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Volume XXIII
February , 1932
Number 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS Crumbs from the King’s Table—The Editor....................................51 Present-Day Fulfillment of Prophecy—Louis S. Bauman............. 53 Christ’s Cross—And Ours—Charles G. Trumbull............................ 55 The River of Lost Souls—Roy L. Laurin:......... ................................. 56 Tragedies and Triumphs of the Last Days—George W. Davis......... 58 Lloyd George and the Second Coming........................................... .....60 A Letter to a College Student—James L. Elderdice...... ..................... 61 Back to Evangelism—Paul Hutchens............. ................................... .63 Christ’s Great Contribution—John Bunyan Smith............................64 By One Man Sin Entered—Roy Talmage Brumbaugh....... ............67 Studies in the Epistle to the Hebrews—John C. Page......................69 The Return of the Tide—Zenobia Bird............ ...................................71 Heart to Heart with our Young Readers t t —Florence Nye Whitwell ............................................................ 77 Bible Institute Family Circle—Cutler B. Whitwell............................ 79 Homiletical Helps ................................................................................. g 0 Our Literature Table....;........ .................. ............. ................................ 82 Junior King’s Business—Helen Howarth LemmeL..........................83 International Sunday School Lesson Commentary............................85 Notes on Christian Endeavor—Mary G. Goodner..............................92 Daily Devotional Readings ........... .................................. 95
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POLICY AS DEFINED BY THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE BIBLE INSTITUTE OF LOS ANGELES (a) To stand for the infallible Word of God and its great fundamental truths, (b) To strengthen the faith of all believers, (c) To stir young men and women to fit themselves for and engage in definite Chritian work, (d) To make the Bible Institute of Los Angeles known, (e) To magnify God our Father and the person, work and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; and to teach the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in our present practical life, (f) To emphasise in strong, constructive messages the great foundations of Christian faith.
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February 1932
(Crumbsfrom THE KING’S TABLE . . .By THE EDITOR
The Gospel of the Grace of God
the Saviour’s atonement that refracts the white beam of justice and sends it forth into divided rays of grace, mercy, and peace. Judgment fell upon our Substitute, till He cried out, “ My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” And thereby pardon fell upon us in the Father. “ Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Faith is the condition of our receiving forgiveness, but it is not the condition of God’s bestowing it. We were forgiven in Christ
heistianity is separated heaven-wide from every other religion. All other religions proceed upon the idea that a guilty sinner must do some thing to propitiate God’s favor and make Him reconciled to us. The glad tidings of the gospel are that God “ hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ.” And this is the message which we are sent to proclaim; this is the ministry
of reconciliation which has been committed to us, “ to wit, that God was in Christ, recon ciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” In other words, we are not sent to show men how they can produce pardon by their penitence and impor tunity, but how pardon has been procured for them in Jesus Christ, and how that par don has now come begging at their stubborn hearts and be seeching for acceptance. If this is not so, then “ grace is no more grace.” If Christ’s works must be supplemented with some work of ours, if His atonement a n d intercession must be assisted and made ef ficacious by our importunity, then the “mine own sake” of God has been tinctured and conditioned by the “ thine own sake” of the sinner, and the quality of pure grace is gone. It is humbling to the transgres sor that even his tears must be ruled out of court as having no weight in determining his ac quittal. Let tears be shed, in deed, but not as the showers that are to soften and pro
before we believed, just as truly as we were forgiven in ourselves after we believed. Our hand must be stretched out to take God’s gift, but our extended hand is not the con dition on which that gift is be stowed. It is Christ’s extended hands that constitute that con dition-—hands extended to grasp the awful penalty of sin that they might thereby hold out the blessed gift of peace, hands bearing in their pierced palms the pains of our trans gressions that they m i g h t thereby lift up before the world the free grace and the unconditional remission of sins. That is where the contro versy between God and man was settled; that is where the release of t h e condemned transgressor was procured; that is where the sole condition of the sinner’s pardon was met, and met to the full. We are to receive the atone ment of Christ as a .finished work, not as a work that needs to be supplemented or aug mented by ourselves. Instead of begging God to have mercy
Words of Grace
O
what amazing words of grace Are in the gospel found!
Suited to every sinner’s case, Who knows Ihe joyful sound. Poor, sinful, thirsty, fainting souls
Are freely welcome here; Salvation, like a river, rolls Abundant, free, and clear. Come, then, with all your wants and wounds, Your every burden bring: Here love, unchanging love, abounds, A deep, celestial spring. Whoever will— 0 gracious word! May of this stream partake; Come, thirsty souls, and bless the Lord, 'And drink for Jesus’ sake.
Millions o f sinners, vile as you, - Have here found life and peace, Come, then, and prove its virtues too, And drink, adore, and bless.
-—S amuel M edley .
pitiate the unrelenting heart of God. Let them be poured out as the streams of a fountain that has at last been opened, and its great depths broken up by the revelation of the amazing truth that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Here is the sovereignty of God in mercy as it appears elsewhere in judgment. The divine Lord becomes incarnate, and then settles in Himself the whole question of sin and pardon. In Himself, He fills up the appalling measure of wrath which guilt deserves; and from Himself, He pours out the marvelous measure of grace which the sinner could never deserve. “ Even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you”—as though in the act of pardon, the Lord did not even look upon the sinner, as though He determined the question entirely outside of him, and independently of him. It is not the penitent’s tears, but
upon us, we ought to lift our eyes to the Redeemer’s cross and behold there how He had mercy on us, and then pen itently and humbly and believingly accept the mercy that He has bestowed. It is not by making friendship with God that we are to become reconciled to Him, for “when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of nis Son.” It is not by making our peace with God that we are to find rest of soul, for “ he is our peace” who hath “ abolished in his flesh the enmity, . . . so making peace.” It is not by doing good works that we are to gain divine favor, “ for by grace are ye saved . . . and that not of your selves.” It is for us to see what God has done in Jesus Christ, and with shamefacedness at our long obstinacy, and melting contrition at our continued rejection of His grace, to fall at His feet and accept it.
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The early church recognized the presence of the Holy Spirit as real a fact as the presence of Jesus Christ had been before His departure. Oh, for a finer hearing than that of the ear, that amid all the clashing of opinions and the confusion of counsels, we might discern the voice that has been given expressly to say to us, “ This is the way, walk ye in it” ! Rev. Loins T . Talbot e welcome to our fellowship the newly elected pastor of the Church of the Open Door, Rev. Louis T. Talbot. The Church of the Open Door is organic ally independent of the Bible Institute, but the Bible Insti tute can be greatly helped by the friendly attitude of the church. Mr. Talbot, being a graduate of a Bible Institute, comes here as the sincere friend of Biola, and he has al ready publicly indicated his desire to create a closer work ing fellowship between the congregation and the Institute, and we earnestly thank God for his coming. On January 10, he was greeted by three great audiences. Unique Dining Service T he B iola D in ing R oom was opened to our friends on January 4. Prior to that date, the dining room was serving only students and faculty; the cafeteria that originally had catered to the public having been abandoned some years ago. The dining room is now operated with table service and not as a cafeteria. The dining room is finding favor with a host of friends. It has been completely refinished and redecorated; the floors are a soft maroon color, with Spanish tile effect, the ceilings tan, and the walls modified shades of tan with sil ver trimmings, in pleasing contrast to baseboards of rich black. Chairs are black and silver, and drapes at the win dows are English shadow prints of a delicate green hue. Every effort is being made to maintain cuisine o f the very highest order, and only the choicest items are selected from the finest California markets. Close supervision and rigid inspection guarantee to our guests sanitary methods and scrupulously clean equipment. There is a main dining room, and there are also several other dining rooms suitable for church, Sunday-school and young people’s committees, and similar groups requiring a private meeting place. The dining room is open every day in the year as fol lows: breakfast 7 :00 A.M. to 9:30 A.M., luncheon 11:30 A.M. to 1 :30 P.M., and dinner 5 :00 P.M. to 7:30 P.M. A la carte service is provided, and there are club breakfasts for 25 cents, special luncheons for 35 cents and regular dinners for 40 cents. Friends of the Institute are cordially invited to enjoy the quiet atmosphere and the refined Christian hospitality that distinguishes our dining room. To the Pastors of Our Students e are doing our best to secure work for all of our students in the Institute, but it seems impossible. Will you who have our students in your member ship find out from them or their parents their need, and, if necessary, take up an offering in your congregation, that they may be kept in school the remainder of the year? We do not want any of our students to be compelled to leave before commencement.
