Eleven - The Key to Service
Eleven
The Key to Service
Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest (Matthew 9:38).
This is the key to the whole problem of Christian work. It is simple in words, but amazingly profound, because our Lord Jesus Christ said it.
Our Master’s Orders
Therefore pray . . .
Prayer is usually considered to be devotional and more or less impractical in ordinary life. Our Lord in His teaching always considered prayer work, not preparation for work. Thank God for all the marvelous organization there is in Christian work, for medical missions and finely educated missionaries, for aggressive work in every shape and form; but these are, so to speak, pieces of the lock. The key is not in any of our organizations; the key lies in our hand by our Lord’s instruction, “Therefore pray.”
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:12–13). Have the “greater works” been done? They certainly have. The men our Lord said these words to wrote the New Testament, and the reason they wrote it is that our Lord, when He was glorified, sent forth the personal Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, not only in His power—His power and influence were at work before Pentecost—but He sent Him forth to this earth personally, where He is to this hour, and through His might and inspiration produced the “greater works,” namely, the New Testament.
But what does it mean for us? Have we also to do greater works than Jesus did? Certainly we have. If our Lord’s words mean anything, they mean that. And the great basis of prayer is to realize that we must take our orders from our Master. He put all the emphasis on prayer, and He made prayer not preparation for the work, not a sentiment nor a devotion, but the work. There is a real danger of worshiping prayer instead of praying because we worship. It is easy to do if we lose sight of our Lord and put the emphasis not on His command but on the thing that He commands.
We pray on the great fundamental basis of redemption, and our prayers are made efficient by the wonderful presence of the personal Holy Spirit in the world. Prayer is simple, prayer is supernatural, and to anyone not related to our Lord Jesus Christ, prayer is apt to look stupid. It sounds unreasonable to say that God will do things in answer to prayer, yet our Lord said that He would. Our Lord bases everything on prayer. Then the key to all our work as Christians is, “Therefore pray.”
When we pray for others the Spirit of God works in the unconscious domain of their being that we know nothing about, and the one we are praying for knows nothing about. But after the passing of time the conscious life of the one prayed for begins to show signs of unrest and disquiet. We may have spoken until we are worn out, but we have never come anywhere near, and we have given up in despair. But if we have been praying, we find on meeting them one day that there is the beginning of a softening and a desire to know something.
It is that kind of intercession that does the most damage to Satan’s kingdom. It is so slight, so feeble in its initial stages, that if our reason is not wedded to the light of the Holy Spirit, we will never do it. Yet it is that kind of intercession that the New Testament places the most emphasis on, though it has so little to show for it. It seems stupid to think that we can pray and all that will happen, but remember to whom we pray. We pray to a God who understands the unconscious depths of personality about which we know nothing, and He has told us to pray. The great Master of the human heart said, “Greater works than these he will do. . . . And whatever you shall ask in My name, that will I do” (John 14:12–13).
Not only is prayer the work, but prayer is the way fruit abides. Our Lord puts prayer as the means to fruit-producing and fruit-abiding work. But remember, it is prayer based on His agony, not on our agony. “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you” (John 15:16).
Prayer is not only the work and the way fruit abides, but prayer is the battle. “Put on the whole armor of God, . . . Stand therefore, . . .” and then pray. Paul says, “Praying always . . . for all the saints—and for me” (Ephesians 6:11–19). Do we remember to pray on the ground of our Lord’s orders for all who minister in His name? If the apostle Paul earnestly solicited prayer on his behalf that he might “make known with boldness the mystery of the Gospel,” surely we should remember that this is the key our Lord puts into our hands for all Christian work; not prayer because we are helpless, but prayer because God is Almighty.
Our Master’s Ownership
The Lord of the harvest. . . .
Jesus did not say, “Go into the field.” He said, “Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest.” That does not so much mean that the harvest is the world, it means that there are innumerable people who have reached a crisis in their lives, they are “white already to harvest.” We find them everywhere, not only in foreign countries, but in neighboring houses, and the way we discern who they are is not by intellect, not by suggestions, but by prayer. Think of the countless crises in people’s lives at this time, they are at the parting of the ways. “Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest?’ Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are white already for harvest.” “Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”
When we read the concluding verses in Matthew’s Gospel, we are apt to put the emphasis on the fact that Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations,” whereas the emphasis should be on “Go” because “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” Then the “going” is in perfect order, putting the emphasis where our Lord puts it. “Go therefore . . . and lo, I am with you always,” that He may work His mighty works through us.
Our Master’s Option
. . . to send out laborers into His harvest.
There is only one field of service that has no snares, and that is the field of intercession. All other fields have the glorious but risky snare of publicity; prayer has not. The key to all our work for God is in that one word we are apt to despise—“Pray.” And prayer is “laborer” work.
The reason prayer is so important is, first of all, because our Lord told us that prayer on the ground of His redemption is the most mighty factor He has put into our hands. Second, it is important because of the personal presence of the Holy Spirit in the day in which we live. We receive our knowledge of the Holy Spirit not by experience first, but by the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. The testimony of Jesus Christ regarding the Holy Spirit is that He is here, and the real living experience the Holy Spirit works in us is that all His emphasis is laid on glorifying our Lord Jesus Christ. We know the Holy Spirit first by the testimony of Jesus, and then by the conscious enjoyment of His presence.
“Therefore pray.” Prayer is labor, not agony. But labor on the ground of our Lord’s redemption in simple confidence in Him. Prayer is simple to us because it cost Him so much to make it possible. God grant that we may work His victories for Him by taking His way about it.
O Lord, this morning disperse every mist, and shine clear and strong and invigoratingly. Forgive my tardiness; it takes me so long to awaken to some things.
Lord God Omniscient, give me wisdom this day to worship and work aright and be well-pleasing to You. Lord, interpret Yourself to me more and more in fullness and beauty.
Dark and appalling are the clouds of war and wickedness and we know not where to turn, but, Lord God, You reign.