Well, folks, it's been really enjoyable today. I've gotten to know folks I hadn't met before, and I've reconnected with others who I have.
So I'd like just to speak to you from that passage, both passages, really.
But if you start, if you look with me at Matthew chapter 9, if I use the illustration of a sandwich earlier to look at the Great Commission,
for those of us who are a bit older, if I could use the illustration of a television.
Now, those of us who remember television before cable, that you had to adjust the television set,
and you had to adjust the television set in two different ways.
You had the horizontal, because you didn't really want your TV to go up and down like that.
So you wanted the picture to stay, and you also had to adjust the vertical so it was kind of in the center of the screen.
Maybe I might have got those wrong, but if we keep that in mind, the television, the horizontal and the vertical,
Jesus here is ministering.
Now, in a sense, the ministry of Jesus is unique.
He does things we can't do.
He has power.
He has authority.
He has the capacity that we don't.
But if you look at this passage, we hear in Matthew chapter 9 that Jesus encounters people who are sick.
They're afflicted.
They're harassed.
They're helpless.
They're very vulnerable.
They're described as sheep without a shepherd.
Now, Jesus then turns to his disciples and says,
The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.
So, one key to our mission, one key to ministry,
and each one of us has ministry.
Each one of us is on a mission.
It begins with how you see.
Now, my afternoon activity, I went into the pool and into the sauna, the whirlpool.
Great.
But one problem with that is I have to take my glasses off, and I can't really see anything.
So, I was surrounded by people, and I'm sorry, do I know who is this, Paul?
I can't really see you clearly, but you look like.
But when I put my glasses back on, I can see things clearly.
Jesus sees harassed and helpless and vulnerable and sick and afflicted people,
and he concludes that the harvest is plentiful.
What do we conclude when we see the same thing?
Do we conclude that today is a day of opportunity?
Today is a day where the Lord has placed us exactly where he wants us to be
and exactly where we want to be.
There are so many people who don't know about Jesus.
Isn't that a great opportunity?
There are so many people who don't have the first idea.
So, it all depends upon your perception, your point of view.
A couple books that I'm going to commend to you.
If you like small books, short books, two books by Roger Carswell.
If you're called to preach, or if you ever have the opportunity to preach,
definitely purchase, this is from the publishing house, ten of them,
evangelistic preaching.
Very short book, very good.
The book I'm going to quote from now is called,
And Some Evangelists.
That passage from Ephesians chapter 4,
where the Apostle Paul is describing the various offices within the church.
But Carswell is great because he takes examples from history about what evangelism looks like.
And he takes us back 250 years.
And we're told that a man called John Wesley traveled for the first time to Newcastle.
And he entered this in his journal.
At this juncture, Roger Carswell interrupts the narrative and says,
Our natural reaction would be to complete the sentence by words such as hell or judgment.
But Wesley saw things differently.
Surely this place is ripe for him who came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
I don't know about you, but I find that there's a lot of sinners in the city of Edinburgh.
There's a lot of sinners who are in need of repentance.
And if that's the message in the ministry of Jesus,
then it does seem like God has placed us in the right place at the right time with the right message.
But do we look at people the same way that Jesus looks at people?
Do we look at people with compassion?
Do we look at people with concern?
Do we look at people and want to do something for them
that will benefit them in time and in eternity?
So is there a love?
And this is where we have the horizontal, our horizontal relationships.
Is there a love that we have for people?
And that can take many different forms.
So we can show compassion, concern for their physical well-being,
their emotional well-being.
But as Christians, surely we have a care for people's spiritual well-being,
where they will be for the rest of eternity.
So John Wesley goes into Newcastle, and we're told,
as that passage continues in his journal,
he said he began by singing.
He chose a place on one of the street corners in Newcastle.
He began singing Psalm 100,
All People That On Earth Do Dwell.
He said within a few moments, a couple hundred people gathered.
They were quite curious to see what was happening.
And he said, my name is John Wesley,
and I will preach to you the gospel, the good news concerning Jesus Christ.
And thousands of people in those few days came to hear Wesley preach
the good news concerning Jesus Christ.
Another book I want to commend to you is,
this is the most recent of many biographies,
but this is Kevin Belmonte, D.L. Moody,
innovator, evangelist, world changer.
