Christ in the Marvelous BOOK by E.B. Hatcher

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CHRIST

IN THE

MARVELOUS BOOK

By

Eldridge B. Hatcher Lecturer on the Bible, Harcum Junior College,

Bryn Mawr, Pa.

Formerly Published by

Zondervan Publishing House

1940

Ver. 1.2



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PREFACE

A humanistic trend seems to prevail in present day preaching. Texts are usually

treated from the human rather than the divine point of view. There are, of course,

many preachers who do not follow this man-exalting trend. This book deals with the

ministry in general and makes its plea for more Christ-centered and less man-

centered preaching.The Bible is largely treated in the pulpit as the story of man rather than as the story

of Christ. The Book seems to be read and preached from and taught as if it were

written mainly to show what we humans today must do for God rather than what

God has done and is doing for us and what He desires to do through us as we

surrender to Him. The supreme purpose of the Scriptures is to show, not the duties

of man, but the doings of God as manifested in Christ.

Our poor panic-stricken world is today sending out unconsciously its S.O.S. cry,

but the present-day Christians seem helpless in coming to the rescue. Christ is the

one "Savior of the world" but He is not given His opportunity by His preachers. Let

the list of next Sunday's sermon-subjects as published in the Saturday newspapers of

our cities be read and it will be seen how chiefly human Bible characters and human

interests are given each Sunday to needy, hungry congregations, rather than theChrist of the Bible.

Our Master said concerning the Scriptures, from which the preacher is supposed to

get his message: "Theses are they that testify of Me." In commissioning His

preachers just before His Ascension, He also said: "Ye shall be witnesses unto me."

INTRODUCTION

Dear Friend, this book is submitted to you for its evaluation and for your

edification. Since I was first introduced to this book over a year ago, its influence

upon my vision of ministry has continued to expand. In further reading, I have seen

the truths of this book confirmed by men of the caliber of Spurgeon, Lloyd-Jones,

and Isaac Backus. While this book is no cure-all, I certainly believe it can direct ourattention to the Lighthouse so desperately needed in the turbulent storm of humanism

which is sweeping over the church today. Because of the impact of this book upon

my friends and myself, we are investigating the possibility of reprinting this volume

for wider distribution. Permission has been granted from the publisher, but the

details have yet to be worked out. This version itself is still under revision and

needs further editing. Any constructive criticism you may have is greatly

appreciated. It is our prayer that this book will cause you again to set your eyes on

Christ in the Marvelous Book .

Todd Marshall

September 11, 1991



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Chapter 1

THE LEFT ROAD

"A young preacher, are you?"

"I haven't yet done any preaching."

"May I then stop you here at this fork of the road? The probability is that you willselect the left road. Most of our young preachers do."

"You make me wonder if I ought to choose that left road. What's the trouble with

it? Is it rocky and steep?"

"Just the opposite. It is very easy traveling. The main difference is in the

atmosphere that hangs over the two roads and gets into the preachers and into every

body. I would advise you to examine very carefully both roads. A friend of mine,

Mr. Thomas Bentley, a traveling man, goes down this left road tomorrow. Would

you like to go with him?"

"I'll be happy to go with him."

At 8 o'clock next morning the young preacher, Robert Bolton, and Mr. Bentley met

and "The Ford," as it was called.

"Can we start right now?" asked Robert."Here we go," said Mr. Bentley, starting off. "Don't let us get separated. We shall

drop into churches and religious meetings and watch and listen."

"I don't notice anything special about the atmosphere of this road," said Robert,

drawing in large draughts of air as they walked along.

"Suppose you open you Bible."

"Why, that's strange! Certain passages and certain chapters stand out from the

other passages and chapters in bright shining letters!"

"That's what I wanted you to see. It is due to a certain air-current that sweeps up

and down this highway, with which the Bible users become infected. It is called the

humanistic current and is so insidious that it permeates one's system, especially his

eyes. Those passages at which you are looking are not actually shining more

brightly than the other passages but the air-current you are breathing makes you seethem as brighter and, consequently, they are the passages that attract you."

"What is the difference between the bright passages and the other passages?"

"Don't you notice that the bright passages are those that mention man and his

characteristics and his interests? Let me show you. You have there the story of

Noah. don't you see that Noah is in bright letters, and, so also, all that he said and

did, and also the words ark , animals, and rain. In other words, all this strictly human

material and these earthly elements in the chapters catch your eye and seem to say:

"When you read these chapters watchus, and when you teach them to your Bible

classes talk chiefly about us, and when you preach about this story, hold us up before

the congregation."

"What a strange being I must be," exclaimed Robert, "to see my Bible in thischanging fashion."

"You are a far stranger being than you imagine, my young friend, and what I am

trying to show you is that what you find in the Scriptures to preach about will depend

upon you. Some preachers see one class of persons and facts and teachings in the

Bible and preach chiefly about them, while others see a vastly different set of persons

and things and preach about them, and the difference is caused by the atmosphere inwhich they have lived and have read their Bible and preached. At least, as I said

before, that is the usual explanation of this wide-spread humanistic, man-exalting,

man-centered treatment of the Bible."

"Don't the people along that other road - the road that turned to the right - see the

same in their Bible as we see here?"

"Those who breathe the air of the other road see a very different Bible from the

Bible you are seeing now. In other words, the two roads differ, not in the characters

and lives of the preachers and Bible readers who live on them. These people on this

road may be, as a rule, as pious and consecrated and as 'orthodox' as those on the

other road. The main difference between the roads - now get this carefully Robert,

for this is fundamental - is the way the Bible is used , and that means in the way the

Bible is studied, taught, and preached. I am trying to let you see the two methods of studying and expounding the Bible that are be ing followed today - chiefly by

preachers."

"You mean then that the two roads represent, not two ways of preaching, but two

ways of dealing with the Bible?"

"The two roads do represent two very different ways of preaching. But these two

ways of preaching grow out of the different ways in which the preachers read their

Bible. That's the heart of this whole matter. Those on this road, when they read their

Bible, see mainly the human elements in the chapters and build their sermons,

therefore, around those human elements. Now, Robert, do you have it fixed

permanently in your mind, that, in all our survey of these two roads, I am trying to

show you - let me repeat - not two ways of preaching, but two ways of using the

Bible in preaching?""Mr. Bentley, if I don't keep that distinction clearly before my mind in our

investigation, it will not be your fault. I am going to watch, in every case, how the

Bible user uses, or deals with, his Bible."

"Fine; but look! Yonder is a church! Don't you hear them singing? A service

seems to be in progress. Let's enter and watch. Watch what, Robert?"

"I haven't forgotten," he said with a smile. "We must watch how the Bible is

used."

They entered the lighted room where they found about twenty persons being led by

their pastor in the week-night prayer-meeting. Not wanting to attract attention, they

quietly took seats in the rear. The pastor, after some preliminary exercises, said: "I



4

bring you the story of the woman at Jacob's well. Let us watch this woman in herstrange speech and action." He kept the attention of his listeners upon the woman,

her character and the ideas she advanced during the story, and her actions at the well

and her running back into the city.

"Didn't that sermon, Robert, make plain to you what I have been saying?" asked

Bentley as he and Robert left the build and started along the road. "The preacher

kept our attention chiefly upon the woman from beginning to end.""But why shouldn't he do that? Isn't that what the story is about?"

"Exactly, my boy. That is what you saw, as well as the preacher, and that's the way

you, in that attitude, would use your Bible in preaching about that story. And that is

what this humanistic current is making such multitudes of preachers do today. But

come, yonder is another church with a light in the building. Let's go in."

They found about twenty-five persons, and the service proved to be a Sunday

school teachers' meeting, with the superintendent teaching the next Sunday's lesson

to his teachers. Mr. Bentley asked the superintendent if he and Robert might remain

for the service.

"Delighted to have you," was the reply.

"Our lesson, you will see," said the superintendent is beginning his talk, "is 'Saul

converted and commissioned.' This man Saul was a wonderful character and had aremarkable character and had a remarkable career. In his home at Tarsus . . ." Thus

he went on during the hour's talk with the attention of his listeners fixed on Saul.

"How did you like our superintendent's talk?" asked a tall, genial gentleman of Mr.

Bentley after the service, and before he could answer the man added, "I tell you that

man Saul was a wonder."

They got out as quickly as possible and Robert asked, "Don't you think that talk

was all right?"

"All right, Robert?" Why it was the same man-exalting, man-centered way of

dealing with the Bible. Saul was made the subject and hero in the drama, and those

teachers will go out to their classes next Sunday with that human character, Saul, on

the throne of the lesson, as they teach it, and with the scholars going away thinking

of Saul, Saul, Saul.""Why not? I can't get your point, Mr. Bentley. Why was this story of Saul put

here in the Bible if we are not to hold him up before the scholars? Think of what an

inspiration such a character will prove to those scholars. Why Saulwas a marvel."

"Paul didn't think so, for he said, even while he was a missionary: 'Oh, wretched

man that I am; who shall deliver me? When I would be good, evil is present with me

and the things I would not do, those I do.' Do you imagine for a moment that Paul

would want the Sunday-school teachers of the world to be sending their scholars

away next Sunday from the lesson thinking mainly of him? I am not intimating that

the speaker should not have said anything at all about Saul. But I want us to go into

that Westbrook Bible School farther along this road. It has an enrollment of fourhundred young people who are preparing to do Christian work of various kinds."

At ten o'clock next morning they were seated, by permission of the professor, in

one of the classrooms of that Bible school, and the professor's subject was the Book

of Galatians.

"You will see," said he, "in this Book the great Apostle Paul - and may we pause

for a moment and lift high our mental gaze upon this wonderful personality - wemight say, this spiritual giant and genius, Paul. The subject of Galatians is Paul's

defense of himself and his ministry." thus the speaker handled his Bible according to

the man-exalting, humanistic method.

Out on the road as they moved away from the school, Robert exclaimed: "Now,

Mr. Bentley, you surely have no criticism of that discourse about the Book of

Galatians. I kept my Bible open as he proceeded and there on the pages Paul was

showing the injustice of the charges against him and putting up a magnificent

defense as he described his gospel."

"There it is again, my boy. You make me sadly smile. You have eyes only for the

human side."

Sunday arrived. "Hurry, Robert; I want us to go into that children's department of

the Sunday-school across the road."They went and there, in an attractive room, nineteen children were seated in a

semi-circle and the teacher, after some preliminary exercises, told them the story of

Joseph and his brothers and she kept their mind throughout the lesson fixed chiefly

on Joseph.

As they left the building Robert, apparently absorbed in thought and also somewhat

bewildered, waited for Mr. Bentley to speak. The latter broke the silence by saying:

"There it is again, Robert."

"But, Mr. Bentley, I tried to be on my guard and not notice merely the human

element in that lesson. But that whole story is about Joseph. If you leave out

Joseph, what have you got left in the story?"

"I did not say you must leave Joseph out. Of course not. Don't leave out anything

that is in the Bible. But what I am anxious for you to see is that along this road allusers of the Bible see the human characters and the other human elements as the

supreme elements in the chapters and build all their Bible treatments around them.

Now, let us go upstairs for the preaching service."

They went, and the preacher based his sermon on the words: "Henceforth there is

laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, will

give me in that day."

"Ah," said the preacher, as he began his sermon, "Here we see that marvelous

preacher, Paul, approaching his end." The discourse was entirely about Paul and the

crown he expected to receive.



5

As they left the service, Robert reported forty-seven "you ought's" and twenty-nine"we ought's" uttered by the preacher.

That evening they attended a young people's service in another church. The

speaker, a young man, announced as his subject, "You Can," and he spoke

substantially as follows: "Young people, it is up to you. This is the day of youth's

opportunity. Our church needs us. Christianity needs red-blooded men. Christianity

means a man's job. We are called upon to make the world a better world to live in.We can. We can."

"There it is again," said Mr. Bentley, as he and Robert left the building - " the same

humanistic, man-centered trend. Bear in mind that this road we are traveling is

simply one of the parallel roads of the great Humanistic Highway that runs from one

end of our country to the other. The other roads are the Political Humanistic

Highway, the Economic Humanistic Highway and the Educational Humanistic

Highway. This is the Religious Humanistic Highway. All of them are man-centered

and exalt the present and past achievements of man and his future possibilities.

These roads are united every five miles by connecting roads so that it is easy to pass

from one to the other. They are all under one system called The Humanistic

Highway System, and are usually crowded."

"Where shall we go next?" asked Robert."The Wentner Theological Seminary. We shall go there in the morning."

At ten o'clock next day they found themselves, by permission of the Professor, in

the class of Old Testament Interpretation. He began, "We have this morning the

Book of Jonah," and his lecture was a discussion of Jonah.

"Now, Robert," said Bentley, after leaving the building, the Bible is preached and

taught as the story of man and as indicating chiefly what man today ought to do. Are

you ready to start tomorrow for the other road?"

"Yes, indeed, for you have certainly got my curiosity aroused as to what I shall

find there."

"All right; I must make some inquiries first. Come, let us go into the Post-office

and see my friend, the postmaster."

Entering the postmaster's office, Mr. Bentley said: "Mr. Postmaster, can you tell usthe quickest and best way to get into that Heavenly Highway?"

"Yes, but you have a rough journey. But you know about all that, don't you? I

thought that you, in your business, traveled that road as well as this one."

"I do, but I always go back to the point where the roads fork and come into it there.

But we have come so far down this road and my young friend is so anxious to get

into that other road, we shall cut across the country."

"You know that road is vastly higher than this one and that you must do some

climbing."

"That's one reason I have always gone back to the Fork."

"Well, you go down here about a mile and a half to the hospital and there you willfind a road, or rather a path, and if you will follow it up the incline it will finally lead

you to the top."

"Do all the preachers on this road," asked Robert of Mr. Bentley as they went out

onto the street, "spend all their ministry here? Don't any of them ever visit the other

road, and don't some of the preachers on that high road ever come down here and

preach?""Oh, yes; but not very often. You see, it is such a heavy climb, and besides, these

preachers here enjoy talking about human persons and interests. Their thoughts

naturally chime in with what the folks around them are thinking and talking about.

You know if people enjoy a novel it is because they can see themselves in the story

and imagine themselves to be like the hero. And it does not require much work to

talk and to preach about self and folk and earthly interests. Occasionally some

preacher up on the other road wanders too near the edge, stumbles, and starts rolling

down, and in most cases does not stop until he reaches the bottom here. Others are

drawn into this road from the other road by other causes, but it does not happen

often.



6

Chapter II

THE RIGHT ROAD

Bentley and Robert started next morning, carrying a load of food. Seven days were

required to make the climb. The path was exceedingly rocky and slippery. ButRobert's enthusiasm put new strength into him and he helped Mr. Bentley a number

of times.

"We're here," exclaimed Bentley next morning after a night's climb. "Let's go to a

hotel and sleep off our fatigue."

"What a happy set these people up here seem to be," said Robert to his friend that

evening as they sat in the hotel lobby. "Have you noticed it?"

"How could anybody help noticing it?"

To a gentleman sitting at his side, Bentley turned and said, "Pardon me, but I am

struck with the number of happy people I find along this road. Can you tell me the

cause of it?"

"It's all due to Jesus Christ."

The gentleman saw the bewilderment on Robert's face as he suddenly jerked hischair up nearer with an eager, questioning look, and the speaker continued:

"Every Sunday most of the preachers up and down this road preach morning and

night about Christ - the Christ of the Bible."

"But do you mean," asked Robert, bringing his chair still closer, "that every

Sunday it is just this one simple subject 'Christ'?"

"Yes, my boy - excuse my familiarity - but I am a stranger to you, and you to me.

My name is Darnell," he added, extending his hand to Robert, who grasped it,

saying: "My name is Robert Bolton, and this is my great friend, Mr. Thomas

Bentley."

"Well, now, I will answer your question, Mr. Bolton. You spoke of one simple

subject, Christ. Christ is not a simple subject, but the biggest that can be conceived

of.""But don't your preachers," asked Robert, "ever preach on such subjects as

Gratitude, or Honesty, or Sin, or Heaven, or Good Citizenship, or the Anti-Saloon

League?"

"Ah, my boy, the Anti-Saloon League went out of business up here years ago under

all this preaching about Christ. The great majority of people along this road are

Christians and liquor wouldn't stand any chance here."

"But don't the preachers ever bring into their sermons anything about the bible

characters - Abraham, Moses, Paul, and the others."

"These Bible characters are, of course, preached about and everything else in the

Bible is preached about, but they are all brought into the sermons under Christ as the

general subject. For example, the various hospitals along this road asked thepreachers to make a certain Sunday, several weeks ago, 'Hospital Sunday,' when the

needs of the hospitals would be presented, or preached about. Well, what did my

pastor do? Did here merely present facts and figures showing the good work of the

hospitals and their financial needs, with appeals for liberal support? No, he told me

that during the preceding week he spent hours going through his Bible looking for

experiences in the ministry of Jesus and statements by Him that would show how Hewould probably feel about the work of such institutions as our hospitals, and that

then he worked hard to combine, in somewhat pictorial form, this material - all o f it

about Christ - and he used it under Christ as the subject. It was a wonderful sermon.

He had us watching the picture of Christ - a sort of moving-picture - not of buildings

and sick folk and statistics along our road, but of Christ in His relation to these

things. We all knew about the work and needs of hospitals. The preacher made it

easy for us to see what was probably Christ's attitude toward the method and work of

hospitals today.

"This meant, of course - let me repeat - that the work of our hospitals had to be

brought into the sermon, with statistics, etc. The sermon was not all up in the air

about Christ and heaven and spiritualities, with nothing about hospitals and the earth

and materialities, but the heavenly and earthly were integrated under Christ as thegeneral subject. I came away from the service with a new desire to help our

hospitals, and I now had a new motive for helping them.

"In other words, Robert, while our pastor is bringing the Bible to bear every

Sunday on the various human interests that touch our daily lives, we are learning

more and more about Christ, and Christ is looming higher in our daily lives as a real

person. The pastor doesn't fill his sermon with those human elements and merely

bring in Christ at the end - or drag Him in as a sort of alibi. No; it was Christ from

beginning to end in his hospital sermon. Of course, you find these people happy."

