The Responsibility of the Pastor
By C. M. S.
THE apostle says: "As we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts." The example of Paul in this regard is one which every minister of the gospel of Christ should strive to emulate. In fact, that is the only attitude of the professed minister of God which is honoring to God. As Christ declared that it would be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for those cities of his day which refused his witness with all the light they had, so may we know that it will be more tolerable in the day of judgment for such men as Paine and Voltaire and Ingersoll than for those professed ministers of God who have stood in the sacred desk and cast discredit and doubt upon the Word of God. Those were open enemies in the field; these are traitors in the camp. Men who were yearning for God and desiring to know and to do his ways would not go to such men as Ingersoll in their soul-hunger. But when they go to those who are entrusted with the gospel, they go in sincerity, with open minds and hearts, ready to believe, anxious to know what the messenger of God has to teach them. He who casts a single doubt into the mind of such an inquirer, "it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." Such men as Paine and Voltaire have drawn their sustenance from the commissariat of the enemy while working for him; but the unfaithful trustee of the gospel message has drawn his support from the church of Christ while working against it and its Founder. The hungry soul expects through the doctor of divinity the bread and the water of life, and has a right to expect them; and such a professed servant of Christ who feeds a single soul a stone of doubt and a serpent of unbelief has taken upon himself the most fearful responsibility that it is possible for a human being to assume. The consistent, open infidel will fare better in that day than he who, in the garb of religion, has taught men to look upon the Word of God as a myth, an unreality, the work of human minds and hands. It is infinitely better to anchor to the Rock of Ages than to flounder, and swamp, and sink in the sea of doubt; better to believe in the word of him for whose glory we were created, and then live and reign with him eternally, than to fill the world with the philosophies of doubt, and then perish on the grave of our false theories. What God wants of those who have named his name is unswerving loyalty to him and his Word. The disloyal, the doubters, the questioners, the critics of "that which is written," God has not commissioned and can not use in the promulgation of his message of salvation. Let the pulpits be relieved of such teachers, and the atmosphere of the professed church of Christ will be cleansed and vivified, and then will the zeal of the church be aroused, souls will be converted, cold hearts be melted, and the question of the empty pew will need no effort for its settlement. There are not two different ways leading to the kingdom; neither are there two different commissions given to the followers of Christ who are to proclaim the coming of that kingdom. It is not, Go ye into all the world, and dissect and criticize, and teach men to doubt the written Word of God; but, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." He who has accepted the calling of the ministry, and, forgetting the commission, begins to cast discredit upon the Word and to teach men to doubt it, has taken upon himself a fearful responsibility. We read that "it is a fearful thing to8fall into the hands of the living God." It will be indeed a fearful thing to stand before the bar of God in the garb of a minister of the gospel to meet the record of a "higher critic."