April, 1939
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
136
Two Life-changing Words
By V A N C E HAVNER* Charleston, South Carolina
I N the second chapter of Ephesians the inspired writer sets before us a mar velous contrast. In the first three verses he describes our wretched state apart from the grace of God. He piles one phrase up on another to picture our lost and undone condition. W e were "dead in trespasses and sins"; we "walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of dis obedience”; we "had our conversation [lit., ‘manner of life’] in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind"; we "were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." Can you imagine a more formidable ar ray of words, a more terrible stacking of expressions to declare the state of mortal man apart from redeeming grace? Now, if the writer had stopped there, if no more could be said, if we were left shut up in those dismal phrases, then life would be but another name for death and earth but the anteroom to hell. God—The Saving Factor in Man's History But verse 4 opens with two words that spell the difference between life and death, between sin and salvation, between heaven and hell: “BUT GO IT-----”1 Sin was black, BUT GOD came in and God is light! Satan was powerful, BUT GOD came in and God is almighty! Man was lost! BUT GOD came in and God found him! Man was under wrath, BUT GOD came in and God is love! The course of history revolves around these precious words. There was a day when the earth was without form and void, BUT GOD said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. There was a day when “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and . . . every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil con tinually,” BUT GOD chose Noah and gave the race a new start. There was a day when again men forgot God and walk ed by sight, BUT GOD called Abraham to set out not knowing whither he went, * Pastor, First Baptist Church.
There never has been an age so hopeless but that just when it looked as though the devil had had the last word and hell had turned the tables on heaven, the historian has always been able to turn a new page and write at the top, “BUT GOD—— . And although we live in the midst of world apostasy, the world’s Saturday night will turn into God’s good morning, for in that blackest hour just before daylight every thing may seem to be lost, BUT GOD is coming in the Person of His Son to receive from the world His own. When God Deals with Man's Extremity What is true in general has been true in particular in the experience of individual believers. In the darkest hour those who trust in the Lord have been able to turn from distress to Deity and say, "BUT GOD------ .” The Psalmist laments of ene mies who speak evil of him, who wonder when he will die and his name perish, who say an evil disease cleaves to him. But from such a sad plight he turns to cry, "But thou, O Lord ------ ” (Psa. 41:4-10). Again, he groans in affliction: His days are consumed, his bones burned, he is like a peli can of the wilderness, an owl of the desert, a sparrow alone upon the housetop. Thus he moans over his sad state, but he turns presently to cry, "But thou, O Lord, shalt endure for ever” (Psa. 102:1-12). Jere miah pines in his last Lamentation over the pitiful state of the land in eighteen verses of pure misery (Lam. 5:1-18), but he turns to rejoice, crying, "Thou, O Lord, remain- est for ever.” Micah paints a picture of times so dismal that he reminds us of Eli jah under the juniper: The good man is perished; the rulers are in sinful collusion, not even friends, not even wives, may be trusted. Then he turns upward with “There fore I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.” All else fails . . . BUT GOD! As you look back over your life, I am sure that you have occasion to thank God for the unnumbered times when everything else had failed, BUT GOD came to the rescue. Health had broken—BUT GOD! [Continued on page 165]
looking for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. There was a day when the chosen people lan guished under Egyptian bondage, BUT GOD called Moses to endure as seeing Him who is invisible. There was a day when the backsliding people hung their harps on willows in foreign exile, BUT GOD raised up Ezekiel and Daniel. There was a day when it seemed that heaven had ceased speaking to earth, BUT GOD re turned on the banks of Jordan to thunder through the voice of John the Baptist. And then there was the day of all days when man wallowed in sin without a Sav iour, groped in darkness without light, struggled in bondage without redemption, BUT GOD sent forth His Son, to live and die and live again, the Just for the unjust, the Sinless for sinners, God for man! Encouragement from the Past Since that glad day, no matter how low the clouds have hung, no matter how dark the night, nor dreary the age, just when everything has seemed hopeless, history has always turned a comer with those blessed words, “BUT GOD------ .” There came a day when the early church seemed to face an impenetrable Gentile world, BUT GOD struck down a rebel on the Damascus road to make Saul of Tarsus the spearhead of world evangelization. There came a time when the Bible was chained and supersti tion took the place of the gospel, BUT GOD called Wycliffe and Tyndale to loosen His Word in the language of the common people. There came a day when ecdesiasticism threatened to choke the church and when ignorance bound millions in the clutches of the law, BUT GOD touched a miserable monk, worn out with trying to earn his own salvation, and Mar tin Luther rose in the strength of the Lord to declare, "The just shall live by faith!” Again, there came a time when the notes of free grace were lost in an age of worldli ness and the church had lost the spirit of power in the lap of Delilah, BUT GOD woke up another groping preacher and John Wesley warmed his heart at Luther’s fire and went out on horseback to carry the gospel to a needy world.
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