Quiet Talks on Power | Page 2

generally."
But that series of incidents, coming one after the other in such rapid
succession, set me thinking intently about that strange distinction
between being members of a church on the one hand, and on the other,
living lives that count and tell and weigh for Jesus seven days in the
week. I knew that ministers had been recognizing such a distinction,
but to find it so freely acknowledged by folks in the pew was new, and
surely significant.
And so I thought I would just ask the friends here to-day very frankly,
"What kind of Christians are you?" I do not say what kind you are, for I
am a stranger, and do not know, and would only think the best things of
you. But I ask you frankly, honestly now, as I ask myself anew, what
kind are you? Do you know? Because it makes such a difference. The
Master's plan--and what a genius of a plan it is--is this, that the world
should be won, not by the preachers--though we must have these men
of God for teaching and leadership--but by everyone who knows the
story of Jesus telling someone, and telling not only with his lips
earnestly and tactfully, but even more, telling with his life. That is the
Master's plan of campaign for this world. And it makes a great
difference to Him and to the world outside whether you and I are living
the story of His love and power among men or not.

Do you know what kind of a christian you are? There are at least three
others that do. First of all there is Satan. He knows. Many of our church
officers are skilled in gathering and compiling statistics, but they
cannot hold a tallow-dip to Satan in this matter of exact information.
He is the ablest of all statisticians, second only to one other. He keeps
careful record of every one of us, and knows just how far we are
interfering with his plans. He knows that some of us--good, respectable
people, as common reckoning goes--neither help God nor hinder Satan.
Does that sound rather hard? But is it not true? He has no objection to
such people being counted in as christians. Indeed, he rather prefers to
have it so. Their presence inside the church circle helps him mightily.
He knows what kind of a christian you are. Do you know?
Then there is the great outer circle of non-christian people--they know.
Many of them are poorly informed regarding the christian life; hungry
for something they have not, and know not just what it is; with high
ideals, though vague, of what a christian life should be. And they look
eagerly to us for what they have thought we had, and are so often
keenly disappointed that our ideals, our life, is so much like others who
profess nothing. And when here and there they meet one whose acts are
dominated by a pure, high spirit, whose faces reflect a sweet radiance
amid all circumstances, and whose lives send out a rare fragrance of
gladness and kindliness and controlling peace, they are quick to
recognize that, to them, intangible something that makes such people
different. The world--tired, hungry, keen and critical for mere sham,
appreciative of the real thing--the world knows what kind of christians
we are. Do we know?
There is a third one watching us to-day with intense interest. The Lord
Jesus! Sitting up yonder in glory, with the scar-marks of earth on face
and form, looking eagerly down upon us who stand for Him in the
world that crucified Him--He knows. I imagine Him saying, "There is
that one down there whom I died for, who bears my name; if I had the
control of that life what power I would gladly breathe in and out of it,
but--he is so absorbed in other things." The Master is thinking about
you, studying your life, longing to carry out His plan if He could only
get permission, and sorely disappointed in many of us. He knows. Do

you know?
The Night Visitor.
After that trip I became much interested in discovering in John's Gospel
some striking pictorial illustrations of these two kinds of christians,
namely, those who have power in their lives for Jesus Christ and those
who have not. Let me speak of only a few of these. The first is sketched
briefly in the third chapter, with added touches in the seventh and
nineteenth chapters. There is a little descriptive phrase used each
time--"the man who came to Jesus by night." That comes to be in
John's mind the most graphic and sure way of identifying this man. A
good deal of criticism, chiefly among the upper classes, had already
been aroused by Jesus' acts and words.