Father, please be with us through
our Lord Jesus Christ. Open Your Word to us concerning
Him. Show us His heart, show us His
work, and show us our need, and teach us how You have provided
for us in Him and by Him. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Let's turn to Matthew chapter 9. We're going to be finishing
up the chapter. Chapter 9 today. Matthew chapter
9. We're going to read from verse
35 through verse 38. I'll be taking you to several
scriptures along the way. Look at verse
35 of Matthew chapter 9. I've entitled this message, The Lord of the Harvest. And
then there's a subtitle, which I couldn't, you can only fit
so much in the sermon title on Sermon Audio. It's like three
words, so. The second part of the title is, The Laborers in
the Harvest. So, The Lord of the Harvest and
The Laborers in the Harvest is the real full title, but I'll
just put The Lord of the Harvest, because that'll encompass everything
here. But look at verse 35 of Matthew
9. And look at these verses very
carefully as we should look at all scripture very carefully.
And we'll try to take from it what we can and ask the Lord
to bless us there. And Jesus went about all the
cities and villages teaching in their synagogues and preaching
the gospel of the kingdom. Just a few words there, we've
summarized a huge, huge effort on Christ's part. He went through
all the cities and all the villages, not just the big cities, but
the little villages too. Maybe just a few houses huddled
together. And what He did, what did He
do? Preaching the gospel of the kingdom. Just like men on earth, kings
on earth have kingdoms, the Lord Jesus Christ has a kingdom. And that's what he's doing. As
the king, he's going to his subjects and preaching the message of
his kingdom. And it says, and healing every
sickness and every disease among the people, all manner. He healed
all manner of sickness. He opened blind eyes. He unstopped deaf ears, loosed
mute tongues, healed plagues and sicknesses and diseases.
All kinds. Leprosy. He raised up the lame
and the paralytic. He even cast out devils and raised
up the dead to life again. Can you imagine all that? The
Lord Jesus Christ, if you were sick, you would want to go to
Him or be brought to Him, wouldn't you? If you were possessed and
couldn't come and wouldn't want to come, yet He came to you.
If you were dead and knew nothing about it, the Lord in compassion
would come and raise you up. The Lord Jesus Christ not only
could, but did do everything. And he did this to men's bodies
because the gospel is meant to heal men's souls. The whole need
not a physician, but the sick. I came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. The parallelism in the gospel
between the healing of our sicknesses and our sin-sick souls is so
apparent that even in Isaiah 53, it says, by his stripes we
were healed, comparing our sin to a sickness. But look now at
verse 36. But when he saw the multitudes,
that's the first point, what Jesus saw. He was moved with
compassion, that's the second point, what he did because of
what he saw. moved with compassion on them,
because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having
no shepherd. Then saith he to his disciples,"
that's the third point, what he said, because of what he saw
and what he felt. He said to his disciples, the
harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. And this
is what he instructs us, that's the fifth point. Pray ye therefore
the Lord the Harvest, that He will send forth laborers into
His Harvest." Notice, whose harvest is it? It's His Harvest, the
Lord of the Harvest. The Harvest belongs to the Lord. Now, I want to point out these
things to you this morning. This particular text of Scripture
really sets up the next chapter. In the next chapter of Matthew,
Matthew chapter 10, the Lord Jesus Christ calls His apostles,
His disciples, to Him. Twelve of them. And He instructs them where to
go and what to do. And we're going to get to that
next week. He tells them in verse 6 of chapter 10, Don't go to
anyone but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Don't
go to the Gentiles. Don't go to the Samaritans. Just
go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, to these twelve apostles. There was another apostle that
would later replace Judas, Paul. And Paul would be sent to the
Gentiles, remember? But he tells these men, I want
you to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And he tells
them many things. Don't take any money. Don't take
an extra set of clothes. Don't take an extra set of shoes.
