Church attendance is one of the duties of those who profess to obey Christ, and is a God-ordained means for growth in the christian life. Accordingly, a clergyman often finds himself urging reluctant members to attend more regularly.
From another point of view, however, church attendance is a by-product and not the main objective of the minister’s task. It is the consequence of recognition by an individual of the lordship of Christ in his life. Such recognition is the gift of God, wrought through his Word and his Spirit (Matt 16:17).
“Let the word do it” was Martin Luther’s oft-repeated motto. The ministry of the word of God, publicly and privately preached from house to house, is the work to which the clergy are ordained. God’s word has been committed to christians in order that it might be ministered to others. We are stewards of this treasure of the gospel, “stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor 4:1). It is required in a steward that he should be faithful to his assignment and that he should not leave it for another, though perhaps closely allied, task.
Although the ministry of God’s word is no armchair job, but calls for hard exertion and suffering, there is no doubt that it will be entirely successful. “My word that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void but it shall accomplish that which I please and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it” (Isa 55:11).
Here is God’s promise that his word, if faithfully ministered, will fully accomplish his purposes, and no christian should desire to accomplish more than that.
So then, “let the word do it”. But it cannot be any word, thought up as it were at the last minute. It must be God’s word, if it is to have a cutting edge “sharper than any two-edged sword”. This requires, on the part of God’s steward, faithfulness in prayer, diligence in study, and earnest labouring among the flock; for only so can God’s word in its completeness and relevance be understood, first by the minister and then by the people.
The word ministered must be full-orbed if it is to be effective. We must not shrink from declaring the whole counsel of God. At the present day, the call for repentance towards God is often weak. The facts of judgement to come and eternal punishment are omitted. Yet no more awful words have ever been spoken than those of Jesus when he foretold that he would say to a group of humans, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels”, and that having said it they would go away into eternal punishment (Matt 25:41, 46). To gloss over this truth is not a mark of faithfulness in the stewardship of dispensing the mysteries which Christ has committed to us.
It is worth noting that some of our lord’s sermons gave great offence to many of his disciples, so that they “walked no more with him” (John 6:66). His preaching emptied the church, as we might put it. This is a warning lest we should take numbers in itself as an object to be striven for, or as a test for a successful ministry.
God’s purposes for his word are not always the same. When ministered by St Paul or by Billy Graham, multitudes believed. Yet when ministered by our lord, the most perfect of ministers, few believed. None of us know what God’s purposes for our ministry are. Yet we have Christ’s promise that if we minister his words his sheep will hear: “My sheep hear my voice … and they follow me”. If others do not believe, it is, as Jesus said, because they are not his sheep (John 10:26, 27).
So then, let the word do it; for if the minister lays aside this God-appointed means, even for a moment, as too slow and disappointing in ‘results’, he will be found to have enclosed in the sheepfold those who are not Christ’s sheep but rather wolves who will tear and scandalize the flock.
