THE K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S are only worthy of the Dark Ages, there will be no anxiety as to the way of salvation, because few will believe that salvation is needed at all. •A phe nomenon so extraordinary as that of vast masses of people deliberately re fusing to believe in the overwhelming weight of evidence afforded by the his tory of this world, which proves beyond possibility of doubt that there is a cer tain sternness and severity in the Su preme Controller even though it may only be expressed in allowing all the horrors which from earliest times have cursed this earth, can only be ac counted for by the fact that the eyes of their understanding have been blinded by the god of this world. And he is well pleased when men preach nothing but “ peace and safety” because he knows that the incessant reitera tion of the love of God without any Qualification or alternative whatsoever will never rouse men to a sense of their lost condition before God, but, on the contrary, will only confirm them in their unbelief, indifference and sin. “ The presumption which destroys the fear of God and future punishment, in men’s hearts,” Says an old divine, “ is specially the work of the Devil.” It is. There can be no doubt that his chief aim, perhaps his only aim, is to thwart God’s purposes of salvation for the human race. Adam in the Gar den of Eden,- fallen from his high es tate, realized at once that he was under sentence of death and his first impulse was one of fear. “ I was afraid and I hid myself.” He remembered and be lieved God’s warning, “ Thou shalt surely die.” And every suggestion, however well meant, which leads unbelieving, indif ferent and unrepentant sinners to imag ine they will not surely die because “ God doth know” that they are weak and frail and cannot do any better, and because He is gentleness personified and far too good to be unkind; and because it is inconceivable that He will ever deal
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harshly with the few trifling faults committed during this transient exist ence,— is simply helping forward the work of Satan by confirming and up holding his gospel and repudiating God’s. The Old Testament is. discred ited and repudiated today, because it gives the lie to modern soothsaying. If all its judgments and chastisements, its painful incidents and its severities could be eliminated, no voice would be raised against it. Yet, if it could be abolished altogether, we still have the New Testa ment to deal with and the New does not nullify or contradict the Old. In deed, in some ways it is a more difficult problem than the Old. For its warn ings to sinners are not cancelled or even weakened, but on the contrary are strengthened and given a much greater solemnity by the added weight of the Lord’s own authority. The Old Testa ment deals almost entirely with men’s bodies and possessions; with their de struction as ,to the flesh. The new Testament deals with the final destiny of the soul; and the judgments still future, of which it speaks, are far more appalling than any recorded in the Old. The great tribulation “ such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no nor ever shall be” is yet to come. So also are the destruction and judgment of the Anti christ and of Satan, and the final and irrevocable judgment of humanity and the destruction by fire of the earth that now is. But these things present no obstacle to the man who repudiates the Old Testament. He simply brushes them aside as the phantasms of dis ordered imaginations or as low and de graded conceptions of God, unworthy of this enlightened age. Yet Lord set the seal of His authority upon them all, and mere denial, however strident and unanimous, will not alter them in the least degree. The Scriptures cannot be broken and every word concerning the past, in the uld Testament, has been fulfilled. Not one jot or tittle shall fail.
(See Inside Front Cover)
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