Well, good morning. Care to open
your Bibles to Matthew chapter nine, where our lesson will be
from this morning, Lord, when we'll finish up Matthew chapter
nine this morning. Before we begin, let's bow together
in prayer. Our father, which art in heaven,
holy and reverend is your matchless name. Father, we thank you that
you've given us another opportunity to meet together with your people.
and to worship you, to have your word open and to read and study
your word, hear your gospel preached, to come before you as a congregation
in prayer at Thanksgiving. Father, I pray that you would
bless our service this morning, that you would send your spirit
upon us and enable us to worship you in spirit and in truth. Father,
enable us to set aside the thoughts and cares and responsibilities
of this life for just this short time enable us to set our affection
on things above, to learn more of Christ our Savior, that we
might believe him, trust him, rest in him even more fully. Father, I pray a special blessing
on our children's classes that you'd bless the teachers and
that you bless our children. Bless this time, Father, cause
the seeds of faith to be planted in the hearts of our children.
Father, we pray for our brother Eric as he's away preaching at
College Grove. We pray that you'd bless him
in preaching and give them traveling mercies as they come back home.
For your people, Father, who are in time of trouble, we pray
for them. We dare not sin against thee, forgetting to pray for
our brothers and our sisters who are in time of great trouble,
deep waters. Father, we pray you'd be with
them, that you'd give them a fulfillment of your promise, that you'd not
leave nor forsake your people, that you deliver them in your
time. All these things we ask and we
give thanks in that name, which is above every name, the name
of Christ our Savior. Amen. All right, Matthew chapter
nine, our text begins in verse 35. And Jesus went about all the
cities and villages teaching in their synagogues and preaching
the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every
disease among the people. But when he saw the multitudes,
he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted
and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. Then
saith 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. I've titled the lesson this morning,
Laborers in God's Harvest. The Lord here is talking about
sending laborers into his harvest. And the harvest he's talking
about is the gathering of God's elect out of this world, gathering
them to Christ, just like farmers go out in their field and harvest
their crops, bring them in. This harvest is the harvest of
God's elect to Christ. Now, if there's going to be a
harvest, first thing that must happen is God's got to send out
preachers to sow, doesn't he? The preaching of the word is
sowing the seed and the seed's got to be sown on good ground. The Lord's the one. He's got
to send out the preachers to sow the seed of the word of God.
He's got to prepare the hearts of his people to make them, their
hearts good, good ground. The seed could be planted in
and grow to faith in Christ. But here's the problem. No man
is able to speak for Christ. It's like none of us are able
to believe the gospel by nature. We can't believe the gospel,
much less preach it. So with the Lord's, the one who has to
enable us to preach the gospel and to believe it. And, you know,
that could be why the Lord healed this demon possessed man. Remember
the right right before this, when he starts going about preaching,
he talks to his disciples about the harvest. The thing he did
right before that was he healed that demon possessed man. Remember,
he couldn't speak. He's completely unable to speak.
And the Lord loosed his tongue. The Lord cast that demon out
and enabled that man to speak. I'm convinced that is closely
tied to the Lord telling his disciples, pray the Lord of the
harvest. They send out laborers into the
harvest. He did that to show us the Lord's
got to enable us to preach before we can preach. Not only does
the Lord has to give us the message, he's got to give us the ability
to speak it. And before the Lord sent the disciples out to preach,
he gave this example, allowing that man who couldn't speak,
enabling him to speak. And he himself set the example
of what a preacher is. What is it that a preacher, a
harvester looks like? Well, the Lord gave us the example
of it. He showed us how this harvesting is to be done. Our
Lord is the prince of preachers. I always cringe when they call
Charles Spurgeon the prince of preachers. I bet he wasn't like
that either. Our Lord is the prince of preachers. He's the
preacher and he's the message. He's the teacher and he's the
lesson. And he shows us how this harvesting is to be done. So
I want to give you four lessons here that the Lord teaches us
about laborers in his harvest. And these four lessons apply
to every believer. These four lessons don't just
apply to preachers. They apply to every believer. This ministry
here at Hurricane Road, this is not my ministry. It's our
ministry. The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians
4 verse 1 said this, Therefore seeing we have received this
ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not. See, this
is our ministry. So these four lessons apply to
all of us. All of us have an important role
in the harvest of God's elect. We're all laborers together in
this harvest. And the first lesson is this.
