Gooding, David: 1 - Seed Bed for Service

My good fellow servants. As I understand it from the briefing that has been given me by those who organized this conference, our sessions this afternoon, and most of them this evening, are not preaching sessions for the preaching of the word. Though, of course, in all that we say and do, it is assumed that the word of God is the dominant factor in our background. Rather, our sessions this afternoon and evening are in the nature of deliberations. We are like the board of some gigantic business, and the business that is ours is the most noble business on the face of the earth. We serve under the most worthy and wise director of business, our sovereign Lord, the Redeemer and Savior of men. Like any responsible board, we are not here this afternoon to tickle our fences with exciting stories that move emotion and very little practical work thereafter. We are here to consult about the prosperity of the business we are in. To think about how we might develop it. To consider our resources and how we might, uh, deal with them, and are we using them to the full extent, and how could we provide more? And so forth and so on. I could wish for my part that the program had allowed some time for comeback and discussion. The more so because the topic that has been given me necessarily will bear weightily upon the elders in each assembly. And I fear that by the time I finished, if they had opportunity to reply, they would say, now look here, young gooding. A third of what you have said has been exceedingly good, but we already do that anyway. Another third was the counsel of perfection and utterly unrelated to life. And the final third was good, but completely theoretical. How do you propose we should put it into practice? And such a discussion, well, good could have come of it, could it not? And we have here present so many experienced missionaries anyway that I tremble in my shoes as in front of them I offer my meager advice. I would like, however, to list before you, for my session, some suggestions as to how an assembly could and should act as a seedbed of missionary interest and cultivate practical interest in the Lord's work. Suggestion number one, therefore. Assembly could cultivate interest in the Lord's work by instilling into the hearts of all believers a sense of the glory of God and of the wealth and the wonder of salvation, until the believers feel they cannot contain themselves, but must go and tell somebody about the wealth that they have discovered. Secondly, an assembly could foster interest in the s- work of the Lord by breaking down in its consistent teaching the false distinction between servants of the Lord on the one hand and the rest of us on the other. It is, I suppose, partly as a result of common parlance that sometimes we get it into our head that there is this division. There are servants of the Lord. If they are not as rare as dinosaurs, yet they are far more honorable, of course, and they are an unusual species. And then there's the rest of us who aren't expected to be servants of the Lord. And that, of course, a moment's thought will show to be a false dichotomy. The service of the Lord could be greatly cultivated and encouraged, it seems to me, by inculcating into the mind and heart of every believer that every believer is expected to be a servant of the Lord and to serve him in whatever he or she is called to do. Thirdly, it seems to me an assembly could and should encourage work of the Lord, and in particular missionary interest, by re- realistic i- realistically informing the members of the assembly of the world's spiritual needs, and in such a realistic way and knowledgeable way as to promote a profound compassion for the millions of the lost of our world. A compassion born from knowledge. And then by realistically training and preparing members of the assembly to meet that need. And finally, for my short time, I, I suggest that assemblies could and should foster interest in the work of the Lord by a leadership that knows how imaginatively to suggest ways in which all believers can be involved in furthering the work of the Lord. So then, to come to my first point, we can surely help, and elders in particular, and the preachers and the teachers especially, by helping one another to sense the awesome glory of the God we serve, and the immeasurable wealth of the gospel that has saved us. You will observe how often in the writings of Paul there recur the words for riches and wealth, the in- untellable out magnificence of the grace of God. And it is seems to me that it was this sense of wealth in the heart of Paul that sustained him and motivated him in his arduous journeys and formed a compelling restraint- constraint in the man's heart. In one sense, I suppose I am the last person that ought to have been chosen to deal with the topic this afternoon. For I was brought up in an assembly of godly men. I reverence their memory. But in our assembly, a missionary meeting was an occurrence like the proverbial blue moon. I never came within inches of a missionary, I think, in all my youth. They will say, how did you develop any interest in the Lord's work, eh, whether it be at home or abroad. I suspect there were all sorts of hidden influences from parents and elders who prayed. Let me not underestimate it. But what immediately sparked it, I suspect, was that there came a preacher to our assembly, and he expounded God's word, but expounded it not simply by preaching sermons himself about it, but expounded it in such a way that though I was still in my teens, I sensed that somehow this time the Bible itself had, so to speak, come alive and was speaking to my heart. At fourteen years old, I witnessed that kind of preaching transform an assembly. I watched the effect on my brothers and sisters and oldest cousins and other such, who were saved, there was no doubt of that, but exceedingly worldly. With very little interest in the things of God or in the service of God either, and inclined to flirt with the world, regarding the elders as rather pussy-footed relics from the past. I watched them gain what to me was an extraordinary interest in God's word that transformed their lives, and some of them still are elders and preachers in their churches. The impression made on me has lasted a lifetime. It opened a gate for me into the treasure of God's word, and I take no credit for it. It's not in me any credit. I freely confess to you that preaching is a thing that I would very often rather not do, and I'm a very poor preacher anyway. Why do I preach? Why do I teach? Because when God speaks to me in his word, my brothers, because when I hear the voice of God expounding the treasures of God's wisdom, it so fills my heart that I, I must go and tell somebody. Get the feeling like those famous lepers outside besieged Samaria. They found in the tents abandoned by the enemy treasure after treasure and began to fill their hungry pockets with the loot. When suddenly conscience began to work, and they said, we do not well. If we stuff all this treasure into our own pockets and don't tell a starving city what we found, some evil will befall us. It was that kind of constraint that moved them. I don't know how you have found it, but I have noticed that sometimes it is a little bit difficult for believers' children to come at this sense of wealth in the word. Here is some old rapscallion. He's murdered about five and a half mothers-in-law to date. He's been in prison and out of prison. He- he- he's robbed the Bank of England and what have you, and God has saved him, and the result of his conversion is such a magnificent change. The glory of John three sixteen haunts him, and he makes a marvelous evangelist, doesn't he? There were many of us who, I nearly said, unfortunately, I withdraw the word at once, didn't didn't have such a lurid past to get converted from. Our most lurid crime before we got converted was stealing some jam out of the pantry. Oh, we got saved because we heard the preachers talking about the terrors of hell, and we didn't want to go there, so we trusted the Lord. But that was that. We got our ticket to glory, and we were saved. And thereafter, the Bible was, well, a set of rules that you kept, more or less. That would hardly drive anybody to the ends of the earth to take a message of salvation, would it? And how will you help the likes of me, who did steal jam and one or two other things, but, well, I got converted at ten? What real difference does it make? You'll do it like that good man did, by causing me to see and to feel the wonder of the glory of God and the exceeding greatness of the wealth of his holy word. Till my heart senses that if I don't go and tell somebody, some evil will befall me. I was in another assembly once also led by good and godly men who were concerned to see that some of us sluggards got involved in the work of the Lord. And so constantly and forever, they were always on their feet or or asking us to witness for the Lord. In the end, it got under my skin only to provoke resentment. And I'll tell you why, I hadn't got anything to witness about, really. Yes. The main spring in witnessing for the Lord, isn't it, is to have something in your heart to talk about. Some great wealth of a salvation. I commit that first, therefore, to my elders. That grave, glorious task to feed the flock of God, to open up the very glories of God and his word to the hearts of the young and to us all, that shall propel us according to our abilities and callings to go and tell others. Without it, the call to missionary service can descend into being a call of mere legal works, and in the end will run into the sand. Secondly, I suggest, and here we can all help ourselves, that we need to break that false division among the people of God into two groups, one servants of the Lord, and the other group, the rest of us who aren't really expected to serve the Lord much anyway. The big biblical view, of course, is that we are all servants of the Lord, isn't it? Indeed, the mark of a converted man or woman is that they have an interest in the spread of the gospel. You will have observed, will you not, in Paul's letters, Paul often turns to reflecting upon the converts that he has made in different cities. And as sometimes sitting in prison, he recalled their faces and he recalled their experiences. He begins to list the reasons why he thinks that their conversion was genuine. And I begin to tremble because if an apostle were to look at me and ask himself, what evidence is there that Gooding is genuine, I wonder what evidence he would find. What evidence he would be looking for, anyway. When Paul came in his mind to list the evidence that the people at Philippi were genuine believers, number one was this. I've no doubt about it in my heart, he said. Look how from the very first you have been involved head over heels in the furtherance of the gospel. Isn't it an automatic reflex that if I've really been saved, the mark of it will be that I am concerned for the furtherance of the gospel that saved me. What kind of a salvation have I got hold of if I'm not concerned for its propagation and spread to others? The logic behind us, every one of us being servants of the Lord, was never better put than by Paul in two Corinthians chapter five. The love of Christ constrains us, he says. But lest you would think that the love of Christ with him was some bubbling emotion always coming to the boil in his heart, he lets us into a secret with the- with him, the love of Christ led to some rigorous logical thinking. The love of Christ constrains us having judged this, says Paul. It's a matter of logic that if one died for all, as the blessed Lord Jesus died for us all, then in a sense the implication is that we all. The they which live should not live henceforth to themselves, but to him who died and lived again for them. We may illustrate the point by the Old Testament analogy. After the Passover in Israel, as you remember, it was required of all firstborn sons that they be devoted to the Lord. Lock, stock, and barrel. I can imagine one firstborn son growing to the age of, uh, uh, perception, arguing with his parents and saying, but I'm not going to be right. Ah, no, no, no, no, no, no. Why should I be devoted to the Lord and Thomas not be? This isn't fair. And the answer would come back in the form of logic, wouldn't it? But you see, my son, if you hadn't have been redeemed by the blood of that Passover la- lamb, you wouldn't have had a life to spend anyway, boy. The night that lamb died and you were saved, and you took protection under its blood, that very li- night you lost your ownership of yourself. And if you reject the call to be devoted to the Lord, well, go back and expose yourself to the wrath of the avenging angel, that's all. It is a fact, isn't it? Easily sung, but requiring some rigorous logic to put into effect in our lives. We're not our own. We are bought with a price. That doesn't just apply to a small group of servants of the Lord, so-called. It applies to us all, doesn't it? Calls me ever and again to ask myself. If the Blessed Savior drew near to me this afternoon, or drew near to you and said, my, my dear child, what would you say your service for the Lord is? What would I reply? How can elders help us in this regard to respond? You all remember that the Levites were eventually taken and substituted for the firstborn, yes? And the Levites it was that had to give themselves to the service of the Lord. Uh, and I suspect when they were first inducted, it was an exciting thing to be a Levite, wasn't it? Fancy being allowed to handle the sacred vessels of the ministry, wow! And be allowed to put the curtains in place and handle the cherubim, ooh, what a thing. But you know, after you've put the tabernacle up five thousand six hundred and seventy five times and taken it down five thousand six hundred and seventy six times and put it up five thousand six hundred and seventy seven times, gets a little bit ordinary. What should keep them going? Uh, when they were inducted, there was held a great ceremony, and they were brought to the altar, and they were offered a living sacrifice to God. How would any young man or woman be induced to offer his life as sacrifice to God? Well, God arranged another service at that time, a service called the dedication of the altar. There was the altar standing in the middle of the congregation, and with the crowds looking on, the elders of Israel came, and they brought their gifts for the dedication of the altar, showing in front of all what value they placed on this altar and what it meant to them. Then there was many a gasp of wonderment among the young as the princes stepped forward and brought their silver and their costly gifts and laid them at the foot of the altar. The men and women saw what that altar meant to those princely men. Oh, my brothers, my sisters, how can you help us, the rest of us, to yield our bodies a living sacrifice in the service of the Lord? Why we're watching you. You'll help us as we see you and the value you place upon the cross of Christ. We're listening as you worship, you know. And we're watching your devotion and asking ourselves, what makes those men and women my elders? Such devoted, self-sacrificing men and women. Till we are wise to say, does the cross of Christ mean so much to them? Pray, why doesn't it mean the same to me? And we begin to learn your secret. And then, of course, if we say that it is our task to train ourselves to believe that we are all servants of God, then it will inevitably mean some good practical teaching on the question of careers, will it not? And Ian is going to talk to us later, so