The Place of Power e have been told that it is narrow to insist on the death of Christ on Calvary as the great motive to love. We admit that it is narrow, but sometimes narrow things are the most powerful. We recall a familiar stream which, at one point, broadens out for miles into a wide and beautiful expanse of water. Nothing could be more lovely than the tranquil flow and the calm, majestic sweep of the waters at this place, but a little farther down, the stream gathers itself up and plunges through a narrow gorge between the high hills. There is far less of beauty, but here is the place of power. Here is where the huge wheels of industry are placed; here is where the factories, with their ponderous machinery, have been reared. So we admit that nothing could be more majestic than the life of Jesus Christ; nothing could be more beautiful and in spiring than His lofty teachings; nothing could be more quickening to our love than the study of His works of mercy. But after all, it is the cross where the love of Christ culminates and manifests its greatest power. There the cur rent of divine love gathers itself up and pours its mighty tide through one act—the greatest and most powerful which the universe has witnessed. There is where great souls have placed themselves to get the fullest sway and sweep of the love of God. The Abiding Holy Spirit s C hrist sat down at the right hand of God at His ascension, so the Holy Spirit, after His descent, sat down in the church of the redeemed on earth. One has only to search the Scriptures carefully to find this truth confirmed in a multitude of passages. The church of the redeemed on earth is the “ habitation of God through the Spirit.” These hearts of ours, sprinkled with the blood of Christ, are the holy of holies where the Lord dwells. “ WJiat? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?” Oh, matchless mystery! The lowliest tabernacle of flesh, if only it has been sancti fied by the sprinkling of the blood, and hallowed by the re newing of the Spirit, is constituted by God’s own author ity the seat of the Holy One, the dwelling place of the Most High through the Spirit. The fact of the present, personal abiding of the Holy Spirit in the church on earth cannot be too strongly empha sized. There is danger that we grieve the Spirit by the un belief that regards Him as distant from us, when God has given Him to abide with us perpetually. It is a great sin to tarry for the Holy Spirit. To forget an absent friend is a serious slight, but to forget a present friend, and to be so little sensible of his nearness that we put him afar off ip our thoughts is the most grievous affront. The sin of the Jews was that they knew not “ the day o f their visitation,” that they looked and prayed for a Messiah yet to come, in stead of recognizing His presence when- He had already come. Likewise, many pray for the Spirit, calling to Him to descend to them from beyond the stars, as though they, knew not that He had been here for nineteen hundred years, perpetually bearing witness on earth and making His abode in the church, which is the body of Christ. If our blessed Lord were to speak to us from the heavens, He might repeat the words which John the Baptist uttered con cerning Him, “ There standeth one among you, whom ye know not.” So little do we seem, to apprehend the mar velous fact that the Spirit of God is personally with us and within us! ■ ,
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T he O rder of E vents , J ew and G entile Here, then, is the order: (1 ) Israel, blinded, rejects her divine Messiah and Redeemer, and the Gentiles receive Him. (2 ) Israel is cut off, and the Gentiles are grafted in. (3 ) The Gentiles, failing to stand in the faith, become blind, no longer believing in the virgin-born Saviour and Redeemer, while Israel recovers from her blindness and receives Him. (4 ) The Gentiles are cut off, and Israel is grafted in again. (5 ) The Messiah then returns and
THE CUTTING OFF AND THE GRAFTING IN
T he S ign of all S igns
I . f any one sign of the end of the age and our Lord’s return is clearer and more positive than another, that sign is the sudden and appalling apostasy that has overtaken the professed church, taken in
conjunction with the sudden and most encouraging change in the attitude of the Jews to ward the Messiah whom they once despised and rejected. Instead of agreeing, it ap pears that the Jew and the Gentile will simply trade at titudes with regard to the Messiah. And this exchange o f attitudes long ago was set forth as a sure indication of “ the fulness of the Gentiles” and the return of the Re deemer to Israel. “ I speak to you Gentiles” (Rom. 11:13), cries the great apostle—-to you Geii- tiles who b o a s t , “ T h e b r a n c h e s [Israel] were broken off, that I might be graffed in.” “W e l l h e con tinued, “ because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: . . . Behold therefore the goodness and severity of G od : on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be
all I s r a e l (nationally) is saved, saved to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth. T h e Scriptures every where confirm this order. In 2 Thessalonians 2, we have a clear, ringing statement that the great apostasy ( “ falling away” ) from the faith, on the part of the Gentiles, is to be quickly followed by the trans lation o f the church, the com ing of “ the man of sin,” and then “ the brightness of his [the Lord’s] coming.” Es pecially note the words: “ Now we beseech you, breth ren, touching the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him; . . . let no man beguile you in any wise: for it will not be, except the falling away [Greek, a p o s t a s i a ] come first” (2 Thess. 2:1, 3, R. V .)— first, a great Gentile apostasy, then, the coming of our Lord. But, when “ a full end of
The Face of the Sky I s r a e l , u n ch a n g e d , in u n b e lie f, Turns wistful toward “ The Pleasant Land.” The fig tree, putting forth its leaf, Shows that the summer is at hand. In this the eyes o f faith discern A sign that Christ will soon return. The world, perplexed and torn with strife, Its anxious rulers pale and dumb, Seeks in the pleasures of this life A vain escape from wrath to come. In this the eyes o f faith discern A sign that Christ will soon return. The churches, neither hot nor cold, Deny the faith that once they knew; Seducing spirits, growing bold,
Declare the Word of God untrue. In this the eyes o f faith discern A sign that Christ will soon return. But there are some of God’s elect, In spite of silence and delay, Who, like a longing bride, expect The coming Bridegroom any day: In this the eyes o f faith discern A sign that Christ will soon return.
all nations” is made, God has covenanted with Israel, “ Yet will I not make a full end of thee” ; but, “ lo, I will save thee from afar” ; and, “ they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them.” (See Jer. 30:9-11.) And now, what about the hour? Can any one fail to see that an unprecedented apostasy has swept, as wildfire, through the church during the past few years? It is vital that we should understand the meaning of the word “ apos tasy.” Webster informs us that it is “ an abandonment of what one has voluntarily professed; a total desertion or departure from one’s faith, principles, or party; especially the renunciation o f a religious faith.” He then quotes Blackstone: “ The offense can only take place in such as have once professed the true relgion.” S—F. W . P itt .
