After a day's service, spent in visiting, preaching, distributing tracts, evening service and after-meeting, often till a late hour, it is not much to be wondered at if evangelists generally are not early risers. So they are but too often, alas! deprived of the heavenly Master's “morning smiles,” for which all the smiles of religious friends and admirers cannot make up. His smile alone, and the “awakening of the ear morning by morning” (Isaiah 50) — mark it is not said “evening by evening” —by the Master's voice, giving to the evangelist the orders for the day, is able to preserve in him the necessary spiritual balance against the pernicious effects of the incense of human flattery. This only serves to hide the Master's face, and to rob him of that smile which encourages him in his rugged path—if he be a faithful messenger—against the frowns and opposition of the adversary.
No Christian stands in greater need than the evangelist of having his “ear awakened morning by morning,” in order to speak with the “tongue of the learned;” none needs more than he that cheering “morning smile” of our gracious and pitiful Master to enable him to smile at the adversary's fury. And yet there is none in greater danger of losing, from the reasons just mentioned, these exercises, and encouragements, and instructions, unless he is careful to redeem the “morning time” especially. In the morning seasons, spent alone with God, the servant of Christ acquires that spiritual balance so rare in our days, yet so much needed by every Christian now more than ever, and which is produced by the exercise of conscience and heart keeping step with the outward exercise of gifts and with our knowledge of divine truths.
In prayerful dependence then we acquire a deeper sense of our utter weakness and nothingness—nay, good-for-nothingness, and at the same time of the “exceeding greatness of the power” of Him to Whom all power belongs. This bears us up against the depressing effects of the cares and circumstances of daily life in service and elsewhere. This forms a part of the apostle's prayer for the saints at the close of Eph. 1 And moreover we get a deeper, more real sense of God's grace, by which only we have been saved and upon which we daily live. It is this sense of His grace (so insisted on in Eph. 2) which keeps us down, thus guarding us against the lifting up tendencies of flesh and self within; otherwise we shall be constantly “up and down” in the wrong way. If even in a natural sense a well-balanced character is a fine sight, such an equilibrium of character is still more blessed to behold in a servant of Christ, especially an evangelist, whose natural character very often partakes of a sanguine tendency. That Christian equilibrium can be acquired only at the feet of Him Who is meek and lowly in heart, and during His unremitting service here on earth could “never be moved,” because He had set His God before His face, and He was at His right hand.
All these are well known truths, and yet how constantly do we need to be reminded of them. The service and testimony of the evangelist who is not careful to cultivate this all important equilibrium between his outward activity and inward communion with God, will sooner or later capsize, and his testimony be ruined, to the dishonor of the gracious Master Who saved and sent him.
Another no less perilous snare in the evangelist's path is that of “popularity.” It is true some evangelists, more than others, possess the gift of adapting themselves and their way of presenting the gospel to all kinds of hearers and localities, which is indeed one of the indispensable qualities of the true evangelist. Compare the apostle Paul's variety of ways in presenting the gospel according to the different places and circumstances and persons to whom he preached, as seen throughout the Acts of the Apostles. But besides that essential quality of an evangelist, many of them possess naturally a great affability of manner. They know how to adapt themselves to all kinds of people with whom they come in contact. They know how to fall in with their ways of thinking and expression, to enter into the details of their daily life, and to adapt their way and style of preaching to it. Thus they become favorite or “popular” preachers and draw great crowds by witty and interesting and seasonable, or “stirring” and “impressive” sermons, as the case may be. This is especially the case where those pleasant and affable manners of the preacher are combined with great oratorical power.
Now all these qualities may in no small degree become contributory to blessing in the gospel field, provided they are kept under the control of the Spirit. But just here lies the snare and the danger for a “popular preacher” of the gospel. The sweetness of religious renown and honor is still more dangerous and pernicious in its effects than that of natural fame and flattery, because the religious flesh is even more subtle than the natural. How many excellent servants of Christ in the gospel have been spoiled and marred and cast down from their excellency, yea, almost wrecked and ruined (if it were not for the preserving and restoring grace of our God and Savior) by the worse than foolish flatteries and adulations ministered to them by their thoughtless admirers. This has been in an especial way the case with those who have risen (often, rather, been elevated) from a humble station of life. Exhibited on the stages of theaters and on the platforms of town-halls, supported by the elite of the religious world, presented with heavy testimonial purses, they have lived in stylish houses fitted up with the commodities and luxuries of this world, where they certainly did not appear like the “offscouring of all things, and the filth of the world.” Is it like apostles of Him Who owned nothing in this world except His cross, and said, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head,” and “He that will be My disciple, let him deny himself, take his cross upon him daily, and follow Me?” Can we wander at the final shipwreck of the faith and testimony of so many of them? Pride, that cause of Satan's fall, and man's innate sin, is more disastrous in its effects upon the Christian than upon the unbeliever.
