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T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
June 1926
Th e Message th a t Fo rced the R ew r it in g >«o f H is to ry § w DR. JOHN MURDOCH MACINNIS Dean of the Bible Institute of Loi"Angeles, California
day that would mean emancipation and a new life for themselves and their nation. All at once into that glorious dream came the Cross, and all was turned to darkness. Perhaps one of the most despairing cries in the history of literature is that represented by the two disciples on their way to Emmaus when they said, "We hoped that it was He who should redeem Israel, but now the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him up to be condemned to death and cru cified Him!” That is to say, they had hoped that He was the Deliverer, but the condemnation and death of Jesus in Jerusalem had belied their hope. To them the thing that happened when Jesus was crucified seemed the greatest tragedy that ever came into the life of the world. They could see no good or reason in it, and they wrote it down as the failure and defeat of the greatest dream that had ever come to them. The message of the Resurrection forced them to rewrite their history and to reinterpret its meaning. Instead of the thing that they thought to be the defeat of all that they had hoped being a failure, it was the moment in which God wrought mightily in the realisation of the redemption they had hoped for. He did not do it in their way, but nevertheless He accomplished the very thing that they desired. Indeed He accomplished something beyond what they had thought, for He wrought a redemp tion not fo* a single nation but for the whole world. Very many of the estimates of the things that are hap pening in our day would be changed if the people of God only' realized in a genuine experience of life that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and is the living Lord, Things may Jook dark to us, and the powers of evil may seem to have full sway and to be accomplishing their will, but if Jesus Christ is Lord and our religion means anything, we know that God is working all things together for good to them that love Him. And things that may look like a calam ity to us today, will in the final unveiling of our Lord in His goings, mark epochs in the redeeming action of God, and we need to go to the Church with the message of the risen and the living Christ and demand that our interpre tation of all that is happening be in the light of His vic tory over death and the grave and His regal power in the carrying out of the purposes and plan of God. “ Go quickly and tell . . . He is risen from the dead,” “ and by the right hand of God exalted Lord of all.” There is a second group out in the world, represented by Peter, that needs the message of the Resurrection so that they may rewrite their experience and interpretation of life. Peter not only lost his vision but he realized that he did a cowardly thing in the hour of testing. He denied his Lord, and whoever Jesus was, he felt that it was a cowardly thing to deny Him at the time he declared that he knew nothing of Him. There arose in his heart a desire to see his Lord
■HIS was the messagekof the risen, victorious and living Christ, and wherever it becomes a reality in the life of an individual or a church it forces a reconsideration of men’s estimate and interpre tation of the life of which they are a part. It is effective and powerful only when it comes as an experience of life. It became a living thing in the lives of the women and then their witness became powerful in the lives of those with whom they came in contact. When men experience it they cannot keep silent. Prof. Glover of Cambridge says: “ In philosophy and poetry and religion, to see is to speak; there is no alterna tive.” This is specially true in religion. The men who have given messages that have changed things, are men who saw. Moses saw God in the burning bush, and he spoke words that can never die. Isaiah saw Him “ high and lifted up,” and immediately he stood ready to speak to the world and to the’ages concerning God and His glory. Jeremiah saw God, and a fire was kindled in his life that was a burn ing in his bones, so that he could not keep from talking about what he saw. After the Damascus vision and experience Saul of Tarsus could no longer be silent. John Bunyan says that after he saw God he felt as if he could talk about the love of God to the crows by the roadside, and Dwight Lyman Moody, after an experience of the grace of God, wanted to talk to every creature that he saw, for he felt as though he were in a new world. It is the experience of the resurrection life, and the eter nal realities presented by it, that gives the key to the final meaning of the things that are happening, and their final issue. No wonder that the messenger said to the woman, “ Go quickly and tell.” That was the message that the world of their day needed, and the only message that could explain the things that were taking place; and as they went forth in obedience to this new vision a fuller vision came in the unveiling of Jesus Himself, for they met Him in the path of obedience. The path of dbedience is always the way of vision, and if there is no vision in our day it is because we have ceased to run in obedience to the Word of God. Now let us look at the groups .outside who were forced to change their record and interpretation of the history of their day through this new message. First, we have the disciples. They were genuine lovers of God and were bound to Jesus Christ in a genuine affec tion and devotion; yet the foundation had gone from under their thinking, and their sky had become clouded, and they were perhaps the most disappointed, discouraged and per plexed group in all the world at that time. Their touch with Jesus had given them a vision of great things and kindled a hope that was radiant with the dawning of a new
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