Now, Moody, great quotation from Moody.
He said, if this world is going to be reached,
I am convinced that it must be done by men and women of average talent.
After all, there are comparatively few people in the world who have great talents.
So, if we can take for granted that there are many people in the city of Edinburgh
who are sinners in need of repentance,
and that we as Christians have the one and the only message of salvation
found in the one and the only Savior of the world that,
remember those words from John chapter 4,
the Samaritans came to believe for themselves by speaking with Jesus
that he is indeed the Savior of the world.
If that's true of the city of Edinburgh,
I think what Moody is getting at here is true of this room,
that I'm speaking to a room of men and women
with average, ordinary talents.
There may be some extraordinary people here,
and if there are, by all means,
use your extraordinary gifts and talents.
But if this world is going to be reached,
God uses ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things.
The first scene of this book,
this was written by a man called William Reynolds.
He was a gospel worker in Chicago,
and in the very early career of D.L. Moody,
he encountered this new young man who had come from the East.
And this was his impression.
He said, the first meeting I ever saw Moody
was in the little old shanty abandoned by a saloon keeper.
You see, Moody set up shop in Chicago,
and he set up a Sabbath school.
You see, he wasn't a minister.
He wasn't the Reverend D.L. Moody.
He was always Mr. Moody.
And if he was asked to describe himself,
he would describe himself as a Sabbath school worker from Chicago.
And the Sabbath school at that particular juncture
was in a district of Chicago known as Little Hell,
which gives you an idea of the clientele.
But he said,
I saw a man standing up with a few tallow candles around him,
holding a Negro boy and trying to read him the story of the prodigal son.
A great many of the words he could not make out and had to skip.
I thought, if the Lord can ever use such an instrument as that,
it will astonish me.
After that meeting was over, Moody said,
Reynolds, I have only got one talent.
I have no education,
but I love the Lord Jesus Christ,
and I want to do something for him.
So if you think of that television with the vertical and the horizontal,
can we agree that we love the Lord Jesus
and that we want to do something for him?
And can we likewise agree that we love people
and we want to do something for them?
So if you have these two perspectives,
the vertical relationship with God through Jesus,
and we love Jesus,
we love him because he first loved us.
And we have a love and a compassion for people
because we realize that they are just where we once were.
They don't know or they haven't heard.
Nobody's taking the time.
Nobody's made the effort to tell or to share or to show.
And whether it's youth work in the north of Edinburgh,
whether it's prayer ministry in Midlothian,
whether it's running a Christianity Explored
or an outreach event in Costa Coffee in Brunsfield,
the venue, the circumstance is secondary.
But if those two loves are there,
love to God, love through Christ,
and love to people,
then God will use you and me
to accomplish his plan and his purpose.
Let me just give you an insight into this man called D.L. Moody.
D.L. Moody was not well educated.
He left school at the age of 10,
fourth grade, maybe third grade.
He left school at a young age.
And when he came to Boston,
before he went to Chicago,
he went to Boston,
his desire was to make a fortune.
And he was one of the best shoe salesmen
that Boston and then later Chicago ever saw.
He had a natural way with people.
He began attending a local YMCA.
And he attended a Sunday school class.
And his Sunday school teacher
was a man called Edward Kimball.
Now, Kimball described Moody in these ways.
He says,
Now, if you're a parent with a child
and the Sunday school teacher gives a report
and says,
This was the man D.L. Moody.
of not only coming to know,
let alone coming to serve in any meaningful way.
This was the man D.L. Moody.
Uneducated,
untrained.
He was brought up in a Unitarian household.
Unitarians do not believe in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
They don't believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God
or the Savior of the world.
And yet, D.L. Moody came to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
And he described his conversion in this way.
He said,
It was the love of God that broke my heart years ago.
And it was the love of God that he preached
and shared from that time forward.
Now, I said that in many ways,
D.L. Moody is an ordinary person.
Well, he's extraordinary.
It's estimated that he personally led
70,000 people to faith.
One of his great gifts was personal evangelism,
one-to-one evangelism,
speaking to people about their souls.
It was said that people would say of D.L. Moody,
he spoke to me as if my soul mattered.
On a train,
in the streets,
he made it a personal commitment
that he would speak to at least one person
every day
before he went to bed.
