The Last Command

The following is from Handley Moule's From Sunday to Sunday:

"Acts 1:8 ". . . they are to be witnesses.  They are to be, not inquirers, thinkers, philosophers; they are not to set out upon a mission of mental or moral research and discovery; they are not even to be, primarily, prophets of righteousness and judgment.

"They are to bear witness, to offer personal testimony to the world; to inform it of a revealed certainty, of something which they know and which it needs.  And the whole record of the Gospels, and of the Acts as the sequel to that record, tells us beyond mistake what that revealed certainty is; it is nothing less and nothing other than our Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

". . . This is the very last [earthly] command of the Lord.  He stands, as He utters it, with His feet upon the steps of the heavenly throne [metaphorically speaking].  As all through His earthly ministry, so now, almost from the place of bliss itself, 'He commends Himself.'

"He sends His followers out into the world on purpose, as their work of works, to bear a testimony.  And that testimony is to be borne, first and last, to Himself.  Man's immeasurable need is to be met by telling man, as only those who personally know can tell, about the Son of God and Man, the one Name of Life, Christ Jesus the Lord.

". . . He who gave us that last command, to witness unto Him, expects the obedience of His Church, and is coming, when 'the times and seasons in the Father's power' have run out, to inquire into the results.  He knows HIMSELF to be the world's supreme and vital need, and He has equipped us to convey Him to the world.

"As a fact, one half of the human race have not yet heard His sacred name.  And eighteen ages and two-thirds are gone.  His Return may well be drawing very near. 

"Shall we, shall believing Christendom, awake at length, at length, to the conviction that we exist as His witnesses, to witness unto Him?"