WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE
SALVATION ARMY?
There are some questions always being asked and never fully
answered, for the simple reason that only Omniscience knows the
answer, and Omniscience is not disposed to answer questions which
can be solved in measure by diligent attention to the spirit and
principles revealed in the Bible, and the final answer to which is
largely contingent upon our good behavior, our humility, our loyalty
to truth and love, our unswerving allegiance to Jesus, and our
diligence in keeping His commandments and walking in His footsteps.
I have recently been asked what I think about the future of The
Salvation Army. This is an old question, about as old as The Army
itself. It was going the rounds when I joined The Army over forty
years ago, and some one has been asking it ever since. Both friends
and foes of The Army have asked it. Officers and Soldiers whose
lives and whose families have been linked up and entwined with The
Army have asked it; and I doubt not our leaders have pondered over
it and given it their profoundest and most anxious thought.
It is a question which those who love God and the souls of men can
hardly avoid. With some it is a purely academic question. They would
like to solve the question for intellectual satisfaction. Others,
mere busybodies, would pry into the future, like many who are
curious to know all about the affairs of their neighbors, that they
may have something about which to gossip. It is not a matter of
vital interest to them. Indeed, they are of that large class of
people who have no vital interest in anything. They are like the
lying woman in Solomon's day who stole another woman's baby, but had
so little real interest in the baby that she was willing to have it
cut in two rather than to acknowledge her theft and lie.
With others it is a painfully practical question. Their hearts are
in The Army. It is as dear to them as life. They are bound up in the
bundle of its life. They have sacrificed every other interest for
it. They are given over to it soul and body, and have dedicated not
only themselves, but their children also to it. They can paraphrase
the ancient Psalmist's declaration of his devotion to Jerusalem 'If
I forget thee, O Salvation Army, let my right hand forget her
cunning.
'If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my
mouth; if I prefer not The Salvation Army above my chief joy.'
They feel that the highest interests of the Kingdom of God upon
earth are bound up with The Army, an the coming and establishment of
the Kingdom are in large measure dependent upon its spiritual life
and prosperity.
There are some people who are cocksure that they know the answer.
There are optimists who see nothing but the most rosy future for The
Army. But there are pessimists who prophecy its imminent disruption
and dissolution.
Many years ago, just after a tour that had taken me round the world,
an old Officer asked me with a quizzical look: 'Are you going to
leave The Army ship before she sinks?' I assured him that from a
rather wide range of intimate observation I saw no signs that the
ship was seriously leaking, or likely to sink, but that even if I
did, as an Officer my business was to stick to the ship and do all
in my power to save it, or go down with it and its precious
freightage of the souls of men and women and little children. 'The
hireling fleeth when he seeth the wolf coming. The good shepherd
giveth his life for the sheep.' And the true Officer gives his life
for The Army and the souls who are in its keeping.
Doubters and timid souls have been prophesying the end of The Army
from its very beginning, but still it lives and prospers. But what
will be its future? Will it continue to live and prosper? Or has it
fulfilled its mission?
Like a great bridge hung upon two buttresses, so The Army is
buttressed upon God and man.
Is it God's Army? Did He inspire and gird and guide William Booth
when, with heart aching for sinful men and spirit aflame for the
glory of God and the honour of Christ, he stepped out on Mile End
Waste and began the work that has developed into The Salvation Army?
Is God for us, or against us, or indifferent to us? I can sing for
myself
His love in time past forbids me to think, He'll leave me at last in
trouble to sink;
Each sweet Ebenezer I have in review Confirms His good pleasure to
see me quite through.
But can I be so confident for The Army? His guidance, His overruling
Providence, His gracious and mighty deliverances in the past are
unmistakable, are on record, known and read of all men who care to
read. He has overshadowed The Army with a pillar of cloud and fire
as surely as He did ancient Israel; He has gone before and opened
the 'two leaved gates of brass,' as He did for Cyrus, and empowered
Army Officers and Soldiers and made them more than conquerors, as He
did the Apostles and saints of the Early Church; but do all these
wonders of His favor and grace give assurance for the future? Is The
Army sacrosanct? Are we favorites and pets of the Almighty? This
leads us to the second point of dependence.
