THE KING’S BUSINESS The Word of God ■ speaks in strongest terms of the hopelessness of the case of those who “ crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh.” But there are not a few in our day who claim to be Christian teachers
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Stabbing Jesus to the Heart.
who are stabbing our Lord Jesus to the heart. They question or deny the Vir gin Birth of our Lord, but any thoughtful person must know that there is only one alternative to believing in His virgin birth, and that is to believe His mother to have been a dishonored woman. Any one who denies the Bible account of our Lord’s birth as found in the Gospel of Matthew and Luke, practically affirms that His mother was a disgraced woman, and that Jesus Himself was the outcome of her shame. How would any of us feel if one thus insulted our mother? The question of the Virgin Birth of our Lord is not a mere specula tive question, it involves the honor of our Lord’s mother and the honor of oiir Lord Himself. How must our Lord feel to see His mother thus discredited and Himself thus loaded with shame ? It is difficult to be patient with those who claim to be Christians and thus stab the Lord Jesus to the heart. The idea of ordaining any one to the Christian ministry who entertains doubts about the truthfulness of thè Bible stories of our Lord’s virgin birth is preposterous. It is no sufficient defense to say that their faces are toward faith in that doc trine, but they have not yet become convinced. It will be quite time enough to ordain them when they are fully convinced. Where is the serise in ordaining men to the ministry who are not yet clear as to what they believe ? What right has a man to be a teacher if he himself is not yet clearly taught on fundamental questions? ' __________ __ ( )tie of God’s greatest gifts to man is a weekly day of Neglect and Abuse rest, “ the Sabbath was made for man.” It was made of the Lord’s Day. for man because our loving Father saw that man needed it. While the precise Mosaic form of the Sab bath as a rest in memory of the completion of the old creation, and of Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian bondagè, was for one nation only (Deut. 5 :2, 3, 15), and therefore the Holy Spirit forbids us to let any one judge us in respect of the Sabbath, as in respect of other Mosaic institutions (Col. 2:16) none the less the substance of the Sabbath, one day for rest and worship in seven, was “ for man’1 and not for any particular race of men. Any one who does not use “ the Lord’s day,” the Christian day, as the highest demands of his own nature, not merely his physical nature, but his spiritual nature requires, will bring great injury to himself. There is an increasing tendency throughout our land to use the Lord’s day as a day of pleasure instead of a day for the cultivation of the spiritual life by attendance upon the worship of God’s house and by individual and family study o f the Word of God. This means not only spiritual ruin to the individual, it means disaster to the community and to the State. It is appall ing to .see the way in which fathers and mothers are bringing up their children in practical heathenism in supposedly Christian lands. Happy is the child whose father and mother themselves observe the Lord’s day as it ought to be observed, and train them to do the same. Unhappy indeed is the child whose father or mother regard the Lord’s day lightly and use it for visiting, automobiling, ten nis playing, golfing, or other forms of self indulgence. Many fathers and mothers by their thoughtless use of the Lord’s day are training their children into a disregard of God and God’s claims,, that will surely result with many of them in the grossest immoralities in the days to come.
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