Just go to every house you come to. Bless them. Give them your
peace. And if they receive you, then
your peace will remain. If they don't, then your peace
will return to you. So he sends his apostles to those
he meant to send them. He's the Lord of the harvest.
What is this figure of speech that the Lord Jesus Christ uses
here? The harvest. He looks and he
sees the people. He says, when he saw the multitude,
he was moved with compassion. What did Jesus see? All these
people were coming to Him. Some of them he went to, but
he saw something. We go about our lives. We go
to the store. We go home. We go to our jobs. We talk. We do all kinds of things. We plan. We build. We relax. We go on vacations. We do all
these things. What do we see in our lives?
What did Christ see? he saw in everything that he
did, he saw multitudes of people. And the multitudes that he saw
were like sheep. He saw his people in the world
and he compared them to sheep who were faint, who were scattered,
and who didn't have a shepherd and needed a shepherd, needed
to be brought, and needed to be fed and watered. And he saw
the people like this, as sheep. And he said he compared all of
his people to a harvest. And he said that he, as the Lord
of the harvest, would send laborers into the harvest, because he
saw the people as sheep, having no shepherd, scattered, and faint. This is what he saw. What do we see? Do we see this? Do we see what the Lord Jesus
saw? He tells his disciples what he saw. And it's because of what
he saw that he saw his people, that is the reason that he came.
He says in John 17 at verse 18, As the Father has sent me, as
you Father have sent me, I send them. God the Father sent Christ, gave
Him His people as sheep to save. And He gave those people to the
Lord Jesus Christ to save. And when He came into the world,
He came for them. And when He came, He saw them.
He saw them scattered, faint, and without a shepherd. And He
comes to them for this purpose. They're His sheep. It's His harvest. The field is the Lord's. The
harvest is His. And He's going to enter into
it as a farmer. As an expert farmer. And He's
going to plant seed. And He's going to labor to raise
that seed into a full crop. And then He's going to receive
from the field the harvest that He planted. Not one seed planted
will be grown up and wasted. All will be brought into His
barn. He's the Lord of the harvest. There was another harvest. In
the book of Ruth, there was a man named Boaz, and he was a great
landowner. He had a large field, and he
had laborers. He was the master of his field,
the lord of his harvest. And he told his laborers who
were reaping for him in his harvest, he told them, take some handfuls. of purpose and leave them for
this woman he had his eye on. Her name was Ruth. And the laborers
in his harvest would leave handfuls of the harvested grain for Ruth,
the Moabitess, because Boaz had set his heart and purpose on
her, in the same way the Lord Jesus Christ has a purpose He
doesn't have a field that's empty that just happens to grow on
its own. He has a purpose in this field.
He puts His seed in the field. And then He sends His laborers
into the field. And His laborers are in the field
laboring for Him because it's His harvest. Look at Matthew
chapter 13. The Lord compares these things
in a number of places in Scripture. But He says in Matthew 13 verse
24, Jesus spake this parable. He
put forth to them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened
unto a man which sowed good seed in his field. The man would be
the Lord Jesus Christ. But while men slept, his enemy
came and sowed tares among the wheat. What did he sow? He sowed
wheat. But while the laborers slept,
an enemy came and sowed something else alongside the wheat, tares. Now tares, when they grow up,
they look like wheat. And they choke the wheat. They
contend, they compete with the wheat for the soil and for the
water. And so the enemy sowed the tares
in order to try to destroy the field. And so it says, While
the men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat,
and went his way. The enemy left, and when the
blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit, then appeared tares
also. So the servants of the householder
came and said to him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy
field? For whence then hath it tares?
Didn't you give us good seed to sow? We had the Word of God. We sowed the Word of God. Why
is it that there are these tares that grow up? And the Master,
the Lord of the harvest, said to them, An enemy hath done this. Christ didn't plant the tares.
The enemy did. The servants said unto him, Wilt
thou then that we go and gather them up, gather up the tares?
