Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.
Christ's command is to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send workers into His harvest, because the harvest of souls is great, plenteous and ready while the laborers are few. He spoke it in compassion when He saw the multitudes weary, fainting and scattered like sheep without a shepherd, after teaching and healing through the cities and villages while priests and rulers gave no help. The harvest is people in need — sick, suffering, sinful and helpless — to be brought to believe, forsake sin and find rest, and to be gathered as precious souls into the heavenly garner for eternal life. The fields are already white, ripe and ready everywhere, in towns, cities and distant lands, yet vast territories remain unworked and time is short, so the work must be prompt before opportunities pass. Believers are to pray earnestly, fervently and continually for God to raise up consecrated workers by the Holy Spirit, and to join that prayer with personal working, going, giving and burden-bearing rather than asking for results without labor.
Words and Historical Setting
The command is to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send workers into his harvest, because the harvest of souls is great, plenteous, ready and abundant but the laborers are few. The harvest is the multitude of people in need of help — the sick, suffering, sinful, weak, helpless, ignorant, degraded and distressed — who suffer and long for blessing and need the gospel to believe in Christ, forsake sin and be saved and gathered into the kingdom. Workers for the salvation of souls are to be sought by this prayer, and those who live out Christ's precepts, confess faults and pray may become channels through whom divine power is manifested.
It was spoken in compassion when he saw multitudes weary, fainting, exhausted and scattered like sheep without a shepherd, whose need and value stirred him because few were working to reach them. This followed his going through cities and villages teaching the way of salvation and the kingdom and healing every sickness, ministering while priests and rulers gave no help to the shepherdless people. Prejudice barred the truth from those who should have received it first, leaving the fainting crowds without guidance, and the work of God is therefore laid down as united worldwide giving of grace with human instrumentality cooperating with the divine under the Holy Spirit.
The prayer was followed by giving the twelve authority to preach the kingdom and to heal and cast out unclean spirits as his representatives and shepherds of believers who would otherwise lack guidance after his departure. This special power was the work of the Holy Spirit, keeping opposition from quenching conversion, as when the Pharisees' opposition could not stop the Spirit's work of converting the people. Laborers thus sent are consecrated servants whom the Lord sends and with whom he cooperates, touching lips as with a live coal, giving strength and knowledge of Scripture through daily communion and obedience to guide wandering souls to Christ and shine as light.
The command was not limited to the first disciples but continues while any people are like lost sheep without a shepherd, laying on the church the duty to help in physical suffering and spiritual poverty with comfort and hope in Christ. It applied to the early preaching of the third angel's message, when workers were few and shortness of time demanded active labor dependent on earnest prayer for help and light from the word. Its call is reflected in the Saviour's appeal for volunteers to enter his vineyard to spread mercy and help others reach rest and eternal life. In the closing crisis the enlarged harvest of new missions, churches and branches of work demands harmony, unselfish consultation and every man doing his utmost with entrusted talents to vindicate God's law, because power from beneath moves to change the Constitution and laws to bind conscience over the Bible Sabbath of the fourth commandment while many are blinded and Satan counsels silencing and dividing, so instead of variance, jealousy, evil surmising and absorption in minor theories, every voice and pen must be intensely at work united to stay Satan's workings and meet the question of religious liberty.
Harvest Ready Laborers Few
The harvest is people in need — the sick, the suffering, the sinful, the weak, the helpless, the ignorant and the degraded who long for blessing and help as Christ helped them. It is the work of bringing sinful people to believe in Christ, to forsake sin and be saved from perdition, to find peace and rest, and to be gathered as precious souls into the kingdom and the heavenly garner for eternal life. That need stirred compassion because the multitudes were faint and scattered like sheep without a shepherd, and their value was understood. Saving them requires workers who do the works of Christ, who work as He worked, with Christ dwelling in them and His power united with their efforts.
The harvest is great and plenteous while the laborers are too few, with vast territories unworked, calls for help exceeding workers, and the work unfinished and only begun. Many places at home and abroad still need help where nothing has been done, and calls come from home conferences and distant fields that go unanswered because few consecrate themselves or prepare to answer them. Far more workers are required, even a hundred where there is one, with schools and institutions training them for home and foreign service without delay. Prayer for the success of the truth must therefore be matched by willingness to work, not a request for results without personal effort, with humility, repentance and awakening from sleep.
Fields are already white, ripe and ready everywhere one looks, in towns, villages, cities and suburbs, seen in waving fields and in excellent interest where congregations listen and take their stand. The harvest of souls is abundant both nearby and in distant lands, including places where truth has not been proclaimed, and the world is the field that must not be left idle while people are ready to hear. Workers should expect fruit even in busy populated places, prepare to gather and care for it, and use the limited time before opportunity passes, for fruit nearby can be missed and spoiled if workers look elsewhere or arrive too late. The call is urgent because time is short, especially throughout Michigan and wherever people can be reached, with earnest reapers needed and untiring efforts to proclaim the truth as countries open to the gospel.
The world is the field and vineyard, a great worldwide harvest embracing all nations, tongues and peoples near and far, beyond nearby places to distant lands. It is to be worked with wider plans and clear sanctified judgment, annexing new territory and seizing every opportunity rather than narrow routine concentration, with churches awake and laboring with greater devotion and zeal to spread the last message. Those who remain at home share the work by adding to the church such as shall be saved and by sending prayers as sharp sickles with missionaries into the field, while entrusted means and resources are used economically to sustain workers, establish small sanitariums, and do medical missionary work as the entering wedge of the gospel. Young men and women must be educated and trained for service at home and among all nations, supported faithfully and united in one cause as fellow workers.
The need is urgent because time is short, the end is near, and the day is soon closing when no one can work, with prophetic signs showing, souls perishing in sin, and satanic agencies working. Thousands of well-trained, organized, efficient and deeply consecrated evangelists and messengers are needed to proclaim the last gospel message, serving from responsibility with self-idolatry crucified rather than for wages. Labor must be prompt without years of delay, with missionaries entering the field quickly, talents and influence made available rather than confined to business or material comforts, and truth carried as light to places that have not yet received it before opportunities pass.
Prayer for More Laborers
Pray earnestly, fervently and continually in faith for the Lord of the harvest to raise up and send consecrated, willing workers into his harvest, for the harvest is great and the laborers are few. Prayer for workers ascends to the throne, and prayers go like sharp sickles with laborers into the field to make them effective in bringing souls to truth. Each believer is to carry a personal burden for the success of the harvest work, serving in humility in its different departments, and caring especially for the poor and suffering. The call applies with particular force where efforts to bring truth are weak, expressing both great need and earnest desire to meet the mind of the Spirit of God.
Appoint seasons of fasting and prayer, even one day in a month, to ask the Lord to raise up men to sow the seeds of truth where moral darkness longs for light. The field is vast, with calls for help from every direction, where people are unsatisfied, plead for preachers, hear the Word gladly, yet one or two discourses shed only a glimmer of light. Pray for hundreds of humble young men who will give themselves to labor, and not ministers only but missionary men and women of good understanding, moral worth and moral backbone to circulate among the people and shed precious light everywhere. This was urged for needy fields such as Texas with too few preachers and missionaries, for Toronto and its churches, and for other places needing workers to serve and to train others for service. God answers such special prayer by raising up worthy men who can do good, which then lays duty on stewards of means to supply board and wages so they are not driven from the field, rather than spending entrusted means on unessential items and selfish gratification while the treasury is too poor and the work is crippled.
Prayer for laborers is answered by the Holy Spirit, by God impressing hearts, placing the burden where it belongs, filling capable persons and raising up worthy men. The laborers sought are effective, earnest, God-fearing workers for a harvest already ready, to do the very labor needed in praying, worshiping, reading and explaining the Scriptures, depending on the Holy Spirit to cooperate with human effort. They are laborers together with God who wait and pray for the breathings of the Spirit to work for them and in them, making their labors acceptable, with a burden for those ready to perish and hungering and thirsting for righteousness in their behalf to lead them to a new heart and surrender to God's keeping. Such prayer requires awaking from sleep to a full realization that home work is only begun and vast numbers abroad reach out for help, with humility, sincere repentance, weeping between the porch and the altar, unreserved consecration with zeal, and lives matching the profession of the last message of mercy instead of groping in doubt and darkness. Planning, talent and resources are not enough without the Spirit's blessing and help, and more preparation of capable, determined people to carry responsibility is needed.
Praying must be joined with consecration, preparation and personal effort, not as a request for results without work. Church members become channels for God's power when they bring Christ's precepts into daily life, confess sins to one another, and pray instead of gossiping and accusing. The prayer is answered by willing, earnest service now, returning to God His own in gifts and offerings, bestirring to let truth go forth, hastening students to their appointed work, and supplying evangelist-canvassers and city missions with practical help and means. Those who pray are to support with means, go house to house, and become burden-bearers whose godly example blesses both themselves and others.
Believers are also to pray for laborers already in the field, that God will prepare their way and give them fruits from their labor. Pray for young preachers that God will connect them with Himself and give them wisdom, grace and knowledge, guard them from Satan's snares, and keep their thoughts pure and hearts holy. Such prayers are sharp sickles going forth with those who proclaim truth, and when church members maintain order and become fruit-bearing branches of the living Vine laboring together with God, prayers ascending to His throne are sent as sharp sickles while angels behold their good order with joy. Workers in suffering and helpless need should be prayed for that God, ever present to help, will heal, strengthen and bless fellow laborers to accomplish the great work in different places. Prayer and watchfulness, together with humility, prepare workers for the Holy Spirit's power and the cooperation of heavenly angels, including in following up after seed is sown to help the work ripen and gather those who respond.
