Evangelistic talks

Foreword

The chapters which follow in this volume reveal Gipsy Smith. They discover his mind and heart processes in a way that is both accurate and unusual.

It was my good fortune to be on the platform just behind the evangelist while he was delivering the addresses which are the make-up of this book, and not only hear them all, but as Chairman of the Executive Committee conducting the campaign, to have in hand the details connected with their delivery.

They were Gipsy's noonday addresses delivered in Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, Tennessee, on the week-days, Saturdays excepted, from February 12th to March 12th, 1922. The auditorium has a seating capacity of five thousand, but the crowds were so great that the building was not only packed at the noon as well as the night hours, but vast numbers were turned away unable even to get inside the building.

The sensational feature of these addresses, however, apart from the spiritual results of the message, was not in the crowds attracted, but in the wonderful versatility and swift mind and heart reaction of the speaker.

The plan used at the noon hour was this : Each day a local pastor was teamed with the evangelist. The local pastor occupied the first ten minutes, speaking on some passage of his own selection from the Bible.

vi FOREWORD

Gipsy was not only in complete ignorance of what the local pastor was to speak about, but also of his identity until a moment before he arose to speak, when I gave the evangelist the pastor's name, and he was presented by Gipsy to the audience. Thus without any previous special preparation, without any time in which to form an outline or assemble thoughts save the ten minutes of the first speaker's address, in entire ignorance of what the theme was to be, the marvellous addresses in this volume were delivered. And they

WERE INVARIABLY ON THE THEME AND THE SCRIP- TURE PRESENTED BY THE LOCAL PASTOR.

Gipsy's address followed the first speaker's, not in a general way, not in a few introductory sentences switching into a digression, but closely and logically, so far as the central theme was concerned.

For this reason, these chapters in a striking way reveal the man. He has the resourcefulness of the greatest of preachers. With a mental grasp swift, accurate, and original ; with a command of simple words full of colour and action; with a delivery free of all tricks and affectation; with an eloquence sweeping from tears to smiles, mastering the mind, fusing the passions, capturing the will, Gipsy Smith reached in these impromptu addresses at Nashville a height of pulpit power the writer has not known surpassed.

To find satisfying explanation, one needs to go back to Pentecost.

James I. Vance.

Nashville , Tennessee,

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I My People Shall Be Called by My

Name 11

II If Ye Abide In Me

John 15 : 7. — "If ye abide in Me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you."

What is meant by the word "obey" ? And what is the meaning of "abide"? Listen: "If you keep My commandments, ye shall abide in Me even as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in Him" — so that to abide in the love of God is to be obedient to His word.

Lots of people pray selfishly, and this is the reason that prayers are unanswered. You who want your prayers answered must do as Jesus did — say as He said, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me : nevertheless, no\ My will but Thine be done." You must be willing, if necessary, to sip the bitter cup to the last drop.

If a man abides by the word of God and if he obey the will of God which he purposed in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the World, then he may ask what he will and God says, It shall be done. When a man — you have never seen this, for it is done only in private, and only the eye of God witnesses — opens his heart to his creator, and sobs out in solitude the burden of his soul, which he makes known neither to his wife or closest friend, or any other, and which God — and only God — can interpret, that is prayer.

"Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be given." I doubt not but that in your prayer services you have some whose prayers God will hardly recognise as such. Rather will He know them as "much speaking."

Selfishness is an element which should be foreign to our prayers. We pray that the kingdom of God may extend and reach out to the ends of the earth; we pray that our neighbour may be relieved of the difficulties which bow him down; we pray in the interests of others, and if we do this shall not God take care of our own wants as well?

You want to get into the heart of God, and then you can pray. If you will let me hear a man pray in public, I can tell you in two minutes whether he is accustomed to praying in private. There is something about the prayer of a man who is used to praying in private that cannot be mistaken.

He knows — he approaches God with authority, with dignity. You may not be able to define it but you know it is there, and when it is absent you know.

If a man abides in God and His words abide in him, he may ask what he will and it will be done unto him.