And he said no, lest while you gather up the tares you root
up also the wheat with them. God's servants are not to try
to uproot the tares. They're supposed to feed the
flock. Feed the wheat, let them grow
together. He says in verse 30, Now, when Jesus spoke this, it
was a parable, and the disciples wondered what it meant. So in
verse 36, Jesus sent the multitude away
and went into the house and his disciples came to him saying,
declare unto us, explain to us the parable of the tares of the
field. And Jesus answered them and he said, he that sowed the
good seed is the son of man. The field is the world. The good seed are the children
of the kingdom, the children of God. The tares are the children
of the wicked one. The enemy that sowed them is
the devil. The harvest is the end of the
world. The reapers are the angels."
Don't you love that simple explanation? What an illustration. Every point
in his sermon had a corresponding fulfillment in the kingdom of
God, in the gospel. And he says, "...as therefore
the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in
the end of the world." The end of the world. Doesn't that just
seem almost surreal to you. It's like something
we talk about, but the realization of it seems as if, when it happens,
it will be so astounding that it will overtake you with amazement. The end of the world. The Son
of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of
His kingdom all things that offend, and them that which do iniquity.
That's when the purging will come. and shall cast them into
a furnace of fire. There shall be wailing and gnashing
of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine
forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father, who hath ears
to hear, let him hear." Now back to Matthew chapter 9. You see
the figure that the Lord Jesus is referring to here. The world
is the field into which God, by His grace, has planted His
people. And how did he plant them? Well,
it says in the parable that the son of man, the man sent his
laborers into the field to sow his seed. It was, the planting
was attributed to, the credit for planting was attributed to
the Lord of the harvest, but the way that He fulfilled His
planting was by sending His laborers into the field. Paul says in
1 Corinthians chapter 3, Apollos watered, I planted, Apollos watered,
but God gave the increase. When the apostle Paul preached
the gospel, he was planting God's seed. And the Spirit of God,
according to God's determined will and Christ's redemption,
would quicken, would make alive those who heard it. And at that
time, that was the good seed, planted in their hearts. The
Gospel is considered the seed, but when it brings forth fruit
in the hearts of God's people, they're called the seed, the
produce of God's work. We're born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God. Jesus compared
the sending forth of the gospel to those four grounds. The good
seed was planted, and in these different grounds, and you can
read, we'll read about that later in the book of Matthew. But so
the Lord Jesus Christ sends his laborers to plant his seed, the
seed of the gospel. And He's the Lord of the harvest.
It's His seed. He does it on purpose. He came
for the purpose of planting His seed. He gave the gospel to these
men to plant it. And He Himself labored in that. Look at Matthew 9. It says in
verse 35, what did Jesus do? Remember, he's the master. He
teaches his disciples both by word and example. They follow
him for three years and they see all that he does. And what
do they see? They sit under his teaching. They hear his preaching.
And they realize what he's doing. He's planting his seed. He's
calling his sheep. He's finding them. He's bringing
them through the preaching and teaching of the gospel. And so
you see that He puts an emphasis on this in verse 35. He went
about all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues
and preaching the gospel of the kingdom. That's what He does. The labor of Christ is to teach
and preach the gospel. He Himself did it. But not only
did He Himself teach and preach, but He sends His laborers to
do the same thing. And those were the apostles,
first of all. They come teaching and preaching
because He saw the multitudes. And notice in verse 36, not only
did He see the multitudes as His harvest, And He's going to
have everyone that He plants. He's going to have them. He's
going to bring all the wheat into His barn. The angels will
gather up the tares and burn them, but the wheat will be gathered
into His barn. They are his inheritance. They
are his treasure. The field he bought with his
own blood. And so he sees the multitudes and he's moved with
compassion. He's moved with compassion. He
saw them and he wasn't just indifferent. He didn't think about it in a
half-hearted way. He was moved with compassion
because all that he did, all in his coming to do, was to save
his people from their sins. That's why he came. And when
he does this, he didn't do it just to say, this is what I want
you to do. I'm moved with compassion. No,
he was actually moved with compassion. It moved him to come into the
world. He engaged his heart, it says
in Jeremiah, he engaged his heart to approach God and to make himself
the surety, to offer himself as the surety for his people,
to give himself for them in order to bring them to God. He engaged
himself. He was moved with compassion.
