July 1925 295 E5a5ibi!itiüdbdbdb[!i[!iïi2525E525E5252525E525ï5E525E5EE5B5252525HS5E5E525B5E525B5E5B5E52525aid!i!5îS25?SP'525E525E5?5?Ii?S?S?SF‘?ltIlri,sq?ôi?q?S?S?S?q?iti5B52i252fa S 1 9 aE5ÏE5252H5HE5E5c C o n t r i b u t e d A r t i c l e s ■52525H5H5H5H5H5E525H525H5H5H5E5E5H5H5H5H5HSa5H5H5E5H5H5H5H525253H5a525252525P5P5Pq?q?q?q?qp>7?^?q?‘^q?qp‘SJWISHSESHSHSHSHSESESHSESESZsl TKe Cr isis in the Church Martin Luther Thomas It gives us great pleasure to introduce to “Our Family” a former”student of the Bible Institute castor of the First Presbyterian Church at San Pedro, California» who gave the following address meeting of the Southern California Premillennial Association, in the Institute auditorium. It is a sage and was delivered in a masterful manner which awakened an intense interest audience which heard it. May the Lord multiply his kind. of Los Angeles, now at the April a man’s mes- in the large THE K I N G ’S B U S I N E S S
|HERE have been four great crises in the history of the church since Jesus Christ ascended from this earth. The first came under what is known as Gnosticism. Marcion, who was born in 135- at Synopia in Asia Minor, was a rich man. He joined the Roman congregation and gave to them the equivalent of $10,000. Immediately he introduced into that early apos tolic church the old mythical Gnosticism which denied the reality of matter, the reality of sin, and the reality of that which is material. What does that sound like? Christian Science! Surely, there is nothing new under the sun! . Montanism For almost two hundred years Gnosticism lived to plague the church and then came the second crisis under Montanus, who was born in the year 156. He accepted the Gospel of John but denied such books as The Acts, Romans, and Reve lation. When he came to that wonderful prophecy where Jesus said that the Holy Spirit of God will convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment, Montanus said, “I am the. fulfillment of that prophecy." With two of his prophets he went to Phrygia and said, “The end of the world is at hand, and we are ready to establish the New Jerusalem in Phrygia.” And now came turmoil, and perse cution for the Christians. Edicts went forth that all Bible^ and everything bearing the name of Christian should be exterminated. Christians were cast into dungeons and fed to the lions, and funeral pyres were kept burning from Northern Africa to Northern Gaul. Finally in 312 occurred one of the great decisive battles of history. Constantine vowed that if the God of the Christians would give him victory he would become a Christian, and Christianity should be the religion of the Roman Empire. On his stan dard he placed the cross with these words, “In this sign conquer.” Constantine did win that battle, and immedi ately all types and kinds of heathen rites and customs came to pollute the purity of the early Christian Church. Arianism In the year 320 came the third great crisis under a man known as Arius, the father of Biblical criticism. For three hundred years his doctrines held sway, dividing empires, dividing the church, dividing thrones, dividing families, and have come down to us in the guise of modern Unitarianism! And now followed the long years known as the Dark Ages. Learning was obliterated; the sciences did not exist; the Bible was chained to the church under the bishopric of the Roman ruler. The sixteenth century dawned in Europe with tli.e peasants held fast in the grip of a political machine. Rome flaunted her banner in the face of an ignorant, troubled world, and prejudice, pride and oppression ruled the people with a heavy hand.
The Reformation On November 10, 1483, there was born in Eisleben, of German parents, a baby boy. He was a studious lad, and the year 1501 found him in the University, preparing for the law. In the University library he found one day a Bible. In it he discovered a living, saving, personal Christ and reli gious liberty, and in 1517 Martin Luther nailed his famous Ninety-Nine Theses upon the doors of the Castle of Witten berg. And so began the Reformation, because one man saw' and thought straight, and was not afraid to speak his convictions. The Fourth Crisis About the year 1860 two books were brought out. One was the “Origin of Species,” and the other the “Descent of Man.” About the same time there arose in Germany a phil osopher by the name of Ernest Haeckel. One of the students under Haeckel was the well known Karl Marx, who based his philosophy of life upon the interesting theory that man has not come from an omnipotent and holy God, but that he has come out of the gutter. Karl Marx is the author of the famous book, “Das Kapital,” in which he states these three positions— (1 ) the evolutionary hypothesis of history; (2 )’ the law of concentration of capital, and (3) the eternal struggle between the man who has and the man who has not. Karl Marx went to Russia, and Russia today is the answer to “Das Kapital,” And now there began in our own country in the year 1703, an awakening and hundreds of thousands of men and women were gathered into the evangelical church—Method ists, Congregationalists, Baptists and Presbyterians— and began to establish schools and colleges. And so it was that Yale and Harvard, Andover and Princeton and Brown came into being. But it was not long until the forces of reaction set in, and today our colleges and universities are reeking with the unbelief of false philosophy and the evolutionary theory. The situation in our theological seminaries is little better, for here, where the Bible should be lifted up and held supreme, it is in many instances made to take a secondary place, and is held up before all eyes, not as the world’s great Book, the charter of the world’s destiny, but rather as a book to be subjected to criticism— higher criticism, textual criticism, destructive criticism, any and all kinds of criticism. Little wonder that in such an atmosphere all the glow and warmth and comfort of evangelical Christianity languishes and dies, and that out of our universities and theological seminaries today are coming the youth of our land, trained in intellect, but with a weak and shattered faith, with unstable opinions, and with scorn and mocking criticism in their hearts.
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