Where Is Your Place
A PLACE for every man, and every man in his place! This motto is as good for Christ’s Church as it was for the army during the war. But what is every Christian’s right place?
We answer that it is the one for which God made him, and for which the Holy Spirit converted him. To mistake it is a sad blunder; to desert it is a disgrace. The Bible acknowledges that God made His servants for some especial “niche; “for it says,” Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given us, let us wait on our ministering; or he that teacheth on teaching; or he that exhorteth on exhortation; he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that showeth mercy, with cheer-WHERE IS TOUR PLACE? 219
fulness.” The principle here laid down is that every man or woman who loves Jesus should select and should fill that post of duty for which his or her gifts have fitted them. But “let no man neglect the gift that is in him.”
Some men — like Spurgeon and Newman Hall and Bishop Simpson — were created for the pulpit. God gave them clear heads, warm hearts, strong lungs and eloquent tongues, and a hunger for saving souls. To possess such gifts is a clear call to the ministry. And thousands of humbler preachers who cannot attract Spurgeon’s crowds are yet as clearly called to the ministry of the Word as the London Boanerges was himself But the vainglorious creature who cannot attract an audience except by sensational “clap-trap,” or by Barnum-ish advertisements, was certainly never called of God to the sacred ministry. He may di’aw auditors; but he commonly draws them away from places where they would be more profited.
Suppose a man or woman feel — after deep prayer and self-examination — that God has not called them to the pulpit; what then 1 Must they be silent ] Are all the speaking gifts of the pious lawyer, or doctor, or merchant, or mechanic to run to waste ‘i No, verily! Let such proclaim the glad tidings of Christ, and the story of their own Christian experience in the prayer-meeting, or the mission-school, or the cottage conference meeting, or wherever they can find souls to plead with. How successfully this lay-labor may be made, let such men as Harlan Page and Richard Weaver and George H. Stuart and D. L. Moody and John Wanamaker bear witness. Let the powerful lay-preaching heard every day in “Fulton Street” answer. Some of the best discourses I have ever heard were but five or ten minutes long, and were delivered in my own prayer-meeting. Christian lawyers ought to do more of this tongue-work. As a class, they are too silent in our meetings and Sunday schools. God is opening a wide field for laymen to act on “picket-duty” and as skirmishers and sharp-shooters in the spiritual warfare.
What our churches most need (next to the baptism of the Holy Ghost) is the development of all the members. So much is thrown upon the ministry that some of us can hardly catch a spare hour for our own family and fireside. The Spurgeons and John Halls and Guthries are being ground to death by overwork. A city pastor is often expected to prepare three sermons or lectures, to visit the flock, to see the sick, to bury the dead, and to act on a dozen committees and to make two or three speeches all in a single week! The church becomes Dr. Tyng’s church, or Mr. Beecher’s church, or Dr. Crosby’s church, or some other man’s church, — instead of being the people’s church, with some gifted man as its overseer and pastor.
Now I love to work exceedingly; but not one whit more than I love to see my congregation work. And no man in my flock has any more right to turn his spiritual work over upon me than he has a right to send me to market for him, or to cook or eat his dinner for him. He needs his work as much as I need mine. In revival-times the whole church is alive and busy. But where and when did the Master ever give a “furlough” to three-fourths of our people to quit the ranks just as soon as a revival-campaign is over ]
A Christian who is keen for work will soon find his place. If he is “apt to teach,” he or she will soon gather the Sabbath-school class, and will be there, Bible in hand, every Sunday, even though the rain is spattering on the pavements. Commend me to the teacher who wears a “water-proof,” and always consults conscience sooner than the barometer!
Whoever has the gift of song should join God’s great choir, and sing at every religious service. The owner of a good voice must give account for that voice at the day of judgment. We never shall have genuine congregational singing until every redeemed child of Christ sings from duty, and consecrates the gift of music to the Lord. Those who expect to sing in heaven had better practise here.
Tract-distribution is going too much out of fashion. It is a blessed and heaven-honored agency for doing good. Every one who has some spare time and a tongue and a little pious tact can go out with a bundle of tracts to the abodes of ignorance and irreligion.
Those who cannot exhort or teach in a Sunday school, or distribute tracts, can at least live for Jesus at home, and come and join in the prayers of the prayer-meeting. The oldest, the timidest, the least gifted can do surely as much as this. Every one, too, can give something when the contribution-box is passed. The gift of a” cup of cold water ‘’ in Christ’s name has its reward. Every one whom Jesus saves has a place assigned to them in the vineyard. An idle Christian is a monster!
Friend! have you found your place?