I shall make my remarks here very short, lest I trespass on a better preacher. But you know the old commandment of a new that says seek you first the kingdom of God and its righteousness doesn't mean, does it? First give out some tracts before you go to work in the morning, and when you've sought the kingdom of God by giving out the tracts, then you can go to work and do your own business. It means, doesn't it, that when it comes to going to daily work, our motive in going to daily work must be first that of serving the Lord, seeking his rule in our lives. Not merely going to work to make money, not even going to work to make money to give to the Lord's servants, so-called, but to go to work to seek the Lord's rule and government in our lives, in the practical details of running the home and washing the nappies, and totting up the accounts on your old computer, and dealing with difficult, uh, men at work, and all the thousand and one things of practical life, in all those, we're seeking God's rule in our lives, are we not? It's not only the slaves in the New Testament that are told that as they hoed the sugar beet on their farms, they served the Lord Christ. It should be true of the lot of us, surely. You haven't a choice, my dear young man, between serving the Lord or entering a career. Whatever career we have, be it motherhood, parenthood, be it grocery or medicine. It's got to be a serving of the Lord, hasn't it? Else we become old Gentiles like our worldly neighbors next door. Peter had to be taught that lesson before he went out into what is popularly called full-time work, you know, didn't he? He was by the beach, he was a fisherman, he was a good fisherman, he was washing his nets and mending them. The preacher came along and wanted a pulpit, applied to Peter for the use of his boat as a pulpit. Peter said, by all means, he was a reasonable businessman, and if he wasn't using his lorry, well, he would use it for, let anybody use it for the Lord's work, his boat too. Wasn't much in the way of preaching himself at the moment, but yes, if he didn't need his plant, why not let a preacher use it? So he lent him a spare bit of plant from his work. And after the sermon, the preacher got in the boat and said, Peter, now I'd like you to let down your nets. Well, he said, now, sir, he said, you see, you may be good at the preaching, but when it comes to fishing, I'm the expert here, and I'm telling you there are no fish about. Is that so? Said the Lord. All right, Pete, there's no fish about, but I'd like you to let the nets down because I tell you to. And for the first time in his life, he went fishing. Not because he expected a catch or, or profit in money terms. He went fishing just to please the Lord. Oh, what a lesson to learn, and what a lovely glow it sheds on life, doesn't it? Obviously, we're not all of us going to be preachers, nor overseas missionaries. But most of us are going to stay at home, aren't we? Indeed, you know, you wouldn't get any missionaries if you didn't have mothers. It takes a lot of changing of nappies to produce one missionary, you know, doesn't it? Ah, but what a wonderful dignity it casts over daily work when we are schooled to do it as a servant serving the Lord. And in that frame of mind, we are at the Lord's disposal more readily, aren't we? When he calls to further service. Thirdly, by realistically informing ourselves as to the need and preparing ourselves to meet that need realistically. It is a thing to be observed that if you tell Christian folks that lots of people are living in squalid conditions or fearful conditions in other lands, it provokes a little generosity. If you can get a missionary along with some slides that gives you pictures of people suffering, then it will promote, promote, provoke enormous generosity. And the Irish, I say it as a mere Englishman, um, are very noble givers. But if we are concerned for people's physical need when we see detailed descriptions of their physical need, wouldn't be we, wouldn't we be wise to inform ourselves realistically of their spiritual need? Oh yes, you say, my dear sir, we all know everybody is perishing except us. Well, you're all right. Everybody's perishing if they reject the Savior. Yes. How can you say that glibly? To let yourself be informed of the vast and poignant need, not only of men and women in godless societies, but men and women under the darkness of evil religions. Well, see, we have known well, haven't we, how to preach the gospel against the background of Victorian Christendom, where so many thousands were lost because they supposed salvation was by works, so we knew how to preach salvation by grace. But the world changes, my brothers, my sisters. That is still a message that needs to be preached worldwide. But there are bigger contexts. Contexts where men and women are pious in their Hindu religion, in their Buddhist religion, in their Shintoism. And before you can tell them about the grace of God in Christ, you've got to prove to them there is a God anyway. Haven't we got... by our training... to educate people as to the spiritual needs of the world? We'll say perhaps not all people are called to be missionaries, not all are called to be teachers and preachers. But