222
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
April 1927
Y~ ---------------------------------------— *f I SENTENCE S ERMON S * ----------------- :---------------- ----------* Worldly honor is a flower possessed of more thorns than fragrance. — o—- The less of it they have, the more some people seem obsessed with the inclination to speak their mind. — o — Every man goes down to his grave car rying in his clutched hands only that which he has given away.—Rousseau. ----O' Every man is a missionary, now and forever, for good or for evil, whether he intends or designs it or not.;— Chalmers. Keep your doubts to yourself. If you shut your mouth over them they may die for want of fresh air— McNeill. The trouble with the world is that we each want to be human and want every body else to be perfect— L. A. Times. — o — Few can stand prosperity, especially the other fellow’s. — o — If the cat and dog in the house are not better and happier for your being a Christian, it is a question whether you really are one. ■ — -o- - Christ sends none away empty but those; who are full of themselves. '— o — When will we learn that if we indulge in a sin we invite a sorrow? Two things are equally hard: to speak of a man’s merits in his presence with discretion and to speak of a man’s faults in his absence with love. —o— Some men forget God all day, and ask Him to remember them at night. —o— The disciples feared as they entered in to the cloud; and yet in that cloud they saw more of Christ, more of His glory than ever before.— John E. Hazelton.
When Paul said, “Do the work of an Evangelist,” he was writing to a pastor. And it is a sad thing when a pastor be comes so obsessed with the idea of the breadth of his message and the com plexity of his ministry that his pulpit ef forts become a sort of a “de omnibus rebus et cetera rebus” affair, instead of a travail of soul for the unsaved, before whom, by the grace of God, he has been allowed to stand as an evangel in the stead of Christ; and what the church needs, to use the words of A. G Dixon, is “more pastors who have an evangelistic conscience, preach an evangelistic Gospel, pursue evangelistic methods and magnify evan gelistic experiences.” And so in his preparation, in his active ministry and in his everyday service, evangelism should be the dominant note of the preacher’s life. In the preparation of his sermon, the thought of what he has really been Called to do should be uppermost in his mind. Many a preacher spends more time on the rhetorical ornamentation of his sermon than he does on trying to make Jesus shine out through all he says. And a preacher like that is always concerned more about what people will think of his sermon than he is about what they will think of the Christ he professes himself called to preach. This is not so easy to admit, and we are not all of us quite so frank about it as was a certain preacher who came down from his pulpit and a woman said to him, That was a fine sermon you preached.” He replied, “Yes, Madam, the devil just told me that as. I stepped out of the pul pit.” If a preacher really wants souls con verted under the preaching of a sermon, the sermon will be constructed with that end in view, and then in his public utter ance he will preach as though he expected God to honor the message in the rock- rooted conviction and sound conversion of the man who sits before him to hear the Word of life while he preaches. — Biederwolf.
My Morning Prayer Now, Father, as the morning rays appearj, And the night of rest is past, Open thou my eyes to wisdom clear, Let me discern the Saviour, here And at His feet my burden cast.- Dress me, Lord, I humbly pray. In the robe of righteousness; For my every task this day Give me courage none can stay, And faith, and perfect earnestness. The bread of life I’d freely take, No other can my hunger stay ; In every strife, oh, wilt thou make Me strong, the snares of sin to break And victories win throughout the day? And gird me, Lord, to work for thee, Inspired by love and not reward; With humble joy thy face to see, And hear thy voice commending me, In every duty, sweet or hard. Then if, perchance, I’m called to die, Abundantly fulfill thy word; Unto thy bosom let me fly; In heaven safe; I humbly cry, Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. B W . J. M ason .
Christ’s Marvelous In sigh t “Never man spake like this man”—John 7 :46. Marvelous indeed was Christ’s insight into human nature. With divine delicacy, yet with divine certainty, He lays His hand upon the heart of the moralist who, boastful of his prim propriety, asks, “What lack I yet?” and touches instantly the sensitive spot. “Go, sell that thou hast,” etc. The penetration of Christ’s words struck His most gifted foes dumb. Pharisees and Herodians forgot their hostility and conspired to catch Him in His talk: “Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?” “Render unto Caesar,” etc. Then the Sadducees sought to entangle Him in a question on the Resurrection; but again His wisdom put them to silence. Then the Phar isees returned to the assault, and cunningly tried to entrap Him into giving some one command of God undue prom inence. And when again He read their hearts, and so ma jestically eluded their snare, from that day they “dared ask Him no more questions.” Fouque has a fable of a mqgic mirror so wonderful, that he who looked in it might read his own character, history and destiny. Goth and
Moor, Frank and Hun, came from far to see their past and future unveiled. Here is the true magic mirror. This keenest sword is also a polished blade; it not only cuts deep, but it reflects character. Nothing is more plain, in Christ s ivords, than an insight and a foresight far beyond man. Here, as in the brook, is the inverted image, which shows how deep is our degradation; but it tells of our pos sible elevation and salvation, even as the stars are no deeper down in the reflection than they are high in the heaven. Go, look in this mirror, see your own thoughts revealed.—Dr. Arthur T. Pierson. The Reach of Faith When the suspension bridge across Niagara was erected, a kite took a string across to the other side; to this string a cord was attached and was drawn over, then a rope which drew a larger rope, and then a cable strong enough to sustain the iron cable which supported the bridge, over which heavily laden trains now pass in safety. This could never have been done but for the small kite, which may represent a faith which, though weak, yet reaches to Christ and heaven.
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