The right lines of work - Chambers, Oswald
1 Timothy 6:20-211
What to concentrate on
(2 timothy 1:13-14)
To concentrate is not to be absorbed or carried away with a subject; concentration is the sternest physi- cal effort. There is nothing spiritual about the brain. Control over associated ideas must be acquired, it is not a natural gift. Never garrison an infirmity with indifferenceoh, i cant. Do it!
Paul gives timothy indications of the right lines of work: he is to concentrate on the deposit of truth conveyed by the words of scripture. As a preacher never have as your ideal the desire to be an orator or a beautiful speaker; if you do, you will not be of the slightest use. Read Matthew 23, and mark 7, and see the rugged, taste-shattering language of our lord. An orator moves men to do what they are indifferent
About; a preacher of the gospel has to move men to do what they are dead-set against doing, viz. , giving up the right to themselves. The one calling of a new testament preacher is to uncover sin and reveal Jesus Christ as savior, consequently he cannot be poetical, he has to be surgical. We are not sent to give beautiful discourses which make people say, what a lovely conception that is, but to unearth the devil and his works in human souls. We have to probe straight down where god has probed us, and the measure of the probing is the way god has probed us.
Be keen in sensing those scriptures that contain the truth which comes straight home, and apply them fearlessly. The tendency nowadays is to get a truth of god and gloss it over. Always keep the sense of the passage you expound. For example, in Malachi 2:13 the prophet tells the people that god will not regard their offerings, though they cover the altar of the lord with tears, with weeping, and with crying out. The context gives the reason: there is a wrong temper of mind and secret immorality. Never sympathise with a soul whose case makes you come to the conclusion that god is hard. God is tenderer than anyone we can conceive of, and if a man cannot get through to him it is because there is a secret thing he does not intend to give up. It is impossible to deal poetically with a case like that, you have to go right down to the root of the trouble until there is antago- nism and pain and resentment against the message. The gospel of Jesus awakens a tremendous craving but also a tremendous resentment. People want the blessing of god, but they will not stand the probing and the humiliation. As workers, our one method is merciless insistence on the one line, cutting down to the very root, otherwise there will be no healing. Always carry out the significance of your text with as many details as possible. To the majority of men, holiness is all in the clouds, but take this mes- sage, holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord, and drive it home on every line until there is no refuge from the terrific application. Holy not only in my religious aspirations, but holy in my soul life, in my imagination and thinking; holy in every detail of my bodily life. Let your text get such hold of you that you never depart from its application. Never use your text as a title for a speculation of your own, that is being an impertinent exploiter of the word of god.
What to concentrate for
(2 timothy 2:2326)
Remember that the underlying principles upon which god has built human nature and the underlying principles of the bible go together, and learn to bring the meaning of your text to bear on those principles. Leave your text alone apparently until you get men to realise in the sphere of their own lives where they lack. Then erect the standard of Jesus Christ for their lives and say for them but we never can be that! Then drive it home but god says you must be. How can we be? You cannot, unless you have a new spirit, and Jesus says that god will give you the holy spirit if you ask him (see Luke 11:13). There must be a sense of need before your mes- sage is of any use. For example, if you present john 3:16 to a crowd of moral upright men and women, it has no application to them, the subject is not alive to them, they are in a different domain. Men are dead in trespasses and sins, not necessarily blackguards, but their minds are blinded by the god of this world. That is the crowd we have to get in amongst, and it can only be done by relying on the holy spirit to awaken conviction where as yet there is none. Behind the preaching of the gospel the creative redemption of god is at work in the souls of men, and when the spirit of god begins to work on their hearts they see a standard they never saw before. I, if i be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. Once let Jesus Christ be lifted up, and the spirit of god creates the need for him.