Christ, the Lord of Missions (1948)

Message Delivered at Urbana 48
by Harold Laird

“The moment Jesus Christ becomes my Saviour, He also becomes my Lord.”

There is something both challenging and encouraging about the theme which has been assigned to me - if Jesus Christ really is the Lord of missions. And for those of us who hold to the absolute inerrancy of the Bible, there can be no question about this fact. We have our warrant for the theme in the many assertions of the Word of God. But of them all, none is stronger than what our Lord Himself said in connection with His delivering the Great Commission.

Immediately before He gave this last great command, which has to do solely with what we call "missions," He made a pronouncement which clearly indicated His right to issue the command. Matthews says that "Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority is given unto me in heaven, and in earth" (28:18 R.V.).

We who know who He was and is - the only begotten Son of God, the Lord of Glory, the Creator of the universe - understand that in this assertion He was laying claim to being far more than the Lord of missions. What a sweeping statement it was – "All authority is given unto me in heaven, and in earth." If this declaration be true, then He is Christ, the Lord of angels; He is Christ, the Lord of the planets and the stars. But this authority, He declared, extends also to the nations. This is He of whom King Nebuchadnezzar spoke after God had humbled him, and his reason had returned to him, when he said: "He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?" (Daniel 4:35). Who is this of whom the enlightened and converted Gentile ruler spoke? Who could it be but Him who said, "All authority is given unto me in heaven, and in earth”?

While this assertion does declare unmistakably the universal lordship of Christ, it is perfectly clear that when He spoke these words, He was at that moment calling attention primarily to Himself as the Lord of missions. This is made plain by the words which. He uttered immediately afterward: "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 always even unto the consummation of the age' (28:19-20).

In the light of this declaration from the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ in direct connection with His deliverance of the Great Commission, there can be no question as to the accuracy of the wording of the theme of this message. Surely Jesus Christ, and none other, is the Lord of missions. What then does this mean to us who are gathered here?

It means that it is Christ and Christ alone who sends men forth into this ministry.

That men are to be sent and are not merely to go is evident from the words of Christ, spoken first to the Twelve, and later to the Seventy: "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest" (Matthew 9:37-38).

That men are not only to be sent, but are to be sent by Him is also clear from the fact that the very men whom the Lord addressed in giving the Great Commission were the eleven apostles, those to whom He had previously said, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain…” (John 15:16).

This fact is substantiated further by the words which Christ spoke to Ananias about the Apostle Paul immediately following the conversion of Paul, as Ananias hesitated to approach him, "But the Lord said … Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel" (Acts 9:15).

The point is this: it is Christ, as the Lord of missions, who chooses men and women and sends them forth in His name. It is certainly not the will of the Lord that all who have become Christians should spend their lives in foreign mission service. We make a mistake when we urge young people indiscriminately to become foreign missionaries, or even to enter so-called full-time Christian service here at home. We have known more than a few in full-time service, both at home and abroad who, we are fully persuaded, were out of the will of God in this matter.

What God wants us to do is to urge young men and women everywhere to accept Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour. Then, having persuaded some to do this, we are to urge them to recognize immediately His Lordship over their lives and, from then on, to seek earnestly to know His will and, at any cost, to do it.

I was quite a young man when I attended a great convention like this. I do not recall any of the addresses that I heard, but I shall never forget one sentence spoken by a Christian leader of those days. He said, "The matter of one's becoming a Christian is optional: he may become a Christian, or refuse to become a Christian, as he chooses, and in the end suffer the consequences; but after one has become a Christian, there is nothing optional about it; he is duty-bound to be obedient." And why is this so? Just because of the fact that the moment Jesus Christ becomes my Saviour, He also becomes my Lord.

When one is fully yielded to Christ as Lord and honestly longs to do His will, Christ will not withhold from him knowledge of what that will is. "If any man willeth to do my will, he shall
Know …” The verb "willeth" means not only a willingness to do the will of the Lord, but a longing to do His will. It is to such [a person] that the will of the Lord is always made clear. This ought to be the attitude of every Christian young man or young woman who knows Jesus Christ as a personal Saviour.

It may not be His will that you go to the foreign mission field. But if it is not - if you are a Christian - it surely is His will that you do everything in your power to make it possible for others to go whom it is His will to send. Of this I am certain because of another command of Christ: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matthew 6:33). Many could bear personal testimony to God's faithfulness to those who heed this command.

It means that it is Christ and Christ alone who determines the message of those whom He sends.

Why must we emphasize this? Just because so many who call themselves missionaries of Christ seem to think that they may make their message what they please, without regard for the desires of Him whom they declare that they represent.

It was very early in my ministry, in the third year to be exact, that I began to recognize this condition among missionaries, through my acquaintance with a saintly Christian who had already spent a quarter of a century in a large city of inland China. I still have a letter which he wrote me in 1921, in which he decried the fact that most of the missionaries then going out to China under his mission board were going out to teach in the so-called "Christian" schools, rather than to carry on an aggressive evangelistic work. "As I become acquainted with them," he wrote, "I discover why it is that they are coming out to teach rather than to preach. They have nothing to preach."

That the missionary sent by God has something to preach is indicated in the wording of the Great Commission as recorded in Mark's Gospel: "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" (16: 15). What that gospel is He made abundantly plain in the later word spoken to the disciples just before He was received up into heaven: "But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:8).