The Lord gives us the message that we're to preach as his laborers.
Verse 35, and when Jesus went about all the cities and villages,
teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the
kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.
God's laborers are to preach the gospel. If God called us
to preach, given us that responsibility, then we're to preach. But every
believer is to do everything within our power to help support
the gospel and help spread it because we're all laborers together.
Whatever function that God's given us in this ministry, we're
to do it with everything we've got. The gospel, now we're to
preach the gospel and it's a specific gospel. It's not just, you know,
there are many different gospels. There are the apostle Paul called
another gospel. So there's a specific gospel
we're to preach. It's the gospel of the kingdom.
That's what the Savior preached, the gospel of the kingdom. And
the gospel of the kingdom is the gospel, the message that
declares Christ the King. It tells us who Christ the King
is. It's all about Christ the King. Now there's obviously a
kingdom. He's preaching the gospel of
the kingdom. Well, if you're going to have a kingdom, you
got to have a king. The gospel of the kingdom declares Christ
the King. The Lord Jesus Christ, He is
the savior of sinners, isn't he? He's the friend of sinners. Scripture calls him the helper,
the healer, the shepherd. All those things have such a,
such a kind, compassionate, caring connotation, meaning, don't they?
But let's never forget this. First, Christ is king. First
and foremost, he is king and his subjects bow to him in willing
submission. The gospel of the kingdom declares
Christ who is the sovereign savior. He saves whom he will, when he
will. And he passes by whom he will
because he's sovereign. He does as he will and nobody
can question him. Christ the king does not owe
it to us to have a chance to be saved. He doesn't owe us that
at all. The king shows mercy on whom
he will show mercy. That's what God says. The way
he described himself to Moses, God shows mercy on whom he will
show mercy. And the natural man is going
to rise up and say, that's not fair. That's not fair. Well, let me ask you this. If
you think that's not fair, let me ask you this question. Do
you want God just to give you what you deserve then? We don't
do it. No, the gospel of the kingdom
is Good news for sinners and it ought to be preached as good
news. There's mercy to be found with
Christ the King. The gospel of the kingdom is
good news to sinners because this gospel, the gospel of the
kingdom, the gospel of Christ, the sovereign savior is the only
gospel that can save a sinner. The gospel of Christ doesn't
declare a savior who tried to save somebody and couldn't. That's
not the gospel of the kingdom. A Savior who tried to save people
but can't is no Savior at all. I can obviously see why nobody
would want to trust that Savior. The gospel of the kingdom declares
Christ the Savior who came and he saved his people from their
sin. He didn't try to do it, he did
it. He's the successful Savior. The gospel of the kingdom tells
us it's all in Christ. It is all in Christ. But what
is that it? It's everything spiritual. Whatever
it is you can think of spiritually, it's all Christ. The gospel of
the kingdom doesn't tell us a whole list of things that we've got
to do in order to be righteous. The gospel of the kingdom declares
Christ our righteousness. Righteousness has already been
established in him. Now you bow to him. The apostle
Paul called it submitting ourselves unto the righteousness of Christ.
