October, 1935
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
365
“ dog.” We will not add to “ the offense of the cross” our own offensiveness. We will not compromise, but we will love friend and foe. W e stand unreservedly for the veri ties, the great doctrines of the Christian church. But we will not war over matters o f interpretation upon which evangelical Christians may differ. W e are determined to have a sense of proportion. W e are determined to be true to our historical position. And we are determined to have the love o f God shed abroad in our hearts. W e are deter mined not only to stand for these holy doctrines for which we are willing to live and to die, but we are determined also to emphasize the spiritual and the evangelistic. W e are determined to be true to the vision of the Stew arts and to the vision o f R. A. Torrey and to the vision of T. C. Horton. In their days, what a center o f Christian activities this place was ! No one could ever come into this building without there being a dozen people ready and will ing to speak to him about his relationship to God. To that vision we are determined to be true. G od ’ s P rogram for the B ible I nstitute What is God’s program for the Bible Institute o f Los Angeles? God wants, first of all, and above everything else, to deepen the spiritual life o f the school. However de voted to God may be the men and women who are the lead ers in this place—and I thank the Lord for every one of them and for their uncompromising loyalty to Him-—God has more blessing and more grace to bestow. I believe that means that God wants a revival in the faculty, in the stu dent body, among the friends and supporters o f the school. Therefore we are beginning today an evangelistic cam paign. And we are determining by the grace o f God to open every school year with a joint campaign conducted under the auspices o f the Bible Institute and the Church o f the Open Door. And we are here and now issuing a call to a day o f prayer to be held one week from next Fri day (September 27), when we shall gather as a student body and as a faculty, Board of Directors, and as friends o f the school, to pray through for victory and for a revival in this city.* In the second place, God desires that every member o f the Biola family (and I am choosing my words with care) shall function as a soul-winner^every teacher, every stu dent, every employee, every member of the Biola family rightly adjusted to God so that he or she can function as a witness. Students, the two most important hours of the school week are thé prayer hour and the students’ report h o u r -H when you can come back to tell of spiritual victories and of your experiences in dealing with souls about their rela tionship to God. We are determined to maintain the highest scholastic standards. But we are not going to lose our Bible Institute vision. The aim of a Bible Institute is that the students committed to its care will not only receive theological knowledge, but will be shown also how to put that theolog ical knowledge into practice here and now while they are in school, so that they can go out to function efficiently, effectively, dynamically for Christ wherever they go. We must give renewed emphasis to street meetings, to the dis tribution o f tracts and Gospels o f John, the giving out of Testaments, the dealing with people about their relation to God. For a third objective, God wants us to emphasize the evangelization o f the children. The greatest field o f all is the childhood of America and the childhood of the world.
And the next great revival, if there is to be one, will be a revival among the children. In this place we must train specialists who will be able to go out to hold campaigns to evangelize and win the children definitely for Christ, and to conduct Bible classes and do personal work to lead definitely the boys and the girls in the most susceptible pe riod of life into a very real experience o f salvation through faith in the Son o f God. That is our next great forward movement as far as this Institute is concerned. [Continued on page 374]
TRUE TO THE "FUNDAMENTALS"
By CHARLES G. TRUMBULL
IT was on the fourth of October, 1535, four hundred years ago, that ■ a Bishop of the Church of England, Myles Coverdale, completed and printed the Bible in English for the first time. And so way back there, four centuries ago, preparations were under way for the Bible Institute of L-os Angelesl We may surely thank God for the English Bible the world has- had for these four centuries. A t this time of opportunity in welcoming Dr. Rood as he takes up his great work as the President of this Institute, I have been thinking back some twenty-five years ago when I began hearing, in Philadelphia, of a series of volumes then being published, on "The Fundamentals." I don't know that I had ever heard that word before in connection with the doctrines of the faith. A little later I began to hear that Milton and Lyman Stewart were the two Christian laymen who were gladly giving their money for the circulating, free of charge throughout the world, of this wonderful printed testimony to the Fundamentals of the faith. The Bible Institute had come along a little earlier; then the Church of the Open Door. And I began being introduced in this way to the Fun damentals. And I love to remember, and thank God, that I have had the priv ilege of having as my beloved personal friend Paul Rood in connection with this same word "Fundamentals." I knew him before he had become President of the World's Christian Fundamentals Association, and I had the privilege of standing on the platform with him at the Church of the Open Door in a Fundamentals convention. Year after year in differ ent cities I have been with him in most of the Fundamentals conven tions since then. So that, as we have just heard, when the name of Paul Rood is mentioned people know what he stands for, and people know what an institution with which he is willing to be connected must stand for— the Fundamentals of the faith. I am glad of the privilege of standing with him again on this plat form this afternoon, shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart, as we all join in welcoming him to this great work. He and I prayed together about this very call which was extended to him. I rejoiced when I heard he had been clearly led of God to accept the call. We are meeting here at a time when the whole world is shaken to its foundations by rumors of war. The newspaper headlines tell the world that Mussolini defies the world. Just what that is going to lead to, only God knows. It may be exaggerated, or it may lead on to Armageddon. But I am thanking God this afternoon, as you are, that while world- peace, any peace that has been brought to pass temporarily by the League of Nations and various treaties, is burning low and about to burn out, we have a peace, thank God, that is not burning low and will never burn out. The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." That is the peace my dear friend Paul Rood knows as he comes to this great work beset by difficulties and problems. He need not be in anxiety, because he has the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, and because theJaod of peace shall be with Paul Rood, the God of peace shall be with the Bible Institute, with the Church of the Open Door. It cannot "burn low," be cause the Lord Jesus Christ said; "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."
*On other similar occasions, God has granted rich blessing as the Institute family has waited upon Him.
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