What Jesus Began To Do and Teach

What Jesus Began To Do and Teach

"OF ALL THAT JESUS BEGAN, BOTH TO DO AND TEACH. "
Acts 1:1.
W. L. SWINNEY

The Teaching and Doing of Jesus bear directly upon the Soul and Body, Mind and Matter through Time and Eternity, and affects the happiness of the whole Human family and will decide the Destiny of all Nations. The statement embraces two fundamentals of the Christian religion. It is not. alone, what Jesus taught; but what He DID as well as what He taught. Our holy religion is composed of these two fundamentals ideas; teaching and then doing the things taught. Either one without the other would out fulfill the Divine requirement. The "all things" of the Commission are to be "observed" after the teaching. The great purpose of God in sending Jesus Christ into this world was, as announced to the shepherds tending their flocks by night, to "save His people from their sins, and to place man in his regenerated state where he must "work out his own salvation with fear and trembling". The first, salvation from past sin, is essential, and the second, working out our salvation is a complement of the first and without which no man can reasonably hope to enter into that rest that remains to the people of God. There has never been a time, in the economy of God, when man was not required to work in order that he might enjoy some blessing, without which he could not enjoy. Work had never been a curse. The initial curse did not rest upon work, nor yet upon the worker, but upon the ground for the worker's sake. Hence, we have thorns, thistles and noxious weeds, without the reaping or the sowing. In order that we may the more fully enter into the study of our text it is important that we keep clearly in our minds the distinction between man's soul and man's body. It will serve our purpose to begin at the beginning. In the second chapter of the book of Genesis we are told that "Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." From this scripture we learn two important facts: God is the "former'' of our bodies and the "father" of our spirits. But this was the last and the crowning act in the drama of creation. That which is first in design is often last in execution. God thought of making man in His own image, and because he thus thought of man, He made all things else for man. He made the earth and filled it with riches; He created the heavens and garnished them with beauty. This was for man and was man's primeval home. When God had completed the Microcosm, after He had made all the shining worlds and blazing suns; glittering stars; after He had filled the earth with riches and garnished the heavens with beauty. He then made the Microcosm, man. In man, composed of body and spirit, we find all the essential elements of the Macrocosm beautifully and harmoniously blended from the lime in his hones and the iron in his blood, mineral, vegetable and animal up to the immortal grandeur of Knowledge, righteousness and holiness that link him in fellowship with the highest celestial intelligences. So closely is he allied with the lower order, or brute creation, that he has all the appetites lusts and passions of the lower order of creation. When these are given unbridled license and become the Master instead of the servant, man descends in the scale of existence to a depth of degradation so low that sometime we are crushed with the weight of man's own inferiority and we wonder after all if man is made in the image of God. But we must not he disheartened for the picture is not so dark as at first it appears. God isthe Father of his spirit and has endowed His son with attributes and powers that belong to no other order of creation. With his knowledge, righteousness and holiness he can experience the sweetest delights in the pursuits of that which is purely intellectual; in that which is purely artistic; and in that which is purely scientific.' In the beginning, as recorded in the first chapter of the book of Genesis, (Sod gave to man the privilege and the power to "subdue the earth", to have "dominion over the lish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." Man, though not the largest, though not the strongest, though not the swiftest was destined by Deity to subdue all things else. His rightful dominion was and is over the whole earth, and in the exercise of this right he was destined to excell all created things. Not being satisfied with conditions and environments in the Edenic garden, he was to advance in the realm of human endeavor. Progress, in material things, was to mark his pathway through the ages from the simplest forms of life at first on up to the highest forms of civilization in the twentieth century, and the end is not yet. The conditions existing in early life could not satisfy man now. Life could not be sustained. The march of the centuries attest the success of man in exercising dominion over the earth. God said to man to have dominion over the fish of the sea, and man has made a fish that can out swim any fish that God ever made'; let him have dominion over the birds of the heavens, and man has made a bird that can out fly any bird that God ever made; and "over every living thing that moveth upon the earth," and man now rides in a chariot that is swifter than the fleetest animal that God ever made. And the end is not yet, lor man is still advancing. In his conquest over animate and inanimate nature, man has ascended into the ethereal regions and lassoed the lightning as it leaped from the battlements of heaven; he has harnessed it and it is now his servant. He has boldly plunged into the very fires of the sun and made it give up some of her wonderful secrets, lie has defied the invisible forces and from the unstrung atmosphere he has arrested the strains of the sweetest music, though made by trained minds and skilled hands a thousand miles away. And the end is not yet, for turning his attention from the upper regions to that of the dull prosy "dust of the ground," man now tells us that greater and more wonderful discoveries await us in the immediate future. What a wonderful Microcosm! and what a more wonderful Microcosm! But with all the wonderful progress made during the past 6,000 years the Christian philosopher gazing through his telescope to far distant worlds, far beyond the nebulae of the milky-way, sees God high and lifted up above all, who is blessed forevermore.

