p. 4 | Preachers of the Message by William Ambrose Spicer

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jul 13, 1905

Preachers of the Message

By William Ambrose Spicer

THERE is a cry from all the fields to-day for men and women who can preach the message of God for this hour. Nothing can take the place of the ministry of the word to men, by public effort, by house-to-house Bible work, by putting the literature in the hands of the people.

It is the word of the living God that produces results. God has so ordained it, and in these last days our commission especially emphasizes the gospel method—“Preach the Word.” The Missionary Review of the World some time ago summed up the lessons of the special quickenings and victories in the whole century of missions as follows:—

1. God has set special honor upon his own gospel. Where it has been most simply and purely preached, the largest fruits have ultimately followed.

2. The translation, publication, and public and private reading of the Scriptures have been particularly owned by the Spirit.

3. Schools, distinctively Christian, and consecrated to the purposes of education of a thoroughly Christian type, have been schools of the Spirit of God.

4. The organization of native churches, on a self-supporting basis with native pastors, and sending out their own members as lay evangelists, has been sealed with blessing.

5. The crisis has always been turned by prayer. At the most disheartening periods, when all seemed hopeless, patient waiting on God in faith has brought sudden and abundant floods of blessing.

6. The more complete self-surrender of missionaries themselves, and their new equipment by the Holy Spirit, has often been the opening of a new era to the native church and the whole work.

The word of God is the thing that works. The growth of our own work emphasizes the same lessons. There is danger, with the elaboration of method, and the specializing in related departments, that we shall undervalue the real thing that has been the strength and brought the success in this movement. By the preaching of the word—the definite message of warning and salvation for this hour—the foundation of this cause was laid. This preaching of the judgment hour and the coming of the Lord brought into being all our educational, our publishing, and our medical missionary work. Everything that is of any value or has any place in this world-wide movement is the product of the preaching of the definite message God has given us. It is all the fruitage of the gospel ministry.

Whenever in our fields, at home or abroad, most attention has been given to evangelistic work, to the preaching and teaching of the Word of God among the people and to the scattering of our literature bearing this judgment-hour message, there we have seen the most rapid and substantial progress. God calls in a very special way at this time for our young people to devote themselves to evangelistic lines of work. This is the most powerful and most productive factor in all our work. In fact, this is the work, and all other departments are but incidental and contributory to the one work of crying out this message to the ends of the earth.

There are calls for teachers, there are calls for nurses and physicians, there are calls for those who have had a more technical or professional training, but the overmastering call the world over to-day is for workers to go in among the masses preaching and teaching the Word that brings souls into the truth, and builds up an ever-growing and developing work.

The divine order still stands, “first apostles,” missionaries, men and women sent of God to herald the message from place to place. And the Lord’s voice among us, and the voice of his providence in the waiting mission fields call for far more of our youth to turn their attention to evangelistic work. Let our schools turn out workmen who know how to handle the sacred Word of God, and who have their eyes upon the unwarned millions all about. Let the young man or woman who has the ministry or the Bible work in mind be ready to give the same thorough study and energy to preparation for evangelistic work that is given to preparation for work in more professional lines.

God called Jonah, saying, “Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.” It was time for a short, sharp, direct work. The doomed Ninevehs and all this perishing world to-day need the messengers who can quickly go through the world’s great highways and byways preaching the preaching that God bids us. The Word must do the work. “Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.” The world has discovered nothing to take the place of the “foolishness of preaching.” It is so simple a method that multitudes are led to look to something more elaborate. But as for us, let us throw ourselves into the heralding of this message by voice and printed page. This was the one work of the believers in the early days when this message grew from weakness into strength against all opposition. Now, while the Lord has brought into being many incidental and related methods of work, the one great work still, and the work that will bring this movement to a finish in our day, is the same old plan of going to the people with the definite message which now indeed they can no longer put off with safety. Let us press into the evangelistic field. Pray God to lay the burden for just the old-fashioned face-to-face evangelistic work upon the hearts of young and old. W. A. S.