King's Business - 1953-03

PURPOSE GLORIFIED (Continued from Page 12)

LIVING EPISTLES

C CHARLES Finney was once passing i through a room where a number of girls were employed in a manufacturing establishment. He was evidently known to them, and they made every effort to upset his gravity. “ Their levity,” he says, “made a peculiar impression upon me; I felt it to my very heart. I stopped short and looked at them; I knew not how, as my whole mind was absorbed with the sense of their guilt and danger. I observed that one of them became very much agitated. A thread broke. She at­ tempted to mend it, but her hands so trembled that she could not do it. I immediately observed that the sensation was spreading. One after another gave up and paid no more attention to their looms. They fell on their knees. I had not spoken a word, and the noise of the looms would have prevented my being heard, if I had.” At that moment the owner of the factory entered. “ Stop the mill,” he said. “ It is more important that souls should be saved than that this mill should be run.” A meeting of great power followed ; and in a few days most of those factory hands, and the owner also, professed to have found salvation in Christ. The days in which we are living are days of much wrangling over Christian doctrines and much talking about the need of revival. Yet how few men there are who, like Finney, reflect in their very presence the clear light of heaven in such a way as to bring conviction to

the sinful! Why is it that the much talked-of revival does not get started? Is God waiting until some of us get through talking and start living? How earnestly the Scriptures enjoin believers to “ adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour” in such a way as to im­ press others with the reality of spiritual things! To be sure, nothing that we can do can improve the gospel, any more than one could give purer whiteness to the lily or make more lustrous the spark­ ling diamond. But we can make its pow­ er upon our lives visible. We can mani­ fest it to others with such illustration and enforcement that others shall see Christ in us and glorify our Father which is in heaven. God give us Christian leaders today who will, like Charles Finney, clothe the precepts of the gospel with an outward conduct so becoming its purity and dig­ nity, that others must feel their need of Jesus. The reflex loveliness of Christ’s character in the soul, exhibited in the homely garb of our outward everyday life, will do more than anything else, we believe, to kindle the much-needed re­ vival. Men are looking, as never before, for “ living epistles.” We believe the Lord is withholding His showers of blessing until there are more believers whose lives exhibit, like the opal in its pure trans­ parency, the beautiful hues of grace. Editorial The King’s Business, November 1927

hymn, he arose to address the student body. He told them about a telephone message which he had received just be­ fore leaving his office for the chapel service. A promising young man who had been graduated from that institu­ tion only three years previously had died suddenly during the night. The an­ nouncement was charged with solemnity. Then, pointing his finger slowly in a coverage of his congregation, the college president asked, “ If all you desire to do, if all you hope to do, had to be crowded into three short years, would you do differently today?” The challenge struck home. No one of us may have even three years to do all we desire before we meet the Saviour face to face. There may not be two years in which to accomplish it— perhaps not one. Should we do differ­ ently today? This glimpse of the Lord Jesus should inspire us. We should see Him. And, remember, no one can see this lovely One and ever be the same. Either you will be better or worse for the vision. There He is—in a solitary but sacred place, engaged in an early and earnest prayer, with a positive and pressing purpose. He glorified purpose! Keep looking unto Jesus—lest ye faint. Do we lose our tempers when men don’t agree with us concerning the pro­ gram we are advocating? If we do, we can be one hundred per cent sure it originated in our mind and not in the heart of God. “ Doest thou well to be angry?” God asked Cain. Isn’t it true that our pride was hurt because our ideas were ques­ tioned? God’s way takes a little longer time to gather momentum but His ways endure forever, so be patient. God in His own time vindicates the one who is being led by the Holy Spirit. Yes, men are still builders; they al­ ways will be. They like to see the work and pride of their own hands and say, “ See the great Babylon that I have builded.” Truly man can build, but only God can make anything grow, and growth comes from the energized life from within. Oh, the energizing life of the Holy Spirit, the motivating power of the Blessed Third Person of the Trinity! Let the origins be of Him. Then it is His work, His the responsibility for its success. He is stirring, moving, budding, growing. We labor with Him as He leads and only move as He com­ mands. He sees the work that it is good —gold and silver and precious stones. The day shall declare it, the fire shall not consume it; the glory shall be His, all His. Editorially Speaking (Continued from Page 5)

a*id£nd¿ciQ ene>U i¿/M ¿ÍUenÁ This Signal Anniversary Celebrates Our 60 YEARS OF SERVICE IN IND IA Join us in this needed Faith Work— Write fo r FREE literature 542 $. Dearborn St*/ Chicago 5 III./ 169 Yonge St./ Room 205/ Toronto/ Canada

^ T H E G R IE F - S T R IC K E N K O R E A N mother who has just heard of her soldier-husband's death . . •

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i THE DESPERATE SOLDIER in a Korean hospital who wonders how a man with no legs can support a family . • •

\ THE OLD KOREAN W O M A N who sits in the bombed ruins of her home and stares at the shattered image of her family god . . .

'YOUR PRAYERFUL

W e cannot say which one needs the Gospel most. We only know that in Korea there are thousands of others like these three thousands who must hear of a Saviour who loved them and died for them — of a Heavenly Father who cares WRITE for them DEPT. K printed and spoken word to these people. W ill you i THE POCKET TESTAMENT LEAGUE, Inc.

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