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  ABILENE1937 LECTURES
  by Abilene Christian College
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The annual Abilene Christian College Lectureship for 1937, featuring a series of
sermons, lectures, and addresses by prominent preachers and teachers in the
Churches of Christ on themes of faith, doctrine, and Christian living.

  Chapters: 24

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. Foreword
    2. The Perfected Church--For What Purpose?
    3. How They Went In The First Century
    4. Motives For Missionaries
    5. Ripened Fields
    6. The Responsibility of the Local Congregation in Preaching the Gospel
    7. Responsibility of Each Preacher In Carrying the Gospel to the Whole Creation
    8. They All With One Consent Began To Make Excuse
    9. Workable Plans
   10. Awakening The Churches
   11. Characteristics of the Workers
   12. Training the Workers
   13. Qualifications of Workers and Methods of Work in Oriental Fields
   14. The Message For The Workers
   15. The Geography of the Mission Field
   16. The Orient
   17. The African Work
   18. The Populous Northeast
   19. The Extensive Northwest
   20. The Great Southwest
   21. The Religious Southeast
   22. Women Workers In Foreign Fields
   23. Satan Is Anti-Missionary
   24. Prayer of a Missionary Heart

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  CHAPTER 1: FOREWORD
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Foreword

FOREWORD

It is peculiarly fitting that the theme for the Abilene Christian College
Lectureship for 1937 should be “THE CHURCH AND ITS GREAT MISSION: TO PREACH THE
GOSPEL TO THE WHOLE CREATION.” Previous lectureships have dealt with: The
Church, Its Nature, Its History, Its Work, and Its Book, the Bible. Hence it is
most natural that we should study how to bring the Church and its Book to the
whole world. To bring the glorious Gospel to a needy world, to extend Christ’s
church and its blessings to every nook and corner of the globe, to save hundreds
of millions of precious souls for whom Christ died,— all this must be of vital
concern to every Christian. We urge you, therefore, to read thoughtfully and
prayerfully every article in this collection. May God bless you and make you a
blessing!

We believe that these lectures and reports, together with the questions that
have been provided for them, will make this a valuable text-book that may be
used profitably for the study of mission fields, for Bible classes, prayer
meetings and elsewhere in order to extend the kingdom of God and prepare for
more effective service in the church.

We wish to express our hearty and sincere thanks to each of the lecturers and
discussion leaders and to the editors of World Vision for their constructive
fellowship in the program, to our students and the hundreds of visitors during
the Lecture Week for making it a success. And to you, readers of these pages,
may this book be of aid in reading God’s Word and serving the church of His Son.
May your reading lead to the salvation of many through Christ and to a great
extension of His church.

Yours in Christ, James F. Cox, Howard L. Sohug


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  CHAPTER 2: THE PERFECTED CHURCH--FOR WHAT PURPOSE?
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The Perfected Church--For What Purpose? The Perfected Church — For What Purpose?
C. A. Norred The full statement of the question as originally assigned to me
was, “The Perfected Church—For What Purpose? Does it exist to save itself?—or to
save others?” All this reveals that the question is specific in that it presents
the church to our view for the purpose of inquiring if the church should be
satisfied with its own existence or should endeavor to save others. With any
Bible student the answer to the question embraced in this query is obvious.
Manifestly, therefore, the purpose of the in' quiry is not to elicit the correct
reply but to direct attention to the solid reasons upon which that reply rests.
Hence I shall merely present some solid reasons why the church should be active
in saving others.

1. The duty of the church to save others grows out of the second great
commandment of the law, and the cardinal principle of human relations, “Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Why should we have compassion on the
unfortunate? Because He who shaped us, so made us that our hearts will go out to
those who are in distress. I once read a lecture in which the speaker was
picturing a man who owned a lumberyard on the flood-swollen river in which his
neighbors were drowning and who was unwilling to cast in a board for their
succor until he was paid for his material. Surely such a thing is unthinkable.
In this present year, as great floods have swept parts of our country, our
hearts have been made to rejoice in seeing how the hearts of the people
responded to the call of distress. Even so should our hearts go out to those who
are being swept away by the flood of sin. Even the Golden Rule requires it. This
kindly impulse to help those who are lost in sin will all the more express
itself in efforts toward salvation as we discern that those outside Christ are
lost. They are lost—lost now, and to the future. I mean by this that they are
now under condemnation and separated from the consolations and delights of true
religion, and furthermore, they have no assurance of the salvation ready to be
revealed at the last time. I am afraid we just fail to realise what it means to
be lost. And I am constrained to believe that just in proportion as we realise
the horrors of damnation we shall find ourselves driven to save the lost.

2. And this impulse will be given impetus as we realise that in this particular
we are under divine command. The language of the Lord is, “Go ye therefore, and
make disciples of all the nations, baptising them into the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end
of the world.” (Matthew 28:19-20.) And we shall catch the signify cance of this
command when we discern that the gospel is the only thing which can save the
lost. Jesus declared, “No man can come unto me except the Father which hath sent
me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the
prophets, And they shall all be taught of God. Everyone that hath heard from the
Father, and hath learned, cometh unto me.” This expressly teaches that men can
not be saved except as they receive the gospel. It is understandable then why we
are commanded to give the gospel to the lost. Just in proportion as we withhold
the gospel from the lost we make it impossible for them to be saved.

3. And the duty of the church to save others is impressed upon us in the example
of the church of the Apostolic age.

First, this activity of the early church is set forth in the labors of the
individual members of the body of Christ. (Acts 8:4.) Then again I read of this
individual activity in Acts 18:26. And still again I read of it in 1 Peter
3:1-2.

Second, I find this activity set forth in the labors of a congregation.
(Php_4:15.) In individual activity and in congregational capacity the church of
the New Testament times binds upon us the work of saving the Lost.

Hence, the duty of the church today to engage in the work of saving the lost is
bound upon us by considerations we shall surely find ourselves unable to ignore:
it is impressed upon us by the example of the church of the New Testament times;
it is bound upon us by divine command; and it is the natural, expression of an
impulse divinely created within our hearts. Surely then if we stand idly by
while others go down to everlasting death we sacrifice even the attributes of
humanity and certainly forfeit the right to think of ourselves as members of His
Body.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Give the full meaning of the subject of this
address. 2. Just how is the 2nd great commandment a reason for a Christian
desiring the salvation of others? 3. Show the importance of our realizing the
terrible plight of the lost. 4. Discuss the Christian’s obligation to the lost.
5. Prove that the early church was active in seeking to save the lost.


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  CHAPTER 3: HOW THEY WENT IN THE FIRST CENTURY
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How They Went In The First Century How They Went in the First Century Homer
Hailey Abilene Christian College, Abilene, Texas

Brethren and Friends, I would like for my first word upon this occasion to be
one of appreciation to Brother Cox for the theme of this Lectureship. Its
urgency and importance cannot be overestimate ed, and I feel sure that much good
is going to result from it.

.The “how” is as important to the success of a venture as the '‘what,” if God
has revealed anything on it. The preachers of the brotherhood have faithfully
emphasised the “what” of the great come mission, hut possibly we have been
negligent in stressing the “how” of carrying it out. I consider, therefore, the
subject to be discussed tonight an important one, “How They Went in the First
Century.”

THEY WENT SPORADICALLY, AS INDIVIDUAL CHRISTIANS The plan of Jesus for the
disciples was made known to them just time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he
said unto them, It is not before his ascension, when they asked him, “Lord, dost
thou at this for you to know times or seasons, which the Father hath set within
his own authority. But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon
you: and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and
Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” (Acts 1:6-8.) According to
Brother McGarvey, the disciples continued in Jerusalem for about two and a half
years after the establishment of the church, before they were scattered abroad,
which carried them into “Judaea and Samaria.” When the. “great persecution”
arose, upon the death of Stephen, of which Saul of Tarsus was the leading
spirit, the church was “scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and
Samaria, except the apostles.” (Acts 8:1-3.) “They therefore that were scattered
abroad went about preaching the word.” (Acts 8:4.) Every Christian was a ‘
missionary” carrying the message to others. We ask ourselves the question, “how
was it possible for all of them to have been teachers?” To which the answer is
simply this, “they had been taught”; they were prepared to DO something when
they moved from one place to another. The commission given by Jesus, as recorded
in Matthew 28:18-20 makes the obligation of evangelising the world binding upon
every Christian. Jesus told the disciples to “(Jo . . . teach all nations,
baptising them . . . teaching them (the ones baptised) to observe all things
whatsoever I commanded you.” Whatever, therefore, he taught the apostles to do,
they were to teach others; and since he taught them to evangelise, they were to
teach others to do the same thing. These early Christians were carrying out this
divine commiV sion of their Lord. This should be a challenge to the church, and
to every member of it. When Christians move from one place to another, they
should go determined that a church shall be planted in that place, if there is
none there, just as soon as they arrive. One does not have to be a “pulpit
preacher” to do this, but he has to love the Lord and the Lord’s church. If he
does this, he will see that through his influence and effort a church has its
beginning in that city the moment he arrives in it. Too many are like a young
man who moved from Abilene into a western town, where he and his wife were
successful in starting a flourishing young business. The elders of the
congregation here wrote him about sending the preacher from the College church
to hold a meeting there, with no expense whatever to them, only they should have
a place ready for the meeting, and care for the preacher. The young man did not
even answer the letter; but later one of the elders learned that they did not
want a meeting there for fear it would hurt their business and social standing
for them to take an active part in a gospel meeting. Such an attitude is not
peculiar to this young couple alone. This example of New Testament “going”
should be a challenge to the church today to have such a system of teaching in
the congregation, that when the members move away, they will be qualified to
teach the word. Many go from good flourishing congregations to communities where
there is either no church, or it is so weak from lack of leaders as to be
helpless, only to realise that they are not qualified to teach or lead. The
local congregations need to awaken to their lack just here, and train young
members that they might “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ,” becoming efficient leaders and teachers.

THEY WENT SYSTEMATICALLY While the work was still growing in Judaea and Samaria,
Barnabas and Saul were selected from the church at Antioch, and sent to a
definite field with a specific aim and purpose, that of being the Lord’s
witnesses “to the uttermost part of the earth.’ (Acts 13:1-3.)

It is strikingly noticeable that the Holy Spirit here selects the best men in
the congregation to send to this work. Work in a new field demands the best
qualified men for it; but here we often make a mistake, that of sending young,
inexperienced preachers into such new places. This is no reflection on the young
men who go; they are to be commended for their zeal and courage in going; but it
is a reflection on the church for keeping the best “at home,” and sending out
the young “to get experience.” It is strange the Lord did not say “send out the
young men to get experience,” but it remains that he did not. The best place for
young men to get training is under the supervision of an older man who has been
over the ground many times; as the young men under Paul. We find him taking
young men with him, training them in the work and word of the Lord, that they
might be prepared to carry on the work after he should go on to other fields. In
considering their method, we learn they would go into a city, and there be
governed by conditions and opportunities. When possible, they would go to a
synagogue, where they would expect to find a class that believed in God, and
begin with them. If this were not possible, they would preach to whatever
gathering would give them audience, as did Paul in Athens. But they did not
restrict their preaching to large audiences, or publicly, but were also found
testifying to both Jews and Greeks “from house to house.” (Acts 20:20-21.) In
this way they would establish a congregation in places where the Name had never
been heard. This work would be followed later by appointing leaders in the
various congregations, as such were qualified, either by the apostles
themselves, Acts 14:23, or by one of the younger men whom they would leave in a
place for that purpose, as when Titus was left in Crete, Titus 1:5. A plurality
of these men was always appointed over a local congregation, whose duty was to
oversee the work of the congregation, 1 Peter 5:1-5. Leaving the church under
the supervision of such men, whom they had commended “unto God, and to the word
of his grace” (Acts 20:32), the preachers would move on to new fields. But would
they forget these infant congregations? By no means! These newly planted
churches were supplied with the very best literature in the world, letters from
the inspired apostles, which letters would be read, copied, and preserved;
sometimes being exchanged with letters to other congregations, Colossians 4:16.
Certainly it is true that evangelists and “missionaries” of today cannot write
inspired letters to the congregations they establish, but they can profit by the
example left them, and supply them with letters of encouragement, and good
literature printed by other brethren, which will edify and assist them in their
study of the Bible. ‘ Neither did these men stop with this, but we find in their
epistles repeated mention of prayers offered on behalf of these Christians;
praying for them and exhorting them to. pray. Younger men were sent to these
congregations to assist them, while the older and more experienced men invaded
new fields, to gain new laurels of victory for their Lord and Captain.

THEY WENT BELIEVING THEIR MESSAGE AND THE PROMISES OF GOD When we consider the
political, moral, and religious degeneracy of the heathen of that time, as so
graphically described by Paul in the first chapter of the Roman letter, and the
bigotry, jealousy, and prejudice of the Jews, we cannot hut marvel at the
thought of two men attacking such a gigantic problem, with the story of a
despised Jew, crucified on a Roman cross, as their weapon and power to change
the world. But they believed their message. And they believed in Him who had
given it to them. They knew he was the Christ, the. Saviour of the world, and
were not ashamed of what they were, charged to preach. (Romans 1:16; 1
Corinthians 1:18-25.) Here is found one of the absolute prerequisites of
successful evangelism: faith in the word of God and in the power of the gospel
to change and transform the. lives of men.

These preachers of the first century recognised uidividual respon-sibility in
the work of wrorld evangelism, 'I am a debtor . . so as much as ui me is, I am
ready” (Romans 1:14-15), was their attitude. They had been crucified with
Christ, they were alive with him, and now must five for him. (Galatians 2:20.)
Can we do less? Can God be pleased with less from us? This realisation of
individual responsih.il lty is of paramount importance today in carrying out the
commission.

They went believing m the church as thp divine institution, the fullness of
Christ (Ephesians 1:23), the domain in which God must be glorified. (Ephesians
3:20-21) They realised it was the “pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy
3:15), and if the church failed, where was the hope for the victory of the
gospel? Being of divine origin, ?t could not fail, it must not, it should not.
Such an idea as of a separate organisation and institution for the promulgation
of the gospel the very thought of which would insult God, never occurred to them
They had all that was needed; it is all that is needed today.

They went believing in the promise of Christ that their bodily needs would be
provided, in the providence of God. The Saviour had said “But seek ye first his
kingdom and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
(Matthew 6:33.) ihey did not expect it to be “dished out” to them on silver
platters, nor at all times to be supplied by the brethren at home, but at times
they must work with their own hands that the bodily needs might be supplied. At
other times their needs were cared for by congregations whom they had inspired
with the true mission spirit; but throughout it all, the needs were cared for t
lmough God’s providence. Having been sent out by a local congregation, they
would return to it at the end of each preaching cycle, to report how God had
used them in the work; not reporting “what we have done,” but how "God hath used
us” in the work.

THEY WENT SUFFERING MANY CRUEL REPROACHES FOR CHRIST Time would not suffice to
tell of the treatment of these early pioneers of the faith, as they went
suffering many cruel reproaches for the Name of Christ: Paul’s treatment in
Antioch, in Iconium, Lystra, in Derbe, on the first journey; at Philippi, at
Ephesus and other places on the second; finally being imprisoned in Jerusalem
and sent to Rome, all because of what he preached. Our hearts are wrung as we
appreciate the sufferings of the early saints, but they show us the power of the
word, as it pierces the hearts of sinners against God. The imprisonments,
mobbings, stripes, dangers, and such like, are revealed to us by the apostle in
2 Corinthians 11:22'29. As chief of mis' sionaries, this great servant of God
and Tesus Christ stands head and shoulders above all men. He is the missionary’s
inspiration, and the preacher’s ideal; he is the sufferer’s example of what a
Christian can endure, and an example of God’s constant grace and care.

What were the results of such a program? Did it accomplish the end of Christ’s
aim when he gave the commission? When Paul re' turned to Jerusalem, James said
unto him, “thou seest, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of
them that have believed ” (Acts 21:20.) When they went from one place to another
the report would precede them, till it would be said of them “These that have
turned the world upside down are come hither also.” (Acts 17:6.) It must have
been succeeding. The Apostle was then able to write in one of his last letters,
while in the prison at Rome, concerning the gospel, “which was preached in all
creation under heaven; whereof I Paul was made a minister.” (Colossians 1:23.)

Such was the power of the gospel, and result of the method pur' sued by the
early preachers, that in less than three hundred years after the commission had
been given by Jesus to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole
creation,” Christianity had become the national religion of the Roman Empire,
and the emperor himself had nominally accepted it.

CONCLUSION This method was simple, but effective. Individuals went as
“missionaries” when they moved from one place to another; they went
systematically from a congregation; they went believing their message as the
power of God to save; they went trusting Christ to keep them and care for them;
they went provided for by labor of their own hands, and by congregations; they
went suffering for the name of Christ and enduring many cruel reproaches; but
they WENT! Men believed the message, the world was evangelized.

What is wrong with this method? Will it work today? There is nothing wrong with
it, the trouble is not to be found in the plan of God for the evangelising of
the world; but in the failure of the church to work the plan. May the members of
the church awaken, and rally to the charge of God to “Go . . . preach . . .
teach . . baptize . . . teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I command
you,” and leave the results with God, for they will be all that he desires.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What is there in the commission given by Jesus,
recorded by Matthew, that makes it binding upon Christians today? 2. What is the
responsibility of individual Christians in world evangelization? 3. What is the
responsibility of the church in training and teaching its members? 4. What would
God expect of you if you moved into a community where there was no church? What
would you be able to do with your present preparation? What are you doing to
remedy the condition, or prepare yourself? 5. What church was the first
mentioned in the Bible to send out “missionaries”? Who selected them? What type
of men were selected? 6. How did these men go about their work when they arrived
in cities where the gospel had never been heard? Did they confine their
preaching to large audiences only? Why doesn’t the church do more of this kind
of work today? 7. What was the attitude of these men toward their message? What
did they believe as to its power? How were they provided for materially? What
promise did Jesus make concerning such? Upon what condition? Is this promise
still held out to Christians? 8. To whom did these preachers report at the end
of each cycle of preaching? What was their attitude toward what they had done?
9. Be able to thoroughly explain the method followed by these early preachers.
What was the result of their preaching? Do you think the method followed by them
sufficient for today? Could you suggest a better way? Following the method they
followed, to what extent did the gospel finally reach even in Paul’s day?


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  CHAPTER 4: MOTIVES FOR MISSIONARIES
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Motives For Missionaries Motives for Missionaries R. C. Bell Abilene Christian
College, Abilene, Texas

INTRODUCTION Christianity is not conservative, but liberal— even extravagant. It
is not mechanical and perfunctory, hut warm and enthusiastic. It is not cold and
calculating as if it were fearful of doing too much. It is not afraid of going
to excess. Its cry is, “On, on, ever on; to the limit and beyond, with God’s
aid.

Probably no one questions that apostle Paul is the strongest, biggest, and most
useful Chris' kan that has ever lived. He was as ambitious as Alexander the
Great, who, after conquering the world, wept, we are told, because there were
not other worlds to conquer. As ambitious and dynamic as Caesar, Napoleon,
Mussolini, Hitler, or any other man who has ever trod this planet. Paul dreamed
of conquer1’ng a world, too, and of building a world'wide empiie. Unlike these
other men, however, he spent himself not for the great god Self and earthly
things, but for “one Jesus’’ and for the kingdom of the one God.

Now, what made Paul do diligent, earnest, and urgent? What so animated and
electrified hun? What drove him so unceasingly over land and sea, a homeless
wanderer, a pilgrim of eternity? Answers to these questions yield the motives
not only for his urgency, but also motives for the urgency which the church of
our Lord lacks, but needs so much today. FOR GOD’S SAKE In the first place, Paul
preached and labored because he was jeab ous of God’s interests and honor. We
are told that “God so loved the world that He gave Ilis only begotten Son. that
whosoever be' lieveth on Hi should not perish, but have eternal life.” But this,
though most certaiiily true, is not all the truth, '"here is something back of
John 3:16. There is an additional and a deeper motive he- neath the Cross than
God’s love for man. It is God’s love for Him' self. If this blunt statement
seems objectionable, at first, suspend judgment till after a little study of the
matter. Have you never wondered why God so loved the world of evil men that He
gave His only Son to die for it? Never wondered why God manifested His grace and
did such wonderful things for a totally urn worthy race? The answer is found in
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, where the motive of God and the deepest things
in religion stand re' vealed. In the first chapter it is said that, in saving
sinners, God worked “unto the praise of His glory”; and again said, more fully,
“to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the
Beloved, in whom we have our redemption in His blood, the forgiveness of our
trespasses according to the riches of His grace.” (Ephesians 1:6-7.) Therefore,
God’s wondrous love terminates on Hinv self rather than upon man. All things
revert to Him. It glorifies Him so to act toward us in Christ Jesus. Ultimately,
He does every' thing for His own name’s sake. And we instinctively feel that
this is right, would not have it different, and that here is a motive wholly
worthy of such an unspeakably great, but otherwise inexplicable gift to the
world. Dees it humble us to know that we do not have the first place in God’s
thought? Why should we have? “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Then, consider
the sense of security and the comfort we may get from the fact that His own
eternal praise and glory are involved in His work of grace for us.

Furthermore, it seems that during the centuries before the cross God neither
forgave nor ounished sin completely, so that there was danger of His holiness
and intolerance of sin being misunderstood. May we not say there was danger of
God’s name being scandalised? and that the cross prevented this? Certainly, the
cross is a demon' stration of God’s righteousness as well as a propitiation for
man’s uiv righteousness. The cross secures the honor of God and at the same time
recovers fallen man. (Romans 3:25-26.) Therefore, both God and man are served by
Christ’s death. God found something for the “praise of His glory,” and man
something for the atonement of his sin. Suns and stars could not adequately set
God forth; in addition to them, He needed sons and saints. And indeed He is
enriched by possessing the church, for Paul prays that Christians might know,
“what is the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” (Ephesians
1:18.) God gains nothing in essential grace and glory by “His inheritance in the
saints,” but He gains a medium through which to manifest His grace and a peoole
through whom His glory may best be revealed. Calvary certainly vindicates God,
for a God who uses the way of the cross in dealing with sin cannot be
indifferent to sin. And both men and angels needed this demonstration of God’s
character, for Paul says that he preached the “unsearchable riches of Christ to
make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which for ages hath
been hid in God who created all things, to the intent that now unto the
principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through
the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He
purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Ephesians 3:10.) Is it not arresting and
stimulating to know that God cares for other worlds as well as ours? That we are
linked to other beings in such a way that what happens to us has bear' ings upon
them? That man’s world is a school for angels in which they watch the unfolding
of God’s redemptive plans and learn of the excellencies of their Maker? And how
encouraging to know that angels “do service for the sake of them that shall
inherit salvation.” (Hebrews 1:14.) What human heart does not beat a little
faster, beat a little warmer to learn reliably that in this big, mysterious uni'
verse of our God’s, angelic and human interests and services are mutual!

Hence, the church is the medium through which God chose to manifest His wisdom,
grace, and glory to the moral universe, both human and divine. And we know that
angels were interested in Christ and His kingdom, both as a matter of prophecy
and as history, for Peter, speaking of these things long after Christ’s life on
earth ended said, “which things angels desire to look into.” (1 Peter 1:12.)
Good angels hovered about at His birth and during His infancy. They ministered
to Him after His temptation in the wilderness, strength' ened Him in the garden,
and visited His tomb. They are not omnis' dent, for they are only creatures, as
men are, and learn God’s wisdom and goodness as these are unfolded in Christ and
His church. They, like men, are students of church history. And may it not be
possible that they still have problems, as good and smart men have, about His
second coming? If they do, surely they do not become opinionated, contentious
and unbrotherly concerning things about which there is a chance of their being
mistaken until more is revealed. Surely they can be tolerant, humble students of
the great subject and not know (?) things which may not be true. Surely they, in
their partial knowb edge, can fellowship each other, awaiting in “faith, hope,
love, these three,” a time when all shall be “fully known”; for surely they
realise that the unknown part of things imperfectly revealed as yet, should not
be the occasion of disrupting the fellowship of brethren, divine or human, any
more than partial knowledge—nay, even erroneous views —concerning the nature of
the kingdom they were expecting broke, either with their Lord or with each
other, the fellowship and com' radeship of the hundred and twenty brethren in
Jerusalem just before Pentecost. Not only is the church God’s medium for
manifesting His mani' fold wisdom, grace, and glory to men and angels of this
age, but whatever ages are still hidden in God’s scroll of the future may learn
of God through the church, for Paul says that sinners are saved by grace, “that
in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in kindness
toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:7.)

Here is to be found the deepest thing in redemption and the prime motive for all
Christian work of every kind. Every man who is con' verted and is loyal to God,
who appreciates and loves God is jealous of all His interests and rights. Paul
was this kind of Christian and, therefore, could not bear to see God suffer loss
of any kind. When he considered the unspeakablv great price God oaid for
enslaved man’s redemption, he knew that God valued man highly and had a keen
sense of loss when even a single individual got away from Him. Paul was so
devoted to God’s cause that when he saw the Lord of the har' vest losing souls
to Satan, he was outraged at the robbery and moved to the quick. If a sheep was
getting away from the great Shepherd, Paul’s heart burned within him, and no
danger or sacrifice was suffi' cient to prevent his taking the Owner’s part
against all comers. Though surpassingly content and restful in Christ as to
personal dis' position, he was exceedingly active and restless in his official
work as ambassador for the King. Every man Paul baptised into Christ or every
Christian he moved to greater zeal was, to him, but enlarging the instrument
through which God’s many excellencies were made known to men and angels. This
was the first cause of Paul’s mighty and peerlessly fruitful life. It was his
meat and very life and made him the most efficient and dynamic Christian of the
centuries. Does not this explanation of Paul’s urgency, zeal, and success also
explain, at least in part, our task of these things today? Are we so thoroughly
converted to God that we put His interest and pleasure before our own? Are we
jealous of His honor, glory, and name as Paul was? How much are we interested in
His harvest and His flock? Do we care when He is robbed and abused by open enemy
or false friend? God is grieved at the loss of one soul, but are we con' cerned
about His grief? It moves us not! Is this loyalty and love? The nature of love
is such that it must always work for the pleasure and profit of the one loved. A
lover is very jealous of his beloved. The mother tongue of love is, ‘’Thou are
mine and I am thine.” Are we really in love with God? Paul was. FOR MAN’S SAKE
In the second place, Paul preached and labored because the world of men in which
he lived was separated from God by sin and conse' quently doomed to misery in
time and in eternity. An eternal hell of fire for impenitent sinners was as real
to him as the vice and wretched' ness in the Godless civilization of Pagan Rome
around him. He knew the nature of sin too well to thmk that men rumed by it in
time could be blessed in eternity unless the practice and love of sin were de'
stroyed. He knew that a religion which could not save from sin now could not
save from hell after a while. He knew nothing of die shah low doctrine that
sinners, who never hear the Gospel will not be con' demned in the next world. He
never thought that ignorance could save anybody. He understood rather that sin
was a deep, fatal disease which would ruin men forever unless a remedy were
found; that dis-ease had to be cured before ease could be had. As a man in water
does not drown because he fails to get into a life boat, but because he is in
the water, so sinners die the second death, not because they fail to accept
Christ, but because they are sinners. It is sin that separates from God and
life. Christ is the only remedy for sin, and sinners who never come to Him just
remain condemned here and hereafter.

Christ does not cause sin. He removes it. Nor does Christianity cause suffering.
The greatest sufferers on earth today are Christless peoples. Rather,
Christianity explains suffering (as far as mortals may understand it) by
revealing that it is not always punitive, but that the wise Father oftentimes
uses it, in love, as a tool to chisel His children into forms of beauty and to
further His own ends and glory. Paul believed and taught all this. No man knew
better than Paul the dark depths of man’s sad failure and his dire need. In the
last half of the first chapter of Romans, he tears the rags from the Black Death
of Pagan morals and indelibly brands the brow of heathenism with the stigma of
her vices. He knew, too, the cause of all the crime and suffering during the
long, cruel centuries. Idolatry was not the primeval religion. Men in the
beginning knew God, but when “they refused to have God in their knowledge, He
gave them up to a reprobate mind to do these things which are not fitting.”
(Romans 1:28.) Only after men abandoned God did He give “them up unto vile
passions,” and unto unnamable vices and shames. Idolatry, sensuality, and then
all manner of immoralities is the order. A moral society without God is as
impossible as an irrigated garden without water. This is the teaching of both
the Bible and secular history. A doctrine that does not begin with man’s sin,
need, and failure is not from God. “If we say we have no sin . . . we make Him a
liar.” (1 John 1:240.) That is, man helies God when he says he needs no blood
atonement, for all God’s ways and works manward assume that man is a helpless
sinner. The Bible is the only book that dares paint the picture of sin in all
its horrors and blank despair, for it alone has an adequate remedy for sin as it
is.

