59
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
February 1930
Qrumhs O ' ----------------- B y the Editor
romtheKing’s I
I
but Patience was willing to take his governor’s advice and wait for his good things until the next year; and these two boys, says John Bunyan, are typical of the worldly man and the true Christian. The worldly man., with his favorite proverb of, “ A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” wants his good things at once, wants his bag of gold in the hand, not seeming to realize that his money must perish with him. But the Christian, in fellowship with God, is willing to do without this world’s wealth . and fame and pleasure because he looks not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. And in all this John Bunyan has shown his usual un erring insight. Most men side with Passion; they want the bag of gold in the hand; they can understand the advantage of that; and, fascinated by the prospect o f that, they have no thought for heaven, they see only that which is near. The world takes men captive by the promise of quick returns. 'This man sees the solid advantages that wealth brings, and he lives for it, never caring to think of the day when his money will slip from his nerveless fingers. This man sees the present and substantial ad vantages that fame brings, and he lives for it, never caring to look forward to that time when the first will be last and the last first. And so men become absorbed by the world and live for its business, its wealth and its power, and then awake to find themselves wretched and poor and blind and miserable and naked, all because they have never given a thought to heaven but have seen only that which is near. “ L ift up your eyes,” is the appeal of a loving God. We need to lift them up to the things unseen and eternal, to the everlasting hills, to the everlasting city where place is determined not by wealth, but by holiness; and position, not by worldly fame, but by love. We need a more con stant thought of heaven, a more abiding realization of eternity. We must give heaven a larger place in our speech and thought. It is only as the thought of heaven is ever with us that we shall be emancipated from the thralldom of “ the swim.” There never was a more magnificent triumph over the spirit of worldliness than that which Moses achieved when he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daugh ter. How did he win that triumph? Listen: “H e had respect unto the recompense of the reward.” The safety of a Christian lies in the long look. Be not persuaded that the thought of heaven, and the reward yonder for service rendered in His name, is the mark of the dreamy and un practical man. Cultivate the long look. “Looking not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen” ; enduring “ as seeing Him that is invisible,” “ looking away” — for so the Greek reads— “ looking away to Jesus.” Fol low everything to its ultimate issue and see how it will look in the light of eternity and heaven. Bring business and wealth and fame and power and high station, and measure them all by the standard of eternity. Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which en- dureth unto everlasting life.
Worldliness HEN the Sprit of God spoke through His servant John, “ Love.not the world, neither the things that are in the world. I f any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him,” he did not refer to the beauti ful things that are in the world of nature.
I have driven my car more than one hundred times be tween Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles. What won derful things I have seen in these trips! The towering mountains on one side, some of them capped with eternal snow. The great Pacific Ocean on the other side of the road, and oh, the sunsets! But the joy these themes have given to my natural vision have not compared with the rapture of soul. While looking upon these wonder ful things in the natural world, I have remembered that my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, made them all. “All things zvere made by him; and zinthout him zvas not any thing made that zvas made.” Now, it is not the world of nature that we are to re frain from loving. To use a colloquialism, the thing that we are not to love is, “ The Swim.” We speak of the swim of politics. Good men get into this swim and they are swept off their feet in spite of themselves. We speak of the swim of business. Good men get into this swim and’ they forget God, they forget their duties to their fel lows, and sometimes they forget their families. Then there is the social swim that carries so many thousands of Christians out of fellowship with God, dulls their ears to the call of God, and blinds their eyes to spiritual vision. There is also an ecclesiastical swim in which many ser vants of God lose their testimony. This is the “ world” which we are not to love. “ For all that is in the world, the lust o f the flesh, the lust o f the eves and the pride o f life, is not of the Father, but is o f the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will o f God abideth for ever.” ' ' “ Other worldliness” is not the besetting sin of the twentieth century— worldliness is the moral atmosphere in which we live; it casts its fatal spell upon us all and the sore temptation of us all is to lay up our treasure upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and thieves break through and steal. The reason for this prevalent and well-nigh universal sin of worldliness is spiritual short-sightedness. _ The prizes that “ the swim” offers are plausible, tangible, imme diate. They engross men’s attention, they absorb their thoughts, they fill the horizon of their desires. Heaven and the smile of Christ and the “well done” of the Father seem remote, far off, unsearched. Money, pleasure, fame, banish them from the mind, and to the acquisition of these things men devote themselves, seeing cmly what is near. Christian saw in Interpreter’s house, two boys: Pas sion and Patience. Passion had a bag of gold in his hand,
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