“Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few” (Matt. 9:37).The harvest is ready to be reaped, but there are not enough workers to reap the harvest.
That's the way Jesus describes evangelism. In Matthew 9, He uses a farming metaphor to describe what it’s like to evangelize. Matthew has already stated that Jesus interacted with the people and met their needs, and that He was moved with compassion for them because of their spiritual peril (9:35-36). And now Jesus speaks to His disciples concerning the crowds and their spiritual peril, saying “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.”
He is picturing a harvest that is ready to be reaped—but a harvest that cannot be reaped for lack of workers, laborers, or farmhands to bring in the harvest. Generally, a harvest takes place when you bring in crops. When they are ready to be "reaped," or brought in to the barn, workers will use their equipment to do just that. And that’s what Jesus is saying here—that souls are ready to be brought in to the kingdom of God, but that the laborers who are crucial in bringing that about are lacking and few. He states that the problem here for evangelizing is that the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.
Jesus does not mean that the unsaved are eager and ready to be saved, just waiting for someone to tell them how to be saved. Scripture teaches that the unregenerate sinner is not seeking God or desiring Him (Romans 3:11). Even when the unsaved person is aware of his spiritual peril, that is not enough to lead him to saving faith. Salvation is completely a work of God's redemptive grace (Eph. 2:8-9). But what Jesus is saying is that there are a multitude of people that God is preparing for salvation, but not enough Christians who are evangelizing them. There is a lack of people who are going out and sharing the gospel with people, so that they can be brought into the barn of God’s kingdom!
According to Christ, there are disciples ready to be made because of God’s sovereign work, but there are not enough disciple-makers. According to Christ, the problem is that there are plenty of people God is preparing for salvation to hear the gospel, but there are not enough heralds who will proclaim that message. There are plenty of people to be witnessed to, but not enough witnesses. There are plenty of people who need to know how to be saved, but not enough Christians telling them how. There are plenty of people whom God is preparing for salvation, but not enough Christians who are proclaiming the “excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).
Jesus states in John 4:35, “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest?’ Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.”
There are plenty of souls out there whom God is preparing to bring into His kingdom, but there are not enough laborers who are sharing the gospel with them so that they can be brought into the kingdom of God. Are you being a laborer in God's field? How often are you working the field that is ready for harvest? Do you try to labor in the harvest with or without the right tools?
Seeking Christ,
Bro. Brandon G. B.
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Bro. Brandon is the Associate Pastor
of Ohio Valley Baptist Church. His
sermons, podcasts, book reviews,
and other free ministry resources
can be found on Brandon's Desk.
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