Another thing that influenced Paul much in his missionary activities is the
nature and intrinsic value of man. Paul knew that man’s true place is higher
than he occupies in this world, and that his reach exceeds his grasp. As the
ruins of a massive castle or elaborate temple afford a glimpse of former
grandeur, so the men whom Paul met in Jerusalem, Athens, or Rome seemed to him
mere ruins of what man was before he fell and was capable of being again by the
grace and help of God. This contradiction between man as he is and as he feels
he should be has always challenged thinkers. It is unique; no other creature of
earth feels it. To Paul, man, though fallen and terribly damaged by sin, was a
noble, God-like being, who could be restored, at least, to his primitive
condition in Eden, and was probably capable of advancement far beyond that
status. As we have seen, the price a wise buyer gives for a thing indicates its
value, and the inestimably great ransom God gave for fallen man’s restoration
helped Paul to a proper estimation of human nature. He knew that God was a close
economist and would not use greater means to accomplish a desired end than real
values justified. He saw what God thought of mankind as a whole, and that He was
no respecter of races or individuals, no matter what man thought, taught, or
practiced concerning such. Man is a moral being, made in the image and likeness
of God. He is not a mere animal, incapable of a revelation from God, but he is a
deathless spirit whom mere things can never satisfy; he has insatiable yearnings
for higher and finer things than earth affords and can grow and ripen
indefinitely (perhaps endlessly; who knows?); a being to whom, no matter to what
depths fallen, a revelation and an uplift from God are possible. With an
understanding, therefore, of God’s design for His noble creature, man, and with
a compassion for poor, wrecked man similar to Christ’s even, Paul became “all
things to all men,” and with unsurpassed energy and seal took upon himself the
life task to retrieve man’s error by persuading every man he could to accept
God’s proffered aid. His love for man was passing strange. He could wish himself
anathema from Christ for Israel, and he loved Gentiles no less. Behold his love,
labor, and suffering for men! Love is a self-emptying grace. Its language is
sacrifice. Its motto, “I give thee myself.” “Love feels no load.” How easily we
can do things for one we love. Things that cost, too. How much a wife can do and
endure for the husband she loves. Do we love people or do we just pretend that
we do9 Bible love is not a mere feeling, but a life. It is a controlling
life-principle which leads to right thinking and right doing. Love needs no
“publicity man” to advertise itself. It, like murder, “will out.” If I have it,
you can tell it on me. What do we care if people, after living miserably all
their lives on earth, die and go to perdition? Do we truly care? Paul truly did
care. He understood that man had marred in the making, that his career had been
temporarily arrested, but, that in Christ, past mistakes could be corrected and
man yet reach his Maker’s original design. This was Paul’s second big motive for
world-wide evangelism, and without faith in man’s possibilities who could find
sufficient inspiration for the huge undertaking? Pure love for man, growing out
of a sympathetic understanding of him, led Paul on. FOR HIS OWN SAKE In the
third place, Paul preached and labored because he wanted, after life on earth
was over, to go to heaven himself. He puts it this way: “And I do all things for
the gospel’s sake, that I may be a joint partaker thereof.” (1 Corinthians
9:23.) A preacher finds much in his experience to operate against personal
consecration. As a lens, though it focus rays of the sun to kindle a fire,
remains cold itself, so a preacher, though he convey light and heat to others,
may drift into mere formalism and professionalism and be cold and dark himself.
He, after preaching to others, may himself be lost. Paul realised this, for he
wrote: “But I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage: lest by any means,
after that I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected.” (1
Corinthians 9:27.) Moreover, he knew that the great blessings and hopes of the
gospel carried correspondingly great obligations; that a Christian owed a
desperate debt to all unsaved men and must, as an honorable man, pay his debt.
And Paul knew that, since the gospel was a trust committed to him for others, he
must deliver it lest he prove to be a faithless steward. “For woe is unto me, if
I preach not the gospel.” (1 Corinthians 9:16.) He saw the naked bones of the
ter' rible truth that even he might be eternally lost, took warning, and be'
stirred himself. This third motive, obviously, contributed to the mak' ing of
the great worker among the Gentiles. But did Paul have to work and suffer as he
did in order to go to heaven? If he did, what chance is there for the most of
us, do you suppose? In the back of Paul’s head may have been the desire to have
“authority over ten cities” in heaven rather over only five or fewer. Desire for
personal reward in heaven is commendable and Scriptural. This kind of
selfishness is all right. But it is not the loft' iest or the most powerful
incentive to human activity. If this had been Paul’s sole or even his main
interest, the sum of his life'work would have been much decreased, you may be
sure. He did not work merely to escape the lake of fire either. It takes
something more po' tent than fear to produce such a life. Paul was so glad and
apprecia' tive because God in love and grace had pardoned him and thousands of
other Christians, none of whom had merit or desert, that he could not help
loving Him back. He was not working so much for future salvation, it seems, as
he was because of past salvation. Furthermore, when he thought about the
millions more of lost souls whom God could justify through faith in Christ as
soon as they learned of Christ, he just could not be still or keep quiet. He had
to show his compas' sion for ruined men and his gratitude to God in such a
handsome way that he could not begin to do half enough to satisfy his own happy,
adoring soul. His love so constrained him that, had he been ten men, his service
would have been increased tenfold. It drove him, biasing and flaming, up and
down the world. This is the way of the Gospel with a big, tender, generous man.
Indeed, Christianity is not cold and calculating and conservative. Indeed, its
motto is ,“On, on, ever on; to the limit and beyond.”

Devotion to a noble cause is the secret of a happy life. Paul was a hopeful,
happy man. His ship tossed and pitched in the storm of life, but he knew that it
would not capsise. No catastrophe could befall him, for he knew whom he had
believed. If it were God’s way, likely, he would be glad to leave heaven for a
while, come back to earth, and live his life all over again, as he lived it so
many centuries ago, just for the privilege-—not duty—of preaching the Gospel
once more. And yet some of us preachers whine and complain about our hardships
and sacrifices. May not a preacher get his weight and sise along here somewhere?
Christians should be weighed as well as counted. Paul, in God’s balances, may
outweigh the three thousand baptised on Pentecost. What mortal man has
outworked, outfought, outlived, or outdied apostle Paul!

Observe that when Christ first put to sea and Paul and Barnabas, beginning the
great Christian odyssey which has not yet ended, sailed away from Antioch to
Cyprus there was but one congregation involved. It is significant that the
church, during the most fruitful era it has experienced, had little organisation
and executive machinery The simplicity of Christ s methods is what pulled John
the Baptist. Christ had not met hi.s expectations. No ax had been used and there
had been no baptism of fire. After eighteen months, John was amazed at what
Christ was not doing. He had no political program, and He cared so little for
organisation that John thought He never could get His kingdom under wav. Surely
His methods were wrong! To him, m prison, it looked as though Herod, not Jesus,
was king. Nevertheless, Christs simple way was carried over into His church Ills
church is not so much an organised institution as it is a living organ' ism.
Like the human body, it is animated by one Spirit and instinct with one Life
and, consequently, needs no mechanical organisation to assure un1’ty and
efficiency. The very simplicity of the executive machinery of the New Testament
church has continued to puttie men until now, and they still think it is wrong
in method and try to improve upon it. Will men ever learn to trust God and be
wise enough to believe that human mechanics can never take the place of divine
dynamics?

Observe further, that Paul did not wait about starting until the one
congregation concerned promised to support him. He went to the Gentile nations,
“sent forth by the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 13:4.' The preceding verse says the
church sent him, hut this means that the church at Antioch merely released hun
from local duties that he might obey the Spirit, and it is not recorded that it
ever gave hmi a cent, He sallied forth on his high crusade against the mighty
kingdom of Satan, as was fitting the need, under greater authority and with
better support than any church or missionary society could give. May we never
forget that the church of our Lord is a living body instinct with one life and
controlled and actuated, immediately, by one Head, and that each member,
preacher included, is directly accountable, as in the human body, to that Head.
As the eye must continue to see, even though the ear fails to hear, so the
preacher must continue to go, even though the church can not or will not send.
Of course, the ideal would be for every branch, to use another Bible figure, to
bear its fiuit, but. if some branches fail to do so, the only obedient, loyal,
and loving thing to do is for other branches to try to make up for the
deficiency by bearing more fruit themselves. Do you suppose Paul ever thought of
this?

CONCLUSION This sermon-lecture has tiied to emphasise three motives that
com-bined to make Paul the greatest servant of God which Christianity has
produced Fust, he was jealous of God’s rights and interests with a selfish, holy
jealousy; second, he was truly an understanding, sympa-thetic lover of men; and
third, he was determined, regardless of cost, to take no chances and make sure
of eternal life for himself. These motives made Paul a very big man, towering
above others. He was great and influential during his life among men, and, since
his “de' parture,” he “yet speaketh” in a still louder voice and will never
cease to challenge and inspire men to lofty living and lofty dying. In an
unbodied state, apparently, he has been with Christ these many cem turies,
conscious and happy, but he has not yet entered into his final and full reward.
He will receive this when he comes back with his Lord, who will “fashion anew
the body of his humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of His glory,”
and Paul himself will again live in his very own body, made spiritual and
immortal, throughout eternity. Thus Paul, “spirit and soul and body, will be
preserved eru tire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” as he
prayed the Thessalonians might be. (1 Thessalonians 5:23.) If these same motives
leaven our lives, we also will rise to the same glorious com summation.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Why is it appropriate for a missionary study to
center about the apostle Paul? 2. What was Paul’s great ambition in life? 3. In
what way did his ambition resemble Napoleon’s? In what way did it differ from
Napoleon’s? 4. In this address, what three motives are used in an effort to
account for Paul’s work and life? 5. Which one of the three contributed the
least to his making? 6. In what sense was Paul selfish? 7. How does the
sentence, “Love God and do as you please,” help to explain Paul’s life? 8. How
do you account for the fact that Paul lived a contented, happy life? 9. Did Paul
draw a salary? Would it have been wrong for a church to pay him a salary? 10.
What will the second coming of Christ mean to Paul? 11. What view of the nature
and worth of mankind does this address set forth?


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  CHAPTER 5: RIPENED FIELDS
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Ripened Fields Ripened Fields John Wolfe 2730 Aumui Street, El Paso, Texas My
dear brethren and Christian friends: It is a privilege to speak to this splendid
audience upon the subject of Ripened Fields. The subject at once suggests to our
minds a number of passages from the Scriptures. Io Israel at Kaclesh- Bamea God
said, “Behold, the Lord thy God hath set the land before thee: go up and possess
it, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath said unto thee; fear not, neither be
dismayed.” After Lot separated from Abram, God said to him, “Lift up now thine
eyes, and look from the place where thou art, north-ward and southward and
eastward and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give
it, and to thy seed forever.” Jesus said to his disciples, “Lift up your eyes,
and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.” He also said,
“The field is the world.”

Long ago when we had the old plantations m the South, when harvest time came the
owner would saddle up his riding horse and ride out over the fields to see
whether or not the crops were ready to be harvested. I have not had the
privilege of going out into the highways and byways of the world to see a very
large portion of the ripened fields, but I know that the Lord of the harvest has
said that they are white unto reaping. So broad are the fields, so gigantic it
the task of reaping, that in any approach to it we must remember that the power
on which we depend does not emanate from men nor is it founded in the
intelligence of men, for “The gospel is the power of God unto salvation unto
every one that believes.” We must remember that our weapons “are not carnal, but
mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds,” and that “faith is the
victory that overcomes the world.”

I am glad that our general theme contemplates not only those fields where our
brethren have gone proclaiming the gospel, but also those to which we have not
gone, and those countries which have never had the privilege of he aring the
message of salvation. Therefore, tonight, let us lift up our eyes and look on
the fields. Let us believe that wherever we find human souls separated from God
through ignorance and sin, whether they be Shintoists of Japan, Buddhists of
China, Hindus of India, or the devotees of Animism in darkest Africa; wherever
there are people perishing without God and without hope, there are people for
whom Christ died. There is our field. There is the grain waiting for the
harvesting sickle. There are men and women in need of the gospel to lift them
out of shame and degradation and darkness and death to the high planes of life
and truth and love and hope and glory that is in Christ Jesus, and to prepare
them for those mansions not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

First, then, let us start with the lands farthest from home and consider the Far
East. The East with her shame, her poverty, and her filth; her idolatrous
religions with their pagan temples and the empty sham of their priesthood. So
great is the need in those eastern lands that the people have almost made a
religion of their very need.

Let us first think of Japan, an Empire of 62,000,000 people. Perhaps no other
nation in the East has been so profoundly influenced by western civilisation.
The whole world knows that during the last fifty years Japan has undergone an
entire transformation in her industrial life, her commercial life, her
educational system and many other things that concern vitally her existence as a
nation and an Empire. And still for all of that, Japan is still enmeshed in
idolotry. Millions still worship at pagan shrines. Millions have never heard the
gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Japan is a land of suicides. Figures compiled by the Metropolitan Police Board
show that during 1933 in Tokyo alone there were 2,551 suicides. Of these 498
were under 20 years of age. Cause—no hope, no anchor for the soul. In Japan,
less than one-half of one per cent of the people are nominal Christians. This
means that 259 out of every 260 people in the nation need Christ. They have
never heard the gospel. Japan, with all her modern ways, is still a land of
spiritual poverty. The Japanese people are inquisitive, alert, aggressive. They
are also adaptable, ready and willing to learn, and they are still searching for
the best things western civilisation has to offer them. What is the conclusion?
Give them the gospel. Prove to them that it is the only power that can truly
transform, that it is the greatest adornment of western civilisation, the
greatest gift in our power to bestow, that it can be made the very joy and crown
of their newly realised national life. Japan, standing at the gateway of the
East, the land of the rising sun, is one of the great ripened fields of the
world. We need to. send more missionaries to Japan that the Sun of Righteousness
may arise with healing in his wings, to heal that great nation of her ignorance,
poverty, misery and black despair and in very truth set her in the sun as a
great Christian nation.

Let us pass over to China. China, with her poverty, her banditry and her civil
strife. Long before the dawn of our modern civilisation, China had achieved the
most successful political system ever known to man, which for two thousand years
held her people together. She had brought forth a noble philosophy; she had
produced an abundant literature, and had made notable achievements in the realms
of art and architecture. And yet China has been called the great, sleeping
giant.

Having accomplished so many fine thmgs hack in the twilight period of the world,
it seems that she became, content, with no ability or desire to make further
progress. Yet China today is no longer asleep. I he giant has awakened out of
her dream and China, too, is wring through a transformation. She, too, has felt
the impact of the western nations. She is building roads and railways,
steamships and airplanes. Mr. Latourette says, "For sheer magnitude the changes
experienced by China have never quite been equaled in any other portion of the
world, not even in our age of revolutions,” Yet China is still a pagan nation.
The land is filled with idols and with all manner of superstitions. Multiplied
millions know nothing of the God of the Bible nor of the. Christ who died for
them. Of her 450,000,000 of people, only between one-half and three- fourths of
one per cent are professed Christians.

Yet Christianity has made a very vital impress upon the national life of China.
Unlike the progress of Christianity in Japan, where most of the converts are
drawn from the urban middle class, or iij India where they have been drawn
mostly from the outcasts or untouchables, those in China have been drawn from
every stratum of society. Among prominent Chinese who have professed a faith, in
Christ we find such leaders as Dr. Sun Yat Sen, the most beloved man in China up
to the time of his death, and the most remembered since. Chiang Kai Shek, most
powerful figure in the present China and leader in the reconstruction of his
country, is a believer in Christ. H H. King, who has served at the head of more
than one national ministry at Nanking, has been a professed Christian from
childhood. Also on the list are Wang Chung-Hue, who has been minister of justice
and a member of the World Court, C. T. Wang, for several years minister of
foreign affairs, and W. W. Yen, prominent in diplomacy and in national politics.
In the educational field are Chang Po-I.ing, the distinguished head of Nanking
University, and James Yet, organiser of the mass education movement. Such names
among the professing Christians of Chuia serve to demonstrate that the ideals of
the Christian religion have already touched very vitally the life of that great
country. That there are challenging opportunities for making Christians m China
no one denies. China is another ripened field. China needs the gospel. Our duty
is to arouse her to a greater realisation of that need, and to point out to her
that One who said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the life.” From this glimpse,
of China we pass to a consideration of that small country of Korea set
strategically in the midst of three great F.mpires— -China, Japan, and Russia.
Korea has been called the ripest mission field in the world, and the facts seem
to demonstrate that her people are the most responsive to the, gospel of all the
peoples of the Fast. The Koreans are a literary people, not a military, nor a
commercial people, but a people given to exalt books and the learning derived
from books. The missionary comes to them as the man with The Book, and for him
is reserved a place of special honor. He is the teacher, the spiritual guide and
leader come to show them the way of truth.

Korean customs have served, in a very peculiar way, to prepare Korea to receive
the gospel. Many of these customs are strikingly similar to the customs of Bible
lands and times. Sackcloth is worn by the people in times of mourning and
distress, recalling a Bible practice. At the time of a wedding ceremony the
bridegroom comes forth riding a splendid white steed preceded by attendants who
shout, “Make way for the bridegroom!” An easy approach is here afforded the
missionary to one of the great parables of the Master. From time immemorial the
Koreans have offered animal sacrifice for their sins. This provides another rich
opportunity for the messenger of the cross. In fact, the parallels are so
numerous between prevalent customs in Korea today and those described in the
Bible that the missionary has no difficulty in finding in the lives of the
people a basis for the gospel teaching. As one missionary to Korea has said,
“God doesn’t often give men such rich opportunities.”

“From practically the beginning,” says Mr. Latourette in his re' cent survey,
“Protestantism in Korea has emphasised self support and has been vigorously
evangelistic. Out of their poverty, Korean Chris' tians have cared for their own
pastors and have paid their own church expenses. They have also been zealous in
spreading their faith. Singly and in bands they have gone out, New Testament and
hymn' book in hand, to tell the gospel story. Not only have they done this among
their own countrymen at home and in the regions to which they have migrated, but
they have established a mission in China. From time to time revivals have swept
thousands into the church. With all of their vigor, however, the Protestant
churches in Korea still embrace considerably less than two per cent of the
population. Yet their proportional increase has been much more rapid than that
of the population as a whole. Denominational differences, too, are less nu'
merous than in other regions.” Regarding denominationalism in Korea, the Tokyo
Christian has this to say: “Here is a new development of that interesting
situation in Korea. Many groups are dc' manding Scriptural baptism, and are
receiving it at the hands of their sectarian ministers rather than allow them to
secede as others are doing. Having won in this point they are certain to demand
further concessions until denominationalism will cease to be. Because of the
discontent with denominationalism in Korea, this is a very opportune time to
push New Testament teaching in that country.”

Korean Christians are said to be very much given to prayer. It is not unusual
for a man to engage one or two whole hours in private prayer, while
prayer'meetings have been known to last all night. Of this praying, fervent
people much may be expected. As God chose little Judaea to be his seedbed to
disseminate his truth in ancient times, so may he not have chosen Korea to be
his seedbed for the gospel in the East? Korea, that has been called God’s House
of Prayer m the East, is certainly a held ripe unto the harvest. Let us pray the
Lord of Harvest that be send more reapers into this great field.

Let us next take a brief glance at India with her teeming millions, oppressed by
a system of caste that holds them in the bondage of ig-norance and poverty. Of
her 250,000,000 population, a large majority are Hindus, one-fifth are Moslem,
and one and one-half per cent or over 3,000,000 are professed Christians.

Regarding the progress of Christianity in India the Missionary Review of the.
World gives the following report: “The encouraging fact is that the knowledge of
Christ and His teachings has permeated India and the general attitude of the
people has changed from one of bitter hostility to one of respect and inquiry.
Great mass movements toward Christ have been reported in many places during the
last five years, with w-hole villages of the depressed classes ready to come
under C Christian instruction ” One worker reports 800,000 people in Trav-
ancore moving Christ ward. The leaders express a desire to see their whole
community embrace Christianity, and a large body of Indian Christians have
offered to give their services as volunteer evangelists and teachers for this
ingathering. Hundreds of villages are crying out for tpachers and tens of
thousands are seeking Christ. The opportunity and challenge is likely to grow
during the coming months as the disillusioned Untouchables seek some escape from
the oppressive bonds of Hinduism Already they are turning to Christ and asking
for baptism at the rate of 15,000 every month This is influencing the caste
Hindus also as they see the. new birth and new life of those whom they have
despised. The awakening is also reported in. the Punjab, the United Provinces,
and elsewhere.” The fact that so many of India’s outcasts are turning to the
gospel, while it illustrates beautifully the power of the message to lift and
transform, supplies us with a grave problem and a grave responsibility The task
is to supply missionaries and teachers to care for these thou-sands who are
knocking at the gate of the Kingdom. Untaught and unprepared they often come ask
mg for baptism and it is our responsi-bility and privilege to prepare them to
render a true and faithful obedience to that Saviour to whom they are ruining in
their distress. From India we will journey to what is known as the Near East,
embracing Turkey, Syria, and Egypt. Here the missionary encounters the Moslem
world, the followers of the false prophet, fanatical in their allegiance to
Mohammed. Into this field the church of Christ has not gone. For seventy-five
years Protestant missionaries have been at work in Egypt, with the result that
the. sects now number 21,000 members in that country. I here are, we are told,
143 organised congregations and 201 unorganised circles. Of these, 114 have
their own ministers and 59 are self supporting. These converts are drawn largely
from the ancient Coptic race who mingle with the 13,000,000 Moslems in the
valley of the Nile. From the reports of missionaries in the Near East are many
en-couraging statements. Kamil Elfendi Mansour of Cairo, Egypt, after calling
attention to Egypt’s progress in the field of education, writes: “It is
impossible to advance in education and in social life while religious attitudes
remain static and the religious life stagnant. The number of people going to
Christian religious meetings this year is far greater than in former years.
Every Sunday morning you will find evangelical churches, whether in town or in
country districts, crowded with Moslem attendants. These multitudes who come ask
many questions about Christian morality. It has also become easy to preach to
Moslems, and a preacher can speak about Christ’s salvation in the midst of the
most fanatical Moslem districts today without being opposed. I myself have
visited most of the mosques, have spoken about Jesus in many of them, and have
distributed pamphlets and gospels to those who have asked for them. Even the
Mosque Asfiar, where I was brought up and where many of its teachers know me, I
have often gone, alone or with others, and many a time we have spoken and prayed
with the students there. Many Moslems have come to enjoy reading the Bible, and
reports from Bible agencies tell us that the number of Moslems who buy the Bible
has increased greatly. Last year I was invited to forty different churches to
preach to Moslems who had come with gladness to listen to what I had to say. I
was also invited to Palestine, where I preached about twenty times in Jerusalem,
especially to Moslems. Many would stay after the meeting to discuss further the
points which I had stressed.

Many Christians in Syria have turned their attention to preaching to Moslems. We
have circles also for studying the Bible, in which Moslems who are anxious and
jealous to get more knowledge of the Christian truth have enrolled. Yearly many
of these Moslems ask to be baptised. Observing the situation from the negative
viewpoint we find that Moslems are in great uproar against their own religion,
against their beliefs, against the dormant state of their society, against the
old fanatical spirit, against old customs, against the old forms of worship. The
Turkish government has opposed the Islamic religion and its teachers, and this
fact has become known throughout the world.” Effendi Mansour closes his article
with these statements: “Islam nowadays is in a condition which was never dreamed
of formerly, and in almost every city in Egypt there is a native group
enlightening the minds of their fellow-men and exhorting them to leave the past.
Who ever expected to see what Turkey has done?—she who was thought to be the
foundation stone in Islam. Or who ever dreamed that the Moslems in Egypt, Syria
and Hedjas would rise with one mind to fight old beliefs and customs long
considered to be holy? Can it be that one of the learned Moslem men should
himself publish a book dealing with the false and evil phases in his religion?
Who ever expected that progress in ideals would one day demand a change in
marriage regulations and divorce customs? Yet all these have come to pass.”

Atter speaking of Turkey’s revolt against her old customs and ideals, and of her
almost feverish desire to take up the ideas and life of the western nations, one
writer says: “In spite of the announced religious liberty, I know that preaching
to Moslems in Turkey is still practically prohibited. That at least is now the
unwritten law of the country.” He suggests some, missionary activities that
could and should be pursued: 1. The opening of mission schools and hospitals. 2.
Commercial and mechanical training schools for boys and girls. 3. Publication
work, especially publication and distiibution of Bibles. 4. A disinterested and
devoted life of service and love on the part of missionaries.

Concluding, he says, “Religiously, Turkey is now in a critical condition. The
former allegiance to Islam, especially among the educated youth and ruling
classes, is broken. Many are bec.onv ing agnostic or indifferent. Others are in
unsettled and hesitating mood. Some are really groping about to find the truth.
Who knows, perhaps the time is not far off when Turkey may awaken to discover
the fact that western Christian civilisation is impossible without Christ. Now’
is the time for the western churches to help Turkey find Him who is the Light of
the world.”

Leaving the Near East, we next call your attention to Central Africa. Between
the Moslems of north Africa and the European population of South Africa are
approximately 100,000,000 negro Africans. Considering the extent of the land,
the population is sparse, and the people are still in the tribal stage of
development. Their social and economic life is of a very primitive nature, they
have no written language except where missionaries have supplied them with one,
and their religion is chiefly animistic. It is sa’d that the greatest single
obstacle to the gospel in Africa is polygamy. Yet with all the hindrances there
is in Central Africa a great opportunity for spreading the gospel. I shall take
one example of what others have done and are doing among the tribes of that
country. I quote again from the Missionary Review of the World: “T'hirty-one
years ago an early missionary of the Disciples of Christ mission, who was
leaving Congo to go on furlough left one mission station, Bolenge, and about 200
Christians. Todav there are six stations and over 42,000 Christians. In the
whole of the Congo the Protestant Christians and adherents number more than a
million, all of these of whatever mission belong to one church, The Church of
Christ of the Congo.” Of the church at Coqudhatville, one of the. provincial
capitals of the Congo, one writer says: “To attend the Sunday morning service at
this church is a real experience; for the pastor, the choir of ten male voices
and the audience ioin together to make a truly inspiring and reverent period of
worship of which the celebration of the Lord’s Supper is made the climax.
Churches like this one are being duplh cated by the score in many outstations
throughout the Congo.”

Africa, too, is a great ripened field. We ought to be sending more missionaries
there to strengthen the hands of the brethren ah ready on the field, and
establish missions in other parts of that great continent. In this brief survey
I have not tried to describe the extent of the work being done by our brethren
who are already on the field. Their work I have purposely omitted because
several of them are present and will themselves tell of their work later on in
this program. There is not now time to speak even briefly of the many ripened
fields the world over. I pass by the nations of Europe where the gospel might
well be established in its purity with the right kind of effort, and the British
Dominions such as Canada, Australia, and South Africa which are indeed fertile
fields, to call your attention to the country and the people to which it has
been my lot to go.

Mexico is a country of 17,000,000 people. Four centuries ago the Roman Catholic
religion was imposed on the Mexican Indians by the conquering Spaniards. For
four long centuries the Mexicans, of whom 30% are now pure Indians and 60%
Mestizos or of mixed Spanish and Indian blood, have borne the yoke of Rome.
Naturally of a passive, religious disposition, the Mexicans exercised patience
to a point almost beyond belief. But at last the long oppression, founded in a
system of ignorance, superstition and prejudice, bore fruit in a revolution
against the old order. The leaders of Mexico have recog' nized in the Roman
church one of the chief obstacles to her progress. As a result the Mexican
government has closed a large majority of the Catholic churches, exiled hundreds
of priests, and wrested from the church the control of the schools. Thousands of
people are turning away from the Catholic fold to become agnostics or atheists,
or to enter one of the sects of Protestantism. The movement is strongest in
southern Mexico, but even along the northern border the effects of the religious
controversy are being felt. The Mexican people, after centuries of bondage to
Rome are breaking their fetters, seeking for something better and more
satisfying, and therein is cur opportunity. In seeking to spread the gospel
among the Mexicans, a number of advantages are on our side. These people already
believe in God and in the divinity of Jesus Christ. They already accept the
Bible as an inspired message from God. That that message has been obscured from
them is not their fault. The proximity of the field is another great advantage.
It costs less to send a missionary to Mexico than to any other foreign country.
And even of greater value is the close contact and communion that churches in
Mexico may always have with our own churches of America. Preaching the gospel in
Mexico will be but an extension of the work in our own country. That the Mexican
people are responsive to the gospel message when it is properly presented to
them I can testify from my own experience. Not only do the young respond to the
teaching of the gospel, hut I have frequently seen old, gray haired men and
women, cradled in the Catholic church from infancy, leave their old traditions
and being buried with their Lord in baptism, rise to walk the new life.

Mexico is ready for the gospel. “Come over and help us” is the Macedonian call
that rings out from our southern neighbors. “Why sit ye here all the day idle?”
is the question that should be borne in upon us when wre consider this great
open door. My brethren, let us not tarry. In truth, the fields are white unto
the harvest. Let us press die battle, and God will be with us and lead us on to
victory in Christ Jesus.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Where are the Ripened Fields? 2. Describe religious
conditions ’n Japan? 3. What opportunities await the Christian missionary in
Japan? 4. Why does China oiler such an open door for Christianity today? 5.
Describe conditions in Korea. 6. What are the conditions in India? 7. Just why
should special efforts just now be made in the Near East to Christianize the
Moslems? 8. Describe the animistic religion of the negroes of Central Africa. 9.
What has been done in Afnca towaid introducing Christianity? 10. Relate the
religious history of the Mexican people. 11 Why is iy at this time a really
“ripened field”?


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  CHAPTER 6: THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE LOCAL CONGREGATION IN PREACHING THE GOSPEL
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The Responsibility of the Local Congregation in Preaching the Gospel The
Responsibility of the Local Congregation in Preaching the Gospel E. C. Coffman
Heights Boulevard Church of Christ, Houston, Texas The responsibility of preach'
ing the gospel rests upon the church. In discussing this subject Paul said in
Ephesians 3:10, “To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in
the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom
of God.'” “These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly; but
if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how men ought to behave themselves in the
house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of
the truth. (1 Timothy 3:14-15.) If we can get the exact idea the writer had in
mind, it will help to understand not only this passage but the entire subject
before us. The words pillar and ground are similar in meaning in that both are
the support of the truth, but the word ground in this instance refers to the
base or foundation while the word pillar refers to a column on which the roof
rests. The roof represents the truth or the gospel.

