Yet Believing

Yet Believing
Whom having not seen ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory (1 Peter 1:8).

Peter had seen Jesus. His readers had not but they believed, anyway.
Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed (John 20:29).

It is not every man's privilege to believe. Out love and our faith do not rest upon sight. Neither does our rejoicing. We have "joy and peace in believing" (Rom. 15:13).

Do not demand a vision. Only three saw the glory on the transfiguration mount. But all the disciples walked with our Lord in the valley. The others were not disqualified by missing the vision. It is not lack of sight but lack of faith that rules us out. "We walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Cor. 5:7). Yet believing—anyhow!

Where Are You Going?

Lord, to whom shall we go? (John 6:68).

Where could we go? Look down all other roads and see what they have to offer. It is Christ or else. The wisdom of man, the religious of the world, have no answer to the soul's desperate cry, "Where could I go but to the Lord?"

Where would we go? If we do not follow the Light we go out into darkness, utter and eternal. We would go to hell if we did not go to Him. "He that believeth not is condemned already."

Where should we go? To Jesus, of course. Plain common sense tells us that nothing else satisfies. He has proven His case long ago. We ought to be Christians. God commands us to repent and believe.
It is a matter of eternal alternatives: saved or lost, justified or condemned, heaven or hell. "He that is not with me is against me." "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man." "I am the way." Which way are you going?

Christ, lordship of
In the Roman Empire, every one was required to put a pinch of incense on the altar and confess Caesar as Lord. Christians would not do this and many died for their faith. Some who carved images for the public, although not worshiping the images themselves, tried to excuse themselves by saying, "I have to make a living and this is how I do it." Tertullian, mighty Christian of his day, would reply, "Must you live?" They had and we have but one Lord and we do not have to live; we have only to be true to Jesus Christ, live or die, come what may. If Jesus is Lord, that ends it. We count not our lives dear even unto death, not merely until death. Jesus is Lord.

Christ, power of
In Mark's account of the stilling of the tempest we read, "...there arose a great storm of wind" (Mark 4:37). The disciples aroused the Lord from His sleep and we read, "And he arose..." (v. 39). We are in the greatest storm of history, but He is master of the storm. When the storm arises, let us arise in His strength and bid the tempest subside. Like the disciples we panic, forgetting Who is in the boat with us! We are hearing aplenty about the storm these days, but little about the Saviour. "There arose a storm...and he arose."

Christ, second coming of
When I studied arithmetic, I remembered that the answers were in the back of the book. No matter how I floundered among my problems, the correct solution was on the last page. I have failed often in working out life's problems, and I dwell in the midst of a people who are hopelessly trying to untangle the riddle of this present age. But I am cheered by one unfailing uncertainty—there is a Book that solves the enigma and the answer is in the back of the Book, "Behold I come quickly." "Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

A. J. Gordon was a great preacher of the second coming of Christ. His son and biographer writes, "Advocacy of this doctrine cost him much. It seems to awaken suspicion and lead to estrangement—this great doctrine of hope." Dr.

Gordon himself said, "It is not wanted by a church with millionaire merchants and great universities. But, after all, it was for the assertion of this doctrine that Christ at the last was crucified" [See Matt. 26:64]. To this day certain churchmen resent the enthusiastic proclamation of it. To declare that our Lord may return at any moment may disturb their grandiose plans and programs.

A minister preached a great sermon one Sunday on the Lord's return. Some students approached him after the service to say, "We can't get that out of the New Testament the way you preached it." "Of course you can't get it out," he replied, "it's in there to stay!"

Christ, sufferings of
I know an artist who paints pictures of Gethsemane and Golgotha. They are not pretty pictures. The artist is disturbed by pictures that do not disturb us, pictures that give the impression that our Lord is only experiencing some minor inconvenience.

Christ's influence
The Emmaus disciples invited Him in: "Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent" (Luke 24:29). Receive Him as a Guest and let Him be Host. Tell Him to make Himself at home—be Himself in your heart—just that. Let Him run the place. I used to read signs in home dining rooms that read, "Christ is the Head of this home, the silent Listener to every conversation, present at every meal." I heard of a family that kept a vacant chair always at the head of the table reserved for the Lord. It helped for it reminded them often of One present though to sight unseen. Does He feel at home in your house? Can He be Himself in you?

Christ's presence

E. Stanley Jones wrote The Christ of the Indian Road. It had a wide circulation and was followed by various books about the Christ of other roads. My Lord was also the Christ of the Lonely Road, often in solitude, persecuted, misunderstood, crying at last on a cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
We who follow in His steps find that the way is not crowded. "Few there be that find it" (Matt. 7:14). But we are not alone though often lonely. "Lo, I am with you..." (Matt. 28:20). And His road is the only road... "No man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6).

Christian
An evangelist friend of mine was converted in a rescue mission. The superintendent of that mission kept him as an assistant for a year before he let him go out preaching. He explained, "I wanted him to get established and I didn't want him to know too many Christians!" Gandhi is reported to have said that he might have become a believer if it hadn't been for Christians!

Christian discipline
I watched a television program featuring Jascha Heifetz, now retired, teaching an advanced class of young violinists. These artists seemed to have reached perfection, as far as I was concerned, but evidently they and Heifetz did not think so. So they went through the tedious exercises over and over again until they were acceptable to the master's ear. What hours of disciplined practice all artists, acrobats, performers in any realm, must go through to reach the top! It has been said that when acrobats are not performing, they are practicing. Need we wonder that Christians in general make so little impact for Christ when they are content with the lowest possible training in prayer, Bible study, witnessing, and all the exercises of godly living? The greatest of arts, Christ-like living, has the fewest who can master it. The greatest warfare on earth is carried on by the poorest-trained rookies in all combat. How easily satisfied we are with poor performance! It may satisfy us, but is the Master pleased? Will it merit His "well done"? There are few advanced students in the school of Christ but plenty of dropouts and a multitude of the mediocre.

Christian service
We cannot be part-time Christians. We are all in full-time Christian service, or we should be. A man who is faithful to his wife most of the time is not faithful at all. A man who is a Christian and something else is not a Christian. The friend of the world is the enemy of God. Billy Sunday used to say, "There is no such thing as a worldly Christian. You might as well talk about a heavenly devil."

Christianity
Uzzah was a Levite, but he wasn't a priest. Only the priest could touch the Ark (Num. 4:15), and that only under certain circumstances.
We're not Levites; we're priests. The Scriptures teach the priesthood of the believers. But it's a sad day, my friend, when the Ark becomes a box, and you become so familiar with Scripture and worship and the ordinances that you lose your reverence.

A friend sent me a book mark that reads:
Birds do not sing because they have an answer,
They sing because they have a song!

The birds do not have all the answers, but they sing because they have a song within. We are told to consider the birds. They have their mishaps and miseries, but not even a sparrow falls without God's notice. The Christian does not have all the answers to the whys that baffle and perplex him, but he has the Answer in whom are gathered up all our problems. We see not yet all things put under Jesus, but we see Him and He is our song.

An American ambassador is not out to make Americans of everybody, but a Christian ought to be out to make Christians of everybody. It has been said that Communism is out to win the world, but that Americans are out to enjoy it. Communism is not out to win more territory, but to capture the souls of men. The greatest soul-winners today are Communists winning men for the devil. Dr. Malik said: "The Russians are utterly devoted to their cause. That is not true of most Americans I know. Why do you in America not pay the price? Why do you not press the battle to victory with the weapon God has given you, the heritage of the Christian faith?" Whitaker Chambers said: "Communism is no stronger than the failure of other faiths."

Dr. G. Campbell Morgan wrote: "The world hates Christian people, that is, if it sees Christ in them. The measure in which the world agrees with us and says we are really a fine type of Christian, we are so entirely broad, is the measure in which we are unlike Christ." Our Lord made it plain that because we are not of the world, therefore the world hates us (John 15:19). There is a notion going around these days that we should hobnob with Sodom and get chummy with Gomorrah in order to influence them for good. God's people are strangers and pilgrims in this world and the world hates them, as it did their Lord, because they testify of it that its works are evil (John 7:7). This ungodly generation is more likely to break our necks than fall on our necks in love and appreciation.

Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones sets before us bones, body, and breath. It is possible to have the bones of theological truth, a body of moral character, but without the breath of the Spirit one is still a lost soul. A church may have a fine skeleton of organization, the body of a large membership and yet without the breath of God be only a Sardis having a name to be alive but dead. A mortician can make a dead man look better than he ever looked when he was alive! How the bones and body of professing Christianity need the wind of the Spirit to blow upon them! How we need to pray as well as to sing, "Holy Spirit, breathe on me"!

In these days of social emphasis, we do well to remember that before God ordered His people to "...seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow" (Isa. 1:17), He bade them, "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well!" (vv. 16,17). Social reform by an uncleansed and unconverted people is not the program of God.

In World War I, Theodore Roosevelt spoke of German-Americans with divided loyalty as hyphenated Americans. He said, "If you are an American and something else, you are not an American." He reminded us that America is not a "polyglot boardinghouse." The kingdom of God is not a polyglot boardinghouse either. If you are a Christian and something else, you are not a Christian.

It is more difficult for an American to become a real Christian than for a pagan. The pagan has no preconceived ideas of Christianity gained from watching church members. He comes to it brand new. The situation is in reverse with the American. He must unlearn much that he has believed and be re-educated before he can understand what Christian discipleship really is.

It is possible to stand high in religious circles and not get out of kindergarten in the school of Christ; it is possible to hold postgraduate degrees in theology and never make third grade at the feet of the Master. Growing in knowledge is not necessarily growing in grace. One may associate with the Saviour, as Philip did, and still hear Him say, "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known...?" (John 14:9). McCheyne wrote: "Men return again and again to the few who have mastered the spiritual secret, whose life has been hid with Christ in God. These are of the oldtime religion, hung to the nails of the cross"—men of the cross, with the message of the cross, bearing the marks of the cross!

Nowadays we ask people to "accept Christ." That is not a New Testament term. We are told to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, trust Him with the heart (Acts 16:31) and receive Him (John 1:12). "Accept" gives the impression that our Lord is standing hat-in-hand, awaiting our verdict on Him. After all, He invites us to come to Him and what matters most is whether He accepts us. We hear about "taking Christ as Saviour." The Scriptures do not tell us to take Him as anything. We are to receive Him, period. If that were better understood today there would be none of this idea that we can take Christ as Saviour now, and maybe years later take Him as Lord as though these were two separate experiences—something not taught in the New Testament at all.

Occasional high days, answers to prayer now and then, temporary blessings, make an uneven and spasmodic Chris-tian life. But to live day in and out, all kinds of days, in simple dependence on Christ as the branch on the vine, constantly abiding, that is the supreme experience.

Rummaging through my father's papers the other day, I came across this old well-worn statement: "Nothing is ever settled till it is settled right, and nothing is ever settled right till it is settled with God." God invites us to talk it over: "Come now, and let us reason together" (Isa. 1:18).
(Rock, p. 83)
Savonarola, Huss, Cranmer—these and many others took a stand for God that cost them their lives. We are heirs to their legacy. There would be no vital Christianity today if they had chosen the line of least resistance. Today some feel that the Reformers should have worked things out at a conference table. Luther should have chosen peaceful coexistence. The new pitch is to go along, and achieve our goals by being politicians instead of prophets. We are trying to untie knots we should cut. But the situation grows knottier. It is the day of Erasmus, not Luther and one thing is certain—the new angle isn't working. The new reformers are too proud to admit their failure.

Said McCheyne: "Men return again and again to the few who have mastered the spiritual secret, whose life has been hid with Christ in God. These are of the old-time religion, hung to the nails of the cross."

The tragedy is that so much Christianity today is only a mental acceptance of the gospel—a performance but not an experience. It is an impersonal head belief but not a warm glowing fellowship with the living Christ. Such Christianity does not make flaming witnesses eager to pass on the joy of their new life. Missions are an abstraction but a live mission-ary translates it in flesh and blood. Evangelism is a cold subject unless it is embodied in an evangelist. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and must be embodied in living people to reach others.

