WHAT DO YE MORE THAN OTHERS?-
WHAT DO YE MORE THAN OTHERS?- WHAT DO YE MORE THAN OTHERS?
Wesley Reagan
“What do ye more than others?” As the Lord looked about him he saw men in religious error and others that did not even claim to be religious doing as much and being as good as those that were his disciples. It is likewise true that we can look about ourselves and see those that are motivated by religious error and some that claim no religion at all being as enthusiastic and devoted as we are as members of the body of Christ. While we are complacent and indifferent others have been zealous and active in living moral lives and propagating their beliefs. We should not and must not go into competition with the denominations but we must awake to the fact that we should do more for the truth than others are doing for error. As members of the Lord’s church we have been blessed above all the people of all the world. I do not mean because of the fact that we are Americans, because we have plenty to eat, good clothes to wear, and fine homes to live in. I am speaking of the superior blessings that we have because we are Christians.
We, as members of the Lord’s church, have the only perfect implement with which to work. While others are preaching and teaching the imaginations of men, we have the powerful gospel of Christ which will save men’s souls (Romans 1:16). While others struggle with the crumbling weapons of human invention we have the invincible sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17) which is “living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). We work with the wisdom of God as opposed Ito the foolishness of men and the strength of God against the weaknesses of men (1 Corinthians 1:25). We proclaim the liberating power of truth while others preach the enslaving shackles of error (John 8:32). As darkness flees from light even so error flees from the devastating power of the gospel of Christ.
What a tremendous disadvantage it would be to try to indoctrinate people with error while the truth stares them in the face every time they open their Bibles! The church of the Lord is the only group in all the world that can preach the gospel with nothing fo hide, nothing to fear, and nothing to be ashamed of! Not only do we have the only perfect weapon with which to fight but we have been blessed with infinitely more help than anybody else. Paul confidently said in Php_4:13 “I can do all things” but he quickly added that it was because he worked in Christ “who strength- eneth me.” In James 1:5 we are told “If any of you lacketh wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” The Lord even goes farther than that and says in Matthew 21:22 “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” We believe that we have the privilege of prayer; we believe that God is our Father; we believe that the Creator of the universe has promised to bless us personally with every good thing that we ask for in faith. As though even this were not enough, God has prom-ised in addition to giving us the things that we need, to control even the circumstances around us for our benefit. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:13 “There hath no temptation taken you but such as man can bear: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make also the way of escape, that ye may be able to endure it.” Romans 8:28 says “And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose.” When we go forth to carry out the commission of our Savior we do so with all the power of the pure gospel of Christ. We do so with God’s promise that he will give us everything that is good for us and that the world around us will be adapted to fulfill our needs. We have power over weakness, truth over error, and wisdom over foolishness. Yet with the greatest blessings known to mortal minds we have produced only inferior results.
Last year in the area around the Graham Street congregation here in Abilene a group of students took a religious census. Many of the people we contacted said very politely “Yes, we’ll give you the information but you could get it from the Baptist church —they were here a few weeks ago.”
We contacted the Taylor County Jail to ask permission to go down there to do personal work among the prisoners. They said ‘We’ll be glad to have you come any afternoon except Monday. The Life Service Band from Hardin Simmons comes down then.”
One afternoon some of us were out at Hendrix Memorial Hospital, a Baptist hospital, and found in the lobby a variety of tracts teaching Baptist doctrine. A few things like these make it seem that instead of following in the footsteps of the Lord we are following in the footsteps of the Baptists and even then we are bften far behind. In the face of the advancements made by sectarians we have largely languished in idleness. We have a constant problem to get even our brethren out to worship services. We are continually plagued with the problem of being intensely spiritual instead of ritualistic in our worship. Our attempts to do personal work among the lost have been erratic and feeble. We have carelessly squandered our time as though we had an eternity to do a lifetime’s work. A pathetic lack of Bible study has resulted in pitiable ignorance of God’s word. A self-respecting hypocrite would have done as much and a good sectarian would have done a lot more. The colored brethren here in Abilene made an indelible impression on me with the singing of “Wasted opportunities, good you might have done;
Had you not stood idle, some soul you might have won.” The situation has been like two men digging a base-ment. While one uses a steam shovel the other works diligently with a teaspoon. We are working with the shovel and those with spoons have dug a hole which we would get lost in while we have been idle.
