129
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
March 1930
the Messiah, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He is the Lamb o f God, who on the Cross said, “ It is finished.” Then the prophecies concerning His sufferings were ful filled, God was glorified, Satan was defeated and salvation was eternally secured to all who take their stand under the shadow of His cross and the shelter of His blood. He is soon to appear in His glory, according to His own last message from the throne, “ Surely I come quickly.” May we answer with our hearts and lives and gifts, “ Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” ¡jp Psalm 49 and Luke 12:16-20 B y E rnest G ordon The words “ Thou fool,” aphron, are applied in Scrip ture to two persons— the man who ignores death, and the man who denies immortality. Let us eat and drink because life lasts indefinitely, said the rich man whose ground brought forth plentifully. And the Lord said, “ Thou fool!” (Luke 12:20). “Let us eat and drink, for tomor row we die,” and a resurrection is just what the Athe nians thought it—an absurdity. “ Thou fool!” repeated the Apostle (1 Cor. 15:36). The parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:16) is a wood- cut to illustrate the 49th Psalm. Let us put some sentences in parallel :
sources of Palestine.” This is not disputed by any one who knows the country. Official reports state that the country is now undeveloped and under populated. Less than four thousand of the twelve thousand square miles of cultivable lands are tilled. The area now cultivated could yield a far greater product. But this is already being changed by Jewish immigration. Even so-criticized a statesman as Winston Churchill, who whittled down the Balfour Declaration to the celebrated White Paper (a great blow to Zionism), says: The Jews have done no harm to the Arabs in Palestine. They have brought nothing but good gifts—more wealth, more trade, more civilization, new sources of revenue, more employ ment, a higher rate of wages, larger cultivated areas, a better water supply—in a word, the fruits of reason and modern sci ence. . . . Anyone who has seen, as I have, the beautiful gar den township at Tel-Aviv . . . will need no further convincing. There, out of the blistering desert, patience, industry, and civ ilized intelligence have created green smiling fields and vineyards and delicious shady groves, the home of thriving, happy, simple communities, who, even if there had been no Balfour Declara tion, would deserve the strong protection and the sympathies of free and enlightened people in every quarter o f the globe. Professor Einstein, no politician, it is true, but a scientist with a name unequaled or unsurpassed in the world, writes to The Manchester Guardian: It was with a wonderful enthusiasm and a deep sense o f gratitude that the Jews, afflicted more than any other people by the chaos and horror of the war, obtained from Great Britain a pledge to support the reestablishment of the Jewish national home in Palestine. The Jewish people, beset with a thousand physical wrongs and moral degradations, saw in the British promise the sure rock on which it could recreate a Jewish national life in Palestine, which by its very existence as well as by material and intellectual achievements would imbue the Jewish masses, dispersed all over the world, with a new sense of hope, dignity and pride. Jews o f all lands gave o f their best in man power and in material wealth in order to fulfill the in spiration that had kept the race alive through a martyrdom of centuries. Within a brief decade some ten million pounds ster ling were raised by voluntary contributions, and one hundred thousand picked Jews entered Palestine to redeem by their physical labor the almost derelict land. Deserts were irrigated, forests planted, swamps drained and their crippling diseases subdued. A work o f peace was created which, although still perhaps small in size, compelled the admiration of every obser ver. Has the rock on which we have built begun to shake? Arab mobs, organized and fanaticized by political intriguers working on the religious fury o f the ignorant, attacked scat tered Jewish i settlements and murdered and plundered wher ever no resistance was offered. In Hebron, the inmates of a rabbinical''cdllege, innocent youths Who never handled weapons in their lives, were butchered in cold blood; in Safed the same fate befell aged rabbis and their wives and children. Recently some Arabs raided a Jewish orphan settlement where the pathetic remnant of the great Russian pogroms had found a haven of refuge. I think it may be stated without fear o f exaggeration that except for the war efforts of the European ‘nations, our gen eration has seen no national effort of such spiritual intensity, such heroic devotion as that which the Jews have displayed dur ing the past ten years in favor of a work of peace in Palestine. They that did the King’s business helped the Jews, we are told in the Book of Esther. Whose business are they doing who not only deliberately hinder, but plunder and murder them ruthlessly time after time as the Arabs have done in the years 1920, 1921, and now in 1929? Alas, we have not yet seen the end, as reports from re liable sources indicate. But it is increasingly evident that not Jewry alone, but the whole Christian world, will have its season of sorrow and judgment for its startling and growing apostasy from its first love to its Lord and His Word. Meanwhile, we must witness faithfully, in the Holy City and the Holy Land, that men cannot come to God through Moses, or Mary, or Mohamet, but only through
Much goods laid up for many years. V. 19.
Their inward thought is, that their houses shall con tinue forever, a n d their dwelling-place to all gen erations. V. 11. While he lived he blessed his soul. V. 18. This their way is their folly. V. 13. The fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others. V. 10 .
I ‘will say to my soul, Soul, thou h a s t m u c h goods. V. 19. Thou fool! V. 20. Whose shall those things be which thou hast pro vided? V. 20.
The 50th Psalm goes on to speak of the Lord’s com ing: “ Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence." So in Luke 12 our Lord, after dwelling on the secondary nature of earthly things, adjures us to wait for the com ing ,— “Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when H e cometh shall find watching.” In Luke, the faithful and faithless servants are then described. So in Psa. 50, verse 5, Jehovah sayS: “ Gather my saints together unto me [c f. 2 Thess. 2 :1, “ our gathering together unto him” ] ; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice." But to the wicked, those whose sacrifices are undesired, he says, “ What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth? . . , . Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.” Or, as the evangel ist says in the same connection (Luke 12:46) : “ The lord o f that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, . . . and will cut him in sunder, and appoint him a portion with the unbelievers.” An Infinite Void That which was spoken of our Lord of one earthly gratification is true of all—whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again. The boundless, endless, infinite void in the soul of man can be satisfied with nothing but God. Satisfaction lies not in having, but in being. There is no satisfaction even in doing.— F. W. Robertson.
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