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THE KING’S BUSINESS
is a deep, inwrought conviction that this missionary responsibility rests upon us. We have got to put it as the Word puts it, as a matter of indebtedness, as a mat ter of obligation that rests upon us. In what light have you been regarding mis sions? Has it been to you the clear and unmistakable duty that the Word says it is? Have you put it in the same cate gory, for instance as your butcher bills, your grocer bills, and your dry goods’- bills? Have you been putting God’s debt and the heathens’ debt, in the same cate gory as these practical debts? Or have you been regarding missions merely as a charity? Stewards The Apostle says again: “For though I preach the Gospel, I have nothing to glory of; for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if -I preach not the Gospel! For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward; but if against my will, a dispensation of the Gospel is commit ted unto me” (1 Cor. 9:16,17). This is another familiar figure, “stewards.” We know who a steward is; he is the man in whose hands are placed certain as sets, resources; it may be money, it may be food, it may be responsibility of other kind, and these things while in his hands are not to be regarded as his own in trinsically. He is the servant of a mas ter, and concerning the right and con stant use of the things which are thus entrusted to him, he is going ,to be called to give a strict account, sooner or later. The Gospel has been put into our hands in trust for the world. We are stewards, and we are going to be called to account for our right or wrong use of the Gospel. Paul declared to the Ephesians that he had not withheld anything that was pro fitable, and that he was free from the blood of all men because he had not shunned to declare the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:17-27). Would to God that more of his ministering stewards today could give that testimony. You and I are stewards of this Gospel, we have been put in trust with the bread of life for the whole multitude. Trustee In I Timothy 1:11, we have the term “Trustee.” Here the Apostle gives thanks to God for putting him into the ministry according to the Gospel that was commit ted to his trust. The general idea of a trustee and a steward is perhaps the same, but the figure is a little different. A man dies. He leaves a will and an inheritance to be distributed among a great many heirs, and he appoints a trus
tee, or an executor, for the administra tion of that will. That man for a time holds the fortune, possesses the inherit ance of the dead man, but not for him self. He has got to search carefully and thoroughly out every heir, and ac cording to the terms of that will to dis tribute the inheritance. One heir may live next door, another may- live in a neighboring town, another may be a thousand miles away. But suppose there are some heirs that have to be reached with difficulty, and real sacrifice, and effort. Is that ¿executor absolved be cause of these conditions? By no means. He is to spare no expense, no effort, no personal inconvenience or sacrifice, as long as one heir of that dead man’s inheritance remains. Now, beloved, a man has died, and His name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He has left a will, and an that will He says He is not willing that any should perish, hut that all should have life. And He has left that inheritance not merely for us, a few Americans and Britishers, but for peo ple who are to be called out from every tribe, and nation, and kingdom, and ton gue, and you and I are the trustees of this good news. You and I are the ex ecutors of that will, and upon us lies the clear and solemn duty of searching out and finding, to the best of our ability, every last heir of God and joint-heir with Jesus Christ. I like that term “trustee.” I like the thought of God trusting us. God might have chosen angels, and they surely would have flown at His behest; but God passed them by and laid hold upon us. I wonder if He is able to trust us in the measure we are asking Him to be faithful to our trust in Him? We are pouring our personal petitions into the ear of God day by day, peti tions for unsaved loved ones, for per sonal things, for guidance in our per sonal affairs. I often think of God as He sits there graciously receiving and at tending to these requests in which we are placing our trust in Him, and look ing down upon the millions for whom He has put the Gospel in our trust, and sometimes saying, “Oh, child of mine, I wish that I could trust you, as you feel it a privilege to trust Me.’ Witness. “But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and in Sa maria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8.) What do we learn from the word witnesses? We all
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