In this sermon, the speaker focuses on the ministry of Jesus as described in Matthew 9:35-38. Jesus went about teaching, preaching the gospel, and healing the sick in various cities and villages. When he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion because they were like sheep without a shepherd. The speaker emphasizes the need for more laborers in the harvest, comparing it to the unfairness of people rushing to the light end of a log while leaving one person to carry the heavy end. The sermon also highlights three important principles: the Bible is a missionary book, the importance of being moved with compassion, and the availability of a place for prayer.

Thank you very much. It is indeed a pleasure to be in Idaho, and particularly a pleasure to be here at Camp Perkins. And more than that, to be with the Alliance family from Idaho. I'm home, I'm with my own people. I delight to be with you. There are three principles I hope you'll remember from this camp. Can you hear me? You can't hear me. All right. I've got a built-in microphone, a little power system. I'll turn it up. And we've got another one over here. And so we'll just try to get the right gauge on all that. They say that when you're testing, you have to say, one, two, three. I've never heard a tester that could get beyond three. We'll have to write it out for them sometime. They go to four, five, six, and no one will be upset about it. All right, very good. There are three basic principles that I would like very much to have you associate with this weekend. The principles are very basic. They're important, and you need to remember them. The first principle is this. The Bible is a missionary book. We sometimes think that the Bible is a book of theology that has something to say about missions. But it's interesting that the Bible does not teach systematic theology. It teaches responsibility, and then men pick up the theology and systematize it. But in the Scripture, it's always associated with the enforcement of responsibility. But it is a missionary book. Some of you my age or thereabouts may remember that back in grade school, they had something called arithmetic. Apparently, they've done away with it. My little grandson, going into the first grade, talks about math. We didn't get math until we got into the last two years of high school. Up until then, it was arithmetic. But apparently, now they've speeded everything up. At any rate, when I was in school, they had problems associated with arithmetic. For instance, I recall one, something like it. It said if a farmer has a team of horses and a walking plow, and he can plow three acres in one day, how many acres could he plow if he had six teams, six plows, and six men working them? Well, that was not a book on agriculture or horticulture. It was a book on arithmetic. And the Bible is a missionary book. And it's extremely important for us to understand that from Genesis through Revelation, it's the unfolding of the eternal purpose of God to bring to himself a people that should be for his joy and for his praise. But once you get it clear in your mind and heart that the Bible is a missionary book, then you've got a second principle that you need to join to it, and that is this. The Church, rightly understood, is the missionary society. What we call the missionary department or the missionary agency or the missionary society actually is, if they understand their role from the Scripture, a service agency to assist the local church in sending out the missionary. Because remember, it was to the church at Antioch that the Spirit said, separate unto me Saul and Barnabas and send them. Well, the third principle is close to the other two. It is this. Everyone born into the family of God through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ is expected to become part of the family business. And the business of the Godhead is to get the message of God's grace out to those for whom it is intended, especially those that have never heard. Now if we have these three principles firmly in mind, they're going to help us and guide us and direct us in our thinking and in our living. There's no room in the Christian life for spectators in relation to this task of getting the gospel out to the ends of the earth. Every provision of God's grace, everything that God does in sinners to bring them to Christ, and in his children after they have come to Christ, is to the end of making us more effective witnesses for Christ. The text I wish to have riveted into your mind for tonight is found in Matthew, the ninth chapter, and verses 35 through 38. And Jesus went about all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. We'll stop there. We'll continue later. How did the Lord Jesus minister? What was the method of his ministry? It was to walk. Fortunately, he didn't have cars or motorcycles or Hondas or horses. He walked. And from village to village where he walked, he had time to stop on the way and to talk with the people that he met about the most important subject in the world. So we are told that he went from city and village around through the area, teaching in their synagogues where he was invited, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. This was his Samaria. He wasn't in Nazareth, his hometown, but these were the cities and the towns of Galilee. And the Lord Jesus was demonstrating one of the basic principles that we have to understand and that is this, that the light that shines the farthest ought to shine the brightest at its base. And his base was right there in Galilee. And so he went from city, one city to another, one village to another, teaching the people, meeting them, and ministering to them. Now the important point for you in this is that when the Lord Jesus on this particular occasion came up over a little rise in the ground, he looked down and saw what you would consider the once a month monthly market day. Each village had its own market day, but once a month we are told by Josephus that the various villages in an area would come together and they, all of those who would have things to sell in their local markets, would gather at this monthly market. And so it would be quite a large company that would be seen there. And you can see the picture. Here is the Lord Jesus with the disciples. They're walking up over this hill. He's looking down and seeing this throng with their sheep and their goats, perhaps their camels, their cattle, their birds, their fowl, their produce, the things they've made. And there they are stretched out selling their goods, marketing their things one to another. And it is the text tells us that when he looked out and gazed upon that throng in that market day that he nearly fainted with compassion. He was moved with compassion literally means that the blood rushed down to his solar plexus and his human frame started to sag. His disciples, I'm sure, caught him, each one of them on one side under the arm and held him up. But he would have fallen with the grief and the heartache and the burden of seeing this company of people whom the Holy Ghost through Matthew describes as sheep scattered without a shepherd. Now who were they? Who were they? They were his own countrymen. They spoke his language. They shared his culture. They had the same tradition and background. But he saw them as sheep scattered without a shepherd. I think one of the great days in the life of the Christian Missionary Alliance was shortly after Albert Benjamin Simpson had left the 13th Street Presbyterian Church and had started holding meetings up in a little upper room on 23rd Street. A few people that had come to know the Lord had joined him there, not a large company. Though he'd been the pastor of the prestigious 13th Presbyterian Church, equivalent in that day to the 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church of today where the very outstanding church of New York City. He wore there at all times during the week a Prince Albert coat and dressed very formally. And he continued to do that. He had not changed, though he was no longer pastor of the church and no longer received a munificent salary. He'd gone out on faith to start a ministry that became this society ultimately. In that first little company of people, we are told, was a woman who had come to know the Lord Jesus Christ through the preaching that he'd had in the months before leaving the church. She had grown in the grace and knowledge of Christ and she was greatly concerned for her husband who was a longshoreman, worked on the ships, and who was also an alcoholic, a drunkard. This particular day, Dr. Simpson was walking down 8th Avenue, so we are told, and he saw a man lying in front of a saloon. He was obviously stone drunk. He had a filthy face and shirt. He'd been lying there through the hours of the night. And Dr. Simpson recognized that it was the husband of this woman who was part of that fellowship of his, and greatly moved with compassion that dignified Dr. Simpson, knelt on the saloon, put the head of that drunken man on his knees, took a clean linen handkerchief from the pocket of his Prince Albert coat, and began to wipe all of the dirt and mess from the face and eyes of this man. And then with his hand on his head, he began to pray. And the passerby who recorded it and reported it and brought it into the tradition of our society said that the tears from Dr. Simpson's eyes fell onto the face of the husband of this woman of his church. Is it any wonder that a few short weeks later that man made good profession of faith in Christ, was marvelously born of God, and ultimately became one of the leaders of the Gospel Tabernacle Church? I say no, it's no wonder. You see, when he saw one of that multitude, he was moved with compassion. When you see your neighbors who are lost, who are dead in their trespasses and sins, just as lost as the people in Borneo and Indonesia and Latin America and Africa, how do you see them? Because they drive a car as nice as yours? Because they sleep between sheets and eat with stainless steel silverware? Send their children to nice schools? Have you forgotten that they're dead in their trespasses and sins? Without God and without hope in the Lord. When the Lord Jesus saw his countrymen, those who spoke his language, shared his culture, he was moved with compassion. But what about the disciples? They've been with him for several months. They'd come with him quite a ways. What about them? How did they feel? Did they share this concern and compassion that Christ had? Well, we've got a picture of the disciples. Do you remember that occasion? When going into such a village as this, the word had gone out into the community, the teacher is coming, bring your sick, bring those that have need. And I see one little village. And I see three or four mothers who said, well, it's all right for the rest of them to go. But there isn't any need for us to go. Our children are just, he can't do that. You see, one of the mothers had a child that had been born blind. And they'd never heard of anybody that had been born blind having their sight restored. Another one had a child who was paralyzed from the hips down. His little limbs were just useless and when he moved he had to swing them on his hands, sort of with his upper body swing his useless hips around across the floor. And another child was spastic, couldn't make one controlled muscle, couldn't move a muscle, couldn't control a limb. Well, they didn't go. No use. But along about mid-morning, a man came running through the village saying, I can see! I can see! I was born blind, but I can see! He made me see. And the women rush over and say, look, you better take your child. They're born blind, you see! And another comes there, the man who'd also been crippled and couldn't move his lower limb, said he's running and jumping! And so the three mothers get together and say, well, all right, we'll go. Now here's where the disciples come in. Peter and Matthew were standing there, two old men, and I can hear what they're saying. Why in the world is the Lord spending all his time up here in Galilee? The other one says, yeah, you know, there's a lot of truth in that saying that any good thing come out of Galilee, and we're all from Galilee, but maybe it applies to us too. I don't know. I think he ought to be down in Jerusalem talking to the Pharisees, the leaders. Instead of that, he's up here in all these little villages and all these little towns. And oh, have you ever known so many sick people? Where do they come from? They crawl out of the woodwork. You think that's bad? Look what's coming now. And Peter said, oh, boy, I've had it. Clear up the ear, Matthew. I can't take anymore. This is too much. This is more than anybody should be asked to do. Let's take care of this. Let's stop this right now. I'm very sorry, ladies, but it's late in the day, and the teacher is very tired, and we've got to move on to the next village, and we'll be back here sometime, so you bring the children some other time. And the Lord Jesus, who knew what was in the heart of His disciples, knew where they were. Stops what He's doing and looks across into the eyes of Peter and Matthew, and He sees their hearts, just like He sees mine and yours tonight. And He said, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. And I see that little blind baby brought as the way opens, and his mother brings him, and the Lord takes the child and touches the two fingers to his tongue, lays them on the little eyes, and opens. And the first thing the child ever sees is the face of the Lord Jesus. And the next is the outstretched arms and the face of the mother and the child that come to trust and love. And then the little spastic child body so agitated because of the moment. And the Lord Jesus just rests His fingers on the brow, and the cortex is healed. And the first controlled action the child makes is to put his hand up and touch his mother's face. And the little child hopelessly crippled. And the Lord Jesus prays, and He says, Stand up, sonny. And the little lad stands upon his feet and walks to his mother. And the disciples, cynical. That's what we find. Oh, you see, they were interested. Well, James couldn't get one. John couldn't get one waiting at home so they could go to the mother and say, Mother, when the Lord comes, go to Him and say, when Thou comest into Thy kingdom, let James sit on Thy right hand and John on Thy left. Oh, they had ambitions to be big when Christ was on the throne of David. Big people, big man. They hadn't understood His heart yet. How well do we understand His heart? Have we gotten close enough to the Lord Jesus in the years we walked with Him so that we see the multitude, we see them as He did? Thy sheep scattered without a shepherd. And then He turned to His disciples and He said, The harvest truly is plentious, but the laborers are few. So few, so few among so many. And they are. I've always wondered why it is when people go to carrying logs and they say, Oh, it's so important to carry a log that nine people rush to the light end of the log and leave one fellow to carry the heavy end of the log. It doesn't seem quite fair to me somehow, but that's exactly what we've been doing for years and years and years and years. We've been letting one person carry the heavy end of the log. Roger and Mrs. Lewis who were from the tabernacle in New York years ago out there. Where did you say they were? In Bali. The only missionaries we had. Oh, God help us. God help us. The laborers are so few. The laborers are so few. But why? Why? I think it's the next verse that tells us. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest. I was studying in preparation for a missionary message. One of the first after I got back from Africa in 1949. It was this text that the Lord had led me to prepare to use. And I wanted to do as I always wanted to do before I bring a message. I wanted to go into the original language and find out exactly what it was that was said. And so I did it with this. Word by word. And this is what I came up with. Pray ye the Lord therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will be able to send forth missionary laborers into his harvest. The nature of that construction in the original language is translated most correctly the way I gave it to you. That he will be able to. Why? Why should the God who loved the world enough to give his son and the son who loved the world enough to give his life and the father who had power enough to raise his son from the dead. Why should he ever come to us and say pray ye the Lord of the harvest that he will be able to thrust our laborers into the harvest. Well there's a reason and there's a good reason. And we better understand the reason. The reason is this. The people that are sitting in darkness are just like you were. In Ephesians the second chapter we are told and you who were dead in trespasses and sins who walked according to the course of this world according to the prince and the power of the air that very same spirit that now works among the children of disobedience among whom we all had our manner of life in times past fulfilling the desires and the pleasures of the mind and were by nature the children of wrath even as others. Maybe you can even turn it off. I think I can control the situation. If it's going to get out of hand. I don't know how it is. John Wesley spoke to 20,000 people in the open air. And we have an auditorium so small that you can blow a spitball to the other end and we have to have a PA system. I don't understand. Well, never mind. It's all right. I guess it's because we're afraid to talk if we don't have a monkey face staring at us. But however that is, I want you to know this, that the people that are in the ends of the earth are under the direct control of Satan. Now you better get that clear in mind. You better get that clear in your mind that they're under the control of Satan. They worship Satan by name. They pray to him. Oh, I used to say, well, have you been to all the tribes everywhere? No, I haven't. But I've been enough so that I can generalize and say the exceptions that there are, are exceptions. The people are under the control of the witch doctor and the god of this world. And they worship and they serve him. Now, he owns them. He owns them. And we've got to understand what happens. When a missionary goes, I think of the time in the early days when in the Sudan Interior Mission, they sent Walter Gowans and Kent, Thomas Kent, went to Nigeria. They were only there a few weeks and they were dead, dying, smitten. They just wanted to go into a tribe, wanted to go into an area. And the Sudan Interior Mission was finished. In the next seven years, nothing has happened because of that great defeat when Gowans and Kent had died within a few weeks of arriving in Nigeria. But Roland Bingham up in Toronto began to understand some things and he began to understand that you can't go into the devil's territory until you have fought the victory and the battle in prayer. And so he began to get people in Canada to pray, to pray, the Lord of the Harvest, to send out laborers. And he began to teach them how that the people are controlled by Satan. And we who once were the property of Satan, once served him, once were dead in our sins but have renounced the God of this world, now can come to God in intercessory prayer and say, Father, these people who speak this language in that country, these people, Lord, are no more wicked or deserve hell no more than did I. And you brought someone to me now, oh God of grace, we're praying you'll bring someone to them. And the next thing that happened, one went, Andrew Steered went and Andrew Steered stayed and Andrew Steered preached and God honored and God blessed and a church was established. But it had to be reinforced with specific prayer. Well, I think of what happened in the alliance. The first time, our society wanted to send out missionaries into Tibet. They all were either sick or died or came home in defeat. The whole first Tibetan effort failed. And Dr. Simpson went to prayer and he preached about Tibet. He asked people to pray for Tibet. In fact, his secretary of the time wrote letters to friends that said, I went by the study door and I saw Dr. Simpson in there holding the globe in his arms with his finger on Tibet and the tears were streaming down his cheeks falling upon the globe as he cried out to God to send missionaries to Tibet. When that first team of missionaries got there including Tom Mosley and some others and so in answer to prayer God brought a new generation of young men and women who were ready and willing and able to go and to establish a beachhead for the gospel in that desperately dark and needy land. Pray the Lord of the harvest in order that he'll be able to thrust out laborers into the harvest field. I was in the church in Dalton, Georgia Baptist Church. They'd asked us to come for a missionary conference. I had a missionary with us, a young woman that wanted to go to Nigeria to serve the Lord as a missionary. I preached, the people received what I had to bring with joy. I had a morning service of Bible teaching ministry in the morning from 10.30 to nearly noon. Let them out in time to go home and get lunch for the family and then in the evening but by Wednesday the whole meeting had begun to tighten up. And we found that there were two or three of the deacons that were saying we can't, we won't, they didn't know why. Why they were fighting it. They said, Pastor, I don't know why I'm talking like this. I don't know why I'm fighting this. But I am. And I said on Wednesday morning, I said tomorrow we will meet at 8 o'clock. If you have to go home to serve your family, go. But we will pray right through from 