October, 1939
THE K I NG ’ S B U S I N E S S
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Even when the Word comes to true be lievers who have passed from death unto life, though no condemnation is involved, there yet remains responsibility, and rewards are gained or lost as the be liever “receives with meekness the en grafted word” or fails to do so. “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life,” said Christ, and such words have an insistent quality.
THE VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD [ Continued, from page 379] Isaiah, and yet He sent him. So He must have had another purpose. The logic of this position is irrefutable. Let us learn, then, this tremendously important principle—that the Lord God’s purpose in sending forth His people to bear His testimony is to vindicate His own righteousness. We know from Romans 3 that. God was as deeply con cerned to vindicate His righteousness in the cross of Christ as H e.was to demonstrate His love and grace. Like wise in the future judgment and con demnation of the world, the Lord Jeho vah is determined that His righteous ness and justice shall be manifest and that ere the stroke falls all men shall be without excuse. He not only declares His existence in the works of creation, He not only writes His gospel in the skies in the very constellations of the heavens, but He is going to see to it that the written Word and the preached Word shall be made available to all. He can then be just in the justification of them that believe in Jesus and just in the condemnation of those who re ject Him. Let us be sure to distinguish clearly between God’s purpose in commissioning His servants to preach His message, and the desired effect of that message. Our loving God desires above all things, as do His messengers, that men and women will receive His Son and be saved. But the Word of God has a unique quality; it shares the very in flexibility of the nature of Him from whom it comes. One may listen to recitations of poetry containing lofty ideals, he may hear any number of moral exhortations, and he may have expounded to him in great detail the ethical precepts of world philosophers, but since none of these have any vital quality or are authorita tive utterances from the sovereign Crea tor, they can be absolutely negative in their effects, and it is possible for one to be exactly the same after being ex posed to them as he was before. Not so the Word of God! If declared in truth and faithfulness, it cannot pos sibly have a negative effect. It is a deposit that inevitably will produce div idends in blessing or curse. It is a solemn realization that, every time a true minister of Christ stands before an assembly to declare the Word of God, every one in the audience is bound to be affected one way or the other. To the unsaved is being brought the issue of life and death, and they cannot possibly be the same thereafter. They may think they are the same, and they may have no consciousness of any difference in status, but God’s righteousness has been vindicated upon them whether they ac cept or reject. The message brings either blessedness or condemnation.
What the Word of God Accomplishes
We used to think that in Isaiah 55:11, which refers to the Word of God as it goes forth out of His mouth, and which declares, “It shall not return unto me void,” the Spirit was teaching that every time the Word went forth some one must be saved whether we could see it or not. In our missionary experience in China, after speaking for an hour and f t
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