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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/norman-crawford/assembly-gospel-testimony/
You'll notice the scriptures on the outline begin with Mark's gospel chapter 16 and we're reading at verse 15 of Mark chapter 16. And he said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
He that believeth in his baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. The gospel of Matthew now please for the parallel passage. Chapter 28 of Matthew's gospel. Verse 16,. Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.
And when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, 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, unto the end of the age. Acts now chapter 1 please. Verse 6,. When they were therefore come together, they asked him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?
And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times, and that has to do with Gentile nations, or the seasons, and that has to do with the Jewish nation, which the Father hath put in his own power.
But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you. And ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
May God bless the reading of his word to us, and what we will try to say about it tonight. Last night we spoke of the assembly's dependence upon the Holy Spirit, and we pointed out that in an assembly, the government of the assembly is raised up by the Spirit of God, and the gifts in the assembly are given and function according to the Spirit's power.
And priesthood in an assembly is an operation of the Holy Spirit moving upon hearts to produce worship and scriptural intercession to God. And actually tonight we haven't left the subject of our dependence on the Holy Spirit.
The local church, and we use the word assembly because, not because the word church has anything wrong with it, but because it has such wrong uses in the religious world. Because the church never refers to a building, never to an organization.
It always refers either to the spiritual body or to a local assembly, a local company of believers. And so when we use the word assembly, we are using a more literal translation of the Greek word ekklesia, which is the word for church in the New Testament, found 115 times in it.
So in an assembly, we are dependent upon the Holy Spirit for government. We are dependent upon him for gift. We are dependent upon him for the function of priesthood. But we certainly are dependent on him for our gospel testimony.
And that's the subject of the meeting tonight, the assembly gospel testimony. The first scripture on the outline is 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, which we did not read. I trust you're familiar with those words.
Paul is writing to those believers that he had seen saved in that city of Thessalonica. And he said, from you sounded out the word of the Lord in Macedonia and Achaia. And of course even further afield so that everywhere their faith had been given testimony to and was effective.
Now tonight, very simply, I have divided up the subject as you'll see if you look at your outline. The gospel mandate, the gospel messenger, the gospel might, the motives, the models, the message, and the methods.
And that may help you. It may help me to keep in some order. Now the mandate we read tonight in Mark chapter 16, go ye therefore and preach the gospel to every creature. Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
The three commissions given by the Lord in Mark 16 and verse 15, and in Matthew chapter 28 and verse 19, and in Acts 1 and verse 8 are all distinct. In the gospel of Mark the emphasis is go and preach.
In the gospel of Matthew the emphasis is go and make disciples. In the book of the Acts the emphasis is ye shall be witnesses unto me. Ye shall testify of me. Now the full commission of course does not only include the salvation of souls.
It's much more. And the passage in Matthew is very helpful. Not only are disciples to be made of all nations, but they are to be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
And then they are to be taught all things whatsoever I have commanded you, the Lord said. So the full commission is to win souls and to baptize believers and to teach the all things of the Word of God.
And there are some who have the notion that evangelism stops when sinners are told how to be saved and are brought to trust Christ for salvation. But the commission of the Lord Jesus goes much further than that and involves the baptizing of believers and the teaching of believers the ways of God.
Now I'm certain you know that when it comes to the assembly testimony that an assembly is made up of individuals. And it is every individual in the assembly who is an independent testimony. And it is the aggregate of those independent testimonies that make up the testimony of the local assembly.
Now the first thing of course is to live the gospel. Paul writing to the Corinthians reminded them that they were his epistle, no one in red of all men. What he was saying is we preach the gospel to you, you believed it, and now your life is proving it.
And you're a letter commending us. You're a letter proving the reality of what we are preaching. You are the result of our labor. And of course in writing like that he's referring to the life of the believers.
So the very first necessity is we must live the gospel. And if we're not living the gospel perhaps it would be better if we didn't even attempt to witness to the Savior. It might be better not to preach at all if there's no life there.
For the word recognizes reality and recognizes hypocrisy. So if we are not living what we profess then we are not a testimony to his name at all. The Lord Jesus began to do and to teach. The gospel, the book of Acts tells us.
But with us there's something else that comes in there. We have to learn first of all. And then we live. And then we are able to testify, to witness, and to preach, and to teach. Of course he did not need to learn the will of his father because he always knew it.
But he did it first and then he taught it. Now there are those who have the notion that we do not need to have a public declaration of the gospel. If I get into this subject I'm liable not to finish the outline.
But I hardly need to tell you that we believe in the public heralding, the public declaration of the gospel. Many a time in the New Testament when a believer is witnessing, the word that is used is he speaks the gospel.
But probably the best English word to translate that idea of speaking the gospel is to gossip the gospel. And a number of times in the New Testament and a number of times in the book of Acts you even have the Apostles speaking the gospel or gossiping the gospel.
And that's personal witness, that's personal testimony, that's speaking to those you work with, or perhaps even your own family that are not saved, or neighbors, or friends with whom you come in contact.
That gossiping of the gospel has been used of God from the beginning of testimony. And it is essential that we understand the importance of our personal testimony to others. But that is not all the declaration of the gospel that there is in the New Testament, because there's another word that is quite different.
It means to proclaim, it means to herald the gospel. And evangelists are given ability to herald the gospel. Whenever you read it pleases God through the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe, that preaching is the public heralding, the public proclamation.
You see in our time we have a lot of people who are working in other ways. And all of it is not bad by any means. I am not now introducing this subject to try to see if I can knock holes in someone. That is not my idea at all.
But there are many people today who say a nice little Bible study in the home is a good way to get the gospel before people. I agree 100%. That's an excellent way to reach people with the gospel message.
And if some neighbors can be brought into a home, and a Bible reading be held in the home, and a simple discussion about the way of salvation from the Bible, who could ever criticize such a thing? Thank God for every such effort.
And thank God for every believer who speaks personally to witness to the saving power of the Lord Jesus. But that is not the end of gospel testimony. It isn't enough just to be personally witnessing, or to have Bible studies in a home or anywhere else.
There is in the New Testament the declaration of the gospel of Christ. And without it, I do not believe that we are carrying out the commission. Going into all the world, Mark chapter 16 says, and declare the gospel, proclaim the gospel, herald out the gospel.
Now I know there may be some who don't even understand what the difference is between speaking the gospel and proclaiming it. But the most of us do, know that there's a vast difference. I can remember many a time when I was just a young creature, and if you'll forgive me for some personal remarks tonight, they certainly will find some place in what I have to say tonight.
I have been attempting to preach the gospel for 40 years, and I have learned a few lessons during that time. Certainly not what I should have, but I've learned some things. But I would say that I had a privilege that many a young man is denied.
At the privilege of being taken to the work of the Lord by a veteran, and I'm certain none of you will disagree with this, it is a general opinion held among assemblies in North America that Mr. McVean was one of the most gifted of men in dealing with souls.
All the young men who worked with him, including men like David Oliver, dear brother Mr. Jim Smith, and a brother that I've just been in contact with from Nova Scotia, who tells me every time he talks to me how much he appreciated the time that he spent with Mr. McVean in the gospel.
Those kind of men will all tell you that they learned more from a series of gospel meetings with Mr. McVean than they could have learned laboring for years without him or under other circumstances. And I can remember the first time, I think it was probably the first time, although this happened several times, we were visiting a person who was showing a real interest in salvation.
And Mr. McVean said to the lady, you know, what you need is to get under the sound of preaching. And after we got out in the car, he said to me, you see, God has promised to bless the preached word. And while this lady has heard the gospel, she has read gospel tracts, she has read the Bible, and people can get saved like that.
And she has had Christians speaking to her about salvation. What she really needs is to hear the gospel preached. And I didn't fully understand what he meant when he said that, but through the years I've learned what he meant.
Because that is what God uses. It pleases God through the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. And the declaration of the gospel and the spirit of God driving it home to the heart and conscience is God's method.
If you want to know anything about methods, and method is the very last thing on our list tonight, but if you want to know anything about methods, God's method is that the gospel should be declared, people be brought under conviction of their sin, and be brought to trust the Savior.