It says in Proverbs 8 that his delight was with the sons of
men from the beginning. He was moved with compassion.
I have loved thee with an everlasting love. That's what the Lord Jesus
Christ did. He loved his own. Having loved
his own, he loved them to the end. From the beginning to the
end, he was moved with compassion. And his disciples saw that. They
were moved with compassion too, because He gave them His own
Spirit. Remember what Paul says in 2
Corinthians 5, the love of Christ, verse 14 I think it is, the love
of Christ constrains us It constrains us. It holds us in so that we're
closed in to this narrow way. We have only one thing we can
do because of the love of Christ. In fact, let's look at that because
it illustrates for us the effect of the heart of Christ on His
people because He put His Spirit, the same heart, in them. 2 Corinthians
chapter 5. He says this in verse 14. For the love of Christ constraineth
us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then we're
all dead. And that He died for all, that
they which live should not henceforth live to themselves, but unto
Him who which died for them and rose again. Wherefore henceforth
know we no man after the flesh, yea, though we have known Christ
after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more, after the
flesh that is. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature, a new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. All things are of God, who hath
reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us
the ministry of reconciliation." Now, think about what Jesus is
saying here. He saw the multitudes, and He
was moved with compassion. Notice what Paul says. Here's
one of the laborers who was sent into the field. He says, that
all things are of God. He has reconciled us to Himself
by Jesus Christ. It was His work. He laid aside
His wrath, burying the sword of His justice in His Son, and
has given to us this ministry." What ministry? The ministry of
reconciliation. Which is this, that God was in
Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not just the Jews,
but all throughout the world, out of every kindred, tongue,
nation, and tribe, to himself, not imputing their trespasses
unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors.
for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you
in Christ's stead." He's not here, remember? He just said
that. We don't know Christ after the flesh anymore. So here we
are, praying you in Christ's place. be ye reconciled to God. And what does he say? Verse 21. What is the message that we bring?
For He, God, hath made Him, Christ, to be sin for us. Christ, who
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him." That's the reason God made Him sin for us. In order
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. That's the ministry.
That's the labor. And the compassion that moved
Christ was to lay His life down for His sheep. And He gives that
ministry to His disciples. as laborers in His field to bring
the word of reconciliation to them. And that's why it says
here, He was moved with compassion. Can you think about this? Doesn't
it just make The spring of tears bubble up from their slumber
as the convulsions of emotion overflow your heart when you
think that Christ is moved with compassion on you, because he
sees you as his sheep lost because of your sin, gone your own way,
and under the wrath of God, and under the delusion of all false
teaching, and the devil himself, and he sends his word by his
servants to save you. Do you see his heart of compassion?
He's moved with compassion. He wasn't just talking about
salvation, he was moved to action. Because of his compassion to
come and make and become sin as the surety for his people.
To take their obligations, to stand before the governor as
Judah before Joseph and say to him, my father loves him. And he sent me. Take me instead
of him. I became surety for him. He pleads
his father's love, his own suretyship, and his own self as a substitute
for his brother Benjamin before Joseph. And so Christ pleads
for his people. He's moved with compassion. And
he sees his people. He sees them in verse 36. They're
faint. They have nothing to eat, nothing
to drink, they're not given grass, they're not made to rest, but
they're always running. lean, they're scattered, they're
lost. And sheep are helpless to find
their way home. They have no ability to show
a fond attachment to their master. The master, the shepherd, has
to constantly be watching over them. And when they run into
danger, they simply submit to their captor. They're victims. They're taken at His will. That's
the way sheep are. They have to have a shepherd.
