I HAVE heard that when Grant of Arndilly was lying on his dying bed, he said that, if he had to live his life over again, he would preach but twenty minutes at a time, and all about Christ! And, yet, few of the dear servants of God had been more faithful than he, in that very ministry, during the years in which he labored in the gospel.
But now, on his dying pillow, he could clearly see what was the one chief theme and subject― the one grand office of the preacher of the gospel. He would preach “all about Christ,” said he.
I remember meeting, on the Bridge of Perth, in 1868, that well-known Scotch evangelist, Duncan Matheson. I had seen and known him in the days of his strength, when his massive frame endured any amount of toil, and when his stentorian voice commanded silence over noisy crowds. His frame was now shrunken by disease, and the once sonorous voice little more than audible, He was slowly moving homeward along that bridge, whilst his heart, fresh as ever in the work of his Master, urged him to whisper its uppermost desire “Preach Christ,” said he, “preach Christ.” These were his last words to me, for soon afterward he passed away, at the early age of forty-five, from fields of abundant labor here, to the presence of that Christ whom he loved to proclaim in days of health, and in the hour of death as well. Wise and happy man!
Now, here we have the testimony of these two men, as the result of their ripe, varied, and honored experience, that the great truth to be proclaimed, always and everywhere, is Christ―a once dead, but now risen and glorified Christ! And why?
Because they had learned, as have many more beside them, that Christ, the living, coming Christ of God, is not only the one all-sufficient source of supply for man―fallen, guilty, undone man, as also for the weak and needy believer, but that God, in His Word, presents Him as the supreme object of His love and counsels.
Hence we find in the words of John the Baptist as fine a summing-up of the gospel as can be conceived: “Behold,” said he, “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin, of the world”―a statement which, the more it is analyzed and studied, the richer and deeper it appears. Again, Paul uses the name of the Lord Jesus Christ about five hundred times in his New Testament teachings! and he it is who says that “in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:99For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. (Colossians 2:9)).
If, then, the early servants of Christ laid such stress on the preaching of Christ Himself―His person and work―how comes it that He is preached so little today? Is He not the only Saviour and the only food of the soul? and yet other themes Ire commonly presented, with the necessary result that sinners are left to perish, and saints to starve!
Intellectualism, for such is one of today’s features, relegates Christ for speculations that pander to the vitiated taste of man; and, whilst flattering his pride, and feeding his self-sufficiency, leaves him in a more deadly spiritual morass than it found him. It carries no warning note to the sinner; it cheers no desponding spirit; it dries no falling tear; it proffers certainty to no doubting mind; it takes from you all you have, and gives nothing in its place. How can it?
Rationalism, for such is its goal, is bound by narrow limits. It is confined to the scope of the human mind, and that, again, to little more than the grasp of the microscope or the range of the telescope. What is perceived within their limited boundaries can be apprized by reason. That is all.
But “who by searching can find out God?” He is wholly outside these limits, and we are beholden to Him for a revelation of Himself, if indeed He is to be known at oil. Now, Christ is that revelation. “The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”
Otherwise, all were total darkness in time, and hopeless despair forever. None but the Son of the Father bosom could make the Father known, ― no display of His power, no mere statement of His will, no angelic messenger could announce the Father. But the Son has done so. Now, thank God, we have light and sunshine! People may and do shut their eyes to it, perhaps increasingly so in these days of proud and foolish intellectualism, but such must bear, alas, their own judgment, and may you, my reader, not be amongst them! But the Light shines! God is revealed! Justice, in its myriad claims against sin, has been satisfied in the death of Christ―that atoning death, and mercy is now free to act. “God is just, and the justifier of him that believeth on Jesus,” for He who died is risen, all the work completed, and now lives in glory, set forth to be a Prince and a Saviour now, and the Judge by-and-by. Other saving name there is none, absolutely none, in heaven or on earth; but there is infinite fullness in Him, and a present and precious salvation for the greatest sinner.
No wonder, then, that these two dying men should have commended the preaching of Christ. They had learned His worth. They had proved, in the wars of the Lord, the more than folly of speculation and conjecture. Their weapon was not intellectualism, but the sword of the Spirit; their power not that of reasoning, but Christ, who is both the wisdom and power of God; not argumentation, but the truth. They had turned from the uncertainties of religious speculations to the deep and solid verities presented in the person and work of the Son of God.
Stay your heart, dear reader, on Him who still gives rest to the weary, peace to the troubled, and salvation to the lost.
J. W. S.