The Ministry of the Gospel
by J. C. Philpot
The promised BLESSINGS
which accompany of the gospel ministry
These, as we have before observed, are much included in
the ends for which the ministry was instituted, and to the examination of
which we have already devoted so large a space. Still, as they are so rich
individually, and so abundant collectively, we shall so far give a little
further consideration to them as may enable us to examine, in the light of
Scripture and experience, a few of the most signal and prominent.
But before we do this, we may remark that three points
call for our special attention as connected with this part of our subject.
1. The Foundation on which all the promised
blessings rest.
2. The Fountain out of which they all flow.
3. The Nature of the blessings themselves,
as brought with a divine power into the heart.
1. The FOUNDATION on which all the promised
blessings rest. The Foundation of the
blessings communicated by the ministry of the gospel, as well, indeed, as of
every other, is the good pleasure of God, who works all things after the
counsel of his own will, that they might be to the praise of the glory of
his grace. (Eph. 1:6, 9, 11.) This is an immutable and immovable
foundation; and it would be well for us who are engaged in the ministry not
only to be well instructed and fully established in the persuasion of the
firmness of this basis, but from time to time to refresh our souls and
gather up new strength for the work by fixing our eyes and hearts more
frequently and believingly on its stability and breadth. When we can see and
feel that our gospel, not only in its contents, tenor, and spirit is in
harmony with the word of truth, but that in preaching it we are doing the
will of God from the heart, it is surprising what a source of strength is
thence opened to carry us on amid all our trials and discouragements from
without and within. Paul could say of himself and his brethren in the
ministry, "We are laborers together with God." How encouraging it is to
believe that God himself is with us in the work; and, while to realize this
solemn truth may well make us tremble at our own deficiencies, yet, at the
same time, what singleness of eye, and what strength of heart it is
calculated to communicate in giving us some inward persuasion that God and
we are working together by the same means and to the same end. And yet
though so highly honored as to be laborers together with God, yet is the
work wholly his. It was this conviction which made the Apostle add, "You are
God's husbandry; you are God's building." (1 Cor. 3:9.)
The labors, cares, and trials of the ministry are so
great that the true servants of God need all the strength, help, and
encouragement which they can obtain; and what can afford them more than to
believe that they are doing the will of God, and thus instrumentally
laboring with him in preaching his word? This will deliver them from many
fears, and, above all, from the fear of man, which brings a snare. This will
afford a quiet resting place for their weary souls, and often weary bodies,
when on lying down at night they have the testimony of a good conscience
that, according to the ability which God has given them, they have preached
his word in faithfulness and affection. There is no truth more certain or
more practical, both in individual and ministerial experience, than that to
fall back upon ourselves is to fall back on weakness, and to fall back upon
the Lord is to fall back on strength. The work of the ministry demands also
much patience and quiet endurance. As laborers, we are to be like "the
husbandman who waits for the precious fruit of the earth, and has long
patience for it, until he receives the early and latter rain." (James 5:7.)
How much of the fruit of our labors is hidden from us—wisely hidden, lest
we should be puffed up with pride. How continual the labor, how vexing
the opposition, how scanty the crop, how slow its growth. What need, then,
we have of patience, that is, endurance, as the word literally means, that
after we have done the will of God we may receive the promise.
2. The FOUNTAIN on which all the promised
blessings rest. Nor is the Fountain
less full than the Foundation is sure. What a treasury of grace there is in
the Lord Jesus Christ! What an ample supply for all our need. The testimony
of the Holy Spirit is that "God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." (Eph. 1:3.) Every blessing, therefore,
which the gospel contains, holds forth, and communicates we are already
blessed with in him. All are lodged in his glorious Person, as he sits
enthroned on high at the right hand of the Father. When, therefore, he sends
any blessings down through the gospel, it is but the communication of them
out of his all-glorious, his ever-flowing, overflowing fullness. How full,
then, the Fountain, and how precious should be the gospel, which is the
appointed means of communicating these blessings to the poor and needy
family of God.
