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Official Organ of THEBIBLEINSTITUTEOF LOS ANGELES. Incorporated
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THE HOLY BIBLE Stand By America's Greatest Bnnh • • • Buy American Bible Society Annuity Agreements NOW!
revealed. Purchase of American Bible Society Annuity Agreements, issued now for nearly 100 years, paying generous yearly annuities for life to thousands of living annuitants, is one sure method of ensuring the nation-wide and world-wide distri bution of the Scriptures. Send for the booklet, “ A Gift That Lives!’ which tells you how you can receive and bestow the bene fits of this great Plan. FILL IN AND CHECK
JVLany of the Society’s old friends are now calling their Annuity Agreements their “ Spiritual Defense Bonds!’ To win the war all must help the Government by buying defense bonds and stamps. Christian people are convinced that it is absolutely essential that Christ shall win the peace. To accomplish this, one of the best ways is through the greatly increased circulation of the one book — The Holy Bible —where God’s way is
AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY • Bible House, New York, N. Y . □ Please send me, without obligation, your booklet KB-19 entitled “A Gift That Lives!’ □ I attach $1.00 for 100 \ “Spiritual Defense Seals” to help in the □ I attach $.................fo r _____...J work of the Society. Name__________________ _______ ______ ....._____ ________________ Address__________ I__ ______ _________........................................................................
0 The "Spiritual Defense Seal” ~ . use them w idely— pin one dollar ($1) to the coupon and 100 seals w ill be sent you prom ptly. Help a G reat C ause— send fo r the seals today! Each dollar that you send w ill make it possible fo r 6 boys in an Arm y camp to receive the New Testament.
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The King s Business The True-to-the-Bible Family Magazine The Official Organ of THE BIBLE INSTITUTE OF LOS ANGELES, Inc. LOU IS T . T A L BO T • M ILD RE D M. COOK R d ito r-in -C lile ( M an agin g E d itor
"Go Out
To Meet
The Messiah!" It Is the sensation of the hour. There are stirrings within the heart of Israel. There is a going in the tops of the mulberry trees which presages the cataclysmic appearance of the Christ in the clouds for the Church, on the eve of the most dra matic revival Israel has ever known. The revered and historic rabbi of a dynasty that goes back five centuries, has come to America out of the depths of White Russia, and has startled Jewry with a clarion shout, “Go out to Meet the Messiah!” He is known affectionately as the Lub- avitcher Rabbi. He calls out!— •“When punishments come into the world, look for the feet of the Messiah. These may be the birth throes of the Messiah before the salvation of Jewry comes. The Jewish people are suffering the afflictions (travail) of the Mes siah. The perfect Salvation is just beliiBd our backs; among our Jews there is copfiision of thought, just as our sages have foretold: The Messiah the Son of David, will come amidst con fusion of thought, entirely un expected!” Full accounts of these dramatic developments within Jewry were re ported in “The Chosen People,” and in “The Shepherd of Israel,” which we circulated broadcast in our deter mined effort to seize this opportunity for the advantage of the Gospel. This is the tragic hour.of Israel’s destiny. Never before has this Mis-J sion stood abreast of a world with such opportunities as lie before us. Upon your help and your prayers we must lean, that our hands may be upheld' and our work go forward un hindered. American Board o f Missions to the Jews, Inc. .11 Throop Avenue, Brooklyn, N. V. Please use my gift o f $................to make Known the true Messiah to Israel. Name. ........................................................’ ..................]__ Address ...,_________¡., C ity,----------------------------------------- State...._______;..__
M otto: "U nto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood ” (R ev. -1:5).
Volume XXXIII
March, 1942
Number 3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover' Photograph by H. Armstrong Roberts Ransom D. Marvin, Staff Artist
Shall Missions Advance T oo?......................................... .......... ......... ....... 82 What the Resurrection Means to Me— R. E. Neighbour... __ ....;____ 83 Significance of the News '—Dan Gilbert... .......... ........ ............. *________ 84 The Bible’s Good News About Heaven — Louis T. Talbot. _____ _____ 85 Implications of the Resurrection— H . A . Ironside ___ _______ ......... 87 What Is Death ?— John F. MacArthur ....................... ;________ ...... 88 Big Business—A Story —Ken Anderson....... ......................... ........... ....... 91 Junior King’s Business —Martha S. Hooker... ____ :______ ___ .„._____ 93 Bible Institute Family Circle__ ___________________ _____....___ _____95 International Lesson Commentary.....______________ ....____ .............___ 96 Notes on Christian Endeavor — Evelyn L. Reeves, Chester J. Padgett, and Kermit L. Byrd ___ ___________ _____________ _______ _ 106 Daily Devotional Readings.__„....__________________ ................ .............., j j j Our Literature Table______________ ;__............................................ . 