One of the early biographies of Moody
was simply described,
Love the Men,
the Life and Theology of D.L. Moody.
And he said this,
If you can really make a man believe
that you love him,
you have won him.
We might not have
the depth of theology
or the depth of understanding.
We might not be able to answer the objections
or answer the questions.
But if you have a genuine love for Jesus
and a genuine love for people,
just wait to see what God can do.
Just wait to see how God can use you
or use me.
Not because of who we are,
but because of whom we serve.
Of who we introduce people to.
So this man of fourth grade education,
this man came in his lifetime.
He was converted.
He began attending the YMCA
at the age of 17.
He became a Christian
at the age of 18.
And interesting,
this same Kimball.
Kimball's Sunday school class,
he was saying to himself,
he said,
he felt that not one member
of his Sunday school class
was a Christian,
had come to a faith in Jesus.
And as a Sunday school teacher,
this vexed him.
This concerned him.
He felt that he had to do something.
So he was committed
to speak to each member of his class.
So if you're here
and you're working
and serving within the youth ministry,
the Sunday school ministry,
North Edinburgh,
wherever it might be,
and sometimes you feel
as if you're making no impact,
or if your efforts,
your prayers,
your teaching is in vain.
Listen to this scene.
Kimball said,
I determined to speak to him
about Christ and about his soul.
So he went down to Holton's shoe store,
where Moody was working.
When I was nearly there,
I began to wonder
whether I ought to go in
just then during business hours.
I thought that possibly my call
might embarrass the boy.
And that when I went away,
the other clerks might ask who I was
and taunt him with my efforts
of trying to make him a good boy.
In the meantime,
I had passed the store
and discovering this,
I determined to make a dash for it
and have it over at once.
I found Moody in the back part
of the building wrapping up shoes.
I went up to him at once,
putting my hand on his shoulder.
I made what I afterward thought
was a very weak plea for Christ.
I don't know just what words I used,
nor could Mr. Moody tell.
I simply told him of Christ's love for him
and the love that Christ wanted in return.
There's a theme here, isn't there?
That that was all there was.
It seemed the young man
was just ready for the light
that then broke upon him.
And there, in the back of the store in Boston,
he gave himself and his life to Christ.
It's estimated that in his ministry,
he lived to the age of 62,
he became a Christian at the age of 18,
that he personally preached
to 100 million people.
He was persuaded that God was calling him
and his generation to reach their generation,
the whole of their generation,
for Jesus.
Now, we will have to say
that they did not succeed
in reaching their whole generation
by the end of the 19th century.
The work still goes on.
But 100 million is not a bad start
for someone with a fourth grade education.
He came to the United Kingdom
on several journeys,
but his first trip was in 1872,
and he did not come as a preacher.
He was not advertised.
He was little known.
But he was invited to a church
in North London.
And just to give you a flavor
of these early years,
he said when Moody preached in the morning,
he felt there was a dullness
or a heaviness.
He then preached that evening.
He said it could not have been
more radically different.
It seemed as if the very atmosphere
was charged with the Spirit of God.
There was a hush from heaven
upon the people,
and by his own admission,
he hadn't been much in prayer that day.
And as was his custom,
he concluded his sermon
by asking any
who wished to become Christians
to rise,
and so he could pray for them.
Almost all at once,
scores of people stood.
It seemed like the whole audience
had risen.
Moody thought,
they must not have understood me.
They didn't know what I meant
when I gave an invitation
for seekers to stand.
Surely,
that is what has just happened.
So he thought to put the invitation
more clearly,
and repeated it.
All those who want to become Christians,
he said,
just step into the inquiry room.
At this,
most of the sanctuary emptied.
Virtually everyone present
went to the inquiry room.
There were so many people
that extra chairs
had to be brought in.
Neither the local minister
nor Moody could believe it.
They had never seen
God saved by hundreds.
Once more,
Moody thought he had been misunderstood.
He asked those that really wanted
to become Christians
to rise.
Again,
the whole audience stood.
Moody truly had no idea
what to do,
so again,
he played it safe
and told all those
who were really in earnest
to meet the pastor there
the next night.
By that evening,
he was in Dublin.
Over the next week,
400 people were added
to that church
as members.
What does this say?
This says that God
takes instruments
of ordinary ability
but uses them
in an extraordinary capacity.
