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TH E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
March 1926
given in the power of the Holy Spirit. We need more of the surrendered life and yielded will to the indwell ing Spirit. If He has His way, the Gospel in its fulness will be given to a lost world. The curtain will be drawn and the fires of hell will be revealed in their true light. The fires of hell are as real as the glories of Heaven, and they must be as real to the preacher today as they were to Christ and the apostles, and to all of the mes sengers of God who have been able to awaken sleepy saints and dead sinners! The Word of God is a two-edged sword. It is sharp! It cuts deep! It opens eyes to see! It pierces hearts to feel! Essays bathed in the most faultless English, ornamented with classic poetry and illustrated with the paintings of the masters, may have an appeal to the sleepy saints, but will find no applause in the man sions of heaven. , “ Awake thou that sleepest! Arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light,” and when He gives light, He gives also life,—red-blooded, joyful, full- fledged, Holy Ghost life that will send you out into this poor, helpless world of sin with a love for the lost and a passion for souls that will keep you wide-awake as you journey to the Heavenly Home.
in the knowledge that they have.“ Religion,” and what more is neededf They express their sorrow for the people who do not go to church and have no eternal life insurance,—but they fail to ascertain why there are so many of them? The “ sleeping sickness” is nothing new in the church. Paul found it even in the early church and sought to awaken the Roman saints by a faithful admonition: "And that, knowing the time, that now It Is high time to awake out o f sleep" (Romans 13:11), And, again, to the Ephesians: “ Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light" (Eph. 5 :14 ). The day is far spent! The time' is going rapidly! What our hands find to do we should do quickly, for the night cometh when no man can work. What produces this sleeping sickness among the saintsT Who is responsible t The Pastor of the church. Is he not an under-shepherdt What is his businessT Is it not to “ reprove, rebuke, exhort,” and “ so much the more as we see the day approaching” t We need a few more old-fashioned messages) with fire and zeal in them. We need to hear the Gospel
4 1 ^ AIA. Àè ätt É i W hat Every Christian Knows Rev. Christopher G. Hazard, D. D., Catskill, New York A IA
We have been occupied in trying to see good in ourselves, as that young man did when he ran to Christ to find what good thing he might do to in herit eternal life. Like him, we have been sorrowfully disappointed in Chris tianity because we have sought it in our efforts and in self improvement. Occupied with things and others and self, we have forgotten to look at Jesus as He is set forth in the Bible as the great Sun of life and Source of all good. So He has been a long time with us, but we have failed to obtain that knowledge of Him which is life and the development of life. And thus our spiritual experience has been slight and weak. Let us, therefore, remember how that first gladness came and look more constantly and carefully upon the Sav iour. It is as we behold the glory of the Lord that we are changed into His likeness, from glory to glory, even by His Spirit. Let us brush away the dust of neglect, deny the cares and pleasures that would absorb our at tention, occupy our minds and hearts with the wonderful things that are said about our Saviour, and run with patience the race that is set before us; looking unto J obus , the Author and the Finisher of our faith and joy, our Leader to the heavenly country of our perfection.
for the first time we behold our bene factor with a new faculty— spiritual sight— we know one' thing, that, whereas we were blind to the spiritual world we have now seen it with the eye of faith. The eyes that were filled with darkness then become full of tears. We all know, too, that there was a blessing in that first sight of the Sav iour and that there is a blessing in con tinuing to look upon Him. Those were penitent tears and that was a lightgiving vision. There was a relief that blessed the soul with peace as our sins were forgiven and there was the dawning of new hope and purpose as we were quickened in spirit by the touch of Christ’s smile. We look back upon that first experience and wonder that we ever looked away from the source of so much joy. Why have we gone on so long in ignorance of the further things that Jesus has wished to tell us and with so little of the hap piness that always comes with gazing upon Him? Is it not because we have made the mistake of the misuse of sight? We have looked away from Jesus upon surrounding circumstances, as Peter looked upon the waves that threatened him upon the sea. We have looked at others, as those who wanted to stand well with people did in Christ’s day.
HEN Jesus gave sight to the man who was born blind, who had never seen anyone or anything, and when he saw
his Saviour in a new and beautiful world, they asked him about his good fortune. And when fhey continued to inquire in the matter he said that there were some things that he did not know, whereas he had been blind, sight had been given to him. In reading the rest of the story, we discovet that afterwards the Lord gave him spiritual sight, also. As he learned who Jesus really was, he believed on Him and knew that he was speaking to the Sav iour of his soul. There are many things that we are blind to, that we do not know; and this is true of us who have recovered both our physical and our spiritual sight. Christians are not all equally Informed. Some know more of Christ and His ways than others do. Christ is a wonderful and many-sided person, and few know Him very well, while most of us know Him but little. We can understand why there are so many Christian churches and denom inations when we remember that peo ple are of different educational ages and sizes. But there Is always a first sight of Christ that all believers get. In one sense we are all born blind, and when
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