KING'S BUSINESS PROPHECY SECTION Edited by Dr. Charles L. Feinberg, Director, Talbot Theological Seminary OUR
LORDS
by Charles H. Stevens, D.D. H u m a n v a l u e s are only estimated by contrast and comparison. A thing is superlative because one is unable to conceive of anything above or beyond. There are two fields where superlatives reign: first the finite, the greatest in a classification and second the infinite, the greatest without limit. Without doubt, the supreme moment in the history of this world was not the hour of creation “ when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy” ; it was not the moment when the Divine Creator took shapeless clay and moulded it into one like unto Deity and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, surely this was a supreme hour; it was not the glorious morning when Noah and his sons and families first stepped out of the ark, having passed through the judgment waters of the devasting flood to view the rainbow of promise draped around the shoulders of a dying storm, but the greatest moment of time and eternity was the one which brought the Son of God into this world; the moment when God interposed Himself into this sphere of ours; the moment when the Christ of God identified Himself with our fallen and despair ing race for redemptive purposes— “ Great is the mystery of godliness; God manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, be lieved on in the world, received up into glory.” There yet remains the approaching moment of the earth’s most glorious experience, the blessed hour of our Lord’s return to this earth to receive His own, to judge in righteousness and reign in glory, majesty, and power. This is the event for which the ages have waited, the earth has been groomed, and the Church has hoped. It is bound to come— it may be near. Unfortunately, many Satan-directed elements have combined to becloud the “ Blessed Hope” of our Lord’s return. Human tradition, man-devised schemes, and the process of human reason have all blended to becloud
the glorious promise “ This same Jesus . . . shall so come.” Amid the maze of misapprehension it is up to the sincere child of God to fight through to recapture for himself and the world that which the Scripture most surely proclaims and for which the redeemed most ardently longs— the second coming of Christ to this earth of ours. Nothing else will factor the world’s problems, unify the Christian faith, clarify the Bible concept of things to come, restore the brilliant radiance that so character ized the early church, and shed light and understand ing upon the order and course of this present age of darkness and confusion in which we now find ourselves. | THE FACT Are we right in expecting, teaching, preaching, and waiting for the imminent, bodily return of Christ? At this time He will catch away His Bride by the resurrec tion of the righteous and the translation of the living saints. If we are wrong here our error could be close akin to those who seek to deny altogether or to explain away the bodily resurrection of the once-crucified Son of God. This much can be said with evident assurance justified by facts: the great majority of professing Chris tians are either submerged in human programs for world betterment or have neglected altogether the doc trine of the Hope of our Lord’s imminent return. Those of us who teach the pre-millennial return of Christ are certainly in the majority and furthermore among our selves sadly divided. This very fact should make us all the more careful to “ search the Scriptures daily to see whether or not these things are so.” If it is not in the Word of God we have no right to believe it, nor teach it; if it is so taught in the Bible we are under solemn obligation to proclaim it, even though in so doing we should have to stand alone, maligned, ostracised and
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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