#
May, 1942
THE K I N G ' S " BUS I NE S S
1T4
has gained entrance into the hearts of the saints. Once people believed " everything; now they believe nothing, and even the saints have developed a religious cynicism. We will give anything or anybody but God the credit when something wonderful does happen. If a remark able visitation does occur, or some body does have a marvelous spiritual experience, or some brother does re late an unusual story, we exhaust every other possible explanation be fore we give God the glory. We need to recover the sense of wonder of a little child, always ex pecting that today the God of infi nite surprises will do some wonderful thing. We ought to go to every meet- ing saying, “Maybe this will be the night when heaven and earth will meet, the night we have been pray ing for!” Let us never forget that God has hid His secrets from the wise and prudent and has revealed them - unto babes. God save us from that Pharisaisgi that thinks it sees but is blind! Service Unforced The childlike Christian is revealed in simplicity of service. Christian service ought to be natural and spon taneous like the activity of a child. We aré trying to make people in our churches do a lot of things they dp not want to do. So much of our church work is the beehive activity of mod ern efficiency, a religious St. Vitus dance of statisticitis kept going by artificial stimulation. We are told that if we wait on the Lord, we shall fly, run, walk; but whatever speed we make, it follows waiting on God. Some of us would do more if we did less. We are Marthas, cumbered, careful, troubled, and have missed the one thing needful. Jesus did not reprove Martha so much for working as for worrying. If we abide in Him we shall bear much fruit—it is an inevitable consequence. The little girl who was carrying her broth er and when asked whether he was not heavy replied, “No, he isn’t heavy; he’s my brother,” had the right idea. The spirit of the matter makes a lot of difference in the weight of the load! There is no use in asking time to turn backward in its flight. We can be converted' and become as little children and have our youth renewed as the eagles’. You can be a child, not just for tonight, but in spirit forever. Through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, let God make you a child of His, a partaker of the divine nature. Then as obedient children live the blaftieless life of simple trust and obedience. Only on the road of conversion and childlikeness can we find the true simple life and the springs of eternal youth.
earth’s trappings are also happier by far. We need to simplify down to what God can sanctify to His glory. Too many of us never enjoy the jour ney because we are cluttered with baggage. Let ,us not entangle our selves with the affairs of this world. The old negro mammy who said, “ I wears this world lak a loose gar ment,” had the right idea! Simplicity of Spirit And of course simplicity of trust and of life carries With it simplicity of spirit. Both Paul (2 Cor. 6:6) and Peter (1 Pet. 1:22) sum it up in this phrase: “ love unfeigned.” Unless a child has been abused and hardened, it,is as natural for that child to be affectionate as for a flower to shed its perfume. Christian love is spon taneous, unaffected. Ours is not a strained and forced imitation of Christ by which’ we have to keep re membering to be good. , A child does not have to keep remembering to be a child. Too many Christians are posers trying to live up to dramatized ver sions of themselves. There is nothing artificial about a childlike Christian; his is the naturalness of a new na ture. Some one has4 analyzed the Scripture teaching thus: There is the unchanged life: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh” ; the changed life: “If ahy man be in Christ, he is a new creature,” and the exchanged life: “Christ liveth in me.” The en- Christed life has a simplicity as na tural as. the song of a bird or the perfume of a flower. Every normal child has a sense of freshness and wonder because he has not been in the world long enough to be accustomed to it. We have lost our sense of wonder today. Our crit ical faculty has outgrown our be lieving faculty. We are so afraid that somebody will put something over on us that we go around with our fingers crossed, taking everything with a grain of salt. The same spirit
AS LITTLE CHILDREN [Continued from Page 167] ye have need of all these things” (Matt. 6:25, 321. We make faith more complicated than it is. You either believe or you don't. I have often thought of my mother in this regard. While I as a preacher was studying faith, taking it apart, she simply trusted. She prob ably never read a book on faith. I could have made a speech about faith, enumerated the laws of faith, told theoretically how to trust. But while I was theorizing, Mother was trusting. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." It is a matter of taking God at His word, believing He means what He says, and living accordingly. Living in Simplicity A second characteristic of the child like Christian is simplicity of life. “Let your manner of life be without love of money, and be content with such things as ye have” (Heb. 13:5, lit. trans.). There is always something a bit ironical in a congrégation of elegant ly dressed churchgoers who are sing ing, “Take my silver and my gold, Not a mite would I withhold.” We are not glorifying poverty, for it is easy to fall into .the Colossian error of neglecting the body. I know that we are under grace, but it is under grace that we are exhorted: “Having food .and raiment, let us be therewith content” (1 Tim. 6:8). Î am not recommending gunnysack garments, but in the present distress, we who fear the Lord should be ex amples of simplicity anH moderation. Children with a few simple joys are happier than whën spoiled, petted and pampered with too many pleasures; and Christians who, whether from necessity or choice, have few of this
HOW HE KNEW One Sunday I visited a Sunday-school at which I had never been present before. I found seven class groups in the Young People's De partment and saw only six teachers present. The young superintendent had interesting opening exercises and I answered a question or two. Immediately, as classes began, he was at my side. "You've come to substitute?" he asked. “ Oh, no," I replied. "But you will, won't you?" he urged. "Why, how can you be sure that I, a total stranger to you, am fitted to teach in your school?" 1 asked.' "That's easy," he answered. "You have THE KING'S BUSINESS under your armi" —MRS. W. O. M. ■" i ........i , i i — - M i n . - ju . -■"■'■a- ' ' —
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker