The Harvest is Great

Luke 10:2 Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest. 3 Go your ways:
behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves.

Well, knock me over with a straw. I suppose I have heard a hundred
times that the harvest was ripe. I have preached it dozens of times. I
thought I read it many times. But that's not what it says, is it?

Nope, it doesn't say the harvest is ripe. It says the harvest is great.
Jesus tells us in John 4 that the fields are white unto harvest.

Really, it only happens once in a while where a person is just so ready
to get saved. But most take some cultivation. They require a few visits,
or they attend church several times before they give in to the Lord.

It has never been my experience, at least here in America, that hordes
of people are rushing to be saved. I have found that it takes great
effort on behalf of soul farmers to bring in the reluctant harvest.

Still, it doesn't negate our responsibility to pray to the Lord of the harvest to thrust forth laborers into the fields.