Dear brethren, the encouragement of the minister is in the conversion and the growth of the hearers.  And I pray that in this new lease of united fellowship which we have taken out, be it longer or shorter—­and advancing years tell me that at the longest it must be comparatively short—­I may come to you ever more and more with the lofty and humbling consciousness that I have a message which Christ has given to me, and that you may come more and more receptive—­not of my words, God forbid—­but of Christ’s truth; and that so we may be helpers one of another, and encourage each other in the warfare and work to which we all are called and consecrated.

[Footnote 1:  Preached after long absence on account of illness.]

DEBTORS TO ALL MEN

  ’I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians,
   both to the wise and to the unwise.’—­Romans i. 14.

No doubt Paul is here referring to the special obligation laid upon him by his divine call to be the Apostle to the Gentiles.  He was entrusted with the Gospel as a steward, and was therefore bound to carry it to all sorts and conditions of men.  But the principle underlying the statement applies to all Christians.  The indebtedness referred to is no peculiarity of the Apostolic order, but attaches to every believer.  Every servant of Jesus Christ, who has received the truth for himself, has received it as a steward, and is, as such, indebted to God, from whom he got the trust, and to the men for whom he got it.  The only limit to the obligation is, as Paul says in the context, ‘as much as in me is.’  Capacity, determined by faculties, opportunities, and circumstances, prescribes the kind and the degree of the work to be done in discharge of the obligation; but the obligation is universal.  We are not at liberty to choose whether we shall do our part in spreading the name of Jesus Christ.  It is a debt that we owe to God and to men.  Is that the view of duty which the average Christian man takes?  I am afraid it is not.  If it were, our treasuries would be full, and great would be the multitude of them that preached the Word.

It is no very exalted degree of virtue to pay our debts.  We do not expect to be praised for that; and we do not consider that we are at liberty to choose whether we shall do it or not.  We are dishonest if we do not.  It is no merit in us to be honest.  Would that all Christian people applied that principle to their religion.  The world would be different, and the Church would be different, if they did.

Let me try, then, to enforce this thought of indebtedness and of common honesty in discharging the indebtedness, which underlies these words.  Paul thought that he went a long way to pay his debts to humanity by carrying to everybody whom he could reach the ’Name that is above every name.’

I. Now, first, let me say that we Christians are debtors to all men by our common manhood.