If God is for us, and I fully believe He is, does not that insure
our future?
The future of The Army depends not only upon God -- I say it
reverently and in His fear -- but also upon man, upon men, upon you
and me and all who have to do with The Army. 'Hear ye me,' cried the
prophet Azariah, 'Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin; The
Lord is with you, while ye be with Him; and if ye seek Him, He will
be found of you: but,' and here is warning for us to heed, for here
lurks danger, 'but if ye forsake Him, He will forsake you.' And this
is a timeless prophecy, eternally true, and not of private
interpretation, as true today as it was three millenniums ago; as
true of The Army, of you and of me, as it was of ancient Judah and
Benjamin and their king Asa; and it is 'written for our admonition
upon whom the ends of the world have come.' Let us search our
hearts, order our lives, and be admonished.
In so far in the past as we have sought God with our whole heart,
walked in His ways, and lived and wrought in the spirit of our Lord
and Master He has been with us, preserved us, prospered the work of
our hands, fulfilled the desires of our hearts, and blessed us in
the presence of our enemies. Can we still confidently expect His
favor for the future? Yes, and only, if we continue to abide in Him
and fulfill the conditions that have permitted Him to pour
benedictions upon us in the past.
And what are these conditions? I think we shall find them expressed
in the closing ministry of Jesus and of Paul. Of our Lord in those
closing days of His ministry when preparing His disciples for His
departure, and the days when they must stand alone without His
incarnate presence, and lay the foundations and build the church and
give it the living example and word that would guide it through
storm and stress of agonizing pagan persecutions, of worldly
allurements and seductions, of subtle philosophizings, of pain and
poverty, of indifference and scorn, and the dangers of wealth and
power and wide acclaim. Of Paul in his later ministry; his farewell
address to the elders of Ephesus at Miletus, and his prison letters
to the churches and his young friends and lieutenants, Timothy and
Titus.
The warnings, the exhortations, the example, the close and intimate
instructions of our Lord given to His disciples in the last few
closing months and days and last night of His ministry, and His High
Priestly prayer recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John, show us
the plain path in which we must walk, if the future of The Salvation
Army is to be happy and prosperous and its great promise come to
ample fulfillment.
And what were the example and teachings of the Master in these
fleet, closing days?
As He drew near the cross His disciples thought He was drawing near
to a throne and crown, and they were each ambitious and contentious
for first place and highest honors. But He told them plainly that He
should be rejected of men and crucified. Then Peter rebuked Him:
'Pity Thyself -- be it far from Thee, Lord: this shall not be unto
Thee.'
But He rebuked Peter and replied : ' If any man will come after Me,
let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.'
It was not an unusual sight in the Roman Empire to see a line of men
following a leader, each bearing a cross on his way to crucifixion.
This was the picture He would have them visualize. They were to
follow Him, their Leader, each bearing his own cross, not seeking to
save his life, but ready to lose it for His sake and for the sake of
the brethren. 'For whosoever will save his life shall lose it and
whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.'
So mightily at last did this teaching grip the early disciples and
fire their spirits, that they actually coveted martyrdom and ran
upon death with joy. In this they may have swung to an extreme, but
if The Salvation Army of the future is to prosper and win spiritual
triumphs, we must follow the Master, not seeking first place or
power, but glorying in the cross.
This was the secret of Paul. He was the pattern disciple. He had sat
at the feet of Jesus and learned of Him until he could write: 'What
things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ; neither
count I my life dear unto myself; that I may finish my course with
joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus. . . .
God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ; by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the
world.'
1. If the future of The Salvation Army is to be spiritually radiant
and all conquering, we must not simply endure the cross, but glory
in it. This will arrest the world, disarm Hell, and gladden the
heart of our Lord.
2. We must 'by love serve one another.' We are following Him who
'came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His
life a ransom for many.' We, too, must give our lives for others,
shrinking from no service, holding ourselves ever ready to wash the
feet of the lowliest disciple.
