Messengers Wanted

Messengers Wanted

DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 22, 1866, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE
METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who
will go for Us? Then said I, Here am I! Send me." Isaiah 6:8.

God's great remedy for man's ruin of man is the sacrifice of His dear
Son. He proclaims to the sons of men that only by the Atonement of
Jesus can they be reconciled unto Himself. In order that this remedy
should be of any avail to any man he must receive it by faith–for
without faith men perish even under the Gospel dispensation. There is
at the present moment great lack of men to tell out the story of the
Cross of Jesus Christ and many considerations press that lack upon our
hearts. Think how many voices all mingle into this one–"Who will go
for Us?" Listen to the wounds of Jesus as they plaintively cry, "How
shall we be rewarded? How shall the precious drops of blood be made
available to redeem the souls of men unless loving lips shall go for us
to claim by right those who have been redeemed by blood?"

The blood of Jesus cries like Abel's blood from the ground, "Whom shall
I send?" and His wounds repeat the question, "Who will go for us?" Does
not the purpose of the Eternal Father also join with solemn voice in
this demand? The Lord has decreed a multitude unto eternal life. He has
purposed, with a purpose which cannot be changed or frustrated, that a
multitude whom no man can number shall be the reward of the Savior's
travail. But how can these decrees be fulfilled except by the sending
forth of the Gospel, for it is through the Gospel, and through the
Gospel alone, that salvation can come to the sons of men!

I think I hear the awful voice of the purpose mingling with the
piercing cry of the Cross appealing to us to declare the Word of Life.
I see the handwriting of old Eternity bound in one volume with the
crimson writing of Calvary, and both together write out most legibly
the pressing question–"Who shall go for us to bring home the elect and
redeemed ones? The very sins of men, horrible as they are to think
upon, may be made an argument for proclaiming the Gospel! Oh the cruel
and ravenous sins which destroy the sons of men and rend their choicest
joy in pieces!

When I see monstrous lusts defiling the temple of God, and many gods
and many lords usurping the Throne of the Almighty, I can hear the loud
cry, "Who will go for Us?" Do not perishing souls suggest to us the
question of the text? Men are going down to the grave perishing for
lack of knowledge! The tomb engulfs them, eternity swallows them up,
and in the dark they die without a glimmer of hope! No candle of the
Lord ever shines upon their faces. By these perishing souls we implore
you this morning to feel that heralds of the Cross are needed–needed
lest these souls be ruined everlastingly! Needed that they may be
lifted up from the dunghill of their corruption and made to sit among
princes redeemed by Christ Jesus! The cry wells into a wail of mighty
pathetic pleading–all time echoes it and all eternity prolongs
it–while Heaven, earth, and Hell give weight to the chorus.

Beloved, there are two forms of missionary enterprise conducted by two
classes of agents. I so divide them merely for the occasion–they are
really not divided by any rigid boundary. The first is the agency of
those specially dedicated to the ministry of the Word who give
themselves wholly to it–who are able, by the generous effort of the
Christian Church, or by their own means–to set their whole time apart
for the great work of teaching the Truth of God. As there are but few
in this assembly who can do this, I shall not translate my text in its
reference to ministers although it has a loud voice to such.

I shall rather refer to another and equally useful form of agency,
namely, the Christian Church as a whole–the Believers who, while
following their secular avocations, are heralds for Christ and
missionaries for the Cross. Such are wanted here. Such are needed in
our colonies. Such might find ample room in the great world of
heathendom! Men and women, who, if they did not stand up beneath the
tree to address the assembled throng, would preach in the workshop!

Who, if they did not teach the hundreds, would at the fireside instruct
the twos and threes. We want both sorts of laborers, but I may do more
good on this present occasion by stirring up this second sort.

You may all be teachers of Christ in another sense. You can all give
yourself to the work of God in your own calling and promote your
Master's glory perseveringly in your daily avocations. I lift up an
earnest cry in God's name for consecrated men and women, who, not
needing to wait till the Church's hands can support them, shall support
themselves with their own hands and yet minister for Christ Jesus
wherever Providence may have cast their lot. The person wanted, as
described in the questions, "Whom shall I send? Who will go for Us?"
The person wanted is viewed from two points. He has a character bearing
two aspects. The person wanted has a Divine side–"Whom shall I send?"
Then he has a human aspect–"Who will go for Us?"

