Personal Power Our Primary Need

While this is a council of evangelists from certain parts of the North American Di­vision, its influence will be felt to the ends of the earth in our evangelistic work. Every mis­sionary in every division will be interested in what God designs for the hour, and the blessing that comes to us here will be felt by them. I am very anxious that we shall rightly relate ourselves so as to find God's purpose for us in this hour.

I believe sincerely that the church has never before faced such a time as this. Look at that fact how we will, there is but one inescapable conclusion to be reached; namely, that for its high service in this hour our church is in need of special preparation. I say that very sin­cerely, and I believe that conviction must be in your heart just as sincerely as it is in mine. And its ministers, who are its actual leaders, should be ready to lead it on to the triumphs which immediately await it.

Now I cannot make a statement like that without believing in my heart that you under­stand what it means. If our church is in need of a special preparation in order that it shall reach God's high purpose for this hour, and if we ministers are the leaders of that church, then surely it is for us to lead it on to triumph. We ourselves need a special preparation, and I wish to emphasize that this morning.

In view of this truth, we do well to gather here to consider the best way to make our work successful. In doing this we shall find it neces­sary to think much about the spiritual basis of the service by which we are seeking to meet human need, and about the methods by which we are seeking to make that service effective. First of all, the service that we render must at all times be true to its own objectives, and I believe that our objectives are clear. They must seek always the rescue of men from sin, and the bringing of righteousness into their lives. We must, then, in all things, employ only-such-means as are in full harmony with those objectives.

Is not that a sound proposition? Is not that a reasonable statement? I believe we ought to give this principle our earnest study at a council like this. So long as it remains impossible for men to gather figs from thistles, so long will it continue to be impossible for righteousness to fellowship with unrighteousness in revealing the holy God to unholy men through the gospel. I do not believe, brethren, in any mixture of righteousness and unrighteousness in our method of service in God's work. The gospel makes no provision for that sort of thing. Be­cause of the nature of its purpose, our service must be spiritual. The methods, therefore, by which we seek to bring our service to success must be of the same character as the service they are to promote. Is not that also a sound proposition? Is not that also a reasonable statement? Then, so far as I am concerned, brethren, I do not purpose ever to give my personal consent to any methods that are ques­tionable in trying to promote the work that we are here to represent.

It is simply futile for us at this time to go to the world claiming that our message and serv­ice are heaven-born, if we employ methods that are inconsistent with that claim. If our service is to reveal present truth to a world in peril, our methods in service must never deny the truth that our service is intended to reveal. It is worse than useless to declare that God is holy, and then in His name do unholy things, Brethren, if your heart endorses what I am stating, you will know that this appeal is for a clean ministry, and a use by a clean ministry of methods that God approves.

It is worse than useless to declare that God is holy, and then in His name do unholy things. It is also worse than useless to declare that God is just, and then in His name deal unjustly with our fellow men. There is the power of life in methods that support the purpose that we serve, but there is death in methods that deny that purpose.

Diversities of Method

It must be clear to us all that in everything that we attempt for God, we have to do with human need. There is great diversity in that need. It is this fact that makes necessary the great variety of methods by which success in our work is reached. I would like to explain here the reason why I make such a statement to you, as part of my own personal conviction. As I go about among our workers, I hear a good deal of criticism of the methods of others. I do not believe that is at all right, brethren. So long as human need stands as dependent as it ever has, God will see fit to employ this method and that, and if this or that method is not—my-method—I should not criticize it if God uses it. There ought to be a breadth and liber­ality of thinking in our association one with another that would make such a business as destructive criticism impossible among us. Every day I am praying that God will make me broad enough in my religion to have consideration for the methods of others, so long as they are true and in harmony with the lines of work we are trying to do. And I must sup­port them, no matter how unlike they may be to any methods I may employ. But I do not want anyone to take license from that to use methods that are uncouth in any work of the gospel. The method must be true to the pur­pose of the service of God that we are pro­moting.

