Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.” So, Christ is the universal Saviour. It cannot be said that Christianity is an exclusively Gentile religion, because the Gospel was preached to the Jews long before the Gentiles. Neither can it be said that Christianity is a western religion, since Christianity went to the east before it reached the west. Christ has become the one universal figure to appeal equally to east and west, north and south. The hymn writer has put it well when he said: “ In Christ there is no east nor west In Him no south or north; But one great fellowship of love Throughout the whole unde earth. “ In Him shall true hearts everywhere Socrates taught for forty years; Plato for fifty years, and Aristotle for forty. Jesus Christ taught for only three years. Yet, those three years infinitely trans cended the influence of the combined years these Greek philosophers of antiquity wielded. Jesus was not a writer. Yet He is quoted more than any writer and His words have winged their way to the earth’s remotest bounds and have been translated into all languages. So far as we know, the Carpenter of Nazareth never built any buildings. Yet many and diverse have been the structures erected in His name and for His sake: churches, cathedrals, schools, camps, homes for the aged and indigent, orphanages, sanatoria, welfare centers, recreation centers, leper colonies, missions for alcoholics and drug addicts, canteens for military personnel, hos pitals, YMCA’s, centers for the blind, Salvation Army social service works. Jesus Christ painted no pictures. Yet the great paintings of Raphael, Hoffman, Da Vinci, Sallman, Michelangelo and scores of other artists were inspired by Him. Christ wrote no poetry. Yet, great poets of his tory have either been influenced by Him or have writ ten for His glory. Jesus Christ composed no music. Yet there are hun dreds of hymns, many oratorios, chorales, folk songs and negro spirituals, written to His praise. Men and women like Charles Wesley, Fanny Crosby, Isaac Watts, Bach, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Beethoven — wrote mem- oral works to the praise and the glory of. His grace. f hrist was not conformed to this world, and yet He was attentive to the needs and sufferings of all men in the world. Even skeptics praise the clearness of His judgments, the depth of His ethics, the justness of His decisions, the weight of His words and the faultless beauty of His glorious life. That life indicated balance, pure nobility and serene power. It is never possible to exhaust Christ’s words. They have passed into proverbs, are enacted into laws, are consolidated into doctrines. They have become the hope and comfort of the poor, the sick, the old, the blind and the weary. They grow into life and transform character. They have changed the lives of headhunters, cannibals and barbarians. Yet, His words have never and will never pass away. And after all the use made of them, they are still as fresh today as when they were first spoken. They are more absolute than Albert Einstein’s principle of the Their high communion find; His service is the golden cord Close binding all mankind.’’
As the direct result of the story Jesus told of the Good Samaritan, as well as His other lessons of mercy and His own personal, tender care for the sick, the horrible practice of the neglect and exposure of the sick has long been a thing of the past wherever the Gos pel has gone. Care of the sick and injured in hospitals and sanitaria is now the rule. This is one of the hall marks of evangelical Christianity. For the Gospel has left in its trail a whole host of healing institutes, dedi cated to the good of mankind. A re you interested in the poor? Do you give and support the sick and the poor who are known to you? Then consider how the poor have been uplifted by Jesus Christ. Do you believe that education is necessary in the progress of humanity? If so, then observe that knowledge has been promoted by the Lord. When Jesus said, “Go ye therefore into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature,” He released the greatest forces directed in the world today. One of the great goals of the Christian faith has been study — a study ing to show ourselves approved to God as workmen who need not be ashamed, but are interested in rightly divid ing the truth. The educative program of Christianity has also involved the study of the history and anthro pology of all nations, so as to be able to apply the Gospel to every phase or relationship of life. To this end, methods of navigation and travel have been studied and perfected in order to reach all nations as com manded. This order to go into all the world has unloosed un told energies of men in every age. Sending disciples into the depths of the earth, and upon the wings of planes above the clouds, to the burning sands of the Sahara, to the chill and solitude of the Arctic, to the heart of darkest Africa, deep into the jungles of the Amazon, and to the great unknown vastness of Tibet. Why? Why all this zeal to get a Gospel to the far reaches of the world? For one major purpose — that the great commission might be carried out. The com mand to teach all nations means that the teacher must know more than the learner. So the Church has set up innumerable schools, Bible colleges, medical institutions and seminaries. Missionaries have had to set up lan guage schools to study and teach over a thousand lan guages and thousands of dialects. Translators have had to reduce to writing many of these languages so as to print Bibles as well as religious books and tracts. In fact, the geographical knowledge of our globe has come largely from the missionaries who have ventured where the foot of the explorer and the adventurer dared not tread. Intead the very depths of the dark, snake-infested jungles, these brave warriors of the Lord have gone. Way up into the icy, freezing cold of far north spots the Gospel has been taken. The race from which Jesus came was, and still is, one of the most hated and most persecuted peoples in the world. For seemingly no reason at all, men have killed and persecuted the Jews throughout history. Yet, the Scriptures foretold that “ out of Nazareth shall he come.” The Wonderful Counselor was born a Jew and called twelve Jewish disciples to set up a Church which was about 90% Jewish. However, Jesus told His disci ples not to keep the Gospel for themselves, but to share it with the whole world. He said, “ You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all
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