Why?
Because there is a powerful
and a palpable love.
A love that Moody had
for his Savior Jesus
and a love that Moody had
for people.
How can we translate this love
into our own circumstance?
How can we take the love
that we have for Jesus?
Jesus.
Because we do love Jesus.
We love him for who he is.
We love him for what he has done.
We love him because he first loved us.
And we love people.
We love our families.
We love our friends.
We love our neighbors.
We love the people in Brunsfield.
We love our friends.
We love our great care
and our great concern
is so many people
do not know the same Jesus.
That they do not love the same Jesus.
That they are not aware
of his love for them.
So,
as Jesus sees
these harassed
and helpless people,
as he sees these sick
and afflicted people,
he asks us to do two things.
He says,
the harvest is plentiful,
but the laborers are few.
So,
he asks us to focus our vision
on what we see,
to see what we see.
And then he says,
pray.
Therefore,
pray earnestly
to the Lord of the harvest
to send out laborers
into his harvest.
The scene
from later
in Moody's ministry.
He was in London
at the time
and several local clergymen
asked to meet with him.
Vickers in the Church of England.
They wanted to know
why this poorly educated American
was so effective
in winning people
to Christ.
And they said,
Mr. Moody,
can you explain this to us?
And at that point,
he took the men
to the window
of the hotel room
where they were meeting.
And he asked them
what they saw
as they looked out the window.
And one by one,
the men described the people
in the park below.
Then one of them stopped
and said,
Mr. Moody,
what do you see?
And he said,
I see countless
thousands of souls
that will one day
spend eternity
in hell
if they do not
find the Savior.
They saw the same scene.
They were looking
at the same park.
They were observing
the same people.
And yet,
this man saw something
that they didn't see.
And what he saw
moved him to tears,
moved him to prayer,
moved him to preach,
moved him to witness.
Each one of you
has people
in your life,
unique circles
of people
that you have
relationships with,
friendships with,
rapport with,
people that you can
talk to,
people that you can
talk with,
people that you can
pray for,
people that you can
pray with.
Now, you might never
have the opportunity
of preaching
in a pulpit.
You may never have
an opportunity
of preaching
to a multitude.
But what would
Edinburgh be like
if each one of us
witnessed to the
gospel to the
closest five people
in our family group,
our friends group?
If we committed
to pray that God
would speak to their
heart?
What would happen
if one by one,
ten by ten,
hundred by hundred,
what would happen
if we saw God work
in the city of Edinburgh?
As he has in the past
and as he can do
in the future.
And where men and
women, young and old,
people who have no
connection with any
church, let alone
your church or my
church, where they
meet with followers
of Jesus and they
meet with passionate
people who have a
passionate love for
their Savior Jesus
and a passionate love
for them as people.
And we pray
and we witness
and we seek to
demonstrate the love
that we have
for Jesus Christ.
At the end of
Moody's life,
he was 62 years
of age,
he had what
we would describe
as congestive
heart failure.
He was a large
man and his heart
simply gave up.
It was November
the 16th,
1899,
not long before
the end
of the century.
He chose a passage
to preach from
Luke's gospel,
Luke chapter 14,
the parable of the
great banquet.
It was the last time
he ever preached.
He was in Kansas
City and he said
this, he said,
many of you will get
up and go out
of this hall,
making light
of the preacher,
laughing at
everything you
have heard,
paying no attention
to the invitation.
I beg of you,
do not make light
of this invitation.
It is a loving God
that invites you.
He painted
one last word picture.
What would it be
like, he wondered,
if everyone there
that night were
to accept
heaven's invitation?
What words
would they say?
Perhaps
they would run
something like this.
to the king of heaven,
while sitting in
the convention hall
on November the
16th, 1899,
I received a
pressing invitation
from one of your
servants to be
present at the
marriage supper
of your only
begotten son.
I hastened to
reply, by the
grace of God,
I will be
present.
It's an
interesting
coincidence.
The last sermon
that D.L.
Moody preached
on the parable
of the great
banquet,
compelled them
to come in,
was the most
effective sermon
by his own
estimation that
C.S.C.H.
Spurgeon ever
preached.
Spurgeon was a
much different
preacher than
Moody.
He was a
settled preacher
of a settled
congregation.