While it is true, the fleshly man may find satisfaction and may even revel in his victories over the forces of nature, the Spiritual man is not, and can not he, satisfied with the results of these triumphs in the natural world. In the natural world the natural man has advanced and will continue to advance while time endures, but in the realm of that which is spiritual man has not and man can not advance, for the conditions of spiritual life in the Edenic garden, and by which the spirit of man found communion and fellowship with the "father of his spirit," remain forever unchanged.

Sin, Fall, Grace, Death, Resurrection, Judgment.

Then, as now, the soul of man cried out for this communion and fellowship without the intervention of human devices. The principles of acceptable worship remain unchanged for it is not in man to direct his steps in matters purely spiritual, for God is a spirit and seeketh such to worship him as worship Mini in spirit and in truth. The inventions and discoveries of men, however great they may appear to us, can no more add to the true worship of God than the music of man can add to the harmony of the heavenly choir or the genius of men can add to the beauty of the garnished heavens above us. The things that Jesus taught and did in their application to the various conditions, environments, ages and sexes of human life meet every want of the soul and body both for time and eternity. His message gives strength to the weak and inspiration to the strong; it gives comfort to the mourner, hope to the dying, and love and joy to all. A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesses, nor in the length of years he may have lived. His life is not to he esteemed on account of the fact that he is able to weigh worlds in the balances, to measure the distance from sun to star, or to wrest from the storehouse of nature her secrets. The greatest life beyond all comparison was only about one-third of a century long. To accomplish such results. He ignored every force and factor that the world calls great. He wrote no books, he founded no empires, he led no army, he built no city, he accumulated no fortune, he favored no friend, be appealed to no prejudice, he disregarded all favors of both friends and foes, died a pauper and slept in a borrowed grave. Yet He is King and rules over an empire of love and His territory is the sacred precincts of the heart of every true believer in the Lord Jesus, and His reign shall last till the sun shall rise and set no more.

"Is Within You." The Saviour of men is now known and will continue to be known through the ages, not only by what He taught, though He spake as never man spake, but by what He did, and His people constituting His spiritual body on earth must be known by what they are doing and will do for sorrowing, suffering humanity. To save one soul, to visit the distressed, to feed the hungry, to clothe the destitute, is a greater work, in the estimation of our blessed Lord, than the weighing of worlds, the measurement of stars, the discovery of planets, or the solving of all problems confronting the wise men of the world. One soul is worth more than the whole world. How great should be our desire to save souls. That religious organization that is increasing in numbers faster than all others is one that holds no religious revivals, holds no debates, engages in no .street corner discussions, but it is one that has outstripped all others in the matter of caring for the homeless and dependent children. Our own home for children at Canadian is full and running over with children, but their orphanages stand with open doors ready to care for all who come. They never say "we can take no more." They have be n busy for years and years taking children and educating them in their own peculiar tenets of faith and practice, while we, with all our boasted scripturalness, have been content to discuss ways and means of running a home. We now know, but they knew it long before we found it out, or stopped to reflect, that children are easily taught and led into any religious belief, and in our care they are taught the gospel of the son of God. Adults are not often converted, and it is with difficulty they turn away from the habits of a sinful life. Did Jesus know what he was saying when He said, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of heaven"? Brethren, the greatest and the gravest responsibility ever laid upon the hearts of any people, since time began, was the commission under which the Church is "working, when Jesus said. "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have said unto you." has that charge been met, or is it being met now, by that class of people claiming to be the New Testament disciples of the Lord? Is it not lamentable that we are now, and have been in the past. far outstripped in this the greatest of all fields of missionary service by all other religious organizations, both white and black?

Here in this fair southland of ours is a territory stretching from ocean to ocean, larger than all the warswept fields of the old world, and ten times larger than old Palestine, the home of God's ancient people, in which there are 200,000 people claiming to he New Testament Christian'-, that are caring for less than 200 orphan children. According to these conservative figures it requires 1000 Christians to take care of one orphan child. The Presbyterians have a home at Albany; the Methodists have one at Waco; the Baptists one at Dallas, and perhaps the largest one in the south; the Catholics have several in Texas alone; the state of Texas have two homes, one at Waco and one at Corsicana; the Knights of Pythias have one at Weatherford; the Masons have one at Ft. Worth and an old folks home at Arlington and the Odd Fellows have one at Corsicana, Besides all these homes for children, various cities in the state have homes of one kind or another, and different societies have local homes for dependent children. But where is the home that we can point to as a great home and say, "this is our home for children." Brethren, is it still true that the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light? Viewing the many homes for dependent children, in the state of Texas alone, one might come to the conclusion that there are homes enough for all the homeless children in all the land. But such a conclusion is far from being correct. The Methodist friends state in their report for last year that they had received 500 applications in one year that they could not accommodate. The Odd Fellows home in Corsicana, in their annual report, claim that out of 700 applications received in one year they were able to take only 200. The matron of the emergency home for delinquent children in Dallas told me last year that our home at Canadian is the only home in Texas in which she could place children. We have twelve children from that home now. Week after week children come to our door and with weak and feeble hands knock for admittance, and I turn them away because "there is no room," and with tearstained faces I see them go back into the night of a cheerless world. O brethren, my brethren! what will the recording angel write just here! What will the record be? But if the state of Texas and the other religious organizations could properly care for every dependent child in the state it would not relieve us of the burden of this responsibility. How can we claim to be "the light of the world" and "the salt of the earth" and leave the care of His little ones to others.

If this field of service were far removed from us, separated from us by chains of rugged mountains, or by stormy seas; if this field of usefulness were closed to us by a foreign tongue, or by legal barriers; if the service rendered cost vast sums of money, so great that it would be a burden to carry; if the results obtained were doubtful, or meager; if one or all of these "ifs " obtained, then, and then only, would we be justified in hesitating and discussing ways and means. But since not all, nor even one of these hindering causes are present the problem no longer calls for a solution, for the problem is solved by its own simplicity.

Here, right at our own door, is the greatest, most accessible, missionary field in all the world. Step right out through your own yard gate and you are then in the field that is truly "white unto the harvest." Listen, brother, and you will hear the cry of the homeless, dependent child. Look, brother, and you will see the uplifted arms of helpless babyhood pleading for help. The legal barriers do not exist; in fact, our government stands ready to help in every possible way. They know that orphans homes are cheaper than jail houses, penitentiaries and reformatories.

There is no foreign language to master before we can render acceptable service, for even the cry we hear is one in our own mother tongue. This work does not demand the expenditure of vast sums of money either to establish or to maintain the work. The results obtained can not be estimated in dollars and cents for we are not now dealing in houses and lands, nor in stocks and bonds, but in the real wealth of our nation, in human souls, one of which the Saviour said is worth more than the world.

Growth of Our Home—Shall the Local Church Do This?

Since the Church of God should do this work, I here and now lay down the proposition, from which none will dissent, that the command of the Lord, either by precept, example, or necessary inference, carries with it the authority to employ all needed helps in its execution. The commands of the Lord calls for the best possible service we can render. The "second best" should never be offered to Him. It would he an insult to deity. When the command is to sing, then let us render the best possible singing; when the command is to preach, let us preach with all the powers of heart and soul; when the command is to give, let us give the best, the very best, not that which cost nothing, but that which means a sacrifice, for with such sacrifices Cod is well pleased. When the very heart and life of our holy religion calls for the care of these "little ones" the work should be done whole-heartedly and with a generosity worthy the people of God. The body must be warmed and fed, the mind must be trained for service to God and man.

