1.
Shake off the vipers that are in the Church, formalism, pride, and
self-importance,etc.
2.
It is the only happy life to live for the salvation of souls.
3.
We must be willing to do little things for Christ.
4.
Must be of good courage.
5.
Must be cheerful.
God
had no children too weak, but a great many too strong to make use
of. God stands in no need of our strength or wisdom, but of our
ignorance, of our weakness; let us but give these to Him, and He can
make use of us in winning souls.
"And
they that be 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.
Now
we all want to shine; the mother wishes it for her boy, when she
sends him to school, the father for his lad, when he goes off to
college; and here God tells us who are to shine - not statesmen, or
warriors, or such like, that shine but for a season - but such as
will shine for ever and ever; those, namely, who win souls to
Christ; the little boy even who persuades one to come to Christ.
Speaking
of this, Paul counts up five things (1 Cor. 1:27-9) that God makes
use of - the weak things, the foolish things, the base things, the
despised things, and the things which are not, and for this purpose,
that no flesh might glory in his sight - all five being just such as
we should despise. He can and will use us, just when we are willing
to be humble for Christ's sake, and so for six thousand years God
has been teaching men; so with an ass's jawbone Samson slew his
thousands (Judges 15:15), so at the blowing of rams' horns the walls
of Jericho fell (Joshua 6:20). Let God work in His own way, and with
His own instruments; let us all rejoice that He should, and let us
too get into the position in which God can use us.
There
is much mourning to-day over false "isms," infidelity, and
the like, but sum them all up, and I do not fear them one half so
much as that dead and cold formalism that has crept into the Church
of God. The unbelieving world, and these skeptics holding out their
false lights, are watching you and me: when Jacob put away his
idols, he could go up to Bethel and get strength and the blessing -
so will it be with the Church of God. A viper fixes upon the hand of
the shipwrecked Paul; immediately he is judged by the barbarians
some criminal unfit to live; but he shakes it off into the fire, and
suffers no harm, and now they are ready to worship him, and ready
too to hear and receive his message: the Church of God must shake
off the vipers that have fastened on hand and heart too, ere men
will hear. Where one ungodly man reads this Bible, a hundred read
you and me: and if they find nothing in us, they set the whole thing
aside as a myth.
Again,
a man who has found out what his true work is, winning souls to
Christ, and does it, such is the happiest man. Not the richest are
this - least of all those who have just got converted for
themselves, and into the Church - lost what pleasure the world could
give, and found none other. Job's captivity turned away when he
began praying for his friends; and so will all who thus work for
others shine not in heaven alone and hereafter, but here as well,
and now.
But
you say "I haven't got the ability." Well, God doesn't
call you to do Dr. Bonar's work, or Dr. Duff's work, else He had
given you their ability, their talent. The word is, "To every
man his work." I have a work to do, laid out for me in the
secret counsels of eternity; no other can do it. If I neglect it, it
is not true that some other will do it; it will remain undone. And
if, for the work laid upon us, we feel we have not the ability or
talent necessary, then we have a throne of grace; and God never
sends, unless that He is willing to give the strength and wisdom.
The instruments He often uses may seem all unlikely, yet when did
they fail? - when once? and why not? Because He had fitted them out
as well.
He
sent Moses to Egypt to deliver His people - not an eloquent, but a
stuttering man. He refuses a while, at last he went; and no man once
sent by God ever did break down.
So
was Elisha a most unlikely man to be a successor to the great
prophet Elijah. Men would have chosen some famous man, some
professor in the school of the prophets. God took one from the
plough; but He gave him what was needed. Elisha had but to keep by
his master to the end; and he received even a double portion of the
Spirit. And if we want to get it, we too must keep by the Lord, nor
ever lose sight of Him, should He, as Elijah Elisha, in one way or
another try our faith.
And
further, we must be ready to do little things for God; many are
willing to do the great things. I dare say hundreds would have been
ready to occupy this pulpit to-day. How many of them would be as
willing to teach a dirty class in the ragged school?
I
remember, one afternoon I was preaching, observing a young lady from
the house I was staying at, in the audience. I had heard she taught
in the Sabbath-school, which I knew was at the same hour; and so I
asked her, after service, how she came to be there? "Oh,"
said she, "my class is but five little boys, and I thought it
did not matter for them." And yet among these there might have
been, who knows, a Luther or a Knox, the beginning of a stream of
blessing, that would have gone on widening and ever widening; and
besides, one soul is worth all the kingdoms of the earth.