March 1927
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
140
Calvary, and then they turned round to try to help their fellow-men. C reates D iscontent W ith E vil Again in the Bible, we have a conception oi lman which, I submit to you, has created in the human mind a discontent with false conditions of life. Let me put it negatively. The Bible denies absolutely that man is the last result of an upward process from the slime. You cannot hold your Bible in your hand and believe that man came in any other way than by a direct divine action. Read again your history, and what you call your great reforms have all sprung out of that conception. Every baby born should have the opportunity of realizing the meaning of its life according to the divine intention, and, blessed be God, by the side of that child God has placed His abun dant grace, and every child can, by grace, realize its own destiny. Finally, there is in the Bible a Gospel. The Bible de clares that there is a way by which men and women can be re-born. In other words, the Bible contains a Gospel that works. What are you going to do with your moral and spiritual derelicts and lepers, without such a Gospel? Wherever this Gospel has been preached, wherever men and women have been brought face to face with the Christ of this Gospel, yielding their lives to Him, they have been changed. I urge you, as members of the one Church, and as pro fessed believers, to stand by the Book for the sake of the nation, for if we lose this Book, no army, and no navy, and no body of politicians, can save us. True missionaries, are, first of all, ambassadors of Christ, proclaiming the love of God for men, the ground of forgiveness of sin, and the Way of Life. True Chris- tiansSincluding missionaries—will seek to live lives like their Master. They will not depend on human govern ments for protection; they will not be self-indulgent or arbitrary, but will be ready to suffer hardship and perse cution if only they may interpret Christ to those for whom He died. When the message of Christ is faithfully and lovingly deliyered and interpreted by life as well as by words, men may still reject it if they will, as multitudes in Europe and America have rejected it and so have rejected Jesus Christ. God Himself will not compel them to accept His Gift or to conform their lives to His teachings, but missionaries nevertheless continue, to go out to proclaim the message clearly and lovingly so that as many as pos sible in all the world may have an opportunity to hear and receive life through Him. Nations and individuals have failed because they have failed to surrender to Christ and His message and to allow Him to live His life in them. He came that we might have life and that we might have it abundantly. In Him, all men may, if they will, find the secret of life and peace and power. It may be too much to expect that the nations and the world as such will accept and follow His Way of Life, until He Himself comes to reign as He has promised. But who can be so blind as not to see that mankind needs Him most of all—in business and industrial enterprises, in national and political affairs, in social and family life and for personal character and conduct? It is the duty of every Christian to seek to make human relationships Christian.
the sanctions that come when all men are right with God. You can make no laws that will secure the well-being of humanity, save as you derive them from the God who un derstands humanity. And, further, you can enforce no laws you make until you have captured the human heart and the human mind and the human will, and set them in right relationship to the God of law, who is the God of love. In the Bible we have a conception of God which has created the great philanthropies which are at work in the world today. I am convinced myself that philanthropy results from the God revealed in this literature; those institutions that are attempting to care for the unfit and the derelict, the mentally deficient, and the crippled chil dren; all those-institutions that deny that the survival of the fittest is the last word. Centrally, you see God at Calvary. You see Christ identifying Himself with human sorrow and with human sin. You see Him out upon the highway, where are the halt and the lame and the blind-— physically, mentally and spiritually.' Go back in thought to the war years again, although it is almost like opening wounds to do so. There we saw science pressed into service for the mutilation and the destruction of human life, by the manufacture of high explosives and poison gas. But we saw something else in France and Flanders and the other war areas-. We saw doctors, nurses; stretcher- bearers. And we saw the sign of the Red Cross. I am afraid we are forgetting that that which created the pas sion for philanthropy was the revelation of God that came to men at Calvary. And if we lose that, then the springs of our compassion will dry' up. Men saw God at I S there any conflict between Christ and Christianity? A traveller who recently returned from a world tour says that in India he was warned not to speak of Chris tianity though he might advantageously speak of Christ. The former is linked up in the minds of Eastern peoples with Western governments, civilization, armaments, wars, Occidental business enterprises and Western social cus toms. Many' in Asia look upon Christianity as a religion that has failed to bring either peace, righteousness or unselfish service. A similar feeling is often manifested in so-called Christian lands. Christianity is linked up in thought with the Church even more than with Christ. In the minds of many, the Church is identified chiefly with human creeds, with rituals, with great edifices and sometimes with self- indulgent and arbitrary preachers and church members. In the minds of some no distinction is made between the Greek, the Roman, and the Protestant churches, simple and complex. Mormons, Christian Scientists and all re motely associated with churches are called Christian with out distinction. Is it not time to exalt and live Christ in such a way that the failures of the Church and of church people may not discredit Him in the minds of men ? Ideally, Christian ity is the system of faith and life which Christ taught. Ideally, the Church is the body of Christ on earth, com posed of followers to whom He has committed His work of ministering to men. Actually, Christianity has come to be looked upon as a type of modern civilization which only partially accepts the standards of Christ. Actually, the Church has come to be regarded merely as an organization made up of both real and nominal followers of Jesus Christ.
Christ Versus Christianity B y D elà van L. P ierson
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