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TH E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
A r e . . .
A few weeks ago, in a discussion with a young minister and a college g i r l regarding our respective reli gious backgrounds, the minister ad mitted that he had belonged to a Christian denomination for fifteen years without ever having heard who the person of Jesus Christ was. The college girl stated that in all her Sunday-school and church attend ance she did not remember having heard the plan of salvation until, at the age of twenty, she was invited to a college Bible club. These are but the most recent of many similar testimonies which I have heard, and w h i c h agree; with my own experi ence. In order to evaluate honestly the Christian influences that touch the lives of our young people, let us con sider them under four general classi fications: the church, the home, the school, and the individual Christian testimony. The Influence of the Church “Judgment must b e g i n at the house of God” ; so let us take a frank look at our churches. What percent age of them actually are preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ? Statistics would shock us. How many of these churches, rather, are ad vancing idealism, pragmatism, ra tionalism, and o t h e r philosophies which they claim to base upon Bible teaching, but which conclude that Jesus was merely a man, and that the Bible is a humanly devised his tory of man’s search for and knowl edge of God? Would this kind of re ligious training serve as a back ground for a true appreciation of the gospel, for a ready acceptance of Christ as Saviour? Rather, have not their minds been steeled against the oft-c a i l e d “narrow-mindedness” of evangelical Christianity? The very use, or misuse,, of Chris tian terminology by liberal churches serves as a distinct barrier against an understanding of Scriptural truth. To the born-again Christian, what a flood of meaning flows through the word “salvation” ! When, he speaks or thinks of it, he reckons upon some moment of surrender to Christ, when he passed from death to life and began a process of growth in Christ. Yet that same -nrecious. word is us°d
H OW CAN any Christian worker be c o n t e n t - to jemain in America?” The girl who flung this query at "me was president of her graduating class in college. She had maintained a near A average in her senior year, and was looking forward to mis sionary service in China. Her zeal was a joy to her fellow students^ j “The foreign field,” she went on airily, “ is much more challenging than the home ministry. People in heathen lands have not heard the good news of Jesus Christ. You know yourself that here in America, young people have had every oppor tunity to accept Christ; they are gos pel hardened.” I challenged that last statement. ■Surely we would not minimize the importance of f o r e i g n missionary work. Fvpr\r Christian should face
squarely the Lord’s “ Go ye,” and should follow Him to the ends of the earth, if He thus leads the way. Nevertheless, if we look upon Amer ican young people as an evangelized generation that has knowingly re jected the truth in Christ, we are under a serious illusion. It is true that m o s t of our communities are full of churches, that some Christian broadcast may, be heard over the air nearly every hour of the day, that a copy of the B i b l e may be found in practically every library and book stand in the country, and that Christian literature is .circulated freely. Yet, paradoxical as it may seem, relatively few of our young people have had the opportunity presented to them personally of accepting Christ as Saviour. This is the real issue.
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