And so He sees them. They're scattered. They're faint.
And they're, as sheep, having no shepherd. And so He said this
to His disciples. This is the third point. He saw
them. He's moved with compassion. And so He says to His disciples,
the harvest truly is plenteous. But the laborers are few." He's
not talking about wheat. He's talking about people. And
he's talking about bringing these people as his treasured harvest. That for which he labored. That
for which he sent laborers. He hired them. He didn't hire
them with money. He hired them by buying them
himself and putting his gospel in them. And he said to his disciples,
the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. And
then he tells us, he instructs us what to do. He tells his disciples,
this you should do. Pray ye, therefore, the Lord
of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his
harvest. And who are the laborers? Those
are the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, and those are those
who he would designate and choose and appoint to bring the message
of his gospel throughout the world, throughout time. You see,
the gospel of Christ is preached from the time that the Lord poured
out His Spirit on the day of Pentecost until the end of the
world. That's called the Gospel Age.
In the Old Testament, there were three feasts that God required
all Israelites to come to. The first one was the Feast of
Unleavened Bread. That was the Passover. All of
Israel had to be at the Passover. What is the Passover? Christ
pouring out His own blood and sprinkling it on the house so
that all who are in Christ would be passed over by the judgment
of God. When God saw His blood for them,
He would pass over them. All Israel had to attend to that
feast. The second feast was the Feast
of Weeks, or the Feast of First Fruits, the Feast of Pentecost,
where the Spirit of God was poured out, and the Gospel went out.
The apostles stood up to preach, and they spoke the Gospel in
the mother tongue of all who heard them, who were gathered
from all nations. They heard with their own ears
in their own native language as they could understand it in
the depths of their heart. The Spirit of God wrote it on
their heart. 3,000 in one sermon and then
5,000 in another sermon converted who heard that gospel preached.
That was the Feast of First Fruits. And then there's another feast
called the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year. And all
of Israel had to attend all these three feasts. Now, the Lord Jesus
Christ sends his laborers into his harvest. And they go throughout
time, from the time of the first fruits being gathered until the
end of time, the gospel goes out. And they preach it. Christ
sent his laborers. Who are these laborers? The Apostle
Paul is an exemplary example of who they were. Peter, James. Who wrote the New Testament?
Matthew, Mark, Luke, a Gentile. And then he wrote Acts, and Paul,
and Jude. And all these men were used by
God to write the Scriptures. These were the laborers. They
were the ones Christ loved. The ones He chose. The ones He... had following Him. They saw Him
in His life. They saw Him in His preaching.
They heard His teaching. They saw His compassion. They
saw Him healing all the people going around, spending time with
sinners. They saw this. They saw His desire
for sinners to be gathered. And they saw His labor Even in
the face of opposition, they saw that He was persecuted, and
falsely accused, taken, beaten, spit upon, suffered, whipped,
killed, and they saw Him raised again the third day, and then
they saw Him ascend into heaven on the clouds. They saw this!
These men, these sinners, and He sends these sinners among
sinners, dying men to dying men. He sends them to them, pleading
with them, be ye reconciled to God. They knew the Lord Jesus
Christ. Why did God send these men? Why
does He send these laborers like this? Why doesn't He just send
His own voice from heaven? Because of His compassion. You see it? It pleased God. When the world by wisdom did
not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe. He sends men who are just like
us, with the same faults and the same sins, who are guilty,
just like us, subject to the same things, just like Paul said
in Romans chapter 7. And he says, the good that I
would, I do not. And we see that there's hope
for sinners. Hope for sinners. And we're amazed
that God would take these men and choose them and love them
and then send the ones, the very ones He so loved into the world
to be vilified and beaten and suffered and die for His own
sake in order to gather His sheep. These men that would give up
everything, their lives, and their comforts, and their homes,
and their families, and everything in their life. They gave it up
in order to bring God's gospel to His people and save their
sheep. Look at 1 Samuel chapter 12. I see this in Samuel. You
see this in all the prophets. But I see it here in Samuel.