When the early church got into trouble with government officials they were rebuked for their boldness, but instead of toning down they prayed for more boldness—the very thing that got them into trouble to begin with! The kind of Christianity that can sing in prison at midnight will always be heard by prisoners of sin in this awful world, and God will set His approval on it by setting them free.

Christians
Abraham is the first and an outstanding example of the believer who, as an exile and alien in this world, is called a stranger and sojourner. God's people are not citizens of earth trying to get to heaven but citizens of heaven trying to get through this world. Trying to get this across to the average Sunday-morning congregation of American church members is almost hopeless, for no generation has ever driven down its tent pegs in this world as we have done.

An Irishman came to America and lived here for a year before his wife came to join him. "Don't these people talk funny?" she remarked when she arrived. He replied, "If you think they talk funny now, you should have heard them when I came over a year ago!" We grow accustomed to conditions, and Christians may get used to the language and life of this world until what once surprised us becomes an accepted part of our lives.

Christians, careless

Sometime ago a man said to me, "I work in an acid factory. A little of that stuff can kill you, but it is not the new workers who get burned. It is the old hands who grow careless." Something like that is true in Christian experience. There is the peril of getting used to being a Christian so that we grow careless and no longer watch and pray.
Christians, childish
Too many Christians become childish instead of childlike. They are spiritual babies who won't grow up; milk-feeders who should be on meat; carnal believers, not newborn babies who keep pastors busy with a milk bottle. We are not to be "children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, [we] may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ" (Eph. 4:14-15). We ought to grow up and out of childishness into childlikeness. This secret is kept from the wise and prudent and revealed unto babes. There is not so much to learn as to unlearn. A revival comes when childish church members become childlike in simple faith and obedience.

Christians, inactive
"He that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad" (Matt. 12:30). There is no such thing as an inactive church member. If you are not gathering with Christ, you are scattering abroad, and either is activity. By not actively working with and for Him, you are working against Him.

Christians, lukewarm
One wonders which displeases God more, idol worship in heathen lands or idle worship in fashionable sanctuaries. Certainly Isaiah and Amos tell us of divine disgust at form without force and ritual without reality, and our Lord was nauseated at Laodicean lukewarmness.

Someone has suggested that a good text for an Easter sermon can be found in a phrase out of Acts 12:4: "Intending After Easter..." Everybody goes to church on Easter Sunday but most of them do not intend to keep it up. It is not a religious show on a big day but faithfulness to God every day that counts. Putting in an appearance on a special occasion and then being conspicuous for absence on most occasions is the bane of our church life today. Isaiah thundered against the hollow and meaningless observance of new moons and sabbaths and "the solemn meeting." Christmas and Easter Christians, the holly-and-lilies crowd, make poor soldiers of the cross and followers of the Lamb. The real test of our piety is what we intend to do "after Easter."

Church follow-up
Our greatest failure is in the follow-up. We take a step of consecration, but do not follow it with a day-by-day walk. Churches have revivals, but lapse back into the same old rut as before. We reason that one cannot live in such rarefied spiritual air the year round. Our problem today is what the Scriptures call "patient continuance" (Rom. 2:7). "...if ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed" (John 8:31). The truth sets us free, but only as we continue in the word. It is freedom through faith that follows! Our failure as Christians and churches is in the follow-up. There are not many advanced students in the school of Christ because there are too many dropouts.

Church members
J. B. Gambrell was a great dog lover as a boy. He got hold of a book that told him what he could be in life if he applied himself. He decided, "I cannot be what I ought and keep up with all these dogs," so he gave up dogs. He once wrote quite a piece about the neighborhood dog that wears no collar, is unattached, doesn't belong to anybody, feels no responsibility to keep stray dogs and cats off any place, goes around smiling and wagging his tail, and will bark as much at one house as another. The neighborhood dog, Gambrell wrote, is broad-minded, makes up with everybody, gets in no fights, for to him nothing is worth fighting for. "Judicious barking," we read further, "is a fine trait, but miscellaneous barking is worth nothing, and is confusing to dogs that are really hunting something." Then Dr. Gambrell made his application. "The neighborhood dog has a lot of kin who are too broad-minded to join any church. They run to all churches, particularly if there is a special service for they like crowds. The man who says one church is as good as another doesn't love any church enough to be of any use to it. There are hoboes in the dog world and deadbeats in the religious world. A thousand of them would never support a church or send a missionary.

