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-
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