(Matthew 9:35-38)
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35And 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.
36But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. 37Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; 38Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest."
SEEING THE HARVEST
THROUGH HIS EYES
Intro: The Barna Research Group has been involved in
gathering and analyzing information concerning the church since 1984. Many of
their findings are startling and eye-opening. They have found that 33% of
Americans are unchurched; they have no church affiliation whatsoever.
While it found that 20% of those who have church membership believe that
living a good life will gain them a place in heaven. Given those two
statistics alone, that tells us that 53% of Americans are lost and on
their way to hell. This does not take into account the people who are
atheists, or are involved in occult forms of worship. Over half of everyone you
run into is lost. And it is a growing population. More and more people each
year are added to this category. And if we were to throw all the false
professors that do go to church into the mix it would probably be 75% or
possibly much higher, which, by the way, is the percentage Jesus
referred to in the parable of the soils.
That is why Jesus said,
“The harvest truly is plenteous.” There are people to reach;
there is a work to be done. And of the greatest dangers of the modern church is
that we don’t see this as the most important work. Most everything else comes
before the work of reaching the lost with the Word of God.
As Jesus ministered to
the needs of the people all around Him, He met their physical needs, but He was
able to see beyond just that. Jesus was able to see the deepest needs of their
hearts. As Jesus looked at the multitudes around Him, He was moved with
compassion for them. This word literally means “to be moved in the heart.”
He saw the reality of the need of the people all around Him. He saw then as
they were and He sought to share this insight with His disciples. He still
wants to share this insight with you and me this evening! He wants us to see
the plight of humanity as He does. He wants us to see people as they really
are. He wants us to be moved in the heart just as He was. He wants us to be able
to see the harvest through His eyes. That is the thought I want to magnify this
evening. I want to preach for a few minutes on this thought: Seeing The
Harvest Through His Eyes! May the Lord help us to see the lost people
around us like He sees them!
I. V. 36 HE SAW
THE PITY OF THE HARVEST
A. When Jesus looked at the lost people around Him, He saw them as
they really were. He was able to look beyond the facades of self-sufficiency,
self-righteousness and self-confidence. He saw the pain, the loneliness and the
misery they felt in their hearts!
Jesus saw a people who “fainted”, that is “grew
weary” under the load of their sins and the unrealistic expectations
forced upon them by their religious leaders. He saw a people who were “scattered”.
Literally, “to be cast down or thrown out.” People who were
wondering aimlessly through life with no direction and planned destination,
people who lived life with no shepherd for their souls. He saw a people who
were utterly and hopelessly lost.
B. Oh, how we need to see the multitudes like Jesus saw them! Over
here is a family. They seem happy. They have good jobs, plenty of money, a nice
house and all the things this world can offer them. Plenty of people like that
live in these communities around this lake. But, if you could look into their
hearts, you would see turmoil, fear, loneliness and desperation. They have no
answers to their questions. They need the Lord!
Here is another family. They don’t have as much as the first
family, but they do work and they have a place to live. Their lives are driven
by alcohol and drugs. They seem hard to the Gospel and are antagonistic toward
those who try to tell them about Jesus. But, if you could rip aside the layers
of their lives and peer into their souls, you would see people who are afraid
to die and even afraid to live. They are people without hope and they need
someone to see them as they really are. Someone who can see them as they and
still love them, that is the person who can reach them for Jesus!
C. Those kinds of comparisons could go on forever, literally, but
what Jesus really saw was end of these people’s existence. He knew that without
a relationship with Him, they were all doomed to perish in Hell. That is what
we need to see tonight about our friends, neighbors and families. They may look
like they have it all together, but if they are lost, they are headed to Hell
and they need to be saved by the grace of God! Can you see them as they really
are this evening? Can you see them like He sees them? He knows their condition,
yet He loves them still. May the Lord help us to see the harvest through His
eyes!
II. V. 37 HE SAW
THE POTENTIAL OF THE HARVEST
A. Jesus looked at the crowds around Him and He saw a “plentious”
harvest. I am sure all the disciples saw were people pushing and shoving to get
close to their leader. But, Jesus saw more! He saw men who needed to be saved
by grace. He saw a harvest that was ripe for the picking! He looked beyond
their condition and their destination and He saw a people that could be
delivered, changed and saved! He did not see the problems, only the potential!
B. What do we see when we look at the people all around us? Do we
see sinners lost in their filthiness and vileness? Do we see people who live
like dogs and don’t care? Do we see people as they are, or do we see them as
the Lord could make them of they came to Him? That is the view Jesus had of
lost men. He saw them not as they were, but as they could be by grace! We need
that same kind of vision if we are going to reach men in this day and time!
(Ill. Slightly inebriated man I saw at the store yesterday!)