But the two meet together–the human and Divine unite in the last
words, "for Us." Here is a man, nothing more than a man of human
instincts, but clad, through Divine Grace, with super-human, even with
Divine authority. Let us look, then, at this two-sided person. He is
divinely chosen–"Whom shall I send?" As if in the eternal counsels
this had once been a question, "Who shall be the chosen man. Who shall
be the object of My eternal love, and in consequence shall have this
Grace given him that he should tell to others the unsearchable riches
of Christ?" Beloved, what a mercy it is to us who are Believers that to
us this is no more a question–for sovereignty has pitched upon us and
eternal mercy, not for anything good in us, but simply because God
would have it so, has selected us that we may bring forth fruit unto
His name.

As we hear the question, let us listen to the Savior's exposition of
it. "You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you and ordained you
that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should
remain." The workers for the living God are a people chosen by the Most
High. He sends whom He wills. He makes choice of this man and not
another, and in every case exercises His own sovereign will. This
question indicates a person cheerfully willing, and this is what I
meant by the human side of the messenger. "Who will go for Us?" The man
sought for is one who will go with ready mind–there would be no need
to ask, "who will go?" If a mere slave or machine without a will could
be sent.

Beloved, the purpose of God does not violate free agency, or even the
free will of man. Man is saved by the will of God, but man is made
willing to be so saved! The fault is not in the hyper-Calvinist that he
insists upon sovereignty, nor in the Arminian that he is so violent for
free agency. The fault is in both of them because they cannot see more
truths than one, and do not admit that truth is not the exclusive
property of either, for God is a Sovereign, and, at the same time, man
is a responsible free agent!

Many among us are perpetually seeking to reconcile truths which
probably never can be reconciled except in the Divine mind. I thank God
that I believe many things which I do not even wish to understand. I am
weary and sick of arguing and understanding, and misunderstanding. I
find it true rest and joy, like a little child, to believe what God has
revealed and to let others do the puzzling and the reasoning. If I
could comprehend the whole of Revelation I could scarcely believe it to
be Divine! But inasmuch as many of its doctrines are too deep for me
and the whole scheme is too vast to be reduced to a system, I thank and
bless God that He has deigned to display before me a Revelation far
exceeding my poor limited abilities.

I believe that every man who has Jesus has Him as a matter of his own
choice–it is true it is caused by Divine Grace, but it is there–it is
there. Ask any man whether he is a Christian against his will and he
will tell you certainly not, for he loves the Lord and delights in His
Law after the inward man. Your people are not led unwillingly to You in
chains, O Jesus, but Your people shall be willing in the day of Your
power. We willingly choose Christ because He has from of old chosen us!
In the matter of holy work every man who becomes a worker for Jesus is
so because he was chosen to work for Him–but he would be a very poor
worker if he himself had not chosen to work for Jesus!

I can say that I believe God ordained me to preach the Gospel, and that
I preach it by His will–but I am sure I preach it with my own will,
too, for it is to me the most delightful work in all the world! If I
could exchange with an emperor I would not consent to be so lowered. To
preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ is one of the sweetest and noblest
employments and even an angel might desire to be engaged in it. The
true worker for God must be impelled by Divine election, but yet he
must make and will make, by Divine Grace, his own election of his work.
The two meet together in this–the man is sent by the Three in One, who
here asks, "Who will go for Us?"

Every faithful Christian laborer labors for God. Brethren, when we tell
others the story of the Cross we speak of God the Father. It is through
our lips that the prodigal son must be reminded that the hired servants
have bread enough and to spare. It may be through us that he will be
shown his rags and his disgrace. Through us he will discover more
clearly the disgrace of feeding swine. The Spirit of God is the
efficient Agent, but it is by us that He may work. It is by us that the
Divine Father falls upon the neck of His prodigal child. He does it,
but it is through the teaching of His Word in some form or other. The
promises are spoken by our lips, the sweet invitations are delivered by
our tongues. We, as though God did beseech them by us, are to pray them
in Christ's stead to be reconciled to God. God the Father says to you
who know and love Him, "Will you go for Me and be an ambassador for
Me?"

Nor must we forget our tender Redeemer. He is not here, for He is
risen. He will come again, but meanwhile He asks for someone to speak
for Him, someone to tell Jerusalem that her iniquity is forgiven.
Someone to tell His murderers that He prays for them, "Father, forgive
them." To assure the blood-bought that they are redeemed. To proclaim
liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison doors to them
that are bound. Jesus from His Throne of Glory says, "Who will go for
Me and be a speaker for Me?"

Moreover, that blessed Spirit, under whose dispensational power we live
at the present hour, has no voice to speak to the sons of men audibly
except by His people. And though He works invisibly and mysteriously in
the saints, yet He chooses loving hearts, and compassionate lips, and
tearful eyes to be the means of benediction. The Spirit descends like
the cloven tongue, but He sits upon disciples–there is no resting
place for the Spirit of God nowadays within walls, and even the Heaven
of heavens contains Him not, but He enthrones Himself within His
people. He makes us God-bearers, and He speaks through us as through a
trumpet to the sons of men.

