King's Business - 1930-09

September 1930

412

T h e

K i n g ’ s

B u s i n e s s

want to lead my people there and I ought before I die to show the young men and women in Israel that there is a God who can overcome giants!” What a lesson here for those of us who think that we have borne the burdens of the church so many years and that it is now time for us to retire! We may be looking at the past with a bit of pride and at the present and future with a bit of anxiety. We may be recalling great victories of faith in the days gone by, and saying, “ The former days were better than these.” We. may be whining about the condition of the young people and saying that they are not measuring up to their fathers. Quit criticizing the young people; that will do them no good. We did not have half the temptations that they are having when we were their age. They do not need our criticism; they need our en­ couragement, Attention, comrades! Faint not. Ask God to take that scowl off your face. Get back into fellowship with God.‘ Let the joy of the Lord be your strength. Get all the old people of your congregation together. Seek the face and favor of your Joshua; ask Him for the hard places in the ranks; seek His grace and power to lead the young people—not to drive them; show the young people of your community an example of true spiritual life, and you shall see a work of grace that will do your old heart good. May God give us a real revival among the old people. Challenge which they sent to every minister in the English speaking world. These volumes were called, “The Fundamentals : by Two Christian Laymen.” There can be no doubt that the great movement, which today spreads over the Christian world, to preserve the faith once for all delivered to the saints, is indebted to these men and to the books they sent out. Dr. Reuben A. Torrey, who had served as Dean o f the Moody Bible Institute, following his world evangelistic tour, became the Dean o f the Bible Institute of Los Angeles and held that position for fifteen years. The coming o f Dr. Torrey was a fitting union of the work and spirit o f the two Institutes. The first class o f four men and two women was gradu­ ated from the Bible Institute in 1911. Since the beginning there have been, in Day and Evening and Correspondence Courses, more than fifteen thousand students, coming from every State in the Union and from forty-nine foreign countries. In commemoration of the founding of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, a convocation will be held at thè beginning of the new school year to fittingly mark this twenty-fifth mile stone in our history. Have the twenty-five years proven the worth o f the idea? Have the students who received their training in Christian leadérship demonstrated at home and in foreign lands the value o f this great contribution to the church? Shall the work go on? The Institute is in the hands of its friends. Their response to the Biola Challenge will indicate to the Board of Directors what plans for the Institute they can make. We have adopted a policy of rigid economy but no retrenchment. We cannot curtail our program and think we are in the Lord’s will; and yet, if our friends do not sense the inestimable value o f service rendered, such cur­ tailment is inevitable. The largest registration of Day School students in the history of the Institute has been made for the Fall Semester. God has answered our prayers, and we believe that “he which hath begun a good work . . . will perform it”

A Crumb for the Old People R EAD the fourteenth chapter of Joshua. The great leader was dividing the land among the tribes when one day an old man, eighty-five years of age, came up to Joshua and said, “ Give me Hebron!” I think Joshua must have smiled for the man who stood before him had been his chum for many years. It was Caleb. Joshua and Caleb were the only old men in Israel at this time. They were the only ones over forty years of age. They had seen each other in mighty tests of faith. Years before they had re­ turned to Kadesh-barnea with ten others from spying out the land. The ten others had fallen, but- these two mighty men of faith had said, “ Yes, there are giants up there but we are well able to overcome them.” They were a despised minority in Israel but they stood faithful to God and did not wayer. And now Caleb stands before his old friend, who has become the leader of Israel, with this one request, “ Joshua, give me Hebron!” I can see the old general looking at his chum with great admiration and I can hear him say, “ Caleb, do you not know there are giants over there? Do you not know the danger?” And then I hear the old man say, as he straightens up to his full height and looks be­ seechingly info the face of his companion, “ Oh, give me Hebron! I know that is where the giants are, but I The Biola WENTY-FIVE years is a good long time to test an idea. That is the lapse of time since the seed was sown from which has grown the present Bible Institute of Los Angeles. In 1905 a Men’s Bible Class, known as “The Fishermen’s Club,” and a Women’s Bible Class, known as “The Lyceum Club,” were organized in the Immanuel Presbyterian Church of Los Angeles. Within these groups the idea, o f a Bible Institute for Christian training was conceived, and in 1907 Mr. Lyman Stewart resolved to join Rev. T. C. Horton in the founding of the Institute which was incor­ porated in February, 1908, as the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. Mr. Lyman Stewart became the President o f the Board and remained so until his death in 1923. Mr. Horton became the Superintendent of the Institute and remained so until his retirement in 1925.-The providence which made possible the founding of the Institute was the interest which Mr. Stewart had in the . oil industry and in his one book, the Bible. In th'e early eighties when the world-famous evangelist, D. L. Moody, was founding the Bible Institute of Chicago, which now bears his name, his friend Mr. Stewart left his home in Titusville, Pennsylvania, where oil wa*s first dis­ covered in America, came to California and began pros­ pecting for oil, probably hoping that if he got it he might emulate' Moody and build a Bible Institute in Los Angeles. Mr. Stewart was a pioneer. He is credited with drilling the first oil well o f California, building the first oil re­ finery in the United States, and the first tank vessel on the Pacific Coast; he fitted up the first oil burning locomotive; he founded the Union Oil Company o f California. But material things were secondary in his life. He found the Bible to be the only supply for every need of life, the solution of every problem. He tested its strength; he tri­ umphed in its revelation. His dream was that all men every­ where might hear its message and receive Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord and have eternal life. To this end he gave himself and the means with which God had. entrusted him. Shortly after the Bible Institute had come into being, Lyman Stewart and Milton Stewart, his brother, foresaw the dangers to the church through attacks on its foundation of faith, and caused the best defenses of the Word to be gathered from all parts and assembled into twelve volumes

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