We need such a home. The vision I have of such a home might well he called an "Institutional Home," in which are taught the usual literary courses up to the ninth grade. The school to be taught in our own house, with text books of our own selection, free from every expression of modern infidelity, under teachers of unquestioned loyalty to the Bible. The training of the child in such a home will embrace those industrial branches that will prepare for usefulness in the business world, such as telegraphy, stenography, domestic arts and sciences, the care of fields, orchards, and gardens. But whatever else may, or may not he, taught, the good word of God will be taught every day to every child from the kindergarten up to and through the eighth grade. My contention is that if a child is brought up in a school where the Bible is daily taught, and where New Testament Christianity is daily practiced, and kept under these influences for that period of time, that child is measurably safe from the baleful influence of the "destructive critic." Why should a child thus panoplied for life's battles by such training need to go to any university whose text hooks reek with the Darwinian theory and whose professors are but sneering infidels, both stenches in the nostrils of God Almighty.

Why should we be alarmed when some of our boys and girls graduate from some of our higher schools of learning, and come back to us, if not outspoken infidels, skeptical upon the great cardinal principles of the gospel and lost to the church so far as spiritual service is concerned. From almost infancy the spiritual life has been neglected at home, and in the schoolroom they have been permitted to drink, not at the fountain opened in the House of King David, but at the fabled springs of Pagan muses. We wait till they are lost and then we raise the cry for some one to help us save our boys. It is just as sensible as it would be for a man who lives near a well known cesspool to wait till his child fell into the pool and then cry for some one to help save his child. The river is at flood tide, and we wait till the girl or boy is being carried rapidly away on the fast moving current and then we rush out and cry for help. Brethren, it is a thousand times better to teach them to he Christian and to know why they are Christians when yet in tender years. The plans for the new home is completed now and just as soon as the Building fund will warrant, work will begin and be pushed to completion. The building will be a one-story structure with a floor space of 35,000 feet. Included in this will be the usual office and reception room, four school rooms, four sleeping wards, four play rooms, seven bed rooms, work room, shoe room, four storage rooms, kitchen, dining room, hospital, superintendent's room, boiler room and laundry. In such a building with modern conveniences we hope to begin the new year with one hundred children. This unit of our home will accommodate 200 children. We should be able to take 100 additional children each year for the next ten years.

It has been said that brother Swinney is "visionary." Brethren, I plead guilty. More than two years ago I had a vision of a great religious body of intelligent people scattered over thirteen states and having no home for dependent children. I saw them outstripped in this great field of Christian service by all other religious organizations and lodges. "No man seemed to care for their estate." I was impressed with the idea that this people were entitled to have and could have, one of the greatest homes in the world. This is my vision and it has just been described to you. The largest orphanage in the world belongs to the Presbyterians and is located in northern Africa. I thought then and I think now that home should be located in southland of our own America. Yes. it is a great vision of a great home by a great people, for little waifs of humanity cast out upon the stormy sea of life by the relentless hand
of fate. The "vision" is that this home shall be a "rock in a weary land" and a "shelter in time of storm," and whose door shall ever stand wide open for all children who need our love and our care. Yes, this is my vision of a great home supported by the people of God. If this be a sin then charge me with it. Was there ever a discovery, an invention, or an institution entitled to credit and recognition that did not have its origin in fertile brain of some visionary dreamer. Even the very ground upon which your home stands is the fruit of a vision that was born in the brain of a Spaniard. Nehemiah as a bund slave in the land of ancient Babylon saw the city of King David lying in ruins. He had a vision of its rebuilded walls and palaces. By the pale light of the moon in an eastern sky, he rode his humble steed among the debris of fallen and desolate Jerusalem. His vision was a rebuilded city for a redeemed Israel. Think of such a vision calling for the performance of such a task by a dispersed and despised people. lie refused to he discouraged, but as he says he made his cry unto God night and clay and his prayer was heard, the city rebuilt and given back to her own. The "Man of Galilee" had a vision of the union of all His followers and was so impressed with that vision that He gave expression to it in a tender prayer to His Father. Eighteen hundred years later, the noblest of all the great restorers had a vision of the union of all God's people upon a "thus saith the Lord" and plead for it with an earnestness, learning, and eloquence, never equaled in modern
times. On the great highway running down from Jerusalem to Damascus the hand of Deity rolled hack the "intervening veil" and gave to the Hebrew scholar and logician a vision of the coronated Lord of Glory. Years later when an old man, he tells us of another vision in which he saw sights and heard things, in the third heaven, not lawful for a man to utter.