119 S U B S C R IP T IO N P R IC E s “ T h e K in g ’s B u s in e s s " is p u b lis h e d m o n th ly , $1.00— on e y e a r : $1.50__t w o y e a r s ; 50 ce n ts s ix m o n th s ; 10 c e n ts —-s iiig le c o p y . C lu b s o f th r e e o r m o re a t s p e c ia l ra te s. W r ite f o r d e ta ils. C a n a d ia n an d fo r e ig n s u b s c r ip tio n s 25 'ce n ts e x tra . I t r e q u ir e s o n e m o n th f o r a c h a n g e o f a d d re ss to b e c o m e e ffe c t iv e . P le a s e se n d b o th o ld a n d n e w a d d re sse s. R E M lT T A ]y c E — P a y a b le in a d v a n ce , s h o u ld b e m a d e b y b a n k d r a ft, e x p re s s m,_o n e y ? r.de,r p a y a b le to “ T h e K in g ’s B u s in e s s .” D a te o f m ^ ^ a zin e* s h o w p la in ly each, m o n th o n o u ts id e "w rapper o r c o v e r o f r in fo r m a tio n w ith r e fe r e n c e to a d v e r tis in g in “ T h e K in g ’s AnÜÎi1i î SS’ ,t * f.d re s s th e A d v e r tis in g M a n a g e r, 558 S o u th H o p e S treet, L o s H o n y .e a s te r n r e p r e s e n ta tiv e , R e lig io u s P re s s A s s o c ia tio n , 1601 C h e stn u t St., P h ila d e lp h ia , P a. M A N U S C R IP T S ^ -“ T h e K in g ’ s B u s in e s s ” c a n n o t a c c e p t r e s p o n s ib ility f o r lo s s o r d a m a g e to m a n u s c r ip ts s e n t to it fo r c o n s id e r a tio n . ’ E n te re d as s e c o n d -c la s s m a tte r N o v e m b e r 7,' 1938, a t th e p o s t o f fic e a t L o s a t H i S S S g l o f M a rch 3, 1379. A c c e p ta n c e fo r m a ilin g ra te S i P o s ta g e p r o v id e d f o r in th e A c t o f F e b r u a r y 28 ” 1925 2 ? » v U nb e ^ i » . 4’ SeCUOn S | | S | l R ” a u th o r is e d O c f o L f i , \llV , THE KING’ S BUSINESS . 558 South Hope Street • Los Angeles, California A D INFORMATION FOR SUBSCRIBERS
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Shall Missions Advance Too?
An Urgent Command and a Practical Program
of conditions as they actually exist on mission fields. Advance in prayer. Remembering that th.e Word has said: “Pray ye’ therefore the Lord of the harvest, that HE will- send forth laborers into his harvest,” attendants gt these mission ary conferences will be helped in en tering upon an intelligent prayer pro gram, in which emphasis will be upon God’s own mighty working. Advance in giving. Each of the churches uniting in this effort sup ports one or more missionaries. In the Church of the Open Door, for instance, 78 members of the church are missionaries, arid of that number,, the eh Ur ch supports 36. Many of these men and .women were trained in the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. Too many Christians, hearing ru mors of the difficulty in s e n d i n g money abroad, feel that nothing can be done now for the cause of foreign missions. But the vast majority of missionaries "are unaffected by these restrictions. And they are suffering needlessly because their friends at. home, through fear of present or fu ture conditions, are withholding the Lord’s funds. In the coming meetings,'the fol lowing. missionary agencies- will' be represented: Africa Inland Mission, American Mission to Lepers, Bible ■ House of Los Angeles, Bolivian Indian Mission, Central American Mission, Ceylon and .Indian General Mission, ,[Continued on Page lib ]
the country’s need, Christians Should go into training for their part in Wit nessing “to every creature.” In an effort to stimulate missionary interest in the Los Angeles vicinity, at least five missionary conferences, meeting simultaneously, will be held April 3 to 12. The center for this tes timony will be the Church of the Open Door, Los Angelas; where the week’s opportunities will be available to the students of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, whose regular classes will be dismissed during the conference. But the program will be in no Sense a purely local affair. Other cooperating churches include: Calvary Church, Placentia; Calvary Church, Santa Ana; Lake Avenue Congregational Church, Pasadena, ,and San Gabriel Union GhUrch, San Gabriel. Sharing mission ary speakers assembled for the ten- day period, these churches will con-, duct special sessions in their own au ditoriums. The conference committees, believe that, so fár as world-wide missions are concerned, advance must be along three particular lines: Advance in knowledge. In specially prepared b 0 o t h s and halls, where stereopticon views, curios, and litera-, ' turé representing each of a number of mission fields may be enjoyed, per sons who attend the conference^ will obtain personal and first-hand infor, mation from missionaries who have labored in these fields. The plan pro vides :for leisurely and thorough study
■y yiRTUALLY the whole world Is \ / at war. Because of hostilities \ ' between nations, doors to many mission fields have been barred. In some cases; missionaries. have been ejected or else severely limited in the Christian work they are allowed to do. Passports .for the travel of "most mis sionaries from t h e i r homelands to their chosen mission fields have been denied. Almost everywhere, the usual programs of missionary activity have g had to be seriously altered or else wholly abandoned. Viewed from some angles,' the cause of world-wide mis sions is at a standstill. The q u e s t i o n now is: Shall the Christian forget about missions until the war is won? To take this position would be to act, in direct disobedience to the Lord Jesus Christ who said: “Go ye into all . the World and preach the gospel to every creature”—-for He did not add, “ except when hindered by war.” Suqh an attitude would mean the settling irito a deadly apathy. It is all too evi dent that a nation suffers when there is any lack7of alertness on the part of her military leaders, and the church of Jesus Christ suffers ' immeasurably more when her members postpone or ignore the meeting ot spi ituai*. *t s of - the millions who perish without knowledge of Christ. Now is the time for missionary in terest to be accelerated. Profiting by' the example of the ready response Which America’s youth is giving to
Missionary Rally Dates: April 3 to 12, 1942
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What the Resurrection Means to Me
SONG OF ASSURANCE