Prayer includes asking for a clear understanding of truth, so that when its messengers come their message will be accepted and they will be respected. It also requires willingness to receive the help God sends even in unexpected, humble form, rather than turning away as in the Jewish rejection of Christ because His coming did not match expectation. The church must humble itself before God and correct its ways so it can recognize and value moral excellence.
Churches fulfill the command by praying much, so that prayers as sharp sickles follow God's delegated sowers and reapers carrying the triumphs of the cross into new regions and cities and villages. This prayer releases and sustains world evangelism, encouraging the messenger as he labors for conversion and bids all to escape coming wrath by loving and obeying truth. Laborers are not to hover about those long in the truth while believers stay weak and dependent, but faithful local pastors are to keep churches in order, tithe is to be faithfully brought in to support and bless those bearing the message to the world, and members are to draw from heaven by living faith and do home missionary work in simplicity. The same prayer seeks God's power for a spiritual harvest in places like Oakland, bringing people into the faith.
The verse also calls for prayer for workers to follow up new believers and carry companies raised up by first labors a step farther, for help is needed everywhere as the work increases near the close of time.
Laborers Called and Qualified
Both sowers who plant the seed and reapers who gather it are essential, for the harvest has ample room for agencies of every kind and every true Christian can do something in it according to ability and entrusted influence. To do nothing is to backslide from God and scatter abroad against His interest, and refusal to work shows indifference to Christ's claims and lays heavier burdens on others. This abundant work belongs to all, so each person should use God-given abilities faithfully in devotion, self-denial, sacrifice and earnest effort, and neglect of what one can do brings guilt before God.
The laborers needed include ministers, Bible workers, canvassers, evangelists, medical missionaries, teachers and publishers of truth, with many more needed than are now engaged both at home where the work is unfinished and in distant fields asking for help. Young people are to serve beside experienced laborers who teach them successful methods, including through canvassing and ministry together, and when sound methods are followed energetically souls will be gathered. Women who follow God are also called to gather souls by self-denying care, warning, teaching, correspondence, church service and personal efforts, a call made urgent by the final warning to the world. Capable women with credentials who speak to the church when no minister is present also serve as laborers, and teachers win pupils to Christ so they in turn become faithful missionaries.
Both young men and older people are sent, even from ordinary occupations with little schooling, as fishermen and Matthew were sent, and those who commit themselves, put heart into the work and keep learning can be fitted by Christ. Able young men long acquainted with truth must become thoroughly consecrated to labor in the vineyard and teach others, warning sinners and winning souls through Scripture study and service, while the self-sufficient and self-pleasing make little progress and let souls perish. The closing work especially calls young and old from common work to carry the message to every part of the world.
Workers must prepare through consecration to God's will and earnest Scripture study, volunteering under His direction to rescue souls humbly, sincerely and earnestly with courtesy, politeness and sincere love. As reapers they are human agents cooperating with the divine who need Christ's meekness, putting away self-sufficiency and self-importance and tearing every cherished idol, love of ease and self from the soul temple. Those sent are men and women filled with the Holy Spirit, yoked with Christ and revealing His character, animated by His intense love for sinners and His missionary desire to save them and bring a harvest into the heavenly garner.
Fitness of character is required, for defects and imprudences cripple and disqualify ministry, including imprudence regarding women, and neglectful or frivolous ministers who fail to care for the flock are unfit to be sustained. Service must be for saving souls rather than wages or worldly gain, accepting self-denial, poverty and suffering with Christ, and in the last time laborers must not become unfitted by deep entanglement in commercial responsibilities, financial burdens, unproductive toil, binding business or heavy debt where commercial interests dominate.
A genuine call is laid by the Holy Spirit as a burden for souls that drives the worker to seek new fields, prepare diligently, persevere through want and hardship, and bear fruit, rather than merely moving from church to church. Mere ability to exhort and pray in meetings does not qualify, workers should neither rush unsent before learning truth nor move too slowly, and pushing the unqualified into ministry discourages and weakens the church. Those set apart should be chosen through close seeking of God's will rather than appearance, entering humbly the assigned place and proving worth by patient faithful effort unto greater responsibility.
New and inexperienced workers of ability must be tested, trained and educated beside wise experienced laborers before being entrusted with responsibility, rather than beginning with churches that do not need them. Ability should be recognized and opportunities given to young men and new believers even amid difficulties, with training to work and encouragement to those God is calling to teach truth in darkness. The prayer for laborers is answered when experienced servants take younger workers into the field to teach successful soul-winning, freeing ministers for aggressive labor while fitted members bear church burdens.
Schools, colleges, publishing houses, sanitariums and brief comprehensive instruction are to prepare laborers quickly for home and foreign service, forming practical godliness and readiness for world, church or mission field. Colleges must train and send many missionaries, using resources and influence to bring competent workers into the field rather than restraining them, and students should serve as canvassers, Bible workers and helpers, returning to value study after field experience. Workers need cultivated ability and mental discipline by study, observation, reflection and prayer, with systematic correct training in Scripture and godliness, for God blesses trained effort and greatly multiplies ministers through developed talent, but not defiled service without vital connection. Thousands would be accepted if they prepared themselves for responsibility and positions of trust, especially for foreign lands where trained lives showing godliness are called for.
God raises up workers for the harvest, and humble devoted godly workers may receive the crowns lost by unfaithful ministers. God's servants laboring to supply His people with spiritual nourishment are laborers in His harvest. There is a shortage of ministerial workers, and those prepared to open the Scriptures and serve in ministry should not be diverted from that work.
Work Laborers Must Do
The work is worldwide giving of grace, with human instrumentality cooperating with the divine under the Holy Spirit, church united to church and Christian to Christian, and heavenly help working with human agencies through holy messengers so that the extent reaped grows with the agencies employed. Those in the harvest are co-laborers with Christ, appointed agents and channels through whom light from heaven reaches others, and God works with and through them so that people advance in the light. Angels cooperate with human workers to bring truth to those in newly opened fields who are seeking light in Scripture, and this calls those entrusted with means or ability to devote themselves to the work. Careless use of God-given powers weakens fitness for effective service, while faithful service can steady the hesitant and bring joy in seeing souls saved.
Laborers carry salvation by proclaiming neglected truths of the Bible, warning of judgment and the soon coming of Jesus, pleading for the way to be opened, and carrying the third angel's message and loud cry to cities, villages, highways and all classes. Fields ripe for the sickle include missions where scarcely anything has been done that could be worked to good advantage for a large ingathering, and answering the prayer for laborers means uniting with the Lord in diffusing present truth without delay and without uncertain work that consumes means without fruit. The warning must be proclaimed and the way prepared for it, with God claiming time as His own and working with faithful willing servants to give definite results. Those who answer humbly and obediently receive divine help and work with Christ as instruments bringing people into the light.
They work by preaching, visiting, teaching from the Bible, praying with families, and going house to house with truth for souls starving for the bread of life, moving from place to place after warning to warn elsewhere in both foreign fields and home cities where many languages need light. Those living where many believers already are should go where truth has not been proclaimed to sow and reap for the Master, leaving no time for faultfinding, criticism, gossip and accusation. Opening the Scriptures to bring people to Christ is not dull drudgery but joyful work in which laborers are strengthened as they serve, and those who accept the message are gathered in. When members dedicate themselves, follow Christ's example, confess faults to one another and pray, God works graciously through them.
They care for souls and bodies, serving people like sheep without a shepherd who need care and guidance, with Jesus the Chief Physician working alongside them. Sanitariums serve as places for this united soul-and-body work and can reach people who cannot be reached in other ways, including in the face of evils such as gambling, liquor drinking and selfishness, requiring men and women of faith and prayer inspired by the Holy Spirit. Medical evangelistic tours through towns and villages gather souls among higher and lower classes, with faithful canvassers preparing the way. Physicians and other sanitarium workers share in the harvest when they unite in gospel work and faithfully seek to lead patients to Christ, and small suitably trained teams teaching the gospel, caring for the sick and depending on God may reap a rich harvest.
They circulate publications, tracts and papers, write letters, share literature prayerfully, and canvass, which successfully answers the call and in great degree supplies the lack of preachers. Calls for a minister come from all directions, even from those made interested by reading, while there is no man to send, so until God sends the living messenger many must be content with the silent preacher, and believers by pen speak words bearing holy unction that preach to thousands. Canvassing is a most successful way of answering the call and saving souls in the large vineyard, and nothing should be allowed to keep anyone from soul-saving, since all must one day give account of deeds done in the body as work appears as it really is. Faithful circulation of present truth, especially where needs such as Sweden and Scandinavia are great, reaps a harvest for the Lord, and those who share literature or write to others should first lift hearts to God in prayer and are thereby trained as workers in the vineyard.
