(Preached October 22, 1962 at Fellowship of
Evangelical Baptist Churches, Toronto, Ontario, Canada)
“When I consider thy heavens, the work of
they fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is
man, that thou are mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou
visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and
has crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion
over the works of they hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:
All sheep and oxen, yeah, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the
air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths
of the seas. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is they name in all the
earth!”--Ps. 8:3-8.
Several thousand years ago David looked up
one night and saw the stars. Perhaps he did not know that the earth was
8,000 miles in diameter, containing 198,980,000 square miles. Perhaps he
did not know that there are 264,000,000,000 cubic miles on the earth,
and even though the earth is that size, Saturn is 995 times as large and
Jupiter 1,281 times as large. Perhaps he did not know that though the
earth in all its immensity is so big, the sun could contain 1,384,462
earths. He looked up at the stars as I have done so many times.
I am still childish enough to take an
occasional walk and look at the stars. “Star light, star bright, first
star I´ve seen tonight; I wish I may, I wish I might have the wish I
wish tonight,” I´ve said many times since I was a little boy. Or,
“Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are; up above the
world so high like a diamond in the sky.” I love the stars. There´s a
fancy and a blessedness about stargazing that I love.
When I was a boy, I preferred the sun. I
hated to see that evening sun go down and darkness come. When I got
about seventeen, my fancy turned strangely from the sun to the moon. In
a most peculiar way, the sun lost its fancy; I loved the moon. But now
in these years of baldness, bifocals, bridges, bulges, and bunions, I
have come to enjoy more the sedate quietness of the stars! I´m satisfied
many of you would testify the same.
David looked up at the stars one night and
quoted those words that were inspired of God: “When I consider they
heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which the has
ordained; What is man, that thou are mindful of him? and the son of man,
that thou visitest him?”
God Sent a Man to Teach Me
Man is somebody. I hope in this message to
elevate the dignity of man to those of us who call Christ our Saviour. I
will build this message tonight around and experience that happened to
me and teach you a lesson that God taught me when I became pastor of the
First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana. I am not a big preacher; I
make no pretense at being one. I was reared a poor boy, extremely poor.
When I was called to preach, I thought I would never preach to a hundred
people at one time. I had no idea I would ever pastor a church of any
size at all. I still consider myself a small preacher. In fact, I think
all preachers should stay small preachers in their own sight. Our
position is big, but we ought to be small.
When I was called to the First Baptist
Church of Hammond, the Lord taught me this lesson the first days in my
office. I was unpacking my books one day when the secretary said,
“Brother Hyles (and I like the word Brother), someone to see you.”
I thought perhaps the mayor had dropped by
for a visit. Maybe the Chamber of Commerce had come. I straightened my
collar and my tie and buttoned my coat. I said, “Show him in.” The door
was opened a little bit and I looked out the crack. Our offices each
have a main door to the hall and then there are connecting doors between
the offices also. I looked out the crack in the door and saw that it was
not the mayor at all. It was not the Chamber of Commerce chairman. It
was what we would call a bum off the street. I had never seen a man like
him.
Our church is located downtown in Hammond,
a city of 125,000 people. We have many transient people coming by, but
this was one of the filthiest persons I had ever seen. He was a
character. He had on an old dirty, greasy cap, the kind that has a bill
and snaps at the front. His hair was long--it came down like mine did
when I was a boy and had mine cut by putting a bowl on top and chopping
around the edge. His face was dirty, filthy, and unshaven. His collar
was yellow with filth; his shirt was dirty and torn; his trousers had
patches on the knees; his shoes were slit over each toe to allow room
for a wide foot.
I looked at him, and said to the secretary,
“I´m sorry. I´m busy. I cannot see him.” I went on unpacking books. My
office was a mess. I had much to do. I had appointments to keep. I had
people to meet. I could not see him.
She looked at me and asked, “Brother Hyles,
are you sure you don´t want to see him?”
I said, “Send him in. I´ll see him.”
After talking to him for awhile, I gave him
a meal ticket and an old suit of clothes. I tried to get him on his way.
But I witnessed to him about the Saviour, as I think every preacher of
the Gospel ought to do. I told him how he could be saved. I found he had
never been converted and was of a Catholic background. I told him about
Jesus.
I love to tell the story,
For those who know it best
Seem hungering and thirsting
To hear it like the rest.
And when, in scenes of glory
I sing the new, new song,
‘Twill be the old, old story
That I have loved so long.
