BYM ONLINE DESK Blessing February 2019 English Emagazine | Page 10

february 2019 | bymonline.org
had wrought by my Ministry.”
God clearly and emphatically states that it is His
will that every servant of His should bear fruit. “I have
chosen you and ordained you” he affirms, “that ye
should go and bring forth fruit” (John 15:16). Too long
was I content to sow and evangelize, using the excuse that
I left the results with God, thinking I had then done my
duty. When people are saved and greatly blessed they will
say so, and if they don't there is reason to doubt the reality
of an outcome. George Whitefield sometimes received
hundreds of letters after he had preached telling of
blessing and conversions.
“Go into the public assembly with a design to
strike, and persuade some souls there, into repentance
and salvation. Go to open blind eyes, to unstop deaf ears,
to make the lame walk, to make the foolish wise, to raise
those that are dead in trespasses and sins to a Heavenly
and Divine life, and to bring guilty rebels to return to the
love and obedience of their Maker, by Christ Jesus the
great Reconciler, that they may be pardoned and saved.
Go to diffuse the saviour of Christ and His gospel through
a whole assembly and to allure souls to partake of His
grace and glory” (From the writings of Dr. Watts).
There are men who feel they have special talents
for the edification of believers, and so they give
themselves entirely to building up Christians in the Faith.
This was where I was side-tracked. I felt that I had special
gifts for teaching and speaking to young Christians on the
Deeper Life, and so I prepared a number of addresses
with the idea of devoting my time to this work, until God
mercifully opened my eyes and showed me how far I was
astray. There is nothing that will deepen Christian
experience, edify believers and build them up in the Faith
so rapidly and thoroughly as seeing souls saved. Deep
Holy Spirit meetings where the power of God is working
mightily in the conviction and Salvation of sinners will
do more for Christians than the teaching of years without
it. Such was the experience of David Brainerd. In writing
of the Indians among whom he labored he says, “Many of
these people have gained more doctrinal knowledge of
Divine truths since I have first visited them in June last,
than could have been instilled into their minds by the
most diligent use of proper and instructive means for
whole years together, without such a Divine influence.”
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An incident is related of Bramwell: “Several local
preachers,” it states, “had said that their talents were not
to awaken and arouse careless and impenitent sinners, but
to build up believers in the Faith. Mr. Bramwell
endeavoured to prove that such reasoning was frequently
used as an apology, for the loss of the life and powers of
God. That although some preachers might have a peculiar
talent for comforting and edifying believers, yet that
Christ's true servants, those whom He sent into His
vineyard, could do all sorts of work. They could plough,
dig, plant, sow, water, etc., and he earnestly entreated the
preachers not to be satisfied without seeing the fruit of
their labors, in the awakening and conversion of sinners.”
“The building up of believers in their most Holy
Faith was a principal object of Mr. Smith's ministry; but
he never considered this species of labor successful,
except as its results were indicated in the conversions of
sinners. He most certainly and perfectly edifies believers
who is most ardently and scripturally laborious for the
conversion of sinners”(Life of John Smith).
Work among believers of itself will not suffice. It
matters not how spiritual a church may profess to be, if
souls are not saved something is radically wrong, and the
professed spirituality is simply a false experience, a
delusion of the devil. People who are satisfied to meet
together simply to have a good time among themselves,
are far away from God. Real spirituality always has an
Outcome. There will be a yearning and a love for souls.
We have gone to places that have a name of being very
deep and spiritual, and have often found that it was all in
the head, the heart was unmoved; and there was, not
infrequently, hidden sin somewhere. “Having a form of
Godliness but denying the power thereof.”
Oh, the pathos of it all! Let us then challenge our
spirituality and ask what it produces; for nothing less than
a genuine Revival in the Body of Christ resulting in a true
Awakening among the unsaved will ever satisfy the heart
of God.