A third result will be this: we will be reaching out and winning men in all the rest of the world by our spirit-touch. You may be in some African fastness or in the midst of China"s age-old civilization or just here at home, but you can be exerting a tremendous spirit-power that can be felt out to the ends of the earth.
It will all be in the Name of Jesus. It will be in the power of the Holy Spirit. Only in that Name and through the Spirit can such winning influence be exerted at all. So a man can have spirit-touch with the man by his side. And just as truly he can have spirit-touch with men at the farthest reach of the earth.
There is a spirit influence going out from each of us in addition to that which goes through the direct personal touch. It is not a conscious influence. That is, we are not concsious that it is being exerted. It goes out from us as we pray. It goes out of us as our thought is centered on those far-away parts and peoples. Its strength will depend on the strength of one"s personality.
We are familiar with the fact that a man of strong personality has a greater influence upon his fellows whom he touches directly than a weaker man has. It is just the same with regard to one"s spirit-touch. The stronger and keener and purer I may become, the more I know of the self-mastery which comes through Jesus-mastery, the greater force can I exert as a winner of men, both by direct touch and by spirit-touch.
Will you kindly come up nearer in spirit, as we close our talk together, and let me ask softly: Have we given the free use of ourselves to the Master? Are we growing ourselves into bigger-sized, finer-grained, better-controlled men and women daily? For the Master is depending on us.
He is counting much on having the use of us. He can reach out to the very ends of the earth through each one of us. May we not fail Jesus!
Jesus
Jesus Draws Men.
Jesus Draws Out the Best.
Many Doors, but One Purpose.
Make It a Story.
How Peter Told Paul.
"A More Excellent Way."
Jesus
Jesus Draws Men.
The great heart-magnet is G.o.d. No one is so winsomely attractive as He.
His winning power is beyond any other. Man is winsome. But it is because G.o.d made him winsome, and re-makes him yet more winsome. He gave him a bit of His own self. That"s the secret of all our human winsomeness.
Now Jesus is G.o.d to us. We know G.o.d only as we know Jesus. Jesus is the heart of G.o.d beating in time and tune with human hearts. n.o.body is so winsome as Jesus. All the native winsomeness of man and all the divine winsomeness of G.o.d combine and blend in Him. He has always drawn men to Himself. And He still does, and always will.
He drew men of all cla.s.ses when He was down here. The reverent star-students of far-away Babylon were drawn to His birth by a compelling they could not resist. He drew the thoughtful, scholarly men of His own nation, such as Nicodemus of the inner, highest circle. And He drew military officials of high rank and wealth in the service of imperial Rome. By the same power the half-breed, despised Samaritans and the earnest seekers after truth from cultured Greece were drawn to Him.
The plain farmer people of Galilee, and the hardy fisherfolk, and hard-handed laboring-men came as eagerly to him. He drew the pure, fine grained, gentle Mary of Bethany, with her unusual keenness of spirit insight; and drew as well the unnamed outcast woman, steeped in sin, who was forgiven much, and who loved much, and so gave much.
Practical hard-headed men of sharp bargains and shrewd trading, like Matthew, felt His pull upon their hearts equally with men of pure heart and lofty ideals like Nathanael. By special effort, for a special purpose He drew high-bred, high-strung, scholarly, intense Paul, out of his mad enmity into a lifelong devotion.
The crowds came until His daily routine and ministering help were repeatedly and seriously interrupted. And strong men sought Him alone to lay bare the longings and questionings of their hearts. His Roman judge felt the strange winsomeness of His presence and speech, though lacking in the courage to follow his convictions regarding Him. And the Roman officer in charge of His execution was forced to admit the power of His presence.
All the world gathered about His cross. Representatives from all parts, in large numbers, were at the Jerusalem feast; and on that morning, by common consent, they were drawn out to the place where He hung.
He even drew the arch-tempter. He came with his subtlest temptations, and bitterest enmity, and most malignant cunning. Could there be greater evidence, by contrast, of the drawing power of His purity and goodness and steadfast devotion to His mission?
Jesus Draws Out the Best.
And Jesus had the power to draw out of men the best there was in them.
Possibilities, traits, and powers that neither they nor their friends supposed they had came out into strong life under the spell of His touch.
There seemed to be something in Him that drew the same sort of thing out of them.
Out of Simon, the hot-headed, impulsive fisherman, He drew the steady man of rock. Out of fiery John, the son of thunder, He drew the man of tender, strong love. And out of quiet, retiring Andrew He drew a man with a reputation for bringing others to Jesus.
He drew out of the Sychar outcast a sense of her sin, and then a winner of souls; and out of that other woman of open sin, a longing for purity that paved the way to all else that came. Under His compelling touch there came out of the blind-born man a willingness to sacrifice all for such a Master; and out of James, the other son of thunder, a courage to endure suffering that men had not known he had.
That was when He was down here, a man. And ever since that fleecy cloud received Him out of sight He has been drawing men of all the world. And time would as utterly fail me, as it did the writer of the Hebrews, if I tried to tell of the men He has drawn. Men of every rank, high and low, in every nation, savage and civilized, in every generation of all these centuries have felt the thrill of His power. And they have followed Him at the cost of all that men hold most dear.
And He is just the same to-day. He is as available now in all His drawing power wherever men meet, in city slum and savage wild, in college hall and business street, among the philosophical and cultured, and among the ignorant and untrained. If we will take Him to them, and let Him out through our lips and lives, He will draw men up the heights. He can draw against any power of downward suction, and He will. He promised to draw men, if lifted up. And He has never failed to do it.
Now, it is this drawing Jesus that men need and want. There is an enormous advantage in taking Jesus to men, because there is a something inside men everywhere that responds to Jesus. That something may be choked and covered up, crowded down and fought against, as it is. But it is there.
When you take Jesus to a man you may know that you are taking a supply to a demand. You are bringing a man the answer to his heart"s questions. It is as the coming together of two parts that belong together, but have been held apart by some hindrance.
That hindrance is stubborn. It has to be fought. It can be overcome.
That"s the chief task. Then the part in man that answers to Jesus eagerly fits into its place in Him. That coming together is always blessed, beyond words. Everywhere men of all sorts and ranks and degrees of savagery and culture eagerly respond to Him. And they declare that they find in Him the full answer to their deepest longings.
Many Doors, but One Purpose.
It is this marvellous magnet, Jesus, that we are to take to men; not theology, nor education, nor medical skill, nor hospitals, nor industrial helps, except incidentally. These are the tin cup which one is glad to use to give the thirsty traveller water from the spring.
You will understand at once that I have no thought of criticizing theology or of discrediting it, if I could. It has its place. But that place is not out in the thick of the crowd, but back in the quiet hall of study. There must be thorough study and systematic putting together of the truth. There needs to be patient plodding and mental drilling.
You have no need to be told of the immeasurable value of the splendid foundation building of Christian scholars. But this is school work, in the main. It is to make us better workmen. So a man gets his bearings and poise. But the people down in the dust and drive of the crowd don"t want theology. They want Jesus. It is striking that everywhere men want to hear about Jesus.
Educational work has played an indispensably great part in the scheme of missions. But the purpose of it, of course, is to make an open door for the entrance of Jesus into men"s lives. It is invaluable in itself alone, regardless of any other purpose. But the teacher of any sort of learning in the mission school, who is chiefly absorbed in the teaching itself instead of using it as a means to something higher, is missing the whole purpose of his work.
And what words can be used strong enough in speaking of the blessed work of medical men in foreign-mission lands? These skilled, patient, faithful men and women in hospital and dispensary and private service are doing a work of incalculable value. It should be done even if the bodily results were all. But the underlying purpose through it all is to lead men to know Jesus. And no one has such a short, quick road into a man"s heart as he who can relieve his body.
These things are doorways into men"s lives; and great doorways, too. They are well worth all the money and lives expended if they went no farther than body and mind and better conditions. But the main purpose in them is to find a way into men"s hearts, and take in Jesus; that so men may get the greater as well as the less.
Make it a Story.
Now, how shall we best tell men of Jesus? Well, the modern newspaperman"s rule in his work is this: "Make it a story." This is his leading rule in all his writing work. Whatever the occasion may be, whether a meeting of scholars or an accident on the street, it is to be put into story-form.