King's Business - 1922-05

T HE K I N. G' S B U S I N E S S

518

the churches will have something plain to say when some of the assemblies come around. - GLORIFIED FULFILLMENT OF PROPHECY It has often been reviled, but it has never been refuted. Its foundations have been examined by the most search­ ing eyes. In Hume, and Gibbon, and Voltaire, and La Place, not to mention a multitude of vulgar assailants, the Bible has had to sustain the assaults of the greatest talent, the sharpest wit, and the acutest intellects. To make it appear a cunningly devised fable, phil­ osophers have sought arguments amid the mysteries of science, and travelers amid the hoar remains of antiquity; for that purpose, geologists have ransacked the bowels of the earth, and astrono­ mers the stars of heaven; and yet after having sustained the most cunningly de­ vised and ably executed assaults of eighteen hundred years, it still exists— a glorious fulfillment of the words of its Founder,— “ On this rock have I built my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”—Dr. Guthrie. KEEP BOTH OARS GOING “ Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” There was once a pious old patriarch who was a ferryman in the Highlands of Scotland. On his oars he had in­ scribed, respectively, “ Faith” and “Works.” A passenger, one day ob­ serving the quaint words, asked what they meant. He then took up the oar “ Faith,” and attempted to row with it; but the boat merely described a circle, and made no progress. He next took up that marked “Works,” .and attempted to row with it— the same re­ sult. He then took up both, and ply­ ing them together the boat immediately shot ahead across the lake. The ap­ plication is obvious.— Sel.

of the sin of blasphemy? Is there noth­ ing in the person of Christ; in His teachings, character and mission which is sacred? We are accustofned to shock­ ing characterizations of Jesus by Vol­ taire, Paine and Ingersoll, who pretend to no faith in Him nor reverence for the Scriptures; but it is astonishing to read the same kind of utterances from Christian ministers, theological pro­ fessors, Methodist leaders. What do they mean? How can they pray to Him afterward? Or have they ceased to pray to Him?” Where the Real Fight Is It is rather amusing to notice how some writers of the unevangelical school draw the line of theological de­ marcation in these days. They would have it appear that all opposed to mod­ ern rationalist ideas are premillienialists and of course premillennialists and “ fundamentalists” are one and the same in their minds. They also delight in mak­ ing it appear that premillennialists in­ sist that the premillennial view is es­ sential to salvation and an absolute fundamental of the evangelical faith. The uninstructed would gather from these writings that the battle of the age was between liberals and premillennial­ ists. Why try to camouflage the mat­ ter in this way? The real battle is be­ tween skepticism (downright infidelity in many cases) and evangelical con­ servatism. The question of “ pre” and "post” appearance of Christ is not to the front. The bàttle centers around the inspiration of the Scriptures, the Deity of Christ, the substitutionary atonement, and such beliefs as have al­ ways been the bulwark of the churches. Self-Appointed Bosses One of the gravest dangers of the day is that in several of the leading de­ nominations the placing of pastors is being done by small groups of meh who have gotten the machinery into their control. This desire to work the levers seems to possess men who are no longer loyal to the Bible. Pastors write us frequently of how the power is wielded by these men, who know how to work things so as to eliminate pastors who stand for things distasteful to their lib­ eral ideas. What are we coming to— that a few men may get to themselves power over the bread and butter of faithful ministers of Christ, and deprive hundreds of people of the true message of thé Bible? It can only indicate that a crisis is coming, and from the rum­ blings, we believe that the laymen of

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