Church
Dr. Phillips says the church is "so prosperous that it is fat and out of breath and so organized that it is musclebound."

To use A. J. Gordon's illustration, the average church is often like a congested lung with only a few cells doing the breathing. There is usually a faithful nucleus surrounded by a mass of nominal Christians.

Alexander MacLaren was right in saying that Christianity has fallen into the hands of a church that does not half believe its own gospel.

One is reminded of the skinny razorback hogs in Arkansas. Their sad plight was explained by their owner, who said, "I used to knock on the fence when I fed them corn, and they came running. But there are a lot of woodpeckers around now, and every time one drums on a limb, the hogs take off in that direction, expecting more corn. They have just about killed themselves running all over the lot." Today every church entertainer gets a crowd of razorbacks who are exhausting themselves trying to make all the church vaudeville shows and religious night clubs.

A "church tramp" who had already belonged to three different denominations said to his pastor pro tern, "I'm getting ready to make another move." "Well," replied the minister, "it does no harm to change labels on an empty bottle."

I'm thinking now of a church that has just called a new preacher. The people have an idea that a new preacher is the panacea for all their ills. They have never gotten right with God and with their last preacher.

Charles H. Spurgeon dared to say, "Many would unite church and stage, cards and prayer, dancing and sacraments. If we are powerless to stem this torrent, we can at least warn men of its existence and entreat them to stay out of it." A. J. Gordon dared to say, "The notion having grown up that we must entertain men in order to win them to Christ, every invention for world-pleasing which human ingenuity can devise has been brought forward till the churches have been turned into play-houses and there is hardly a carnal amusement that can be named from billiards to dancing which does not find a nesting place in Christian sanctuaries. Is it then Pharisaism or pessimism...to predict that at the present fearful rate of progress, the close of this century may see the Protestant church as completely assimilated to fourth-century paganism?" We smile at that today, but we are not overstocked with Spurgeons and Gordons.

The first business of the church is not to evangelize, but to be ready to evangelize. We are trying to excite an unpre-pared, undedicated mob of church members to rush out into a business for which they are not ready in mind or heart—a Gideon's thirty-two thousand utterly without training, for the most part of a carnal mixed multitude marching out to spiritual warfare of which they know nothing, and for which they could not care less.

The infidel who stood at a burning church and explained his presence there by saying, "I never saw this church on fire before," would be found multiplied by thousands if spiritually our assemblies caught on fire from above. Even fundamentalists do not escape here, for all too often they have the facts but still lack the Flame. God is not revealed so much in correct theology; heads may be right and hearts still be wrong. Painted fire may even be added to touch up the doctrine, but painted fire is not Pentecost fire, it will not burn.

Church, conflict within
I have heard of a soldier in the Civil War who was asked, "How many of the enemy did you account for?" "None," he replied, "but then I got as many of them as they did of me!" Too many soldiers of the Lord are just about as effective. They need a fighting spirit. But most of the saints are fighting each other these days. The greatest danger to the church is not from without but from within.

Church, effect of on world
In the days of Constantine, the church controlled the culture of that day. Today the culture of this age is in the hands of the world. We are in the grip of worldwide paganism, and the true church is an alien minority. The professing church has been so assimilated by the age that it has little influence in this day and generation. Some churchmen would have the church try through education, reformation, and legislation to control the present order. But God never meant for the church to overcome the world that way. Constantine did not Christianize his day, he merely "Constantinized" it.

