W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest

enemies who were after Him thirsting for His blood, having resolved to kill Him, and His friends who were on
tiptoe to crown Him King, in which case the Romans would have put Him to death under charge of high treason.
He often alluded to the fact that His time had not yet come. Hence we see how amid the great conceivable
difficulties He prolonged His life those three years, in order to finish that curriculum of instruction, which was
absolutely indispensable to qualify His apostles for the great and responsible work of launching the Gospel
Church.
God says in the Old Testament, “My people perish for the lack of knowledge,” and in the New Testament,
“Study to show thyself approved of God, a workman that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of
Truth.” 2 Tim. 2:15. While the world and the worldly churches need salvation, and consequently the Sinai
Gospel, which is the grand sine qua non of conviction, without which there can be no conversion, and of course
no sanctification, the Holiness people and all of the really sanctified in all the Churches need teaching most
imperatively, not only to qualify them to preach the Gospel and save the Hellward-bound millions, but to feed
their souls so they will flourish like trees planted by the riverside, bringing forth fruit in their season and thus
fortifying them against apostasy.
The good shepherd who understands his business, will make the care of his flock the great specialty. If he gives
them plenty of wholesome food and pure water, and protects them from wild beasts and robbers, they will
multiply till the lambs will skip over all the hills and race across the plains, like Texas ponies. The unwise
shepherd goes for numbers, seeking quantity, rather than quality. God is our infallible exemplar, who always
goes for quality instead of quantity. If we can take care of our Holiness people, teaching them the blessed Bible
faithfully and heroically and diligently fortifying them against the dangerous heresies, in whose insidious
manacles Satan keeps Hell constantly embargoed, we will soon have a panoplied army marching forth with
banners flying, unfurled to the breezes of every land and clime, marching on to the conquest of the world for our
glorious Christ, who has bought it with His own blood and now intercedes for it at God's right hand.
The Bible School phenomenon in the Holiness Movement is most encouraging. Such schools are springing up
everywhere like mushrooms in the night, not only throughout this country from the Atlantic to the Pacific and
from the Gulf to British America, but they are also lighting the dark pagan empires of the antipodian world. We
have now twenty-five hundred Christian schools in heathen lands, attended by a million of heathen boys and
girls. Do you not see how the salvation and sanctification of these heathen pupils constitute the golden key that
unlocks the mystery and solves the problem which has puzzled Christendom from the Apostolic age, I. e., the
evangelization of the whole heathen world? We only have about a thousand millions in all heathendom. If we
can only get these million students saved and sanctified, we will have a preacher for every thousand pagans in
the whole world. We certainly have these million in our own hands and do enjoy the facilities, evolving the
gracious possibility of saving and sanctifying them all.
I have already stated that I am bewildered with a thousand open doors, inviting me to enter and labor for the
salvation of souls. All of the Bible Schools and Holiness Colleges in the whole world keep the doors wide open
and the Macedonian cry ringing in my ears, “Come over and help us.” The last year I spent traveling around the
world and preaching in all lands, therefore, I've done no work in America. Now, as I contemplate entering the
field immediately, I am literally bewildered with calls. Not only the cities and large towns throughout the
continent, inter-ocean, but these Bible Schools, which have sprung up everywhere and are multiplying so
rapidly that it is difficult even to keep a list of them before me for prayer, which I so much desire to do, are
calling me, and how to pass by any of them in my peregrinations across the continent breaks my heart to
contemplate. Many of these Bible Schools and Holiness Colleges beg me hard to stay with them all the time. As
I feel debtor to them all, realizing the endearing relationship of spiritual consanguinity, therefore, I cannot get
my consent to give all of my time to any one of them, lest I might grieve the Holy Spirit who has published all
of them, that He may teach the people His own Word and qualify them to go and teach others, as this is His
method of evangelical succession, 2 Tim. 2:2, “The things which thou hast learned with me, commit thou to the
faithful people, who shall be able to teach others.” I do very much need all of my time to spend teaching the
Bible in these different schools, which the blessed Holy Spirit has founded since the Movement has rolled the
revival wave over the world and brought full salvation within the reach of millions. But if I were to confine my
labors to the schools, I would have to give up the churches, which the blessed Holy Spirit has organized