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the great means at the disposal of the Church for the accomplishment of this work is, not
education, civilization, human culture, or social reforms, though all these may have subsidiary
significance, but the gospel of the Kingdom, which is none other, in spite of what
Premillenarians may say, than the gospel of free grace, of redemption through the blood of the
Lamb. But the Church may not rest satisfied with bringing sinners to Christ through the
instrumentality of the gospel; she must also engage in preaching the word in the assemblies of
those who have already come to Christ. And in the performance of this task it is not her main
task to call sinners unto Christ, though the invitation to come to Christ may not be wanting
even in organized churches, but to edify the saints, to strengthen their faith, to lead them on in
the way of sanctification, and thus to solidify the spiritual temple of the Lord. Paul has this in
mind when he says that Christ gave the teaching officers to the Church “for the perfecting of
the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ: till we all
attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown
man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” Eph. 4:1213. The Church may
not rest satisfied with teaching the first principles of faith, but must press on to higher ground,
in order that those who are babes in Christ may become full-grown men and women in Christ,
Heb. 5:11-6:3. Only a Church that is really strong, that has a firm grasp of the truth, can in turn
become a powerful missionary agency and make mighty conquests for the Lord. Thus the task
of the Church is a comprehensive task. She must point out the way of salvation, must warn the
wicked of their coming doom, must cheer the saints with the promises of salvation, must
strengthen the weak, encourage the faint-hearted and comfort the sorrowing. And in order that
all this work may be done in every land and among all nations, she must see to it that the Word
of God is translated into all languages. The ministry of the sacraments must, of course, go hand
in hand with the ministry of the Word. It is merely the symbolical presentation of the gospel,
addressed to the eye rather than to the ear. The duty of the Church to preach the Word is
plainly taught in many passages of Scripture, such as Isa. 3:10,11; II Cor. 5:20; I Tim. 4:13; II Tim.
2:15; 4:2; Tit. 2:1-10. In view of the clear instructions of her King she may never allow any
totalitarian government to dictate to her what she must preach; neither may she accommodate
herself, as far as the contents of her message is concerned, to the demands of a naturalistic
science, or to the requirements of a culture that reflects the spirit of the world. Modernists
have done just that during the past decades by the suicidal efforts to adapt themselves in their
preaching to the demands of a rationalistic higher criticism, of biology and psychology, of
sociology and economics, until at last they completely lost the message of the King. Many of
them are now coming to the discovery that the message recommended in Rethinking Missions
and in Vernon White’s A New Theology for Missions is quite different from the original message
and contains little that is peculiar to the pulpit; and that, as things now stand in their circles, the
Church has no message of its own. Frantic attempts are made by Modernists to discover for