82
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
March, 1936
c_ Around the King’sTahiti B y P a u l W. R ood
Every week, the coming of the Lord’s Day speaks to the listening Christian of Christ’s glorious resurrection. And every year, with the return of the season that the world calls Easter, the child of God medi
In the
one that occupied the attention of these Chicago business men. And in the will of God, as a result o f that initial meet ing there came the plan for the holding of noon meetings in the “ loop” of Chicago long before the World’s Fair began. Today the Christian Business Men’s Committee sponsors a continuous campaign, from Monday to Friday each week, held in a theater in the downtown district o f the city. The services are broadcast, and thousands have been converted either through hearing the Word in the theater meeting or through receiving the message sent out over the air. This group of men also directs tent campaigns, street meetings, and other open-air services during the summer. A few weeks ago, the annual rally of this organization brought 11,000 people together in the Coliseum in Chicago. With out question, this continuous campaign in Chicago is one of the most significant and far-reaching evangelistic move ments in America today. The fire o f Christian zeal has spread to other cities also. A Christian Business Men’s Committee has recently been formed in Seattle, functioning in practically the same way as does the Chicago Committee. Noon meetings are held every day from Tuesday to Saturday, in the Metro politan Theater, Seattle, and are broadcast over K IRO (710 kilocycles). Christians are being awakened and sin ners saved. The whole city seems to be on the verge o f a real awakening. Not only in Chicago and in Seattle, but in the Bay Cities as well, new interest is being shown in the work of winning the lost. In meetings held recently by business men of Oakland and San Francisco, there was a marked recognition o f the evangelistic responsibility that must rest upon Christian men and women in these two cities— espe cially in connection with the coming World’s Fair which is planned to be held in that region in 1938, when the two great bridges now being built will be completed. Undoubt edly God is stirring the hearts o f Christian men to function in that locality through a movement similar to those being carried on in Chicago and Seattle. It is to be hoped that laymen in other cities may be brought by the Holy Spirit to consider the spiritual needs o f their respective com munities, and to unite in a zealous effort to meet the need with the gospel o f Jesus Christ.
Power of the Risen
Christ
tates anew upon the meaning of that tremendous event. These exercises are needful and commendable. But in themselves, they are not enough. Action must follow. If there is danger— and there is— that special days and seasons may be used for contemplation only, in a vague, impractical way, the positive message of J. H. Jowett may be set forth profitably once again: “ The Lord is risen . . “ Your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” “ Be ye steadfast, unmovable ....” The two words [“steadfast” and “ unmovable” ] are slightly different colored expressions of the same counsel. The first word, “steadfast,” means not to play with a thing, not to flirt with it, but to settle down to it like men enter ing into serious and deliberate business. And the second word, “unmovable,” means not to be a vagrant, moving about from place to place, but to be tenacious, consistent, holding on to a thing with a bulldog’s grip. I f we put both these contents together, we have this composite counsel— settle down to the holy business of Christian life and Christian service, and stick at it with ceaseless and un failing tenacity. “The Lord is risen. . .” “Your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” Settle down, therefore, tenaciously, to the labor of sweetening and beautifying your own life. Set to work as you would set to work at an unkempt garden. Weed your life; get hold of some weed o f ill prejudice and hang on to it steadfastly and immovably until, by the power of the living Christ, you have it out to the last fiber of the last rootlet, and it is all cast away to the devouring flames. Get hold of some ungainly growth in your life, some mighty unchristian habit, and by the power of the living Christ have it out. March up to some pool of bit terness which is souring your life like a rancid and un clean pool in the garden of the soul, and by the grace of the risen Lord never rest until that pool is as pure as the “ river of the water of life, clear as crystal.” But espe cially, go up to that thing in your life, that ugly thing which has mastered you so often that you have begun to think it can never be dislodged. “The Lord is risen. . .” That ugly thing is not the master; have it out, and by the power o f the living Lord fling it to the flames o f Gehenna where the fire is never quenched. Inspect every corner of the ruined or disordered garden in your soul, and with a tenacity, fiercer even than that of death itself, resolve that by the power of the risen Lord the garden shall be come fair and sweet and beautiful as the paradise o f God. By the grace o f God, let us make this Easter season a time of definite dealing, when the power o f the risen Christ shall be allowed to work in us. Revival, in America, will come when lay- men are aroused. A few years ago, a biirden for the evangelization of Chicago during the World’s Fair brought a group o f business men together at a noonday luncheon. The central thought o f that meeting was the challenge presented by the fact that during the period o f the Fair, thousands o f people would come to Chicago from all parts o f the world—many o f these individuals knowing nothing o f personal salvation in Christ. God had a still greater program in view than the Ministry of Laymen The
Paul was a Christian statesman. He had a vision and a program. His strategy was to establish gospel work in such great centers as Corinth, Ephesus, and Rome. From these cities the gospel would be brought to the sur
The
Challenge
of the
City
rounding areas. Our Lord was interested in the city prob lem. He wept over Jerusalem. “ And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it” (Lk. 19:41). The problem o f evangelizing America is, to a large extent, a city problem, for as fare the cities, so fares the nation. A few years ago, an outstanding Christian layman in Seattle called attention to the fact that in that city alone, 212,000 out o f a population of 315,000 were untouched by any sort of religious influence. In other words, at least two-thirds o f the population was nonreligious as far as
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker