earth, but God returned on the banks of Jordan to thunder through the voice of John the Baptist. Then there was the day of all days when man wallowed in sin without a Saviour, groped in darkness without light, struggled in bondage without redemption, but God sent forth His Son to live and die and live again, the Just for the unjust, the Sinless for sinners, God for man! b ju i 'S o d . . . Since that glad day, no matter how the clouds have hung, no matter how dark the night, or dreary the age, just when everything has seemed hopeless, history has always turned a corner with those blessed words, “ But God. . . .” There came a day when the early church seemed to face an impenetrable Gentile world, but God struck down a rebel on the Damascus road to make Saul of Tarsus the spearhead of world evangelization. There came a time when the Bible was chained, and supersti tion took the place of the gospel, but God called Wy- cliffe and Tyndale to loosen His Word in the language of the common people. There was a day when ecclesiasti- cism threatened to choke the church and when ignorance bound millions in the clutches of the law, but God touched a miserable monk, worn out with trying to earn his own salvation, and Martin Luther rose in the strength of the Lord to declare, “ The just shall live by faith!” Again, there came a time when the notes of free grace were lost in an age of worldliness and the church had lost the'spirit of power in the lap of Delilah, but God woke up another groping preacher, and John Wesley warmed his heart at Luther’s fire and went out on horseback to carry the gospel to a needy world. There never has been an age so hopeless but that just when it looked as though the devil had had the last word and hell had turned the tables on heaven, the historian has always been able to turn a new page and write at the top, “ But God.. . . ” And although we live in the midst of world apostasy, the world’s Saturday night will turn into God’s good-morning, for in that blackest hour just before daylight everything may seem to be lost, but God is coming in the Person of His Son to receive from the world His own. What is true in general has been true in particular in the experience of individual believers. In the darkest THE KING 'S BUSINESS
I N t h e s e c o n d c h a p t e r of Ephesians the inspired writer sets before us a marvelous contrast. In the first three verses he describes our wretched state apart from the grace of God. He piles one phrase upon an other to picture our lost and undone condition. We were “ dead in trespasses and sins” ; we walked “ according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” ; we “ had our conversation [manner of life] in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind” ; we “were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.” Can you imagine a more formidable array of words, a more terrible stacking o f expressions to declare the state of mortal man apart from redeeming grace? Now if the writer had stopped there, if no more could be said, if we were left shut up in those dismal phrases, then life would be but another name for death and earth but the anteroom to hell. But verse four opens with two words that spell the difference between life and death, between sin and sal vation, between heaven and hell: “ But God . . . !” Sin was black but God came in, and God is light; Satan was powerful but God came in, and God is almighty! Man was lost, but God came in, and God found him! Man was under wrath, but God came in, and God is love. bud S od . . . The course of history revolves around the precious words. There was a day when the earth was without form and void, but God said, “ Let there be light,” and there was light. There was a day when “ the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and . . . every imagina tion of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continu ally,” but God chose Noah and gave the race a new start. There was a day when again men forgot God and walked by sight, but God called Abraham to set out not knowing whither he went, looking for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. There was a day when the chosen people languished under Egyptian bondage, but God called Moses to endure as seeing Him who is invisible. There was a day when the backsliding people hung their harps on willows in foreign exile, but God raised up Ezekiel and Daniel. There was a day when it seemed that heaven had ceased speaking to
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