Samuel was an amazing prophet. He's named as one of the great
prophets in the Old Testament. Remember, his mother Hannah prayed
for a son. She couldn't have children, and
she promised the Lord she would give her son to the Lord, and
Samuel was that son. He was brought to the temple
when he was perhaps a couple of years old, given to God all
of his life. And the children of Israel saw
all the nations around them, and they were afraid, and so
they asked that God would give them a king. And Samuel reasons
with the people. He says in Samuel chapter 12,
he says, and he said, let's see, I was
gonna read from verse Well, I'll tell you, I'll just
give it to you in synopsis, because you should read this chapter.
Samuel is basically reasoning with the children of Israel here.
He reminds them that God raised up Moses. He reminds them how
God delivered them from Egypt. He reminds them how God sent
judges, and delivered them from their enemies, and sent Himself.
And then he reminds them how the people were not satisfied
to have God as their king, the Lord Jesus Christ. But they desired
a king like all the nations. And so God gave them Saul. And
he tells them about how bad this was. And so Samuel says in chapter
12, verse 20 of 1 Samuel. He says, And Samuel said unto
the people, Fear ye not, because the people realized that they
had sinned. realize the same thing. Here's a man, himself,
subject to like passions, just like the people. They're not
talking with God here. God isn't speaking directly to
the people. He's speaking to the people through
His prophet. And the prophet isn't just telling
them things. He's reasoning with them. They're
talking to Him. He's talking to them. And He
says in verse 20, after they said, "...we have sinned..."
And I'll read this to you. In verse 19, And all the people
said to Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God,
that we die not, for we have added unto all our sins this
evil, to ask us a king. And Samuel said unto the people,
Fear not, you have done all this wickedness, yet turn not aside
from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your
heart. And turn ye not aside, for then
should ye go after vain things, which cannot profit nor deliver,
for they are vain." He's talking about these idols. And then in
verse 22, look at this. Tender arguments and pleadings
by God's laborer with his sheep, his harvest. He says, will not
forsake his people for his great name's sake. Why? For his great
name's sake. Because it has pleased the Lord
to make you his people. That's why he won't forsake you.
It pleased the Lord to make you his people, and he will not turn
aside for his great name's sake. Moreover, Samuel says, as for
me, As for me, a laborer in Christ's harvest, God forbid that I should
sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you. But I will teach
you the good and the right way. Only fear the Lord and serve
Him in truth with all your heart, for consider how great things
He hath done for you." Do you see the plain message here of
the gospel? Here is the laborer pleading
with God's people. Barnabas did this. He comes along
after the people of God heard the gospel and believed, and
he exhorts them, "...with all your heart, cleave unto the Lord."
And Paul pleads with the Corinthians over and over again. He says,
necessity is laid upon me if I preach not the gospel. Woe
is unto me if I preach not the gospel. And Samuel does the same
thing. God forbid that I should sin
and not pray for you. This is what God's laborers do
in his harvest. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter
6. Christ took men, He chose them, set His love upon them,
gave them His word, sent them to labor in the field of those
He loved and would save and would surely bring to Himself. And
then we see Paul as one of those pleading for his people to be
reconciled. He says in 2 Corinthians 6, Verse 3, giving no offense in
anything that the ministry be not blamed, but in all things
approving ourselves as the ministers of God in much patience, in afflictions,
in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments,
in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings, by pureness, by
knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost,
by love unmixed, unfeigned. by the word of truth, by the
power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand
and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and
good report, as deceivers, yet true, as unknown, yet well known,
as dying, and behold, we live, as chastened and not killed,
as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, as poor, yet making many rich,
as having nothing, and yet possessing all things." This is the labor
of God's people. Christ put it in their hearts.
