FROM A CHILD THOU HAST KNOWN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES ^ —2 Timothy 3.15
respectfully suggested that no amount o f effort spent in trying to relieve the symptoms will ever reach the disease itself. This can be accomplished only by the regenerative work o f Jesus Christ in the human heart. Relieving racial tensions will not do this; establishing laws o f one kind or another will not do this; provid ing better living conditions will not do this; raising social stand ards will not do this. This heart trouble o f humanity can be cured only by proclaming and persuading men to believe the fact that Jesus Christ died for our sins, not as a martyr to a noble cause, but in a forensic sense. In other words, He died as an atone ment for our sins in order that we might be reconciled to God. In His death He satisfied the divine law o f God, paying the full penalty for the infraction o f the law by human beings. The wages o f sin is death, but the g ift o f God through Jesus Christ and His atoning work on Calvary’s Cross is life forever more. This is the message that clergymen should be bringing today to the people o f our beloved land and throughout the world. This is the message o f salvation, which the church alone is authorized to proclaim. The Church o f Jesus Christ has been relevant in every generation only to the extent that it gave its own genera tion these eternal truths. One can hardly fail to see that the church has lost a great deal o f its relevancy in the world today. It is tragically true, but it is because the church in large measure has lost its divine message. There is no organization, no movement, no political or sociological party in existence today which has the distinctive message to proclaim as has the Church o f Jesus Christ. So where the church has failed to deliver to lost men this Gospel o f salvation, it has indeed lost its relevancy. O f course, it is readily admitted that there are social implications to the true Gospel, but that has nothing whatever to do with this "social gospel.” Any minister o f Jesus Christ who ceases to preach the doctrine o f the atonement as the only way whereby men may be saved, has ceased to fulfill the high calling wherewith he has been called and he should get out o f the ministry (period !). This is not to say that the great moral issues o f the day should not be dealt with in the pulpit. But all o f this is but a sideline to the central purpose o f the Church o f Jesus Christ, namely, the preaching o f the glorious Gospel “ that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried and rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” This Gospel has been relevant for every generation from Peter and Paul to these closing years o f the twentieth century. Mankind still suf fers from the sickness o f sin, for which the only sure remedy is "the blood o f Jesus Christ” which "cleanseth us from all sin.” God forbid that we should withhold from men dying in sin the only hope o f redemption and deliverance!
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7
SEPTEMBER, 1966
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