God’s methods - Chambers, Oswald
Go ye, and stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life. Acts 5:20 (RV )
1. The men of gods method
We have to find out gods methods, not try to get god to approve our methods.
Go ye . . .
It would be an interesting study to trace out what our lord taught in connection with the verb to go. The men with gods go in them have these three characteristicsa saving experience; the evidence of supernatural power at work, and the spiritual efficacy of success in prayer.
Unless a preacher has had a saving experience, been set free from some prison, he has not got gods go in him. If this test were put to every preacher and Sunday school teacher has Jesus Christ done any- thing for you you could not do for yourself ? Has he set you free from the prison of a wrong disposition? Set you free from the tyranny of nerves? From pride? From a wrong mental outlook? The result straightaway would be to thin the number of those who are at work for god, and those that were left would be the men of gods method. The man of gods method says i know i have been delivered by god; i don’t know how he did it, but i know he did it.
How strongly spiritual efficacy in prayer is marked all through the acts of the apostles! It is the sign Jesus Christ gives that we believe in him (see john 14:1213). Prayer that is not saturated in the new testament is apt to be based on human earnest- ness. God never hears prayer because a man is in earnest; he hears and answers prayer that is on the right platform we have boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus (rv ), and by no other way. It is not our agony and our distress, but our childlike confidence in god.
2. The manner of gods men
and stand . . .
It takes a tremendously strong man to stand and having done all, to stand (Ephesians 6:13). Not fight, but stand. The men of gods method are never hustled, never enticed, they wont allow themselves to be deflected, they know what they are there for. None of these things move me, said Paul, you may execrate me, or praise me, it makes no difference; i am here for only one thing to fulfill the ministry which i received from the lord jesus. And speak to the people . . . How few of us do speak! When we talk to a soul, we talk like a tract! When Jesus talked to the woman of samaria he did not use a prescribed form of address, he told her divine truth and made her aware of her sin. When he talked to the disciples on the road to emmaus, their hearts burned within them. The characteristic of the man of gods method is that he can speak to a sinner and win him before the sinner knows where he is; he can speak to saints and make their hearts burn. In the temple . . . I. E. , the place where god ought to be honoured. The danger is to want to go into the show business. No man with his eyes on god ever went outside the temple to bear his testimony.
3. The message of gods men
. . . All the words of this life.
I. E. , Jesus Christ, proclaim him. Dont preach salvation; dont preach holiness; dont preach the baptism of the holy ghost; preach Jesus Christ and everything else will take its right place. The sanctification of the bible never fixes you on the fact that you are delivered from sin: it fixes you on the one who is sanctification. Sanctification is not something jesus christ gives me, it is himself in me.
And how shall they preach, except they be sent? How am i to know i am sent? The only way we can be sent is by god deliberately lifting us out of any sense of fitness in ourselves; i realise i am utterly weak and powerless, and that if i am to be of any use for god, he must do it in me all the time. We talk about our utter unfitness, our overwhelming sense of unsuitability, but are they mere sentimental phrases, or the humble certainty of our souls? The spirit of god allows us to scrutinise ourselves sufficiently till we know what Paul means when he said, we . . . Are weak in him. The worker whose work tells for god is the one who realises what god has done in him.
My word . . . Shall not return unto me void that is the perennial, unbreakable hope of the preacher; he knows the power of the word of god and he builds his confidence nowhere else but in God.