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T h e
K i n g ’ s B u s i n e s s
May 1928
transgressions, awaiting the divine sacri fice of Calvary’s cross. Someone has said: “ God could create ten thousand worlds, but He could not save a single soul without the cross of Jesus.” This is literally trde, whether in the days before the cross, or since. The only difference was that the Old Testament believers looked forward in hope, while New Testament believers look back in faith to the finished redemption. These are days when critics call the Gospel of substitutionary atonement, “the Gospel o f the shambles’’ and “the slaugh ter-house religion.’’*. Nevertheless, the Scriptures declare that “without the shed ding o f blood, there is no remission for sin” (Heb. 9:22). There can be no de nial of the fact that Jesus Christ has gained redemptive power over millions of men by what happened on Calvary’s cross. It is the message o f “ Christ cru cified” which has proved “ the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth” (Rom. 1:16). There is a tradition o f the Empress Helena that she sent to the Holy Land to find the cross of Jesus. Excavations were made and three crosses were found. In order to tell which one had been the Saviour’s cross, a corpse was brought and laid upon the cross. The moment the body rested upon the cross o f Jesus, it, came to life, according to the tradition. This is, at any rate, a beautiful parable. The dignity of the truth of the Gospel of His cross has been fully demonstrated, for all who come in vital contact with it through faith, receive spiritual life. It makes dead men live. Golden T ex t: Choose ye this day whom ye will serve. Review. Jesus Teaches How To Listen Mark 4:1-20 Memory Verse^-f“ Take heed therefore how ye hear.” Luke 8 :18. FRED S. SHEPARD ’S BLACKBOARD OUTLINE
have been tied at equal intervals. Drive into the. back of the round piece two tacks so close together that they will hold each knot when the string is slipped between them. The string ends in a clip which is fastened to the first picture.' The first knot stands for “W ho?” and the pupil who tells who the characters are in the first picture pulls the string down to the first knot, thus raising the picture one fifth of the way. The second knot stands for “Where?” and the pupil telling where the first picture is located pulls it up to the second knot. Thus with the other knots which stand for “What ?”. (what the objects in the picture are, ex clusive of the persons), “Deeds” (what the persons o f the picture are doing), and “Words” (what they are saying). After each picture has been pulled all the way up, it is removed and the string is fastened by the clip to the picture next in order. After the lesson the pictures may be distributed among the pupils as souvenirs o f the quarter’s work, or as rewards for perfect attendance, or as thè teacher may choose. O f course the teacher will drive home the lesson as each, picture is reviewed. C OMEONE has said of a certain great capitalist that he seemed to think that because he is a billionaire in money, every opinion he holds on every subject is a bil lionaire; 1 Opinion—which is a big mistake. At the 1927 Northfield Conference Dr. E. Y. Mullins- told the parable of the mice ! Five little mice were born inside a big piano. They had grown up there. They were never outside the piano. As the mice grew up they became scien tific, and they began to observe pheno mena and to describe what they observed. That is what science does. It describes : it does not interpret. It suggests how things happen : it does not tell why they happen. That is the accepted scientific method. These mice that became scientific ob served phenomena, and made a record of what they observed, in order that they might generalize and draw an induction when all the facts were in hand. What did they observe? They observed a little hammer at one place, and a chord in an other place, and the hammer was over against the chord, and the hammer struck the' chord, and the chord vibrated, and sound was emitted by the vibrating chord. Then another hammer /struck another chord, and produced another vibration and other sounds. Another hammer struck another chord, and so on. When they had observed and observed and observed, they drew their induction, or they stated the facts : hammers, chords, blows, vibrations, sounds, music. More hammers, more blows on more chords, more vibrations, more sounds, more music. One day one o f the mice said : “ Isn’t there something behind all this?” His conferees said : “ There cannot be, because we see it all here. It is a closed circle, and we know how the sounds are produced in this closed circle of cause and effect.” Now, if they had remained at- that stage there never would have been any — o — Parable of the Mice
discovery beyond that. But one day one of the mice, a little more curious and a little more humble, a little more anxious to find the truth in all respects and a lit tle more desirous, o f being loyal to all the facts everywhere, quietly made its way outside the piano and looked : and lo and behold, there was a man sitting on a stool striking the keyboard with his. fingers and causing the hammers to strike the chords and cause the vibrations that produced the music! He went back inside and told the four mice that remained inside what he had seen, and what he knew. The mice on the inside scouted the idea. They said: “It is impossible and unnecessary, be cause we see all thé forces that are oper ating here, and it is a closed circle of cause and effect.” My brethren, that is a parable of science and religion ! The scientific man works with a method o f a closed system of cause and effect, and it is tremendous ly fruitful. All the great achievements of modern science are based upon the fact that the scientific man consciously and scrupulously observes that method. He does not explain phenomena by means of God as first cause, because if he did he could equally explain all phenomena by the same cause and he would get no where. He must deal with secondary causes in order to get any explanation that is worth anything. Do you not see? If we say that God causes the lily to bloom, and God causes the goose to fly across the heavens, and God causes the grass to spring up, we are where we started. He is- the cause of everything. The scientific man is an observer, pri marily, of the secondary causes that pro duce effects in physical nature, and by restricting himself to that particular method he gets great results. He is a little child in the presence o f nature, and nature teaches him, and he describes what he sees. But that is not the only way to apprehend reality. •The religious man is not looking for physical causes and effects. He is look ing for the direct vision o f God. He is looking for the power o f God to redeem him. He is looking by faith to the spirit ual universe, and he is loyal to those facts and he believes that someone is sitting outside of the piano striking the keyboard and making the music. He goes behind the phenomena to the first cause, as well as to the second cause.. He goes behind phenomena to the final 'cause. The man who finds God in religious experience is just as thoroughly convinced of it as a man who finds the secondary causes in nature. Sir Philip Gibbs : The world at present is not on its way to peace, though there are many peace makers. It is well on its way to a_ se ries of wars which may culminate in some new world war for our children’s children. It is becoming more difficult, rather than less, to isolate the areas of strife, because nations are b e i n g brought nearer together by more rapid means of transport and communica tion.
His Will—My Will
S U P R E M E ■—“ Thy will” UBORDINATE— “Not mine” UBMERGED —“May be one” Thee in me, I in Thee, they in us. John 17:21
This can be made one o f the most in teresting days of the quarter if planned in advance. Below is Peloubet’s sugges tion for elementary age. T h e F ive K n o t s R e v ie w Use the set of pictures published by the publishers of this volume. (Any pic ture roll will answer.) Take a shallow box of the'size of the pictures and cut a
window in the front large enough to dis play a picture. Re move also the top of the box, so that the pictures can be pulled up from the box through the top. Put the box in a frame about twice as high as the box, 1 piece of wood over in which five knots
the top being a roun which runs a string
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