A re You Praying? A re the$ prating for us at Ijome? A re they meeting together in prayer ? O r going on still in the old wa}l, A s they d i d h e n I was there? W e thank them for all their letters, W e thank them for all their care, But, O h ! just tell them, dear Mother, W e are needing so much more prater.
A British boy Somewhere in France, wrote to" his home in England, the simple but appealing "Verse above.
OCTOBER 1918
BE SURE TO R EAD TH E SPECIA L Y JO T IC E O N TH E B A C K COVER
Bible Institute ofLosAngele (IN C O R P O R A T E D ) LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, U. S. A.
Free Training School for Christian Workers
DIRECTORS
R. A. Torrey, vice-president Leon V. Shaw, treasurer William Evans J. O. Smith
Lyman Stewart, president J. M. Irvine, secretary T. C. Horton, superintendent H. A. Getz
Nathan Newby
STATEMENT Church as expressed in the Common Creed The Necessity of the New Birth. The Maintenance of Good Works. The Second Coming of Christ. The Immortality of the Spirit. The Resurrection of the Body. The Life Everlasting of Believers. The Endless Punishment of the Impenitent. The Reality and Personality of Satan.
DOCTRINAL We hold to the Historic Faith of the of Evangelical Christendom and including: The Trinity of the Godhead. The Deity of the Christ. The Personality of the Holy Ghost. The Supernatural and Plenary authority ot the Holy Scriptures. g The Unity in Diversity of the Church, the Body and Bride of Christ. The Substitutionary Atonement
SCOPE OF THE WORK The Institute trains, fjree of cost, accredited men and women, in the knowledge and use of the Bible. DEPARTMENTS* (1) The Institute Classes held daily except on Saturdays and Sundays. . . . . •• * . * Extension work. Classes and conferences held in neighboring cities and towns. Evangelistic. Meetings conducted by our evangelists. Spanish Work. Personal work among Spanish speaking people. Shop Work. Regular services in shops and factories. . . . , Jewish Evangelism. Personal work among the Hebrews and mission for Jews. Bible Women. House-to-house visitation and neighborhood classes. Oil Fields. A mission to men on the oil fields. . - V Books and Tracts. Sale and distribution of selected books and tracts. ?101 Harbor Work. For seaman at Los Angeles harbor. . (11) The Biola Hall. Daily noon meetings for men in the down-town district, with free readina-room privileges. Evangelistic service every evening. . (12) Print Shop. For printing Testaments, books, tracts, etc. A complete establish ment, profits going to free distribution of religious literature. PURPOSE: ( 2 ) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)
THE KING’S BUSINESS MOTTO: “ I, the Lord, do keep it, I will water it every moment, lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day. Isa. 27:3 — --------------------— .T-r.-nrr■-sr 1 - r PU BLISH ED B Y T H E B IB LE I N S T I T U T E O F L O S A N G E L E S , IN C O R PO R A T E D Entered as Second-Class. Matter November 1,7,, 1910, at the Post Office at Los Angeles, California under the A ct'o f Match 3, 1879 Copyright by R . A . Torrey, D . D ., and Bible Institute of Los Angeles, for the year 1918 Volume IX October, igi 8 Number /^¡0
LEADING ARTICLES OF THIS ISSUE
Editorials by Dr. Torrey: What Russia Needs (833); Are Our Public Libraries a Bless ing or Curse? (835); England’s Most Dangerous Foe (836). Sermon by Dr. Lincoln A. Ferris: 2 “ The Jesus Paul Preached” (838). Puzzling Passages and Problems, Dr. Torrey. (854). Bible Institute Party for China, Dr. Alex R. Saunders (856), Studies in Second Corinthians, Dr. Evans (860). Evangelistic Department, Stories from Experience (865). Bible Readings (871). International Sunday School Lessons (872). Daily Devotional Studies (907). Y E A R S U B S C R IP T IO N P R IC E — In tke United States and Its Possessions and Mexico, and points in tke Central American Postal Union, $i.oo per year. In all other foreign countries, including Canada, $1.24, (5c. 2d.) Single copies 10 cents. Receipts sent on request. See expiration date on the wrapper. BIBLE INSTITUTE OF LOS ANGELES 536-558 South Hope Street 4 * - - - * Los Angeles, California / O N L Y O N E D O L L A R A
The Rapture IN THE TWINK LING OF AN EYE By SYDNEY WATSON We have just published the new American edition of this famous story. Cloth, $1.00 net
The Tribulation THE MARK
Pastors all over the world have highly com mended these books of Sydney Watson’s as an incentive to the study of the Second Coming. Also they are splendid to give to the unsaved, as they are of enthrall ing interest and will surely be read and pon dered over.
OF THE BEAST By SYDNEY WATSON The masterpiece of religious fiction. A book that should be read by every one. Cloth, $1.00 net
Bible Study KNOWING THE SCRIPTURES By A. T. PIERSON, D. D. One of the greatest books on Bible Study ever written. Contains material for hundreds of
Dr. T. C. Horton, Superintendent of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, says: “ Dr. Pierson’s book, ‘Know ing the Scriptures,* is a masterpiece that should be in the hands of every student of the Word, be he pastor or layman. It is one of 'the most valu able books I know.”
sermons and talks. • Cloth, $1.50 net
The Biola Book Room Bible Institute of Los Angeles 536-558 South Hope Street Los Angeles, California
MENTION “ KING’S BUSINESS” WHEN ANSWERING THIS ADVERTISEMENT
THE KING’S BUSINESS R. A . TO R R E Y , D. D. Editor T . C . H O R TO N , J. H . H U N T E R , W ILLIAM E V A N S , D. D „ Associate Editors KEITH L. BROOK S, Managing Editor
EDITORIAL
T H E W O R D O F G O D For the Present Hour “ In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer, I have over come the world.” John 16:33. “ If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” Col. 3:1, 2. “ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . . Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” Rom. 8:35, 37. “ I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.” Ps. 34:1. “ This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them.” Ps. 34:6, 7. “ The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger, but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing.” Ps. 34:10. “ The righteous cry and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles. Ps. 34:17. W H A T Russia Needs A very able book on the Russian question entitled !‘ The Eclipse of Russia” has recently been written by Dr. E. J. Dillon and published by the George H. Doran Company of New York. Dr. Dillon enjoyed very unusual opportunities for studying Russian thought and life. H'e was “ in close contact with the Liberal movement under three Clzars and in various capaci ties as student, as graduate of two Russian faculties and universities, as professor of comparative philology at the University of Kharkof, as the author of several literary and scientific works, as leader-Writer on two Russian newspapers, and editor of one, as the representative of the London Daily Telegraph, and adviser of my eminent friend, Count Witte. ’ ’ Has book gives an insight into the life of Russia that will be a revelation to many. His opinion is that Russia fell into anarchy “ through lack of leadership and through the political incapacity and ineptitude of every class of the
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THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NESS population.” He describes in detail the point of failure with the different classes, the Nihilists, the Intelligentsia, and tlie various classes of people as * a whole. Of the Nihilists he says: “ They were anxious to get hold of the emancipated peasants and to energize them, but they had no knowledge of the people whose soul was, to use a Russian saying, a dusky forest........... They were aggressive atheists who took their dogmatic negations second- hand from foreign writers without verification or study. He speaks of them further as having “ hardly a trace of conscience and no sense of individual duty, no cleanliness, moral or ethical, in their habits, they fancied that hav ing fashioned a deity, they could yoke it to their char-a-bancs and drive to a marvelous Utopia. Everybody who disagreed with them was anathema, and even those who were not actually with them were under their ban.” He speaks of the Russian peasant as being as yet absolutely incapable of any form of democratic government. Of them he says, “ There.is a thick sub-stratum of primeval savagery in the peasant’s composition, not at all far from the surface, which separates him widely not only from Western peoples, but also from the intellectuals of his own race. The. revolting behavior of the soldiery and peasantry to their pwn kith and kin during the nation’s delirium tremens after March, 1917—which even revolutionary history is too prude to record—offers irrefragable evidence of the deplor able fact that the bulk of the Russian people is still in that primitive stage when self-government—even in the diluted form in which it is vouchsafed to some continental nations—would harm in lieu of helping it.” Though Dr. Dillon has been for years an enthusiastic radical, he speaks of the revolution of 1917 as a “ hopeless fiasco.” He says of it: “ The history of the revolution of 1917 in its technical aspect is the tale of a fatal psycholog ical error and its sequel,” and further on he says, “ They had no inkling of the decisive fact that the predatory character of the state had long since been assimilated by the people who were___ impatient to deprive the nobles of the land.” In other words, they were just as dishonest as the Czars only the Czars wanted the land for themselves and their satellites whereas the peasants wanted it for themselves.. Along this line he says further on, “ The Bolsheviki at once outbid the Kadets, took the people into partner ship with themselves and' practically offered it the situation of national parasite from which the bureaucracy had just been ousted, the only differ ence being, that the body on which the people was to prey was that of the well-to-do of the community.” In still another place he very happily describes the Bolsheviki by saying, “ Bolshevikism is Czarism upside down. ” In illustrations of this he says, “ It suppresses newspapers, forbids the liberty of the press, arrests or banishes the elected of the nation, and con nives at or encourages crimes of diabolical ferocity.” In discussing the future outlook, he says: “ The majority of the nation is still hardly more
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THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NESS 835 than raw material for the state-builder. It lacks almost all the advantages which religion, education, instruction, political training, economic develop ment, and intercourse with progressive peoples have bestowed on its com petitors, and it is hampered with the vices which ruthless tyranny, work ing unhindered for centuries, succeeded in grafting on its impressionable soul.” There can be little question that Dr. Dillon’s opinion of the state of affairs in Russia is largely justified by the facts, and.it is evident from this as well as from other things that are well known, that Russia’s great need is the Gospel. No changes of political forms of government will bring any permanent help. The difficulty is with the people themselves. Nothing but the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ will prove the power of God unto salvation to them, not merely individually, but socially and politically. Many in America went quite wild with anticipation of great things when the revolution of 1917 took place, but all of us who knew Russia anticipated the very outcome that we now see. No real good could be hoped for for a nation that had treated the Jew, God’s chosen, people, for generations as the Russians have treated them; but we ought not to despair of Russia in spite of all that has come to pass, but we certainly will never help her now to that which she ought to become by the mere political schemes and mil itary schemes that Russia’s allies have in mind at the present time. The trouble is, all ranks of society in Russia need regeneration by the power of the Gospel. Nothing but the Gospel will ever effect any permanent uplift. A R E Our Public Libraries a Blessing or a Curse A great deal has been said in recent years about the wonderful prog ress made in America in our public libraries. Certainly there has been great progress made in the number of these libraries and in the size of them, but one sometimes wonders whether these libraries are more a blessing than they are a curse. That they have been a blessing to many there can be no question, but on the other hand, they have led to a great waste of time on the part of many people. When men had access to but few books they studied those books and mastered them. Now almost anyone anywhere in America has access to a vast number of books and instead of mastering a few books the average man, woman -and child skim through a wilderness of books, much to their intellectual deterioration. One good book eaten is better than many good books just tasted, and certainly better than the devouring of a multitude of poisonous or worthless books. It is a well known fact that a very undue proportion of the books in our public librar ies are novels of all kinds, good bad and indifferent. And it is also well
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THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NESS known that even a larger proportion of the books that are taken out and read are novels. We will not say one should never read a novel, but much novel reading is not merely a waste of time, it is positively injurious intellectually, to say nothing about morally and spiritually. , No one can ever attain to strong mentality by reading that takes no intellectual effort. If one would be a strong thinker he must give the major part of the time ihat he gives to reading to the reading of books that demand the closest concentration .of thought. Men grow strong mentally just as they do physically, by hard work. We once heard a man speaking in what he intended to be high praise of a minister, saying that the minister was very scholarly because he read a book a day every day in his life ; but any man who gives mheh of his reading to books that he can read through in a day is not scholarly and cannot by any possibility be a thinker. It may be well enough occasionally, as a matter of mental recreation, to read a book that one can read in a' day, but one should read very few books in the course of a year that he can read in a day. There can be no question that our public libraries as they are now conducted are exerting a very pernicious influence in Weakening minds of their patrons and still more weakening their char acters. Fathers and mothers should exercise a far more watchful care than the average father or mother does over the reading of their children. They should watch more guardedly not only as to what their children read but as to how they read it and they should permit only a very limited reading of story books. E N G L A N D ’ S Most Dangerous Foe It is reported “ that when the late Lord Rhondda, British Food Con troller, heard early last winter that the American wheat surplus had been used up, he cabled despondently to Mr. Hoover, ‘ We are beaten; the war is over.’ ” And it is claimed that England was saved, and the cause of the Allies was saved, by the wheatless days and war breads which enabled America to send.promptly across the Atlantic twenty million bushels of 1917 wheat from the stock held for our own needs. But England might have been saved in another way. If England had not used- up her own wheat supply and other cereal supplies in the manufacture of whisky and beer, there would have been no such dire shortage as led Lord Rhondda to his despairing cry. We are glad that America came to the rescue; but it was England’s own folly, and especially the folly of their public men, that led to the emergency; and it was strong drink and the men, who for the sake of the fattening of their own purses, force the drink upon England, that were England’s most dangerous foes, and they are' still. And the drink interests are America’s most dangerous foes today. There is nothing
THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NESS 837 else m America that so aids and abets the Central Powers in their inhuman and monstrous war as the liquor interests. There is good reason to think that if England, early in the war, had suppressed the awful wastage of necessary foodstuffs by their being manufactured into beer, and the appall ing deterioration of their laboring men in necessary industries, such as the coal industry and the manufacture of munitions, the war would have been over long ago, been over before America got into it, and the loss of American life and the other evils that will come to America are directly traceable to strong drink and the liquor interests. When will we wake up to this fact and crush the head of this poisonous snake beneath the iron heel of a thoroughly aroused public sentiment?
Ss GERMAN RATIONALISM IN AMERICA In 1880 an editorial written by Dr. Mendenhall In the Methodist Review, gave credit to Germany for the diffus ion of higher criticism in America. We are now seeing what German ration alism has done for Germany— therefore let us take warning. Dr. Mendenhall said: “ It is confessed that certain American critics accept the extreme conclusions of German rationalists, and support the conclusions by a method of argument that identifies them with the rational ists of Europe. It is not creditable to the scholarship of such critics that to this day they have not advanced one theory against traditionalism, or one argument against the orthodox position that was not drawn from the rational ists across the water. Scholarship! Not an original theory in biblical criticism has been propounded by an American critic; every conclusion is borrowed, and every argument is kidnapped from foreign lands. Many of the editorials, pamphlets and books written by them are purloined, and some of them according to secret contract, from the literature of the other hemisphere; and yet they prate of learning, acumen, and insight and foresight as to the outcome of the Bible! Even the little phrase used by a home critic, “ snorting against
higher criticism,’’ was borrowed from Eichorn. Satélites, not planets, they are! Is it not time to understand where the freshet of rationalistic jargon took its rise?” .. THEIR STORIES DON’T HITCH Tihe Aviator of “ The Presbyterian” takes exception to the glorification of liberalism by a Chicago University pro fessor who tells how people have been driven from the Church by orthodox preaching and are won back again by the beautiful story of Jesus Christ as liberal preachers tell it. All of which, he says, “ makes one smile when he looks up the statistics of the ‘liberal’ and the conservative churches, which show that the so-called ‘liberal’ denomina tions are weaker in America to-day than they were a hundred years ago, and that their pulpits are only kept filled by recruits from the orthodox churches— recruits for whose' educa tion orthodox boards of education have often paid.”— Journal and Messenger. If there are things about the Bible we do not understand, it is what we do not yet need. As we put into use the knowledge we have, more comes. The only objection against the Bible is a bad life.
