540
September 1928
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
ing the body.” The fault being condemned in the context here was the practice o f regarding the communion service as an opportunity for individual indulgence, and not as a solemn church assembly. They should discern in these meetings that they were parts of a spiritual body — the body of Christ, the true church. This view brings the passage to bear more intelligibly on the point being dis cussed. But a few verses before, Paul has referred to the body, meaning thé church (10 :16 ). — o—- Another Date Come and Gone M A Y 29, 1928—that was the date fixed by the Great Pyramid—what fo r? At first it was said to predict the Lord’s coming. As the time drew near, some said it might not be the Lord’s coming but some stupendous event leading up to the close of the age. A few weeks before the day, some very cautious folks said that the event of May 29 might not be manifest at all at the time, but that, nevertheless, in that day something would be started that would end the age. The day came. In one seacoast town in England a great tidal wave had been predicted and thousands flocked to the shore to see the great deluge. That morning there was a run on the banks. Volunteer guards manned the cliffs and all business was at a standstill. The seas remained glassy smooth and so the day wore away. Chrysostom once said, rather severely : “ Our nature is greedy for a knowledge of things invisible and hidden from us. This comes of our conceit and from having nothing to do. Often is the mind in haste to learn and understand these things before the time.” In the last few .-years some have been very dogmatic on this matter o f which the Bible says men know the least (Mk. 13:32),. The very uncertainty of the time has been the perpetual stimulant of the people of God. The army that is not aware of the exact time when an attack is to be made, is more apt to be in training and ready any moment. Premillennialists have charged that Postmillennialists rob the church o f the practical effect o f the blessed hope by placing it at least 999 years in the future. Do not the date-fixers do the same thing? The writer heard.a well- known teacher say in Los Angeles a few years ago : “ I do not look for Christ’s coming today, tomorrow, this year or next year.” He was expounding the “ year-day theory” and Christ, therefore, could not come until the expiration o f 2,520 year-days, which, according to his calculations, should have ended in September, 1927. Others were just as positive that prophetic times and the great pyramid calculations fixed the date in May, 1928. Both dates have now come and gone, like all the other dates predicted by very sincere brethren in the past. In view of our Lord’s plain words in Acts 1 :7, both as to periods of time and junctures of time, and in view of Paul’s warning in 1 Thess. 5:1, it seems strange that men should still be tampering with dates. “ O f the times and, the seasons,” said Paul, “ ye have no need that I write unto you.” The reason was that he had nothing to reveal. “ For yourselves know precisely that the day o f the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.” This is saying :— “ Y ou already know that nothing precise on the subject can be known except that the day will steal upon you when you least expect it.”
:: Heart to Heart ::
The Life Approved of God. B y G ertrude C ockerell HIS is part o f the charge of the aged Apostle “ W Paul'to his son in the faith, Timothy (2 Tim. 2 :15 ). But the charge applies equally to us, young or old. The charge is personal, individ- T jO C' ual. It embraces and implies a right relation- rC ll ship with God, for it is only through Christ “who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree” (1 Pet. 2 :24 ), that we are brought nigh unto God. Benevolent, kindly activities on behalf of our fellow- creatures are no ground of approach to a holy God. Our text is in the present tense. Its opening word, '“ study,” is opposed to all that is careless, ill-considered in Christian life-—a life that accepts Christ as Saviour and leaves Him largely outside the life. Can we be really the Lord’s while acting in a manner so unworthy? “ The Lord knoweth them that are His. And let every one that nameth the Name o f Christ, depart from iniquity.” To be “ approved unto God” commits us to a life-long “ study” to be “well-pleasing unto Him.” ' Just how is told us in the Word of God. But, merely reading it as a duty, or as an intellectual pastime, or to provide matter for class or platform, is not the “ study” o f our text. No, my study of the Word must be to discover in it what is “ profitable” to me personally “fo r doctrine, for reproof, fo r correction, fo r instruction in righteousness,” that I, in my individual capacity, “may be perfectly, thor oughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Tim. 3116, 17). Hid in pur hearts it will keep us back from sin, that we may not sin against Him (Psa. 119 :11). And, as “ the sword of the Spirit,” it “ is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder o f soul and spirit . . . . and is a discerner o f the thoughts and’intents o f the heart” (Heb. 4 :12 ). flow painful sometimes are its revealings o f the self life; how hopeless, how helpless our condition were that a ll! But listen to this from the lips of Omnipotence: “According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge o f Him that hath called us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers o f the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Pet. 1 :3, 4 ). This is separation indeed-, touching our lives at every point, and the result, “ approved unto God.’’ How great the delight of a parent in a child who makes it his delight to please him! Can God rejoice over us, His children, whose study it is to be approved of Him ? May you and I ever keep the goal in view. It is easy to stop short o f that and to work, to talk, to act, to preach, to even pray, and the “ eye” not be “ single to the glory of God.” In the presence of this danger the Apostle Paul
Made with FlippingBook Annual report