"Pardon me, gents," said a man of a weather-beaten type sitting near them who

drew up his chair; "I have heard what this gentleman has said and if I may add a

word, I want to say that I am none of your Christian saints but am an atheist. I was

reared in a family of atheists, but I don't want to argue about that now. I live downon the Humanistic Highway but during the three weeks that I have been up here I

have seen some puzzling things. I have been studying this happiness business I find

all around me and it is Christ, Christ, Christ that I hear on all sides of me. I don't

mean that everybody is talking it, but it just breaks out naturally. You know my

theory is that Jesus Christ was a mere man - a good man, of course. But I

determined to go into a church last Sunday night just to study what was going on,

and I'll be darned if that preacher didn't hold up the most beautiful picture of Jesus

Christ that I ever heard or dreamed of. And he got it all out of that Bible. Of course

the people went away happy for they were staking all their faith and hope on that



7

Jesus. It's got me to guessing and I must hand it to these preachers. They are fixingup the finest type of people that I have ever had dealings with."

"You think then, do you," asked Robert, "that it is the preacher's preaching Christ

every Sunday that is making the people happy and honest and kind and courteous

and sober?"

"Why, certainly, that is, if the other preachers preach about Christ the way that

fellow - pardon me - that preacher, held up Jesus Christ before them Sunday night.He actually had me blinking a little as I began to think of some of my past devilment

while I was watching that picture of Jesus Christ."

"And you say he got all of his points from the Bible?"

"Yes, sir. He didn't go off in an airship giving his eloquent fancies and notions

about Christ. He stuck right within that text; never left it, but he made it a diamond

mine of treasures about Christ."

"Wait a moment," said Robert, jumping from his seat; "excuse me until I get my

Bible."

Away he went, with an excited look in his eye, and soon came back walking slowly

as he approached them with his eyes fixed on his Bible, turning its pages. In

nervous, trembling tone, he exclaimed: "This is the most wonderful thing

imaginable: All the human passages that were so conspicuous on the lower road arenot conspicuous or lighted now. But they, and all the other passages, look alike - just

as they did before I entered the lower road. The most marvelous fact here is that on

these Bible pages the picture of Christ is seen back of all the verses. His picture is

very dim but you can see HIM - see Him on every page."

"Excuse me, gents; I don't want to butt into your proceedings, but you have got me

mighty interested in what you are talking about. You say, do you," he continued,

looking at Robert, "that in your Bible all the passages look alike and that some don't

shine more brightly than others, as they did on the lower road - but yet, that you can

see the figure of Jesus Christ there on ALL the pages?"

"Yes, don't you see? What is it, Mr. Bentley, that caused this wonderful change in

my Bible? What makes these figures on Christ appear here on every page, even

though on many pages the word 'Christ' is not mentioned?""It simply means, my boy, that this air current shows the real fact about the Bible

and that is that Christ is not merely in certain particular verses of the Bible but that

He is in all the verses."

"I am fairly crazy to hear some of your preachers along this road," said Robert,

with a smile, "and see how they use their Bible."

"Look!" spoke up Mr. Johnson; "do you see that man entering the door yonder - the

one now stopping to speak to the young woman? He is on of the finest men - a

layman - in this section."

As Bentley arose to speak, the man held out his hand and said, "How are you, Mr.

Johnson? You are well, and your work prospering, I hope."

"Good morning, Mr. Brookley. Let me introduce you to this gentleman, for we arediscussing a matter in which I think you would be greatly interested."

After the introduction and some conversation about preaching along the two roads,

Mr. Brookley said: "I was down on the other road week before last and I heard two

sermons. The text of one was: 'Follow thou Me.' Now you can tell which of the two

classes of preachers a preacher belongs to by the way he handles such a text. There

are in the text two persons - one the Divine Christ and the other a human person, thefollower. This preacher down there of course talked about the human follower and

talked about why we should follow Christ and how we should follow and how we

should follow and he had our eyes on the human follower and on ourselves from

beginning to end, instead of on Christ as our leader.

"That night I heard another preacher, and he chose the text: 'What shall I do with

Jesus Who is called the Christ?' and he talked all the time about Pilate and the

importance of our always making the right choice. I think I know how my pastor

would have treated that text. He would have madeChrist the subject of that

question, as He was insulted by being put at the disposal of such a man as Pilate,

when that question was asked before that murderous crowd. We would have gotten a

new a new view of Christ.

"But won't the same theme every Sunday become somewhat monotonous?" askedRobert.

"Monotonous? Jesus Christ a monotonous theme? Why, my lad, Jesus Christ is a

theme you can never hear enough or, nor exhaust. Can you ever get tired hearing

people tell you fine things about your sweetheart? Of course, you know they cannot

exhaust her lovely qualities. It is the same Christ, and yet a different Christ, our

preacher presents to us every Sunday. But I shall tell you one of the reasons our

preachers preach Christ so continuously. It is because they come out of our Sunday-

schools, and it is Christ, Christ, Christ every Sunday in our classes. We have

teacher-training courses and we try to help all prospective teachers to build their

teaching around the Christ of the Scriptures. We also have two great Sunday-school

publishing houses, along this road that publish our Sunday-school lesson helps, and

this literature is strictly Christ-centered. Now, down on the Humanistic Highway thesubjects chosen for the Sunday-school lessons are mainly man-centered subjects.

"These Bible characters - Jacob, Moses, Daniel, and the others - show what a God

of infinite grace can do for and through weak, blundering, sinful men who will

absolutely surrender to Him. For example, the humanistic lesson helps had as the

subject of one of the lessons: 'Saul converted and commissioned.' In that heading,

you see, Saul is made the subject of the story and the teachers would accordingly

keep the attention of the scholars chiefly on Saul. But our lesson helps, when we

taught that story, put at the head of the lesson: 'Christ converting and commissioning

Saul,' thereby making Christ the subject. that shows the difference. Come around to



8

our prayer meeting tonight and hear our pastor, Dr. Driscoll," said Mr. Brookley toRobert and Mr. Bentley.

They went and found one of the Sunday-school rooms filled with a group of about

one hundred seventy-five people. The pastor was a young preacher, thirty-eight

years of age. They hymns were about Christ, and they all sang as if they were

singing about their best Friend. Their thoughts seemed naturally and powerfully to

turn to Him.Dr. Driscoll based his talk in the service on Christ healing the ten lepers, with only

one of them coming back to thank Him, and with Christ asking "Were there not ten

cleansed; where are the nine?" As the pastor, before speaking, read the story, Robert

remembered hearing a Thanksgiving sermon, about two years before, based on that

story in which the preacher delivered a topical sermon on Gratitude, giving the

various reasons why we should be grateful.

Robert, therefore, was eager now to see how such a story would be treated by a

preacher along this Christ-centered Highway.

Dr. Driscoll spoke as follows: "We have a wonderful picture of Christ in this

story; in fact, there are three pictures of Him. We see Him healing ten lepers, then

being approached by one of them returning to thank Him and then being ignored by

the other nine, who showed Him no gratitude. In the first picture we see Him in Hisloving compassion, in the second, we see Him joyful, and in the third, we see Him

grieved."

Robert's eyes gleamed with delight as he easily saw that the sermon was a vastly

more powerful plea for gratitude - though the real subject was Christ - than if he had

merely preached a topical sermon on Gratitude.

Before leaving, Robert made an engagement with Dr. Driscoll for a visit to him in

about ten days, the pastor having to be absent until that time.

At Mr. Brookley's invitation Robert hurried to the theological seminary next

morning and was introduced to president, Dr. Sinclair. "This young minister, Dr.

Sinclair," said Mr. Brookley, "is now studying the method of dealing with the Bible

by preachers and teachers along this road and I invited him to visit your seminary

here.""Happy to know you, Robert. The pulpit, in many places, throughout the world, is

pouring out floods of character-sermons, topical sermons, and various discussions of

the moralities and human interests, with Christ being brought in occasionally and

often not at all into the sermon. My young brother, when our Master sent out His

preachers He said, 'Ye shall be witnesses unto Me' - not unto Abraham, or Paul, not

unto character building, or good conduct, or better citizenship, or making the world a

better place to live in, but witnesses unto Me, Who am back of all these sub-subjects,

and Who am the Fountain-Head from which will flow all the streams of blessing that

are needed for man's highest welfare."

"Do you mean, Dr. Sinclair," asked Robert, "that we ought not to preach charactersermons, or topical sermons?"

"Whatever kind of sermon is preached Christ must be the supreme continuous

subject. Don't forget that word 'continuous.' The attention must be kept chiefly upon

Him throughout the message. that can be done even while you are touching upon the

various sub-subjects that clamor for consideration. Our main business is to bear

witness unto Him.""And isn't it a fact," asked Mr. Brookley, "that the apostles went forth as Christ

commanded and made Him the supreme subject of their sermons?"

"That's exactly what happened. The first of their sermons was preached ten days

later by Peter at Pentecost and Christ was held up - and that from the Old Testament

- so powerfully that He drew three thousand sinners to Himself as their Savior, and

week by week the apostles pressed the risen Christ upon the people. Very soon the

number was five thousand and thus the gospel was spread as on the wings of the

wind."

Robert's brain was busy and his heart was beating fast, so great was the contrast he

found in comparing his experiences on this new road with those on the lower road. It

was as if the Christ of the Bible, who had seemed quite largely ignored during his

visits on the Humanistic Road, was now suddenly looming before his gaze withincreasing beauty and power, as the one towering Figure of the Bible.

They went into the New Testament class taught by Dr. Clinton.

"We are to consider, brethren," he said, "the familiar story of Christ and the

Samaritan woman at the well. I shall try a new plan this morning. I shall read this

story here in this fourth chapter of John slowly, and I ask you to listen chiefly to see

what it teaches about Christ. Listen, of course, to everything in each verse, but

mainly watch Christ. Relax every muscle and nerve and open your mind to the

references to Christ."

He then started to read, amid marked silence. Everyone seemed to be watching the

picture of Christ as it was emerging in clearer form as the Doctor moved slowly

through the verses. It was a new and rich experience for Robert, and he carried away

a picture - a moving-picture - of Christ dealing with that sinful woman andtransforming her into a beautiful Christian Character.

When Dr. Clinton finished his reading, he said: "Now, young gentleman, will you

please write down any special ideas about Christ that impressed you as you were

gazing upon Him during the reading of the verses?"

Robert went from the class in a glow of happiness. "Oh, Dr. Brookley," he said, "I

feel like one walking in a new world."

Mr. Brookley then took Robert into the Homiletics classroom and introduced him

to the homiletics professor, Dr. Burnley, who gave him a very kind greeting.

"Young gentlemen," the Professor said, in opening the lecture, "we have for our

consideration this morning Christ's selection of the Twelve Apostles. Let us watch,



9

not those twelve men, but Christ as He makes the selection, and seek to discoverwhat His choosing these particular twelve men shows about Himself. We are

interested in these men chiefly, as they throw light upon Christ. There are two ways

in which that story may be presented in the sermon.

"We might seek to show what it was in Christ's nature, or plans, that made Him

desire a group of men to go around with Him. Another way would be to show why

Christ selected these particular twelve men. But most preachers will talk about thetwelve men, pointing out their respective characteristics."

"My brethren, the time is short and the world's plight is tragic. Better make it your

rule to have Christ as the central Figure and Actor in you preaching. With world

conditions such as they are today, with only fifty-two Sundays in a whole year, do

you think that will be too many times for us to hold up the Christ of the Bible? With

the radio, and with so many man-centered sermons and so much man-centered, and

often man-corrupting, literature pouring forth upon the public, ought we not on one

day in seven to give our people the highest and best?

"Christ is the only one who can meet the present world issue, but He is not being

given His chance. It is whatman can do and what man ought to do, rather than what

Christ can do and has done and will do, that is being largely preached and taught

today."During the next few days Robert divided his time between his private room, the

Seminary Library, and one or two bookstores. He seemed to be walking on tiptoe of

expectation. One fact was burning itself into his soul, and that was that Christ was

the one supreme subject of the Bible and that, therefore, if he would preach the

Bible, he must preach Christ as he found Him in the Bible verses.



10

Chapter III

DOCTOR DRISCOLL

On the appointed day and moment Robert appeared at Dr. Driscoll's. "Come right

in, Robert," he said; "I have been looking forward to you visit. How long have youbeen a preacher?"

"I'm hardly a preacher, Dr. Driscoll. It was only about four months ago, in the

closing week of my college session, that I finally yielded to what seemed to be God's

call. I spent these four months quite largely studying my Bible, but I need all the

light and guidance from others that I can get. I am greatly interested in the

wonderful work you are doing here."

"It is not my work. Christ has really brought about what you see here. I have

sought and my people have stood by me in it - to hold up the Christ of the Bible."

"Do you mean, Dr. Driscoll, by 'the Christ of the Bible.' That there are several

Christs - the Christ of nature and the Christ of some other realm and also the Christ

of the Bible?"

"Oh, no. Christ is the same wherever we find Him. I am glad you asked thequestion because it suggests a serious danger that confronts many preachers, the

danger of giving their notions of Christ, rather than giving the Christ as the Bible

presents Him. For example, I heard, about two months ago, a sermon in which the

preacher evidently thought he was preaching Christ. In fact, he remarked that he

always preached Christ. But on that occasion he soared aloft, and away from his text,

into his own imaginings about the Savior. Glowing adjectives were piled upon each

other in his fervent descriptions of Christ but it was plain that he was talking about

Christ in general. I find, Robert, that what people want, and need also, is for us to

get our thoughts about Christ from our texts - that is, from the Word of God. We

shall have our hands full in bringing out all the treasures about Him that are stored in

the Bible. Let the text be the framework in which the picture of Christ appears - yea,

the root from which all your ideas about Christ grow. You will also, in such Biblicalpreaching, be showing your members how to find Christ in their Bible reading, so

that their ideas of Christ will be formed by what they themselves read about Him in

the Bible. Let me emphasize, Robert, the idea that giving chief attention in Bible

study, and preaching, to Christ and His interests does not necessarily mean an

ignoring of the human interests in the Bible. This fact has already been mentioned

but it needs to be deeply imbedded in our consciousness. A very large part of the

Bible has reverence to man and his affairs. The human and the divine elements of

the Scriptures must be integrated. We cannot too often say that the human persons

and objects are brought into the Bible as the windows through which we may see

Christ. Everything points to Him. 'To Him give all the prophets witness.'"

"Down on the lower road," said Robert, "the preachers spend much time holding upmoral and religious standards and urging the people to reach them. Their sermons

are full of 'you oughts' and 'we oughts,' but they do not give the people the power for

reaching the high ideals."

"Robert, my boy, you've touched the heart of New Testament preaching.

Preaching today has in it the 'exhortation' element but in many places lacks the

'power' element, the element that empowers the hearers who are being exhorted.Present-day Christianity is trying to produce human activities that can be published.

Christianity in the Apostolic days was a Heaven-empowered movement. Read the

Book of Acts, not as the acts of the human apostles but as the acts of Christ working

through them."

"Dr. Driscoll, how would you explain the high type of Christian living along this

road?"

"The explanation, I think, is this: Down on the lower road, as the result of man-

centered Bible exposition in the pulpits and in the Sunday schools, man's importance

and power are put to the front and the Christians depend largely upon their own

energies in bringing about the results. Consequently they achieve results that are

human and powerless for lifting a lost world to Christ: up here the big fact, I think,

is that when this Christ-centered preaching and teaching is done truly, it providesthat heavenly dynamic without which we cannot move one inch toward any spiritual

goal. The only way your sermons can furnish your listeners with this power for

reaching high Christian standards is to hold the Christ of the Bible before them.

When He is lifted up, He, He, He - not the preacher - will draw all men unto

Himself.

"When Christ promised the disciples, 'Ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit

is come upon you,' He also added 'and ye shall be witnesses unto Me.' they would

receive the power provided they preached HIM. The whole success of your ministry

will depend upon the part that that little word 'HIM' plays in it."

"You remind me, doctor, of that story by Nathaniel Hawthorne of the boy in the

valley, whose character and life were transformed by looking day by day at a noble

stone face cut in a mountain near by.""That's fine; and do you know that Paul states the same principle in Second

Corinthians 3:18? He writes: 'But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the

glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by

the Spirit of the Lord.' If looking at the natural object changed that boy in the valley,

how much more powerfully does this transforming process work in the spiritual

realm that Paul is talking about in this passage! By beholding the glory of the Lord,

people are changed. Notice Paul's words carefully. We are touching now, Robert, a

fundamentally vital truth. Paul says here that it is while we are gazing upon our

glorious Christ we are changed . In those words of Paul we have the whole

philosophy of Christian preaching and Christian education.



11

"Our task, therefore, is to get the attention of our listeners off themselves - off us,also, for we do not want to send them away saying how finely we held up Christ -

and to lift their attention higher and higher until it rests upon the Christ of the Bible

as we are holding Him before them.

"That passage from Second Corinthians 3:18 ought to be hung in every preacher's

study, or at least in every preacher's heart. Don't you see, Robert, how that truth goes

to the center of the preacher's use of the Bible? If he wants his hearers to be changed- changed into the same image that Christ wears (never perfectly, of course, in this

life) he must hold before them the glory of the Lord Jesus. Paul declares that while

they are beholding Christ the spiritual change is wrought in them by the indwelling

Spirit. I am repeating this to you because our whole ministry and all Christian

education and character building ought to revolve around that truth. My hope in my

preaching each Sunday is to send my congregation away so delighted with Christ as

they have gazed upon Him during my se rmon, in my text , that they will keep looking

to him during the days of the week. Someone said that the main business of the

preacher is to get people to looking unto Christ as He appears in the Bible. Robert,

my boy, get Christ, the Christ of God's Word, into the heart and lives of you

members by every heavenly are you can, and your ministerial problems will be

largely solved."If, therefore, the one supreme need of my people is Christ, then why should I, on

any Sunday when I have before me a congregation of immortal souls, push Christ

aside and drop to some lower theme? I simply cannot do it. There are, every

Sunday, people in my large congregation who are in some spiritual need. This, I

believe, is true in all congregations, and it is a needonly Christ can relieve. I don't

dare say that you, or any other preachers, ought to preach Christ every Sunday. Who

am I that I should lay down rules for the preaching of my brother preachers? We

want no cast-iron, standardized rule for preaching, but I myself never come to a

Sunday when there is some other subject than Christ that I prefer to preach about. I

remember that Mr. Spurgeon said he had never heard of a preacher being complained

against for preaching about Christ too often. Besides, just imagine a person saying,

'Don't preach religion every Sunday in your church services for you will drive somepeople away. Give them politics one Sunday, economics another, education another,

and religion another.'

