THE K I NG ’S BUS I NE S S
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- "A voice ol noise from the city, a voice from the terapie, a voice of the Lord" (Isa. 66:6). ~ W E -HAVE solved one thing in this age^-the d i s c o v e r y of means by which the human voice may be heard. Some one has said that we never had so many ways of saying things, but never did. we have less to say! The press and plat form are full of hucksters selling this 'and that. The world is a great maga zine of noise. We can talk glibly oh almost any subject. Bût within this great magazine of noise we need one great Voice. An article in Fortune stat ed some time ago: "There is only one way out of the spiral. The way out is the sound of a voice: not our voice but a Voice, coming from something outside ourselves, in the existence of which we caifnot disbelieve. It is the earthly task of thè pastors ■ to hear it and to tèli men what it says.” So long as the church of Christ does that, if will always have a place in the sun, and the pulpit will never be come effete furniture. The problems of the day are such as only Christ can answer. But the world is not listening. The family altar has almost departed from the American home. To a great degree the radio has gone over to the selling of secular wares. It is altogether -pos sible that more Americans listen to the deliverances of a wooden dummy on Sunday night than listen to the gospel of Christ over the radio waves. It has not been an easy era for the church, which is a sounding board for the Voice of God. But we neèd this Voice. Medical science shows that men are going to pieces, and great propor tions of them ,are on the verge Of a t This message, in am plified form , was the address delivered at thé thirty-third Annual Commencement of the .Hib.le Institute of Los Angeles, June 10, by the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church , Hollywood, ■Calif .J
history, and he must be literate about these subjects, for they are his tools of illustration. “Lift up thy voice like a trumpet,” is the admonition, and again it is followed by another Scrip tural admonition, “Make thee two trumpets of Silver!”—not of papier- mache, not of chewed-up sermons from books, reformed for delivery, but of silver—melted, cleansed, a^id forged in • the fires of prayer and study. Paul never insulted the gospel of Christ with a weak syllogism or a carelessly prepared message. People should not have to leave their intellects in the narthex when they come to worship God, for the gospel of Jesus Christ em braces the glories of the mind. This will always be a minister’s bat tleground. He will have to struggle to keep his “study” from deteriorating into an “office,” lest his mind become a victim of the mechanisms of the ministry. Ministers are Called not only to administration but also to ministra tion—the ministry of the Word. Let the trumpet be a trumpet of sil ver, refined in the fires of learning, and shaped on the anvil of hours of careful study, that it may blow a clear note for God. A Clear Voice In the second place, it must be a clean-cut, well-defined voice. We are to preach “the unsearchable riches of Christ.” As ministers, we are not the mere peddlers of the latest modern opinions. We are not in the pulpit to ■» expose the latest fiction, or to “take excursions into current oddities.” We have only a short time each week to win the soul and culture it for God, and we shall have to practice a rigid stewardship of thought. Paul says in Ephesians that we are called to be “pastors and teachers,” and the pastor and the teacher are in separable. As one leader said, there is a difference between “pounding” and “expounding.” He said some preachers “explode” instead of “ex
nervous breakdown. It is said that a thousand people in a certain city visit psychiatrists to keep from breaking. I am not saying that there is not a place for the Christian psychiatrist— there is. But all that a man needs is not to be found in this Science. A great psychiatrist of London Uni versity said that he had never had a patient over thirty-five years of age who had lost his mental balance, who had not first seemed to have lost his grip on God; and he deduced further that he had never been able to restore one. to full mental balance and poise unless that patient found God and re ligion again. Yes, we need this Voice. It is a high duty, then, of the minister and the Christian—and what pertains to the minister does, in truth, pertain to every Christian, for we are all of tjie priest hood of God—to be a voice—the echo of that Voice. Let us look, then, at the quality of the voice needed, if it is to be heard effectuallyitoday. A Prepared Voice It must be, first of all, a prepared voice. “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that rteedeth not to be ashamed” (2 Tim. 2:15). This is a primary requiremeiit. We speak a great deal of the “simple gospel,” but it is a dangerous phrase. The gospel is simple in some of its concepts, but deep as the sea and high as the heavens in its implications. It involves a knowledge of the heart of man and its deep needs, of the high love of God and the wideness of His mercy. The minister-draws from illimitable fields of knowledge. He is a prophet, and as a prophet he foretells what God has revealed in His Word, and that revelation covers an untold number of years yet to come. As a prophet he also forthtells and explains history and interprets it through the mind of God. The minister reaches out into the fields of philosophy, nature, law, and
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