Success therefore will not be found to lie largely in uniformity of method, but in unity of purpose, and suitability of method to the occa­sion and to the real purpose of the service. And I earnestly hope, brethren, that we are not met here to talk just about method or to think about method, or to pray for God's leadership concerning method alone.

Back of both service and method are our­selves. We cannot give helpful study to the matter of successful service without thinking a good deal about ourselves. We have a wonder­ful message, and we employ a great variety of methods to make that message known to men. But far more important than our way of pre­senting the message is the quality of life that we are living. Next to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, this is the most important factor. There is altogether too much failure in our lives,—in Christian living,—and altogether too much ministerial wreckage back along the way that we have come. We ought to face the future with hope and fidelity. We ought never to add to the wreckage and ruin in the trail of this movement by anything that our lives shall reveal to the world.

To a degree that we all too often fail to recognize, the lack of success in our service is due to our failure to live as Christian ministers ought to live. In saying this, I want it clearly understood that I am not alluding to the agree­ment of our lives with the forms of our reli­gion, but rather to their agreement in principle and practice with what we know of the will of God for us. I believe, brethren, that we are emphasizing form in religion too much. Do you not think so? I am not saying that we ought to disregard form. I think God has given us the form of our religion; but when we put that in the place of the Holy Ghost, it is out of its place. Such is not the place that God has given to it. It is my belief that we are inclined to do it at least to a damaging degree.

It is possible for us to meet all the forms of a prescribed system of worship, and yet be at heart wholly unfit to represent the sacred truths upon which that system of worship was originally based. The principles of truth that we are to represent to lost and ruined men are not of earthly origin, and cannot be revealed by carnal living.

I sometimes hear it stated, "See what that man is doing; he must have the Holy Spirit with him." And then a little later we see ruin and wreckage in the life of that man, and find that he was living wrong while he was appar­ently doing the work of Jesus Christ.

Life Precedes Service

The truth which we preach has its origin in heaven. It is revealed in the word of the living God, but it can never be comprehended by finite minds unless it first finds a home in human hearts. And if the truth has not a home in our hearts, friends, there is something wrong with us. We are not prepared to preach the truth unless the truth itself has a home in our hearts. I want to tell you, brethren, if ever there was a time when we as ministers, talking about seek­ing for power in evangelism, need to know the truth, that time is now. If that truth had not a home in my heart now, I would not stand before you. I believe this truth, and because I believe it, I preach it. If I did not believe it, I would not preach it, and bring that kind of damnation upon myself from God. Every man should check up on that point.

Our hearers have a right to know that the truth we preach to them is living in us. If it be not so, then we are proportionately power­less to turn men from darkness to light or from the world to God. Take for example Hebrews 6:1: "Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfec­tion;" and again in 2 Corinthians 7:1: "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God;" and still again in Hebrews 12:14: "Fol­low peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord;" and yet again in 1 Peter 1:15: "As He which hatk called you is holy, so be ye holy."

As I read these statements concerning Chris­tian living, I cannot but believe that God de­sires our thought concerning it to move on a high level. He has in mind nothing short of perfection for us. We do ourselves great wrong by permitting our minds to move on any lower level than that set in the word of God for our thinking on this matter of the Christian life. The New Testament plan of life for the Chris­tian is high, and no mental process of ours can change it. That is a fact, a New Testament fact. Our failure to reach it has no effect upon it at all. It remains where God has set it in His word, whether we reach it or whether we do not. Our obligation as Christians is to think and live at that level, and not to push it higher or bring it lower. Life that reaches to that level is begun in the Holy Spirit, and life that continues at that level must be lived in the Spirit.

It is here that many ardent Christians make a great mistake. Theoretically they believe in a work of grace which is all of the Spirit, but practically they live as if that which is begun by the Spirit in us is carried on to perfection by the flesh. I pray that God will cleanse this ministry from any such foolishness as that. It was for this that Paul reproved the church at Galatia with these words:

"O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you? . . . Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" Gal. 3:1, 3.

