August 1931
T h e . K i n g ’ s ' E u s x n e s s
348
is no God, or He would have taken me at my word.” The story was later told to Joseph Parker, who said, “And did the American gentleman think he could exhaust the patience of God in five minutes?” The.patience of God! He says: “My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years” (Gen. 6:3). It is just about one hundred and twenty years now since the truth of the second coming was revived; since then, God has been sending His servants into the world declaring, “Behold, the bridegroom cometh.” I wonder if there will be the same period of dealing with men and seeking to bring them to repentance ere the Lord returns for His own. ■ There is something to hold the evil in check today. Listen to the words of Jesus : “As in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marry ing and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe en tered the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matt. 24:38, 39). What is it that answers to that in this day? The moment the redeemed shall hear the tcry, “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away,” and the true church of God is caught up, who can imagine .the unspeakable corruption, the violence that will pre vail! Then the Lord shall descend in power with His saints and bring in the reign of everlasting righteousness. If ever there was a time when men and women ought to be serious, this is the day; and yet the people today are pleasure mad. You find people all over the land turning away from the things of God and turning unto fables or devoting themselves to pleasure in its most extravagant forms—anything to give them a new sensation, a new amusement. Did you ever think of that word, “amusement” ? David said, “While I was musing the fire burned.” “Muse” means “to think.” But in “amuse,” the “a” is the negative; so “amuse” means “to not think”—and the devil is busy today with all kinds of devices to keep men from thinking. If men think, there is some hope for their salvation. When the prodigal came to himself, he said, “How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!” (Lk. 15:17). God give us to face realities. Unsaved one, the days of grace are very near their end; if you are ever going to be saved, you will have to be saved very soon. I have tried to visualize Noah get ting that ark ready. When the last day and the last hour of that day of grace came, he had to turn regretfully away, leaving them all behind. He entered into the ark, he and all his; and God shut them in. The hand that shut them in was the same which shut out the antediluvian world. Soon the redeemed of the Lord will be shut in up yonder, and men will come knocking, saying, “Lord, Lord, open to us,” only to hear Him say, “I never knew you.” As the storms descended from above, and the water rolled up from below, I wonder if there were not some of Noah’s neighbors who came and knocked at that door, saying, “Noah, Noah, open the door,” only to hear him say, “It is too late; I did not lock the door. God did.” “When once the master of the house is risen up and hath shut the door, who is there that shall open it ?” You have been invited for years to enter the ark of safety, and yet you are still unsaved. How much longer are you going to go on resisting the Spirit? Why not flee to Christ for refuge while the door stands wide open, and then, in that day when the world’s distress lowers, you will be safe in Christ.
While They Last . .. T h e K ing ' s B usiness was fortunate in securing a number of copies of the well-known commentary by Jamieson, Fausset & Brown. While they last, the commentary and one year’s subscription to T he K ing ’ s B usiness will be given for the price of the book alone. See inside back cover for particulars. since by Stalin’s orders the Godless are financed by the State, and special donations are allotted to them from party and trade, union funds. The attempts to destroy religionjg;1 are costly, but the Soviets disregard the question of finances since they are confident of success. T each ing B lasphemy What is going on in Russia is simply the beginning of what may soon prevail all over the world. People ‘say that this idea of Red propaganda dominating the world is just talk. I was speaking with a leading educator in Pennsyl vania some days ago, and he said that the sad fact is that by far the majority of our professors are teaching Bol shevism to their students. I am teaching in a theological college part of the year, and I find that atheistic literature is being poured into the mail o,f our students. The Reds of Europe are doing their best to send the atheistic literature through all the colleges and schools of America. They are doing their best to pervert our youth and to poison the very fountain of knowledge at its source. Societies are forming today in many of our colleges, named “The Society of Damned Souls” ; that is their own name for it. Think of the blas phemy of it, the God-defying spirit of the movement— and it is spreading everywhere! There was something like that in the days of Noah. God said: “My spirit shall not always strive with men, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years” (Gen. 6:3). What do these words mean? They mean that God by His Spirit had sought to bring certain influences to bear upon the hearts of men. But we read: “Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden? Which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with a flood: Which said unto God, depart from u s : and what can the Almighty do for them” (Job 22:15-17) ? In the book of Job, Eliphaz tells us how wicked men acted before the flood, and it is the way they are doing now. G od ’ s D ay of G race The wonderful thing is that a good God bears it all, and that He still waits in mercy. This reminds me of the day when Ingersoll, after delivering one of his ad dresses, pulled his watch from his pocket and said: “Ac cording to the Bible, God has struck men to death for blasphemy. I will blaspheme Him and give Him five minutes to strike me dead and damn my soul.” There was a period of perfect silence while one minute went by; two minutes passed, and people began to get nervous; three minutes, and a woman fainted; four minutes, and Ingersoll curled his lip. At five minutes, he snapped his watch shut, put it in his pocket and said; “You see, there
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