The Evangelist's High Privilege

The Evangelist's High Privilege—No. 2

Beside other outstanding characteristics of Jesus' evangelism, one very important as­pect cannot fail to arrest our attention. His evangelism exhibited perfect leadership in all its pristine beauty and glory

By L.K. Dickson

Beside other outstanding characteristics of  Jesus' evangelism, one very important as­pect cannot fail to arrest our attention. His evangelism exhibited perfect leadership in all its pristine beauty and glory. In His own per­son He brought a spiritual power and dynamic force which broke up the old order of the pagan world and founded a system based upon an un­calculating and overwhelming love. He mas­tered men and events, and broke into the leaden night with a blazing fire that was volcanic and irresistible.

The Saviour said that it was enough for the disciple to be as his Lord. We bear His name; we represent His life to the world; and we are to personify His teachings. How can we do that if we ourselves are not ablaze with holy fire? Prophets, apostles, and reformers were all that they were because their great message burned and trembled upon their lips.

The message which God's true evangelists are to give today is the same gospel message which was first given by Christ Himself, but suited to the conditions of the present hour. It is a reform message, to be sure, but sweet­ened and tempered by the glorious good news of salvation. Throughout the world there is a sense of insecurity and instability. Ancient religious are undergoing modification, and in some regions dissolution, as scientific and com­mercial development alter the current of men's thought. Institutions regarded with age-long veneration are discarded or called in question; well-established standards of moral conduct are brought under criticism. On all sides doubt is expressed whether there is any absolute truth or goodness.

Along with this is found the existence of world-wide suffering and pain, distress and perplexity. Anxiety is everywhere in the hearts of men, women, and even little children. This all expresses itself partly, at least, in a despair of all higher values, and partly in a tragically earnest quest for a new basis of life and thought. Amid widespread indifference and immersion in material concerns, we also find with many, a great yearning for reality in reli­gion, for rest from the anxious cares of this present evil generation, and for peace that knows no breaking.

Against this background, and in relation to it, our evangelists must proclaim God's message. That message must be Jesus Christ. He is to be the center of every revelation sent forth to a bewildered world, groping for the way. We must, in presenting our message, hold ever before men Him in whose life and through whose death and resurrection the Father is disclosed as almighty Love—reconciling the world unto Himself by the cross; suffering with men in their struggle against sin and evil; bearing with them and for them the burden of sin; forgiving them as they, with forgiveness in their own hearts, turn to Him in repentance and faith; and creating humanity anew for an ever-growing, ever-enlarging, everlasting life.

Here is where the nominal church has failed in her evangelization. She has no thought-out policy of action or reconstruction. She has not even set forth the principles upon which such a policy could be framed. She does not know her own mind, and so can give to men no sure leadership. In a world caught in a hurricane which threatens to sweep everything before it, the nominal church of the world and her min­isters have chosen to take to the shelter rather than to the fray. She is playing merely for safety; but playing for safety in a time like this is not the plan that will win. The one thing men need today is the full view which God has given, and He has laid upon His evangelists the duty to give that view. We can hear His call as He cries, "Who will ven­ture forth to see, leaving the haunts of security for the wind-swept peak?" This is the special prerogative of those who have been called by God to stand as religious leaders at this time.

In the book, "Lay Religion," Henry T. Hodg­kin says:

"When an airplane goes at less than a cer­tain pace, it inevitably falls to the ground. The same is true of the church. Just when the world needs her most for scouting, to be eyes indeed to the army of humanity, she is found to have reduced her pace to the danger point, and to be struggling on the ground with the rest of us. Or should we rather say that she has had recourse to another method of aero­nautics, and has chosen to follow the 'lighter than air' school? Inflated by gas, she main­tains an unstable equilibrium in the upper air, swept along before the hurricane, while the petrol in her tanks is frozen, and all her bombs are exhausted."

In the midst. of such a situation in the nominal church, God has sent His messengers with a full view of the true condition of men and nations and the future triumph of righteousness over sin. How important that we be true to our trust! "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong," is the message of God to His faithful evangelists of the present hour.

To accomplish all this the evangelist dare not do any haphazard preaching. He must know whereof he speaks. To have this knowl­edge he must consult other minds. He must form his own conclusions and convictions, under the direct impression of the Holy Spirit, and without being angular, believe in his own angle, so to speak. It is in his study that the evangelistic note and impulse must lay hold of the evangelist's heart.

In the biography of a very distinguished Eng­lish judge, Lord Borsen, in illuminating the powers and qualities required for success at the bar, said: "Cases are won in chambers." That is to say, so far as the attorney is con­cerned, his critical arena is not the public court, but his own private study and consulta­tion room. We quite agree with a great preacher who said:

"Men are not influenced deeply by extempor­ized thought. They are not carried along by a current of fluency which is ignorant of where it is going. Mere talkativeness will not put people into bonds. Happy-go-lucky sermons will lay no necessity upon the reason nor put any strong constraint upon the heart. There is no man so speedily discovered as an idle minister, and there is no man visited by swifter contempt!"

The successful, devoted, consecrated evangel­ist, who answers a certain call of God to his ministry, will be as busy and as systematic as a successful business man; yea, more, he will follow His Master in diligence, and with Him say, " 'I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.' "

Orlando, Fla.


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By L.K. Dickson

October 1935

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