Our Supreme Business

The business of all believers is to step out and do God’s will. Even in our city it is most difficult to get the Christian people together to work with God. Men are beginning to call, “Where are the boys and the girls?”

Are we taken up with pleasurable pursuits, are we forgetting our obligations to the unsaved? The call comes today just as we hear the footfall of our returning Lord. Are you ready to step out and follow God? Paul says, “I am debtor both to Greek and the Barbarian, both to the wise and the foolish” (Romans 1:14). Let us get a vision of the apostle’s conception of stewardship. He says, “I am debtor.” He was not speaking in the language of dollars and cents, for he owed no man, but he was speaking in relation to Heaven’s exchange.

God has stooped down and taken me by the hand and lifted me up above angels and arch-angels, making me His child. Every time I look into the face of an unsaved man, I recognize my creditor. I am a debtor to him. I have something that man yearns for. I have that which will transfigure his life and make him what he should be—a man of God. That obligation is the real basis of all real service. Oh, the joy of knowing that I am following Him! That I am linked up with Him, and a debtor to the other fellow. Paul recognized the divine sovereignty imposed upon him. It opened his eyes in his relationship to his brother, and now he says, “I am a debtor.”

Young man, young woman, it may be I am speaking to young men who are in professional lines—I ask you a fair question. What is your relationship to God? And then what is your relationship to the young man outside of God? Am I a debtor just to myself or to the other man?

Someone said to Carey as he was going to India, “You are a missionary, are you?” He replied, “Yes, but I cobble shoes to pay expenses, in order that I may send the Gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth.” Recognizing that I am a debtor to every boy I come in contact with, I want to give him the Gospel that was given to me. I am a debtor to Canada when I am an American, and I am likewise a debtor to China. When I recognize there are four hundred and thirty-seven millions of untouched men, women and children in China, my heart sinks, and I say, “Oh, God! How long before the Church will become awakened?”

In your own country last year, six hundred thousand souls, they say, were led to Jesus Christ, but according to statistics, Protestant churches went back one hundred thousand members. If that is true in relation to America, how long will it be before you and I evangelize your own country. If we are slipping back in America how about China; how about India with three hundred and twenty-three millions untouched; about ninety millions down in the Sudan, and Rhodesia untouched? We cry aloud, Oh, God! Where is the boy? Where is the girl?

I am a debtor to the Sudan. I am a debtor to India. I am a debtor to China. God helping me I will arise and go to the South or to the East to pay my debt. You are a debtor, Chicago man, and I plead with you as a believer in Christ, commence today to pay your debt in sending on the Word that lifts men from sin, making men God’s children by faith in Christ.

Paul not only said, I am a debtor,” but he says, “I am ready.” The rank of preparedness as well as the rank of responsibility. Paul gazes upon that imperial city, Rome. She was the center of culture as well as the cesspool of iniquity. He said, “I am ready to go down to the imperial city to preach the Gospel which will lift men to God.”

When a young man takes his stand for Jesus Christ it means something. When you recognize God is with you then all is well. You cannot do it alone, but one with Him is a majority every time. Is this church ready to step forward? Is she prepared to go out into India and China today? I have learned of the large number you have in the foreign field, but, oh, have we commenced to cope with conditions?

Paul says, I am prepared to go to the imperial city, and nothing in that city makes me afraid. But what was the ground of his preparation? That is the question. Was it his training under Gamaliel? It was not. Was it his keen mind? It was not. The ground of his preparation was Christ dwelling within. The Master imparted to him His own glory, so if you want to be ready for work you must have the Master dwelling in that heart of yours, in all His glory, all His fullness, and all His grandeur; even Christ Jesus, my Lord and my Master.

We read in the third chapter of Acts of two young men, Peter and John, going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, and a lame man was there, forty years old. This man was asking for money. Turning around, Peter said, “Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee.” He gave the lame beggar his right hand, but above all he gave him Jesus Christ, and no man or woman can pass on Jesus Christ to another until Jesus Christ belongs to him. My friends, is He yours?

Paul’s preparedness was Jesus, whom he loved and whom he adored. Praise filled his soul. It is one thing to say, “I am a debtor.” It is another thing to say, “I am ready.” It is another vastly different thing to say, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God.” It is the real victory.

Sometimes we hear men say, I wonder what we are going to do? Friends, I bank on Him, my Saviour and Lord, who spoke in John 6:37, “All that which the Father giveth me shall come unto me, and him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.” The gift was given to Him and some day His Church will stand erect before his presence, shining in the glory of the eternal one.

Paul says, Moralist, you must stoop before my Saviour and my Lord. “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no not one.” Paul says, I am a “goner.” Peter says, “I am gone.” John says, “Ye must be born again.” Born twice, you never die. Born once, you die twice.

This Gospel meets the craving, crying need of the human soul. It takes a man with a horrible temper and makes him sweet and peaceful. This Gospel lifts men from sin to holiness. From death to life, and at last it gives man life eternal and sends him on his way rejoicing.

If Paul was not ashamed, should we be ashamed of the Gospel? Will you recognize your responsibility and your obligation to the unsaved about you? Will you dedicate yourself today that God may save some one through you? Will you give yourself for India, for China, for hard home work? Will you give yourself now and say, “I am a debtor. I am ready?”