This wonderful truth is a great encouragement to those of us praying for others because we can rest assured that the Holy Spirit who is the Lord of the harvest always gets his man, once He sanctifies him! A college student, professing to be an atheist, once wrote to C.S. Lewis explaining that he had fallen in with some Christian students who were vigorously witnessing to him of their faith. Some of the things they said had unsettled his thinking; he was going through some great struggles. What did Dr. Lewis think? Lewis wrote back: "I think you are already in the meshes of the net – the Holy Spirit is after you. I doubt you will get away" (Dunn 118).

Now we ask the Lord to bless him. When Jesus sent His disciples into "His harvest," He gave them specific instructions to "first say, Peace be to this house" (Luke 10:1-5). Since it is always the goodness of God that leads individuals to repentance (Romans 2:4), it is imperative that we implore God to liberally bless them.

But sometimes when our prayers for the salvation of others do not bring speedy results, we tend to get frustrated and impatient, secretly desiring for God to "teach them a lesson with the rod of trouble." When a certain village of Samaritans rejected the Lord, His disciples wanted God to burn them to a crisp on the spot. He rebuked them saying, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them" (Luke 9:52-56). If we are to emulate our dear Savior, we must continually desire God’s best for all people. We should especially ask His very best blessings upon those for whom we pray.

Thirdly, we ask the Lord to convict the individual, since conviction is absolutely necessary for salvation. Only the Holy Spirit can bring someone under conviction, so we would do well to plead John 16:8-11 in our prayers. Conviction basically means to convince of a fault. The fault or problem of the lost is in "not believing on Jesus" and this is THE SIN of which the Holy Spirit convicts (John 16:9).

People already know what their "sins" are, except for the sin of unbelief in Christ. Since this is the only sin that condemns one to hell, Satan keeps them blinded to it. Therefore, the Holy Spirit convicts or convinces the lost at this one and only point, revealing to them the Lord Jesus Christ in His glory, so they can be saved. However, we must know that conviction does not automatically guarantee salvation. As Paul "reasoned of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come, Felix trembled…" (Acts 24:25). But there is no Biblical indication that he ever got saved.

Next, we ask the Lord to illuminate his mind to the truth. Even after one comes under conviction of his need for salvation, his gospel-blinded mind may remain closed to the light of the glorious gospel of Christ and he will remain in spiritual darkness (II Corinthians 4:6). Once the heart and mind has been opened to the truth, God uses Christians to explain the gospel to him. Although the Ethiopian eunuch was a seeker for truth, and had come to Jerusalem expressly to worship and even owned a copy of Scripture, he admitted that he could not understand "except some man should guide me" (Acts 8:26-39).

An even more fascinating story is that of Cornelius (Acts 10). He was "a devout (holy) man and one that feared God with all his house, which gave alms to the people and prayed to God always." Hey, he was much better than most Christians we know, and yet, he was still lost – he did not understand the way of salvation. He was instructed by an angel to send for Peter who would, "tell thee what thou oughtest to do." Cornelius and those with him were so open to the gospel that as soon as they heard "the word," the Holy Ghost fell on them and they got saved while Peter was still preaching!!

Ask the Lord to open the minds and hearts of the lost – He will! Then, they can be gloriously saved.

Now we are ready to ask the Lord to save him. However, we must be willing for God to do whatever it takes to facilitate his salvation, for God orchestrates events in his life designed to bring him to repentance.

In commenting on Luke 19:10, "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost," Chafer says, "It must mean more than a mere attempt to locate unsaved men, for they are present on every hand. The term suggests a divine preparation of the unsaved that will bring them into adjustment with the necessary conditions of salvation" (Chafer 3-4).

Tony Fontenot’s family had prayed for his salvation for several years. Their prayers seemed to have been in vain until May 22, 1982. On that faithful day he crashed his plane and nearly burned to death. God had his attention – the rest was easy!

Once the individual is ready to receive the gospel, someone must share it with him. So the natural thing to do is to pray for the Lord to send someone to do that. As a matter of fact, this is exactly what He tells us to do, "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into His harvest" (Matthew 9:37-38).

Because the laborers are few, which means "puny in extent, degree, number, duration, or value" (Strong’s Dictionary), we must pray for God’s help in this area. We first pray for Him to send out more workers. The Greek word "ekballo" has the idea of using force – to thrust out, to cast out, to throw.  

Remember the difficulty God encountered in getting Jonah to Ninevah to preach His word? God literally "forced" him to go! A similar situation occurred when the church was evidently reluctant in propagating the gospel beyond their comfort zone. God allowed a "great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria" (Acts 8:1), but "they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word" (Acts 8:4).

This is why Jesus commanded His disciples to tarry in Jerusalem until "ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost" (Acts 1:4-5). Then He said to them, "Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:8).

