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T H E
K I N G ' S
B U S I N E S S
February, 1936
Powerless DISCIPLES
B y ANNA J. LJNDGREN* Campo, California
AAJUJU
as to the disciples of old, comes the scathing rebuke of the Master: “ O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you ? how long shall I suffer you ?” Shall we, like the disciples, come apart with Him and humbly ask, “ Why could not we cast him out?” Or shall we go on hiding our confusion behind magnificent organi zations, scholastic sermons, sensational propaganda, and sanctimonious gestures ? None o f these things impresses the sin-sick, groping, hungry prodigal for whom Christ died. What matters to him the learned dispute, the cant and the chanting! He is behind the prison walls o f sin, and nothing short o f God’s power and love, manifested through a human channel, in terests him. “ Ye shall be witnesses unto me,” said Christ. If we are to be His witnesses, we must tell the truth about Him, but we cannot tell what we ourselves do not know. The truth about Christ is : “ The power o f God unto sal vation to every one that believeth.” Christ is the source of our power to become children of God and joint heirs with Christ; power to be set free from the penalty, guilt, and slavery of sin; power to be more than conquerors through Him that loved us; power to walk through this valley of tears in constant, unbroken, joyous communion with the King of kings and Lord of lords; power to live above cir cumstances, liberated from fear, all fear, even the fear of death; power to gain an abundant entrance into an endless life of fellowship with God. Yes, the gospel o f Christ is “ the power of God unto salvation.” A dmissions of D efeat ; Yet, in the midst of a head knowledge of this truth, there is want, drought, barrenness, hunger, even on the part of those who profess to know the truth.
“And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting” (Mk. 9 :29 ). I spake to thy disciples,” said the troubled father o f the demon-possessed, “ that they should cast him ou t; and they could not.” What a picture of the professing church those disciples present! They were following Christ, yet so earth-bound were they in their spirit, so narrow in their outlook, so in different in their attitude, that they could not climb the steep ascent to the transfiguration glory and were therefore left powerless in the valley of unbelief, in the midst o f a jostling multitude, at the mercy o f clever reasoners who outwitted them. They were in the presence of a great need, and they could not meet it. A despairing father with a faith walking on two crutches came to them for help, and they failed him. U nbelief — F ailure That is the tragedy o f unbelief: It misrepresents God and fails man. The great mass of Christendom stands absolutely help less in the presence of “ this kind,” the deaf, dumb, foul demon of unbelief. Can one conceive of a more condemnatory evidence to the powerlessness and unreality o f the Christian profession than the fact that approximately one third of the popula tion o f our country, professing themselves to be Chris tians, are scattered throughout the entire continent, and that the other two thirds know little more about it than they read in the papers ? The church member who has chatted with his neighbor over the fence for a number of years without ever even hinting about a personal acquaintance with the Saviour of the world is far removed from the first Christians who ■“ turned the world upside down,” and who when they— through persecution—were scattered, “ went every where preaching the word.” No normal human being, inheriting a million dollars, will go on living as he did with an income o f ten dollars a week. His fortune will soon become apparent to all. Yet we—who have become “ new creatures in Christ Jesus,” who are “ dead to sin” as well as to “ the rudiments of the world,” whose citizenship is in heaven, who confess that we are “ strangers and pilgrims” looking “ for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God,” we who profess to believe that a soul without Christ is eternally lost, and that we are in this world for the chief purpose of making Him known—are so entangled with the affairs of this life that only those who look into the church roll know o f our heavenly citizenship, and only those who are famil iar with our denominational creed know what we believe. I nexcusable D eafness and D umbness So far from being able to silence “ gnashing, wallow ing, foaming, foul” unbelief with a divine rebuke, we our selves are possessed with a demon o f deafness to divine ap peal, and dumbness o f testimony before the world. To us,
A Protestant minister from the Middle West writes to the “ Easy Chair” o f H arp ers M agazin e, April, 1935, and suggests: “ The Protestant ministry is played out.” If the con fession had been made to Christ, there would have been hope. The speaker would then have placed himself with the impotent disciples as they asked, “ Why could not we ?” But this man, whose “ calling” it was to represent Christ, “ the power of God,” said before the world, “ We are p layed o u t, we have nothing to give, we have failed.” No wonder we read in the Baptist New Yorker: “ For the past ten years and
The church member who has chatted with his neighbor over the fence for a number of years without ever even hinting about a personal acquaint ance with the Saviour of the world is far removed from the first Christians who "turned the world upside down," and who when they— through perse cution— were scattered, "went every where p re ach in g the word."
*Author of two devotional books, In His Presence and With Him.
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