June 1931
246
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1936 seems to be a year toward which the nations of Europe are looking forward with a great deal of appre hension. Mussolini and not a few other European states men have referred from time to time, and with more or less misgiving, to 1936 as a year when the whole world shall face momentous events—and a crisis! Mussolini, five years ago, started Europe guessing (and trembling) with his mysterious prophecy: “We must at a certain time be able to mobilize 5,000,000 men . . . We will be able then, between 1935 and 1940, when I be lieve there will be a crucial point in European history, finally to make our voice heard and see our rights recog nized.” This statement is almost uncanny when we reflect that 1936 is just 2,520 years (seven times 360 years) after the last sOn of Abraham who sat on a throne in Jerusalem was taken from that throne, had his eyes put out, and was carried away to Babylon in chains. We believe it is folly, in the face of an uncertain cal endar, to set any exact dates for the return of our Lord and for the momentous events connected therewith; more over, we believe it to be contrary to Scripture. Never theless, Daniel surely definitely set the time for our Lord’s crucifixion in his great prophecy of “seventy weeks,” and the Scriptures present us with some other interesting figures. Those who are “wise” at least are able to “see the day approaching” (Heb. 10:25). Swing responded: “Suppose now you try the gospel!” We must not be deceived by the'glitter and glamor of the material and mechanical side of our modern civiliza tion. These are but surface things. Automobiles, radios, moving pictures, airplanes, and all the wonderful devices of modern life are no index to the hidden life of the soul. Who can measure the sadness and sorrow, the tragedy and sin of our modern life? Only the gospel of redemption can reach it or touch it. You can’t feed hungry souls with the sawdust of theories and guesses! You can’t comfort broken hearts by telling them in gilded rhetoric that what they used to believe, or their fathers once be lieved, now must be “reinterpreted,” or in plain English abandoned! You cannot light the pathway of man across the void of dread and darkness with the flitting phosphor escence of a brilliant aphorism,! No! In the straits of the soul the only message is the old message of Calvary, the story of repentance and salvation and regeneration through faith in Christ. Those who deal in the by products of Christianity and attract congregations by whaf they deny rather than by what they affirm are like sky rockets which go up and spray the night for a little moment with their light, and then come down and leave the world in darkness as it was before. But they who proclaim the everlasting gospel are like the stars. The stars shine on in the depth of the heavens after the sky rockets have been forgotten. —Record of Christian Work. A young preacher went to David Swing, the poet- preacher of Chicago, many years ago and asked him what he should do to get a congregation on Sunday. He said: “I have tried history, biography, literature, poetry, book reviews, politics—but the people won’t come. What shall I do?”
But, thank God, through it all, the saints shall be kept safely-—above, with Him! With Him—until the hour when He shall ride forth in majesty to strike down every arm that is raised against His righteousness, and to “speak peace to the nations” (Zech. 9:10). Ludendorff is right! Among the unregenerate sons of men, “there is no possibility of concluding peace.” “Unto the end wars and desolations are determined” (Dan. 9:26, margin). Peace belongs to righteousness, and it emanates only from God! 1 9 3 6 T HE recent British-French-Italian naval agreement is being discussed pro and con. The world’s statesmen are asking, “Is it a truce or finish of the Franco-Italian Feud ?” Among newspapers, the Paris Figaro asserts that “this partial superficial accord is a sign of total and profound discord” ; while the French Le Petit Journal says: “The accord marks the suspension of all Franco- Italian sea rivalry until 1936, the date of the next naval conference.” Likewise, an Associated Press dispatch from Rome, cabled at the close of this new agreement, points out that the “principle of party” which broke up the London Naval Conference so far as France and Italy are concerned, “is not settled by the new accord, but is postponed until 1936.” ' | 1HE one thing in the world across which there falls no shadow of decline or decay is the gospel of Jesus' Christ. It is an endless gospel because it is founded upon an everlasting Christ. Every effort to make Christ appear natural by strik ing out the supernatural only succeeds in making Him unnatural. Every attempt to make Him historical by ig noring the facts recorded in the four Gospels only suc ceeds in making Him unhistorical. We have Christ in the four Gospels, and outside of that, silence and dark ness. The gospel is an everlasting gospel because it has an everlasting message. Nothing that Jesus said has been rendered obsolete by the progress of knowledge and the advance of science. His words are forever applicable to mankind. The habitat of the gospel is the heart of uni versal man. The great message of the gospel is summed up in the cross. The cross is its power and its glory, no matter how much that power and glory are neglected and scorned in popular modern Christianity. The gospel gives us not merely a great personality, not merely great ideas of truth, not merely lofty examples of living, but a gréât act, a sublime, God-conceived and God-executed transac tion ; namely, the death of Christ on the cross for the sins of the world. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. The minister who preaches the gospel will never play out. He has a message which cannot fade. If he sets up as a book reviewer, or lecturer on current events and contemporary politics, or as sort of a second-hand dealer in somebody else’s guess or theory or scientific hypothesis, sooner or later he will play out..
The Everlasting Gospel B y C larence .E dward M acartney
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