SALVATION NOT IN CHURCH OR ORDINANCES, BUT IN CHRIST
B. H. CARROLL, D.D., LL.D.
For Almost Thirty Years Pastor of First Baptist Church, Waco, Texas, and Founder and First President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary,
Fort Worth, Texas
TEXT: These things write I unto thee that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground o f the truth. And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the nations, believed on in the world, received up into glory. - 1Ti_3:15-16.
There is a word which means to call, a Greek word, kalleo, I call. This word is united sometimes with a preposition which means “out of,” the preposition ek, and thus you have ekkalleo, “I call out.” And from that you have ecclesia, which means “the called out.” And that is the word which one hundred and fifteen times in the New Testament is translated “church,” the “called out.”
The word was not coined for the occasion. It was in good use among the Greeks when our Savior employed it. In the nineteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, we have three instances of its use in the Greek sense. Ephesus was a Greek town and had Greek customs and laws, and they had an assembly which transacted the business of the town. And this assembly, in order to transact the business committed to it, had to be regularly summoned by a town-crier, who went around and issued his call, calling out this man and that man; then the “called out” would come together for the transaction of the business committed to them.
On one occasion they were illegally called out. It was not done according to Greek law, and hence the town clerk said that it was an unlawful assembly, in that the forms of law had not been complied with in the calling out, and he said that if any man had any business to come before the assembly, the ecclesia of that town, there was a lawful way in which it could be done. These three instances are the only ones in the Bible in which the word is used in its ordinary Greek sense. In the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles it is applied to the people of Israel, whom God called out of Egypt. The assembly in the wilderness, that national congregation, by the call of God, came out from Egypt to go to the Promised Land which God should give them. This was a national assembly and organized for national purposes.
In other places in the New Testament the word is applied, not to any particular assembly, but to the church as an institution. Allow me to illustrate: Suppose I were to say that upon certain principles of civil liberty the jury was established. I would not have in my mind any particular twelve men when I used the word “jury” in that sense, but the institution called the jury. Now, in that sense the word ecclesia, or church, is used by our Savior when He says that upon the public profession of faith in Him as the Messiah, the Son of the living God, “I will build my church. I will call out from the world a people who believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, and upon that professed faith in Him, I will build the institution, my church.” Now He has no particular local congregation in His mind when He says that. The term is used just as I used the term “jury” a while ago. But in ninety-five out of the one hundred and fifteen instances in which the word is translated “church,” it refers to a local congregation assembled together in one place. In a few instances it refers to all of the saved people who are called from the earth up to heaven, as “the general assembly and church of the first-born who are written in heaven.”
But in the ordinary use of the word it applies to a congregation called out for a specific purpose, and organized for that purpose, legally organized for that purpose, and the basis upon which it is called out is that every member of it is a personal believer in the Messiahship of Jesus Christ and His divinity; no other may lawfully enter it; whether man, woman or child, there must be personal faith God-revealed faith in Jesus. It is based upon that.
Do you personally, for yourself, without the intervention of-any third party, and from God’s individual dealings with you, do you, from your heart, accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Divine Teacher, as your Divine Savior, as your Divine King, making His word the law of your life, and His atonement the basis of your salvation, and His government the rule of your life?
Now, in that sense of the word, Paul says to Timothy in this text: “I write to thee that thou mayest know the kind of life (it does not refer to proprieties and civilities) thou must live as a member of the church.” The word house in the text in no sense means the external building in which the people assembled. It never had that sense until modern times. People now sometimes build a house, and they dedicate it and they consecrate it, but that is not the Bible idea. This building here where we are is but brick, mortar and wood. It is for convenience. It is not the church but is built for the church to assemble in. It is not the church. You are God’s building, the congregation, not this structure, and there is no use for this building beyond the purposes of affording a convenient, comfortable and suitable place for the gathering together of the Church of God. And I would have you disabuse your mind of any sort of conception that any kind of building of brick or mortar is the house of God.
I repeat, you, you converted people are God’s building, and you would be God’s building if you did not have a house to meet in; you would be God’s building on the prairie, and all this idea about the special sanctity attaching to the building that we put up, is the veriest superstition, and very destructive of the souls of men. “Joining the church,” then, never means joining the house. I mean the house that we put up; the house of God is built by the Lord Jesus Christ. He says: “Upon this rock I (not you) will build my church.” Now, the ancient temple of the Jews is not to be imitated in modern buildings; that was a type, but it was not a type of any other building to be erected of an earthly character. It was a type of the spiritual building, the true church.
For instance, God says: “You are God’s temple, you converted people; you called out people; you people called out from the world by the Spirit of God, and trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, and assembled together for the purpose that I am going to tell you directly. You are God’s temple; you are built up for an habitation of the Spirit of God, and in this spiritual temple every stone is a living stone; not a dead one in it.”
It makes no difference whether you are eighty years old or ten years old; whether you are a man or a woman; whether you are a Jew or a Greek; whether you are a barbarian, bond or free. If ever you become a part of the true house of God, of which the Temple was the type, you will be made alive by the Spirit of God; you will be a living stone. And you have no more place in the church of God, in the true house of God, if you are an unconverted man, than the devil himself.
I do want to make this point clear to you today, that the most destructive idea that was ever presented to the minds of the people is that anybody or anything is the Savior except the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And it is a deadly sin, by whomsoever propagated, that any ordinance, like baptism, or the Lord’s supper, or any church organization is a saving machine in the sense you must be in it to be saved.
Jesus is the Savior. He builds the true church, and you do sin against your own soul, and you do love death rather than life, whenever you go to any ordinance or any organization in order to be saved. The church can no more save you than the angels can, and the angels can not save you. You are to be saved by the power of God, or you are lost, and it is high treason, and I do impeach any man living today of high treason against God that makes any ordinance or any church organization on this earth the Savior. I impeach such an one of a direct and palpable violation of the law of salvation. I have no ambition for “broadness” contrary to God’s Word. I have no authority to palm off my “broadness” on the credulity of men. I am just as broad as God’s law.
