Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1910-06-03

'?VE71T
CALLED TO BE WITNESS.
Bv Rev. Arthur T. Pierson, d. d.
And We shall be witnesses nto me.

d 'h l., o..
.r word witness" is one of the
words of the Bible. 1t Is found
east a hundred times in the Old
md New Testaments with reference to
testimony to God; and the thought
Nat lies beneath the word is simply
ling out what We know, Tor Whlch
child is COMPETENT, and for which
u the greatest man is no more thar
competent. TO know something about
God and tell what we knoW-that IS
witness in the Irua Biblical sens"
There is the relation OF tn" witness
to God Himself "Ye are My Wiin"sa-
cs, saith the ord. We shall b" wat
nesscs unto Me-" God depends upon
human witnesses; the Lord Jesus
Christ is dependent upon His follow
crs for witnessing OF Him % 2 dying
world. If We do MOI "J,s;!':. Tor I'll"
Lord by lin or pen. how is IL" going TO
proclaim His gracious GDsr"!? rms
great work of witnessing is IN" mag
n~ificent and ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Work or
Christians individually and col!ec'IVt-
ly. AS long as the church rests upon
the rock-foundatiOn Of Peters COMICS
sion, Thou art he Christ, tn" Son or
the living GOd"-,he foundation upon
which our Lord said He would build
His church-''the gates Of hell h
not prevail against IT," but it shall
stand unaffected by ~demoniacal rage
and malice.
What is all work for God, but a wit
ness to the fact that He has a claim
on our service? Witness is expansive,
expulsive and explosive. Witness
makes us greater men and women, it
enlarges our experience, it dsopens orr
sense of God, it closely Identifies Us
with the Faithful and True Witness,
the very amen of God. Witness
casts out trifing, hinderjng. enslav-
ing, d~efling things; it makes it L1I)os-
sible for us to follow the idols Of the
world. If we have really got the love
Of God in our hearts we sha be con
strained to witness for Him.
The greatest witness in the Word
of God, next TO the Lord Jesus Christ,
is not Paul the apostle, but the dying
thief. We have long deprecated the
penitent thief. There was the dark
ness over all the earth. there was the
dying Christ, and even the disciples
themselves had given up their hops
that Christ was He who should have
redeemed Israel" Perhaps that peni-
tent thief had never seen Christ be-
fore, or, at best, only in the course of
the trial, when the Christ said: Il am
a King; My kingdom is not of this
world" He had no opportunity, for
aught we know, of any acquaintance
with the Lord Jesus Christ or with
His teaching. And yet, while the other
m~alefactor rallied on Him, he gave his
witness, even before he had the Lords
assurance and blessing. He said:
Doth not thou fear God, seeing thou
art in the same condemnation? And
we indeed justly, for We receive the
due reward of our deeds; but this Man
hath done nothing amiss." What a
melting testimony! A thief dying on "a
cross and Jesus Christ dying beside
him, he not knowing the person of
Christ or His character, never having
ever sat under His teaching; and yet
that poor penitent thief saw a King in
the dying Jesus, and that death and
burial we're the ushering Of the King
into His kingdom. He says: Lord,
remember me when Thou contest into
Thy kingdom" There is hardly any
thing more pathetic and melting and
marvellous in the whole Of the New
Testament than that penitent thief's
testimony and prayer.
The next most marvellous witness
in the New Testament is the blind
man, John 8. Eight times he witness
ed to Christ. He witnessed to his own
identity-to the cure and the name
Of it; he repeated that witness before
the Pharisees; he bore his witness 70
Christ as a prophet; he bore his wit
ness to Christ as his Master. The
words: "Will ye also be His d~isciples?"
showed that he had virtually accepted
Him as his Master; he confessed Him
as the greatest miracle-worker since
the world began; he confessed Him as
a righteous Man; he owned Him prob
ably as Messiah when he said. IF this
Man were not from God, H. could do
nothing" These eight times he wit
| messed to Christ, and when our Lord
found him cast out, He said: "Dost
thou believe on the Son of God?" and
the man said: who is He, Lord, that I
might believe on Him." he was in an
attitude of craving new light and
knowledge, that he might obey. The
Lord Jesus said to him: Thou hast
both seer Him, and it is He thai now
talketh with thee" And he said,
Lord I believe. And he worshipped
Him" All that probably took place in
the course of a few hours, and the man
gained more light every time lie tes-
titled. -5,N.
/ Experience enriches testimony, but
testimony enriches experience. Every
time he confessed something that he
found, the Lord revealed to him ON
thing he had not previously known.
Many people keep silence because they
think they do not know anything; but
they do not know more because they
keep silence.
Yet it is a dangerous thing to give
what is not a sincere expression of ex-
perience. To talk about and pray for
conservation, while your neighbors and
family know that you are carnal-it is
a dangerous thing to yourself and hurt-
full to other people. Lot was twenty
years in Sodom, and he never saved
a sou1 that we know of IF he had