“ If the fear of man bringeth a snare,” the men-pleasing is akin to it, and is no less a snare to, many a servant of Christ, especially in the gospel. “Do I seek to please men?” wrote the great apostle. “For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.” Solemnly instructive words these for every popular evangelist; above all in these “last days” where the religious atmosphere is filled with evil ways and doctrines of every kind. A popular preacher naturally loves and looks for a wide sphere and crowded audiences. One can easily understand this, and wish him every success in his ministry for God's glory. But let him beware lest this desire become his snare, by service and religious fame becoming his object instead of Christ. Alas not a few once esteemed servants of Christ have gone to sleep on the laurels of their religious reputation, and even grown cool and indifferent to Christ's glory by permitting themselves to be drawn into association with Christ-dishonoring teachers and doctrines. They dread to see the sphere of their service and influence narrowed, and want to move with a large (I would rather call it broad) heart in a broad way. In our days of “religious latitudinarianism” (what a broad word for a broad way!), where temporal things are grasped very tightly and divine things held very loosely, where men sell the truth instead of buying it, faithfulness to divine truth must necessarily isolate.
But who was more isolated than our blessed Master Himself, because He was ever the faithful witness, faithful amidst unfaithfulness. What was the effect of His very first gospel in the synagogue of Nazareth? They wanted to throw Him down from the steep brow of the hill. And how was it at the close of His blessed ministry? He was forsaken of all. He was “like a pelican of the wilderness, like an owl of the desert, and as a sparrow alone upon the house-tops” (Psa. 102) And what was the effect of Paul's faithful testimony, who followed so close in the footsteps of his Master “All in Asia have turned away from me.” “At my first answer no man stood with me, but all forsook me... Nevertheless the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, that by me the preaching might be fully known,” etc. Mark also the solemn dying injunction of the faithful apostle of grace and glory, addressed to his beloved Timothy and to all true evangelists:
“ I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ Who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom:
“ Preach the word, be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine.
“ For the time will come” (and it has come and is now in full bloom) “when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.
“ And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
“ But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.”
These words do not sound like those heard not very long ago in a hall filled with “ministers of the gospel,” inquiring of the famous foreign preacher in their midst about the way in which he composed his sermons, that attracted such crowded audiences to his church. What would Paul and Silas say to accomplishments of the gospel? Yes, they too sung, but with their feet fastened in the stocks, and their. backs wounded and bleeding. “And the prisoners heard them.” Rather a different audience! But God heard them, and He answered by an earthquake—an outward earthquake and an inward (in the gaoler and his family).
But I must close. One or two more short warnings to my beloved and esteemed friends in the blessed gospel work. Beware of Revivalism! It is a wrong expression in itself, sprung from professing Christendom. An unconverted person, dead in trespasses and sins, cannot be revived, but must be quickened in his soul. So much as to the absurdity of the term. But how far more serious is the thing itself It is the flesh assuming the power of God—Jannes and Jambres imitating the miracles wrought by God through Moses—the forging of “Epistles of Christ” by a misuse of the writing of the Holy Ghost—a galvanizing of corpses into apparent life—the seeming life of that which was destined to death and the killing of those which were destined to live. It falls like a mildew upon the tender plants, wherever it appears. May God in His great mercy keep His servants in the blessed gospel field from the baneful effects of “revivalism” with the fearful hardening of souls in its wake, the natural reaction after the natural excitement.
Paul may plant and Apollos water, but the increase is of God. How constantly is this forgotten! In the Gospel of Mark, that Gospel so instructive to all servants of Christ, the Pattern of all true service, the Master tells His disciples, “So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.” What can the sower do to make the corn grow whilst he sleeps? The seed grows, but “he knoweth not how.” Would that all laborers in the Gospel more heeded portions like those of 1 Cor. 3 and Mark 4. Let us cast the seed into the ground and leave the increase to God, Who alone can give it. Like the husbandman let us patiently wait for the early rain and the latter rain. It is of no use poking the seed with a revival stick. The word of God will never take root in that way.
Again, a danger for the evangelist, and not a small one, is the tendency of setting up a “cause” of his own, and suffering himself to be confined within the narrow limits of a smaller or bigger chapel. Having thus got under the patronizing wings of a committee or of some wealthy patron or patroness (the latter still worse than the former), he will be like a caged bird and his wings will soon be clipped.
Another snare is this, that he always will be inclined to press those whom he considers to be converted, to be received at once into fellowship. Natural as this desire may be for his “children in the gospel” to take their place with the redeemed family at the Lord's table, he is apt to forget that their reception or non-reception into fellowship is not a matter for him to decide, but for the church or assembly. Sad and disastrous conflicts have arisen in not a few instances through the evangelist insisting upon their reception against the better and mature judgment of elder and more experienced brethren, whose consciences before the Lord in such important questions he had not sufficiently taken into account.
Having offered a few remarks on the all-important ministry of the gospel in no grudging spirit (I trust), I now turn to a no less important but alas! sadly neglected subject for our meditations, I mean the church, which is the “house of the living God,” the “habitation of God through the Spirit,” the body of Christ the glorious center of His counsels. J. von P.