January 1926
T l i E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
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All of this teaching, therefore, puts service upon the high plane of privilege, and not of perfunctory purpgse or cold and callous duty. It is the note which the Psalmist sounded whqn he exclaimed: “ I delight to do ThyvWJll, O God.” Entrance into the Kingdom of God, and that alone, there fore, will enable us to translate duty in terpjs of delight, and to rejoice even in the persecutions that come from faith ful service. Will the church members of today dare to measure up to this high standard? Will we really in this new year put first things first and seek God and His righteousness, trust ing Him to add unto us in His good pleasure all temporal interests, all of the mere material trimmings and trappings of food and clothing and houses and lands that we may need ? "But,” someone asks, "do you seriously say that Jesus Christ intends that we shall put into a secondary place such things as the building up of our homes, the proper educa tion and equipment for life of our children, and our business success?” And I answer this question, dear friends, by say ing: “ Most emphatically— yea, overwhelmingly— yes! Yes! YES! That is precisely what Jesus Christ is saying to us.” He is also saying that until we learrt this wisdom of heaven and bow to the true rulership of God in our lives, we can not give the best even of these temporal blessings to our children or ourselves. Oh, my friends, it is unbecoming in us as Christians to stampede after these things of the thoughtless, selfish world. We have higher goals and more splendid purposes. We arc here in the world to put God’s Kingdom first, that all men “ will take note that we have been with Jesus,” and, seeing our good works, “ glorify our Father who is in heaven.” When the time comes within the ranks of the church people of today when the Bible Schools and the Mid-week Prayer Serviee, and efforts for the salvation of the lost, and sacrificial giving for the missionary enterprise, are put first, and when even home and school and business are made to rotate around God’s Kingdom as a center, rather than the things of the church and kingdom around these temporal necessities and preoccupations as a center, then the day of Christ's return will be greatly hastened, and' the hour when the Kingdom of Heaven will be established upon this earth, and the rule of God will banish the sins and the sorrows of men will indeed be at hand! John Wanamaker’s Example k There have been, even in our modern age, high souls who have illustrated by their lives the possibility of real citizen ship in the Kingdom of God. They have put first things first, and God has abundantly redeemed His promise to add unto them all the material things that were necessary to an everwidening influence and an ever growing life. Take,' for example, such a man as the late John Wana- maker. I will ever be grateful that I was privileged to work with him in Kingdom service, and to be his guest at the last birthday party that he gave before passing on to receive his bright eternal crown. He invited about a dozen of us—- some who had been Intimately associated with him in dif ferent forms of Christian service— to gather about his table, and there we not only enjoyed the delightful fellowship and hospitality of' that hour, but we were privileged to see into the deeper depths of the great and noble soul of our host. John Wanamaker told us that day, in the sweet and sacred intimacies of an hour of fellowship, how from the very beginning he had sought to put God’s Kingdom first in his life. As a young man, struggling to get ahead, he was loyal and true to the great things of the spiritual Kingdom; and (Continued on page 52)
The Doorway Into The Kingdom of God What now, let us inquire, does it mean to ‘ ‘seek” the Kingdom of God ahd His righteousness? Well, obviously, it means first of all that we are to seek entrance into that Kingdom. All men, of necessity, are born into the Kingdom of God upon ijts material side. They have to live under the laws which God has established and which He controls for the direction of the material universe; but all men are not born into the spiritual Kingdom of God. On the other hand, as the Bible makes amply plain, they are born morally and spiritually into the kingdom of the Adversary, because of inherited sin and the fruits of dis obedience to God. We read, therefore, in Romans 14:17: “ For thr kingdom of fioll Is no« meat anil drink, bnt rlithl- (MiiisnesK, and peace, and jo y In the H oly Ghost.” This does not mean the righteousness which is imputed to us through the merits of Jesus Christ, but it means the righteousness which is implanted in us by faith through the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. It is evident, therefore, that entrance into the spiritual Kingdom of God can come only by regeneration. Just as a man becomes a citizen of an earthly kingdom by his natural birth, so he can become a citizen of the divine kingdom only by a spiritual birth. Therefore, Jesus said in John 3:3, 5, 7: “ Ye must be born again,” and “ Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” If, therefore, we are really to put first things first in the new year, and to secure for ourselves the blessings of the Kingdom of God then, first of all, we must obtain entrance into that Kingdom. If we have not repented of our sins and given our hearts in full surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour, and if we have not been born again through that act of faith, then it is idle for us to expect the true blessings of the Kingdom of God or really to be used for the ongoing of its mighty and triumphant forces. So-called “ social ser vice,” apart from individual salvation, is, therefore, a super ficial and spurious thing. Jesus did not say', “ Ye must be reformed again,’’ but He did say, “ Ye must be born again;" and when we are thus born again and truly enter into the Kingdom of God, social service activities and helpfulness to our fellowmen will inevitably follow after, as was illustrated so strikingly in the case of Zaccheus the Publican, following his regeneration. Privileges ana Prerogatives To seek first the Kingdom of God must mean, again, that we shall seek its privileges and prerogatives. In the Beatitudes, Jesus gives us a startling and challenging new set of standards for happiness or “ blessedness.”. These are not the standards of this world, tie tells us here that the blessed and happy are: those who are humble in spirit, for "theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven” ; those that mourn, "for they shall be comforted” ; those who are meek, “ for they shall inherit the earth” ; those who “ do hunger and thirst after righteousness," "for they shall be filled.” The truly happy and blessed are these, and thé “ merciful” and the “ pure in heart” and the "peacemakers” and those who are “ persecuted for righteousness’ sake” and who are' "re viled” even, and accused falsely. And then, immediately after the Beatitudes, the Master passed to the great positive, constructive forces that are to manifest themselves in service through the life of the citizen of the Kingdom of God. We are to be “ the salt of the earth,” and thus its saviours. We are to be “ the light of the world,” and thus its true educators and guides.
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