T h e
251
June 1932
K i n g ’ s B u s i n e s s
• / ) / I l lu d e iow a rd
stons- ■AND OURS
B y ROBERT H. GLOVER* Phi!adelphia£KPa.
I
DO NOT WANT to think of you this morn ing as a large congrega tion, but rather as a num ber of individuals. I should like to ask you ■personally what you con ceive your relation to be to this burning question of carrying out Christ’s last command to take His gospel to the whole
and unconcern among the great majority of professing Christians toward the missionary task. Then there are others who, thank God, view it more seriously, but whose conception o f missions is at best as a charity, a benevolence. They conceive the circle of their duty or obligation to be a much smaller area—their home town, or home state, or at most their home country, and anything they may be dis posed to do or to give for those outside that circle they con sider-a charity, something outside of their responsibility. That was not Paul’s conception. He did not say, “ I am a hero,” or, “ I am a benefactor.” He did not say, “ I want you Romans to appreciate that I am conferring a great favor upon you because I choose to take the gospel to you.” No, he simply claimed to be an honest man and thus ready to pay his debts. He said, “ I owe you the gospel.” I submit to you that there is a world of practical dif ference between viewing missionary effort as a charity and as a debt. As a charity, it is a secondary thing; as a debt, it is primary. As a charity, it is optional; as a debt, it is obligatory. Let us take a homely illustration. I see a man come down this aisle. I turn and look at him. He is clothed in rags and tatters, and holds out a dirty cap. I at once recognize him as a beggar, and put ting my hand into my pocket, I pull out a coin, flip it into his cap, and motion him to be gone. I say, in effect, “ You are a stranger to me. I owe you nothing. Take what I am minded to give you, and please go away.” That is cheap. That is easy. That is charity. ut now I see another man coming down the aisle, holding an envelope in his hand. He hands it to me, and on opening it I find inside a bill reading, “ R. H. Glover, debtor”^—to the amount, let us say, of one hundred dollars. Do I get rid of that man in the same way as the other? Hardly! It is a different proposition. I am his debtor. I owe him a hundred dollars. It is not a matter of giving him anything that I may feel like giving, but of dis charging to the full an indebtedness; not a matter of in difference, but one o f serious concern; not a matter of my spare cash, but of my last dollar, if necessary. My friend, “ how much owest thou thy Lord” ? Are t missions in your “ debt” column or your “ charity” column? j It will make a world of practical difference to your going, i your praying, and your giving, just how you view this en- ' terprise. Have you been acting toward missions as though you owed the heathen something? If Paul was a debtor, are we less? If he was constrained to say, “Necessity is laid upon me, yea, woe is me if I preach not the gospel,*’ can we be less concerned ? Let it be borne in upon our con sciences that we owe every man and woman o f our gen eration a chance to hear of Jesus, the only Saviour. We owe them the gospel, first of all, because it is the only and the sure remedy for their ills. What China needs
world. What does the Great Commission mean to you? Has it any personal implication for you ? What is your atti tude toward the work of world evangelization? I want to call to your attention the attitude of the great missionary, the Apostle Paul, as expressed in three verses of the first chapter of his letter to the Romans: “ I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are in Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” I like to call these verses Paul’s missionary creed. Let us strip them down to the bone, as it were, and note those three terse little statements, each beginning with the state ment, “ I am.” “ I am debtor . . . I am ready . . . I am not ashamed.” At once concise and comprehensive, what better expression of a Christian’s missionary creed could we have! They reveal to us that the Master’s Great Com mission and the world’s spiritual need made a threefold appeal to Paul: “ I am debtor” —an appeal to his con science : “ I am ready ”— an appeal to his heart; “ I am not ashamed” —an appeal to his spiritual experience. And I believe God wants the same threefold, appeal to come home to our hearts this morning. “ I A m D ebtor ” TP his is an appeal to our Christian conscience—not merely to our sentiment, or our emotions. Paul here lays the true foundation for missionary interest and effort upon a basis of obligation, of responsibility. There are some who seem to think of missions as a mere hobby on the part o f a few pious folk who, for some strange reason, choose to bury themselves somewhere yonder in heathen lands, when they might have made a decent living at home. There is an appalling indifference *Home Director for North America o f the China Inland Mission. Dr. Glover was chosen to deliver the annual missionary sermon at the Church o f the Open Door, Los Angeles, the substance o f which is given here.
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