A further visit to Kenya, Malawi and Zimbabwe has made it very clear that there is at present an open door for the Gospel in these and other countries in Africa. In Scotland and other Western European countries it may be difficult in our day to gather a few people together to hear the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The large scale rejection of the gospel of God’s grace is a marked feature of life in the ‘advanced’ countries of the world, and in particular in our own land. Men do not want to hear of the glory of the divine Redeemer and of the salvation that is to be found in Him for the chief of sinners. Our age has in a large measure lost any sense of sin and so have no need of the remedy for sin. Consequently Christ is to this generation largely as “a root out of a dry ground, having no form nor comeliness”. By its rejection of Jesus Christ it is an age ripening for the judgments of God.
In Africa, on the other hand, it is not difficult to gather many people together to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. Whether or not they have had prior intimation of a service, a ringing on the church bell will bring many near at hand to the hearing of the Word. Neither does it matter in that warm climate whether or not there is a church building made of mud bricks and thatch or other material. The shade of a large tree to give shelter from the heat of the sun is sufficient. Nor do they say when the service is over that they have had enough. On more than one occasion when visiting stations to have a service there, we were constrained by the people to hold another service almost immediately afterwards. It is not so in Scotland.
How evident it is then that the harvest is plenteous but the labourers are few. Neither in Kenya or Malawi, nor in Zimbabwe can our Church meet the demands that are made on it for the preaching of the Word of God. As the harvest is plenteous, so is it true that the labourers are few. But who is to answer the call? Many centuries ago a message sounded out from Europe, ‘Come over into Macedonia, and help us.’ Paul in a vision saw a man of Macedonia pleading in this way, and he tells, “immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them.” What then of the call from Africa? — from Zimbabwe — from Kenya — from Malawi, yes, and from Mozambique and other lands too, ‘Come over into Africa and help us.’ Is the call to fall on deaf ears in Scotland and elsewhere? If so, it is very different from the Apostle Paul’s day, and very different from the prophet Isaiah’s day when the sound went out “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then the lips touched with the live coal from the altar answered: “Here am I; send me.” What need there is that men would be raised up by the Lord, divinely called, and endued with all the necessary gifts and graces of the Spirit to go forth into the great harvest field. The field is the world. Unlimited opportunities stretch before those whom the Lord sends. And as it was when the Saviour was in the world, so it is today. He sends His servants into those places where He Himself is to come.
We trust that the Lord will, in His gracious providence, send forth into His vineyard many faithful ambassadors to proclaim His truth. But He says to His church: “I will yet be enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them.” “Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that He may send forth labourers into His harvest.”