If you abide in Him, call upon Him, and ask for something, let Him do it; He knows how to do it. If we pray for the right things, He will know how to give you the gifts you ask.

If you haven't received, you haven't known how to ask, or you do not abide in Him. Some people let God do their asking for them.

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Once when I was preaching in an English city — in Birmingham — before an audience of three thousand or four thousand people, I told them that they would not let the Lord do anything for them. I told them to bow their heads just then and to ask God to do something for them. An old grandmother who had an income of $1.75 per week sat in the front of the audience. She lived in one little room. Her son was in jail. She was taking care of her son's little boy, Jack. The little boy's mother was dead.

Little Jack needed a pair of shoes. The old grandmother had seen his little toes coming through the only pair of shoes he had, and she had no money with which to buy another pair. And she prayed, "O, blessed Jesus, a pair of shoes for Jack."

When Jack went to school the next morning the schoolmaster was waiting for him, and said: "Jack, come here," and took him into his office. He had him try on a pair of shoes. He had seen Jack's little toes coming through the old shoes he wore, the day before, and had ordered five or six pairs of shoes on approval.

When Jack went home with his new shoes, can you imagine the joy of his old granny — can you imagine it?

Let the critics say what they may, but I believe that not only does God answer our prayers after we have prayed them, He sometimes anticipates them. "Before ye call, I will answer, and while ye are yet speaking, I will hear."

Open your hearts and tell God you want something. He is in a delightful humour. "Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you."

I have a mighty faith in God that will laugh at impossibilities — those who have that can march up to God with authority.

When you are abiding in Christ, you can claim the things that belong to Christ. When you belong to a family, you don't ask if you can have a thing, you just take it.

When my boys came home from school and sat at the table, they didn't ask if they could have some bread, — they said, "Please pass it up." At our own tables we don't ask if we may have something, we just take it.

If you abide in the love of the Father, whatever belongs to the Kingdom of God is yours. You are a member of the family. Everything belongs to you.

You must do the abiding, then you can ask what you will.

We don't put God to the test.

Once I was preaching in Lincoln, Eng. — it was my first campaign in the twentieth century. The building was crowded. At that service was a woman — a nominal church member — and her husband, who was a blasphemer. He held a position of trust on the Great Northern Railroad Company in the signal box at an important junction.

As they were going home from the meeting that night, the wife spoke to him, calling him by his second name, "What do you think of him, Holt?"

"Think of him?" he answered. "If that man is right, I am wrong. That's what I think of him. Of

IF YE ABIDE IN ME 21

course, I am not a church member. But you are and I have lived with you."

She answered that she knew she was a member of the church, but she knew that she was not a child of God. And some of you will find that out some of these days. May God help you to be honest when you have found it out.

Then they went home to tea. It was a quiet tea, even though they were surrounded by their six sons, one daughter and a motherless youth of seventeen who made his home with them.

The husband would not go to the service that night because he would have had to go in his uniform — he went on duty at nine o'clock.

That night the wife went to the meeting with two of her sons. They were converted. Then every night of the week some member of her family was converted, until at the end of the week her eldest son and her husband were the only unconverted ones. That night was my night of rest, but a prayer and song service was being held in the church. The wife went to the meeting alone. I crept in at the back to watch the service. The leader asked for testimonies.

Holding a little Bible above her head, the wife stood and told her story. She said :

"God has done great things for me this week. He has saved me, five of my boys, and a motherless youth who lives with me. To-morrow God will save my husband and my first-born. God will do it to-morrow. If He does not save my husband to-morrow, this Bible is not true."

This brought me to my feet and I asked the people to join me in prayer for that husband and boy that God might save them both. The people fell on their knees — I can hear the thud of the people's knees as they fell on the floor even now — and prayed for that husband.

The next morning when the husband came home from work, he found that his wife had overslept. When he called to her and awakened her she expected to be cursed for not being up. Instead, the husband built a fire, quietly ate the breakfast she prepared for him, and said he was going to sleep all he could that morning, so he could go to the Gipsy Smith meeting twice that day.

