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THE KING’S BUSINESS
a large room close by the church, and the Christian Scientists were occupy ing, during their first attack on Lon don, another room in the same build ing. Going through their room to reach my own place of service one Sunday morning, I took up their hymnbook, and I noticed that every thing distinctive of Jesus Christ was altered in some of the old-fashioned hymns. We sing here, “ Jesus shall reign where’er the sun.” That -was altered to “ The .Lord shall reign where’er the sun.” This is- only one instance out of many that could be adduced to show that Christian Science is not Christian; and it is not Chris tian because it attacks Christianity at that most vital part, the Atoning Sac rifice of Christ, with all that is in volved of sin in the sight oLGod. Another imitation of Christ today is called “ Millennial Dawn.” It should be Millennial Darkness. Here, again, it is religious, but it is an imitation, one that denies the Deity of Christ, and the Sacred Trinity of the New Testament. There are other denials, but these are sufficient for our present purpose. Whatever else you may say about Millennial Dawn teaching, itdoes not teach the Christ of the New Testa ment. . Young Christians should be particularly on their guard, because these things are spoken of a.s coming from the International Bible Students’ Depository—all innocent and delight ful words, but not in that connection. Another imitation of Christ is Spir itualism, that craving for contact with the unseen which marks so much of our modern life. One well-known person, wrote a little while ago, that “The veil is becoming thinner between this world and the next, and perhaps bve and bye we shall find that those who have passed on in front of us will be surrounding us as helpers.” I want to ask this question this morning for your consideration: Are the dead
with us? or are they with Christ? I know that Hebrews 12:1, is some times used to illustrate the thought of a vast arena in which we are running, and the dead are encompassing us about, looking down upon us as we run the race. “ Seeing we are com passed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run.” Well, now, it so happens that there was a very fa miliar word in the Greek available to the writer, meaning eye-witness, spec tator. He could have used that as eas ily as possible, but he did not, for the word “witness” is not eye-witness, but “ testifier.” . The fact that the writer avoided the very thing that would have given the Spiritualist his idea is surely a testimony to the Divine Inspi ration of Scripture. “ Seeing we are compassed about”—-not with so great, a crowd of spectators looking down upon us, but of those who are bearing witness to God. The same word is found again and again in the gallery of faith in Hebrews 1L If St. Paul— mark this, please—could have helped the Christians by coming back from the unseen, why should he have been in “ strait between two’G-whether to depart, or to stay? If he could have come back to help them, there would have been no question at all; he would have gone. If St. Peter could have come back and helped those believers to whom he wrote in 2 Peter 1 :14, 15, why did he take such precautions that after his death they might know and be established in the truth? That is not absolutely essential if the dead somehow or other can help those that are living. So I want to say that Spiritualism is one of the most terrible corrosives .of spirituality. Wherever there is Spiritualism, you will find, sooner or later, a loss o f belief in the Deity of our Lord, in sin, and in the Atonement. David said, “ I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.” That, read in the light of the New
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