134
March 1927
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
W h ere P a tr ic k H e n ry Made A Fam ous Speech St. John’s Church, Rich mond, Va., one of the most famous meeting places dur ing the Revolution. It was here that Patrick Henry, that fiery tongued orator, in his speech denounced the ar ticles of the English King to enslave the Colonists {Mar. 20, 1775; 150 years ago ) in his famous speech which ended—“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, • as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, GIVE ME LIBERTY, OR GIVE ME DEATH."
We are exceeding the speed limit. The arm of the law will have us. We must have time for God or all our time is lost. We must slow down or break down. “Give Me Liberty or Give Me D ea th” I T was in March, 1775, that Patrick Henry uttered those immortal words: ‘‘Give me liberty or give me death.” We are hearing much in these days about “liberty.” There is an organized fight on to procure what is termed “personal liberty”. Those who clamor for this kind of liberty are in reality after license. They want, not liberty to do what they ought, but liberty to do what is pleasing to the flesh and hence is harmful. As a newspaper said recently: “The youth of today want bigger and better sins.” It is the spirit of the age to throw off all restraint and find freedom to indulge to the limit the lusts of the flesh. Many of our young people today consider parental res traint an irksome thing. Some educators give them en couragement by teaching that liberty of youth is essential to development. How little they must have learned from past history ! As with a horse, so with immature youth, the ever-slack rein is dangerous. All about us we see a generation moving to mature years on a slack rein. Many thoughtless parents look on while the hope of the land gamble away their priceless years, talking the while of “liberty” as they forge the chains which will in due time render them hopeless captives of the devil. On the other hand, there are preachers who in solemn ordination vows proclaimed themselves “set for the defense of the Gospel,” but who are crying out for lib erty to think independently of the Word of God. They do not wish to be hampered by time-worn creeds. They too, are deceived as to the meaning of “liberty.” Within the circle of created things, freedom must always be limited. There cannot be, in this life, any absolute liberty. The kind of liberty socialists and anarch ists claim is not freedom, and there is no worse bondage than that to which so-called “free thinking” leads. There is but Pne who is absolutely free—that is God. He is so because He is perfect and eternal. For all cre
ated beings liberty consists, therefore, in living in har mony with His laws. Within these limitations, there is a human freedom that is glorious and inspiring. We assert that no one has ever found such freedom apart from obedience to the Word of God. Whether in the sphere of political, religious or social, true liberty can come, according to Scripture, in but one wawS“Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (Jn. 8:32). The 36th verse adds: “I f the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” Christ is Himself the complete embodiment and expression of truth absolute (Jno. 14:6). The Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of truth,” and hence the Agent of Christ in bringing the believer into this liberty (2 Cor. 3:17). Through Christ, our souls are set free from the bon-, dage of fear. By the Spirit’s working within, there un folds a divine life that ultimately will issue, at the resur rection day, into the “glorious liberty of the children o f God” (Rom. 8:21). We are free indeed to work out what God works in (Phil. 2:12, 13), but let us remember that liberty, in the absolute sense of freedom from the trammels of the old and groaning creation, must await a future day. In the meantime, it will be found that those peoples are most free and stable who are founded on that righteousness which is the foundation of Christ’s spiritual kingdom. True liberty will be reached only when the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our God and His Christ. MS' afe Tried and Proved A MISSIONARY tells the story of his efforts to raise a bell which had slid from the deck of a boat on which it was being transported and became imbedded in the river’s mud. Many schemes were tried, but the bell could not be raised. At last a native offered to raise it. Thousands of bamboo rods were gathered. One rod at a time was fastened by divers to the bell. As the rods accumulated around the bell, it began to move upward, and at last came to the surface. What the rods were to the sunken bell, the precious promises of the Word of God are to a despairing soul.
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