This Is Our Business

In the nineteenth chap­ter of the book of Luke and the tenth verse we read these words: "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." In the whole field of evangelism we must come to grips with the fact that we cannot think of Jesus Christ our Lord as beginning His life as all men have begun theirs in this world. "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God" (Ps. 90:2). "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made" (John 1:1-3). And God in Jesus Christ became "flesh, and dwelt among us."

So we cannot think in terms of evange­lism without centering it in the heart of God. It is the gift of God in the person of His own dear Son. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

We must come to grips with the price that God was willing to pay in order that His Son might be given for the redemp­tion of all mankind. The only way we can measure it is to stand before the cross. Here we measure the height and the depth and the breadth and the length of the love of God that passes understanding.

Never was I so convinced of what God did for the world as in an experience that I had in the little town of Toledo, Spain. Just as I entered the town, there before us was the old fort that had been bombarded for seventy-two days by the Communist forces. It was held against all odds by a Spanish general who believed in the free­dom of Spain, and was determined to rid it of the dominance of the Communistic rule. In one of the moments in the lull of battle the son of the general got outside the fort. (You can go inside into a little chapel and read the whole story on a plaque.)

The Communists captured the general's son and telephoned to his father inside the fort. They said, "You must surrender the fort; we have your son." And in order to make it emphatic they put the son on the phone. The conversation went something like this:

"What is up, Son?"

"I do not know, Father, but they tell me that unless you surrender the fort they will take my life."

Silence.

"My son, commend your soul to God. Cry 'Viva la Spain,' and die like a patriot. Good-by, my son."

"Good-by, Father."

The general then went into the back part of the fort and knelt, and let the tears stream down between his fingers as he lis­tened to the shot at the bottom of the hill that took his son's life. That was the price he paid for freedom!

There was another cry. It was in the Garden of Gethsemane.

"What is up, my Son?"

"I do not know, Father, but they tell me that unless You surrender the world they will take my life."

"My Son, commend your soul to Me. Cry 'Long live the world' and die like My Son!"

The cross of Calvary is the height and the depth and the breadth and the length of the love of God, which passes under­standing. It represents the price that God was willing to pay for the world's redemp­tion. We cannot understand evangelism until we take it back and place it in the center of the deepest love that God ever expressed for His world—in the cross.

John Dillinger's Sunday School Teacher

We are interested in the business of sav­ing people from damaging the lives of other people. When a life does not belong to God, just as certain as we live, it is in the business of hurting other people. The people who are damaging influences in Takoma Park, Washington, and all the other communities in America and in the world, are people who do not belong to God. They are in the business of destroying life rather than building it up.

About the time John Dillinger was killed, I was in Chicago taking some courses at the University of Chicago, trying to catch the things great liberal teachers there had to say. I read the story of his death in the newspaper. Later I referred to it in a speech at Wichita, Kansas. After the service a man came up to me and said, "I wonder if I can see you and talk with you about my dearest friend, who was John Dillinger's Sunday school teacher."

I told him I did not know that he had gone to Sunday school. He said, "Yes, he had. He had wild, unruly impulses in his life, uncaptured by Jesus Christ. My friend said to John Dillinger one Sunday morn­ing, 'If you cannot act like a boy ought to act, you can leave this class.'"

He got up and went out, and he put a aim in his hand when he did. With it he cut a path of blood and horror across America that we will never be able to live down as long as we have an America. All of this happened because a man did not love enough, was not patient enough, did not go out of his way enough, to capture for Jesus Christ those unruly impulses in a boy's life. Instead, he let them get loose in the world to hurt and destroy. We are in the business of capturing people for God so that they do not become destroy­ing influences in our communities.

I was in the beautiful town of Longview, Texas, in a spiritual retreat with a group. A woman asked if she could meet me when the service was over. She said, "Do the names of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow mean anything to you?"

I said, "Yes, they do." I remembered that about three weeks before I had read in the front-page headlines of the paper that these young people had been shot by the State police. She said, "This is where they lived."

And then she told me: "I sat on my front porch every afternoon and watched Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow go past my door. I knew both of them, knew they were keeping bad company, getting into the wrong group. Often I had the desire to go down to the front gate and say to these young people, 'Won't you come up on the porch and sit with me and let me tell you about a great Friend who can do something for your life?' But I never did. Now, sir, I want you to do something for me. I want you to kneel down here beside me and ask God to take the blood of Bon­nie Parker and Clyde Barrow off my hands."