Church, the
This is a day of amalgamation and homogenization. The churches are being fused into a world church, the nations into a world state. We hear of a syncretism of world religion. "Syncretism" is a dignified word for "hash." I never eat hash away from home because I don't know what it is made of, and I don't eat it at home because I do know what it is made of! We are not going to improve the bad eggs of humanity by stirring all kinds of eggs into one omelet.

Churches
I am not bemoaning the failure of the church. We are not called to preside at the funeral of Christianity. The church of Jesus Christ is not dead. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (See Matt. 16:18.) They say the church has failed in not updating her terminology, in her social program, in not getting through to youth. I will tell you where the church has failed; she has failed at the point of the inspiration of the Scriptures, the Lordship of Christ, the sovereignty of the Spirit, the separation from the world, and the discipleship. She has gone into religious socialism, building bigger and better hog pens in the far country instead of getting prodigals home to God. The world had more respect for the church when she was attending to her own business instead of making moral issues out of political projects.

Churches, wealthy
The church today has all this wealth, but is rarely aware of it. Peter said to the lame man, "Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk" (Acts 3:6). The Pope said to Thomas Aquinas as they walked amid the splendor of the Vatican, "You can see that now the church cannot say, 'Silver and gold have I none.'" Aquinas replied, "True, but neither can she say, 'Rise and walk'!" Our huge magnificent churches are well stocked with silver and gold. But the blind are not seeing, nor the lame walking in comparable numbers.

Civilization
Psalm 119:126 says, "It is time for thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void thy law."
Civilization today reminds me of an ape with a blowtorch playing in a room full of dynamite. It looks like the monkeys are about to operate the zoo, and the inmates are taking over the asylum.

Commission, great
The Great Commission bids us teach the disciples to observe all things commanded. Our word "observe" has two meanings today. It may mean to behold, to look on, to view the scene. It may also mean to adhere to, keep the rules, abide by the terms, obey the laws of an organization or society. Most Christians belong to the first category; they are balcony Christians, spectators, onlookers, nonparticipants. We hire a church staff to do church work, and on Sunday we sit and watch them do it. Too many are in the grandstand, too few are playing the game.

Commitment
A well-known football team was criticized for running out the clock in the last minutes of the game. The score was tied, and they played safe, taking no chances with the ball lest the opposing team grab it and score in the very finish of the battle. We are not in life's game to lose or to tie, but to win. The tendency today in Christian warfare is to play safe, and take no chances rather than risk everything in an all-out fight for victory.

I heard of a pastor who met one of his delinquent members and said, "Well, I haven't seen you in church much lately." "No," he said, "you know how it's been. The children have been sick, and then it's rained and rained and rained." The pastor said, "Well, it's always dry at church." "Yeah," he said, "that's another reason why I haven't been coming." It ought not be so. We are dealing with divine dynamite, and I believe that everyone who comes to every service ought to get a blessing and go out charged up.

In the Parable of the Sower, the Seed, and the Soil, our Saviour tells us about shallow hearts. A pastor said recently, "My parish is twenty miles wide and one inch deep!" One wonders whether we can ever have a revival in depth in a shallow generation.

In the rural community where I grew up many a small farmer plowed with a mule. That was no easy life. A mule is a problem to begin with and trying to steer a plow through that red dirt and roots and rocks tested any son of the soil. I always felt that it required an extra supply of grace to be a farmer in those days with a few acres, a primitive plow and a stubborn mule.
Our Saviour gave us a solemn word about putting one's hand to the plow and looking back. There are other angles of this business that carry lessons for Christians. For one thing, we make the mistake of "pushing the plow." The farmer had to keep his plow in the furrow and guide its course, but it was the mule's business to pull the plow. A lot of energy can be spent trying to push what can only be pulled. Let the mule bear the responsibility of pulling the plow. Our business as Christians is to make a straight course and keep the plow in the furrow, but the power to pull the plow through to the finish is God's, not ours. We work ourselves up in the energy of the flesh trying to do God's part of the work. He works in us to will and to do. Our part is to keep a straight furrow and the plow on its course.