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T h e Jesus Paul Preached SE RM O N P R EA C H E D T O G R A D U A T E S OF TH E BIBLE IN S T IT U T E OF LOS A N G E L E S, JU N E 27, .9.8
By Dr. L IN C O L N A . FERRIS Pastor First Methodist Church, San Diego, California
the Days of His Flesh,” “Jesus and His Gospel,” “The Ethics of Jesus,” “Christ and Man,” “The Divinity of our Lord,” “The Christ and Salvation,” “The Mind of the Master,” “The Problem of Jesus,” “The Cross in Christian Experience,” “The Christ of History,” “The Authority of Christ,” “ The Place of Christ in Mod ern Theology,” “The Person and Place of Jesus Christ.” These and many more. These are frag mentary, monogramic. Would it vex you, if for the little while we think together of the Jesus Paul preached? For wherever Paul went, in cultured Athens or corrupted Corinth, in sacred Jerusalem or imperial Rome, with sailors on the storm driven sea, or in Rome’s darkest dungeon “he preached unto them Jesus.” A Pre-existent Jesus And what a Jesus Paul preached! He preached a pre-existent Jesus. He was before all things. He was in the beginning with God, dwelling in light eternal, invisible, unap proachable, sharing the eternal glory of the Father. For before the foundations of the earth were laid or the corner-stone thereof was fastened, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy, Jesus, the village carpenter of Nazareth, was with God, Principal Fairbairn says that the pre existence of Jesus is perhaps the pro- foundest and most difficult conception of all thinking.
HESE words introduce the two most commanding fig ures of human history,— Saul of Tarsus and Jesus of Nazareth, the cultured dis ciple of Gamaliel and the Carpenter of Galilee.
Viewed simply as a man of genius, of eloquence and of heroic quality, waiving any claim to supernatural power, the Tent Weaver of Tarsus stands out on Time’s canvas as the greatest mind, the bravest heart, the most masterful man our world has seen. He marshalled no armies, yet he has molded empires more than Alex ander or the Caesars. He founded no university, but he has shaped the thinking of the world more than any university from Alexandria to Harvard. But of Jesus how shall one speak? Shall 1 speak of Him as borne on the breast of Mary, or as dwelling in the bosom of God, the Father? As “despised” and rejected of men or “chosen” and beloved of God? As the toiling carpenter of Nazareth; or as Creator of the universe? Of Jesus, how shall one speak? Were you to run your eyes along the shelves of any half furnished library you could not fail to be impressed with the impact of Jesus upon the minds of the thoughtful. 'You will find “Jesus Christ and the Social Problem,” “Jesus and the Labor Problem,” “Christ and the Social Crisis,” “The Life and Times of the Messiah,7 “In
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of suns, on out in the vast, ageless, time less, fleckless eternity, in the solitudes of infinite being. J esus of th e carpenter shop in N azareth w a s w it h G od . II. Paul not. only preached a Pre-existent Jesus, he preached a Divine Jesus. “He was in the form of God.” “He was the express image of the Father’s person,” the forth-shining of the Father’s glory. He shared the divine nature. It pleased God that in Him all the fullness of the God-head should dwell. What God essentially and eternally is, Jesus essentially and eternally was. He was the word—or utterance of God: “for in Him Were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things vis ible and things invisible, whether thrones or- dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by him and unto him. And he is before all things.” (Col. 1:16, 17). Go abroad in the world with this con ception of the Carpenter. What an en chancement! What a previous activity! He tipped the clover leaf; He silvered the under green of the willow, that clinging, sweeping, swaying thing of the wood— Land, half nymph, half poem. He fash ioned the invisible looms of light that weave the hidden petals of the rose, fold upon fold, flinging the noiseless shuttles to and fro until that wedded mystery of earth and sea and sky breathes its frag rance out and lifts itself as though for the breast of God. He dug the channels for the rivers, upheaved the mountain’s majesty; bound the snowy scarf about the shoulders of the Alps. It was He that twisted darkness into a swaddling hand for the deep and made the cloud the gar ment for the shoulders of the sea. He stooped and kindled the fires of the mil lions of uncourited suns. Some of you will recall the memorable visit to America of Sir Robert Ball, Royal Astronomer of Great Britain. In one of his addresses he found occasion to refer to our little solar system and its place in
We do riot readily conceive it. We are creatures of a day. The trees outlive us. Last summer I stood beneath a wide branching elm that once flung its cooling shade down upon the bare feet and legs of the hoy that became my grandfather. The trees outlive us. The pre-existence of Jesus is so baf fling to thought that we need to approach it in terms of time as well as of eternity. Push your way hack across fifty years of history, and with saber stroke and jab of bayonet, and roar of cannon and shriek of shell and spit Of bullet, in the red dew of battle men are seeking to bind up the wounds of a severed nation that liberty and union may not perish from the earth. Push your way over another period of history. Washington is kneeling amid the snows of Valley Forge reaching his fingers up through the impenetrable gloom—reaching for the skirts of God. Push your way over a still vaster per iod and a cowled monk is nailing his thesis to the door of a church in Witten berg, and as his hammer strikes upon the nails God has begun to shake thrones and dominions of political and ecclesiastical powers in Europe and push hack the gates of a new era for the race. Push your way back across a still vaster period, and they are nailing a man to a jagged beam, beyond the city gates. Push your way on over a still vaster period. One is rising up from Ur of the Chaldees and going out not knowing whither. Soft now! It is the tinkling of the bell of Abraham’s camel. Push your way on over a still vaster period. And you are in the hush of Eden and love is whispering its first ecstacies and hope is dreaming her first dreams of unbroken bliss, and the first lovers walk in the deepening shadows at the cool of the day and God is abroad to companion their solitude and the flaming sword has not' yet shut them from the garden. Push your way out still farther before the mouritains were brought forth or ever God had lighted the fires of the millions
THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NESS It is 25,000 miles around our world. With proper appliances one could send a signal around the world seven times in a single second. You could dispatch tid ings to the sun in seven minutes with couriers of the lightnings travelling a little over 185,000 miles per second. Then Professor Ball showed the photograph of a star and said: “This is one of our near neighbors among the celestial bodies. But, gentlemen, if the Shepherds of Bethlehem, the night the angels sang Messiah’s birth, had sent the message to this star on the wings of the lightning, speeding 185,000 miles per second, it would have been 250 years before they could have heard of the birth of Jesus.” Shifting the slide he said: “Gentle men, this is the photograph of a more remote star journeying on the more dis tant paths of the heavens. If the shep herds, the night the angels sang the Messiah chorus above the plains of Beth lehem, had sent tidings to this star on the wings of the lightning at 185,000 miles per second, after these one thou sand nine hundred years it would require two hundred and fifty years yet before they of this star could hear of the birth of the Son of Mary.” Centuries ago the astrologists, dreamy old watchers of the sky, had counted 1022 stars. Later Ptolemy told us there were 1026. It is claimed that the keenest unaided eye can count 1160 stars in the night sky, or could we see the whole celestial sphere, about 3000. But when Galileo adjusted the rude lenses of a tele scope he said: “The stars are, as count less as the sands of the seashore—stars that are whirling burning suns.” Then Rosse and Herschel brought larger tele scopes and searched the blazing sky and came saying: “We have found undreamed of depths and those depths are lighted with unthought of suns—millons of them.” Then photography visited the dwelling place of light and came saying the tele scope was too hurried and too near sighted. There are at least 450,000,000
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the universe. To help us properly adjust ourselves he said it is well nigh impos sible to conceive of even so familiar and commonplace a thing as our sun. But suppose it were a hollow ball and you with giant arm had a hammer 8000 miles across its face and could strike on the rim of .the sun and break through this outer surface. Then you might go through the universe and gather up 1,300,000 worlds the size of ours, wheel them up and put them in the sun, replace the cov ering, and the great ball would go on its revolutions as though nothing had hap pened. Or if it seems too much labor to gather so many worlds one could take the earth and set it in the centre of the sun, then borrow Orion’s truck long enough to bring up the moon, wheel it into its proper distance from the earth, start it going and the moon inside of the sun would revolve around the earth in orbit exactly the size. of the one in the sky, and never at any moment come within 200,000 miles of the outer circle of the
sun.
THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NESS of stars along the vast and incalculable roads of the sky, hurrying upon their measureless orbits like messengers who haste before the coming night. The Carpenter of Nazareth created them all. “For all things are made t>y Mm and without him was, not one ' thing made that was made.” Informed men no longer smile at the statement “And Jehovah God formed man out of the dust of the ground.” (A. R. Y.) “So Jehovah created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him.” (“Male and female created he them” ). The statement seems a sub limity if not an audacity! It may be the profoundest and truest word ever written of us! At least the men of science have gone down to the garden and out of the dust of the ground have reproduced every atom of man’s being save that which thinks, wills, loves, sorrows, joys, fears, hopes, prays. And I for one love to go reverently toward that morning when Christ bent his knees and took the dust of the earth and lovingly mingled it in the rarest form and wove the tissue, drilled the nerve, domed the brain, then enwrapped, inbreathed the stark dust with his own breath and “man became a living soul,” a combination of dust and Deity. A few years ago when Mr. Darwin inti mated that he knew things about our ancestry not any too flattering and Mr. Huxley was telling us that the physical structure of the ape and man was identi cal, some of us were a little nervous about it and secretly hoped Darwin would never set eyes on some folk we knew lest he would claim fresh evidence. We have at least regained composure, and courage to go on while we wait for further knowl edge. In his last address as President of the British Scientific Society, Lord Kelvin said: “I marvel at the undue haste with which teachers in our universities and preachers in our pulpits are restating
841 truth in the terms of evolution while evolution itself remains an unproved hypothesis in the laboratories of science.” That is, a man of science who had given his life to the labor of research and in vestigation, marvels that men who had' never spent forty-eight hours at work upon the problem, should in the name of science assume the point in hand, bolt the difficulties and announce as. the sober fact and findings of scholars what the scholars themselves confess to be search ing for, because as yet unfound, unproven. In one of his conversational moods so memorable to all who really knew him, Bishop Fowler, that preaching prince of Israel, told us of preaching a baccalau reate sermon at Syracuse University. His theme was Christian Evidences. He said, “You know, a university with its profes sors dry as cork and members of the sophomore class able to make suggestions to the Almighty, is the worst place in the world to preach. So I spent six weeks preparing that sermon and had a fair time preaching it. At the close, one of those educational specimens with hair plastered back, ears wide set, trousers turned up at the south, a cuff buttoned on in place of a collar, fingers yellow with the stain of cigarettes and exhaling a freakish odor, said: “Well, Bishop Fow ler, I can’t for my life see as it would make a particle of difference with me if my grandfather had been an ape.” Bishop Fowler looked him over, removed his glasses and said, “No, sir, I can’t see as it would. But it would have been hard on your grandmother.” And the boys laughed the fellow out of the university. So we still say it after Paul: “For in Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things vis ible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him and unto him and in him all things con sist (or hold together).” A Humiliated Jesus Paul not only preached a Divine Jesus. He preached a Humiliated Jesus.
842 Who being in the form of God counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped (or retained), but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. Scott Lidgett says that the “Kenosis” or “self emptying” of Jesus is the pro- foundest of the human intellect of all subjects of revelation. Perhaps he is right. President Bainy says: “There was more in this emptying of Christ than we can think or say.” The thought can only be approached. Men are not naturally inclined to give up their all. The speaker can see at a glance that many of you have been far more pros perous than he. Suppose some of you have managed to save $2000. My friends, within six blocks of where X am preach ing there is a young mother and her lit tle brood doing battle with drink and dirt and darkness and deviltry. Her hus band is in prison. A little child is cough ing its life away. Hunger and privation are as dwellers of the house. Sickness has clutched at the children. Dread sits daily in her heart and despair clings to the folds of her garments. If you will give me your two thousand dollars, within forty-eight hours I will bring a glint of heaven within that home. Of course you will do ft and be glad to do it. Renunciation is easy. But suppose you have saved $200,000. My friend, I could And you one hundred such homes in Los Angeles this day of God. And your two hundred thousand dollars would bring a gleam of heaven into a hundred homes. And you will- do it, won’t you? It is easy to deny one’s self. But sup pose you have saved $200,000,000! Then I am thinking of New York, vast, mighty, aggressive, wealthy New York! But New York blind, blast'ed, blighted, devastated, sin-smitten, sin-cursed, hunger-driven, poverty-pinched, despised, despairing New York, and your $200,000,000 would make a gleam of heaven down half a dozen of her streets. And you won’t do it.
THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NESS But He did. He was richl In the realm where the tawdry tinsel that makes mil lionaires here is common as paving dust. He was rich. Did He sit? All crowns were at Jesus’ feet. Did he rise and go forth? All Heaven followed him as King of kings and Lord of lords. “And though he was rich for our sakes he becomes poor,” that through his poverty he might make many rich. Take the best man you know. Brainy, cultured, refined till the gold of his nature is minted in manhood. He has wealth in abundance. The brush of genius makes sunlight for his dwelling. The mental riches of the world are stored upon his ample shelves. Music and sculpture have so loved his home that they choose to abide continually. Then think of the worst woman you know, wretchedest of all. Let Kipling etch her in his awful line, “A rag and a bone and a hank of hair.” Now let this man go out of his home of culture and down into her shame tonight and say, “Mary, I know it all. You need not tell me a word. Only say you are willing to go. For Mary, I love you with all my heart, and I have come to ask you for your love, to share my life, my love, my home, and the honor of my name; I love you so.” That is only a faint hint of what it meant for Jesus to come out of the eternal love and purity of God and the fellow ship of heaven into our sorrow, ignor ance, degradation and sin, to dwell among us and set his love upon us and redeem us back to God. But with meanings he himself could not fathom, Paul set it down “He emptied himself.” God seemed to loath to let Him come, Four thousand years crept across the earth and God’s promise of a^Savior was yet unfulfilled. God seemed hesitant, reluctant. But there were hints of his greatness and glory in the heralds sent before him.