So you see that the adorable Trinity cry to you, you blood-bought,
blood-redeemed sons of God, and says, "Are you seeking to promote Our
glory? Are you effecting Our purposes? Are you winning those purchased
by Our eternal sacrifice?" Turning to the Church assembled here the
Lord pronounces those ancient questions, "Whom shall I send? Who will
go for Us?"

By God's help, we would say a little upon the person offering himself.
"Here am I! Send me." The person offering himself is described in the
chapter at very great length–he must be an Isaiah. Being an Isaiah, he
must, in the first place, have felt his own unworthiness. My Brother,
my Sister, if you are to be made useful by God in soul-winning you must
pass through the experience which Isaiah describes in the chapter
before us. You must have cried in bitterness of spirit, "Woe is me, for
I am a man of unclean lips!" God will never fill you with Himself until
He has emptied you of your own self. Till you feel that you are weak as
water you shall not see the splendor of the Divine power.

May I ask, then, those of you who feel desirous to serve God, this
experimental question, "Have you been made fully conscious of your own
utter unfitness to be employed in any work for God, and your own
complete unworthiness of so great an honor as to become a servant of
the living God? If you have not been brought to this you must begin
with yourself–you cannot do any good to others–you must be
born-again! And one of the best evidences of your being born-again will
be a discovery of your own natural depravity and impurity in the sight
of God.

Now, Beloved, I want you to notice how it was that Isaiah was made to
feel his unworthiness. It was first by a sense of the Presence of God.
"I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up." Have you
ever had a consciousness of the Presence of God? The other day I was
prostrated in soul, utterly prostrated, with this one word "I Am!"
There is everything in that title, the I Am! God is the truest of all
existences. With regard to all other things, they may or may not be,
but I Am!

It came with such power to me. I thought, Here am I sitting in my
study, whether I am, or whether that which surrounds me really is, may
be a question, but, God is–God is here. And when I speak God's Word in
His name, though I am nothing, God is everything, and as to whether or
not His Word shall be fulfilled there cannot be any question, because
He still is called, not, "I Was," but "I Am," Infinite, Omnipotent,
Divine! Think of the reality of the Divine Presence, and the certainty
of that Divine Presence everywhere, close here, just now! "I Am!" O
God, if we are not, yet You are!

I scarcely think that any man is fit to become a teacher of others till
he has had a full sense of the Glory of God crushing him right down
into the dust, a full sense of that word, "I Am." You know a man cannot
pray without it, for we must believe that He is, and that He is the
Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. And if a man cannot pray for
himself, much less can he rightly teach others. There must be the
fullest conviction of the reality of God, an overwhelming sight and
sense of His Glory, or else you cannot benefit your fellows. The source
of Isaiah's sense of nothingness was that Isaiah saw the Glory of
Christ!

Have you ever sat down and gazed upon the Cross till, having read your
own pardon there, you have seen that Cross rising higher and higher
till it touched the heavens and overshadowed the globe? Then you have
seen and felt the Glory of Him who was lifted up, and have bowed before
the regal splendor of Divine Love, incarnate in suffering humanity, and
resplendent in agony and death. If you have ever beheld the vision of
the Crucified, and felt the glory of His wounds, you will then be fit
to preach to others.

I have sometimes thought that certain Brethren who preach the Gospel
with such meager power and such lack of unction have no true knowledge
of it. There is no need to talk of it with bated breath. It is sneered
at as being such a very simple tale–"Believe and live"–but after all,
no philosopher ever made such a disclosure! And if a senate of
discoverers could sit through the ages they could not bring to light
any fact equal to this–that God was in Christ reconciling the world
unto Himself. Well may you open your mouth boldly when you have such a
subject as this to speak upon! But if you have never perceived its
Glory, you are utterly incapable of fulfilling God's errand.

Oh, to get the Cross into one's heart! To bear it upon one's soul, and
above all, to feel the Glory of it in one's whole being is the best
education for a Christian missionary whether at home or abroad! It will
strike you too, dear Friends, that the particular aspect in which this
humiliation may come to us will probably be a sense of the Divine
holiness, and the holiness of those who see His face. "Holy, holy,
holy, Lord God of Hosts!" was the song which overawed the Prophet. What
messengers are those who serve so holy a God? Free from earth and all
its grossness, like flames of fire they flash at His command!

