Quiet Talks with World Winners

by S. D. Gordon

There are two divine forces that work through the human—Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I have put these second in order, because they work through the human. The leadership is in human hands. The initiative of all action is with us. Of course, if you go a bit deeper in, the initiative is with God who moves upon our hearts to make us act. But on the distinctly human level the beginning of service rests in human hands, and these two mighty, almighty, divine forces work through us.

The divine law of leadership and of cooperation in leadership has not always been clearly understood. And there has been bad delay often because of the lack of understanding. Our Lord Jesus in the days of His humanity surrendered Himself to the leadership of the Holy Spirit in His great mission to men. The Spirit worked through Jesus. After Jesus' Ascension the order was reversed. The Spirit yielded Himself to the control of the glorified Son of God. Jesus worked through the Spirit. It was Jesus who sent down the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost for the special mission begun that day.

And now, with the greatest awe coming into our hearts at the thought, be it said that these two work through our human leadership. The leadership in service among men is human leadership. The wondrous Spirit of God works through our leadership to reveal Jesus to men in all His winsomeness and power.

There can be no power at all in our human action and leadership except as the Spirit leads and controls us, and is allowed to. And, on the other side, we must not forget, though it has sometimes been forgotten, that God's working waits upon human action and leadership. Memory quickly brings up the fact, so often repeated in the history of the Church, that when men have failed to respond to God's call His work has fallen behind. Whenever a new chapter of earnest service has been begun it has always been through a new leadership. Some man has listened to God, and let Him have the free use of himself in reaching out to other men.

God needs men. He needs you and me. We are the wire for the transmission of His current of power. The wire is useless without the current. And the current must have the wire along which to travel to its place of service. The divine power is through human action and human leadership. The power is all divine. And the means through which it works is all human. Jesus and the Holy Spirit work through the Church and through each one of us who is willing.

Then there are three spirit forces, or influences, of mighty power in human hands; namely, prayer, and money, and sacrifice.

God's Messenger.

To-night we want to talk about the first of the two human forces—the Church.

We ought to remind ourselves of just what that word "Church" means in this connection. It has many meanings. There are at least two that we should note here in thinking of it as a great winning force. In its broadest meaning, the word is commonly used for the whole group of church organizations taken together, the Roman Catholic and the Greek Orthodox, the Protestant, and the few primitive societies that still retain their old original organization. In the deeper, less used meaning, it stands for the body of those men and women everywhere who are trusting Jesus Christ, and are allied with Him in the purpose of their hearts.

These two meanings, of course, should be the same. All who trust Jesus should be in the church organizations. And all who are in the organizations should be there because of their relation to Jesus. Whatever the facts regarding that may be, the mission of each is the same. And it is with that mission that we are concerned just now.