02.33. Religious Influence
Chapter 33 RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE.
One of the remarkable facts we are called upon to recognize in life is the strange power exerted by a person or thing upon the human soul. This force affecting in different ways the individual, is called influence. And so under a silent but not less real working of a hidden law, the sight of a flower moves the heart, the song of a bird melts the spirit, and the gleam of the evening star or fading of a sunset sky affects the mind at times beyond words to describe.
Other impressions than these are abroad, and more commonly recognized by the world.
They are termed social, political and financial influence. Each one differs from another, but all are powerful. To obtain them requires that great prices be paid down in the matter of labor, thought, education, refinement, money, activity and leadership. When we contemplate religious influence, we are brought to the study of the highest form or member of this remarkable family group. For while social, political and financial power are great, spiritual force is greater. The former is for time and earth alone, while the latter has for its realm both this world and the world to come, and for its life and reign, the long sweep of eternity.
Religious influence deals with the immortal soul and results in changeless conditions and destinies. He who possesses it, is as genuine a power in the moral and spiritual realm as great financiers are in the business world. The man himself not only knows it, but all others who come in touch with him recognize it. Men may bluster and fret over the fact, but they cannot prevent their conscience from being troubled, their spirit hunger from being aroused, and their lives from feeling rebuked and drawn to duty, through the presence, or under the words and writings of such a man.
Because of this power for good upon the souls we should well crave it, who have families and friends to save, and who would turn sinners from darkness to light, and from perdition to salvation. By the term religious influence we refer to genuine spiritual power. Not an approximation, imitation or counterfeit. There are such cheats today passing for the genuine coin of heaven. There are remarkably gifted men who by personal magnetism and commanding psychic forces for which we have no name, can sway and lead people in so-called religious and spiritual lines, that are not religious or spiritual in the true and scriptural sense. There may be tirade, excitement and frenzy in teacher and audience, and yet those who know the Holy Spirit best, feel that he is not there, with his holy, melting, sanctioning and endorsing presence. So by the expression religious influence we mean the genuine article; that real power for good, which proceeding from a man’s lips and life flows forth upon individual, and family circle, and congregation as veritably as a zephyr stealing from the sky touches and stirs a garden of plants and flowers.
It is noticeable that a sinner has not a particle of religious influence. He may have social, political and financial ascendency in his community, and this many unregenerated people possess, but he can not have what is known as spiritual power.
It is no use for a regular transgressor to take the platform or pulpit and give lectures on morals. His rebukes would be answered with amusement or scorn, and his advice. met with the words, "Physician, heal thyself."
It evidently requires some kind of heart and life condition to secure a hearing in the moral realm, and to be obeyed and followed after being heard.
Again we notice that a backslider is without this power.
Different from the sinner he once possessed and wielded it, but lost his crown and scepter by transgression. Selling his birthright for a mess of red pottage, he finds himself stripped of his former glory, and weak, and even weaker than other men, in the realm of spiritual influence. The fact is that he is regarded with a scorn that is not visited upon the unconverted; for he knew better, had something better, and gave it up and went wrong. He had been washed, but returned to his wallowing in the mire. He had been a Son of the morning, but fell like Lucifer from the skies. Of course we are speaking here of gross backsliding; of grave, deliberate and repeated violations of God’s law resulting in darkness of mind, and emptiness and deadness of soul.
All such men discover that when they advise, rebuke and even preach, they seem to be hammering against a perfect wall. The people will not yield, hearts are unbroken and souls remain unsaved. A man of wealth who had backslidden and fallen into gross sin; partly to redeem himself in the eyes of the community, offered to pay all the expenses of a revival meeting in his town. An evangelist and workers were about to come, ignorant of the case, when a committee of citizens waited on them, and said that while the a meeting was needed, yet they would rather do without it than have it brought to them through the soiled hands and life of the man in question. The meeting was not held. Evidently there must be a certain spiritual state and corresponding life, for a man to possess what is called spiritual power. In a word, to have religious influence a man must be religious.
He must be genuinely good and live and walk in the Spirit of God. For just as an individual must have money if he would be a power in the financial world, so a man must have spirituality if he would be a spiritual force in the kingdom of morals and religion. This simple and yet reasonable rule serves to explain some very curious things in life that have puzzled the multitude, viz., why men in high places the church fail to reach the people in prayer, song, testimony and sermon; and on the other hand, why people in much humbler positions in the ecclesiastical world, move their hearers every time they stand on their feet and speak, or get on their knees and pray. A man with a deep religious experience is compelled to have spiritual power.
We recall a local preacher of uncouth manner and but little education. He had some undesirable notions as to duty, and was undoubtedly a narrow man in a number of respects. But he was a profoundly godly man, and all of his household, including three grown sons, knew it. His family altar worship lasted always an hour. He never prayed less than half hour himself, and there was naturally some squirming and twisting of human bodies in the room. If he had been a mere professor, an empty shell of a Christian, his sons would never have endured this long trial. But he was a devoted man of God, they felt it and were convinced of it, and so they not only stood the long morning service, but every one of the man’s sons and daughters became not only members of the church but devoted followers of Christ. In one of our large Southern cities lived a minister of the Gospel who for fifty years adorned the doctrine of Christ by a holy, consistent life. His countenance beamed with benevolence, his ear was ever open to the tale of distress, and his hand and pocketbook quick to relieve the needy. No one was ever turned away from his home; and for sorrow, want and death to break into another dwelling was to find this man there as the next visitor, to render sympathy, comfort and every practical help in his power. No day was too cold, and no night too dark to keep this servant of God from a place where he felt he could do good and help in some way a human being.
He so impressed himself on the town where he lived that he received tributes of respect and reverence from the whole community. He, in a figure, was uplifted to a throne, and sat down upon it with the cordial consent and grateful homage of the entire population. He was in the best sense the leading man in the city.
It was noticed that the instant a general trouble, a common affliction occurred, that every eye seemed to turn to this man. The public convocation would be held, and when the noble form and calm, Christ-like face of this man appeared coming up the aisle, everybody seemed to feel relieved, and with a thundering unanimous vote he would be elected to the chairmanship of the gathering.
He always opened the meeting with prayer, and then, like a Judge and Patriarch would advise the convention what to do. It was always good counsel, invariably it would be followed, the assembly would adjourn, and God’s servant would return to his house more honored and beloved than ever, and fixed more firmly than before, on that best of earthly thrones, the respect, affection and confidence of the people.
He was full of the Christian religion, and most naturally and inevitably overflowed with religious influence. The men who were led to God by him in this country and who learned to love Christ through him in that large community could scarcely be numbered.
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