After I had told him the story of salvation
through Christ, I said, “May I ask that we kneel and pray.” We did. As
we went to our knees, he made the usual cross and bowed on his knees
like a little boy at the altar. He put his hands under his chin and laid
his cap beside him. I asked him to pray, and he prayed the sinner´s
prayer. I feel he was saved, and he had a blessed experience.
But before he prayed, I prayed. While I
prayed God taught me the lesson that He wanted to teach me on the first
days as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Hammond. I knelt to pray,
and --I will be honest with you--the odor was unbearable, nauseating. As
that fellow bowed and closed his eyes, I looked at his old greasy cap; I
looked at his long, tousled hair; I looked at his dirty and unshaven
face; I looked at his yellow, filthy shirt; I looked at his baggy,
ragged trousers; I looked at his split shoes, and thought. “This is the
most miserable wretch I have ever seen in my life.”
God Created Earth and All Things for Men.
All of a sudden, just as if God Himself had
written the eighth Psalm on the wall of my study, I saw it there. I
began to think about this man. Here was a man made in the image of God.
He was a fallen creature, to be sure; a depraved man, to be sure; a
sinner by nature, that´s right. Yet here was a man who has been the
object of God´s love from eternity to eternity, from the making of man
in Eden until that day when we will sing, “All hail the power of Jesus´
name.”
I realized here was somebody. I thought as
I looked at that dirty, filthy man, that this was the object of God´s
love. The first thing that hit my mind was this: “What is man, that thou
art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?”
The reason God one day spoke and lilies
covered the fields was for this man. The reason God one day bade the
water above be separated from the water beneath was for this man. The
reason God raised the trees like great spires in the sky was for this
man. The reason God raised the mountains like great pyramids on the
horizon was for this man. The reason God dotted the land with lakes like
heavenly teardrops was for this man. The reason God made the birds
melodious choirs to sing through the heaven was for this man. The reason
God made the stars for midnight chandeliers was for this man. All of
God´s creation was for one man.
There is something that happens to a
preacher, my dear friends, and it can easily happen to a young man
assuming a position in a large city church, as was my case. That
something is this: Somehow we lose sight of the fact that God has called
us to preach to men. We forget that the purpose of our ministry is
reaching men. We are not social gospellers. I like what the old
Mississippi Negro preacher said: “I´m gonna kick the Devil as long as
I´ve got a foot. I´m gonna bite him as long as I´ve got teeth. Then I´m
gonna gum him till I die.”
Our job is not improving society. You get
people saved, and that will improve society more than all the Alcoholics
Anonymous, Social Betterment Leagues, and others all put together.
Preaching the Gospel of Christ will save more alcoholics accidentally on
the drippings than Alcoholics Anonymous will save on purpose. Preaching
the Gospel of Christ will clean up more slums accidentally than Slum
Clearance Committees will do on purpose. Preaching the Gospel of Christ
will save more homes accidentally than all the psychologists and
psychiatrists will do on purpose. Preaching the Gospel of Christ will
save more derelicts and restore more harlots and drunkards and
prostitutes than all of the Social Betterment Leagues and the social
gospel will do on purpose. The need of this hour, my precious friend is
for churches and preachers and Christians to be consumed in the great
task of reaching men with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Came to Save Men
I looked at him. I couldn´t help but think
as I knelt to pray with him, Not only was creation for this man, but
Jesus came for this man.
Luke 19:10 says, “For the Son of man is
come to seek and to save that which was lost.” “As my Father hath sent
me, so send I you, “ said the Saviour. In Luke, chapter 15, it was one
lost coin, one lost boy, one lost sheep. At midnight it was one
Nicodemus; at noonday it was one woman at the well; on the cross there
was one dying thief; up a tree there was one Zacchaeus; there was one
Bartimaeus on the road; there was one lady possessed of seven demons.
Our Lord preached His greatest sermons to one person. he gave His
greatest discourses to one.
When we preachers get to the place where we
are nothing more than somewhat of an Old Mother Hubbard, Santa Claus and
Grandma Moses, we have lost our vision of men as the purpose of the
ministry of the Gospel of Christ. God give us some prophets who reap
men. God give us some Elijahs, Jonathan Edwardses, Charles G. Finneys,
Dwight Moodys, and Billy Sundays. God give us some weeping Jeremiahs and
courageous Isaiahs who put men in their sights and seek to reach me.