"'Absurd,' you say, and you would ask: 'What is a church for except to give the

people religion?' and I think we can properly ask, 'What is preaching for it is not to

hold up Christ before the world?' Christianity is CHRISTianity!"

"Doctor Driscoll, were you born and brought up in this country?"

"Oh, no, I lived down on the lower road until about seven years ago and I began

preaching down there and was pastor there for five years. I kept hearing about this

Highway and about seven years ago - largely out of curiosity - I climbed up here, and

you know what happened when I opened a Bible in this atmosphere.

"The fact is, Robert, that it is much easier to talk about folks and human intereststhat it is about God and His interests."

"But, Dr. Driscoll, don't you think that we ought to be interested in the daily a ffairs

of our people? Wasn't Christ interested in people - in their sorrows and needs?"

"Yes, indeed, and we must in our sermons deal with these human interests, but we

must bring them in from Christ's point of view. We must hold before our hearers the

fact that they should be kind and honest, etc.' but unless it is Christ's attitude towardkindness and honesty that we show, and unless it is Christ who moves them to be

kind and honest, what vital good have I accomplished? It is Christ's New Testament,

spiritual kingdom on the earth that I, a preacher, am mainly interested in and not

merely is better moralities. 'Without me,' said Christ, 'ye can do nothing.' If Christ

be not in the activities and daily lives of my people, of what value in the eyes of

heaven are their supposedly moral, humanitarian activities? In Christ's eyes they

may be 'NOTHING.'

"And let me say this to you, Robert. The woods are full of champions of the so-

called social gospel - that is, a gospel that ministers to the welfare of society. The

mistake is being made, however, in challenging the church, rather than the individual

members, to improve social conditions. The 'church' as an organization cannot by

vote nor by any organizational schedule, apply to social conditions the spiritualpower of the Gospel, and it only the spiritual force (that of the Holy Spirit dwelling

in individual Christians) that can go to the heart of social needs and supply them and

that can constrain people thus to go to the rescue. We are throwing upon the church

the blame for the slow progress of Christianity today instead of throwing it on the

apathetic individual members of local churches. We are thinking of Christian

progress and kingdom building in terms of mass movements and group

organizations, 'the church' being the chief of such organizations. The individual is

hiding behind the church. The accusations of indifference and neglect fall not upon

him, but upon it, and not until we open our artilleries upon individuals in the

churches shall we begin to get at the root of our troubles. It is not that the church

organization is to go out on a crusade for social betterment but that within the local

church the individuals - some of them - must by penitent surrender, and prayer, andworship, become so filled with the Spirit of Christ (Who went about doing good,

meeting physical needs in connection with His spiritual ministry) that they will

individually, or in connection with other individuals, do what they can to improve,

by legislation and other ways, social conditions.

"But, Robert, there is the tragedy. The chief burden on Christian hearts today

seems to be the betterment of social conditions. But, O my soul, has present-day

Christianity no higher mission than that? Did Christ come and die on the cross

simply to improve earthly conditions and make this world a better world in which to

live? That seems to be as high as the pulpit and the press, in many sections, is

aiming. Christ did come with a Gospel that will undoubtedly, when given a chance,



12

marvelously transform society, but what brought Him to earth was the fact that menare lost. The momentous fact thundering at the door or our local churches and of our

individual preachers and laymen today, is that large part of the world about them and

elsewhere is doomed to hell. That is the fact that calls for the best thought and

prayer and effort of those in the pulpit and the pew.

"Ah, Robert, you are about to enter upon an adventure that will test you

dependence upon Christ to the last atom of your being. World conditions anddangers and tragedies are waiting for you with their challenge. May God clothe you

with His invincible grace and power.

"Here is something in which you will be interested. It is a statement by Scotland's

great preacher of the previous century, Dr. Chalmers, as to the best king of preaching

for changing people. Dr. F. W. Boreham is writing about him and tells how, during

the first years of Dr. Chalmers' ministry in Kilmany, a very wicked community, his

preaching consisted mainly of denunciations of evil and exhortations with their 'you

ought's' and 'we ought's,' just as in being done so widely today. But as regards the

results of such warnings and exhortations, Dr. Chalmers said, 'During the whole of

that period I never once heard of any reformation wrought among my people.'

"But Dr. Borehamn tells us that Dr. Chalmers then changed his plan of preaching

and began to build his sermons around Christ, and that a great change in the habits of the evil workers resulted and that in Dr. Chalmers' farewell sermon to the church he

said, 'You have taught me that to preach Christ is the only effective way of preaching

morality.'

"It's a pity.' said Charles Kingsley, 'that telling people what's right won't make them

do it.' Urging people to do right is effective if the preacher has Christ so deeply

imbedded in himself and in the sermon that it is Christ who is doing the telling and

urging. After Peter, in his sermon at Pentecost, he held up Christ, the listeners cried

out, 'What shall we do?' Ah, Dr. Chalmers was right. Preaching Christ is the most

powerful stimulus toward right living that the preaching can give.

"I wish, Robert, that a warning against so much of this mere urging of people by

preachers to be better and do better could be trumpeted in the ears of every young

preacher throughout America. Preachers do like so much to tell folks what theyought to do. Read present-day books of sermons. Read the Christian literature sent

out into many parts of our Nation for our young people and Sunday-school teachers,

and you will see a veritable ocean-tide of exhortations for better living. But, Robert,

do we imagine that, while the apostles had to preach Christ in order to change

people, we can merely hold up beautiful standards of character and conduct and with

our 'we ought's' and 'you ought's' enable our hearers to make the big transformation?

The Archbishop of Canterbury said the other day, 'God is not exactly denied but

merely crowded out.' He is largely being crowded out of His Bible or at least into a

corner of it.

"I do not mean that the preachers on the lower road never preach about Christ. Ibelieve that in their hearts Christ, in a way, stands supreme as their Savior and Lord.

Most of them, if you should ask them, would say that they do preach Christ. They

think they do, and in the bottom of their hearts, they desire to be loyal to Him. But

the trouble is that when they open their Bible, so powerfully has the humanistic

tendency gripped them, that they instinctively look for the human elements in the

Bible and preach about them with only occasional reference to Christ. My honestbelief is that if the preachers throughout Christendom should discover how few of

the things they urge their people to do are actually done by them because of such

urging, the information would fall like a thunder-bolt into the ministerial ranks.

"Preaching, of course, ought to change the habits and conduct of the hearers, and

Christ (John 16:3) tells us how this can be done. He is speaking regarding certain

wrong doers: 'These things will they do unto you, because they have not know the

Father, nor Me.' He means that if they would know Christ (or the Father) they

would not do the wrong things."

"I remember," said Robert, "that a man, a preacher, came to our college last session

urging us to build up noble Christian personalities, and two or three students began

to walk around the campus developing beautiful Christian personalities. Bah! We

knew, of course, that we ought to have glorious Christian personalities and we hadtried to have them but couldn't. He practically told us to lift ourselves by our boot-

straps. He simply threw the students back upon themselves for high spiritual

attainments and most of them felt, 'Oh, what's the use of trying again?' I was not a

Christian then but that's the way the fellows around me talked. I tell you, Dr.

Driscoll, I think the need of young people is the power to achieve something spiritual

and worth while in Christ's cause. All this talk about red-blooded manhood that I

used to hear so much about on that lower road doesn't get us anywhere except into

the worship of ourselves."

"You are undoubtedly right, Robert. I spoke yesterday morning at a woman's

college in Weaverton about Christ and Mary of Bethany. As to the effect of my

message, I cannot, of course, tell. But did I say to them, 'Young ladies, here is one of

the most beautiful characters in the Bible, Mary of Bethany, and I want you to look upon her and you too become a beautiful Christian character?' Of course not. Down

on the lower road I preached on that subject once and did that very thing. I urged my

young women to imitate her and I gave them the technique for such self -

development, but it was largely mechanical and man-made character that was built

by the people. Down there I had my congregation watching Mary, with almost no

attention being given to Christ. You see, the human pull is so powerful. Who does

not like to gaze upon such an attractive character as Mary?"

"How did you treat the story on yesterday before those young women?" asked

Robert.



13

"I treated is as giving a picture of Christ, rather than of Mary, though, of course,Mary was brought into the story - don't forget that. I tried to show Christ dealing

with Mary. I began saying, 'Young ladies, we have a wonderful picture of our Savior

taking in hand a young woman in the town of Bethany and transforming her into a

beautiful Christian character. Let us watch Him, therefore, in the process.' Then I

reminded them that Christ had also a plan for a beautiful womanhood He wished to

build up on each of them, if, like Mary, they would yield to His direction andcontrol. My hope was that as they gazed upon the Christ of that story He would

attract them to Himself."



14

Chapter IV

THE UNIVERSAL HUNGER

"Do your Sunday-school teachers co-operate with you in this method of putting to

the from the Christ of the Bible?""Almost perfectly. And first" - and here Dr. Driscoll arose and began to walk up

and down the floor and talk very earnestly - "let me emphasize something of which I

have already spoken. You used the words just then, 'the Christ of the Bible.' Now,

right here is the heart of this entire method that we have been talking about. 'How do

you use your Bible?' is the first question I would like to ask every young preacher.

The first question that always rises in my mind when I hear a preacher announce his

text, or a leader or a religious service read a Bible passage upon which he is to make

a talk, or a Sunday-school teacher open his Bible for teaching the lesson - the first

question, I say, rising in my mind, is: 'Will he talk chiefly about the human or the

divine elements in the passage?'

"When I hear a preacher announce, for example, as his text, Luke's chapter about

the birth of Christ, I can't help from watching to see whether his mind goesinstinctively to the shepherds and the inn and the stable and Bethlehem and Mary, or

whether it goes to that Infant and builds its message around Him and keeps me

watching Him. He will bring in, of course, all the human elements - Mary, shepherd,

and others - but simply as windows through which we can keep our continuous gaze

upon the Babe, or as heavenly flashlights casting their light upon that Infant.

"Robert, I have a sinking of heart - I can't help it - every time I hear a religious

speaker announce a text, or read a Bible story, and then as he begins, show that his

thoughts are glued to the human characters or earthly objects. I simply cannot get

interested. I feel like crying out: 'O friend, won't you please talk about that other

Figure! Can't you help us to know Him better, from that Bible passage?' If the Holy

Spirit's chief work is to glorify Christ, surely Spirit-led preachers should have the

same high aim."Spurgeon had two sons who were preachers. When one son, Charles, became

pastor at Greenwood, his father preached the sermon at the 'Recognition Service,'

and the son wrote as follows regarding the sermon: 'A striking injunction from the

discourse he then delivered stands out vividly in my memory and has been a constant

inspiration to me. Leaning over the pulpit rail and looking down upon me, as I sat on

the lower platform, he said in tender, yet thrilling tones, 'Preach up Christ, my boy.

Preach HIM up.'"

"Doctor, may I ask about your Sunday-school lesson helps? All that I ever saw

down on that lower road exalt man and build their expositions around man and

human interests. It is startling to notice the number or the first and second personal

pronouns - we, us, ours, you, yours - that are used, as compared with the prominencegiven Christ in the helps. You can see the realm in which such pronouns, so

profusely used in such literature, keep the thoughts of the teachers and scholars

moving. I have wondered what would happen if the writers of such helps and the

teachers and preachers on that lower road, for just one month, would refrain from

telling their readers and listeners one single thing that they ought to be and do and

would simply hold up Christ as presented in the Bible verses. No 'we ought's' and'you ought's' for a month."

"An impossibility, my boy - along that road. But as to our lesson helps up here,

they are published by our own publishing house. We had to do this, for we could

find no lesson helps that did not keep the attention mainly on man and his interests.

Here is one of our lesson helps. Don't you see how the paragraphs in these

expositions are fairly ablaze with Christ and how they tend to send the teacher out to

his class with the Christ of the verses filling thoughts?"

"Dr. Driscoll, I judge you get great joy from you Bible study."

"I can only tell you, Robert, what this new plan of Bible study and preaching has

done for me. It has, of course, made my Bible a new Book to me and I have heard

many say the same thing about their own Bible study. Of course when you have

been seeing man chiefly in your Bible reading for years and then suddenly you beginto see Christ shining throughout the Bible and you begin watching Him as you read ,

it becomes a new Book to you.

"In the next place it has proved to be the key to my better understanding of the

Bible. Let me tell you what happened some time ago. I was lying upon my bed one

night reading and I decided to do what I had never done before, to read the story of

Christ raising Lazarus from the dead, with my attention fixed chiefly upon Christ

throughout the story. I turned to the eleventh chapter of John, a chapter with which I

was very familiar, and started to read, and as I went from verse to verse there flashed

into my mind thoughts about Christ, His nature and His aims in coming into this

world, that I had never had before. Why was this? It was because in my former

reading of the chapter, while living on the lower road, my mind had been fixed

chiefly on Martha and Mary in the story and especially on Martha's behavior, but onthat night, up here, my mind was open and hospitable for thoughts about Christ. I

was watching Him.

"Think of the many wonderful things in the Bible about Christ and God that are

never seen because people are looking for something else! They say that there is

much in the Bible hard to be understood. Of course, and the reason is that they do

not look for Him who is the subject of the Bible?"

"That seems plain, Dr. Driscoll. How could I understand, for example, a biography

of George Washington unless I gave my chief, concentrated attention to General

Washington as I read?"



15

"And suppose you were sent among some people to explain that Book to them andyou talked nearly all the time about General Washington's servants, or other

subordinates, and I referred only occasionally to General Washington?

"Again, my present plan of Bible study has given me a definite goal. Down on the

lower road, when I would read my Bible I would be looking sometimes for

Abraham, sometimes for another Bible character, sometimes for the teaching about

temperance, or some other topic. But now my objective is ever one and the same. Ihave something to search for. Christ, you know, spoke of searching the Scriptures.

"Here is my greatest reason for preaching Christ. It is because the human heart

hungers for Christ. Dr. J. Fort Newton of Philadelphia, said that when the supplied

the great Temple of Church of London and entered the pulpit on his first Sunday

there he saw on the pulpit stand, in lighted letters, the words: 'Sir, we should see

Jesus.' I read recently of another church that had the same request on the pulpit. A

gentleman told me yesterday - and I know this to be a fact - that he asked the young

women in his college Bible class: 'Young ladies, if you were going to hear a

preacher next Sunday and you could have him give you what would satisfy your

deepest spiritual heart-hunger, what would you want to give you?' There were

twenty-four in his class, he said, and twenty of them wrote on the slip of paper hey

handed in at the next class-meeting: "I would want him to preach about Christ (orGod, or the Lord)." It startled me. I would not have thought it of those girls,' he

said. 'They were of a varied type; and yet five in every six wanted Christ, and one of

them wrote: "I would want him to show me how I could have Christ as a real person

to me in my life."'

"When he told me that, I wondered if five in every six Sunday-school scholars, or

members of our congregations, have that same hunger. I believe they do, and I find

it to be present wherever I investigate.

"This reminds me that I was attending a Bible conference some time ago in

Atlantic City; a layman led in prayer, and said: 'O Lord, help the speaker to hold up

Jesus and to give us a higher conception of Christ, the Son of God.' You see this

same hunger was there. 'The longer I live,' said Mr. Moody, 'the more I am

convinced that what this world wants is Jesus Christ.'""But don't you think there is much running around today after sensational

preaching?" asked Robert, "and after literature that will satisfy worldly craving?"

"Undoubtedly, but it is a superficial craving, and yet preachers often cater to it.

But deep down under such superficialities is the hunger of the soul for God as He is

manifested in Jesus Christ. You know the saying of Augustine: 'Man was made for

God, and is restless until he finds his rest in God.'"

"That reminds me, Dr. Driscoll, of what I heard a speaker say at our college. He

told of an artist that painted, as his masterpiece, 'The Last Supper,' and on the

appointed day the crowd came in to see the pointing unveiled, while the artist stood

watching bear by. Exclamations of praise broke forth from the visitors, especially

about the cup on the table. 'Oh, how beautiful! How wonderful is that cup!' theykept saying. The artist, unable to restrain his disappointment, took his brush and

dashed out the cup, saying, 'Now, I reckon, they will look at my Master.'

"Andrew Murray said that the Bible is a pointer, pointing us to God, and the

preacher in the pulpit with that Bible in his hand should be the same - a pointer,

pointing to God. Dr. Karl Barth says that the finger of John the Baptist pointing to

that person walking yonder along the Jordan Shore, about Whom John said, 'Beholdthe Lamb of God,' is a suggestion of what preachers ought to be - fingers pointing to

the Lamb of God. Many in our congregation are unconsciously crying in the depths

of their soul, 'Oh, that I knew where I might find Him.' Dr. G. Campbell Morgan

said that Philip's request to Jesus, 'Show us the Fa ther,' was humanity's cry for God.

But, alas, often we feed those hungry souls with husks.

"Robert, you will always touch some heart in its depths when you properly hold up

God. Dr. Andrew Murray drew a contrast between the preacher on the one hand,

whose hearers feel: 'Yonder on the pulpit is a man arguing with us and trying to

bring us to his opinion,' and on the other hand, the preacher whose members feel:

'That man is seeking to bring God to us.' I heard a youth say, at our recent Northern

Convention: 'Youth is looking to the church to show us God.' There it is again, you

see! Your young people, it they would speak out their hearts, would say, 'Tell usabout God; How can we know Him? Many in our pews today could say as truly as

did David: 'As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee,

O Lord.'

"I was talking with a woman sometime ago - one whom I knew well, and who I

would never have thought had any yearning about God, and in our conversation she

said: 'Ah, you know everybody has that yearning sometimes.' Why do not preachers

more often recognize that yearning and hold up Him who said, 'Come unto Me all ye

that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest'?

"Preachers often commend the Bible to people for comfort when they ought to

commend Christ, Himself, to them, suggesting that they seek Him through the Bible.

Let a preacher who has been preaching ten or fifteen minutes about one of the Bible

characters, or about some moral topic, suddenly start talking aboutChrist as found inthe text and He will see a light instantly flash in eyes and faces before Him.