Then the wife told him of the prayers that had been offered for him and told him it was the night before. "At what time?" he asked. "About half past eight, ,, she replied. Then he told her that the tracks at that time being clear, he had knelt and asked God to save him. "And I was converted then/' he answered. "God saved me last night."

"Whatsoever ye ask in my name shall be done."

God's promises will be fulfilled and God shall be glorified. Amen !

Ill

I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD

John 10 : 13, 14. — "I am the Good Shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine . . .

[The hireling] fleeth because he is a hireling, and careth not for the sheep."

Jesus spoke of the hirelings because He knew their possibility, just as He knew the possibility of the goats, and of the wolves in sheep's clothing, just as He knew that the sham and fraud would creep in with a crowd of sheep. So He knew that the fraud and sham would creep in with the faithful shepherd, just as He knew that one of His own chosen twelve would betray Him. He knew that through all the history of the world and of the Church.

Ask yourself this question : Am I one of the sheep ? Do I know His voice? Is there the intimacy, the glorious intimacy of blessed fellowship, between my heart and that of my Shepherd ? Is there no shadow, no doubt, no uncertainty?

Is my soul on the alert? Do I hear the call of the Shepherd ? When I go forth, does He lead me in the green pastures and beside the still waters ? Is my soul restored ?

"My sheep hear My voice and they follow Me," but they do not know the voice of the stranger, and they will not follow the voice of the stranger. They wilL not be deceived. They know Me, and I know My people.

Don't be deceived when the wolf comes around in sheep's clothing. If there were no sheep, he wouldn't do that. He does it because there are sheep. Don't be surprised if you get a rude shock by a hireling. He will be there.

It is a great thing to be an under-shepherd. The greatest honour Heaven can bestow is to make you a partner with God — a helper in the winning of souls.

I have a notion that the saving of one soul is such a stupendous thing that God cannot trust it to one person. It takes a great many to do it. If you were to talk to a man who had been saved and ask him, "What made you become a Christian ? What led you into righteousness?" there would be a vast number of things that bore on the change in his life.

It would not be one man, one woman, but a hundred forces, a hundred influences that God brought to bear on his soul.

I want to say to every one who would serve in saving a soul, when God sends out His laurels, He will know your name, He will know where you live — He won't forget your address. You will get your reward. A man that brings a soul to God is going to shine as the stars forever and ever.

I once knew a saintly man in England — an old man who had been a member of Parliament for years. I saw him just before he died, and he said to me, "Gipsy Smith, do you know, if I could live my life over again, I would work directly for the spiritual good instead of the temporal good of people."

I told him that he couldn't give a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple and lose his reward. I told

I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD 25

him also that in clothing the naked and visiting the sick and feeding the hungry, Jesus said, "Ye do it unto me." I told him that if he shook hands with a man in a "God bless you" spirit, he was uplifting some one. You can't dry the tear of a little child without helping the angels to kiss a tear into a jewel, without changing a sigh into a song.

You can't tear up an old dress and make a dress for a motherless babe without putting on Him a seamless robe. You cannot share a crust with some one who is hungry without doing good. "I was hungry and you fed me." You cannot pray at the bedside of some one who is sick without doing good. "I was sick and ye visited me." That is what I told the old man. And he replied, "I know that is all true. In serving the temporal needs, I have done good so far, and I believe that those who work for the temporal good of the world will be allowed to serve God in His temple, but those who turn many to righteousness will shine as the stars forever and ever, and I would rather be a shiner than a server"; and the old man was right.

Every soul saved in this campaign is the result of somebody's — some thinking man's or woman's — praying in this city; the fruits of the work of many perhaps who have gone to Heaven and never saw the result of their labours. Forget not in these days to make your appeals to the unsaved, powerful and personal. Every soul won for Jesus is the work of the Holy Spirit through God's people here on earth.

And do not look at the unfaithful ministers when you are seeking the faithful. Do not emphasise the wolf when you ought to emphasise the sheep. God has sheep and shepherds who are faithful. Their faithfulness will be fruitful.

