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fH E KING’S BUSINESS
separation, dangers, miasms, contagions, prisons, tortures, mar tyrdoms ; foes—civilized, Christianized, bar barous, savage. Paul’s category—down to this 20th century (2 Cor. 11:23-30). Faint hearted? Don’t go (Deut. 20:1-8; Luke 14:28-33 ; 9 :57-62; but see Daniel 6 :22, 23; Acts 18:10; Matt. 28:20). “Lambs among wolves!” i 3. The King’s Business (v. 4). “You tend to my business; I’ll tend to yours,” said Elizabeth to a merchant she commis sioned; for he asked, “What will become of my business?” “No purse,” there will be no profits—of that sort. Carey made $400,000 in the indigo business—he put it in the work, he had no purse. The King’s herald is not a merchant. (2) No “scrips” —for they shall beg no scraps; “the la borer is worthy of his hire;” “who preach the Gospel shall live by the Gospel.” The King’s inns are on His highway; He pays the score. (3) No “shoes,” i. e., none ex tra, no impedimenta; “travel light” (Deut. 29:5; 33:25; 2 Tim. 2:4). (4) Waste no time, “salute no man by the way,” after the Oriental fashion, which questions and cross-questions; busies itself in other men’s matters, bargainings, gossipings. Mind your business, it’s the King’s business. “Let the dead bury their dead.” 4. Be Benevolent (vs. 5-8). (1) Bless your hosts. “Peace to this house.” No vain convention, “Your peace shall rest upon it.” Christ’s messengers convey much by their salutations, which are availing prayers. (2) Be courteous. Do not find fault with your entertainment, nor criti cise the ways of the people. (3) Be con tent—honor your King. 5. Be Benehcient —(1) do good, “Heal the sick;” then by a Divine fiat, miraculous, merciful, and evidential of the message; now by human skill, pathological but not less merciful, and thereby evidential, ac crediting the sincerity of the messenger and message. (2) Preach the kingdom and the way into it, so healing the soul, the real consideration. (3) Denounce judgment on them that reject the message, for this is great kindness—perhaps they will take loneliness, toils,
warning. Tell them the King is just be hind His message and messenger. Do this on His authority. Show what came to Tyre, Sidon, Bethsaida, and Chorazin, aye, and Perea—almost an unexplored desola tion today; that it will be worse for 20th century sinners than for first. IV. T he R eturn and R eport ( v . 17). 1. “Joy." (1) In the midst of their toils let the faithful think of the “joy that is set before” (Heb. 12:2); and the negligent that they must render their ac count. (2) “Even the devils are subject” —a glorious fact, but not the highest. Some think to heal the sick and cast out devils and speak with tongues are chief. The angels will have a grim joy in casting out devils (Rev. 12:7-10), but the sweeter joy is in the repenting of sinners (Luke 15: 7, 10), and some who cast out devils will be cast out themselves (Matt. 7:21-23); and the joy of joys is to know that “our names are written in heaven,” never to be blotted out, and that we have caused others to be inscribed there. (3) And Jesus re joiced that His Father is so gracious as to reveal Himself to babes, to those simple hearted messengers. Praise the Lord! Do not mind how lowly your converts a r e - even poor black men, and wenches, and picanninies' in Africa. And praise God that all things are in the hands of such a dear Lord as ours (Matt, 28:18). Wonderful things have been seen in the missionary triumphs of the past, are now seen in the present (blessed are our eyes). Henry Lyman, one time a wild college boy, afterward a missionary to the East Indies, wrote upon the flyleaf of all his journals: “600,000,000 are perishing! Cal vary.” If these words were burned into our hearts as they were into the heart of Lyman, how long would it be before some of us went to these millions, in person or by proxy? “They are dying by the millions! yes, millions! All over the world’s wide lands, In Africa, India and China— Can you sit with folded hands?”
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