Ten Ways to Raise Laborers in Your Church

“You must have, more or less, a distinct sense of the dreadful wrath of God and of the terrors of the judgment to come, or you will lack energy in your work and so lack one of the essentials of success.”

Charles Spurgeon

Kirk Cameron’s Comment

This lesson contains the mandate I want to live by. It is my highest calling, my greatest honor, and my personal responsibility. Read it carefully and enlist in God’s army.

Questions & Objections

Lesson

I pray that this is not the case with you or your church. Here’s how to avoid becoming complacent in your Christian walk and how to faithfully, fearlessly share the gospel with the lost.

1) Pray the Prayer.

In Luke 10:2 Jesus said, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few: pray therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest.” It has been 2,000 years since Jesus told His disciples to seek God in prayer for laborers, and it seems that we still have the same dilemma. In his book The Coming Revival, Bill Bright reports that “only two percent of believers in America regularly share their faith in Christ with others” (NewLife Publications, p.65).

One would therefore suspect that Luke 10:2 is probably the most neglected exhortation to prayer in the Bible. What church is going to feel comfortable praying for laborers if it is not laboring in the harvest fields itself? It will instead pray for a sovereign revival, for a “move of God,” for a manifestation of His power ... anything but for laborers. In doing so they hand the job of evangelism back to heaven. In essence they are saying, “We know you have commanded us to preach the gospel to every creature; but we will stay here and pray. Your Word says, ‘How will they hear without a preacher?’ but we will stay here and pray. You have told us that the gospel is the power of God to salvation, but we will stay here and pray; because it sure is easier to talk to God about men, than to talk to men about God.” Luke 10:2 should be boldly stamped on the forefront of every praying mind, and on the front of every Christ-centered pulpit. If we love Him we will keep His commandments, and this commandment is to pray for laborers.

2) Use the Law.

Experience has shown that those who know what they have been saved from know what they have been saved for. The Law reveals that sin is exceedingly sinful (Romans 7:13), and therefore it makes grace abound in the hearts of those who come to Christ (Romans 5:20). If this is your experience (you find that gratitude for God’s mercy continually feeds your zeal to do His will), then seek to bring others through the same door. Christians must be taught that the Law prepares the way for the gospel to do its work (Galatians 3:24). It is the solid soil from which Calvary’s cross arises. This is the foundation for biblical evangelism.

3) Stir the Lukewarm.

Gently confront those who don’t share their faith. They need to be reminded of the sobering words of Jesus in Matthew 7:21–23 and Revelation 3:16. Those verses should cause to tremble all who name the name of Christ yet lack a concern for the unsaved. Some who sit within the church are false converts and need to be awakened by the Law; others are Christians who have not been taught the biblical priority of the church—that they have a moral responsibility to reach out to the lost. There are masses within the Body of Christ who have never once identified with Paul’s “Woe is to me if I preach not the gospel,” and as long as they remain in that state we will lack laborers.

4) Use Tracts.

God has saved multitudes through tracts, so encourage Christians to always carry some with them. Let them know that literature can be used as a conversation opener (“Did you get one of these?”), a conversation closer (“Here’s something further for you to read”), and can also be left in places without the daunting thought of human confrontation. Many Christians, like four-days-dead Lazarus, have nothing to do with the outside world. They have been scared to death by the very thought of evangelism. They sit paralyzed on the pew, wrapped in the shroud of the fear of man. Therefore, groan in prayer for them, then lift up your voice and call the dead church to come out of the grave. There is great joy among laborers when a cold and lifeless corpse comes out of the tomb of inactivity, to be a living witness of Him who is the resurrection and the life.

5) Preach the Fear of God.