"A missionary in India writes thus concerning a young woman: 'Some years ago

while I was a student at Moody Bible Institute - a furloughed missionary - a fellow-

student one day sent me a short letter in which she stated she was most unhappy,

very miserable, and discouraged, although there was no reason for being so. What

should she do? As I read the letter I felt that what she needed was to get her eyes off

herself and off me or any other human being; so I wrote on a slip of paper, 'Think

about Jesus,' and sent it to her. Two or three days later she met me with a smiling

face. To my question, she replied: 'I did as you said, and all the unhappiness is

gone.'



16

"I would like for you to think of congregations in churches as groups of hungryhearts. Those hearts ought to put a pull on the preacher. Suppose you were to go to

those sections of China where thousands upon thousands are dying of hunger and

you had in you possession a vast storehouse of eatables. Can't you see yourself

surrounded by outstretched hands and anxious faces, with your food clutched at by

starving beings? You would not be trifling at such a time. You would be simply

handing out the bread. Now, Robert, let us come to a situation far more serious andmomentous than that. There are coming up to the church services of the world every

Sunday those who have a hunger far deeper, and more poignant and powerful, and

Robert, O Robert, you and I have here in this Book, and I trust in our hearts, this

Bread - the only Bread that will satisfy that hunger. 'I am the bread that came down

from heaven,' said Christ.

"Walter Lippman, in his book, A Preface to Morals, gives as his opinion why

people do not attend as they did in former days the fact that 'They are not so certain

that they are going to meet God when they go to church. If they had that certainty

they would go.'

"Will Rogers said that he had often wanted to go to church and listen to the gospel

- notice that 'wanted,' Robert. He wanted to hear the 'good news' about Christ. Why

then didn't he go? He said, because he knew that all he would hear wound be a'gowned divine presenting a little essay on economics.' You see the idea that has

gotten abroad regarding preaching in general."

"Do you think, doctor, that preachers have any idea that this hunger is so

widespread?"

"They do not, as is seen by the subjects from which they preach. They respond to

the superficial itching for sensational topics and neglect the real hunger of the soul.

"Listen to these words in this paper from a prominent pastor in Rhode Island: 'One

of my deacons, a prominent business man in the city, was in conversation with a

group of Christian business men sometime ago, when the following question was

asked: "How many of you can truly say that if an unsaved person should come into

your church some Lord's Day morning he would be likely to hear enough about

Christ to lead to his conversion, especially if he really wanted to know somethingdefinite about Him?"

"'One man after another in the group had to confess that there was a good deal of

science and philosophy preached, not a little of politics and a whole mess of current

events, but that the average listener who knew not Christ would not have difficulty in

finding Him. My deacon's reply to the inquiry was: "I think that my pastor usually

means to preach the truth, but I must confess that sometimes one might go through a

whole morning service without getting enough of the real kernel of the Word to lead

the average unsaved person to a definite knowledge of Jesus Christ."

"'The following series on "The Christo-Centric Gospel" is the result of that

conversation, which my deacon related to me in the greatest kindness. And it will be

followed by another and another, for I have long been persuaded that the one need of the church and the world today is a more intimate personal knowledge of the Lord

Jesus Christ.'"

"Does he give the list of subjects of those Christ-centered sermons?"

"Here they are:

"'Who is Jesus Christ?' 'The Temptations of Jesus,' 'Jesus Christ, the Living

Redeemer,' 'The Ambitions of Jesus Christ,' 'The Immutable Christ,' 'Christ and theTrinity,' 'The Unsearchable Riches of Christ.'"

"They seem fine. Don't you think so, Doctor?" asked Robert.

"That depends on how the subjects, with their texts, were treated. Take this second

one - 'The Temptations of Jesus.' A preacher could, in preaching about that, spend

much of his time in talking about Satan, the pinnacle of the Temple, and the other

items in the story. What he ought to do, if his sermon is to be chiefly a presentation

of Christ, is to show Christ being tempted and to keep the eye of the listeners on

Christ as He went through the different experiences of grappling with Satan, as He

was attacked by Satan. It should be Christ from beginning to end."

"What about the fourth subject, 'The Ambitions of Jesus'? I suppose the danger

here would be talking about the ambitions rather than about Jesus Himself."

"Exactly. Christ said, 'The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which islost.' Seeking and saving the lost was, therefore, one of His ambitions, we might say.

Now, a preacher might spend his time talking about the lost, about seeking and

finding and about the salvation Christ came to give, and say nothing about the real

Christ."

"How could he bring in those other items in that text - about being lost and about

seeking and finding - and yet keep the attention on Christ?" asked Robert.

"He could draw a picture of Christ as 'the Son of man' - notice that phrase. He

could picture Christ as the Son of man, coming down from heaven to this poor earth

with that 'ambition' in His heart with reference to the lost. The sermon could picture

this Son of man looking upon lost people here and perceiving that He would have to

seek and to find them if He would save them and He resolves to do that. That then is

the picture of Him with this ambition, and the eye would be kept continuously uponHim fulfilling His ambition.

"The last subject - 'The unsearchable riches of Christ,' is all right if the preacher

shows Christ in the possession of these unsearchable riches and His relation to them

and does not spend most of his sermon talking about the riches and their

unsearchableness. It is the picture of Christ Himself that the preacher must send his

hearers away looking at.

"Now, Robert, this list next takes a big drop. There are nine more in the list and

you can see that nearly all of them suggest what man does, or must do. Here they

are: 'The World's Quest for Christ,' 'Loyalty to Christ,' 'Our Supreme gift to Christ,'

'Four Reasons for Following Christ,' 'The Abundant Life in Christ,' 'Christ's Message





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Chapter V

PREACHING CHRIST

"Dr. Driscoll, I must go. How I wish I had in writing all you have said today, but I

have the substance of it in my mind and heart.""There is one man you ought to see before you leave our neighborhood and that is

old Dr. Carroll, probably the most distinguished and useful minister who has ever

lived along this road. He has held some of the most important pastorates in this

country and could have held any of the denomination's official positions he desired.

He is a great lover of young preachers and of the Bible. In his early ministry he had

a marvelous experience in which, like D. L. Moody, he received the baptism of the

Holy Spirit, and as a result, his ministry has been a benediction throughout this and

other states."

"Why, yes, I used to hear of him during my college days. I am eager to meet him.

You have been the should of kindness to me, Dr. Driscoll, and I shall certainly make

an effort to se Dr. Carroll."

"How would like for me to call him up" How would tomorrow morning suit you?""I can go anytime."

"All right," said Dr. Driscoll, after a telephone talk with Dr. Carroll. "Dr. Carroll

says he will be happy to see you day after tomorrow at nine o'clock. Come by here

by eight forty-five and I will take you up there."

On the day following, Robert set out for a long tramp over the high hills that lifted

themselves not far away. The new thoughts and feelings that surged within him

seemed to be also in his feet, for he went speeding over the fields and up and over

the hills with an eager spring and dash.

At noon, on one of the highest hills, after several hours of walking and running, he

sat upon a large rock and needed no urging to give full attention to the lunch he had

brought with him. As he sat slowly devouring the fried chicken, eggs, and muffins

that his landlady, who in the motherly fashion had become greatly attached to him,had packed in a dainty lunch-box for him, his thoughts dwelt upon his recent

conversation with Dr. Driscoll. He took his notebook and began to jot down various

ideas and suggestions of Dr. Driscoll's. Then he began to wonder what lay in store

for him in the visit he was to have with the eminent, saintly Dr. Carroll. He found

himself eager for the time to come.

"This is my young friend, Robert Bolton," said Dr. Driscoll on the next morning as

he entered Dr. Carroll's study with Robert and introduced him to the venerable

Doctor. "I have been talking to him, Doctor, about the importance and joy of

building our preaching around the Christ of the Bible. I didn't know of anyone who,

from his experience, could speak to him a more helpful word than yourself."

"How can a preacher," replied Dr. Carroll, "avoid concentrating his preaching onChrist if he preaches from the Bible, for the subject of the Bible is Christ! He

Himself, said so. When speaking to the Jews one day about the Scriptures, He said:

'These' - the Old Testament Scriptures - 'are they that testify of Me.' He also said,

'Moses wrote of Me.' 'But, No Master,' someone might have said, 'Moses wrote of

Abraham and Joseph and Joshua.' But Christ said, 'Moses wrote of Me.' 'To Him

give all the prophets witness.' Christ, you know, found Himself 'in all theScriptures.' How then can we preach from them and leave Christ out?' Listen to

Paul as he declares again and again, in his epistles, that he preached Christ."

Reaching up into his files, the Doctor said, "Let me read you some of Paul's

statements about the subjects of his sermons:

'We preach Christ crucified.'

'For I am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and

Him crucified.'

'That I might preach Him among the Gentiles.'

'Whether in the pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do

rejoice yea, and will rejoice.'

'Christ in you, the hope of glory; whom we preach.'

'If Christ be preached that He rose from the dead.''Christ, who was preached among you.'

'For we preach, not ourselves, but Christ Jesus.'

'But if he that cometh preacheth another Christ.'

"Isn't it clear, by young friend, what the burden of the Apostle's preaching was?

Do you think he would have dropped into the class of sermon-subjects we see

published in our papers today? Here is a list, sent me by a friend in a distant city, of

subjects of sermons that were preached on a Sunday about a month ago:

'Value of Choirs'

'The College and the Seminary'

'Put Fist Things First and All Else Will Be Yours'

'An Oracle for Evil Times'

'A Might Revival. Why? When?''I'm Not Going to Church Today'

'In the Sight of God'

'Bethel Women in Review'

'Rallying for Christ'

'The Dead End'

'What I Saw in Russia'

'A Mutual Need'

'Bells'

'The Awakened Church'

'Three Keys to the Castle'



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'A Just Defense''A Withered Hand'

'A Victorious Defeat'

'The Supreme Court of a Christian'

'What is Truth'

'Turning from Idols'

'the Church in Ernest''The Calamity Committee'

'The Gracious Hospitality of the Upper Room'

'The Predicament of a Christless World'

'Dying Corn'

'Eternal Sin'

'The Various Guises of Love'

'Russia Revisited'

'One of Nativities Young Men'

"The following are subjects that seem to point to Christ, or God:

'The Shepherd and the Hireling'

'The Light of the World'

'In the Sight of God''Giving God a Square Deal'

'God, the Father'

'The Friend of Caesar'

"This list of subjects would hardly suggest a widespread, eager desire of preachers

to preach Christ to a perishing world. Listen to these words of Dr. Jowett, of

London. He is speaking of how Paul resisted all temptations to choose sensational

subjects in his sermons. I heard Dr. Jowett, and he speaks my views perfectly. He

writes: 'Paul recognized the changing assortment of circumstances, and he resolved

upon a certain elasticity as he became all things to all men that he might save some.

But in all the elasticity of his relations, he never changed his themes. He moved

amid the garishness of Emmaus and Corinth and Rome, but he never borrowed the

artificial splendor of his surroundings and thereby eclipsed the cross. No way of theworld seduced him from his central theme wherever he went, whether to a little

prayer-meeting by the riverside in Philippi, or amid the aggressive sensational glare

of Emmaus or Corinth. He 'determined to know nothing among men save Jesus

Christ and Him crucified,' and amid all the changed conditions of our day - the social

upheavals, the race for wealth, the question of pleasure - we will gain nothing by

hugging the subordinate, or by paying any homage to the flippancies and formalities

of the time.'

"Robert, I do not want to misjudge my preacher brethren. Never did pastors face

such a problem as they face today in seeking to keep their churches growing and the

members satisfied with their ministrations. The church budget must be met;

otherwise the pastor soon finds the waves of criticism throwing their bitter waters inhis face. To keep the plus and minus in his budget on good terms with each other

there must not be too many empty seats at the preaching service, and the sermons,

the members think, must be the magnet to draw and to fill the seats. This means that

the poor pastor flings out his banner of striking, often spectacular, sermon titles.

Someone has referred to the preaching of some preachers as an attempt to 'provide

the modern mind with a religion it is willing to accept.' But all that, my brother, is adown-hill business. This community is proving that the true preaching of Christ will

fill more seats than any other kind of preaching. Christ will draw the people.

"How I wish I could tell you, what joy unmeasured has filled my heart during a

half century trying to hold up my wonderful Savior, joy in looking for the best texts

for showing His different qualities. I don't agree with Dr. Karl Barth in all his

utterances, but he is a theologian of remarkable insight and power. He says he wrote

his Commentary on Romans with 'the joy of a discoverer.' He felt as he wrote page

by page that he had dug out new treasures in the Book of Romans and was writing

them out for the religious world. Ah, such a joy is in store for any preacher who will

hunt for the unsearchable riches of Christ in the Scriptures. He will bring his Christ-

centered sermons to his people with the joy of a discoverer. Don't let anyone befog

your mind with the idea that preaching Christ every Sunday - that is, if you shoulddecide to do this - I never presume to advise it - will become monotonous for you

congregations. If God will only grant you the heavenly art of presenting Christ as

the Bible presents Him, and as the Holy Spirit will empower you to do, you will be

finding far more things about Him in the Bible than you will have time to mention,

and your sermons will have the richest variety and the strongest attraction for the

public. Of course you can bring into such sermons everything that concerns man and

his welfare. Almost any of those subjects in the list I read to you just now may be

brought into Christ-centered sermons because Christ is related to all such subjects,

and you would far better present those subjects as Christ is related to them and feels

towards them than to present them as topics you will discuss from their own point of

view, with mainly your own ideas about them. 'Topical sermons,' said D. Jowett, 'are

usually sermons in which some idea of the preacher is discussed by himwith the preacher also bringing in Bible passages to bolster up his view.' You see, in such

preaching, the Bible is wrongly approached and is used from the human rather than

the divine point of view."

"You speak, Dr. Carroll, of preaching Christ all the time, but what about preaching

Christ from the Old Testament texts? The Old Testament seems to be to have God

the Father as its chief figure. How, for example, could you preach about Christ from

Ecclesiastes, Esther, or any of the other Old Testament books in which Christ is not

mentioned?"

"How do you know that He is not mentioned in the other books? Do you mean that

a Bible book must contain the word CHRIST if Christ is to be found in that book?



20

He may be referred to indirectly or implicitly. And the big fact is that He Himself said concerning the Old Testament Scriptures: 'These are they that testify of Me,'

and to His two companions on the way to Emmaus, as we saw just now, He showed

them Himself in ALL the Scriptures."

"In the first five books of the Bible," ventured Robert, "that were written by Moses,

the word Christ is found only once. I looked through those books yesterday. It is

true that Christ said Moses wrote of Him and yet, as we read these five books of Moses, we find Noah and the other human characters filling the pages, with almost

nothing about Christ. How can we find Christ in the Old Testament in order to

preach about Him?"

"Ah, my brother, there is your challenge. Do you imagine that the glorious things

about the infinite Christ are lying around on the surface of the Old Testament? No;

'Thou art a God that hidest Thyself,' says the prophet, but God also says: 'Ye shall

seek for Me and find Me when ye search for Me with your whole heart.' As I said

just now, you must explore deeply the Bible passages for Christ and then, with the

joy of a discoverer, go forth and hold before your hearers the Christ you have found.

Of course there are many passages in the Old Testament that plainly refer to Christ -

to Bethlehem as the place of His birth, to His being born of a virgin, and to many

other facts regarding Him. In addition to such passages and to those which point toChrist's death, there are whole chapters, such as the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, that

refer directly to Christ. There are other passagesdefinitely pointing to Christ. The

entire system of sacrifices, with the shedding of the blood by the high priest, pointed

to Christ, who was both the Lamb slain for us and our high priest.

"Let me give you a few Bible statements that explicitly suggest Christ as being in

the Old Testament: 'Abraham,' said Christ, 'saw My day and was glad.' 'Moses

endured as seeing Him who was invisible.' Put this last passage in connection with

Christ's words, 'Moses wrote of Me.' In I Cor. 10:4, Paul, in referring to the

Israelites in the wilderness, said, 'For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed

them: and that Rock was Christ.' The writer of Hebrews, in writing of Moses

leaving the palace to be with his brethren, spoke of Moses' 'e steeming the reproach

of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.' These little Old Testamentflashlights seem to be wooing us to break through the shell of Scripture and find

Christ deep under the crust.

"Spurgeon speaks of the shell and the kernel of Scripture, with the kernel

containing the real message of the Bible. And did you know that an increasingly

large number of Bible scholars believe that the Jehovah of the Old Testament is

really Christ, the second person of the Godhead? In other words that God, the

Father, never appeared on earth Himself, or revealed Himself in actual presence, to

man, but that He appeared, and manifested Himself, in speech and act, through

Christ, both in the Old and the New Testament times? Christ is called the 'Word of

God,' and a word is the expression of somebody's thought and self. God, the Father,

expresses His thoughts and character through Christ, who is 'God's Word.' Johnwrote: 'No man hath seen God at any time' and the only begotten Son, who is in the

bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.' Who could declare, or express, another

person better than He who was not only begotten of that person but who had also lain

in his very bosom? I wish I could be sure that the Jehovah of the Old Testament is

always Christ rather than God the Father. There are many indications in the Bible

that this is a fact. The weight of evidence, I think, is in its favor. And yet there aredifficulties in the way of giving positive acceptance of the idea. There looms high

before us, in the Bible, however, the fact that God manifests Himself in and through

Christ."

"Dr. Carroll, you will never know how much you are helping me. I am very

ignorant about these matters. I was converted just a few months ago and up to the

time that I surrendered to Christ I had kept away from church and religious matters

in general. None of my family were Christians. It was only a sermon that I heard

two years ago, just after the death of my mother, whom I loved devotedly, that

touched some chord in my heart and awoke in me the feeling, not only that I ought to

give my life to Christ but that, if I did, He would want me to preach, and I only

surrendered completely during my last week in college, in June. I feel therefore very

ignorant, and your words this morning, particularly about the Old Testament, areopening up new worlds of thought to me. And may I say that I am eager to get your

explanation as to how we can find a text about Christ in a book such as Ecclesiastes

or Esther."

"Now, my young brother, you bring me to the heart of this whole matter, and it is

enough to fling us preachers and teachers into the dust. The reason we do not find

our Savior more easily throughout the Old and New Testaments - in Ecclesiastes, for

example - and do not preach Him more often, is because we do not love Him as we

should. Right there is that root from which our preaching troubles grow. I shall take

up Ecclesiastes in a moment. But this is a vital point with which we are dealing now

- the lack of love for Christ being the reason we do not look for Him in the Bible and

preach Him more often.

