King's Business - 1915-01

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THE KING’S BUSINESS

Church, that the men also, even if they had a revelation, or a tongue, or an inter­ pretation, should observe order and only one talk at a time (v. 27). That Paul did not intend to forbid any woman who had; the gift of prophesy, or who was led by the Spirit of God to say something, doing it, seems clear from the instructions that he gives in the eleventh chapter as to how a woman should pray, if she were led to pray, and how she should prophesy, if she were led to prophesy (ch. 11:5). -Furthermore, we are plainly told that when Paul was in Caesarea that the four daughters of Philip, the evangelist, prophesied (Acts 21:8, 9). Of course, Paul had no use for the noisy, self-assertive woman who always wanted to •be seen and heard, and who wished to take the leadership to herself, and Paul in this matter, as in all other matters that he taught, was the mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit. Is it right to get an unsaved sinner to kneel down and offer the Publican’s prayer, “God be merciful to me a sinner?” Yes, that is as good a thing as you can get him to do, if he does it sincerely. You should show him first that his sins were all laid on Jesus Christ (using Isa. 53:6 to show it), and that it is on the ground of Jesus Christ’s having died in his place that God hears his prayer and forgives him. Then if he does offer this prayer sincerely and trusts God to forgive him because the Lord Jesus died in his place, he is forgiven, he is “justified.” The Lord Jesus Himself says so (Luke 18:14). Our Lord Jesus put the way to find forgiveness of sin in a variety of ways, but when you examine them carefully they all amount to the same thing, namely, believing on Him (Luke 7:48, 50; Jno. 3:16) or receiving Him (Jno. 1:12). No way that our Lord ever put it makes it more simple or more easy to grasp by some, than the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. In this He tells us the Publican came into the temple an unsaved sinner, took his right place before God as an un­ saved sinner, cried to God to be merciful

to him (literally to be propitiated—i. e. by shed blood—to him) and trusted Him to be merciful to him (or, be propitiated toward him), and the result was he was “justified” immediately (v. 14), and thousands of others have been saved the same way, and any one who will do it, will be saved at once. “But,” some one will say, “the Publi­ can was a Jew.” Yes, but he was an un­ saved Jew, and an unsaved Jew is just as much an unsaved sinner as an unsaved Gen­ tile, and an unsaved Jew is saved in the same way as an unsaved Gentile, and an unsaved Gentile is saved in the same way as an unsaved Jew. There are not two ways of salvation, one for Jews and one for Gen­ tiles. Paul preached “both to the Jews and to the Greeks (i. e. Gentiles) repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). There are only three classes of people, Jews and Gentiles and the Church of God (1 Cor. 10:32), and in the Church and in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile (Gal. 3:28), and both get into Christ and into the Church (the Body of the saved ones) the same way. But some one will say, “the way we get into Christ and the way we get into the Church and the way we get saved is by believing in Jesus Christ.” Exactly, but praying the Publi­ can’s prayer, if prayed sincerely and intel­ ligently, is saving faith in action, saving faith laying hold of Christ. Paul says, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of thè Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13). Then he goes on to show that this “calling on the name of the Lord” (i. e. crying to God for salvation on the ground of what Jesus is and has done) is faith in action, faith laying hold of salvation (i. e. pardon and the rest) (Rom. 10:13, 14). Telling sinners to pray,—“God be merciful to me a sinner,” trusting God to forgive them on the ground of Jesus death, is simply explaining to them, in Christ’s own way, what it means to savingly believe. Keep right on doing it, brother, and you will see many more saved just as thousands have already been saved this way, from the publican of whom Jesus (Concluded on page 81)

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