Christ made an appeal to His disciples in Matthew 9:38 saying “Pray ye therefore the LORD of the harvest, that He will send forth laborers into His harvest.” What kind of men does the master use in His harvest? He certainly does not use the kind that fills the bulk of the pulpits today. Not the effeminate who dodge controversial issues that the Holy Scriptures stand contrary to. Not the lazy idler who seldom cracks his Bible, who refuses to study and dig deep into the wealth of the inspired Word of Truth. A while back a young man received a book from our book room on an objective view of a body of doctrine that a century ago was common knowledge among all evangelical religion. After reading and coming to the conclusion that these holy and blessed truths were not being preached in the church he attended, he discussed it with an assistant pastor. In turn the assistant spoke to the pastor who responded with a caution, “You are getting too deep.” Is the divine scripture, which is the revealed testimony of God concerning His eternal love and mercy to His people, to be read with a caution? “Beware that you do not dig too deep!”? The only caution I find in it is that a man must not “add to it, or take from it.” The kind of laborer needed in our day is a bold proclaimer of “thus saith the LORD.” The LORD commanded Isaiah, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgressions and the house of Jacob their sins.” The kind of laborer the Master employs is an honest laborer, men who are honest with the souls of men. Men that will call sin sin; as we say, a spade a spade. Men who will say to sinners “sin is your destroyer depart from it or perish, turn or burn.” In the average Baptist church today a man can visit a strip joint on Saturday night, booze it up and be allowed to teach a Sunday school class the next day. The kind of laborers God calls are those who make the message cut deep, who sharpen the sword, not taking the edge off it. Ministers who do not aim to cut deep are not worth the salt that goes into their bread. God does not call a man who never troubles a man’s conscience. Such a man may be an ass treading corn, but a reaper he certainly is not. God give us men faithful to preach the whole truth, and nothing but the truth! What kind of men does “the LORD of the harvest” employ? Uncompromising men, men with righteous integrity, who refuse to water down the gospel of Jesus Christ. What we have in most pulpits today are carnival barkers whose church is just another sideshow. The “jesus” they try selling comes cheap, if they can’t get a quarter for him they’ll take fifteen cents, and if they can’t get that they’ll take a nickel. The Jesus of the Bible is King Jesus, the LORD of glory, higher than the heavens, and He must be lifted up as such in my preaching. He must be bowed to, not bargained with. He is not a proposition; He is the Divine Sovereign who every person that reads these lines must someday reckon with.
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