8 o'clock until the Lord releases us in the afternoon. Because this is a spiritual battle we're fighting. And I had explained to them how that we, there's that little book of J. A. MacMillan that our publication society puts out, The Authority of the Believer, how together we could stand against the forces of a defeated foe and release a people and release a church. And as we met together that day a spirit of prayer fell upon us and the Holy Ghost was present. And there was great intercession. And along about one in the afternoon there was that sense that we have prevailed. God has answered prayer. We will, he's given us the victory. Well, that's what happened. These men's attitudes changed. They took on the support of the missionary for several years they had missionary conferences. They had other young people from the church go to Bible school and then go on out to the field. What we had discovered was this, that this verse is true. Pray the Lord of the harvest that he may be able to thrust out laborers into the harvest field. In missions, every failure is a prayer failure. Every victory is a prayer victory. And what he wants us to understand is that we are laborers together with him in this very important task. Heavenly Father, here are churches throughout this state that have come together for this time. We've come apart. We've come to a mountainside. We want to have the Lord Jesus revealed among us. We want to see him, the king in his beauty. We want to behold him, and in beholding him be transformed into his image and likeness. And we want our blood ransomed lives, our Father, to count for the very most for the glory and the honor and the praise of thy dear son. And so we're asking that somehow our hearts will be brought into the net of thy love, drawn close to thee. And everything we need to have done in us to be everything you've planned for us to be will be accomplished through these days as thou hast purposed. For we ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Amen. A couple of announcements. Remember the tapes here? Come get them early, look at them. Talk to me about them. We're going to go about 9-15, 9-10 to 9-15 we'll begin our fire service, fire camp, what do you call it? Campfire! Campfire. We're going to burn some of you. A little Molec sacrifice out here. I think it's right down here below the hill, if I'm not mistaken, the campfire. So that will go until 10 o'clock. Gentlemen and ladies, remember that at 6 a.m. there will be a rousing basketball service led by Jim Evans. I will come down and keep score for you. Let's stand together. I've been chosen to give the altar calls, if you want to call them that, the closing of the services for this weekend. I've given a lot of thought to that. Haven't come up with one single idea yet. Because I'm getting real tired of seeing hands raised and people come forward and walk back. Empty hands. There have been times when I've experienced what Paris talked about tonight, being moved with compassion. Sometimes walking to my pulpit and looking out at the people. If something hits me, it's a cry within me that can't even be heard except by me. And my heart just sinks down into my stomach knowing that no matter how good I do what I'm going to do for the next 45 minutes, it's probably not going to make a single difference in anybody's life. And I get moved with compassion. What can I do? How can I say it? How can the Holy Spirit use a vessel to do and communicate what he wants to do? And then, of course, there's the rest of the time. They're the greatest people in the world. They're the hungriest, most loving, most God-fearing. And so you go between those concepts and experiences. Let me say this for the weekend. This place is always open if you want to pray. I'm not talking about the front down here. I'm talking about the place where God will meet you. If it's out there behind a tree or down there by the river, maybe you have to go back to your cabin. I don't know. You've got to find the place. Some of you know what God has spoken to you tonight. Some of you, he has repeated something he has already spoken to you many, many years ago. And it's been put off camp after camp after camp. And he's saying, now's the time you've got to move. You've got to say yes. You've got to give in. For one thing I know for sure tonight, let's not sing, He is Lord unless He is Lord. And let's not say it and think it and speak it with our lips unless He's Lord. And I'm halfway scared nowadays to sing that song. Not for your sake, but for my sake. Knowing my own life, knowing my life as a pastor, as a man of God, what He's spoken to you tonight. You know what you must do. You know how much you must respond. And I'm not going to say any more to try and convince you. You find a place tonight alone with God. And maybe between now and campfire service, you will have settled an issue in your heart and you'll be able to come to that service. With a testimony of how I have responded tonight to the call of God in my life. Father, thank you for this service, for the faithfulness of your word and your spirit and your servant. And for this people, whom you have anointed their ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church. Father, help us not to forget and help us not to forsake. In Jesus' name, Amen. We'll see you in a few minutes. Pick up your children at the other service and bring your, what are those called? Getting to know you sheets.