It's bowing to the righteousness of Christ the king. The gospel
of the kingdom doesn't only point out all of our sin sicknesses
like the law does. That's as far as the law can
go. All it can do is point out our sin, our sicknesses, our
failures, our weaknesses. The gospel of the kingdom declares
there's healing. Now the gospel of the kingdom
does tell us we're sinners. The gospel of the kingdom declares
our sin, our sickness, our inability, but it goes further than law
does. It declares healing. for every sin sickness in the
blood of Christ the King. That's why the Savior could heal
every sickness and every disease among the people. This gospel
is for people from all kinds of people from everywhere. It
fits the need of everybody. This gospel declares Christ whose
blood heals us from every sin sickness. The gospel of the kingdom
does not tell you you've got to be good enough in order to
be saved. You don't have to be able to jump through a bunch
of hoops in order to be saved. The gospel of the kingdom declares
salvation has already been accomplished. It's done. The king said it is
finished. Now you bow to him and you trust
him. And I'll tell you how you bow to Christ the king. It's
not trying to add anything to his work. He said it's finished.
Now you submit and don't try to add any of your own sinful
works to his perfect work. You just trust him. And there's
salvation in it. Now that is good news for sinners. And the gospel of the kingdom
declares this. It declares a kingdom that's at peace. There is peace
with God through the blood of Christ the king. And there's
never going to be any threat to this kingdom. This kingdom
is never going to be under any threat of being overthrown because
of who the king is. Now you come and you rest. You have peace in Christ. That's
the message of the kingdom, the gospel of the kingdom. And that's
the message, the message, the only message that God's given
us to preach in this harvest. All right, number two, God's
laborers are to preach and go about this harvest in compassion,
love for the lost. Verse 36 says, but when he saw
the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them. Compassion. Now, the message that we preach
is the gospel of the kingdom. It's the gospel of Christ, the
king. We preach the message that declares
this truth, God's offer. God saves whom he will. And I
can tell you who they are. The father in eternity before
the creation of the world elected a people under salvation. He
chose those people to save. They didn't do anything to deserve
to be saved. He didn't look down through the telescope of time
and see that they would do something that would move him. They didn't
do something good enough that would move him to choose them.
He didn't look down and say, well, you know, they're going
to be better than the rest of Adam's fallen race because that's
not so. God simply chose to save those
people in spite of who they are and what they would do. And God
has the crown rights to do that, he's king. He got the crown rights
to save whom he will and pass by whom he will, because he's
king overall. Then Christ the son came incarnate. He came to suffer and die for
the sins of the elect and only for the elect. He didn't die
for every son of Adam, he died only for those that the father
had given him to save. And everyone, without exception,
Everyone for whom Christ died is saved. They're saved from
their sin because of who died for them. The king died for them.
His death has the power to save because he's king. He's the perfect
righteous king. And the Holy Spirit comes and
he gives life and faith to God's elect and only to God's elect. He's not trying to get as many
people as possible to get saved. He's not begging anybody to accept
Jesus as their personal savior. Not at all. The Holy Spirit comes
in power to God's elect, and he gives life to the dead. He
gives faith to the dead, and they believe Christ. Those are
the only people who will hear the gospel and believe it. They're
the only ones, the elect, and that's who the Spirit comes and
gives life and faith to, and they're saved. And God's laborers,
are on the trail of God's sheep. We're preaching to God's sheep
because they are the only ones who will believe it. Now that
is the gospel I unapologetically believe in preach. When we preach
the gospel of the kingdom, we're declaring God's terms of surrender.
We're declaring God's terms of peace and they're not up for
negotiation. But that does not mean that I don't care whether
you believe the gospel or not. God's laborers are not to preach
the gospel and say, this is the truth and I don't care who believes
it and who doesn't. No, not at all. I care. I care. I do my best when I preach to
compel you. You come to Christ. You believe
Christ. If we set forth his glory, how
can you not come to him? How can you not believe him?
I pray every day. that God will give those who
hear me preach faith to believe Christ. I know I can't do it.
I pray that God will do it. I care. I care a great deal whether
you believe Christ or not, because I love you. I want the best for
you. And it is impossible to preach
Christ unless you love me. It's impossible to preach the
gospel and be a success at it unless you love sinners. We ought
to love sinners, shouldn't we? We're one of them. We sure should
love them. I remember when I've told this
story before, but it's a good one. I remember brother Tom Harding
accepted the pastorate at Pikeville. He was getting ready to move
to Pikeville, Kentucky to be the pastor there. And I was talking
to brother Henry about it. And I just, I just thought, I
mean, I think so much of Tom Harding. He's such a student
of the scriptures. He's so passionate about preaching
the gospel and study so knowledgeable. I told him, I just I think he's
going to be so successful, you know, for all these reasons.
And Henry said, well, that's true. That's true. He said, I can tell
you why Tom Hardy is going to be successful in Bible. He loves
people. Henry said you can't preach the
gospel without loving people. That's what the Lord showed us
here. He had compassion. He had love and care for the
people who listened to him preach. He even had compassion, if that's
the right word. I mean, if God loves anybody,
they're saved. He had a compassion, a caring
on those who heard him preach and refused to believe him. He
cared about them. Turn to Matthew chapter 23. The
Lord wept over people who refused to believe on him. In Matthew
chapter 23, the Lord, talking to the scribes and Pharisees,
And he just lights them up. I mean, he lights them up. He
just lays them out for everybody to see what they really are.
And in verse 33, this is what he says about them. It's how
he sums up what he's saying about them. You're serpents. You're
a generation of vipers. How can you escape the damnation
of hell? The damnation of hell is exactly
what you deserve because you refuse to believe. But you know,
their refusal to believe broke the Lord's heart. Look at verse
37. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets
and stonest them which are sent unto thee. I mean, not only did
they refuse to believe the prophets, they put them to death. How often
would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathered
her chickens under her wings, and you would not. Behold, your
house is left unto you desolate, for I say unto you, you should
not see me henceforth. To you shall say, blessed is
he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Behold, your house
is left desolate. That's exactly what you deserve
for your refusal to believe the gospel. Yet it broke the Lord's
heart. They're going to receive justice,
but it broke the Lord's heart. He had, he cared about people. And the Lord set the example
here for us who are laborers in his harvest to preach with
compassion and caring for people. It's just impossible to preach
the gospel to sinners unless God gives you a heart to love
sinners. It's impossible to preach the
gospel without love, period. Without love for sinners and
without love for Christ. And that brings me to the third
thing. Laborers in God's harvest feed God's sheep. Verse 36 says,
when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on
them because they fainted and were scattered abroad. as sheep
having no shepherd. Now the Lord had compassion on
people. They had fainted. They were so
weak. They stumbled and they fell and they just sat right
where they fell. They were too tired to get up.
They didn't have the strength to get up and go on. And even
if they did have the strength to get up and go on, they didn't
know where to go. They're lost. They fainted. They
couldn't go on. They were lost. They didn't even
know where they should go in the first place. And the Lord saw them and he
knew what they needed. They needed a shepherd. They
needed a shepherd to feed them and strengthen them. They needed
a shepherd to lead them where they ought to go to the green
pastures and the still waters. And the only way a man can do
that for weak, faint sheep is if he loves us. I can show you
that in John chapter 21. John chapter 21. You know the story here, our
Lord's been crucified, resurrected, appeared to the
disciples, but before he appeared to them, Peter, he went fishing.
Remember he said, I'm quitting the ministry, I'm going fishing.
Before they crucified the Lord three times, Peter denied he
even knew the Lord. And look how the Lord doubted.
Would you say that's a sheep? Peter's one of the sheep, isn't
he? Would you say that's a sheep that fainted? He just too faint
to go on. Would you say he stumbled and
fell? Well, look how the Lord dealt with him. John 21, verse
15. So when they had died, Jesus
saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me
more than these? Do you love me more than these
boats and these nets and these fish, this occupation of fishing? Lovest thou me more than these?
He saith unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.
