May 1930
T h e ' K i n g *
s
B u s i n e s s
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ruined by Bible critics, and that you yearned to believe, and were ready to cry “Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief”—why, it would be simple. P rof . H ow so ? B il l . Because I could then pour consolation into your soul by showing you that every one of these points of question—about Jonah and the whale, Noah and the ark, Joshua’s long day, and even the theory of evolution and the Virgin Birth-—have no terrors for the most intelligent and scientific believers. The questions about these and other parts of the Bible have been adequately met by Bible students who believe the Bible, and at the same time scien tific men. But the very core of the difficulty is that you prefer not to believe. You do not want to acknowledge God’s right to your life and in your life. And that is what Christ meant when He cried : “And ye will not come unto me that ye might have life.” Don’t you remember how “men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” ? When my father was in college a book came out en titled “The Will to Believe.” He has often said that the very title helped him to get through college, in those days of Darwinism, without losing his faith. God alzvays comes to the aid o f the soul that longs to believe, because He knows that no matter how faulty the life there is a heart inclined toward Him. Out of the heart are “the issues o f life.” Your heart is in the wrong place, Professor, and I should be less than a friehd to you if I did not tell you so. P rof . S. D o you consider my deeds evil? B ill . There’s your human pride coming up, old dear ! Don’t be indignant. We cannot help being born as we are. But wè can help staying—or living on1—in what Bunyan called “the city of destruction.” And you need not con tinually discourage the young from setting out on the great “Pilgrim’s Progress” which ends in the “city which hath foundations,1whose builder and maker is God.” P rof . S. Bill, I—I feel that I am being pretty patient. How am I living in any “city of destruction” ? My wife says I am the best husband in the State of Illinois, and— B il l . Forgive me for interrupting you. What you need, first of all, is a knowledge of what sin is. The things you hâve in mind are sins, the offshoots of the root sin, which is unbelief. Christ said the Spirit would con vict the world of sin “because they believe not on me.” Having once gotten us into a state of unbelief and thus separated us from God, and come between our minds and the Light of the world, the enemy of souls can easily leave oür own sinful natures to do the rest. His chief business is to substitute something for Christ’s sacrifice upon Calvary, or to add something to it. His work is increasing as the end of the age draws near— (A noise, as o f many people talking, has been growing more and more evident in the square outside. P rofessor Sayre, as i f glad o f an interruption,'strides hastily to the half-shut window and throws it open wide. Bill joins him and together they watch a struggle between the police and the mob—Law and Lawlessness—that is to be telegraphed and wirelessed all around the world before morning. Cries o f “To the City Hall!” and “L et’s go!” are heard, fo l lowed by some necessarily energetic work by the police men with their clubs.) B ill . The Reds ! They’ve been having a mass meet ing out there. Hundreds of ’em, aren’t there!
P rof . S. Yds ! After twenty centuries of Christian ity things like this can happen. Every man out there Ì3 for himself and himself only. I am on my own ground' now. This is sociological. Explain it, if yoii can ! B ill . My poor friend ! Now you have given your self into my hands. Come over here and let me point you to the all-powerful, all-knowing God, whose Book you ignore. Read this:—“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, inconti nent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of Cod.” Then turn over to this :—“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine ; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears < from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” P rof . S. Yes, I admit that that is very striking. Listen to that noise out there ! I never heard a worse hubbub even in Russia. And, incidentally, I must say that while I was there I was conscious of a something sinister—or threat ening. There was a certain ominous potentiality, in the very atmosphere, that made me shudder many times. I was glad to get back to the good old, sunny, safe United States ! Or at least, it seemed safe then, but now the thing has come over here. B il l . Prophecy once more! The day of the man of sin! “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away [or “the apostasy” ] first, and that man of sin [or “lawless one”] be revealed. . . . Whose coming is after the work ing of Satan with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness, in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” Lawlessness is in thè very air, as you say, and a blasphemous disregard—or denial of ; God. And as for Russia! Read in Ezekiel 38 about Gog and Magog and the “chief prince of Meshech [Moscow] .and Tubal [Tobolsk].” Recollect that the Jew is in his land again, as the Bible has always foretold, and then read: “Proph esy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord God. In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shaft thou not know it? And thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou and many people with thee. . .. , And thou shalt come up against my people.of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land ; it shall be in the latter days, arid I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen [or “nations”] may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their éyes.” There are certain Swiss of expert knowledge who say very definitely that the Soviets have 300,000 German munition makers at work, not only by day but by night, getting ready for the great conflict they know is at hand. Their paper is called The Godless One, and they have an. airplane named the Antichrist, I hear. Do you remember John? “Little children, it is the last time; and as ye have heard ¡that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.” I f you wish a description of this Antichrist read Reve lation 13, and then turn to Daniel 7 and see the four world empires prophesied there. The first three are to precede, imperial Rome, which is to be restored to power at the' end time and “make war with the saints.”
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