THE MAN GOD USES – CHAPTER XVI – Oswald J Smith

CHRIST’S THREEFOLD COMMISSION

IN Christ’s threefold Commission we have the complete program of missionary enterprise for this dispensation. This threefold Commission is expressed in three simple words.

LOOK

”Say ye not, There are yet four months and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest” (John 4:35).

Thousands have no vision or knowledge of the need; hence great sums are wasted on expensive church buildings and equipment, while millions perish without even a mud hut in which to hear the Good News. One real look through the eyes of Jesus Christ and we will sink our funds not in bricks and mortar, luxurious Bible Training Schools and expensive institutions, but in the souls of men. Tabernacles and halls will suffice for our places of worship that the “other sheep” may also have a part. Non-necessities will give place to needs, luxuries dispensed with, personal and selfish gratification most carefully guarded, and life henceforth lived for those who have never heard. That is, if our hearts are moved with the compassion of Jesus and our eyes anointed to see as He saw.

Oh, then, let us look; look as we have never looked before. And as we see in vision the teeming millions of China and India with the benighted multitudes of Africa and South America, let us listen again to the Master’s words and catch a glimpse of the urgency of the need. “Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.”

Have you ever seen a harvest in our great Canadian Northwest? Then you know what it means. How urgent! How important that laborers be rushed off in train-loads. And why? Simply because the harvest must be gathered at once or it will be lost, and lost forever.

So it is with the whitened fields of souls. This generation can only evangelize this generation. Therefore, “What thou doest do quickly.” If laborers do not hurry off at once, if we fail to do our utmost, this harvest, this generation will be lost forever.

Yes, and this may be our last opportunity to show Him how much we love Him. Some of us may soon be gone, for “the night cometh when no man can work.”⁹⁵ For many “the day is far spent.” There are those who up to the present have lived for self and self alone. And now their years are numbered. Never yet have they manifested their love to Jesus Christ in any worthwhile way. Oh, then, let us be up and doing. Our last opportunity will soon be gone. In God’s name, let us lift up our eyes and look, look on the fields white already to harvest!

PRAY

Humanly speaking the task is absolutely impossible. There are more heathen today than there were a century ago in spite of what we have done. What is the solution? “Money,” replies one. “Let us gather together millions of dollars and we can evangelize the world.” “Men,” answers another. “Give us sufficient men to go and we will accomplish the task in this generation.” No, friend, that is not God’s method. Nether money nor men will do it.

Listen: “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few.” There you have the difficulties of the task, a great harvest and an inadequate number of harvesters. But hark! The Master continues to speak. Thank God, He has the solution and the problem is solved. “Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth laborers into His harvest” (Matt. 9:37- 38).

We have by far too many laborers now, laborers, I mean, of the wrong kind. They do not know their business, nor how to garner in the ripened harvest. With their Modem Theology and Social uplift ideas they have sought to do what can never be done. Would to God they could be sent home! What a blessing it would be to countless thousands! Our business is to ”pray the Lord ·of the harvest, that He will send forth laborers.” And when God sends men He always sends the right kind. This then is the secret—PRAY.

GO

1. To the Nations.

“Go ye therefore and teach all nations” (Matt. xxviii. 9).

The Bridegroom must have some from every tongue and tribe. “A great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne” (Rev. 7:9). This is borne out in Acts 15:14, “God did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His Name.” Hence, we have in Mark xiii. 10 these prophetic words: “And the Gospel must first be published among all nations,” with the promise in Matthew, “and then shall the end come.” Therefore, “Why speak ye not a word of bringing back the King?” This Paul declared to be his aim, namely, “To preach the Gospel in the Regions Beyond” (2 Cor. 10:16). Such, too was the plan of Jesus Himself. “All men seek for Thee,” they told Him. “Let us go into the next towns that I may preach there also” (Mark 1:35-39) was His answer. And in Luke 4:43 He is even more emphatic. “I must preach the Kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore am I sent,” He insisted. Then in Acts 1:8 we are definitely commissioned to a world- wide testimony, even “unto the uttermost part of the earth.”

This, then, is to be our vision, the Regions Beyond, the Unoccupied Fields, where Christ has not been named. Not to duplicate existing missionary agencies, but to go to places not yet touched. Such is our glorious mission! “To the Regions Beyond.” “Farther, still farther into the Night.” “The Neglected F1elds.” “Unoccupied Areas.” These are our watchwords. And in the story of “Satan’s Dilemma” we have best expressed our plan. Read it and catch the vision.

2. To the Individual.

“Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).

This is our responsibility and obligation to the individual. “When I say unto the wicked, thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not worning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man Shall die in his: iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand” (Ezek 3:18). What about the guilt of the man who finds a broken rail, but neglects to flag the train; or the one who watches a blind man about to fall over a precipice and neglects to call; or the one who sees another drowning and neglects to reach out a hand; or the one who notices a house on fire and neglects to give the alarm?

We have now been brought· face to face with an individual responsibility. And again the awful question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” demands an answer. “Every creature.” These are the Master’s words. We will have to get back to the anointed vision of Dr. A. B. Simpson, when he wrote:

“A hundred thousand souls a day, Are passing one by one away,
In Christless guilt and gloom; Without one ray of hope or light, With
future dark as endless night, They’re passing to their doom.”

Oh, child of God, what are you doing? What have you done? How will you face them? What will you say when they meet you up Yonder? Can you bear the thought? Your Master’s Commission, clear, plain and emphatic, the appalling need brought before you again and again, and yet you never raised a hand. The plate was passed and almost indifferently you tossed on a ten-dollar bill, and that was the measure of your interest for a whole year. With that your duty to missions ended. And you spend more in one week on yourself. God have mercy on you!

“Oh, Church of Christ, what wilt thou say
When in the awful judgment day,
They charge thee with their doom? “

How much treasure have you laid up in heaven? Where are your riches? In some earthly bank, where you must part with them sooner or later? Or have you consumed all on yourself? If such is the case you will enter heaven a poor man. Think of it! A pauper in heaven. No one to meet you because no investment in souls. God help us to store up treasure in heaven by investing in precious souls here. “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matt. 6:19). This is the command of Jesus Christ. Are we prepared to obey?

Do you know that $100 a year for missions is less than $2.00 per week? Think of it! What is your salary? Fifteen, twenty-five, forty dollars a week? Then that means thirteen, twenty-three or thirty eight dollars each week on yourself, and only the paltry sum of $2.00 for the evangelization of the world. What a crime! What an unequal division!

I will never forget a young woman who is now in Glory, Grace, by name. She was converted in my meetings and her heart was soon after set on fire for the “other sheep.” Her mother had promised her a new overcoat. The one she had failed many a time to keep out the piercing cold. It had been worn six years. Yet Grace, whose heart was in the foreign field, finally persuaded her mother to let her wear the old coat one more winter, and to give her the money for missions. Talk about sacrifice! How little we know! But that was not all, for when Grace lay on her deathbed she made her mother promise to sell her clothes and send the money to the Regions Beyond. I would like to be somewhere near when Grace receives her reward. What a sight it will be! Oh, how rich she was toward God!

Beloved, I am done! My message has been given. The responsibility now rests upon you. What are you going to do about it? What is your part? Christ’s Threefold Commission has now been set before you. Look! Pray! Go! You can look and you can pray. And if you cannot go, you can make it possible for those to go whom God in answer to prayer would thrust forth into the whitened harvest fields.

Hark! the Master calleth: “Who for Me will go? ” Some from every nation must
the Saviour know; “Other sheep” are waiting for the gospel Call Every tongue
must praise Him Jesus died for all.

Hasten, then, oh hasten, to the lands of night, Farther and still farther with the
gospel Light; Every tribe and nation has a right to hear This the great Commission-
Jesus made it clear.

Harvest fields are bending, soon ’twill be too late, Who will answer gladly: “Here
am I, send me? ” Reapers now must hasten, lo! ’tis death to wait; Who will take the
Gospel over land and sea, Who for Jesus only, who will all forsake, Ties of home
and loved ones for the Saviour break; Who will cross the desert, climb the
mountain height, Sacrifice and suffer, conquer Satan’s might?

Hark, the voice of Jesus: “Harvest fields are white”; Hasten ere they perish, soon
will come the night; Days of reaping over, harvest saved or lost Who, oh, who will
gladly go at any cost?

All may share the glory, some can give and play, Others at His bidding quicldy
haste away; Stewards are but entrusted, none for self dare live. Who will heed the
summons, all for Jesus give?

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95 John 9:4

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