C. One day, Jesus stood with His disciples outside the city of the
Samaritans. Now, the Samaritan were a people despised by the Jews of Jesus’s
day. The Samaritans came about through the intermarriage of Jews with the
colonists sent to live in Israel by the Babylonians. Jesus went to a city of
the Samaritans and spoke to a sinful woman. He saw her not just as she was, but
as she could be through grace. He saved her and many Samaritans were also saved
because Jesus looked at the harvest as being everywhere and plentiful. His
words to the disciples in
John 4:25-41
“The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is
called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto
her, I that speak unto thee am he. And upon this came his disciples, and marveled
that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? Or, why
talkest thou with her? The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into
the city, and saith to the men, Come, see a man, which told me all things that
ever I did: is not this the Christ? Then they went out of the city, and came
unto him. In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master eat. But
he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Therefore said the
disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat? Jesus saith
unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his
work. Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? Behold, I
say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white
already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit
unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice
together. And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I
sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men labored, and ye
are entered into their labours. And many of the Samaritans of that city
believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all
that ever I did. So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him
that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days. And many more
believed because of his word;”
are very interesting!
D. What I am trying to get us to understand is this truth: There
are people all around who need Jesus! The harvest truly in plentiful. Many are
ripe for the picking, we merely need to see it and do something about it! May
the Lord help us to see the harvest through His loving eyes.
III. V. 37 HE SAW
THE PROBLEM OF THE HARVEST
A. As Jesus looked at the harvest, He acknowledged that fact that
it was plentiful and that it was pitiful. But as He saw lost men all around, He
also recognized a problem: there were few laborers working in the
Father’s field!
B. You know, that same problem still exists today! Reaping the
soul harvest is hard work and few, it seems, are willing to roll up their
sleeves and get involved in the work. Jesus called His men to follow Him,
promising to make the “fishers of men”,
Matthew 4:18-22
“And Jesus,
walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew
his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And he saith
unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway
left their nets, and followed him. And going on from thence, he saw other two
brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with
Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he called them. And they
immediately left the ship and their father, and followed him.”
Of course, to fish, requires the fisherman to go where the fish
are: to the water! Those of you who farm know that the harvest doesn’t just
gather itself. You’ve got to get out there, get down where it is and do the
dirty work of harvesting it. Wouldn’t it be nice if the green beans picked
themselves and piled themselves on your porch? What if the okra, the squash and
the corn plucked themselves and came to where you were? Well, it doesn’t work
like that! To harvest you garden, you have to go to where the harvest is. The
same is true in bringing men to Jesus. We can sit in the church, but we won’t
see a harvest until we go where the lost men are living.
(Haggai 2:19!)
“Is the seed yet in the barn! Yea, as yet the vine, and the fig tree,
and the pomegranate, and the olive tree, hath not brought forth: from this day
will I bless you.”
It is dirty work, but it
must be done, or the harvest will never be reaped!
C. Surely we can see that people are in sad shape today,
spiritually speaking. Surely we care about them and want to see them saved by
grace. May we come to the place where we are not content just to see it, but
may we come to the place where we become willing to go into the harvest and
reap is for Jesus sake!
(Psalms 126:5-6)
“They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and
weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing,
bringing his sheaves with him.”
If we can ever come to see
the harvest through His eyes, we will not be content to merely see it, we will
have to enter is and work to see men saved. May God grant it!
HE SAW THE POWER OF THE HARVEST
A. As Jesus spoke about the harvest and the needs associated with
it, He told His men what to do first: Pray! Why pray? Because
seeing the harvest brought into the barn is God’s work! He must till the soil
of the heart. He must water the seed of the Word that is planted and He must
cast the sunshine of grace upon the lost heart, or there will never be a
harvest! You see, the new birth is a miracle! It is the awesome work of God in
a human heart! Only He can do it and we must pray over the harvest.
B. Notice that Jesus told them to pray that the Lord of the
harvest (God) would send forth laborers into the harvest. As we develop a
burden for the lost and begin to pray for them as we should, the Lord will
develop a compassion for them within our own heart. If we pray as we should ,
the Lord will work within us so that a desire will be born within us to go into
the field and work for the harvest. (We will be like Isaiah –
(Isaiah 6:1-9!)
“In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting
upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it
stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face,
and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried
unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth
is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that
cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, woe is me! For I am
undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a
people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. Then
flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had
taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and
said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy
sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, whom shall I send, and
who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. And he said, Go, and tell
this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but
perceive not.”
C. Can we see the need this evening? If we can, the starting place
is to get before God in prayer, trusting Him to do His work in the harvest! If
we pray, He will send forth the laborers. Of course, they might just be us!
Sermon by: ALAN CARR
