true that what is needed is a Revised Version o f the epistle of Christ? Perhaps now we’re putting our finger on why our neigh bors do not believe or why our friends won’t listen to us when we talk to them about the Lord. Do you know that Jesus Christ is unquestionably the most attractive, the most winsome, the most compelling o f all persons today, if only He can be seen by men? That is, seen as He really is. If we can just hold up Christ in our lives before men today, He becomes a compelling power to attract them by the thousands to come to know Him. Men want Him, they are looking for Him, they’re longing for Him. But if, on the other hand, the Christ that we’re showing to the world is one of smug self-righteousness or maybe one who is ungoverned in his temper or dishonest in his business, is it any wonder that the world doesn’t want any thing to do with a Christ like that? For instance, I heard a Christian mother the other day screaming at her children out in the yard. Now I suppose that’s a very common act and yet immediately two thoughts came to me. I remembered first of all the many times I’ve screamed at my children out in the yard and been guilty of the same thing. And then I thought what a twisted picture of Christ that must give to the neighbors! A Chris tian out in the yard screaming at the top o f his lungs at his children. I read of a pastor who was witnessing to his druggist friend, and this druggist listened for quite awhile and then he said, "Well, I’ll tell you, it all sounds very good but I don’t think it works.” And the pastor said, "What do you mean?” "Well,” the druggist said, "come with me a moment.” And he led him into the back room where the records of the drugstore were kept and he opened his accounts and turned to a name and he said, "Now look at this man, you know this man, he’s a member of your church. Tell me,” he said, "is this man able to pay his bills?” And the pastor said, "Well, as far as I know he is; he seems to have ample money as far as I can tell.” "Well, look down here,” the druggist said. "He’s been owing me $67.00 for three months and has never paid a cent on it.” And then he flipped over to another page and said, "Here’s another man. He’s a member of your church. Is he able to pay?” And the pastor said, "Yes, I guess he is.” "Well, he’s been owing me another amount here for a long, long time. Never comes in to pay. Never makes any adjustment of the account.” And finally the pastor just had to turn around and walk out. Why? Because of the twisted, distorted picture of CONTINUED
us what we are in order that we might demonstrate what He is. We are to exhibit to the world what Jesus Christ is like, and we are these things in order that we might show Him forth. Now, this is not a new thought, I know. You will find this truth all throughout the New Testament. You remember the Lord Jesus said, “Ye shall be witnesses of me.” And He didn’t mean by that, "You shall be men and women who go around talking about me.” He meant, "You shall be my credentials to the world; you are my exhibition; you are my demonstration to the world of what I’m like.” D. L. Moody once said, "The Christian man is the world’s Bible, and in the majority of cases what we need is a Revised Version.” That echoes the truth of Paul when he wrote that you are the epistle of Christ, "written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart.” You are living letters from God, written not in the cold tables on which the ten com mandments were written but in the' fleshly tables of the heart. That’s where Christ is revealed through you to the world. Have you ever listened carefully to testimonies o f men and women who came out of worldly ways and worldly lives and became Christians and then stood up to tell how it happened? The next time you have an opportunity, listen carefully. I’ve listened to scores of them, hundreds of them, and do you know, to my knowledge I don’t think I ever heard one person say, "Well, I was antagonistic to the gospel and religion meant nothing to me. But, you know, at last somebody got hold of me and read me a lot of apologetic material and convinced me by argument that the thing was true and I believed it.” I’ve never heard anybody say that. But I’ve heard scores of people stand up and say, "Well, the arguments that I heard didn’t impress me much but, you know, there was something in their lives that got me. Something I could see they had that I didn’t have and that’s what won me.” Now what is that something? It’s Jesus Christ within! It’s what is written on the living epistle of the heart. It’s Christ written on the heart in letters that men and women can read today that creates a hunger and a nostalgia for that something that others have that they don’t have. What is it that the world is reading in you and me today? What kind of Christ is the world seeing in our hearts and lives ? Isn’t Moody right when he says that in the majority of cases what is needed is a Revised Version? I know there are many, and I thank God for them, who are demonstrating Jesus Christ in a wonderful way to men and women today. But in the majority of cases, is it not
The King's Business/July 1957
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