"All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations." (Matthew 28:18-20)
The basis of missionary appeals is the authority of Jesus Christ, not the needs of the heathen. We are apt to look upon the Lord as one who assists us in our enterprises for God, but our Lord puts Himself as the absolute sovereign and supreme Lord over His disciples. He does not say that the heathen will be lost if we do not go; He simply says, "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations." Go on the revelation of My sovereignty; Teach and preach out of a living experience of Me.
"Then the eleven disciples went ...into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them." (Matthew 28:16) If I want to know the universal sovereignty of Christ, I must know Him for myself and how to get alone with Him. I must take time to worship the Being, whose name I bear. "Come unto me!" That is the place to meet Jesus. Are you weary and heavy laden? How many missionaries are! We banish those marvellous words of the universal Sovereign of the world, to the threshold of an after-meeting. They are the words of Jesus to His disciples.
"Go ye, therefore . . ." "Go" simply means to live. Acts 1:8 is the description of how to go. Jesus did not say, Go into Jerusalem and Judaea and Samaria, but, "ye shall be witnesses unto Me" in all these places. He undertakes to establish the goings.
"If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you. . ." (John 15:7) That is the way to keep going in our personal lives. Where we are placed is a matter of indifference; God engineers the goings. "None of these things move me . . ." (Acts 20:24) That is how to keep going till you're gone!
"As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you." (John 15:7) A missionary is one sent by Jesus Christ, as He was sent by God. The great and dominant note, is not the needs of men, but the command of Jesus. The source of our inspiration in work for God, is behind and not before. The tendency today, is to put the inspiration ahead, to sweep everything in front of us and bring it all out to our conception of success. In the New Testament the inspiration is put behind us, the Lord Jesus. The ideal is to be true to Him, to carry out His enterprises.
Personal attachment to the Lord Jesus and His point of view, is the one thing that must not be overlooked. In missionary enterprise, the great danger is that God's call may be effaced by the needs of the people, until human sympathy absolutely overwhelms the meaning of being sent by Jesus. The needs are so enormous, the conditions so perplexing, that every power of mind falters and fails. We forget that the one great reason underneath all missionary work, is not first, the elevation of the people, nor the education of the people, nor their material needs, but first and foremost, it is the command of Jesus Christ, "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations."
When looking back on the lives of men and women of God, the tendency is to say, "What, wonderfully astute wisdom they had! How perfectly they understood all God wanted!" The astute mind behind their lives, is the mind of God, not human wisdom at all. We give credit to human wisdom when we should give credit to the Divine guidance of God, through childlike people, who were foolish enough to trust God's wisdom and the supernatural equipment of God.
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