116
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
March 1930
face which I present to the needs and sorrows of the world. I am amazed that sometimes I can take my news paper—-which is oftentimes a veritable cupful of horrors —and peruse it at the breakfast table, without adding a single pang to my peace. I wonder if one who is so un moved can ever be a servant of the suffering Lord. Here in my newspaper this morning were columns of the crimes and misdemeanors of my own city. Here are columns descriptive of the hot and frantic doings of the race course; here is a small corner paragraph felling me about the awful conditions in China, in India, in Russia. I saw these things this morning as I was eating my break fast and the dark record has not haunted me all through the day with the mingled wails of the orphaned and the damned. I am sitting at my desk tonight looking at my self—my old sinful self^-with utter disgust. No Christian service can be fruitful if the servant is not filled with the spirit of a suffering compassion. How can we heal the needs we do not feel? Tearless hearts can never be the heralds of the passion. We must bleed if we would be the ministers of the saving blood. “ Unto you it is given in behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.” A friend told me that he once had a dream. He dreamed that he died and went to heaven. He was so happy that he was shouting with very joy. Soon he saw a great tree and wondered if it was the tree o f life. Underneath the tree was a great crowd of people. He said to himself, “ I will go over and see if any of our folks are there.” He discovered that the crowd was listening to a little man making a speech. He was informed that the little man was the Apostle Paul and that he was just beginning a series of addresses, relating his experiences as a missionary of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. My friend said that he was overjoyed. He really had arrived in heaven and the first thing on the program was an ad dress by the Apostle Paul! As he stood there listening to the Apostle tell of his missionary journeys and his last trip to Rome, the Apostle often pointed to scars upon his body, and he would say, “ That is a scar that I received in the shipwreck.” Or, “ That is the scar that I received when I received the stripes.” Or, “ That mark on my ankles I received when my work was stopped down in the old jail at Philippi.” My friend said that his heart began to sink within him, and he was overwhelmed by a sense of shame in the presence of his Lord, and when he awoke he found him self crying out, “ Oh, oh, oh, I ani in heaven, but have no scars for Jesus Christ.” Dear Christian reader, what is Jesus Christ costing you today? Father God, fill me with a great compassion for a lost world, and teach me the meaning of the text, “I fill up that which is behind o f the afflictions of Christ.” The Fitness of the Gospel T HE Gospel takes into account the fall, nature, en vironment and destiny of man. It meets the condi tions of the problem it proposes to solve. The Gospel provides for man’s physical part. “Pre sent your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God.” Temperance, cleanliness, exercise and chastity are some of the bodily virtues enjoined. Have you ever thought of the dignity with which the Gospel invests the human body ? Materialism can see nothing in it but laboratories and levers and forcing pumps; but the Gos — o —
pel, with stern rebuke, exclaims, “ What! know ye not that your body is the temple o f the Holy Spirit?” The Gospel provides for man’s intellect. It furnishes him with the profoundest mystery in the universe to fathom, and on every page stimulates his intellect to the highest activity. Besides', it commands the complete edu cation of his intellectual powers. “ Gird up the loins of your mind.” It opens before him the universe of truth and gives him the right of way from beginning to end. The Gospel provides for man’s sensibility. “Let not your heart be troubled.” “Blessed are they that mourn : for they shall be comforted.” That is what the human heart needs. It wants comfort in its mourning. It wants light in its darkness. It wants peace in its turmoil. It wants rest in its weariness. The Gospel gives all this to man. It calms his fears, stimulates his hope, sweetens his joy, assuages his grief, purifies his love. The Gospel provides for man’s will. “Be ye steadfast, unmoveable.” It provides that man may yoke his will to the omnipotent will of God and thereby become omnipo tent himself, within the limits that God may determine. “ I f we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us.” The Gospel provides for man’s moral nature. It sets forth a conscience “ void o f offence toward God, and to ward man.” Its code of morals is acknowledged by its enemies to be above reproach, and is held by its friends to be so far above the highest ideals of the world’s best teachers as to justify its claim to superhuman origin. Besides all this, the Gospel provides for man’s spiritual nature. It acknowledges his instinct of faith, and gives him full room for its exercise. It recognizes his instinct for a personal God, and shows him His throne. It regards his instinct for immortality, and opens before him the possibilities of the soul in the unending future. Further still, the Gospel recognizes the tremendous fact of sin, and is the only agency that proposes an ade quate remedy. It does not soften sin into inexpediency or make a farce of human responsibility. It does not evade the question. “ What must I do to be saved?” by saying there is no need of salvation. It does not take a man out of the pit by telling him that he is not in it. It does not take away the sting of a man’s conscience by tak ing away his conscience itself. It does not mock men; it tells them the truth. It shows them their bondage, and brings the hammer to knock away their manacles. It shows them their nakedness, and brings them the gar ments of purity to cover it. It shows them their poverty, and pours into their laps the wealth of heaven. It shows them their sin, and brings them an almighty Saviour. Is there a bigger business on earth than the business of preparing young men and women to take the Gospel to the sons of men, that they may give it a trial, that it purify their bodies, that it stimulate their intellect, that it soothe their sorrows and heighten their joys, that it take hold on their will, that it quicken their consciences, that it exalt their faith, that it show them the Father with out stretched arms to receive them, that it show them the Comforter with His tender sympathy and compassion, that it show them the Cross and the uplifted Son of God, that it show them their destiny with its infinite possi bilities? May we not call upon you to become a partner in this great enterprise? There are five hundred students in the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, and still they come! We could take care of more than twice that number if we had the money to carry on. Have you any responsibility in this matter?
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