October 1931
B u s i n e s s
436
T h e
K i n g ’ s
bridle, they sped through the market place of every town and village and shouted the message to the astonished peo ple: “John Knox has come! John Knox has come!” The priests stood shivering and cowed at their fireless altars. The monks drew their cowls in sullen terror over them, and again, in the glad confidence of God’s messenger sent to help her, Scotland took out the solemn league from under her musty cloak and bound to her bosom the gos pel of the free grace of God. The whole land surged with excitement. This happened at the coming of a faithful minister of the cross of Christ. But oh, what will it be to this weary earth when a white cloud appears on the horizon and rolls up to the zenith—when instead of the minister, the Master will come; when instead of the Chris tian, the Christ will appear; when instead of the cry at midday: “John Knox has come,” there will be the cry at midnight : “Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him” ! “Jesus is coming! Shput the glad word! Coming for those He redeemed by His blood; Coming to earth as the glorified Lord. Jesus is coming again! Do not Set Dates e are opposed to date setting. We do not know when our Lord will come. But we are sure that 1936 will not be the year of His coming to reign, for we have no idea of passing through the great tribula tion, or any part of it. We are not looking for the Anti christ. Personally, I hope I shall never see him. He will not be manifest until He that hindereth—the Holy Spirit— shall be taken out of the way. When the Holy Spirit is taken, I do not expect to remain. We are opposed to date setting for the following rea sons : 1. No one on earth may be absolutely sure when our Lord will come. 2. When we make guesses, and our guesses do not come true, we are immediately discredited as de pendable Bible teachers; and we have no right to subject ourselves to just criticism. 3. It has been universally true of those who become interested in date setting that they misinterpret the plainest Scripture passages in trying to prove their point. 4. Date setting robs us of the inspiration of the imminency of Christ’s coming. If our Lord’s coming is to be a year from now, or two years from now, we would not be asking for financial sup port to train young men and women for the mission fields —for our students would never reach their goal. I am looking for the Lord Jesus Christ today. How I wish He would come today! But His coming may be ten or more years in the future. In the meantime, may He give us grace and strength to do exactly the things He wants done, while we wait patiently and confidently. “Jesus is coming! His saints to release;; Coming to bring to this weary world peace. Sinning and dying and sorrow shall cease. Jesus is coming again! “Jesus is coming, is coming again! Jesus is coming, is coming again 1 Shout the glad tidings o’er mountain and plain, Jesus is coming again!”
that he is far from it. It is when we are keenly sensible to that distance that lye are sometimes tempted to despair. It is in such hours that we fall to lower levels and we grow homesick. We say we shall never see Jerusalem; so let us be content with our little room. God wants us to be like Daniel, flinging wide the lattice toward that which we can never reach in this life—to fling wide our windows toward the unobtainable and, by the open casement, to kneel in prayer. And though the love and purity we long for, and all the depth and strength of perfect character, be as far distant from our hungry heart as Judaea was from the yearning heart of Daniel, yet, in the very crav ing lies nobility and the pledge of that attainment which is to be ours in the tearless morning. Today, in the sunshine and love of God, in the land where there is no fear of death nor need of temple, Daniel possesses and enjoys all that he craved when he opened his windows toward Jerusalem; Theology and Morality lot out the first eleven chapters of Romans. Begin with the twelfth. Begin with what some commenta tors would call the practical portion of the epistle. What then? The practical has become the impracticable. You can not expunge the theology of Romans and main tain the morality. Neither can you make the end of the fifth chapter the starting point in the Epistle to the Gala tians and ignore the previous chapters. Why? The first five chapters contain the root. The rest of the epistle is but the culture of the fruit. The Epistle to the Galatians is a passionate appeal and warning to people out of whose minds the primary truth was fading, and in whose lives moral enthusiasm was de clining. They had begun their religious lives in the power of the gospel of grace and its great truths had energized them with healthy moral passion. We are able to stand firm, strong, and irresistible only when our loins are “girt about with truth.” If we forget the truth, the soul loses its vigor, sinks into moral laxity, becomes sluggish and limp. It is true in the history of the visible church that, when the great doctrines of grace were dethroned, the passion for holiness was chilled. The same thing is true today. When we exalt the fundamental truths of the gospel, moral enthusiasm will abound. When we stress the great doctrines of grace, under the power of the Holy Spirit, consciences will be quickened, the sense of sin will be revived, the chilled passions for holiness will be rekindled and reinflamed. A theology revitalized under the Spirit’s guidance will cre ate a reempowered and unimpaired morality. You may expect a great revival in your congregation when your pastor preaches a series of expository sermons on the Book of Romans or the Epistle to the Galatians. Waiting hen the . cause of Christ was almost dead in old Scotland, a few faithful ones sent an urgent mes sage to John Knox in Geneva, where he was stay ing in exile: “John Knox, come to Scotland.” John Knox accepted the summons and came to Scotland once more. One bright day the news spread through Edinburgh that John Knox was coming up from Leigh. The horsemen sprang to their steeds, and with foam flying from bit and
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