graffed in : for God is able to graff them in again. . . . For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant o f this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own con ceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in” (Rom. 11:17-25). Failing to stand in their faith will bring the Gentiles to their “ fulness,” when they shall be “ cut off,” and Israel shall be “ graffed in again,” coming to “ life from the dead” (Rom. 11:15). “ And so all Israel shall be saved” (Rom. 11:26). But, behold, at that time, “ There shall come out o f Sion the Deliverer” (Rom. 11:26)—that is, the “ Goel Redeemer.” “ This is my covenant unto them” (Rom. 11: 27 ). The God of Israel is a covenant-keeping God.
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T he E yes of the J ew B egin to O pen But, behold, as apostate Gentiles depart and join hands with age-old infidelity for the destruction of the Christ who came from the eternal Godhead into the world by the way of the virgin womb, to die in the sinner’s stead, and to rise and enter the holy of holies as the sinner’s Mediator—be hold, the blinded Jew is beginning to see ! As yet, he may “ see men as trees walking,” but the important fact is that the incurably blind man of the. centuries sees ! All Israel is yet far from beholding her God. But the point of tre mendous significance is that every sign of the times indi cates that the heart of the Jew grows, warm toward Jesus, the Christ, while the heart of the Gentile grows cold— that the Jew is drifting back! The Gentile drifts away ! For nearly twenty centuries, the Jew has had nothing but utter contempt for the Lord Jesus Christ. His very name was taboo in all his house. When pronounced in his presence, among Gentiles, could he do no more, he could spit on the ground. But now, what a sudden and amazing change of attitude ! The age-old hatred disappears. The stubborn “ fig tree” buds. The utterances of the most prom inent rabbis and the most influential of Jewish scholars have been creating consternation in the ranks of the ortho dox. Heartbreaking as it may be to the orthodox, hun dreds of thousands of Jewish youth are listening, wonder ing, questioning. Mr. Solomon Shwayder, a Jew of Den ver, sometime ago advanced a proposition to convene the Sanhedrin, and to reconsider the attitude the Jew should take toward Christ. That proposition met with favor on the part of many rabbis. Mr. Shwayder says : Christ is the greatest Jew that ever lived, and the Jew has lost considerably by refusing the teaching o f Jesus Christ. We cannot get away from Jesus. In years gone by, if we were asked by our children who Jesus was, we could hush them up and say He was the great enemy of our peo ple, but we cannot shut them up now. The name o f Jesus is coming into all our homes over the radio, and the sweet ness and the beauty of it all is appealing to them. When they ask who is Jesus that teaches people to love one another, and that died for sins, we must have an answer. . . . . Could it be possible that our fathers made a tre- , mendous mistake when they rejected Him? Several years ago, Rabbi Wise delivered a sermon in the Free Synagogue of New York, urging all Jews to accept Jesus as their own Prophet. “ We regard Him,” the famous rabbi said to the Christian, “ as not yours only, but ours. He was the greatest Jew that ever lived. We want to venerate Him ; we do venerate Him.” It is a far reach from such an acknowledgment to an acknowledgment that Jesus Christ is Immanuel, “ God with us,” but it is a far ther reach from that position back to where the very name of Jesus was banned with a curse. Dr. Max Nordau says : “ Jesus is the soul of our soul, flesh of our flesh. Who, then, would think of excluding Him from the people of Israel? St. Peter will remain the only Jew who said of the Son of David, ‘I know not the man.’ ” Dr. Isidor Singer, editor of the Jewish Encyclo paedia, asserted: “ I regard Jesus of Nazareth as a Jew of the Jews, One whom all Jewish people are learning to love.” An epoch-making book was published back in 1925, by Dr. Joseph Klausner, the foremost orthodox Hebrew scholar in the world. It is entitled: “ Jesus of Nazareth: His Life, Times, and Teaching.” It thrilled the world of Jewry. No wonder ! For, as the Jewish World said : “ For the first time in 1900 years, a rabbinical Jew discourses on thé life o f Jesus without prejudice, and represents the founder of Christianity as the embodiment of religious and ethical idealism.” Israel Zangwell admitted that: “ Jesus [Continued on page 66]
“ The dark ages” may have been days of darker deeds. There may have been fewer true believers in past days than now. Infidelity may have been more rife. But never before, on the part of the church, has there been such utter abandonment of the great basic doctrines of “ the faith once for all delivered unto the saints”—doctrines that for cen turies were universally accepted by the Christian church. Dark as were the ages, tremendous as were the moral lapses of professed believers, yet as long as the church did not deny faith in an inspired message from God, a virgin- born body for her Saviour, an incarnate God, His sub stitutional death upon a cross, and a resurrected body of flesh and bone from the tomb— just so long there was a firm foundation for a revival, just so long there was hope! But “ if the foundations be destroyed, what can the right eous do?” (Psa. 11:3). It can only mean that “ the ful ness of the Gentiles” is at hand, and that an apostate church is ripening for the same “ severity of God” that overtook an apostate Israel. It is. worthy of note that it was