124
March 1929-
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
“The hounds of wrath are baying, Lord, Against my clean desire; They strain, they tug upon the leash With thews that never tire; “And they grow strong as I grow weak; They leap and snarl and whine” ;
The cross of Jesus stands at the crossroads of every man’s life. He can not evade it. He can not go round it, its arms are too wide; he can not go under it, its roots are too deep; he can not climb oyer it, it reaches too high; and because of this cross and its compelling insistence,
“To every man there openeth A Way, and ways, and a way, And the high soul climbs the high way, And the low soul gropes the low; And in between, on the misty flats, The rest drift to and fro. But to every man there openeth
and in that hour I am driven to pray, “O cover with Thy wounded hand This feeble hand of mine.”
This prayer of confidence in the power of the Christ of the Cross to meet my need is made possible because: “Under an eastern sky Amid a rabble’s cry, A Man went forth to die, For me. “Thorn-crowned His blessed head, Blood-stained His every tread, Cross-ladened on He sped, For me. “Pierced were His hands and feet;
A high way and a low, And every man decideth The way his soul shall go.”
Christ comes to the door of every man’s soul with an invitation to travel the “high way” with Him, “and him that cometh, I will in no wise cast out.” “Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were an offering far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my life, my soul, my all.” A personal surrender to the Christ of the Cross teaches us that “Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure, By the cross are sanctified; Peace is there that knows no measure, Joys that through all time abide.” The greatest voluntary act of all life is a personal sur render to Jesus Christ as “King of kings and Lord of lords.” No greater exclamation can fall from human lips than acknowledgment of Jesus the Christ of the Cross as the Son of God, and to acknowledge, like Thomas: “Thou art my Lord and my God.” “O let us trust Him, none can save From sin and death but He; He breaks the power of canceled sin, He sets the prisoner free. “If earnestly in faith we ask, His spirit He will give; .
Three hours o’er Him beat Fierce rays of noontide heat, For me.” •
When contemplating the cross in the light of Isaiah fifty-three, and John three, sixteen, one is led to confess— “Thus wert Thou made all mine,
Lord, make me wholly thine, Grant grace and strength divine To me. “In thought and word and deed, Thy will to do, O lead My soul, e’en though it bleed, To Thee.”
That is the purpose of Calvary.
“The dying thief rejoiced' to see That fountain in his day; And there may I, though vile as he, Wash all my sins away.”
“Come, let us reason together; though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” And because “with His stripes we are healed” of ,sin and disease and shame, “Walking I look to Jesus on the road And thank Him that the ghostly night is gone. Until my soul had seen the holy cross I never knew the dawn.
And purify our souls, that we With Him on high may live. “For He bestows on sinful men A robe of purity, A hope of bliss, a crown of life, And immortality. “The man who comes to Him in faith He never turns away; This blessing you may seek and find, O seek it, friend, today. “O linger not upon the path, Knock now at mercy’s gate; Perhaps before tomorrow dawns The hour will be too late.”
“All colors were as darkness save the hues That even our dull bodily eyes can see, But now is God grown fair beyond the East Upon His blessed tree.”
Because of the cross and the death of Christ as sin- Bearer and Redeemer, “there is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit.” “See, from His head, His hands, His feet,
Christ is the Lord of life and not of death. The cross would be meaningless to us apart from “the empty tomb.” “Good Friday” would be “Black Friday” did not “Easter dawn” follow the darkness of Gethsemane and the black ness of Calvary’s nighti
Sorrow and love flow mingled down; Did e’er such love and sorrow, meet, Or thorns compose so rich a crown ? “His dying crimson, like a robe,. . Spreads o’er His body on the tree; ■Then I am dead to all the globe, And all the globe is dead to me.”
“The Lord is risen indeed; He lives, ,to diej no:more;
He lives, the sinnerls cajise, to plead, Whose curse and shame He bore.” That is the message of the cross and the Easter dawn.
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