They rescue souls from Satan by persistent personal effort beyond sermonizing, making it life purpose to carry light, hold purpose against evil associates, and reform, reclaim and rescue through prayer and persuasion in meekness and lowliness. Workers must bring the word of life to people rather than wait for them to come, seeking God for strength and grace for faithful service in the missionary field. They should work in new places and persevere where there is any indication of good, despite weariness and Satan's efforts to hold people in his ranks. They follow up seed sown until it ripens and is gathered, and prayer, watchfulness and humility prepare them for the Spirit's power and the cooperation of angels while Christ works on hearts. No one should hold back for being able to do only little, but do that little with fidelity, for God multiplies such effort until one soul saved brings others to salvation, causing joy in heaven, a star in the crown of rejoicing, and a name written in the book of life whose full extent is known only in the day of judgment.
They labor with devotion, self-denial, sacrifice and love for souls even to leaving home, under Christ the Captain of salvation, with willing discipline, and those who resist God-given duty must answer for their course. The harvest of souls is the mission of the church and is wasting and must be gathered without delay through earnest faithful toil and use of talents of influence and means. Laborers must learn in Christ's school with practical godliness, having the saving power of truth and joy in God in their own souls so they cannot forbear sharing the practical truths that made them joyful. The call applies to all Christians to be awake and zealous, working in harmony with heaven's efforts in Christ's self-denial, sacrifice and earnest effort for the salvation of others.
All members, not ministers alone, are to take part, for believers of good repute whose lives accord with their faith can speak with neighbors and friends, urge the importance of truth, prompt inquiry, and warn the perishing rather than leave the work to ministers or wait for them. Believers should pray for the Lord to send workers and themselves be trained from within the churches to serve. The shortage requires developing and training inexperienced people and enlisting church members instead of leaving everything to ministers. Ministers are not to hover over churches but to train members for practical service, with members keeping at work in intelligence and spirituality and churches growing stronger by personal effort.
Workers serve in unity, with part going as messengers into the field to break the bread of life to hungry souls and part remaining at home to give themselves to prayer and to speak encouraging words that hold up the hands of the workers. Fellow laborers purchased by Christ's blood and precious in His sight should love one another as Christ loved them, be perfectly united, and speak only words that encourage and advance the forward movement, for in unity is strength and in variance and disunion is weakness. Supplying laborers calls for special grace and enlightenment of the Spirit, with every man doing his duty to the utmost of ability and entrusted talents to hold up the law of God, consulting freely together in harmony with interest and unselfishness. Instead of division, jealousy, evil surmising, unsanctified speeches and absorption in minor ideas while a power from beneath moves to bind conscience over the Bible Sabbath and divert powers to weaken and divide, every voice and pen is to work intensely with heart and soul awake and prepared.
The advancing harvest gives life to churches when all take part, and workers should go forward in faith rather than wait for sufficient funds, trusting God to be with them and bless persevering work to bring many to knowledge of the truth. Providence opens missionary fields near and far, including new territory and dark corners, ripe now, and God Himself summons workers to enter without waiting for means in hand, trusting infinite resources to supply as the work is pushed forward wisely. This requires binding about personal wants, avoiding unnecessary spending, practicing self-denial and economy, and training even children and youth to give, while following the Spirit's leading to find ways for truth to advance to glorious victory. God needs many more workers and prepares fields of labor and the way for successful work.
Fields Calling for Workers
The southern field of white and colored people is the most destitute portion of the vineyard and is ripe for harvest, calling for prayer that workers be sent to carry the message to the colored people of the Southern States. The calls for laborers there are answered as talented men and women among Southern whites and blacks are brought into the truth and go forth proclaiming the last message of mercy, moving forward steadily without debt, sowing beside all waters, spreading knowledge of His love, and establishing publishing work, churches, schools and sanitariums to supply suitable reading and save souls. Gathering that precious grain requires means supplied through self-denial and economy, dispensing with things not positively necessary and cutting off needless expenditures, with fathers and mothers teaching children of the poor colored people and their necessities, planting desire to deny self to help others, and leading them early to see the close relation between money and missions as duty toward the colored race. Faithful few already labor there with blessing, and the burden for that needy field is put into hearts so encouragement comes through men who understand the need, while blocking the way and discouraging workers is contrary to God's way and means raised for the South must not be appropriated elsewhere but secured for the very object for which buildings and enterprises were raised. The work centered at Nashville is to be firmly established as a center for the whole South, and instead of criticizing those entrusted with it or drawing means and hands away to less important places or to Europe or any other country, the field must be upheld, thoroughly repented of neglect, and entered by united labor without hindrance or robbery.
Boston and its suburbs need one thousand laborers at work giving the last message of warning so sheaves may be gathered for the great harvest. Those laborers must be able to gain access to the people, proclaim the simple truth as it is in Jesus to thousands craving it, prepare the way by ministry in word and doctrine so reasons of faith can be heard, while the Holy Spirit works on human minds. Saving souls there requires self-denying workers sent and raised up by prayer to the Lord of the harvest.
Neglected eastern cities need appointed organized workers under the Spirit's guidance, working and praying to carry the gospel and build up the church, as in Portland and other eastern cities where the harvest is plentiful but laborers are few. In Baltimore and Washington men and women should be sent without delay to prepare the way and present truth, beginning by united efforts on a small scale and growing by adding more workers rather than waiting for large sums of money. Trenton, the capital of New Jersey, needs reapers to follow up interest already created, with much work remaining through all New Jersey still to be worked, and Washington needs laborers to help those learning the truth, while New York City is a field needing more workers for mission work where truth must be sown so people can be gathered.
Rochester was a large field for labor with few laborers, where advancing the work was worth enduring poverty and privation. Prayer sought the Lord's help to do the work rightly there, workers believed the Lord had led them there, and the need was for workers to follow interest and labor rightly where the harvest was great but laborers few.
Towns, villages and cities are fields already white for harvest needing earnest reapers, especially throughout Michigan, and the work is urgent because time is short. The destitute barren fields in sight in Iowa are ripe to be gathered, already furnished with laborers of precious talents, and prayer means asking God to impress hearts so gifts flow into the treasury to carry the work forward, while conference laborers go out from churches into new fields to seek and save the lost under condemnation if ripe fields are neglected. Even one hundred workers in Colorado would not be enough to reach the people in its byways and broad ways, requiring prayer for God to raise up more people consecrated to serve and proclaim truth.
San Francisco and Oakland need workers to staff tents and carry out the work because the harvest is great and laborers few. Southern California represents people ready to hear and be reached for salvation, where earnest Christlike efforts bring abundant harvest through brave earnest men and women including ministers and canvassers seizing opportunities. San Diego and National City need capable consecrated workers to share the message, reach all classes and lead people to truth, with ministerial help and wise harmonious workers coming soon, working humbly under the Holy Spirit to accomplish a great work and win souls. Oakland is also a place to pray together for spiritual harvest by God's power bringing people into faith, and the harvest in California is all ripening for evangelical work needing every jot of ability.
Along the Pacific coast there were places for twenty workers and few to fill them, requiring definite set-apart time to pray in faith for ministers for many open fields and to trust God to send as He chooses. Workers are also needed to serve churches, reach fields such as Toronto, and help develop others for service, sought by fasting and prayer for God to raise them up. Washington has a great work among learners of truth needing laborers to help them.
The European mission shows harvest great and laborers few, with many cities unreached and many longing for biblical light and help, calling for laborers to enter and share the warning. Faithful people are needed to circulate publications presenting present truth especially in Sweden and Scandinavia. Sweden is a field ready for harvest though many have not heard the first, second or third angels' messages, requiring prayer for workers with effort to reach them. Cities and valleys of Italy hold many unreached in ignorance where barriers keep the message from those most needing it, requiring missionaries raised up to bring the gospel to people difficult to reach. Difficult fields among the French need earnest persevering missionaries, including women, laboring for souls to win people to truth.
England is hardest through prejudice requiring years of labor, to be reached after gaining standing and preparing workers in Australia, while Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands are ripe now needing men, means, memorials and trained laborers as workers enter new territory. Those offering for Australia and New Zealand where workers are few need proper instruction and training as Bible workers and canvassers before entering the field. Unworked cities and regions such as Wellington, Christchurch and many other important places in New Zealand and Australia need men and means urgently because the close of earth's history is near and the night comes when no man can work, requiring every representative to lift his burden, arouse from lethargy, and carry light to all places rather than move with languid slow measures grieving heaven in view of God's love in giving His Son. Australia has work in abundance to be entered at once in Sydney of about a million people and still larger Melbourne and unentered Queensland, where ripe means people waiting for truth including thirty Sabbathkeepers in one place in Queensland who never saw a living preacher and others scattered needing lightbearers, and sending means doors opening for a worker to change location and labor where need is great. Parramatta is the Lord's harvest field where sheaves are to be gathered, the work only just begun and able to continue healthfully, and going there is going directly into harvest with a testimony that if the Lord is present will bring scores to knowledge of truth.
The suburbs of Melbourne showed harvest large and ready while workers and money were too few, with many attending camp meetings again with greater interest, taking their stand, being baptized, and calling for tents in their own localities, so more supplied workers and means were needed to keep several tents going and reap the field. Australia is a wide field where many new places must be entered, and harvest work includes sanitariums and schools, yet advance is slowed with no sanitarium in the field, uncompleted school buildings, only the modest fifteen-room Avondale Health Retreat still unfinished, and the Sydney Sanitarium dependent on pledges and help from America, so sending laborers means supplying workers, buildings and funds from believers in America.
