Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1127
“Then said He unto His disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few, pray you therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth laborers into His harvest. And when He had called unto Him His twelve disciples, He ga ve them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.” Matthew 9:37,38; 10:1.
THE circumstances under which our Lord uttered these words are instructive. He saw the people thronging Him whenever He stood up to preach and He perceived that the regular instructors of the people, those who thought that they were commissioned to teach the nation, were, many of them, leading them into error. And the rest were either shamefully neglecting their duty, or were performing it without heart, zeal, or even sincerity. The poor people fainted and were scattered abroad like sheep without a shepherd, harassed by different fears and cast down by many anxieties. I do not think that the circumstances under which our Lord spoke these words have passed away, but rather that we are living under precisely the same conditions. I would not willingly be guilty of uncharitableness and I bless God that there are many left in our land who are preaching the Gospel in all its purity, and with great earnestness.
But still, it is lamentably true that those who profess to be the only authorized teachers are, a very great number of them, leading the people into spiritual bondage by reviving the old popish and pagan rites. And those who do preach a measure of the Truth of God too often do not preach it boldly nor simply as they should. Neither is there enough of life and earnest concern for the souls of men among them. How many, even, of our own Churches, where we think the Truth is held, have their pulpits so ill-occupied that they might almost as well be empty as filled as they are, for there is a manifest need of zeal, love and spiritual power, while the clear testimony concerning Jesus is sadly lacking.
But at the same time He was no mere enthusiast. He was as calmly practical as if He had been a cool calculator. If He sighed, He did something more than sigh—He proceeded to aid those He pitied. He had practical compassion on the crowd and, therefore, He turned to His disciples and said, “Pray you the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth laborers into His harvest.” He did not go about among the masses with all undiscerning admiration of them. I do not hear Him praising them as, “the finest peasantry,” or, “the sinew of the nation,” as such will do. But neither do we see in Him any trace of aversion to them, as though He felt out of place in their society. He was often saddened by their follies and grieved by their sins, but He never loathed them or spoke contemptuously of them. The common people heard Him gladly because they saw that He had sympathy with them. Though in character grandly aristocratic, He was in manner and life profoundly democratic. He was the King, and yet, “One chosen out of the people.” He loved them with all His heart.
It is clear, also, that He never grew discouraged in laboring for their good. You never hear Him say that it is useless to preach to the multitude, that they are too degraded, too priest-ridden, or too ignorant. No discouragement ever dampened His ardor. He persevered till His work was done. A brave, glorious heart was that of Jesus, always melted to tenderness, but, at the same time, always practical. He was never influenced either by admiration, or aversion, or discouragement, so as to cease from practical methods of bettering the condition of the people among whom He dwelt.
Take note, therefore, that we are about to speak upon a practical matter and I trust it may become so this morning that many may be influenced to pray according to the bidding of their Lord and, that the sincerity of their prayers may be proven by their subsequent endeavors to obtain their petitions.
I. First, our Lord STATES THE CASE of men of His time and ours. The people who gathered around Him He likens to harvest fields—wherein lay the similarity? First, He thought of the great multitudes. The thought of multitudes rises naturally from the sight of a harvest field and when the crop is plenteous the idea of multitude forces itself upon you at once. You cannot count the ears of corn, neither will you be able to count the sons of men. I suppose our Savior alluded, first of all, to the crowds around Himself, but His mind, being much more capacious than ours, He remembered all the thousands of Israel. No, I think He could not have restricted His heart to the little country of Israel. He glanced across the seas and beyond the mountains to the myriads of mankind swarming upon this globe!
Brothers and Sisters, it crushes one to think of the millions of our species. Nobody, yet, has been able to obtain an idea of the vast extent of this one city of London. You shall traverse it from end to end as long as you will, and you shall study its statistics, but you have no conception what the population of London is and you never will have—the mass is too great. But what is London compared with our nation and with the millions that speak our mother tongue all over the world? Yet even these are but a small portion of the innumerable host. We never shall be able to obtain even a fringe of a conception of China with its teeming millions, or of that other populous nation which owns our scepter, Hindustan.