Everybody else might not know it from seeing how I acted, but
Lord, you know, I love you. He saith unto him, feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second
time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, yea,
Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, feed
my sheep. He saith unto him the third time,
Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because
he said unto him the third time. He remembered last time he repeated
something three times. He remembered that. But the Lord
gave him the opportunity three times to say, yea Lord, you know
I love you. So Peter was grieved because
he said unto him the third time, lovest thou me? And he said unto
him, Lord, thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, feed my
sheep. The Lord made it crystal clear
here and how he deals with Peter that the issue is loving Christ. That's the issue. Peter, do you
love me? Do you love me? Do you love Christ? Well, if you do, then feed my
lambs, feed my sheep. See, it's impossible to preach
the gospel unless the Lord gives us a heart that loves Christ.
How can we love? How can we preach him if we don't
love him? We can't preach the gospel without loving Christ.
and we can't preach and take care of God's sheep unless we
love Christ. And it takes love. Now, the greatest
motivator for us to do anything is love. The best example I could
think of is you mothers. I mean, what motivates a mother
to do all the things that you do, especially for those little
ones? I mean, they're sick, they're whatever, they're snotty running
noses, they're messy diapers, messes they get into. What motivates
you to do that, to go to all these different activities? What
motive? It's love. It's love. Well, God's
sheep, they're God's little children, and they need constant feeding. They need constant guidance.
They need constant protection. Somebody's got to watch out for
the wolves that come slinking around and beat them off when
they come. Somebody's got to just take that shepherd's rod
and get rid of them, you know. We have to meet twice on Sundays
and again on Wednesdays because we need constant feeding. We
need constant instruction. We don't meet together to be
entertained. We don't meet together to have our socializing needs
met. We meet to be fed the word of God. We need to be instructed
from the word of God. We need to have our hearts comforted
through the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom and God's
laborers are to feed the sheep. We're to feed the sheep. We're
not supposed to beat them when they act like dumb sheep. We're
not supposed to take the rod of the law and beat them when
they act like dumb sheep. We're not to try to get the sheep
to straighten up and fly right. We're to feed them with the gospel.
God will take care of His sheep. Our responsibility is to feed
them, to feed them with compassion. And we're laborers in God's harvest.
We're to harvest God's wheat. Don't go pulling up tares and
throwing them into the fire. Because our Lord told us what
will happen if we do that. You know what will happen if
we try to do that? We're going to pull up some wheat and throw
the wheat out too. Because tares and wheat, they
grow right together and look a lot alike until they're ready
for harvest. Just take care of what God's
given you to do to preach the gospel of the kingdom. Take care
of God's sheep. We're to plant and we're to water
the field. where God put us. God takes his
people and puts them in the field where he would have them labor.
Then let's labor there as plant and water where God has put us
and do nothing more and nothing less. And the ministry, the Lord
says here, laborers, he sends laborers into his harvest. The
ministry is hard work. You've got to be a laborer. And
that applies to both preaching and supporting the ministry.
And it's hard work, but we better do it. Because Christ the King
has put us there in his field to be laborers in his harvest.
And nothing will motivate us to the hard work of labor like
love. Love for Christ and love for
his people. And I pray that we'll do that. The Lord will give us
a heart to do that happily and joyfully together, even though
it's hard. Because listen, there's still a harvest out there. Verse
37. Then saith he unto his disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous,
but the laborers are few. Now the Lord said this 2000 years
ago. Well, all right. 2000 years ago,
there's still a large harvest. There's a lot of God's sheep
still yet to be born. How do I know that even right
now today in 2020, there's still a harvest, a large harvest? How
do I know that? Because the gospel is being preached.
The gospels, this is still the day the gospel is being preached.
