by A. B. Simpson, originally published in The Alliance Weekly on September 23, 1899, from a sermon preached at that year’s Nyack Convention. Adapted by Alliance Life staff.

“Neither do we go beyond our limits by boasting of work done by others. Our hope is that, as your faith continues to grow, our sphere of activity among you will greatly expand, so that we can preach the gospel in the regions beyond you.” —2 Corinthians 10:15–16a

Were I asked to state the distinctive principles of the work of The Christian and Missionary Alliance, there are two things that I would say. First, it stands for an absolute faith in supernatural things and a supernatural God. It represents a Christianity that is out-and-out for God. And secondly, along with this as the outgo and overflow of this deeper life of faith and consecration, it represents an intense aggressiveness in its work for God—an overflow that is ever reaching to the regions beyond and seeking to pass on to others the blessing that we have ourselves received.

In our text, the Apostle Paul first speaks of the Corinthians’ faith and his own enlargement through fellowship with them, and then of the outcome of all this, leading him forward to new aggressive work in regions where others have never gone, and neglected fields that others have not reached.

A Deeper and Larger Faith

The apostle was longing for a deeper and larger faith, both on their part and his own. This must ever be the spring of earnest and aggressive work. We cannot give others more than we ourselves have received. All missionary enterprise must have its source in a deeper spiritual life. It is this that stimulates your generous gifts and your noble sacrifices.

It is because you believe in God and in His Word without reserve and have not been afraid to put all the weight of your need and eternal future upon it and have found in it a satisfying joy; it is because of this that everything else is cheap in comparison and everything else has ceased to hurt. God has given us a Christ that is real, a Comforter that fills the heart, a love that lifts us above ourselves, a whole gospel for the whole person, spirit, soul, and body. And it is the logical sequence that it should also be for the whole world.

Unselfish and Aggressive Work

No soul can receive this deep, divine, and overflowing life and live unto themselves. No church can be baptized into this Christ-spirit and ever again be selfish or earthbound. It makes the world our parish and irresistibly flows out like water to the deepest place of need.

This was the hope and ambition that enlarged and inspired the apostle’s life—to preach the gospel in the regions beyond. This, we say without immodesty or extravagance, is also the aim of the Alliance movement. The greatest blessing of our work, next to the precious gospel the Holy Spirit has revealed and the living Christ who is its center and substance, is the privilege of giving it to the world.

The Christian that is bound by their own horizon, the church that lives simply for itself, is bound to die a spiritual death and sink into stagnancy and corruption. We never can thank God enough for giving us not only a whole gospel to believe, but a whole world to give it to.

This Great Ideal

In the early days of His earthly work, Christ spent a Sabbath working miracles in the wonders of His grace and power. When the next day dawned and multitudes thronged around Him, Simon Peter came eagerly saying, “Everyone is looking for you!” (Mark 1:37). Peter was delighted with the success of his Master’s ministry. He was proud to be around Him and know that He was the center of every thought and heart. But he could not find his Lord at first because He was away, off in a place to wait upon His Father in earnest prayer. When he found Him, the Master was not at all elated by the crowds, but turning His back on His sudden popularity, He set His face to new fields and answered, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come” (Mark 1:38). Again and again with weary feet and unwearied love, the Master traveled over Galilee until the teeming crowds had heard the gospel from His lips.

How beautiful that little verse in John, “Now he had to go through Samaria” (John 4:4). It was not because He had to take the road through Samaria, but because a weary soul was there at Jacob’s Well, and her fellow Samaritans, for whose souls there was no one else to care. How graphic the irony with which His enemies described His love of souls when they cried in reproach, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2b).

His love was always reaching out to regions beyond, and if the Spirit of the Master is in us, we shall be reaching too.

The Spirit of the Great Commission

When Christ went away, He left His will in the form of His last commands. And what were these? They may be summed up in three special commissions. First, a commission to the nations: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19a). He thus repudiated at once the idea of the gospel being intended for any single nation or race. The commission was worldwide, and it shall never be fulfilled until every race, tribe, and tongue of the human family shall have received the gospel in such a form that its people can understand the message of salvation.

Next, there is the individual commission, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15). This sends us person by person to the individuals of each race, and bids us give every human being a chance for life.

Then, finally, there is the last utterance of the commission in its most aggressive form given by the Lord from the slope of Olivet just before His Ascension: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Notice the expansive character of the command. The ever-widening circle extends until it takes in the whole circumference of the world.

This was the spirit of the Early Church. They were slow to catch the Master’s thought, but gradually they understood it. And so it was not long until the gospel had begun to spread. The Apostle Paul, raised up and sent forth to worldwide evangelism, said: “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. Rather, as it is written: ‘Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand'” (Rom. 15:20–21).

This is the true spirit of Christian love. It is the native instinct of the heavenborn soul. The supreme law of the universe is love and the essence of love is to think of others, and especially of the most needy and helpless ones. Let no one dare call themselves a disciple of Jesus who does not care.

The World’s Great Need

Can you take in the idea of a thousand millions without the gospel? Suppose we were to bring them into this Tabernacle a thousand at a time, three time a day every day—how long do you suppose it would take the whole congregation of the Christless world to pass before us and have one sermon preached to them about the love of Jesus? It would take at least a thousand years, and in those years, there would be 30 generations more left to perish.

Oh, as they pass into His presence in their darkness and sorrow and learn for the first time that He died to save them, what must they think of us, and what must He think of us, if we never feel their need and never make a sacrifice to save them?

Time will not permit me to tell you of all the neglected fields of this lost world. God is calling, the Spirit is pointing, the Macedonian cry is pleading for the regions beyond (see Acts 16:9–10). Oh, who will go, and who will help us to send?

Let us not forget that these millions are not only our fellow citizens but our fellow sinners too. Shall we be true to the trust that God has so gloriously enlarged? Shall we give them merely the earthly symbol of freedom, or shall we give them the glorious liberty of the children of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ?

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