When I go to a new church they often want
me to do everything except preach the Gospel of Christ. They want me to
pray for every dedication of a new swimming pool, pull the trigger for
every beetle race in town, and hold the ceremonies for every garbage can
improvement campaign. I try to let them know quickly that my job is not
a social ministry--but preaching the glorious Gospel of Christ to men.
So Jesus came for men.
Ah, my precious friend, keep your sights on
men. It´s so easy to build denominations and forget the men. It´s easy
to build churches and forget men. It´s so easy to build hospitals and
forget patients. It´s so easy to build homes and forget the children.
It´s so easy to build schools and forget the pupils. Our job is not
reaching society; our job is not saving the world; our job is reaching
that next poor sinner for Jesus Christ.
Jesus Lived for Men
As I looked at him, I continued to think:
“Not only did God create the world for this old bum, not only did God
send His Son Jesus for this one man, but Jesus lived for one man.
Oftentimes people say to me, “I came by to
see your work.”
I´ll say, “My work is at work.”
They´ll say, “What do you mean?”
I say, “Do you want to see my work?”
“Well,” they say, “I mean your auditorium.”
I say, “My auditorium or my work? My work
is not building buildings. My work is not building churches. My work is
not building Sunday Schools. My work is building men for Jesus.”
When I was in Texas pastoring we had
thirteen mission points or branch churches scattered around the area.
One of our young men was Carmen Hartsfield, the all-conference center of
the high school football team and the President of the Senior Class of
his large 2,000 member high school. Carmen was also a preacher boy who
pastored one of our mission chapels in a little neighborhood called
Spring creek Community, five miles north of Garland, Texas. One Saturday
afternoon Carmen came to our church and said, “Pastor, I need some
chairs for my little chapel tomorrow.”
He had his overalls on. I said, “Take them
right on, Carmen. Get yourself a big stack of them and load them on your
pick-up truck.”
One of our fellows whose first name was
Cortez was there that day. Cortez at that time was a very
demonstrative-type person, and that means he said “Amen” occasionally.
Carmen said to Cortez, “Cortez, this is too many chairs for me. Would
you mind helping me load the truck, take the chairs out to the chapel,
and set them up?”
Cortez said, “Well, I guess I will.” He too
had on overalls.
They put the chairs in the back of the
pick-up truck, drove the truck out to the little chapel in the country,
and proceeded to set up the little auditorium for services the next
morning.
When they finished setting up the
auditorium, Cortez said, “Carmen, I´m backslidden today. I´m cold in my
heart. I need to get my old heart warmed.”
My young preacher boy, eighteen years old,
said, “Well, I happen to have my Bible with me, and in this Bible is my
prepared sermon for tomorrow morning. If you will sit on the back row, I
will preach to you. I think it will warm your heart.”
So, with his overalls on, the Reverend
Hartsfield approached the pulpit to preach the sermon to one man. His
friend sat back there alone. But now, my little preacher boy hadn´t
learned how to preach yet. (I think oftentimes that is a tremendous
advantage.) He just stood up and said, “You better get born again or
you´re going to Hell. Jesus is wonderful. Hell is hot. Sin is black.
Salvation is tremendous. It sure is good to be saved.”
Back in the back Cortez would say, “AMEN!
Praise the Lord! That´s great preaching! AMEN!”
Carmen had preached about ten minutes with
Cortez shouting “Amen” in the back, when the side door opened. And
eighteen-year-old lad walked in. Now it´s five o´clock on Saturday
afternoon; you walk into a little chapel where you find one overalled
fellow in the pulpit hollering, “You´d better get born again or you´re
going to Hell,” and one fellow back in the back row by himself saying,
“Amen. Preach on. Let him have it.” How would you feel?
The stranger removed his hat and sat down
on the front. Carmen didn´t break stride, didn´t even stop to welcome
the visitor, but kept preaching. Now he had two in the audience. Forty
minutes later when Carmen finished the sermon (he hadn´t learned that
you can´t preach but twenty minutes), he said, “Gentlemen, let´s bow our
head for prayer.”
They bowed their heads. he said, “Is there
anyone here in this crowd who wants to be saved? Is there anyone here
who does not know that he is saved, but wants to be saved?” I´ll declare
if this young eighteen-year-old fellow didn´t raise his hand! Carmen
said, “Now we´re going to stand and sing, ‘Just as I am without one
plea.´” I´ll tell you brother, that eighteen-year-old boy came down the
aisle and was gloriously saved that day.
