The Fundamentals - 1917: Vol.4

56

The Fundamentals correct and scientific results. Correct results might acci­ dentally follow, but the almost inevitable results would be poisons and explosions. Is not the same true in the un- scriptural and unscientific methods used by many who pose as expert conversionists in so many of the pseudo revivals now so much in vogue? The conditions imposed for the true conversion of souls are both philosophic and scientific, and at the same time supremely gracious and benevolent, ever looking to the highest good of all concerned, both to the soul that is being saved and the worker through whom the results are accom­ plished. These conditions are imposed by God Himself. Hence He becomes responsible for the results when the conditions are really fulfilled on our part. The results may not always be as we may calculate or desire, but they will always cor­ respond to the means as used. These conditions are twofold. On the part of the Chris­ tian worker in applying God’s means for the salvation of men in God’s ways. The danger here is in applying all sorts of human means in any way whatever so as to obtain apparent results. Often we blame God directly or indirectly for the poverty and character of the results, when as a matter of fact we have never complied with God’s conditions, which are always natural, reasonable and scientific. Second, on the part of the sinner these conditions apply, because although he is spiritually dead, he is intellectually alive and morally a free agent, and hence responsible for his conduct, including his unbelief and his rejection of Christ as his Saviour. He is responsible for the opportunities placed before him, and consequently he is responsible for the con­ ditions God has imposed for the salvation of his soul. No man, in any Gospel land at least, can truthfully and con­ scientiously claim that he has fully met God’s conditions for his salvation and that God has rejected him, or that the results

Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker