Like Fire . . and Like a Hammer, Jeremiah 23:29-32, 34

As God’s Word is like a fire and like a hammer, if we have used it on
ourselves, let us try to use it on others. I have an opinion that there
are a great many persons in this world, whom we give up as hopeless, who
have never been really tried and tested with the gospel in all their lives.
I am afraid that there are persons of whom we speak as unlikely to be
converted, who have never been fully brought under the influence of the
fire of God’s Word, or beneath the fall of the hammer of the gospel. “I
brought one person to church,” says somebody. I am glad you have; but have
you ever spoken faithfully to that person about his soul? “Well, I don’t
know that I have; I have said a little to him.” Have you ever plainly put
the gospel before him? “Well, I don’t think he is the kind of person that
you speak to about the gospel directly.”

Ah! I see that you thought you were going to burn him without using fire,
and to break that rock without lifting the hammer. The fact is, you
believed that something better than the gospel fire was needed in his case,
or that something gentler than the gospel hammer was needed. Won’t you try
that old-fashioned hammer on him? Won’t you try that old fire on him? I
have heard of churches where men have said, “There is no good to be done
here, no one will change” and I have wondered if they were to try preaching
one of the old-fashioned sort of gospel sermons, if they could get
Whitefield to preach, or have someone to preach the same truth as
Whitefield preached, what results would follow.

When I am told that the hearts of the people are not affected by the
preaching in any place, I ask, “But was the gospel preached to them? Was
it the very Word of God that was preached?” Our words are like paper
pellets thrown against the wall, they effect nothing; but God’s Word is
like a shot fired from the world’s largest cannon. When it hits, it
crushes through every obstacle, and destroys everything that is opposed to
it.

Why don’t we always set the whole truth before those whom we seek to save?
I believe that, sometimes, even in Sunday-schools, children are taught “to
love gentle Jesus,” and so on, as if that were the way of salvation. Why
not tell them to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Why is love to take the
place of faith? Let it be the same gospel for the children that you give
to the adults. Try them with the same gospel, and see what will come of
it; and let this work be attempted everywhere.

“But,” says someone, “there are certain places where you can’t do any good
if you try to preach the gospel. You must play music to the people, and
drum softly to them; and then you must have concerts and other
entertainments for them.” Very well, convert sinners that way if you can;
I do not object to any method that results in the winning of souls. Stand
on your head if that will save the people; but still, it seems to me that
if God’s Word is like a fire, there is nothing like it for burning; and if
God’s Word is like a hammer, there can be nothing like that Word for
hammering down everything that stands in the way of Jesus Christ. Why,
then, shouldn’t we continually try the gospel, and nothing but the gospel?

“Well,” says one, “but the poor people are dirty; we must clean them up
and fix the places where they are living.” Of course we must; go on
with them as fast as you can; the more of such things, the better. There
is nothing like soapsuds and new paint for dirty people and dirty places;
but you may paint and soapsud them as long as you like, yet that will not
save their souls without the gospel of Christ. You may go to them and
plead the fact that they shouldn’t get drunk, and I hope you will; the more
of it the better. Make them all give up drinking if you can, for it will
be a great blessing to them; but still, you have not really done anything
permanent if you stop there.

Try the gospel! Try the gospel! Try the gospel! When the gospel was
tried against the world in the days of Paul–when the power of the great
empire of Rome had crushed out liberty, and when lust of the most
abominable kind made the world reek in the nostrils of God–nothing was
done but preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and the common people
heard of Jesus Christ, heard of Him gladly, and believed in Him; and very
soon down went the false gods, down went the brutal lusts of the Roman
empire, and a great part of the world was permeated with the gospel; and it
will have to be done again, and it must be done again. But remember that
it is only to be done by that same Word of the Lord which did it the first
time; and the sooner we get back to that Word, the better; and the more we
throw away everything else but the simple telling out of that Word, the
more speedy will be the victory, and the more swift and sure will be the
triumph for our God and for His Christ.

“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”