I've often been asked, and this is about as good a time as any to bring this up because I think this is a most important subject, I've often been asked, do we have any scripture for Sunday school work?
And there have been Christians who at times have said, you profess to be following the word of God entirely, you profess in an assembly that you have no doctrine book, no discipline book to tell you what to do, that you just go by what is in the Bible, so where is your scripture for a Sunday school?
Well, the best thing to do is to be honest, and I must confess that it is rather difficult to point to a verse in the Bible and say this is a scripture that tells us we should have a Sunday school. Let me say first of all that I do not believe that a Sunday school gathering is a meeting of the local church.
I do not believe that the Sunday school is literally a gathering together of the assembly. And when I put it like that you probably agree, no it's not a gathering together of the assembly. What is it then?
It is an activity of the assembly. It is a gospel activity of the assembly. In the same sense in a way that when you go out to have a gospel meeting in a schoolhouse or in a tent or something like that, it's an activity of the assembly.
And because it is an activity of the assembly, we feel that we must practice the same principles that we practice in the assembly. And that's just common sense. You would scarcely do something to children or with children, to attract them or to hold them or to get their interest, that you would have to tell them later on was a wrong principle.
We do not have music in the assembly and we do not have music in the Sunday school. And if we're having children's meetings in another locality, we do not have music there. Because it would be the greatest of difficulty to say, if some of those children were to get saved, which is always the desire, and then were to want to learn God's order and God's principles, and then say, well what we used here in these children's meetings was not really scriptural, and now you'll have to learn that was wrong.
But if we did it, then we misled them. So of course wherever we are laboring, we seek to carry on the principles that guide us in assembly order and function. But there's certainly scripture for giving the word of God to children.
There is much scripture. So Sunday school teachers don't be getting discouraged and thinking that there is no authority for the work you're doing. There's a vast amount of teaching in the Bible about it.
And I can only touch a few of the high points right now, but I would like to do that, because it might encourage and help you. One of the first principles you'll learn is this. When the gospel is preached, the gospel is preached to reach the individual.
If you were to take the word preach, and you took the first letter off it, you would have reach. And if you took the next one, you would have each. And that's a very simple principle of preaching. You don't preach to an audience.
One of the greatest difficulties in 1978, when Mr. Paisley and I were preaching in the Seneca College Auditorium in Toronto, the first night I stood on that huge stage and looked up at that audience spread around in that great amphitheater.
And the lighting was so bad that I couldn't see the people's faces. And I thought, oh dear me, how am I ever going to preach in this place? And that first night, they would hardly have had to open a door for me to go out.
After the meeting, I could have crawled underneath the crack at the bottom. I was so low after that meeting that night. Do you know what the trouble was? We don't preach to audiences. We preach to people, to individuals.
Sometimes they have put me up in front of a microphone and said, preach into this. It's hopeless. We preach to people. So now, that is a principle not of ours. It is a principle of the New Testament. And let me tell you what I mean.
In Acts chapter 13, you have Paul preaching in Antioch and Pisidia, way up there in the Galatian provinces. And as Paul is preaching, he's preaching to people who, for the most part, had some Old Testament background.
They were God-fearers. There were Jews among them, there were proselytes among them, and there were those who had attached themselves to the synagogue because of the one God. And Paul preached to them in Acts 13 with that in mind.
He preached to the people. He knew their thoughts, he knew their needs, and he preached to that need. The same man is preaching in Acts 17. And I don't think you can hardly find a greater contrast in two messages.
Is it not the same gospel? Yes. It's the same Christ. It's the same Savior who was died and buried and rose again from the dead. But oh, what a different kind of preaching. Because now he's preaching to pagans who knew nothing of God or the Scriptures and knew nothing of Israel or God's dealings with them.
And so his preaching is entirely different. Now you'll get the drift, I hope, of that. You see, you preach to the individuals. And when he's preaching to people who had a Jewish background or Jewish knowledge, he preaches according to their needs.
When he's preaching to those who had no such knowledge, he preaches vastly different to meet their needs. That's exactly what we do in an audience. If it's an audience of children, we speak to the children at a level that will reach the children according to the children's need.
