Pray for a bigger labour party!

I read the following this morning in 'With Christ in the school of Prayer'

“It is a terrible blot upon the Church of Christ that there are times when actually men cannot be found for the service of the Master as ministers, missionaries, or teachers of God's Word. As God's children make this a matter of supplication for their own circle or Church, it will be given. The Lord Jesus is now Lord of the harvest. He has been exalted to bestow gifts--the gifts of the Spirit. His chief gifts are men filled with the Spirit. But the supply and distribution of the gifts depend on the co-operation of Head and members. It is just prayer will lead to such co-operation; the believing suppliants will be stirred to find the men and the means for the work. (Lesson 9 - 'Pray the Lord of the harvest;' Or, Prayer provides Labourers”.)

Murray – is spot on! Christ is the Lord of the harvest so why only 31 cadets at the William Booth Memorial College and not 300? Either; we are not praying for a bigger labour party or God is not prepared to invest the human resources in our movement that we want?

Many people are praying for a bigger labour party and the decline in Officer applications has been identified as cause for concern for many years now. Indeed the Army has rightly seen Officer recruitment and retention as a priority and has thrown the weight of many creative minds at the problem.

Yet in spite of having clearly identified our target (greater quantity and quality of Officers) – numbers continue to decline – why?

I believe that this is yet another clear sign that God is withholding his blessing. Matt Clifton recently drew my attention to the following from Deuteronomy 28:38-42

"You will plant many crops in your fields, but harvest little because locusts will destroy your crops. You will plant vineyards and take care of them, but you won't drink any wine or gather any grapes, because worms will eat them. You will have olive trees everywhere in your country but no olive oil to rub on your skin, because the olives will fall off the trees. You will have sons and daughters, but you won't be able to keep them because they will be taken as prisoners of war. Crickets will swarm all over your trees and the crops in your fields."

Let us be certain about this and understand the reality of our situation – many people dismiss this decline as simply being the necessary pruning that Jesus spoke of in John 15 . I do not believe this is so - pruning is meant to remove dead growth and improve the general quality of the plant. My observation is that although God in his mercy has blessed us with a remnant of impressive, committed and competent Officers it is not the dead wood which is being cut away. In addition the decline that we are seeing is not revealing new growth. The Salvation Army is not being pruned but it is dying and if it cannot find its ‘ears’ it runs the risk of being “picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.”However, the sentence is far from final and if we apply the prescribed cure the prognosis is very encouraging. Thanks to Matt again for his insight into the Moab Covenant and The Salvation Army – if we repent then...

"The Lord your God will bring you to the land your ancestors owned. You will take posession of it, and the Lord will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors were. " Deuteronomy 30:5