not because of a moral lapse (bad as such a lapse ever is) on the part of Israel that “ the severity of God” fell upon her. Jesus said to the Jews, “ I f ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins” (John 8:24 ). To the most moral men of His day, Jesus said: “ Verily I say unto you, that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.” Why ? Because “ ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him” (Matt. 21:31, 32). It matters not that the modernism that is permeating the eptire church today fawns about the person of our Lord, calling Him great, and good, and lovely, and exemplary—a teacher, a prophet, a priest—the Jews were not loath to acknowledge Him to be all that. His claim to deity was the rock of offense oh which they stumbled. For that “ blasphemy,” they crucified H im ! “ For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God” (John 10:33). As it was then with the Jew, so it is now with the Gentile— it is not Christ the man, but Christ the God, that is being rejected. The development of apo’stasy did not begin in “ the dark ages,” but with the rise of the so-called “ higher criticism” at the close of the eighteenth and in the early days of the nineteenth centuries. It began with a subtle undermining of faith in the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. In “ the dark ages,” the Holy Scriptures may have been denied to the common people; but their inspiration, as originally given, was not denied even by the wicked Church of Rome. Following the denial of the inspiration of the Bible, natur ally there ,came unbelief in the deity of Christ, in the total depravity of fallen man, in the need of redemption through atoning blood, in the resurrection of the body from the dead, in the future punishment of the wicked, and even in the eternal dwelling place of the righteous in the city of God. The professed church today is almost completely leavened with the doctrine of natural growth rather than regeneration; human education rather than the sanctifica tion of the Spirit; natural morality rather than divine grace; a human example on the cross rather than a divine substitution on the cross; the divinity of Jesus rather than the deity of Jesus—the divinity of Jesus, but also the divinity of man. Satan, indeed, fashions himself as an angel of light, seeks ordination and appointment; and, par adoxical as it may seem, he exalts Christ as he degrades Him. It is the same Satan who once entered into Judas, that, by kissing Christ, he might murder Him. The angelic talk of modernists about “ the loveliness of Christ as our example” deceives none but the dupes of Satan.
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CHRIST’S CROSS—AND OURS ^ . . . By CHARLES G. TRUMBULL,* Philadelphia, Pa.
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of the death of their worst enemy, and God had brought that death to pass. C hrist ’ s C ross The cross of Calvary marked an
seems safe to say that there is no other word in the Christian vocabulary that is so little understood, and so constantly misused, as the word
“ cross.” It is misunderstood and mis used not only by the world at large, but even by Christians themselves. Yet the teaching of Scripture con cerning the cross is very plain; and it is central in the message of the en tire Bible. As the great army of Sun day-school people throughout the world comes again to the study of the crucifixion o f our Lord, as given in
other .occasion when death was good news. How could this be ? It was the place where the sinless Son of God died. Nevertheless, the fact of His death on the cross, and the announce ment of it, was the best news this old world of lost sinners ever has had of ever could have. For the cross was
Gethsemane By Amos R. Wells To the shadows of Gethsemane My Saviour went alone; No friend to share His agony And answer groan for groan; No beat o f understanding heart, No clasp of brother hand, No watching touch o f human love In all that midnight land.
John’s gospel in the rich course of the In ternational Uniform Lessons, it is worth while to search out the m e a n i n g of Christ’s cross and of the Christian’s cross. The cross is the sign of death, the place of death. Let us be in no doubt as to this. If “ there is no death,” as certain poets and sentimen talists and false re ligionists tell us, then there is no meaning to the cross. Death is a r e a l i t y : dread, grim, terrible. Who ever says there is no death simply repeats the old, old lie that Satan first uttered in the Garden of Eden when he successfully
the p l a c e w h e r e Christ died for our sins that we might live. Some one had to receive the wages of sin, w h i c h is death: either the en tire human race, or the sinless Son of ' God as the sinners’’ Substitute. Have we realized the awful thing that took place at Cal vary? Jesus Christ was and is the only i One o f whom can' truly be spoken the w o r d s , “ altogether lovely.” Yet, in the mystery of the cross, we read of Him that “ he hath no form nor comeliness; . . . there is no beauty that we should de- s i r e h i m.” A n d
* * * In the shadows, of Gethsemane, Throughout the deadly night, No blessed gleam o f heavenly hope, No ray of heavenly light, '■ But steady piercing thrust o f hate , Against the heart-of love, The war of all the death below With all the life, above. To the shadows of Gethsemane Beneath the waiting hill, ; Came at the last the triumph shout O f God’s victorious will, Came at the last the conquering shout: “ Thy will, not mine, be done!’’ And all the shadows fell before God’s Sacrificial Son. ■ .- ■ —T he S unday S chool T imes .