Suppose a judge, sitting on a bench, with the statutes before him, and a criminal for trial before him, should say: “This is a broad court; if you think you have kept the law I will acquit you; if you intended in your mind to obey the statutes, whether you obeyed them or not; this is a broad court; it justifies on your intent.” Such a judge would be impeached and removed from the bench. He has no right to be broad beyond the law, and if he speaks not according to the law and the testimony, there is no judicial honor in him. The church of the living God, the called out assembly, was not instituted by man. Why, I have no authority to start a church, unless I claim to be God. The conditions of membership are not matters to be settled by the fancies of people. No number of them can get together and say: “Let’s organize a church that will suit us.” It is not a question of whether it suits us or not. Any man who is thoughtful, and who really wishes to be saved, will, in his heart, look with contempt upon any human organization that assumes to save his soul. Why? He says, “I am a man myself, and if you people can organize a saving machine, I can do it myself, and who are you that I should bow down before you as my Savior?”
If the legions of God’s angels, in the sheen of their heavenly apparel, were to come down in one blaze of splendor and cover Waco with the dazzling glory of their heavenly appearance, I pledge you my word, so great is my idea of the dignity of manhood, that I would not fall down and worship that assembly of flaming spirits. I would not kneel to any angel that ever carried a message of God. Whenever I bend the knee, I must bend it to Divinity; not to man; not to angels.
Now we come to the purpose of the church. Let us look at it: “The pillar and ground of the truth.” The church was established by the Lord Jesus Christ, called out from the world, upon principles which He prescribed, not which were convenient and suitable to them or pleasing to their fancies. He prescribed everything and consulted them in nothing. He organized them, not for their delectation, nor for the accomplishment of their purpose, but to hold up the truth by which men could be saved. And if I stood here in this pulpit as the mouth-piece of this local organization, and were to present to men anything which had not a “thus saith the Lord” for it, which is not bottomed upon a plain passage of the Word of God, I would deserve the repudiation of the just, and the contempt of all the honest and earnest who are seeking salvation by the power of God, and not by the sleight-of-hand or craftiness of men. I have no message of my own. I am no more than one of you. I am a sinner just like you are. I claim no special superiority over any of you. If I get to heaven, it will be by no superior sanctity of my own, but it will be by the grace of God that saved me, as I invite you to be saved.
Now, let us see what this truth is that the church is to hold up. Listen to the items of it.
1. God Was Manifest In The Flesh. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The first item of the truth is that the one to whom we ask you to come as a Savior is God Himself. Would I ask you to come to a pope? Would I ask you to come to the Virgin Mary? Would I ask you to come to Gabriel or Michael? Would I ask you to come to a poor sinner like myself? Shall I come to you as an intelligent man, and ask you to accept as a Savior anybody who is not divine? Why, you would tell me at once that when a man can save, you will save yourself.
Now, look at this picture; I want it to be vividly before you. In the old Aztec government when they captured a royal prisoner, they would say to him: “We receive you as our distinguished guest. We appoint you the most luxurious room in our palace; we provide for you the most delicate viands upon which man could wish to feed; we fill your room with the most subtle and pleasant aroma; we cause the most beautiful women to stand before you, and with their fans of gorgeously variegated feathers of birds, to keep even the smallest insect from lighting upon you.
You are very precious to us. We honor you very much.” And the unsuspecting victim smiles at his royal treatment, and they continue their deceptive compliments. But on a certain moonless night, when everything is dark, they come with soft and flattering words, take that man by the hand and lead him out. They furnish him a grand escort of robed priests. Each one holds a flaming torch in his hand, and they come to that vast tower of the war god, around which winds an outside spiral staircase, leading up to the top. And as that crowd moves up, and the torches go round, it seems like a glittering serpent of fire climbing up in that dark night to the top of that temple. And when they get the victim up there, still speaking soft and flattering words, they gently lay him down upon a huge rock and bare his breast, and suddenly a priest steps out with a sharp knife and rips his breast open, and plucks out his heart the palpitating and smoking heart and thrusts it down at the foot of his war god.
O, no; they did not intend to hurt him; they simply wanted to take his heart out. And so when men say, “If you will preach Jesus Christ as a man, I can take hold of that,”
I tell you before God today that that would heart the Gospel; that would take the heart out of it. And you might cover that book with fulsome compliments, and you might pat obsequious and truckling ministers upon the back and say: “How broad; how liberal; how catholic! Why, you will spread it out so any of us can come in.” I tell you no honest man would come in. He would say: “If you have nothing more to present to me as a Savior than a man, I am a man myself, and I bow down my knee to no man.” There never was a shrewder trick of the devil than his saying to preachers: “You be broad; you be liberal; you take out the supernatural; you reject the miracles; you reject the divinity of Jesus Christ; you preach Him as a man; you hold Him up as merely a pattern, as an example.” Ah, me, it would not save a soul, not a soul.
My Savior is Divine, and the very minute that I repudiate His divinity I step out of the pulpit and I say: “Gentlemen, do not ask me to preach a man as a Savior; I won’t do it.” It is the mission of the church to hold out before lost souls a Divine Savior, who was God before He created this world; who was God in eternity; but who, to save men, took upon Himself human nature, and in His humanity suffered and died for men.
When I was an infidel, in some respects at least, I was an honest one, and talking once with a Christian, who began to lower the bible down so as to make it fit me, I said: “Stop. Whenever you put it down that low, then quit preaching; if it ever touches me in the world, it must touch me on its divine claims; it must touch me upon its supernatural origin; it must touch me because it is from God and not from man; and if you take out the supernatural, then I tell you frankly I had as soon adopt any other old wives’ fable as that. I put it with other myths and legends of men. If you can prove to me its divine authority; if the Lord Jesus Christ can come before me as God, and I can see it, I will bend my knee to Him that very moment.”
I have had men in this town to come to me with wonderful compliments to the Bible.
“Marvelous book,” they say, “and if you will eliminate the supernatural, take out those miracles, take out the divinity of Jesus Christ, I will come and stand with you.”