"We have some preachers along this road who are so devoted to Christ - yea, sowild about Him - that they can no more help talking about Him than they can stop

breathing. He is flooding their life with joy moment by moment and it simply has to

come out, not merely in the pulpit, but it is always shining in their eyes and

throbbing in the tones of their conversation. They find Him in Old Testament and

New Testament passages where He is invisible to other eyes."

"I think Dr. Driscoll must be one of them," said Robert. "It seemed to me that I

could see Christ back of all that he sa id and did, I mean a rapturous love for Christ

which he was unconsciously expressing."

"This is the general verdict about Driscoll, and I think a true one. Now as to your

question about preaching Christ from a text in Ecclesiastes: first, let us approach this



21

Book of Ecclesiastes as an inspired Book, inspired by the Spirit of Christ. HeHimself said of the Old Testament: 'The Scripture cannot be broken'; and He treated

the Book as His inspired program and, let it be repeated, He said that the Old

Testament Scriptures testified of Him. That puts Him at the center of every Old

Testament book, and we must keep that fact in mind in dealing with the Old

Testament.

"Now, suppose we take an exceedingly difficult passage from Ecclesiastes. It ishere in Chapter 3 verse 4, and reads: 'There is ... a time to dance.' Now, how could a

preacher preach Christ from that passage? Christ, Who inspired that passage, is

saying here that there is a time to dance, that is, a time to jump and leap for joy. If

the Spirit inspired that passage, and therefore He, Christ, is in the passage. Peter, in

his first Epistle (First Peter 1:10-11) declares that the Old Testament prophets wrote

by the inspiration of 'The Spirit of Christ which was in them.' What then did the

Spirit of Christ mean when He inspired Solomon to say that there is a time to dance?

"In order to understand any Bible passage we must study it in its context, that is, in

the chapter and the book in which it is found. Now, the Book of Ecclesiastes is a

long discourse, giving the conclusion about life that a man comes to who leaves God

(or Christ) out of his life. First, then, keep that fact in mind. What is the conclusion?

It is stated again and again by the writer of Ecclesiastes. His conclusion is : 'All isvanity and vexation of Spirit.' This godless man, pursuing riches, pleasure, and the

various treasures the world offers, finally finds that human life is vanity, because it is

merely a vast machine with everything moving in a circle and moving like

clockwork, thereby leaving a man helpless. There is 'A time,' he says, 'to be born

and a time to die ... a time to get and a time to lose ... a time to mourn and a time to

dance.' Everything has its inevitable time and man can do nothing to stop the

wheels. Therefore, to that Christless man, 'All is vanity.'

"Then, at the close of the book, the writer presents the true conclusion to which a

person ought to come. The writer points to God, saying: 'Remember now thy

Creator,' and then at the end he says, 'Fear God and keep His commandments for this

is the whole duty of man.'

"In other words, we see in this statement ('There is .... a time to dance') Christ'seffort to warn the human race against the terrible blunder that this godless man

committed. He is saying to us in that closing verse that if we, too, leave Him out of

our lives, we, too, will find human life a machine with the regular times to be joyful,

in fact a time for everything as fixed and leaving man helpless. In other words, we

see in that warning that even the joyful element in a godless life is merely a part of a

machine, a cog in a wheel that comes around at a fixed time. So it seems to the

godless man. We see also Christ's mercy in making human life harden itself

(become all vanity) against one who leaves Him out of his life. Such a hardening of

the man's life is both a warning and an invitation from Christ, Who would not let him

be satisfied with such a life. It was the kindness of Christ that put a little joy in the

man's life so that there were times when he at least danced for joy. In other words,Christ shows that a Christless life becomes a hard machine life with everything

predetermined as if by fate, and then, by way of contrast, He shows at the end of the

book what a Christ-centered life would be. We have Christ, therefore, in this book,

sounding a long warning in the first portion, in His words 'a time to dance, ' as a cog

in the revolving machine, and then a glorious offer at the end of a free and joyful

life."





23

Christ in God, where the love of Christ is a fountain within him pouring out itstreasures in his sermon? The tragedy is that a preacher might snatch at the idea of

'preaching Christ every Sunday' as a fine or wise thing to do and his preaching

become wearisome to his people because his heart is not genuinely in it. He then

preaches merely an 'intellectualized Christ' and he will soon turn to other and more

congenial themes."

"Do you think, Doctor, we have many preachers who preach from heartsoverflowing with such love for Christ?"

"Spurgeon was such a preacher. Ah, I wish you could have heard him. I had the

privilege of hearing him several times in my early days, and the love of Christ came

flowing from his soul like hot spiritual lava, through his sermons. Let me advise you

to study Spurgeon's sermons, not slavishly, not to imitate him, but to get the picture

of a preacher who preached all the time about Christ because he couldn't help it, and

preached gloriously and triumphantly. It is a direful fact, that needs to be repeated

among preachers over and over again, that it is possible for a preacher to preach, or

talk about Christ every Sunday and to read about Christ in the Bible every week and

yet never see the real Christ in the Bible or ever preach Him to the people. It was

rapturous devotion of Spurgeon to Christ that made him the great preacher that he

was and enabled him to see so deeply into the Christ of the Scriptures.""It seems to me, Doctor Carroll, if you will forgive me for thus speaking that the

big problem before us is not to get young preachers to show to their congregations

the Christ whom they have found in the Bible but the problem first is how to get

them to have this love for Christ kindled in their hearts so that they can preach Him

and will preach Him and must preach Him. The problem is not a matter of using our

Bibles aright but of having this love of Christ first awakened in our hearts. This love

will make us look for Christ in the Bible when we read it and will make us eager to

preach about Him. Am I right in this, Doctor?"

"You are right as to the importance of having this love for Christ but how better

can you seek to have this love kindled within you than by continually studying about

Christ as He is presented in His Word? If you stop reading about Him in the Bible

how will you ever begin loving Him? The more you come to know about somepeople the more you will like and love them. The more you know about our

adorable Master, the more you will tend to love Him. Of course, this love, says Paul,

must be 'shed abroad in our heats by the Holy Ghost,' Who ever dwells within us.

But the Holy Spirit works through the written Word which He has inspired, and it is

as we read it with a wholehearted yearning to know and to love the Christ of that

Bible, and as we wait upon the Spirit to kindle the fires of love within us as we are

gazing upon Christ, that the Spirit will melt our hearts with this love. The Spirit will

light up these Bible passages until they catch fire within us."

"Oh Dr. Carroll, how can I ever climb to the spiritual heights about which you have

been talking?"

"It isn't a height to which you must climb but a depth to which you must go. In ourpoor strength we cannot climb anywhere toward spiritual levels. Down in the dust

you must go, my dear brother, as Isaiah did when he caught sight of the holy Jehovah

of Hosts and exclaimed: 'Woe is me for I am undone' because I am a man of unclean

lips ad dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the

King, the Lord of Hosts.' Brainerd, the great missionary to the Indians, in writing of

his work with them, said: 'I could not deal closely and faithfully with them. I felt soinfinitely vile in myself. Oh, what dust and ashes I am to think of preaching the

gospel to others! Indeed I can never be faithful for one moment, but shall certainly

'daub with untempered mortar,' if God do not grant me special help... The lower you

sink in your estimate of your natural self, as you stand in the presence of the

infinitely holy Christ,' he said, 'the higher will you be lifted into fellowship with

Him.'

"You can do nothing, Robert, in setting your heart on fire with the love of Christ,

except, with your open Bible, to keep looking, gazing deeply, yearningly upon Him

as you read about Him in His Word and also to fall down in lowly dependence upon

Him, waiting upon Him to kindle the fire within you."

"Oh, what would I not give to have heard Spurgeon! They say he had a marvelous,

compelling voice.""True, but it was what he put into those tones that turned them into heavenly

melodies. It was Spurgeon who first awoke in me the desire to be absolutely

surrendered, as a minister, to Christ, and through all the years since that time I have

treasured his words. In one of his sermons - let me get it - here it is - he speaks as

follows: 'We have missed our way in the Bible if its silken clue has not led us to the

central chamber where we see Jesus Himself.' That was the point at which he aimed

in his Bible reading and preaching."

"But, Doctor Carroll, one question keeps troubling me - this matter of preaching

Christ twice every Sunday if you can help it. I had almost said never preach about

Christ on any Sunday if you can help it. It is too big an affair to me measuring its

importance in comparison with other subjects. Just to preach about Christ because

you have decided it to be a good or wise thing to do is a monstrously tragicundertaking. You ought to be driven to preach Christ with that compulsion to which

Paul referred when he said, 'The love of Christ constraineth me.'

"But listen to these words of Spurgeon: 'Beloved, because Jesus is the sum of the

Gospel, He must be our constant theme... When we have done preaching Christ we

had better have done preaching; when you have done teaching in your classes Jesus

Christ Himself' - notice that - not preaching about Christ but preaching 'Christ

Himself,' not preaching Christ's ideas and actions but preaching (showing) Christ as

He expresses those ideas and performs those actions. When the teacher has stopped

doing that, Spurgeon says, then 'give up, give up Sunday-school work, for nothing

else is worth of your pains. Put out the sun and light is gone, all is gone. When



24

Jesus Christ is put in the background, or left out of a minister's teaching, the darknessis darkness that might be felt and the people escape from it into Gospel light as soon

as they can.'"

"Don't you see, my brother, that we are not to lift up Christ because we think it will

make greater preachers of us and draw larger congregations? There is such a terrible

thing as seeking to use the name of Christ in building up our plans and churches and

reputation. Oh, no. We must have that spirit of John the Baptist who, after pointinghis disciples to Christ and saying, 'Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin

of the world,' also said, 'He must increase, and I must decrease.'"

"Doctor Carroll, such preaching as that casts me down in the dust. I am afraid that

I ought never to have undertaken the ministry. How can I ever attain to such

unselfish, spontaneous adoration of Christ?"

"Well, keep on feeling that way, my young brother. Far better is such a feeling

than the feeling that you are all-sufficient. Even the great apostle Paul cried, 'Who is

sufficient for these things?' Keep down in the dust, for it is man's extremity that is

God's opportunity. But how many of us preachers feel, in our efforts to preach

Christ properly, that we have reached our extremity? We are tempted to congratulate

ourselves. But it is down there at our wits' end, in self-despair, where, as someone

has said, we are panting for breath, it is down there, I say, that God is waiting for uswith His power."

"Doctor, I am wondering whether there has ever been another preacher who has

shown such love for Christ a s Spurgeon showed."

"I wish you could have heard Moody. He was a spiritual giant. I heard him often,

just as I did Spurgeon. I remember, while a student at John Hopkins University,

hearing him one snowy night in the Cyclorama building, preach to a great

congregation of men, and as I sat there on the front bench and looked at Moody,

standing up there above me preaching, the thought came into my mind about him - I

remember it well - 'You surely think you have the most wonderful Savior that

anyone ever heard of.' And Moody did feel that very way about Christ."

The Doctor reached for one of his books and continues: "Listen to these words

from Mr. Moody. He is speaking of how the apostles strictly obeyed the commandof Christ that, in their preaching, they should bear witness of Him. He made them

first wait to be filled with the Holy Spirit for He knew - and remember this, my dear

your brother - Christ knew that they could not preach Him except as they were filled

with His spirit, and He knew also that when once they became filled with the Spirit

they could not help preaching Him and preaching Him with power. It is the work of

the Holy Spirit to show Christ. Mr. Moody says: 'You will find all through the

Scriptures that when men were filled with the Holy Spirit they preached Christ and

not themselves.'"

"Dr. Carroll, do you think that preachers today are expected to repeat that strange

experience of the baptism of the Spirit through which the apostles passed to get this

power? If we pray earnestly and depend on Him will He not guide us in holding upChrist and bless our sermons even though we may not have secured the baptism of

the Spirit?"

"Would you like to hear what Mr. Moody has to say on that point?"

"Yes, indeed, though I would like to get your views also."

"Here are Mr. Moody's words" 'A man working without this unction' - he is talking

about the infilling, or baptism of the Holy Spirit - 'a man working without the HolyGhost upon him is losing time after all. So we are not going to lose anything if we

tarry till we get this power.' Here is another statement from him: 'I tell you when the

Spirit of God is on us the world looks very empty.' And again: 'I have lived long

enough to know that if I cannot have the power of the Spirit of God on me to help me

to work for Him, I would rather die than live just for the sake of living.' And here is

a statement from Spurgeon: 'If we do not have the Spirit of God, it were better to

shut the churches, to nail up the doors and to put a black cross on them and say:

"God have mercy on us." If you ministers have not the Spirit of God you had better

not preach and your people had better stay at home.'"

"Lunch is now being served," was the message ca lled out at this moment by the

doctor's little granddaughter.

In about an hour Robert was in his same chair in the sitting-room and after somepreliminary chatting Dr. Carroll said: "My first word, Robert, would be this: If you

would obey Christ's command, 'Ye shall be witnesses unto Me,' then the Christ of the

Bible must be the most familiar of all subjects to you.

"But how can you acquire such familiarity? Become a great Bible student , with

Christ at the center of your study. Study the whole Bible from the standpoint of

Christ as the manifestation of God, the Father. There lies your chief work now. That

eminent saint, Count Zinzendorf, who wrought so mightily throughout Europe for

Christ, was asked one day for an explanation of his ministry and he replied: 'I have

but one passion, and that is Christ.' Cling to Christ with your gaze steadily upon

Him, as you know you will be doing as you approach death. No urging will be

needed then. Some years ago I went into different public libraries looking chiefly in

books of sermons about Christ. I was hungry for something new and fresh in asermon about Him. But, Robert, I was appalled at the small number of sermons

about Christ and I discovered the same fact in the books of se rmons today."



25

Chapter VII

CHRIST IN ALL THE SCRIPTURES

"Robert, have you heard Dr. Driscoll preach?"

"No, but I am eager to hear him.""He followed a very interesting plan recently. For three months, every Sunday

morning, he preached from a text in which the human element was most conspicuous

and Christ almost hidden from sight and yet he would preach Christ from that text.

Take, for example, the text, 'As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus, the Lord,

walk ye in Him.' Now, I judge, nineteen in twenty preachers would use that passage

to remind the Christians in their congregation that they had received Christ Jesus at

conversion and therefore they must live their Christian lives walking or living in

Christ. They would be telling their hearers whatthey ought to do. But Dr. Driscoll

found Christ in that text as its subject and showed us three pictures of Christ: '1.

Christ was received by the Colossians at their conversion; 2. Christ entered their

heart as the Lord - that is, as their God; 3. Christ was an enclosure, orsphere or

realm in which they should walk - live their christian lives.' It should be 'in Him.'"Don't you see that in such a sermon he would be bringing in all that the Colossians

did and ought to do (as suggested by the text) and yet he would be showing Christ all

the time, with the attention continuously upon Him! In that way the congregation

received a unified, concentrated, uninterrupted picture of Christ.

"One benefit of such preaching is that it stimulates the hearers to look for and find

pictures of Christ in passages where a hurried glance would not discover Him."

"I heard someone say, Doctor, that if anybody wants to learn something about

Christ he should go to Doctor Driscoll's church, for he will be sure to hear about Him

there."

"Very true; and did you know that Dr. Driscoll has an understanding with every

preacher who supplies for him in his absence that he will make Christ the subject of

the sermon, seeking to keep the attention of the congregation upon Christ Himself from beginning to end? Those last four words are vital. Everybody knows Dr.

Driscoll's method of preaching and those who preach for him are usually those who

follow the same Christ-centered practice."

"Doctor," said Robert, "suppose a pastor felt that he ought to preach on the duties

of fathers to their children? You have said that we could treat any proper subject

under Christ as the general subject, with the at tention kept continuously upon Christ,

and I was wondering how I would go about preaching to fathers, with Christ as my

subject. I could take a text such as, 'Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath,' or

'Train up a child in the way he should go,' etc., but hose texts have in them no

mention of Christ. Surely it would be difficult with such texts to make Christ thesubject."

"If I had to preach a sermon on the duties of fathers, I would first search the Bible

for passages in which Christ is referred to and which would best show Christ's

attitude toward the duty of fathers to their children. In one sense Christ is a Father to

His people. God, the Father, is seen in Him. Isaiah, you know, calls Christ the

'Everlasting Father.' In other words, you could present the fatherly qualities of God,the Father, as seen in Christ. Let me repeat, Robert, that the great fact regarding the

Bible, which you must ever keep in mind, is that the God of the Bible is substantially

the Christ of the Bible. Present God in and through Christ. Let not the difference in

the words GOD and CHRIST bother you. 'I and the Father are One,' said Christ. I

am repeating this because of its importance. If therefore, I found no passage about

fathers in which Christ is actually mentioned, I would select a passage such as, 'As a

father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that are His.' I would show God?

they, when His child Adam has sinned against Him, coming down into the Garden,

and, like a broken-hearted father, calling: 'Adam, where art thou?' I would also

present the father of the prodigal son and other such pictures of God, and if these did

not make plain the duties of the fathers then surely no exhortation of mine would

move them.""You have spoken, Doctor, of the ineffectiveness of one man in the pulpit merely

urging people to perform their duties."

"I surely have. It is right along that line - the 'you ought' and 'we ought' line, that

the pulpit (and the Sunday-school) is wasting much of its time and strength - and also

of its opportunity for holding up Christ."

"But don't we find the apostles in their Epistles to the churches exhort the church-

members as to their duty? They are not saying Christ, Christ, Christ throughout their

chapters. There are many verses, often in one chapter, about human duties and

human affairs, with 'you oughts' and 'we oughts.'"

"True, but the duties are presented under the general subject of Christ or God.

Never forget that. It is Christ that these writers continuously have in their minds.

Read the chapter, or chapters, preceding these special verses that present 'humanduties' and 'human affairs' and those following the verses and you will find that

Christ - just as I said - is the general subject which the writer, the apostle, has on his

mind and heart. You feel the impact of Christ even while you are reading these

verses. It is because of Christ's nature and wishes that the Apostle exhorts and urges.

He is urging duties for Christ's sake. If we could have heard the New Testament

writers utter these exhortations we would have felt the Christ in them as they spoke.

Happy that preacher whose hearers always feel , as they listen to him, 'That preacher

has Christ filling his mind and heart, and Christ is back of everything he is saying.'"

"I can see," said Robert, "how a great inspired apostle such as Paul could warn

those Christians and tell them what they ought to do. But shall I, in my preaching,



26

attempt to tell people what they ought to do, or shall I merely hold up Christ beforethem?"

