February 1927
97
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
in Heart of the Lesson—K.L.B. Devotional—Selected Writers Little Folk—Mabel L. Merrill
■ International Lesson Commentary
there would be much unresponsive soil. However, no word spoken in the Sav iour’s name is lost. It is God who has spoken to men when we speak for God— “as though God did beseech you by us” (v. 20). The hearers will be held to answer. We have delivered our souls by pointing the way to heaven. Finally, let us note carefully the exact nature of our “ministry of reconciliation.” It consists in declaring God reconciled to man (v. 19) and in beseeching men to “be reconciled to God” (v. 20). Oh that preachers would preach “Christ and Him crucified!” Do men in this day in which we live need to be reconciled to God? Whatever modern philosophers may say, there is an inborn instinct , in the souls of all men, telling them that they need to be recon ciled to God. All history testifies to the vague but real longing of human nature for some inner evidence that men shall be accepted by their Maker. All systems of heathenism, with their sacrifices, penances, priest hoods, costly offerings, smoking piles and bloody immolations, are built, at the base, on this desire—to be reconciled to the Su preme Being. There is a sense of remoteness from God, an impression that He must be re pelled by their sinful condition. This is at the bottom of all unrest, dark anticipa tions and swaying back and forth of reli gious opinion. It is imperative that men should seek in some sufficient and authorized way to be reconciled to God. The Bible has re vealed God’s own way— the way of the Cross. Those who have accepted God’s way have never failed to feel His bfan strength, wisdom and grace flowing in upon them, filling their souls with rivers of peace, freeing them from sin’s bond age, and assuring them that they are ready for immortality. “Sharing the Good News”—this is in deed the believer’s main business on earth. —o— 1 ■ P ith and P oint You can figure that neutrality in reli gion is always cowardice. Christ not diffused is Christ misused. Be sure to let your life speak for Christ, but let not your lips be silent. He who has Christ in his soul will cer tainly have a tongue to tell it. “I’ll live my Christianity, not talk it,” says one. In that case, who gets the credit? Self! Heathen are true to false gods, while many a professed Christian is false to the true God. Gratitude to Christ is the mainspring of piety; love, the sacred secret of benefi cence. Only when we devote ourselves, accord ing to our measure, to the winning of others to Christ do we enter into the practical spirit of our Lord’s death.
M arch 6 , 1927 Sharing th e Good News L esson T ext —Acts 8:4-8; 2 Cor. 5:14-20
T NDIVIDUAL work with individuals is l | the thought the lesson committee is seeking to emphasize in this lesson. The first passage shows that early be
would slip through life and not give to Christ a few fair words for His pains and grace ? God forbid! At the cross we learn that self is to be forgotten in hearty consecration to Him and in glad service to our fellow men. “Henceforth we know no man after the flesh” (v. 16). We shall think of no one Simply as a man, but of every one as an eternally existing soul to be saved or lost to heaven. Even Christ we know no longer as a man, the apostle adds (v. 16), Though He had been known among men as, the seed of David, now by His resurrection, He has been “declared the Son of God with power” (Rom. 1:4). He can be known no more as a Jew. He is of no nation, for He died for all. We know Him now by a deeper, an inward, abiding sense. The indwelling Christ implies that His very nature is wrought into ours and ours into His. It is bound to make us “new creatures” (v. 17). This new and divine life is the evidence that we have been born from above. Being thus reconciled to God through Him, we shall immediately feel that to us is given “a ministry of reconciliation" (v. w - God’s reconciliation of the world (v. 19) is as complete as He can make it, but it remains for us to urge men to fall in with it and accept His proposals. All has been done on Calvary’s cross;: forgiveness, justifying righteousness, await every peni tent soul. God wants this known, so, from age to age He has constituted His chil dren ambassadors to announce these terms and urge men to awake to the opportunity of salvation. “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ" (v. 20). We represent Him in a foreign country. Our Lord’s commission has not been cancelled (Mt. 28:19,20). The power of the Holy Spirit to carry out that commission has not been withdrawn- Our business is witnessing. Results are God’s. Jesus said little to His disciples about results. He clearly indicated that
lievers w h o k n e w themselves to be on the road to heaven were not content to go there alone. “They went everywhere pro claiming the Word” (v, 8 ). “A h!” says one, “It
was the apostles who did this, not the laymen.” The opening verse of the chap ter settled the issue. “They were all scat tered abroad except the apostles." Let it be noted at the outset that it was persecution that fanned the spirit of evan gelism into a spreading fire. The kind of Christian who dries up in summer and freezes up in winter is not the kind who kindles others into love of Christ. It- is- one who is willing' to be true at any cost—a soul aflame —who sets others afire. Every revival has been a conflagration kindled around the flaming heart of some believer who had been thoroughly tested by persecution. “All godly shall suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12). We cannot be the salt of the earth without smarting some one. There is no shining without willingness to burn. Are you the center of any kindling in fluences for Christ? Are you a mere re cipient? • Do you exist in the church mere ly to keep others cool—a religious ice berg floating about and keeping down the temperature ? Witnessing for Christ is not trench war fare. His ambassadors must stand out in the open though Satan’s darts fall thickly about. Not to be out-and-out is to be down-and-out. “The love of Christ constraineth us” (2 Cor. 5:14). Literally: “Christ’s love constraineth”—-not our limited and fluctu ating love to Him, but His great love to us, should inspire us to spend and be spent for others. This infinite love of the self- sacrificing Saviour is “shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost” (Rom. 5:5). It causes us to reason “that if one died for all, then were all dead” (v. 14). All men were as good as dead, or Christ’s sub stitutionary death would not have been necessitated. How, then, can one who has found life through His death desire hence forth to live only to himself? (v. 15). Under law, the argument for obedience was God’s sovereignty. Now the argu ment is gratitude. One who has any vision of Calvary will “live unto Him who died for him” (v. 15). Faith surely cannot leave one who has been saved by Him as unconcerned as a stone. Can it be there is one of His who
Since - the Sunday School Lessons for the ensuing months deal with the differ ent phases of the Christian Life we would call attention to the choice line of “Best" Books for “The Christian Life" advertised by the Biola Book Room in this issue.
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