Listen to me. Don´t ever get above reaching
people for Christ. Don´t ever get to the place where you are servant for
society. Don´t ever get to the place where you lose your passion for
that next man who needs to be saved by the grace of God.
Jesus Died for Men
So I looked at this bum. His hat was dirty,
his face was filthy and unshaven, his shirt was yellow with filth, his
trousers had patches on the knees, his shoes were split and holes were
in the bottom. There was a terrible odor. The Lord continued teaching me
this lesson I´m sharing with you tonight. Not only did Jesus create the
world for this man; not only did Jesus come for this man; not only did
Jesus live for this man; but Jesus died for this man.
Why did Jesus take the spittle of Calvary?
To improve society? No! He did it so that one man could be saved. Why
the nails in His hands and feet? Why the spear in His side? Why the
spittle upon His face? Why the slapping and backhanding and mocking? Why
the sign on Him saying, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews”? Why the
mock reed and mock robe? Why the crowd coming by and hurling insults at
Him? Why the nudeness and embarrassing moments of Calvary? Why? Why? To
improve society? To bring in the kingdom by human efforts? No! All this
was so that people fallen away from Christ by sin might come one at a
time and find redemption and salvation through the precious blood of our
Saviour who died for one man.
You´re somebody! Jesus died for you! You
might be a little widow. The mailman may not stop often at your house
any more. The children may not write as they ought to write. You may not
be well known in your neighborhood. But you are somebody in the sight of
God. You may be a poor man; you may be a small child; you may be a timid
introvert--but you are somebody in the eyes of God.
God made the worlds for you. He loves you.
he came for you. He lived for you. And then He died for you.
I preached this same message in a
conference in Durham, North Carolina. After I had finished, the
moderator said, “Does anyone have a word to say?”
A little old shriveled-up, retired
preacher, skinny as he could be and looking like a peach after the frost
had bit, came on the platform. (God bless him. I love little preachers.)
He looked out at those people with his great protruding eyes and said,
“Ladies and gentlemen, for fifty years I have been looking forward to
retiring. Six months ago I retired. I´ve got my pension now. Oh, my
little body is feeble and worn, and I never thought I amounted to much
for God. But this morning I realize I´m somebody!” he threw his little
old shoulder back and his little old skinny arms up in the air and said,
“I´m re-enlisting to preach some more of the glorious Gospel of Christ!”
Hey, you´re somebody. You may be a small
preacher, but you´re somebody to God. You may have a small salary, but
you´re somebody to God.
Ah, isn´t it wonderful! The importance of
the individual--that´s the difference between Russian Communism and
American Democracy and Christ´s Christianity. It´s not the individual
for the state, but the state for the individual.
I have a motto in my ministry and it is
printed on the front page of my book, How to Boost Your Church
Attendance: “I do not want to use my people to build my work, but I want
to use my work to build my people.” That´s our job--building people,
reaching people.
So as I looked at him, the Lord taught me a
lesson I needed to learn.
The Holy Spirit Comes to Dwell in Men
Then as I continued thinking, “What is man,
that thou are mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest
him?” I was reminded that not only did God create the world for this
man, not only did God send His Son for this man, not only did His Son
live for this man and die for this man, but the Holy Spirit came in
power to indwell believers individually. I like that! The Holy Spirit
didn´t come on Pentecost to indwell a building or live in a sanctuary.
he came to indwell the bodies of born-again people.
Dr. George W. Truett gave this
illustration, and I think it is so near what I am trying to say.
Dr. Truett had a little five-year-old
granddaughter who came to the office one day with him. He was trying to
study, and those of you who have children know how it is. Just as he was
trying to concentrate, his little granddaughter said, “Granddaddy, I
want a drink of water.”
Dr. Truett said, “All right, all right.
I´ll get you a drink of water.” After he gave her the drink he said,
“Now honey, I´m trying to study. Would you be quiet and leave me alone?”
“Yes, Granddaddy. I will.” And she meant
it. Five minutes later, “Granddaddy, could I have a drink please?”
After getting her another drink of water
and thinking it would pacify her, he said, “Leave me alone, I´m busy.”
Finally a thought hit him. There was a
jigsaw puzzle on his desk, a map of the world. He thought, She´s only
five it will take her all day to put this puzzle together. how would she
know where to put all the nations of the world? he said, “Sweetheart,
would you like to put a jigsaw puzzle together?”
“Oh, yes I would, Granddaddy. I´d like to
put a jigsaw puzzle together.”