Since the church is the pillar and the ground of the truth, all societies and
man-made agencies are excluded. “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding
abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh
in us, unto him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all
generations for ever and ever.” (Ephesians 3:20-21.) This passage states as
clearly as it is possible to state anything that we are to glorify God in the
church. If we are to glorify him in the church, then we are not to glorify him
in some other institution. But how are we to glorify God? Jesus glorified him by
keeping his commandments. “I glorified thee on the earth, having accomplished
the work which thou hast given me to do.” (Jno. 17:4.) Since Jesus glorified God
by doing the work that was given him to do, I conclude that we are to glorify
God by doing the work which he has given us to do. Then the work which he has
given us to do must be done through the church.

Once more: “And whatsoever ye do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the
Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:17.). To
do anything in the name of the Lord Jesus is to do it by his authority. Also to
obey Christ is to obey the Father, but this must be done in the church.

Neither does the responsibility rest upon the preachers as a separate class of
workers in the Lord’s vineyard. The passage under discussion does not merely
imply, but plainly states that the church, not preachers, is the pillar and the
ground of the truth. We usually think of the church as being divided into two
classes of people. We think it is the preacher’s responsibility to preach the
gospel while the members may make all the money they can, occasionally give a
little of their loose change, and attend the services if convenient. “This
delusion in spite of its popularity was born in coveteousness and cradled in
ignorance.” The responsibility of the local congregation in preaching the gospel
may also be learned by the example of some of the congregations of the New
Testament. The church at Antioch is a classic example. “And as they ministered
to the Lord, and fasted, the Fioly Spirit said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul
for the work whereunto I have called them. Then, when they had fasted and prayed
and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.” These preachers were not
only sent out by the local church, but on their return they gathered the church
together, and rehearsed all things that God had done with them. (Acts 14:27.) It
seems that all the New Testament churches were missionary. The Philippian church
sent once and again unto Paul while he was preaching in other fields. The
Thessalonian church sounded out the word.

If a church wants to send a missionary to preach the gospel and is not
financially able to do so alone, it may enlist the cooperation of one or more
churches. “And ye yourselves also know, ye Philippians, that in the beginning of
the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church had fellowship with me in
the matter of giving and receiving but ye only.” (Php_4:15.)

Having seen that it is the church’s responsibility to preach the gospel, now let
us emphasise the necessity of preaching it. Too many times in the past we have
been satisfied to guard, protect, and defend the gospel. “O Timothy, guard that
which is committed unto thee, turning away from the profane babblings and
oppositions of the knowledge which is falsely so called; which some professing
have erred concerning the faith.” (1 Timothy 6:20-21.) As a rule the church has
done its full duty in guarding, protecting, and defending the gospel, but it has
not at all times been faithful in delivering the message. Too many times we have
treated the gospel in about the same manner many a man has when he accepted the
responsibility of becoming a messenger for his wife. If necessary he would guard
and defend the letter even at the cost of his life, yet through negligence he
may forget to mail the letter. He has the letter unsoiled or uiv adulterated
with any other message, but it has not been delivered. It is not enough simply
to be a convert to Christianity; we must be an advocate of it. Unless an idea
seises us, takes possession of us and sends us into the arena to fight for it,
neither we nor our fellowmen will be benefitted by it.

We have always contended, and rightly so, that the Holy Spirit does not work a
miracle on the human heart in conversion. We have repeatedly emphasised the fact
that the Holy Spirit works through the word. Knowing this as we do, it certainly
is our business to preach the gospel to the full extent of our ability. In
harmony with the teaching of the Bible we have taught that salvation is not bv
faith only, but also by works, yet it is no uncommon thing to see the advocates
of the faith only theory doing more work than we.

Preaching the gospel is the primary mission of the church. It is true that there
are other things the church must do. “Pure religion and undefiled before our God
and Father is this, to visit the father' less and widows in their affliction,
and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” (James 1:27.) “Let him that stole
steal no more: but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing that
is good, that he may have whereof to give to him that hath need.” (Ephesians
4:28.) This phase of the church’s work might be over emphasised forgetting that
Jesus said, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole
creation.” In emphasising the importance of going and preaching, let us not
forget our message. The church is the pillar and the ground of the truth. But
what is the truth? Jesus answers this question in clear and unmistakable
language when he says, “Sanctify them in the truth; thy word is truth” (John
17:17.) The word of God is not only the truth, but it is also the gospel. “Now I
make known to you the gos' pel which I preached unto you, which also ye
received, wherein also ye stand, by which also ye are saved, if ye hold fast the
word I preached unto you, except ye believed in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:1-2.)
Paul in' eluded this in his charge to Timothy: “I charge thee in the sight of
God, and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the living and the dead, and by his
appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be urgent in season, out of season;
reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.” (2 Timothy
4:1-2.) Luke informs us that Philip went down to the city of Samaria and
proclaimed unto them the Christ, and when they believed Philip preaching good
tidings concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were
baptised, both men and women. While sitting with the eunuch in the chariot,
Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this scripture, preached unto him
Jesus. It is necessary to preach the gospel because it is the power of God unto
salvation. This is not always remembered. There is no more need for one to run
today without tidings than there was in the early days of the church. The gospel
should he preached today without any compromise or without being adulterated
with the doctrines and commandments of men. Jesus warned the people of his day
of the danger of following men. “Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you,
saying: This people honoreth me with their lips; But their heart is far from me.
But in vain do they worship me, Teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men.
(Matthew 15:7-9.)

Paul waged a long and bitter fight with false teachers. He said to the elders of
the church at Ephesus, “Wherefore I testify unto you this day, that I am pure
from the blood of all men. For I shrank not from declaring unto you the whole
counsel of God. I ake heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the
Holy Spirit hath made you bishops, to feed the church of the lord which he
purchased with his own blood. I know that after my departing grievous wolves
shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves
shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after
them. Wherefore watch ye, remembering that by the space of three years I ceased
not to admonish every one night and day with tears. And now I commend you to
God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give
you the inheritance among all them that are sanctified.” (Acts 20:26-32.) Since
Paul thought it necessary to admonish them for the space of three years, night
and day, with tears, we should be vitally concerned about what we preach, and as
far as we are able, about what we allow to be preached. Paul commended them to
God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build them up, and to give
them the inheritance among all them that are sanctified. Even in this
enlightened age the word of his grace is the only message that can either build
us up, or give us the inheritance.

Like the poor we have the false teachers with us always. In one respect at
least, preachers should be like the little boy who ran two blocks to the
grocery. He arrived exhausted and out of breath. The groceryman asked, “What is
it?” The little boy looked dumb for a minute and finally said, “I don’t know; I
will have to go back home and find out.” Many people in our own fair land as
well as some in other places have forgotten the message, but unlike the little
boy, they have not gone home nor any other place to get it. Where shall the
gospel be preached? First, it shall be preached to the church. It was necessary
to preach the gospel to establish the church. (One reason why we are correct m
saying rhe church was built on the first Pentecost after the resurrection of
Christ is because the gospel for the first time was preached, and the people
heard it, believed it, and obeyed it. When a church is established, it should
not be left alone, as it not only fails to grow, but more often falls an easy
victim to false teachers. When Paul established a church in a community, he left
some of his faithful helpers to water what he had planted. This is plainly
taught in Matthew’s account of the Great Commis' sion. In the first part Jesus
says, “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them
into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” When this is
done the church is established at that place, but we are not to cease our
teaching then. Jesus continues by saying, “Teaching them to observe all things
what' soever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of
the world.” If this is not preaching the gospel to the church, I have failed to
fully understand this passage. Paul addressed his Roman letter, “To all that are
in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 1:7.) Yet in the fifteenth verse
of the same chapter he says, “So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the
gospel to you also that are in Rome.” But a church has not fulfilled her mission
when she has edified herself. It should be the center from which the gospel
should be preached to the surrounding communities. It is absolutely inexcusable
on the part of any congregation to be self'satisfied and make no effort to
preach the gospel to others. Even in its infancy the church at Philippi helped
Paul preach the gospel to others. It is true that Paul reasoned daily in the
school of Tyrannus for the space of two years, but it is also true that all they
that dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord. It seems to be a common failing
of too many of us that we are too much like sponges; we take in all we can get,
but we give out nothing. We grow by exercise. If a congregation is weak, it
should take exercise. Preaching the gospel to others is one of the best ways to
build ourselves up. No church, however weak or poor, ever died because it
faithfully tried to carry out the Lord’s program. After the gospel has been
preached at Jerusalem, it should then be preached in all Judea. When Judea has
been evangelized, it should then be Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the
earth. Jesus said, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole
creation.” The command is to make disciples of all the nations. Fortunately
those who believe the gospel should not be preached to foreign countries until
every one at home is converted, are being converted on this point. If we can not
send missionaries to foreign countries until everybody at home is con' verted,
then no church can secure a preacher from another community for a series of
meetings until he has converted everybody in his home community. It seems that
Jonah was at first opposed to foreign mis' sions, but later he had a complete
change of heart.

We frequently discuss this subject in a very loose manner. We speak of
missionaries as if they were a separate and distinct class of Chiistians. All
Christians are missionaries unless they fail miserably in their high calling.
One is a missionary whether he is sent across the street or ocean The distance
has absolutely nothing to do with it. We should not single out a few individual
Christians that are willing to make a sacrifice to preach the gospel and expect
them to evangelize the world while we stay at home and are at ease in Zion It is
the duty of each individual Christian to be a missionary, or as we some' times
call them, personal workers.

Christ was the greatest personal worker the world has ever seen. He usually
delivered his greatest sermons to only a few people. When Nicodemus came to him,
he preached one of his greatest sermons re' vealing to Nicodemus how he could
become a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. As he sat by the well, he preached
another great sermon to the woman, revealing to her his identity. The early
church was very proficient in this fine art. ‘They therefore that were scattered
abroad went about preaching the. word There was no exception as to age, sex,
education, or wealth. Even Paul taught the people from house to house. One
reason why public preaching today apparently fails is because the way has not
been pre' pared by private testimony. We understand only a part of the Great
Commission. We preach faith, repentance, and baptism exactly as they are taught
in the Bible, but that is as far as many of us go. We seem to think that the
other part of the Commission is this: “Come ye out from all the community and
hear the gospel preached.” Let it be remembered that an alien sinner is nowhere
commanded to go to church. The world is not to come to Christ. We are to take
Christ to the world. Our version of the parable of the sower is to bring the
field to the barn and then sow the seed We seem to forget that the sower went
forth to sow the seed. Our idea of fishing is to bring the fish to the lawn and
then get the net and catch them. We are fishers of men, and wTe must go where
the men are and not expect them to come to us. It is useless to expect the dead
to come for the bread of life.

One of the greatest sins of today is spiritual contentment. Many seem to think
that because they have obeyed the commands to alien sinners they are yet saved.
Business six days a week and no religion in it, and then religion one day a week
and no business in it will never evangelize the world. It may be true that many
are idle because no man hath hired them, but it is also true that many are idle
because they simply refuse to work. We argue long and loud for our polit' ical
tenets notwithstanding the fact that over one hundred and fifty years of history
shows that it makes but little, if any, difference which party is in power. The
greatest difference between a Democrat and a Republican is one is in and the
other is out. We might learn a lesson from the Socialist who was discharged from
liis place for Socialistic propaganda. When one of his friends began to express
sympathy with him, he replied, “Oh, it was all right. I had just won the last
man in the shop and there was not anything left for me to do.” When a few bold
spirits do venture forth to interview the lost, they talk to them about the fine
preaching, the good singing, the comfortable house, and a friendly church. These
things are fine as far as they go, but they will never save any man from his
sins. We have junked the program of the Lord, and substituted one of our own
that will not work. Jesus’ program worked 1900 years ago and it will work now.
“No wholesale house could ever be run on such a program, and no more can the
church of the living God! Suppose it should be considered the duty of the sales
manager, in harmony with that program, to go out and do all the selling, with a
little help, perhaps, from a few officers of the company or members of the firm,
while the salesmen support him by their encouragement and their faithful
attendance on his weekly lectures on the quality and value of their goods. And
suppose the salesmen simply go out into the territory .through the week to try
to persuade a few prospective customers to come to those weekly lectures in the
hope that they will decide to buy, while they themselves make little or no
attempt to sell any goods, but simply seek to interest possible customers in the
fine lectures of the sales manager. How long do you think that house would last?
Just about long enough to exhaust the capital!” The people of the world are
reaching their prospective customers with their goods, and the church of the
Lord Jesus Christ can reach the world with the gospel when it decides to go out
into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Prove by the Bible that the responsibility of
spreading the Gospel rests upon the church. 2. May two or more congregations put
their funds together or cooperate for purposes of holding meetings in destitute
places? 3. Distinguish clearly between guarding, defending, and protecting the
gospel and proclaiming the gospel. Show the importance of each. . 4. Which is
more important, ministering to the sick and the needy or preaching the Gospel?
5. What should be preached? Explain fully. 6. Why should the message be preached
to the church? 7. How long must it be preached at home or to the church before
the church sends it into foreign territory? 8. Emphasise the importance of each
Christian being a missionary. 9. Discuss the dangers of the sin of contentment.
10. Compare the programs of the church today with that of the Christ.


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  CHAPTER 7: RESPONSIBILITY OF EACH PREACHER IN CARRYING THE GOSPEL TO THE WHOLE CREATION
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Responsibility of Each Preacher In Carrying the Gospel to the Whole Creation

Responsibility of Each Preacher in Carrying the Gospel to the Whole Creation J.
Emmett Wainwright Tor Boulevard Church of Christ, Los Angeles, Calif.

INTRODUCTION The Great Commission of our Saviour is universal in reach, “all the
world,” and cosmopolitan in import, “every creature.” Christ put “mission” in
the commission and human beings should he afraid and ashamed to remove or
mutilate. The vision of some may have been blurred by geographical and national
lines. We rejoice to know, however, that many maintain an eye “single” for the
commission as given by our Redeemer. Let us hope and pray for the recovery ol
those afflicted, and humbly endeavor to preclude future blindness. Commendation
for those who prepared the present program is in order. Our general theme is the
living message of our Lord; and the assigned subjects are momentous. May the
blessings of heaven be added to our humble efforts.

DEFINITION OF TERMS (1) Preacher: One who proclaims, without fear or favor, the
un-adulterated gospel of Christ. In evaluating pulpit requisites character must
not be overlooked: “Be thou an ensample to them that believe, in word, in manner
of life, in love, in faith, in purity.” (1 Timothy 4:12.) (2) Gospel: Heaven’s
message of redemption for a lost and ruined world. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4.) (3)
Whole Creation: Responsible individuals capable of believing and obeying. (4)
Responsibility: The noun “response” and the verb “respond” come from two words
meaning “promise again.” The word for our consideration is defined: (a) State of
being responsible or accountable; (b) That for which one is answerable—duty or
trust; (c) Ability to meet obligations. A “GOOD MINISTER” All who aspire to
preach the gospel of Christ should sincerely determine to be nothing short of a
“good minister.” (1 Timothy 4:6.) In fact, honest persons would be ashamed of
being any other kind. To be worthy of this encomium one should memorise the
entire chapter (1 Timothy 4) and study every requirement carefully and
prayerfully. The continuity of this busy program is summed up in verse 16: “Take
heed to thyself, and to thy teaching. Continue in these things; for in doing
this thou shalt save both thyself and them that hear thee.” Removing and
precluding the partisan spirit is a solemn duty discharged by every soul-winner
who believes the Lord’s prayer for unity. (John 17.) The courageous Paul set a
worthy precedent in his rebuke to the Corinthians. (1 Corinthians 1:10.) He did
not single out the groups preferring other preachers; he challenged those who
would have made him a “ring-leader” of one schism among many schisms: “Was Paul
crucified for you? or were ye baptised into the name of Paul?” Love and courage
are required to imitate. Who will qualify?

AVENUES OF ACTIVITY There is a continual demand for “trail-blazers” of the
Pauline type; and a constant need of “home-makers” of the James type. The
“little world” of every congregation should be thoroughly developed. Three
sub-headings have been suggested for our consideration: (1) The conversion of
sinners; (2) Education of Christians as to individual responsibilities and
liabilities; (3) Congregational instructions designed to maintain an active
program. Pioneer gospel preachers were living demonstrations, and early
Christians were “walking advertisements” for the Lord. They set a record for all
time in leading others to Christ by personal efforts. The community life of
pioneer converts was filled with interest and concern one for another; they were
encouraged to seek for the things which would edify. (Romans 14:19.) The grave
demand of this age is a revival of the apostolic spirit.

CONVERSION OF SINNERS The world-wide and age-lasting commission of our Lord
calls for Christian activity as long as humanity stands in need of salvation
from sin. Had Christ demanded the “conversion of every creature” his disciples
would have been burdened with an impossible task. The Lord’s requirements are
within the pale of human possibility: Go ye into all the world; preach the
gospel; disciple the nations; baptize believers; and, teach the new converts to
observe—fulfill all things commanded. (Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24.)

Inventory: The preacher must do considerable introspecting; and, then strive to
acquire and classify righteous information. One must anticipate many groups of
unbelievers: atheists, infidels, agnostics, doubters, skeptics, and the
uninformed; some are honest, some otherwise. Christian evidences should be ready
for use “in season and out of season.” Blessed is the individual who sees and
admits religious problems; more blessed is the person who is capable of offering
a solution; while the most blessed is the qualified individual who actually
solves the problems. Unbelievers entertain question marks about divinity and
inspiration; the preacher’s humble duty is to try to transform into an
exclamation mark!

Confession of Faith: Peter’s confession (Matthew 16:16) was not tne result of
coercion, nor the product of mechanical rote. He saw and heard enough to he
convinced that Jesus was the Christ of Cod; from the abundance of his heart eame
the. noble confession. Doubting Thomas (John 20:28-29) was honest enough to
accept the demanded evidence and confess: “My lord and my God.” For the benefit
of those who are denied a physical demonstration, Christ pronounced a beatitude:
“Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” The sinner is not
required to come knowing (physically) God, but he “must come believing.” This
transcends the plane of guess-work.

Genuine repentance: The necessity of this theme will be in demand as long as
frail humanity (saint and sinner) is susceptible to temptation. One may define
and be able to quote many passages requiring repentance and not be induced to
actually repent. An inspired penman (Romans 2:4) affirmed that the “goodness of
God” leads to repentance. A general lamentation because of a. lack of
compunction may be turned to rejoicing by giving more attention to God’s
goodness. For baptised (?) persons to continue in sin is most shameful (Romans
6.) Fearless preachers of the New Testament impressed hearers with the
importance of bringing forth “fruit worthy of repentance.”

Baptismal demarcation: One may possess a correct understanding of the form and
mode of baptism and fail miserably to “obey from the heart Sincere hearts must
be impressed with the importance of bemg saved from s1n and the love of sin; the
putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new man; that the service
of unrighteousness has given place for service of righteousness. The grave
significance of baptism's retrospection (Romans 6:1-4), and prospection (1 Cor.
U :28), should not be overlooked Have you ever witnessed a baptised believer
kneeling in silent prayer? Have yrou ever witnessed a mature, person lift his
eyes and thank God for redemption immediately after being baptised? What do you
think about the statement “calling on his name” as commanded bv Ananias of Saul?
(Acts 22:16.)

EDUCATION OF CHRISTIANS Christian progress has been seriously impaired by three
groups: The untaught; the. mistaught, and the mdfferent. The word educate
suggests two important duties: Lead converts out of darkness into light; and,
arouse from a state of lethargy to the plane of Christian service. To create and
maintain interest, is a sacred responsibility recognised by earnest
soul-winners. Reckless preaching has brought about horrible deformity, and the
task of reformation is most difficult. Receptive hearts of new converts should
be impressed with fundamental principles of Christianity and thus preclude
hobbyism and political factions. Designing individuals should not aspire to
occupy pulpits; and those afflicted should evacuate for the safe construction of
characters.

Fundamental: Instrumental music is but a symptom of the funda-mental ailment of
human hearts. The same is true regarding all innovations and
inner-organimations. Lack of respect for divine authority in all matters
religious is the unfortunate disease. It is possible to eliminate all
innovations and demolish human organisations and still suffer from this
fundamental defect! The new born babe believes in the personality of God; his
faith must be enlarged to embrace unbounded confidence in divine authority The
heart that is filled with love divine finds such a vast field of operation that
little time is wasted seeking for the specific danger sign: “Thou shalt not.”
The limit is readily recognised with the liberty.

Organization and government: Leaders and followers are always in demand. To
speak of the need of leaders without recognising the need of true followers does
not coincide with Sacred Writ. Qualified overseers presuppose the need of some
being overseen. Scriptural rulers would be empty handed without the respect and
esteem of the obedients. Potential material should be observed and developed to
function in some capacity, be it ever so humble. Havoc has been wrought by
neglecting the apostolic practice of leaving efficient ministers with new groups
for the purpose of “setting in order the things wanting” and “ordaining elders.”
In these last days, the order has been reversed: Hasty appointment of
unqualified material has resulted in throwing things into disorder. When
qualified elders and deacons function scripturally, and all the members realise
that God’s will is being done among men, an active interest in every good work
is certain to follow. Result: A living organism.

CONGREGATIONAL ACTIVITY Is the preacher responsible for certain definite
instructions designed to maintain congregational activity? Some one has insisted
that the “local” preacher should be “sent out” each Lord’s day so the “insistent
one” might occupy the home pulpit regularly. Another brother denounced, to the
bitter end, the “located preacher.” It seemed that he wanted to make annual
circuits with plenty empty and inviting pulpits! The non-partisan and
self-forgetful student of the apostolic practices does not find fault with the
“trail-blaming” and “home-making” demonstrations of the pioneer preachers. The
record of Acts is self-explanatory. No apology is offered for “job-seekers” and
“position-promoters” with self-centered interests. (2 Corinthians 4:2.)

Objective: The divine system provides for a definite objective for every group
of Christians, (a) The reformation of deformed characters; (b) The correct
formation of immature characters; (c) The community life of sharing, jointly,
joys and sorrows; (d) Sympathetic interest of general welfare of other
congregations; (e) Willingness to hear every worthy appeal and the alertness to
investigate to prevent ungodly impositions; (f) Substantial fellowship, as tai
as humanly possible, in every good work. (Php_4:14-17 )

Educational program: Daily additions (Acts 2:47) among the early disciples is
better understood when certain passages are considered: “And every day, at the
temple and at home, they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus as the Christ.”
(Acts 5:42.) The first persecution was overruled for good: “They therefore that
were scattered abroad went about preaching the word.” (Acts 8:4.) Alter years of
theory and practice of advertising methods, one concludes that the precedent set
by these early disciples is the best. Individual evangelism must be prefaced by
a healthy teaching schedule, (a) Every member should learn how to worship in
spirit and truth; (b) The development of youth for future service; (c) Teachers
training class; (d) Critical study of every phase of the Lords government as
revealed; (e) The plan of die ages should keep hearts overflowing with love for
God and man.

Apostolic example: A few congregations boast of having existed seventy-five or
one hundred years; nothing has been accomplished worth while to mention. Far
better to be spiritually alive and righteously active during a very short
existence among men. Some one has called the church at Anuoch (Syria) the
“Second capital of the Christian world.’ The sacred record is a challenge:

(a) Establishment. Out of the Jerusalem persecution came a blessing; dispersed
disciples travelled as far as Antioch preaching Jesus, first to the Jews then to
the Gentiles. The Lord was with them: “a great number believed, and turned unto
the Lord.” When the good news reached the remaining Jerusalem saints, the
leaders were generous enough to send one of their ablest preachers, Barnabas.
This man of God exhorted the new converts that with “purpose of heart they would
cleave unto the Lord.” Congregations should plan their work; and then work their
plans! As a result of the gospel in sermon and service "much people was added
unto the Lord.” Barnabas did not cater to the reputation of “building up the
biggest church among us”; he quietly visited Tarsus seeking Saul to assist him.

(b) Efficiency. The continued efforts of Barnabas and Saul brought forth fruit,
and soon three other capable teachers were assisting in the great work: Simeon,
Lucius and Manaen. If such a monster as so -called preacher jealousy ever
existed it must have been unknown among these godly men. The adage “the more we
are taught the more we will do” was true with this congregation. They soon
became alert to, and active in, every good work.

(c) Charity. When informed by the prophet Agabus that a famine was to sweep the
country, they were self-forgetful—thinking of others. Every one determined,
according to ability, to send relief to the Judean brethren. (Acts 11:29-30 )

(d) Missionary. These gospel preachers evidently remained true to the mission
which Christ placed in the great commission. Interest in the salvation of other
nations was manifest in sending and cncour' aging capable preachers; repeated
trips were made, and joyous reports followed. (Acts 13 and 14.)

Human ingenuity has been unable to “devise means’" of surpassing this wonderful
record. Negative preaching will never encourage con gregations to equal. What
group is really worthy of the name Christians? (Acts 11:26.)

CONCLUSION Finally, my fellowdaborers in the vineyard of the Lord, I would be an
ungrateful wretch to ignore the inspiration received from godly gospel
preachers, directly and indirectly. The privilege of sitting at the feet of able
and sacrificing preachers and teachers in the Christian colleges has not been
mine to enjoy; my limited training came other' wise. However, the Sacred Volume
brought to me the best sermons from the best preachers; and scores of volumes
from the pens of scholarly brethren presented a “secondary” opportunity. In
spite of physical disabilities and circumscribed opportunities no blame can be
placed upon God or man for my inefficiency. My heart and hand are extended the
excellent group of voung men who aspire to carry on gospel preaching for the
purpose of saving souls from sin and constructing characters for this life and
that to come. Do not hesitate to command me for service at any time. Resolve to
“walk worthily of the vocation” and do not prostitute the pulpit. Do your best,
but do not expect to be a “cure'all”; each generation brings forth some “born in
the objective case, fussative mood, and kickative gender.” Some word or deed
might start a revolution of righteous thought and action; you may be the
“starter.” Use pen and pulpit; radio and reason; tongue and tract. Preach the
gospel in song, sermon and service. There is joy in service now, and a crown
after while.

Father, may our hearts be opened to receive and understand thy will. May our
eyes be enlarged to see the many opportunities on every hand; and, may we have
sufficient courage to enter therein, to the extent of our ability.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Clearly define the terms in the subject of this
lecture. 2. What are the qualifications or characteristics of a good minister?
3. Show the grave responsibility of the preacher toward the sinner. 4. Just how
may the preacher meet this responsibility? 5. Why should the preacher continue
to teach those who have been baptized? 6. Why must there be followers as well as
leaders in a congregation? How should the leader be selected? 7. What should be
the regular work of every local congregation? What part should the preacher play
in this? 8. Describe the work of preachers in the congregation at Antioch.


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  CHAPTER 8: THEY ALL WITH ONE CONSENT BEGAN TO MAKE EXCUSE
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They All With One Consent Began To Make Excuse “They All With One Consent Began
to Make Excuse” Paul Southern Abilene, Texas

“And they all with one consent began to make excuse.” (Luke 14:18.) The tendency
to make excuses is an inherent characteristic of mankind. It is not exclusively
indigenous to any one soil; neither is it confined to any one age. In fact, it
has no geographical or chronological limitations. Since the inception of sin
back in the very morning of time, man has been making excuses for his
transgressions and disobedience. Thus Eve sought to justify her eating of the
forbidden fruit on the ground that “the tree was good for food, and that it was
a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise,”
and when God asked what she had done she said: “The serpent beguiled me, and I
did eat.” (Genesis 3:6; Genesis 3:13.) And Adam was like a good many of the
modern excuse-makers who go around with open mouths swallowing everything that
comes along. His frivolous excuse was that “The woman whom thou gavest to be
with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” (Genesis 3:12.) Sin is a
malicious brat which nobody is willing to own; therefore man tries to justify
his negligence with flimsy excuses. When Moses was called upon to deliver Israel
from Egyptian bondage, he made several excuses before accepting the
responsibility. “Who am I, that I should go unto Pharoah, and that I should
bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?” he asked. (Exodus 3:11.) “They
will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice,” for I am not an eloquent man.
(Exodus 4:1; Exodus 4:10.) By the same weakness, Aaron tried to extenuate the
sin of worshiping the golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai. To Moses he said:
“Thou knowest the people, that they are set on evil. For they said unto me, Make
us gods, which shall go before us.” (Exodus 32:22-23.) The Israelites clamored
for a king. Their excuse was that Samuel’s sons were inefficient judges, but the
real reason was that they wanted to be like the nations around them. (1 Samuel
8:4-5.) Saul was once commissioned by Jehovah to destroy the Amalekites,
together with Agag the king and all the cattle. His excuse for failing to
fulfill the command was that “the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the
chief of the devoted things, to sacrifice unto Jehovah.” But in the language of
the prophet Samuel: “to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the
fat of rams.” (1 Samuel 15:21-22.)

During the time of our Lord, the burning tendency to make excuses flared in open
flame. In the parable of the Great Supper, a gracious invitation was extended to
many to come to the feast. “And they all with one consent began to make excuse.”
One had bought a piece of land which he wanted to go and see. Another had bought
five yoke of oxen that should be proved. The third had married a wife, therefore
he could not come. Thus they betrayed their gross ingratitude and lack of
interest in the feast.

Since excuse-making is a universal and perpetual propensity of mankind, we are
not surprised to observe that it continues unabated today. In its essential
characteristics, human nature is always and in every place the same.
Consequently, we have disciples within the Lord’s church who make excuses for
our puny evangelistic program. It shall be the purpose of this study to review
some of these excuses. That the religion of our Lord is universal in its
application, inter-national in its scope, is a divine truth impressed throughout
the New Testament. Having tasted death for every man (Hebrews 2:9), Jesus became
“the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole
world.” (1 John 2:2.) In the great commission He said: “Go ye into all the
world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation.” (Mark 16:15'.) His final
message to the apostles from the hillside of Bethany, just before His ascension,
was: “But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye
shall be mv witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto
the uttermost part of the earth.” (Acts 1:8.) The responsibility of propagating
the gospel story has been delivered to the church of the living God, which is
“the pillar and ground of the truth.” (1 Timothy 3:14-15.)