3. The
NATURE of the blessings themselves.
Must these not be equal to so firm a Foundation and so overflowing a
Fountain?
1. The first all will agree in pronouncing to be
effectual calling.
How clearly and how gloriously was this manifested on that memorable day
when the Holy Spirit at the feast of Pentecost called three thousand under
one sermon! How active, living, and powerful was the word of God that day,
when sharper than any two-edged sword, it pierced so many hearts and
consciences as with one simultaneous stroke. It was as if the gracious Lord
would not only manifest his risen power by sending down such a shower of
blessings, but would thereby give a first-fruits as a sample of the harvest
which was to be reaped by his laboring servants. Peter, therefore, said,
"For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar
off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." (Acts 2:39.)
Though the Lord, therefore, does not confine himself to
means, and can and does call some by his grace without the preached gospel,
by applying his word privately to their heart, yet both Scripture and
experience agree in testifying that the public ministry of the gospel is the
more usual way. Thus the commission given to Paul was—"But rise, and stand
upon your feet; for I have appeared unto you for this purpose, to make you a
minister and a witness both of these things which you have seen, and of
those things in the which I will appear unto you; delivering you from the
people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send you, to open their eyes,
and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto
God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among those
who are sanctified by faith that is in me." (Acts 26:16-18.) How he executed
that commission, and the blessing with which the Lord attended it, we well
know from the Acts of the Apostles, and the epistles which he addressed to
the churches.
When the Lord sent forth his disciples just before his
ascension to teach or make disciples among all nations, (margin,) baptizing
them when thus made in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit, he most graciously added, "And lo, I am with you always, even
unto the end of the world." Here, then, is at once our commission to go
forth, and the blessing attached to it. We are to go forth, as Paul did,
"testifying repentance towards God, and faith towards the Lord Jesus
Christ." And if we go forth in his Spirit, determined not to know anything
among men, but Jesus Christ and him crucified, we shall find, each according
to the blessing given to his labors, that in the wisdom of God the world by
wisdom, knows not God, yet it pleases him, by the foolishness of our
preaching, (as men esteem it,) to save them that believe.
2. The next blessing admits of as little doubt or
controversy as the first. It is the
deliverance
proclaimed by the gospel, and revealed and sealed by it on the hearts of
the family of God.
What was the commission of the Lord himself when, as the
anointed prophet of God, he preached the gospel? "The Spirit of the
Sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has appointed me to bring good
news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to
announce that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. He has
sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord's favor has come,
and with it, the day of God's anger against their enemies. To all who mourn
in Israel, he will give beauty for ashes, joy instead of mourning, praise
instead of despair. For the Lord has planted them like strong and graceful
oaks for his own glory." (Isa. 61:1-3.) The "good news," or the gospel,
which he preached were to the poor—those whose hearts were meekened and
softened, and thus made poor in spirit. (Matt. 5:3; Luke 4:18.) The
brokenhearted, the captives, the bound, the mourners in Zion, sitting in
ashes and bowed down with the spirit of heaviness—these were the characters
to whom the Lord himself proclaimed liberty, and to whom he himself, through
his own word, as made spirit and life to their souls, gave beauty for ashes,
and the oil of joy for mourning. This, then, is our message, and this the
blessing promised to attend it. Our word is not only to be a quickening,
calling, regenerating, piercing, wounding word, whereby the dead hear the
voice of the Son of God and live; but a delivering, healing, comforting word
to those of the family of God whose hearts are broken by the law, bruised by
the guilt and weight of sin, shut up in heaviness and bondage through
unbelief, doubt, and fear, harassed by temptations, plagued by Satan and the
dreadful evils of a heart laid bare by the two-edged sword of the word, and
naked and bleeding before a just, righteous, and holy God.
These are the poor to whom the gospel is preached, the
flock of slaughter that wait upon the prophets, and know that it is the word
of the Lord when it drops from their mouth with a divine liberating power
into their hearts. (Luke 6:22; Zech. 11:7-11.) This is the sweetest part of
the ministry of the gospel, and one of the surest testimonies of a
minister's being sent of God.
(We remember hearing our dear friend the late Mr. Warburton say in
conversation that he believed men might be awakened under ministers of the
letter, but that none were blessed and delivered except under God's own sent
servants.)
To be the honored instrument of bringing pardon and peace
to a poor burdened, distressed soul, to pour oil and wine into a bleeding
conscience, to dispel the doubts and fears which gather so thickly over a
heart troubled by sin, and thus be a means of setting at happy liberty some
dear child of God—what a sweet consolation and blessed, encouragement is
this to a servant of Christ, and what a confirmation to him that the Lord is
with him in the work! What union, too, what love and affection it creates in
the hearer thus favored and blessed to the servant of God through whom so
great and often unexpected a blessing has come; and with what firmness he
can testify that it was the word of the Lord, for nothing short of that
could have loosed his bonds, as well as that he through whom it came is a
man of God, and that the word of the Lord in his mouth is truth. (1 Kings
17:24.)
3. And now what shall we say is a third blessing? What
but the gracious renewals and
revivals of the Lord's presence and power which KEEPS ALIVE his work upon
the soul? There are few of the Lord's living
family who have not to learn feelingly and experimentally what havoc sin has
wrought in them, and what a thorough wreck and ruin they are through the
Adam fall and their own personal transgressions. They thus learn that as no
man can give spiritual life, so no man can keep alive his own soul. When,
then, they are not favored with the Lord's presence and power, they sink
into carnality and death. The fear of the Lord still abides in their soul,
and is still a fountain of life that they do not depart from him; but the
more active graces of the Spirit, as faith, hope, and love, seem dormant or
torpid, and, being cold and feeble in their operations, take little out and
bring little in. From this coldness and deadness of spirit, as sensibly and
painfully experienced by them, spring bondage, doubt, fear, misgivings, and
exercises, as to the reality of the work of grace in their hearts.
"If I am the Lord's, if he has communicated divine life
to my soul, if he has manifested himself to me and blessed me—why am I
thus?" asks the tried child of God. Now, if help be delayed long, he begins
to fret and fume, complain and rebel—especially if he see others favored and
himself passed by. But this spirit of rebellion causes the Lord still more
to hide his face, and this makes the load heavier, and the case seemingly
more dark and desperate. Having lost his best Friend in the sensible light
of his countenance and the power of his presence, sin begins to work with
renewed strength; Satan, always on the watch to tempt or to accuse, allure
or terrify, comes in with his baits or his charges, and under one or the
other, the poor wandering sheep often falls.
Now how suitable for a case like this is an experimental
ministry—the ministry of a man well taught and exercised in his own soul,
who can trace out the path from—himself having walked in it; and how often
the Lord is pleased to bless to those who thus sit in darkness and the
shadow of death, his precious gospel in the mouth of a servant of his, who
can thus speak a word in season to him that is weary. Burdened souls come up
to the house of prayer, scarcely able to look up under the weight of their
trials and temptations, scarcely daring to hope there can be anything for
them, fearing rather that all they shall hear shall be to their
condemnation.
Now, what can the general ministry of the day do for such
poor tried tempted souls, of whom there are many among the living family of
God? Can a free-will ministry do anything for them—or a dry doctrinal one—or
a light, trifling, jesting one—or a mere superficial one, just skimming over
the surface of truth in the letter, but never diving into the experience of
its power? All such ministries weary and disgust them, and are felt to be
lighter than vanity. But let a gracious, experienced man of God speak out of
a feeling, believing, exercised heart, what life and power often attend his
word. And how sometimes the Lord will be pleased to speak a word to their
hearts, through his servant, which breaks their bonds asunder, and brings
them up out of all their fears, once more to bless and praise his holy name.
