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WHY SHOULD THE COVENANTER
CHURCH BE AGGRESSIVE
IN EVANGELISM
By Rev, Robert Park.
Now you are making very much of nothing.
No I am not. I am meeting a very
disastrous error held by some in our covenanted
Zion. And just so long and to that
degree that that thought controls the mind
of pastor or people just so much it retards
our progress in the work that Christ has
given us to do.
THE COVENANTER CHURCH SHOULD
BE AGGRESSIVE IN EVANGELISM THAT
SHE MAY SAVE HER OWN YOUNG PEO­
PLE. Children born in our own Covenanter
homes are lost and need to be brought to
saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. For
their sake we dare not neglect the evangel.
Campbell Morgan says, "In all our preaching
we need to remember that the dear children
of our own members, coming with them to
worship . must each one for
himself and herself, at some age of understanding
and discretion, yield their own life
to Jesus Christ, or else they can never be
Christians."
It is a lamentable fact that many born in
our Covenanter homes never come to faith
in Christ. This is not peculiar to the Covenanter
Church. It is true of every Church,
but the sad fact is, that it is ALSO true of
our Church. When I think of the many
young people with whom I have had companionship,
and how many of them have
never accepted Christ, but today are unbelieving
and lost; and when I remember the
report of the secretary of the Young People's
societies made last year, in which he
stated how many young people in one family
and another of the Covenanter Church
never came into the Church,—of course not
all unbelieving, but many of them so,—
when 1 think of this great drain that the
world of unbelief makes upon those of our
own flesh and blood, upon those who were
presented to the Lord in baptism by their
parents before the church, then brethren, I
say that there is a reason for this great loss.
We have not been faithful in evangelism.
Our pulpits have not rung out, as they
should ring, with the glad news of eternal
life for every one who will believe, and as
pastors and parents and teachers we have
not interceded in prayer for, and have not
pleaded personally with these young people
to accept our Saviour. At least half of our
preaching should be evangelistic, and that,
even though our ministry be confined almost
entirely to the same people week after week.
We must do this work of evangelism that
we may save our own young people.
THE COVENANTER CHURCH SHOULD
BE AGGRESSIVE IN EVANGELISM THAT
SHE MAY ACQUIRE NEW BLOOD. I
might say, that she may save those for
whose salvation she is responsible, but I am
looking at the same thing from another
THE CHRISTIAN NATION. Vol. 61,
point of view, as I am thinking particularly
why the COVENANTER Church should be
aggressive in Evangelism. We know that
for a strong physical offspring, distance in
blood relationship between parents counts
for strength. And for this mere physical
strength we need new blood in the church,
but far beyond that need is the need of the
spiritual strength that comes from the presence
of new blood, of regenerated souls in
our midst. The presence of even one new
convert adds new life and faith to a congregation.
Can any one measure the great
good that has come to the congregation of
Second Philadelphia and to the whole Church
through the converts that came into the
church at their last communion when seventeen
professed faith in Christ and united
with the Church, and thus nine new families
were brought into relationship with the
Church There is joy in heaven over one
sinner that repenteth, but the joy is not all
confined to Heaven, you will find a large
portion in that congregation and it even
vibrates throughout Covenanted Zion. What
we need as a Church is more of this joy that
comes from the presence of new born souls.
An aggressive Evangelism, and that alone,
will obtain this new blood and produce this
joy.
THE COVENANTER CHURCH SHOULD
BE AGGRESSIVE IN EVANGELISM THAT
SHE MAY CONTINUE TO BE EVANGELI­
CAL. What do you mean I mean that to
retain our faith in the evangelical doctrines
we must be evangelistic. A. T. Pierson says,
"when work for the souls of men declines or
ceases, the way is open for every doctrinal
and practical error." Dr. Duff says, "To
cease to be evangelistic is soon to cease to
be Evangelical," and Dr. Campbell Morgan
in his book on Evangelism says, "The evangelical
church is necessarily evangelistic.
There are some things so patent that they
ought not to need stating. Yet there seems
to be a prevalent idea that it is possible for
a church to be evangelical and not evangelistic.
It is not possible. A friend of mine
in the ministry, a man of whose scholarship
and of whose devotion there can be no
doubt, talking to me about evangelistic work,
accounting for his own lack of interest, said,
'Well I am profoundedly evangelical, but I am
by no means evangelistic' There would
seem to be many who take that view. Let
me say to you, my brethren, that this ts an
absurd contradiction of terms. No man is
truly evangelical unless he is evangelistic
also. What did my friend mean He meant
that he held the evangelical doctrines of our
holy faith, but he was not interested in the
specific work of winning men to Christ. Nnw
what are the foundation doctrines of our
holy faith Evangelical faith affirms that
the death of Christ was rendered necessary
by the ruin of the race, and that it is God's
provision for man's salvation. It moreover
declares that his life is at the disposal of
men for their new life of holiness. Are we
evangelical Do we believe that Jesus died
in order that he might save men If not
then we cannot claim to be evangelical. But
if we do, can we seriously assert that holding
the doctrines we are yet content to do
nothing for the men for whom Christ died
Knowing that we have the deposit of truth,
the great evangel, equal to the salvation of
men, are we careless about making it
known"
And I can say that as I have preached the
evangelistic message Sabbath after Sabbath,
though I have not seen men converted as 1
long to see them, yet my faith in the evangel
has constantly increased. To do the work
of evangehsm, whether pastoral or personal,
increases one's faith in the evangelical
doctrines; to neglect or withhold ourselves
from that work decreases our faith and in
some instances is evidence of the absence
of real evangelical faith.
THE COVENANTER CHURCH SHOULD
BE AGGRESSIVE IN EVANGELISM THAT
SHE MAY MAINTAIN HER DISTINCTIVE
TESTIMONY. True evangelism has been
neglected in many of the pulpits of other
denominations because their ministers have
not believed the great cardinal truths of the
atonement of Christ, as based on his virgin
birth, his divine life, his sacrifice on the
cross, and his resurrection from the dead, but
evangelism has often been neglected by the
Covenanter ministers because they have
thought that we have a distinctive work
that divinely excuses us from evangelism.
But there is no more effective way to undermine
our distinctive truth than to neglect
or indifferently do the work of evangelism.
Her testimony for purity of worship, her testimony
against oath-bound secret societies
and her testimony against this Christless government
is all out of her loyalty to the person
—Jesus Christ, And to acquire that personal
loyalty to a personal Lord she must have as
the foundation for it all an evangelism that
regenerates people and binds them with a
personal faith and love to the living Christ,
The Covenanter Church must do evangelism.
It must be an evangehsm that ever
exalts Christ. It must be an evangelism that
sets forth Christ as Lord as well as Saviour.
A church with a low ethic may exist on a
weak evangel, but the Covenanter Church
with her high and holy ethic, demands a high
and holy evangel. No anaemic, no colorless,
no mutilated, no spineless, no rationalistic
nor evolutionary evangelism will suffice to
build the faith that will produce a true Covenanter;
but an evangelism that is full of
red corpuscles, that has backbone, that has
a complete Gospel, presenting Jesus Christ
as Lord and Saviour, that is divine and miraculous
in its working, and that regenerates
the soul that is dead in tre "J and
sin, that is the evangelism, that •••>• 'ded
by a Christlike and holy hfe, ^ tain