THE KING’S BUSINESS
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call, no special enthusiasm for the mission field beyond what he described as an “overwhelming sense o f duty.” Young Keith Falconer, the son of a peer, rich, one o f the best athletes o f' his day, a Cam bridge University reader in Arabic, said, “A call—what is a call ? ' A call is a need, a need made known, and power to meet that need.” The call o f Amos the prophet is instruc tive in this connection. One wonders if he had any outward call at all. With him it was more o f an inward conviction than an outward call. There was no formal process o f consecration o f the voice o f the prophet. His calk was not connected with any prophetic ecstasy, for he disclaims being equal to-the prophets, or even o f a preacher’s family. Through the desert air the call o f God breaks upon him without medium or saGrament. “ The lion hath roared,” saith he. “Who shall nol fear? Jehovah hath spoken: who can but proph esy?” The call o f Amos came from con science and history. Within his soul he hears the voice o f God speaking in cer tain moral principles; he sees the condition o f Israel, and he beholds certain judicial acts o f God in the condition o f the nation. The voice o f God in his soul and the moral principles enunciated in that voice condemn the life .o f Israel, and the prophet knows that unless repentance takes place Israel will be involved in captivity and ruin. Thus from inward conviction and the outward event, (from, the knowledge he has o f what God requires and o f the condition in which he found his people—the consider ation o f these facts lays a pressing burden upon his soul, and therein he finds his com mission. SEEKING A SIGN Are we like the Pharisees, tempting God in asking for a sign? Is it not an evil and adulterous generation that seeketh after a sign? Read the open Bible, look upon the map o f the world; see in the Bible what God thinks o f a heathen world and it's need, then o f the power o f the gospel to satisfy that need. Think o f yourself as standing between a mighty gospel and a lost world;
then say, if you can, with your hand upon your heart, and looking up into the clear blue sky, and into the face o f Jesus Christ, “ I am sure, O Saviorf Thou art not calling me to the foreign field.” Before,you sleep tonight answer that question in the pres ence o f your Lord. Look up into the Master’s face, watch the direction in which it is turned, and if you see it turned towards those dark regions—go, go with Him—Do not turn away. You may reply: “ I want time to think,” certainly, by all means take timeAo ponder this -question, but in your meditation will you not think: First, o f the awful condi tion o f the heathen world in the light of the present revelation. Millions and mil lions o f them lost, and the gospel and Christ alone can save them, and you have that Christ and that gospel. Think o f the lost condition o f the heathen—perishing without God and without hope. It was this belief that inspired Carey and Judson in India, Moffett in Africa, Hudson Taylor in China, Brainerd among the Indians. Present-day theology may have modified its views o f the lost condition o f the heathen since these noble men labored among them, but you have no conclusive evidence that these -men were not right in the views they held. W e need a vision o f the dying heathen, their idol worship, their moral degredation, their human sacrifices, their lost condition. And so I ask you to look upon these darkened,' dying heathen nations, . these open sores o f the world, and. thus think o f your relation to Missions. Tell me not but what at the last day these black men, one o f whom bore the Master’s cross, shall cry out against us for our neglect, and the Saviour o f men, who loved these perishing souls, who gave His life that they through Him might know the true God and eter nity, as these nameless human' wrecks, these broken human hearts, stand up before Him at the last great day perishing for want o f vision, methinks will cry out to us with convicting nearness to the truth, that “Inasmuch as ye did it not to these ye did it not to me.”
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