Above:  A Globe

Image Source = Christian Fischer

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GEO_Globe.jpg)

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Matt. 9, 37-38

1.  “The harvest is plenteous.”  The needs of men are great–beyond computation.  The basis of duty is need, not desire of the needy.  [There are] 1 1/2 billion people, only 1/3 Christian in name.  So deep is their sin.  They need Christ.

2.  “Seeing the multitudes He was moved with compassion,” etc.  Preyed upon by false teachers, they were distressed as sheep without a shepherd.

Our hearts ought to go out to there.

3.  Yet “the laborers are few.”  Everywhere the call is for workers.  The missionary societies of the U.S., Great Britain, Ireland, Scotland, British Colonies, and Continental Europe have not over 18,000 missionaries and 100,000 native helpers to reach 2/3 the people of the world.  Our church [the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1845-1939], assigned 40 million, has about 1,000 missionaries and native helpers, one worker to every 40,000 souls.

The Lord [is] deprived of His harvest for lack of workers to gather it for Him.  Should we be heartless about it?

4.  No wonder He would we should pray that laborers be sent into His harvest.

Let us pray that many may be called even today.

What are you going to do in life, live for self or others?

Does He call you?

GEORGE WASHINGTON BARRETT

Above:  Ascension of Christ, by Benvenuto Tisi

(Image in the Public Domain)

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Luke 24, 46-47

1.  Jesus came to save the whole world.  He died for every man.  “Where sin abounded grace did much more abound.”  He “tasted death for every man.”

2.  Herein is revealed the passion of God and Christ for a lost world.  God cannot look on in indifference while a world perishes in sin.  He loves the world and makes the greatest sacrifice that He may save.  Jesus’ heart broke in Gethsemane.

3.  This suggests the attitude of His church.  Indifference to the lost is not Godlike, but a passion for sinners is.  The church ought to love men so much that it can’t rest short of its greatest effort to save everyone.  When this heartbreak takes possession of the church missions will result assuredly.

4.  This is the ground of the command, go.  Because of his death and passion, therefore he says, go.  “Go for my wandering boy tonight and tell him I love him still.”

Ours must be a world plan, even as is His.  We must act from love as does He–a love that knows no bounds.

GEORGE WASHINGTON BARRETT

Above:  Site of the Feeding of the Five Thousand, Between 1900 and 1920

Image Source = Library of Congress

(http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/mpc2010007469/PP/)

Reproduction Number = LC-DIG-matpc-21987

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EDITOR’S COMMENT:

Galileo Galilei, that great scientist, devout Roman Catholic, and frequently blunt man, said it best (in Italian, of course):

The Bible tells us how to go the Heaven, not the way the heavens go.

That principle applies also to cosmology.  But on a major point I agree with my great-grandfather:  something comes from something else.  Creation, according to Jewish theology, was not the making of something from nothing.  No, it was the creation of order from chaos.  Read the earliest words of that myth, which contains much spiritual truth, closely.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

AUGUST 10, 2013 COMMON ERA

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Matt. 15, 34

Herein are embodied two principles:

(1)  Continuity–that which is to be must spring from what is.

(2)  Economy, naturally resulting from the former.

1.  In six days God completed creation.  He then ordained that everything itself and of itself should produce after its kind (Gen. 1, 11).  Two or seven of everything were saved in the ark.  Say to nature, “Feed me” and she’ll answer “give me something with which to begin and I will.”  Crops are not created but from seed.

2.  This law obtains in the growth of character–progress in the good and triumph over the evil.  God casts out the evil and quickens the good.  “Washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.”  Man receives no new faculty after natural birth.

3.  In obedience to this law the missionary goes out.  God wants to feed the people, but some one who has it must take them the Bread of Life.  He multiplies the loaves in existence.

4.  Thus it is in the resurrection.  It is sown  a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.  Not a creation but a resurrection.

Hence results economy.  That what is already is made to contribute to what comes.  Let everyone who is saved reach another and what a work is done!

GEORGE WASHINGTON BARRETT

Above:  Missionary House, the Congo, Africa

Photograph Created by Bain News Service

Image Source = Library of Congress

(http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ggb2004000538/)

Reproduction Number = LC-DIG-ggbain-00538

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Acts 13, 2-4

1.  Antioch’s greatest deed is here recorded.  She has become the mother of missions.  Not keeping but giving enriches and strengthens.  Such a church most prosperous at home and happiness.