What are we doing about it? I am not a morbid pessimist; neither am I a blind
optimist. And I would not minimise the great work which has been and is being
done by the Lord’s people. At the same time, a casual glance at our evangelistic
program shows that lethargy reigns. The fact that we have the truth seems to be
a spiritual sedative. Too many Christians have hidden behind the tree of excuses
and “are at ease in Zion.” “Why stand ye here all the day idle?” (Matthew 20:6)
is a searching question which should pierce the heart of every disciple. In
answer to the question we hear one group of brethren say that the ignorant
heathens are not responsible for their conduct. This is a very wholesome
doctrine and full of comfort for indolent Christians. Hence they excuse their
spiritual laziness on the pretext that God will take care of the heathens. If
the doctrine is true, there is so such thing as an alien sinner, and Peter did
not know what he was talking about when he said: “Repent ye, and be baptised
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins.”
(Acts 2:38.) What makes a man a sinner anyway? Are the heathens in a state of
safety until they hear and disobey the gospel? If so, we must conclude that the
gospel makes sinners instead of saving them. It is impossible to save that which
is already safe. The truth of the mat' ter is that the. heathens are lost
because they are in sin, and not be' cause they have not been baptised. Jesus
did not come into the world to make sinners, but “to seek and to save that which
was lost.” (Luke 19:10.) The gospel of Christ is not just an agency of
destruction, but the power of God unto salvation to every one that belie.veth;
to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” (Romans 1 :J 6 ) It is God’s lifeb'ne
which must be thrown out to a world sinking in the stormy sea of sin If men
refuse to take hold of it, they die in their sins and are lost eternally because
they are sinners. Refusing to obey the gospel only intensifies their guilt, for
they have spurned God’s proffered mercy and have trampled under foot the blood
of Christ. But the heathens are sinners already. They have a “law written in
their hearts” which they fail to keep. (Romans 2; Romans 14, 15.) Without the
gospel, they have no hope and are without God m the world. (Ephesians 2:12.)
When Jesus comes, he will render “vengeance to them that know not God, and to
them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus.” (2 Thessalonians 1:8.) What a
challenge they present to the church of the Lord! From Greenland’s icy mountains
to India’s coral strand I can see the smoke of thousands of villages without a
Saviour. Will Jehovah hold us guiltless if we allow them to go to the judgment
unprepared to meet their God.

We have some very indefinite brethren who are hard to reach. With one blanket
excuse they say they do not believe in foreign evaiv gelistic work. Such an
admission is tantamount to saying that they do not believe, the gospel. Jesus
clearly taught that “the field is the world.” (Matthew 13:38.) Furthermore, he
said, “Ye arc the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14), and He commands that we
evangelise the whole creation (Mark 16:15.) At the household of Cornelius, Peter
said: “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every
nation he that feareth him, and wurketh righteousness, is acv ceptable to him.”
(Acts 10:34-35.) Must we, like Peter, go up on the housetop and see a great
sheet let down out of heaven, wherein is all manner of fourTooted beasts and
creeping things, in order to convince us that the gospel is addressed to every
creature? Must we hear the Lord say: ‘ Rise, Peter; kill and eat”? In Jehovah’s
sight, there is no such thing as home missions and foreign missions. Distance
means nothing to the God of all nations, and every race is precious in his
sight, “for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain even of
your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.” (Acts 17:28.) Our
marching orders insist that we go to the utter' most part of the earth, and
break the bread of life in regions 'beyond. A diagnosis of this excuse shows
that the trouble is not opposition to foreign evangelism, but a lack of
spiritual life.

Suppose that the churches of Judaea had been opposed to foreign evangelistic
work. The gospel would never have been preached in “the land of the free and the
home of the brave.” Fortunately for us the primitive church believed in
world-wide evangelism. I am thankful for their unselfish devotion, and with Paul
want to say: “I am a debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise
and to the foolish. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to
you also that are in Rome.” (Romans 1:14-15.)

Other exquse makers are more definite. They oppose foreign missions on the
pretext which has been labeled “The Once-And-For-All Theory.” The argument is
that every nation under heaven was represented on Pentecost, and the gospel was
taken to them. If they have neglected it, we are not obligated to take it to
them now. Such a doctrine is but a sorry subterfuge of an impenitent heart. The
apostles who were guided into all truth had no such perverted ideas. They
continued preaching to the end of life, and their itinerary ever led them into
regions beyond. Furthermore, the audience present on Pentecost did not include
the Gentile nations. Those assembled there were all Jews who had come up to
Jerusalem to observe a Jewish festival. It remained for Peter to evangelise the
first Gentile convert when he took the gospel to Cornelius. (Acts 10) But let us
grant that all Gentiles heard the message during the apostolic times. Some of
them must have failed to keep it, for several hundred years after Pentecost our
Gentile ancestors were found in heathenism when the first missionaries from
Italy reached the shores of England. If it is wrong to take the gospel to the
heathens now, it was wrong then. By such reasoning, we have no right to try to
be Christians. The fact that one generation spurns heaven’s invitation is no
reason why we should withhold the gospel from the next. Hundreds of thousands in
Texas have turned a deaf ear to the gospel during the past few decades, yet we
continue to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ in the Lone Star State.

We have among us some anti-missionary Christians who give a kind of patriotic
excuse. They claim they believe in world-wide evangelism, but think that we must
first begin at home. Such patriotism is admirable, if indeed it is sincere.
Every Christian should be interested in his homeland. “Breathes there the man
with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native
land!” The apostles were told to begin in Jerusalem, but their marching ordeis
led to the uttermost part of the earth. (Acts 1:8.) If the devil can get us to
camp at home until every heathen here has been converted, the world will never
be evangelized. Too many churches keep a big supply of home work stored up as a
kind of conscience easer. But the fallacy of such an argument lies in the fact
that its exponents do very little anywhere. As a matter of fact, those who are
doing the most at home are doing the most abroad. Excusing ourselves from doing
foreign mission work on the ground that we have neglected the homeland is a poor
means of carrying out the great commission. We shall never reduce the number of
heathens at home by refusing assistance to those farther away. At a time when
idolatry was rampant in Israel, God dispatched Jonah to the heathen city of
Nineveh to preach. Having passed through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, Paul
assayed to preach the gospel in Bithynia, but the Holy Spirit led lum across the
restless waves into Europe. (Acts 16:6-10.)

Others view the great commission as an impossible duty. They say that the
evangelisation of the wrorld can never be accomplished, because it is beyond our
ability. Evidently there is a mistake somewhere. Jehovah has never commanded
anyone to undertake an impossible task. When a duty is beyond human ability, God
supplies the means of accomplishment. Jesus has promised to be with us always,
“even unto the end of the world.” (Matthew 28:20.) Hence I believe, that we “can
do all things in him that strengthened! me.” (Php_4:13.) We can discharge our
obligations at home and abroad if Christians will support the work with prayer,
purse and person.

It is useless to plead poverty as an excuse for the great dearth of missionary
activity among us. If you think that we are so poverty stricken, take a look at
the magnificent temples of worship some of our brethren have built, and to which
they refer as “plants.” We shall never have, any money for evangelistic work so
long as churches invest more in masonry than in gospel ministry. The religion of
Christ consists of more than carpentry, costly carpets and cushioned chairs. And
if you think that any appreciable number of our members are on starvation, just
park near the theater entrance some night and count the Christians who enter.
The average American family spent approximately $40 for moving pictures in 1936.
The average cigarette smoker spends around $50 per year for cigarettes alone.
Which do we love more: Ja43 or Jesus? Cigarettes or Christ? Gas or gospel? With
reference to finances, we. sometimes hear the excuse that our missionaries spend
too much. Forsooth! We. ought to be ashamed of the way we have treated some of
them! We have some skinflints in the church who are so stingy they will skin a
flea for its hide and tallow, and ruin a six-bit knife. Talking about church
finance, seems to nauseate them. It has been said that giving to the Lord is hke
learning to chew tobacco: it makes you sick at first, but you soon learn to like
it. Some carping critics have even accused our missionaries of misappropriation
of the brotherhood’s funds. Others have said that Brother J. M. McCaleb became
rich in Japan. Perhaps he has become rich, but his is an intangible wealth which
cannot be measured in terms of silver and gold. The best cure for such unfounded
criticism is for the critics to journey to some outpost of Christianity and see
how economical our evangelists are forced to be. In this age of mass production,
there is a tendency to put religion on a competitive basis and demand so many
visible results for so many dollars invested But it is impossible to determine
the cost per capita of converting heathens anywhere, and it is downright sinful
to reduce Christianity to such statistical formulae. After all, one soul is
worth more than all the world “'For what shall a man be profited, if he shall
gain the whole world, and forfeit his life? or what shall a man give ill
exchange for his life?” (Matthew 16:26.) If all of our foreign evangelistic work
saves only one soul, we still have a sizable balance to out credit on the
financial ledger. During the year 1935, the churches m Japan alone reported 38
baptisms. This may sound meager when compared with some of our exaggerated field
reports in the homeland, but'we must remember that the Japanese are not so eager
for iioivsectarian religion as we first supposed. What with ah the superstition,
tiadition, and denominational dogma, evangelistic work sails under adverse winds
in any heathen country.

We are ashamed to admit it, but we have some church members who are opposed to
any kind of evangelistic work. Their excuse is that the people will not hear us
anyway. How do we know they will not hear until we try them? I am sure that some
will listen if we give them a chalice. But suppose that none will give heed. It
still remains our duty to preach the gospel to everybody. Our responsibility
does not end until We deliver the message. God will take care of the. re* suits.
“Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt find it after many days.” Some
congregations seem to exist solely for the purpose of meeting on the Lord’s day
to tickle the vanity of a group of worldly members who have honeycombed the
church. In the. language of Brother J D. Tant, “we order our religion in pack'
ages bound by the four walls of the church house, and if a man doesn’t come
inside these walls we don’t go out to get him.” Once I was talking with a church
about holding a mission meeting. An elder of the congregation said he. did not
really see much need for it since we, had preaching at the church house twice on
Sunday and again on Wednesday night. But Christianity is a going religion, and
the church is essentially a missionary institution. Too much regimenta' tion is
dangerous. We have too many rest camps already where only a few Christian
soldiers are at work. If functioning properly, our religion insists upon
scattering itself.

We often hear the excuse that some of our preachers have de' serted the. faith
which was once for all delivered to the saints. We regret that there have been
some traitors within che Lord’s army. However, heresy m the church is nothing
new under the sun, Beginning at Jerusalem, we find impostors all along the way.
False teachers right there in Jerusalem tried to'fasten Judaism on the church.
Demas forsook the Lord’s work, “having loved this present world.” (2 Timothy
4:10.) Hymenaeus and Alexander made shipwreck of the faith. (1 Timothy 1:19-20.)
Taul warned the Galatians of “some that trouble you, and would pervert the
gospel of Christ.” (Galatians 1:7.) The church at Pergamum had some, who held to
the teaching of Balaam and some to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. (Revelation
2; Revelation 12-17.) But the reverberant note throughout the New Testament is
that the disciples went everywhere preaching the word.

We understand readily why a few missionaries have deserted to che denominations.
In the first place, poor judgment was used in sending them. out. Some were
physical weaklings, some were professional beggars, and others were poisoned
with doctrinal defections long before they left the shores of America. No person
should be sent to another land until he has first proved himself at home,
Furthermore, our responsibility does not end when the evangelist reaches his
destination. Failing to support him financially and to look after him
spiritually may be as big a sin as desertion I Inless they have repented, it is
probable that some chuiches in America have the blood of a few missionaries on
their hands. But the fact that some preachers have disappointed us only
increases our responsibility . I am not going to quit feeding my child wholesome
food simply because some human pigs have made hogs of themselves. Neither can
the church afford to quit feeding the wTorld the bread of life because some
impostor has tried to garnish it with a deadly poison. Realising the great
hardships and temptations which confront the missionary on the foreign field, we
should make it a practice to send some of the strongest men we have. Perhaps
Paul is the most outstanding Christian of the cen-turies. And no doubt the
church at Antioch felt the need of his services, but when the call came ringing
they sent him across the restless waves. (Acts 13.) And then the shout, goes up
from every camp that we must guard against unscriptural organisation in our
evangelistic work. We. heartily agree. The New Testament teaches that we should
not go beyond that which is written. (1 Corinthians 4:6.) I he center and
authority of all religious activity, whether at home or abroad, is the church of
which Jesus is the head. The Bible plan is for every Christian and every
congregation to be missionaries. But it sometimes becomes expedient for
congregations to cooperate in order to support a man while he is preaching in a
virgin field. It was done during the apostolic, age. We do it in the. homeland
and nothing is said about it. Why does ’t become smful if ten or a thousand
Christians pool their money and send it to the support of a laborer across the
seas? If it is done in the name of the Lord and each church is its own
missionary board, there is nothing wrong about it. In fact, the New Testament
teaches that it is even permissible to go among the. chuiches and stir up their
minds in this respect While we guard against an unscriptural plan on the one
hand, we neglect to fulfill the great commission on the other. Which is the
greatest sin: to refuse to do anything for fear of going beyond that which is
wntten, or to let millions go to the judgment unprepared to meet their God? 1
aidiness in entering the harvest fields was responsible for the first missionary
boards and societies of the digressive church. We can obviate this evil within
our own ranks by rallying to the support of the work in a scriptural way.

We welcome the wholesome discussion of any Bible subject, for it is conducive to
spiritual development. Indeed Jude tells us to “contend earnestly for the faith
which was once for all delivered unto the saints.” (Judges 3.) But it seems to
us that some brethren do nothing but wrangle over dry bones of contention with
no issue involved. We are as argumentative as the proverbial Greeks who spent
months at a time discussing how many angels could sit on the point of a needle.
Fortunately, they did not wait until the moot question was settled to the
satisfaction of all before they began to use the needle. Let us make another
illustration anent this point. At midnight an alarm comes to the fire hall
telling of a house which is going up in flames. The firemen rush away to the
scene, only to find that the building is across th? street and about a block
removed from the nearest fire plug. Suppose that the fire chief calls his men
together, and they open a discussion regarding the best means of getting the
water from the plug to the fire. While thev argue the question, pitiful wails go
up from men, women and children trapped in that funeral pyre. No, that is not
the way firemen do it, but that is the way some of our brethren act when we talk
of pouring the water of life on a flaming world. From every quarter of the globe
the alarm is coming—from across the streets, from across hills and valleys, from
across state lines, from across international boundary lines, yea, from across
the seas come pitiful wails from millions of burning souls, while we “with
denial vain and coy excuse” argue over the best means of taking them the gospel
waters. The fault, dear friends, is not in God’s evangelistic program, but in
ourselves that we are failures. It is a sad commeiv tary upon the church of our
Lord, and should challenge the loyalty of every disciple.

We come now to consider an excuse, the foundation for which perhaps has crippled
our evangelistic program more than any other one thing in recent years. We refer
to the matter of doctrinal differences. Many brethren maintain that we must
settle our doctrinal differences at home before we attempt to do anything
abroad. We readily admit that division is a barrier to Christian progress. Jesus
realised that unity is one secret of rapid growth, so He prayed “that they may
all be one.” (John 17:21.) But like the proverbial poor, differences will always
be with us. As long as we have no pope, and there is individual thought and
action, there will be a diversity of private opinions among us. Such a condition
is normal with human beings. Hobby riders have infested the church since the
beginning of the Christian era. Judaistic teachers in Jerusalem tried to make
every church of the first century bow to their interpretations. The Thessa-
lonians were disturbed over a perversive doctrine which taught that the
resurrection was already past. (1 Thessalonians 4:1-18.) In Corinth the
disciples were divided into four warring camps, some of Paul, some of Apollos,
some of Cephas, and some of Christ. (1 Corinthians 1:13.) The Galatians tried to
reach the benefits of the cross through circumcision. (Galatians 5:4-6.) The
Colossians were poisoned with an Oriental doctrine known as Gnosticism which
included vain philosophy, Judaistic ritualism, angel worship, and ascetic
practices. (Colossians 2.) In post-apostolic times, one storm after another
rocked the old ship of Zion and caused some members of the crew to mutiny. Paul
warned the Ephesians of the time when “from among your own selves shah men
arise, speaking perservc things, to draw away the. disciples after them.” (Acts
20:30.) To Timothy he said: “For the time will come, when they will not endure
sound doctrine; but having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers after
their own lusts; and w'ill turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside
unto fables.” (2 Timothy 4:3-4.) Fortunately, Paul did not wait until all
doctrinal differences were settled before he carried the message into regions
beyond. “Determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him
crucified,” he said: “necessity is laid upon me; for woe is unto me, if I preach
not the gospel ' (1 Corinthians 2:2; 1 Corinthians 9:10.) As a result of his
undying seal. and in spite of the. prevailing schisms within the body, he was
able to say that the gospel “was preached in all creation under heaven” during
his generation. (Colossians 1:23.) In the language of a contemporary, some
brethren today “are watchdogs of orthodoxy, but onlv stray hounds in putting it
into practice.” If they were as concerned about godly living as they are about
pre-millenialism, unscriptural organisations, and Christian colleges, our
doctrinal differences would soon appreciably decrease.

What right has a person who will not pay his debts to lump on innocent Christian
colleges and missionaries for things they are not gufi.ty of? “He drat is
without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” (John 8:7.) It is a
wonder some of our creed makers don’t pass a manifesto demanding that we put
pants on all the jack-rabbits in West Texas. If there be one among us who has
been favored with a special revelation concerning the most effective means of
settling our doctrinal differences permanently, and of evangelising the world,
let him step forth and .show us. What the church needs today is fewer persons
telling us what the church needs.

There remains one other phase of rhis subject which we should like to emphasise.
Pleading inability as an excuse, many Christians attempt to shift the
responsibility of evangelistic work to others. But the duty of preaching the
gospel falls upon every member of the church without exception. Every disciple
is a priest charged with the responsibility of personal evangelism. The first
church met with astonishing results because, “They therefore that were scattered
abroad went about preaching the word." (Acts 8:4.) The religion of our Lord will
never permeate the modern world until each person does wThat he can. Many plead
that they have not had suitable preparation, but such is a flimsy excuse. The
Samaritan woman had known the Saviour for only a few minutes, but she rushed
away into the city exclaiming that she had found the Christ. If a person know's
enough to be a Christian, he knows enough to tell others rhe way of life. “Just
a w’ord or a song as we’re passing along will count in the sweet bye and bye.
You may never be a Campbell, a Lipscomb, or a Calhoun, but there is a work that
you can do.

If you cannot sing like angels, If you cannot preach like Paul, You can tell the
love of Jesus, You can say He died for all. “If you cannot cross the ocean, And
the heathen land explore, You can find a heathen nearer, You can find one at
your door." The gates that stand ajar to the faithful will close their portals
to selfish Christians who bury their talents and go to the judgment alone.
“Wherefore thou art without excuse, O man. These are but mere pretexts which
camouflage the real issue. If there is a dearth of missionary activity among us
today, there is only one reason, namely: a lack of love for the Lord and His
church. Jesus said: “If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15.)
Can we say that we have kept the faith as long as we try to justify our
spiritual lethargy with petty excuses? The President of the United States calls
for volunteers, and thousands march forth to defend their country on the field
of battle. The King of Kings calls for volunteers, and just a handful respond.
Is it true that the Kingdom of Zion has no more native sons who will carry the
message of life into regions beyond? The world’s greatest need is salvation;
hence we should dedicate ourselves to the work committed unto the apostles in
the long ago. That sacred task is the completion of the great commission, “Go ye
into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation.” (Mark 16:15.)
We are living in a fast and reckless age, an opportune time for the
accomplishment of great things in the Master’s service. The army of the Lord
needs reinforcements, and it is our duty to enlist under the banner of Prince
Immanuel. Such an ideal of unselfish service for the Master is glorified. Having
enlisted, let us answer the agonising cry of the millions which is ringing in
our ears. From every quarter of the globe we hear them say, “Come over into
Macedonia, and help us.” Their appeal comes down to us as a challenge of the
unfinished world task. In the early morning, a dawning light appears in the east
and floods the world with lustrous glory. The king of day, the sun, in radiance
clothed, comes forth to place a crown of gold upon the snow-capped peaks. The
rays fill the valley, dispelling all gloom, until every nook and corner is
flooded with light. Dewdrops are dried away, and flowers burst forth with new
life. As we think of this picture, we wonder why the glorious light of
Golgotha’s cross has not shown around the world, dispelled the darkness of sin
and placed a crown of glory upon the risen Lord. There is but one answer: too
many professed Christians have lived for sensual pleasures, and have not been
moved by a vision of service to others. It is for us, and especially the young
of today, to spread the blessed news of salvation. May the good Lord help us to
break down every barrier, remove every excuse, and burn ourselves out in
service. With such an ideal constantly before us, let us here and now rededicate
ourselves to the Master’s service, and carry the angel’s message of peace and
goodwill to all mankind.

Then when the purple mists settle on the graying hills, when the shadows
lengthen eastward and the swallows take the. westward way, we can lie down m
full assurance of the fact that we shall spend eternity in the home of many
mansions. The passing of such a character who has been led by the. missionary
mind of the Master will be as beautiful as a glorious sunset at the end of a
perfect day. “And they that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the
firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and
ever.” (Daniel 12:3.) “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of aU the nations,
baptising them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo,
I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” (Matthew 28:19-20.)

QUESTIONS FOP DISCUSSION 1. Show that excuse making is rather natural and
universal. 2. What is the duty of the church today relative to the truth? 3.
What is the condition of the people in heathen lands? What is the responsibility
of every Christian regarding the situation? 4. How answer the excuse: “I just
don’t believe in foreign missionary work”? 5. Discuss home vs. foreign missions.
6. Can we of this generation carry the gospel to every creature? Should we? 7.
What is the financial problem that is hindering foreign missions? 8. What about
the excuse: “No use to preach the gospel because the people wiH not hear”? 9.
Should the faithlessness of some discourage us? Discuss. 10. Is congregational
cooperation in missionary work scriptural and desirable? 11. What about settling
oui differences before doing missionary work? 12. Whose responsibility is it to
Jo foreign missionary work?


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 9: WORKABLE PLANS
========================================================================

Workable Plans Workable Plans George S. Benson President, Harding College,
Searcy, Ar

It is my understanding that the discussion of this subject is to be limited to
workable plans for sending out workers and supporting them while they labor in
new fields, both at home and abroad. Tomorrow I shall discuss methods of work on
Oriental fields. The preaching of the Gospel should always be planned. Nothing
of importance can ever be done well without a plan. The preaching of the Gospel
is the greatest work ever intrusted into the hands of men. The work should,
therefore, be very carefully planned and then the plans should be very carefully
worked. The Gospel is a message of life to a lost world. Je-sus came to seek and
to save the lost. The great mass of humanity was without God and without hope in
the world when Jesus came. Mankind was already under a sentence of condemnation
because of sin. Jesus came to make possible man’s redemption. He came to open a
way of life—bringing hope to those who were sitting in darkness.

Jesus urged that his disciples carry this message of life to all the nations and
preach it to every creature, continuing unto the end of the world. He thus gave
a world-wide message fraught with eternal consequences, and age long in its
duration.

God has also given a distinct plan for the evangelisation of the world. It is
the will of God that this plan should be worked, and that the Gospel should be
preached to all nations during every generation.

God has always been practical in his dealing with man. With every work that God
has given man to do he has always provided a method—a way by which this work
might be accomplished. God has given a method by which the disciples of Jesus
Christ might evangelise the world in each generation. But we have not been
working God’s plan. The result is that we have only seventeen men, fourteen
wives and six single ladies—thirty-seven in all—now working within the countries
outside the limits of our own nation. While Jesus looked upon the entire world
as the field, making no distinction between home field and foreign field, yet we
have all made a great distinction. Even though we now have about 2,500 preachers
of the church of Christ within the bounds of our own country, yet we have only
seventeen preachers within the countries outside of the United States. This does
not represent a balanced program. We have been making such a sharp distinction
between the home field and foreign field that We have kept more than 99% of our
preachers within the borders of our own country. We have also so ignored God’s
plan that even the limited number of preachers who have gone to foreign fields
have continued to labor under unnecessary disadvantages.

There are three distinct steps in God’s plan for evangelising the world. The
first step is found in Matthew 28:19, and is spelled with two letters—GO. This
step represents individual responsibility. It is applicable to all those who
become Christians. We are all debtors both to Greeks and Barbarians—both to the
wise and the foolish. Every follower of Jesus Christ should feel the
responsibility to GO. The apostle Paul said, “Woe is unto me if I preach not the
Gospel.” We should feel the same way today. The very fact that we have accepted
the Gospel of Jesus Christ as a free gift from God makes us debtors to others
for whom Jesus in like manner died, but who have not heard this great message of
life. Perhaps some of us could go only to our next door neighbors, others could
go a little farther. Some could go to an adjoining state for occasional work.
Some could go to the extreme borders of our own country. A few could go into
foreign fields. In this way the entire world would be included if we all felt
the proper degree of responsibility in the matter of going. The second step is
to be found in Romans 10:13-15. The apostle said, “Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they
have not believed, and how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard,
and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent?” So the second step is sending. This implies group responsibility.
An entire congregation might send someone and sustain him while laboring in a
new field. Sending also implies a willingness on the part of someone to be sent,
and likewise a selection of the one to be sent. If we all felt the
responsibility of going, of course, there would be plenty from whom to select.
And if we would do sufficient teaching to cause the entire church to want to
send we would at the same time create the desire to go in the hearts of many.

Then the very best men available should be selected for the most distant fields.
Jesus selected fishermen, tax collectors, etc., to carry the Gospel to their own
people in the land of Tudea. But he selected a man of unusual ability, Saul of
Tarsus, who had been educated at the feet of that famous teacher, Gamaliel, to
carry the Gospel unto foreign peoples—unto Gentiles. In Africa, India, China and
Tapan problems arise which are much more perplexing than the problems arising in
our own country. Moreover, it is not possible there to constantly fall back upon
our own familiar background for methods by which to solve all of our problems.
Even the most capable workers will often be much perplexed and greatly confused
with the new problems that will be ever occuring on foreign fields. Therefore,
we should select and send the very best men we have. So long as we fail to
select and fail to send we should not criticise those who volunteer and who go
without having been sent. There is adequate scripture to justify one in going
whether he be sent by a church or not, but there is no scripture to justify
churches in so completely failing to send workers to foreign fields that almost
our entire force of for-eign workers have been compelled to voluntarily raise
their own travel fund and seek their own support with very limited encouragement
from the churches. They were doing their duty in going, but we have not done our
duty in sending. The third step in God’s great plan for evangelising the world
is giving. In Ephesians 4:28 the apostle exhorted the brethren to labor, working
with their hands that they might have whereof to give to those who were in need.
We are also exhorted to be ready unto every good work. No one is in greater need
than the evangelist going into new fields and particularly among foreign
peoples. There is always the need for our giving to these workers. Moreover,
there is no better work than sending the Gospel message of eternal life to lost
men; therefore, we should give as unto a good work.

If we would properly apply these three steps in God’s program— Go, Send, and
Give—we would find ourselves able to evangelise the world in our own generation.
The method of evangelisation among foreign peoples can be readily understood
from the work of the apostle Paul. He succeeded in evangelising four
provinces—Asia, Galatia, Macedonia and Achaia— in some eight or ten years. The
task was so fully completed that the apostle considered that he no longer had
any place therein to preach the Gospel. (Romans 15:23.) From the book of Acts we
are able to trace the work which the apostle Paul did in these four provinces.
We find that he did not attempt to go personally into every nook and corner. On
the contrary he preached in the main centers. And having established churches in
these main centers the responsibility of evangelising in those regions naturally
transferred itself to the churches which had been established there. The work of
preaching was not finished but the work of the foreign missionary—Paul—was fully
accomplished. He was ready to depart from those provinces, ready to go to
distant Rome, and ready to go from Rome into Spain, another new field.

We should apply the same methods in our labor on foreign fields today. When the
Gospel has been preached and when churches have been established in the chief
centers in any given region the duty of the foreign missionary has then been
fulfilled and his work completed.

