The Gospel-24/7

Shouting By Proxy B. Carradine

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TOPIC and SUBTOPIC: Shouting Mistakenly, Before Seekers Have Real Victory.

TITLE: Shouting By Proxy

One afternoon I heard a great shout from a tent. A single voice made the outcry and kept it up. From occasional words of the rejoicer I judged some one had been saved, but I observed that another person was doing the shouting. I could not help but think that here was a misfit. Some one had put on some one elses shoes or garment. Moreover, the individual seemed to keep them. I put questions which revealed the fact that the rejoicing was all on one side.

It brought back a period in my life as the Pastor of a city church, when a revival went on continuously and many souls were saved. But sometimes all were not converted who got the credit of being born again. I had a woman full of the Holy Ghost, who had shouts for herself and plenty to spare for those who possessed none. Just the sight of a relaxing muscle on a sinners face, or a promise to amend his life, or a stepping out by faith was more than sufficient to set this good sister off. I would be engaged at the altar working with the seekers when I would hear a rapturous cry, Glory to God, etc., and looking up, would see the aforesaid female with radiant face, loud cries and clapping hands, bending over some man or woman whose face looked like a piece of sole leather, as they sat or stood stolidly listening to the shouts of the blessed woman of God before them, who had in her honest but mistaken heart attributed a salvation to them which they did not possess.

Again I saw the shoe was on the wrong foot, the garment had gotten on one to whom it did not belong. Evidently there was some kind of mistake. And yet it was certainly refreshing to look at the two parties and observe that one whose face should have been illumined, and lips overflowing, all gloomy and silent; while the other, our good sister, supplied every deficiency and lack of joy, smiles, shouts, liberty and utterance, and did it after the completest manner.

My mind was next made to revert to the oriental custom of hiring mourners, who carry on tremendously, while those who would naturally be expected to be grief-stricken, save their own dress, manners and composure, together with their strength and vitality, by this judicious expenditure of money on the employed lamenters. There was no question but that the hired grievers did the thing to perfection, and swept ahead of everything that the family and relatives of the deceased could possibly have done.

By an easy transition we thought of the necessity of a corps, or trained band of rejoicers and shouters, to be used for and by that class of people now being swept into the church through card-signing revivals, who have not the slightest conception of what real salvation is, and who could no more praise God in spirit than a dead man could sing, walk, or run.

What a relief it would be to the dumb-tongued, heavy-hearted set of joiners to have some one feel, speak and do everything that is usually expected of the saved. By all means such a body of hired singers and shouters will be needed as the Holy Ghost is more and more grieved, and withdraws his quickening, lip-opening, and soul-gladdening presence from those churches which refuse to honor His converting and sanctifying power and be led into the full salvation of God.

Living Illustrations By B. Carradine