Who then, am I–a poor creature, cribbed, cabined, and confined within
this house of clay? Who am I–a sinful worm of the dust, that I should
aspire to the service of so thrice holy a God? Oh let us serve the Lord
with fear and rejoice with trembling, fearful lest we should do
mischief while seeking to do good, and pollute the altar while
attempting to offer sacrifice upon it!

The next preparation for Christian work is we must possess a sense of
mercy. Then flew one of the seraphims and took a live coal from off the
altar. We explained in our reading that the altar is for sacrifice, and
that the lip must be touched with a coal of that sacrifice. Then, being
so touched, they derive two effects. In the first place, the lips are
purged of iniquity, and in the next place they feel the influence of
fire, enabling them to speak with vehemence and force. Beloved Hearer,
you say, perhaps in zeal, "I desire to serve Christ and to tell abroad
the story of His Cross." Have you proved that story to be true? Were
you ever washed in the fountain? How can you bid others come if you
have never come yourself?

Have your sins been put away? "I hope so." Do you know it? I question
if you can preach with any power till you have a full assurance of your
own salvation. To teach the Gospel with "but" and "if is a poor
teaching. You Sunday school teachers cannot hope to do much good to
others while you doubt your own acceptance in the Beloved. You must
know that you are saved! Oh Beloved, you must feel the touch of that
live coal! You must feel that Christ gave Himself for you. You
Little-Faiths may get to Heaven, but you must keep in the back rank
while here–we cannot put you in the front of the battle!

Though God may make you of service, we cannot expect you to be
eminently of service. The man who would serve God must know himself to
be saved! The effect of that live coal will be to fire the lips with
heavenly flame. "Oh," says one man, "a flaming coal will burn the lips
so that the man cannot speak at all." That is just how God works with
us–it is by consuming the fleshly power that He inspires the heavenly
might. Oh let the lips be burnt, let the fleshly power of eloquence be
destroyed–but oh for that live coal to make the tongue eloquent with
Heaven's flame–the true Divine power which urged the Apostles forward
and made them conquerors of the whole world!

According to the text the man who will be acceptable must offer himself
cheerfully. "Here am I!" How few of us have in very deed given
ourselves to Christ? It is with most professors, "Here is my half
guinea, here is my annual contribution," but how few of us have said,
"Here am I"? No, we sing of consecration as we sing a great many other
things which we have not realized–and when we have sung it we do not
wish to be taken at our word. It is not, "Here am I!" The man whom God
will use must in sincerity be a consecrated man.

I have explained that he may still keep to his daily work, but he must
be consecrated to God in it. He must sanctify the tools of his labor to
God and there is no reason why they should not be quite as holy as the
bronze altar or the golden candlestick. You will observe that the
person who thus volunteered for sacred service gave himself
unreservedly. He did not say, "Here am I, use me where I am," but "send
me." Where? No condition as to place is so much as hinted at. Anywhere,
anywhere, anywhere–send me!

Some people are militia-Christians–they serve the King with a
limitation and must not be sent out of England. But others are
soldier-Christians who give themselves wholly up to their Lord and
Captain. They will go wherever He chooses to send them. Oh come, my
Master, and be absolute Lord of my soul! Reign over me and subdue my
every passion to do and be and feel all that Your will ordains. Blessed
prayer! May we never be content till we get all that is to be gotten by
way of joyful experience and holy power, nor until we yield all that is
to be yielded by mortal man to the God whose sovereign right to us we
claim!

Notice one more thought, that while the Prophet gives himself
unreservedly, he gives obediently, for he pauses to ask directions. It
is not, "Here am I! Away I will go," but "Here am I! Send me." I like
the spirit of that prayer. Some people get into their head a notion
that they must do something uncommon and extraordinary, and though it
may be most unreasonable and most irrational, it is for that very
reason that the scheme commends itself to their want of judgment.
Because it is absurd, they think it to be Divine! If earthly wisdom
does not justify it, then certainly heavenly wisdom must be called in
to endorse it!

Now I conceive that you will find that whenever a thing is wise in
God's sight it is really wise, and that a thing which is absurd is not
more likely to be adopted by God than by man! Though the Lord does use
plans which are called foolish, they are only foolish to fools, but not
actually foolish. There is a real wisdom in their very
foolishness–there is a wisdom of God in the things which are foolish
to man. When a project is evidently absurd and ridiculous, it may be my
own but it cannot be the Lord's and I had better wait until I can yield
up my whims, and subject myself to Divine control, saying, "Here am I!
Send me."