If we would work on this basis it would be altogether possible to evangelise the
entire world in one generation. Our churches of Christ at the present time have
a group of seven foreign missionaries in the city of Canton, South China I
believe that it will be entirelv possible for this group to evangelize the whole
of South China during their own I’ fe time, according to the Pauline method. The
apostle carried with him in his own company certain ones like 'Iunutby whom he
had converted in Gentile territory. And with the help of some converts m South
China I believe that our missionary group there can succeed in establishing
churches in the main centers of South China during their own generation. With
twenty additional couples entering Chinese territory we could establish five
more such units as we have at Canton. Each such group of missionaries could,
during their own life time, establish churches in the main cities of their own
region. T hus in our own generation the debt which we owe to China could be
paid. If tw'enty-five couples could evangelize China, with one- fourth of the
population of the w'orld, then one houndred couples should be able to evangelize
the whole world after the Pauline method. This puts the entire problem on a
practical basis. It would not be difficult for our six thousand congregations of
the. church of Christ to support one hundred families on foreign fields. In
fact, if we were, giving an average of $If it is possible for our congregations
to give an average, of $L00 each for the evangelization of foreign countries
then it is possible for us to accomplish the task which the Lord has given us to
do. While some small congregations would find it difficult to give that amount
for this wrork, yet I doubt if any wrould find it actually impossible. Moreover,
there are some congregations which could give ten, fifteen, twenty or
twentv-five dollars a month for this work. Therefore, it would certainly be
possible to reach the average of $L00 for each congregation. Hence, if we fail
to evangelize the world in our own generation it is not because we are. unable
to do it, but simply because we do not have sufficient interest to do it. The
small group of missionaries which we now have on foreign fields have often
suffered for sufficient funds to execute an effective program of work. They have
usually received only a bare existence. This limits the activities and renders
the labor far less effective than it should be. One of our missionaries m Africa
found it necessary on one occasion to sell some of the family clothing in order
to buy food for his children. Another in China tor three years has scarcely had
sufficient to meet his barest needs. In attempting to eat a large amount of
Chinese food his health has been seriously injured. Our great need today is not
fod to send, but for a greater urge to work the plan which God has given Prom
what source shall this urge come? I believe that it should come first from a
desire to obey God, “Obedience is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the
fat of rams.” Jesus became obedient even unto the cross—being rich he became
poor for our sakes. If we have that same degree of the spirit of obedience we
will recognise that we are. responsible today to the full extent of our ability
for the preaching of the Gospel to the whole world. We wifi go, we will send and
we will give according to our ability. If we would feel keenly this re'
sponsibility as did the. apostle Paul and if we would respond in sin' cere
obedience to the. Lord the entire world could be evangelised ac' cording to the
Pauline method during our own generation.

We should also be urged forward in the exertion of our every effort through our
love for lost souls. Fvery individual has a never dying spirit. Lach one shall
be judged according to the works done in the flesh. There are only two destinies
for the souls of men. Only the Gospel can save arid we are the sole stewards of
the Gospel. Therefore, no one can be saved except in proportion as we respond to
our duty in declaring the message of life. I feel confident that no one of us
would sell our hope of eternal life for the wealth of the world. We value our
hope of that inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled and that fadeth not away far
more highly than we value afi of the gold and silver in the world. We are
anxious that our own souls should be saved, but Jesus has taught us to do unto
others as we would that they should do unto us. Jesus has taught us to love our
neighbor even as we love ourselves. Should not our love for lost souls urge us
for' ward until we have done our utmost to save the lost? In the third place out
hearts are always touched with reports of human suffering. Our entire nation has
lately responded in a very liberal way for the relief of flood sufferers
throughout the Mississippi River valley. Could, not our hearts in like manner be
touched through our desire to relieve those who suffer m heathen countries.
Where the Gospel has never gone, there are no homes for the aged, no homes for
the orphan, no free clinics, no common sanitation, and no public schools. But
wherever Christ has gone these blessings have always followed. One hundred years
ago Canton, Clvna, contained none of the things mentioned above, but today there
is an asylum for the in' sane, a home for the aged, a home for orphan children,
hospitals, free clinics, and many public schools in the city I believe that
these bless' ings have come because there are some praying people who fairhfully
serve God in that great city. You will remember that the entire city of Sodom
might have been saved from destruction and that the entire population might have
continued to enjoy all the blessings of fife if there could have been found ten
righteous people in Sodom. Shall not the presence of righteous people in a city
today .likewise bring special blessings to that city?

It is certainly true that American people enjoy more of the blessings of life
today than do any other people in the whole world. Elec- tnc lights, electric
refrigerators, the radio, the automobile, etc., are enjoyed by the great mass of
our people in America. Yet in heathen countries these accommodations are the
rarest luxuries to be enjoyed only by a limited number of high Certainly God has
wonderfully blessed us all in America. Com-aratively speaking, we are rich. The
evangelization of the world is within our power. God has given the plan. Jesus
has given the command And we have been supplied with every necessary facility,
including financial ability. In Ezekiel 3:17-19 we have these words: “Son of
man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore, hear the
word at my mouth, and give them, warning from me. When I say unto the wicked,
Thou shalt surely die, and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the
wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in
his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thy hand.” Truly today we are the
watchmen on the wall God has spoken and has commanded men everywhere that they
should all repent. Jesus said, “except ye believe that I am he, ye shall die in
your sins.” The apostle Paul said whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord
shall be saved.” Jesus said: “Go preach the Gospel to the whole creation.” “Go
make disciples of all nations.” Hence, God has spoken and has charged us to
deliver the message. If men perish without having heard the Gospel message they
die in their sins, hut it is possible that their blood will be re' quired at our
hands. Whosoever receives the Gospel today becomes a watchman on the wall. We
are all under this great responsibility and some day we shall give an account
unto the Lord regarding our faithfulness in delivering this message of life to
those who sit in darkness.

I fear that the value which we place on the souls of men is quite like the
Chinese people have placed upon human life. Nothing in China is cheaper than
human life. One time a missionary was traveling on a motor boat ascending one of
the swift streams in China. A Chinese passenger fell overboard. The missionary
observed that the man could not swim and realised that he would soon perish in
the water. Consequently, he called out to some fishermen who were nearby to come
drag their nets through and save the man. The fish' ermen called back saying,
“How much money will you give us?” The missionary answered, “It is not a
question of money. A man is per' ishing. Come quickly. Row your boats along.
Drag your nets through and save him.” Again they called back, “How much money
will you give us?” “All I have in my pockets,” was the frantic reply. “How much
do you have in your pockets?” the fishermen called. “Six or seven dollars, 1 was
the missionary’s answer. Then the fishermen began to row, dragged their nets
through and brought out the body of the man the first effort. However, they had
already tarried too long. The spirit of the unfortunate man had already taken
its depar' ture while the fishermen were quibbling about money.

We today have adequate money to evangelise the world. We are the sole watchmen
on the wall. The Lord is depending upon us alone to accomplish this great task.
Let us go forward marching under the banner of the Lion of Judea, armed with the
sword of the spirit, car' rying this priceless message of pardon and eternal
salvation to the multitudes who have never yet heard the name of Jesus Christ.
Let us GO, SEND and GIVE according to our ability, that it may be said of us in
that great day that we have done what we could.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What is the difference between an effort to save the
world and an effort to evangelise the world? Which one is our duty, save the
world or evangelize it? 2. Why is it important for the church to evangelize the
world during each generation? 3. Does the fact that ninetymine per cent of
Gospel preachers are at work in the homeland and one per cent in other lands
indicate a lack of planning? How does it? How would careful planning and
unselfish service change this per centage? 4. In the three distinct steps in the
plan for evangelizing the world which step do you consider the more important?
Why? 5. Can a church be a New Testament church and not feel concerned in helping
to extend the Gospel beyond its own community? 6. What plans could be made and
executed in your congregation to help extend the kingdom of Jesus Christ?


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 10: AWAKENING THE CHURCHES
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Awakening The Churches Awakening the Churches B. D. Morehead P. O. Box 173,
Nashville, Tenn

“Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ will shine upon
thee.” (Ephesians 5:14.) A church cannot shine while asleep. It must he in
harmony with the source of light, Christ the light of the world, whose mission
was to seek and save the lost, in order to shine. It was necessary in the first
century of the church for Paul to write letters and even go in person to
encourage and stimulate the churches.

Unless one is constantly reminded of men in spiritual darkness, his interest
wanes and his efforts to reach them with the gospel decrease.

Hear the request of Jesus, “Lift up your eyes and look on the fields.” (John
4:35.) Consider the work I have given you to do. See for yourselves the
spiritual needs of humanity, then “Pray ye the Lord of the harvest that he may
send forth workers.”

Why does the Lord not send more workers? Why more than one hundred countries in
which not even one Church of Christ can be found? If the church, which is
“pillar and ground of the truth,” (1 Timothy 3:15) had a real compassion for
souls, it could and would send men as “the salt of the earth,” (Matthew 5:13)
into every country. This is expected of the church. The Lord did not command the
church to undertake an impossible task.

How can we make congregations mission conscious? Keep scriptural mottoes
suggesting mission work constantly before the eyes of the people. A country home
in which were seven little boys kept a picture of a battleship over the mantle.
At times the boys talked about the picture and played they were sailors. As the
boys began to become men, one by one thev joined the navy until the last boy
left home. The mother was heart-broken and called her minister, hoping to
receive from him comfort. She said to the minister that she could not understand
why all of her boys joined the navy. He asked her how long the picture of the
battleship had been in her home. She replied, “Since the first boy was a baby.”
Ihe minister then said, “You have been teaching your boys to be sailors.” She
replied then, “I now recall the boys playing the navy and talking about the
picture on various occasions.” Thomas Edison said, “Eighty percent of what
people do in life is because of some impression through the eye.” Read letters
from missionaries relating their experiences. Have the missionary describe
conditions of the people before and after the gospel was preached in their
community. Get the people to thinking about the missionaries, talking about
them, and then the urge to do something for them will get into the hands; next
the urge will be in the feet, and then people will “GO.”

Men are moved by songs. About the time our country entered the World War, many
songs suggesting war were composed and broadcast over the country. We all know
the effect on the people. Thousands of our best young men left home for the
Western front to die for democracy. Songs suggesting a forward movement on the
part of the church, the joy of pioneer service and the fruits of such work,
would move the hearts of men and women to say, “Here am I, send me.”

“The pen is mightier than the sword.” We cannot deny the influence of the press.
Newspapers mold the sentiment of thousands prior to an election. Politicians
know the power of the press and spend millions supporting their party by means
of the newspapers. A Christian doctor of my town selected fifteen of his
patients who were not Christians and sent them religious literature, seven have
been baptised. He believes the literature did much toward converting them. The
fastest growing church in the United States spends more money printing and
distributing religious literature than any other church. Almost every household
of that faith constantly receives literature announcing their activities.
Missionaries in one hundred and thirty-one countries, every nation of the world,
is the result. This church supports a missionary to every thirty members.

Churches of Christ support a missionary abroad to about every ten thousand
members. We have more truth, more members and more money than the above
mentioned church and nothing in our way of evangelising the world, if only we
had a desire to do it. We would even accomplish more at home by “sounding out
the word” in foreign countries. Experiences have proved that churches most
interested abroad do more at home.

Let our religious journals keep mission work before their readers, let the
editors point out fields in which the church is not preaching the gospel, and
stress the importance of going with the message. Teach the churches that the sin
of neglecting to break the “bread of life” to the untaught is as bad in the
sight of God as failing to worship on the first day of the week.

Since less than ten oercent of our members subscribe for religious papers, let
the churches buy sufficient number of copies for each family in the
congregation. I have met and talked with Sunday School teachers who did not know
that we have, missionaries abroad. Awake, editors, and show by your writings
that we believe in going to EVERY NATION, and urge the churches to GO. How many
of our papers are really urging the churches to look out men of good report and
send them to the fields of their own choice, and support them as they do their
local preacher, sounding in the truth? Editors, encourage the churches to feel
woe be unto us if we preach not the gospel in neglected fields. Where did Paul
want to preach? Should not preachers prefer to preach in destitute places rather
than established churches and leave the work of edifying the church to the eld'
ers? I believe (rod’s plan, the church, “the pillar and ground of the truth,
supporting the preacher preaching to the world, is workable and will build up
the local congregation. A living, active thhig bear' ing fruit grows; an
inactive thing, always receiving, becomes stagnant. A public school teacher,
also a Sunday School teacher having worked in three communities, led all three
of the congregations to do' mg regular definite mission work. Neither one of
them had a definite program before he moved into the community. May the Lord
give us more such teachers. Our twenty thousand Sunday School teachers can
prepare the. minds of our six hundred thi >usand members to do mission work and
set at least one percent of them to active service within a generation and the
whole world will hear the gospel. The right type of Sunday School literature
will work to this end. Since the purpose of the church as the “pillar and ground
of the truth,” is to evangelise the. world, let each Sunday School lesson be
material in the hands of the teacher which he. can use in molding earthen
vessels as the salt of the earth. The editors of our Sunday School literature
would indirectly be the cause of many benighted souls coming to the light by
writing inspirational lessons calculated to create a passion for souls.

“For what purpose is the church but to evangelise the world? For what purpose is
education but to train the workers? For what purpose is commerce but to support
the workers?”

THROUGH THE PROVING. Are we that city on a hill Whom Christ hath called the
Light, While souls know nothing of his will And wander in the night? Are we
indeed the salt of earth With millions yet untaught? Or has our savor lost its
worth— And thenceforth good for naught? Are we cleansed branches bearing fruit
That God be glorified? Or do we wither, lacking root? We must in Christ abide.
Are we disciples of the Lord? Christ said: “Come follow me— To all the nations
preach the word, And lo, I am with thee.”

"Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ will shine upon
thee.” (Eph. 5:14.)

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Why awaken the churches? 2. Why did Jesus say, “Lift
up your eyes and look on the fields?” 3. Why do not more men go to the fields?
4. How can we become mission conscious? 5. By what means will the urge to “GO”
get into our feet? 6. By what means did a certain church develop missionaries
for every nation? 7. How many members of the Church of Christ support a
missionary abroad? 8. What per cent of talent and money should a church spend
and use where the Gospel has already been preached? 9. Has anyone the right to
hear the Gospel twice at the expense of someone who has not heard it once?


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 11: CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WORKERS
========================================================================

Characteristics of the Workers Characteristics of the Workers J. Dow Merritt
Kalomo, Northern Rhodesia, South Africa

Down a path which winds through the long grass of Central Africa’s great
savannah country quickly walks a black man. He wears .he red-trimmed blue cotton
uniform of a messenger of the Northern Rhodesian government. The trousers of his
uniform are of knee length. The long blouse is pulled in snugly at the waist
with a broad leathern service belt. Under the belt is a long envelope, a
message. This is a very odd sight! a messenger with a message! With a red fez
set squarely on his brow, with oiled shins glistening in the sunlight like the
flashing of drilling cavalrymen’s sabres, with bare feet, on he speeds down
through the tall grass, this, messenger with a message. He lives but to deliver
it. In the early nineties Cecil Rhodes, the Empire Builder, and DT. Jammison,
his right hand man, invaded Matebililand and after much bloodshed subdued the
people, giving to the British South African Company the rich farming and mining
lands now known as Southern Rhodesia. (The British South Africa Company had a
charter very similar to that of the Hudson Bay Company.) When things were quiet
enough in the south to allow it, Mr. Rhodes with his men crossed the Zambezi
River into the territory ruled by the Barotsi, a very warlike tribe living at
the sources of the Zambezi, but demanding tribute from the timid tribes that
lived on the plains, and if this tax were not forthcoming at the proper season,
they would make raids on the villages, taking the cattle, killing the old men
and women, taking the boys and girls as slaves and burning the villages.

Mr. Rhodes went to Chief Liwanyika telling him that he wanted the country ruled
by the Barotsi and that he would have it. He pointed out to him that the
Matebili, who were stronger than he, had had to submit; that the British arms
were far superior to the clubs and spears of the people. He said that he wished
to avoid war if possible for he did not wish to harm the black man, but wished
that the European and African might prosper together. This king of the Barotsi
was a wise man and chose to rule his people in their own land, to receive an
annual grant of about $35,000.00, and a trip to England to see Queen Victoria
(she gave him some fine uniforms trimmed in gold lace while he was in England)
in exchange for the right to rule the plains tribes. Thus Northern Rhodesia
became a virtual protectorate. A railroad soon followed Rhodes out of the Union
of South Africa, then on north, crossing the Zambesi at Livingstone, then on
farther north to the Congo border. This Cape to Cairo Line was never completed.
The B. S. A. Company opened up Northern Rhodesia to white settlers and to
missionaries. They surveyed the land for fifteen miles on either side of the
railway line, laying off farms of about four thousand acres each. These were
sold to a great many cattlemen and farmers only to be soon abandoned by them
because of the unhealthful climate and the lack of markets for their produce.
The project seemed to not be such a fine thing for the company as had at first
been thought. Settlement of this country seemed to be a failure. So the Company
willingly gave up its right to the land but retained the mienral rights, the
British Government taking over the rule of the land and the protection of the
people. Do you know that when the Dutch whites began to move northward during
and after the Great Trek, they actually considered the extermination of the
blacks? But the British accepted the responsibility of caring for these people,
believing that God had placed it upon them. So a government was formed for
Northern Rhodesia. A man of great experience, a knight, was chosen as governor.
He likewise chose men of experience in ruling native people for his heads of
departments. Then Provencial Commissioners, District Commissioners, District
Officers and other officials were appointed because of their preparation and
experience. And so English law was established. (The native people were ruled by
English law in criminal cases, but marriage, divorce, property rights and
inheritance were dealt with according to native tribal custom.) The men sent out
to administer this law were not elected as we elect our officers in America, but
were men trained from their early school days for this service, men loyal to
Britain, whom she expected to carry out her wishes to the last letter. In order
to carry out this law properly and to see that justice was done everyone, these
officers were put out amongst the people. The country was divided into
districts, say, two hundred miles long and one hundred miles wide. A likely
healthful spot was selected on which to build the “Boma” or office from which
the officer would govern his district.

About the first thing a District Officer would do when going to occupy his new
office would be to send out a call for native men to enlist in the messenger
service. The men who responded to this call were tested first as to
intelligence, then those passing this test were given a physical examination,
only those of fine physical condition being accepted. The result is that the
messenger force contains some of the finest specimens of native manhood in
Africa. The Boma consists of burned brick dwellings for the Commissioner and his
officers and families, a compound of native huts for the messengers and their
families, storehouses, a courthouse and a jail. The courthouse is a long flat
brick building covered with corrugated iron roofing and situated in a clump of
tall gum trees. On its sunnyside sit a group of native people, principals and
witnesses waiting for their cases to be called. Some are laughing and talking.
Some are sleeping. One is rubbing a small catskin between his hands to make it
soft and usable. Another scrapes a stick with a sharpened piece of hoop-iron,
smoothing it for a spear shaft. On the other side of the house sit the
messengers on duty waiting for their turn to be called by the officer. Inside
his office writing at his desk sits a middle- aged Englishman. His writing
finished the magistrate puts his letter into an envelope then calls:
“Messenger!” The man next for duiy jumps to his feet and on the double quick
comes to within three paces of the. officer, then coming to attention and
saluting, answers: “Mwami!” “Garry this message to the missionary at Kabanga.”
Aye, Mwami.” “Make haste, the sun sinks.” 'Aye, Mwami ” Then again saluting and
about-facing the messenger goes on his way. We have seen him going down through
the long grass, him. with the oiled shins.

Missionaries go to places where the people live. These may be very out
of-the-way locations. In Japan it may happen to be in a crowded city. In China
it may be several hundred miles up West River. In our case Kabanga Mission was
three days drwe by ox-cait from the railway station and postoffice, a hundred
thirty-five miles from a doctor. Our nearest white neighbor, a Dutchman, lived
thirty- five miles away.

I think I can better tell you what is required in a special way of the workers
in Africa by telling you of the nature of the work, by telling you of how we
wTork, what we hope to gain, about the climate, and other things. As to what
should be the characteristics of the workers to othei fields I can only give
what I believe, to be the general qualifications of all missionaries. I am sure
that each field has its own peculiarities. A condition found in Africa may not
be seen in India. But I do know this, that wherever he goes, North, South, East
or West, the missionarv must have a message. He might lose that message. It has
been done. In such a case he ought to come home. He has no more business with
the heathen.

Reading from the sixth chapter of Isaiah “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne,
high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. Above h1'm stood the
seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twram
he covered his feet, and with twain he did flv. And one cried unto another, and
said, Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts: the whole earth is full of his
glory And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him that
cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe. is me! for I am
undone; because I am a man of unclean lips: and I dwell in the midst of a people
of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts.

“Then flew one of the seraphim unto me having a live coal in his hand which he
had taken with tongs from the altar: and he touched my mouth with it, and .said,
Lo, this has touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin is
forgiven. And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send? and who
will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.” The prophet could never have
volunteered to carry the message of God as long as he realised that his own
righteousness was as filthy rags. But as soon as he had the assurance that his
sins were forgiven he said, “Here am I; send me.” He was a changed man. He was
willing to go. Likewise a missionary must be a converted man before he can go
anywhere carrying the message of God. It would be hard to send a man who was not
willing to go.

These seem to me to be the general qualifications of the missionary: General
good health, a good lot of common sense, to have a message—and be full of it,
and to be a converted man. But there are special conditions found on each field
that the one sent should be fitted to meet or prepared to endure. Now I know
that I am not specially qualified to tell you what should be required of one
going to any other country than Africa, but I do want to tell you some stories
about Africa so that you can see what is required there.

First, let me tell you about the health conditions under which we live in
Rhodesia. A few’ years ago a committee of investigation sent out from England to
tour the colonies of Africa wrote in their report that Northern Rhodesia was not
a fit climate for European settlement, that it should be treated as purely a
black man’s country. The government, until quite recently, retired all of its
servants after twenty years active service. This has increased now so that they
retire the men only after age sixty. This shows that either the climate is
getting better or that medical science has improved and is better able to advise
and treat folk in these outlying places. The railway company pays employes
ordered to this northern colony an increase in salary to compensate for the
climatic change Their time in this territory also counts as time and a half on
retirement. In this climate one must not dare to go about with bared head during
the hours from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. or thereabouts, even when the temperature
of the air is below body heat, nor when it is cloudy is he excused from this
law.

Swimming is a dangerous sport. Yes, there is the crocodile, but there is also an
animal that would be a little difficult to see with the naked eye, the larva of
winch getting on the skin of the swimmer, goes by way of the blood stream to the
liver to get its full growth, then migrates to some other part of the body where
it lives on the blood of its host. The mosquito has to be fenced out of the
house. Very fine mosquito gauze is used for nets which are put down around the
beds before sundown each evening. Quinine is taken daily as a prophylactic
against malaria. The quinine bottle is put on the table at supper. The quinine
course comes last. Every bit of drinking water must be boiled. I remember having
drunk unboiled water but twice in the. ten years I was on the field. This is one
place where some of the common sense required of a missionary coming in, is
taking care of his health. Brother Sherriff told me when I first landed in
Africa that if I hoped to stay long in that country I would have to watch my
health. A good bed to sleep in, and plenty of good food, he said, were required.
But a person must have sense enough to listen to the medical men, even if they
are not Americans.

Then another special thing of importance required of the worker to Africa is
that of building. When Brother Ray Lawyer and I went near'y sixty miles out from
the railway line into the bush to build up a mission station, neither of us knew
much about building, yet we had to mould and burn nearly one hundred thousand
bricks and get them into a half dosen buildings. We had to learn to use hammer
and saw, plumb and level, trowel and straight-edge. Building a corner both plumb
and square takes a bit of doing. To make a chimney that will keep the clouds out
of the house is still beyond the limit of my ability.

Doors, windows, roofing, lumber, cement, lime, and hardware had to be ordered
from a town four hundred miles away and carted out to Kabanga from the railway
station. Altogether we have, two dwellings, a school house, a hospital, a shop,
and a number of small houses in which school boys live. In building these,
Lawyer, Short, Brown and I have each had a part. In places where Christ has not
gone, people of Christian lands are surprised to find almost total ignoiance of
the laws of hygiene and sanitation, and to find very sick folk without any care
at all. So the missionary has to be able to care for the sick. The native
village consists, first of all, of a cattle corral, about which the people build
their huts and out of which come numberless flie^ and June bugs. The native hut
has a wall of small poles set vertically m a circular trench and plastered on
the inside with mud. There are no windows. The diameter is about ten feet in
length. The smoke finds its way out through the thatched roof somehow. Goats and
calves are kept in or near the house. Chickens roost under the eaves. Dead
people are buried just outside their own doors. The village has a very peculiar,
unpleasant smell. So the newcomer finds himself a practicing physician in short
or' der. Malaria, scurvy, itch, sore eyes, dysentery, typhoid fever, yaws,
syphilis, infected wounds, tropical ulcers, bites of snakes, lions, leopards,
dogs and crocodiles; broken bones and dislocations; burns, poisons, gun-shot
wounds, leprosy, obstetrical cases, and a number of other diseases, injuries and
conditions must be cared for by him or they have no care at all.

Then there is the shop which every mission must have so as to repair the old
plows, fix the handles and sharpen the shears, patch the mould board and
straighten the standards. We mend the guns and old bicycles, and sometimes
shorten a wagon tire or put in new felloes and spokes in the wheel. We count the
forge a very useful tool to be employed in making contacts with the people.

Brother Garret, the last missionary to be sent to Africa, went out to that
country seven years ago. There are a total of six missionary families in Africa.
There are a number of counties perhaps in Texas that have not heard a gospel
sermon. But there are sixteen hundred congregations of Christians in Texas.
Africa is three times larger than the United States. No new workers have been
added to our few on the field in the past seven years. We can not hope to
evangelise Africa with American preachers. The work must be done by the native
Christians. But these are very ignorant. Even the most sealous are full of
superstition. They can not read. So we have a school, the main purpose of which
is to develop Christian workers. The school course covers a period of six years:
two years in the native language, and four in English, giving the student about
the same amount of work as would be required in our American schools to reach
Seventh Grade. A few day-students attend, but we desire that all who come board
on the place. The reason for this is to keep them away from the temptations of
village life until they are firmly grounded in the faith. Every night in the
village the drums are beating, the dance is in progress. And African dances are
not nice. Then out at the side of a cluster of huts sit a group of men drinking
beer and smoking hemp. There is apt to be a wailing for some dead person in
which the boy is tempted to join. Every morning the mother requires that her son
pour out water on either side of the door to the ancestors of her family and of
his father’s family. We want to keep the tender shoot from the scorching sun
until it is strong. On each of our three missions we have from forty to sixty
boarders in school.

Now perhaps you are thinking of the great cost of such a school. The expense of
feeding the lot averages $11.00 per month. They have the same kind of food that
they would get in the villages, except more of it. Thick cornmeal mush dipped in
a kind of gravy made from meat, peanuts, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, beans, greens,
or some other kind of vegetable. Two pounds of cornmeal is the daily ration. It
does not require that we have a lot of silverware and table linens, for the boys
sit around a common dish in groups as they please, and, taking the bread in then
hands dip it as deeply as they wish into the gravy bowl. This is not free to the
school boys by any means. They work four and one-half hours per day for their
board and schooling. Two native teachers cost $14,00 per month. The bell, a
large gas cylinder, is beaten at sun-up and the school day begins. At the sound
of the bell all of the school boys run to the school grounds where they are
given about twenty minutes of settingup exercises, a native teacher doing a very
good imitation of a drill sergeant. Then they go into the school house for
chapel service. Songs are sung; there is a reading and a prayer; then the
missionary makes a short talk. After this they go to their classes: Bible,
arithmetic, reading, writing, singing, history, geography, hygiene and
sanitation. animal husbandry, agriculture, these last four having only one
period each per week. At 1:30 p.m. the bell rings again, calling the boys to
work after an hour of rest at noon Carrying water for the house and for the
gardens during the dry season, carrying poles from the veldt and cutting them
into stove wood, hoeing in che fields, making roads, sweeping buildings and
grounds, making bricks, repairing houses, working in the shop, burning charcoal
for the forge, and herding the cattle, are some of the things chat are done by
the boys to repay the mission for food and fees.

We try to keep these boys for the full course, after which they are fairly well
equipped to go out preaching and in many other wavs be a real help to the
community from which they have comp. But many do not wait to “graduate” before
going out with the gospel. Every Lord’s Day morning we have boys coming in pairs
asking permission to go to this village, or that to preach. They get nothing for
this work. One boy went home after only nine months of school, and, after three
months at home came back asking Brother Brown and me to go to his village and
preach the next Sunday afternoon. After the meeting, thirteen, I think it was,
stood up and said that they wanted to be Christians. There is now a church of
more than thirty members in that village. Another of our boys was too dull to be
a good student. After about three years in school he went home, and we were glad
he was gone for it was a burden to try to tell him anything about his lessons.
Within three months he was back with a request that we write to the Boma asking
permission for a meeting-house to be built in the village. When I asked him how
many Christians were in the village he said that there were three, but that
seventeen others wished to be baptised. We sent a native preacher there and he
found that twenty-one, who knew the truth, wanted to become Chrisians. One boy
came from far down in the Zambesi valley to school, but he wanted to study
nothing but the Bible. After studying a few months he returned home to an almost
inaccessible place for white men; then every few months thereafter he would
bring some, of his fellow villagers to be taught more and to be baptised. When
they came they brought a few pence with which to buy flour and wine for the
communion Siachibu went home during one vacation. Then, two weeks before the
close of the next term, his mother and three sisters came to the mission, having
walked eighty miles to get there, asking, LAre these things true that our
brother has been telling us re' garding the Kingdom of God?” and wanting to be
taught more. We had special meetings for these and baptised them and two more
before the close of school. I could tell you numbers of experiences that the
workers have had, but these are enough to show you what the school means to the
Cause in Africa.

During the three months when school is out of session the missionary visits the
village churches and out-schools. He preaches every night, all day long he sits
talking to old men, dressing sore toes and the like, having post-mortems over
the carcass of an old plow’ or bicycle. Back on the mission again the white man
becomes adviser in cases of law, writes letters for the people, sends their tax
money into the collector for them, and does any other thing that will promote
good will and gain the confidence of the folk about him. The native church is
allowed to carry on its own affairs under the guidance of the European This is a
good exercise, looking forward to the time when the nauve church will be able to
stand alone. The church at Kabanga finding that it had ten shillings in the
treasury wished to use it to send an evangelist to the mountain people. There
was a preacher, named Lesero, living in Munyama s village. This man wore a long
gown-like shirt, that was white in its earlier days, walked solemnly, and could
make the woods ring with his loud voice as he cried, “Lino nda lumba kuli Le^a,
tatesu uli mujulu, ku jana chindi sunu kukambauka makami mupia mubotu." He was
willing to go out for a month for the ten shillings, but it was thought best to
ask his home congregation what they thought of his going. The answer was “No!”
“Why?” we asked. “Because he quarrels with his wife.” I wonder how many of us
that would disqualify.

