CHAPTER XXVI. Be a Worker for Jesus

BE A WORKER FOR JESUS

The poet Virgil was said to have cast an enchantment on one of the public gates of Naples. All who passed the sculptured, smiling face on one side prospered, but those who passed under the frowning figure on the opposite side were doomed from the outset to disaster. Many now believe in such superstitious ideas, and “Chance” is charged with the ups and downs of thousands. Common sense and experience assure us that the one main condition of success is work. The practical person takes no stock in what Shakespeare calls “giddy fortune’s fickle wheel,” but instead relies on “Heaven helps those that help themselves.”

A dying farmer called to his bedside his three lazy sons and said to them: “My sons, a great treasure lies hid in the estate which I am about to leave you.” “Where is it hid?” exclaimed the sons in a breath. “I am about to tell you,” said the old man, “you will have to dig for it—” His breath failed him before imparting the weighty secret, and he died. Forthwith the sons set to work upon the long-neglected fields. They discovered no treasure, but they learned to work, and when these fields were sown, and the harvest came, the yield in consequence of the thorough tilling was prodigious. Then was it they discovered the treasure concealed in the estate, of which their wise old father had advised them.

The same rule holds good in the work of Jesus. Work is ordained by God, and should be ordained by us for God. The establishment of the religion of Christ in all lands, the numberless churches, the schools of learning and the asylums for the needy owe all to the energy and toil of the adherents of Christ. In the Bible Christianity is represented as a temple, but Christians are the builders. Life is spoken of as a warfare, but Christians are the soldiers. Work is shown to be the divine test of greatness, but Christians are the workers. To simply love God is not sufficient, for love must prove itself by labor. To have faith is not enough, for “Faith without works is dead.” (James 2:20). It is like a fish without water and a watch without springs. Philip might have said to Nathaniel: “I would not be surprised if we met Jesus to-day,” but the record tells us he “findeth Nathaniel and saith unto him, ‘We have found Him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write.’” (John 1:45). Harlan Page, pressed with business cares and battling with ill-health, might have said, “Well, now, I believe God will send laborers into His vineyard,” but he went to work and led a hundred young men into the ministry by consecrating his personal influence to Christ.

LAYING BRICKS.

A little over half a century ago a boy heard his pastor say to the trustees that he would like a new brick walk laid around the old church. They replied it was impossible as there were no funds in the treasury. That boy wanted to do something for his Master, so he said to himself: “I will do what I can to lay the walk about the church.” He went to a brickyard section of Philadelphia, and asked one of his father’s friends to give him a thousand brick, of another friend he asked a like amount; and another, until he thought he had secured a sufficient number to complete the walk. He then asked some of the men and boys whom he knew very well to help place them in position. They did so, beginning on Thursday and completing the work at half past ten o’clock Saturday night.

This lad had a great desire to know what the pastor would say, so he made his way very early Sunday morning to a place where he could see his pastor and not be seen by him. Soon after Dr. Chambers came down the street and started to go to his study, when he realized that his feet were standing on a new pavement. He took off his glasses and rubbed them. Putting them on he began to walk up and down, first on Sansom and then on Broad Street. He made the journey two or three times. The young man was soon walking along after him apparently unconcerned. The pastor had made his last trip over the walk, and turning around saw the lad. The tears began to flow as he said, “My son, who did this?” The young man looked up and said, “Dr. Chambers, I helped to do it.” Then Dr. Chambers put his hands on the young man’s shoulders and said, “God bless you, my son, you have made your old pastor’s heart glad. You have greatly aided me in my church work.” That boy was John Wanamaker.

THE COMMAND.

There is one reason which should prompt every boy to work. Jesus says, “Son, go work to-day in My vineyard.” (Matt. 21:28). He has elected boys as well as men, and commissioned them to do His will. Note the loving title which He uses. “Son.” Not slave, or servant, but son, thus presenting the fact of near relationship. Son, do what? “Work.” That’s the philosopher’s stone which turns everything to gold, and the key that unlocks the treasures of nature. By it the muscles are hardened, the intellect strengthened, and slumbering genius awakened. “Son, go work!” When? “To-day,” thus showing it is a present need, for the night cometh when no boy can work.

Ledyard, on being summoned before the Geographical Society of Great Britain was told they desired him to visit and do certain work in Africa. After enumerating the perils, the exposure, the hard work, they asked when he could be ready to start. “To-morrow morning,” was the reply. The learned men were astonished. They thought it would take weeks and months to get ready. But God requires even greater promptness than Ledyard’s. He asks, “to-day.” There’s not a moment that has not a work assigned to it, and if neglected it is left undone forever. Like a ship at sea, with compass gone, the boy loses his bearings. It is by the velocity with which a ball is shot from a cannon that it is kept from the ground. It is by a peculiar law that electricity will keep to the wire till it reaches a break, and thus an active Christian boy will keep at the Master’s work until life ends. He will be a Samuel, saying: “Here am I,” (2 Sam. 3:5) and a Paul, “What wilt Thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6).

EQUIPMENT.

God not only calls us to work, but He also has a definite work, and equips every worker with ability to do that work. It is not sufficient to testify of being saved and a willingness to be used by God. No. God has something especially for every Christian to do. As surely as we have named the name of Jesus, so surely have we been called to do His service,—a service that is for each one just as definite as for any who have lived before us. We may not be able to do what we would like, but we can do a great deal more than we do for the Master. It is not always—

—“the good thing we accomplish, but the better thing we plan, Not achievement but Ideal, is the measure of the man.”

There was a boy who led thousands to Christ. He was converted under somewhat peculiar circumstances, and owed the beginning of his religious life largely to the influence exerted upon him by the silent performance of an act of religious duty on the part of a room-mate and fellow-apprentice. This boy’s early years were such as to produce a very unquiet conscience, but the claims of religion continued to assert themselves in his soul amid all his irregularities of conduct. At last he began to have longings for a better life. Sometimes on a Sabbath he would go away by himself and pray. “I wanted to be a Christian,” he said, “but knew not how. I prayed that the Lord would raise up someone in the house to be my guide. I am sure I was sincere in this, and now came the turning point of my life. The gentleman with whom I lived was in need of money, so he took another apprentice for the sake of the premium. This youth had been religiously educated. The apprentices all slept in the same room. The first time this boy lodged with us he knelt down by his bed and prayed in silence. The thought instantly occurred to me as I looked with surprise on the youth bending before God, that there was the answer to my prayer. So it proved. I became acquainted with him and with boyish simplicity he told me the love of Jesus. It was not long before the light of the Gospel shone in my heart.” This boy that did his duty so silently and unconsciously is not known to us, but the boy he led to Christ and who became such a great soul-winner was the eloquent Henry James.

Joel Stratton was a poor, unlettered young man, but he led the great temperance worker John B. Gough to Jesus. It was a kind word and a hearty handshake that brought the white-headed, clear-brained, sweet-spirited, silver-tongued Bishop Simpson to Christ. Robert Eaglen is unknown but for one thing. One day standing up in meeting he attempted to preach the gospel. Before him was Charles Haddon Spurgeon, of whom the great evangelist Richard Knill once said: “That voice will be heard by thousands.” Knill exacted a promise from him, that when he preached in Rowland Hill’s great chapel in London, he would announce the hymn, “God moves in a mysterious way.” This boy heard Eaglen give out the text, “Look unto Me, and, be ye saved.” (Isa. 45:22). Then he caught the eye of the speaker looking at him as he cried, “Look! Look! Look! only look and be saved.” Through that sermon Charles Spurgeon became a Christian. At sixteen he preached his first sermon. At nineteen he was placed on trial as a candidate for a pastorate. He was greeted by an audience of two hundred persons to hear the first sermon, but before his three months’ trial was over, the twelve hundred sittings were all taken, and within a year the house was enlarged. The Royal Surrey Garden Music Hall was then engaged while a larger tabernacle was being built. Ten and twelve thousand people flocked to hear him. Rich and poor, lords and laborers sat at his feet. Men said, “What a brilliant meteor.” But he proved to be a fixed star. He wrote many books, built orphanages until five hundred children were sheltered, erected a college and did a vast amount of good. Great honor is his, but how great that of Robert Eaglen who led him to Jesus.

