The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1908-02-27


to It and climb the embankment you
will get good drink. The evangellstlc
church is a reservoir Of pure water
with a pipe to every heart in the coIi-
munity and every nation in the world
Evangelical may mean truth on Ice;
evangelistic means truth on fire.
Evangelical may mean bomh-prooI
for defense; evangelistic means an
army on the march with every FACE
toward the foe.
Evangelical sings: Hold the fort
for l am coming" evangelistic sings:
storm the fort, for God is leading
The need of the church is not evan
gelicalism as a thing to fight for. but
evangelism as force to fight with.
The evangelical creed merely held
and defended becomes fossil. 0niy
thing of interest; but the evangelistic
life which feeds upon evangehcal
truth is force against which the
gates of hell cannot prevail.
An evangelical may be mere for
malist and there is no recognition OF
him in the New Testament, except as
he is rebuked; but New Testament
evangelist is man full of the life OF
God and making alive those. to whom
he ministers.
What 1t Means.
1t is certainly more than inducing
person to join the church. That is im-
portant. There are too many believers
who attend churches and refuse to be-
come an organic part Of any one.
They are spiritual pleasure seekers.
They are gospel tasters. They look
at the papers and go where the sub
iect or the music seems most attrac-
tive. At best they are only bush
whackers" and ought somehow to be
pressed into the regular army. One
shall chase thousand, and two put
ten thousand to fight" that is, two
together are ten times stronger than
one alone. Organization multiplies
your influence by ten. You have no
right, therefore, to remain outside the
organized church of Christ. But you
can join the church, be baptized and
partake of the Lords Supper without
being Christian. We may make our
churches so worldly in spirit that
worldly people will feel perfectly at
home as members of them. They be-
come adherents, and adheNents, you
know, are barnacles tha Nelp to sink
the ship. The real convert has be-
come a "partaker Of the divine ma
Lure." e Peter 1:4) He has been
born from above" Uohn 3:3) There
will be conviction of SIN.
You Must Accept.
Conviction of sin, however, is not
enough. .'As many as received him.
to them gave he the power to become
the sons of GOD, even to them that
believing on his name" tJohn 1:2.D
There must be acceptance of Jesus
Christ. Even turning from sin is not
sufficient. God did not tell the bitten
Israelites merely to look away from
the bite of the serpent, but to look to
the serpent of brass III lifted in the
camp. Reformation is simply turning
from sin; regeneration is turning from
sin unto Christ. Reformation is white
washing; regeneration is washing
white. To reform is to remain de-
| formed; to be born again by faith in
the uplifted Jesus is to take into our
hearts the life that will make Christly
character.
You Must Have New Birth.
Jesus said: Come ye after me and
| will make you to became fishers of
men," Now, it is not our mission to
/ reed fish, that is, 60 cultivate the nat
ural man until he has so greatly I'M
proved that he may be labeled q
Christian The fish that live in the
lower realm Of darkness, grub and
gravel must be transformed by the
new birth into sheep fitted for the
higher realm of landscape, sun and
sky. The Babel process of reaching
heaven by building up from beneath
is not the New Testament method.
"Ye must be born from above" George
Whitfield preached over 800 times
from this text, and, when asked whv
he had preached so often from the
same text, he replied: Because We
must be born again" Christ can en-
ter the hearts of the vilest and make
them sons of God. The need of the
day is re-emphasis of sudden in.
stantaneous conversion, a crisis with a
view to a process Of growth. There
is no growing into it, but there Is i'm.
mense growth in it.
The Secret of Power.
Back of real evangelism is a pravins
| church. Back of the reformation nj
the sixteenth century were the cal.
loused knees of Philip Melancthoa and
the "Bene orasse est bene studisse'
ito have prayed we'll is to have stnd.
led welD Of Martin Luther. II was
not the thunderbolt Of Luther's ana.
thema, but the power of persistent
prayer that gave a new sunrise n
the church of Christ The habit ot
Jonn wesley was TO rise for PRAYER
and meditation every morning at -four
| o'clock.
There never was a genuine revival
of Christianity which did not have its
roots in prayer. | would draw a dis
tinction between Christianity and reli
gion. The religious instinct, which il
natural to all men and is sometimes
welded to lust and worldliness. ma,
be revived even without the new
birth. The enjoyment of beautiful
church architecture, with a willing
ness to pay for it, the pleasure Of lis
tening to sweet nusic and eloouenI
preaching, and willingness to wor
ship the God of nature, are not proOt.
that one has been born again