And that's how the seed is sown. That's how this harvest is brought
in through the preaching of the gospel. There's still got to
be a harvest out there because God's still sending laborers
into the field. The gospel is still being preached. But it's
impossible to do this without love for the sheep and love for
Christ. And here's the fourth lesson
on these laborers. God's laborers pray. He says
in verse 38, pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that
he will send forth laborers into his harvest. Now you and I can't
do anything as God's laborers. We can't do anything on our own,
can we? So laborers spend a lot of time
in prayer. I want to give you three matters of prayer and there's,
you know, we're to pray about all things, everything at all
times. I want to give you three matters of prayer concerning
laborers in God's harvest. And the first one is this. Pray
that the Lord send some laborers. It's always a good thing to do
to pray that the Lord would raise up some preachers and he'd send
them out to preach. How shall they be? How shall
they preach except they be sent? I do. I pray that the Lord would
raise up some more young men to preach. If I see the Lord
raising up young men to preach, you know that tells me God's
not done saving sinners yet. There's still a harvest out there.
So that's a good thing. for us to pray for. But remember,
laborers just aren't preachers. Let's also pray the Lord raise
up congregations that believe the gospel and hear it and support
it. Because both the preacher and the congregation are laborers
together. And the best example I could
think of is our brother Kevin Thacker. He just moved his family
as far as you can move them and stay in the United States of
America. He moved from New Jersey to California. Who wants to live
in either place? Kevin. He went where God sent
him, didn't he? He moved his family to be sent
to San Diego. They called him to be the pastor.
He's going to be the pastor there. Now that is a huge population
center. Could be. Could be. There's a
large harvest of souls there. How many of them ever there are
in that area? Not one of them is going to be
missed. I can promise you that. But could be. There's a large harvest
there. Could be. But that harvest is going to
take both pastor and congregation. It's going to take both. It's
going to take the preaching of the gospel and support of it
and the witness of it. It's going to take the work that
God has given both of them to do in God's harvest. So pray
that the Lord sends some laborers into his harvest. Number two,
pray that the Lord would bless His Word as it's preached. This
is the means God uses in this harvest, to plant and to water
and to get the harvest. It's the preaching of the Word.
And this is a matter of prayer. The Apostle Paul said, one plants
and other waters, but God's the one who gives the increase. Well,
if God's the one who gives the increase, we need to be praying
and asking Him to give an increase, shouldn't we? See, we meet here
in vain unless the Lord blesses us. pray and ask the Lord to
bless his word. Now, I know that I know the Lord
is going to save his people. I know you just like I said a
minute ago. How many of the Lord's sheep out there in California?
Not one is going to be missed. Not one. I know that. I know
God's going to save his people. I know the Lord's going to bless
his people. I know he is. I know that because he promised.
I mean, I just don't have any doubt in this world because that's
what he promised he would do. So I know that's going to happen.
But we're still instructed to pray, aren't we? And ask the
Lord to save his people. We're still instructed to pray
and ask the Lord, Lord, bless your people, honor your word,
bless your word. That's a prayer of the whole
answer. Lord, bless your word. And here's the third thing in
this matter of prayer for laborers in God's harvest. Pray for God's
preachers. And I tell you this often, I
covet your prayers every day as often As I come to your mind,
I wish you'd pray for me. Because who's sufficient for
these things? No one. Not one. Well, then pray. Pray that the Lord would give
your pastor a message for you. Pray that the Lord would give
a message that would save you, that would instruct you. Pray
that the Lord would send a message to you that would draw you closer
to Christ. Are you troubled? Are you troubled? Is your life troubling you? Is
things going on troubling you? Do you know a really good thing
to do? Pray to the Lord, give the preacher
a message of comfort. From God's heart to yours. Pray
to the Lord. I tell you what, the Lord answers
prayers like that. The Lord answers prayers like
that. I can tell you how often I'm sitting
in my study and it's in the afternoon, and I feel like I haven't got
one blessed thing done all day. I've been in the study. I've
been doing what I always do. I feel like I've not got one
blessed thing done. I don't see, I'm reading the
scripture, I see nothing there. And suddenly, the scripture opens
up. It's like this great big flashing
neon sign, and I see the message. And I always think, somebody's
praying. Somebody's praying for me. I'm so thankful. The Lord
answers prayers like that. Then let's be laborers together.
That's why I want us to be laborers together and pray often. Good being, Lord bless us. I hope the Lord will bless that
too.