257
THE KING’S BUSINESS
and I have often thought, “Oh, if I could only suffer a little for my Lord!” I felt that I was having too easy a time altogether. I wanted them to say unkind things about me occasionally. They got to doing it finally, praise God, but it was noth ing. I often thought it would be a comfort if they would only stone me once in a while. Oh, friends, that is what the Lord calls us to. We had a picture taken here yesterday, because there were 2,000 people assembled in a meeting at ten o’clock in the morning. Listen 1 God will call some of us to stand alone; not with 1,999 others, but alone, and be lied about, stoned, cov ered with mud, and perhaps be killed. But, oh to win souls by dying! The coming of the Lord is the motive. If some one, say, some physician or ex pert, should come to me tonight and say, “Dr. Torrey, you have not more than a week to live. I have been watching you, and I see that you have a fatal affection of the heart.” I think that would be an incentive to do more this next week than ever before in my, life. But, oh, that is nothing, nothing, to the thought that the Lord is coming;, and because He is coming, I want to .be pleasing Him when He comes.. I want to go out and suffer, and work, and win souls, and if necessary, die to save some lost one. Oh, friends, we have had glorious times here; but what for? Just that we may write letters to our friends, telling them about it? Oh, no. It is that we may get the inspiration that there is in the thought of our Lord’s coming again, and let that lead us to what God has told us in His Word it should lead us to, the leading of simple lives, abstaining from ev erything that might in the least cloud the mind, refusing to be submerged in the multiplied cares of this busy
most awful death of heartbreaking agony that could possible be suffered, —to seek and to save that which was lost. It was for that He came; it was for that He suffered; it was for that He died; and if you would: be holy men and women, you must be like Him in that respect. It is very pleasant to come to a convention like this, to hear the sweet singing, to enjoy sweet fellowship together, to be led into the very highest mountain peaks of truth, to have yours hearts filled with ecstacy; but unless, having received the Word of God, you go out to give others their meat in due season, when the Lord comes you will be cut asunder, and given your por tion with the hypocrites. That is what He says. Oh, friends, if you and I are to be holy, we must burn ourselves out in saving the lost. “If any man woula come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” A cross in those days was a very real thing’ consisting of two great pieces of wood nailed together. Jesus Christ was stripped of every garment He had on, laid on His back on that cross, while the nails were driven into His hands and feet, and then they plunged the cross into a hole in the ground, and let Him hang, His bones staring up at Him, His heart melted within Him, until at last, with break ing heart He cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” And He did it to save you and me; and having, saved us, to send us out to have essentially the same kind of experience. Oh, it is easy to go around the world conducting great evangelistic meetings, getting three or four pages of space in the biggest newspapers of the world every day. That is very easy and it appeals to personal ambition. I know something about it. But the more I knew of it, the more sick my heart got over it;
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker