THE KING’S BUSINESS
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them. If all believing Christians had done the will of Christ and manifest- .ly had the Lord with them, what would the world have been to-day! There is where we miss it. Do we show people that the Lord is with us, that wherever we go there is a Super human and Divine power working through us, and able to do what the world cannot understand, and what the world very likely do not want done? In the edition of the Greek Testa ment published by the British and Foreign Bible Society there is a re markable passage, not printed as part of the Gospel of St. Mark, for I think the evidence is not sufficient to justify its being actually a part of that Gos pel, but it is a very early addition to the Gospel, perhaps almost about the Ajpostles’ time. ' We only take it as an evidence of the opinion of the early Church of that day. I will read you the words I refer to : “After these things, Jesus Himself, from the rising to the setting of the sun, sent forth through themT—that is, through the Apostles—“the holy and incor ruptible preaching of eternal salva tion.” It is a fine passage, though it may be only human composition, but it shows that the Church of that day understood its business. “Jesus Him self sent forth through them the holy and incorruptible preaching of eternal salvation.” If the Church at home got a grip of that thought, what might we not yet do? If a little handful on the day of Pentecost, in the upper room, “turned the world upside down”—unlettered some of them, ig norant, with no political power, with no social influence—if they “turned the world upside down,” what might not we do? If we were bent with all our energies upon these things, as men of the world are bent upon their ob jects; if we prayed and strove for the disestablishment of Satan’s kingdom and the disendowment of the world’s
powers; if we thought of ensuring the salvation of men more and more; and if our great idea of home rule was the rule of Jesus Christ in every home where He is not known—oh, what might not a small handful of Chris tians do? Just imagine, if all Chris tians were “alive,” what might not God do, even before His coming that miay be very near, to arouse the world to its true position? May I suggest three subjects for prayer at this time? Pray that all Christians may have a fuller sense of the living Lord. Dr. Dale was once suddenly startled with this thought, which came into his mind and changed the whole current of his ministry: “Jesus Christ is alive to-day.” Let the whole Church get a grip of that thought, that He is an omnipotent Lord to-day, seated at the right hand of God, looking at every soul, able to direct everything on.this earth. Let us pray, then, that the Church may know more of her living Lord. Then pray that there may be a fuller conception—-I am afraid it is at the present time a somewhat declin ing conception—of the living Word. In that magnificent opening of the Epistle to the Hebrews, you will re member that when the writer passes almost imperceptibly from the living Word, Jesus Christ, to the written Word, he calls the written Word the living Word as well (Hebrews 4:12). And as evidence of its vitality he speaks of it as criticising (so is the Greek) the very “thoughts and in tents of the heart.” In the only case in which “critic” is used in the New Testament, it refers not to man crit icizing the Word, but the Word criticizing man. It is we who reverse the order, 1as thought the culprit should correct his judge, and so we go wrong. Pray, then, for a fuller conception in the Church of the live Word, that wonderful Word which, into whatever language it is trans-
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