The King of the heavenly kingdom considered Himself not only the Shepherd of the sheep, but also the Lord of the harvest. His kingdom is established with things of life that can grow and multiply. He is the Lord who owns this crop. We are both the flock and the crop. The flock is made up of living animals and the crop of living vegetation. Under the hand of the Lord Jesus, nothing is lifeless. He does not care for lifeless things, but for things that are living. Everything under the care of this heavenly King is living.
We all need to see a vision of the Lord Jesus as the Lord of the harvest. In verse 38 the Lord told us to beseech the Lord of the harvest that He may thrust out workers into His harvest. Firstly, in His economy, God has a plan to accomplish. Then His economy requires His people to beseech, to pray, for it. In answering their prayer, He will accomplish what they have prayed concerning His plan. Many times when we sense the need for workers, we sound out the call for help. But from now on, whenever you sense the need for workers, you must firstly pray to the Lord of the harvest, saying, “Lord, here is Your harvest. You are the Lord of the harvest. We call on You to thrust out some reapers. Lord, send more reapers into Your harvest.” Praying like this will make a difference. To pray like this means that we have seen a vision that our Christ, the kingly One, the Shepherd, is the Lord of the harvest. Whenever you pray that the Lord would send reapers into His harvest, you honor Him very much. How different this is from inviting people to help you in your work! When you do that, you do not honor Christ as the Lord of the harvest. Rather, it is a matter of your work, not of His harvest. You become the master of that work, and He is not considered as the Lord of the harvest. Therefore, we need to call on Him and say, “Lord, You are the Lord of the harvest. The work in this field is Yours, and this harvest is Your crop. We call on You for Your crop. Lord, send Your reapers.”
Recently, a brother told me that the church life in his locality was wonderful and that I should come there for a visit. Although this brother’s talk was nice, it was rather natural. It had no vision whatever. Instead of inviting me, this brother should have prayed, “Lord, the church in my locality is the harvest of the heavenly King. Lord of the harvest, I call on You to send reapers.” Is the church in your locality your harvest or His harvest? Since it is the Lord’s harvest, you have no right to invite others to go there to labor. To do this is to infringe upon the Lord’s honor. In doing this you fail to recognize that you are not the Lord. He is the Lord of the harvest. The only thing you can do is to ask Him to thrust out reapers. We need further revelation regarding this aspect of the Lord.
I believe that the twelve disciples prayed according to the Lord’s word. Although the Bible does not tell us this, I believe that they did pray. It is a principle in the Bible that, whenever you pray to the Lord for something, the Lord will send you to accomplish that for which you have prayed. The twelve disciples prayed for the Lord of the harvest to send out reapers, and the Lord answered their prayer by sending them out. Whoever prays will be the one sent. For example, you may pray to the Lord regarding the shortage of elders. (However, do not pray according to your ambition, lest the Lord not answer your prayer.) You may simply pray, “Lord, there is the need of elders.” After a certain period of time, the Lord may say, “How about you?” This is the principle. The twelve prayed, and eventually the twelve were sent out.
In 10:1-4 we have the appointment of the twelve apostles. Prior to chapter ten the Lord carried out His kingly ministry alone. But beginning in this chapter the twelve apostles were added for the enlarging, the spread, of the ministry.
Verse 1 says, “And calling His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them authority over unclean spirits, so that they should cast them out and heal every disease and every sickness.” The authority here to cast out unclean spirits and heal diseases is a foretaste of the power of the coming age (Heb. 6:5), that is, of the millennium, in which all demons will be cast out and all diseases healed (Isa. 35:5-6).