He put her on the floor in the outer office
and scrambled the puzzle up real good, then said to her, “When you get
through, show it to me.”
Five minutes later: “Granddaddy, it´s all
together.”
“You mean you put the world together in the
last five minutes?”
“Yes, Granddaddy, it´s all together.”
He thought she was exaggerating, and so he
walked into the room. To his amazement there it was, all put together.
He said, “Sweetheart, where did you learn all this? Did you do it by
yourself?”
“Yes, by myself.”
“Did you know where to put the countries?”
“I didn´t know where to put the countries.”
“How did you do it?”
She said, “Granddaddy, on the back of the
map there was a picture of a man, and I just got the man right and the
world took care of itself.”
Don´t Forget the Individual!
If we´ll go after man, the world will take
care of itself. There´s something that happens to a preacher between the
call of God when God anoints him and supernaturally calls him and the
time when somehow or other he becomes a bigshot. That´s the saddest day
in the life of a preacher. For many a preacher it was a sad day when he
got his first blue serge suit and his first private telephone.
I looked at him and I saw his dirty cap,
filthy face, unshaven long beard, yellow shirt, patched trouser, and
holey shoes, I thought, “Heaven´s joy is over one sinner that repents.”
When your church raises a budget, heaven
smiles. When the Sunday School breaks its record, heaven grins. When the
pastor adopts the program for the year, Heaven laughs. But when on
little girl or one stumbling, drunken bum comes down the aisle of a
church to accept Christ, Heaven becomes a great Holy-Roller Camp
Meeting, and they rejoice over one sinner that repents.
I had learned a lesson. I looked at him and
all of the sudden he was twisting a derby hat in his hand. His hair was
neatly combed and freshly cut. His face was clean and freshly shaven.
His shirt was white as snow. His tie matched the socks. The suit was
freshly pressed. His shoes were new and neatly shined, and the scent was
a sweet-smelling perfume. I got off my knees that day, bowed before him
humbly, took his hand and said, “Sir, I´m so glad you dropped by today.
What an honor it has been to have you, a man made in the image of God,
visit my office today.”
He looked at me as if he had seen a ghost.
The last I saw, he was twisting that old dirty cap in his hands and he
walked out the door. That was a wonderful lesson to me. I thought again,
“What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou
visitest him?”
But it doesn´t stop there. One Saturday
night my little boy David, who was six years old at the time, and I went
to a rescue mission to preach. My wife was in the hospital, just having
given birth to our fourth child. Right before I was to speak, the
superintendent said, “And now my assistant at the mission is going to
play the guitar and sing a song.”
Many days had passed since that morning in
my office. A very neatly dressed young man walked down the side aisle. I
was sitting on the front. He stood up and gave the testimony of how he
had just been converted a few months ago. I said, “David, where have you
seen that fellow?”
“I don´t know him, Daddy.”
“I have seen him somewhere, David.”
He stood up to play his number and sing,
and it struck me. That was him! I smiled. He looked at me and I looked
at him. I thought of the Psalm, “What is man that thou are mindful of
him? and the son of man that thou visitest him?”
Oh, my preacher friends, that little
primary child who toddles down the aisle in your church next Sunday
morning with ragged clothes and long, shaggy hair is somebody to God.
That old drunken bum staggering down Skid Row looking for the next
cigarette thrown away by the one before is somebody to God.
If we start to reach people for Christ, we
are going to have to put men in the sights of our spiritual gun and
shoot at men. “What is man, that thou are mindful of him? and the son of
man that thou visitest him?”
I saw God wash the world last night
With His sweet showers on high;
And then when morning came I saw
Him hang it out to dry.
He washed each tiny blade of grass
And every trembling tree;
He flung His showers against the hills
And swept the billowy sea.
The white rose is a cleaner white,
The red rose is more red
Since God washed every fragrant face
And put them all to bed.
There´s not a bird, there´s not a bee
That wings along the way,
But is a cleaner bird and bee
Than it was yesterday.
I saw God wash the world last night
And I would He had washed ME
As clean of all MY dust and dirt,
As that old white birch tree.
-William Stidger
May God wash us and help us to go get men,
reach men from house to house, knocking on doors, preaching to men,
working for men, witnessing to men, giving our lives for reaching men,
whether they be French or Canadian, English or American; whether they
speak English, French or Spanish. may God help us always to say with the
Psalmist, “When I consider they heavens, the work of they fingers, the
moon and the stars, which thou has ordained; What is man, that thou are
mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?”