I don’t care whether they come or not. I mean to say that not to gain the approval of a man would I lower the divine plan of salvation the ninth part of a hair; and it is for his good I would not do it, for whenever I lower it he turns his back on it with contempt. The devil does not fear a “broad church.” He has no fear of it at all; the devil does not fear baptism as a Savior; the devil does not fear the church as a Savior. It pleases him when people join the church to be saved. He doesn’t care how many times you look in a pool of water for the remission of sins. He doesn’t care how many times you appeal to a woman, and say, “Mother of God, do thou intercede for me!” He doesn’t care how many times you try to get to heaven by joining the Sunday School. Why, he knows you cannot get there that way, and if he can side-track you on that delusion he has accomplished his purpose.
2. Notice the next point. God was not only manifest in the flesh but justified in the Spirit. When He took upon Himself human nature, there had to be some attestation that He was the Divine One, that He was God Incarnate. It required credentials; it needed authentication; and if Jesus of Nazareth is not justified as God by the Spirit, I for one disclaim Him as my Savior. When God sent John the Baptist to preach, He says: “I send you that in your baptizing the true Messiah may be made manifest.”
John says: “How am I to know Him?” That was a very sensible inquiry. “That baptized man upon whom you shall see the Spirit of God descending and resting, He is the one.” And when the Spirit did rest on Him, the devil also knew He was the one, and he did not waste any more time. He determined to meet that being upon whom the Spirit of God rested and test His divinity; and into the wilderness the Spirit led Jesus in order that His divinity might be tested in conflict with Satan himself, the arch enemy of man; and if the devil had triumphed over Him, He would not have been God.
Then look at the attestation of the Spirit when He ascended into heaven. He based all His claims to the Messiahship upon that fact. What was the fact? That if He ascended up into heaven, and He was preached as God manifest in the flesh, as the Divine Savior, that the Spirit of God would attest that preaching until the end of time.
Why, do you think I would get up before you here today, and preach the divinity of Jesus Christ, and no way to authenticate it this side of Pentecost? I tell you He will authenticate it in this house today. He has authenticated it here one hundred and fifty times since this meeting commenced. Jesus Christ as God manifest in the flesh, has been justified by the Spirit time after time since we commenced these services; and I do not ask any man to rise up and say, “He is my Savior,” unless the Spirit of the great God has moved upon that man’s heart, and has by divine power convinced him of the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. I know how, as cold as an icicle and with my mind analyzing every sentence that the preacher spoke, I looked in calm, proud scorn upon what I regarded as the preaching of the gospel, and it was only when the proposition was made to me that I was to have an experimental demonstration in my heart, in my conscience, in my spirit, in my judgment, that Jesus Christ in my soul was to be justified as Divine, as God, by the power of the Spirit of God-I acted on that proposition in a minute.
So I have seen gray-headed men, who have lived in this town as unbelievers, upon the witness in their hearts, acknowledge Jesus Christ as their Divine Lord. And it does seem that with the vast deal and you must excuse the expression the vast deal of superstitious stuff oftentimes presented for men’s acceptance, there is some sort of an extenuation of their unbelief. They see no power in it; the whole thing seems to them as an empty shell, a system of mere rites and ceremonies, of formal professions, of unchanged lives, and in their hearts they say, “If you cannot give me something better than that, you let me alone.” And I will let them alone, unless I can offer them immediate and personal demonstration of Christ’s divinity. Not by an argument, for many of them can outargue me; their minds are equal to mine, their powers of analysis perhaps superior; I would not try to argue one of them into salvation, but I say: I offer you a proof, not of my own manufacture; I offer you a proof not even of angelic, origin; I offer you a proof not found in running or standing water, however it may sparkle or gurgle or thunder in its downpour; I offer you a demonstration, not in a wafer that you put on your lip, not in a little wine that you take into your mouth. I offer you a demonstration of the almighty power of God in His working on your heart and in your soul, so that after a while you can stand up and with a perfectly clear eye look out in the face of your neighbors, and with whom you have been associating all your life, and say: “Friends, I once spoke evil of this way. I did not think there was anything in it; but a change has come over me; I do not see it as I once saw it, and there is in me the witness of my conscience that God, for Christ’s sake, has forgiven my sins. I do not know how to explain it, but now I love Thy church, O God; I love Thy worship; I love Thy songs; I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ; I love the meeting of Thy people. My affections have been changed, and I am willing for Jesus Christ to be my teacher, because He is not a man, and to be my Savior, because He is not an angel, and to be my King, because He is the only true and living God.”
3. Now take the next point of the truth of which the church is the pillar and ground: “Seen of angels.” Not only was He to be authenticated by the Spirit of God, but He was to the angels that stand around the throne of God, to appear to be the Son of God. They were to recognize His divinity. When the shepherds were watching in the field a bright light shone around them, and there was heard a voice (and not an earthly voice): “Unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ, the God, the Lord. Behold, it is good tidings for all men.” They saw it. They recognized His divinity in the cradle. He appeared unto them in the temptation to be divine, and when the devil left Him, the angels came and ministered unto Him. He appeared unto them to be divine in the Garden of Gethsemane, when after His prayer one of them came and held up the head of His humanity. He appeared unto them to be divine when they came to His tomb and looked upon its emptiness, and testified to the disciples, “He is not here; He is risen.” He appears unto the angels to be divine, whenever God’s people come together, for by the church the manifold wisdom of God is to be made known unto the principalities and powers that are in heavenly places.
When He came into the world, all the angels of God worshipped Him. So instead of bowing down to an angel, I kneel down by the side of the angel, and I hear that angel say, “I am thy fellow servant, as I was the fellow servant of the prophets, and I, too, will bend the knee when you bow down to Jesus Christ.” And any Savior that the bright spirits above do not recognize as the Savior cannot be my Savior.
4. Now notice the next point: “Preached unto the nations.” This God that was manifest in the flesh, that was justified in the spirit, that appeared unto the angels to be God, He was preached unto the nations. Who was preached? We preach not ourselves, no; we are sinners. We are your servants for. Christ’s sake. God forbid that I should ask you to look to me or to trust in me. We preach Christ. He is the one to be held up before the world as the Savior of the world. Suppose I go out here in Waco to an unconverted man, and say, “You are a good man; you ought to stand on the side of whatever is right, and now you come and join the church.” Shall I preach the church to him? Shall I? God forbid. Shall I not preach Christ to him?
Shall I not hold up before him as a Divine Savior the Lord Jesus Christ? Preached among, the nations, all nations; if He is the God of the Jews only, He is not my God.
If there is no way of salvation by Him for me, then how can He claim to be God?
Has God only one little people here? Did He not reach out His strong hand and break down the wall, the partition, between Jews and Gentiles, and say in His wrath against bigotry: “God is no respecter of persons. In every nation, whosoever feareth Him is accepted of Him?” What are you, just one little people among so many, that you should monopolize Divinity and salvation? Break down that wall; pull up its foundations; let the world in. Go, preach this salvation to every tongue and tribe and kindred upon the face of the earth. When you take away the catholicity of this means of salvation, I for one will reject it.
5. Now, not only preached among the nations, but “believed on in the world.” You say it is incredible; I say it is credible. Now, which of us is right? You say it is incredible, I say it is credible; and I can prove what I say by a fact that you cannot gainsay; and that is the fact that He has been believed on in the world. Will you say great men have not believed on Him? I point to Gladstone, to Washington, to Justice Marshall, to Greenleaf, to the mightiest minds that this world has ever known.
They have delighted to believe in Him. And then I will give you a grander proof than that. I will go down where humanity has suffered, where the people are poor, where they are sick, where they are distressed, where they are blind. I will go down to the mud sills and leave the upper crust, and go where human hearts are bursting and breaking, and I tell you that He is believed on there. O blindness, thou didst see Him, and see forever; O deafness, thou didst hear Him and hear forever; O death, thou didst receive Him, and He burst thy narrow boundaries and came out, because it was not possible that He should beholden by them. Believed on in the world! Why He is believed on here in Waco. He has been believed on one hundred and fifty times already by new born souls since this meeting commenced. Believed on? Yes, and will be until the last syllable of time. And whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That is why we preach Him. We preach that He may be believed upon, and He is believed on, by strong men and weak men, and great men and little men, and rich men and poor men, kings and slaves. O let them come; let them come as sinners, not to waters, not to wine, not to bread, but to God. God God manifest in the flesh; O Divine Savior, thou living God, save men today. Who else can save? Accursed, accursed is the man that trusteth in an arm of flesh.
6. Now, here is the last item of the text “received up into glory.” Am I to preach that? I do. I am to preach that Jesus of Nazareth came into this world, not by ordinary procreation,: but by the over-shadowing of the Eternal Spirit, was manifested in the flesh and justified by the Spirit, was seen of angels, was preached to the nations, and was believed on in the world, and what? Received up into glory.
Do you believe it? If I did not believe it, I would be a fool to stand up here and preach. Him to you. While they were standing looking at Him after His resurrection, He began to rise, rise, rise, until a cloud received Him out of their sight. But God permits us to go above the cloud. Come up with me in your mind. Let us go up above the cloud and see where He goes. We have a clear sweep of vision, as He rises to the highest heaven; we hear His voice: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and let the King of Glory come in.” “Who is this King of Glory?” “The Lord, mighty to save, He is the King of Glory.” And I believe, just as much as I believe that I am alive, that He is enthroned as King of kings and Lord of lords; that all power in heaven and on earth is given unto Him. Received into glory! O, blessed thought!
This overwhelms me; this takes my breath away, that He said, “Where I am, there shalt thou be also. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel and afterwards receive me into glory.” I shall follow the Lord out of this land of darkness and sin and death and be received into glory with Him, to be forever with the Lord.
Dear brethren, sisters, grounded in the faith of the Gospel, believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, let me tell you, you will never die, never. I do mean to say that when you come to what is called death, it won’t be death to you. The river will be divided and you cross over dry shod, and there shall be no taste of death to you. You will never die; you will be received up into glory. O, the chariot of God, the chariot of God and the horsemen thereof! Thou vehicle of fire, thou vehicle to which is harnessed flaming steeds, thou conveyance of the redeemed, thou takest every Christian when he dies up immediately into the presence of God to be received up into glory.
Now, you understand what I mean by the church and by the business of the church, that no man on earth has any business in the church unless God by His Spirit has called him out from the world, called him to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as Divine, as God, as the Savior, and when God for Christ’s sake has forgiven his sins and he is one of the redeemed, then I am willing to baptize that man. But I would let this right arm drop in everlasting paralysis at my right side, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, before I would baptize man, woman or child, if I did not have evidence that such a one was saved, saved by the power of God. But perhaps someone may say: “We are broad enough to take our children with us.” I take my children with me. That is, I take them to Jesus, not to the fount. “Suffer them to come unto me and forbid them not.” Don’t forbid them to come to Christ. Come, boys, come little girls, I will take you with me. I went to Jesus; I found Him to be my Savior, and when you find Him to be your Savior we will go along together. But I could not pick you up unsaved and take you with me.
That would be a cruel thing, for me to have my soul washed and made clean in the blood of Jesus and give my child only a water washing.
Shall I trust him to water when I demanded blood for myself? God forbid. When he comes just like his father did, then we go together; never until then, never, never, forever.
Men of Waco, look at me for a few minutes. I want to speak some earnest words to you right now. I know that I desire the salvation of your souls. As the Lord God is my judge, there is not one of you against whom I have an unkind feeling; on the contrary, to every one of you I come with tears in my eyes, and, God knows, love in my heart, while I say, “Friends, look here, I do not ask you to a man, I do not ask you to a church, I ask you to the Lord God Himself, and if you will meet Him, come to Him, come just as you are today, you will be saved.” And let me ask you if it is not true: Have you not had many heavy burdens in your time? Have you not in many respects had a hard time? O, many a time have you not had the bitter cup pressed to your lips? Have you not felt, when you looked out around you, O, what a problem is life? Is there nothing better than what I have come to? Is there nothing beyond the miserable things that I have reached? O immortality, immortality! I stand an immortal spirit, but when out of an old broken cistern I try, to draw up water, I hear my little bucket hit the bottom, and the dust arises while I die of thirst. O God, shall this man be forever unsatisfied? Shall he be forever restless? Shall he forever desire and have naught? O Spirit, omnific Spirit of God, Thou justifier of Jesus Christ, Thou accreditor of the Gospel: O Spirit, in mighty power today behold the hearts of these disappointed men and women and children and lead them from broken cisterns which hold no water to the Fountain of Livings Waters.