2.  It was a spiritual church.  They fasted and prayed.  God needs & will use such a church.  He the Spirit calls the church to send out these men.  The church as emphatically called as were the men.

3.  The Spirit calls men to this work today and many have volunteered to go.  The same Spirit calls the church to send them.  Money, not more men, is the great need now.  It is God’s call, a command.  Whether we do it is not optional but mandatory.  To disobey is treason.  Dare the church disobey?

4.  The church may lay its gold at His feet.  Nothing short of this is worthy of the wealth of our day nor of our Christianity.  Nowhere else can we put it where it will do so much good and so long.

5.  His approval rests upon the work.  No one can object to the results.  They are clearly such as only God’s blessings can bring.

Are we honestly, prayerfully trying to do this great work, or are we seeking some excuse for not doing it?  How dare we meet Him if we refuse?

GEORGE WASHINGTON BARRETT

Rev. 3, 8

1.  Door of access to the lost, opened of God.  It is no small thing that all may be approached .  Nothing is more clearly of God.  It has cost Him effort and patience.

2.  The duty to enter this door is of God too.  Given the opportunity, the obligation follows surely.  Missions are God-imposed, not expedient, but a moral obligation.  While opening the door He calls someone to enter it.  In Ephesians we are told this work is age-long with God though lately revealed.

3.  To enter this door is to bless those for whom He died.  It is no experiment but always a great blessing to the lost.

It is also a great blessing to those who put their hearts into it.  It is the occasion for rededication of our all to Him.

4.  No man can shut the door.  Do, or refuse to do what we may the fact of our opportunity remains, our obligation remains.  The only way to get rid of it is to recognize & discharge it.

5.  If we thought and prayed about it more we would surely be concerned about it more.  While God is so much concerned, if the church is indifferent, there she certainly is not godlike nor true to Him.

GEORGE WASHINGTON BARRETT

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Rev. 3, 8

1.  The door of access to the lost.  It is opened of God.  No small blessing.  Nothing more clearly of God than the many doors opened now for doing good.  It has cost God effort and patience.  It is an age-long purpose of God lately revealed.  (Ephesians)

2.  Given the opened door, the obligation to enter in His name follows inevitably.  It is not an expedient but a moral obligation.  It is a question of fidelity to God–to duty.

3.  To enter the door is to bless those for whom Christ died.  Missions is no experiment but always a great blessing to the lost.  There is  no difference in the condition of the world then and now save what the church has done.

It is also blessing to the church doing it.

4.  None can shut the door.  The obligation remains till discharged despite the efforts of men and of devils.  It avails not to ignore, oppose or neglect it.

5.  If we thought and prayed over it more, we would be more interested.

Since God is so much concerned for the lost the godlike church will most assuredly be also.  Not to be concerned is to be unlike our compassionate Lord.

GEORGE WASHINGTON BARRETT

Acts 1, 8

1.  The Spirit imparts all power that we receive.  The only divine agent used in the salvation of men.  He quickens by the truth.

2.  The disciples were commanded to wait for the coming of the Spirit, when they would receive needed power.  Without it they were not equipped.

3.  Power to apprehend Christ and make him a conscious power in the life to overcome sin.  He convicts of sin and enables the penitent to lay hold of Christ–testifies of Christ.

4.  Power to testify of Him–to make Him so real to one’s consciousness that he can’t but speak the truth.  If the Spirit testifies to us of him we are to bear witness out of our own experience.  And that regardless of opposition.  “We cannot but speak.”  The blessed secret just burns its way out.

5.  This witness is to be borne unto the uttermost parts of the earth.  God commands it and the Spirit leads his disciples to this work.  Will we follow his leading?  This is why He bestows the power.  Let us seek it and use it as He wills.

GEORGE WASHINGTON BARRETT

Above:  Bed, Ulster Children’s Church Missionary Society Hospital, Between 1940 and 1946

Image Source = Library of Congress

(http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/mpc2004000769/PP/)

Reproduction Number = LC-DIG-matpc-00464

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Luke 4, 18-19

1.  Jesus interprets His mission under the Spirit’s inspiration.  This the right method; a cold, calculating spirit is not of God.  Under this anointing He accepted the Father’s will.