Foreign missions need more laborers, with young people prepared and trained to serve among their own peoples, giving themselves to God's cause from love for Christ and desire to save souls not for large wages. People needing truth include those in great cities and distant places such as China, needing workers to carry truth with God's empowerment, protection and messages to bear. Spreading the message as harvest with fields ready but more workers needed is reflected in the need for experienced people of firm faith to join and carry the message into new fields and cities. Where vast populations remain unreached, those already enlisted need training as effective helpers, with individual effort and publications helping carry the message to those difficult to reach through public preaching.
Multitudes in the cities need earnest workers, yet few feel a burden and little attention is given despite many opportunities. Laborers sent into the harvest of souls include church members not ordained actively seeking people for Christ, bringing Jews the light and carrying the message into cities, towns and villages where many will respond. Ripe fields include the higher classes and those in the highways whose need has been neglected, requiring laborers of full capability sent to that higher grade, while the poor are in no case to be neglected though men and money are lacking for the very lowest classes, and working for the higher class gives strength to carry forward the lines God pointed out. Neglect of American cities ready to be gathered left unwon converts who would have won others, with faithful effort and sufficient funds lacking. Energetic laborers must enter new fields and bring light to those perishing, for shortage leaves the work moving slowly.
Unworked places nearby and far, waste regions voiding God's law, and dark corners opened by Providence must be entered without waiting, with believers going where few or no Christians are to sow and reap. Trained missionaries prepared to serve should be sent into new territories and surrounding regions as the urgent harvest calls. Lay members can answer the need for places with few laborers by moving to towns, cities and distant islands to spread truth. Laborers to be sent are not ministers alone but every believer, for the people must not be weakened by leaning on the minister, while ministers lift the standard and proclaim the last warning not to a few select friends but in unentered places, yoked with Christ to plough, sow and gather where perishing communities praying for light are being drawn by Christ with results inspiring hope. Proclaiming truth where work has scarcely begun urgently needs workers and resources, and unworked fields where people have not heard require means and work without delay because the harvest is ready.
All who believe the message for this time are to go forth into the harvest field to do something for the Master, whether called to the home field or regions beyond. Many who could enter are religiously idle while thousands of places have not heard, so Christians must take up missionary work near at hand or farther away using what God gave to save souls. Nearby fields ready for work must not be overlooked for distant foreign fields alone, for neglected home missions reveal shortage and need conferences to foster a missionary spirit. The worldwide field ripe for work requires attention beyond nearby places to distant ones far from immediate surroundings. Service includes home and foreign fields where unordained men and women can do much in different branches, with the church helping prepare workers.
Promising ripe fields ready for work need workers, time and money, and withholding resources harms the work rather than passing them over. Too little is done in some ready fields where promising people who can strengthen the work need to be reached, including through camp meetings in different places. Fully ripe fields in many places hold a class God needs who will stand firmly and give influence, and the Lord does not approve passing carelessly over the vineyard leaving most promising crops unharvested while putting greatest labor on outcasts and most depraved, so laborers must be sent to gather the promising harvest with camp meetings in different localities to reach them.
God raises up laborers appointed to proclaim truth in large cities, serving in distinct spheres and carrying the message to places seeming unlikely to receive it, and they should not be hindered, while even former enemies may become valuable helpers through means and influence.
Sending Supporting and Persevering
The prayer for workers is answered by sending them, and the church with its institutions must awaken to that work, discerning the need in every branch and giving capable, God-loving workers room to call sinners to repentance in cities and towns that have not heard. Those sent must be supported with sympathy and opportunities to develop so their interest does not flag, for the Lord watches over his workers in every part of his vineyard. They are to be trained and scattered throughout the field rather than concentrated in one place, and young people must not be called away from other parts of the field to Battle Creek and leave those places short. As long as souls need to be reached anywhere, the call to sustain the work in its many lines continues.
Sending requires means, because ripe destitute fields need both workers placed in them and meetinghouses built where new believers can gather. Those with great light and privilege answer by self-denial and self-sacrifice, consecrating funds and having every family create a fund to build churches and place workers in the field. Stewards do not own the means but must willingly support those who can go, using it with equality and impartiality across Christ's vineyard in many places and not merely one place. To spend largely on one portion while refusing to see necessities and ignoring entreaties from other portions is selfishness and selfish ambition even when praised as liberality, a misappropriation of entrusted goods that leaves workers driven out while the treasury is poor and brings accountability for failing to erect memorials and institutions where fields should be added to the kingdom.
Means must stay free and usable for missionary work and not be tied up where it cannot be used, such as in sanitarium bonds or unavailable investments. Place after place still unworked is ripe and calling, nearby and in distant lands, and faithful payment of tithe puts more in the treasury to support workers already in the field and to send still more. Every dollar that can be spared is to be given so urgent calls can be answered and the question of who will go to proclaim the message is met by going into all the world to preach to every creature.
God does not lay down gold and silver from heaven but supplies men with resources to keep the work advancing by gifts and offerings. The one purpose above all others for His gifts is sustaining workers in the harvest field, whose value unto eternal life is more than a world and far above earthly treasure. Those who become channels of blessing to others are kept supplied, returning entrusted gifts does not make men poor, while withholding tends to poverty. Even those not called to the ministry share in sending laborers by freely bringing money to the treasury to defray the expenses of those who labor in word and doctrine, and through the teacher their money supplies they do a work for time and eternity, moved by self-denial to bring those in darkness of error to see and practice truth.
Those sent to new mission fields must be supported and not neglected, with wages fairly balanced against those paid to workers in institutions. They are to be given work and living expenses in honesty, with room for useful experienced persons rather than pushing them aside without encouragement or place to serve. There are openings in New Zealand and the islands and elsewhere for each according to ability, and leaders should recognize available talent, bring others into the work, train and encourage them as Bible readers, canvassers and family visitors, and send workers out rather than hold back for fear of expense.
Those unable to go abroad can still support the work with means and prayers and influence to make truth known, devoting themselves where they are. The work belongs not only to ministers, for believers who know truth should give time to missionary work among neighbors and nearby towns, sharing publications and praying with and for those visited. Those who feel unable to bear larger burdens can faithfully do smaller work such as canvassing and sharing truth, and faithful service in little prepares for greater responsibility, while idleness leaves lay members weak. The need is met by consecrated people working earnestly for sinners' salvation and not merely by giving money, by training men and setting scores of them at work with every facility, foreseeing emergencies and providing for them when laborers are so few.
God gives each person work suited to abilities and circumstances, so those with fewer talents or humble place are not expected to do what greater advantages make possible for others but are to use their gifts faithfully. Workers should make the most of time to win souls, serving with unselfish effort and thoughtful, tender, respectful tact that draws people to Christ wherever duty and opportunity call. They may serve without expecting wages in this world, trusting abundant reward in the next, because the harvest is urgent work to be done while opportunity remains and every church and believer should take part.
Many fields are ready yet unentered because helpers lack self-denial and perseverance, so workers should go prepared to bear their own expenses and labor wholeheartedly. They are to go forward in faith rather than wait for sufficient funds, trusting God to be with them, and persevering work will bring many to knowledge of truth and open the way for the message. They should enter as soon as possible rather than delay for years of training, because the time to work is limited and new fields urgently need the standard raised and the message sent forth with means and workers.
The harvest of winning souls is gathered by those who live where many believers already are going to places where truth has not been proclaimed to sow and reap, proclaiming truth, convicting and converting sinners, winning souls and helping the suffering. Going out in this way obeys God's law and makes workers forget self in desire to save souls, including missionary work among other nations and languages. Seeing so much work and so many to help leaves no time to criticize those in Christ's lines, to be stumbling blocks, dissect character, surmise evil, look for faults, or work on the negative side, and apathy that holds back laborers and loses qualified helpers calls for humbling, seeking pardon for neglected duties, and giving self to the work rather than seeing need and remaining idle.
Answering the prayer requires workers for neglected fields and for souls in every place where present truth is preached, including the dark places of the earth. All power and facility of medical missionary work must not be bound to lifting up the depraved classes alone, but branches are to be established wherever the gospel is preached and workers trained to proclaim truth in untouched fields rather than concentrating all effort on one class. The work must include intelligent and higher-class men and women as well as the poor, with interest followed up by prayer, patient effort, wisdom and love, without pressure or sharp contention.
The Lord knows and watches over His workers in whatever part of His vineyard they labor, and institutions are to awake and set influences in operation to send forth laborers and then care for them. The Christian cause is one field across different places where workers set churches in order, so workers may be called to serve in different portions of that broad field. That can require leaving a quiet and restorative place to return to the post of duty, and it is prayed that Edson White be willing to take up work in another portion.
Experienced laborers are few while the harvest is great, so workers already in the ranks are needed and should remain in service rather than be spared from it. They should keep laboring to save the lost rather than leave neglected ripe fields for extended ministerial institutes, sharing the gospel with others. Because human understanding is finite and much cannot be discerned until the curtain is rolled back, laborers must walk by faith now trusting the unerring Guide for what will be known hereafter. As the Lord's messengers they are to help one another and hold fast looking to Jesus the Author and Finisher of faith, and the Lord will help them obtain great victories.