It is a day of fading declarations. The old Declaration of Independence lies faded in Washington. America has become a disaster area in its family life because too many marriage certificates are fading in their significance. Church covenants are found in the backs of hymn books, but they have faded in the lives of most of our members—if they ever meant anything. The Bible itself is a faded document as it lies dust-covered in many a home. Preachers' ordination certificates have faded in their meaning along with the experience that gave them birth. Declarations of personal dedication grow dim, and need to be renewed. It is a day of faded declarations!

Judas betrayed the Lord with a kiss, not with a slap. Our Master is betrayed more often with a show of affection than any other way. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clave unto her. We need more people who cleave unto the Lord and are not content with a Sunday-morning kiss.

Lacking one thing, the rich young ruler lacked everything. He had great possessions, we are told, but he was a pauper for he had no investments in heaven. He had morals, manners, and money, but he never sold out to Jesus Christ. He would not become involved in that cause. We had better save our scorn until we have taken stock of ourselves. Multitudes of well-fixed church members have kept the law and have been interested in eternal life but have never made the big giveaway. The cause of Christ demands total involvement. We suffer the loss of all things, but all things are ours and having nothing we possess everything!

Rudolph Serkin said of the pianist Rubinstein, who was then in his eighties, that his music was becoming younger—almost as if he were playing everything for the first time. There ought to be such a freshness about Christians in their old age. I have heard of one who wished he had never read the Gospel of John so that he could read it for the first time! Like the saints of Ephesus we leave our first love. It need not be so with a Christian any more than with a musician.

What God looks for is the intent of the heart and, when in our hearts we have already made the sacrifice required, God may sometimes not ask us to actually finish what we meant to do. Abraham put God first, not Isaac, and we read, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called" (Gen. 21:12). Our testimony is perpetuated by the Isaac we offer at God's command, whether consummated actually or intentionally.

Daniel Webster attended a church outside the capitol because, as he put it, "In the city they preach to Daniel Webster the statesman, but this man preaches to Daniel Webster the sinner." Christ died for sinners, not for lawyers and doctors and engineers and financiers—just sinners. And we come to Him on the same ground, just as we are without one plea, just as sinners. He devoted that sacred head for sinners such as we. He came into the world to save sinners. He was called Jesus, because He came to save us, not from poverty or from ignorance or from the ghetto, but from our sins. Sin must be dealt with first.

Complacency

Christians can get into a religious rut and fall into a mere form of godliness without power. But the true disciple is a rebel against this age because the friend of the world is the enemy of God. The Christian life is a revolution and a revolution is the opposite of a rut, which is only a grave with both ends knocked out.

Compromise
Jowett says, "Worldly compromise takes the medium line between white and black and wears an ambiguous gray." An American statesman says, "The values of life which were clear to the Pilgrims and the Founding Fathers have become dim and fuzzy in outline

Confession
Mel Trotter, the evangelist, was conducting a prayer meeting, and everybody had prayed except one man. He said he couldn't pray. "Get down on your knees and confess your sins," Mel ordered. "I can't think of any," the man replied. "Get down on your knees and guess at it," Mel answered. Later, the evangelist said, "He guessed it the very first time." We know what is wrong, but we like to justify ourselves.

Conformity
It is a day of conformity, but we are not to let this world squeeze us into its mold (Rom. 12:2). The answer, however, is not mere non-conformity but transformity: "...be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind..." (Rom. 12:2). We were predestined to be conformed to the image of God's Son (Rom. 8:29). Some dear souls, alas! get no further than nonconformity.

Confrontation
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain tried to negotiate with Adolf Hitler, but you couldn't do business with that madman. The times called not for a Chamberlain but a Churchill. It was compromise or confrontation, and compromise, as always, did not work. Confrontation is an ugly word in religious circles today. We are on Carmel and there can be no summit conference with the priests of Baal. It is Baal or Jehovah, and in the showdown, the God that answereth by fire, let Him be God.

Conversion
A famous evangelist, shaking hands with the people, felt a hand tugging at his coat. A tiny tot of a girl offered him a little bag of candy. "Before you came to town," she explained, "daddy got drunk and didn't bring me any candy when he came home from work. But since you came, he's become a Christian and brings me candy and I wanted you to have some of it too!" One bag of candy like that is worth a lifetime of hard labor in the vineyard of the Lord!