If you like
statistics,
during Spurgeon's
37 years at the
Metropolitan
Tabernacle in
the New Park
Street Pulpit
in London,
14,000 members
were added to
the church.
church.
And in
1858, when
the Metropolitan
Tabernacle was
being rebuilt,
the New Park
Street Church
was too
small, he
preached in
the Surrey
Gardens, the
largest place
to gather for
anything in the
United Kingdom
at that time.
It could seat
12,000 people.
And he
preached the
sermon from
Luke's gospel,
Luke chapter
14.
And listen to
the same
passion that
comes through
from a servant
on this side
of the Atlantic.
He would have
preached with a
much different
accent than
Moody, yet
Moody and
Spurgeon were
close personal
friends.
Spurgeon says
this, he said,
and now again
is it all in
vain.
Will you not
now come to
Christ?
What more can
I do?
I have but
one more
resort, and
that shall be
tried.
I shall be
permitted to
weep for you.
I can be
allowed to
pray for you.
You shall
scorn the
address if you
like.
You shall
laugh at the
preacher.
You shall
call him a
fanatic if you
will.
He will not
chide you.
He will bring
no accusation
against you to
the great judge.
Your offense,
so far as he
is concerned,
is forgiven
before it is
committed.
But you will
remember that
the message that
you are rejecting
this morning is
a message from
one who loves
you, and it
is given to
you by the
lips of one
who loves you.
And you will
recollect that
you may play
your soul away
with the devil,
that you may
listlessly think
it a matter of
no importance.
But there lives
at least one who
is in earnest
about your soul,
and one who
before he came
here wrestled
with his God
for strength
to preach to
you, and who
will, when he
has gone from
this place, will
not forget his
hearers this
morning.
I love the
Lord Jesus
Christ, and I
want to do
something for
him.
Loving them
in.
Loving people.
Loving Jesus.
Loving the
Jesus that
saved us.
Wanting to
introduce the
Jesus who
saved us to
men and
women, boys
and girls,
young and old,
of bringing
this message,
of bringing
this Jesus.
Moody often
said that
doctrines were
important, that
creeds were
important, but
he said this,
doctrines are
all right in
their places, but
when you put
them in the
place of faith
or salvation,
they become
sin.
If a man
should ask me
to his house
to dinner
tomorrow, the
street would
be a very good
thing to take
me to his
house, but if
I didn't get
into the
house, I
wouldn't get
any dinner.
Now a
creed is a
road or a
street.
It's very
good as far
as it goes,
but if it
doesn't take
us to
Christ, it
is worthless.
By contrast,
he said this,
as a rule I
have had for
years is to
treat the
Lord Jesus
Christ as a
personal friend.
His is not a
creed, a mere
doctrine, but it
is he himself
that we have.
And if there's
one thing that
this world
needs, if it's
one thing that
the 17,000
people groups
in this world
needs, if there's
one thing that
the city of
Edinburgh
needs, if it's
one thing that
the people of
Brunsfield need,
if it's one
thing that your
family needs, if
it's one thing
that your friends
need, if it's
one thing the
people that you
work with need,
if it's one thing
that the people
you live next
door to need,
they need him.
They need Jesus.
They need his
grace.
They need his
forgiveness.
They need his love.
They need his compassion.
And we may be the only people in their lives that have Jesus to share with them.
God is never limited.
God can work with us or without us.
But God has chosen to use us, ordinary instruments in his hands,
to accomplish extraordinary work.
Whether it's through servants who go to the ends of the earth.
Whether it's to those who stand in pulpits and proclaim Jesus.
Or whether it's you and me who sit down over a cup of coffee
to listen, to share, to tell, to show the love that we have for Jesus
and the love that we have for people.
We need to pray.
We need to speak.
We need to serve.
We love Jesus.
And we simply want to do something for him.
May God bless you as a church.
May God bless you individually.
Members of families.
May God use you wherever you are, whoever you are,
that you might commend this Jesus.
The Jesus that you love.
That you might commend this Jesus to the people that you love.
And that you might commend the people that you love to Jesus.
Praying that he would open eyes that are blind.
That he would change hearts that are dead.
That he would transform lives.
So that his name would be praised.
So that his kingdom would be extended.
And that his church would grow.
May God bless us.
And may God bless you all.
Good day.