82
February 1929
T h e ; K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
We have covered the ethical teachings of this sermon and it should be apparent that if, as some say, the teach ings herein given by Jesus, are “impossible in this age,” the epistles likewise place Christian ethics beyond our reach. We believe our Lord sought to set forth in His sermon that perfect standard of conduct by which all men are condemned as sinful and to which they can attain only by divine help. Only in the light of the cross, resur rection and Pentecost, could many of these words of Jesus be understood, and certainly it was far from the thought of the Great Teacher that anyone should attempt to sep arate the sermon from HIM or try to live its exalted teachings apart from His own indwelling presence. The statement made by one prominent teacher, that the Sermon on the Mount is “law, raised to its most deathful and destructive potency,” is, we believe, wide of the mark. John tells us that the demands made by our Lord are “not grievous” (1 Jn. 5:3). There are commands given be lievers in the epistles fully as pointed and rigid. Neither the Sermon on the Mount nor the epistles are too much for the Holy Spirit, nor will we find any requirement in the sermon not included in the promised “ fruit of the Spirit.” As for the view that this sermon was intended as a code of laws for the future millennial kingdom, we have been unable to find in our Lord’s instructions, anything that would lead to this conclusion. Indeed, as we read here of persecution, mourning, suffering, poverty, cross bearing, misunderstandings, strifes among men, and other conditions which seem to predominate in this present age, we are able to see its adaptation to this present evil age and its inappropriateness for a kingdom of Jewish pros perity, world supremacy and universal righteousness and peace. No doubt it sets forth the righteous principles on which His kingdom is to be governed, whether in its pres ent spiritual, or future earthly, phase; but surely it de scribes conditions which, according to our understanding, will not exist to any large degree during the millennium. We believe it may be fittingly called “the Sinai of the New Covenant.” Our Master went up into a mountain to speak. At Sinai a cloud of majesty hid the speaker and there was no approach. Here we find no threatenings—- only promises and blessings. Its first word is “blessed” and ere it proceeds a few sentences, it says: “Rejoice and be exceeding glad.” There are no “Thou shalts” or “Thou shalt nots.” We have only precepts enforced with the thought that it will make for our highest good to ob serve them. If these sentences are “laws,” they must be laws of a kingdom of grace, It will do us all good to study this sublime code of morals. It is a mirror of the divine will for believers standing at the end of the law and at the beginning of the Gospel. It is not the whole Gospel, to be sure, for the Gospel is about Christ as well as from Christ. Its tone, nevertheless, is evangelical and its ideal is Christian. Take it in the light of His redemptive work and do not attempt to separate His principles from His Person. What Hides His Face? Mr. Toplady, on his dying bed, besought the Lord to stay the manifestation of Himself. It was too overwhelm ing in its beauty. The Lord’s face has never been other wise than full of love. It is hiding of it that gives trouble. It is our iniquities and our sins, our darkness and distance, and enmity, that are between.
Wait to Hear From God Many years ago a rich man in London visited George Muller, and requested him to pray over a business matter with him, and seemed in a great hurry. Mr. Muller said, “I am too busy to pray today, but you come back tomor row morning, and we will lay it before the Lord.” The man said, “I must act at once, for if I do not purchase the property, which is a large manufacturing establish ment in Australia, and which pays ten per cent dividends, another will buy: it tomorrow.” Mr. Muller said, “How do you ^know it pays ten "per cent? The mere showing of their books is hot real proof, and, furthermore, if you are God’s child and He wants you to own that property, He will not let anyone else buy it before tomorrow night.” The man was impatient, and did not wait until the next day, but, acting under the spur of a hasty impression, bought the property without waiting for a time to pray, and lost a great fortune. The Vision of Sin Nothing could more powerfully depict the ruinous effect of sin and the slavery and bondage into which it brings the soul than “The Vision of Sin” by Tennyson. In this poem we see the youth born to great things going forth on winged steed, but drawn half-willingly, half- reluctantly, into the maze of sensuous delight, mingling in the giddy dance of the dwellers in the palace of pleasure, till, intoxicated and blinded to the consequences, he loses all lofty aims, and sinks to the level of a votary of the “sensual sty.” When he emerges at last, it is as a wasted, cynical, prematurely old roue mounted on a sorry steed, pursuing his way over a blasted heath, the emblem of a wasted, ruined life. And at the last the palace of delight vanishes, leaving but a noisome marsh where formerly it stood—a graveyard of ruined humanity. “Below were men and horses pierced with worms, And slowly quickening into lower forms; By shards and scurf of salt, and scum of dross, Old plash of ruins and refuse patched with moss. “At last I heard a voice upon the slope Cry to the summit, ‘Is there any hope ?’ To which an answer peal’d from that high land, . But in a voice no man could understand; And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn God made Himself an awful rose of dawn.”' Shut Up to Christ Said the saintly Rutherford: “I never knew by my nine years’ preaching so much of Christ’s love as He has taught me in Aberdeen by six months’ imprisonment. I would not now give a drink of cold water for all the world’s kindness,” No Chance Dr. E. Y. Mullins remarked a short time ago: “You might as well assume that an explosion in a printing office was followed by a fortuitous rearrangement of the type so as to produce Shakespeare’s plays, as to suppose that the stupendous facts of nature came by chance.”
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