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T HE K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
probably right. If Christianity is merely a revelation, Christ need not have died. But Christianity is not merely a revela tion, it is a redemption. Why did Christ die, if it was not to redeem us? And, I would add, why did He die as He did, nailed to a cross between two thieves, in an agony of desolation, crying, “ My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’’ I put it to the reader. Why did the Son of God die thus, unless it was to redeem us? This is the very heart of our Gos pel: We are redeemed “ with the pre cious blood of-Christ” (1 Peter 1:19). This is the central truth" which we have to preach. “ Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). To drop this out is to drop out the Evangel, and to preach a mere philosophy. Pentecost is only obtained at the foot of the Cross. There alone are souls transfigured and made fit for the city of God. Oh, the riches of grace which those Apostles saw in the Gross of Cal vary! How wonderful! How unsearch able! It is the Cross which makes their great Epistles mines of spiritual wealth to us today. It is the Cross which makes them rich; and the richest of them all are those in which the writers have ob tained the deepest insight into its holy mysteries, “ Christ Crucified.” All the world over, wherever the Cross is preached, “ it brings men to themselves.” The failure of the pulpit today is due largely to a lack of the courage to come right out with the whole truth of the Cross of Christ. Preachers and missionaries alike are not making it evident that they personally owe everything, even their very souls, to the redemption of the Cross. Preach “.Christ Crucified.” Hold up the banner of the Cross for the nations. Only as we preach the Atonement will the Spirit be outpoured and the kingdoms of the world become the Kingdom of our God and His Christ: When telling Thy salvation free, A MASTER WORKMAN "Is not this the carpenter?” (Mark 6:3). A carpenter’s tools were stolen and shamefully misused and damaged. The chisels and planes were nicked, the saw’s teeth were blunted, the hammer handle was split, the ax dulled, the square bent, the plumbline cut, even the oilstone broken in pieces. But the carpenter found his tools, and bought them back. He was building a house and needed them.. It was indeed hard to lay out true work with a bent square or a frayed and knotted plumb-line, to cut wood with a dull ax or blunted, ill-set saw, to drive nails with a broken hammer or smooth boards with a nicked plane. Every piece of work, consequently, bore disfiguring marks. Yet the carpenter built his house. With wonderful skill he used these un reliable and imperfect tools, in some way managing to hide their marring marks as he put the work together. It was mar vellous. But this was the Carpenter of Nazareth! And men who were lost and then redeemed were the tools—the only tools He has with which to build His Church. How can He work with such in struments? For, is there any tool in all His equipment of evangelists, preachers, teachers, writers, prayers, testifiers, prac tices, that does not in some way betray a defect or lack? He puts some under the, blows of affliction or against the grindstone of discipline, to bring them into the us.eful condition He desires,, but alas! the temper of many of them is such that they fail to respond to His handling. And yet with these tools the Master must do His work. And he does it! What a master workman He is!—Henry W. Frost. # THE WORLD IS THE FIELD! THE NEED IS DEFINITE! Let all absorbing thoughts of Thee My heart and soul engross; And when all hearts are bowed and stirred, Beneath the influence of Thy Word, Hide me behind Thy Cross.
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