For yourselves, brethren, know our entrance in unto you, that it was not in vain
Essential elements of success in preaching: Boldness
Outsiders testified of the success of the gospel; and the apostles could confidently appeal to the converts in confirmation of the report.
“For yourselves,” etc. Dr. Lillie observes: “Paul’s entrance was no easy, random, careless matter--not at all an affair of rhetoric or ostentation--no holiday diversion or intellectual pastime; but a fact of the utmost gravity for him and for that renowned city--a crisis, an epoch in the history of both.” We trace in their ministerial endeavours four essential elements that are ever found in all successful preaching--boldness, sincerity, gentleness, moral consistency. Consider, first, their boldness.
I. This boldness manifested in the earnest declaration of the truth. “We are bold in our God,” etc.
1. Bold in their conception of the Divine origin and vast scope of the gospel, and its adaptation to the wants of man, they were not less hold in its faithful proclamation. Their deep conviction of the supreme authority of the truth gave them unusual courage. We see the same spirit in Paul, when his fearless words roused the ire of Festus, shook the conscience of the thoughtless Felix, or swayed the heart of Agrippa. We see it in Elijah as he rebuked the sins of the wicked Ahab or threw the baffled priests of Baal into maddening hysteria--himself the while unmoved and confident. We see it conspicuously in Him whose burning words assailed every wrong, and who denounced the leaders of a corrupt Church as “serpents!” “generation of vipers!”
2. “With much contention”--amid much conflict and danger. This kind of preaching provoked opposition, and involved them in great inward struggles. The faithful messenger of God fears not the most violent assault from without: but the thought of the fatal issues to those who obstinately reject and fight against the gospel fills him with agonizing concern.
II. This boldness no suffering could daunt. “Even after that we had suffered before,” etc. They had come fresh from a city where they had been cruelly outraged. But their sufferings only deepened their love for the gospel, and inflamed the passion to make it known. A German professor has lately made experiments with chalcedony, and other quartzose minerals, and he has demonstrated that when such stones are ground on large and rapidly revolving wheels, they exhibit a brilliant phosphorescent glow throughout their entire mass. So is it with the resolute worker. The more he is ground under the strong wheel of suffering and persecution, the more intensely will his character glow.
III. This boldness was Divinely inspired. “In our God.” It was not presumption or bravado; but tire calm, grand heroism of a profound faith in God. The prophet Jeremiah, in a moment of despondency, decided to “speak no more in the name of the Lord;” but when he could say, “The Lord is with me as a mighty terrible One,” his courage returned, and he obeyed implicitly the Divine mandate--“Thou shalt go,” etc. Similarly commissioned, Paul once exclaimed, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Endowed with the like spirit Luther uttered his noble protest at the Diet of Worms--“Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise; God help me!” Lessons:
1. Boldness is indispensable in attacking the evils of the age--not in the mass, but in detail.
2. Boldness acquired only by studious and prayerful familiarity with God and His message. (G. Barlow.)
The true pulpit
I. Its sublime courage. “We were bold in our God.” True pulpit courage must not be con founded with that audacity, impudence, self-assurance, which, alas! is so prevalent. It is courage in God, and springs from--
1. Love for God’s character. Love is the soul of courage. Strong love absorbs all selfish fears and makes the soul heroic. Paul loved his God so strongly that he lost all selfish feelings in the passion.
2. Confidence in God’s gospel. Paul knew that the gospel he had received and that he preached was not of men, but of God. No infidel argument could shake his faith in this. It was to him a subject beyond question and debate, settled amongst the immoveable facts of his own consciousness. Boldness in God is what the pulpit wants now. Some preachers speak as if they were bold in their theology, in their sect, in their own capacities; but Paul was “bold in God.” He felt himself to be nothing.
II. Its transcendent theme. The glad tidings.
1. That God loves all men, although they are sinners. Nature shows that God loves all men as creatures; but the gospel alone reveals His love to sinners (John 3:16).
2. That God’s love for sinners is so great that He gave His only begotten Son. This is God’s gospel; and what a transcendent theme for the preacher! This Paul preached: not theology, science, philosophy, metaphysical theories. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
True courage
is cool and calm. The bravest of men have least of a brutal bullying insolence, and in the very time of danger are found the most serene and free. Rage, we know, can make a coward forget himself, and fight. But what is done in fury or anger can never be placed to the account of courage. (Shaftesbury.)
Ministerial boldness
Archbishop Whately once said, when a friend asked him whether he did not feel nervous about preaching, that he dared not; for nervousness implied thoughts of oneself, when we ought only to be thinking of God’s message. (J. Hutchinson, D. D.)
A minister without boldness
is like a smooth file, a knife without an edge, a sentinel that is afraid to let off his gun. If men will be bold to sin, ministers must be bold to reprove. (W. Gurnal.)
Influence of character
The daily influence of Christ-like ministers streams into the character of their people as the imponderable sunlight enters into the solid substance of vegetation. (Boston Review.)
Christian devotion
Rev. Mr. Johnson, a Baptist missionary in China, relates this fact of a native convert who, when trying to persuade his countrymen to give up their idols and believe in Christ, was ridiculed and scorned, and at last pelted with mud and stones till his face was red with the blood that flowed from the cuts in his temples. Mr. Johnson meeting him said, “You have had bad treatment today.” He smilingly replied, “They may kill me if they will love Jesus.”
A courageous preacher
Mr. Moody tells us that there was a celebrated preacher in one of the Southern States of America, who went to a place where they told him if he dared to speak they would rotten-egg him. But he went right on. He said he wanted to tell them a story. A man in Texas went to town and sold a drove of cattle; he put the money in his saddlebags, got on his horse and started for home, his dog with him. He got tired after awhile, and laid down under a tree and went to sleep, laying the saddlebags by him. After awhile he awoke, took up the bags, got on his horse and rode off. But his dog kept barking and running back, and would not go along with him and keep quiet. So he finally, in his anger, took out his revolver and shot the dog, and rode on. But the more he thought about what he had done, the more he was troubled. He turned his horse and rode back, and found that the dog had dragged himself along until he had reached the tree where he had slept. There he was, dying; but by his side was his master’s bundle of money, which he had dropped and was going off without, and which his faithful dog had lost his life in trying to save. “Now,” said the minister, “I am here like that dog, to tell you of the treasure you are losing. Rotten-egg me if you want to.” But they didn’t; they heard him gladly.
Not in vain
A young man was engaged in teaching a class of rather wild lads in a Sabbath school: He thought that he was not qualified to make any impression upon them, and got much discouraged. By the inducements of his fellow teachers and superintendent, he was prevailed upon to keep at the work for years, till at last he absolutely refused to continue it longer. Many years afterward an eminent missionary wrote home: “Is that gentleman who taught in the Sabbath school still living? If he is, please let him know that there is at least one living who dates his conversion to Christ from the lessons received in his class.” So you see that, although the teacher gave up his work because he saw no fruit, yet the seed sown was not lost; one soul, if not more, was saved, and used as God’s means for saving many others.