March 1932
103
T h e K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
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THE KING’S TABLE B y the E ditor
0 oon , soon in matchless vision,: I shall see Him face to face, And I ’ll read in the nail and spear marks The story of saving grace. Oh, then I shall know the meaning O f the life-blood’s crimson flow; I shall know the mystic meaning; I shall know how much I owe.
from the dead, then was He the Son of God, then all His claims and professions and promises are true, then the work of salvation is a reality, then the prophets were in spired men, their words are the words of God, and all their blessed declarations concerning the Christ are stead fast. The fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ stands as the impregnable fortress of our faith. There is nothing in Christianity which does not find there its shelter, en trenchment, and vindication. Standing at the empty tomb of our Lord, all doubts give way, all misgivings vanish, and all the bruised and shattered fragments .of failing con fidence are restored, reanimated, and established forever. Do you doubt whether Jesus was the Christ ? Go to His tomb and settle it in your soul how Almighty God could give such triumph to a man, slain because He professed Himself to be the Christ, if He were not what He said He was. Look at all the facts of the case, and what other ex planation is possible, save that which Christianity has al ways given, and which the first witnesses attested with their blood. Hear and weigh the story of the Jews, that His disciples stole the body and falsely pretended that He had risen. Examine the varied contradictory theories of skepticism and philosophy. Review all the suggestions of rationalism. And when you have searched all of them to their deepest depths, lay them by the side of our simple Easter faith, and if you have any susceptibility to truthfulness and conviction, your doubts will disappear like mists before the rising sun. Do you question that there is another life after this, or that it is in the power of God to reconstruct and reanimate these fleshly tabernacles when once death has dissolved them ? Go to the tomb of the Lord Jesus Christ, behold its emptiness in spite of guards and seals and mighty block ades, and tell by what other means His mangled and life less body got away, except by the power of a life to which rocks and bars and wastes of fleshly organism are no hin drances. Learn the angelic tidings of a Saviour risen and moving in the majesty of angelic life, and you will have no more trouble with the question of whether, if a man die, he shall live again. Easter settles it forever.- Do you ever question whether it is safe to trust in a
The Refuge for Our Faith I t was a great blow to the confidence and hopes of the first disciples to behold their Lord and Master seized, cru cified, and -slain. They had built upon the fond belief that He was chosen and sent of God to redeem Israel, to break the yoke of their oppressors, and to set up for them the predicted kingdom. They had become thoroughly estab lished in these glad anticipations, but now the Object and Center of all these joyous ideas had fallen a victim to the malice of His foes, and the redemption for which they looked had not yet been achieved. Perplexity and con fusion filled their hearts, their hopes were confounded when they beheld their Master dead. But Easter morning brought again the daylight; a new world of hope broke, with the tidings, “He is risen.” Bruised and expiring faith betook itself to that open tomb, and thrilled with new life and animation. The women came and were overwhelmed with the blessedness of the facts they learned. Confidence sprang up afresh and flooded their hearts with the grandeur of the reassurance. The doubting disciples came running to the spot," went into that empty tomb, “saw and believed,” and the entire little band of despondents, as the Easter tidings entered their souls, found their confidence restored, their doubts dissolved, their hearts cheered, and all their endangered hopes reviewed, confirmed, and forever settled. Their faith had reached a city of refuge. / / I hat E aster was to the first disciples, it is to all who are willing to be convinced. If we have any doubts about the divine sonship of Jesus, or any questions about the truthfulness of Christianity, or any disheartening skepticism about the reality of gospel blessings, it is be cause we have not done justice to the facts concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The religion of the gos pel must forever stand or fall with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If He was not raised from the dead, then the Scriptures have not been fulfilled, then the inspiration of the Bible stands contradicted, then the whole doctrine of the Messiah vanishes into fiction, then our preaching is vain, and all our faith is vain. But if Jesus was raised
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