B. H. CARROLL, D.D., LL.D.For Almost Thirty Years Pastor of First Baptist Church, Waco, Texas, and Founder and First President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary,
Fort Worth, Texas
TEXT: These things write I unto thee that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground o f the truth. And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the nations, believed on in the world, received up into glory. - 1Ti_3:15-16.
There is a word which means to call, a Greek word, kalleo, I call. This word is united sometimes with a preposition which means “out of,” the preposition ek, and thus you have ekkalleo, “I call out.” And from that you have ecclesia, which means “the called out.” And that is the word which one hundred and fifteen times in the New Testament is translated “church,” the “called out.”
The word was not coined for the occasion. It was in good use among the Greeks when our Savior employed it. In the nineteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, we have three instances of its use in the Greek sense. Ephesus was a Greek town and had Greek customs and laws, and they had an assembly which transacted the business of the town. And this assembly, in order to transact the business committed to it, had to be regularly summoned by a town-crier, who went around and issued his call, calling out this man and that man; then the “called out” would come together for the transaction of the business committed to them.
On one occasion they were illegally called out. It was not done according to Greek law, and hence the town clerk said that it was an unlawful assembly, in that the forms of law had not been complied with in the calling out, and he said that if any man had any business to come before the assembly, the ecclesia of that town, there was a lawful way in which it could be done. These three instances are the only ones in the Bible in which the word is used in its ordinary Greek sense. In the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles it is applied to the people of Israel, whom God called out of Egypt. The assembly in the wilderness, that national congregation, by the call of God, came out from Egypt to go to the Promised Land which God should give them. This was a national assembly and organized for national purposes.
In other places in the New Testament the word is applied, not to any particular assembly, but to the church as an institution. Allow me to illustrate: Suppose I were to say that upon certain principles of civil liberty the jury was established. I would not have in my mind any particular twelve men when I used the word “jury” in that sense, but the institution called the jury. Now, in that sense the word ecclesia, or church, is used by our Savior when He says that upon the public profession of faith in Him as the Messiah, the Son of the living God, “I will build my church. I will call out from the world a people who believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, and upon that professed faith in Him, I will build the institution, my church.” Now He has no particular local congregation in His mind when He says that. The term is used just as I used the term “jury” a while ago. But in ninety-five out of the one hundred and fifteen instances in which the word is translated “church,” it refers to a local congregation assembled together in one place. In a few instances it refers to all of the saved people who are called from the earth up to heaven, as “the general assembly and church of the first-born who are written in heaven.”
But in the ordinary use of the word it applies to a congregation called out for a specific purpose, and organized for that purpose, legally organized for that purpose, and the basis upon which it is called out is that every member of it is a personal believer in the Messiahship of Jesus Christ and His divinity; no other may lawfully enter it; whether man, woman or child, there must be personal faith God-revealed faith in Jesus. It is based upon that.
Do you personally, for yourself, without the intervention of-any third party, and from God’s individual dealings with you, do you, from your heart, accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Divine Teacher, as your Divine Savior, as your Divine King, making His word the law of your life, and His atonement the basis of your salvation, and His government the rule of your life?
Now, in that sense of the word, Paul says to Timothy in this text: “I write to thee that thou mayest know the kind of life (it does not refer to proprieties and civilities) thou must live as a member of the church.” The word house in the text in no sense means the external building in which the people assembled. It never had that sense until modern times. People now sometimes build a house, and they dedicate it and they consecrate it, but that is not the Bible idea. This building here where we are is but brick, mortar and wood. It is for convenience. It is not the church but is built for the church to assemble in. It is not the church. You are God’s building, the congregation, not this structure, and there is no use for this building beyond the purposes of affording a convenient, comfortable and suitable place for the gathering together of the Church of God. And I would have you disabuse your mind of any sort of conception that any kind of building of brick or mortar is the house of God.
I repeat, you, you converted people are God’s building, and you would be God’s building if you did not have a house to meet in; you would be God’s building on the prairie, and all this idea about the special sanctity attaching to the building that we put up, is the veriest superstition, and very destructive of the souls of men. “Joining the church,” then, never means joining the house. I mean the house that we put up; the house of God is built by the Lord Jesus Christ. He says: “Upon this rock I (not you) will build my church.” Now, the ancient temple of the Jews is not to be imitated in modern buildings; that was a type, but it was not a type of any other building to be erected of an earthly character. It was a type of the spiritual building, the true church.
For instance, God says: “You are God’s temple, you converted people; you called out people; you people called out from the world by the Spirit of God, and trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, and assembled together for the purpose that I am going to tell you directly. You are God’s temple; you are built up for an habitation of the Spirit of God, and in this spiritual temple every stone is a living stone; not a dead one in it.”
It makes no difference whether you are eighty years old or ten years old; whether you are a man or a woman; whether you are a Jew or a Greek; whether you are a barbarian, bond or free. If ever you become a part of the true house of God, of which the Temple was the type, you will be made alive by the Spirit of God; you will be a living stone. And you have no more place in the church of God, in the true house of God, if you are an unconverted man, than the devil himself.
I do want to make this point clear to you today, that the most destructive idea that was ever presented to the minds of the people is that anybody or anything is the Savior except the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And it is a deadly sin, by whomsoever propagated, that any ordinance, like baptism, or the Lord’s supper, or any church organization is a saving machine in the sense you must be in it to be saved.
Jesus is the Savior. He builds the true church, and you do sin against your own soul, and you do love death rather than life, whenever you go to any ordinance or any organization in order to be saved. The church can no more save you than the angels can, and the angels can not save you. You are to be saved by the power of God, or you are lost, and it is high treason, and I do impeach any man living today of high treason against God that makes any ordinance or any church organization on this earth the Savior. I impeach such an one of a direct and palpable violation of the law of salvation. I have no ambition for “broadness” contrary to God’s Word. I have no authority to palm off my “broadness” on the credulity of men. I am just as broad as God’s law.
