The Judgment Seat of Christ
W E receive salvation through faith by and because of the un conditional grace of God. We receive it as a gift, pure and simple. We receive it by faith and nothing more. But while it is true that we as Chris tians have done no work, nor could do any that would save us, we have been saved that we might do good works; as it is written: “ Created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them.” “What wilt thou have me to do?” was Paul’s first question. It is typical, sug gestive, and all revealing. We are here, as Christians, for service; we are here to take the place of witnesses. There are many Christians who imagine if they just live what they call the Christian life and never say a word about Christ they are efficiently and satisfactorily witnessing for Him. Before all else we must speak of Him. Our lips must give clear and vibrant testimony concerning Him. We must tell about the death of the cross. We must talk of the empty grave, of a risen, ascended and coming Lord; we must as sure those about us that there is a pres ent salvation in His name and we must be clear and strong to say there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. This is what the early disciples did. This is what Paul did. But if an attorney who is against a witness is keen enough, he will summon those who will declare this witness is not to be believed upon his oath, that his reputation for dishonesty is widely known, he can be bought and sold. Let him do this and the testimony of that witness will be ruined; the jury will pay no heed to it. A Christian who lives an inconsistent life, whose speech is full of unbelief, of doubt or worldliness, care lessness and open sin; a Christian who continually does things no Christian ought to do, and who goes where a faithful and devoted Christian ought never to go, becomes sooner or later, in so far as the world outside goes, a worthless witness. No matter how much truth he may tell, nor how well and earnestly he may tell it, the world will not believe him; they look upon him as a fake, a hypocrite, an unworthy be trayer of the Lord whose name he bears. In order to be an efficient witness for Christ so that our testimony shall have a hearing and the work of the Spirit be unhindered, we are under bonds as Chris tians to build up individual character, a character that shall verify what we pro fess and preach. And do you think this is an easy matter? An easy thing in this
By I. M. Haldeman
hide in the cave, but sin and shame and the devil and beautiful wantonness will be there in vision of a thousandfold quickened imagination with whispered word and pictured form to tempt, to fool and lead you all unwillingly astray. I say to you it is a fight, a battle fierce in which all the powers of darkness will rise up within you and about you to pull you down and away. Neither by tongue of orator nor pen of logician could the supernaturalness, the absolute divinity and heavenly-birth of Christianity be more overwhelmingly and unanswerably demonstrated than by this upheaval of evil and wicked antagonism and this internal revolt of human nature in the regenerated child of God. To live the Christ-life, the life of spirituality and h "venward aspiration, to say “ no” to material appetite, to rebuke passion, offer love for hate, purity for impurity, and unselfishness for selfishness; in short, the dethronement of the flesh and the enthronement of the Spirit,
world, where ten thousand forces are seeking to drag you from the path of Christian consistency and faith, and when the co-ordinate and resisting power of evil and unbelief come from within yourself? You never know what depths of sin and wickedness of hell are in your nature till you turn and start to walk the path that leads to God and Christ, the path that is paved with right eousness and truth, but bordered with grinning fiends or smiling serpents who stretch out hands to help the traitor in your soul; a path in which sometimes the devil meets you arrayed as an angel of light and in the name of righteousness seeks to guide your feet into the way of enticing sin. I have had earnest genuine Christians come to me filled with heart aches and lamentations. I have had them say to me, “ We never knew what sin ful and perverse natures we had till we tried to serve the Lord.” You cannot escape from that nature. Like Saint Anthony, you may flee from the city and
“ God . . . commandeth all men everywhere to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteous ness by that man whom he hath ordained” ( Acts 17:30-31).
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