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April 1930
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
period following the Resurrection. No less than ten or eleven such appearances are left on record. He appeared: 1st, to Mary Magdalene and the other women; 2d, to Peter; 3d, to the two on the way to Enimaus; 4th, to the ten disciples (Thomas absent) ; 5th (one week later), to the eleven (Thomas present) ;‘ 6th, to the seven at the Sea of Galilee; 7th, to the 500 on a mountain in Galilee; 8th, to James; 9th, to Apostles at Jerusalem; 10th, on the Mount of Olives at the Ascension; 11th, to Paul (1 Cor. 15:8). Is the evidence sufficient to establish beyond the shad ow of a doubt the great DOCTRINE of the RESUR RECTION ? If not, add to it the fact of others who have been raised from the dead. Did not He touch the bier whereon lay the lifeless form of the son of the widow of Nain? Was it not but a few days before His own suf fering that, at Bethany, He had restored to life the brother of Mary and Martha after he had been four days in the grave ? Yes, the evidence is ample. The doctrine of the Resur rection is established without a question. The evidence is incontestable. As a noted historian has said, “The resur rection of Christ is the best established fact of human history.” WHAT ARE THE VALUES TO US OF THIS DOCTRINE? 1st, A proof of the Immortality of the Soul. Death does not end alb 2d, Ground of Christian FAITH . We worship a living personality. 3d, Assurance of Christian HOPE. Eternal life is the possession of the believer. The Highway o f Prayer T HERE was a high road and a low road to Loch Lo mond. They parallel each other; but, ah, the differ ence. In the valley are swamps and fevers and fogs and mosquitoes and dust and crowds. But the path of prayer leads along mountain ridges. It forces you because of exertion to breathe deep, giving glow to your cheek and strength to your heart beat. Sometimes you must clamber up steep precipices step by step. Sometimes you face a huge crevasse or gorge, but prayer throws a bridge across more wonderful than the engineering triumph of the Forth and the Hudson. Sometimes when a sheer moun tain cannot be passed, prayer tunnels straight through. Such things are wrought by prayer as men have never d r e a m e d . By uplifted arms of intercession Moses enabled Israel to be victorious over Amalek. By prayer, not by spears, David escaped the pursuit of his enemy Saul. By prayer Elijah calls down the rain tor rents from, a cloudless sky, and gains power, though old, to outspeed the Arab chargers of Ahab’s chariot. By prayer Nehemiah rebuilds the shattered desolation of Jerusalem. By prayer Hezekiah defeats the swarming locusts of the Assyrian army. By prayer Peter escapes prison, Paul and Silas summon the earthquake, John on Patmos unveils eternity. Jesus prays and Lazarus comes forth from the grave. He prays, and Satan is defeated in the desert. He prays and weaves his chosen into spiritual unity. He prays, and in the garden His will becomes utterly sur rendered to the Father. If these needed prayer, ought not men everywhere to be instant in supplication?— Mark Wayne Williams in “Watchman-Examiner.”
appearance can be explained in but one other way—it must have been stolen away. But this is harder to believe than that He was raised. If stolen, who committed the theft?. Would the enemies of Jesus have contributed to His glory by thus countenancing a report that He was raised up? Would His disciples have done it? It is probable they would not—it is absolutely certain they could not have done so had they so desired. Think of that timorous com pany, who fled when they saw Him arrested. Even Peter, the most courageous, trembled before a servant girl and denied with oaths and curses that he even knew Jesus. Would such as he venture to resist the authority of the governor or attethpt to overcome the armed guards placed to watch at the tomb? Would they have braved the oppo sition and determination of the Jewish Sanhedrin and attempted to steal away the body in order to invent a story of the Resurrection ? The very fact that they them selves" were so slow to believe the evidence produced in token of His resurrection, is proof conclusive to the open mind that they were,not designing to remove the body. Argument is unnecessary to show that His enemies would not have taken part in any such plan of deception regarding H is body. The fallacy of the story told by the guard is easily shown. They must have been either asleep or awake when the body disappeared. If they were awake, why should they allow the body to be taken away by a few timorous people, when they had been specially set to guard it? If asleep, how could they know that the disciples took it away? How dare they swear that it was taken away by theft if they were asleep? How simple, how credible, the Gospel record: “And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord' descended from heaven, and came and rolled away the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was as lights ning, and his raiment white as snow; and for fear of him the watchers did quake and became as dead men.” So simple, so straightforward, so believable, that one could accept it as trustworthy were there no further evidence to produce. But God does not leave us in the slightest doubt with regard to an event of such stupendous signifi cance., He urges us to examine the evidence in full. I I I . T h e A ngel ’ s I nvitation The heavenly announcers say to the women, “COME, SEE the PLACE where the Lord lay.” In other words, they are, .invited to investigate. They are not asked to believe any*^incredibility.- They must be convinced by their reason that that which is told is TRUE. They accept the invitation. It was Simon Peter who first entered the tomb. What was the evidence there ? “He beholdeth the linen cloths lying, and the napkin that was upon his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself.” What of the evidence ? It showed deliberation, rather than any degree of haste in leaving the tomb. Its value was towfold. First, as evidence that friends had not removed the body to another place for safety. Then they would not have removed the grave cloths. Neither would robbers of graves have waited to thus remove these wrappings of the corpse. But further, it was evidence of the Resurrection. Although Peter first entered the tomb, John seems to have been the first to recognize the evidential value of what he saw—for when he saw he believed the fact of the Resurrection. But stronger evidence is yet to appear. The risen Sav- iqur Himself was personally ■manifested, under various circumstances and to many different people during the
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