Christ's command is to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send workers into His harvest, because the harvest of souls is great, plenteous and ready while the laborers are few. He spoke it in compassion when He saw the multitudes weary, fainting and scattered like sheep without a shepherd, after teaching and healing through the cities and villages while priests and rulers gave no help. The harvest is people in need — sick, suffering, sinful and helpless — to be brought to believe, forsake sin and find rest, and to be gathered as precious souls into the heavenly garner for eternal life. The fields are already white, ripe and ready everywhere, in towns, cities and distant lands, yet vast territories remain unworked and time is short, so the work must be prompt before opportunities pass. Believers are to pray earnestly, fervently and continually for God to raise up consecrated workers by the Holy Spirit, and to join that prayer with personal working, going, giving and burden-bearing rather than asking for results without labor.
Words and Historical Setting
The command is to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send workers into his harvest, because the harvest of souls is great, plenteous, ready and abundant but the laborers are few. The harvest is the multitude of people in need of help — the sick, suffering, sinful, weak, helpless, ignorant, degraded and distressed — who suffer and long for blessing and need the gospel to believe in Christ, forsake sin and be saved and gathered into the kingdom. Workers for the salvation of souls are to be sought by this prayer, and those who live out Christ's precepts, confess faults and pray may become channels through whom divine power is manifested.
It was spoken in compassion when he saw multitudes weary, fainting, exhausted and scattered like sheep without a shepherd, whose need and value stirred him because few were working to reach them. This followed his going through cities and villages teaching the way of salvation and the kingdom and healing every sickness, ministering while priests and rulers gave no help to the shepherdless people. Prejudice barred the truth from those who should have received it first, leaving the fainting crowds without guidance, and the work of God is therefore laid down as united worldwide giving of grace with human instrumentality cooperating with the divine under the Holy Spirit.
The prayer was followed by giving the twelve authority to preach the kingdom and to heal and cast out unclean spirits as his representatives and shepherds of believers who would otherwise lack guidance after his departure. This special power was the work of the Holy Spirit, keeping opposition from quenching conversion, as when the Pharisees' opposition could not stop the Spirit's work of converting the people. Laborers thus sent are consecrated servants whom the Lord sends and with whom he cooperates, touching lips as with a live coal, giving strength and knowledge of Scripture through daily communion and obedience to guide wandering souls to Christ and shine as light.
The command was not limited to the first disciples but continues while any people are like lost sheep without a shepherd, laying on the church the duty to help in physical suffering and spiritual poverty with comfort and hope in Christ. It applied to the early preaching of the third angel's message, when workers were few and shortness of time demanded active labor dependent on earnest prayer for help and light from the word. Its call is reflected in the Saviour's appeal for volunteers to enter his vineyard to spread mercy and help others reach rest and eternal life. In the closing crisis the enlarged harvest of new missions, churches and branches of work demands harmony, unselfish consultation and every man doing his utmost with entrusted talents to vindicate God's law, because power from beneath moves to change the Constitution and laws to bind conscience over the Bible Sabbath of the fourth commandment while many are blinded and Satan counsels silencing and dividing, so instead of variance, jealousy, evil surmising and absorption in minor theories, every voice and pen must be intensely at work united to stay Satan's workings and meet the question of religious liberty.
Harvest Ready Laborers Few
The harvest is people in need — the sick, the suffering, the sinful, the weak, the helpless, the ignorant and the degraded who long for blessing and help as Christ helped them. It is the work of bringing sinful people to believe in Christ, to forsake sin and be saved from perdition, to find peace and rest, and to be gathered as precious souls into the kingdom and the heavenly garner for eternal life. That need stirred compassion because the multitudes were faint and scattered like sheep without a shepherd, and their value was understood. Saving them requires workers who do the works of Christ, who work as He worked, with Christ dwelling in them and His power united with their efforts.
The harvest is great and plenteous while the laborers are too few, with vast territories unworked, calls for help exceeding workers, and the work unfinished and only begun. Many places at home and abroad still need help where nothing has been done, and calls come from home conferences and distant fields that go unanswered because few consecrate themselves or prepare to answer them. Far more workers are required, even a hundred where there is one, with schools and institutions training them for home and foreign service without delay. Prayer for the success of the truth must therefore be matched by willingness to work, not a request for results without personal effort, with humility, repentance and awakening from sleep.
Fields are already white, ripe and ready everywhere one looks, in towns, villages, cities and suburbs, seen in waving fields and in excellent interest where congregations listen and take their stand. The harvest of souls is abundant both nearby and in distant lands, including places where truth has not been proclaimed, and the world is the field that must not be left idle while people are ready to hear. Workers should expect fruit even in busy populated places, prepare to gather and care for it, and use the limited time before opportunity passes, for fruit nearby can be missed and spoiled if workers look elsewhere or arrive too late. The call is urgent because time is short, especially throughout Michigan and wherever people can be reached, with earnest reapers needed and untiring efforts to proclaim the truth as countries open to the gospel.
The world is the field and vineyard, a great worldwide harvest embracing all nations, tongues and peoples near and far, beyond nearby places to distant lands. It is to be worked with wider plans and clear sanctified judgment, annexing new territory and seizing every opportunity rather than narrow routine concentration, with churches awake and laboring with greater devotion and zeal to spread the last message. Those who remain at home share the work by adding to the church such as shall be saved and by sending prayers as sharp sickles with missionaries into the field, while entrusted means and resources are used economically to sustain workers, establish small sanitariums, and do medical missionary work as the entering wedge of the gospel. Young men and women must be educated and trained for service at home and among all nations, supported faithfully and united in one cause as fellow workers.
The need is urgent because time is short, the end is near, and the day is soon closing when no one can work, with prophetic signs showing, souls perishing in sin, and satanic agencies working. Thousands of well-trained, organized, efficient and deeply consecrated evangelists and messengers are needed to proclaim the last gospel message, serving from responsibility with self-idolatry crucified rather than for wages. Labor must be prompt without years of delay, with missionaries entering the field quickly, talents and influence made available rather than confined to business or material comforts, and truth carried as light to places that have not yet received it before opportunities pass.
Prayer for More Laborers
Pray earnestly, fervently and continually in faith for the Lord of the harvest to raise up and send consecrated, willing workers into his harvest, for the harvest is great and the laborers are few. Prayer for workers ascends to the throne, and prayers go like sharp sickles with laborers into the field to make them effective in bringing souls to truth. Each believer is to carry a personal burden for the success of the harvest work, serving in humility in its different departments, and caring especially for the poor and suffering. The call applies with particular force where efforts to bring truth are weak, expressing both great need and earnest desire to meet the mind of the Spirit of God.
Appoint seasons of fasting and prayer, even one day in a month, to ask the Lord to raise up men to sow the seeds of truth where moral darkness longs for light. The field is vast, with calls for help from every direction, where people are unsatisfied, plead for preachers, hear the Word gladly, yet one or two discourses shed only a glimmer of light. Pray for hundreds of humble young men who will give themselves to labor, and not ministers only but missionary men and women of good understanding, moral worth and moral backbone to circulate among the people and shed precious light everywhere. This was urged for needy fields such as Texas with too few preachers and missionaries, for Toronto and its churches, and for other places needing workers to serve and to train others for service. God answers such special prayer by raising up worthy men who can do good, which then lays duty on stewards of means to supply board and wages so they are not driven from the field, rather than spending entrusted means on unessential items and selfish gratification while the treasury is too poor and the work is crippled.
Prayer for laborers is answered by the Holy Spirit, by God impressing hearts, placing the burden where it belongs, filling capable persons and raising up worthy men. The laborers sought are effective, earnest, God-fearing workers for a harvest already ready, to do the very labor needed in praying, worshiping, reading and explaining the Scriptures, depending on the Holy Spirit to cooperate with human effort. They are laborers together with God who wait and pray for the breathings of the Spirit to work for them and in them, making their labors acceptable, with a burden for those ready to perish and hungering and thirsting for righteousness in their behalf to lead them to a new heart and surrender to God's keeping. Such prayer requires awaking from sleep to a full realization that home work is only begun and vast numbers abroad reach out for help, with humility, sincere repentance, weeping between the porch and the altar, unreserved consecration with zeal, and lives matching the profession of the last message of mercy instead of groping in doubt and darkness. Planning, talent and resources are not enough without the Spirit's blessing and help, and more preparation of capable, determined people to carry responsibility is needed.
Praying must be joined with consecration, preparation and personal effort, not as a request for results without work. Church members become channels for God's power when they bring Christ's precepts into daily life, confess sins to one another, and pray instead of gossiping and accusing. The prayer is answered by willing, earnest service now, returning to God His own in gifts and offerings, bestirring to let truth go forth, hastening students to their appointed work, and supplying evangelist-canvassers and city missions with practical help and means. Those who pray are to support with means, go house to house, and become burden-bearers whose godly example blesses both themselves and others.
Believers are also to pray for laborers already in the field, that God will prepare their way and give them fruits from their labor. Pray for young preachers that God will connect them with Himself and give them wisdom, grace and knowledge, guard them from Satan's snares, and keep their thoughts pure and hearts holy. Such prayers are sharp sickles going forth with those who proclaim truth, and when church members maintain order and become fruit-bearing branches of the living Vine laboring together with God, prayers ascending to His throne are sent as sharp sickles while angels behold their good order with joy. Workers in suffering and helpless need should be prayed for that God, ever present to help, will heal, strengthen and bless fellow laborers to accomplish the great work in different places. Prayer and watchfulness, together with humility, prepare workers for the Holy Spirit's power and the cooperation of heavenly angels, including in following up after seed is sown to help the work ripen and gather those who respond.
