PCEA

It is the duty of the Church to concentrate all her energies and resources to do the will of God. The Church does not exist to save herself, but to be the means in the hands of God to save others. The Church, whose contracted vision limits her energies within herself is endangering her very existence. Her commission is unalterable: "Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." The Church's warrant has all the authority of a Divine decree. As Paul the Apostle records, that it is "according to the Divine purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." "To the intent that now unto principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God." Paul emphatically insists to this end was grace given unto him. "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ."

The Church cannot neglect her obligations and responsibilities to carry the Gospel to the heathen, without rejecting the wisdom of God's purpose. Neither the Church nor her representatives can save the heathen, but to the Church has been committed the keys of the kingdom of heaven, in other words: the Church is the means that God has purposed to show forth the manifold wisdom in the salvation of those who sit in darkness and under the shadow of death.

Missionary enterprise in its deepest sense is the work and word of Jesus Christ. Those who are called and ordained to the work have the assurance of His Word that He will be with them. "As my Father hath sent Me even so I send you." Christ, in obedience to the command that He had received of the Father, subjected Himself to the will of God. "The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works." And as the Father sent the Son, even so, Christ sends His representatives into the world, and the words they speak are Christ's words. If Christ's representatives are rejected, Christ is rejected. If they are received Christ is received. "He that receiveth you receiveth me," said the Master.

The Church is not only to set apart Christ's representatives to the Mission Fields, but also to co-operate with them in the fulfilment of her responsibilities and obligations. The Church at Antioch was commanded by the Holy Ghost to "separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them, and when they had laid hands upon them, they sent them away. "We as a branch of Christ's Church on the earth have the same obligations and the same honour as the Church at Antioch. The Holy Ghost not only directs but commands the church to undertake the obligations and responsibilities established under the Divine economy. When the great Head of the Church calls brethren from among us to serve in the Mission Fields, and as a Church we recognize Christ's call and heed the command of the Holy Ghost "separate Me" those called "for the work whereunto I have called them."

This recognition places direct responsibility upon us. Thus as a church, let us grasp the purpose of God and acknowledge the great honour bestowed upon us to "make known the manifold wisdom of God" and claim for our risen Lord and Saviour the heritage promised to Him in the eternal covenant, that the heathen shall be His heritage and the utmost ends of the earth His possession.

The call is clear and our duty is plain. To us Christ has committed the "Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven". We represent the means that He has appointed. Dare we refuse? Christ's representative and ours serves in the South African field. Called of Christ and ordained by the Church in obedience to the command of the Holy Ghost make that field our direct responsibility together with those called from among us to prepare to serve in whatsoever field the Lord will direct them. The souls of our missionary and prospective missionaries have been stirred by the poverty and misery of the heathen, bound in chains of superstition and spiritual death, oftimes victims of their own brutal ceremonial rites, plunged so deep in their self chosen religion of lies that they cannot extricate themselves, Satanic influences steeling their hearts against pity and natural affection, as they prostrate themselves before fictitious monsters and the images of brute beasts, heathenism abandoned to vile affections, a cesspool of moral corruption accentuated by physical disease.