of the reasons that congregations, even in fundamentalist circles, seldom hear prophetic messages nowadays is that there is a popular notion abroad that unless a preacher or teacher comes up with something "new," "distinctive" or "original," he cannot be considered a thinker or a scholar. The result is that publishing houses and religious book stores are cluttered up with "new" books, by "new" authors, presenting "new" concepts of God and His Word. Most un fortunate of all, these self-styled intellectuals are not satisfied simply to build their own cases, and to allow them to be compared with the writings of the past generation, to stand or fall on their own merits. Oh, no, all too fre quently they seek in every possible way to discredit the men of God who preceded them, as if to tear them down would build up the reputations of the "new" expositors. What little of constructive nature they substitute is pathetic in the extreme. All of this leads one to paraphrase the cry of Mary Magdalene, as she stood weeping at the empty sepulcher of the Lord: "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him. " Certainly the neo-orthodox and the new-evangelical writers have taken away the Lord of prophecy and the great body of truth surrounding His re turn. What they have produced in its place cannot by the wildest stretch of anyone's imagination be termed "com forting, blessed or purifying." While it is admitted readily that about some of the minutia of prophetic events there may be differences of opinion, and that some details cannot be interpreted with any degree of certainty until the time of their actual fulfillment is nearer at hand, surely the time has come to cease magnifying these things and to proclaim once more the broad outline of prophecy in all its simplicity, beauty, and certainty. Peter de clared, "We have also a more sure word of prophecy; where- unto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shin- eth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts" (I Pet. 1:19). Well, the place is dark to the point of a blackness you can feel, and God's people and the lost world need the light of prophecy. The world has been saying for a long time "Cheer up; the best is yet to come" but that is changing fast to: "The worst is yet to come." The prophetic Word agrees that the worst is indeed ahead, but it is the worst that comes before God's best. Ere there falls upon this civilization that time of tribulation "such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be" (Matt. 24:21), the Lord has declared that He will take His own to be with Him, "That where I am, there ye may be also" (John 14:3). Meantime Christians everywhere should demand that their pastors declare "the whole counsel of God" including the prophecies, and to acquaint their people with the classic Scriptural writings on the Lord's return, and to voice fearlessly and clearly what God has to say about the future of this old world and of His church. There is a whole gen eration of young men and women in abysmal ignorance of these things we were taught so faithfully a generation ago. Perhaps if the Christian leaders would go back to "searching the Scriptures" and to preaching them, the next generation might be saved from the prophetic paradox of the present. President, The Bible Institute x>f Los Angeles, Inc.
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