THE KING’S BUSINESS 391 in this present dispensation, i.e., it has been gathering out of the world “ a people for HisL name” (Acts 15:14). If God had intended the Gospel to save thg world in the present dispensation, then the Gospel would have been a failure, but anyone who carefully studies his Bible will see that this was not God’s intention regarding the Gospel at all. When God, by tiie power of the Gospel of His grace, has completed His church by gathering out of the Gem tiles a people for His name, then God will go oil to the next step in His plan— that of dealing with the Jews again and saving the Jews as a nation, and then through the saved Jews, He will go on to completing the rest of His plan. Things do look dark and we do not wonder that Dr. Parkhurst is depressed, but there is no reason for depression. The darkest hour precedes the day and “black as the blot” is “that has just recently been dropped upon” our civiliza tion, it is but the harbinger of the coming dawn. It is when far-seeing men feel as Dr. Parkhurst feels at present, when men are “fainting for fear, and for expectation of'the things which are coming on the inhabited earth,!’ that we should lift up our heads, knowing that our redemption draweth nigh (Luke 21:26-28). We are glad that some of the shallow optimists are waking up to the fact as to how shallow and baseless their optimism is, but we do not like to see them becoming pessimists. Better far to become a true optimist, one who is an optimist because he knows human civilization will fail, but that, when it has failed, God will come in with His civilization, by sending His Son to take the reins of government and to rule in righteousness. that, incredible as it is, the Lord JeSus is hated as bitterly today as He was w-hen He was here upon earth. It is true that the hatred of Jesus Christ today is not generally as outspoken as when He was here on earth, but it is not less real. There are many ways in which men show their hatred of Jesus Christ. One of the commonest ways in which men show their hatred of Jesus Christ is by the delight they take iri the fall of any man who bears the name of Christ, or professes to be His disciple. How the newspapers delight in the story of the fall of a Christian man. When such a man falls the papers never forget to put into the account that he was a Sunday School superintendent, or an elder or a deacon. Indeed, they put it in sometimes when it is not true. And how the people delight to read it. Above all, if a minister of Christ goes astray, or is reported to have gone astray, how much the papers make of it. Why is this ? Because men hate Jesus Christ and the man who has fallen bears the name of Christ, and so they delight to see him go down and to see the name of Christ thus dragged in the mud. If an infidel goes wrong, there is very little made of the fact that he was an infidel. Indeed, little is said about his going wrong. But if a Christian minister goes wrong, column after column, day after day, appears in the paper about it. Strange, is it not? No, not strange at all, but simply a proof that this old world hates Jesus- Christ today as bitterly as it hated Him when it nailed Him to a cross. As*we read the history of the past it seems incredible that the men of Christ’s day should have hated Him so unanimously and1 so bitterly as they did, but when we consider certain facts of present-day life, we soon see Is Jesus Hated Today?
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