Upon the mount of Transfiguration, Peter, James and John had such a vision of celestial beings that they said "it is good for us to he here." In the book of God we are told, Proverbs 29:18, "Where there are no visions the people perish." But for the vision of Booker T. Washington the negro race would have lost a great college. But for the vision of an old time darkey named King the negroes would have lost their orphans' home of twelve hundred acres now located at Gilmer, Texas. When the rock-ribbed island of Patmos, the hermit for Jesus' sake was permitted to catch a vision of that city sought by Abraham, one that had foundations whose builder and maker is God. Abraham sought that city, but John saw it and so wonderful was the vision that John uses a whole chapter in telling us about it

Several years ago there was born on the wide stretches of the great west an Indian boy, who while young, thought of the dispersed and disconsolate condition of his father's people. They were ignorant and seemed to be satisfied with the extinction to which time was fast wafting them. A vision was born in the brain of that little untutored savage, a vision of a great school for the youths of his own race. But what could he hope to do. He could have done nothing without the vision. He begun his own education working his way through school, through high school, through college and on through Yale. He returned to his native village and begun the work of making real the boyhood vision. As a result of that vision there stands, today, in the city of Wichita, Kansas, a college for the education of Indian boys and girls. That school represents the outlay of thousands and thousands of dollars. I thank God for even Indian boys of great visions. A long time ago God said in speaking of the gospel age that your young men shall see visions. But, brethren, you do me over much honor when you say I am a visionary man.

Twenty-six years ago, I met for the first time, in the village of Bruceville, Texas, a pale-faced, earnest young man and his godly mother. He impressed me even then as being intensely earnest and consecrated. Little did I think then there was in that frail body a soul and a vision that would some day astonish the Church and attract men of affairs. But for the vision of Jesse P. Sewell, Abilene College would now be unknown and the many splendid young men and women who have been in the past and are now students in these halls of learning, would have lost the greatest factor in their lives of usefulness and happiness. I thank God for Jesse P. Sewell and the vision of a great school born in that soul of his. But time and again I have been told that the work I am trying to get my brethren to do is too great a work. The vision is too great. O my brethren, have we not done little things long enough. We have thought little things, and done little things so long that it is with difficulty that we can get away from little things. The doing of big things are for others to do, not for us, so they seem to think.

Here is a work that calls for big men, with big brains and big hearts, who will do big things for God:

"Bring me men to match my mountains,
Bring me men to match my plains,
Men with empires in their thinking,
Men with ideas in their brains;
Bring me men to plough through marshes,
And to cleanse from error free,
Bring me men to match mv mountains,
Bring men to me." Our blessed Lord will, perhaps, never again walk this old sin-cursed earth as once He did, and we shall forever he denied the privilege of ministering to his personal wants as many of His loving disciples could and did.

How gladly we would do this if we could. We would withhold nothing from Him then, for nothing would seem good enough for Him whom we love. We would joyfully bathe His feet with our tears, as the penitent woman did; or we would break the alabaster box of very precious ointment and fill the whole world with its sweet fragrance. We can do none of these things for Him now, but blessed
be God, Me said that "Whosoever shall receive this little child in my name receiveth Me." Verily brethren He is here in our home at Canadian and waiting for your act of ministration. On the first day of March, 1921, in the little city of Canadian, away out on the upper reaches of the Canadian river, on the wind-swept prairies of the great panhandle, we formally opened the orphans' home with songs and prayers and took God into partnership with us. We commended the home to Him who is the husband to the widow and the father to the fatherless.

He has been with us through the days that were stormy and the nights that were dark. He has encouraged us by giving us a thousand praying men and women who have stood by us through the days that try the souls of men. He is still leading us into higher service and into sweeter joys. And our prayer and our hope is that He will continue to lead us till life's weary pilgrimage is over and finally to that fountain of living water where all tears are wiped away.