Churches of Christ -- Sermons; Sermons, American -- 20th century
The thing I’m trying to impress upon your minds is that we have not been
using all the means or methods which God has placed at our disposal. Let
me make the point just as concrete and effective as possible by using a
definite example. (Maybe it’s indefinite in some respects.) Suppose that
we have a young lady brought up here in our own community, maybe not
living more than two or three blocks from our church building. We will
call her Mary Doe. What are the chances that she will learn the truth
from our program of evangelism? We’ll say that she has been reared by
parents who go regularly to a denominational church. They’ve been taking
her there ever since she was a tiny baby. They’ve taught her to believe
in their particular denomination. They have built up within her a
denominational pride and a sense of loyalty to the church of her
parents.
At that church, she never hears the complete plan of salvation. She
hears some nice, moral lectures. She goes to the Bible classes and
discusses current events and general social problems. If she’s like many
such young people, she does not read the Bible very systematically
herself. She may read it occasionally, but not consistently and
understandingly. The chances are that Mary Doe will never learn the
proper division of the word. She might live in such an environment for
fifty years and never learn the difference between the old covenant and
the new covenant.
Perhaps she and her mother ride by our building sometime and she says,
“Mother, what church is that?” The mother replies, “Oh, that’s the
church of Christ” or maybe she’ll say, “The Campbellite church. They
think baptism alone saves you.” Well, Mary Doe believes that, even
though it isn’t true. Consequently she’ll probably never come to one of
our meetings. Very likely she’ll never read any of our literature. How
shall we reach Mary Doe?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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