Acts 16:6-15 - Homiletics

The call.

The great difference between sacred and profane history is not so much that the events are different, or the human motives of the actors are different, or even that God's providence works differently, but that the secret springs of the will of God, directing, controlling, and overruling, are in sacred history laid bare to view by that Holy Spirit of God who knows the things of God. In ordinary life the servant of God believes that his steps are ordered of God, and that the providence of God, which ordereth all things in heaven and earth, orders them for his good. But he is not preceded in his own goings out and in his comings in by a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, as the journeyings of the children of Israel were. In like manner, when we read the history of the marvelous diffusion of the everlasting gospel among the various nations of the earth, and mark how in one part of the globe the successful missionary has selected some particular country for his evangelizing labors, and has founded there Churches full of light and love, while other countries have either been untrodden by the foot of the evangelist, or have yielded no return to the labors of the preacher of glad tidings, we recognize the directing will of Almighty God, albeit, no visible sign or word indicated where the net was to be cast into the deep waste of waters, and no voice of the Holy Ghost erected a barrier of prohibition. If we ask for some reasons why this difference should exist—say in the case of St. Paul-it will not be difficult to find several satisfactory ones.

1. It was of great importance to establish in the Church with certainty the conviction that the Lord Jesus Christ was still carrying on from his throne in heaven the work for which he left the bosom of the Father, and was incarnate, and suffered, and rose again. In the terrible odds under which a handful of simple, unlearned men had to contend against all the powers, all the intellect, and all the vice, in the world, it was of infinite moment that the voice and the wisdom and the power of their exalted but unseen Lord should be manifested from time to time working with them and for them, and thus assuring them of the victory. Hence the rushing wind, and the tongues of fire, and the leaping cripple, and the down-stricken liars, and the heavenly visions, and the opening of the prison doors, and the angelic ministrations, and the blinded sorcerer, and all the other puttings forth of the power of Christ. Hence, too, the immediate orders of the Holy Ghost: "Separate me Barnabas and Saul;" "Preach not the Word in Asia;" "Go not into Bithynia;" "Preach the gospel in Macedonia;" "Be not afraid; hold not thy peace, for I am with thee, and no man shall hurt thee in this city." But these tokens of Christ's close watch over his Church in the fulfillment of her mission were not for Paul and Barnabas only; they were for the servants of Christ in all ages and in every place. They needed not to be repeated. They have established forever the truth of the Lord's promise, "Lo! I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."

2. We have intimated above that the ordinary mode by which the purpose of God is manifested, that such or such a country should not be evangelized at such or such a time, is by the failure of the missionary's effort. It is a good discipline for the Lord's servants to work here and there without knowing where their labors will be blest, and where they will be fruitless; and to learn by such experiences how entirely ineffectual their best exertions are unless the Lord give the increase. But in the case of one like St. Paul, whose immense labors were to be crowded into a short space of time, this ordinary process may have seemed to the Divine wisdom too slow, and withal too wasteful. No other Paul would be forthcoming, when his life dropped, to take up and carry on his apostolic work; and therefore we may suppose that, to economize Paul's labors, God dealt with him in the extraordinary way of direct injunctions and prohibitions. He was sent at once to sow the seed in the ground that would receive it. He was peremptorily hindered from sowing it where it would not bear fruit. And thus the Church derived the largest possible amount of benefit from his devoted work.

3. We may note one more reason. The great harvest of souls reaped by St. Paul in the very places where he was sent is another proof of the omniscience of the Holy Ghost, and that the apostle's several missions were really ordered and directed by him. When Simon Peter, at the Lord's bidding, after a night of fruitless toil, let down the net and enclosed such a multitude of fishes that the net brake, and the overladen ships were in danger of sinking, it was manifest that he who had given the command was indeed the Lord. And so, when at the call of the Holy Ghost Paul went to Antioch, and Cyprus, and Pisidia, and Galatia, and Macedonia, and Achaia, and preached the Word there, and everywhere there sprang up flourishing Churches, the countless disciples at Antioch, and Lystra, and Iconium, and Philippi, and Thessalonica, and Corinth were so many distinct witnesses that he had indeed a call, and that he who called him was with him where-ever he went. It is an immense encouragement to us to be assured by the success of so many of our missions at the present time that those who labor in them have received their secret call from Jesus Christ our Lord.