Now it is easily see that the worker to Africa is going to be more able to
understand the nature of the native, his troubles and problems, and how to reach
him with the gospel, if he can speak his language. None of the languages is so
difficult but that a young person can learn it in a year, that is, he. can
converse and preach in it by that time, but a person past thirty, unless he be
especially gifted as a linguist, will not be able to speak without an
interpreter. An Adventist preacher in Nyassaland was once talking to a crowd of
native folk of Moses and the giving of the law. He said, “And after this he took
scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book and the people.” The
interpreter said, in the native language of course, “I don’t know what he said;
if you are interested you will have to ask him.” Of course the preacher heard
the noise and supposed that what he said had been repeated. And this is by no
means an isolated case.

Now let us see how far down the road we have got. A missionary to Africa must be
a converted man, must have a message, must be willing to go. He ought to be not
over thirty, a practical man, pa' tient, apt to teach, kind, honest, apt to
learn the language, and, let me add, not a user of tobacco. Several people have
said to me that they would like to know how to become a missionary. Now how
would one become a missionary?

Let us assume that the leaders of the church, elders, deacons, preachers,
teachers, are awake to the duties and responsibilities that they have and are
teaching the young folk the word of God, pointing out His love, for a lost and
dying world, and encouraging them to preach the gospel to the whole creation,
and that these young people are studying and working with all their might at the
things their hands find to do. Then one morning an elder announces that word has
come of need for workers in some mission point; the next day is to be set aside
as a day for fasting and prayer; volunteers are to be asked for that field. Do
you suppose that there would be a group of candidates to select from ,to send
out? Or do you suppose that on the next day these leaders of the church would
have to go away, shaking their heads, wondering why the young folk would not
respond?

No! We have assumed too much! It is not done that way. There has not a
missionary gone to the field but has had to beg the churches to send him, or
else someone has done the begging for him. Then when he gets to the field he has
to keep a continual fire of “pep letters” coming back home lest he and his work
be forgotten. When he comes home he has to beg folks to let him tell them of the
condition he has found and under which he has to do his work, and of the joys,
sorrows, victories, and failures that have been his. (Thank God, that there are
a goodly number of mission-minded churches.)

No! It took a scattering abroad of the self-feeding Jerusalem church to get the
Word of Life to Judea and Samaria. It took a direct operation of the Holy Spirit
to get the gentile church at Antioch to separate Barnabas and Saul and send them
out.

Long ago the Lord spoke to the prophet Jonah:. “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great
city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.” But Jonah
did not have a mind to do God s bidding. He hated the commandment of the Lord
and was running away from it. He went down to Joppa and while walking along the
waterfront slipped into a ticket office and paid cash for a passage to Tarshish.
Then going around to the dock he went quickly on board and as soon as the purser
had taken his ticket he went below and finding a good place, rolled up in his
blanket and went to sleep. But when the ship had got clear of the land God sent
a great storm upon the sea. The ship was about to capsize; it was being twisted
this way and that. The captain saw that unless something was done quickly it
would be broken to pieces. So he ordered first one thing then another to be cast
into the sea. Finally the sails themselves were thrown overboard and the masts
were hewn down. The freight had long before this been thrown out. Then going
below to see how the hull was making it, through having a lighter load, the
master of the ship came across Jonah sleeping away in his blanket. Perhaps he
gave him a rough kick in the ribs, for sea captains have never had a reputation
for gentleness; then said: “What is the matter with you anyway, Sleepyhead? Do
you not know that we are in a great storm and the ship is breaking to pieces?
Get up and call on your God, perhaps God will think of us that we perish not.”
So Jonah went up on deck and found the sailors rowing desperately, praying aloud
as they labored trying to keep the ship’s head into the seas. No hope! Yet Jonah
did not pray, for he was deliberately running away from the commandment of the
Lord and was not repenting, no, not yet. The seamen then decided to draw straws
to see for whose fault this great disaster was upon them. Jonah got the shortest
straw, so they began to question him? “What’s your business? Where do you come
from? Who are your people? What causes all of this trouble?” Jonah said, “I am a
Hebrew: I fear Jehovah who made the land and the sea.” Then the men were much
afraid and said to him: “What did you do?” for he had told them that he was
running away from Jehovah. “What shall we do unto thee that the sea may be calm
unto us?” “Throw me overboard,” said Jonah. (“I’ll die before I obey God.”) Yet
the sailors, not wishing to kill Jonah, tried hard to get to safety, but when
they saw that all other hope had failed, they threw Jonah into the sea, asking
God to forgive them for there was no other way. Immediately the sea was calm.

God had prepared a great fish to take care of Jonah. He does not say of what
species it was. Maybe it was specially made; maybe it was a now extinct kind,
maybe it was a whale. It makes no difference with God. Jonah went down to the
bottom of the sea, with the undersea mountains all about him, and with the sea
weed in the fish’s stomach about his head. After three days of this Jonah
repented and God caused the fish to vomit him up on the beach.

Then Jehovah spoke again to Jonah, and said: “Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great
city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.” So Jonah arose and went
to Nineveh and began to deliver his message: “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall
be destroyed.” The people hearing, repented in sackcloth and ashes and were
saved.

O church of God, awaken! The British government found itself charged with the
welfare of millions of blacks and did not shirk its responsibilities. The
governor set about placing commissioners within easy reach of the people. The
commissioners chose native runners to carry the word of the government to the
people. These officers are faithful to their charge. The church was born “sent.
Before the day of Pentecost the Lord gave the commandment “Go ye into all the
world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” Again Jesus says, “If ye love
me ye will keep my commandments.”

Let the church send out willing men and women, Christians, with the message of
life. Let it select those who have a fair share of common sense. Thank you.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Give a brief account of the civilizing work of the
British in Northern Rhodesia. 2. Describe the “Boma and the messenger service.
3. What should be the geneial characteristics of the. missionary? 4. Describe
climactic and health conditions in Africa. 5. What are the difficulties in the
way of erecting buildings? 6. Why should the missionary know something of
sanitation and medicine? 7. Describe the schools in South Africa. Why are they
needed? 8. Describe the work of the students. 9. Describe the teaching and
preaching work of the natives. 10. Why should the worker know the language of
the natives? 11. How does one become a missionary?


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  CHAPTER 12: TRAINING THE WORKERS
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Training the Workers Training the Workers James F. Cox President, Abilene
Christian College, Abilene, Texas My Brethren and Friends: I am very thankful to
Brother Burford for having selected that wonderful song, “Jesus, Savior, Pilot
Me.” I have often wished that that might he the prayer* of every Christian. It
should he. I deeply appreciate the honor of having an humhle part in this
important Lectureship. The greatest mission of the church needs to he stressed
very definitely :m every generation. I am grateful today to Brother II. L. Schug
and to Brother R. B. Sweet for outlining and bringing to our attention this
wonderful program. I am also very thankful for this wide-spread interest and
enthusiasm in this effort of ours to arouse a greater seal for carrying out our
Savior’s great command, “(Jo, ye, therefore, and make disciples of all of the
nations, baptising them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
you; and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. So far, in
this series of lectures Brother C. A. Norred has brought to us a wonderful
message on the great mission of the church, “The Perfected Church. For What
Purpose? To Save Others.” Brother Ilailey told us so well on Sunday evening “How
the C church Went in the Frist Century.” On yesterday at this hour Biother R. Cl
Bell warmed our hearts with that wonderful message on “The Urgency to Go Today.”
Last evemng Brother John Wolfe pictured to us some of the “Ripened Fields” in
this world today that are calling for workers in rhe vineyard of the Master.
This particular lecture is not in its logical place in the program, hut the
things that have been said have certainly made us to realise that workers are
needed. Everywhere in every land today the cry is going up from the high and the
low, the rich and the poor, the good and the bad, for a hetter, a fuller, and a
happier life. In a world that is torn with hatred and strife and war— in a world
of disappointment and material disasters—the multitudes are stretching out their
hands and pleading for a hetter life. Yes, my friends, workers are needed in the
vineyard of the Lord in order that the teeming multitudes of earth might know
God as a merciful, loving Heavenly Father, and Jesus Christ whom he sent to
redeem poor fallen man. It is written in the prophets, “And they shall be all
taught of God.” “He that hath heard and learned from the Father cometh unto me,”
and “without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to God;” and “He that
cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that
diligently seek after him.” “How can they believe Him of whom they have not
heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach
except they be sent?” The teaching, my friends, is necessary, and the teach' ing
of the message, God’s gospel, is necessary. The subject today is “Preparing the
Workers.” I know of no greater example to call your attention to than Jesus of
Nazareth, the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Christ has been acclaimed, not
only by his followers and those who believe Him divine, but also by the great
scholars and teachers of the world who deny his Sonship, to be the greatest
teacher of all time. He is the greatest teacher because of the wonderful methods
that he used. He is the greatest teacher because he had the hardest lesson that
any individual has ever had to teach. And it seems that his students were the
dullest. Was the Savior prepared1 God in his infinite wisdom knew that
preparation was necessary, and so the Christ was both human and divine. That is
part of the preparation of the Christ for His great work, that of teaching God
to man. I said a moment ago that He had the hardest lesson to teach and that
lesson was to make known to mortal man the great God of the universe, who is a
spirit and not material; and it is difficult for us who are in the flesh to
comprehend and understand the spiritual, and so Christ came to let us know of
God—to reveal God to us as a merciful, loving Heavenly Father who is kind and
good, who rewards and punishes. Yes, the Christ had a difficult lesson to teach,
and He came as human as well as the Son of God, born of a woman. He grew up as a
boy in a little town in Palestine. He had in the home the good influence of a
mother. He worked, He played, He learned.

Someone may say, “Well, the Bible said He never learned: How knoweth this man
letters, having never learned’?” Well, that is a true statement. I mean by that,
that statement was made; but the Christ had learned much. The Christ “increased
in wisdom,” or advanced in wisdom, “and stature, and favor with God and men.”
And so we think of the Christ as growing up. A part of His preparation for the
great work that He had to do was to get acquainted with this world in somewhat
the same way that human beings with us to-day get acquainted with it. He worked;
He suffered; He grew; He played; and certainly He obeyed. In the second chapter
of Luke it is said, “The child grew and was filled with wisdom,” or as the
marginal reading gives it, “became filled with wis-dom; and the grace of God was
upon Him.” And the 51st verse ofthis chapter says that “He went down with them,
and came to Nazareth; and he was subject unto them.”

Learning obedience is a very necessary thing for one who is preparing to be a
missionary. He needs to know how to obey. And the Savior remained in the little
home and was subject to them, his parents. An important consideration in the
growth and development and education and training of any child, any boy, any
girl, anv man or woman, is to learn humility, and obedience to those in
authority. Yes, the Christ grew, increased, and the 52nd verse of the second
chapter of Luke gives that ideal education, to my way of thinking, that everyone
could well follow: “And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature and in favor with
God and men.”

It is a fine thing, my brethren, if our children can grow mentally and grow and
increase phvsically and at the same time grow and increase in favor with the God
of the universe. That can’t be done without teaching, without training, without
direction. And I am glad that the inspired writer has said that Jesus increased
in favor with men. I think we ought to know how to get along with our fellow
men. I think we ought to be taught how to live among people so that our
influence will be for good and so that people will think well of us, especially
good people. I have often thought that I should be sad indeed, if, when I should
leave my home community and be gone for several weeks that the good people of
the community would say, “Well, I am glad he is gone.” On the other hand, how
happy it makes me when I am gone for a while and come back and the good people
of the community say, “Brother Cox, we missed you while you were gone.” We ought
to live in such a way that we will be missed by the good people when we go away
and that they will be glad when we come back. Somehow the Christ has left to us
the perfect example here. He increased in favor with people, humanity. When he
came to be about thirty years of age, of course you know he appeared and asked
John the Baptist to baptize him. And he was baptized, and the Holy Ghost came
down from heaven in the form of a dove and God sneaking said, “This is my
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” He had lived in such a way up to this
time, had so developed himself and had so grown, so acted, so lived that as he
was coming forth from the watery grave the God of the universe speaks and says,
“I am well pleased with Him.” He wasn’t ready yet to start this great work which
he had come into the .world to do. It seems that he needed further preparation,
and so he goes into the wilderness, led of the Spirit, and there for forty days
he fasted and then He was tempted. He was being tried, my friends. He was having
a trial such as he hadn’t had before, and he proved himself equal to the great
task and came out a victorious conqueror over his arch enemy. And when he had
come down he began his public work, and for three years and a half Jesus of
Nazareth, who was now prepared to do the great work that the God of Heaven had
set for him to do, went about over the hills and vales of Galilee and other
parts of the world and preached and told of the coming kingdom It was a
difficult task.

We see after he had been teaching for a while one. of the great scholars of the
world who had observed his teaching and observed his miiacles, coming to him one
time by night and saying, “Now, good Master, we know you are a teacher come from
God, because, no man can do the miracles that you do unless God be with him.'”
Nicodemus had learned that much by his observation and by the lessons rhat the
Christ had taught, but the Master realised that Nicodemus was in the dark yet on
the great truth that he had come to proclaim to the world, so he said to
Nicodemus, “A man must be born again before he can see the kingdom of heaven. He
must be born of the water and the Spirit or he can not enter the kingdom of
heaven. ' But Nicodemus marveled. He did not understand the spiritual birth That
great truth had not yet dawned upon his benighted mind. And then on another
occasion in conversation with his disciples Thomas said, “Lord, we know not
wither thou goest; how know wTe. the way?” But the. Lord said, “I am the way,
the truth, and the life. No man c.ometh unto the Father, but by me.” And then,
you know, Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and it sufficeth us.” And then
the Christ said, “Philip, have I been so long time with vou and hast thou not
known me? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” He was teaching His
disciples of the great .spiritual being, God, revealing Him to them through
Himself, and they had not yet realised it. There are thousands and multiplied
thousands of people in the world to-day, my friends, who do not know God and who
refuse to see him through Jesus Christ who is God manifest in the flesh. And
then there are multiplied millions who have, no opportunity to know (rod through
Jesus Christ because we have not carried the message to them. And so, my
friends, for three years and a half the Christ went about performing miracles
here and there, doing mighty works, until at last he made the supreme sacrifice
that some few folks in the world are making today in a way, and that is to give
one’s life for his pupils. The Christ gave his life finally to prove and to
teach the great truth, that HP was from God. And as wre to-day look back through
the centuries and review the startling, miraculous events of those brief years,
that public life of the great master teacher, we are made to exclaim, “Surely he
is the Son of God and the greatest teacher of all time.” My Friends; the Christ
realised of course that he would not remain in this world for long and that he
must leave somebody behind to carry on the work of the kingdom, of heaven, to do
the great work that God had planned should be done for the human race, and so
early in his public life he selected twelve men to be with him that they might
see him do the wonderful miracles that he did, and that he might instruct them
and help them so that they would be prepared to be his ambassadors when he
should leave this world. When they were first called and knew the Christ, in a
measure they were ready then to begin their public life and their public work.
When Jesus talked to them in the coasts of Caesarea Philippi and Peter answered
that question, “Whom do you say that I am?” by saying, “Thou art the Christ, the
Son of the living God,” some would say surely these are prepared workers, yet
Jesus said, at the close of that conversation, “See that you tell no man that I
am the Christ.” He was not yet ready for them to go. And then on other
occasions, he said, “You are to be my ambassadors, but wait—tarry in the city of
Jerusalem. Wait until you get the power before you go.” In other words they were
to be made ready first. They needed to have all of the instructions from the
Christ that he was able to give them during that busy life; and then
furthermore, they were to wait and pray in the city of Jerusalem until the
Comforter, the Holy Ghost, should come that should guide them into all truth, so
that they would make no errors in their teaching. This was all necessary as a
part of their preparation, and it shows the care that the God of the universe
has in having things done in the right way. The workers had to be properly and
carefully prepared, before they were permitted to go out to do the great work
that he had for them to do.

There were many things, of course, that happened during the life of Christ, and
his public work especially, that are significant here. One story that
illustrates how he taught them the importance of humility and what real
greatness is, is that of the two brethren, James and John, who came and said,
“Grant that we mav sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand,
in thy kingdom.” Jesus taught them that to be great means to be a servant, to
deny one’s self of the material blessings of this world and to be a servant;
that we are not to be like the people of the world who want to have high
positions and to be looked up to and called “rabbi” and great. But, if you would
be great, learn to be a servant and to deny yourself, to lose your life for the
sake of Christ—that is true greatness. In many other ways and in many other
wonderful lessons, the Christ instructed his disciples and prepared them to be
efficient workers in His Kingdom.

I want to call your attention, too, just for a moment to the preparation of the
great apostle Paul. This great leader was held up to you on yesterday as
possibly the greatest man, aside from the Christ, that has ever lived,—the
greatest missionary of all times. Was it necessary for the apostle Paul to be
prepared for his work? Was he prepared? Just what preparation did he have? It is
generally known that Gamaliel, Paul’s teacher, was one of the greatest teachers
that the Jewish nation knew. And the Jewish people, I may say here, were a
people that knew how to teach. They were great teachers. They had great schools
at the time the Christ came into the world. Gamaliel was a doctor of the law and
a great teacher. He was a learned man. He knew the Old Testament scriptures; he
knew the prophecies concerning the Messiah. He was well acquainted with the
customs and traditions of the people, and furthermore he was acquainted with the
learning of the pagan philosophers and others of his time. Paul was a learned
man in law. Paul was a serious man; he was a good man. Paul believed his
religion. He was well trained. And such a man was called by the God of heaven to
be a missionary. When he was called, as he was on his way to Damascus, and fell
down and saw Jesus and heard Him calk, somebody might say, “Well, he is well
prepared now to begin his woik;”—but not so. The Lord said, 1 You go up to
Damascus and there it will be told you what you must do. There is further
preparation necessaiy for you yet,” and there for three days and nights we have
this great teacher, and scholar, humbling himself. That is a very necessary part
of the preparation. Prayer—humility of heart— crying for help and for light..
And it came —a very simple matter: “Paul, you will have to be baptised.” And he
arose and was baptised. Now the apostle. Paul was prepared— mentally,
spiritually, physically and socially—to do a great work; and he did it well. A
thorough knowledge of God’s eternal truth, and then the guidance of the Holy
Spirit and the direction of the Christ, who said, “I will send you far hence
unto the Gentiles. You shall be my witness.” He goes forth a prepared man, a
prepared worker in the vineyard of the Lord. So, my friends, these are. examples
of preparation that God saw fit for people to make: preparation on the part of
the Master; preparation on the part of the apostles; preparation on the part of
the great missionary, Paul, the apostle. Now, we are to study for a few moments
the. matter of the preparation necessary for those who are to go into foreign
fields to preach God’s eternal truth.

What is it to teach? To teach is to lead people to know something, or to be able
to do something, that they did not know how to do before. It is an art, and it
is also a science—and a most difficult science. What is it that a teacher needs
to know, anyway? A teacher who is to teach the B1'ble certainly ought to know it
well and he should know God and Christ his Savior. He should \now and have an
appreciation of these wonderful things. In addition to knowing the message, he
should know his pupils. And that is one purpose of this Lectureship—foi us to
see the need, to see that there are people out there who need our help, need the
Gospel; and you can t see that unless you know the people. You have to know
their errors; you have to know their environment; you have to know something of
their desires. You can’t teach people whom you do not know. A preacher who
stands before his audience and knows little about the people to whom he is
preaching can’t preach God’s eternal truth to them as well as he could if he
knew their needs; and he can’t know then needs unless he knows the people. He
must know something of their history, something of their background, something
of their surroundings, training and learning. All these things are necessary,
and so if one goes out to be a missionary, before he goes he needs to learn
something about the folks that he is going to teach. In addition to knowing what
to teach, the message, he needs to know the people that he is going to teach. A
third thing he needs to know is how to teach—How to Teach! There is a way to
teach—a right way to teach, a good way to teach; and then there are numbers of
sorry ways to teach. When one knows what to teach and knows the people whom he
is to teach and then knows how to teach, he is fairly well prepared to teach.
But I want to say here that there ought to be in him also a desire and longing
to teach, and he ought to love to teach and especially love to teach God’s
eternal truth. That part of the preparation certainly ought to be made. I want
to say this: that one who is to go out to teach or preach God’s eternal truth
must be somebody. He must be what he claims to be—a Christian. The greatest
characteristic (I say this reverently) that the Christ had as a teacher was that
He lived what he taught. He was in earnest about his message. He believed that
he had a religion that was superior to the religions of the world. He believed
that He had a message that the world needed, and he lived it. If he said for
people to be humble, he was humble. If he said people should be sinless, he was
sinless. Yes, my friends, if you are going to be a teacher, then you must live
what you teach; and if you don’t, at least half of your work will be lost, and I
believe most of it will be lost, be-cause one teaches more by what he is than by
what he says.

Yes, one who goes out to teach must be somebody; and I will say this: that the
training that is necessary here starts in the home. It starts at the mother’s
knee, and it goes on through the home into the schools, the public schools, and
on into the college. That is the way character is made—by the teaching that is
received, and that teaching may come by word of mouth from the mother, the
father, the teacher, the professor; or it may come through literature that is
provided in the home, in the school, in the college and in the university; and
it may come by the influence of associates, those with whom the individual comes
in contact. After a while and as a result of these many influences, the
character is formed. If he is trained properly, he will be what he claims to
be—a Christian.

One must be humble. Of course one can not be a real Christian and not be humble.
He must be Christ-like. He must be kind and tender-hearted and loving. He must
love humanity—not just the good and the pure; not just those who are like-minded
with himself— but he must love humanity and have a burning desire to help those
who are in need and those who suffer. Yes, it is necessary for one who wants to
go out to be a missionary to get ready, to make preparation. I should say that
in this day and age of the world when learning is prevalent, much more so than
it used to be, that it is necessary for one to have at least a high school
education and preferably a college education—I mean in the learning of this
world—and then one ought to have training in how to teach. I believe that in our
colleges and universities such a person should be trained under teachers 'who
know how to teach, so that they, the missionaiies, will be prepared to teach. I
believe that they ought to know something of psychology— book psychology, if you
please—as well as that psy chology one learns from associating with people. One
needs to know something of this world, this material world; and certainly above
all things else he needs to know, God’s eternal truth.

Yes, one should be trained. Pie should be trained academically; he should be
trained spiritually. One should be a scholar. Someone may say, “I have known
good teachers and preachers who never did go to college.” I grant that, but I
want to say that that same individual, if he bad had college training, might
have been a much better preacher. Sometimes a little learning is a dangerous
thing, but ordinarily m this world today we need people who are trained in the
learning of this world as well as in spiritual matters. I believe this training
can be got in the home, the church, public schools, and in the colleges, but I
do believe that the Christian colleges offer better opportunities today for the
training of those who would go out to be missionaries than any other kind of
institution that we have 1-n the country. Can it be done in the local
congregation? It is possible, and it is being done in some places, but usually
it is not done there because it is too expensive for the local congregation to
furnish the necessary” teachers and equipment. The Christian college offers a
larger opportunity at less expense for the individual to receive the sort of
training that he needs before going out as a missionary. In concluding mv
remarks today I am going to read a passage of scripture that I believe most of
you are familiar with, and I shall make some comments. It is from the 6th
chapter of Isaiah: This was a wonderful vision, one being permitted to see the
Lord on his throne. This was Isaiah’s privilege. I wish you might listen to what
effect it had on him. I am sure that we will never be permitted in this world to
see Jehovah on his throne except as we see Him there by faith, but we can see
Hun there by faith. Let us now note the effect that this vision had on Isaiah:
“Then I said, ‘Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell m the
midst of a people of unclean lips.' "

If we could see God in all his glory and power and majesty and love and kindness
and goodness, we, too, would be willing to exclaim with Isaiah, “Oh, woe is me,
because I am a man of unclean lips.” Oh, we would see our need of something
better. We would see how low and despicable we are. It is a wmnderful thing that
happens here. It ought to happen to everyone of us I mean a similar thing: “Then
flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had
taken with the tongs from off the altar; and he laid it upon my mouth, and said,
‘Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away and thy sin
purged."

Yes, we see our terrible state of sin and degradation, but there is the Christ
that has arisen with healing in his wings; and when we come to him, our sins,
though they be many, are taken away in the blood of the Lamb. Then, my friends,
listen: when our sins have been taken away we are able to hear the call of duty
and service. This was true of Isaiah, for he says, “And I heard the voice of the
Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ ” My friends, if we
have been properly prepared by sitting at the feet of the great master teacher
and learning of Him, then we can hear and will hear that same voice that Isaiah
heard: “Who will go for us? And whom can we send?” “Then I said, 'Here am I;
send me.’ And he said, 'Go—go and tell this people.’” (Isaiah 6:8.) Today those
who have been born from above, have been cleansed, can hear and should obey that
command of our Savior: “Go, preach the Gospel to every creature.” May many hear
and answer as did Isaiah of old, “Here am I; send me.”

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What is the difference between a trained worker and
just a worker? 2. Show the nature and extent of the preparation of the Christ
for His work. 3. Show the importance of the social training as a preparation to
be a missionary. 4. Show how well prepared spiritually was the Christ for His
work. ?. What was the great and difficult work of the Christ? 6. How did He
teach us of the Father? 7. Briefly tell of the preparation of the apostles for
their great work. 8. Show how carefully and thoroughly the apostle Paul was
prepared for his work. 9. What three things should one know to do the best
missionary work? Discuss fully. 10. Why is it necessary for one to be a real
humble Christian to be a good missionary? 11. How much academic training should
one have to be a missionary? 12. What lessons may we learn from Isaiah’s vision?


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 13: QUALIFICATIONS OF WORKERS AND METHODS OF WORK IN ORIENTAL FIELDS
========================================================================

Qualifications of Workers and Methods of Work in Oriental Fields Qualifications
of Workers and Methods of Work in Oriental Fields George S. Benson This is
really a double subject. We shall discuss the qualifications of workers first
and the methods of work on the Oriental fields second. In the first place I wish
to emphasise the fact that tne Oriental field is a hard one. There are. many
discouragements and the evange' list who enters any part of the Orient will find
plenty of difficulties. In the beginning I wish to name two general
qualifications for workers in the Orient which would also be applicable
elsewhere. The first is a deep concern for the salvation of souls. No one who is
not deeply concerned about the salvation of the lost would desiie to remain long
as a missronary in the Orient. The apostle. Paul said, “Woe is unto me if I
preach not the Gospel.” Again I hear him saying, ' I am debtor to all men.” He
was so deeply concerned regarding the salvation of the lost that he believed he
could not be saved himself if he did not labor through the Gospel to save
others. We need to feel that same concern today.

It was in the summer of 1925 that Mrs. Benson and I first sailed for China. I
felt convinced in my own heart at that time that it would not be right for me to
remain in America. We had then about 2,500 preachers of the church of Christ in
the United States, but not a single one in China It was very clear to me that
someone should go to China, for Jesus made no distinction between the different
na' tions. We were making a great distinction, retaining the whole of our
preaching force within the bounds of our own country. It was clear to me that
someone should go to China at once, and I could think of no reason why I should
urge others to go and should not go my' self. This burden became so keen that I
could no longer conscien' tiously remain in America. Consequently on August 18,
1925, Mrs. Benson and I sailed from San Francisco as the first missionaries of
the church of Christ to China. I wish we had a hundred young preachers in Amerca
today who were so deeply concerned about the lost souls in the Orient that they
could no longer remain in America.

Second, the missionary to the Orient should possess the ability to rely upon God
in difficult and tiyrng times. Once on the field he will find himself
overwhelmed with the hugeness of the task before him; will find himself in the
midst of a people satisfied with their own re' ligions and with no knowledge, of
the value of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; will find it difficult to establish
contacts, to make friendships and to lead people to believe in Jesus Christ. He
will also find trying health conditions, physical dangers and may sometimes find
himself with insufficient support upon which to live. He will also be faced with
many perplexing problems and may be faced with sickness 01 death in his own
family. He may have no one nearby who will un-derstand his difficulties or know
how to sympathise with him. In such times one will find it necessary to take
comfort through reliance upon God. The apostle Paul said. “All things work
together for good to those who love the Lord.” The apostle found good in all of
his persecution and in all of his imprisonments. In Php_1:12-14 we find him
saying that most of the brethren in the Lord, being confident through his bonds,
had become more abundantly bold to speak the word of God without fear. The
apostle was apparently convinced that through this boldness on the part of the
brethren the Gospel was being more extensively preached than if he had been
enjoying his own liberty and thereby had been enabled to travel and preach as he
had done in former years. Again Paul said, ‘ I can do all things through him
that strengtheneth me.”

If the missionary to the Orient can rely upon God to supply all of his needs, to
comfort his heart in all trying hours, and to make all things work together for
his good, and if he is filled with a deep concern for the salvation of lost
souls he should be able to accomplish much good in the name of the Lord.