3. We must still prove our discipleship by our love one for the
other. It is not enough to wear the uniform, to profess loyalty to
Army leaders and principles, to give our goods to feed the poor and
our bodies to be burned. We must love one another. We must make this
the badge of our discipleship. We must wrestle and pray and hold
fast that we do not lose this.
The Army is so thoroughly organized and disciplined, so wrought into
the life of nations, so fortified with valuable properties, and on
such a sound financial basis, that it is not likely to perish as an
organization, but it will become a spiritually dead thing if love
leaks out. Love is the life of The Army. 'If we love one another,
God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us.' But if love
leaks out we shall lose our crown, we shall have a name to live and
yet be dead. We may still house the homeless, dole out food to the
hungry, punctiliously perform our routine work, but the mighty
ministry of the Spirit will no longer be our glory. Our musicians
will play meticulously, our Songsters will revel in the artistry of
song that tickles the ear, but leaves the heart cold and hard. Our
Officers will make broad their phylacteries and hob-nob with mayors
and councilmen and be greeted in the market-place, but God will not
be among us. We shall still recruit our ranks and supply our
Training Garrisons with Cadets from among our own Young People, but
we shall cease to be saviors of the lost sheep that have no
shepherd.
If the future of The Salvation Army is to still be glorious, we must
heed the exhortation: 'Let brotherly love continue.' We must
remember that all we are brethren and beware lest through leakage of
love we become like the wicked of whom the Psalmist wrote: 'Thou
sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own
mother's son (Psalm l. 20), and find our hearts full of strife and
bitter envying where the love that suffereth long and is kind should
reign supreme.
This is that for which Jesus pleaded on that last night before His
crucifixion: 'This is My commandment, That ye love one another, as I
have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down
his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I
command you. These things I command you, that ye love one another.'
This is that for which Paul pleaded and labored: And the Lord make
you to increase and abound in love one toward another and toward all
men . . to the end He may establish your hearts unblameable in
Holiness before God . . . at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ '
(1 Thessalonians iii. 12, 13).
This is that to which Peter exhorted the universal church: 'Seeing
ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit
unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another
with a pure heart fervently; . . . And above all things have fervent
charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of
sins ' (1 Peter i. 22; iv. 8).
4. How else but by fullness of love for one another can we fulfill
those supernatural requirements expressed by Paul and Peter? For
more than forty years I have pondered and prayed over those two
brief and searching words of Paul: 'Be kindly affectioned one to
another with brotherly love: in honour preferring one another,' 'Let
nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of
mind let each esteem other better than themselves.' These are lofty
spiritual heights scaled only by those in whose pure hearts burns
selfless love.
In so far as this spirit rules in our hearts God can work with us
and bless us, and the spiritual triumphs and glory of The Army for
the future are assured. But in so far as these graces of the Spirit
in us fail, so far will The Army as a spiritual power in the earth
fail.
Akin to these words of Paul are those of Peter: 'The elders which
are among you I exhort. . . Feed the flock of God, . . . not by
constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre (or rank or power),
but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage, but
being ensamples to the flock. Likewise, ye younger, submit
yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to
another, and be clothed with humility.' Nothing will so certainly
insure the prosperous and happy future of The Army as this spirit,
and I am persuaded that nothing other than this can insure it. This
is the life, the pulsing, eager, satisfying, and yet ever
unsatisfied, outreaching, world embracing life of The Army.
Organization and Government are important, vastly important, for the
direction and conservation of the activities of the life; but
without the life the Organization is a bit of mere mechanism and the
government is a pantomime.
Finally, in closing, let me recommend to my comrades the world over,
for prayerful study and meditation, Paul's farewell address to the
elders of Ephesus at Miletus, recorded in Acts xx. 17-35.
Over and over again and again, through more than four decades, I
have read and pondered that address, and prayed that the spirit that
was in Paul might be in me and in all my comrades, for this is the
spirit of Jesus. This is that for which He prayed on that last night
of His agony as recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John. And
this is that, and that alone, which can and will insure the
victorious and happy future of our world-wide Army.
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