After all, that is only our poor human way of expressing the majestic thought, "The Lord God omnipotent reigneth!"
XVIII.
NOT REALLY BELIEVED.
Present Enthusiasm for Missions—Former Lassitude—The Basis of
Missionary Enterprise—Supposed Damnation of the Heathen—If Really
Believed, Would Drive Us to Frenzy—Ministers' Monday Meeting
—Pretence Cuts the Nerve of Enthusiasm—Restoration the True Incentive
—Effective Because Reasonable—Torment Not Really Believed—The Heart
Often Truer Than the Head—Necessity for Preparatory State—Could not
Have Details Revealed—Orthodoxy of the Torment View—Trying to
Believe It—Be Not Afraid of the Truth—Extreme Calvinists Signally
Honored—The Reason Why—Our Innate God-given Convictions—Meagre
Expenditure for Missions—Tacit Acknowledgement That Endless Suffering
Is Not Believed.
Would not the doctrine of Restoration, as I have tried to commend it, cut the nerve of enthusiasm for missions? No, I think not; but it would provide a saner basis for them. For what is the true basis of missions? Is it not the command of our Lord to preach the Gospel to every creature?
That the command extends down to our own time is clear from the fact that the disciples were commanded to go into all the world. They could not do so in their own time; so the command extends to their followers. Moreover, Christ said he would be with them until the end of the world. But they were not to continue to the end of the world; so the command was intended not only for them but those who would succeed them. Thus the duty comes home to the Christian church now, and cannot be evaded.
INCREASED INTEREST AND SYMPATHY
And all the Christian churches are agreed that this duty has been laid upon them, The churches are alive to this duty as they never were before. And this is one of the most hopeful signs of the age. It does seem at times as if society were getting worse at the core; yet in regard to sympathy and helpfulness, especially in regions remote, it is certainly improving. And this increased interest and sympathy relates both to the bodies and the souls of men. This age has witnessed marvels of kindness and enterprise that would have been impossible only a few years ago.
Surely it is time. It must be confessed that the church in general has been very slow to take up the subject of missions with any zeal. There was great activity in the first century of the Christian era, and a little later. If it had only been sustained until the present time, possibly the whole world would have been evangelized. But there was a deplorable lapse of interest and of effort. And it was long continued. We might say that for sixteen hundred years the church was almost indifferent on the matter. But now there is renewed enthusiasm and enterprise.
This long lapse of interest should certainly make us moderate in our interpretation of Scripture. Here were the Saviour's words, clearly before the eyes of the church for sixteen hundred years; and it seems we did not see or hear them. He commanded us—and it was one of his last commands—to preach the Gospel to the world. But we took almost no notice. The world might have been dying in heathenism, but we seemed not to care. We had not the spiritual alertness to realize that the words of Christ had any application to ourselves. Such torpor of spiritual understanding and sentiment, I say, ought to keep us from being unduly positive, or self-assertive, in our interpretation of Scripture. Happily there is renewed interest now; and in this all the churches are agreed.