Now there are some special qualifications particularly peculiar to the Orient
which I must mention T he first is physical. 1'he climate is very trying. In
many places the humidity is great, insects are numerous, food is different,
housing is strange, etc. All of this brings a special trial upon the physical
endurance of the new worker who is not acclimated and who is not accustomed to
such conditions. Any physical weakness will become more serious in the Orient.
In the second place, the missionary to the Orient must have unusual ability to
adjust himself to new circumstances. The customs and manners of the people are
very different from our own. Yet it is essential that one adjust himself to che
customs and manners of the people among whom he labors. T he apostle Paul said,
“I am become all things to all men.” This is strictly essential, of course,
where the people are proud of the.ii own culture, proud of their own customs and
manners. Truly there are many remarkable features in Oriental civilisation. The
missionary should be able to appreciate these remat kable features and should be
able to adjust himself to the customs and manners of the people. One who has
been unable to adjust himself to his own people among whom he was born and
reared will find it even more difficult to adjust himself to a foreign people,
after he is already matured. In the third place, the missionary to the Onent
must have unfailing courage. Ilhe will find his work slow. He will find the
people oftentimes unfriendly. He will probably find his support sometimes
inadequate. If he coifid be discouraged he will find himself losing his grip. In
the fourth place, the missionaiy to the Orient should have some knowledge of the
particular part of the country to which he is going. He should understand the
climate, the housing conditions, the food which will be available, the dangers
to health, etc. He should also understand the religions of the people. It is
very difficult to approach people with the purpose of leading them out of their
old religion if one does not understand the origin and doctrine of these
religions. Therefore, one should make opportunity to study the religions of the
people among whom he expects to work. It is also important that the missionary
to the Orient understand the attitude of the people toward the foreigner and
toward the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Many of the Chinese people believe that one
of the most important qualifications of a missionary to that field is his
ability to appreciate Chinese culture. The attitude of the Oriental people
toward the foreigner will be largely determined by his attitude toward them and
by his ability to appreciate the good things in their civilisation. The Oriental
people do not look up to foreigners (and you will realise that when we reach the
Orient we are the foreigners).

It is true at the present time that Oriental people are turning away from their
old religions. This is particularly true of China and India. However, this does
not mean that they are seeking after Christianity—they are merely coming to
realise that their own religions are based upon superstition. They consequently
decided that all religions are based upon superstition. The new missionary who
is not aware of the attitude of the Oriental people toward the foreigner and
toward the Gospel may find it difficult to make his adjustments after reaching
the field. While if he understands these things beforehand it will be
comparatively easy for him to make his adjustments.

Some knowledge of the language should also be obtained before one sets out for
his chosen field. For instance the Chinese language is tonal. But many people
have no sense of tones, and therefore, find the Chinese language exceedingly
difficult. Not having expected this feature in the language one has not
fortified himself at this point and may tend to become discouraged. In Chinese
the same phonetic sound may have as many as nine different meanings, depending
upon the tone in which the word is spoken.

It is also an advantage to the missionary to understand something about the
history of the country to which he is going, as he must become a teacher among
the people with whom he works. Suppose there should be a teacher among our own
people who was totally ignorant of the history of George Washingtn, of the Furth
of July, of Abraham Lincoln, of the Civil War, ignorant of our institutions,
etc. He would find great difficulty in gaining the respect of our people and in
becoming a leader in whom we would have implicit confidence. The Chinese people
have 4,000 years of consecutive history— a history of which they are exceedingly
proud. The missionary who knows nothing of Chinese history will find himself
greatly handicapped and often tremendously embarrassed.

Nt»w I wish to take up the methods of work on the Oriental field. Jesus has
given an example of how a foreign missionary should labor. He left his abode
with the Father, came to this distant globe and lived as a man among men. He
lived on the level of the people among whom he labored. He sought not his own
welfare. I believe that Jesus understood every principle of nature, for he was
with the Father when the world was created and without him was not anything made
that was made. Therefore, I feel confident that he could have invented the
aeroplane, the radio, the steam engine, the railroad, the automobile, etc. He
could have ushered in the great machine age in which we live today. He might
have become wealthy and famous, but he chose the part of service and suffered
hardship as a good soldier of the cross. He did not come to usher in a new
social, political or economical era. He came to seek and to save the souls of
lost men. In like manner the missionary should go to the foreign fields to seek
and save the souls of the lost—not to devote his time and energy to the creation
of a new social or political order. One time a missionary to a certain tribe in
Africa was commenting upon the influence he had had upon a certain band of
cannibals. When asked if this particular tribe still ate human flesh, he
replied, “Oh yes, they still eat human flesh, but they now take their meat with
forks.” This worker had the wrong message.

Paul is our outstanding example in actual methods of evangelising among Gentile
peoples. He went to the main cities and chief centers in the provinces of Asia,
Galatia, Macedonia and Achaia. He introduced the Gospel into these four
provinces—established churches there, trained native workers there and wrote
letters of instruction. This represents three distinct phases of work—first,
preaching publicly and from house to house; second, teaching faithful disciples
in such a manner that they should be able to teach others also. (2 Timothy 2:2.)
Third, he wrote letters of instruction in order that the written pages might
remain in the hands of those concerned.

I believe that our work on foreign fields today should follow these same three
lines. We should preach publicly and from house to house both day and night,
with tears. We should provide regular daily Bible classes in order that faithful
disciples may be so thoroughly taught the word of the Lord that they would be
able to safely teach others. We should also provide Christian literature in the
native language of the people among whom we labor. They need tracts, booklets,
books, and if possible, magazines in their own language. At Canton, China, we
have adopted and have as nearly as possible followed out just such a three-fold
program. We have preached on the streets, in rented halls, and in homes. We have
established the Canton Bible School in which there are now forty-nine students
studying the Bible daily and also taking such other courses as are calculated to
make them most effective in the service of Jesus Christ. Some of our young men
are already going out and doing effective work as teachers of the word of the
Lord. We have published a series of more than twenty tracts, a series of a
do2,en booklets, and several books in the Chinese language. Our largest book is
McGarvey’s “New Commentary on Acts of Apostles.” We also publish a quarterly
magazine in Chinese.

It is my opinion that missionaries with the qualifications already suggested and
using the methods which have just been described could succeed in doing an
effective work in any part of the Oriental field. The great Yangtze River Valley
with 150,000,000 people and without a single missionary from our churches of
Christ and with multitudes of people who have never heard the name of Jesus
Christ stands as a great challenge to our churches of Christ today. Shanghai,
Nanking, or Hankow would be a suitable city in which work might immediately be
opened. One or more Chinese helpers from the Canton Bible School could be
furnished to help a new missionary in opening work in either one of these
places. It is my prayer that the Lord may in' spire our hearts to respond
according to our ability in entering into these great open doors, and in
preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ Jesus to those who sit in darkness.
The apostle Paul said, “Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed, and how
shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear
without a preacher, and how shall they preach except they be sent?” If we all
preach and teach on this subject as we should there will be plenty of young
people who will want to go. There will be plenty of churches who will be anxious
to send out missionaries, and there will be plenty of additional people who will
want to give to help supply every need of those who go. Let us do what we can
now while we have time and opportunity that it may be said of us in that great
day that we have done what we could.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. How is the church’s possibilities to send workers
limited? 2. What is the greatest hindrance now to the churches’ sending the one
hundred families needed to evangelize the world? Are the churches unwilling to
send the hundred families? Why don’t they send the hundred at once? 3. To what
extent may we apply Paul’s missionary methods on foreign fields today? 4. To
what extent did Paul’s ability to perform miracles give him an advantage over
foreign missionaries of today? 5. What would be the strongest incentive to get
your congregation to want to help in more distant work? 6. Could your
congregation help in some expansion program without decreasing its present
program of work? If so, can you meet God’s approval and fail to do it?


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 14: THE MESSAGE FOR THE WORKERS
========================================================================

The Message For The Workers The Message for the Workers B. L. POUTHITT Wingo,
Ky.

Tonight marks the closing service of this great feast of good things. We believe
that it is through the good providence of God that we are here. It is my
greatest pleasure to have a place on this program and dis-cuss “The Message for
the Workers.”

I want to read one paragraph from Matthew 9:35'-38: “And Jesus went about all
the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preach/ ing the
gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of disease and all manner of
sickness. But when he saw the multi' tudes, he was moved with com' passion for
them, because they were distressed and scattered, as sheep not having a
shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest indeed is plenteous, but
the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the. harvest, that he send
forth laborers into his harvest.” Jesus was moved with compassion for the
multitudes, because they were distressed and scattered. In John, chapter six,
Jesus discourses on the Bread of Life. He announces to the multitude that he is
the. living bread which came down out of heaven and he that eateth this bread
shall live forever. Many of his disciples, when they heard him say this,
murmured at the saying, and said, “This is a hard saying; who can hear it?” This
seems to be a common sin of many of his disciples now. In verse 66, John says,
many of h1’s disciples went back, and walked no more with him. As the disciples
went back, Jesus turned to the twelve and said, “Would ye also go away?” Simon
Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal
life.” Christ has the words of eternal life. Messengers of Christ should rejoice
that they have the privilege of preaching the words of eternal life to a
troubled and distressed world. The brethren before me have given some splendid
lessons on the characteristics, training, and qualifications of the workers. In
present' ing this lesion: “The Message for the Workers”—it is my purpose to
bring a message on (1) The Messenger. (2) The Message. (3) The Joy of the
Harvest.

I. THE MESSENGER 1. The successful worker must have sincere conviction and
retain a vital faith in God. There is a message for the messenger. That message
produces faith and it is the duty of the preacher of the gospel of Christ to
retain a vital faith in all of his labor of love. What is a vital faith? It is
faith in a person—in Christ. A person who loves, forgives, and saves. It is a
growing faith. It is an obedient faith—a child like faith. With this vital faith
we can say with Paul: “I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me.” 2. The
messenger has the promise of the abiding presence of God. When Jesus gave his
marching orders, he said: “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the
nations, baptising them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and
lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” I am with you always.
We do not go alone, but in the strength of his might, and led by his precious
truth revealed in the Bible. We are workers together with him.

One of the most preachable texts in all of the word of God is in 2 Corinthians
the first chapter. “Father of mercies and God of all comfort; who comforteth us
in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort them that are in any
affliction, through the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God . .
. For we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning our affliction which
befell us in Asia, that we were weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power,
insomuch that we despaired even of life: yea, we. ourselves have had the
sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but
in God who raiseth the dead: who delivered us out of so great a death, and will
deliver: on whom we have set our hope that he will also still deliver us; ye
also helping together on our behalf by your supplication; that, for the gift
bestowed upon us by means of many, thanks may be given by many persons on our
behalf.”

Brother George S. Benson this afternoon mentioned the ability of the missionary
to rely on God in trying times for a qualification of workers. Workers in the
Lord’s vineyard should be prepared when pressed, perplexed, pursued, and smitten
down to say with Paul: “God will deliver.” Persecutions, trials, and
disappointments will serve a holy purpose if we keep our hope set on him with
the assurance that our God will deliver. I read one time of a little girl that
asked a man to write his autograph in her book. The man wrote these words: “My
little girl, may you have just enough clouds in life to make a glorious sunset.”
In trying times may we have the faith to say: “For our light affliction, which
is for the moment, worketh for us more and more ex- ceeedingly an eternal weight
of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things
which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things
which are not seen are eternal.” I am grateful for the abiding presence of God.

II. THE MESSAGE FOR THE WORKERS “Preach the gospel to the whole creation.” Paul
charged young Timothy to: “Preach the word.” In 2 Timothy the worker has the
doctrine and discipline of the church. “Every scripture inspired of God is
profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruc' tion which is
in righteousness: that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto
every good work.” (1) Profitable for teaching—doctrine. (2) Profitable for
reproof, correction, instruction— discipline. That the man of God may be
complete,- furnished complelely unto every good work. This is a balanced gospel.
Preach it without addition, subtraction, or modification.

God commanded Jonah: “Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto
it the preaching that I bid thee.” (Jonah 3:2.) This is a timely lesson for all
of God’s preachers. Preach the preaching that I bid thee. It is one thing to
preach and another to preach the preaching that God commands. The preaching that
God bids is what we need in Texas—in Japan—everywhere.

Brother Coffman said: “The brethren will do more when they are taught more.” Our
responsibility is to show the brethren the need of the unsearchable riches of
Christ. Therefore, the question, why preach the gospel? The dire need of the
gospel of Christ is seen in the answer to this question.

1. Because of its power to save. Paul said: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel:
for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” In this
brief passage the apostle gives us the person, power, and purpose of the gospel.
Paul was not ashamed of the per' son of the gospel, the power of the gospel, or
the purpose of the gos' pel of Christ. Preach it to save lost souls.

2. To edify the church. “So then let us follow after things which make for
peace, and things whereby we may edify one another." (Romans 14:19.) In
Colossians 3 we have a list of things to follow with the assurance they will
maintain peace and edify one another. Put on a heart of compassion, kindness,
meekness, long'suffering, forgiveness, and love. Preach the gospel that brethren
may know to adorn the life with these holy virtues.

3. To destroy all barriers. “I am debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both
to the wise and to the foolish.” (Romans 1:14.) Just so long as. there are
barriers in the world we will need the gospel to bring them to destruction. With
one stroke of the pen the apostle Paul destroys four barriers among brethren.
“Where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision,
barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman: but Christ in all, and in all.”
(Colossians 3:11.) There cannot be Greek and Jew—no barrier of race; there
cannot be circum-cision and uncircumcision—no barrier of creed; there cannot be
bar-barian and Scythian—no barrier of culture; there cannot be bondman and
freeman—no barrier of class. “Ye are all one man in Christ Jesus.” I read the
report of a meeting in which a Jew and his wife obeyed the gospel. After they
were baptised the Jew went to the preacher and said: “Brother, before our
baptism, I was a Jew and my wife was a Gentile, now we are Christians.” There is
salvation for both Jew and Gentile in Christ upon the terms of the gospel of
Christ. Let all the workers preach in such a way that we sing with Brother M. C.
Kurfees:

“Let party names no more The Christian world o’erspread; Gentile and Jew, and
bond and free, Are one in Christ, their head. “Among the saints on earth Let
mutual love he found; Heirs of the same inheritance, With mutual blessings
crowned. “Thus will the Church below Resemble that above, Where streams of
pleasure ever flow, And every heart is love.”

4. Because of sorrow in the world. “Wherefore comfort one another with these
words.” The word of God is a source of comfort. Messengers of the Cross have a
comforting message for persons when they cry unto Jehovah in their trouble, for
there is the redeeming love of Christ with the divine assurance that he will
bring them out of their distresses. They need the comfort of the Psalmist, who
said: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil; for thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” No
wonder Paul said, “Preach the word.”

5. Because it reveals the Christian’s view of death. The message of Christ
reveals the proper attitude toward death in four verses expressed in four words.
It is an appointment—“Appointed unto men once to die.” It is the Christian’s
pleasure to meet the appointments of God in life, and in death the child of God
meets one of the outstanding appointments of God. It is a departure—“The time of
my departure is come.” It is a rest—’Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord .
. . that they may rest from their labors.” It is an entrance— “For thus shall be
richly supplied unto you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ.”

6. Because it sets forth the best life. The Christian life is the best life. To
live the Christian life we must “Rejoice with them that rejoice; weep with them
that weep.” “All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto
you, even so do ye also unto them.” It is that beautiful life of faith, virtue,
knowledge, self-control, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love.

III. THE JOY OF THE HARVEST The harvest period is reached in the salvation of
individuals. Preach the gospel to every creature. There is the joy of the person
saved from sin—the Ethiopian Eunuch “went on his way rejoicing.” Philippian
Jailor “rejoiced greatly, with all his house, having believed in God ” There is
the joy of the worker—“Wherefore, my brethren beloved and longed for, my joy and
crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my beloved.” There is the joy of the
angels—“There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that
repenteth.” Oh, the joy of bringing persons from darkness to light! Let us
declare his precious truth with rejoicing.

“No longer of him be it said, ‘He hath no place to lay His head’. In every land
a constant lamp Flames by His small and mighty camp. “There is no strange and
distant place That is not gladdened by His face, And every nation kneels to hail
The splendour shining through its veil. “Imprisoned for His love of me, He makes
my spirit greatly free; And through my lips that uttered sin The King of Glory
enters in.” —Joyce Kilmer.

“Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation.”

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Show the importance of the vital faith to the
messenger. 2. What great promise has the messenger to strengthen him? 3. Why
should we preach the gospel? Give six good reasons. 4. Do you know reasons why
anything else should be preached? Give examples of joys that are incident to
“the harvest.”


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 15: THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE MISSION FIELD
========================================================================

The Geography of the Mission Field The Geography of the Mission Field “THE FIELD
IS THE WORLD”, CHRIST THE GREAT MISSIONARY

During the Lecture Week there were Round Table Discussions held about the
principal fields where churches of Christ were ah ready working or ought to be.
The following articles seek to give a summary, incomplete though it must needs
be, of those discus* sions and studies. And the geography should be studied.
Jesus studied it. (Acts 1:8.) There may be many efforts wasted at pres* ent, too
many workers in one field and too few in others. One time my father had me sow
some turnip seed in the garden. One corner of the garden got too much seed,
three corners didn’t get any. As foolish as I was, aren’t some churches and some
preachers doing worse? Paul strove to preach Christ where He had not yet been
named (Romans 15:20) and not to build upon another man’s foundation; too many
preachers are content to build upon another’s foundation and labors (2
Corinthians 10:15-16; 1 Corinthians 3:10), too many churches are sowing again
seed where the field is already overseed* ed instead of going out into virgin
soil.

Again, what would you think of a wholesale house that would not sell any
products outside its own city or county until every store in its city had put in
exclusively its wares? We need to send out our Gospel salesmen wherever there is
good sales territory. Brother Hockaday asks: “What would you think of the man
who paints each year the front of his barn and never paints any other part of
the barn?” Are the well established churches in such places as Tennessee and
Texas, where there are capable elders that could easily dispense with a preacher
altogether, still “painting the front of the barn”, still paying a big salary to
our preacher and only send* ing five or ten percent of our support (our “paint”)
out where there is no church established, no elders and where we expect some*
one on $25 to $50 per month to do more than our high paid preacher? Such
procedure is not scriptural. Paul was the most powerful and capable preacher
among the disciples, but he was not kept at Jerusalem. In arranging the Round
Table Discussions, or geographical studies, we studied: I. The Orient, where
there is hardly one worker to ONE HUNDRED MILLION heathen. II. Africa, with its
broad expanse and great need of the “light of the World”. III. The populous
Northeast (of our own United States) which is a “great open door” to millions
who never heard of the simple New Testament church in our own nation and our
good neighbor on the North. IV. The extensive Northwest, with its sturdy but
untaught population. V. The religious Southeast, with its great victories of the
past, but with fields still unsown such as Virginia, and the great numbers of
colored folk for whom Christ died also. VI. The great Southwest with many new
fields among the Americans (such as Utah) and still greater opportunities among
the Mexicans and other Spanish'Americans. We did not even get to mention Europe
with its enlightened millions—such an opportunity for profitable missionary
investment. Surely we should sow more seed in sparsely seeded regions. With such
broad fields to plant, such good and plenteous seed but such shortage of sowers
and of interest in sowing in sparsely seeded fields, surely there should be no
jealousy between fields or workers. Mexican workers, for instance, should not
try to discour' age those fellowshiping the South Africa work; workers in China
should not criticize workers of Japan before the sponsoring church, etc. But
above all, our religious papers should not criticize the “errors” of missionary
workers anywhere. All workers are fallible, to be sure, for “we have this
treasure in earthen vessels”. But no Christian can read 1 Cor. 13 and then drag
out to public gossip re' ports that may or may not be true, but are sure to
bring great hin' drance to the cause everywhere. Of course, any mistake should
be reported and corrected, but it should be reported privately in love to the
elders of the sponsoring congregation. They will be able to investigate
thoroughly and bring about the correction. In fact, they are the only ones
authorized by the New Testament; any other person or agency is setting himself
up as “pope”. May we all work together for the evangelization of the whole
world!

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Give as many reasons as you can for studying the
geography of the mission field. (You can find many more reasons than this
article had space for.) 2. What lessons may be learned from garden sowing? From
barn painting? From the business world? 3. What examples did Paul give for all
workers in this field? (Here, too, many other teachings may be found by studying
the New Testa' ment with this in view.) 4. Name the principal fields that should
be worked. What are the opportunities and responsibilities of our churches in
each of these? 5. What can we and our local congregation do to help or hinder in
sowing the seed of the kingdom in these fields? (Think in terms of some definite
field and some definite real work.)


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  CHAPTER 16: THE ORIENT
========================================================================

The Orient

“The Orient” The work of the church is well begun in four parts of the Orient:
Japan, China, Korea and the Philippines.

While Korea is a part of Japan its customs and language are so different from
the Japanese it is better classed as a separate field. The Japan field was
opened some forty years ago by Brother J. M. McCaleb. Brother McCaleb is yet an
active and able worker in Japan. The greatest number of American missionaries in
Japan at one time was sixteen, during the years of 1930-1933. At present there
are eleven, including those on furlough to return to their work this year.
However, two of these, Brother and Sister Elbridge Linn, are new workers going
out for the beginning of their work this year. The other nine are Mr. J. M.
McCaleb of Tokyo, Miss Lillie Cypert of Tokyo, Mr. and Mrs. E. A. Rhodes of
Yokohama, Mr. and Mrs. Orville D. Bixler, and Mr. and Mrs. Harry Fox of Ibaraki
Ken, and Miss Hettie Lee Ewing of Shizuoka. City, Japan. Other recent workers of
Japan who are temporarily retired from the field are Mr. and Mrs. Herman Fox of
Ibaraki, Ken, and Miss Sarah Andrews of Shizuoka City.

There are about sixteen congregations of the church in Japan, some thirty gospel
preachers among the natives and a good number of Bible teachers. The membership
of the church of Christ in Japan or of any of the Oriental fields is hard to
know because of their being converted often while attending colleges in the big
centers and going out to their scattered homes. We can safely say there are one
thousand members in the empire, however. In China the work was begun in Canton
where Brother and Sis¬ter George S. Benson began in 1925. Today as a result of
their work together with other workers who later joined them, we have a splendid
Bible school, and church work. The missionaries who have gone out to China since
1925 are Mr. and Mrs. Lewis T. Oldham, Mr. and Mrs. Emmett Broaddus, Miss Ethel
Mattley, Miss Elisabeth Bernard, Mr. and Mrs. Lowell B. Davis, and Mr. and Mrs.
Roy Whitfield. The church work has centered around Canton, Hongkong, and Peiping
in North China. Several churches are established and a goodly number of
preachers and teachers are trained for work among the natives. For about eight
years efficient work has been done in the Philip¬pines by Brother H. G. Cassell
and wife, and Brother Orville T. Rodman and wife. Though we have somewhat
different conditions on the Philippine Islands from those of the Chinese and
Japanese, yet the natives are oriental in disposition and the work of converting
them goes along the same lines. There are today some three or four centers of
work, with practically the same amount of progress as is seen in China and Japan
for the period of time spent in that field. In Korea there are no American
workers of the church of Christ. Brother Dong, a native Korean, was converted in
the States and returned to his native land in 1930. His work has been observed
by Brother McCaleb and is well reported of. He centered his efforts near the
capital and has done much evangelistic work in the surrounding territory. There
is a great demand for an American man in Korea to join Brother Dong in that
needed field. The problems confronting missionaries in these various fields are
numerous but much the same in all. We find difficulty in reaching the very poor
and uneducated. Making the work self'supporting is one of the biggest problems
but some headway is being made in all the fields. We could name any number of
the problems which are hard to meet, but it is not necessary to look at these
and sigh with discouragement. We know that the gospel of Christ is for all and
that we will overcome all difficulties if we press on in this good work which is
essential both for them and for us. There is a great and effectual door open in
the Orient and a tremendous responsibility resting upon us to give them the
gospel.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What is the population of China? Japan? Korea? The
Philippines? 2. What is the approximate number of members of the churches of
Christ in each of these fields? 3. Name the missionaries on the field already
and those who will be in the near future. 4. Give a brief history of the
evangelisation of each field. 5. Has the entire lump been leavened in the
Orient, or have we just begun? Compare the numbers of unconverted with that of
the converted in these fields. Have the farmers and laboring classes heard the
simple message of Christ, or just of the better classes? 6. What are some of the
greatest problems of these fields? What are your congregation and mine doing to
help solve these problems? What are you and I doing? What opportunities and
rewards lie out before us?


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 17: THE AFRICAN WORK
========================================================================

The African Work The African Work J. Dow Merriti

Suppose we draw an outline map of Africa, the length and breadth of it five feet
each and place in it the thirty or more states into which that continent is
divided, Egypt, The Congo, The Union of South Africa, etc. Africa is five
thousand miles long and as wide. A line one foot in length represents one
thousand miles on this map. Its population is about one hundred and thirteen
million. To represent our missionary activities in Africa, let us draw a line an
eighth of an inch wide and an inch long. Now let us cut this line in eight
parts, one part for each of the missionaries gone to that field, and after
taking away one part, for Brother l awyer is dead and his wife and children have
returned to the United States, let us put these square in that space called
Rhodesia on our map. Near Kalomo in Northern Rhodesia let us place Scott, Brown
and Merritt. At Sinde Mission, near Iivinstone is Reese’s location. Forest Vale
Mission at Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia, is where Brother Sherriff is buried and
where his wife carries on the work they started years ago. Brother Garrett is at
Salisbury and Brother Short at Macheke in Southern Rhodesia.

What a sight! Fourteen square feet of darkness, seven dots of light! But we have
been twenty years getting those dots there. No new worker has been sent out to
reenforce the field staff since 1929. Does it seem likely that we are. going to
do a great work there at the .rate we have been going? Are we going to convert
Africa merely by sending 'white Christians to preach to the native people?
Certamly not! What can we. do about it?

If we turn our map and dots into living things and see rhe condb tions of the
country, how the natives live and think, the way rhe mis' sionaries undertake
their work, what their hopes are and what their problems are, it may be that we
can find a way to help. The people of the villages of Rhodesia cannot read or
write. Half the children born never reach the age of one year. A quarter of the
women die prematurely. Many folk die or are crippled for the lack of aid m
sickness or injury which might be successfully treated by one of little
knowledge. They worship their ancestors, and appease evil spirits; recognising a
Great Spirit they pray for rain and blessings. They are a very superstitious
people. The missionary located in the midst of a dosen or more of these
villages, visiting them and preaching to them day by day soon learned that he
must teach these people to read the Bible for themselves so that they could help
him in carrying the Gospel to the community. So he built a school huuse near to
teach the native boys who came to read and write their own language, giving them
Bible lessons every day. They could soon read the English Bible. The villages
then be`gan to call for these boys to come and teach the children. To get boys
fitted for teaching he had to send them away to a government normal school where
education and financial success is stressed and not Chris`tianity. These boys
returned home and married girls who taught their children the heathen ways. If
there were only a Christian normal school for boys and a school where girls
could be taught useful arts while they learned to read the Bible! After school
days then they could marry Christian boys and teach their children in the right
way. The missionary in his rounds amongst the villages saw that those who could
read hoarded the printed matter that fell into their hands and read it over and
over to himself and all who would listen. Why not give him something to read
that would tell him and others of God? But let us go back to our map. At the
southern point and on the western coast is Cape Town, a city of three hundred
thousand souls. It is the Legislative Capitol of The Union of South Africa and
is a university city. In the middle of the Transvaal is Johannesburg, a city
whose suburbs and other environs have a population of about 500,000, the
business center of Africa. Then there is Port Eliza`beth, East London, Durban,
and Pretoria, all cities of over 75,000 people. For many years there have been
several churches of Christ in Cape Town. Due to silly quarrels these churches
became inactive. One of the brethren wrote to the editor of one of our American
church papers asking that a capable American preacher be sent over to help them.
Nothing practical was done about it. But Dr. Kellems of the Christian Church did
go and now, with the exception of two or three congregations, all of the
churches of Christ have gone over to the Christian Church. Why not send young
men to South Africa to convert the white people there and teach them to take the
responsibility of carrying the gospel to the heathen of their own country? The
minimum need at present on the Rhodesian field appears to be: A Normal School.
Two qualified young men to teach graduates from our mission schools so that as
they learn to teach they may be kept under Bible teachers and out of schools
that tend to break down all that we have been building up for years. A Girl’s
School. Two young women, one a trained teacher and the other a nurse, to teach
the girls how to live better in their villages and to get them away from the
heathen teachings which regard per`sonal habits and children, and to make them
fit wives for Christian men. A Printing Press. A press to have readable tracts
on hand to distribute to the book'reading native in the village so that ne may
know the truth and may be used to get the truth to others. A Preacher to the
Whites. Paul went to the trade centers of Europe and Asia and preached to the
better classes of people who in turn took the Gospel throughout their countries
so that within thirty years the whole world had heard the Word. We need at least
one young man to go to one of the cities of South Africa and spy out the ground.
A Suggestion. There are bright young people who want to serve their Lord and
humanity. Study medicine, surgery, dentistry, etc., with the idea of going to
some out-obthe way place as a mission' ary of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is a great encouragement to the workers in Africa to have $428.21 for the
printing press which wasgiven by Abilene Christian College and the Christian
people who attended the Lectureship.

Also it is a great pleasure to state here that J. D. Bales, a graduate of
Harding College and a young preacher of excellent qualifications, has
volunteered for work in the cities of South Africa. Myrtle Rowe, who has been a
teacher in Harding College for several years, goes next year to Africa in
connection with the girl’s school. Alvin Hobby and Carroll Cannon mean to take
over the normal school work. For all of which “we thank God and take courage.”

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. How large is Africa? Compare it with the United
States in size, population, education, and living conditions. 2. Who are the
workers there of the churches of Christ? When did the last new missionary go to
Rhodesia? When are more expected? How many more are needed? 3. What can be done
to use the converted “boys” there, the white population, and the opportunities
already at hand? 4. What are the immediate needs of the present field in Africa?
5. What can our church and our elders do about it? What can our young people do
to train for such service?


