October 1928
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
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citizenship ? Do we dare to speak out when we know that things are going wrong? Do we dare to follow our con science with our deeds? “W e should serve our nation for the Kingdom’s sake, and serve the Kingdom for the nation’s sake.”— W. E. ■ “You and'I did not make the State or the nation; our fathers did that. Are we to accept what they made, or perfect it?. A century ago it was difficult for a boy to get an ‘ education. The rich o f that period had not much more comfort than the c apa b l e workingman o f our time. Hours o f labor have been shortened. The toilers have far more power and self- respect today than ever before in history. The America of today is not the America that Dickens saw on his tour in this country. The people have constantly been reforming, changing, bettering conditions. Shall we rest, or go on with this work? Surely,we must go forward. There aré wrongs enough to be righted; and the Christian is false to his country and his God if he refuses to try to understand these wrongs and right them as far as he can.”— Rev. R. A. Anderson. “The battles which the twentieth-cen tury patriot must fight are harder than those waged on bloody fields. For he has to go forth against entrenched greed, in ert ignorance, deadly class hatred, and complex and difficult social problems which tax the best-trained brain and the stoutest heart.”— W. T. Ellis. O ctober 21, 1928 How D oes Law Increase Freedom ? Rom. 13:1-8. D aily S cripture R eadings Oct. 15 Days of anarchy. Judg. 21: 25.. Oct. 16 Law g i v e s protection. Acts 21:27-40. Oct. 17 Law restrains evil. Isa. 11: 1-5. Oct. 18 Law defines evil. Exod. 20: 1-17. Oct. 19 A law o f liberty. Lev. 25: 8-17. Oct. 20 Paul saved by law. Acts 26: 24-32. As long as sin reigns in this universe the iron hand of law is necessary. Dis respect for law, the lack of law enforce ment, bring o'nly sorrow and misery to a nation. Look at Russia for an illustra tion^—cut off from association with other powers because of the anarchistic form of government now ruling. The Chris tian .is _commanded to submit to the authorities that are over him, however, only so far as they do not command any thing that is contrary to the will o f God. The apostles left us the example that “we ought to obey God rather than man.” Everyone knows that a bad government is almost always better than none at all. It is the will of God that men live under rule. No earthly power is perfect or w i l l be so, until the perfect Ruler, Jesus Christ, whose right it is to reign, returns to take the reins of government in His hands. While we await His re turn, we must realize that the country whose citizens respect law, enjoys the greatest amount o f freedom. Opposition to law will always weaken and destroy the principle o f any country and lead to anarchy.
He then called for a coin and answered their question by asking another. Jesus often employed this method in answering His accusers. ; • “Whose is this image and superscription?” The penny, brought to Him was a denarius bearing probably the image of Tiberius. The Jewish coins were’ not impressed with the effigy of their kings. Herod Philip, alone of his family, out of flattery to the emperor, had caused his coins to be stamped with the likeness of Caesar.- Upon their correctly answering H is question, H e f o l l owe d with one o f the wisest, and de e p e s t maxims ever uttered in human language: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.” How truly the Lord Jesus was all that these, men said of Him in verse 19! How much more He proved Himself to be by His answer to theml From this answer, as well as our Lord’s in Matt. 17:24-27, also from Paul’s ex hortations in Romans 13, we gather that the Christian’s duty as a citizen is to ac knowledge the supremacy of God’s Word as the rule of righteousness. We must give account to Him for the way we live (vote):! in this life, and must render a peaceful submission to the authority of. our land. —o— C hoice N uggets Christianity was never intended by its divine Author to be confined to the four walls of a Church. Its mission is to enter the city and purge it of its moral leprosy, and to take hold of and cure men and women of all the moral and physical ills which pollute and destroy both soul and body in hell. This it can do only by en tering each individual heart; and to do this it must be carried personally and impressed upon the individual conscience as a message o f peace and good will. The preachers and professed Christians who are not, in some effectual me a s u r e at least, so carrying and so presenting the Gospel to the lost, are a travesty on the name Christian. “ No t long a g o an intelligent Turk raised this question in the Turkish parlia ment : ‘Why is there always prosperity in America? Here we have wars and fam ines, conspiracies and revolutions. They have none of these things over there; why not?’ None could answer. A Jap anese visitor to this country several years before this question was asked, answered it in these words: ‘I am no Christian. I do not believe in your Bible nor in your religion. I am what you call a heathen. Yet to me it is perfectly plain that Christianity is the s p r i n g o f America’s prosperity.’ ”—Record o f Christian Work. “ He serves his party best, who serves his country best .’”—Rutherford B. Hayes. The bes t patriotism is l o y a l service. There are so many ways every citizen may serve his country. The first thing is to be law-abiding. No nation has more righteous laws than ours. They are based oft the decalogue, and we are serving God best when we obey the laws most faith fully and are happiest ourselves. Where begin? At home with yourself, and then see that all over whom you have any in fluence do the same thing. Example goes a great way in influencing others and establishing our own authority. Our country is said to be “the land of the fr.ee and the home o f the brave,” but it is the land o f the free only as it is the home of the brave. Are we brave in our
T h e C h ristian ’s D u ty as a V oter M t . 22:15-22 D aily S cripture R eadings Oct. 8 Duty to be honest. Isa, 26: 7-9. Oct 9 To support authority. Rom . 13:1-5. Oct 10 To fulfil all civic duties. Matt. 22:15-22. . Oct 11 To oppose what is false. Acts 5:1-11. Oct. 12. To support good men. Heb. 13:17. Oct. 13 To oppose bribery. Ps. 26: 9-12. ' Though we are “pilgrims and strang ers” in this world, having our “citizen ship in heaven,” Scripture also teaches that the child of God has a moral respon sibility to the government from which he derives many blessings. Earthly govern ments, as we will learn in next Sundays lesson, are ordained of G od and the Christian is commanded to be in sub jection to the authoritative powers of the land. As voters it becomes our solemn duty to exert our Christian influence at the polls. Mr. Moody once asked an evangelist his opinion;concerning a very grave political situation, and the reply was— My citizen ship is in heaven.” Said Mr. Moody— “ Brother, you’d better get it down here for the next sixty days.” He did not believe in shirking responsibility down here because he was going up there. In the Scripture assigned for our lesson we have the mo s t profound an d yet simplest answers to the question for our discussion this evening. The Pharisees, desiring to entangle (ensnare as a fowler ensnares a bird) Jesus in His speech, es pecially in relation to the question o f politics, sent some of their keen politi cians (and they had them in His day as we have them today) to inquire of Him, who on several occasions spoke o f a king dom to which He belonged which was not of this world, endeavoring to prove Him disloyal to the ear t hl y government to which they were responsible. They asked Him catch questions. They began by flattery, not unlike present-day politicians, to throw Him off his guard. The question was then put to Him as to the lawfulness of paying tribute. A few days previous to this occasion, Jesus miraculously pro vided the tribute money for His disciples (Matt. 17:24-27), proving by this action His subjection to the requirements of the earthly government. Jesus, perceiving the deceitfulness of their question, replied, “Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?” Their question, though sugar coated, was most poisonous.
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