“Go into the Highways and Hedges”
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Thousands can be reached in the most simple and humble way.
The most intellectual, those who are looked upon as the world’s most
gifted men and women, are often refreshed by the simple words of
one who loves God, and who can speak of that love as naturally as the
worldling speaks of the things that interest him most deeply.
Often the words well prepared and studied have but little influence.
But the true, honest expression of a son or daughter of God, spoken
in natural simplicity, has power to unbolt the door to hearts that have
long been closed against Christ and His love.
Let the worker for Christ remember that he is not to labor in his
own strength. Let him lay hold of the throne of God with faith in His
power to save. Let him wrestle with God in prayer, and then work with
all the facilities God has given him. The Holy Spirit is provided as his
efficiency. Ministering angels will be by his side to impress hearts.
If the leaders and teachers at Jerusalem had received the truth
Christ brought, what a missionary center their city would have been!
Backslidden Israel would have been converted. A vast army would
have been gathered for the Lord. And how rapidly they could have
carried the gospel to all parts of the world. So now, if men of influence
and large capacity for usefulness could be won for Christ, then through
them what a work could be accomplished in lifting up the fallen,
gathering in the outcasts, and spreading far and wide the tidings of
salvation. Rapidly the invitation might be given, and the guests be
gathered for the Lord’s table.
But we are not to think only of great and gifted men, to the neglect
of the poorer classes. Christ instructs His messengers to go also to
those in the byways and hedges, to the poor and lowly of the earth.
In the courts and lanes of the great cities, in the lonely byways of the
country, are families and individuals—perhaps strangers in a strange
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land—who are without church relations, and who, in their loneliness,
come to feel that God has forgotten them. They do not understand
what they must do to be saved. Many are sunken in sin. Many are in
distress. They are pressed with suffering, want, unbelief, despondency.
Disease of every type afflicts them, both in body and in soul. They
long to find a solace for their troubles, and Satan tempts them to seek
it in lusts and pleasures that lead to ruin and death. He is offering them
the apples of Sodom, that will turn to ashes upon their lips. They are