THE K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
745
call them, as Shailer Matthews plainly does, “ outgrown or temporary words and conceptions ’’ is to be disloyal to the Bible, and to pour contempt on the Bible, and goes to show that in spite of all his twisting and turning that he disbelieves the Bible'. He ought to be man enough to come out and say so, but he isn’t. How anybody can be so silly and irrational as to be blinded by such pettifogging words as these of Shailer Matthews is more than I can understand, but hundreds and probably thousands of preachers in Amer ica have been blinded by them. What Shailer Matthews calls “the historical method of interpretation,” in plain Eng lish is the infidel method. By any such system of interpretation you can make the Koran or all the morally rotten lit erature of India, reeking with the most unmentionable and indescribable vileness, as valuable as the Bible. If Shailer Matthews wishes to get rid of the plain and crystal clear teaching of the Bible as he undoubtedly does, why is he not honest enough to come right out and say so? Why does he not come right out and say that the Bible is a jumble of errors and falsehoods? His fundamental lack is a lack of common intellectual honesty and of a decent amount of courage. When he refers (unmistakably from what he says in this connection) to the teachings of the inspired Apostles and of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself he does not speak of them as the teachings of the Apostles and of Jesus, but speaks of them, over and over again, as “the beliefs of the early Christians.” He knew perfectly well that any man or woman who had even a meas urably decent amount of faith in Jesus Christ and the Bible, would resent it if he spoke so contemptuously 6f what were clearly set forth as the teachings of Jesus Christ Himself and the inspired Apostles, so he doesn’t call these teachings the teachings of the Apostles and of Jesus Christ, but “the beliefs of the early Christians” (over and over again), and then goes on, time and time again,
to refer to things that either the Apostles or Jesus Christ Himself taught, and oftentimes to what they both taught in ridicule and contempt. His whole method of argument would be unworthy of a pettifogging police court lawyer. Some of the Los Angeles preachers who have spoken on the Second Coming of Christ have followed most dutifully and blindly in the wake of Shailer Matthews, and Professor Case, also of Chicago Uni versity. One of them told his audience that the Apostle Paul did believe in and teach at the time of his earlier epistles, the personal, premillennial return of the Lord Jesus, but that when Paul got to know more he changed his opinion' and his teaching. What a pity that the Apostle Paul and the Lord Jesus Christ could not have attended Chicago University before they said or wrote anything. II. J esus C h rist is C oming B ack to the E arth . The second thing that the Bible very plainly tells us regarding the Second Coming of Christ is that J esus C h rist is COMING BACK TO T H IS EARTH. Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself says so in John 14:2,3. His words are “In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I GO, to pre pare a place for you. And if I go and pre pare a place for you, I WILL COME AGAIN, and receive you unto . myself, that where 1 am, there ye may he also.” These are our Lord’s own words. These words evidently indicate a definite going away of our Lord from the earth and a definite coming back again to the earth. If Jesus Christ did not go definitely and personally from this earth and if He is not coming back again definitely and per sonally, then He was either a fraud, a deliberate fraud, or else a sadly deluded fanatic. ..If He is either one or the other you may believe in Him if you wish to, but I decline to. You cannot deny the reality of His Second Coming and remain an intelligent believer in Jesus Christ. But Jesus Christ was neither a deliber-
Made with FlippingBook Online document