'Fellow-labourers with God'--then, God is a Fellow-labourer with us.
The co-operation works both ways, and no man who is seeking to spread
that great salvation, to distribute that great wealth, to irrigate
some little corner of the field by some little channel that he has
dug, needs to feel that he is labouring alone. If I am working
with God, God is working with me. Do you remember that most striking
picture which is drawn in the verses appended to Mark's Gospel, which
tells how the universe seemed parted into two halves, and up above in
the serene the Lord 'sat on the right hand of God,' while below, in
the murky and obscure, 'they went everywhere preaching the Word.' The
separation seems complete, but the two halves are brought together by
the next word--'The Lord also,' sitting up yonder, 'working with
them' the wandering preachers down here, 'confirming the words with
signs following.' Ascended on high, entered into His rest, having
finished His work, He yet is working with us, if we are labourers
together with God. If we turn to the last book of Scripture, which
draws back the curtain from the invisible world which is all filled
with the glorified Christ, and shows its relations to the earthly
militant church, we read no longer of a Christ enthroned in apparent
ease, but of a Christ walking amidst the candlesticks, and of a Lamb
standing in the midst of the Throne, and opening the seals, launching
forth into the world the sequences of the world's history, and of the
Word of God charging His enemies on His white horse, and behind Him
the armies of God following. The workers who labour with God have the
ascended Christ labouring with them.
But if God works with us, success is sure. Then comes the old
question that Gideon asked with bitterness of heart, when he was
threshing out his handful of wheat in a corner to avoid the
oppressors, 'If the Lord be with us, wherefore is all this come upon
us? Will any one say that the progress of the Gospel in the world has
been at the rate which its early believers expected, or at the rate
which its own powers warranted them to expect? Certainly not. And so
it comes to this, that whilst every true labourer has God working
with him, and therefore success is certain, the planter and the
waterer can delay the growth of the plant by their unfaithfulness, by
not expecting success, by not so working as to make it likely, or by
neutralising their evangelistic efforts by their worldly lives. When
Jesus Christ was on earth, it is recorded, 'He could there do no
mighty works because of their unbelief, save that He laid His hands
on a few sick folk and healed them.' A faithless Church, a worldly
Church, a lazy Church, an unspiritual Church, an un-Christlike
Church--which, to a large extent, is the designation of the so-called
Church of to day--can clog His chariot-wheels, can thwart the work,
can hamper the Divine Worker. If the Christians of Manchester were
revived, they could win Manchester for Jesus. If the Christians of
England lived their Christianity, they could make England what it
never has been but in name--a Christian country. If the Church
universal were revived, it could win the world. If the single
labourer, or the community of such, is labouring 'in the Lord,' their
labour will not be in vain; and if they thus plant and water, God
will give the increase.