I decide what books to review or excerpt for various reasons, and this is an old one. You can find re-print or e-book versions online. It is…are you ready…In Many Pulpits with Dr. C.I. Scofield. If seeing the name Scofield made you halt, I hope you might keep reading, as this book of sermons was not what I expected at all. I was expecting…expository sermons or ones about certain distinctives of Dispensationalism. Neither expectation proved accurate! I didn’t read much of anything that would even slightly perturb a “hater” of Scofield and Dispensationalism (unfortunately the hater tribe grows). This was my brief paragraph review when I finished reading it on goodreads last year:
♦ A collection of sermons by Scofield. Not expository, but topical, but strongly biblical and focused on essential Christian truths. Not much in the way of dispensational distinctives, so those who dislike anything associated with dispensationalism, should not find much of anything to be annoyed about or disagree with. Scofield can turn a phrase and had creative sermon titles.
Indeed, I was impressed with this collection of sermons by Scofield, and it is, for the most part, timeless and remains relevant. He hits on essential core truths about Christ and the Scripture, and I found his messages challenging – often insightful and getting to the heart of a matter.
When I preached a sermon last year on Psalm 8 I utilized a brief section from one of Scofield’s sermons. I altered the wording slightly in my sermon, but essentially lifted it out:
The Divine-Human Christ
Jesus Christ came to earth as a man. The glory of the Incarnation is that it sets before us an unfallen, sinless man – the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus, in his Incarnation, is the image of God. God is like Christ, and Christ is like God, but more than that – Christ is God.
What is God, the unseen God, like? – Jesus.
What is sinless, unfallen, man like? – Jesus.
The humanity of our Lord was not something that hindered him from revealing God, it was the very means of that revelation.
The Bible condemns the sin and the sins which have, in essence, dehumanized us. And the Bible also tells us of the divine-human Christ, who died for those very sins and to restore our full humanity.
– slightly altered wording from the end of the sermon entitled “The Bible,” page 90 in my edition printed by The Gospel Hour, Inc in Greenville, SC.
Flipping back through the book, it is harder than I anticipated to just pull out some quotes or excerpts, as some make less sense or have less punch when pulled out of the context of the entire sermon, but below are a couple to share:
What is waiting?
In a sermon entitled “Waiting on the Lord” I liked how he clarified what waiting is and is not, as he looked at several Bible verses.
Biblical waiting “implies both dependence and expectation – a faith that silently reaches out to take hold upon God, and which has its expectation from God…It is an attitude of readiness, of obedience…To wait upon God is to be silent that he may speak, expecting all things from Him, and girded for instant, unquestioning obedience to the slightest movement of His will…All the spiritual senses alive, alert, expectant, separated unto Him, His servant and soldier – waiting. It is not the waiting of an idler, it is not the waiting of a dreamer.” (pages 14-15 in my edition)
Song or echo?
A sermon entitled “Song or Echo – which?” springs off of John 18:34 where Jesus says to Pilate: “Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?” in reply to Pilate’s question “Art thou the King of the Jews?”- Did Pilate’s question come out of his soul, or out of his mouth? Is your faith genuine (a song) or just an echo, a second-hand faith, simply repeated words of another?
“But our Lord’s question should narrowly search those of us who suppose ourselves to be Christians. Did we say this thing of ourselves, or because another said it before us? Christianity is a religion in which faith is alone the condition of life. Manifestly, therefore, the possession of faith is the all-important matter. How much of that which we say we believe do we really believe? I am not speaking now to conscious hypocrites, men who have put on a cloak of profession for a reason. I think there are very few conscious hypocrites in human life, either in or out of churches. The point is that just as an unbeliever may take his doubt from the lips of another, so we may easily live in a second-hand, hearsay faith. Against this danger Christ uttered His most solemn warnings.” [See Matthew 7:21-23]
(pages 154-155 in my edition)
“No more lethal habit can find place in the Christian life than the habit of passing on pious platitudes and current phrases, which, on the lips of the first utterer, stood for deep spiritual verities.” (page 157)
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