Notice, next, that you will be denying all claim on your part to divine mercy; because if you will not render mercy to others, and if you deny altogether your responsibility to others, you put yourself into the position of saying, “I need nothing from another”—consequently, nothing from God. Such mercy as you show, such mercy shall you have. The question is not what will become of the heathen if you do not teach them; the great question is what will become of you if you do not do it? If you let sinners die, what will become of you? There is the point. You put yourself out of the reach of mercy, because you yourself refuse to render it. When you bow your knee in prayer you curse yourself, for you ask God to forgive your debts as you forgive your debtors, and thus in effect you ask him to deal with you as you are dealing with others. What mercy, then, can you expect?
Indeed, there is this about it too—that it is something like throwing the blame of your own sin upon God if you allow men and women to perish. When Cain said, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” he meant, probably, “You are the preserver of men. Why did you not preserve Abel? I am not his keeper.” Some throw on the sovereignty of God the weight which lies on their own indolence. If one soul perishes without being taught the gospel, you cannot fling the weight of that fact upon divine sovereignty until the Christian church has done her utmost to make the gospel known. If we had all done all that could be done—I mean all of us who are believers—and yet souls perished, the blame would lie with men themselves; but wherein we fall short, to that degree we are our brother’s keeper, and we must not accuse the Lord.
And again, there is to my mind an utter ignoring of the whole plan of salvation in that man who says, “I am not going to have any responsibility about others,” because the whole plan of salvation is based on substitution, on the care of another for us, on the sacrifice of another for us; and the whole spirit of it is self-sacrifice and love to others. If you say, “I will not love”—well, the whole system goes together and you, renounce it all, if you will not love, therefore you cannot have love’s benediction. If you will not love you cannot be saved by love; and if you believe that the Christian faith leaves you unloving and selfish and yet takes you to heaven, you have made a mistake. There is no such religion propagated by the word of God, for the religion of Jesus teaches that since Christ has so loved us we are therefore to love one another, and to love the ungodly so as to endeavor to bring them to the feet of the Savior. God grant that these words may have a beneficial effect by the Spirit of God applying them to your souls.
Last of all, it may turn out that if we are not our brother’s keeper we may be our brother’s murderer. Have any of us been so already? When were you converted? Will you kindly look back to your sins before conversion? He must be a very happy man who did not before conversion commit sins which injured others; and there are some persons whose lives before they turned to Christ were frightfully blended with the career of others whom they have left in the gall of bitterness to perish. I have seen bitter tears shed by men who have led wicked lives when they have remembered others with whom they sinned. “I am forgiven: I am saved,” one has said to me. “But what about that poor girl? “ One man has been an infidel and he has led others into infidelity, and he has been saved himself but he cannot bring those back again whom he tutored in atheism. Before conversion you may have murdered many a soul. Ought not this to stir you up to seek now, if possible, as much as lies with you, to bring those to Christ whom once you led away, and to teach the living word since once you taught the deadly word which ruined souls? Much solemn thought ought to arise out of this. Pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to work by you to the salvation of those whom your evil influence drew towards the pit.
But what shall be said of our conduct since we have been converted? May we not have helped to murder souls since then? I tell you a cold-hearted Christian makes unbelievers think that Christianity is a lie. Inconsistent Christians—and there are such—woe, woe that it should be so!—bad-tempered, covetous people, sarcastic, snarling persons, who we hope may be the Lord’s people, what shall we say of these? How little they are like their Master, they are the propagators of death. I do believe that nobody is more mischievous than a person who is barely a Christian, or almost a Christian, and continually shows his wicked side to the world while yet he boasts of his holiness in Christ. He disgusts the world with the name of Jesus. Perhaps some of you have backslidden since your conversion and you have committed acts which have made the enemy to blaspheme the name of Christ. I charge you by the love of God repent of this iniquity. Look at what you have done. Look at how you have led others astray. Oh see to it at once. You know that when David had sinned with Bathsheba he repented and was forgiven, but he could never make poor murdered Uriah live again. He was dead. You may have gone astray and damaged a soul eternally, and you cannot undo the deed. Still, if you cannot revive the slain, you can mourn over the crime. Awake, arise, you sluggish Christians, and ask the Holy Spirit to help you to be from this day forward your brother’s keepers to the utmost of your power.
And don’t you think that we may have been seriously injurious to others by denying them the gospel?
If you want to murder a man, you need not stab him: rather just starve him. If you want to destroy a man you need not teach him to drink or swear: just keep back the gospel from him. Be in his company and never say a word for Christ. Be where you ought to speak and be sinfully silent, then who knows how much blood will be laid on your head. Don’t you think that to deny a cup of cold water to a man and let him die of thirst is murder? To deny the gospel, to have no word to say for Jesus—is this not soul-murder? God accounts it so. “Well,” say some, “I can’t speak or preach.” No, but do you pray for the conversion of others? Some people also have money entrusted to them: they cannot go to India or China, which I have been speaking of, but many other men are willing to go, and they ought to assist in sending them. I have men in the College ready to go, but I have no money to send them. The Missionary Society is in debt; they cannot send out all they would, and yet there are people in this country with thousands of dollars that they will never need, and yet the heathen may die and be lost before they will part with their gold. Is there no crime in all of this? Does not the voice of your brother’s blood cry unto God from the ground? I believe it does. You are not to do what you cannot do, but what you can do; and surely there cannot be any question about such a matter as this, because if you could once see persons in peril—if you stood on the beach, and saw a good ship breaking up, if you were able to hold an oar, you would want to be in the lifeboat. There is not a woman among you but would be willing to spare her husband for such a task, or lend her own hand to push the boat out to launch it upon the wave. For life—for the precious life of our fellow men—we would do anything; but if we believe, as we do, that there is a world to come and a terrible hell, and that there is no way of salvation except by Jesus Christ, we ought to feel ten times a love for the rescue of the souls of men from the wrath to come.
If some are stirred by these words, my heart will greatly rejoice; and if you are aroused then do not promise to make an effort in your own strength, but pray to God about it. Commit yourself to God, and ask the divine Spirit to lead you into ways of usefulness, that before you die you may have brought some souls to Jesus; and to his name shall be the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