Prayer includes asking for a clear understanding of truth, so that when its messengers come their message will be accepted and they will be respected. It also requires willingness to receive the help God sends even in unexpected, humble form, rather than turning away as in the Jewish rejection of Christ because His coming did not match expectation. The church must humble itself before God and correct its ways so it can recognize and value moral excellence.
Churches fulfill the command by praying much, so that prayers as sharp sickles follow God's delegated sowers and reapers carrying the triumphs of the cross into new regions and cities and villages. This prayer releases and sustains world evangelism, encouraging the messenger as he labors for conversion and bids all to escape coming wrath by loving and obeying truth. Laborers are not to hover about those long in the truth while believers stay weak and dependent, but faithful local pastors are to keep churches in order, tithe is to be faithfully brought in to support and bless those bearing the message to the world, and members are to draw from heaven by living faith and do home missionary work in simplicity. The same prayer seeks God's power for a spiritual harvest in places like Oakland, bringing people into the faith.
The verse also calls for prayer for workers to follow up new believers and carry companies raised up by first labors a step farther, for help is needed everywhere as the work increases near the close of time.
Laborers Called and Qualified
Both sowers who plant the seed and reapers who gather it are essential, for the harvest has ample room for agencies of every kind and every true Christian can do something in it according to ability and entrusted influence. To do nothing is to backslide from God and scatter abroad against His interest, and refusal to work shows indifference to Christ's claims and lays heavier burdens on others. This abundant work belongs to all, so each person should use God-given abilities faithfully in devotion, self-denial, sacrifice and earnest effort, and neglect of what one can do brings guilt before God.
The laborers needed include ministers, Bible workers, canvassers, evangelists, medical missionaries, teachers and publishers of truth, with many more needed than are now engaged both at home where the work is unfinished and in distant fields asking for help. Young people are to serve beside experienced laborers who teach them successful methods, including through canvassing and ministry together, and when sound methods are followed energetically souls will be gathered. Women who follow God are also called to gather souls by self-denying care, warning, teaching, correspondence, church service and personal efforts, a call made urgent by the final warning to the world. Capable women with credentials who speak to the church when no minister is present also serve as laborers, and teachers win pupils to Christ so they in turn become faithful missionaries.
Both young men and older people are sent, even from ordinary occupations with little schooling, as fishermen and Matthew were sent, and those who commit themselves, put heart into the work and keep learning can be fitted by Christ. Able young men long acquainted with truth must become thoroughly consecrated to labor in the vineyard and teach others, warning sinners and winning souls through Scripture study and service, while the self-sufficient and self-pleasing make little progress and let souls perish. The closing work especially calls young and old from common work to carry the message to every part of the world.
Workers must prepare through consecration to God's will and earnest Scripture study, volunteering under His direction to rescue souls humbly, sincerely and earnestly with courtesy, politeness and sincere love. As reapers they are human agents cooperating with the divine who need Christ's meekness, putting away self-sufficiency and self-importance and tearing every cherished idol, love of ease and self from the soul temple. Those sent are men and women filled with the Holy Spirit, yoked with Christ and revealing His character, animated by His intense love for sinners and His missionary desire to save them and bring a harvest into the heavenly garner.
Fitness of character is required, for defects and imprudences cripple and disqualify ministry, including imprudence regarding women, and neglectful or frivolous ministers who fail to care for the flock are unfit to be sustained. Service must be for saving souls rather than wages or worldly gain, accepting self-denial, poverty and suffering with Christ, and in the last time laborers must not become unfitted by deep entanglement in commercial responsibilities, financial burdens, unproductive toil, binding business or heavy debt where commercial interests dominate.
A genuine call is laid by the Holy Spirit as a burden for souls that drives the worker to seek new fields, prepare diligently, persevere through want and hardship, and bear fruit, rather than merely moving from church to church. Mere ability to exhort and pray in meetings does not qualify, workers should neither rush unsent before learning truth nor move too slowly, and pushing the unqualified into ministry discourages and weakens the church. Those set apart should be chosen through close seeking of God's will rather than appearance, entering humbly the assigned place and proving worth by patient faithful effort unto greater responsibility.
New and inexperienced workers of ability must be tested, trained and educated beside wise experienced laborers before being entrusted with responsibility, rather than beginning with churches that do not need them. Ability should be recognized and opportunities given to young men and new believers even amid difficulties, with training to work and encouragement to those God is calling to teach truth in darkness. The prayer for laborers is answered when experienced servants take younger workers into the field to teach successful soul-winning, freeing ministers for aggressive labor while fitted members bear church burdens.
Schools, colleges, publishing houses, sanitariums and brief comprehensive instruction are to prepare laborers quickly for home and foreign service, forming practical godliness and readiness for world, church or mission field. Colleges must train and send many missionaries, using resources and influence to bring competent workers into the field rather than restraining them, and students should serve as canvassers, Bible workers and helpers, returning to value study after field experience. Workers need cultivated ability and mental discipline by study, observation, reflection and prayer, with systematic correct training in Scripture and godliness, for God blesses trained effort and greatly multiplies ministers through developed talent, but not defiled service without vital connection. Thousands would be accepted if they prepared themselves for responsibility and positions of trust, especially for foreign lands where trained lives showing godliness are called for.
God raises up workers for the harvest, and humble devoted godly workers may receive the crowns lost by unfaithful ministers. God's servants laboring to supply His people with spiritual nourishment are laborers in His harvest. There is a shortage of ministerial workers, and those prepared to open the Scriptures and serve in ministry should not be diverted from that work.
Work Laborers Must Do
The work is worldwide giving of grace, with human instrumentality cooperating with the divine under the Holy Spirit, church united to church and Christian to Christian, and heavenly help working with human agencies through holy messengers so that the extent reaped grows with the agencies employed. Those in the harvest are co-laborers with Christ, appointed agents and channels through whom light from heaven reaches others, and God works with and through them so that people advance in the light. Angels cooperate with human workers to bring truth to those in newly opened fields who are seeking light in Scripture, and this calls those entrusted with means or ability to devote themselves to the work. Careless use of God-given powers weakens fitness for effective service, while faithful service can steady the hesitant and bring joy in seeing souls saved.
Laborers carry salvation by proclaiming neglected truths of the Bible, warning of judgment and the soon coming of Jesus, pleading for the way to be opened, and carrying the third angel's message and loud cry to cities, villages, highways and all classes. Fields ripe for the sickle include missions where scarcely anything has been done that could be worked to good advantage for a large ingathering, and answering the prayer for laborers means uniting with the Lord in diffusing present truth without delay and without uncertain work that consumes means without fruit. The warning must be proclaimed and the way prepared for it, with God claiming time as His own and working with faithful willing servants to give definite results. Those who answer humbly and obediently receive divine help and work with Christ as instruments bringing people into the light.
They work by preaching, visiting, teaching from the Bible, praying with families, and going house to house with truth for souls starving for the bread of life, moving from place to place after warning to warn elsewhere in both foreign fields and home cities where many languages need light. Those living where many believers already are should go where truth has not been proclaimed to sow and reap for the Master, leaving no time for faultfinding, criticism, gossip and accusation. Opening the Scriptures to bring people to Christ is not dull drudgery but joyful work in which laborers are strengthened as they serve, and those who accept the message are gathered in. When members dedicate themselves, follow Christ's example, confess faults to one another and pray, God works graciously through them.
They care for souls and bodies, serving people like sheep without a shepherd who need care and guidance, with Jesus the Chief Physician working alongside them. Sanitariums serve as places for this united soul-and-body work and can reach people who cannot be reached in other ways, including in the face of evils such as gambling, liquor drinking and selfishness, requiring men and women of faith and prayer inspired by the Holy Spirit. Medical evangelistic tours through towns and villages gather souls among higher and lower classes, with faithful canvassers preparing the way. Physicians and other sanitarium workers share in the harvest when they unite in gospel work and faithfully seek to lead patients to Christ, and small suitably trained teams teaching the gospel, caring for the sick and depending on God may reap a rich harvest.
They circulate publications, tracts and papers, write letters, share literature prayerfully, and canvass, which successfully answers the call and in great degree supplies the lack of preachers. Calls for a minister come from all directions, even from those made interested by reading, while there is no man to send, so until God sends the living messenger many must be content with the silent preacher, and believers by pen speak words bearing holy unction that preach to thousands. Canvassing is a most successful way of answering the call and saving souls in the large vineyard, and nothing should be allowed to keep anyone from soul-saving, since all must one day give account of deeds done in the body as work appears as it really is. Faithful circulation of present truth, especially where needs such as Sweden and Scandinavia are great, reaps a harvest for the Lord, and those who share literature or write to others should first lift hearts to God in prayer and are thereby trained as workers in the vineyard.