2.  His work was for body, mind & soul.  He never turned a soul away but yearned after all.

None of His work was transient.  It was the beginning of a world movement which the church was to carry on to the finish.  See Jno. 20, 21; also 14, 12.  They were to do not one work, but “the works” He did.

3.  Hence educational missions are scriptural and absolutely essential.  There can be no strong, self-supporting church without it.  It is needed to train the native preachers and workers.

4.  Medical missions is the church continuing Christ’s work of healing.  Else the church “passes by on the other side.”  Easiest made self-sustaining & not one whit behind other departments in Spiritual results, besides the pain it kills.

5.  He will approve it all at last & does now.  “I was hungry & ye gave me meat, sick & ye visited me.”  “Enter ye.”  Will He say it to you?

GEORGE WASHINGTON BARRETT

Above:  Ghent Altarpiece (1432), by Jan van Eyck

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EDITOR’S NOTE:

I wonder when the United States was a Christian nation–when we had chattel slavery, men had more property rights than women, Jim Crow was the law of the land, et cetera?  Certainly not!  Yet my great-grandfather wrote (a century ago) of the U.S. as a Christian nation.  He was mistaken.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 10, 2013 COMMON ERA

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Isaiah 53, 11

1.  Jesus suffered much.  His whole life was a humiliation, was belied, misunderstood, mocked, betrayed, crucified.  In the garden suffered much & upon the cross.

2.  But it is certain he suffered not for any wrong he did but for us.  He hath borne our griefs.  He travailed to give us spiritual birth or life.

3.  Yet he is content with it if only his one great object be accomplished.  Love forgets the cost.  He rejoices in the redemption of souls as do the angels.

4.  But he died for all men and the salvation of all is his purpose & pleasure:  “Other sheep I have, them also I must bring.”  He still yearns over the world till every nation is saved.  Is glad of Christian America but years over China, Japan & Africa.  By every token he strives to reach there.

5.  Some great day the world shall be reached and the nations brought to Christ.  Then shall He rejoice and the satisfied that he died for man, as he rejoiced when the 70 returned victorious.

6.  Can the church rest while her Lord is so much concerned for the lost?  She must have this divine passion for souls which she has.

GEORGE WASHINGTON BARRETT

Above:  Christ Pantocrator

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John 20, 21

1.  Christ was coexistent with the Father.  The Logos from the beginning.  But he left his abode and came to earth.

2.  He came on a mission divine and God-given–one certain work to do.  He came to seek and to save the lost–to bear witness of the truth and give his life for many.

3.  Love of the Father and the Son involved.  The Father gave His only Son; the Son gave Himself to die for us–for all.

4.  We, too, are sent on a like mission.  “Even so send I you.”  Seek the lost.  Teach all nations.  Go into all the world.  It is enough that the servant be as his Master.  You have a universal remedy for the disease of sin; tell it to all, invite all to receive it and be healed.

5.  This given to all the church–the eleven and the others that were with them.  Go or send.  Help save the world.  Put yourself and all yours into his hands.  Love all and hence help save all.  His love and yours combined.

6.  The Spirit given to this end–he shall bear witness and so shall you.

GEORGE WASHINGTON BARRETT

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This is post #350 on this blog.–KRT

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Above:  Design Drawing for a Stained-Glass Window with the Holy Spirit

Designed by J. & R. Lamb Studios

Image Source = Library of Congress

(http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/LAMB2006000893/)

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Luke 24, 49

1.  The disciples were charged with the stupendous task of evangelizing a lost world.  They were to bear witness to the ends of the earth.  v. 48

2.  They must have supernatural aid.  The extent and difficulty of their task necessitated it.  “Without me ye can do nothing.”  “I can do all things through Christ.”  Jesus bids them advance not one step till the Spirit come upon them.

3.  We, too, have need of divine power.  We are to testify to Him and lead men to Him.  We are insufficient for it till he equip us.

We face:

(1)  The indifference of sinful hearts.

(2)  The power of sin that only He can break.  We certainly can’t accomplish the task ourselves.  He gives the power of passionate love for men.

4.  The Spirit is our sufficiency.  Hence He bides us seek and obtain the Spirit’s enduement.

This is the all-important thing.  So much depends upon it.  Will we pray till He comes?  Let hearts search and [let] repentance be made that the way for this coming be unobstructed.

GEORGE WASHINGTON BARRETT