10
THE KING’S BUSINESS
at a time an almost incessant cannonade has been kept up. Sometimes weak hearts have been shaken by the roar of battle, but the words of Christ have remained abso lutely unshaken. There has not been one single stone dislodged from these fortifi cations. Words that can come out of eighteen centuries of such experience as that unscathed, unscarred, unmarred, will stand forever. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but the words of Christ shall not pass away. 2. But the words of Christ have not only stood the test of bitterest opposition; they have also stood the test of time. The test of time is a severe test of men’s utterances. What seemed like wisdom when uttered a few years ago is seen today to -be con summate folly. Ptolemy was by far the greatest astronomer of his time, and his Utterances were considered the sum of all wisdom, but they have not stood the test of time, and his theories are. today the laughing stock of the school room. What is true of the words of Ptolemy is true also of all other books of the past but One; they are outgrown, but the utterances of Jesus Christ are not outgrown; they" are as precious today as in that* long ago time -When they were first spoken. They, are as-perfectly applicable to present day needs as to the needs of that day. They contain the solution of all modern indi vidual and social problems: they have per petual youth. There is not one single point at which the teachings of Jesus have been outgrown or become antiquated. Beyond a doubt the human mind has been expand ing for more than eighteen centuries since Jesus Christ spoke here on earth, but it has not outgrown Him. Words that can endure eighteen centuries of growth and still prove as thoroughly adequate to meet the needs of the race, and each member of the race, as when first given, will stand forever. “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but” the words of Jesus Christ shall not pass away. Let us say in passing that in the light of history it is nothing short of preposterous,
and even ludicrous, to hear men put for ward the claims of the newly-hatched philosophers of a day against the utter ances of Jesus Christ that have stood the test of more than eighteen centuries, espe cially in view of the well known fact that just such philosopher?;' full of self-confi dence, have appeared by the thousands in the past and after a brief day of notoriety have flashed out again into the darkness from which they had so recently emerged. The history of eighteen centuries of human thought is largely a history of men who counted themselves wiser than Christ, but whom it took only a few years to prove utter fools. But the words of Jesus, Christ have not only stood the test of bitterest opposi tion and the test of time, they have also stood the test of rigid scrutiny. No other words have been so examined, scrutinized, analyzed, pulled to pieces, subjected to the most microscopic examination as the words of Jesus Christ. They have undergone eighteen centuries of scrutiny, and whaf is the result? (1) The first re su lts that not one single flaw has been discovered. What would not men give to find one real flaw ip the words of Jesus? AAfhat Would not Col. Ingersoll have given in his day? What would not some of our liberal preachers of the present day,.who would like to set them selves up by putting 'Jesus Christ down, give? What would not some of our pro fessedly orthodox preachers, who care far more for a petty reputation for originality and advanced scholarship than they do for the untarnished splendor of the word of God, give? They have searched for a. flaw—generation after generation of the enemies of Christ. One generation failing to find such a flaw, has bequeathed the search to another, and this search has'gone on for more than eighteen centuries with the best microscopes that could be devised, and that search has failed, utterly failed. No man, after all these centuries of search for it, can point to one single flaw in the
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