May, 1942
THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NES S
166
By VANCE HAVNER Greensboro, North'Carolina
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But peace is hot found merely in a cottage by a babbling brook nor by reading pleasant treatises on the sim ple life. “It takes more than a better grade of china to heighten the flavor of indifferent tea,” and it takes more than environment to rest the soul. Distinguishing True Childlikeness Our Lord gave us the secret - of heart rest in our text, and it con sists in conversion arid childlikeness. In the light of this verse, humanity falls into three groups. First, there are the CHILDREN: “And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them.” Some one has said, “Only children and the childlike are genuine; all others are clowns.” One of the tragedies of our day is our vanishing childhood. Children are no longer allowed to be children; they are as sophisticated at teri as we used to be at thirty. There is indeed a sort of natural wisdom about children, for sometimes they are better judges than we sus pect. Beware of a man who repels children. Conversely, there is some thing fine about a man whom thé children love. You can fool a pro fessor any day, but it is pretty hard to fool a boy or a dog. But our Lord was not thinking of your modern pre cocious youngster with cynicism writ ten all over his face and his mouth ever ready to say, “Oh, yeah?” What -a pity to drop the naturalness of childhood for the Saul’s armor of a strained, stilted grown-uppishness! Then, we have the CHILDISH: “Whereunto shall I liken this genera
"Except ye be converted, and be come as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 18:3). TT HAVE never heard a sermon from this text. The silence on this JL theme has b e e n so profound that one could almost suspect that the subject has been avoided on pur pose. Some Christians certainly .would be more comfortable if the Lord Jesus had used a businessman or a scholar or a popular hero for His model.'We have been advised to be like our par ents, like our teachers, like George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. These have occupied the center of the stage while the children havg taken the outer fringes. But here the tables are turned. Here comes One who puts the child in the midst, upsets our pet standards, and says in effect, “Parents, be like your children.” That is dreadfully upsetting to us adults who like to act as though wisdom would die .with us. Here we certainly have a call to simplicity, and we Americans are in no mood for that. The complexity of these times is so bewildering: “The World is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.”' Men have built a civilization which now has turned on them and threat ens to drive them crazy. More than one millionaire would gladly ex change his skyscraper for a country cottage by a babbling brook if with It he could secure* peace of heart,
We need to recover the sense of wonder that little children h a v e , expecting that TODAY the God of in finite s u r p r i s e s will do some wonderful thing for us.
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