Expositions of Holy Scripture: Second Kings Chapters VIII to End and Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Esther, Job, Proverbs, and EcclesiastesMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Second Kings Chapters VIII to End and Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Esther, Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes
Still further, need I remind you that if we have found anything in
Jesus Christ which has been peace and rest for ourselves, Christ has
thereby called us to this work? He has found and saved us, not only
for our own personal good. That, of course, is the prime purpose of
our salvation, but not its exclusive purpose. He has saved us, too, in
order that the Word may be spread through us to those beyond. 'The
Kingdom of Heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three
measures of meal until the whole was leavened,' and every little bit
of the dough, as it received into itself the leaven, and was
transformed, became a medium for transmitting the transformation to
the next particle beyond it and so the whole was at last permeated by
the power. We get the grace for ourselves that we may pass it on; and
as the Apostle says: 'God hath shined into our hearts that we might
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ.'
And you can do it, you Christian men and women, every one of you, and
preach Him to somebody. The possession of His love gives the
commission; ay! and it gives the power. There is nothing so mighty as
the confession of personal experience. Do not you think that when that
first of Christian converts, and first of Christian preachers went to
his brother, all full of what he had discovered, his simple saying,
'We have found the Messias,' was a better sermon than a far more
elaborate proclamation would have been? My brother! if you have found
Him, you can say so; and if you can say so, and your character and
your life confirm the words of your lips, you will have done more to
spread His name than much eloquence and many an orator. All can preach
who can say, 'We have found the Christ.'
The last word I have to say is this: there is no other body that can
do it but you. They say:--'What an awful thing it is that there are no
churches or chapels in these outcast districts!' If there were they
would be what the churches and chapels are now--half empty. Bricks and
mortar built up into ecclesiastical forms are not the way to
evangelise this or any other country. It is a very easy thing to build
churches and chapels. It is not such an easy thing--I believe it is an
impossible thing (and that the sooner the Christian church gives up
the attempt the better)--to get the godless classes into any church or
chapel. Conducted on the principles upon which churches and chapels
must needs at present be conducted, they are for another class
altogether; and we had better recognise it, because then we shall feel
that no multiplication of buildings like this in which we now are, for
instance, is any direct contribution to the evangelisation of the
waste spots of the country, except in so far as from a centre like
this there ought to go out much influence which will originate direct
missionary action in places and fashions adapted to the outlying
community.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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