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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 65. A Threefold Mission
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A Threefold Mission
The new witness had a threefold mission. It was always, first of all, to be a witness to the first messenger that had failed. It was through this first messenger that the fullest blessing was yet to come to all the families of the earth. So ran the promise to Abraham. The first witnessing was to be to the traitor-messenger. It was to be through the Jew, finally, that the full witness would be borne out to all. Then the Church's witness was to be to all the race. Into every corner and cranny, every tribe and people and tongue, the message of the crucified Christ was to be carried. But this was not an end in itself. It would be greatly blest in itself and would of itself bring great blessing wherever the witnessing went. But the great purpose of all this was to bring back the Christ Himself. He Himself in person was to reign over men. So only could the full blessing come. So only could the whole plan of God for His darling race of men be carried out. This was the constant object in mind, witnessing to all men in order to the return of the Lord Jesus, and, with Him, the full blessing.
There came to be in many places a self-sus-taining, self-propagating Church, each one a new radiating centre of the light. In more recent times, the long-time failure of the Church has made the task much more difficult, and newer methods have been used, greatest prominence being given to educational work. But the standard of the Church's faithfulness to its Lord would not be good organizations, superb architecture, beautiful ritual, eloquent preaching, classical music, and the like, in some lands; nor the building up of Christian institutions in others,—transplanting the type of Church life of one part of the earth into another part; it would not be the doing of humanitarian work for the needy, blessed as such gracious work is in itself; but, that men were brought face-to-face with the Christ who died. These things would all be blest in so far as they proved to be the best way of witnessing and bringing men personally to Christ. Whatever could not so be described, whatever did not tell of a Christ, whose blood cleanseth from sin, whose power frees from sin, and who is to come back for a yet more blessed ministry, would become fuel for the consuming fire of "the day."
Its witnessing was to be of the same sort as that of the Hebrews was meant to be. Witnessing means knowing, experiencing, telling, being. There must be the direct blessed knowledge, knowledge of the cleansing power of the blood. There needs to be the telling out to others what has been experienced. But the third thing was yet more; it was the chiefest thing. They were to live the message. The life was to tell first, and most, and most convincingly.
A friend told me of a kinsman of his, in a small middle-west community in the United States. In this town lived a lawyer, a scholarly, refined gentleman, who was a confirmed sceptic, lecturing against Christianity with great ability. One evening this gentleman came to the meeting of the officers of the Presbyterian Church, and asked to be received into membership. They were greatly astonished, but courteously concealing their astonishment, asked him the usual questions regarding his faith and experience. He made a full, hearty confession of faith in Christ, which left no doubt of his utter sincerity and perfect understanding of the essential truths. Then the pastor said, "You must know how astonished we are; would you kindly tell us what has led to this change of conviction?" The gentleman very quietly said, "It was Judge Tate's face." "Judge Tate's face!" they all exclaimed in astonishment; "what do you mean?" Then the simple explanation followed.
Judge Tate, my friend's kinsman, was widely known in the community as a lawyer, and an earnest Christian. The sceptical lawyer had occasion to consult him on a legal matter. "And," he said, "I was struck with a something in his face, which I couldn't comprehend, nor account for; it was a light, or a peace, or an intangible but very real something, I could not tell just what. But it caught me tremendously. I went to see him repeatedly, ostensibly for legal consultation. We never talked about religious things. I studied his face, as I would any bit of evidence, and the conviction became irresistible that the thing that so affected his face was his faith in Christ. I sifted the thing through. There was a fact; it was a new thing to me; I had never run across it in my study of Christian evidences. It convinced me of the truth of Christianity. I wanted to be honest; so I have gladly accepted Christ."
This reveals our Lord's plan of witnessing. We are to be witnesses by what we are, far more than by what we say.