THE K I NG ' S BUS I NESS There was magnificent Noah! Prophet and hero of righteousness. Yet he was only a barefooted servant running in the hot sands of the centuries before the chariot of the coming King. Then there was Abraham, old hero of faith, friend of God. Magnificent Abra ham, pilgrim by the purpose of God! Years of waiting are touched with monot ony. One night, under the Syrian sky the longing of his heart is whispered to God, “Oh! God, I have no child.” Years slip ped along. Did ever a father love a son quite as Abraham loved Isaac? But Jehovah is saying unto him, “Take now thy son, thy only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah and offer him for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” Oh, Abraham! how can you ever do it? You will never be able to tell his mother! No, 843 him on the altar with th<* tightened cords. But I know now that was not true, for I too am a father. Abraham did it just as you would. His left hand is upon Isaac’s shoulder; the fingers of an old man are running through the locks of a boy’s hair, pushing them back from the face he loves more than his life. And Abraham “falls to such per usal of his face as he would draw it. Long stayed he so.” . At last a little shaking of his hands; they tremble so! And Abraham is say ing: “Oh, Isaac, my son! My son!! Would God I could die for thee! Oh, Isaac, my beloved! God who gave thee to me has asked thee again!” And Abra ham is folding him “hard” against his breast and piteous sighs shake all his frame. And love is mastering fear and the clear eyes of a boy are trusting a father while his hands are yielded to him for binding, lest in death struggle they disturb. Isaac is laid upon the wood gently as love’s hand falls on the face of its beloved, and a father is bending over him pushing the locks off his face, and his old withered lips are kissing the lips of a boy again and again, and he is saying: “Oh, Isaac, my son!! and with agony unspeakable he lifts the knife to give the young warm heart back to God. And God was so near he stayed his hand, and said: “It is enough! Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son from me!” : Magnificent Abraham! But he is only a servant running on the hot sands of the centuries before the feet of the com ing King. And there was Moses who climbed the splintered crags of Sinai and looked on the glory of God and came with words God’s fingers wrote. But Moses was only a servant in the house making ready the coming Son. There was Isaiah, for whom God let the hammer thuds of Calvary echo across 700 years and for whose vision God etched the face of His suffering son! But Isaiah was only a servant.running THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NESS pounds. The children of the street used to play with him, pluck his garment and tease him. What a conception of man hood they would have if that were the only map in the community! But suppose that some day a man should stand among them, clear eyes, wide browed, tall of stature, lithe of limb, deep in chest and strong of arm, what a disclosure of manhood would sud denly come upon them. We were all dwarfed when Jesus came. The race had never seen the flawless man! He was human in his relation ships. A mother had held him on her breast and remembered! He was human in his hungers, desires, and loves. Of this I may not speak. He was mankind’s intellectual Lord. We are slow to accredit that fact. There are some who readily admit his moral majesty, his spiritual superiority, but do not seem to feel his lordship of the mind, and with no apparent concern teach views of life quite different from his. t Jesus never taxes us more than he says: “I am the truth.” Then thinking will never transcend Him!! Philosophy will never outrun him!! Genius will never supplant Him!!! In my senior year at the theological seminary I was assigned for my graduat ing thesis the subject of “Divine Prov idence.” Oh, how much I knew then! If those days of unembarrassed wisdom would only come again! I ransacked the valleys of Euphrates, dug under the pyramids of Egypt, and crossed the lime-stone crags of Palestine to get a base broad enough on which to rest my doctrine of Divine Providence. The boys applauded it. Dr. Miley spec ially commended it as a remarkable paper. Think of that! A man who had never yet known what it is to love utterly, and had never been married, writing on divine providence! But there came a day when it was 844 on the ho^sands of the centuries before the coming King. In his humiliation there were flashes of his power. It was a wild night in Galilee. The face of Simon Peter, blanched as the waves beat over the sides of his boat and the mad winds drenched him with spray. Then he touched the tired sleeper, saying, r“Master, we per ish!” And Jesus rose and took the wild sea in the arms of his omnipotence and hushed it like a mother stills her babe. For four years I lived in Dobbs Ferry, New York, the home of Robert J. Inger- soll. It was said that he used to, tell this story, “I was never nonplussed but once. I was lecturing one night and took occasion to show that the resurrection of Lazarus was a planned affair to bolster the waning fortunes of Jesus. Lazarus was to take sick and die. The girls were to bury him and send for Jesus. Lazarus was to fain death till Jesus should come and say “Lazarus, come forth.” To emphasize the situation I said “Can any man here tell me why Jesus said “ Lazarus , come forth?” Down by the door a palefaced white haired man arose and with shrill voice said: “Yes, sir! I can tell you! If my Lord had not said “Lazarus,” he would have had the whole grave yard of Bethany coming out to him.” The flash of almightiness from the humiliation of Jesus! Paul preached a human Jesus. “Being A Human Jesus made in the likeness of men.” (Greek— “becoming in the likeness, etc.” ) He was bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.” “Who are born of the seed of David according to the flesh,” “born of a woman”—“And being found in fashion as a man.” He was the typal man of the race. He was the eternal ideal of manhood. We had never known what it is to be a man if Jesus had never come. I once lived in a community where there was a little man 40 inches high, forty .years old, weighed forty-eight THE K I NG ' S BUS I NESS 845 night at noon day, when the rain and blinding hail were on the face, and the fingers fumbled for some gate of God in the way, and the feet wandered in sand and yeasty sea, and God seemed dead and heaven dumb. And the heart grew mad and bitter with pain and tumult of doubt till it seemed there could be no God—or if there were he “did nothing." And my paper on providence lay a limp and broken thing. In the despair I turned to see what Jesus knew about it. And he said God was my Father and was gentler than my mother. I have seen my mother push back the curls from the baby’s face but she never thought of counting the hairs