To say we engage in Mission Work because the Lord said for His church to do so, is to state a fact that might be interpreted as coming from Moses' end of the table. Faithfulness to God in having a share in his world-wide program does not come by legalistic formulas. Rather, it arises from the same spirit that sent His Son to the earth. God kept the Jew in bondage by raising high fences on each side of him until the time came when the Father could take down the fences and set him free. He did this by showing him His heart and by winning the heart. It was God's willingness to give to the uttermost, when no claims were laid on Him. The debt of sin changed to a debt of gratitude, because the blood of the Lord Jesus sets the sinner right with God. God gave His Son for the world--all races for all time. Acceptance of His mercies makes the believer a debtor to every man. The spirit of Christianity is not that we are forced to discharge that debt. It is, on the other hand, a keen desire to give the other person the same opportunity to save his life as the one that God, through some servant, gave us.

      "Motives for missions." Each person might suggest entirely different motives for missions, yet each set of suggestions could not hope to exhaust the powers of God working in the heart of His people. The best we can hope for in this attempt is to state some rock-foundation reasons for being about the Master's business. [41]

      1. The background for our World-expression of God's love for man is a sense of the truthfulness of the Christian faith. To the worldly-wise, God-bereft mind, a statement to the effect that Christianity is a faith is to confess its weakness. But the Christian believes it because it is a faith. Were it a philosophy, large numbers of humanity would mistrust it. Large numbers would not be able to understand the complexities of the mental process by which they could be united to God.

      The unbelief of today is not due to lack of authentic testimony. It arises out of an evil heart that is unwilling to repent. The honest and sincere of heart have no difficulty in believing God. It is the irregular in souls who shy at the Word of of God. They refuse Him, but hold their sins to their bosom.

      Since there is an overwhelming sense of the truthfulness of the Christian faith, there is born in the heart a desire to share it--a compelling desire. The God-given right to enjoy the salvation of this Faith is as much the other man's as it is mine. But this message must be carried to him just as it was carried by another to me. To give him the truth is the right thing to do. To keep it from him is to be immoral.

      Since God gave all, how can a believer conscientiously hold back the message of life to the lost? To do so would be for one born of God to be unlike God--to possess a different spirit. Selfishness is the very opposite to God's selflessness. To withhold from Him and His creatures is a denial of the very principles of conversion.

      2. A reason for a desire to share in it mission work is a sense of, and appreciation for, the assurance of sins [42] forgiven. For why should one pass on a message that claims for itself to show a way for sins to be forgiven, when one is not sure his sins are remitted? If the Gospel has done nothing for me, how can I expect it to bless others?

      And, being forgiven (of such a terrible debt), shall we be as the nine lepers who were not appreciative enough to turn back and thank the Great Physician, or be as the one who returned to Him in worship of thankfulness?

      If the Blessed has done something really great for me, can I let His work stop there? And if the coming out from the crushing burden of sin is a worthwhile experience for me, how can I forget the man who is made miserable by the load still? "And He said unto them, 'Thus it is written,.  . . and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name unto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.'" Luke 24:47.

      God owed us nothing. Forgiveness is free. We owe the proclamation of it to the lost. At such a great cost to Christ was it won. Our gratitude lays us under tribute to all who need its promises. And the whole world has sinned against God most high. Provisions have been made for all to be forgiven. It Is for His church to go into all the world with the word of what Christ has already done.

      3. Assurance that God will act in Saving the lost today. I used to hear that God created the world. True. We were told He gave the law to Israel. True. Later, we learned, He sent Christ to die. True again. The message of Christ, a higher and better law, is left to the world and now people are to [43] save themselves, they continued. False, twice over false. It is proper to say that men are to save themselves by taking to their hearts God's evangel. Our point is that God is Savior and that He works today. He is able to work redemption into the heart of the hardest sinner. No, it is not that God worked only in the past, but He stands with arms outstretched in welcome today and will meet the sinner to work on his behalf. In his obedience God will give him the new birth to create him a new creature "through faith in the working of God." Col. 2:12. The work of God does not end here. The man can go on in faith--in faith that God will bless, keep and use him. In fact he will have a consciousness that the only work he does that God will accept in the end is the work that God did for him. Everything that is an acceptable activity he engages in, then, will be God working in and through him. And I believe here lies the secret of Christian living and work. "Christ in you, the Hope of glory."

      Where does the answer to prayer lie? In the working of God. And how can the heathen world know to open their hearts and lives to God unless they hear the message of the God who loves them?

      4. Love for Christ. The sense of duty has its place. Without it, a person might waver with unsteady emotions of man. Yet, mere sense of duty is not enough. Since God is love, He desires to see the mirror of that love in His own creatures--the wrought answering its maker. There is a positive need for the mellowing, sanctifying quality of love to Christ to offset brittle strength of duty--or, (shall we say?) to complement it. Truth can be hard, [44] unyielding. Love puts it more on a living basis. The urgency is no less, but love has made it more attractive and winsome.

      Love for Christ enables one to attack the most impossible strongholds. It calls forth strength that can be had in no other way.

      The heathen may not be lovely. Many are not clean. He is so far from God that he misunderstands your kindness for weakness. And he is sure to think that you have something sinister or otherwise to gain by your sacrifice on his behalf.

      A blessing came to your speaker during the twenty-four days' imprisonment in the local Chinese prison just before the years of the Japanese Camp that were to follow. In the prison were a large number of criminals, etc. They were a dirty lot. Some had sores and scabs from head to foot; lousy and flea-bitten. It came to me: "I was like that, only far worse, in the sight of God. How could He love me? He loved me, notwithstanding all." How can we then but love Him? Can that be a lip service? Or is it expressed in the keeping of His commandments? His command was and is: "Go."

      5. The Resurrection. I add the fact that there is a resurrection for all men to the list of Motives for Missionaries. I wish to place the emphasis here. The Lord adds a personal touch, a sense of reality--a sense of reality of God, of human life and its consequences, of that world to come. The resurrection adds that factor. Thus, the Lord adds an urgent touch; a sense or finality of things. We mention the resurrection again--the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and that of all men. [45]

      There are two outstanding results of the truth of the resurrection I wish to mention.

      a. It set on fire those who proclaimed it. One record is found in Acts 17. In a synagogue of Thessalonica Paul was found "alleging that it behooved the Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead." The vile fellows of the rabble bore this witness of them: "These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also." The very (same) apostle closed his speech on the Athenian hill by saying, "Whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead." Acts 17:31. Later he declared in the council of the Sanhedrin: "I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees; touching the hope and the resurrection of the dead I am called in question." Acts 23:6. And in making his defense before the governor he said: "Having hope toward God, which these also themselves look for, that there shall be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust." Acts 24:15. He concluded this remark to Felix by saying: "Touching the resurrection of the dead, I am called in question before you this day." vs. 21. When Festus brought the case before King Agrippa, he stated that Paul's accusers brought no evil charge against him, "But had certain questions against him of their own religion, and of one Jesus, Who was dead, Whom Paul affirmed to be alive." This apostle, speaking to Agrippa, said: "And now I stand here to be judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers; unto which promise our twelve tribes, earnestly serving God night and day, hope to attain. And concerning this hope I am accused by the Jews, O king! Why is it judged incredible with [46] you, if God doth raise the dead?" Acts 26:6-8. V. 23, a continuation of that defense, reads: "How that the Christ must suffer, and how that He first by the resurrection of the dead should proclaim light to the people and to the Gentiles."

      Could the urgency and blessedness of this message be less today? When modern-wise churchmen met the infidel by coming to the latter's station in denying the miraculous content of the Christian Faith, he lost the very appealing quality of this Faith. Let the truth of the resurrection, both of the Lord Jesus and of all men, be the thought that kindles the spark to make all other thoughts explosive. The world needs to be turned upside down today. So do many churches.

      b. The teaching of the resurrection demanded attention, either by way of acceptance or denial, on the part of those who heard it. Such a revolutionary and strange doctrine could not leave men cold and indifferent. Their reactions were prone to be pious in belief or violent in rejection. The story of the resurrection would not leave them as it found them.

      The priests, captain of the temple and the Sadducees became rough with the apostles, "being sore troubled because they taught the people, and proclaimed in Jesus the resurrection from the dead." Acts 4:1, 2. In Athens, as he reasoned in and out of the synagogue, "Certain also of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, 'What would this babbler say?' others, 'He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods:' because he preached Jesus and the resurrection. And they took hold of him, and brought him unto the Areopagus, saying, [47] 'May we know what this new teaching is, which is spoken by thee? For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean.'" Acts 17:18-20. His sermon followed this unusual request. After he concluded with the reference to the resurrection (already quoted) the following reactions are recorded: "Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, but others said: 'We will hear thee concerning this yet again.' Thus Paul went out from among them. But certain men clave unto him, and believed: among whom was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them."

      The indications here are that the announcement of the resurrection, at least in part, was the deciding factor in the final decision of men. It became a wedge that turned them one way or another. God uses His truth to will hearts to Himself. Perhaps we cannot fathom the depths of that mystery. The hearing of His truth does something to men--either heathen or home-born. It is the Father's call and appeal. It is when the message is heard that people show their disposition to turn to Him. We must have that confidence and expectancy.

      When the truth of the resurrection is declared, hearers get the impression, and rightly so, that this life doesn't end it all--the knowledge that when a good deed is done for Christ, the doer shall be recompensed "in the resurrection of the just." Luke 14:14. They also learn that when all evil deed is done, time cannot hide or cover it. It doesn't die with the doing. The end is not yet.

      Whatever one does, then, in deed or in purpose, is [48] of utmost importance. Then deeds and secrets are going to be met again face to face.

      As we contemplate the lost world about us, the knowledge that all men will be raised from the dead to stand before the Risen Lord, the certainty of three things, and a fourth, come to light.

      1. All men are going to meet their deeds.

      2. All men are going to meet the consequences of their deeds.

      3. All men are going to meet their God.

      Where do these facts find us? Do you want to meet the deeds you were responsible for before you came to Christ? How pleasant is the anticipation of meeting their consequences were it not for the atoning blood of the Christ? What would be the result of that meeting with God?

      The Gospel is that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried and then raised on the third day. The good news for doomed humanity does a profound thing. It shows how that Christ, as my substitute, met my deeds and their consequences. Praise God, I do not need to meet my deeds! And He has gone on to introduce us to God, and to minister as our friend and Savior before the face of God. Our meeting Him, then, is one of anticipation and not of dread. He who drank the bitter dregs of that cup of suffering in the garden and on the cross offers the cup of salvation, minus the dregs, to the believing one.

      This saved person works, and comes to the resurrection of the just, to the judgment of rewards. Those who have not heard and those who reject must suffer the consequences of their deeds in person.

      If such a sad plight was worth our escaping, it is [49] to the interest of the other man to escape it. The weight of the terror of that day for the lost, in the sure fact of their arising to meet their judge, adds urgency to the Christian enterprise. The promise of meeting Him in peace, through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, is the joy of that service. The occasion of the joy of it will be the Day of His Coming.

      "Amen, even so, come, Lord Jesus." [50]

[LM 41-50]