"From heaven fought the start, From their courses they fought against Sisera. The river Kishon swept thiSn away, O my soul, march on with ' strength.“ (Judg. 5120, 21, R.V.) By CLARA BERNHARDT Think not that heaven Is silent to our cause. Or ignorant of what we would defend, , The forces set in motion by God’s laws Are His to use; on this We may depend. Whence came the Dunkirk fog upon the seas,. To save the rescue ships from ruthless foes? The wind and rain He looses when He please. And snows which conquer armies are His snows. What though we are outnumbered, when His Word Can shake the earth, creating flood or hall; For 'not by might nor power, saith the Lord, But by my Spirit.’ Thus shall man pre vail. And only when we live as Christ decreed. Can we expect God’s answer to our/ need. ity and power, and He has commanded me, saying, “Go . . . and, lo, I am with you alway.” His resurrection means, therefore, that all the power and vie- tqry which are His have been vouch safed to me. 6. It means that there is. One in heaven who is managing my affairs. Had Jesus Christ never come forth from the grave, my hopes, my joys all would have been buried with Him. I could never have \ known redemption, because of the defeat of my Redeemer. I could never have knpwn victory, be cause Satan would have remained a conqueror of the only One who could give me help. In the empty tomb, however, we >who have trusted Christ were all begotten again unto a living hope. He lives; shall I despair as if He were not there? Does not He carry my burdens? Does hot He control my life? 7. It means that there is One in heaven who is abiding the time of His coming again. The Lord Jesus not only is risen; He not only is exalted to the
By R. E. NEIGHBOUR Los Angeles, California
y'^ENTRAL in God’s plan of re- I demption, the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the seal of His perfect life and His mighty atonement for sin at Calvary. When this great fact of his tory is made personal, Easter joy be comes a reality in the believer’s heart. What does the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ mean to me? 1, It means that there is One up there who was once down here. I revel in the knowledge that my Lord was once an earth-dweller. He moved about in the very sphere of action in which I am now moving, among the same kind of people, and amid the same world setting. He rubbedshou l ders with sinners; He touched hand and heart with men and women of all classes. He knew 'what ’it was to be wearied from the toil of the day. - He did no sin, knew no sin, and in Him there' was no sin. He, however, bore the sins of, others and suffered for others, the Just for the unjust. Ac cordingly, we are correct in saying He had a personal contact with all of those things which we now see and feel and know. He .was once down here. 2. It means that there is One up there who remembers the days and years He spent down here. Our Lord has not cast from Him the .memories of the past. He has not forgotten what it is to be maligned and misrepre sented and misunderstood; nor has He forgotten what it riieans to a human being to be loved and admired, and trusted by his fellow men. It is all with Him still. The memory of John leaning on His breast, arid of Judas betraying Him with a kiss—He still feels them both. He has not shaken off the meaning of His hard days of toil in the carpenter shop. The cries of the sick, the maimed, the halt, and the blind gtill linger with Him. His poverty. With nowhere to lay His head—it is all there! The men who, • like bulls of Bashan, beset Him round as He hung upon the cross, despised and rejected of men—He has not for gotten! His life of mingled joy and sorrow—He remembers it all. ,3. It means that there is One up there who cares for me. He cares be cause He is my risen and exalted High Priest, touched with the feeling -of my infirmities. He knows my care,
for He was down here; He understands the conditions which make my care, : for He knew similar conditions; He does more than both: He thinks upon my care, and He cares. There is One up there who is walking with me down here; His presence is real to me here.® • ■ * What does it matter, though dark my path may be? What - does it matter, though naught of light I see? There’s One above me, who lives to love me, . There’s naught can matter when Christ lives, and cares for me. 4. It means that there is One up there who has passed up through, and above, all principalities and powers Why should I fear what men may do? Why should I fear-Satan and all of his hosts? Christ leads me in the train of His triumph; I am more than a conqueror through Him. His victory is my victory. He has, as it were, carried me up with Himself, and has made me to sit down with Him, far above all rule and authority satanic; Christ has placed them all under my feet. How can any one who believes in a risen and ascended Lord dwell in the lowlands of defeat, when Christ has placed him on the high planes of con quest and triumph? 5. It means that there is One up there who is seated at the right hand of the Father. On the cross, Christ was set at,naught of men. He had come into a world that knew Him not. He had come unto His own, and they had received Him not. There had been no room for Him in the inn at His birth, and finally there Was no room for Him among men at His death. He died in ignominy and in shame, numbered with the transgressors. But on the third day, the Lord Jesus Christ arose, breaking the bands of death, and carrying in His hands the keys of death and hell. Later He ascended up into heaven amid the loud acclaim of the heavenly host, and took His seat at the right hand of God the Father. Men would not have Him, but heaven would. The rulers on earth refused Him; the Ruler of all in the glory received Him, acclaimed Him, and seated Him. , What does this risen, seated Christ mean to me? The answer is very simple: He is clothed with all author