Suppose a judge, sitting on a bench, with the statutes before him, and a criminal for trial before him, should say: “This is a broad court; if you think you have kept the law I will acquit you; if you intended in your mind to obey the statutes, whether you obeyed them or not; this is a broad court; it justifies on your intent.” Such a judge would be impeached and removed from the bench. He has no right to be broad beyond the law, and if he speaks not according to the law and the testimony, there is no judicial honor in him. The church of the living God, the called out assembly, was not instituted by man. Why, I have no authority to start a church, unless I claim to be God. The conditions of membership are not matters to be settled by the fancies of people. No number of them can get together and say: “Let’s organize a church that will suit us.” It is not a question of whether it suits us or not. Any man who is thoughtful, and who really wishes to be saved, will, in his heart, look with contempt upon any human organization that assumes to save his soul. Why? He says, “I am a man myself, and if you people can organize a saving machine, I can do it myself, and who are you that I should bow down before you as my Savior?”
If the legions of God’s angels, in the sheen of their heavenly apparel, were to come down in one blaze of splendor and cover Waco with the dazzling glory of their heavenly appearance, I pledge you my word, so great is my idea of the dignity of manhood, that I would not fall down and worship that assembly of flaming spirits. I would not kneel to any angel that ever carried a message of God. Whenever I bend the knee, I must bend it to Divinity; not to man; not to angels.
Now we come to the purpose of the church. Let us look at it: “The pillar and ground of the truth.” The church was established by the Lord Jesus Christ, called out from the world, upon principles which He prescribed, not which were convenient and suitable to them or pleasing to their fancies. He prescribed everything and consulted them in nothing. He organized them, not for their delectation, nor for the accomplishment of their purpose, but to hold up the truth by which men could be saved. And if I stood here in this pulpit as the mouth-piece of this local organization, and were to present to men anything which had not a “thus saith the Lord” for it, which is not bottomed upon a plain passage of the Word of God, I would deserve the repudiation of the just, and the contempt of all the honest and earnest who are seeking salvation by the power of God, and not by the sleight-of-hand or craftiness of men. I have no message of my own. I am no more than one of you. I am a sinner just like you are. I claim no special superiority over any of you. If I get to heaven, it will be by no superior sanctity of my own, but it will be by the grace of God that saved me, as I invite you to be saved.
Now, let us see what this truth is that the church is to hold up. Listen to the items of it.
1. God Was Manifest In The Flesh. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The first item of the truth is that the one to whom we ask you to come as a Savior is God Himself. Would I ask you to come to a pope? Would I ask you to come to the Virgin Mary? Would I ask you to come to Gabriel or Michael? Would I ask you to come to a poor sinner like myself? Shall I come to you as an intelligent man, and ask you to accept as a Savior anybody who is not divine? Why, you would tell me at once that when a man can save, you will save yourself.
Now, look at this picture; I want it to be vividly before you. In the old Aztec government when they captured a royal prisoner, they would say to him: “We receive you as our distinguished guest. We appoint you the most luxurious room in our palace; we provide for you the most delicate viands upon which man could wish to feed; we fill your room with the most subtle and pleasant aroma; we cause the most beautiful women to stand before you, and with their fans of gorgeously variegated feathers of birds, to keep even the smallest insect from lighting upon you.
You are very precious to us. We honor you very much.” And the unsuspecting victim smiles at his royal treatment, and they continue their deceptive compliments. But on a certain moonless night, when everything is dark, they come with soft and flattering words, take that man by the hand and lead him out. They furnish him a grand escort of robed priests. Each one holds a flaming torch in his hand, and they come to that vast tower of the war god, around which winds an outside spiral staircase, leading up to the top. And as that crowd moves up, and the torches go round, it seems like a glittering serpent of fire climbing up in that dark night to the top of that temple. And when they get the victim up there, still speaking soft and flattering words, they gently lay him down upon a huge rock and bare his breast, and suddenly a priest steps out with a sharp knife and rips his breast open, and plucks out his heart the palpitating and smoking heart and thrusts it down at the foot of his war god.
O, no; they did not intend to hurt him; they simply wanted to take his heart out. And so when men say, “If you will preach Jesus Christ as a man, I can take hold of that,”
I tell you before God today that that would heart the Gospel; that would take the heart out of it. And you might cover that book with fulsome compliments, and you might pat obsequious and truckling ministers upon the back and say: “How broad; how liberal; how catholic! Why, you will spread it out so any of us can come in.” I tell you no honest man would come in. He would say: “If you have nothing more to present to me as a Savior than a man, I am a man myself, and I bow down my knee to no man.” There never was a shrewder trick of the devil than his saying to preachers: “You be broad; you be liberal; you take out the supernatural; you reject the miracles; you reject the divinity of Jesus Christ; you preach Him as a man; you hold Him up as merely a pattern, as an example.” Ah, me, it would not save a soul, not a soul.
My Savior is Divine, and the very minute that I repudiate His divinity I step out of the pulpit and I say: “Gentlemen, do not ask me to preach a man as a Savior; I won’t do it.” It is the mission of the church to hold out before lost souls a Divine Savior, who was God before He created this world; who was God in eternity; but who, to save men, took upon Himself human nature, and in His humanity suffered and died for men.
When I was an infidel, in some respects at least, I was an honest one, and talking once with a Christian, who began to lower the bible down so as to make it fit me, I said: “Stop. Whenever you put it down that low, then quit preaching; if it ever touches me in the world, it must touch me on its divine claims; it must touch me upon its supernatural origin; it must touch me because it is from God and not from man; and if you take out the supernatural, then I tell you frankly I had as soon adopt any other old wives’ fable as that. I put it with other myths and legends of men. If you can prove to me its divine authority; if the Lord Jesus Christ can come before me as God, and I can see it, I will bend my knee to Him that very moment.”
I have had men in this town to come to me with wonderful compliments to the Bible.
“Marvelous book,” they say, “and if you will eliminate the supernatural, take out those miracles, take out the divinity of Jesus Christ, I will come and stand with you.”