It is much like the fable of the Hare and the Tortoise. The Hare ridiculed the short legs and slow pace of the Tortoise. The Tortoise laughed and challenged the Hare to a race. On the appointed day they started together. The Tortoise never for a moment stopped, but went on with a slow but steady pace straight to the end of the course. The Hare, trusting to his native swiftness stopped by the wayside and fell asleep. When he finally woke up he ran as fast as he could only to find the Tortoise dozing comfortably just beyond the finish line. We have all the advantages and true Christianity ought to spread through the world leaving far behind all human doctrines, but having fallen asleep by the wayside we awake to find those in error exceeding our efforts to preach the truth. The situation is bad in Texas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee; it is pathetic in surrounding states; and the cause of Christ is almost unknown in some states in our own country. Someone may say “But I know of a congregation that is doing more than the sectarians are doing.” Surely every congregation ought to be doing better and it ought to be the rule and not the exception.
We ought never to be satisfied with doing as good as others, and yet many times we are content with being second, third, or fourth—not only in numbers but in zeal and in work. It is all right for sectarians to have more eloquence, oratory, and display but when the time comes that they have more sincerity, stamina, and spirituality than the Lord’s people there is something wrong with us. While they preach “faith only” we practice it—and a small measure of faith it is that will compel a man to be baptized and will not cause him to work at the job of living Christianity.
We preach and believe that the man who is not a Christian does not have the truth with which to convert people, cannot call on God as his Father, and does not have God’s abiding promise to bless him in his work. When others can do as much without the help of God as we can with it there must certainly be something wrong with us. There is something either decidedly wrong with our doctrine or drastically wrong with our lives.
This being true that while our blessings have exceeded those of any group in all the world we have yet had inferior results, there must be some way which we can accomplish what we ought. What I believe to be the solution consists of two steps. The first is simply that we must start doing more than the sectarians are doing. The constant challenge of the New Testament is to do the very best that we can. Romans 12:1 says “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.” In Matthew 6:33 the Lord tells us to “Seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness.” One of the highest standards any place is found in Php_1:27 where Paul exhorts us to “let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ.”
We must work with such consistent zeal and en-thusiasm that even though others might match our human efforts they cannot surpass them. We must work with such thoroughness that any religious effort by others will of necessity be where we have blazed the trail with the pure gospel.
UNTIL WE DO MORE FOR THE TRUTH THAN OTHERS DO FOR ERROR WE DESERVE TO PLAY SECOND FIDDLE TO THE DENOMINATIONAL WORLD!
Even when we do all of this, however, others will always be able to match our human efforts. Therefore the second thing that we must do in order to realize our dreams and accomplish our task is to start depending completely upon God. Every time we can say a word of truth a sectarian can say a word of error, every time we do something for the church of the Lord they can do something for a denomination. Our only hope then lies in help from above for “If God is for us, who is against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32).
We must not try to do ourselves what only the Lord can do, but on the other hand we must supply our part that we might work together with God and have a part in preaching the gospel to the whole world. As many have said before, we need to work as though it all depended on us and pray as though it all depended on God. We have fallen so far behind what we could have have done that nothing short of all our consecration and devotion to God will bridge the gap.
One time the king of Syria sent a great host of horses and chariots by night to surround the city of Dothan and capture the prophet Elisha. As Elisha’s servant rose early and beheld the great army he was terrified and cried, “Alas, my master! what shall we do?” Elisha answered in words that ought to be our battlecrj^, “Fear not; for they that are with us are more than they that are with them.” Then he prayed that the servant’s eyes would be opened and the young man saw the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire around Elisha.
I want us to realize that we have been blessed above anybody in all the world. If we do not accomplish the work that God has set out for us it will be because we have blocked the grace of God instead of being channels to make it known to all the world. “They that are with us are more than they that are with them.” “If God is for us, who is against us?”
Yet as long as others can continue to appear to the world as devoted and consecrated to error as we are to the truth, and as long as they can convert as many people to their doctrines as we can to true Christianity we will not do what we ought to be doing. Though our minds may not be bound by creeds yet our ankles are chained with slothfulness and selfsatisfaction. With all of the blessings that we have we ought to be ashamed that the gospel hasn’t been preached to every man on the face of the earth. Not many months ago Brother C. E. McGaughey stood in this church building and told of preaching the gospel to people in Vermont who had never heard it before. He told how that those people who were starved for pure New Testament Christianity asked in pleading voices “Where have you been so long?” They have been up there all the time, we’ve had the gospel all the time. We know they don’t have it and we know that they must have it or die lost.
While this question was yet ringing in our ears some of us heard Bogus Lollar at Herndon Chapel explain the great blessings of Christianity and the huge opportunity that looms up in front of us and then ask the question, “Brethren, what are we waiting for?”
Now let us ask ourselves the questions. Brethren, where have we been so long? What are we waiting for? We will never be able to answer the first question in a way that is acceptable to the Lord and to the thousands that will be lost because of slothful church members, but we can answer the second one— not in words but in our lives. Where have we been so long?
What are we waiting for?
What do ye more than others?