Isaiah, who writes those inspired words, explains them as he says: “ He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: . . . the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” On the cross, Christ, who knew no sin, was made sin for us, “ that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
tempted the woman to put his word above God’s word and to accept the falsehood, ‘We shall not surely die.” But froni that day to this, men and women have died, because “ the wages of sin is death.” Death is an enemy ; “ the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” Ordinarily, the news of death is
. Sin is otir worst enemy, a deadly enemy. And Christ, bearing our sins in His own body on the tree, was ac tually “ made to be sin” for us. God cannot look upon sin, and He had to, turn His face away from His Son, hence the heart-broken “ orphan cry” on the cross, “ My God, my God, why hast thou for saken me ?” It is a startling but blessed fact that the reason why
bad news. But there have been occa sions when the announcement of death was good news. When the word went swiftly throughout Israel, long ago, that their worst enemy, Goliath, the leader and the champion of the Philistines, was dead, the nation re joiced. God wanted His people to rejoice in this news
*Editor o f “ The Sunday School Times.’’
February 1932
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Here is the inspired account of the Christian’s cross: “ I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Gal. 2 :20 ). Again: “ Know ye not, that so many of us as Were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:3, 4 ). Sin is the crudest taskmaster in existence.. The Chris tian’s cross is the place where he is delivered from the cruelty of that deadly enemy, sin. By faith in Christ as Saviour, we die unto sin, and we find that “ the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8 :2). Where is the hardship in that? Where is there any suffering? There is none— for the Christian. Christ bore the hardship, endured,the suffering of the cross, in order that we might know only its joyous emancipation. It is true that the child of God is assured o f suffering and tribulation and hardship of many kinds here on earth. But these hardships and sufferings are not crosses; let us remember what the Bible declares about our cross. If a convicted murderer, sentenced to the electric chair and waiting behind prison bars for the execution of this sentence, is brought a pardon from the governor, and the prison doors are flung open, and the sentence of death is forever removed, it is not a hardship for this man to walk out of the prison freed from “ the law of sin and death.” That is what the cross does for the Christian. But if this pardon was made possible only because another had gone to the prison and to the electric chair in the place of the guilty one, that substitute’s suffering and death would in deed be hard for the one who endured it. That is what Christ’s cross was to Him. Upon that cross o f Jesus, mine eye at times can see The very dying form o f One who suffered there for me, And from my smitten heart, with tears, two wonders I confess— The wonders of His glorious love, and my own worthlessness.
the death that occurred on Calvary’s cross is good news is because, in a real sense, our worst enemy, sin, died there. The One who died there was our best Friend, because He was willing to be made sin and to die in our stead. When, taking the place of our worst enemy, symbolized by the deadly serpent that was destroying Israel in the wilder ness, He received in His own person God’s necessary and righteous wrath against sin, and allowed the full con sequences of sin to be poured out upon Him, that death occurred which is good news, the gospel, for the whole world. On the cross, Christ died so that we who believe on Him should not need to die. Because He died, we may live. The gospel, the good news, is “ Christ crucified.” There is no other gospel. That is why Paul “ determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” Was the cross, then, easy or hard for the Lord Jesus Christ ? The agony in Gethsemane is our answer. There was. such hardship to Christ in the cross as no one else in time or eternity can ever know. T he C hristian ’ s C ross But what about the Christian’s cross? What is the Christian’s cross? How many crosses may a Christian know in a lifetime here on earth ? Have we not often heard good Christian people speak of this or that hardship, or trial, or affliction, or handicap as a cross that must be borne patiently? But there is no suggestion in the Scriptures that trials or hardships or sufferings make the Christian’s cross. Christians cannot have many crosses; they can have only one. We cannot have different crosses at different times-in our life ; there is but one cross possible for the individual child of God throughout life, and but one cross possible for all children of God. The Bible never uses the plural, “ crosses,” of Christian experience. The cross of the Chris tian is the cross of Christ— there is no other. It is the sign and place of death for both Christ and His disciple— with this difference: For Christ, it was unspeakably hard; for the Christian, it is easy, a joyous deliverance.
