Derek Prince - When People Do This, They Will Be Rejected By God
This is an excerpt from: The Two Harvests
Now in Matthew 9, Jesus makes a very, I would say, tragic statement. We’ll begin at verse 36 because again it’s a question of vision. Jesus saw people differently from His disciples. When Jesus saw the multitudes He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered like sheep having no shepherd. They had rabbis, they had synagogues; but they didn’t have shepherds. Then He said to His disciples, 'The harvest truly is plentiful but the laborers are few.' If that was true at that time, I would say it is a hundred times truer today. The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are pitifully few. They estimate there’s about one missionary for every one million Moslems. And yet, the harvest is plentiful.
Ruth and I have been in Indonesia, which is essentially a Moslem nation. But, in the last 20 or 30 years it’s estimated 30 percent of the population have become Christians. And the demand for the truth of God’s Word is such that it cannot be satisfied. We’ve been talking about video. There is a brother there, who has a ministry that is placing video Bible teaching cassettes in every village in Indonesia. They don’t have electricity, but they use a car battery or something else to operate them. One of the things that amazed us in Malaysia, which is another mainly Moslem nation, you can drive through villages that don’t have running water, they don’t have any kind of major store, and they’ve all got TV aerials. That’s true.
There was a major article in Time Magazine a few months ago saying there’s a video revolution and it’s upsetting political systems. I think one of the reasons for the recent turmoil in the East Bloc was that people had been exposed to television or video that showed what it was like in the West. And the political system couldn’t hold them down. I’m not interested in political issues but I am interested in reaping the harvest.
We had a meeting, the last meeting we had, of our branch directors in Singapore last May. And one of its purposes was to discuss video as a means of reaching the world. And while we were meeting there, the pastor of our local congregation in Fort Lauderdale, a young man - by my standards you understand, that doesn’t mean young by the way you think, but not old but youngish he sent me a fax And he said: 'I was having my devotions this morning and I was going to pray for something. And I just couldn’t pray for anything but you and your ministry. While I was praying, God gave me a vision. And I saw a sickle reaping the harvest. It started in the area of New Zealand and went up through Southeast Asia into China. And the blade of the sickle was a video cassette.'
Do you have the vision? Are you aware of what can be done or just content with business as usual? You might say, 'Well, Brother Prince, I don’t have many gifts. I’m not a preacher, I’m not an evangelist.' You’re in great danger, do you know that? You take the parable of the talents; there were three kinds of people. The man who received five talents worked with them and made five more, he doubled. The man who received two talents, worked with them and doubled. Their increase was 100 percent. But the person who received one talent, didn’t think it was worth bothering with so he just hid it in the earth. And, when the master came back he said: 'Here’s your talent, I was afraid of you. I hid it in the earth.' Remember what the master said? 'You wicked and lazy servant!'
Do you realize that laziness is wickedness? 'If you couldn’t do anything with it yourself you ought to have taken it to the bankers and deposited it and gotten interest on it. Then you would have been able to give me my interest.' And you know what he said? 'Cast the unprofitable servant into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' You see, it’s the one-talent person that’s in the greatest danger because the attitude is 'I don’t have much; what can God expect of me?' Well, let me suggest to you if you don’t have enough to run your own operation, put it in the bank, invest in another ministry that is doing the job. See? Everybody can do something.
You say, “Brother Prince, what should I invest in?” Well, there is a ministry called Derek Prince Ministries. We’re not a large ministry but we are, by the grace of God, totally committed to the reaping of the harvest. But suppose that isn’t what you feel led to. Let me just mention just a few. And I’m not paid by anybody. There’s Youth With A Mission, a group of people mainly sold out to the vision of the harvest. There’s Operation Mobilization, another group with a worldwide o utreach, the same vision. There’s Brother Andrew’s Open Doors that aims to reach the unreached. There’s Maranatha Ministries that aims to reach the students of the world worldwide. And that’s just a list of what, four or five. I’m not suggesting you should get involved in any. But you should not sit in church and do nothing. Because when the Lord comes, you’re going to have to answer for that one talent.
And it would be tragic if He were to say to, some of you, 'Cast him out into outer darkness.' In Matthew 25 there are three pictures of people who were totally rejected from God. The foolish virgins. The unfaithful servant, who didn’t make use of his talent. And the goat nations who didn’t show mercy to Jesus’ brothers. And all of them were finally rejected from God’s presence without an option. You ask me, What was there in common? What did they all do that caused them to be rejected? I can answer you in one word. Guess what the word is? Nothing. That's all you have to do to be rejected, is nothing. I didn’t intend to speak like this, but I sense if I know the Holy Spirit, and I’m not laying claim to inerrancy, but if I sense the Holy Spirit, He’s very much in earnest here tonight. He wants to get through and I think particularly to churchgoers.
But, that’s not where it’s at. I believe we should not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. I thank God for every church which takes care of God’s people and looks after the sheep. But when you’ve gone to church on Sunday and sang the hymns and followed the prayers, you haven’t discharged your duty. I believe personally, and I say this not out of emotion but of intellectual conviction, I believe every Christian is responsible to be involved some way in reaping the harvest. I don’t believe there should be a single Christian that isn’t in some way involved in this glorious task of reaping the harvest.
Jesus said the harvest is plentiful, the laborers are few. What did He say next? Pray the Lord of the harvest to thrust forth laborers into the harvest. I like the word thrust. That is a very powerful word in Greek; it’s the same word that’s used when Jesus drove demons out of people. Pray the Holy Spirit to drive people into the harvest. Jesus knew what He was talking about. You don’t saunter onto the harvest field. It’s not something you do casually. It takes a push from the Holy Spirit. It means giving things up. You know two idols of the modern church? Security and comfort. They’re idols that are worshiped every Sunday morning.