What a blessing to the living family of God is a
gracious, faithful, and experimental ministry, and yet how scarce! How few
seem able to take up the stumbling-blocks that lie in the way, to trace out
the work of grace in the soul, especially in its wilderness and more
advanced stages, and to bring forward strong meat for men, as well as milk
for babes. How few seem to feel for and sympathize with that portion of the
family of God who know the plague of the heart, the trials and temptations
of the wilderness, the thorough helplessness and inability of the creature;
and that none but the Lord himself, in the manifestations of his grace, can
do them any good. "Feed my sheep; feed my lambs," was the Lord's injunction
to Peter; and thus he bids his servants now feed all the flock, both
the tender lambs—and the stronger and sturdier sheep.
4. As the servant of Christ is a minister of the word, he
will, as the Lord gives him ability, bring out of the word
all that is needful for the GUIDANCE
of a flock committed to his charge.
This, therefore, we may mention as a fourth blessing of the ministry of the
gospel. A shepherd has to go before, not behind his flock, to lead and guide
them; not to be led and guided by them. But how can he do this unless he
himself be taught and led by the Spirit and be well instructed in the
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven? The Holy Spirit makes him an overseer
over the flock to feed, or, as the word literally means, to shepherd the
Church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood. (Acts 20:28.)
To do this well and properly, sometimes instruction
will be needed. There is not a case or state, character or condition for
which there is not some provision of this kind in the word of truth. How
often is instruction needed, not only in the literal, but especially in the
spiritual and experimental meaning of the Scriptures; and as the servant of
God is enabled to open up this spiritual and experimental meaning, it will
often cast a sweet and blessed light on the path in which his children are
walking. Sometimes this word of instruction will discover to them secret
snares, in which they have become unwarily entangled—or lay bare a
temptation, on the edge of which they now find they are walking. Sometimes
it will clear up a knotty and intricate path in providence, or throw light
on some Scripture that meets their case. Sometimes, it will show them how
they should act in a season of perplexity; sometimes it will strengthen
their will to do what is right, and give power to make sacrifices, renounce
bosom idols, and confirm a weak and wavering resolution to walk in the path
of which God and conscience approve.
Sometimes the ministry of the word will sharply cut
and keenly reprove, and will so lay bare the secrets of
the heart, that the poor child of God will feel scarcely able to look up
before God and man. The word thus handled is, indeed, "a discerner of the
thoughts and intents of the heart," and lays it naked and opened unto the
eyes of Him with whom we have to do. (Heb. 4:12, 13.) It is a great
mistake to think that the ministry of the gospel is only to give comfort.
There are states of soul, as there are states of body, when cordials would
be poison. "Comfort us, comfort us, whatever be our state and case;" cry
some to their ministers. "However worldly, carnal, covetous, and careless we
have been through the week; however up to our neck in business; and with
nothing in our heart, mouth, or hands to distinguish us from all around us,
we expect the minister to preach comfort to us on the Lord's day. This is
what we pay him to do, and we expect him therefore to preach to us our full
security in Christ, and to assure us that all will be well with our souls,
whatever we may think, say, or do."
These we may call religious dram-drinkers, who look for
their Sunday drink—their drop of comfort before they go out of the chapel,
as regularly as the man who steps into a gin-palace for his morning glass.
Keen cutting reproofs, sharp rebukes, stern denunciations of all
ungodliness, and no quarter given to sin, carnality, and worldliness, in any
shape or form—such men have no relish for. "It is legal, it is legal," they
cry, "to insist so much on the precept, and to cut so continually at all
disobedience and inconsistency. We want to have Christ gloriously
exalted—and to hear of nothing but covenant engagements, fixed decrees, the
certainty of salvation to the elect—and that come what will we are safe for
eternity."
But we will not dwell further on these points, or show
how such men would willingly make even what they call a glorious Christ—a
minister of sin, and under great swelling words hide their shame. We will
only say, better were it for a man to break stones on the road—than stand up
in a pulpit to deceive souls and be unfaithful alike to God and man. The
more solemn the office, the greater the responsibility; the higher the post,
the deeper the fall. Enough, then, enough of this. Time and space both
admonish us that we should hasten to our fifth and last point.
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