01.08. SOME MINISTERS OF THE OLDEN TIME
CHAPTER VIII SOME MINISTERS OF THE OLDEN TIME The system of priests and sacrifices Israel had in common with other and pagan religions, but the order of the prophets was unique. They belonged to no ecclesiastical order, they received no ordination, they had no ecclesiastical authority. It is true that in other religions there have been seers and soothsayers who possessed characteristics and made claims somewhat resembling those of the Hebrew prophets, but the contrasts are far greater than the parallels. Nor is it necessary to go into those contrasts in any detail. It must suffice to say that there is not to be found anywhere in human history any such body of religious writers and teachers, bound together only by a common faith, believing themselves to have a message from the Eternal, and bringing that message to bear upon the practical affairs of life - any order parallel to that of the prophets.
Moses was the first of them. Peter, James, John, and Paul were the last of them. Moses is called a prophet, although he is more generally known as the great lawgiver. The New Testament prophets have another name, - they are called apostles rather than prophets; yet they have the essential spiritual characteristics which belong to the order with which spiritually they are connected, and with which, I think, we modern ministers should also be spiritually connected, if we are to hope to have power in our ministry. How important was this unecclesiastical order of the prophets is indicated by the fact that something like a quarter of the whole literature of the ancient Hebrews, as it is contained in the Old Testament, is composed of the prophetic writings of these ministers of the olden times. It is of these prophets, their spirit, their messages, their methods, I speak in this chapter. For they are models whom we are to study, though not slavishly to imitate. It may be said of them, as Paul and Barnabas said of themselves, " We also are men of like passions with you," and what Paul said of himself, " We know in part, and we prophesy in part." * We have been too prone to set these messengers of Jehovah apart by themselves, as though God no longer spoke to man as he spoke to them, as though either God had grown dumb or men deaf, as though inspiration were a lost grace, and receiving it and speaking because of it were a lost art. But if they were not men, possessing ordinary human attributes, and speaking and acting under the recognized laws of human nature, it would be idle and indeed impossible to study them. It is only as we can share their experiences 1 Acts 14:15; 1 Corinthians 13:9. that it is possible for us to understand them, and it is only that we may both understand and share their experiences that we profitably study them.
Only as the preacher shares the experiences and characteristics of the prophets can he be truly successful in his ministry. It is to a study of these characteristics I ask the reader to accompany me in this chapter. In the first place, these prophets claimed to be representatives of God. Their very name indicates this claim. " Prophet " is a speaker for another.
Says Ewald, -
Confining ourselves for the present to the Hebrew language, its name for a prophet denotes originally a loud, clear speaker, yet always one who declares the mind and words of another who does not himself speak; just as a dumb or retired person must have a speaker to speak for him and declare his thoughts, so must God, who is dumb with respect to the mass of men, have his messenger or speaker; and hence the word in its sacred sense denotes him who speaks not of himself, but as commissioned by his God. [1], This is the first and the most essential characteristic of the Hebrew prophet. He is a speaker for another, and that other the invisible, inaudible God. He is an interpreter of God to men. He is called, therefore, a man of God, or a man of the
[1] G. H. A. von Ewald: Commentary on the Prophets of the Old Testament, vol. i, p. 8. Compare A. P. Stanley: History of the Jewish Church, Lecture XIX, vol. i, pp. 367-369; G. A. Smith, The Book of the Twelve Prophets, vol. i, p. 12.
Spirit, or an interpreter. He is said to be full of the Spirit. He speaks with this authority, implicit or explicit. Sometimes he dramatically speaks in the name of God: as though God were speaking, he speaks. Thus Paul says: " We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God." Thus Micaiah says: " As the Lord liveth, what my God saith, that will I speak." [1] Thus a very common introduction to a prophecy is the phrase " Thus saith the Lord." The prophet customarily claims to have been called to his mission by God. He describes, or others describe for him, this call from God, which is sometimes attended by dramatic incidents, as Moses called at the burning bush, Isaiah in the Temple, Ezekiel in the desert. Where there is no such dramatic incident accompanying and attesting the call, or where it is relegated to a secondary place, the call is not less clear in the consciousness of the prophet. Thus Jeremiah is called in his childhood and Amos while he is following the flocks as a herdsman. [2]
It is this speaking for God which distinguishes the true prophet from the false prophet. The true prophet is not distinguished by the fact that all his predictions come true; they do not all of them come
[1] Deuteronomy 33:1; Judges 13:6; Hosea 9:7, R. V.; Numbers 11:26; Numbers 27:1, Numbers 1:1; Isaiah 61:1; Isaiah 43:27, R. V.; Job 33:23; Daniel 5:16; 2 Corinthians 5:20; 1 Kings 12:14.
[2] Exodus 3:1-18; Ezekiel 1:1-28; Ezekiel 2:1-10; Ezekiel 3:10-14; Jeremiah 1:4-7; Amos 7:14-15. true, - he is sometimes mistaken. He is not distinguished from the, false prophet merely by a higher ethical standard, though his ethical standard is higher. The true prophet speaks as a representative of God; the false prophet as an interpreter and representative of men. The false prophet studies the popular currents, watches to see what people think, asks what they want to hear, and gives them the message they desire. So he cries, Peace!
Peace! when there is no peace. [1] So, in the time when the nation is threatened and the people want a counsel, he brings them the counsel which they want, or think they want. [2] The false prophet has - to use the American phrase - his ear to the ground; he watches the currents of public sentiment, as a politician does, or as an editor does, or as I fear some ministers do. This is the false prophet, the man who is an interpreter of popular sentiment. The true prophet has his ear toward God; he is listening for the voice of God; he brings the word of God to mankind; he is impelled to give his message, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear. He is the messenger of a great, an infinite, a Divine King, Lord, Father. [3]
It is this claim on the prophet’s part to speak for God, and in the name of God, that distinguishes him from the wise men, and so distinguishes the books of prophecy from the books of " Proverbs "
[1] Jeremiah 6:13-14.
[2] For example, 1 Kings 12:1-23.
[3] Ezekiel 2:5, Ezekiel 2:7; Ezekiel 3:11. or " Ecclesiastes." The prophet does not grope his way after truth; he does not argue; he does not present hypotheses and reasons deduced from experience for them. The prophet is not a philosopher. He, therefore, has no system to propound.
We can deduce theological systems from the prophets, but we cannot find a system of theology in the prophets; so we can build a house out of the trees of the forest, but the trees of the forest do not constitute a house. The prophet is a witness. He testifies to the things that he has heard and seen. I believed, therefore have I spoken, - this is his message. [1] He is a man of visions, and he reports the visions. He is preeminently a witness-bearer. And yet he does not claim superiority to the men about him. He does not claim to be their master or their lord, or to have access to sources of knowledge which they do not possess, or to be their spiritual superior, to belong to a spiritual aristocracy. He believes that God is a Universal Presence; that he is in all nature, in all history, in all human experience. The prophets do not think that they are inspired more than other men are inspired; only that they have heard the voice, have obeyed the vision, have understood the message. The commonest operations of the human mind they attribute to the direct influence of the Spirit of God. This truth is strikingly illustrated in " The Ploughman’s Ode: "
[1] Psalms 116:10; 2 Corinthians 4:13.
Listen, and hear ye my voice, Attend, and hear ye my speech. Is the ploughman never done with his ploughing, With the opening and harrowing of ground? Does he not, when its surface is leveled, Scatter fennel, and sow cummin broadcast, And duly set wheat there and barley, And for its border plant spelt?
It is Jahveh who has taught these right courses, It is his God who has trained him.
We do not thresh fennel with sledges, Nor are cart-wheels rolled over cummin, But fennel is threshed with a staff, And cummin is threshed with a rod. Do we ever crush bread-corn to pieces?
Nay, the threshing goes not on forever, But when over it cart-wheels are driven, Or sledges, our care is never to crush it. This also from Jahveh proceeds, Wonderful counsel, great wisdom has He. [1], In their view everything proceeds from Jehovah.
There is no difference between the natural and the supernatural: all the natural is supernatural; all the supernatural is natural. This inspiration which is universal, the prophet recognizes as possible to the men about him. He speaks that he may give them the hearing ear and the seeing eye; that he may lead them to hear the voices that he has heard, to see something of the vision that he has seen. This vision does not always come to him, it is not always presented, suddenly and unexpectedly.
Sometimes it is, sometimes not. For the prophet has not laid aside his personality in taking on this [1] Isaiah 29:23-24, Cheyne’s translation. influence of God; after the inspiration lie is no less the person that he was before. He is still the same man, with the same temperament, the same qualities, the same characteristics. These prophets do not believe that a man should be an empty and broken vessel in order to be meet for the Master’s use; they believe that he should be a strong, vigorous, manly man to be meet for the Master’s use. When Ezekiel sees the vision in the desert and throws himself prostrate on the ground, the voice that comes to him says, " Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee." [1] It is to men standing on their feet, all their senses alert, all their powers active, that God speaks. These prophets are not passive recipients and parrot-like repeaters. The message given to them becomes a part of their own faith, inspires their personality, and transforms them and makes them what they are. So it comes to them according to their temperament.
Sometimes it flashes upon them in a vision, as it flashes upon Isaiah in the Temple. Sometimes they long for it and wait for it as a man coming across the sea watches on the watch tower for an expected haven. Sometimes they pray for it with unutterable longings and it comes in answer to their prayer.
Sometimes they have to fight for it, and it is the product only of a hard life battle. So Habakkuk fought for the vision that came to him: " O Lord, how long shall I cry and thou wilt not hear! I cry [1] Ezekiel 2:1. out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save! "This is the beginning of his experience; listen to the end, Although the fig tree shall not blossom, Neither shall fruit be in the vines; The labor of the olive shall fail, And the fields shall yield no meat; The flock shall be cut off from the fold, And there shall be no herd in the stalls, Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. [1], His faith is not a ripe fruit that has dropped into his open palm from the bough of a tree: he has had to plough, to harrow, and to dig for it as men dig for a hid treasure; he has had to battle in order that he might win it. Paul has to fight the good fight of faith that he may receive faith’s coronation, " Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Cannot we see how life and death and principalities and powers and things present and things to come have been attempting to separate him from God; how he has had to fight for his faith before he could call himself " more than conqueror "? 2 This faith was not received in the silence of the mind, in the quietude of a retreat; it was won through battle and in the midst of a strenuous, energetic life. The [1] Habakkuk 1:2; Hebrews 3:17-19.
Deserted by this lover, she sank lower and lower, until at last she sold herself to a life of public harlotry. So Hosea at last found her, a helpless slave, bought her, though she had fallen so low that he paid for her less than he would have paid for one of the poorer and cheaper slaves, and took her back, never more to be his wife, but was evermore her guardian and protector. And from his own heart’s sore trial, and from his own patient love toward an apostate wife, he learned the lesson of God’s love which forms the burden of his prophecy: God is the faithful lover; Israel is the unfaithful wife; sin is against love, not merely against law; but love is infinite and eternal and cannot be destroyed. [1], These prophets are not mere messengers. They are not like a telegraph boy who takes a sealed letter from the office and carries it to some one and does not know what it contains. They are not like phonographs to whom the message is communicated and by whom the message is repeated. Their messages are not dictated to them; they are not merely [1] Hosea 1:1-11; Hosea 2:1-23; Hosea 3:1-5. amanuenses who write down what is dictated. The message enters into them, transforms their nature, makes them what they are. So they are holy men, spiritual men, godly men, with the message wrought into their own consciousness and coming forth from their own consciousness. It becomes part of their nature. The word is in their hearts as a burning fire shut up in their bones. They cannot keep it to themselves; it must find expression. " Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel! " cries Paul. " The Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy? "cries Amos. [1] They must speak. Their message, just because it has become a part of their very nature, it is impossible for them to retain.
Hence when this message is given forth, it is transformed by their personality. How much of what Isaiah said was Isaiah, and how much was the Spirit of God, no man can tell. How much of the sermon which the preacher will write for next Sunday is born of his own thinking, how much did he get out of his theological studies, how much came of his reading of Carlyle or Calvin, Emerson or Edwards? Who can answer this question? He has been reading all these years, listening to messages, studying carefully; the results of his study and thinking have entered into his character, and have been made a part of himself; and then they come forth suffused with his own personality.
Consequently these messages of the ancient pro [1] Jeremiah 20:9; 1 Corinthians 9:16; Amos 3:8. phets are human messages. Into the message of each the life of the messenger enters. The message transforms the character of the messenger, but the character of the messenger no less gives color and character to the message. Each prophet speaks according to the spirit and temper of his own nature. Paul uses the same word to express the spirit of holiness within a man and the Holy Spirit operating on a man. Oftentimes we cannot tell which he means. Sometimes I do not think he knows himself, the two are so interwoven in his experience. This Holy Spirit operating within has so changed the spirit within, and this spirit so derives its life from the Spirit without him, that he cannot distinguish one from the other, and uses the same word to mean either, or both in their commingled action.
Hence the messages of these prophets are individual messages. Amos, the Carlyle of Hebrew literature, is an interpreter of the divine conscience; Hosea, a poet of infinite tenderness, is an interpreter of the divine mercy; Isaiah, the statesman-prophet of his people, is largely a preacher of political righteousness; Micah, the prophet of the poor, is the socialistic voice of his age; Habakkuk is the prophet of victorious faith conquering a native pessimistic skepticism; Jeremiah is the first individualist among the Hebrew prophets, a Protestant ages before Protestantism; Ezekiel is the voice of the Hebrew liturgists or churchmen; the Great Unknown, the prophet whose writings appear in the latter part of the book of Isaiah, is the most catholic of all this ancient ministry, a fountain and inspiration to largeness of faith and hope for all the ages. Thus in these messengers of the Lord is every type of temperament, and therefore every type of message: justice and mercy, individualism and socialism, ecclesiasticism and Protestantism, pessimism and optimism. These men do not all have the same message; they do not all repeat the same story; they are not mere echoes of a voice. The life has entered into them, commingling with their life, and comes forth tinged by their pervading experiences. They are transformed by the message, and the message is also transformed by them.
These men, thus speaking forth from God, get the power of their message from the fact that they are interpreting God, - not echoing the public sentiment of their time, but receiving, understanding, appreciating, and repeating the message that all men might receive from God if they would but use their ears to hear. Some men have power over an audience by reason of their innate character, their mere force of will. They master other men by the power of their personality. This is not the case with the prophets; at least they declare that it is not. When Moses is asked to go on his mission, he protests that he is not the one to go. " I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue," he says. When Isaiah is called upon to go on his mission, he replies, " I am a man of unclean lips." He does not think himself the one to regenerate the people. When Jeremiah is called, he pleads his youth and inexperience as a reason why he should not go. " I cannot speak," he says, " for I am a child." When Paul is called as a missionary to the Gentiles, he argues that he is better fitted to be an apostle to the Jews because they know how intense a Jew he has been. [1] These are not men with a transcendent, innate, self-conscious power which carries them forth against all obstacles and enables them to overcome all difficulties. That is not the secret of their power.
Some men borrow their power from their audiences. The power of an orator, wrote Mr. Gladstone, " is an influence principally received from his audience (so to speak) in vapor, which he pours back upon them in a flood." [2] That is, no doubt, the secret of a great deal of real, genuine pulpit and platform oratory. But these prophets spoke to inattentive audiences, indifferent audiences, hostile audiences. Their audiences did not give them in vapor what they gave back in a flood. Ezekiel compares the people to whom he is to speak to a valley of dry bones. Isaiah declares of the people of his day that their hearts are fat and their ears are heavy and their eyes are shut, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with [1] Exodus 4:10; Isaiah 6:5; Jeremiah 1:6; Acts 22:17-21.
[2] Quoted by John Morley: Life of Gladstone, i, 191. their heart. [1] The power of these prophets was not in their own innate sense of power; it was not borrowed from the people to whom they spoke and reflected back to them again; it was in their consciousness of the- presence in them of the living God, speaking in them, giving them their message, transforming their nature, imparting to them their life, sending them on their errand.
Intuitionalists and idealists as they were, yet they were practical men. They were idealists and intuitionalists in obtaining their message, they were practical men in giving it. This differentiates them from the poet. The poet sees his vision, and then he expresses himself because he wishes to express himself. It is a pleasure for him to do so. As one sits down at the organ and plays upon it because it expresses music, though there be no one in the room, so the poet plays upon the instrument of his imagination and gives forth the utterances, whether men will read his poetry or whether they will not. The men to whom this poem will come are not in his mind at all; it is the vision which is in his mind. This is not so with the prophets. They are eager to give their vision to their fellow men. All their prophecies have a definite spiritual purpose, and if we study the history of the time, we can see what that purpose is. They come to convince men of their sins or to inspire men with hope, to cast men from their pride or to lift them up from their despair;
[1] Ezekiel 37:1-11; Isaiah 6:9-10. but they come always with some message of healing, of help, of medicine. It is a message from God, but it is no less a message to men. It is this which gives their messages such practicality. They do not deal with sin or with righteousness in the abstract, but with the actual sins and the actual virtues of the men of their time.
It is sometimes said that conviction of sin is no longer experienced as it was experienced in the days of our fathers. But I wonder whether our conviction of sin to-day is not a much better conviction of sin than that in the beginning of the nineteenth century. I am inclined to think that it is. Our fathers had a conviction of sin: we have a conviction of sins; and it is better to have a conviction of sins than a conviction of sin. Notwithstanding their conviction of sin, drunkenness, or at least drinking to excess, was not uncommon at church ordinations. Notwithstanding their conviction of sin, they left slavery undisturbed. Our conviction of sin may not be so profound, but we have abolished slavery, we have driven the saloon out of the church, and perhaps by and by we shall drive it out of the highways. Our religion may be less spiritual, but it is more practical than the religion of our fathers. In this respect it is more like the religion of the prophets. One quotation may serve to illustrate the practicality of their teaching, Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and Thou seest not? mortified ourselves, and Thou markest it not?
Surely, on your fast-day ye pursue your business, and all money lent on pledge ye exact?
Surely, it is for strife and contention ye fast, and to smite with the fist the poor; Such fasting as yours to-day will not make your voice heard on high. Can such be the fast that I choose, a day when a man mortifies himself? To droop one’s head like a bulrush, and to make sackcloth and ashes one’s couch - Wilt thou call this a fast, and a day acceptable to Jahveh? Is not this the fast that I choose, says Jahveh? To loose the fetters of injustice, to untie the bands of violence, To set at liberty those who are crushed, to burst every yoke asunder. Is it not to break thy bread to the hungry, and to bring the homeless into thy house; When thou seest the naked to cover him, and to hide not thyself from thy own flesh?
Then will thy light break forth as the dawn, thy wounds will be quickly healed over, Thy righteousness will go before thee, and Jahveh’s glory will be thy reward. [1], The writings of the prophets abound in such practical expositions of religious duty. The sins which they most condemn are sins of inhumanity to man. Rarely if ever do they condemn absence from church, failure in sacrifice, disregard of ordinances, or even lack of prayer. What they condemn is injustice and impurity and cruelty. Rarely if ever do they send men to the temple or to the sacrifice for forgiveness. " Wash you, make you clean: put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well... Come [1] Isaiah 58:3-8: Cheyne’s translation. now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; " this is the burden of their message. [1], White because of temple and sacrifice and priestly ceremonial? No. Because of ceasing from iniquity, or as another prophet expresses it, breaking off sins by righteousness. [2] The preaching of the prophets is spiritual because the message is derived from God, not from man. It is practical because it is applied to the daily affairs of daily life. For the same reason it is dramatic. These prophets are not separated from humanity because they live with God; on the contrary, the more they live with God the more they are identified with humanity; the more they enter into the secret places of the Most High, the more they enter into the common experiences of their fellow men. Hence they are able to interpret human experience. And this interplay of the human experience and the divine response - and again the divine message and the human response - makes the prophetic writings dramatic. A very familiar passage in Micah may serve to illustrate this dramatic element and at the same time its peculiar character. It is a trialogue between the Prophet, Jehovah, and the People, The Prophet. Hear ye now what the Lord saith, Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Hear, O ye mountains, the Lord’s controversy, and ye enduring foundations of the earth, [1] Isaiah 1:16-18.