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 18: THE POPULOUS NORTHEAST
========================================================================

The Populous Northeast The Populous Northeast P. D. WlLMETH 55 Powell Avenue,
Rockville Center, NY. The New Testament is a missionary book, breathing that
spirit on every page. It is sat`urated and honeycombed from the song of the
Angels on the Judean Hills to the last pages of Revelation. (See Luke 2:10 f;
John 10:16; Matthew 28:18 fF; Mark 16:15-16; Acts 1:8 f; Acts 8:1, etc.) The
missionary spirit is germane to the life of any church, of any individual; it is
the militant, conquering spirit of each. It is the essential function and life
of the church. These are beautiful platitudes and easily said, but a statement
by our Lord adds zest and inspiration to the hearts of men when they read, “. .
. Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to
harvest.” (John 4:35.) There is something about a seething, congested,
metropolitan area that makes one feel the words of our Master when it was said,
“He had compassion on the multitudes.” (Matthew 14:14.) For all practical
purposes we shall think of the “Populous Northeast” under three captions,
namely, The Scope, The Obstacles, and The Methods of Approach.

I. THE SCOPE It is almost beyond the imagination of any one to conceive just how
many of the polyglot population of the world have never heard of primitive
Christianity in our own nation. The Northeastern part of the United States is
that portion of the world. If one should de`fine a line from the city of Chicago
to the southeast to Cincinnati, thence to Richmond, Virginia, and on to the
Atlantic seaboard, one would begin to visualize the immensity of this particular
field. In this section are such cities as Detroit, Chicago, Washington,
Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, and many other smaller cities
too numerous to mention. But in the aforenamed cities we have very few churches.
Detroit has more than any of them, Chicago ranking next, and Washington, D. C.,
next. There are a few disciples meet`ing in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston.
New York City has a congregation of less than a hundred meeting in Manhattan. In
the entire state of New York there is not a single congregation strong enough to
support a minister for full time. There is not a single building in all the city
of New York that churches of Christ can call their own. In New Jersey the case
is still more acute. There is a small building (paid for) in Tabernacle, New
Jersey, a small rural village. So far as this scribe is informed, this is the
only church build`ing in all of New Jersey. There are a few groups meeting in
the states of New Jersey, New York, Maine, and eastern Pennsylvania. Ohio, West
Virginia, eastern Pennsylvania, and adjacent communities to Detroit, Chicago,
and the southern states are not quite so virgin. All of this represents a
population of possibly one-fourth to one-third the entire population of the
United States. We have barely touched this on the outer edges, and have made
little or no indenture on the fields already white unto the harvest.

II. THE OBSTACLES Many and varied are the difficulties attending work in a
virgin field such as this. Distances present a very pronounced problem in such
places as New York, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and other cities of even less
population. At present the nucleus of a new work may be scattered for miles and
in different directions to the central place of worship. This at least provides
a fruitful field for cottage prayer meetings or Bible classes. Indifference is
another obstacle, pe`culiar to every field, but especially to those areas where
the lust for pleasures, and love of monev have become the propelling attitudes.
Modernism has played its part, and is one of the Devil’s most subtle weapons.
Preachers in the denominational world have taught their followers to believe the
Bible in “spots,” and so those tainted with that germ accept or reject the Bible
at random. This is modern infidelity. Another very grave difficulty is the lack
of places to meet for worship. Although a house of worship is not essential to
worship, a place is. We read with delight of the church which met in the house
of Caesar, or Aquilla and Priscilla, but they never grew much until they had
permanent places of worship, and neither do we. The place of worship need not be
extravagant or gaudy, but at least in keeping with the surrounding community.
Possibly one of the greatest difficulties of our modern day is the lack of zeal
to prosecute the Lord’s command to “GO.”

III. THE METHODS Methods in this section will vary. What will work in one place
will not necessarily work in another. The methods used by our Mas`ter will adapt
themselves at almost any place tried. Personal Work was his primary method. He
taught much, but seldom preached. It was not by accident that he was addressed,
respected, and revered as1 a teacher. This method can be used very effectively.
Those in various walks of life who come to sections where the church is weak, or
is not established, can begin at once to build up a congregation. This may be
slow at first, but it can be done. One of the best methods is for one, two, or
three congregations to select a field where there is a possibility of a work,
select a man, send him for a period of years, until a definite task is
completed, and then give publicity to it. It is the firm conviction of this
scribe that no work can be of much permanent value, or attract many outsiders
without a building. Tracts, letters, periodicals, books, and materials designed
for the untaught can be dis`tributed. Above all else there must be that
determination and ?eal to see the Lord’s work prosper and grow before we will
conquer this field. It will be slow and take many years, but let us not “grow
weary in well doing.”

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Give the approximate population of seven great
cities of the Northeast. 2. What is the approximate area of the Northeast?
Compare it with Texas, Colorado, and California. 3. Describe the people that
form this population. 4. What are their activities and interests?, What is their
attitude toward religion and the church? ?. What per cent of the population are
members of churches of Christ (New Testament type of the church)? 6. What
difficulties are there for evangelizing the populous Northeast? What
encouragements? What ways and means do you suggest for its evangelization? 7.
What can your congregation do about it? What can you do?


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 19: THE EXTENSIVE NORTHWEST
========================================================================

The Extensive Northwest The Extensive Northwest W. Don Hockaday P. O. Box 833,
Billings, Montana The Northwest includes the eight extensive states: Montana,
Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, North and South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Montana
has nine small congregations with a total of about 171 members. These are mostly
rural and scattered at different points. Wyom`ing has two small congregations.
There are about forty members in these two congregations. I Itah has no members,
so far as I know. Since Brother J. E. Wainwright’s visit to Reno, we have a
small group, in Reno. So far as I know, this represents the state of Nevada.
North Dakota is represented by a few members near Crosby. South Dakota has 15 or
20 members at Huron. Minnesota has three small congregations with a total of
about 18 members. Wisconsin has six small congrega`tions with a total of about
81 members. I had a letter several years ago from a sister saying that there was
a large congregation at La`Crosse, Wisconsin, but Brother Ottinger, who has done
a great deal of work in Wisconsin, did not seem to know about it. The attitude
of the people, as it appears to me, is illustrated by the two instances I will
relate. During one meeting, I was holding, we had a 16-inch snow. I was talking
to a man on the street about the snow and its benefits and he was especially
friendly. I told him about the meeting and invited him to attend. He immediately
seemed to me to freeze into stone. The other day, I was trying to get a lot on
which to stretch our tent for the meeting soon to be held by Brother Roy
Cogdill. I asked a lady, who owned a certain lot, and in the conversation told
her what I wanted with it. She immediately said, “I can keep you from having it
there if I want to.” She also said that this was the attitude of the neighbors.
Of course, there are noble exceptions to this, but this will give you an idea of
the attitude toward the simple gospel of Christ.

It would be my suggestion that in this mission work we should build with an idea
of permanence. I do not think that a man is apt to establish a congregation in a
two- or three-weeks meetings that will remain. A congregation is established in
these raw fields on the same principle that a woodpecker builds his nest. He
keeps pecking in the same place until he has a nest and we must keep preaching
in the same place until a church is established. When you select a field to
fellowship in mission work, stay with that field and let the missionary know
that you intend to stay with him with your prayers and fellowship. When a man
enters a field of this kind, one of his greatest diffi-culties is a place to
meet. We should have as well equipped meeting houses as the sects. In driving to
Sheridan, Wyoming, I passed through a little town where there were several
Indians. There were several buildings, the sign was painted in front, “The
Indian Mission.” In Sheridan, a certain denomination had two preachers come
here; they erected a temporary enclosed tabernacle. I did not go inside, but I
am sure arrangements had been made for heat. They had leased ground for six
months. A thirty-minute daily radio broadcast is held by these preachers. If a
missionary could have a building belonging to the church to give the idea of
permanence, it seems to me that it would be one of the greatest assets he could
have. Then if he could have an operating fund, so that when he needed something
badly, he would not have to send out an S.O.S. call and wait the good time of
the churches to do what was needed to be done.

I wish I could draw a map to present the next idea. There is a main highway
running across the state of Montana from east to west on the south side of the
state. A main line of the railroad runs oarab lei to this highway. This highway
and railroad run through Spokane, Washington. There is a good church there.
Between there and Bil`lings on this highway are the larger towns, Missoula,
Butte, and Boze`man. Then southward, across the state of Wyoming is another
highway. On this highway are the larger towns, Sheridan, Casper, Chey`enne,
Wyoming, and then Denver. I am sure you see the picture connecting these larger
towns. Brother Charles L. Johnson is soon to be in Sheridan for regular work.
Brethren, why cannot this connect`ing link be made?

Cannot the home preacher select with the help of the elders a cer`tain needy
field and interest the home congregation in that field? May he not urge that
that field be part of the regular budget of that church? Is not a budget that
does not have a needy field as a part of that budget, lopsided, when the Lord
says, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation?”
During the late war the government filled the boys and the people at home with a
tremendous enthusiasm to win the war. Cannot the home church become filled with
enthusiasm to win the world for Christ? It has been said, “The flock at home
must be fed and tended; the work at home must be vig`orously prosecuted; but
that is too small a thing to constitute the chief work of the church.”

I wonder how much of the world could be evangelized with the money that we
Christians waste? Should we not be willing to keep books with the Lord and spend
more to reach after souls in regions that know not the true gospel than we
waste? Question: Would not a little more plain living and large giving better
become those whose first question is not, what shall we eat? what shall we
drink? or wherewith shall we be clothed? but what can I do to best advance the
kingdom of God?

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Which states form the great Northwest? 2. Which
state has no churches? Which ones have very few? 3. What is the attitude toward
religion and the church on the part of those living in these states? 4. What
opportunities and what difficulties do these states present? 5. What attitude
and what help should churches and Christians outside these states show toward
these states and the workers? What could even a little financial help and
prayers accomplish for this territory? 6. What fellowship can I and my church
have with this work? Which field should we choose? How much fellowship should we
have in it? Whom should we train or choose as our messenger?


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 20: THE GREAT SOUTHWEST
========================================================================

The Great Southwest The Great Southwest J. EMMETT WAINWRIGHT

Territory. The “Great Southwest” suggests to the mind Cali' fornia, Arizona and
New Mexico. El Paso, Texas, occupies an ex`treme position in the “Lone Star” and
is considered strategic when thinking about invasion of Southwest and Mexico.
Classification of Nevada and Utah may be nroblematical, but the solution may be
found by invasions from every direction! Conquered territory must be
occupied—developed!

Population. Cosmopolitan indeed! In Southern California, the East has met the
West; and, blending of Orientals and Occidentals have brought forth strange and
peculiar customs. All states are rep`resented along with representatives from
both hemispheres. The Spanish-speaking people, along the border, run into the
hundreds of thousands; most of them speak (Colloquially) Mexican and American.

Religious. Should our beloved Paul be permitted to return to this earth and
appear in Los Angeles, he would likely repeat his “Mar’s Hill” address, with an
enlargement, because of many strange altars. No doubt, he would find it
necessary to put extra emphasis on evidences: “God Is,” in order to expose the
atheist, the infidel and the agnostic. “Our own” came to the golden west looking
for “apples of gold” but evidently brought along several “lemons” of preferred
customs! Agitators were ever ready to magnify petty differences, draw imaginary
lines, erect dinky standards, and demand that all others humbly bow at their
sectarian feet! However, many honest hearts refused to suffer the “whiff.”

Enlightenment. Through long-suffering and forbearance, de-marcations caused by
misunderstanding gradually crumbled. The uninformed have been schooled, and the
misinformed have been cor`rected. A better understanding concerning law and
custom, commands and circumstances, essentials and incidentals, has ushered into
our midst enlightenment and happier days. Strong men are proclaiming the gospel
publicly and privately; and efficient teachers are mold`ing characters with
sacred truths for time and eternity. Godly men, who have been successful
business men, are liberal in their contribu`tions to every good work.

Difficulties. As the program of “Christian Education” moves forward many
difficulties disappear. Of course, progress incurs lia`bilities. Every
generation must have the “old faith restated”; and, often, each generation
should be retaught several times! Humble soul- winners, thoroughly rooted and
grounded in the truth, willing to spend and be spent for the blessed Cause of
Christ, self-forgetful with unbounded faith in the Lord’s urogram and promises,
may make in`valuable contributions in precluding difficulties. Doubt and
disbelief are not confined to the Great Southwest; racketeers have invaded uni'
versities of every nation with their question-marks.

Opportunities. Inviting doors, unusual and unique, may be ob`served on every
hand. The wide-awake child of God does not always wait for some one to open a
door, nor depend on some one to open his eyes in order to see an open door! When
the heart is characterised by love divine, the “passion for souls” not only
enables one to observe opportunities, but inspires to the point of “making new
opportu`nities.” Multiplied thousands of “strangers within our gates” can be
reached and should be reached. Thank the Lord we are not required to “convert
the world,” but to preach the gospel, to every creature and in every nation, is
a solemn duty and a sacred privilege! One hundred churches in the South could
support one hundred men in barren fields of the Southwest until the work is well
established. A commendable showing has been made in supporting work among the
colored people; why exclude the white? It is possible that the cos`mopolitan
population of the Great Southwest has encouraged us to reconsider the breadth,
height and strength of the world-wide age-last`ing commission of our Lord. We
feel near those who are laboring in foreign fields, and maintain an abiding
interest in the workers among the sinners of our home country. Difficulties of
the past were detri`mental; present activities in many good works show
improvement; the future will demand greater things for our God.

Prayer. “Father, we are thankful for the great provisions for human salvation;
may our hearts be alert to dangers which attach themselves to numerical and
financial growth; may we be preserved in gospel simplicity unto thy heavenly
kingdom, in Jesus’ Name— Amen.”

JUDEA AND SAMARIA Jesus said: “Ye shall be my witnesses unto me both in
Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the
earth.” To many of us neighbors the Great Southwest represents “all Judea,”
Mexico represents “Samaria” and all Spanish America represents “the uttermost
part of the earth.” A beginning has already been made in this respect. There are
Mexican churches of Christ in Abilene, Texas, Sweetwater, El Paso, Dallas, Ft.
Worth and San Antonio besides other members scattered in other places such as
Sonora and Sinton. The brethren of Los Angeles—which has a great`er Mexican
population than any other city except Mexico City—are already making a beginning
with the Mexican work. The brethren of Tampa, Fla., have sent a missionary to
Cuba; the churches of the Southwest are debtors in a very special way to Mexico
and all South America. Think of our opportunities there!

Missionary workers among the Mexicans include Brothers Jesse G. Gill, John F.
Wolfe, H. R. Zamorano, Juan Longoria, Jcse Dias, J. W. Treat, H. L. Schug.
Brother Schug was the pioneer in this field and all the workers have been
fostered or inspired by Abilene Christian College. Likewise the marvelous
development and growth of the church along the Pacific coast is largely due to
the efforts of alumni of the college. The contributions of this college and
Harding Cob lege and David Lipscomb College and other Christian schools and cob
leges to the foreign field and neglected fields at home have been so great that
we can hardly imagine what the extent of the cause would be today without them.
May these schools grow yearly in power and influence and consecration to the
Lord! May they serve the church, more faithfully from year to year!

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Which states present excellent opportunities for
evangelism in the great Southwest? 2. Of what peoples and customs are the
population? 3. What is their religious condition? 4. What difficulties must
workers overcome in this field? 5. What opportunities does this field offer? 6.
What fellowship can I and my congregation have in this field?


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 21: THE RELIGIOUS SOUTHEAST
========================================================================

The Religious Southeast The Religious Southeast I. L. SOHUG Abilene Christian
College, Abilene, Texas

There are some very interesting and corn' mendable similarities between the
history of the church in the Southeast and the account of the New Testament
Church, ihe New Testament Church started m the East, in Jerusalem, moved North
and West (through Galatia, Macedonia, Italy and on to the West); the Restoration
movement started in the. East, extended to the North and West. The early church
had capable elders that could direct the work of the local congregations, thus
allowing their best evangelists to go out to virgin territory and establish new
churches; many of the churches of the Southeast are still following that
excellent scriptural example,—may we all resolve to do so in the future.

There are still some sections not thoroughly evangelised, such as in Eastern
Virginia (just as the New Testament Church apparently did not extend eastward),
but the greatest opportunities of extending the church in the Southeast is “with
the African at our door,” as Brother McCaleb puts it. We read 1n the New
Testament that the Jewish Christians aided the Grecian widows and then that the
breth' ren in Greece and in Macedonia aided the brethren in Jerusalem. Our
brethren in the Southeast likewise are following the scriptural model when the
white and colored brethren help each other. Brother McCaleb writes:

“It is truly gratifying to see the lively interest many of the white brethren
are taking in the African in their midst and to see the interest the colored
people, are taking in themselves. This is not only scriptural but according to
common sense. If we send missionaries to Africa, which I most heartily approve,
why not be equally jealous to preach to their brethren in our midst? Not only so
but by the special advantages of the. Africans in America they should soon be
sending from their own numbers men full of faith and the Holy Spirit to
enlighten their fellows in Africa. The only way we can keep the blessing of
light and salvation is by passing it on to those who have it not.” Two other
great future fields for our colored brethren are the colored population of Cuba
and Brasil, the majority population in each case.

Among the white brethren wdio have aided are Brothers B. C. Goodpasture, A. M.
Burton and G. C. Brewer. Among the colored evangelists ate Brothers Alexander
Campbell, Marshall Reeble, A. L. Cassius, Luke Miller and W. M. Whitaker. A more
extended account of this very important work can be read in the May, 1937, issue
of World Vision. Brother Keeble reports that he himself has baptised more than
20,000 into Christ. There are one hundred and fifty-seven colored churches in
the United States of which he knows, and the work is growing to the glory of God
and the blessing of mankind. Brother Keeble has furnished the following list of
colored churches:

Tennessee 36 Alabama 29 Florida 26 Texas 20 Georgia 14 Oklahoma 9 Kentucky 6
California 4 Missouri 4 Chicago, Colorado, Indiana, 2 each; Arizona, Kansas, New
Mexico, one each. The oldest church, according to Brother Keeble’s report, was
established in 1870 near Tuscumbia. The work still continued slowly through the
’90’s. Over one hundred churches have been established since 1920. The progress
already made is great and commendable but the opportunities ahead are much
greater yet, and so are our responsibilities. Think of the millions yet
unconverted right at our door. Let us go on with the work!

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What parallels can be drawn between the history of
the church in the Southeast and the history of the New Testament church in the
times of the apostles? 2. What are the greatest opportunities for the extension
of the church in the Southeast? 3. What is, approximately, the negro population
of the Southeast? 4. Name some of the negro evangelists. 5 Can your church
cooperate in such a work? If so, in what way? 6. The Gospel went out from
Jerusalem but did not stay there; the church was once very strong and active and
pure at Rome, but is not so today. What may we do and must we do in order that
the Southeast, where the Restoration movement first started, may not follow in
the steps of Jerusalem and Rome? 7. What may your church and mine do, and what
may we do individually, to keep the church in the Southeast and in our own home
from becoming inactive and unscriptural?


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  CHAPTER 22: WOMEN WORKERS IN FOREIGN FIELDS
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Women Workers In Foreign Fields Women Workers in Foreign Fields Hattie Lee Ewing
Shizuoa, Japan The fidelity of women to Jesus, their great benefactor and
friend, during His three years’ ministry and at the cross and sepulcher, should
be enough to inspire women of all ages to give their hearts and lives in service
to Him. Not only while Christ lived upon the earth were women prominent in
service for Him. The books of the New Testa`ment give us many examples of their
influence and of their work in the growth of the church.

Dorcas was a woman of good deeds. We do not know whether she was a widow or a
single woman. It seems that in this revelation concerning her work God deemed it
sufficient for us to know that her “good deeds” made her a woman greatly loved
in her community. Lydia, the first convert to Christ on the European con`tinent,
asked the apostles to abide in her house if they judged her to be faithful. We
know enough about this woman to understand that she obeyed God. It is likely
that her house was the worship place for some time for the Christians of
Philippi. Yet we do not know wheth`er she had a husband, or whether or not she
had children. The Word of God suggests to us no questions whatever as to whether
or not she should be a Christian worker, or if her time was given too much to
her own household to accomplish any good for the Master’s cause. Yet today
people who wish to drop whatever hint or suggestion they may to hinder the
church from supporting missionaries on foreign soil, will say that married women
have too much to do educating their own children, therefore cannot accomplish
anything in aiding their husbands in church work.

Priscilla in her culture and ability was an expounder of the truth with her
husband in correcting and guiding into all truth the gospel preacher, Apollos.
What else did this woman have to do? Did she have a family? Did she aid her
husband daily in teaching the gospel as they made tents and talked with those
who came about? God tells us enough. By His word we know that she taught, not as
a public proclaimer of the gospel, but that she taught in a place and in a wa>
that pleased God. Let’s remember her as an example. Her record is not to
emphasise that she was married, but that she taught. When Paul commended to the
Roman church his sister Phoebe he mentions no one with her. He does not suggest
that this woman go- mg to that great pagan city might be misjudged by the pagan
minds of that land, as is sometimes suggested by some, of our modern critics.
Neither did Paul caution the leaders of the church in Rome, to watch Phoebe and
guard her lest she not knowing her sphere, might go be`yond and attempt to do
the work not given tor women to do. It seems that Paul knew her to be a true
convert of Christ, well taught in gospel truth, and that she knew well what work
was there for her to do, and that she could do “all things in Him who
strengthened.” In such women as Philip’s four \irgin daughters who prophesied—
’spoke for God”—and those women mentioned by Paul, Tryphena, Tryphosa, Persis,
Julia and the sisters of Nercus, no time nor space is given to quibble about
their state of life nor their right to do service. The Holy Spnit wrote by the
pen of Paul only words of commenda`tion for them.

Women today who go out to the far away fields to do gospel teaching do so with a
clear understanding that their work out there is to be just what the woman’s
wrork is in the church in America, just what it was in Priscilla’s day, in the
time of Dorcas and others whom God has named for our examples. They go out to
meet the needs of the people in those lands in certain “good works” where a
woman’s help is needed. Both the manied woman and the single woman out there
are. doing what the woman .should do ami nothing more. God has not made any
distinction between the “good works” a married woman can do and the “good works”
a single woman can do. Many of them are aiding the sick both in ministering to
their physical need and in telling the gospel story. Sister Bixler has done much
in teach`ing Japanese women who needed her helping hand in their distress. Miss
Sarah Andrews sat by the bedside of Mrs. Murakami and told her the blessed story
just before her death, and she was blessed to see the little Japanese, woman
confess her Lord and be buried with Him in baptism before she passed into the
great beyond. 1 his is only one ex`ample of many, many who have hungered to know
rhe truth and have in a quiet personal way been told it by a good woman. The
women on the foreign fields teach the. native wromen how to better dress and
feed themselves and their families. Especially is there a crying need among the
Africans for such work. Without rhe work of the wives and daughters of our
missionaries in Africa, that work would not be done efficiently. Our women in
Japan and other fields are conducting Sunday school classes for children, daily
kindergartens where they supervise native Christian women as they teach the
chil`dren. They also conduct Bible classes for native women and in their
personal teaching give much guidance which aids in the development of our Bible
teachers among the natives. The kindergarten offers great opportunities for both
the training of children and the opening of doers to heathen homes where the
gospel preacher may go in and teach. The most outstanding work of this type done
by a woman is that of Miss Lillie Cypert. She has specialised in it for some
fifteen years and her kindergartens meet government demands, and at the same
time are being taught by Chris`tian women whom Sister Cypert supervises. Her
influence then is to see that the native teachers are able to teach the Bible
daily to those children, and to meet the parents, help them in their problems
and to gain their friendship in order that they will come to hear the gospel.
The Japanese preacher of the gospel located in her town has the over`sight of
the church work, and he and other male members do all that should be done in
public service, while she and the preacher’s wife and women teachers do the work
among the women and children. In my own field in southern Japan the work has
always been opened by a Japanese preacher and his wife, and I have joined them
to do my part. Though I have not done kindergarten work, I aid them in
Children's Bible classes in several localities. Sister Takaoka (wife of the
preacher) joins me in teaching daily classes for women and girls. As there is a
demand in Japan for teaching them how to make Western style clothing we devote
some time to this as a channel for making contact, and with these classes we
teach the Bible, give out tracts, and when a woman is interested enough we give
her a Testa`ment to take to her home for study. Together she and I visit the
sick, help the needy when we can, and go to funerals to express our sym`pathy.
Her husband joins us in this personal work when he is free from his own work of
study and preaching and visiting.

One phase of the work which I have loved to do, although many of the
missionaries drift away from it as they get more into the native language, is to
conduct Bible classes in the English language. In my own house, seated at a
table where a few young men and women of college age will come, eager to hear
and speak English, which they study in school, together we read the Bible in
English and exchange questions and answers. There is no public teaching here,
but only a quiet study hour in a class room of my own home where a few sit in
round-table discussion. Even in such a work as this the preacher and his wife
are present, together with the elderly widow who lives with me. If prayer is
offered before or after study, Brother Takaoka leads it for us, and when a
question hard to answer arises, he explains it in the native language. The
English Bible class thus becomes a channel through which souls are lead to hear
the gospel.

Many examples might be given of woman’s work as it is being ‘ done in the far
mission fields today, but you would find them to be the same type of work which
the women are doing in the homeland.

If all of us would wish to get to work and do what we can for the Master’s
Kingdom, we would soon cease to be critics, and would be-come zealous workers.
We would soon see His kingdom, the Church of Christ, spreading surely and
unitedly to “all the world. Then we might see the Prince of Peace ruling in the
hearts of man. Then we could rejoice together and instead of always wishing to
question a woman for doing her part, we would say with the Christ, “She hath
done what she could.”

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What examples of women workers do we find in the New
Testament? What work did they do? 2. Is woman’s work in foreign lands
essentially different from woman’s work in the church in the homeland? 3. What
work in foreign lands can women do under the supervision of the church, that
would not and could not be done unless they did it? 4. Can you see how heathen
women in foreign lands could not know of woman’s place and responsibility in the
church and Christian homes if there were not women workers, both married and
unmarried, on: the foreign field? 5. What women workers do you know of in the
various fields?


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  CHAPTER 23: SATAN IS ANTI-MISSIONARY
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Satan Is Anti-Missionary Satan Is Anti-Missionary R. C. Bell No matter how Satan
originated, he, throughout the entire Bible, is the powerful, perpetual enemy of
God. And especially when God begins a new work is Satan, hoping to destroy it
before it gains mo`mentum, active against it. Witness the tragedy m Eden, the
tempta`tion of Christ in the wilderness, and, after he had failed with Christ
personally, his unrelenting opposition to Christ’s infant church. He bitterly
contested every inch of ground the church gained from the very first. In
Jerusalem, after failing to stop the preaching of the apostles by threats,
imprisonment and by scourging, he changed his tactics and struck from within,
filling the heart of Ananias to lie to God. (Acts 5:3.) When Christ overruled
Stephen’s martyrdom to Satan’s confusion and started the church on its way to
the uttermost parts of the earth, Satan followed to Samaria and found another
hu`man agent in Simon the sorcerer. (Acts 8.) When Christ put to sea and went to
the island of Cyprus, the home of one of Satan’s most efficient agents (Venus,
whose worship was most wicked and licen`tious), Satan used his son, Bar-Jesus,
to interfere. (Acts 13:10.) When Christ’s church in her Christian Odyssey
reached the shores of Europe, Satan, although fighting a consistently losing
war, used the girl with a spirit of divination in a desperate effort to keep
Christ out of Europe. (Acts 16.)

Satan, “the prince of this world,” was defeated in the first Christian century;
but he was not captured, and he has continued the struggle wfith Christ down
through, the centuries. He is sagacious and changes his weapons as occasion
requires, even unto fashioning “himself into an angel of light.” He learned long
since a better way to make war on Christ and His saints than to use fire and
sw’ord. If in the twentieth century he can exceedingly curtail the missionary
activity of the first century, not by bloody persecution, but by induc`ing
Christians to be just selfishly indifferent about such work, it is all the same
to him. Verily, “our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the
principalities, against rhe powers, against the world rulers of this darkness,
against the spiritual hosts of wicked`ness in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians
6:2.) “Be sober, be watchful; your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion,
walketh about, seeking whom he may devour; whom withstand steadfast in your
faith ” (1 Peter 5:8.) In this world-old controversy between God and Satan,
whose side are we on? Neutrality is impossible. “He that is not vfith me is
against me,” saith the Lord.

Lite appalling neglect of missionary work, the chief purpose and end of the
Church of Christ on earth, among us today surely is the result of Satan’s
doings. Can it be that he is blinding our eyes? He cannot deceive us about
baptism and the Lord’s Supper, as he is doing the denominational world, but may
it not suit his purpose just as well to deceive us about something else? If he
can defeat the divine will and destroy human souls, what does he care about the
way in which he does it? Of course he does not want Christ to start new work now
in Mexico, the pagan Orient, or anywhere else. Indeed, nothing suits him better
than to keep simple New Testament Christians (?) and their money within a
comparatively small district of our South. The church of God is now and always
has been engaged in a desperate struggle for her very life with the Devil, and
it helps her to prepare and to fight successfully to know who her enemy is.
Moreover it helps in like manner to know the ways and means he uses in waging
this war. Else she may fight as “beating the air.”


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  CHAPTER 24: PRAYER OF A MISSIONARY HEART
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Prayer of a Missionary Heart Prayer of a Missionary Heart

Lord, help me know the urgent need For reapers in the field today, To gather
grain or sow the seed; Lord, help me kneel and pray. When others with thy word
depart, That dying souls may learn and live, Help me with them to hear a part—
Lord, help me give and give.

And as I see with vision clear, Where fields of white are bending low— At home,
abroad, or far or near, Lord, help me rise and go.

0, touch my lips with cleansing flame, And may my humbled heart reply With faith
and love in Jesus’ name, “0, Master, here am I.”

—Chas. R. Brewer


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Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/abilene1937-lectures/
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