Quotations from the Evangelism sermons
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Christianity which does not begin with the individual's experience with Christ, does not begin. Christianity which ends with the individuals experience with Christ, ends.
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"Not by birth," says Buddha, "does one become an outcast. Not by birth does one become a Brahman or priest. By deeds one becomes an outcast. By deeds one becomes a Brahman."
***
Luther Burbank, the greatest botanist of all times, wrote on his death bed thirty minutes before he died, "I have lived in the garden, but I have failed to meet the Gardener." Lost! Because he put his hope in the creation and failed to heed the Creator.
***
An anonymous writer has said:
"Are you an
artist? He is altogether lovely.
Are you an
architect? He is the chief cornerstone.
Are you an
astronomer? He is the bright and morning star.
Are you a
biologist? He is the life.
Are you an
educator? He is the great teacher.
Are you a
florist? He is the Rose of Sharon, the Lily of the Valley.
Are you a
geologist? He is the rock of ages.
Are you a
judge? He is the righteous judge.
Are you a
newspaper man? He is the good tidings of great joy.
Are you a
philosopher? He is the wisdom of God.
Are you a
theologian? He is the author and finisher of our faith.
Are you a
student? He is the incarnate truth.
Are you a
Christian? He is the Savior, Redeemer and Lord.
Are
you a sinner? He is the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world."
***
As D. L. Moody put it,
"This world that some people think is Heaven, is the home of sin, a hospital of sorrow, a place that has nothing in it to satisfy their soul. Men go all over it and then want to get out of it. The more men see of it, the less they think of it. People soon grow tired of the best pleasures this world has to offer."
***
As one writer has said so pointedly, "A man may have his name written on the highest chronicles down here, but the record may be lost; he may have it carved in marble and still it may perish. Some great institution may bear his name, and yet he may soon be forgotten. But his name will never be erased from the scrolls that are kept above. Seeking to perpetuate one's name on earth is like writing on the shifting sands of the seashore." To be everlasting, it must be written in the directory of heaven . . . The Lamb’s Book of Life. And when it is there, we can have the assurance of Paul and can say, "I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."
***
It is a gift of God. And, as Moody pointed out, "You cannot bury a gift of God. You cannot bury eternal life. Why, all of the grave diggers in the world could not dig a grave long enough, wide enough, or deep enough to hold eternal life. All of the coffin makers in the world could not make a coffin large enough or strong enough to hold eternal life." And its mine, praise God, it's mine!
***
If I were ever required to given account of my call the ministry I'd be pretty hard put, because I believe God's hand was upon me long before I ever realized it. As I remember, I held my first pastorate at the age of four. We called it the Backyard Presbyterian Church. I was a combination song leader, choir director, press agent, soloist and preacher, a rut I'm still in!
My congregation consisted of the kids on our block. I can see them now, innocent little tots, some hardly able to talk, sitting there on orange crates, dirty faces, a sucker in a mouth here or there methodically working back and forth as they listened to me tell how the crushing burden of their life of sin could be rolled away. It must have been pretty good, because they kept coming back for more. Sometimes I wish I had a couple of those sermons now!
***
As someone has said,
"The cross stands between two eternities and it alone explains them both. The cross stands between heaven and hell, and it alone explains them both. The cross stands between heaven and earth, and it alone explains them both. The cross stands between the Old and the New Testament, and it alone explains them both. The cross stands between the incarnation and the resurrection of Jesus, and it alone explains them both. The cross stands between the glory which Christ had from the beginning, and the glory to which he returned, and it alone explains them both. The cross stands between sin, sorrow, and death and salvation, joy and life, and it alone explains them all."
***
The Bible is creative. It grows people. As someone has said,
"The Bible
is more than a piece of literature.
It is a revelation.
It is more
than a museum of Oriental curios.
It is a spiritual
treasure house."
It is beyond compare. Above reproach. Outside the sphere of rivalry. It is God’s book and it is meant for you. It reveals his will. It reviews his love. It reveres his son.
***
Phillips Brooks
once said,
"Do not pray
for a task commensurate to your strength.
Pray for
a strength commensurate to your task."
***
As Robert Moyer has said,
"Our salvation is divinely purposed by the loving Father. Divinely prepared by the loving Son. Divinely imparted by the loving Spirit. It was wrought out by God, the Father. It was wrought for us by God, the Son. It was wrought in us by God, the Holy Spirit."
From "The Greatest News Story in History"
***
As George Truest said so beautifully,
"Never did a hyphen mean so much as here. The God -- hyphen -- man. That hyphen both divides and unites. It marks distinction and unity. Jesus was as truly God as though he were never man, and as truly man has though he were never God. How often he proved he was God and, at the same time, showed he was man. As man he was asleep on a pillow. As God he called the winds to rest and stilled the wrathful sea. As man he wept with Mary and Martha at the grave of Lazarus. As God he drove the "king of terrors" from the tomb, and called Lazarus back from the gruesome shades of corruption. As man he sat weary, thirsty, and hungry at Jacob’s well. As God he fed 5,000 people with the lunch of a little lad. These, and many other actions, attest to his humanity and prove his deity."
***
If we were looking for the highest example of meekness, we would not look to Moses, but to Jesus, who was "indescribably meek and lowly in heart."
For the highest
example of patience we would not look to Job, but to Jesus, who, when he was
struck, refused to strike back.
For the highest
example of wisdom we would not look to Solomon, but to Jesus, who spoke the
truth more clearly than it has ever been spoken.
For the highest
example of compassion we would not look to weeping Jeremiah, but to Jesus, as
he wept over the city of Jerusalem.
For the highest
example of soul-absorbing zeal we would not look to Paul, but to Jesus, who
prayed for the lost with a broken heart.
For
the highest example of love we would not look to John, the beloved, but to Jesus,
who, while we were yet sinners, loved us and gave himself for us.
***
This God-man is the gateway between God and man. As G. Campbell Morgan says,
"Through him God has found his way to man. Through him man has found his way to God. God finds himself in this person and is with man. Man finds himself in this person and is with God. Through the God-man, deity takes hold of humanity. Through the God-man, humanity takes hold of Deity."
By his death upon the cross -- "the just for the unjust" -- Jesus answers the eternally vital question of how a guilty sinner can find forgiveness and acceptance in the eyes of a righteous God. Thus it was that Mozart was moved to write:
"Forever God,
forever man,
My Jesus
shall endure.
And fixed
on him my hope remains
Eternally
secure."
***
A few days ago there came to my desk a copy of a letter from a Veteran of WWII. This is what he writes:
"My name is John Crown. I am a paraplegic at Halloran General Hospital. My physical wounds are very small in comparison to my spiritual wounds. I have come back from death to a world that I know longer care about. I, who have been engaged in the great struggle to save the world from tyranny, and have seen my comrades die for this cause, can now find no peace in the world or in my country."
"Having lived close to death for two years, the reasons why there is no peace seem infinitesimally flimsy. Russia wants the Dardanelles, Yugoslavia wants Treiste, the Moslems want India, labor wants more wages, capital wants more profits, Smith wants to pass the car in front of me, Junior wants more spending money. To these I say, is it necessary to kill and cripple human beings for these petty games? Anyone who thinks the human body is so cheap it can be traded for a tract of land, a piece of silver or a few minutes of time on the freeway should be forced to listen to the moans of the dying night and day for the rest of his life."
"All the troubles of the world originate in the common man. The selfish and greedy ways of nations are just the ways of each individual man multiplied a hundredfold. When the morals of the common man drop, so do the morals of the nations of the world. As long as our individual morals remain at a low end, so will be the world."
This young man shattered in body by the great God Mars, has seen through the sham and hypocrisy of our age. He has found the taproot of our tree of evil and he sees it for what it really is -- sin.
***
Dr. Robert L. Moyer says,
"You may go back beyond a time when a wave beat upon the shore, or a star shown in the sky or the leaf of a tree fluttered in the breeze, or an angel worshiped before the throne, and when you get back as far as the human mind can reach, you will be no nearer than the beginning of God’s love for you than you are right now. If you project your mind into the future to the time when the mountains have molded into dust, out beyond the time when the sun has grown cold and the stars are old and the leaves of the judgement book unfold, you will be no nearer the end of God’s love than you are right now."
"Oh love of
God, how rich and pure
How measureless
and strong
It shall
forever more endure
The
saints and angels song."
***
Think of it, as Moyer says,
"Jesus was crowned with thorns that you might be crowned with glory. He was stripped of his raiment that you might be robbed in righteousness. He was mocked that you might be honored. He was reviled that you might be blessed. He was numbered with the transgressors that you might be numbered with the redeemed. He went to the depths of degradation that you might be raised to the height of glory. He suffered the sting of death that you might not perish but have everlasting life."
***
"They tried
to take you from me.
They said
you were but an idol myth,
A delusion
and a childish superstition;
When I prayed they mocked me,
And when
I worshiped you they called me mad.
But, oh my
Master, I have met you and I know!
I have heard
your voice in the stillness of the night
And
in the infinite silence I have beheld your glory;
In the hour of
pain I have felt your comforting hand.
How can I
doubt you whom I know?
They tried
to take you from me.
They
proved in learned discourse that you never were;
They told me I was simple, and that you were but an empty dream;
Scientific proof they gave, and spoke wise words I could not understand;
They ridiculed
and scoffed and laughed.
But, oh my
Master, he that once has met you cannot doubt.
He that once
has felt your holy presence cannot question more.
Though
they are blind, yet I have seen your splendor;
Though they are
deaf, yet I have heard your voice.
How
can I doubt you whom I know?"(Anonymous.)
***
You see young people, Jesus understands your struggles. He understands your trials and your temptations, because he, too, was young.
A poet has put it this way --
"Because he,
too, was young, he knows each snare along the way.
He knows
what youth must dare!
He, too in
Nazareth’s narrow little street
Found hidden
nets to trip his youthful feet.
And such
forbidden music as you hear
Fell,
strangely alluring on the young Christ’s ear.
"The broad
way then, as now was gay with song,
And laughter;
and the straight way lone and long.
The same
foes lurked beside his humble way:
That thwart
the golden dreams of youth today;
And all the
dark temptations that you know
He
was acquainted with long, long ago.
"Tell him
your longing! He will bend to hear:
Bring him
your heartaches! And the skies will clear
And share
your dreams with him! He speaks the
Tongue of
youth. He, too, was eager, glad and young!
Tell him!
He is a comrade, loyal and true,
Whom
you can trust in all you think or do."
From "The Vantage Point of Youth"
***
Someone has said the most unhappy person in the world is a Christian who is living outside the will of God. Why? I’ll tell you. He knows what he’s missing. He knows the indescribable joy of walking close to God. He knows the perfect peace and contentment found in prayer and fellowship with Christ. He knows the thrill of having prayers answered and seeing souls saved.
He knows all this. He also knows the wretchedness of his present state and that fact, coupled with the knowledge of what could have been and should have been, makes him almost unbearable to live with. That’s the peril of becoming a Christian! That one, who having been saved, remains empty and, failing to grow, returns to a state worse than before.
From "The Peril of Becoming a Christian"
***
One of the great English preachers was asked a question, "If you were to put in one sentence, a message of counsel to your brother preachers in England and around the world, what would that one sentence be?" I was wonderfully impressed with his reply. This was his answer: "Brother preachers, make it plain to the people how they are saved."
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Someone has said, and rightfully so I believe, that the three most difficult words in the English language to say the way they ought to be said are these, "I have sinned." And yet, the realization and confession sin lies right at the foundation of our coming to Christ. If one is not a sinner, then for him there is no Savior. For him, Christ’s gospel has no appeal. Jesus said, "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." And again he said, "The Son of man has come to seek and to save the lost." Are you a sinner? Then I preach to you a Savior, for Jesus came to seek and save sinners.
