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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 58. The Greatest Motive Power
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The Greatest Motive Power
Does any one think that this takes away, or makes a whit less, the motive in missionary service? Rather it makes it more intelligent, and so steadier and stronger. But it does immensely more. It adds tremendously to the responsibility of the Christian man. Added light means added responsibility. There is as much responsibility as there is light. This is almost a terrible thing for the light-flooded Church.
Here is a man coming up into the presence of God, out of an African or Indian jungle, where no ray of the light of the Gospel has been carried. In the midst of superstition and prejudice, ignorance and iron-bound tradition, he has lived, yet with a longing in his heart for something, he knew not just what, a yearning upward, and a trying to respond. Here is another man likewise coming up into that same presence, out of the heart of Christendom. He has been reared in the Church and all its privileges; he has even given, what is reckoned liberally, to foreign missions perhaps, but his life has been lived for himself; the great bulk of what money he controls he keeps for himself; he has kept pretty much hand-in-glove with the circles that have ruled his world, he has never permitted the passionate fire of God to sweep his life as a consuming flame. He has lived for himself. The greater part of the stream of his life has turned in.
These two men come up before those eyes of flame. If you must choose, which of the two would you rather be so far as the Judge's decision is concerned? The one had some light, greatly darkened; the other had the floodlight, but shut it out so far as letting it be the controlling thing in his life. Which would you choose to be, if you had to choose?
The man who has given the hearthstone of his heart to the fires kindled and kept hot by the Saviour's own love, doesn't try to figure out that if these people have this light, that this relieves him of the matter. That love is an impelling force. It makes an intense longing that men should know personally this wondrous Lord Jesus. There is a passion that the fuller light of Christ be taken out to them. If they but knew Him, and what He has done, and His burning love, there would come a new impulse toward acceptance of the light, a new peace to those eager for light, and there would be something more yet, a something never found anywhere except in Jesus. That is the power to walk in the light that has come with His coming.
And with this goes the command of our Lord, His last request and command,—"Go ye." That's quite enough. His Olivet word forever settles the missionary question. To do the thing He wants done, because He wants it done, is the sweetest pleasure, and becomes the ruling passion of one who really knows Him. Then the motive power in this service becomes not fear, but love. The most tremendous motive power known, except one, is fear. Fear actually controls most action. But there's a greater; there's an exception noted in the sentence just repeated; that greater is love. The supreme motive power is love,—His love burning in our hearts. That lavishes out the utmost we have and control. It laughs at sacrifices, even while the jagging knife cuts. That love constrains; it burns as a sweet fever. It drives, with a joyous compulsion, to the sound of the music of His heart beating rhythmically with one's own.
For two thousand years God dealt directly with the race. For two thousand years more He spake through the Hebrew nation, while still speaking directly. It has been almost as long that the Church has been His spokesman to the race, while the direct touch has never been lost. There will come a time when these two messengers will have completed their work, and be once more merged into the whole race.
In the Revelation of St. John, there is no mention of the Church after chapter three. Israel is mentioned because its mission is not yet accomplished. But at the close both disappear from view, except as a memory. Once again the dwelling-place of God is with men. The new redeemed life of the race is represented under the symbol of a wondrous city. The gates and the foundation stones contain memorials of Israel's, and of the Church's, service in the past. But the whole race is gathered in the presence of Him the light of whose face floods all with glory. His name, that is, His likeness, shines out of their redeemed, purified faces.