Although the fullness of the Holy Spirit is our birthright (Acts 2:38-39), the church as a whole knows very little of the "exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe" (Ephesians 1:19). Consequently, all around us souls are plunging blindly into hell for we are powerless to stop them without a mighty enduement of God’s Holy Spirit. Therefore, we must pray for the Lord to fill His workers with His Spirit, equipping them with power (ability and force), boldness (Acts 4:31), wisdom (Proverbs 11:30), zeal (Colossians 4:12-13), compassion (Jude 22-23) and divine insight (Jeremiah 33:3). And souls shall be saved!!!

After we have prayed for the individuals to be saved and for the workers to witness to them, we now pray for the word of God that is to be shared with them. The reason for this is twofold: first of all, no one gets saved without hearing the word of God (Romans 10:14) and, secondly, Satan hates the word of God, continually and viciously attacking it in his diabolic efforts to prevent people from receiving it.

Since the word of God is necessary to convict (Acts 2:37), to free (John 8:32), and to save (I Peter 1:23) the lost, Satan vigorously opposes it with distractions (Luke 8:11-15), fortifications (II Corinthians 10:4-5), and substitutions (II Corinthians 11:3-4).

The word of God is to Satan as kryptonite is to superman – it makes him weak and defenseless. It also decimates his kingdom by freeing his captives for "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). But notice, it is not the truth that sets you free, but rather the truth you KNOW. So, Satan does everything he can to keep people from "knowing" the truth.

In explaining the parable of the sower to His disciples, Jesus said that Satan comes IMMEDIATLEY and steals away the word before the person can understand it (Mark 4:15). This is why it is imperative that we pray for the word of God that is being shared with the lost.

In praying for God to use His word to convert the lost, we make five specific requests. First, that His word will "have free course" (II Thessalonians 3:1). This simply means to be unhindered; that Satan could in no way stop the flow of God’s word. He tries to stop it in every way he can imagine, from hindering and harassing the messenger of the word, to distorting the word, to destroying the printed copies of the word, to casting doubt on the word, ad infinitum!

Next, we pray for God’s word to be glorified (II Thessalonians 3:1). This means to be highly esteemed and honored among those who hear it. We will have a new reverence for His word when we see that He has "magnified thy word above all thy name" (Psalm 138:2). Actually, God is His word incarnated. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us…" (John 1:1, 14).

We also pray for God’s word to be multiplied (Acts 12:24); for one of the laws of harvest is: "He that soweth bountifully shall also reap bountifully" (II Corinthians 9:6).

We also pray for God’s word to prevail or exercise force (Acts 19:20). Just as a small seed can crack a concrete slab as the force of life bound up in it begins to emerge, so does the seed of God’s word planted in a heart.

My favorite prayer for God’s word is that it will be effective. Acts 14:1 says that they "so spoke, that a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed." We can plead Isaiah 55:11, "So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." God intends for His word to be effective; ask Him to make it so and you will be praying in His divine will and your prayers will be answered!!

Let me remind you that Judas Iscariot lived in constant contact with the living Word of God and yet he died and went to hell with Jesus saying, "It would have been better for him if he had never been born" (Mark 14:21). The Pharisees – the most religious people of their day – wore the word of God on armbands and could quote large portions of scripture, yet they were as far from the kingdom of God as one could get.

We must understand that it is only as the Holy Spirit quickens the word in the hearer’s heart, that one can be saved. This is why we must pray for God’s word to be effective in the lives of those hearing it!!!

If we really want to see multitudes saved, then we need to pray for revival. The classic scripture on revival begins this way, "If my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray…" (II Chronicles 7:14). The kind of praying noted here is intercession – praying for others. It was only after Job prayed (same Hebrew word as above) for his friends that God dramatically changed his own situation (Job 42:10).

During times of revival, all prayer is almost exclusively for others. Duncan Campbell describes revival as "a people saturated with God" (Edwards 26). When people are saturated with God, they are more concerned about others than about themselves. His passion for souls becomes theirs!!

Listen as Finney describes the prevalence of prayer during times of revival: "I have said, more than once, that the spirit of prayer that prevailed in those revivals was a very marked feature of them. It was common for young converts to be greatly exercised in prayer; and in some instances, so much so, that they were constrained to pray whole nights, and until their bodily strength was quite exhausted, for the conversion of souls around them. There was a great pressure of the Holy Spirit upon the minds of Christians; and they seemed to bear about with them the burden of immortal souls…it was very common to find Christians, whenever they met in any place, instead of engaging in conversation, to fall on their knees in prayer.

Not only were prayer meetings greatly multiplied and fully attended…but there was a mighty spirit of secret prayer. Christians prayed a great deal, many of them spending hours in private prayer. It was also the case that two, or more, would take the promise: ‘If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven’ and make some particular person a subject of prayer; and it was wonderful to what an extent they prevailed. Answers to prayer were so manifestly multiplied on every side, that no one could escape the conviction that God was daily and hourly answering prayer" (Finney 141-42).

Just a cursory reading of revivals quickly reveals that hundreds, thousands, and even millions of souls are converted to Christ during these times. Jonathan Edwards even considered revival to be the major means God uses to extend His kingdom (Edwards 26). So, if you want to see souls saved, pray for revival!!!