January, 1934
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
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T HE Jo h n B row n Schools, lo cated in th e foothills of the O z ark M ountains, sta rte d fo u rteen y e ars ago in a fram e building e re c t ed in a cornfield. T oday th ese schools— th e Siloam School of the Bible, th e Jo h n E. B row n C ollege (o fferin g two y e ars of high school a n d fo u r y e ars of college w o rk ), and the Julia A . B row n School for C h i l d r e n , located a t S ulphur Springs, A rk .— a re housed in m ore th a n tw en ty buildings. A little city has grow n up, b u ilt an d o p e rated by students, w ho a re re q u ire d to tak e fo u r h o u rs a day of vocational w ork. In a th o ro u g h ly C h ristian atm osphere, th ey receive train in g for head and h e a rt a n d hand.
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arlit PEACE, Lui ■
By JOHN E. BROWN* Siloam Springs, Ark.
for the church as yet is not com plete, but is now in the process of its completion. T h e W o rd of G o d n e v e r sp eak s of the church of God in the sense of one
S e r m o n s h a v e b e e n preached many times from the text, “There was no room for them in the inn” (Lk. 2:7). Of course, the inference is that, if Christ were on earth today, in what the church has announced as the age of “peace on earth, good will toward men,” every door of every city, state, and nation would be wide open to receive Him. Strange as it may sound, the theory is true that the world is ready to swing wide the door—but to a Christ of its own fabrica
great world-wide organization. The church is spiritual; for while it is separated into many individual bodies, as is shown in the message of our Lord to John in the Patmos vision, where the message was addressed very specifically to “the churches,” there is always the real church, the great invisible, spiritual body of Christ, composed of the blood-washed on earth and in heaven! While upon the earth there is to be found the church of Christ in Los Angeles, or in Denver, or in Chicago, or in Philadelphia, or in New York, these are the “churches,” not the “church.” This present age is the dispensation of the Spirit. A P eaceful K ingdom , w ith an A bsent K in g ? Christ probably best expressed the fact of the reality and the certainty of the kingdom of heaven when He gave the parable concerning Himself in Luke 19: “A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for. himself a kingdom, and to return.” When that Nobleman returns with that kingdom, the “kingdom of the heavens” which is to be set up upon this earth, then, and riot until then, will be ushered in the reign of righteousness and the reign of peace and the reign of good will which the heavenly host announced to the shepherds on the Judaean hills. Personally, [while I have given myself untiringly in whole-hearted cooperation to any and every movement which might bring at least temporary peace to a disrupted, disturbed, and suffering world, yet I know, on the author ity of God’s Word, that the peace for which the peoples of the world are looking and longing and praying will never come until the Prince of Pegce vomes back to usher in that glad and glorious age]1One'Statement alone from the lips of our Lord would settle that question forever for me. [In Matthew 24:6-8, Jesus, speaking of what must transpire immediately preceding the end of the age, says: “And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.^/ l-Oi/v?/i-i® “No R oom ” for H is F ollowers No room for Christ in the inn! There was no room for Him then, nor at any time thereafter in the life of the nation which He came to bless. From the death of un known numbers of sweet, innocent babies, a slaughter ordered by the terror-crazed King Herod, the awful enmity that swept about Christ mounted higher and higher until at last Christ was nailed to the cross. Following the resur rection and the ascension and the launching of the Chris tian church, hell again returned in frenzy to the fight. Alter
J ohn E. B rown
tion. If the Christ of the Judaean hills of nineteen centuries ago, the Christ of the cross, were here today, there would be “no room” for Him in the average home and in the average public place, as there was no room in the inn at Bethlehem. In other words, today, while the world, the church, the home, and the heart are willing to accept a certain beautiful conception of a Christ-ideal, the tragic fact remains that, were Jesus on earth today, followed by the same group of workers, and preaching the same stern truths which uncovered hypocrisy and demanded self- sacrifice, doors everywhere would be slammed in His face, and hearts and homes would be locked and barred against Him. For the whole world, out of its Christmas debauch ery and Easter day show, has come to think of Christ as the exact opposite of the Christ of Scripture and the Christ of history. “H is O wn R eceived H im N ot ” In the days of Christ’s earthly ministry, the congrega tion of His home church arose in rage and sought to destroy Him. The door of His own home was locked against Him, and His relatives and loved ones said, “He is mad.” In the days of His earthly ministry, when the mob was called to choose between Christ and the thief, the cry was, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” The attitude of His own nation to ward Him was shown in the blunt, cold-blooded declaration of Pilate to Christ, “Thine own nation and the chief priests [the representatives of organized religion] have delivered thee unto me.” The natioh, in its ignorance, had decreed that Christ, the Messiah-King, must die! Then, as now, much confusion of thought resulted from misinterpretation of the declaration of our Lord, “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight.” We overlook the fact—-the significant fact-—of the revelation which follows: “But now is my kingdom not from hence.” C hurch and K ingdom We confuse the kingdom of God with the church of God, and both are confused with the kingdom of heaven (or the kingdom of the.Son). The kingdom of God is now in the world, and in one sense, always has been and always will be. This is not the dispensation of the church, *Founder of the John Brown Schools.
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