Let us consider a particular matter. How shall we evangelise? Let’s move away from the personal life for a moment. How shall we as a church evangelise? Shall we invent all kinds of gimmicks, or shall we operate according to the standards of God's word, in obedience to his commands? Now, if we do it in obedience to his commands, according to the standards of God's word, we know when things go wrong that this is the enemy of souls and these are trials that we have to put up with. We must be right, because this is not our idea, these are not gimmicks, these are not our methods, they are the ones God has commanded us to follow. If I preach and it is hard work, I say, this is still the will of God; this is God's appointed pathway; this is bound to be hard and difficult, but I do not ever say, Oh maybe I should not be preaching, maybe we should be using drama or theatricals, maybe we should be doing entirely different things. But supposing on the other hand, we have a little get together and we use our own minds, and we say, Well, these days preaching is not good. Gathering as churches is no good, the world is not attracted by worship, we will try some gimmicks and radically different ways. We will have dancing and drama and this sort of thing. And then the whole thing begins to crumble, and the people still are not truly converted, or they do not come. Well, we are full of doubts and wonderings. Have we done the right thing? We have got no confidence, no certainty. Do not lean to your own understanding, obey the Lord, and then you know you are doing the right thing, and be a healthy Christian spiritually. You will be bold and assured and certain, and the same with your church. ‘It shall he health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.’
Some people say, here is the promise of health. If I am humble, and if I seek sanctification, I am promised health. No, you are not necessarily promised health. Be careful. These are proverbs, similes, parables, comparisons; you are not necessarily promised literal health. You are promised something here in a parable, in a picture – ‘health to thy navel.’ The very language that Solomon uses drops the hint that this is picture language. The health here is health to your umbilical cord, or the scar resulting; that is a very small portion of your body.