Venturing in Missionary Work
By D. T. Bourdeau
He who ventures nothing has nothing; he who ventures little has little; he who ventures much has much. This is true in temporal things; it is also true in spiritual things, even in missionary work. We receive the truth that we may communicate it to others. If we do this, we shall have more truth, and more strength to communicate it to those to whom we owe it, and in this case we are debtors to all those who are within our reach, and whom we can bless with the light God has given us. We should love our fellow beings as we love ourselves. If we do this, and have experienced the saving power of the truth for these times, we shall do all that in us lies to lead others to do the same, and to experience this same saving power that we have experienced; and thus our talents and abilities, with those of such as we can lead to walk in the way of truth and salvation, will be utilized, and the result will be an increase of talents and abilities as seen in an increase of souls saved through the grace and truth of him who died for us. This means missionary work, and venturing to do all we can of it, both for ourselves and for others; for in this we are to co-operate with Christ. By grace divine we are to work out our own salvation, and labor for the salvation of others, knowing that it is God who worketh in us and in others to will and to do of his good pleasure. We must venture more by faith and by earnest endeavors to form right characters. As we labor to overcome the defects in our imperfect characters, we shall labor for the salvation of others; for the two are inseparably connected. We can not labor to form righteous characters without laboring for the salvation of our fellow beings. To neglect doing all we can to lead others to comply with the conditions of salvation, is to be selfish, and to withhold equal love from those who need salvation, and from God love supreme. And how can we be truly said to be forming holy characters while selfishly doing this? On the other hand, in laboring for the salvation of others, our love for them and for God increases. While presenting to those for whom we labor the love of God, as seen in the gift of his Son and through his offers of salvation, we are reminded of what God has done for us in freely forgiving us our sins and in saving us from the power of sin, and we are led to ask him for grace to love him more; and he graciously grants us our request. We remember that he loves our fellow beings who are still in their sins as he loved us when we were in the same condition, and we are led to ask him for more of the love wherewith he has loved us and those who are still in the bondage of sin, and for whom we are laboring. In his great love and mercy he grants us our desire, even to giving us bowels of mercy for those who are perishing in their sins, and enabling us to love them as we love ourselves. In seeing the sins of those for whom we labor, we are led to examine our own characters to have their defects removed, that our example may be worthy of imitation, and that we may be successful in winning souls to Christ. And what is this but forming holy characters? Christ ventured all when he came to our world to save those who would truly believe in him; and we should venture all, even our very lives, if need be, in laboring for those for whom Christ died. To do this we need not all go to the heart of heathendom to evangelize the heathen. We can venture in doing missionary work in our own families, home churches and localities, and in laboring for those around us with our literature, in visiting and giving Bible readings; and we can venture more in doing missionary work on our knees, praying for those needing light, truth, and salvation, and for the messengers of the cross who are bearing to those in darkness the glad tidings of salvation. Let us not wait until every obstacle is removed to engage in missionary work. To do this would be to evince unbelief and selfishness, not giving the Lord a chance to work, and drying up spiritually. It would be to become guilty of the blood of souls around us who are perishing in their sins, and to be found unprepared for the things that are coming on the earth. Let us venture more in doing missionary work, that our faith and love may be increased, that we may see God's mighty workings in the conversion of souls to God, to the encouragement of his people, that the work of the Lord may soon be cut short in righteousness, and we may soon realize the blessedness of greeting the Saviour with joy at his coming.