ough human action and human leadership. The power
is all divine. And the means through which it works is all human. Jesus
and the Holy Spirit work through the Church and through each one of us who
is willing.

Then there are three spirit forces, or influences, of mighty power in
human hands; namely, prayer, and money, and sacrifice.

<u>God's Messenger.</u>

To-night we want to talk about the first of the two human forces--the
Church.

We ought to remind ourselves of just what that word "Church" means in this
connection. It has many meanings. There are at least two that we should
note here in thinking of it as a great winning force. In its broadest
meaning, the word is commonly used for the whole group of church
organizations taken together, the Roman Catholic and the Greek Orthodox,
the Protestant, and the few primitive societies that still retain their
old original organization. In the deeper, less used meaning, it stands
for the body of those men and women everywhere who are trusting Jesus
Christ, and are allied with Him in the purpose of their hearts.

These two meanings, of course, should be the same. All who trust Jesus
should be in the church organizations. And all who are in the
organizations should be there because of their relation to Jesus. Whatever
the facts regarding that may be, the mission of each is the same. And it
is with that mission that we are concerned just now.

Jesus planned that His Church should be a great man-winning and
world-winning organization. <i>The</i> mission of the Church is to take Jesus
to all men. It is God's messenger of His truth to all. In that it is the
direct lineal descendant and heir of the Hebrew nation.

That nation was chosen to be a messenger or missionary nation. That was
the one purpose of its special creation as a nation. It was not to be as
the other nations, in the characteristics that commonly mark strong
nations. It was to be a <i>teacher</i>-nation, receiving its message of truth
direct from God, embodying that message in its own life, personally and
nationally, and giving it out clearly and fully and winsomely to all the
nations of the earth. And, in spite of its failures and breaks, that
mission was accomplished to a remarkable extent.

The Church is its heir. It was born in the Jewish nation. It became the
heir to its world-wide messenger mission. The great commission given by
Jesus as He was leaving is the Church's commission for its great
life