What was it to which they were to bear witness concerning Him? It was to His person, as they had seen Him in His miracle-working power, and especially in His final triumph over death and the grave, whereby, as the Apostle states, "{He was) declared to be the Son of God with power . . . by the resurrection from the dead" (Romans 1:4). They were also to bear witness to His death, and to the reason for that death as He Himself had taught them when He said, "This cup is the new testament (covenant) in my blood, which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (Luke 22:20; Matthew 26:28).

It will be remembered that this was the "Gospel" which that mighty missionary of Christ, the Apostle Paul, preached so faithfully, "How that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures" (I Corinthians 15:3-4).

This is the gospel that Christ, the Lord of missions, has given to His servants to proclaim. He has never changed His commission; it is the same today that it was then. No man has a right to preach any other gospel and at the same time call himself a missionary of Jesus Christ. When any mission board will tolerate, and even support, any missionary who preaches any other message, that mission board is unfaithful to Him who is the Lord of missions.

It means that it is Christ and Christ alone who determines where His missionaries shall go.

From the various missionary commands which He gave, it is abundantly dear that it was His will that His servants should carry His message into every land, without a single exception. "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations" (Matthew 28:19). "Go ye into all the world" (Mark 16:15). "And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem" (Luke 24:46-47). "And ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:8).

Since He had commanded His servants to go into all the world, we have every right to believe that He will see to it that they get into all the world. No matter how long lands may have been dosed to the gospel, we may be sure that, sooner or later, He will see to it that the doors are opened. We do well to read again the words of Isaiah: "Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. . . . All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity" (40:15, 17).

There is some thought that China, so long open to the gospel, now may soon be closed to missionaries. This may be true, but only if the Lord so wills. It is He who said, "Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it" (Revelation 3:8). Should the door to China be closed to foreign missionaries, let us remember that the closing has not been permitted until after the seed of the gospel was sown in China. And if it be closed, it is only because the Lord of missions allows it to be closed.

It means that it is Christ and Christ alone who provides for all those whom He sends forth
This provision of the Lord of missions for His missionaries is suggested by what is sometimes called "the greatest promise in all the Bible." It is found in the concluding words of the Great Commission: "And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the consummation of the age" (Matthew 28:20).

This is a peculiar promise to a peculiar group. There is indeed a sense in which the Lord Jesus Christ is with all those who have named His name as Christians: "For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake" (Hebrews 13:5). But there is a very particular sense in which He is with those who go forth as His chosen ambassadors to carry His gospel to the ends of the earth. This we know from His use of a striking word to introduce the promise. He says, lo, a Greek word frequently translated behold. It is generally employed to call attention to something striking and unusual. Such is the sense of it here. He has just declared Himself, prior to the issuing of the Great Commission, the Lord of the universe. Now He declares that, as such, He will be with His servants who go forth in obedience to that commission.

He promises that He will be with them in the meeting of every physical need. He had already demonstrated this on two occasions to His disciples, first, to the Twelve, and later to the Seventy, as He sent them forth. He bade them carry neither purse nor extra clothing, that He might reveal His ability to supply their every need. Later, as He reviewed their experiences, "He said unto them, when I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing" (Luke 22:35).

We may be absolutely certain of this, that when any man or woman goes forth as one truly sent by Christ to the place of Christ's own choosing, wherever that place may be, that one will want for no good thing. It may be necessary for the Lord to feed him by some very unusual means, as with the help of ravens. He has done this before, and He can do it again. Your concern and mine need never be "How is He going to meet our need?" Our concern must be only, "Am I where He wants me to be?"

He also promises that He will be with them in the meeting of every physical danger. And there will be physical danger; He had already warned them of that: "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves ... " (Matthew 10:16). One of the most dangerous places on earth for a sheep is in the midst of wolves. In fact so dangerous is it that but for the protecting presence of the shepherd, there is no possible security.

There will be physical danger for the faithful servant of the Lord, but the Great Shepherd will be there. His presence may not mean the sparing of His servant's goods, nor even of his life, but it does mean the peculiar bestowal of His grace, so that even the loss becomes gain. Thus it was with Stephen, the first of all missionaries of the Lord to suffer the loss of his life for Christ's sake.

How wonderfully the Lord fulfilled His promise, "Lo, I am with you always," to Stephen! In what a peculiar sense He manifested His presence to him even when they stoned him, for those who stood by as witnesses of the stoning report that as "they gnashed on him with their teeth ... he ... looked up steadfastly into heaven ... and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God" (Acts 7:54-56). And then, just before he died, he prayed a prayer which proved beyond the shadow of a doubt the reality of the presence of the Lord: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge" (Acts 7:60). That is the spirit of the true servant who experiences the presence of the Lord.

During the war, two members of my church, Dr. and Mrs. Roy M. Byram (missionaries under the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions) were imprisoned by the Japanese in Manchuria, as the result of their activity in encouraging the native Christians to refuse to do obeisance at the Japanese shrines. Their daughter, then a student, gave the following testimony from my pulpit during the Christmas holidays: "We do not know," said she, "just where Mother and Father are; but we do know this, that, wherever they are, they are in the very center of God's will, and we also know that is the safest place in all the world." Today this woman and her husband are in China, in danger equal to that which her own parents experienced. But is she not safe? I believe she is, just because I believe that she, like her parents before her, is in the center of God's will.

[As of 1948] Dr. Harold S. Laird leads a busy life pastoring the Independent Presbyterian congregation of Wilmington, Delaware; presiding over the affairs of the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions, writing for Christian periodicals, and speaking at various conferences.

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Christ, the Lord of Missions (1948)

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