"You may urge people toward high spiritual standards, if you are full of the Spirit

of Christ as Paul and the other Spirit-filled apostles and preachers were when they

exhorted Christians of that day. In their case it was really Christ exhorting the

churches through them, and their exhortations were aglow with Christ. He is seen

shining through all they wrote.""Well, Doctor, I'm not Spirit-filled. I know that, and it is a depressing fact to me. I

believe I'm a Christian, and the Bible therefore assures me that the Spirit of Christ,

the Holy Spirit, dwells ever in me. But, O Doctor, I'm not filled with Him and

absolutely under His control. My old Adam nature drives and controls me

apparently in about 90 per cent of my thoughts and activities, and sometimes I

wonder if it is not nearer 100 per cent. I have never received the baptism of the

Spirit that I hear so much about along this road. Have I, therefore, any right to

exhort, to tell people their duties, or must I merely stand up and hold up Christ and

ask Him to bless my words?"

"My boy, I dare not tell you that you have any business preaching Christ at all. I

have watched our talk and tried to guide it to this point to which we have now come.

There is nothing else than the apparently harsh word that I have just spoken that Ican now say. If you have not received the enduement of the Spirit then the only

thing I can say to you, with the New Testament in my hand, is that you are not ready

to preach Christ nor are you capable of preaching Him. Our discussion brings us

now face to face with the situation in which present-day preaching, and the church of

Christ also, finds itself. The church of Christ is helpless to meet the world-issue,

helpless to make a Christ-impact upon our civilization. What is the church doing to

stop war or to allay the blood-thirsty clashing of the nations of Europe and the East?

What is it doing to turn the tides of crime, impurity, and infidelity in this and other

countries? It is busy with its forms and standardized religious ceremonies on the

inside of its church walls while the world on the outside is rushing to its doom.

"I believe, Robert, it is fundamentally because so few of our preachers seek the

baptism, the infilling of the Holy Spirit. I took you at your word when you said youhad not received this infilling, or enduement, of the Spirit, and I said, therefore, that I

did not feel authorized to advise you to start preaching. Let me remind you again of

Christ's words to the eager disciples. Ponder very deeply these words: 'Ye shall

receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be

witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the

uttermost part of the earth."

The door opened and two visitors appeared. One was Uncle Ben, the shoemaker, a

deacon in the Baptist church and a life-long lover and student of the Bible. The other

was Ted Toliver, an impulsive, big-hearted, popular traveling man.

"Come in, brethren," said Dr. Carroll, rising to greet them. "Here is my friend,Robert Bolton, a young preacher."

"Dr. Carroll," said Ted, still standing; "my pastor, Dr. Rowland, is sick and asked

me to request you to preach for us next Sunday."

"I hope he is not very sick."

"Oh, no; you can't keep that man sick very long. You'd have to tie him in bed if

you wanted to keep him there many days. But he's got a mean cold. I'll be at homeSunday and that's another reason why I am anxious for you to preach for us. You

know how our folks love you, doctor. You will come, won't you?"

"I cannot resist such a kind invitation. But sit right down - you and Uncle Ben.

We are discussing the Bible and how to use it."

"The Bible? Why that's my favorite subject. I would like to hear you. Can't you

also stay awhile, Uncle Ben?" he asked turning to the old man, who responded in the

affirmative, as both of them took their seats.

"Uncle Ben and I met on the s treet," continued Ted, "and I brought him in with me.

I've got mountains on me to attend to today, but nothing so important as learning

something about the Bible."

"I have been telling my young friend, Robert, the importance of making the Christ

of the Bible the unchanging subject of his preaching," said Dr. Carroll."Bless the Lord for that," exclaimed Uncle Ben.

"Amen!" said Ted. "You know, Doctor, that much of my traveling is in the West,

in many parts of which you don't hear much preaching about Christ. It is topical and

character sermons and discourses on moral standards - in fac t, on almost everything

except Christ, that you hear. As to the preachers, well, I surely sympathize with

them, for the churches are largely to blame. They put it up to the pastor to balance

the budget by drawing folks to the church and it makes me cry on the inside to see

the subjects that they preach about. At certain times, Dr. Carroll, in my attendance

upon churches in the West, I fairly starve for sermons, or talks, about Christ. That's

the only subject that warms my heart and braces me for my arduous work. When,

after a week's strain, I hear a preacher announce a text - about Christ and Nicodemus,

or Christ and Matthew, for example - and then start to talk about Nicodemus, orMatthew - well, sir, I get so restlessly disappointed that I can scarcely sit through the

service. Last Wednesday night I heard a preacher, at his mid-week service,

announce as his subject. 'Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever,' and he

spent his time talking about how things change - do not remain the same - and how

we, we, we ought to live and treat this unchangeable Christ. And yet there in the text

was this unchangeable Christ Himself. What a wonderful picture is suggested by

those two words - 'Unchangeable Christ.' There are three Christs indicated in that

text - three in one - the Christ of yesterday, the Christ of today, and the Christ of

forever, and about this Christ he said practically nothing, so far as telling us

something about Him. He must have said 'we ought' and 'you ought' and 'you and I'



27

forty times. I find myself constantly tempted to sit and watch the humanistic mind of preachers, when they announce a text, as it darts instantly, almost hungrily, to the

human characters, or items, in the passage. Just think, Doctor Carroll, of a pastor

starving his people on such inferiorities."

"They claim, and I think sincerely," said Uncle Ben, " that they pick those unusual

subjects to attract the folks but that they give them the gospel when they come."

"I know it, Uncle Ben," said Ted, "but the gospel doesn't function in suchhumanistic treatment. By such sensational baiting for crowds the preacher has

created an atmosphere for his services that makes it hard for the spiritual gospel to

find access to the hearts. It looks to the general public as if the preacher wants a

crowd, and his references to the gospel in his sermons appear to them as alibis for his

sensationalism. I really love preachers and I have a good time with some of them,

but it makes my heart sick, from worry about the preachers I love. There is one

supreme thing that this poor world needs, and it is pleading for it unconsciously, and

that is, Christ."

"Well, I tell you," said Uncle Ben; "my beloved pastor couldn't help preaching

about Christ if he should try. You can see Christ shining in his eyes and trembling in

his voice, and that is the best possible backing for preaching about Christ that a

preacher can have. My pastor is a Spirit-filled preacher if there ever was one.""Uncle Ned," said Doctor Carroll, "you speak of your pastor being a Spirit -filled

preacher. That's the reason he preaches about Christ. The indwelling Spirit, when

He is free in the heart to do His work, always puts Christ to the front. How happy

the Spirit must be to get hold of a preacher through whom He can hold up Christ!

Dr. Joseph Fort Newton said that in the journals of John Wesley the expression, 'I

give them Christ,' recurs over and over again."

"Why is it," said Ted, "that so many preachers, with that Book in their hand, whose

subject from beginning to end is Christ, will not make Him the subject of their

preaching? I was reading the Book of Hebrews on the train last week and that Book

is fairly ablaze with Christ. During the past year several men asked me what God is

like and I told them that He is like Christ, for He said, 'He that hath seen Me hath

seen the Father.' A minister told me recently that he asked his deacons what kind of Being the name 'God' suggested to them and one of the most intelligent of the

number said, 'Well, pastor, God to me is an oblong blur.' All through the Bible God

is trying to reveal Himself, to show to the world the kind of Being He is. That is one

reason preachers should show Christ in their sermons."

"Dr. Carroll," said Uncle Ben, "I don't believe that a preacher has any business

taking on his lips the name of that wonderful Christ to preach about unless he is so

full of Christ that he can't help it. Otherwise the sermon will me a mere mechanism."

"I heard a preacher three Sundays ago," said Ted, "preach, so he said, about Christ.

He announced just before giving out his text that he always preached Christ. My

heart rejoiced, but it soon sank within me. I did not listen critically. My heart was

hungry, after my straining week's work, but it quickly became apparent that thepreacher was moving merely in the cold, intellectual realm, but his heart must be

setting his intellect on fire and lighting up the thought-track ahead. But this minister

did not have his heart in his sermon. He had his nerves and muscular gestures in it,

and his discourse was logical, and it was Christ, Christ, Christ, throughout the

message. In fact he told us at the beginning that he would keep our attention on

Christ from beginning to end and that he didn't think a preacher was really preachingChrist if he had the attention of his audience divided between Christ and other

subjects during a sermon. He surely wanted us to think that he was preaching Christ,

and I believe he really thought that he was. But it was plain that he had simply, in

his study, drawn up a mechanical - very logical - discourse of firstly's, secondly's,

and thirdly's, with Christ as the first word in most of his sentences. He impressed me

as having gotten the conviction that he ought every Sunday to preach on Christ and

he was doing his dead-level best to preach about his Lord and Master. I really felt

sorry for him. He did not seem to have any deep, intimate association with his

subject. He seemed to be uttering great statements about Christ - His love and

sufferings and His glorious character - much as he would have talked if he had been

trying to show the character and work of Napoleon or Washington. He quoted

several statements about Christ from certain books. In other words, his message didnot come red hot through a heart that was on fire with genuine love for Christ, and if

a preacher cannot peach with such spiritual passion, then let him not attempt to hold

up Christ. He will misrepresent Him.

"And may I mention just another sermon I heard in Denver the other day? The text

was Paul's words, 'that I may know HIM,' and then I had to sit and listen to a list of

words about 'knowledge' and about Paul wanting to know Christ and our duty to

know Him. But Dr. Carroll, my heart was yearning for him to show us how worthy

Christ is of our knowing Him, and also to show us His mercy and grace in being

willing to let Himself be known to the Spirit-filled heart, and also what infinitely

glorious treasures there are in Christ's nature and personality that invited our

knowledge. Such pictures of Christ would have made the hearers a thousand times

more eager to know Christ than the preacher's 'you ought' exhortations aboutknowing Christ. Why is it that preachers stay away from holding up Christ as He is

found there in the text and keep using 'I' or 'we' or 'you' continuously? Many

congregations know less about Christ at the end of the year than they do at the

beginning because the preacher simply mentions at various times certainthoroughly

familiar truths about Christ and the congregations, hearing only that very small list

of Christ-truths, soon has its interest in them and their consciousness of them,

dwindling under the blinding platitudinous repetitions in this humanistic preaching."

"Brother Ted," said Uncle Ben, "you were talking just now about Christ being the

subject of the Bible and you mentioned the Book of Hebrews, written, as you know,

to brace the wobbly Jews in behalf of Christ. Well, the Book of Revelation, so little



28

appreciated by Bible readers, is also a moving-picture of Christ. I read somewherethat the Greek word for Revelation means unveiling, a pulling aside of the veil, or

curtain, that has been hiding something. That makes the first verse of Revelation,

therefore, read: 'the unveiling of Jesus Christ.' That book was written to brace the

persecuted Christians. Many of them were being killed for their faith in Christ.

Many persecuted ones were tempted to give up Christ, or to doubt His power; and so

John wrote Revelation as an unveiling of the triumphant Christ, a pulling aside of thecovering that these persecuted Christians might see the real Christ to Whom they had

surrendered their lives. Many of them were suffering because of their profession of

Him and were probably being given wrong ideas of Him by His enemies. John,

therefore, in this book, shows Christ as victorious over Satan and all His enemies and

as having a glorious salvation for His disciples. The Book of Revelation is a

treasure-house of texts about Christ."

"There is a preacher in the South," said Ted, "whom I always like to hear. I always

know that I am not only going to hear about Christ when I go to his church but also

that the sermon will be about the suffering, resurrected, and glorified Christ."

"Do you mean," asked Robert, "that he talks about these three subjects every time -

the sufferings, the resurrection, and the heavenly glory of Christ?"

"Yes. His one subject is Christ. But He is the suffering, risen, glorified Christ. Hetreats the sufferings, resurrection, and heavenly glory of Christ as three great facts

toward which all that went before pointed and out of which all the triumphs of

Christianity have grown. The apostles in their letters to the churches treat of these

three facts in the same fashion. One of the most startling facts in the New Testament

to me, when I first discovered it, was the fact that Peter, James, John, and Paul say

almost nothing in their epistles about the earthly ministry of Christ up to His arrest

and crucifixion. Think of that! Nothing about His miracles! Nothing about His

discourses or journeys or conversions! Nothing up to that last night - that is, almost

nothing. What they do write about are the sufferings, resurrection, and heavenly

priesthood and kingship of Christ. But with this Southern preacher, as with the New

Testament writings, it is the sufferings of Christ that hold central place. And, oh,

how it has helped me in reading the Bible references to Christ to think of Him as thegreat Sufferer!"

"You are surely on the right track, Brother Ted," said Dr. Carroll. "I doubt whether

Martha, when Christ was in her home, had any idea that she was then entertaining

One with such an infinite burden on His heart as Jesus then had - a Sufferer every

moment in that home - 'straightened,' laden with the load of the world's guilt. I think

she would have dealt with Him far more tenderly if she had known what was going

on in that racked and wounded heart."

"I thing Mary realized it," said Ted, "or at least she did later on when she broke that

alabaster box on Him. Christ Himself said that she did that for His burial. I tell you,

Doctor - as I said just now - there is nothing that goes nearer to melting my poor,

cold heart than thinking of Christ - as I read about Him in my Bible - as almostcrushed by His burden while He was going through His various experiences there in

Palestine - and it was all for us. Just think how preachers could be melting hearts

today if they would only learn how to present the great Sufferer! That is what Paul

had in mind, I believe, when he determined to preach on only one subject, Christ,

and Him crucified."

"It helps me, Brother Ted," said the Doctor, "when I am reading about Christ in Hisresurrection, or His heavenly glory, to keep in mind that He was the One who had

been through such agonizing sufferings."

"Christ is pictured in Revelation," said Uncle Ben, "as the Lamb in the midst of the

throne. He is reigning in heaven but as the One who was led as a Lamb to the

slaughter."

"What did Christ's sufferings consist in mainly?" asked Robert.

"Ah, my boy, you are opening the door to an infinite mystery. I don't believe that

any of us can have any conception of what that infinite price was that Christ paid for

our salvation. Our denomination, you know, does not observe a Lenten season, but I

wish we did have a week's series of services immediately preceding Easter in which

the pastor would, in his Scripture reading and comments, lead us worshipfully

through the arrest, the trial, and crucifixion of Christ. I wish during that week hecould lead us into the gloom and horror suggested by those experiences, so that on

Sunday, Easter, we could better feel - be thrilled by - the glorious contrast, the

outburst of the resurrection. I can understand, just a little, why Christ gave us the

Lord's Supper. He wanted us never to get away from the supreme fact of His

sufferings in our behalf. I don't see how a brother could have this picture of The

Great Sufferer set on fire in his soul and not go to his pulpit always eager to talk

about this Sufferer, who also became the risen, glorified Savior. Just think of a

preacher with such a subject - infinite in its variety - substituting for it the trite

subjects usually heard today."

"Dr. Carroll," said Ted, "how can preachers keep from hurrying to their pulpits

with such a subject? It makes me cry in my heart at the helplessness of Christians in

many parts of our country with their preachers using such secondary subjects. EverySunday there should be a rush - almost a scramble - of preachers toward their pulpit

that they might hold up, one more time at least, while they have the opportunity, this

wonderful Christ. Look at the firemen as they hurry the engines and water to the

burning building. They have the one thing that can deal with the burning building -

water. Imagine them spending their time playing with other things to entertain the

crowd in the presence of a house on fire!

"Is not our world on fire; and what are the preachers and the other gospel firemen

in many parts of the earth doing? Are they - with the gospel bells clanging in their

ears - dashing and straining to bring to bear upon the world the only One who can



29

extinguish the flames - the Christ, the triumphant Sufferer, Who is able to save untothe uttermost those that come unto God through Him?"



30

Chapter VIII

DOCTOR TRUMBULL

"Doctor Carroll, I know I am talking too much," continued Ted. "You could tell

more about this matter in ten minutes than I could tell in a month, or ever tell, butthis conversation has set me on fire to express my feelings. I don't talk a great deal

about it where I go among my people, but I think a mighty challenge is flung at the

church today - or rather at us Christians - and especially at those who stand in the

pulpit. I can imagine the very angels of heaven saying to preachers and Christians in

general, 'Give Christ a chance! Give Him a chance! Get yourselves out of the way,

so that Christ may show what He can do. Give Him a chance to get into close

quarters with this war-torn world, with your community, with the individuals there in

your congregation.' I often feel in seeing a preacher come forward to take his text,

like saying: 'O preacher, give the triumphant Sufferer a chance their in that pulpit.

O, step aside with our personal attractions and give the infinite Christ a chance at

that audience. He can transform them. The situation is too momentously big for

your abilities or cleverness. But that victorious, loving Sufferer will melt hearts andbring them to His feet. But the preacher must first get his own heart melted or

broken by this Christ before he ties to bring Him to us.

"The great lack in preaching as I find it in my travels - but, Dr. Carroll, I am doing

more unfavorable talking about preachers than I have ever done. On my travels I

talk up preachers rather than talk them down. But this discussion here among

ourselves has taken off the curb from me and I am letting out a great many things

that have accumulated in me, but I speak in love rather than in any unfriendliness to

preachers. But as I go from church to church in the West - and also some in the

South and the North - I feel a lack of spiritual dynamic in the preaching. There is

often a lot of dynamic, but not spiritual dynamic that will arouse and brace

indifferent or backsliding Christians for higher, Christlike living. The minute a

preacher gets my eye turned on Christ, as I see Him shining there is in the starts towork in me. It clears the air, peace and joy begin stirring within me, and I find my

heart drawn toward that glorious Friend and Savior, and of course my hatred of sin

and my desire to please Him become stronger under such a sight. Why, oh, why will

preachers not see the power in such preaching in contrast to this preaching about

current interests, general moralities, human Bible characters, and all manner of

clever topics designed often as a play to the galleries?

"I hear men of all classes express themselves to me about the preaching of the day.

I feel that, with the human race drifting as it is to ruin, the pulpit is being degraded. I

am wondering whether the trivial, clever, catering-to-the-public preaching of the day

is not hindering rather than helping the spread and acceptance of the New-Testament,

Holy-Ghost Christianity gave to the apostles to be spread, and which they didgloriously spread. Why, the preaching of the gospel is treated by many preachers as

the easiest, simplest thing in the world, and how jauntily most of them go at it! But

their gospel is a gospel of good works, a gospel of making the world better with

happier relations between man and man, and it is easy to talk about such things. But

let the preachers of America begin to hold up the Christ of their texts so that their

hearers will see the real Christ and be drawn to Him and they will find themselvesconfronted with the most difficult task of their lives, a task for which they must stop

and get ready."