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Senator Borah described, in which men would think a full stomach or a full pocketbook or a high standard of liv ing of more value than liberty itself. A few years ago, America may have been tempted to choose security in stead of liberty. But now the hour of decision has passed and* we have made, our Choice. We have determined to stand where the fathers stood,- to defend what they defended. THE “OLD, THE TRIED, AND THE TRUE": • America- is rediscovering the su preme value of “the old, the tried, and the true.” In this present conflict, we are not fighting for a. single thing that is “new,” i.e., that was unknown to our fathers. We are not fighting for our automobiles,, our luxuries, our “high standard'.of living.” Rather, we are being called Upon to take a stand for the things that our fathers Con sidered more precious than life itself: the independence of our nation, the rights and liberties of man made in the image of God, the integrity of our Christian institutions, the inviolability of our Constitutional democracy. “Daddy” Horton, one of the founders of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, used to say, “If it is true, it is not new. If it is new, it is not true.” He * was speaking of doctrines, but the rule can be applied universally.' There might be enough exceptions to prove the rule, but certainly not to dis prove it. We might paraphrase this axiom to read, “If it is worth fighting for,: it is not new. If it is hew, it is not worth fighting for.” In the dark days of -the Revolutionary War, a great patriot coined the famous phrase, “These are times that try men’s souls.” They are also times that try and test all things that affect civilization and are asso ciated with it. The glorifiera of our scientific civi lization have long popularized the position, “It is wonderful to be alive in the twentieth century. Look at all the comforts, and conveniences that science has bestpwed upon us.” The average school child cannot conceive' of life’s being worth while in'a world which did not have radios, autonib-1 biles, and electric refrigerators. But-in this crisis, many are being forced to appreciate the real value of things. We have come to realize that, after all, the conveniences of this- scientific age are not very important. The things that have real value today are the things that had real value a hundred or a thousand years ago. The Constitution declares that this nation was established to preserve and perpetuate “the blessings of liberty.” A hundred years ago, men knew little about the luxuries which we enjoy |Continued orr Page 116]
Father’s right hand, but He also is 'sitting there expecting until His enemies be made His footstobl (Heb. 10:13). He is sitting there awaiting the moment when He shall return again. How»majestic are the words of PsaJm 110:3. R. V.: : *¡ 0111 : of the womb of the morning ; Thou hast the dew of thy youth.” Yes, our Lord will come. He will' copie to the çhureh as thé Bright and Morning Star. He will come to Israel and to the.earth as the Sun of Right eousness, rising'with healing in His wings. He will burst forth as One leapihg from the womb of the morn ing. He will scatter thé darkness and Will cause the light of life and love and peace to girdle the globe with rest. The morning dawns in glory,-and the night Wraps up its somber garments in its flight; My soul awakes from dreaming And my eyes .Survey God’s sunburst.beaming From the skies, i I seem to hear Thee saying, “Sion the night Of earth will pass forever, and the light Of glory will be breaking - Wondrous fair, Eternal morn be waking Over there.” $ Significance of the News By DAN GILBERT Washington, D. C., and San Diego, California
THÉ REVIVAL OF MORAL VALUES: • Commenting upon the preference of his fellow politicians for the new and experimental rather than the tried and tested, Senator Borah said shortly before his death, “No one seems to be interested in preserving Constitutional lib erty. People don’t seem to care about the Constitution because they can’t eat it, or wear it, or use it to make themselves comfort able. They apparently are more Interested in ease and luxury than in liberty and integrity.” That was, undoubtedly, the prevail ing mood in America at that time. But today we are witnessing a revival of fundamental values, Americans are sacrificing their ease and their lux uries. and their conveniences in order /to preserve their liberty. We are giv ing away our mechanical gadgets and modern comforts as a contribution to the defense of our Constitutional herit age of freedom. We are giving up our “scientific, twentieth century way of life’’ in order to keep the values and virtues of the way. of life our fathers established for us. Our fathers fought in 1776 primarily for the great cause of liberty. They fought for their homes, their churches, their C h r i s t i a n institutions,, their d e m o c r a t i c ideals. Those are the things for which we are fighting to day. They rallied around the slogan, “ Give me liberty or givè me death.” Benjamin Franklin once expressed the fear that ' the time would come when Americans would “exchange their liberty for the promise of secu rity!” He feared the condition which
S5CK TO THE'"HORSE-AND- BUGGY" DAYS: '
• With automobile tires, batteries, and spark plugs practically unobtain able, and gasoline 'growing scarcer, it is not unlikely that “horse-and- buggy” .days may soon be here .again! The expression, “horse-and-buggy days,” recalls .exciting memories to one who has been engaged in-news paper work-in the nation’s capital. It was almost exactly five years ago that this writer heard one of our most im portant leaders declare that the Con stitution of ’ the United States . “be longed to the horse-and-buggy days.” The plain implication was that in this scientific, streamlined age, we needed a “néw model,” or at least a radically reconstructed Constitution. In the subsequent debates which occupied the attention of Congress, this phrase was hurled about as a sort of verbal football. Usually, the term was applied as a sort of stigma. To say that anything or any policy be longed to" the “horse-and-buggy” days was to expose it to open shame and contempt. As one Senator said, “Of course, we shall never go back to the old days before America moved about on wheels and enjoyed the luxuries and conveniences of modern scientific living” The prevailing attitude seemed to be that if a thing was old, it neces.- sarily was not worth keeping. Con gress, like some theological semi naries, was under the spell of “mod ernism.” Thè “new” was highly es teemed because it was hew; and the “old” was blindly condemned merely because it was old.
