Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1507
“I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” 1 Corinthians 9:22.
IT is a grand thing to see a man thoroughly possessed with one master passion. Such a man is sure to be strong and if the master principle is excellent, he is sure to be excellent, too. The man of one objective is a man, indeed. Lives with many aims are like water trickling through innumerable streams, none of which is wide enough or deep enough to float the merest cockleshell of a boat. But a life with one objective is like a mighty river flowing between its banks, bearing to the ocean a multitude of ships and spreading fertility on either side. Give me a man not only with a great objective in his soul, but thoroughly possessed by it—his powers all concentrated and he on fire with vehement zeal for his supreme objective—and you have put before me one of the greatest sources of power which the world can produce!
Give me a man engrossed with holy love as to his heart and filled with some masterly celestial thought as to his brain and such a man will be known wherever his lot may be cast and I will venture to prophesy that his name will be remembered long after the place of his sepulcher shall be forgotten. Such a man was Paul. I am not about to set him upon a pedestal, that you may look at him and wonder, much less that you may kneel down and worship him as a saint. I mention Paul because what he was, we ought, every one of us to be. And though we cannot share in his office, not being Apostles and though we cannot share in his talents or in his inspiration, yet we ought to be possessed by the same spirit which actuated him and, let me also add, we ought to be possessed by it in the same degree!
Do you object to that? I ask you what was there in Paul, by the Grace of God, which may not be in you? And what had Jesus done for Paul more than for you? He was divinely changed and so have you been if you have passed from darkness into marvelous light! He had much forgiven and so have you, also, been freely pardoned. He was redeemed by the blood of the Son of God and so have you been—at least you profess to have been. He was filled with the Spirit of God and so are you if you are truly such as your Christian profession makes you out to be. Owing, then, your salvation to Christ, being debtors to the precious blood of Jesus and being quickened by the Holy Spirit, I ask you why there should not be the same fruit from the same sowing?
Why not the same effect from the same cause? Do not tell me that the Apostle was an exception and cannot be set up as a rule or model for common folk, for I shall have to tell you that we must be such as Paul was if we hope to be where Paul is. Paul did not think that he had attained, neither was already perfect. Shall we think him to be so? Shall we think him to be so as to regard him to be matchless and so be content to fall short of what he was? No! Let it be our incessant prayer, as Believers in Christ, that we may be followers of Paul so far as he followed Christ! And where he failed to set his feet in his Lord’s footprints, may we even outstrip him and be more zealous, more devoted to Christ than even the Apostle of the Gentiles! O that the Holy Spirit would bring us to be like our Lord Jesus Himself!
I. First, then, Brothers and Sisters, WHAT WAS PAUL’S GREAT OBJECTIVE IN HIS DAILY LIFE AND MINISTRY? He says it was to save some. There are ministers of Christ present, at this hour, together with City Missionaries, Bible-Women, Sunday school teachers and other workers in my Master’s vineyard. And I make bold to enquire of each one of them—is this your objective in all your Christian service? Do you, above all things, aim at saving souls? I am afraid that some have forgotten this grand objective. But, dear Friends, anything short of this is unworthy to be the great end of a Christian’s life!
I fear there are some who preach with the view of amusing men and as long as people can be gathered in crowds and their ears can be tickled and they can retire pleased with what they have heard, the orator is content and folds his hands and goes back self-satisfied. But Paul did not lay himself out to please the public and collect the crowd! If he did not save them, he felt that it was of no use to interest them. Unless the Truth of God had pierced their hearts, affected their lives and made new men of them, Paul would have gone home crying, “Who has believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?”
It seems to be the opinion of a large party in the present day that the objective of Christian effort should be to educate men. I grant you that education is, in itself, an exceedingly valuable thing, so valuable that I am sure the whole Christian Church rejoices greatly that at last we have a national system of education which only needs to be carefully carried out and every child in this land will have the keys of knowledge in his hand. Whatever price others may set upon ignorance, we are promoters of knowledge—and the more it can be spread, the better shall we be pleased. But if the Church of God thinks that it is sent into the world merely to train the mental faculties, it has made a very serious mistake, for the objective of Christianity is not to educate men for their secular callings, or even to train them in the politer arts or the more elegant professions, or to enable them to enjoy the beauties of Nature or the charms of poetry.