The high level at which God has set life for His children is as far beyond the reach of the flesh as is the kingdom of God. "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affec­tions and lusts;" and so Paul appeals to those who have begun in the Spirit, "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." Gal. 5:24, 25. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life ever­lasting." Gal. 6:7, 8.

God's work in our lives is all of the Spirit. It surely is a masterpiece of deception when Satan beguiles God's ministers with the decep­tion that the work of the Spirit is perfected by the operations of the flesh. In the very bosom of the gospel is graven this truth: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." John 3:6.

The Ways of the Flesh

There are two ways in which the flesh mani­fests itself in this matter. First, and most commonly, it leads us to be satisfied with life at a much lower level than the Bible has pre­scribed for the Christian. This, in the lives of those who serve the church as ministers, is very damaging to the flock, and results in low­ered standards for both thought and living. From this we need to be recovered by a reviv­ing of the Spirit's power in us and control of us. This can be brought about only by by a complete surrender of ourselves to the Spirit. The flesh must be crucified, and the Spirit must be left in control.

Second, and less commonly, the flesh leads some, who are much too earnest and sincere to accept any but a high level for their lives, to aim at reaching by their own efforts the high­est that the gospel requires. With them the perfection demanded is not to be reached by the surrender of themselves to God, but rather by the continual assertion of self, and of de­pendence upon themselves.

There is a vast difference between reaching that which God has ordered by His own way and endeavoring to reach it by our way. There are some who, by nature, are not at all willing to accept a lower standard. They demand a high level. What then is the enemy going to do with a mind like that? He finds it easy to deceive that mind by making it believe that a high level must be reached and maintained by means of the flesh. It is from this class that fanaticism springs. The extremist of this class not only puts himself under pressure to reach his own standards, but is often found placing all others under rigid requirement to accept and reach those same standards.

I think there is no more tiresome individual in all the world than the one I have just de­scribed to you, none more damaging than this man who maintains that you must reach his high standards by his means. And balanced, spiritual minds know that those standards are not gospel standards. We must use the means that God has given to His church and to His ministers, and that means is the Holy Spirit. There is nothing in men at all unless that Spirit is in them.

The Gauge of Success

For these reasons it is necessary that we do not put method of serving before consideration of ourselves in our conception of successful evangelism. It still is preeminently true that he that believeth on Jesus the Saviour, out of him shall flow rivers of living water. The source of life and power for our work and mes­sage must be within us, but not of that which is natural to us. We are first to drink from the fountain ourselves. First the inflow, then the outflow. First the infilling, then the overflow­ing. There can never be an overflowing till there has been an infilling. Wonderful it is that the way is wide open for us to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to be filled with all the fullness of God, and filled we must be before the outward flow can be effective to others.

The power of our ministry depends far less upon the measure of natural talent that we have than upon our condition of heart. I can still recall the day, my friends, when I was in the Avondale School preparing for work in this cause. As I looked over that large body of students who gathered morning by morning for chapel exercises, I could pick out many that were brilliant                       in their use—of the talents that God had given them. But now, after more than a quarter of a century of ex­perience in this work, I look back and see scarcely one of these brilliant men who ever amounted to anything in this cause. But those who were not so brilliant naturally, were the men that grew up in strength in this work and are now bearing burdens. And so I say, breth­ren, that the power of our ministry depends far less on the measure of natural talent that we have than on our heart.

Our zeal for the winning of men is deter­mined by the love which we have for our Saviour. It is the love of Christ that con­strains us. Our success as preachers of the gospel will, in the ultimate, be in proportion to our appropriation of divine resources, and not to any method or means that we may con­trive to use independently of these resources. "No flesh," says Paul, "should glory in His presence." If the presence of God is to mani-, fest itself in fullness among us, there must be far less of self in our work.