I don’t care whether they come or not. I mean to say that not to gain the approval of a man would I lower the divine plan of salvation the ninth part of a hair; and it is for his good I would not do it, for whenever I lower it he turns his back on it with contempt. The devil does not fear a “broad church.” He has no fear of it at all; the devil does not fear baptism as a Savior; the devil does not fear the church as a Savior. It pleases him when people join the church to be saved. He doesn’t care how many times you look in a pool of water for the remission of sins. He doesn’t care how many times you appeal to a woman, and say, “Mother of God, do thou intercede for me!” He doesn’t care how many times you try to get to heaven by joining the Sunday School. Why, he knows you cannot get there that way, and if he can side-track you on that delusion he has accomplished his purpose.
2. Notice the next point. God was not only manifest in the flesh but justified in the Spirit. When He took upon Himself human nature, there had to be some attestation that He was the Divine One, that He was God Incarnate. It required credentials; it needed authentication; and if Jesus of Nazareth is not justified as God by the Spirit, I for one disclaim Him as my Savior. When God sent John the Baptist to preach, He says: “I send you that in your baptizing the true Messiah may be made manifest.”
John says: “How am I to know Him?” That was a very sensible inquiry. “That baptized man upon whom you shall see the Spirit of God descending and resting, He is the one.” And when the Spirit did rest on Him, the devil also knew He was the one, and he did not waste any more time. He determined to meet that being upon whom the Spirit of God rested and test His divinity; and into the wilderness the Spirit led Jesus in order that His divinity might be tested in conflict with Satan himself, the arch enemy of man; and if the devil had triumphed over Him, He would not have been God.
Then look at the attestation of the Spirit when He ascended into heaven. He based all His claims to the Messiahship upon that fact. What was the fact? That if He ascended up into heaven, and He was preached as God manifest in the flesh, as the Divine Savior, that the Spirit of God would attest that preaching until the end of time.
Why, do you think I would get up before you here today, and preach the divinity of Jesus Christ, and no way to authenticate it this side of Pentecost? I tell you He will authenticate it in this house today. He has authenticated it here one hundred and fifty times since this meeting commenced. Jesus Christ as God manifest in the flesh, has been justified by the Spirit time after time since we commenced these services; and I do not ask any man to rise up and say, “He is my Savior,” unless the Spirit of the great God has moved upon that man’s heart, and has by divine power convinced him of the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. I know how, as cold as an icicle and with my mind analyzing every sentence that the preacher spoke, I looked in calm, proud scorn upon what I regarded as the preaching of the gospel, and it was only when the proposition was made to me that I was to have an experimental demonstration in my heart, in my conscience, in my spirit, in my judgment, that Jesus Christ in my soul was to be justified as Divine, as God, by the power of the Spirit of God-I acted on that proposition in a minute.
So I have seen gray-headed men, who have lived in this town as unbelievers, upon the witness in their hearts, acknowledge Jesus Christ as their Divine Lord. And it does seem that with the vast deal and you must excuse the expression the vast deal of superstitious stuff oftentimes presented for men’s acceptance, there is some sort of an extenuation of their unbelief. They see no power in it; the whole thing seems to them as an empty shell, a system of mere rites and ceremonies, of formal professions, of unchanged lives, and in their hearts they say, “If you cannot give me something better than that, you let me alone.” And I will let them alone, unless I can offer them immediate and personal demonstration of Christ’s divinity. Not by an argument, for many of them can outargue me; their minds are equal to mine, their powers of analysis perhaps superior; I would not try to argue one of them into salvation, but I say: I offer you a proof, not of my own manufacture; I offer you a proof not even of angelic, origin; I offer you a proof not found in running or standing water, however it may sparkle or gurgle or thunder in its downpour; I offer you a demonstration, not in a wafer that you put on your lip, not in a little wine that you take into your mouth. I offer you a demonstration of the almighty power of God in His working on your heart and in your soul, so that after a while you can stand up and with a perfectly clear eye look out in the face of your neighbors, and with whom you have been associating all your life, and say: “Friends, I once spoke evil of this way. I did not think there was anything in it; but a change has come over me; I do not see it as I once saw it, and there is in me the witness of my conscience that God, for Christ’s sake, has forgiven my sins. I do not know how to explain it, but now I love Thy church, O God; I love Thy worship; I love Thy songs; I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ; I love the meeting of Thy people. My affections have been changed, and I am willing for Jesus Christ to be my teacher, because He is not a man, and to be my Savior, because He is not an angel, and to be my King, because He is the only true and living God.”
3. Now take the next point of the truth of which the church is the pillar and ground: “Seen of angels.” Not only was He to be authenticated by the Spirit of God, but He was to the angels that stand around the throne of God, to appear to be the Son of God. They were to recognize His divinity. When the shepherds were watching in the field a bright light shone around them, and there was heard a voice (and not an earthly voice): “Unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ, the God, the Lord. Behold, it is good tidings for all men.” They saw it. They recognized His divinity in the cradle. He appeared unto them in the temptation to be divine, and when the devil left Him, the angels came and ministered unto Him. He appeared unto them to be divine in the Garden of Gethsemane, when after His prayer one of them came and held up the head of His humanity. He appeared unto them to be divine when they came to His tomb and looked upon its emptiness, and testified to the disciples, “He is not here; He is risen.” He appears unto the angels to be divine, whenever God’s people come together, for by the church the manifold wisdom of God is to be made known unto the principalities and powers that are in heavenly places.
When He came into the world, all the angels of God worshipped Him. So instead of bowing down to an angel, I kneel down by the side of the angel, and I hear that angel say, “I am thy fellow servant, as I was the fellow servant of the prophets, and I, too, will bend the knee when you bow down to Jesus Christ.” And any Savior that the bright spirits above do not recognize as the Savior cannot be my Savior.
4. Now notice the next point: “Preached unto the nations.” This God that was manifest in the flesh, that was justified in the spirit, that appeared unto the angels to be God, He was preached unto the nations. Who was preached? We preach not ourselves, no; we are sinners. We are your servants for. Christ’s sake. God forbid that I should ask you to look to me or to trust in me. We preach Christ. He is the one to be held up before the world as the Savior of the world. Suppose I go out here in Waco to an unconverted man, and say, “You are a good man; you ought to stand on the side of whatever is right, and now you come and join the church.” Shall I preach the church to him? Shall I? God forbid. Shall I not preach Christ to him?
Shall I not hold up before him as a Divine Savior the Lord Jesus Christ? Preached among, the nations, all nations; if He is the God of the Jews only, He is not my God.
If there is no way of salvation by Him for me, then how can He claim to be God?
Has God only one little people here? Did He not reach out His strong hand and break down the wall, the partition, between Jews and Gentiles, and say in His wrath against bigotry: “God is no respecter of persons. In every nation, whosoever feareth Him is accepted of Him?” What are you, just one little people among so many, that you should monopolize Divinity and salvation? Break down that wall; pull up its foundations; let the world in. Go, preach this salvation to every tongue and tribe and kindred upon the face of the earth. When you take away the catholicity of this means of salvation, I for one will reject it.
5. Now, not only preached among the nations, but “believed on in the world.” You say it is incredible; I say it is credible. Now, which of us is right? You say it is incredible, I say it is credible; and I can prove what I say by a fact that you cannot gainsay; and that is the fact that He has been believed on in the world. Will you say great men have not believed on Him? I point to Gladstone, to Washington, to Justice Marshall, to Greenleaf, to the mightiest minds that this world has ever known.
They have delighted to believe in Him. And then I will give you a grander proof than that. I will go down where humanity has suffered, where the people are poor, where they are sick, where they are distressed, where they are blind. I will go down to the mud sills and leave the upper crust, and go where human hearts are bursting and breaking, and I tell you that He is believed on there. O blindness, thou didst see Him, and see forever; O deafness, thou didst hear Him and hear forever; O death, thou didst receive Him, and He burst thy narrow boundaries and came out, because it was not possible that He should beholden by them. Believed on in the world! Why He is believed on here in Waco. He has been believed on one hundred and fifty times already by new born souls since this meeting commenced. Believed on? Yes, and will be until the last syllable of time. And whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That is why we preach Him. We preach that He may be believed upon, and He is believed on, by strong men and weak men, and great men and little men, and rich men and poor men, kings and slaves. O let them come; let them come as sinners, not to waters, not to wine, not to bread, but to God. God God manifest in the flesh; O Divine Savior, thou living God, save men today. Who else can save? Accursed, accursed is the man that trusteth in an arm of flesh.
6. Now, here is the last item of the text “received up into glory.” Am I to preach that? I do. I am to preach that Jesus of Nazareth came into this world, not by ordinary procreation,: but by the over-shadowing of the Eternal Spirit, was manifested in the flesh and justified by the Spirit, was seen of angels, was preached to the nations, and was believed on in the world, and what? Received up into glory.
Do you believe it? If I did not believe it, I would be a fool to stand up here and preach. Him to you. While they were standing looking at Him after His resurrection, He began to rise, rise, rise, until a cloud received Him out of their sight. But God permits us to go above the cloud. Come up with me in your mind. Let us go up above the cloud and see where He goes. We have a clear sweep of vision, as He rises to the highest heaven; we hear His voice: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and let the King of Glory come in.” “Who is this King of Glory?” “The Lord, mighty to save, He is the King of Glory.” And I believe, just as much as I believe that I am alive, that He is enthroned as King of kings and Lord of lords; that all power in heaven and on earth is given unto Him. Received into glory! O, blessed thought!
This overwhelms me; this takes my breath away, that He said, “Where I am, there shalt thou be also. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel and afterwards receive me into glory.” I shall follow the Lord out of this land of darkness and sin and death and be received into glory with Him, to be forever with the Lord.
Dear brethren, sisters, grounded in the faith of the Gospel, believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, let me tell you, you will never die, never. I do mean to say that when you come to what is called death, it won’t be death to you. The river will be divided and you cross over dry shod, and there shall be no taste of death to you. You will never die; you will be received up into glory. O, the chariot of God, the chariot of God and the horsemen thereof! Thou vehicle of fire, thou vehicle to which is harnessed flaming steeds, thou conveyance of the redeemed, thou takest every Christian when he dies up immediately into the presence of God to be received up into glory.
Now, you understand what I mean by the church and by the business of the church, that no man on earth has any business in the church unless God by His Spirit has called him out from the world, called him to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as Divine, as God, as the Savior, and when God for Christ’s sake has forgiven his sins and he is one of the redeemed, then I am willing to baptize that man. But I would let this right arm drop in everlasting paralysis at my right side, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, before I would baptize man, woman or child, if I did not have evidence that such a one was saved, saved by the power of God. But perhaps someone may say: “We are broad enough to take our children with us.” I take my children with me. That is, I take them to Jesus, not to the fount. “Suffer them to come unto me and forbid them not.” Don’t forbid them to come to Christ. Come, boys, come little girls, I will take you with me. I went to Jesus; I found Him to be my Savior, and when you find Him to be your Savior we will go along together. But I could not pick you up unsaved and take you with me.
That would be a cruel thing, for me to have my soul washed and made clean in the blood of Jesus and give my child only a water washing.
Shall I trust him to water when I demanded blood for myself? God forbid. When he comes just like his father did, then we go together; never until then, never, never, forever.
Men of Waco, look at me for a few minutes. I want to speak some earnest words to you right now. I know that I desire the salvation of your souls. As the Lord God is my judge, there is not one of you against whom I have an unkind feeling; on the contrary, to every one of you I come with tears in my eyes, and, God knows, love in my heart, while I say, “Friends, look here, I do not ask you to a man, I do not ask you to a church, I ask you to the Lord God Himself, and if you will meet Him, come to Him, come just as you are today, you will be saved.” And let me ask you if it is not true: Have you not had many heavy burdens in your time? Have you not in many respects had a hard time? O, many a time have you not had the bitter cup pressed to your lips? Have you not felt, when you looked out around you, O, what a problem is life? Is there nothing better than what I have come to? Is there nothing beyond the miserable things that I have reached? O immortality, immortality! I stand an immortal spirit, but when out of an old broken cistern I try, to draw up water, I hear my little bucket hit the bottom, and the dust arises while I die of thirst. O God, shall this man be forever unsatisfied? Shall he be forever restless? Shall he forever desire and have naught? O Spirit, omnific Spirit of God, Thou justifier of Jesus Christ, Thou accreditor of the Gospel: O Spirit, in mighty power today behold the hearts of these disappointed men and women and children and lead them from broken cisterns which hold no water to the Fountain of Livings Waters.
