September, 1942
THE KI NG ' S BUS I NESS ignificance of the News By DAN GILBERT Washington, D. C„ and San Diego, California
325
A FAITH FOR TOMORROW—AND FOR TODAY: • A faith suited to the modern crisis must be neither r e a c t i o n a r y nor visionary. It must see the past, the present, and the future in integrated relationship. It is In the Word of God that these three aspects of time are set forth in proper relationship and importance. And in the Word is the basis for this necessary faith. It must see not only the man, Jesus, who walked on earth nineteen cen turies ago; it must see also the living Lord Jesus Christ, who sits today at the Father’s throne in heaven; and it must see also the living Christ who will come in the clouds tomorrow. No man knows when Christ will return. But His coming- is imminent. His com ing draweth nigh. It may not be to morrow—it may be today! A faith confined to the future is not a faith which is good for the present. We live today. The faith we hold is one which we possess today. No mat ter how much we may dream of days gone by or of days to come, our eyes are fixed, our lives are lived, within the circle of this present. Unless Christ’s coming is a possibility, for which we hope and pray, within this living present, then its meaning for men today is necessarily diminished. Death is not the goal of human life. There will be life on earth when Christ comes again, and we are preparing for His coming today. "By a Friend" How often do we find that sensitive ness to spiritual values increases when one is -forced to suffer personal priva tions! THE KING'S BUSINESS office recently witnessed a beautiful demon stration of this fact when a letter was received from a Christian of Japanese descent living at a distance from Los Angeles, and enclosing a money order for $40.50. The letter began: "Kindly e n t e r two-year subscriptions to THE KING'S BUSINESS magazine for the following persons"—and there followed a long list of names and addresses, most of them representing Japanese and Kor eans. On the list also were six U. S. O. centers and one public library. "A large number of these persons have paid for their subscriptions," the writer explained, "but should any in quiry be made as to the donor, kindly withhold my name, and simply say, 'By a friend'.” May God bless this brother for his generosity and use his subscriptions tq THE KING'S BUSINESS in a special way for the exalting of Jesus Christ among those to whom they are sent.
EMPHASIS ON THE FUTURE: • An amazing change has taken place in the psychology and philoso phy of the American people. The cen ter of their thinking has shifted from the present to the future. Until this change occurred, the twentieth cen tury was strongly characterized by a concentration upon the living present. Generally speaking, the American slogan was “Look out for today—let tomorrow take care of itself.” Huge debts were deliberately piled up with no thought as to how they would be paid. Momentary pleasure was the goal of multitudes., During the past year, this attitude has largely been broken down. The future, once again, is considered and contemplated on an equality with the present. The general public has been made to recognize .that winning thè peace is as important as winning the war. The post-war period—the future —looms large in the public mind. A FAITH FOR THE FUTURE: • The times call for a faith which in cludes the future in its perspective. A faith which is not forward-looking cannot answer the needs of the twen tieth century. Any faith which does not include belief in our Lord’s re turn must take comfort in the past, not in the future. For the true believer, there is no disheartening, no reactionary absorp tion with things past. The events of the Lord Jesus’ life on earth are not a n c i e n t history. They are living events. The march of history has now carried us nearly two thousand years from the- days when He walked on earth. But it has carried us nearly two thousand years closer to the day when He will again be among us. Christ is not only behind and above history, but ahead of it. No matter which.way it moves, no matter from what angle we view it, He is its center. Many' commentators bemoan and bewail the direction in which histori cal currents are apparently carrying us. But, in reality,'history cannot lead anywhere except to Christ’s return. Even the seeming setbacks which the cause of truth and righteousness have been sustaining upon the battlefield— even these serve but to carry us nearer to the time of the triumph of right eousness through the coming of the Lord Himself.
THE RELATIONSHIP OF PAST, PRES ENT, AND FUTURE: • Balanced thinking and sane living •depend upon maintaining a proper balance between the past, the present, and the future. “Where there is no vision, the peo ple perish.” Edmund Burke said that society is a sacred contract between the past, the present, and the future. In accord ance with this view, progress, in the larger sense, is a result of a proper and proportionate emphasis >on the accumulated wisdom of the past, the urgent needs of the present, and the long-range requirements of the future. .A society which forgets the lessons of the past will fall back into ancient error and old mistakes. A society which thinks only of the present, and forgets the future, will qommit suicide by its own shortsightedness. And a society which looks only to the future, and ignores the needs of the present, is not likely to have a future! If we spend all our time thinking and plan ning for the winning of the peace, we may neglect to win the war, in the meantime! An adequate and enduring faith must be anchored in the past. But it must live in the present. "And it must look forward into the future. That is the kind of faith which fundamental Christians have. They look backward to an empty tomb, and upward to a risen and reigning Christ, and forward to a Christ who is coming again. This faith is not only modern in the sense that it provides salvation and leadership for the present; it is also progressive in the sense that it is moving forward toward the second coming of Christ, the most glorious vision that ever arched and glorified the horizon of man’s future on earth. True Christians, unlike the mis called “modernists,” are not looking back regretfully to a Jesus who once walked on earth but is now gone for ever. They do not spend their time trying to “modernize” His ancient teachings, trying to bring them up-to- date. For the Jesus Christ of the true believer belongs to no single era. He is the same today as yesterday, and will be the same tomorrow. His mes sage to men is undated. It is eternal in its aptness and applicability.
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