In the last place–the work which such persons will be called to
undertake. Isaiah's history is a picture of what many and many a true
Christian laborer may expect. Isaiah was sent to preach very unpleasant
truth, but like a true hero he was very bold in preaching it. "Isaiah
is very bold," says the Apostle. Now if you are called of God either to
preach or teach, or whatever it is, remember the things you have to
preach or teach will not be agreeable to your hearers. Scorn on the man
who ever desires to make truth palatable to unhallowed minds. If he
modulates his utterances or suppresses the Truth which God has given
him even in the slightest possible degree to suit the tastes of men, he
is a traitor and a coward!

Let him be drummed out of God's regiment, and driven from the army of
God altogether! God's servants are to receive God's message, and
whether men will hear or whether they will not, they are to deliver it
to them in the spirit of old Micaiah, who vowed, "As the Lord my God
lives, whatever the Lord said to me, that will I speak." But this is
not the hardest task–the most severe labor is this–we may have to
deliver unpleasant truth to people who are resolved not to receive it!
To people who will derive no profit from it, but rather will turn it to
their own destruction.

You see in the text that ancient Israel was to hear but not to
receive–they were to be preached to, and the only result was to be
that their heart was to be made fat, and their ears dull of hearing.
What? Is that ever to be the effect of the Gospel? The Bible tells us
so. Our preaching is a savor of death unto death, as well as of life
unto life. "Oh," says one, "I should not like to preach if that is the
case." But remember, Brother, that the preaching of the Cross is a
sweet savor of Christ either way. The highest object of all to a
Christian laborer is not to win souls–that is a great object–but the
great object is to glorify God! Many a man has been successful in this
who did not succeed in the other. If Israel is not gathered, still, if
we bear our testimony for God, our work is done.

No farmer thinks of paying his men in proportion to the harvest. He
pays his workers for work done, and so will it be with us, by God's
Grace! And if I happen to be a very successful laborer here, I boast
not, nor claim any large reward on that account. I believe that had I
preached the Gospel with earnestness and waited upon God, and if He had
denied me conversions, my reward would be as great at the last, in some
respects, because the Master would not lay to my door a non-success
which could not be attributed to myself.

Now it would be a very pleasant thing for me to ask you whether you
would go for God in your daily vocation and tell of Jesus to sinners
who are willing to hear of Him–you would all be glad to do that. If I
were to ask which sister here would take a class of young women, all
anxious to find Christ, why you would all hold up your hands! If I
could say, "Who will take a class of boys who long to find the Savior?"
you might all be glad of such an avocation–but I have to put it
another way lest you should afterwards be dispirited. Who among you
will try and teach the Truth of God to a drunken husband?

Who among you will carry the Gospel to despisers and profligates and
into places where the Gospel will make you the object of rage and
derision? Who among you will take a class of ragged roughs? Who among
you will try and teach those who will throw your teaching back upon you
with ridicule and scorn? You are not fit to serve God unless you are
willing to serve Him anywhere and everywhere. You must, with the
servant, be willing to take the bitter with the sweet. You must be
willing to serve God in the winter as in the summer. If you are willing
to be God's servant at all, you are not to pick and choose your duty
and say, "Here am I, send me where there is pleasant duty." Anybody
will go then!

If you are willing to serve God you will say today, "Through floods and
flames if Jesus leads, I will, by the Holy Spirit's aid, be true to my
following." Now, though I have said nothing particularly with regard to
foreign missions, I have preached this sermon with the view that God
will stir you all up to serve His cause, and particularly with the hope
that the missionary feeling being begotten may show itself in a desire
also to carry the Gospel into foreign parts.

Pastor Harms has lately been taken to his rest, but those of you who
know the story of his life must have been struck with it–how an
obscure country village, on a wild heath in Germany, was made to be a
fountain of living waters to South Africa! The poor people had little
care for the name of Jesus till Harms went there, and, notwithstanding
that I have no sympathy with his Lutheran High-churchism and
exclusiveness, I may say he went there to preach Christ with such fire
that the whole parish became a missionary society, sending out its own
men and women to preach Christ crucified.

That ship, the Candace, purchased by the villagers of Hermansburgh with
their own money, went to and from South Africa, taking the laborers to
make settlements and to undertake Christian enterprise in that dark
continent. The whole village was saturated with a desire to serve God
and preach the Gospel to the heathen, and Harms at the head of it acted
with a simple faith worthy of Apostolic times! I would that my God
would give me what I should consider the greatest honor of my life–the
privilege of seeing some of the Brothers and Sisters of this church
devoted to the Lord and going forth into foreign parts.

One gave his farm for students to be educated, another gave all he had,
until throughout Hermansburgh it became very much like Apostolic days
when they had all things in common, the grand object being that of
sending the Gospel to the heathen. The day may come when we who have
been able to do something for this heathen country of England may do
something for other heathen countries in sending out our sons and
daughters.