MINISTRY IN THE UNSEEN LIFE
Section 1
Is it allowable here to make a venture
of faith and speculate on a matter of which we cannot
give definite proof? There is a beautiful old
allegory of KNOWLEDGE, the strong mailed knight, tramping
over the great table-land that he surveyed, and testing
and making his ground sure at every step, while beside
him, just above the ground, moved the white-winged
angel FAITH.
Side by side they moved, till the
path broke short off on the verge of a vast precipice.
Knowledge could go no further. There was no
footing for the ponderous knight; but the white-winged
angel rose majestically from the ground and moved
across the chasm, where her companion could not follow.
Our path has broken off knowledge
can go no further. May we speculate with faith
on something we cannot prove? I am thinking of
a speculation very dear to myself, about that progress
of our dear ones in the presence of Christ.
Will not much of that progress in the life beyond
come through unselfish ministry to others? Let
us see what reason there is to hope it.
Think of all the true hearts who have
lived on earth the Christ life of unselfish helpfulness.
Can you imagine them never helping any one there,
where growth in love is God’s highest aim for
them?
Think of our Lord’s mysterious
preaching in the Life after Death and remember that
some of the best known teachers of the early Church
believed that the apostles and others had followed
His example. (See Chapter IV, .)
Think that there are countless millions
in the World of the Departed born in heathen lands,
born in Christian lands, who had no chance on earth
of knowing Christ in a way to win their love for Him.
Think, how shall His command be fulfilled
by His Church, “Go preach the good news to every
creature” EVERY creature. What
a mockery it seems with the heathen dying half a million
every week if no work for Christ goes on in the Unseen!
If millions of those Hindoos who have died without
the Gospel would have accepted it, do you think it
is not being taught to any of them now? If the
men of ancient Tyre and Sidon would have repented
at the teaching and work of Christ, if the mighty works
had been done in them, do you not think He has taken
care since that the men of Tyre and Sidon should have
their chance? If the heathen Socrates, and Plato,
and Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus would have fallen
at His feet as their Master and Friend and
you know they would do you think they have
not learned to know Him by now? If honest hearts
in our own land who have died repelled from Him through
their ignorance and through stupid misrepresentations
would have loved Him if they knew Him as He really
is, do you think that no one is helping them to understand
Him now? Can we doubt that somehow within the
Veil they will learn more fully of His tender love?
And judging from what we know of God’s methods
on earth, is it unreasonable to think that they will
learn it from their brethren? True, God might
help them by means of the angels. But in God’s
dealings with men’s souls on earth not angels
but men were the helpers He gave them. Even
in the stupendous miracle of the conversion of St.
Paul it was a man (Ananias) whom God sent to help
him.
Section 2
Here comes an interesting question
about the doctrine of Election. To the generation
before us it was a horrible doctrine clashing with
all sense of fairness or right. Men said it
meant that God decreed certain men to eternal Heaven
and certain others to eternal Hell by His own arbitrary
will. The stern revolt of Conscience at length
sent us back to study our Bibles more carefully.
We found that in the first recorded case of election
Abraham was called for the good of others “that
in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the
earth be blessed.”
We saw reason to believe that Abraham’s
case was a type of all other elect elect
for the service of others. We found that
the Bible consistently and throughout affirms that
when “God calls or separates one man to Himself
it is for the good of other men; that when He selects
one family it is that all families should be blessed;
that when He chooses one nation it is for the welfare
of all nations; that when He elects and establishes
a church it is for the spiritual benefit of the world.
No man, no family, no nation, no church possesses
any gift or privilege or superior capacity or power
for its own use and welfare alone but for the general
good.” So we learned that God’s word
is true in spite of our stupid misunderstanding of
it and that this doctrine of Election rightly understood
is one of the noblest things in the whole Bible.
Now comes my question. Are God’s
elect in the Hereafter life still “elect
for the service of others”? Are those
loving souls who are joyfully accepting Christ’s
service here, destined for a still more
glorious service in this ministry in the Unseen the
“first-fruits” of a great harvest which
through them the Lord will reap in the Hereafter?
Will some be just saved, saved so as by fire, saved
“by the skin of their teeth,” as we say,
missing the noble destiny of the “elect,”
the joy of being a blessing to their race?
Section 3
“You have preached your last
sermon,” said one to Frederick Denison Maurice
as he was dying. “Aye,” he said;
“but only my last sermon in THIS life.”
He believed he was going through the veil to preach
to men. I believe it too, though I cannot prove
it, nay, even though there be difficulties in the
way of believing it. And many men greater than
we are believing it, impelled by the stirring of Divine
impulses within.
Do not think of it as merely a work
for preachers and teachers. Every brave boy
here who is trying to do right, every poor woman who
is learning to love, every one who is blessing the
world by kindly unselfishness, is helping on the Kingdom
of God on earth and will be helping on the Kingdom
of God beyond.
Surely there will be scope for them
all. When you think of that great mingled crowd
that is daily passing through the gates of death, all
sorts and conditions from the strong saints
of God to the poor children brought up in homes of
sin you need have little doubt that there
is room for service.
If it be true, ah! think of it, you
who are trying to forget yourselves, and live for
others think of the blessedness of your
life in the waiting land. With the weak and
the ignorant needing to be helped; with the little
children needing to be mothered and loved; with the
great heathen world, who have gone within the veil,
never yet having heard of Christ.
Section 4
If it be true, think how it takes
away the reproach of “glorified selfishness,”
which many attribute to the Christians’ glad
hope.
Think how it helps in the perplexities
about God’s dealings when young and useful lives
are taken from the earth. An angry mourner said
to me recently, “I don’t believe God has
anything to do with it, else why should He take away
a noble life like that and leave all these stupid
useless people in the world?” I told him of
my hope of this ministry in the Unseen and suggested
that perhaps God did not want ONLY the stupid useless
people.
And think especially how it deepens
the importance of our life on earth to feel that it
has a bearing on our usefulness for ever. The
more we increase our talents here, the more we shall
be able to help our Saviour there. He Himself
suggests this in the parables of the Talents and the
Pounds. “Thy pound has gained five, I will
set thee over five cities. Thy pound has gained
ten, I will set thee over ten cities. I will
give thee a larger and nobler work hereafter.”
Is not that an incentive to stir one’s blood?
The more I grow in love, in unselfishness, in knowledge
of God, in righteousness of life, the more use I shall
be to my dear Lord and to my brethren for ever.