God's Sabbath

G OD ’ S W AY IN M ISSIONARY W ORK

415

On the Verge of the Kingdom

Many Bible students would look on Philip’s experience as a wonderful exception to the general rule, seeing nothing in the incident to direct them to let the Lord plan all their own mis sionary contacts rather than doing so themselves. Rather wist fully, they might wish that they could be guided as Philip was, but unfortunately, God can lead people only insofar as they have a living connection with Him and allow Him to be their Plan Maker as Philip did. Firstly, God cannot lead His people, regardless of their beliefs and profession, unless they are submitted to His leadership in stead of their own or someone else’s. Secondly, those who do not have the living gospel message cannot be led by God to share it with the perishing, until they have experienced it themselves. This emphasizes the truth that God’s system can only work when the believers are truly joined to Him. Therefore, if we wish to be effective soul-winners, we must first make sure that we have the life of Christ within. Let us examine our souls prayer fully and not just assume that we are His. We need to concen trate our efforts on this, spending time in deep communion with the Lord, or we will be in danger of coming fruitless to the great judgment day. “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” John 15:4. “The power of love was in all Christ’s healing, and only by par taking of that love, through faith, can we be instruments for His work. If we neglect to link ourselves in divine connection with Christ, the current of life-giving energy cannot flow in rich streams from us to the people.” The Desire of Ages , 825.1. There is no doubt that Philip had this qualification of Christ’s life and love within, which is why the Lord was well able to di rect all his ways, and to use him successfully in taking the gos pel to the Ethiopian. Those who desire to enter into God’s rest and rejoice in a fruit ful ministry, can confidently follow the same procedures God used in directing Philip to the rendezvous with the Ethiopian, as