on that first day and the little room he'd hired, no one came till a half hour later. Six people had turned up by that time, the hour was up and they had their little prayer meeting. That was on the 23rd of September in 1857. Next week there were 40 people there. Week after there were more, he had to hire more rooms, and they started a number of prayer meetings. And in fact, it was held daily, not weekly. Six months later, throughout New York, there were 10,000 people that were compelled to come and pray. And within two years, revival had broken out that swept hundreds and thousands into the kingdom. And it was in one measure, people writing from New York about that revival over to Northern Ireland that began as one of the sparks, if you like, that God used to ignite the 1859 revival. One man had compassion for souls and said, I'll pray. No one came for half an hour. Two years later, there is revival. You see, there is potential in prayer. And finally tonight, well, are you ready to meet the Lord of the harvest? In other words, has the seed of God's word been brought to fruition in your life? Jesus Christ, the Lord of the harvest to you, have we bowed the knee to him, we must in time if we are to know him in eternity. Well may so the Lord help us, may we be found with hearts of compassion, may we be willing labourers for him and may we know the joy even in time of the gathering in of harvest. Amen.