Whatever this expression may mean, there can be no question that the Christian’s bounden duty is to carry the gospel to every creature: “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” With these words of our blessed Lord before us, it is painful to hear the disparaging way that some have of speaking of the gospel. Again, our risen Saviour and Master, just before leaving this earth to take His place at God’s right hand in heaven, opened the understanding of His disciples that they might understand the Scriptures. He showed them from those Scriptures the necessity for the sufferings of Christ and His resurrection from the dead, “that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:4747And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (Luke 24:47)).
We do well to recall the words of the apostle Paul:
“For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more,
“And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law (not being myself under law), that I might gain them that are under the law; “To them that are without law (being not without law to God, but under law to Christ), that I might gain them that are without law.
“To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.
“And this I do for the gospel’s sake” (1 Cor. 9:19-2319For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. 20And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; 21To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. 22To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. 23And this I do for the gospel's sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you. (1 Corinthians 9:19‑23)).
Here was a man whose whole life was given up to the gospel of God’s Son, and who lived for the salvation of the lost, whether Jew or Gentile. His great longing desire was that he might “gain the more”; and what hardships he endured, what dangers he braved that he might accomplish that for which he had been laid hold of by God in Christ? Which was most in the current of the Spirit’s action, Paul or the ease-loving Christians of today? O God! stir us up from our lethargy!
ED.