Revival Sermons

The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.” But what is a Christian? If you should be asked to give a definition of a Christian, what would your answer be? It is not enough to say that a Christian is one who is a member of the Quitch, because many Church members are not Christians. Nor is it sufficient for you to reply that a Christian is one who is an officer of the Church, for I doubt not that some Church officers will hear Him say at the great day, “I never knew you.” It certainly is not a satisfactory answer that one is a Christian because he is a minister in the Church, because we are very sure that when we come to the judgment seat of Christ, and possibly at the judgment of the Great White Throne, some who have stood in the pulpit will find that their works have all been burned, and they themselves saved “as by fire,” or they, too, may hear Him say, “I never knew you, depart from me.”

What is a Christian? I was standing one morning in a hotel in Seoul, the capital of Korea, in conversation with a young Korean who told me that he was a Christian. “But,” he said, “while my father was a Christian, my grandfather was a Confucianist.” I know the definition of a Confucianist. He is one who believes in Confucius as a great teacher. He not infrequently goes into the temple to worship, and possibly he may go away a somewhat better man. He is one who recognizes Confucius as a sage and a teacher who presented to the world some very high ideals of living, and occasionally, if he is a real Confucianist, he may practice the teachings of his great teacher. But if I were to change that definition, and insert the name of Jesus in the place of that of Confucius, that would not be the definition of a Christian. So I put the question plainly, “What is a Christian?”

Some one answers, “A Christian is one who believes in Jesus Christ.” I answer, “Not of necessity.” The very devils may believe in Him. The ordinary wicked man in the world believes in Him. You may believe in Him and never know Him.

Then, you say, a Christian is one who believes on Jesus Christ, and to those of us trained in Christian homes, who know God’s Word and have come to know Jesus Christ, the definition begins to be satisfactory. What is the difference between believing in and believing on? I was once in the mountains of Colorado going through some of the silver mines, and I came to one mine where the miners went down to their work by means of a rope, a windlass and a bucket. The miners would step into the bucket and be lowered by means of the rope and windlass to their day’s task. I can imagine one of those men examining the windlass, and untwisting the rope and testing the bucket, then stepping back and saying, “I believe in these things thoroughly. The windlass is strong, the rope perfect, and the bucket sure.” That is believing in them. But that will not lower him to his day’s work. However, when he lays hold upon the rope with his hands, steps into the bucket, and trusts himself to rope and windlass to be lowered into the mine for his day’s toil, he believes not in but on, because he has committed himself to the rope and the windlass and the bucket. That is the beginning of the definition of what it really means to be a Christian. It is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. But even that is not a satisfactory definition; that is, it is not satisfactory to the man whose training has been defective and whose tendency is to doubt, and who is seeking light, because he does not attach as much importance to the little words in the Bible as we do who have come to know Jesus Christ in all His love and power.

A college professor defines a Christian thus: “Christianity is .primarily a way of living: the Christian life is a life in which a man adopting the ideals of Jesus and reaching out for connection with the personality of Jesus finds himself increasingly becoming a true son to God and a true brother to his fellow-man.” To me this is far from a satisfactory statement. I am not a son to God, but, by regeneration and sovereign grace a son of God ( 1 John 3:2); and then, again, according to this definition it would seem that one becomes a Christian as a result of personal effort in the reaching out after ideals, and striving to attain to them. If this be a true definition (which it is not), then there is little hope for the man with the ruined life, the shattered constitution, the depraved and distorted will. Yet to all such Jesus came with tender compassion and matchless grace.

What is a Christian? May I give a negative answer? A Christian is not of necessity one who boasts of his ancestry. Kinship with the saved does not insure salvation. Your mother may have been a saint, your father a priest in his household, and you be lost. I am not unmindful of that Scripture which declares, “The promise is unto you, and unto your children, and to all that are afar off,” but at the same time I know that my mother’s faith cannot save me, and my father’s righteousness cannot be imputed to me.

Again, a Christian is not necessarily one who subscribes to a creed. There are a great many people in the world to-day who are orthodox in their thinking and very heterodox in their living. From such turn away. You may approve of the creed of any or all evangelical churches and go to perdition. To be a Christian is not to subscribe to a creed, although that is not without its value.

Again, a Christian is not, of necessity, one who boasts of an early training. You may have been in the Sunday-school in your youth, you may have attended the church regularly, and you may have a sort of an apprehension of the Saviour in His beauty of character, but that is not enough. You must personally accept Him. You must be united to Him by’fai’thT Your early training is not enough.

Again, a Christian is not merely one who uses the language of heaven. Taking the train one day at Vancouver, B. C., I traveled over the Canadian Pacific Railroad with a most interesting railroad porter, ii

who told me that he was a lay-preacher of the Methodist Church, and he gave evidence of his genuine piety. He told me of a man who was a passenger on a previous journey with him, whose conversation, he said, was beautiful to listen to. He said he spoke like a preacher, but one day he came on him unexpectedly and heard him swearing like a pirate, so his conversation did not amount to anything. It is not a matter of talking, it is a matter of living.

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