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THE K I N G ’S BUS I NES S “Vengeance belongeth unto Me. I will recompense, saith the Lord.” “Tomorrow the Lord will show you who are His and who are holy.” He will. He will show it when the Lord comes for His people. Not one unregenerate, unredeemed soul will then mount up with eagle’s wing into the air, not one who is trusting to the fruit of the earth, nor one who imagines he can atone for his own soul, nor one who rejects the Word of the Lord, and does despite unto the Spirit of Grace, will be in that great company. “The Lord knoweth them that are His.” Still more so will He show it when He gathers the dead, small and great, before Him in judgment. Many there will be in that great throng who, like Cain, have rejected the only God-ap pointed atonement; dike Balaam have been all things to all men for reward; and like Korah have spent their time assuring men that ali the congregation are holy—every one of them. “He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy. Of how much sorer punishment, sup pose, ye, shall these be thought worthy?” Like Cain they must forever go out from the presence of the Lord, having their part with “the fearful and unbelieving and . . . all liars,” for such they are, who “bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, causing many to follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of,” For, according to Scrip ture, everything else pales into insignifi cance before The Lie, by which, in whatsoever form it may be uttered, hu manity is seduced from the plain truth of the Bible. To reject the Word of God for the puerile guess-work of men, is for anyone a serious matter; to teach men so is infinitely worse. And judgment is inevitable. They will perish, says the apostle, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. And as with Pharaoh, when men harden their hearts
and the Lord is among them.” Moses’ answer was short and sharp, and pro phetic of a greater judgment: “Tomor row the Lord will show you who are His, and who is holy, and on that fate ful morrow “the earth opened' her mouth and swallowed them up, and they all went down into the pit. . ... . . and perished.” That -was God’s reply to their pre sumption in rejecting His ordinances, and asserting that without any such useless and unnnecessary atonements “all the congregation were holy, every one of them.” Korah has many follow ers today. He was of the sons of Levi, the priestly class, a minister to the peo ple. "Seemeth it a small thing that the God' of Israel hath separated you to stand before the congregation to minis ter unto them?” A small thing! Nay, it is one of the most serious things a man can attempt, to speak in the name of God. Korah and his company—ministers and men of renown in the congregation —were the New Theologians of their day. They may, perchance,’ have dis liked, as men do today, the "gospel of gore.” i They resented it. There was no need for such pagan superstition, and as for this Moses, they were quite as good as he, and probably better. “Ye take too much upon ourselves^ the con gregation is already holy, every one/’ Higher Criticism and New Theology are no new things. Their apostles in the far-off past were Cain, Balaam and Korah. | And the judgment on each was sharp and drastic. Cain, driven out from the presence of the Lord; Balaam, slain with the sword; Korah, plunged alive into the bowels of the earth. But who shall say that the destroyers of God’s Word, who go about to establish their own and their congregations’ righteous ness, and have counted the blood of the covenant as an unholy thing, shall meet with judgment any less severe? It is in this connection the apostle adds,
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