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The Bible's Good News About Heaven By LOUIS T. TALBOT* Lo* Angeles, California
■f “ | HE BIBLE never d i s c u s s e s heaven theoretically, but prac- JL 1 tically. Keflections upon heaven are never a waste of time. Rather do they provide a moral force for our practical life upon this earth. A true believer, longing for heaven, is never too heavenly m i n d e d to be of no earthly use! The Biblical description of heaven is made up of an array of positives and negatives. More is said, of what is not in heaven, than of what is to be there. For example, John gives us a list of “no mores.” Heaven is made up of the absence of many elements that characterize our life on e a r t h . There will be no more pain, no more night, no more sorrow, no more cry ing, no more curse, no more tears, and no more death. Heaven is a place of inexpressible beauty. It is called a place of “many mansion^,” “a building of God, an house not made with hands,” “a city,” “a better country,” “an inheritance,” “glory.” Our God is a God of beauty. This world must have been very beau tiful when it first came from the hand 'President o f the Bible Institute -o f Los An geles and Pastor o f the Church o f the Open Door.
of God. Although sin has come in and brought chaos and the blight of death to everything, still there remains some evidence of the original glory. But the New Jerusalem ne^er will know sin and its fruits. It will be perfect in form and s p l e n d o r . John was granted a glimpse of it one day from his lonely island of Patmos, and he tried to describe what he saw. But no human words could portray the magnificence that he beheld. One day you and I shall stand in the glory, and when we catch a vision of the splendor of that city, perhaps we shall say to the b e l o v e d disciple, “John, why didn’t you tell us it was so beautiful?” • And I think John will reply some thing like this: “I did my best to de scribe its glory, in the last chapter of the Revelation. It was the best I could do. But to really know, you had to see it for yourself.” And, oh, my friends, we shall see it. This is the glad experience that awaits §ven the weakest of the children of God. Praise His name! Heaven is a place of companion ship of all the redeemed of all ages. God no doubt has infinite surprises in store for us. Paul says, “Eye hath
not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:9). Think of being intimate' with Peter, James, and John! Think of sitting down with these eyewit nesses of stupendous happenings and having them tell us about the trans figuration, the resurrection, the ascen sion! Qur loved ones, too, will be there—those who have died trusting in the finished work of Calvary. I shall see my dear old mother, and you shall see yours if she was in her life time a believer in the Lord J e s u s Christ. We shall Clasp that precious hand once more and hear that1well loved voice. i But above all, we shall see the Lord Jesus Clirist, for thè Word of God as sures us that “we shall see his face.” We are to be “for ever with the Lord.” Heaven would not be heaven, without Him. % I have read somewhere of a child who was inconsolable over the loss of her mother. Her father, for a change of scenery, sént her to another local ity. While she was gone, he built a beautiful house and filled it with rare
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perfect knowledge. How little we know here on earth, even the wisest of men! Sir Isaac Newton, When an old man, said to one who praised his wisdom, “I am as a child on the seashore pick ing up a pebble here and a shell there, but the great ocean of truth still lies before me.” But in heaven the most uneducated souls (so far as human standards go) will fathom the great ocean of truth. In heaven, we shall understand the mysteries of God and why He led us alorfg the way that seemed strange to us. We shall understand then why the financial reverses, the tears, the ' heartaches, the sleepless nights .have entered into our experience. We shall realize then how fully true is the state ment in Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God,.to thbm who . are the called according to his pur- : pose.” How unsearchable are some of God’s ways with us! We cannot understand why God allows this man to retain his strength and vitality, and takes away another man’s health; or why God leaves this Christian with twenty thousand dollars a year and takes ■ away practically every penny from some other man. But nothing “hap pens” in the providence of God. Some time ago a Christian friend and I were recounting our experiences oyer a period of twenty-five /years. During all that time, I had lacked no necessary provision; My friend told me that before the depression, he had supported ten missionaries. But he said that when the collapse of 1929 came, his entire fortune was wiped away, and many a day he apd his wife had sat at the breakfast table drinking c o f f e e without sugar or • cream because they did not have suf ficient money to buy these supplies. God had seen best to test him se verely, bu t'th e'fu ll purpose of that testing and of the glorious testimony that grew out of it can be known only when we are at home with the Lord. My friends, never try to find out reasons for the providences of God. If you do so, your soul will grow dark and cold. Just trust God, and you will learn some day that all the tears and heartaches were essential as God views human n e e d s . Po.br Jacob cried, “All these things are against me,” when he heard that Ben jamin was wanted in E g y p t after Joseph had been taken away from him. But later he came to see that the very things that seemed to be against him had worked out for his good and for the preservation of his whole family. When you stand on the glory side and look at the pathway > along which you have come, you Will thank God for the loving heart -that planned and for the pierced hand that led you all the. way.