There's a man in the New Testament who is called an evangelist. And he's the only man in the New Testament who is called an evangelist. I know Timothy is told to do the work of an evangelist, but Timothy is never called an evangelist.
But there is a man who is. His name is Philip. And Philip was one of those deacons. And Brother Gardner asked me the other night, I should have really said this in the meeting. I'm sorry I didn't. But you see, in Acts chapter 6 you have those men who were chosen out of the Jerusalem assembly to function in the administration of the tables, the food, the general food, the general eating of the Christians.
And Brother Gardner said, was that not a body of deacons? No, it was not. They had a particular function at that particular time to meet that special need. Because there was a controversy between the Jews who spoke the Greek language and the Jews who spoke the Hebrew language.
That's really what it was all about. And so those men were chosen to resolve that difficulty. And they functioned as deacons to be fair in the treatment of all alike. But they didn't remain that way. They didn't remain as a body of deacons.
How do I know? Well, one of them is preaching in Acts chapter 7 and loses his life. His name is Stephen. And the other man, in Acts chapter 8, is seeing God working in mighty power among the Samaritans.
And that man who is called the evangelist is Philip. And in Acts chapter 8, when he preached among the Samaritans, he preached Christ to them. And that's symphatic. He preached Christ to the Samaritans.
Do you know why? Because they had some knowledge of the promises of the coming Messiah. They had some likeness and some links to the Jewish nation. And therefore, he preached Christ, the Messiah. You see, even the woman of Samaria said to the Lord Jesus, we know that Messiah is coming.
So they knew Messiah was coming. And to such people, Philip preached Christ. But when God took him away from the revival and sent him out into the desert to attach himself to a chariot, to tell a poor pagan Ethiopian how he could be saved, to the Ethiopian he preached Jesus.
There's a difference. Not a difference in the message. There's a difference in the hearers. And, of course, the Old Testament is full of encouragement regarding giving the gospel to children. Genesis chapter 7 and verse 1, when God gave the invitation to Noah to come into the ark, it was thou and thy house.
In Deuteronomy chapter 4, you have that wondrous statement in verses 9 and 10 of Deuteronomy 4, thou shalt teach them unto thy sons and unto their sons. So you have the responsibility of parents. Deuteronomy 6 says, thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children.
That is, these precepts of the Lord. Deuteronomy 11 says, ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
Do you know what a lovely illustration of that is? Old Eli and young Samuel. And while Eli was not the best of examples of godliness and righteousness, yet Samuel was brought to the temple that he might be under the influence of Eli and learn the ways of the Lord.
And then, of course, you have the wondrous example in the New Testament in Matthew chapter 18. The Lord Jesus called a little child unto him and lifted him, that little child, in his arms and welcomed that little child to his bosom and blessed that little child as he still does.
You have a New Testament example which is perhaps even clearer and has greater meaning to us. You have a young man whose name was Timothy and when Paul wrote to him in 2 Timothy 3, he says, from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation.
The Sunday School is not a preaching meeting. It is a teaching of the Word of God to children. And I hope we don't lose sight of that fact because if children do not learn the Word of God, the stories, the history, the gospel as it is found written in the Scriptures, if they do not learn that in the Sunday School, they will not learn it at all.
And what children learn when they are very young is of vital importance. In fact, I not only believe the Sunday School work is a good work, and I'm saying this with great care and I've said it before, and I'm saying it because I believe it.
I believe the Sunday School work is the most important gospel work that is done today. And that includes all children's efforts, all efforts to reach the young and bring the Word of God before them. I scarcely think there is any activity we can engage in that is so important.
Now, I spoke to children for many years. This time of the year, I would have a dozen and more Sunday School treats to speak at. And I'm very grateful that I have no Sunday School treats to speak at now.
Of course, there are younger ones who have come along who have taken that responsibility, and it is actually years since I have done that kind of thing. But I believe that it's a most important and necessary activity.
It's part of the commission. And if you want authority for the Sunday School, here it is, going into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. That's young, old. That's rich and poor. That's red or yellow, black or white.
To every creature, preach the gospel. Now, the messenger, and time is moving, but I'll try to cover the material if I can. You read about Paul in Acts 9. God speaking to Ananias said to him, He is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the peoples of the earth.
Now, the messenger I have in the outline is more important than his preaching. I don't mean he's more important than the word of God. I mean he is more important than the message that he preaches. It takes a lifetime to prepare a man to preach a message from God.
And what is on the outline is really from E .M. Bounds, that particular sentence. Men are always looking for better methods. God is looking for better men. And that is true. Men who will live the gospel that they preach, and hear the word from God's mouth, and speak as the oracle of God.
We quoted last night from 1 Peter chapter 4 and verse 10, that those who speak the word of God, speak as the oracle of God. They speak as God's mouthpiece. They speak words from God. There was a dear man by the name of Brennan, who preached many years ago in Nova Scotia.
He was a great pioneer, a great laborer in the gospel. And when he was an old man, he was actually dying. He took young Robert McElwain with him to preach the gospel. And Robert always tells of those days with Mr. Brennan.
He was just a very young man. He gave out the hymn books at the door of the meeting. And once in a while, Mr. Brennan would say, would you not like to speak a little word tonight? And Robert would speak maybe very briefly in the gospel.
And when those meetings were over, and they had seen a great deal of blessing, Mr. Brennan got on the train to go back to his home. He got off the train at the station in Nineveh, and he put his hand on the young man's shoulder.
And he said to him, I have a word from the Lord unto thee. And Robert wondered what on earth was coming. And then he quoted to him the words that are in our outline. Ezekiel 33 and verse 7. God says, thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me.
Now that really is the work of the messenger. He is truly a messenger. He hears the word from God, and he speaks that word to the people. So that the preparation of the man's heart is more important than the preparation of his message.
He must have a right spirit as he preaches the gospel, and he must have joy in his own soul as he preaches Christ. And there must be godliness in his life. And he must have learned some things in the school of God.
And he must have tender compassion, and love for the lost, for the souls of men. In fact, that word in Proverbs 11, is it verse 30 or 31? Really should read like this. He is wise that winneth souls. I know our King James Version says, he that winneth souls is wise.
But actually it's a person who has already learned wisdom from God, that God uses in the winning of souls. And that compassion and zeal for the lost is something that often times is sorely lacking in us.
The next subject is the might that is used, the power that is displayed in the gospel testimony. Salvation is of the Lord was spoken by Jonah when he was in the belly of a whale, and all hope seemed to be gone.
And from that dismal place, his heart lifted up to God, and he cried, Salvation is of the Lord. And that's the first lesson we ever learned in the work of the gospel. And it's the last lesson we've ever learned.
And you have to learn it again and again. It takes God to save, in other words. And God will not give his glory to another. Many a time we have seen the evidence of that. If we have the idea that for some particular reason, God should bless us.
If we think that we are worthy or deserving, or that our exercise is great enough, or we have prayed sincerely enough. And we think for some reason like that, that God should bless us. Often times God withholds blessings.
Because God will not give his glory to another. God will work when it brings glory to his beloved son. Now we do believe that the power to see sinners awakened, is from the Holy Spirit of God. And that's why I pointed out the fact on the outline, that conviction of sin is the work of the Holy Spirit.
That's what the Lord said in John chapter 16. When he has come, he will convict of sin. And without that conviction of sin, there is no salvation. And this is something that we are combating all the time in the religious world around us.
Because there is often times a part of the gospel preached. And in America especially, there is a tremendous lot of preaching about believing on Jesus. Or there is even more about turning the reins of your life over to Jesus.
Or asking Jesus into your heart. But a person could go through a performance like that. And it could be nothing more than a lifeless form. For there must be the work of the Spirit of God in the soul of an individual.
And we have to wait for God. And if there is anything hard on the flesh, it's when you have to wait for God. I think David and Eugene, David Oliver and Eugene Higgins, have been preaching for six weeks at Terryville.
I don't know if they closed last Sunday night or not. But they have been preaching their hearts out. I saw them about the middle of the meetings and talked to them a good deal about the meetings. And there was help to preach the gospel but they hadn't seen anything.
In fact, the last I had heard after six weeks of meetings, they had not seen any break. My, that's hard. It's difficult. It's hard to wait. It's hard to depend on God when nothing is happening it seems.
And how easy it is for a man to try to do something himself. One of the first times I can remember, an Akron conference, and it's a good many years ago, a man spoke on the difference between bricks and living stones.
I don't think I'll ever forget it. In the land of Egypt, Israel made bricks. They made them out of the clay and out of the straw and they baked them in the sun to build Ramses, the treasure city of the Pharaoh.
But we're not in the business of making bricks. It isn't a matter of getting the right material together and having the right skill to form newborn souls. Not at all. They are living stones. And it takes God to give life to dead sinners.
That's a very hard lesson to learn. That's one of the reasons I'm so deeply grateful for the many years that I labored with Mr. McBain and the gospel. Because I learned lessons from him that I never could have learned otherwise.
I would have learned some of those things, perhaps the hard way. But I thank God for being able to learn them from one who knew them by experience. Now, a person who is saved is born of the Spirit. That's the language of John 3.
John 1 and verse 13 is even more significant. I think this is the most unusual text. Verse 12 says, To as many as received him, Christ, to them gave he authority to become the sons of God. Or the children of God, that really reads.
Even to them that believe on his name, which were born. This is the new birth now. Which were born not of blood. Doesn't run in the bloodline necessarily. Nor of the will of man. That is, no man can make you a Christian by any effort he might perform.
Not of the will of the flesh. That is, no person can produce life in their own soul. But of God. And that's a great lesson to learn in the gospel. That salvation is of the Lord. So, we wait on God. There are places where they have a vast amount of activity.
And you know what has been said about some of those places, they've got a big front door and a big back door. Because they get a lot of people in the front door, they go right on out the back door. And they make the front door so big that anybody who says they love Jesus can get in.
And of course, there's a great mass of false profession in America today. Well, you don't get the idea. It's all false profession. There are genuine souls. There are people truly saved in all different kinds of places.
People who truly know the Savior and acknowledge Him as their substitute upon the tree and thank God for every one of them who is truly saved. But you know, we cannot put words into a mouth of a sinner and produce a Christian.
They must be born of God. You know, we do have power because we have the Word of God. And because we have the Spirit of God. And God is able to bless His Word wherever it's preached. And God is sovereign.
And He can work in places that I couldn't go because I'm a subject and I bow to the authority of His Word. And because God is sovereign, He can bless in places where there are many things wrong. Whereas with us, if we are wrong, if our attitude is not right, if our condition of soul is not right, if our attitude toward fellow believers is not right, God will withhold mercy.
Now that's very difficult to understand, but let me explain it to you. And I'm going to name names because otherwise you won't know what I'm talking about. Mr. Billy Graham came to the city of Toronto.
And he preached in the big Massey Hall. And there were people who truly got saved in those meetings. Now, many of them, of course, we would never know. But I have come across some of them. Some who truly got saved in those meetings.
And they are living to prove it today. In fact, they are in assemblies going on for God. At those particular meetings in the Massey Hall, sitting on that big stage, there were men who denied the virgin birth.
They denied the impeccability of Christ. In fact, there were men there who denied His physical resurrection. They denied that He rose from the dead in a real body. And Mr. Graham was associated with those men.
They were part of the campaign. They backed it. They financed it. Not all of them were like that. Not by any means. But some of them were. Some of them were actually apostates. Once they professed to believe in the Lord Jesus as God's Son from Heaven, and they had turned away from it, and actually had become apostates.
Now, I'm not speaking off the top of my head, because I could name the men that I have in mind. Charles B. Templeton, for instance, sat on that platform. Once he preached the gospel much like we preach it.
Now he says that Christ was a mere man, and nothing more. How could God bless something like that? Because God is sovereign. And He will bless in spite of conditions like that. But you see, they don't make any profession of following the Word of God in those things.
We do. We profess that we are guided by it. That we are under its control. That we are subject to it wholly. And if among us there are things that have not been judged, and not been doubted, God will not bless us.
You see, God accepts us on the ground that we take. And that's a principle of the Bible. Now, the motives for gospel activity, of course, are that which God sees. Only God can read the motives. We should never judge motives, and we can't see motives or read them, but God does.