[2] Daniel 4:27. for the Lord hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel
Jehovah. O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me. For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of bondage; and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him; remember from Shittim unto Gilgal, that ye may know the righteous acts of the Lord. The People. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? The Prophet. He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. [1], Not less strikingly dramatic is the opening of the prophecy of the " Second Isaiah," the " Great Unknown," - a dialogue between the Divine Voice commanding the Prophet, and the Prophet asking for his message and expostulating with the command, and finally receiving the word which he is to proclaim. The Voice. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry [1] Micah 6:1-8. unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; that she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. The voice of one that crieth, Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a high way for our God.
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. The voice of one saying, Cry. The Prophet, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth; because the breath of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The Voice. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand for ever. [1], This prophet has felt the burden of his time, its sin, its penalty; and he has seen the transitoriness of Israel, - its glory passing away, its city in ruins, its temple abandoned. But he has seen more. He has seen the manifestation of God in the captivity of Israel, that is, in the punishment of the Nation for its sins and in the redemption which he sees approaching, that is, in the divine pardon of a redeemed people; and behind this transitoriness of the Nation’s glory, and behind the penalty and the pardon, and in -both penalty and pardon, he sees the Eternal working out his plans for the redemption of the race through Israel.
· [1] Isaiah 40:1-8. The Hebrew prophets saw beneath the surface, and therefore they saw beyond the day. They foretold the future because they perceived truly the present. They understood the real meaning of events, therefore they comprehended the trend of events.
They saw that God is in human history working out the redemption of the world; and this vision of God in his world gave them a foresight as to the outcome of God’s work in the final issue of human history. This insight gave them foresight and made them foretellers. They were foretellers because they were forthtellers. Because they spake as interpreters of an inward vision they turned their faces and the faces of their people toward the future. And as this spirit gave them foresight, so it gave them hopefulness; because it was the foresight of men who believed that the moral forces are greater than all other forces, that God is more than all they that are leagued against God. They were hopeful for their Nation, for they could not believe that the Nation would abandon Jehovah; and when finally they were forced to the conclusion that the Nation had abandoned Jehovah, they were hopeful for a new Nation which God would raise up and through which he would save the world. Even in their hours of darkest pessimism they were optimists; even at the time when they beheld the ruin of the destroyed Nation they still hoped for the redemption of mankind. And this foresight and this hopefulness gave them courage. Jeremiah, standing for God and God’s truth, as he sees it, facing the charge that he has turned traitor to his country and is a friend of the Chaldeans, because he sees the victory of the Chaldeans, let down into the dungeon and lying there in the mire, and still maintaining his courage and his faith in God; Paul rescued from the mob on the floor of the temple, lifted up, bleeding, duststained, scarred, and standing there and turning to the officer to ask, " May I not speak to this mob? "and on those temple stairs repeating the message of a redeemed world through Jesus Christ our Lord, [1], - where shall we find in human history more splendid illustrations of magnificent courage than in these prophets of the Old Testament and the New Testament? No man belongs in the Christian pulpit unless he is the successor of the Prophets and the Apostles, in a succession not given by the laying on of hands, not ecclesiastical or organic, a succession spiritual, a succession of inheritance of the spirit.
If a man is to do his work as a Christian minister, he must be a man of God as the old prophets were men of God; he must interpret him, not reflect the sentiments of his community; he must receive into himself the message which God gives him and make it a part of his life; he must make that consciousness of his message the secret and source of his power, and give it forth with the spiritual vitality [1] Jeremiah 32:2-5; Jeremiah 33:1-3; Acts 22:30-30. which comes only from an experience of God’s love, in faith and hope; he must make it a practical message, dealing with the actual scenes, the actual struggles, the actual life of the people of this twentieth century; aud he must have the foresight that comes from insight; he must dare march forward; he must be a leader in that great movement the end of which is the kingdom of God, the power of which is the power of God, and the ministers to which must be ministers of God.