***
As the late Dr. Walter H. Kallenbach has pointed out, there was slow-witted Phillip, going with quick-witted Bartholomew. Doubting, skeptical, disbelieving Thomas, going with believing, simple, trusting Matthew. He sent practical James with doctrinal Jude and so on. And thus we see that each team was both conservative and aggressive while each member of the team was complimentary to the other.
***
Someone has said, "We will either evangelize or fossilize." It is equally true to say, "We will neither go nor stagnate. We will either go or backslide. We will either go or die."
***
Hyman Appleman, the great Jewish evangelist, put it so eloquently when he wrote, "Put your watch to your ear. Every ticking second says, now. Put your finger to your pulse. Every beat of it says, now. Put your hand to your heart. Every pulsating throb of it says, now. Come with me to the silent confines of the cemetery. Every heaped-up grave, every tombstone, every cross, every blade of glass, every wilting flower and every sorrowing memory says, now. Stand with me on the brink of hell. Look down into that pit of torment. See the writhing anguish of those who are eternally lost. Hear their fearful cries. Were they able to speak to you tonight, with all of the anguish of their souls they would cry out, now? Get right, now! Accept Christ, now!
"Look up into the marvelous magnificence of heaven. Hear that singing, shouting, saintly band! Hear them, as with outstretched hands and pleading voices, they gently urge you, now. Oh, friend of mine, if you would escape the torments of hell, if you would hope for the bliss of heaven, if you would rejoice in the presence of God, if you would look forward to that land without sorrow, without sickness, without death, then I plead with you, prepare now to meet your God!"
***
Folks are always struggling to know God’s will for their life. Actually, it’s very simple. Meet the nearest need. That’s it!
For me, at this moment, meeting the nearest need means sharing with you. Earlier today, as I flew here from California, the nearest need meant writing out these few pages of notes, as God revealed what he wants me to share with you tonight. Earlier this morning, it meant writing some letters. After that while I was waiting at the airport, it meant making some phone calls relating to the ministry needs of people.
Sometimes meeting the nearest need meant picking up a piece of trash which was cluttering God’s beautiful creation and putting it in a trash basket. Sometimes it has meant hugging a child. Or telling my wife I love her. Or doing a good job where I work so I can have a steady income stream with which to support my family.
The will of God is no mystery. It means meeting the nearest need. And, as you go about doing that, there comes a time when, looking back, you see how, in a kind of serpentine way, God has been leading you, throughout the days and weeks and years, helping you to be to your world what Christ would be if he were here himself. And that’s what the Christian life comes down to – being to your little world what Christ would be if he were here himself.
***
As George Truett pointed out:
"The reason
the writings of the great dramatists, Shakespeare and George Elliot
and Victor
Hugo, and men and women of their caliber live on, while ten thousand
piles of
trashy literature die, is that they have recognized the power of the
human
conscience.
"Take Macbeth," Truett says. "See the effort made there to get the blood off the hands. See him as he washes them again and again. Hear the pitiful wail as the hands are lifted up with the cry ‘Oh, the blood, the blood. Though I lave here in this basin, I cannot get it off!’ And if a philosophy of life does not satisfy the conscience and give peace of mind, it can never provide true happiness."
From "Let’s Be Honest"
***
Toynbee, undoubtedly the greatest historian of modern times, a man who examined the qualifications of all the founders of the world’s religious faiths, wrote triumphantly in his masterpiece The History of the World, "God incarnate in human flesh, Jesus of Nazareth, alone conquers death." Yes, Jesus meets that test.
From "Let’s Be Honest"
***
No wonder, Michaelangelo, the master artist of the ages should be heard to say in his 80th year,
"Painting and sculptor’s aid in vain I crave, my one sole refuge is that love divine, which from the cross stretched forth its arms to save."
From "Let’s Be Honest"
***
As Samuel Shoemaker says in his valuable book Revive Thy Church Beginning With Me,
"Until something
happens in us and to us,
it will never
happen through us.
If we stay
as we are, we shall go on producing
what
we have produced."
From "They Can’t Stop It, Can They!"
***
James Denny points
out,
"No man can, at one and the same time, give the impression that he himself
is clever, and that Jesus Christ is mighty to save!"
From "They Can’t Stop It, Can They!"
***
James Stewart says,
"What our churches need today are men who, knowing the world about them and the Christ above and within them, will set the trumpet of the gospel to their lips and proclaim his power to save."
"I came to town," wrote John Wesley in his Journal, "and offered them Christ." And that is what we must do today.
From "They Can’t Stop It, Can They!"
***
In the midst of one of his sermons Spurgeon held up a book.
"Here is the latest novel. Its day will pass." And he dropped it on the floor. "Here is the latest book of science. It, too, will pass." And he let it fall. He held up a third book and said, "Here is a recent commentary on social events. It will pass." And he let it drop with a thud. Then, picking up his pulpit Bible and holding it high, he cried,
"Here is the word of God which endures forever!"
From "They Can’t Stop It, Can They!"
***
Vance Havner, the famous southern preacher, says,
"Too many sermons are preached in the objective case and the bilious mood."
I don’t know about that, but I do know that if our preaching is going to reach people today, it will be because we preach in the second person, present tense. That is to say, you need Christ, now! Using the literary "we" -- we’ve sinned, we need God, we need to be saved -- has made our preaching painfully impersonal.
From "They Can’t Stop It, Can They!"
***
Richard Baxter points out, we must always remember,
"We preach
as a dying man to dying men."
Each time
we mount the pulpit stairs we would do well to pause and breathe a secret prayer,
"God
be merciful to me, a sinner!"
From "They Can’t Stop It, Can They!"
***
One of the miracles of the gospel is that it becomes most universal when it is couched in language which is most personal. A crowd has no conscience to be stirred. No heart to be broken. No soul to be saved. Wesley, Spurgeon, Wakefield, Moody knew that. Thus, they learned to preach to a crowd. As Bonnell observes,
"They conquered (the crowd) by ignoring it. Instead of forgetting the individual in the crowd, they forgot the crowd in the individual."
Evangelistic preaching if different from evangelical preaching. The evangelist, be he a pastor or itinerant preacher, is one who impresses upon his people the good news that the gospel is for them. That Jesus is a personal Savior for a personal sinner. That while his love is broad enough to encompass the whole wide world, it is personal enough to applies to them.
"Come unto me all ye that labor," he said, "and I will give you rest,"
The evangelistic preacher is one who, with fervent heart, is constantly pressing home the urgent need for action. That now is the accepted time. That yesterday is already a dream. Tomorrow is but a vision. But, every today lived with Jesus Christ can make every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope.
From "They Can’t Stop It, Can They!"
***
My heart was thrilled and stirred within me as I read of the great revivals of yesterday. I was humbled as I saw the compassion of the men God chose to lead them. There was John Knox who cried, "Give me Scotland, or I die." Some of us seem to pray, "Give me a good church, or I’ll move." We must learn to preach like Knox and Moody and Peter of old -- with earthquakes in our souls -- believing the whole world is on fire and we are the only ones who can put it out!
From "They Can’t Stop It, Can They!"
***
Wesley said,
"Give me two-hundred
men who fear nothing but sin, love nothing but God, are filled with nothing
but the Holy Spirit, and I will set this empire on fire."
There are many more than two-hundred of us here this afternoon! The question is, "Do we fear nothing but sin? Do we love nothing but God? Are we filled with nothing but the Holy Spirit?" If so, there’s enough power in this room to change the course of history and win this generation for Jesus.
From "They Can’t Stop It, Can They!"
***
Someone has said,
"Preaching
is not the art of preparing a sermon and delivering it.
Preaching
is the act of preparing the preacher and delivering him."
Someone else said,
"Live so people will want your autograph and not your fingerprints."
***
Edgar DeWitt Jones, the great Congregational preacher, tells how one of his key laymen had a heart attack and was close to death. Dr. Jones loved this man and visited him often in the hospital. The man had been a self-made, self-sufficient individualist all his life. Now, after coming face to face with his own fragility, he was struggling to just stay alive and regain his physical and emotional equilibrium.
One day Dr. Jones
walked into the hospital room and asked his friend how things were going. The
man replied, "Oh, pastor, I’ve lost God. Through all of this pain and long
recuperation,
I’ve
lost God."
Quick as a flash, Edgar DeWitt Jones replied, "Oh, my friend, you are in company with the saints!
Job cried, ‘Oh that I knew where I might find him.’
Jeremiah cried, ‘Thou hast covered thy face with a cloud so I cannot pass through.’
The Lord Jesus cried, ‘My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?’
To be in such a state, my friend, is to be in company with the saints."
***
Being perfect in our scholarship demands that we discover and deal with the difference between doubting and thinking. Tillich said,
"Doubt is
part and parcel of a mature and genuine faith. One must be secure
in
himself (and I might add, in his God) before he can honestly doubt."
We must be courageous enough to press on toward a higher skepticism. A skepticism which is skeptical of our skepticism. We must learn to doubt our doubts and believe our beliefs lest we believe our doubts and doubt our beliefs.
***
Determine before
God, and with God’s help, to put and keep first things first. For hear
me --
you may possess
God’s word,
you may spend
hours poring over God’s word,
you may passionately
defend God’s word, but, if
you do not
propagate God’s word with a holy passion,
you will fall short
of one of our impossible goals.
It is said of Jonathon Edwards that he was a "God-intoxicated man." He had a fire in his belly he could not ignore. He is quoted as saying,
"The whole world is on fire, and I am the only one who can put it out."
A bit of hyperbole? Perhaps. But, with that kind of mind-set, is it any wonder people trembled when he preached? Is it any wonder whole towns and cities and regions were moved toward God when he prayed?
***
Yesterday is already
a dream.
Tomorrow
is but a vision.
But every
today lived for Jesus Christ
will make
every yesterday
a dream of happiness,
and every
tomorrow
a
vision of hope.
***
Edmund Burke said, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
We cannot be neutral. We are either part of the problem, or we are part of the answer. We cannot be satisfied to make an ordinary contribution to a world of extraordinary need, for we are debtors. To Christ. To our own country. And to the world.
***
It was Bishop W.F. McDowell who said, "I would not walk across the street to give India a new theology. India already has more theology than it can understand. I would not cross the street to give China a new code of ethics. China already has a better ethical code than she is capable of using. I would not cross the street to give Japan a new religious literature. Japan has a better religious literature than a religious life. But I would go around the world again, and yet again, if it pleased God, to tell India and China and Africa and the whole wide world, ‘There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.’" And Bishop McDowell was right.
***
"The label of Christ becomes a libel if we do not magnify him." For while there are many who would point the way to truth and life, only Jesus Christ can say, "I am the way, the truth, the life."
***
Phillip Brooks said, "It seems as though the heros have done about all they can for the world. Now nothing much will be accomplished until the common people rise up to do their common tasks." And that, of course, is the challenge of this hour. And, in finality, that is the only real hope for the world. Let me show you what I mean.
Medical science has recently discovered a new method of treating serious, and in the past, ofttimes fatal burns. A surgeon, with special skills, removes a section of healthy skin from the body of the burned person, and cuts it into infinitesimal pieces. He then scatters it over the open wound where the tiny bits of healthy skin begin to grow and multiply. They become veritable islands of healing, reaching out until the entire area is covered and the wound is healed.
It seems to me that’s our mission as Christians. Each of us is an island of healing for a broken and bleeding world. By ourselves, our frail and feeble efforts seem small and unimportant. But together, as we stretch and grow, reaching out to bind up the wounds of a suffering humanity, our growing edges join. And when they do, our weaknesses become strength. Our sacrifices become splendid. For we are more than commoners. We are children of the King. And with a regal bearing, we must be extraordinary people for an extraordinary time.