They rescue souls from Satan by persistent personal effort beyond sermonizing, making it life purpose to carry light, hold purpose against evil associates, and reform, reclaim and rescue through prayer and persuasion in meekness and lowliness. Workers must bring the word of life to people rather than wait for them to come, seeking God for strength and grace for faithful service in the missionary field. They should work in new places and persevere where there is any indication of good, despite weariness and Satan's efforts to hold people in his ranks. They follow up seed sown until it ripens and is gathered, and prayer, watchfulness and humility prepare them for the Spirit's power and the cooperation of angels while Christ works on hearts. No one should hold back for being able to do only little, but do that little with fidelity, for God multiplies such effort until one soul saved brings others to salvation, causing joy in heaven, a star in the crown of rejoicing, and a name written in the book of life whose full extent is known only in the day of judgment.
They labor with devotion, self-denial, sacrifice and love for souls even to leaving home, under Christ the Captain of salvation, with willing discipline, and those who resist God-given duty must answer for their course. The harvest of souls is the mission of the church and is wasting and must be gathered without delay through earnest faithful toil and use of talents of influence and means. Laborers must learn in Christ's school with practical godliness, having the saving power of truth and joy in God in their own souls so they cannot forbear sharing the practical truths that made them joyful. The call applies to all Christians to be awake and zealous, working in harmony with heaven's efforts in Christ's self-denial, sacrifice and earnest effort for the salvation of others.
All members, not ministers alone, are to take part, for believers of good repute whose lives accord with their faith can speak with neighbors and friends, urge the importance of truth, prompt inquiry, and warn the perishing rather than leave the work to ministers or wait for them. Believers should pray for the Lord to send workers and themselves be trained from within the churches to serve. The shortage requires developing and training inexperienced people and enlisting church members instead of leaving everything to ministers. Ministers are not to hover over churches but to train members for practical service, with members keeping at work in intelligence and spirituality and churches growing stronger by personal effort.
Workers serve in unity, with part going as messengers into the field to break the bread of life to hungry souls and part remaining at home to give themselves to prayer and to speak encouraging words that hold up the hands of the workers. Fellow laborers purchased by Christ's blood and precious in His sight should love one another as Christ loved them, be perfectly united, and speak only words that encourage and advance the forward movement, for in unity is strength and in variance and disunion is weakness. Supplying laborers calls for special grace and enlightenment of the Spirit, with every man doing his duty to the utmost of ability and entrusted talents to hold up the law of God, consulting freely together in harmony with interest and unselfishness. Instead of division, jealousy, evil surmising, unsanctified speeches and absorption in minor ideas while a power from beneath moves to bind conscience over the Bible Sabbath and divert powers to weaken and divide, every voice and pen is to work intensely with heart and soul awake and prepared.
The advancing harvest gives life to churches when all take part, and workers should go forward in faith rather than wait for sufficient funds, trusting God to be with them and bless persevering work to bring many to knowledge of the truth. Providence opens missionary fields near and far, including new territory and dark corners, ripe now, and God Himself summons workers to enter without waiting for means in hand, trusting infinite resources to supply as the work is pushed forward wisely. This requires binding about personal wants, avoiding unnecessary spending, practicing self-denial and economy, and training even children and youth to give, while following the Spirit's leading to find ways for truth to advance to glorious victory. God needs many more workers and prepares fields of labor and the way for successful work.
Fields Calling for Workers
The southern field of white and colored people is the most destitute portion of the vineyard and is ripe for harvest, calling for prayer that workers be sent to carry the message to the colored people of the Southern States. The calls for laborers there are answered as talented men and women among Southern whites and blacks are brought into the truth and go forth proclaiming the last message of mercy, moving forward steadily without debt, sowing beside all waters, spreading knowledge of His love, and establishing publishing work, churches, schools and sanitariums to supply suitable reading and save souls. Gathering that precious grain requires means supplied through self-denial and economy, dispensing with things not positively necessary and cutting off needless expenditures, with fathers and mothers teaching children of the poor colored people and their necessities, planting desire to deny self to help others, and leading them early to see the close relation between money and missions as duty toward the colored race. Faithful few already labor there with blessing, and the burden for that needy field is put into hearts so encouragement comes through men who understand the need, while blocking the way and discouraging workers is contrary to God's way and means raised for the South must not be appropriated elsewhere but secured for the very object for which buildings and enterprises were raised. The work centered at Nashville is to be firmly established as a center for the whole South, and instead of criticizing those entrusted with it or drawing means and hands away to less important places or to Europe or any other country, the field must be upheld, thoroughly repented of neglect, and entered by united labor without hindrance or robbery.
Boston and its suburbs need one thousand laborers at work giving the last message of warning so sheaves may be gathered for the great harvest. Those laborers must be able to gain access to the people, proclaim the simple truth as it is in Jesus to thousands craving it, prepare the way by ministry in word and doctrine so reasons of faith can be heard, while the Holy Spirit works on human minds. Saving souls there requires self-denying workers sent and raised up by prayer to the Lord of the harvest.
Neglected eastern cities need appointed organized workers under the Spirit's guidance, working and praying to carry the gospel and build up the church, as in Portland and other eastern cities where the harvest is plentiful but laborers are few. In Baltimore and Washington men and women should be sent without delay to prepare the way and present truth, beginning by united efforts on a small scale and growing by adding more workers rather than waiting for large sums of money. Trenton, the capital of New Jersey, needs reapers to follow up interest already created, with much work remaining through all New Jersey still to be worked, and Washington needs laborers to help those learning the truth, while New York City is a field needing more workers for mission work where truth must be sown so people can be gathered.
Rochester was a large field for labor with few laborers, where advancing the work was worth enduring poverty and privation. Prayer sought the Lord's help to do the work rightly there, workers believed the Lord had led them there, and the need was for workers to follow interest and labor rightly where the harvest was great but laborers few.
Towns, villages and cities are fields already white for harvest needing earnest reapers, especially throughout Michigan, and the work is urgent because time is short. The destitute barren fields in sight in Iowa are ripe to be gathered, already furnished with laborers of precious talents, and prayer means asking God to impress hearts so gifts flow into the treasury to carry the work forward, while conference laborers go out from churches into new fields to seek and save the lost under condemnation if ripe fields are neglected. Even one hundred workers in Colorado would not be enough to reach the people in its byways and broad ways, requiring prayer for God to raise up more people consecrated to serve and proclaim truth.
San Francisco and Oakland need workers to staff tents and carry out the work because the harvest is great and laborers few. Southern California represents people ready to hear and be reached for salvation, where earnest Christlike efforts bring abundant harvest through brave earnest men and women including ministers and canvassers seizing opportunities. San Diego and National City need capable consecrated workers to share the message, reach all classes and lead people to truth, with ministerial help and wise harmonious workers coming soon, working humbly under the Holy Spirit to accomplish a great work and win souls. Oakland is also a place to pray together for spiritual harvest by God's power bringing people into faith, and the harvest in California is all ripening for evangelical work needing every jot of ability.
Along the Pacific coast there were places for twenty workers and few to fill them, requiring definite set-apart time to pray in faith for ministers for many open fields and to trust God to send as He chooses. Workers are also needed to serve churches, reach fields such as Toronto, and help develop others for service, sought by fasting and prayer for God to raise them up. Washington has a great work among learners of truth needing laborers to help them.
The European mission shows harvest great and laborers few, with many cities unreached and many longing for biblical light and help, calling for laborers to enter and share the warning. Faithful people are needed to circulate publications presenting present truth especially in Sweden and Scandinavia. Sweden is a field ready for harvest though many have not heard the first, second or third angels' messages, requiring prayer for workers with effort to reach them. Cities and valleys of Italy hold many unreached in ignorance where barriers keep the message from those most needing it, requiring missionaries raised up to bring the gospel to people difficult to reach. Difficult fields among the French need earnest persevering missionaries, including women, laboring for souls to win people to truth.
England is hardest through prejudice requiring years of labor, to be reached after gaining standing and preparing workers in Australia, while Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands are ripe now needing men, means, memorials and trained laborers as workers enter new territory. Those offering for Australia and New Zealand where workers are few need proper instruction and training as Bible workers and canvassers before entering the field. Unworked cities and regions such as Wellington, Christchurch and many other important places in New Zealand and Australia need men and means urgently because the close of earth's history is near and the night comes when no man can work, requiring every representative to lift his burden, arouse from lethargy, and carry light to all places rather than move with languid slow measures grieving heaven in view of God's love in giving His Son. Australia has work in abundance to be entered at once in Sydney of about a million people and still larger Melbourne and unentered Queensland, where ripe means people waiting for truth including thirty Sabbathkeepers in one place in Queensland who never saw a living preacher and others scattered needing lightbearers, and sending means doors opening for a worker to change location and labor where need is great. Parramatta is the Lord's harvest field where sheaves are to be gathered, the work only just begun and able to continue healthfully, and going there is going directly into harvest with a testimony that if the Lord is present will bring scores to knowledge of truth.
The suburbs of Melbourne showed harvest large and ready while workers and money were too few, with many attending camp meetings again with greater interest, taking their stand, being baptized, and calling for tents in their own localities, so more supplied workers and means were needed to keep several tents going and reap the field. Australia is a wide field where many new places must be entered, and harvest work includes sanitariums and schools, yet advance is slowed with no sanitarium in the field, uncompleted school buildings, only the modest fifteen-room Avondale Health Retreat still unfinished, and the Sydney Sanitarium dependent on pledges and help from America, so sending laborers means supplying workers, buildings and funds from believers in America.