And I point out to you that in 2 Corinthians 5, there were three great motives that moved the heart of Paul. He, the servant, who was willing to lay down his life for Christ's sake, and did do that. Who bore in his body the brand marks of the Lord Jesus.
This is what moved him. First of all, a longing to be well-pleasing to his Lord, in view of the day of reward. And then, a deep burning compassion for the souls of men. Instead of Richard Baxter, he drenched his spirit in deep compassion for the lost.
Paul was like that. He had the deepest compassion for poor sinners going down to hell. What's the matter with us? Do we not believe that hell is real? How can we be so indifferent? There are more souls lost through indifference than any false teaching.
Paul had the deepest compassion for lost sinners. A third thing moved him. The love of Christ constrained him. It moved him deeply that he might move others. Now, the models, of course, first of all, the Lord Jesus.
He's the great soul winner, the seeker of the lost. And in John chapter 4, you have wondrous work on the part of the Savior. As he goes from Galilee down to Judea, and purposely passes through Samaria, and comes to Syker's well that hot afternoon, and sits upon the well.
And the woman came up to draw water. He's the seeker there. He's seeking her. He tells her that he's the sent one. And later he explains it all to the disciples and tells them the fields are white already to harvest.
He sows the seed with tears. But he looks forward to the reaping day when the sower and the reaper will rejoice together. And that's the teaching, of course, of those verses that follow the conversion of the Samaritan woman.
And Timothy, of course, is a lovely example of a man who labored in the gospel. He is called God's servant in the gospel. But the message that we preach is very important. We preach the word of God. We preach Christ and him crucified, buried and risen again, our exalted Lord Jesus.
And we should always preach the full gospel, brethren. We should preach that Christ died, and that Christ was buried, and that he rose again from the dead. The greatest evidence of the truth of the gospel we preach is a resurrected Christ.
Somehow or other, we often forget to preach that Christ is alive, that he rose again from the dead. But this whole matter of preparing messages to preach, I think this is what interests people a great deal.
But perhaps it's not as important as they seem to think it is. I would make a few suggestions to you, and you can look at them in the outline when you go home, because they're there at least in the very briefest form.
When you read your Bible in your regular reading, think about the gospel, and look for gospel messages in what you are reading. I would say that 90 of the gospel messages that are preached on this platform or any other platform are received as the preacher has been reading the word of God to feed his own soul.
And then what has spoken to his heart, he's used of God to speak to the hearts of others. And that's why I've mentioned that in the outline. If truth does not impress my own heart, if it hasn't searched me first of all, and stirred my own spirit, and even thrilled my soul, I will not be able to preach it with any kind of stirring power.
I think we all know those things, but we need to be reminded of them. I'm not telling you what you don't know tonight. I don't think I've said hardly anything in this meeting that most of the Christians here are not aware of.
But we need to be reminded of them because we are seldom told about these things. You know, it's surprising to me how many times the gospel is preached without joy. And brethren, the older I get, the more I believe it's wrong.
Preach the word of God with a full heart. Preach the gospel with joy in your soul. And don't forget to preach with joy. And testify to the appreciation you have of Christ. To the knowledge you have of him as your savior in war.
To the joy you have found in knowing him. And if it's genuine, it will be infectious. Mr. Oliver Smith, who was perhaps one of the greatest gospel pioneers in North America in our time that I have known of, he went to towns and villages and farm communities all his life until he was hardly able to get around on his feet.
And when he lay dying, I was in the state of Iowa preaching in Cedar Falls. And Eric McCullough and I went in to see dear Mr. Smith at the close of his days. It was about 25 years ago. And he said, Eric started to tell him about some of the life of labor that he had put in.
Ah, he said, it's my greatest regret now that I did so little. And I never hardly knew a man who did more. But he had great joy in his salvation. One day in a restaurant, he said to the waitress, I'm a happy man.
And she said, nothing. Of course, she was supposed to respond and say, why are you happy? But she didn't do it. And so she went away to bring back some food. When she came back again, Mr. Smith said to her, do you want to know why I'm happy?