of one of our heads. But God has counted the hairs of his children’s heads. He is so tender that not a sparrow with weary wing flight falls to the ground without our Father. God is with the dying sparrow! And I discovered that Jesus too spake of “Divine Providence;” but He rested it on a bird’s nest, and hung it on a bending lily!! And transmutted the wing beat of every sparrow into a psalm of his Father’s care. The intellectual mastery of Jesus!! With profound admiration of human genius but without the slightest fear of contradiction I say that up to this hour not all the professors of all the universi ties of the world have yet come within a thousand years of height and depth of Jesus thinking for the race. He is the intellectual Lord of men! Where Plato guesses, Jesus affirms. Where Plato rea sons and reaches a conclusion, Jesus illumes. Where Plato gropes in the dark with fingers at the wall, Christ walks as one bathed with eternal morn ing. Where Plato’s voice sinks and dies in his throat, Jesus says, “ I am the res urrection and the life.” Where Shake speare, incomparable genius, stands a dumb porter of the soul at the gates of infinite mystery, Jesus walks as Prince of the realm and says; “Follow me; I am the way, the truth and the life!” Measure him anywhere! He is the intel lectual master of man! A Crucified Jesus But Paul not only preached a human Jesus, he preached a Crucified Jesus. “And being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross.” Some teachers and interpreters of Jesus joy to tell of the great teacher, moralist, saint, friend, but hesitate' at Calvary and tell us it was only “an inci dent and accident in a great career.” But Paul says; “He died for us” “Who loved me and gave himself for me” for “by the grace of God he tasted death for every man.” Jesus himself said “The Son of Man is come to give his life a ransom for many” and that “remission of sin would be in the blood.” Paul’s hand trembles and he does not write any more that day as he sets, down the profoundest word of the cross, “Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” “He died.” Paul and Jesus alike reserve '“ death for “an infinite and appalling signific ance.” Physical cessation, which we call “death,” they called “sleep.” Of the lit tle daughter of Jairus Jesus said, “She is not dead, but sleepeth.” Of Lazarus He said: “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; I go that I may wake him out of sleep.” Of himself he said: “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.” He approaches his death as an experi ence of awful and unspeakable import. Mark says “He began to be sorrowful and very heavy;” “desolate with grief unto death.” I think that then Jesus began to die. Let us away to the garden. Oh, Heart! He is kneeling! What is that falling down to the ground as it were great drops of blood! He is telling his agony into the ear of God. “Oh my Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me.” And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly! If it be possible let it pass— not my will but thine be done!” THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NESS ates from God. And the final inevitable, irrevocable issue of sin is to be God for saken, God abandoned on account of sin. A penalty from which even the love of God cannot save the sinner. Sin, there fore, in its last bitterness is the con sciousness of the lack and forsakenness of God. Now hear again the cry from the cross: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me.” “That is hell.” I believe that then Jesus by the will of God was tasting death for me, going out into the agony of God-forsakenness and God-abandonment for sin. Now I know in part what Calvary means. Jesus had said: “He that believeth on me shall never die,” but to this hour we have kept a well beaten road to the cemetery. What did he mean? If death is the issue of sin and sin is to he forsaken of God, then I know what he means. I shall never go staggering out into the outer darkness—God forsaken, God- abandoned—on account of sin, but shall pass from death into life by the power of Christ, my Lord. A Resurrected Jesus Paul not only preached a Crucified Jesus, he preached a resurrected Jesus. When they took him down from the cross they laid him in a new tomb. Hope less and despaired his disciples went away. Wet eyed the women mourned him dead. His mother sat in the deso lation and ashes of grief. His enemies laughed, saying “The troubler of Israel sleeps at last. The tomb keeps silent lips. But lest his disciples steal him away, fix a seal and station a guard.” And Pilate gave authority. There should be no rifled grave, Rome leaned her governmental might against the stone in that seal and the helmeted soldiers paced the watch with bond of death. Not a soul on earth dreamed of a' resurrection. “But God raised him from the dead." Jehovah reversing Pilate; Heaven revers ing Jerusalem. So the apostles preached it. Not as so often portrayed by orator 846 Some urge upon us that Jesus was afraid he would die in the garden! What an illumination. He had said that he would he betrayed into the hands of sin ners and he crucified and on the third day rise again. Now in a panic! ..Others urge that the agony of Jesus was because he was more sensitively constituted than we and that he shrank from the suffer ing until he cried out to His Father. Do you never grow tired of the little things said of Jesus? Why he has so thrilled the hearts of boys and girls of a dozen years that they have for his sake met death with a smile. And Christ a craven! But suppose the issue of sin is separ ation from God “and that the final con sequence of sin is to be God forsaken, God abandoned on account of sin. And suppose He is to suffer the issues of our sins and in agony unspeakable cries out to God for the passing of the cup. Will you away to Calvary? They have nailed him to the cross. One never moves freely at Calvary. The hammer thuds appall. The agony awes us. The hellish brutality amazes us. The surging sea of hatred astounds us. The darkness terrifies. The jeers madden us. The love of the sufferer melts us. The mys tery overwhelms us. Eternities are crowded into hours. Out of the dark ness comes the deepest cry of anguish ever wrung from mortal lips, “My God! My Gojd! Why hast thou forsaken me!” sfc I know Mr. Pike of Chicago suggests that Jesus was in delirium from the suf fering, and thought God was gone from him while in reality God was never so near him as then. Well, any one that wants a delirious Christ is welcome to the teaching. George Matheson says that Jesus was beginning to chant a song, the remain der of which he sang in silence to him self. But may be John Calvin was right when he said “There fell on Jesus the full shock of the wrath of God "against sin,” for he was made sin for us. Sin in disobedience. And sin separates, alien-
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