488
November 1931
T h e
K i n g ' s
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that, while we would never be condemned for sins com mitted after our salvation, we should nevertheless have to see them put up on the blackboard for the assembled saints to see at the judgment seat of Christ; and he answered in < this wise: “No, s ir! Every night before I go to bed, I j think of my day’s walk. When the Spirit shows me any ' sins and failures, I promptly confess them, and claim for- i giveness and cleansing, from Him who is just, to live up ^ to the contract of the cross. I put them under the blood, M and I do not believe they will be got out from under it to be ™ exhibited at the judgment seat of Christ.” T h e L ord O ur E xemplar Our Lord is our great Exemplar. We may be sure He was giving thanks always for all things, but it is interesting * to note the times the Spirit has recorded His thanksgiving. ■ He gave thanks at the feeding of the five thousand and of 1 the four thousand. Here He proved Himself the great Pro- I vider for His creatures. He could provide when there was d no food. Nearly all of us are suffering from the depression, l President Hoover is concerned about it. He had it before a I Cabinet meeting for its full time of meeting. He consulted with experts. He called in the head of the Red Cross, who had been saying that his organization could not deal with unemployment this coming winter because it can deal only when a crisis comes from “an act of God.” Who says the hard times are not an act of God—that they have not come because our country has forgotten God? Unthankfulness to God led to men’s original apostasy from the first revealed truth which God gave to Adam and the patriarchs (Rom. 1 :21* and context). We have become too prosperous in America, and by His permissive will, God has allowed this national crisis to come upon us. This coming Thanksgiv ing Day—a grand and God-pleasing national holiday- ought to see the nation in sackcloth. Men ought every where to be confessing to God that they were mistaken in boasting that they were making a living, when they were only breathing His air and taking His stored-away ore and* coal and oil, using His waterpower in the rivers, reaping harvests from His rain and sunshine. Our country needs an Elijah, with voice and courage enough to tell us that we need to turn to God from worshiping intellect and from worshiping gold. Covetousness is idolatry, and Elijah told Israel that drought was the divinely appointed corrective of idolatry. The depression ought to be understood as a call | of God to repentance. Our Lord gave thanks at the Last Supper and at the end of the journey to Emmaus. It has been taught that His recognition on the latter occasion came from His two companions as they saw the nail-prints in His lifted hands. It may be so. But may it not have been a recognition of Him as the always thankful One? They had often seen Him aglow with gratitude to the Father. They could best penetrate His resurrection incognito, when they saw Him giving thanks. The inspiring Holy Spirit has further specifically re corded in the Gospels that Christ gave thanks that His Father had not revealed the meaning of His truth to the ^ wise and to the prudent, but that He had revealed it unto * babes (Matt. 11:25; Lk. 10:21) ; and that God had heard Him when He prayed at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11: 41). In the “all things” for which we give thanks, we may well include our own privilege of inclusion among those childlike, simple ones who believe the old-fashioned gospel story of salvation by the blood of Christ, and for our won drous resurrection hope in Him—“Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Studies in Hebrews From month to month, Dr. John C. Page, of the Bible Institute faculty, has been giving in T h e K ing ' s B usiness a most valuable series of articles on the Epistle to the Hebrews. It has been neces sary to omit the installment this month, but the series will be resumed in December. Back num bers of the magazine are available to any one who wishes to preserve all of Dr. Page’s articles. I always get a resurrection lesson from the beans, when they come up from their graves in the soil, with their coffins on their heads. Other men may have their golf; but give me my garden for my summer’s exercise. We might thank God that the flower seed blew past the flaming sword at the gate of Eden, out into the freshly turned sod from Adam’s spade, so that Eve and all her daughters could weave their garlands and fill their vases. The flowers, with their multitudes of colors and fragrances, help us to realize the marvelous imagination of God. Our Lord listened to the language of the lilies, and we may thank God for the ministry of flowers. A man sick un to death on Easter day was sent an Easter lily with three blossoms on it. As he lay helpless in his weakness, one of those inaudible voices which we call impressions spoke in his ear, “Consider the lilies.” It was like an echo through nineteen centuries from the slopes of the Horns of Hattin. The peroration of that lily’s Easter sermon was this: “This is Easter day, when we celebrate the resurrection. This triple cluster represents your wife and two children. You will have a new lease of life—you will live yet for your three dear ones.” Ten days after his operation had been performed, the surgeon said: “We gave you up to die, but you fooled us. You will live.” But it was not news to him. The “considered” lilies had already told him. G iving T ha n k s for S uffering Gratitude to God “always for all things”--4that is a wide range. “All things” include sickness and sufferings. Can we give thanks for these ? God has a good purpose in them for us. “He scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” When we thank God for discipline, we are ready to receive the lesson God wants us to get. And God fills the disci pline full of spiritual gain for us. “No child-training for the present seemeth joyous, but rather grievous; neverthe less it worketh the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby.” It is a tragedy to lose the blessing that comes from be ing “exercised thereby.” Mr. McConkey has said: “I once heard a man speak of a lost sorrow. A lost sorrow was a sorrow out of which a man failed to get the blessing which God meant to come out of it for him . . . In very truth, a lost sorrow is a most solemn testimony against you. It is a silent witness that God’s most heart-searching means of drawing you close to Himself has failed because you grow bitter.” In this same connection, we may thank God for self- judgment. Paul wrote to the Corinth church: “If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.” “Self-judgment avoids chastisement.” I asked a fine Christian man if he thought
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