In Romans 3:10–18, the apostle Paul gives a stinging indictment of the moral state of humanity. He says that we are corrupt, ignorant, rebellious, and violent. Then he puts his finger on the cause of such a sinful state. He says, “There is no fear of God before their eyes,” and immediately swings the subject to God’s Law—the cure to the moral dilemma. Psalm 111:10 informs us, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments.” Therefore preach that which is the beginning of wisdom. Teach the true character of our Creator using the Law to show His perfect righteousness. A failure to use the Law lawfully has left few in the world (or even in the church) ever hearing that sinners are enemies of God in their minds through wicked works (Colossians 1:21). They are by nature children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3). His wrath abides on them (John 3:36). Our God is a consuming fire, and it is a fearful thing to fall into His holy hands. Eyes should be plucked out, and hands severed at the thought of sinning against Him. We should fear Him who has power to cast the body and soul into hell. It is when we see Him in truth that we will say with Paul, “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Corinthians 5:11). Those who don’t persuade men don’t know the terror of the Lord, so let His terror be known among your brethren.

Notice that Psalm 111:10 also links the “commandments” with the fear of the Lord. After speaking of the fear of the Lord the psalmist tells us “a good understanding have all they that do his commandments.” It is the Commandments that make sinners and saints tremble. The Law puts the fear of God in their hearts. Sinners tremble when they have an understanding that the wrath of the Law calls for their blood (Romans 4:15). Saints tremble at the foot of a bloodied cross, because it was the Law that called for their blood (1 Peter 1:17–19) but instead shed the precious blood of the Savior. Always remember that it is the fear of the Lord that makes men depart from sin (Proverbs 16:6), both before and after the cross. The fear of the Lord doesn’t disappear when we come to know His love. It remains and continues to do its most necessary work: “The fear of the LORD tends to life: and he that has it shall abide satisfied; he shall not be visited with evil” (Proverbs 19:23). Memorize that verse—and live by it.

Scripture likens sin to leprosy, a disease characterized by spots on the flesh. When we reach out to sinners we are exhorted to “hate even the garment spotted by the flesh” (Jude 23), and to keep ourselves “unspotted from the world” (James 1:27). A symptom of leprosy is that the victim loses any sense of pain. Mild pain prompts us to move around when we sit or lie down for too long in one position. This allows blood to flow freely throughout our body, and our blood is the life of our flesh. If there is no pain, there is no movement, and the flesh therefore rots. Sin dulls the pains of an accusing conscience, so that there is no movement away from it (repentance). It causes the soul to rot (“fleshly lusts, which war against the soul,” 1 Peter 2:11). Jesus is coming for a spotless Church—for a “glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle”—so we need to therefore continually wash ourselves in the water of the Word, scrub the walls of our minds, and burn anything that may be contaminated by the defilement of this evil world. The fear of the Lord will give us motivation to do so. See Psalm 37:30, 31.

6) Preach Future Punishment.

It’s not enough to preach the Ten Commandments, or even to open up the spiritual nature of the Law. We must couple that with the truths of Judgment Day and of the horrifying reality of hell. Without the threat of punishment, no one will flee from the wrath to come. The very thought of the existence of hell will be scorned by the world if the Law and the consequences of its transgression are not preached. Great damage has been done for the cause of the gospel by “hell-fire” preaching (the preaching of hell without the “reasoning” of the Law). Great damage has also been done by swinging the pendulum the other way, with many in the church (out of a fear of man) adopting worthless clichés such as a “Christless eternity” and “eternal separation from God.” These soften the thought of God’s wrath, and at the same time defuse our evangelism of a sense urgency. The true and faithful witness will make sure the evangelistic pendulum remains where it should.

7) Break Out of the Comfort Zone.

Many Christians live in monasteries without walls. They fellowship in the holy huddle and cozy comfort of the Saved. Excommunicate yourself from the monastery. Show by example that we are called to be in, but not of the world: “That you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15). We should be in the midst, among, in the world. We should be accused (like Jesus) of being a friend of sinners, and our mingling with them should be motivated solely by a deep concern for their eternal welfare. Have you ever heard a clap of thunder that was so loud it seemed to make the heavens tremble? Did its noise terrify you for a moment? It will be but a tiny whisper compared to the “great noise” and “flaming fire” that will be revealed when Almighty God rips apart the sky at the Second Coming. In that “great and terrible Day of the Lord,” the elements “shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10).

Is there any fear when we read these words: “Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he has promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven” (Hebrews 12:26)? Where is our horror at the fate of the lost? Where is our concern for them? We must be the most hard-hearted generation since Adam. We have so much light and yet we keep it to ourselves. We say that we are rich, and yet compared to the church of the Book of Acts, we are poor, blind, wretched, miserable, and naked. We have become so introverted, we have forgotten the meaning of the word “compassion.” Once the walls of the monastery mindset have been broken down, prohibit any “vows of silence.” Monks in monasteries and vows of silence are for the religious, not for the Christian. We have something to shout from the housetops. We are called to lift up our voices like a trumpet, not silence them, and we will not do that unless we go into the world and reach out in our personal spheres of influence.

8) Feed on the Word.

If we want to see laborers raised up and witness the miracle of a worldwide revival, we would be wise to fulfill the requirements of Psalm 1. If we meditate on the Law of God both day and night (and like Job we say, “I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary food”), then we will be as a tree planted by rivers of water. We will bring forth fruit in season. Our leaf will not wither ... and “whatever” we do will then “prosper.” That includes our evangelistic efforts.

9) Meditate on the Destiny of the Ungodly.

Meditate on and remind Christians of the fate of the ungodly. Pray for a tender heart that will weigh heavy if we meet an unsaved person, or even walk past them without reaching out to them either verbally or with a tract. May we weep over Jerusalem and may our tender hearts shame the hard hearts within the church. It seems that most of us can weep at every human tragedy, except the ultimate tragedy of hell. Our dry eyes reveal a hard heart. We either don’t believe the horror that “whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15) or we don’t care. Both are sin.

10) Redeem the Time.

Teach folks to make the best use of every moment. This life is like a burning desert, and time is like water cupped in our hands. An ignorant man will let its precious drops fall through his fingers, not realizing that it is his very life. We must treat every valuable minute as though it was our last drop of time, because one day it will be. Remind yourself of that fact at the beginning of every day. Spurgeon said that men have been taught to live by remembering that they have to die. So use your time very wisely, and the wisest thing you can do with that most precious of commodities is to seek and save that which is lost.

Feathers for Arrows

A little boy once said to his mom, “I am sick of the food you keep giving me—potatoes, carrots, and spinach. From now on I choose my own diet. I am having nothing but chocolate candy bars for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” Imagine what the child would look like if he were allowed to eat what he wanted. His face would break into pimples. He may become very sick and even die because of a lack of proper food. His facial condition would be an evident token that he was on the wrong diet—even though it tastes good to him, it’s not good for him.

Man’s attitude is, “God, from now on, I don’t want your diet—I want mine.” He chooses sin rather than righteousness. He wants what tastes good rather than what is good. As a direct result of humanity’s sinful diet, painful pimples have broken out over the whole face of the earth. There are diseases, floods, earthquakes, starvation, endless suffering, and death. All these things should show us that something is radically wrong with our diet. Instead of using the sufferings of humanity as an excuse to reject God, see them as stark evidences to accept Him and the explanations given in His Word. They are very real reminders that what God says is true.

Questions

1. Why do individuals and churches often neglect this exhortation to prayer?
2. Do you regularly obey the command of Luke 10:2?
3. Why should we use the Law when witnessing?
4. Why should we encourage the preaching of future punishment?
5. What Bible verse tells us how Christians are to relate to the world?

Answers to these review questions are provided in the back of the printed book / source PDF.

Memory Verse

“Then said he to his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.”

Matthew 9:37-38

Last Words

Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) was a British poet who achieved great fame for his portrait painting. He was one of the founders and first president of the Royal Academy. The last word he was heard to say was: “I know that all things must have an end.”

Joshua Reynolds