Foreign missions need more laborers, with young people prepared and trained to serve among their own peoples, giving themselves to God's cause from love for Christ and desire to save souls not for large wages. People needing truth include those in great cities and distant places such as China, needing workers to carry truth with God's empowerment, protection and messages to bear. Spreading the message as harvest with fields ready but more workers needed is reflected in the need for experienced people of firm faith to join and carry the message into new fields and cities. Where vast populations remain unreached, those already enlisted need training as effective helpers, with individual effort and publications helping carry the message to those difficult to reach through public preaching.
Multitudes in the cities need earnest workers, yet few feel a burden and little attention is given despite many opportunities. Laborers sent into the harvest of souls include church members not ordained actively seeking people for Christ, bringing Jews the light and carrying the message into cities, towns and villages where many will respond. Ripe fields include the higher classes and those in the highways whose need has been neglected, requiring laborers of full capability sent to that higher grade, while the poor are in no case to be neglected though men and money are lacking for the very lowest classes, and working for the higher class gives strength to carry forward the lines God pointed out. Neglect of American cities ready to be gathered left unwon converts who would have won others, with faithful effort and sufficient funds lacking. Energetic laborers must enter new fields and bring light to those perishing, for shortage leaves the work moving slowly.
Unworked places nearby and far, waste regions voiding God's law, and dark corners opened by Providence must be entered without waiting, with believers going where few or no Christians are to sow and reap. Trained missionaries prepared to serve should be sent into new territories and surrounding regions as the urgent harvest calls. Lay members can answer the need for places with few laborers by moving to towns, cities and distant islands to spread truth. Laborers to be sent are not ministers alone but every believer, for the people must not be weakened by leaning on the minister, while ministers lift the standard and proclaim the last warning not to a few select friends but in unentered places, yoked with Christ to plough, sow and gather where perishing communities praying for light are being drawn by Christ with results inspiring hope. Proclaiming truth where work has scarcely begun urgently needs workers and resources, and unworked fields where people have not heard require means and work without delay because the harvest is ready.
All who believe the message for this time are to go forth into the harvest field to do something for the Master, whether called to the home field or regions beyond. Many who could enter are religiously idle while thousands of places have not heard, so Christians must take up missionary work near at hand or farther away using what God gave to save souls. Nearby fields ready for work must not be overlooked for distant foreign fields alone, for neglected home missions reveal shortage and need conferences to foster a missionary spirit. The worldwide field ripe for work requires attention beyond nearby places to distant ones far from immediate surroundings. Service includes home and foreign fields where unordained men and women can do much in different branches, with the church helping prepare workers.
Promising ripe fields ready for work need workers, time and money, and withholding resources harms the work rather than passing them over. Too little is done in some ready fields where promising people who can strengthen the work need to be reached, including through camp meetings in different places. Fully ripe fields in many places hold a class God needs who will stand firmly and give influence, and the Lord does not approve passing carelessly over the vineyard leaving most promising crops unharvested while putting greatest labor on outcasts and most depraved, so laborers must be sent to gather the promising harvest with camp meetings in different localities to reach them.
God raises up laborers appointed to proclaim truth in large cities, serving in distinct spheres and carrying the message to places seeming unlikely to receive it, and they should not be hindered, while even former enemies may become valuable helpers through means and influence.
Sending Supporting and Persevering
The prayer for workers is answered by sending them, and the church with its institutions must awaken to that work, discerning the need in every branch and giving capable, God-loving workers room to call sinners to repentance in cities and towns that have not heard. Those sent must be supported with sympathy and opportunities to develop so their interest does not flag, for the Lord watches over his workers in every part of his vineyard. They are to be trained and scattered throughout the field rather than concentrated in one place, and young people must not be called away from other parts of the field to Battle Creek and leave those places short. As long as souls need to be reached anywhere, the call to sustain the work in its many lines continues.
Sending requires means, because ripe destitute fields need both workers placed in them and meetinghouses built where new believers can gather. Those with great light and privilege answer by self-denial and self-sacrifice, consecrating funds and having every family create a fund to build churches and place workers in the field. Stewards do not own the means but must willingly support those who can go, using it with equality and impartiality across Christ's vineyard in many places and not merely one place. To spend largely on one portion while refusing to see necessities and ignoring entreaties from other portions is selfishness and selfish ambition even when praised as liberality, a misappropriation of entrusted goods that leaves workers driven out while the treasury is poor and brings accountability for failing to erect memorials and institutions where fields should be added to the kingdom.
Means must stay free and usable for missionary work and not be tied up where it cannot be used, such as in sanitarium bonds or unavailable investments. Place after place still unworked is ripe and calling, nearby and in distant lands, and faithful payment of tithe puts more in the treasury to support workers already in the field and to send still more. Every dollar that can be spared is to be given so urgent calls can be answered and the question of who will go to proclaim the message is met by going into all the world to preach to every creature.
God does not lay down gold and silver from heaven but supplies men with resources to keep the work advancing by gifts and offerings. The one purpose above all others for His gifts is sustaining workers in the harvest field, whose value unto eternal life is more than a world and far above earthly treasure. Those who become channels of blessing to others are kept supplied, returning entrusted gifts does not make men poor, while withholding tends to poverty. Even those not called to the ministry share in sending laborers by freely bringing money to the treasury to defray the expenses of those who labor in word and doctrine, and through the teacher their money supplies they do a work for time and eternity, moved by self-denial to bring those in darkness of error to see and practice truth.
Those sent to new mission fields must be supported and not neglected, with wages fairly balanced against those paid to workers in institutions. They are to be given work and living expenses in honesty, with room for useful experienced persons rather than pushing them aside without encouragement or place to serve. There are openings in New Zealand and the islands and elsewhere for each according to ability, and leaders should recognize available talent, bring others into the work, train and encourage them as Bible readers, canvassers and family visitors, and send workers out rather than hold back for fear of expense.
Those unable to go abroad can still support the work with means and prayers and influence to make truth known, devoting themselves where they are. The work belongs not only to ministers, for believers who know truth should give time to missionary work among neighbors and nearby towns, sharing publications and praying with and for those visited. Those who feel unable to bear larger burdens can faithfully do smaller work such as canvassing and sharing truth, and faithful service in little prepares for greater responsibility, while idleness leaves lay members weak. The need is met by consecrated people working earnestly for sinners' salvation and not merely by giving money, by training men and setting scores of them at work with every facility, foreseeing emergencies and providing for them when laborers are so few.
God gives each person work suited to abilities and circumstances, so those with fewer talents or humble place are not expected to do what greater advantages make possible for others but are to use their gifts faithfully. Workers should make the most of time to win souls, serving with unselfish effort and thoughtful, tender, respectful tact that draws people to Christ wherever duty and opportunity call. They may serve without expecting wages in this world, trusting abundant reward in the next, because the harvest is urgent work to be done while opportunity remains and every church and believer should take part.
Many fields are ready yet unentered because helpers lack self-denial and perseverance, so workers should go prepared to bear their own expenses and labor wholeheartedly. They are to go forward in faith rather than wait for sufficient funds, trusting God to be with them, and persevering work will bring many to knowledge of truth and open the way for the message. They should enter as soon as possible rather than delay for years of training, because the time to work is limited and new fields urgently need the standard raised and the message sent forth with means and workers.
The harvest of winning souls is gathered by those who live where many believers already are going to places where truth has not been proclaimed to sow and reap, proclaiming truth, convicting and converting sinners, winning souls and helping the suffering. Going out in this way obeys God's law and makes workers forget self in desire to save souls, including missionary work among other nations and languages. Seeing so much work and so many to help leaves no time to criticize those in Christ's lines, to be stumbling blocks, dissect character, surmise evil, look for faults, or work on the negative side, and apathy that holds back laborers and loses qualified helpers calls for humbling, seeking pardon for neglected duties, and giving self to the work rather than seeing need and remaining idle.
Answering the prayer requires workers for neglected fields and for souls in every place where present truth is preached, including the dark places of the earth. All power and facility of medical missionary work must not be bound to lifting up the depraved classes alone, but branches are to be established wherever the gospel is preached and workers trained to proclaim truth in untouched fields rather than concentrating all effort on one class. The work must include intelligent and higher-class men and women as well as the poor, with interest followed up by prayer, patient effort, wisdom and love, without pressure or sharp contention.
The Lord knows and watches over His workers in whatever part of His vineyard they labor, and institutions are to awake and set influences in operation to send forth laborers and then care for them. The Christian cause is one field across different places where workers set churches in order, so workers may be called to serve in different portions of that broad field. That can require leaving a quiet and restorative place to return to the post of duty, and it is prayed that Edson White be willing to take up work in another portion.
Experienced laborers are few while the harvest is great, so workers already in the ranks are needed and should remain in service rather than be spared from it. They should keep laboring to save the lost rather than leave neglected ripe fields for extended ministerial institutes, sharing the gospel with others. Because human understanding is finite and much cannot be discerned until the curtain is rolled back, laborers must walk by faith now trusting the unerring Guide for what will be known hereafter. As the Lord's messengers they are to help one another and hold fast looking to Jesus the Author and Finisher of faith, and the Lord will help them obtain great victories.