Their lives were turned so that all of their life was focused
as the laborers. Paul tells Timothy, he says,
the husbandman, the farmer, must first be a partaker of the fruit.
The soldier can't give himself in service to his master and
also be concerned about the affairs of this life. And the athlete
must give himself entirely up to his discipline in order to
obtain the prize. God puts it on the hearts of
these men like Samuel and Paul. He constrains them. He compels
them. He tells his laborers, go into
the highways and the byways and compel them to come in. These
laborers have the same, they see what Christ sees. They are
moved like Christ was moved with compassion. And like Noah is
moved. It says, by faith, Noah being
moved with fear prepared an ark. That's what these men do. They
come with the gospel for the salvation of God's people. Christ
sends them throughout the world. Not in His own flesh, but by
His Spirit coming with them, preaching the gospel to His people.
Can you see the compassion here? Can you see the treasure God
has given us through the labors of these men? He tells those
in John chapter 4, around verse 34 to 36, He tells those after
He had been speaking to the woman at the well, He says, She goes
back and she leaves the master, having heard what he said, and
he told her, I am the Christ. And she returns to her city and
says to everyone in the city, come, see a man who's told me
all things that ever I did. And the Lord Jesus, with His
disciples, as He's in the city doing this, He says, they say,
Master, eat. And He says, I have meat to eat
that you do not know about. My meat is to do the will of
Him that sent me and to finish His work. And then He says, the
harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Look at
this in John chapter 4, because I'm not quoting it exactly. He
says, in John chapter 4, verse about 35, He says, "...say not ye there are yet
four months, and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say unto you,
lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, for they are white
already to harvest." The first fruits, the feast of first fruits
was just about upon them. But Christ said in John 12, 32,
"...if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me." And then
he says in verse 36 here, And he that reapeth receiveth wages,
and gathereth fruit unto life eternal, that both he that soweth
and he that reapeth may rejoice together. Herein is that saying
true. One soweth, another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon
you bestowed no labor. Other men labored, and you are
entered into their labors. Think about Samuel laboring.
Think about the men in Hebrews 11 and the women. who labored. Some were tortured. Some were
tempted. Some were sawn asunder. Some
were killed with the edge of the sword. But all of them, God
says, were those of whom the world was not worthy. And Christ
sends these, those He chose and loves, of whom the world is not
worthy, who lay down and hazard their lives for the gospel's
sake. He sends those to us to preach the gospel. And they tell
those that they're sent to, look to Christ. He was made sin. God made Him sin for us that
we might be made the righteousness of God. Be ye reconciled to God. This is the message. And the
harvest is gathered in. And they're planted. And then
they're grown up in the same gospel. We look at Him in the
glory of His accomplishments in the gospel and we're changed
into that same image. Can you see here the compassion
of Christ? Can you see what He's done? Can
you see that He didn't just happened to save his people, but he saved
them on purpose. And can you see that he laid
down his own life and the lives of his... Who would go and preach
a gospel that wasn't true at the expense of their own life?
Who would make claims and then suffer boiling in oil and being
crucified on the cross and all these things that the disciples
suffered? if the message weren't true. God put it in their hearts. The love of Christ constrained
them. The love of Christ. And they couldn't go anywhere
else. Lord, you have the words of eternal life. Where else will
we go? They had to preach the gospel because they loved the
Lord, the master, the harvest, the farmer, the expert farmer
who doesn't fail in any of his plantings. And they loved his
people. And the people to whom he sent
them loved them. What does it say in Isaiah? He
says, how beautiful are the feet of them which preach the gospel.
How beautiful are their very feet. It is a blessed thing,
isn't it, that God would so choose and raise up His servants, invest
Himself in them, in all their foibles, and give Himself to
them so that they might bring His gospel to His people and
have His sheep. What a blessing. Let's pray.