Quiet Talks with World WinnersGordon, S. D. (Samuel Dickey)
Religion
Quiet Talks with World Winners
Gordon, S. D. (Samuel Dickey)
Christian life
"I Clistian man. I told you so before; no heathen; no workee for 'Melican
heathen."
These heathen brothers of ours are not fools. They are a keen lot. They
judge our religion by us who profess it, as we do with them and theirs.
There may come a wide-spread practical disbelief, or lack of belief, that
there is any practical power in Christ to change a man's life, and really
control his actions. And it will be a perfectly logical conclusion from
what they find in us Christian nations as a whole.
<u>Death or Deep Water.</u>
And then there are some mighty bad dangers on the other side--<i>our</i> side.
If it be true that every generation <i>needs</i> the Gospel, it is just as true
that every generation of Christians <i>needs to give</i> the Gospel. It is the
very life of a Christian to give himself out in earnest service for
others. The man who is failing there has started on the down grade in his
Christian life. If we lose the spirit of "go" we have lost the very
Christian spirit itself. A disobedient church will become a dead church.
It will die of heart failure.
It was John's Man with eyes of searching flame, and tongue of keen-edged
sword, and feet that had been through the fire, who said to a Christian
church, "I will move thy candlestick out of its place except thou change
thy ways."[12] The candlestick isn't the light. It holds the light. The
Church's great mission is to be the world's light-holder.
But unsnuffed candles and cobwebby window-panes seem to have been in
evidence sometimes. The Christian Church in some lands has plainly lost
its privilege of service, and lost its life, too. The old organizations
are kept up, but all life has gone. There's a grave danger threatening
the American Church and the British Church just at this present time.
Long years ago, in the days before steam navigation, an ocean vessel came
from a long sea voyage, up St. George's Channel, headed for Liverpool.
When the pilot was taken on board, he cried abruptly to the captain, "What
do you mean? You've let her drift off toward the Welsh coast, toward the
shallows. Muster the crew." The crew was quickly mustered, and the pilot
told the danger in a few short words, and then said sharply, "Boys, it's
death or deep water, hoist the mains'l!" And only by dint of hardest work
was the ship saved.
If I could get the ear of the Church to-day, I would, as a great kindness
to it, cry out with all the earnestness of soul I could command, "<i>It's
death or deep water;</i> deep water in this holy service of world-winning, or
death from foundering."
<u>Saved by Saving.</u>
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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