and costly furnishings. Then he sent for his little girl and'brought her into the house |which he had built. But he could not interest her in any part of it. She would give one quick look around the room that was being shown to her, and then would ask to be shown to the next. At last, her father had to say, “My child, there are no more rooms. You have seen them all.” And then she fell to the floor with a despairing cry: “O Mama, O Mama, this ,is not home without you!” Our grateful hearts can understand the child’s feeling, and we qan say with reverent, adoration, “O blessed Lord Jesus, even -heaven would not be heaven without Thee!” ' It is not the golcien streets that we look for, but we long to “see his face.” When we s t a n d in that glorious company, we shall not be afraid. We shall not only see Him, but we shall also be like Him, and we shall praise His name forever. Several y e a r s ago, I was.: going across the Pacific. I was standing on the promenade d e c k , watching - the blazing sun about to’ disappear over the horizon. There were innumerable little white-crested waves moving in a westerly direction, and each one seemed to be doing obeisance to the sun. As I gazed upon that sight,-1 thought of that day when the re deemed of all the ages will stand in Immanuel’s land, and every head will be turned in the direction of the Son of .God and the united voices of that vast multitude will acclaim: “Thou . . . hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred,' and tongue; and. people, and nation. i . . Worthy is the Lamb that was slain. >... Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon; the throne, and unto
"A s many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God" (John 1:12). ByMARTHA SNELL NICHOLSON I would not be an angel; Though they behold God's face, Angels are His servants. And I His child, by gracel The great archangel Michael Would gladly trade with me. Would leave his harp, forgotten. Beside the crystal sea And walk earth's dusty highways In rags and penury. With pain for his companion If he could only be For one ecstatic moment What I shall be always. The child; of God. my Father, To whom be endless praise. Yes, angels are His servants. But listen to God's word: "THOU art—though once a sinner- joint heir with Christ the Lord!" Transfiguration; as Stephen knew his Lord as he was being stoned, and as p iv e s in hell recognized Lazarus and Abraham, so in the life beyond the grave each of us shall know even as also we are known. This belief in continued recognition after death has been set forth beau tifully in a silent testimony. There are graven on the tombstone which marks the place where Charles Kings ley and his wife both are buried, the three Latin words, “ ^mavimus, Ama- mus, Amabimus,” which when trans lated mean, “We have loved; we love; We shall love.” Such was Kingsley’s faith! And such is ours! Our loved ones still will be ours. Mary recognized the risen Lord Jesus by the sweet intonation of His voice when He called her name. The Em-, maus disciples recognized the hands of their beloved Lord as He broke bread with them. The loved traits of human nature are not destroyed by the grave. Richard Baxter, in his fine hymn on the Confidence and-Cove nant of Faith, expresses the true Chris tian point of view: “My knowledge of that life is small, The eye of' faith is dim; But ’tis enough that Christ knows all, And I shall be with Him.” Heaven is a place of universal and
Marcii, 1942
THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NES S Implications of the Resurrection B REAT TRUTHS that a^e stum- blingblbcks to the natural man are nevertheless the v e r y foundations upon which the confidence By H. A. IRONSIDE* Chicago, Illinois
87
found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if 'so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is-vatn; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only vve have hope in Christ, we, are of all men most miserable’*“ (1 Cor. 15:12-19). I In these ,verses the Holy Spirit de velops for us and vigorously defends
this great fundamental truth of Chris tian testimony. Some }n Corinth were denying the physical resurrection of mankind generally. To them it seemed impossible that the dead should be brought again to life, but Paul shows ; that to deny the resurrection of man kind necessarily involves the denial o f Christ’s resurrection. If He has indeed been raised, and apart from ■, this, fact there .would be no gospel to preach, why then should any ques-1 tion the power of God to bring back from, the dead the millions who have died through, all the millenniums o f earthly history? Surely He who could create a uni verse out of nought and who brought our physical bodies into existence go marvelously in the first place could resuscitate them even after they had dissolved away into their chemical elements! The miracle of each re turning spring bears witness to this. .. As one looks out upon the apparently lifeless trees of winter, he might well question the possibility that verdant groves would again dot the landscape, but in some strange, mysterious way the trees are enabled to draw from the earth the life-giving sap with all its chemical elements w*ich causes leaveg, flowers, and fruit soon to ap pear. Surely if one had never seen this miracle performed, he would come to the conclusion the first time that Win ter spread its blanket over the. earth, ’that all things green and loveiy had disappeared forever. But in a very., ¡short time he would find that his rea soning was based upon false premises. Bodily Resurrection t Our faith today is based on facts as real as the observed processes of nature. There are those who teach to day that our Lord Jesus never came out of the grave in His material body. They admit His continued existence in spirit, but deny His physical resurrec tion. But there can be no question as to the testimony of holy Scripture, There We learn that our blessed Lord arose from the dead;in the Very body in which He had suffered and died for our sins, though changed in a most wohderful way. Nevertheless, it. was a real; .material, human body, and • we know that it bore in the palms of the hands the print of the nails. There was still the mark where the Roman spear had pierced His side, [ Continued on Page 117]
of the spiritual man is b u i 11, for “faith gives the assurance of that for which we hope, and convinces us of the reality of the unseen.” Of course, this is only true when our hopes are b a s e d upon the testimony o f ' the Word of God. .i That Word ' i s , forever settled in heaven, and, like God who gave it, the Word is unshakable. Men may cavil or quibble regarding its teach ings, but “what if some did not be lieve? shall their unbelief make the faith of ;God without effect?” It is written in, the prophets, “He . . , will not call back his words” (Isa. 31:2). The reverent Christian will therefore accept without question what has been revealed in Scripture, even though it may be beyond his powers of com prehension. ] When Festus, the Roman governor of Caesarea, was explaining his per plexity concerning Paul’s case to King 1Agrippa, he expressed his wonder that the accusers'of the apostle had noth ing definite to bring against him, “but had certain questions against him of their own superstition and of one Jesus, which was dead,, whom Paul affirmed to be alive” (Acts 25:19). This to Festus was such a manifest absurdity that he thought it hardly worth considering. He evidently knew that Jesus had died. It was a matter commonly reported, and he accepted that as truth, but-that any sane man could- believe that J e s u s was alive again seemed to the cynical Roman utterly absurd and ridiculous. And yet the entire superstructure of Chris tianity rests on this great fact. Christ’s Resurrection— And Ours .1 purpose, noting several implica tions drawn from the truth of Christ’s resurrection, as set forth, not in the four Gospel accounts, but' elsewhere in the.Word of God. In the well-known resurrection chapter (1 Cor. 15) we are told: “Now if Christ be. preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrec tion of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is. Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith .is also vain. Yea, and we are
' l^ustor. Moody M emorial Church and a 'speaker at the Torrey Memorial Bible Con ference o f the Bible Institute o f Los Angeles .
March, 1942
THE KING ' S BUSINESS
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NE COLD wintry day during a pastorate Ih the Mid- | | die West, I was asked to call at the home of a woman who was said to be dying. All the occu pants of the home were strangers to me. On enter ing the house, 1 was met by the husband of the dying woman, and also by her mother and father. When I introduced myself as a minister of the gospel, they cried out with vehement rudeness, "If you have a God, He must be a monster to permit what is going on upstairs!" They declared in one breath that they did not believe in God and in the next that they did—but that they had no confidence in His love. His mercy, or His justice. "If you want us to believe in^your God," the husband blurted out, "let Him now restore my wife to health." "Yes." the parents chimed in, "let Him raise our daughter from this deathbed." I tried to speak calmly. "My frieijds," I replied, "I know there is a God, and that He is merciful as well as just. His Word says so. But you can never get anything from Him by approaching Him in the belligerent attitude you are showing." - Not too willingly, some one led me to the patient's room. When I entered .that bedroom, it seemed to me I was passing from Satan's territory into heaven itself, for the one whom I met there had that sweet, confident restfulness which belongs only to the children of God. I sat by her bedside and spoke to her of the Saviour and of heaven. I am not sure how many Scriptures I read to her—precious passages on which she and every other sinner must rest his or her faith—but the following must have been among them: "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God" (1 Pet. 3:18). . "Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that heareth my
A Sermon Preached on the Sunday Preceding the Pearl Harbor Incident
What Is
search for the fountain of youth, fol low the vagaries of some tfantastic cult, and tell ourselves it is not so, but death is inevitable. The; king must lay aside his crown and step down from his throne to lie down beside the beggar in the clods of the valley. The minister must preach his last sermon, pronounce his final bene diction, close his Bible, surrender his flock to the Great Shepherd, and die. The magistrate must remove his judi cial ermine and put on the garment of the) sepulcher. The l a w y e r must .write his last brief, finish his last liti gation. The author must write his last manuscript and the poet his last song. The laborer must leave his plow in the field, his axe in the woodland, and give his stalwart frame to the grave. The soldier, must fire, his last shot, wear his last uniform. Many a moth er must leave her chair tenantless and leave her helpless babies alone. Many an innocent,- playful child must drop his toys and with his tiny arms strug gle with death. The time of this event is uncertain, but the fact of it is as certain and positive as that we now live. I. THE MYSTERY OF DEATH. What a mysterious thing death is! It is a silent, unsurveyed land into which no philosopher or scientist has ever forced his way. Drummond said,
T T T H A T happens to the soul \ / \ / Vhen it leaves the body and ' Y y starts out into the great ad venture of the hereafter? What has happened to the millions who have died? What will happen to the mil lions that now live? What will hap pen to the millions who shall live? These are tremendously important , questions. If the Lord d e l a y s His return to earth, all of us will be called upon, perhaps even in the next moment, to make this great adventure into the land of ddath. How far is it to the grave? It is not very far for any of us. Every step we take from birth has been in the direction of the grave. As soon as we are born, we start to die! Our days are “as a handbreadth” IPsa. 39:5), meaning our years can almost be numbered by our hands, James says, “For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that aRpeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away” (4:14). The Psalmist says that we are like the grass: “In the morning it flourisheth, . . . in the evening it is cut down, and withereth” (Psa. 90:6). Life is brief—just a moment in eter nity, infinitesimal. “It is appointed unto men once to die” (Heb. 9:27). This is man’s des tined end. None can escape! We may
"For the living know that they shall die" (Eccl. 9 :5 ).
“E v e r y avenue of approach seems darkened by impenetrable shadow.” No man, by searching, can find it out. Yet, after all, what death is depends upon what life is. But then, what a mysterious thing life is! Science describes life as “correspond ence with environment.” A sculptor may with his hands carve and mold the image of a powerful athlete, but never can he put life in it. It cannot breathe; it cannot grow; it is unre sponsive to its environment. To be in active and in vital correspondence with environment means to LIVE! Is it not true, then, that both life and death, in their real significance, depend upon what man is? But here again, what a mystery man is! Surely, when we think of a man, it is not his physical contours, nor the color of his hair or eyes, but rather that which we call personality that is the man. What is gone at death? All the organs may be present; every-
March, 1942
89
THE- K I NG ’ S BUSINESS
word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlast ing, life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). When 1 asked the question, "Are you sure that when you pass out of this world you will go to be with Christ?" she replied with beautiful confidence, " T know that my Re deemer liveth.' " . Just then the husband came into the room and the wife beckoned him to come near. She put her arms around him and told him that she was going to heaven. She tried to express to him what Christ meant to her, how He had enabled her to live victoriously and was empowering her to die triumphantly. She told him also that if he would put his trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and accept. Him as his Saviour, they two would meet again. A few moments later, the father and mother, who had said such hard words against the love and mercy of God, also entered the room. Their daughter spoke ,to them persuasively of the grace and love of God, and reminded them that she had endeavored earnestly to lead them all to Christ. "It may be," she said, "that this is God's way of bringing you to give heed to those things that are really worth while." . Two hours later, she passed into the presence of the Re deemer whom she loved. That afternoon, I had the privilege of leading the hus band and also the father and mother to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Their lives during the years which followed revealed that a real heart change had taken place with each of them. "Just think!" they often would e x c l a i m rapturously. "Now all of us are going to be ‘ever with the Lord!'" —Louis T. Talbot.
By JOHN F. MacARTHUR* Los. Angeles; California
Death? “ And as it is appointed unto men once to die" (Heb. 9 :27). thing may be in the body that was present in life, with the exception that the heart has shipped. What is missing? Certainly it is nothing that can be seen under a microscope. No, that which is missing is the elusive part that is the man. II. THE NATURE OF DEATH. Science comes from the dissecting room, scalpel in hand, to report a failure to .find anything in the hu man organism bearing the stamp of immortality. But we affirm immor tality of that which we call SPIRIT! Spirit is that which nq scalpel has •ever laid open; that which no lens has ever enabled the eyes to see; that to which belong none of the known properties of matter and which is, nevertheless,' dominant over mat ter; that which thinks and reasons, plans and Wills, loves and fears, suf fers and enjoys; that which, using *Pastor, Eagle Rock Baptist Church*
Socrates said, “You catch my body, but you cannot catch iny S°ul, myself, to bury me.” Socrates, undoubtedly, reached this conclusion by philosophiz ing, but even deeper it was a revela tion of the self within him. The Scriptures everywhere recognize the distinction between the body and the spiritual nature of a man. ‘The Lord,. . . stretched, forth the heavens, and 1a y e t h! the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him” (Zech. 12:1). “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s’’ (1 Cor. 6:20)'. ‘‘For what man knoweth the things of man, save the spirit of man, which is in him?” (1 Cor. 2:11). . The history of creation shows man to be a compound being. Notice the order of events in Genesis 2:7:-First, God formed man out of the dust ■of the earth. Out of the material ele ments God made .a body, vastly more beautiful N than oUrs today, but com posed of the same identical substance. It was a dead body—no consciousness, no reaction, no responsiveness, no sen sation, no motion, no life. Next, God breathed into the nostrils of that life less body the breath of life, or the living spirit, and man became a hy ing, eternally existent soul, with the life of God inhabiting his body. At death- the procedure is similar:
the marvelous mechanism of the body, sees, hears, and feels. Actually it is the man who works through the physical mechanism. This body is a materia} agent and instru ment “1” use, but “I” am a soul! What is my “soul” in the larger sense? It is the real “I.” It is not my body, for the cells of the; body change com pletely every seven years. It. is not my brain, for I have had. several brains since the days of my babyhood. No, I am not the brain, I ’ possess it! I use it! It is mine, but it is not “I.”- Unquestionably “I” am the< same per son as I Was seven years ago, regard less of how my body changes. Thus, I am assured, I am a perma nent, . mysterious, unchanging, spir itual being within this ever-changing body of mine and behind this ever- changing brain. If my tiody is chang ing constantly, yet I remain the same, certainly I willysurvive the passing of the whole body at death. Suddenly there is light on this mys tery—I live in a body; I am a soul!. When the redeeming blood of Calvary flows through my ,soul, taking away the. guilt and wages of sin, and unit ing me to Christ, I know that when the sun is in ashes and the stars have gone out, I shall, be but beginning eternal life with Christ, untrammeled,: unhindered forever .and forever, world without end, Amen!,
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