Four times, at least, on different occasions, we read that our Lord was "moved with compassion." One of these instances is the background of His third lesson on Prayer. (Matt. 9:35-38.)

      It was when He looked over the great throng that had followed Him from place to place (Matt. 4:25) that His soul was filled with a great compassion for them. "The heart knoweth its own bitterness," says the wise man of old. But here was One who knew the bitterness of each and all, and how they were "distressed and scattered as sheep not having a shepherd." The piteous multitude cried to Him with a mute appeal. They were lost, aimless, hopeless, as no less are the sinful masses of today. Yet there was a possibility for them. To His eyes the multitude appeared as a great harvest-field, which could and should be reaped for God. (Comp. John 4:35.) It was God's harvest field; and the gathered sheaves would be His.

      Now here comes the astounding thing: these disciples were to pray and ask Him to whom the harvest belonged, to send forth laborers into His harvest! "The harvest truly is plenteous but the laborers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he send forth laborers into his harvest." Who ever heard of such a thing? Does the farmer whose fields of ripened grain are ready for the cutting, need to have somebody petition him to send men to reap his harvest? Is he not of himself ready and eager to see to it? Does he have to be urged by his friends and neighbors to gather in his grain? Certainly not. But here we learn something of God's ways, and the mystery of prayer. To the man of the world, the "natural man" of 1 Cor. 2:14, it does not make sense. They may have heard that "God so loved the world," and that He "would have all men to be saved," and that He is "not willing that any should perish." Would it not follow then that He would do all that can be done to save them? Why then pray for anything like that? Thus, for example, James M. Barrie, in his story of "The Little Minister"--when the little minister prayed for a poor, sick woman--remarks that God didn't need little ministers to tell Him what to do for a poor woman. But Barrie was wrong: God does need to be asked and requested for the needed help. It is the thing that many do not understand. "If you ask for something that is not according to God's will," they say, "you may pray for ever, and you won't get it; and if anything is His will He will go ahead and do it anyhow, and you don't need to beg Him to do it." Thus reasons man. But the word of God shows that there are things--many things--that God would do, and can do, in answer to prayer, which He could not righteously and wisely do otherwise. In other words, that prayer really effects something. [22] The Father in heaven has ordained that it be so. He will not work independently of us--He must have our co-operation--at least to this extent that we shall make our appeal to Him, pray, beseech, intercede, ask, and "make our request known unto God." (Phil. 4:6.) "But does He not know anyway?"--a puzzled one may object. Yes: we have already learned in a former lesson that "your Father knoweth what things you have need of before you ask him" (Matt. 6:8). Nevertheless we must ask. Our prayer is an essential link. "Ask and it shall be given unto you . . . and everyone that asketh receiveth." It is also true that God's response may exceed our asking, and that He is able to do for His praying child exceeding abundantly above all he may ask or think. (Eph. 3:20.)

      This truly opens up a wide field of privilege--and responsibility. For if it is thus with prayer, and if we fail to pray--do we not hinder God in the good that He would do, and hold back the blessing which not only we, but our friends, neighbors, our nation and country, yea, and the nations of the whole world need and should and could have? (1 Tim. 2:14.)

      But now let us get back to our lesson. Here then is God's great harvest-field. But how few are the laborers! Everywhere, from every mission-field, comes the same lament: how great is the opportunity, how great is the need, how few the helpers and workers! What should we do in view of this heart-breaking situation? God says, Pray. That is first, and must come first. We are apt to overlook that first thing. When by some inspiring missionary-talk or by some stirring report from foreign fields the zeal for missions springs up in our hearts, probably the first thing we think of is to send money. That seems like doing something--and really it is important in its place. Then perhaps we look around for someone who will go--or we hear of one who is minded to go, and we want to get behind that and help push it through. Or, to do something big we want to put on a drive to raise a million dollars to send the gospel overseas; or we plan a great campaign and regiment a squadron of young folk, enthusiastic and adventuresome, to go and invade this or that great missionary field. Or it may even be that one of us is seized with a desire to go himself, and tells the church of his intention, and perhaps makes a tour of the churches to stir up interest. Anything, everything--things good and laudable, or measures that are more or less questionable--only so we get things going and the gospel is sent over to the heathen. And all the while the first and chiefest matter, on which all else depends, is overlooked, or barely noticed.

      The first thing to do is to pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into His harvest. For He alone can do it. Although the missionary obligation rests upon every member of the church, all can not and must not go. The Lord has set members in the Body as it pleased Him; and not all are evangelists or teachers or pastors [23] or missionaries. Therefore pray--and in answer to true prayer laborers will be raised up for the harvest; and such of His servants as should go, will go. Moreover the Lord of the harvest will see to their support--for if He has raised them up He will sustain them, not only physically, but spiritually, with comfort and boldness and power, that they may bear fruit and that their fruit may abide. And fear not, He will do it.

      The harvest is plenteous, the laborers are few. What shall be done? God needs men. For how shall they believe on Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? Pray therefore--and God is able of the very stones, as it were, to raise up laborers after His own mind to go forth into His harvest-field to gather precious souls for Jesus. And then give freely and some more, and again, and all along. For this is supernatural work. God's reapers must invade Satan's domain, and they will feel the sharpness of the conflict with the principalities and powers, the world-rulers of this darkness, and the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. But they will also be able to say, "Thanks be unto God who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ, and maketh known through us the savor of his knowledge in every place."

      In the end, when the Lord comes, those who tarried with the baggage and those who went down to the battle; those who sowed and those who reaped; those who stayed at home and prayed and sacrificed and those who went forth to declare the good tidings among those who had never heard--all who in whatever way co-operated with Him in His great work--all of His true servants will rejoice together in His presence; and the recompense of their work of faith and labor of love will be surpassingly sweet.

      In nothing is the saying truer, "Except Jehovah build the house, they labor in vain that build it," than in the work of missions. Neither money, nor zeal and enterprise, nor ability, wisdom, management, organization, nor anything else man can furnish will accomplish that work. Human energy and genius can put a human project through, but not so with the work of missions. It is a Divine work, and the "Lo, I am with you" is an absolute, indispensable factor in it--for the work of the missionary is a spiritual warfare. It is a positive and determined invasion of the power of darkness, the domain of Satan. In this effort you encounter the principalities and powers in their own usurped realm. In no other effort are we so constantly and utterly dependent on God. In saying this I am not denying the value or necessity of man's labor. In any case the man must do the building. Yet the fact is that "Except Jehovah build the house" all man 's work is vain. [24]

      Take it at its very beginning: only the Lord of the harvest can send forth laborers into His harvest and he must be interceded with to do so. It is His work through us. It is our work, but only as He does it through us. "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few." What therefore? shall we go? or send? or give? Nay--"Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he may send forth laborers into the harvest." Note how He reserves to Himself all rights and authority. He is the Lord of the harvest. The field is His, the harvest is His, the laborers are His and are to be sent forth by Him. Yet, note too how He will do nothing without us. When we want it from the heart, when we are that much in earnest, and approach Him with true petition, He will send forth laborers into His harvest. What an arrangement this is in which God makes Himself dependent on us--our faith, our prayer--for the accomplishment of His own work which His heart yearns to see done; the while He makes us utterly dependent on Him for the very beginning, prosecution, and final success of it! We cannot even pick and send a laborer; and God will not send one till we ask. No work binds men and God into closer partnership than the work of missions--which explains the strong reflex power of such a work upon the spiritual condition of those who faithfully do it.

      "Pray ye the Lord of the harvest!" For He alone knows who is fitted to go on so great an errand, and he alone can fit them and send them. It is a mistake to say that all who can go should go. Many whose circumstances would permit them to go, lack important qualifications, spiritually and otherwise. God no more wanted all to go to the foreign field than be wanted all to be apostles or teachers or prophets. God still sets members in the body as it pleases Him. Just as He forms beforehand the wings of the butterfly in the chrysalis for the day and the hour when the shell shall burst and the new creature that comes forth must make its way through the air, so He has under peculiar preparation servants for this and that work--perhaps most especially for this greatest of all works. Them He moulds and fashions and endows, and providentially trains and develops; them He stirs up in ways of His own, and lays on them the burden and urgency of the work, and sets an open door before them; yea and them He supports and sustains. And these things He does in answer to prayer. Let the people of God omit this vital touch, and though they may elect and select men and educate and send them and pay them, the works will never measure up to God's design. It falls short of the real thing. And let men and women go, on what motive I know not (and perhaps they themselves know not)--though they accomplish much good, a most essential thing will be lacking in their mission. But when earnest children of God cry to Him concerning this matter, there will be men and women fitted by Him who will offer themselves willingly; and there will also be means and ways found to send them forth, and God's guidance to the proper field at [25] the proper time, and a great will on all hands to sacrifice and to suffer until the glorious work be done. [26]

[CTOP 22-26]