You see, he wasn't going to let the opportunity slip. He made his own opportunity. And, you know, looking at him, why, his face was lit with joy. And that young woman was impressed. He said, I know I have everlasting life.
We should preach the gospel like that, with joy in our souls. And tell sinners of the peace and the rest and the joy that only Christ can give. You know what I believe about heaven? I believe joy will be imprinted on every countenance, unfading, forever.
Wouldn't it be lovely if we displayed some of that now in our messages? Of course, the warnings have to be plain. I would never suggest that you don't preach sin and death and judgment. Preach it with tenderness.
Preach it with entreaty. But preach it plainly. But when you're preaching about salvation, preach Christ out of a heart that is full of Christ. Now, I have a few simple pointers. I'm hardly going to go over those now.
About praying for understanding of the scripture and studying diligently and knowing your subject well. That sort of thing. But I'll just leave that. I would think that it's of the greatest importance in the gospel testimony of the assembly that we understand something of the methods.
And you know that's the last on the list. Now, the place of prayer is vital to us. Why don't we see people saved when we've prayed for them for years? Listen to the words of Peter, by the Spirit. That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than a gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That the revelation that actually is of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why doesn't God answer prayer immediately? Why does he delay? I hope you read those four articles in the Truth and Tidings by Mr. William Oliver of the Bryn Mawr Assembly about God's delays.
Because that's excellent teaching from the scripture. God does not answer immediately many times. But he allows us to realize our weakness. And to bow our knees before him. And he does hear. And he will answer.
He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. Now, in this matter of the methods of gospel preaching, I have already said that God's method is to preach the word. And that is true.
But I believe every assembly should have a series of gospel meetings. At least, biannually. At least every second year. And I know that's difficult. And I know there are often not the opportunities to have gospel meetings that often.
But God blesses a gospel assembly. And there are assemblies over the land, over North America and other parts of the world too. Where they have a gospel exercise and it keeps fresh. And they keep at it.
And God blesses them. And sometimes they'll go through a series of meetings without seeing anybody saved. Why, Mr. McVean and I preached a whole summer to see if Tom Cooper had saved. And I think he was well worth all that summer's labor in the heat and mosquitoes and the trouble with the portable building and everything else.
But you see, other times we have preached and seen quite a little blessing in a series. But keep at it anyway. Keep at the gospel. Keep preaching it. And God will bless. He has promised to do so. The assembly really has a responsibility locally, first of all.
You have an area over which you have responsibility. I heard a man say that the responsibility of every assembly is halfway to the next assembly. And that gives us a very wide, big responsibility. But also an assembly has an influence worldwide.
And I think that's remarkable. And I think it is very scriptural. I puzzled for a long time over those words of 1 Thessalonians 1. Paul said to those Thessalonians that from you sounded out the word of the Lord.
And then he mentions the two nearest provinces, Macedonia and Achaia. And then he said, and not only so, but everywhere your faith to God is spread abroad. How could that have been? You know, I struggled over that.
And I thought maybe that's a bit of poetic license. But I don't believe you'll find exaggeration in the scriptures which are inspired by the Holy Spirit. And it suddenly dawned on me. Look at the assembly in Jackson.
Is the influence of this assembly known beyond Jackson County? Beyond the state of Michigan? Surely it is. The influence of this assembly is known away in the dark places of the earth. Away in the jungles of Brazil.
Away in the hot and cold of Chile. Or away in Japan or to the Earth's remotest bound. The influence of the assembly, the exercise of the assembly, the giving of the assembly, the sacrifice of the saints is known throughout the world.
And that's the way it ought to be. But we have a first responsibility to those that are above us. And may God help us to be exercised about them more. That God will use our little testimony. We're small and weak at the best we confess.
But oh, if there were one or two believers, or three or four or five, who are on fire with zeal for the lost, and with a longing desire to see them saved, what great blessing could come from it? Reaching out with the gospel is an absolute scriptural necessity.
It isn't enough just to have people come into the building here. There must be a reaching out. And thank God for the reaching out. And this assembly has been involved in that kind of reaching out. May God bless every effort, every gospel activity of the assembly, for his own honor and glory, shall we pray.