then, and I mention another thing now, Paul exhorts Timothy not only to teach the church in general, but to teach certain people in particular. The things I have told you, says Paul to Timothy, you commit to faithful men who can teach others also. And if we are to produce another generation of responsible teachers and missionaries and preachers and pastors, have we not got to look to our teaching and its thoroughness and its speed? Sometimes I go to assemblies, not this one, but some, and I say to them, what are you doing in your weekly study meeting? Oh, they say Romans. I said, marvelous. Do you know, they say we've been five years already on Romans, and we haven't got beyond chapter six yet. Say they're glorious. But under my breath, I'm saying, and yes, and your young people will be middle-aged and getting a pension before you've got up to, uh, uh, Colossians or Revelation, won't they? And if we believe the whole Bible is God's word, and we would go to the stake for the belief that it's God's word, haven't we got to look to our methods of teaching and our programs of teaching to see that each generation covers the whole of God's word? Yes? Or at least each generation covers the whole of God's word. Yes? Or at least each generation covers the whole of the New Testament. At least for those who are going to be the Timothys of this world, and be effective teachers and preachers and missionaries themselves. We cannot afford to let our teaching be lackadaisical, with no set aims, objectives, and sometimes results. And in informing ourselves of God's word, then if we're going to promote missionary interest, we need to inform ourselves, do we not, of those spiritual needs in this world to which Bible is the answer. I was in Russia recently, as I told some of you, permit me to repeat it, for I'm getting elderly, and it's a delightful privilege to be able to repeat yourself like all elderly gentlemen do. In Russia, I was invited to to talk at a school, a state-run school on Christianity, and after the session, the deputy headmistress came to me and informed me that they had had a lot of, uh, unidentified flying objects in Russia. I said that was remarkable. We weren't favored with them in Northern Ireland. She said, you know, and one of them, the occupants told us that Buddhism was the true religion, not Christianity. What would you have said to her then? Would you have opened the Bible and said, look here, my good woman, there is salvation in no other. I thought, well, if I say that, I'm the first Christian teacher she's ever had in the school, and she told the school she's keen on introducing religion, all religions, into the school. And if I say that, I might alienate her by appearing to be pigheaded. I said, madam, that's very interesting, I said. We've not had them, so I can't tell you about UFOs and people inside them, but I mean, if that's what they said, that Buddhism was the true religion, I said, you know what, madam, what Buddhism preaches, don't you? Well, she didn't. Well, I said, let me tell you. It's the first time I've acted as a Buddhist missionary. I said, it teaches, you'll say, that if at last you escape the cycle of life, so you don't have to be reincarnated again, you can go off into the beyond. And then you are available as a spirit to come and help people on Earth. I said, if that was a real, uh, uh, uh, UFO thing and the inhabitants inside it talk like they talk, they could have been, uh, Buddhas, couldn't they? Or what you might call spirits. You might even call them demons, don't you think? I said, you know, madam, I was in Japan recently talking to Buddhists, and one dear lady asked me, um, um, um, why do you say that Jesus is the only one? And I said, my answer to her, madam, was this, that in Buddhism there's no such thing as forgiveness, is there? Only your karma, inescapable law of event and effect, cause and effect. No forgiveness, there is no such thing. I said, Madam, you see, and I'm a sinner, and one of the first things I need before God is forgiveness, and Jesus Christ is the only one that ever offered it to. You say, no, we don't know, we no need to learn about these other religions. My dear good friends, in England, if not in Ireland, presently the schools will be full of the teaching of comparative religion to the children. It will be taught in many a case by teachers who will give the children the impression that all religions are equally good and Christianity only one religion amongst many. Haven't we a duty to teach our children the facts and why Christianity is true? We could do with some rigorous preparatory teaching lessons, couldn't we, in our assemblies for young people that are going one of these days to be adequate elders and preachers and teachers and missionaries. And I have many other things to say, some of them I shall be saying in the evening session, but I'll leave it there. I recur to the point that I made. Take my words as suggestions, won't you? You will in your wisdom, and mull them over. I pray that some of them may be helpful and may issue an increased efficiency in our preparing ourselves in our assemblies for even more vigorous serving of the Lord at home and abroad than even that we have managed hitherto.