"Dr. Carroll," said Ted, springing to his feet, "you are the most patient and

indulgent friend I have ever met to let me unload my mind and heart of all this

burden. May God forgive me if I have done wrong in such talk."

"Not at all, Ted. I have seen the burden that was pressing upon you, a burden that

presses also upon me and you have done no wrong in speaking from your heart to us,

for I see also that you speak from a heart of love for preachers, and I can see you

sitting through hundreds of hours in churches restlessly hungry for the sight of Christ

there in the pulpit after your week's strain."

"I think," said Uncle Ben, "that there ought to be some kind of invisible guard

standing at the doorway of the pulpit today refusing entrance to all who don't comewith the burning passion for preaching Christ as He is presented in His Holy Word. I

don't want us to be fanatical about this matter of preaching Christ - and yet I wonder,

Dr. Carroll, if our trouble today does not lie in the fact that nobody is accusing the

Christian world of being too fanatical in their insistence on the preaching of Christ."

"I think you are undoubtedly right, Uncle Ben. I am glad to get this testimony

from Uncle Ben, who has lived in that Bible through a long life and finds Christ in it

from beginning to end. He finds its pages aglow with Christ, and I always love to

hear him talk about his beloved Book and Savior. And, now Robert, I know of no

higher objective you could have in you ministry than that of bringing your hearers to

their knees in broken-hearted, penitent surrender to Him and loving adoration of

Him."

"Well, then," broke in Ted, "if he makes that his aim - that of leading his membersto adore Christ - he will be compelled to preach Christ. Wouldn't that be a

magnificent objective for all preachers to set before themselves - that of getting

kindled in the hearts of their congregations a whole-hearted love for Christ. That

would make them Christ-centered preachers, for how could any preacher get his

hearers to loving Christ if He preached about something else that Christ, or merely

held up Christ occasionally and often merely incidentally? Why don't theological

seminaries everywhere lift that heavenly objective - that objective just mentioned by

Dr. Carroll - before the pulpit world? But maybe they are doing it. I have no flings

to take at our seminaries. They may, for aught I know, be doing their dead-level best

to train their students to preach Christ, Christ, Christ. I surely hope so.



31

"But, Dr. Carroll, let me go back to that 'heavenly objective,' of setting the hearts of

the congregation on fire with the love of Christ. Isn't that the highest and most

triumphant aim for a preacher? Suppose that your young friend, Robert, should

determine that he would make the supreme objective of his preaching that of

bringing his congregation to love Christ with an over-mastering adoration, and

should throughout his ministry, hold himself to that objective until he sees that love

of Christ kindling in their hearts, one by one. What a holding up of Christ that wouldrequire in his preaching! In such preaching he would not have to be always

exhorting his people to do their duty, as preachers today are using so much of their

sermons for doing, because Christ would then be filling their hearts with His love

and moving and empowering them in their daily living. The love of Christ would be

constraining them to do their duty far more powerfully than the preacher could by his

'we ought's' and 'you ought's'."

The discussion was interrupted at this point, and the three visitors took their

departure. Robert had an engagement for a conference with the president of the

seminary that night regarding his matriculation in the institution. His plan was to

spend several days at his home and hurry back to the seminary.

In his talk with the president that evening, Robert said: "I am sorry, Doctor

Trubmull, that I must be late in entertaining the Seminary, but my visit home isnecessary."

"I understand, Robert. I know about the conferences you have been having with

some of our ministers and the investigation that you have been making."

"You see, Doctor, I did not decide this matter suddenly. I am sorry I could not

enter here at the beginning of the session, but the path of duty for me was not clear. I

took many days for conference with older and wiser heads, and the result is that my

one dream now is to go forth and preach Christ. I am eager to show Christians that

they must put Christ first."

"That's a great ambition, Robert, but you must understand, of course, that you do

not get people to think more of Christ by merely telling them to do so. Right there

many young preachers with your ambition detour from the Christ-track. I am eager

to hammer hard at this point. Many preachers feel confident that they are preachingChrist from a text when they are really preaching the human elements in the textwith

a few references to Christ at the beginning. Suppose you were going to preach on

Christ's words to Martha - 'Martha, thou art troubled about many things, but one

thing is needful and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken from

her.' How would you treat that text?"

"Well, from all that I have been learning recently about the Bible and about

preaching, I would make Christ the subject of that text and my first question would

be, 'What does my text show about Christ?' That question would be sounding its call

throughout my making and preaching of the sermon. It is true that these words of

Christ tell much about the kind of women Martha and Mary were, and consequently

the pull on the preacher - the humanistic pull - to talk about these two sisters is verystrong. It is easy to talk about Martha's fussiness and restlessness and about Mary's

quiet, responsive attitude about Christ?"

"Very good. I agree with you that the sermon must be, not about the women, but

about Christ. What, then, does the text tell us about Christ?"

"That is what I would have to study very deeply, and I think I would enjoy going

into those words of Christ to Martha for an answer to your question. The words of almost any person show us something about himself. We unconsciously express

ourselves - often our deeper selves - in our conversation with others. For one thing,

Christ's words certainly show Christ's opinion of Martha and Mary. That is, they

show His reaction to their behavior. The particular reaction He experienced toward

their behavior was due to His character, His nature. It was because He was the kind

of person that He was that made Him like Mary's conduct and dislike Martha's.

Another person might have much preferred Martha's behavior to Mary's. Martha's

champions are many. It would be my task, Dr. Trumbull, to study deeply this whole

incident to discover what there was in Christ's nature and personality that made Him

say what He did to Martha. I certainly want to make a sermon on that some day."

"Very good, Robert. You are at least opening the doorway straight into that text

and therefore into Christ and I can see that you are getting a true vision of whatChrist-centered preaching must mean for you. Of course you must ever keep in mind

that preaching Christ is not preaching our duty to Christ, but it is preaching Him,

showing Him, unveiling Him. You, of course could be using the word 'Christ' all

though a sermon, in which, however, you would be urging the congregation that they

treat Christ properly, surrender to Him, love Him, serve Him, and you might easily

conclude that you are thereby preaching Christ in doing such urging, but you would

really be preaching about your audience, with their thoughts thereby kept upon

themselves. You would be showing them their duties to Christ, how they ought to

treat Christ rather than the nature of Christ."

A new light came slowly into Robert's eye as the Doctor proceeded.

"May I give you this simple rule for preaching Christ from a text?" the Doctor

continued. "Always have before you the question, 'What does this text teach aboutChrist?' I wish I could make that question spring from every text at every preacher,

as he selects it. Oh, how different would be present-day preaching if preachers

would simply show what their text teaches, or implies, about Christ! You have, of

course, learned that you can bring in every desirable subject into your sermons about

Christ, but that they must be sub-subjects under Christ as your general subject. This

does not mean that if you should feel that on a certain Sunday you ought to present

the duty of Sabbath observance, that you could refer to Christ occasionally through

your sermons but sped the bulk of your time talking about the Sabbath. You must

talk continuously about Christ's relation toward the Sabbath. This point needs to be

repeated over and over again.



32

"Suppose, for example you should take the text, 'The Son of man is Lord of theSabbath.' Your question now must be, 'What does that teach about Christ?' Your

answer is, 'It teaches that Christ owns the Sabbath.' From that basal fact you can

proceed to show how Christ desires that His Sabbath shall be treated by Christians

today, but in doing that you must keep Him at the front - as the Lord of the Sabbath -

and not the Sabbath itself and not your hearer's treatment of the Sabbath. That will

mean very careful study in the Bible of those particular references to Christ that willthrow light on the full meaning of the words of the text. Don't get away from your

text, 'The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath.' Don't you see that your mind, in such

study, will be all the time on Christ and you will send your audience away with a

new idea of how Christ feels regarding the Sabbath, of which He is Lord? Instead of

your urging them with the arguments generally used about Sabbath observance you

will be putting Christ a the center of the picture and He will be urging and impelling

them toward proper observance of His Sabbath.

"One helpful question to ask yourself in studying those words of Christ to Martha

would be, 'Suppose my audience knew nothing at all about Christ when they came

before me for the sermon, how much will they know about His real nature at the end

of my exposition of that text?'"

"Doctor, you said that in my discussion of the text I should be talking about Christall the time, but when I take up the sermons of the apostles I don't find them actually,

in every sentence, talking about Christ. It is true that Peter in his sermon on the Day

of Pentecost, after his introduction, did mention Christ particularly in ever verse.

But take Stephen's sermon and Paul's sermon. A large part of them is simply about

Abraham, Moses, etc. - human characters, you see."

"Ah, no, Robert. A truer statement would be that those sermons are filled with

Christ. You can see Him shining through the sermons as the one supreme object

they had on their mind. You can see that they were working their way verse by verse

to Christ in the closing verses as the climax and implying and suggesting Him in this

movement toward the climax. That is the sum and substance of Christ-centered

preaching. You don't have to be mentioning the word 'Christ ' in every sentence to be

preaching Christ in that sermon. If, when you preach, your audience sees thattheone general thought, idea, and burden on your mind and heart is Christ , that He is

the indwelling, propelling force in you entire message, then they will see Him in

everything you say and will see Him in His relation to all that you say.

"But do not be deceived. It is easy for a preacher to go off talking about Abraham,

etc., and to imagine that he has Christ in his mind and heart and that he is working

toward Christ as the climax, when his congregation sees and feels no sign of it. And

bear in mind that Peter did not, in talking about Abraham, refer simply to Abraham.

He referred to the God of Abraham. Don't you see the big difference? Stephen

began his sermon with the words, 'The God of Glory,' and Peter began his sermon

before the council, 'The God of Abraham,' and they both made Christ the climax of

their sermons. As for Paul, we know that his soul was ablaze with Christ in everysermon, in fact in almost every moment of his life. He stopped living, he declared.

He said, 'I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.' Of course his audience saw and

felt Christ in his sermons, in fact in all his words and action. 'For me to live is

Christ,' he said, and he might also have added, 'for me to preach a sermon is Christ.'

"Much ridicule is thrown upon a recent article by Bruce Barton in the Forum as he

raises the question as to how much the world is needing sermons today. But whyshut our eyes to the fact that present-day preaching is not powerfully drawing and

impressing the outsiders who need to hear the Word of God? The faithful few who

usually need it least and who often sit through the sermon for other reasons than the

attraction and power of the sermon, are the usual attendants on preaching, with a

sprinkling of others, who may, or may not, go from a desire for the sermons. Why

not stop and examine this article from this outsider, a layman, to see if it contains

some grains that can be ground into helpful homiletical nutriment? Even in the

carcass of the lion some honey may be found. One of the tragedies of Christendom

is the comparatively small spiritual fruitage resulting from the Niagras of sermons

that are pouring each week from the pulpits of the world and the unconsciousness of

this fact by such a large portion of the ministry."

"I thank you greatly, Doctor," said Robert, as he rose and bade him goodnight.As he was moving toward the door, the Doctor said to him, "You know, Robert,

about the address in the morning by Dr. Wilton here at the seminary."

"Yes, indeed, and I wouldn't think of missing it."

"He will speak in the chapel for about twenty minutes and hurry to his train. You

had better come early, for our auditorium is not large, and the public is invited. Dr.

Wilton is one of the most remarkable men along this road. He comes nearer to the

Christ-centered ideal than any preacher that I know. I have never visited his church -

two hundred miles from here - but it has the reputation of being a veritable spiritual

powerhouse."

After Robert's return to his boardinghouse that night he was called to the telephone

and given an invitation by Dr. Carroll to come with him home from the lecture in the

morning and take dinner with them - an invitation he delightedly accepted.Robert reached the Seminary next morning about a half hour before the time for

the address. As he was passing the Seminary post-office one of the students - a

youth with whom he had had a number of friendly chats - approached with an

opened letter in his hands. He was a senior and expected to complete his course at

the end of that first semester.

"Hello, Bolton," he said, "I'm suffering from an embarrassment of riches."

"You don't seem to have a very sever attack of embarrassment," replied Robert,

somewhat dryly. "What is she writing? Has she decided to accept you, for better or

worse?"



33

"There are two of them and both have decided to take me if they can get anaffirmative answer. But the two she's are churches."

"Aha! So you've got two calls. You are in demand but cannot tell which to accept.

Is that the situation.?"

"Yes, but I think I know which one I will accept. One of the churches is on the

highway - in the Christ-centered section, as it is called. The other church is in the

West - far removed from this section both geographically and Biblically, orspiritually. Of course I incline strongly to the church on this road."

"On this road?" asked Robert in surprise. "I thought you would say the other

church call."

"In my fist pastorate I need all the help I can get and I yearn for the fe llowship and

stimulus of the godly people of this section."

"I, too, would like to have such fellowship and stimulus," said Robert slowly and

thoughtfully, "but I have made up my mind to settle, if the Lord so wills, in the

Western country where the need seems so great."

By this time they had reached the auditorium, and Robert and his companion went

in with the crowd that was pressing its way into the hall. They found no opportunity

to continue their conversation as they moved toward seats near the front. The room

was quickly filled, and when Dr. Wilton came upon the platform many persons werestanding.



34

Chapter IX

DOCTOR WILSON

Robert found his gaze caught and held by Dr. Wilton's face. It had in it a light that

spoke of a great soul behind it that could tell of rich past experiences. After a brief introduction, Dr. Wilton came forward and spoke as follows:

"Young gentlemen, my message can be stated substantially in one sentence. It is

this: You must preach an infinitely larger Christ that is usually preached today. The

present tragedy in the pulpit is the belittling of Christ. Not intentionally, but

preachers present a little Christ compared with the real Christ of the Bible. One

reason is that when they read about Him in the Bible they do not let Him loom before

them in all His titanic, yea, infinite proportions. He is very God as well as very man.

He was made flesh, but He was God in the flesh, Immanuel, God with us. Preachers

will usually admit that, but do they have him as such before their mind as they study

about Him in the Bible? So often a preacher, in reading, say, the story of the

conversation between Christ and Nicodemus, will have in his mind merely two men

sitting and talking with each other, one of them Jesus of Nazareth, a kind, wise,powerful person, the other a Jewish ruler. But that Person talking to Nicodemus was

more than that. He had in Him the Godhead. God, the Father, and God the Holy

Spirit, was then in Him. That person, Jesus, caused, by a word, storms to be silent.

He called dead people back to life. It was through Him that the universe was made

and is ever sustained - 'upheld by the Word of His Power.' Do we have such a Being

- let me repeat - before our minds as we read about Him? Do we realize that the

person who one day entered the home of Martha and Mary, who also sa t on the well

and talked with the sinful woman, had in Him, at His command, all the forces and

powers of heaven?

"Many read that story with a little Christ before them - merely one person among

others, and how glibly and irreverently they speak of Jesus even as they preach about

Him! If, however, they were asked if He is a divine Person they would exclaim thatHe was God in the flesh, but that idea seems to recede from the front of their minds

when they start to read the Gospels, leaving a small Christ in their thoughts.

"If we are to preach the real Christ, Whom all heaven adores and wonders at and

the evil spirits tremble before, we must sweep out the limits of our present Christ to

infinite proportions. The people in Christ's day were constantly marveling at the

things He said and did. 'What manner of man is this?' cried His apostles, 'even the

winds and waves obey Him.'

"Young gentlemen, bring no little Christ with you into your pulpit. I am not

surprised that the world is not more drawn to Him. The real Christ is not presented.

You ought to study the Christ in the Bible with an ever growing sense of wonder,

and you should tremble as you seek to present such a Being to finite human beings.Your congregation should be filled with a sense of reverential awe as you present

Him. It is a monumental task you have accepted, that of holding before the public

the crucified and glorified Son of God. What do you really know about Him that you

can preach? How deeply have you seen into His mysterious Personality?

"This belittling of Christ - and God also - is widespread. It is too often a 'Godlet,'

and a 'Christlet,' that is preached. No wonder that atheism seems to be spreadingamong university and college students when we think of the kind of Christ, or God,

that many of these students have been hearing about in their home churches. If the

preachers of this type were stopped and questioned as to their estimate of Christ, they

would undoubtedly lift Him to high levels and many would accord to Him the large

estimate that the Bible gives Him. But the present-day tendency to treat everything

in the Bible from the human standpoint is causing many preachers to allow the

infinitely larger aspects of Christ to fade from their picture as it becomes easier and

easier to see Jesus in the Bible merely asanother person. 'The Galilean has become

too great for our small hearts,' said H. G. Wells. We need not be surprised, therefore,

that the Christ of the pulpit today, and we might say of the Sunday-school classes

also, is not powerfully attracting the world. I would like to set on fire within you the

fact that if you expect to preach the Christ of the Bible you must get ready to preachan infinite Being. You must read again you four Gospels and, as you read, the Jesus

of these pages must loom before you in His infinite proportions. As you see Him,

for example, entering the home at Bethany, or conversing with Nicodemus, or

talking with the woman, you must, of course, see Him there as a person withhuman

characteristics, but also - ah, that 'also' - as a Being having in Himself all the fullness

of the Godhead bodily.

"We handle the Son of God jauntily in our reading and preaching. We talk about

Him as if we knew all about Him and had Him in our hands and under our protection

and patronage - almost as if we had compassed, with out little intellects, the entire

circuit of His nature and could easily explain Him. If you are to present the Christ of

the Bible, then - let me repea t it - you must push out all your previous mental Christ-

circles and horizons and let them expand into infinity beyond the reach of humancomprehension. As the heavens are high above the earth, so high are His ways

above your ways. You simply have the indescribable One to describe. You can

point upwards in His direction as you see the outskirts, as it were, of His beauty,

grace, and power. May I give my testimony that my Bible has been transformed into

a gloriously new Book as I have been reading about Christ in it and thinking of Him

as the infinite Christ. As the human Christ also? Yes, but also and pre-eminently as

the infinite Christ.

"When I read, for example, of Christ selecting His Twelve Apostles, I have before

me the thought: How little do those twelve men realize Who it is that is selecting

them. When I read about Pilate hesitating to set Christ free, I think, 'Suppose Pilate



35

had discovered the that Prisoner Whom he was treating so brutally andcontemptuously had descended from the eternal world and that all the powers of

heaven were stirring within Him?' He would probably then have fallen at His feet

with a cry for mercy.

