The Man Behind the Message
The ambassador of the United States to a foreign court is both accorded certain honors and exposed to critical observation, because he represents the great republic. Remember always, my young brother, that you are the ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ, the bearer of the gospel message from the court of heaven; therefore be very watchful of the man that bears the message. Look well after the man that walks in your shoes. People have a right to expect more than ordinary piety in a minister, because he is a representative of Jesus Christ, and has promised to be an “ensample to the flock.” You have no right to be a minister if you are not willing to be closely watched and keenly scrutinized; you ought to have taken account of this when you voluntarily assumed so high and holy an office. Do not shirk the “fierce light” that may be expected to beat upon your pulpit and your pastorate, and, above all, on your own personality. A torch-bearer must not expect to be hidden; the light that he carries will reveal to others what manner of man he is.
The great object of preaching the gospel is to form godly character, and therefore the preacher himself should strive to exhibit a character of the highest possible type. We whose business it is to set forth Christianity must not forget that people look at us when outside of our pulpits, to discover what we mean when in our pulpits. If your conduct before the community contradicts your utterances of God’s truth on God’s day, then your tongue, if it had the charm of Chrysostom’s, would be but a tinkling cymbal. A parishioner once remarked, “My pastor’s discourses are not brilliant, but his daily life is a sermon all the week.” Paul stood behind all his inspired utterances; the “living epistle w was as eloquent and convincing as any words he ever sent to Corinth, or ever pronounced on the hill of Mars. A large part of the power of the best ministers lies in their own personality. -Phillips Brooks was generally accounted the foremost American clergyman of these days; his discourses were fresh, chaste, vigorous, often brilliant; and, being constructed largely out of his own spiritual experience, were adapted to the experiences of his hearers; but the magnificent manhood of Phillips Brooks towered above his grandest discourses. It was equally true of Spurgeon, the most popular preacher of modern times. Behind all his thousands of fervid gospel messages stood Spurgeon, the fearless, faithful, genial, warm-hearted man of God, whom Protestants and Roman Catholics, Jews and Quakers, alike revered and loved. They did this, too, in spite of all the sharp points of his Calvinistic doctrines. He never trimmed his sails to catch popular favor, and the world liked him all the better for that. Time-servers are always despised. If you want to catch and to keep the popular ear, have the courage of your convictions. Never be afraid of your own congregation, or of any one else but God. Yet plain, fearless speaking should never degenerate into the bluster of a bully, or the exasperations of a common scold. Richard Cecil, of London, once said that too many ministers go to the opposite extreme. “They are all milk and mildness. They touch all sin with so much tenderness! and if the patient shrinks, they will touch no more. The gospel is sometimes preached in this way till all the people agree with the preacher; he gives no offense, and he does no good.”
If compromising God’s truth in the pnlpit is mischievous, so is compromising in your practice during the week. I have a pretty strong conviction that the reaction that has set in during these later years is not a wholesome one. Ministers in former times may have gone to an extreme in punctiliousness of clerical dress and in austerity of manners. Now the danger is in the opposite direction; and too many ministers try to be like everybody else, both in their costume and their customs. For fear of being thought puritanical they become frivolous. In order to win favor with the world they fall too much into the ways of the world, forgetting that when they try to conform their Christianity to the world they will never be able to conform the world to Christianity. The standard is being lowered, both in doctrine and in practice. The dividing line between the church and the world is becoming more indistinct; as to some things, it is almost obliterated. For example, a larger proportion of church-members attend the theater than attended forty years ago, not because the morals of the average stage have been elevated, but because the moral standard of too many professing Christians has been lowered. Set your face like a flint against all impure and unwholesome amusements. There are certainly enough pure and innocent recreations to be found without resorting to the gilded nastiness of the average playhouse, or the sensualities of the ball-room. Never go where your Master would not go. Never be found where any one, especially one of your own church, will be likely to say, “I did not expect to see you here.” Keep on Christ’s side of the dividing line; and, where you are in doubt, give Christ and conscience the casting vote. There are several things that are not sinful per se, but which it would be improper for a Christian minister to do. God’s Word may not pronounce it a sin to touch a glass of wine; nevertheless, under the sanction of Paul’s precept to practice self-denial for the sake of others, you ought to let the wine-glass severely alone. Secret drinking is dangerous to yourself; public drinking is dangerous to other people. Entire abstinence is the only safe course. There may be no direct prohibition in the Bible of certain games of chance; yet a minister should never be seen with a pack of cards in his hands. “Keep thyself pure;” “let no man despise thee.” Never indulge in any practices that will require you to make explanations or apologies. Be rigidly careful in your pecuniary transactions; and, however small your salary may be, let me exhort you to bear any privation sooner than incur the terrible bondage of debt. This has eaten like a cancer into more than one minister’s health and happiness. Sterling honesty, scrupulous truthfulness, rigid self-denial, cheerful sobriety (that is not afraid to laugh when laughter is in order), generous treatment of all your brethren, and sympathy with the sorrowing, the sobbing, and the suffering around you — all these virtues will tell upon your influence, and will give a prodigious power to your ministry.
If in your case the man is to be at all like his divine message, then you must keep your heart with all diligence; for your outward life before the world will be measured by your inward life with the Lord Jesus Christ. The water in a public fountain never rises one inch higher than its birthplace upon the mountain-side. The greater your piety, the greater your power. Genius, scholarship, eloquence, are no substitutes for whole-souled love of Christ and holiness of life. If you do not love your Master intensely, you will soon get weary of your work; if you do not love your people unselfishly and devotedly, they will soon get weary of you. The deeper you root down into Christ’s heart and your people’s hearts, the larger and the longer will be your pastorate.
That prince of modern evangelists, Charles Gr. Finney, used to have seasons when he felt shorn of his spiritual strength. Then he shut himself up with God, went down on his knees, and, emptying himself of all self-seekings and self-reliance, he fervently prayed to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Then he went to his pulpit like a giant. The last hour that I spent with my beloved friend Spurgeon was spent at family worship. After I had concluded my prayer, he chimed in with a most wonderfully simpie, fervent, artless converse with Goti; it was like the reverent talk of a child with the best of fathers. After I heard that marvelous prayer I said to myself, “Now I know the secret hiding-place of Spurgeon’s power.” My brother, if you cannot pray, you cannot preach.
With these few frank and fatherly counsels I bid you Godspeed in your work — a work so glorious that an archangel might covet it, and yet it is intrusted to “earthen vessels.” Preach the Word. Feed the flock. Win souls. An ordinary man may become extraordinary when the Spirit of the Almighty Son of God dwelleth in him. Carry the sacred fire in your bones, as old John Bunyan did when he warned his hearers to flee from the wrath to come, and to set their faces toward the Celestial City. Keep eternity in view. Let the light of the “great white throne” fall on your page when you study, and
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on your pulpit when you preach. You are a watchman who must give account for souls in the great day of judgment. There is no higher throne for any saint in heaven, and no more radiant crown, than is reserved for the faithful, fearless, unselfish, holy-hearted minister of the Lord Jesus Christ. He shall reign with his Lord and King; he shall shine as the stars for ever and ever.