A man can be regenerated, born again, only once, but he can be converted many times. Peter was a believer from the day he followed our Lord in Galilee, but he denied his Lord and for some days he was not a disciple although still a believer. Only after he was converted, turned from his perverse way back into the will of the Master, was he ready to strengthen the brethren and to feed the sheep.

Conviction of sin

Charles G. Finney had a sermon on "How to Preach So As to Convert Nobody." One way to do that, he said, was to preach about sin but never mention any of the sins of the congregation. People are not brought to conviction by generalizing—we must particularize. The woman at Jacob's well was made aware that Jesus was a Prophet when He said, "Go, call thy husband..." (John 4:16). F. B. Meyer said, "Nor is it enough to dwell in general denunciation. We must particularize till conscience cries, "Thou art the man." This is a lost note in today's preaching.

Conviction
Alexander MacLaren wrote: "It was not Erasmus, the polished, learned, scintillating intellect of his time, who made Germany over; it was rough, rugged Martin Luther with a conviction and compassion as deep as life." It is the day of Erasmus again. God give us a Luther!

Correction
A trainer of Seeing Eye dogs distinguishes between mistakes and basic faults in dogs. The application extends to us humans. Everybody makes mistakes and they should be corrected, but far more serious are basic faults that require uprooting at any cost. Carelessness, dishonesty, moral laxity, intemperance in any form—any fundamental defect—must be dealt with rigidly in its early stages. And by no means is such an elemental weakness to be classed with the occasional mistakes we all make.

Cosmetics
Walk through the cosmetic section of any great department store and your imagination is overwhelmed at the fabulous magnitude of the empire of cosmetics alone. You think of kosmos, the earth, the world order, the people on the earth, then the further meanings of the word in arrangement, adornment, and you wind up with cosmetics. A sensible and judicious use of some of it may not be amiss (we see many who could profit from a little!), but when you compare the time, energy, and billions of dollars spent in prettying up the natural man (and such poor results!) with the slovenly state of our inner souls, the admonitions of Paul and Peter, old-fashioned as they sound, ought to convict us of what creatures of the cosmos even we Christians are today. It's about time churches opened up beauty shops for the soul!

Creation
Scientists cannot give the reason for the universe: Christ is the reason. Creation is now enslaved in corruption, but one day it will display the glory of Christ, the bondage of sin will be broken, the sons of God will be manifested. And Christ not only created the universe and is its object but He also sustains it now. The very existence of each of us, to say nothing of our salvation, depends on Him. Without Him the universe would fall apart.

Creed
Spurgeon said: "In the days of Paul the sum and substance of theology was Jesus Christ. I am not ashamed to vow myself a Calvinist. I do not hesitate to take the name of Baptist. But if you ask what is my creed, I must answer it is Jesus Christ."

Criticism
Two men in front of a taxidermist's window criticized a bird on display. "What a poor job of mounting a bird!" Just then the bird flew down. It was alive! The critics are often brought to shame when God upsets all their nice calculations.

Cross-bearing
The reproach of Christ and our cross-bearing do not mean the common troubles to which all flesh is heir. Some think they are bearing their cross every time they have a headache. Almost everybody has headaches and you can usually stop them with an aspirin tablet. Your cross means the trouble you wouldn't have if you were not a Christian.

Crucifixion
Some have asked why Jesus seemed to shrink from the cross when another man, Socrates, drank hemlock without flinching. But Soc-rates was not dying for the sins of the world. Jesus being who He is and sin being what it is, this death took all evil—past and present, and future—and nailed it to the cross. No wonder He said, "Now is my soul troubled."

Cults, false
The best way to detect counterfeit money is not by studying all varieties of bogus currency, but by becoming so well acquainted with the genuine that we can instantly spot the false. One could spend a lifetime in the study of false cults and isms and never come to the end of it. Rather let him come to know his Bible and his Lord so well, that no false Christ can lead him astray. Knowing the Shepherd's voice, he will not heed the voice of strangers.

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