THE RIVER OF LOST SOULS . By ROY L. LAURIN, San Gabriel, Calif.
word was sent by courier to Santa Fe. A period of mourning was proclaimed for the lost regi ment, and the river that boomed through that canyon was given its first name — “ El Rio de las Animas Perditas ”—The River o f Lost Souls. Although it was later changed by the French to “ La Purgatoire,” and by the American settler to “ Picketwire,” the pathos of the first name lingers. When I heard of that river, I thought of another River of Lost Souls. It has never been navigated by ships of wood and steel, for its bosom bears only the souls of men. Its source is hidden in the once happy state of man in a garden called Eden, in the foothills of Meso- It commenced in the sin of a man and a woman in flow the laws of evil and iniquity. It has volume with the years of its flowing. It has car-
J ust below the borders of Utah and Colorado, there is a magnificent canyon extending from Southern Colorado into Northern New Mexico. Through this canyon there booms and roars a noisy little river which was named long before the United States be came a great nation. In the days when Spain owned all of Mexico and Florida, the Spanish conquistadors were ordered to extend their conquests. They pushed north to Santa Fe and wintered at what is now Trinidad, Colorado. With the coming of spring, the colonel in command of the expedition of conquistadors in their glistening helmets and shirts of mail, left all the relatives and camp
ROY L. LAURIN PASTOR, SAN GABRIEL UNION CHURCH, SAN GABRIEL. CALIF.
followers behind, and at the head of his regiment, he marched into the canyon. Not one of the company re potamia. who set turned. When all hope of their return had been abandoned, gathered
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“ I thought of another r i v e r — the River o f Lost Souls, on whose broad bosom men ride complacently and to their doom.”
ried its silt and debris down all the ages. It has cut its crooked and iniquitous way across the face of centuries. It has seen the rise and fall of all the great empires. It has been swelled with the slaughter of the Caesars and choked with the sins of a Nero. It swept across the dark ages and accumulated the debris of superstition and misery that resulted from Satanic .ecclesiasticism. It circled across the east ern dominions of Genghis Khan and his successors. It flowed by the side of the Anglo-Saxon Renaissance. It followed the westward march of civilization with the
Courtesy Yosemite National Park
Spaniard to South America and the Briton to North Amer ica. And now, sixty centuries from the day the first drop of iniquity flowed down its slimy bed, this River of Lost Souls sweeps by the consciences of all who live. It takes its toll of lost souls from those who live in life’s highest cul ture, as well as from the Hottentot who knows no greater god than that which he forms with his own hands. T he S ource The source of most rivers is very small and in significant. I f you were to be placed suddenly at the source of the Nile, near Lake Tanganyika in Africa, you would scarcely believe it to be the fountainhead of the world’s longest river. And if you penetrated to the source of the Amazon, the greatest river in the world, you would find it in a tiny rivulet in the Andes Mountains of Peru. These are small and insignificant beginnings, but they become mighty cataracts of fury and power before they empty into the sea. Like these, the River of Lost Souls had a very insig nificant source. It was in the rebellion of a lone woman. She partook of a forbidden fruit, which, so far as the fruit was concerned, was insignificant and unimportant. What was of significance and importance was the attitude behind the act, for it represented the rebellion of a free moral agent against the sovereign God. And behind that rebellion was a satanically inspired desire to totally abandon God. What constituted sin? Was it the act of eating of the fruit of the forbidden tree? No. Eve sinned before she ate of the fruit. She sinned when she doubted God’s word. She sinned when she rebelled in her heart against God’s restrictions. Sin is something more than a deed — it is a condition. There are multitudes of modern souls that are hiding behind a false conception of sin. They think it consists of a deed, such as murder or lying or stealing. But sin is a condition into which the race has been born. One may have succeeded, by reason of parental discipline and moral training, in keeping himself free from heinous outbreaks of «in, and may therefore consider himself a candidate for God’s favor. But sin is not merely a deed. It is a racial, national, family, and individual condition, for “ all have sinned.”
T ributaries Like every great river, this River of Lost Souls has many tributaries. No man has deliberately and consciously launched upon the River of Lost Souls. He has started out on some ap parently innocent and legitimate and harmless-looking stream that, unknown to him, was a tributary of this awful hell-bound river. First, there is the stream o f indifference. This tributary is filled with the lazy waters of such sen timents as these: “ I do not care” ; “ it does not affect me that a Jew died nineteen centuries ago. What I am most interested in is what happens today.” The people who ride upon the bosom of this stream have bodies with minds and senses. They can react very enjoyably to a theater play, or to a favorable stock market report. And they can respond with great delight to the prospect of a seven course dinner. But they are apparently dumb, deaf, and blind in soul when the incomparable Christ says: “ Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden; and I will give you rest.” Every one in Belize, British Honduras, knew that off in the Caribbean Sea a hurricane was lashing its furious way toward land. But what of that? Hurricanes often blew around the Carribbean every year, but they never reached Belize. The city was not in their path; it was immune. For generations it had been a tradition that no hurricane would ever strike Belize, the sleepy capital of British Honduras. But one did strike, with a triple horror of wind, tidal wave, and fire, apd when it was over, after three hours of hell- born fury, the city was in ruins and 850 people were dead. Hurricanes never struck Belize—yet finally one'did. And how often the travelers an the stream of indifference say the same thing! Death takes some man’s wife, and they say, “ Well, it will never take mjne.” Death snatches some woman’s husband, and they breathe complacently, “ It will not take my husband.” Death robs some home of a child, and they feel so safe and say, “ It will never take mine.” But, in hurricane fury, it will sweep down upon their happy homes some day and snatch away a mother or a father or á babe—-just like that. And they are left in the desolation [Continued on page 65]
