Taking Heed To
The Ministry ::

First, Let me crave liberty to speak a word to the Elishas, my reverend and honoured brethren in the ministry. You are engaged in a glorious service. God has put great renown upon you. He has entrusted you with the two most precious jewels, His truths and the souls of His people.

Never was this honour conferred upon any angel to convert souls! What princely dignity can parallel this? The pulpit is higher than the throne, for a truly constituted minister represents no less than God Himself. “As though Go did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.” Give me leave to say as the apostle, “ magnify my office.”

Whatever our persons are, the office is sacred. The ministry is the most honourable employment in the world. Jesus Christ has graced this calling by His entering into it. Other men work in their trade; ministers work with God. “We are labourers together with God.” O high honour! God and His ministers have one and the same work. They both negotiate about souls. Let the sons of the prophets wear this as their crown and diadem.

It was not Paul that was “great,” but rather that the “weapons” he used when engaging the forces of evil were “mighty through God”! And what were those “weapons”?

Prayer, “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,” and faith in the One who had commissioned him. Note that we put prayer first. Does not the example of the supreme Preacher require us to do so? Did not the twelve declare, “We will give ourselves continually to (1) prayer, and (2) to the ministry of the word”? Then do thou the same. Concerning faith, we refer the reader again to Hebrews 11:13. Now fellow preachers, the same three “weapons” are all available to us, and we need no others for the glorifying of Christ and the execution of His commission. Note well, ye preachers, our last sentence. We did not say that no other weapons are needed in order for you to be eminently “successful” in your work, or that your use of the same will ensure prompt “visible results.” That must not be your chief concern nor immediate end: and if you make it such, a jealous God is most likely to blow upon rather than bless your efforts. Your paramount care and principal design must be the glorifying of God: to make known His excellency, to enforce His just claims upon the creatures of His hands, to bid men throw down the weapons of their warfare against Him, and to be reconciled to Him. If you be a real servant of God's He has sent you forth to magnify Christ: the salvation of sinners is but secondary and subordinate thereto. God would have a universal testimony borne unto the matchless worth of the person and work of Christ – the gospel is a “witness” to His perfections. God would have proclaimed far and wide the amazing fact that His own beloved Son “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

We must take heed that we do not neglect our pulpit preparation. The matter and style of our sermons must be equal to the demands of the times. Some may be ready to say at the end of the week – “I have been attending the school, visiting from house to house, distributing tracts, making speeches; and if my sermons on Sunday are not quite what they might be, at any rate I have not been idle.” We should remember that all work of this description, if it trenches on the preparation of our sermons, is work ill-spent.

It is not excuse in the sight of God, if our sermons on Sundays are poor, because we have been working so hard all the week. What costs little is worth little. If a man comes to his Bible on a Saturday, takes the first text that occurs to him, puts a few thoughts together, and then, trusting to his extempore powers, goes with that preparation only into the pulpit the next morning, we must not be surprised if the people complain of sameness in their pastor's ministrations. There never was a period when the pulpit required more preparation, more serious, hearty, studious preparation, at the hand of all God's faithful ministers. I must plainly give it as my opinion that clergymen who think that there is no occasion for reading and study make a great mistake, and are likely to bring the ministry into great contempt.

It may scarcely be needful to commend to you the sweet uses of private devotions, and yet I cannot forbear. To you, as the ambassadors of God, the mercy-seat has a virtue beyond all estimate; the more familiar you are with the court of heaven the better shall you discharge your heavenly trust. Among all the formative influences which go to make up a man honoured of God in the ministry. I know of none more mighty than his own familiarity with the mercy-seat. All that a college course can do for a student is coarse and external compared with the spiritual and delicate refinement obtained by communion with God. While the uninformed minister is revolving on the wheel of preparation, prayer is the tool of the great potter by which He moulds the vessel. All our libraries and studies are mere emptiness compared with our closets. We grow, we wax mighty, we prevail in private prayer. Texts will often refuse to reveal their treasures until you open them with the key of prayer. The commentators are good instructors, but the Author Himself is far better, and prayer makes a direct appeal to Him and enlists Him in our cause.

A certain Puritan divine at a debate was observed frequently to write upon the paper before him; upon others curiously seeking to read his notes, they found nothing upon the page but the words, “More Light, Lord,“ “More light, Lord,”repeated scores of times. A most suitable prayer for the student of the Word when preparing his discourse.

Our Lord's pungent addresses to the Scribes and Pharisees exhibit the boldness of a Christian Ministration. The same spirit in the Apostles – unaccountable upon human calculations – confounded their judges to the face. Witness Paul before Felix – a prisoner on his trial for life ̫ “no man standing by him” – hated even unto death by the influential body of his countrymen; yet, mean, and in peril, looking his judge in the face with the power of life and death in his hands, and remembering only the dignity of his office – delivering to this noble sinner and his guilty partner the most personal and offensive truths. How did this splendid example of Ministerial boldness “magnify his Office!” For what can be more degrading to our divine commission, than that we should fear the face of men͟ What unmindfulness does it argue of our Master's presence and authority, and of our high responsibilities, as “set forth for the defence of the gospel!” The independence that disregards alike the praise and the censure of man, is indispensable for the integrity of the Christian Ministry.

Luther would have been tolerated on many truths of general application, but his bold statements of justification could not be endured. But the question is not how our people may be pleased, but how they may be warned, instructed, and saved. We would indeed strongly rebuke that modesty, which makes us ashamed of our grand message; or that tremulous timidity, which seems to imply that we are only half-believers in our grand commission. To keep offensive doctrines out of view, or to apologise for the occasional mention of them, or to be over cautious respecting the rudeness of disquieting the conscience with unwelcome truths; to compromise with the world, to connive at fashionable sins, or to be silent where the cause of God demands an open confession – this is not the spirit which honours our Master, and which He “delighteth to honour.”

See that the work of saving grace be wrought in your own souls. Take heed to yourselves lest you be void of that saving grace of God which you offer to others, and be strangers to that effectual working of that gospel which you preach. Take heed to yourselves lest you perish while you call upon others to take heed of perishing, and lest you famish yourselves while you prepare their food. Can any reasonable man imagine that God should save men for offering salvation to others, while they refuse it themselves? Believe it, brethren, God never saved any man for being a preacher, nor because he was an able preacher; but because he was a justified, sanctified man, and consequently faithful in his Master's service.

Take heed therefore to your selves first, that you be that which you persuade your hearers to be, and believe that which you persuade them to believe, and have heartily entertained that Christ and that Spirit which you offer unto others. It is a fearful thing to be an unsanctified professor of religion but much more to be an unsanctified preacher of the gospel.

This Page Title – Taking Heed to the Ministry The Wicket Gate Magazine "A Continuing Witness". Internet Edition number 81 – placed on line November 2009 Magazine web address – www.wicketgate.co.uk