"It might mark a new era for Christendom if next Sunday the preachers should, in

genuine awe and humility, announce to their audiences that they were unable to

present Christ to them, that He towered in every direction infinitely beyond their ken.It might bring preachers and people to their knees in penitential surrender. Paul

sought to know Christ and probably went farther in that direction than any others.

He sought to know the love of Christ but declared that it was past knowledge. Late

in his life he said that he had not yet apprehended what Christ had in mind for him

when He converted him and that he was still yearning to know Him and the power of

His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings.

"Some people seem to think that when they admit certain facts about Christ - His

walking on the sea, for example, or His rising from the dead, or His having been sent

by the Father as the Savior of men - that they are making a wonderful concession in

His favor. But such concessions scarcely touch the hem of His infinitude. Listen to

the eminent Pascal as he says, 'Reality infinitely surpasses our conception of it.' It is

time we Christians ceased claiming, or expecting, to comprehend Christ. If youwould gain a faint idea of the immensity of the Christ whom you are expecting to

preach, think, for example, of the vastness of His program. He it is who, in the

beginning, as the second person of the Trinity - He, in association with the Father -

planned the He would come to earth in human form and, in unspeakable suffering,

rescue this rebellious race and bring believers into a glorious, and infinitely glorious,

heaven. He entered death, shattered its power, arose, and ascended to heaven where

He sits enthroned in splendor.

"Consider His dealings with the race when on earth. See the high standards He set

before men. 'Be ye also perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.' See the

prayer that He gave - that God's will should be done on earth as it is done in heaven.

As the result of such startling statements the people of that day were in a continual

state of amazement. 'Never man spake like this man,' was their verdict. Often weread about the people marveling at His words, asking 'How can these things be?' and

'What manner of man is this?'

"And yet we today, reading these same words in the Gospels, do we marvel and

wonder at them? Ah, no. We often read them in nonchalant fashion and bandy them

about our lips as if we understood them easily. Someone said that 'God today is

dethroned in place of emancipated man' and he might have added, 'dethroned in

place of the small Jesus of our own construction.'

"What made Mr. Moody such a big preacher was the bigness of the Christ whom

he preached. He flung off all limits from around the Savior. For example, he said

that it was well the Christ in calling Lazarus from the dead called the word 'Lazarus,'

for otherwise all the inhabitants of the death-world might have sprung into life. Thatwas the kind of Christ Moody believed in and preached. Read his sermons and see

his unbounded admiration and reverence for his Master. He thought of Christ in

terms of the infinite, and that is what you and I must do. 'You remember,' said

Moody in one of his addresses, 'That when Christ expired (on the cross) the light of

the world went out.'

"Think of the infinite terms in which Christ spoke of His love for His people: 'Asthe Father love Me, so have I loved you.' Are you ready to preach the Being who

said of Himself, 'The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into His power'?

'I and the Father are one.' When you read your Bible can you conceive of the nature

of Him who said, 'Before Abraham was, I am'?

"See Him, just before ascending to heaven, saying to His disciples, 'All power is

given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all the nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am

with you alway, even unto the end of the world.' Is not the thought of such a Being

as the subject of our sermons enough to set us wild and to fling us upon our faces

crying for purity and power?

"But, turn your thoughts toward Christ, now in heaven and behold the estimate putupon Him there. Compare the Christ of present-day preaching with the Christ

yonder as the Lamb in the midst of the throne, with angels and archangels and the

redeemed, ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands - a multitude

no man can number, casting their crowns before Him and crying, "Worthy is the

Lamb that hath been slain to receive the power and riches and wisdom and might and

honor and glory and blessing.' Hear that uncounted host of the redeemed -redeemed

through the sufferings of Him upon whom they are now in grateful rapture gazing as

they sing, 'Unto Him that sitteth on the throne and unto the Lamb be the praise and

the honor, and the glory, and the dominion forever and ever.' As you hear the praises

of Christ by the heavenly chorus will you speak of Him in your sermons in the

belittling terms in which He is so often presented today?

"Hear the rapturous Spurgeon, as, with the irresistible love of the Savior filling hisheart, he exclaims: 'Oh, that I had a crown to cast at His feet. Oh, that I could make

new songs to be sung before Him. Oh, that I could write fresh music for angelic

harps! Oh, for the power to live, to die, to labor, to suffer as unto Him and unto Him

alone!'

"Listen again to this marvelous preacher as he exclaims: 'Who shall pile a

monument worthy of the Savior who did so much "for your sakes"? Who shall

compose a song sweet enough for the Christ of God who came for our redemption?

Who shall sound the trumpet loudly enough for Immanuel, who, though He was rich,

yet for our sakes became poor? Who shall bring offerings of gold and frankincense

rich enough for Him who gave up all for His people? Crown Him, ye angels! Ye



36

seraphim, adorn Him! O God, Thou alone can give Him the meed of honor whichHe merits. Glory be to His name forever!'

"But perhaps you are crying in your soul, 'I can't preach such a Christ. Who am I

that I should seek to take such a Name on my lips? I know so little about Him I

know not what words to use. I do not love Him as I should. Far, far from it. My

heart is cold and selfish and proud.'

"Ah, it is vastly colder and prouder and more selfish than you have any idea.Think of how it must look to the angels in that pure heaven to see preachers here in

the pulpit with such cold, indifferent hearts trying to hold up the incomparable

Christ. What does Christ Himself think of such preaching by those who wear his

livery?

"But now let us come to grips with the heart of this matter, a matter that has to do

wit time and eternity, with heaven and hell. I charge you unless you can preach the

infinite Christ you should keep out of the pulpit."

"On that basis," you exclaim, "we will not have many young entering the ministry."

"That might be a blessing. One preacher of the right kind would 'chase a thousand

and two would put ten thousand to flight.' Who, in heaven, has declared that we

must have a multitude of preachers? Oh, we are such champions of numbers and

size! The ministerial gate is flung wide open today. The tragedy is that so manywho enter are not prepared. About the only word we have in the Bible concerning

the number of preachers to be admitted is the command, 'Lay hands suddenly on no

man.' When did the Master ever open the door for such an unending procession? He

selected only twelve men and trained them by three years' companionship and

instruction and put his program into their hands, and it looked as if upon only four or

five of them He afterwards could depend. But see what these few accomplished in

His hands! Consider what one lone preacher, Paul, achieved in planting and

spreading christianity throughout Asia and Europe, and the big fact was that it was

genuine Christianity he and the others spread. It wasChrist ianity and not the

standardized, man-centered religion that we often find today.

"Ah, no, gentlemen, it is not more preachers that we need but a special few. Even

one or two like Moody or Spurgeon might lift the christian level higher throughoutthe world and spread the Master's kingdom more generally than millions of

unprepared preachers could do. We are eager today for a Christianity that can be

tabulated and reported and published. It is enough to make heaven weep to see how

its brightest jewel, the Lamb on the throne, is treated."



37

Chapter X

DOCTOR WILSON (continued)

"We hear much about mass movements. Christian progress comes not usually in

that fashion. But there is one mass movement of preachers - if it would startspontaneously, under the Spirit's prompting in individual hearts - that I would like to

see. It would be a movement of preachers going outside of their pulpits and

churches into the world to make an impact upon the world with Christ. I would like

to see Christ thrust into the midst of the subjects, plans, ideas, theories, systems, and

general clashings of peoples that are keeping the nations in turmoil today. This little

piddling, in so many pulpits, with the infinite Son of God in little so-called sermons

within church walls is proving a joke and a farce in the eyes of the sin-sick, blind,

panic-stricken nations.

"But suppose Christ could really and powerfully be forced, thrust, pressed into the

midst of the other forces in Europe now challenging the nations. We are dealing in

large ways with everything except in our dealings with Christ. He came and died on

Calvary that He might set the nations free, but alas He is not allowed to get at thenations. The feeling throughout the heavenly courts must be, 'He went down to earth

but is not given a chance.' I can imagine the angels crowding about the throne and

almost frantically pleading to be sent with the tidings of salvation to the nations on

earth. But man, saved, redeemed man, is the enemy in the way. We are keeping the

world's Savior locked within our churches and bringing Him out of His secret place

occasionally to the members. What a farce does our present-day Christianity present

to the world and to heaven! Who will dare to assert that a people who could in the

late World War fling themselves into that war from these American shores, denying

themselves at every turn that we might clear the track and send tens of hundreds of

thousands of our soldiers across the waters to carry standards we then considered

high and world wide in their blessings, and to die if necessary, in carrying them to

victory - who will dare assert, I say, that an American people who arose and with oneunited, might impulse went across the seas to a military triumph, could not now

precipitate a movement throughout our continent and across the seas to other lands

for a triumph that would be world wide and would carry light and love and eternal

salvation to tens of millions with the banner of our Savior waving victoriously?

"Oh, not that we could now bring the millennium (though I dare not put limits to

our possibilities, under the Spirit) but a transformation would undoubtedly be made

that would change this poor war-torn world into a world flashing with the light of the

glory of God.

"Let us not deny it. Let us simply admit that we are not passionately devoted to

Christ. We do not really care. We are busy with our own petty concerns and our

little preachments and even smaller practices and our church machineries and ourworship of our statistics and our reputations.

"My dear young brethren, the only word now that I can give you is that you must

either get ready to preach this infinite Christ or you must step aside. I dare not give

you any lower counsel. The most high-handed presumption of a youth today is for

him to climb up into a pulpit to present the Son of God without the necessary

spiritual equipment. We talk glibly about the angels not being fitted for preachingthe Redeemer but that that high work was committed to redeemed men on earth.

True, but what kind of men? Can you present this Christ to mortal, hungry men?

Can you, in preaching Christ, have Him filling your soul? Such spiritual equipment

should be at the heart of your theological education.

"Does someone of you say, 'I can't reach that high point, Dr. Wilton. That is for

the saintly, highly gifted preachers. And yet, Imust preach Christ, and with the

seminary instruction, preach just as I am. I can't make myself over, and I can't keep

out of the pulpit. I must preach the gospel of my Savior. If I cannot blow the golden

trumpet of Paul and John, I must at least blow my little reed lute.'

"No, no, no, my young brother. Of course there will be differences in human

talents as regards public speech but as regards preaching the true Christ of the Bible,

there can be no compromise. We would better have only five preachers in America,yes, only five, with all the others stepping aside, if those five were Spirit-filled

gospel firebrands whom Christ was using to start a Pentecostal conflagration that

would spread throughout America. I use the word 'Pentecostal' as pointing to that

power which came down on the day of Pentecost. Preaching the true Christ requires

a definite, heaven-born preparation - and now I am asking your closest, prayerful

attention. that special preparation is available for all young preachers who will pay

the necessary high price. but it is an enormous price, and it is the refusal to pay it

that is giving us such an ineffective ministry in many pulpits today. Do you ask what

that high price is? Do you really wish to know? Are you ready to take you life in

your hands, young men, however drastic may be the experience? Well, then, listen

and Christ, not I will tell you.

"He named the price to the apostles, and they paid it. They like you, were eager tobegin preaching the wonderful gospel. They had been trained for three years by the

Master Himself. Ah, how ardently we would have ordained such men and flung

open the ministry to them; but not so with Christ. He commanded them to go not

one step but to tarry at Jerusalem until - until what? Until they had graduated in

Hebrew, Greek, and Church History? No. These are richly important, but they are

not essential. What did the apostles have to wait for? It wasthe baptism of the Holy

Spirit! That, and that alone, was the price Christ demanded of them. They - oh

glorious fact - did wait and ten days later the Holy Spirit descended and they were

filled with the Spirit. They were instantly transformed into new preachers. They



38

themselves were turned upside down and went forth and turned the world upsidedown by preaching and especially by their living the incomparable Christ.

"Young gentlemen, there is your challenge. If you wish to compromise and be

content with a ministry without that power from above then you are not worthy to

present the Christ of the Bible. 'I don't believe,' said Mr. Moody, 'that a man, or

woman, is fit for God's service until he has been anointed. Christ Himself did not

begin to work until He had been baptized with the Spirit for service.' Will you let theHoly Spirit, who dwells within you, take complete control that He may empty you of

your plans, thoughts, and ideals - that is, of all the e lements of your old Adam nature,

and fill and empower you? Now, that means a complete overturning, a spiritual

upheaval. That means the crucifixion of self, - a spiritual revolution within you.

"Concerning a similar revolution in Mr. Moody's life, he said, referring to it in later

years, 'Right there, D. L. Moody died.' Only by such a surrender can you become

prepared for your heavenly task. You, yourself, cannot even perform the crucifixion

of self. Only the Holy Spirit, who ever dwells within you, can do that, and He waits

for your absolute surrender, or giving up and letting go. Down in the dust, at your

extremity, God is waiting for you with His power. Right down there in that dust is

the storm-center on your battlefield. Right there you must either lose or win the

victory, down there where Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Paul won their victory.Someone said that the Protestant Reformation was born in Martin Luther's prayer

closet. So also your new life, in preaching the infinite Christ, must find its birth in

'the secret place.'

"I spoke of the great D. L. Moody and his spiritual transformation. He was

changed from a young minister, exulting in his own talents and successes and

popularities into a Spirit-filled giant who went forth and shook Great Britain, as well

as America, wit his proclamation of the infinite Christ. He afterwards declared that

he would not be back in his former ministry for all that the world could give him.

Concerning that earlier ministry, he said. 'The first few years of my Christian life I

was all the time lugging and carrying water, but now I have a river that carries me.'

Surely the words of such a man are well worth considering. 'If a man is not filled

with the Spirit,' said Mr. Moody, 'he will never know how to use the Book.' Againhe says, 'You will find all through the Scriptures that when men were filled with the

Holy Spirit they preached Christ and not themselves.' 'A man working without this

unction, a man working without this anointing, a man working without this Holy

Ghost upon him, is losing his time after all. It is not hard work that breaks down

ministers, but it is the toil of working without power.'

"Does your soul cry out: 'Tell us how to secure this power for preaching the

glorious Christ?' 'Death to self,' says Mr. Moody; 'that is what it means. God never

yet lifted up a man that He did not cast him down, first; never. Self must be

annihilated. When we get to the end of our power, then it is that the power of God is

manifested in us...Oh, may this fire come upon us and burn up all our own strength

and wisdom!' Thus speaks the man whom God used in marvelous, yea, inmiraculous power, in Great Britain as well as America.

"But, you ask, 'I feel so helpless and ignorant as regards such a spiritual adventure.

What can I do?'

"'If you want the Holy Spirit above everything else,' says Mr. Moody, 'then nothing

else will satisfy you.'"

"And now my final word, into which I would put all my heart: The world is inchaos today and the church is almost in that condition. What do we see in Europe?

Christians killing Christians and thereby (unconsciously) trampling upon Christ's

Love-Program which was preached and taught in the churches. The Church, here in

the United States seems ready to do the same if the government should declare war.

"If Christ and His love had been properly, adequately preached, the world and the

church would not be in their present condition. My young brethren, are you prepared

to go forth and preach Christ triumphantly? Can you thrust upon the attention of the

public the infinite Christ of the Bible, - the Prince of Peace? Will you get ready to

do this?

"If Moses, Gideon, Isaiah, Jeremiah shrank back in horror at the thought of

attempting, by their personal talents, to represent the great God and deliver His

message and do His work; and if the eleven apostles (boon companions of Christ fornearly three years) were forbidden by Him to begin preaching until they had received

this heavenly 'enduement with power' - then I leave with you this question: Will you

dare enter the pulpit before receiving this heavenly equipment?

A hush lay upon the audience. The young preacher seemed startled. Instead of a

rush to the platform with congratulations for the speaker - although a number did go

forward to him - there was a quiet exodus of the young ministers in a manner

suggesting the 'secret place' as their objective.

Robert went home with the Carroll's in their car. As they entered the front door

Robert said to the Doctor, "Doctor Carroll, may I see you at once in your office?"

"I'm in great perplexity and real pain," he said after they were seated. "Since your

talks with me and after that address this morning I don't know what to do. I'm

miserable, for the path before me is all dark. I fear that I ought never to have startedin such a work. Ah, that infinite Christ! I know He is also human and is touched

with a feeling of our infirmity. But He is also God, towering above me and my

abilities and perceptions in every direction, and I know that He is calling upon those

who would be His witnesses to become filled with the Holy Spirit. I am eager to

preach. Oh, what shall I do?

"Christ commands you to wait for this spiritual enduement. Are you going ahead

trying to preach Christ as you are and disregard His command?"

"No, No. No," cried Robert as he sank to his knees before the Doctor. "Never will

I go one step until God gives me this power. O Doctor, won't you pray for me?

Right now, please pray for me. Ask God to take me and break me and do anything



39

with me that is necessary for me to get this heavenly Power. Not for myself. Ah, Isee it all now. I have loved myself rather than Christ," he exclaimed with a heart-

breaking sob. "I have hadmy plans rather than His. I hate myself. Of course I am

not fit to take that holy name on my lips in preaching Him. All that I can say to Him

is, 'O God, be merciful to me a sinner.'"

Down on his knees sank Doctor Carroll, and with his arms around Robert's

shoulder, he poured out his heart in prayer for Robert, and Robert sent up his cry forthe heavenly anointing.

After a few moments he arose and, with trembling body and speech, and with

miser in his face, he said: "Doctor Carroll, I would like to stay here on my knees all

night and tomorrow until I get rid of this burden. But of course I can not do that. I

must get to my room now and stay there until I get this power; and my purpose is not

to go into any pulpit until God takes hold of me and makes me an instrument that He

can use." Then with a groan he exclaimed: "How I will ever get my proud, head-

strong, sinful self out of the way of Christ's Spirit to take full charge of me is to me a

big mystery.

In a moment he was gone and in his room, throughout the night and into the next

day, the battle went on - the battle of prayer and surrender. Late in the evening of

the next day, as he was pleading with God to "break and bend" him and empty andcleanse and fill him, there gradually settled in his heart a quiet peace and assurance,

as the Spirit seemed to say to him: "Go and I will be with you." And in his heart

Robert said: "I will."

Right there and then the Spirit of Christ captured another young preacher, and

filled him with His power and from that moment, Robert Bolton, for thirty-five

years, Christ was given His opportunity.

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Christ in the Marvelous BOOK by E.B. Hatcher

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