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T h e February 1932 TRAGEDIES AND TRIUMPHS OF THE LAST DAYS . . . By GEORGE W. DAVIS, * Pasadena, California K i n g ’ s B u s i n e s s
When H. G. Wells made the statement, “ We have come to the crossroads, and no one knows the way out,” he was not posing as a prophet, nor did he base his opinion upon the statements of prophets. His observation is very true, in part, as world chaos abundantly shows. He erred in saying, “ No one knows the way out.” God knows; and for this humanly hopeless task, He has chosen His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and has not withheld from His servants just what He intends to do. Had this noted writer believed the words o f Christ and the prophets, he would not have written an ultimatum
h o u g h t f u l m e n see perils on the world horizon. A sublime optimism concerning the church and state has prevailed throughout this, generation. Since the war of nations, opinion is changing—a gradual yielding to a despairing pessimism is evident. The assumption that mankind was slowly approximat ing an idealistic goal of self-evolved perfection of charac ter and, as a consequence, neafing the age of golden dreams is being disavowed. Students of God’s Word who have given earnest heed
so hopeless as he did in these words: “ De struction is not threatening civilization: The ship of civilization is not going to sink in five years or in fifty years. It is sinking now.” At least we might have been assured that, out of the coming crash, our Lord, through infi nite grace and by almighty power, will sal vage a sufficiency of redeemed humanity from the earth to establish a new kingdom of righteousness and peace to supersede the “ iron and clay,” man’s improvised amalga mation of world government in his last ex tremity. T he L ast D ays seasons.” Ages or God has “ times” and dispensations have been arranged by divine providence. Jesus Christ is the Framer of ages (Heb. 1:3). God deals with man in each successive age under different trial con ditions. Five of these dispensations have passed. We live in the sixth— “ the day of salvation,” or “ the age of grace.” Before us, in prophetic perspective, lies the seventh, “ the dispensation of the fulness of times” (Eph. 1:10).
to “ the more sure word of* prophecy” do not need to be disillusioned.; The prophetic forecast has been clearly discerned and can be briefly comprehended as epitomized in the “ watchman’s cry” : “ The morning com- eth, and also the night.” A L ight T hat S hineth The true nature and purpose of inspired prophecy is defined by Peter as “ a light that shineth in a dark place” (2 Pet. l :19). Predictions of the future, in order to be true, must include both lights and shadows, yet the ultimate objective is to foretell the triumph of good over evil. Tragedies are inev itable, but triumphs are far more exceeding. Our Lord, in describing “ the last days” that fill up the prophetic times of the Gen tiles, said, “ There shall be . . . upon earth distress of nations, with perplexity; . . . men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are com ing on the earth” (Lk, 2 1 :25, 26). . This is an ominous prediction, but the darkness is dispelled for those who possess the hope inspired by His added promise: “ When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Lk. 2 1 :28).
Beyond the smiling and the weeping, 1 shall be soon; Beyond the waking and the sleeping, Beyond the sowing and the reaping, I shall be soon. Love, rest, and home! Sweet, sweet home! Lord, tarry not, but come! —H oratius B onar .
Accordingly, “ last days,” or “ the last times,” point out a dispensational ending, not the end of the world as is frequently inti mated, especially in the secular press. (The Greek word rendered world, aionos, means “ age.” ) The day and hour of Christ’s coming to usher in the new era is unknown, as is also His earlier coming for His own. Both the parousia and epiphany are beyond present time calculation as to exact dates. After the rapture of the “ saints,” chronology will be applicable, and the “wise shall understand” (wise among the devout of Israel). We may now “ discern signs of the times,” detect the character of the days, and determine the “ season,” and live and serve God, “with . . . loins girded about, and . . . lights burning; . . . like unto men who wait for their Lord” (Lk. 12:35, 36). “ The last days” may be summarized as to character istics, as a time of consummations for the church, Israel, and the nations, marked b y : (1 ) Cumulative and climacteric sorrows (Matt. 24: 21 ).
Prophecy pronounces judgment, but always it promises the triumph of grace—beyond all tragedy there must be ultimate triumph. D arkness W ithout L ight A great cloud of witnesses could be summoned from the ranks of keen observers and deep thinkers, who see in the present crisis, from the angle of human vision, only the breaking down of civilization. Failing to take advantage of the prophetic lens, they miss God’s vision of the last days; for them, there is no “ light in a dark place.” Referring to world conditions, Sir Philip Gibbs is accredited with this startling declaration: “ All of us will be engulfed. The stage is set for the greatest melodrama entitled ‘The Downfall of Europe.’ Two forces are being marshalled, on one side and on the other. The master of ceremonies—who used to be called the devil, in the old days— is arranging everything.”
*Pastor, Alliance Tabernacle, Pasadena, Calif.
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