The Expositor's Bible: The First Book of SamuelBlaikie, William Garden
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The First Book of Samuel
Blaikie, William Garden
Bible. Samuel, 1st -- Commentaries
has touched? How lonely and how hard is the ministry if there be no such
men to help! How different when efficient volunteers are there, in
readiness for the Sunday-school, and the Band of hope, and the
missionary society, and the congregational choir, and for visiting the
sick, and every other service of Christian love! Congregations ought to
feel that it cannot be right to leave all the work to their minister.
What kind of battle would it be if all the fighting were left to the
officer in command? Let the members of congregations ever bear in mind
that it is their duty and their privilege to help in the work. If we
wish to see the picture of a prosperous Apostolic Church, let us study
the last chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. The glory of the
primitive Church of Rome was that it abounded in men and women whose
hearts God had touched, and who "laboured much in the Lord."
Do any of us shrink from such work? Are any willing to pray for God's
work, but unwilling to take part in it personally? Such a state of mind
cannot but suggest the question, Has the Lord touched your hearts? The
expression is a very significant one. It implies that one touch of God's
hand, one breathing of His Spirit, can effect such a change that what
was formerly ungenial becomes agreeable; a vital principle is imparted
to the heart. Life can come only from the fountain of life. Hearts can
be quickened only by the living Spirit of God. In vain shall we try to
serve Him until our hearts are touched by His Spirit. Would that that
Spirit were poured forth so abundantly that "one should say, I am the
Lord's, and another should call himself by the name of Jacob, and
another should subscribe with his hand to the Lord, and surname himself
with the name of Israel"!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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