Later I went to my room, and I knelt and prayed, "Oh, God, take the blood off my hands—the blood of the boys and the girls and the youth and the men and the women I have not reached for Thee. I am responsible."

How much blood do you have on your hands? There are those to whom we have never said a word, never written a letter. We have never said a prayer for them, never gone out of our way in the least to capture them, yet we know that they are without God and without Christ. Ah, brethren, there is no way in the world that we can escape it. We need to kneel as this woman knelt, and say, "Dear God, in Christ's blessed name, take their blood off my hands."

Our business is to save people from damaging the lives of other people. We must reach them so that they may have a place in the kingdom of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ. We must present them to our heavenly Father for service in the church. They should be put where they can be channels of blessing for everybody.

I had two stewards in one of my churches. One of these stewards came out of medical school a disappointed, disillu­sioned young man, though a brilliant young doctor. He began to drink. A close friend of his would go out to the club and get him and take him home in his car, put him to bed, and kneel down and say a prayer for him. This he did for months, until one day the doctor stood on his feet and said, "By the grace of God, I am going to be a man." He turned out to be just that with God's help. I had the pleasure and privilege of making that man the chairman of my official board in a church that had six thousand members. There he was—captured for service by a friend who just would not let him go. That is our business. That is why we have been called to be fellow workers with Christ.

I stood at Round Top in Northfield, Massachusetts, at the grave of Dwight L. Moody. There before us stood Dr. John R. Mott, one of the greatest Christian leaders of our time. At Round Top there were other leaders from all over the world, and I was privileged to listen to their testi­mony. "Had it not been for Dwight L. Moody," they said, "we might have missed being captured for the Christian cause."

"A Million Souls at the Feet of His Lord"

The setting was beautiful. There beyond us was the Connecticut River winding in and out among the green hills. The eve­ning sun caught it and made a golden rib­bon out of it. As I listened to the testimony of these men I remembered that I had read a book by Gamaliel Bradford in which he said, "Dwight L. Moody put one hand on America and another on England and left a million souls at the feet of his Lord."

This was all because of a man who one day left his business and went to the back part of a shoestore in Chicago and laid the claims of Jesus Christ upon the heart of Dwight L. Moody. I would rather have been that man than to have been Dwight L. Moody. I would rather have been An­drew any day than to have been Simon. Ah, brethren, perhaps we cannot be the kind of person Dwight L. Moody was. But we can do a bigger and a better thing—we can capture men like that for Jesus Christ and present them for service in His king­dom. That's our business!

In one of the churches where I minis­tered we had ten thousand soldiers moving through our service center every month. I got to know many of the men. One morn­ing I came through the sanctuary—we al­ways kept the church open—and a soldier was sitting in the front pew by himself. He was reading the hymnbook, and I took for granted that he was just another lonesome soldier. On the way to my study I passed him. I noticed a colonel's insigne on his arm. "Hello, Colonel," I greeted him. After I said a few other things to him, I walked straight up the stairs into my study just off the sanctuary. I hadn't been there very long when someone knocked on my study door. I went to the door and there stood the colonel.

"What can I do for you?" I asked.

"I would like to know how to find God."

"Come on in. I would like to tell you."

Do you know what I did? It is the most effective thing we ever do in evangelism. I told him what Jesus Christ meant to me, how I met Him, how He changed my life, how we had gone through storm and sun­shine together—all about this growing, wonderful friendship between us. We talked for hours. He was just twenty-eight years old, a B-29 squadron leader, and physically an unusually big man.

Pointing to a carving of Jesus on the cross, I said, "Bill, look at it. See those nailprints in His hands and in His feet. See where He wore the crown of thorns? Listen to me, Bill, that's what He did for you as if you were the only person living in all the world. How precious you are to God!" He just hung his head.

I let that sink in for a moment, then I said, "Bill, look at Him." I pointed then to the picture, Hofmann's head of Jesus. "Look in His eyes, won't you? Let Him look you right straight on through. Look at that face. Was there ever a face like the face of Christ, tender like a woman's face, yet strong like that of the strongest man you have ever seen? Bill, let Him look right straight through your heart."

Underneath the picture I had placed the words of Phillips Brooks: "The Greatest Man in the World." "Bill," I continued, "there it is. Why don't you read it? There is the most eloquent statement I have ever read about Jesus. But, Bill, let me tell you something. You know how the artists have centered so much of their art around Christ; men have written about Him; men have given so much good music about Him to the world. But they say, after they have exhausted all their ability to describe Him, "The half has never yet been told." They can't say it, Bill, for it is impossible to say all you would like to say about this Master of men.

Bill got the light. He put out that great big hand of his and shot it into mine. "I'll give Him everything I've got," he promised. He became the rarest Christian I have ever known. He was the son of General Hensley. One of the flying fields in Dallas, Texas, is named after his father. At twenty-eight years of age he went back into the war, was soon out, and then went before the bar in Texas to take the exami­nation. He passed with highest honors. He was the most eloquent speaker I've ever heard in the pulpit or out of it. He used the choicest language. His words were like jewels strung on a string, sparkling with God's light.

He soon became a teacher, and a steward of the church. He became the district at­torney in his county. He took one of the most wicked counties in Texas and made it one of the finest in the State. He would come into the little chapel sometimes a dozen times a week to pray. Ofttimes he would ask me to go in with him. And I remember one day he said, "I've got the biggest problem I've ever had. I want you to go and pray with me." We always held hands as we knelt there at the altar and prayed. "I've got it," he said, and jumped up. "While I was kneeling here I got a picture of a B-29 coming into the landing strip, and they were flashing the green light to me. God is giving me the green light on this thing, and I know it is right." He got up and acted on it, and it was right. He was like that, one of the most spiritu­ally sensitive men I ever knew.

His body now rests in Arlington. On a special mission to Korea, having said good-by to his family and to his friends who gave him a great send-off in Texas, he climbed into his jet. No sooner was he off the ground than trouble developed. He called the field and said, "I'll make it." And they said, "No, Bill. Keep on flying around now, and we'll come out there and get you." And they were waiting for him. As he came in he hit a little hill, and he was gone.

Wouldn't it have been tragic had I missed my opportunity with Bill? This is my word to you. If God had never let me do one thing other than to capture Bill Hensley for Christ, it would have been worth my whole lifetime.

They are waiting for us, brethren. They are all about us. Don't you ever see those hands reaching out to you? "Come over and help us," they say. Will you go?

We are in the business of saving people for eternity. They are not all going to live long. Even a lot of young people are not going to live to be old.

A man called me from the hotel, and said, "I want you to come over to see me." And when I got there he said, "Preacher, I'm going to be honest with you. I've been a waster. At the age of nineteen I felt the call of Jesus Christ, and I said No to Him, and gave myself to making money. I've made my money—I'm going to leave sev­eral million dollars. The doctor tells me that I won't be here but a few weeks. What can you do for a man like me?"

"Oh," I said, "my friend, let me read you a story." And I took this precious Book and turned to the story of the thief on the cross. I said to him, "Call upon Him, won't you? Call Him. He will take you—just as you are without a plea, just as you are and waiting not. He will take you."

"Will he, Preacher?"

I said, "Yes, sir." He slipped his big hand in mine, and I knelt beside his chair, and we talked to God about it. Soon, having been comforted by an unfaltering trust, he took his last breath, redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ that can stoop to redeem to the uttermost. Yes, the last mo­ments of the last hour of the last day! We must save men for eternity.

Are you going to get tired? One of these days you will not want to do it. The way is going to be awfully hard, and there will be lots of obstacles in the way, but you just cannot stop. For this reason we have been called into life with Christ.

I had a good friend who had climbed Long's Peak thirteen times. He invited me

to make the climb with him. We rode our horses up the side of the mountain to timber line. I was so tired that I begged him to leave me right there. I told him I would see them when they came back. "No," he said, "No, you are not going to stay here. You are going to go on up to the top of Long's Peak."

We started the long difficult climb. I hadn't been going any time at all until I blacked out and fell on the rocks. He waited until I came to, and standing there above me, he cried out in the Spanish tongue, "Adelante" ("Forward"). I gath­ered up my failing energies and somehow or other just kept on. I blacked out again and again. He would wait until I came to, and then looking at me, he would say, "Adelante!"