ONE BOY’S WORK.

Mrs. Phoebe Palmer once told of a boy in England who went to his pastor and asked him if there was something he could do for the Lord. The pastor said, “Why, I don’t know. I do not think you are capable of teaching a class, and hardly old enough to be a judicious tract distributor. I don’t know what you can do.” “Seems to me,” said the boy, “there ought to be something for us boys to do.” The pastor thought a moment and then he asked, “Is your seat-mate in school a Christian?” “No, sir, I think not.” “Then go to work, as the Lord shall show you how, and get him converted. Then take another and another. I cannot tell you exactly what to do, but if you pray, the Saviour will show you how to get them saved.” Some months after when Mrs. Palmer was holding meetings in that place, this boy was lying very ill. The doctors gave him up to die. His father went to the afternoon meeting, and coming home, the boy roused up and asked: “Was Ned Smith at the meeting this afternoon?” “Yes, my son.” “Did he give his heart to the Lord Jesus Christ?” “No, I think not.” “Oh, dear,” said the dying boy, “I thought he would.”

The next day his father again went to the meeting. When he came home the son asked him the same question and expressed the same disappointment that his friend was not converted. The third day he asked the same question and received a different answer. “Yes, Ned gave his heart to the Saviour this afternoon.” “I am so glad,” was the answer. After his death, his parents opened a little box he kept near him, and found a piece of paper with forty boys’ names written upon it. The first one was his seat-mate at the time when he went to the pastor and asked for something to do for the Lord; the last name was that of Ned Smith. Every boy on the list was converted. He had taken them one by one in faith and prayer, giving them books to read, showing them texts of scripture, taking them to church and talking to them about their sins and how Christ would forgive them, and the whole forty had been converted through his efforts.

THE KIND OF A WORKER.

There is plenty of work a boy can do for Jesus. There are tracts to distribute, acts of love to be shown to the sick and aged. There are boys who can be influenced to go to Sunday-school and church. Beethoven’s maxim was, “Not a day without a line,” and the boy’s should be, “Every day this one thing I do, something to lead a soul nearer to Jesus.” Be a patient and careful worker. “The one prudence in life,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson, “is concentration; the one evil is dissipation.” Paul’s exhortation to Timothy was, “Show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,” (2 Tim. 2:15), a first-class workman. To be this demands judicious planning and careful executing. It is not so much the amount done, but the way in which it is done. A right motive to a right way is found in the fact: “Thou God seest me.” (Gen. 10:13).

Hooker, speaking of Edward VI. said, “He died young but lived long, if life be action.” John Summerfield was but twenty-seven when he died, yet with a frail body, he lived long enough to tell the Gospel message to the whole English-speaking race of his time. “So little done, so much to do,” said Cecil Rhodes on his death-bed. Though a man of affairs and a prodigious worker he sorrowed over the fact that he was leaving much unaccomplished. One of Napoleon’s dying veterans received on the battlefield the grand cross of the “Legion of Honor” from the Emperor’s hand and said “Now I die satisfied.” My boy, may you be enrolled in God’s Legion of Honor. Let nothing discomfort you. Make condition your bond slave, grasp opportunity by the forelock and work out destinies in sunshine and darkness, so that you may hear the Master’s voice after the labor and battles of life are o’er.

“Go labor on; spend and be spent The joy to do the Father’s will; It is the way the Master went; Should not the servant tread it still?

Toil on, and in thy toil rejoice! For toil comes rest, for exile home; Soon shalt thou hear the Bridegroom’s voice, The midnight peal: ‘Behold, I come!’”