Don't see only your side of the question. Take the beam out of your own eye before you try to remove the mote from the eye of your brother. Be honest with yourself in these days. Have you any of the wolf about you ? Some of you look like wolves when you show your teeth. Just let Jesus make you what he wants to make you during these days.

"My sheep hear my voice and follow me" — are you doing that? Are you following Jesus? "I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly." Oh, the exceeding abundance, the overflowing, the boundless, the limitless, the resourceful, the infinite abundance!

I pray you may be faithful, I pray you may be loyal. Follow where He leads. Give unto God glory and listen to Him. He may speak in unexpected ways; He may speak in unlikely places. Listen for His voice — and obey.

You know, very often, sheep are helped to their proper path, not by the shepherd at all, but by aid from an unexpected source.

Some years ago, I took my summer holidays on a farm. You farmers know that when a sheep gets flat on his back he cannot get up again without aid. If he is not helped up, he will die. I have often gone around the farm and helped sheep to their feet, which I found helpless in this condition.

If a man gets on his back, will he not die, if he is not helped up ? You say yes. Well, it is your business

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and mine to help him up. Shepherds do that. But the hireling? The hireling goes away and leaves him. The hireling does not care for the sheep. He is a hireling.

That is not the spirit of Jesus. The shepherd cares for his sheep, he saves the sheep. The Good Shepherd guards the sheep tenderly and faithfully; he leaves the ninety-nine which are safe and goes out into the storm to seek and save the one that is lost.

My brethren, there are lots of people out of the Church, who would have been in, if you had looked after them, if you had spoken a good word and extended to them your friendship. You know people who are lost to the Church for the want of looking after. Is that true? Well, why don't you look after them?

I am a man, a very hungry man. I want, oh, so much, to be loved. I could not exist if some one did not love me. For fifteen years out of twenty I have been separated from my family. But it was in answer to the call of God. I have been absent in trying to follow the path where the Shepherd has led. I would give the world for the touch of a hand, for the sound of a voice which I cannot hear. God has made us so. People outside the Church would be inside if you people had loved them.

Jesus loved people, and you and I are here to represent Him, and we shall save those, as we love them.

If you believe these things, let God's love flow. If God puts new life in your soul, let that life flow out. There are many people all around you with broken hearts. Let them feel your love.

In my own country there is a great sadness. One million of our boys were laid under the sod. There were two million more of casualties. Our hospitals are yet filled with the wounded and the helpless.

I was riding in on a train from a visit to the country. A gentleman got in the train at the same platform I did. Two or three stations further on, a lady got in whom I soon discovered was his wife. There was inexpressible grief written on their faces when they met. Their boy, I learned, was in a hospital suffering from wounds received in the war. He was horribly cut up, torn to pieces, mangled.

She sat there with her poor mother-heart bleeding. Presently she couldn't stand the suspense any longer.

"Father, is there any news?" she said. He answered one word, "Yes," and then another, "Gone."

He took the telegram from his pocket and passed it to her.

"Don't show me," she cried. "I can't bear it."

The poor mother sat and sobbed her heart away in her corner. It seemed as if the flood-gates had been opened, as if her tears would never cease.

"Mother, I am a stranger to you," I said. "But there is One who sees your sorrow and understands. Jesus understands. He sees every tear you shed. He is the Comforter."

"Oh, thank you for that word," she sobbed.

People all about you want the same words of comfort. Act the shepherd in God's name; the world wants shepherds. Go forth, tend His sheep, love and help. When thou art converted, tend my sheep, look after my sheep. Oh, Jesus help you to do it.

IV Love

I Cor. 13 : 1. — "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."

John said: He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God. Paul said : If ye have not love, ye are as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal — or a "clanging cymbal' ' the later translators have put it.

If you have not love, you have not God. If you have God, you are lovely, you will be lovable, you will love.

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal/'

"And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing."

"And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing."

Where are you? God is love. L-o-v-e — and love, as Henry Drummond, that saintly professor-evangelist, the colleague of Moody, said, "Love is the greatest thing in the world."

SO EVANGELISTIC TALKS

Are you such a monstrosity as a professing Christian without love? Do you talk about religion like a dog over a bone ? Haven't you heard people talk that way, with just that kind of a snarl about them ?

Those who dwell in God dwell in love. Love has a language all her own. She speaks when there is no articulation; she speaks when there is no vocabulary; she speaks when language is silent. Love sings; love breathes; love looks; love gives — gives all and longs for more to give.

Is the love of God in your heart? Are you a lovely Christian?

Does the love of God shine in your face ? Does it sparkle in your eyes? Does it grace your countenance ?

You know the world is dying for want of more love. Don't be afraid of spoiling some one with love. More people die for lack of a little spoiling than of too much of it. I want more of it myself. I won't lie about it. I won't say I don't. I say I could do with a lot more love. There isn't a heart on earth that doesn't want more love.

What we need is to be so drenched with the love of God that it would cover everybody.

Wouldn't it make a difference if there was more love in your home?

Love is a dynamo, the force that makes everything a success in the world. Love is the mighty river that leads to victory.

You know when I am at home, I live in Cambridge, that old centre of learning and culture — the sister city to Oxford. You know they boast of age. Some of

LOVE 31

it is musty, it is so old. There are grass lawns there a thousand years old; imagine it, lawns a thousand years old.

They think they know everything. And some of you have just the same fever. You are positively so clever that the Lord can't teach you anything.

And the dons there are in Cambridge! A live don is a live Cambridge or Oxford professor. He is, as you Americans would express it, "some person." I can just picture him as he walks along in his mortar board and gown, with his books under his arm. He is positively some person. And these dons think they know everything and if there is anything they don't know, they don't consider that it is worth knowing.

Why didn't God choose one of these to be a preacher? But He went to a gipsy tent and found a little gipsy boy there — a little boy who never went to school in his life and had never studied about religion out of books. But he had the love of Jesus, the love of God that passeth knowledge.

I will put that gipsy boy beside the professors who have not been born again, and where spiritual things are concerned, he will teach the professors.

Explain it — the Bible explains it. The natural man does not understand the things of God. They are foolishness to him.

The piano is musically understood. A daffodil is botanically understood. A star — well — you must be an astronomer if you are to understand stars. If you want to understand the rocks, you must be a geologist.

Oh, the great love of God.

Get on your knees; kneel like the poor sinner you are. There is no other way. You can't talk to God on stilts ; get down off of them. Get out of your automobile and get down on your knees. Come to God like a humble sinner; a sinner who happens to own an automobile.

And, believe me, the love of God is understood not by the schools, or only by the theologians, but by the believing, obedient heart.

I was holding a revival in Kansas City, and during the three weeks it was claimed that more people listened to the gospel in that city at that time than in any city of the world during the Christian era. Thousands were turned away each day.

As I was coming out of one of the services, I went into a little room behind the rostrum, where I usually put on my coat and wait for a little while to cool off before going outside. An old preacher followed me into the room. He was a venerable man and his hair was white. He stood behind my chair and put his hands on my head. I bent forward in silence. I thought he was going to bless me. But instead of blessing me, he was feeling my head.

"Are you a phrenologist ?" I said.

"No," he answered, "I am feeling for the secret of your success."

"Well, brother," I said, "you are too high. The secret of my success lies in my heart."

Love is a matter of the heart. Love is understood by the heart, not by the brain. If you want to know the love of God, get down before Him and open your heart. If your heart is ugly, show Him the truth. He will make it beautiful for you.

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The way some of you act shows your hearts are ugly.

"The heart is deceitful above all things and is desperately wicked."

God loves you — nobody is left out of God's abundant love. You may close your eyes now, if you will, and lay your hand on your heart and say, "He loved me and gave Himself for me." Say that over a few times until you realise you are getting close to the Creator. He loves me; He gave Himself for me. And then if you love Him, you will show your love for Him; you can't help it. If the love of God fills your heart, that love will flow out. "If a man love Me, he will keep my words." It is up to you to prove your love. Prove it by beautiful acts, by devoted service and sacrifice. Show it to everybody.