Texas Christian Advocate (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 50, No. 33, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 7, 1904 Page: 1 of 16
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G. C. Rankin, D. D., Editor.
Blaylock Publishing Co., Publishers.
Vol, L,
Dallas, Texas, Thursday, April 7, 1904.
No, 33
Editorial.
8
voice, and that
is through his infallible
Word.
Here he speaks with authority, and
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more real to us as our Savior than he was
to them on the shores of the sea. We are
conscious of his indwelling presence and of
his power to save us from sin and our souls
respond to all the facts and evidences of the
gospels.
when we read his deliverances we can easily
understand him. Here he tells us his will
concerning us, and when we want to hear
him speak directly to us all we have to do is
to turn the pages of his book and read their
contents. There we will find what he thinks
of us and what he wills to have us do in
this life as his children. When you hear
people say, “Well, I must see what the Lord
says about this,” and at the same time they
pretend to pray over it instead of turning
to the Book of books, you may receive their
statements with several grains of salt. The
The agitator has his place in the Church,
and the State. He stirs up interest on many
questions that affect the religious and the
public weal of a community. But the agi-
tator is not the man to legislate for us. He
is extreme and unsafe. Wise heads need to
follow up the interest excited by the ex-
tremes! and reduce the needs of the people
to conservative and wise legislation.
THE VOICE OF THE LORD.
That there are times when there is an in-
ner voice speaking to the conscience of the
devout man and woman can not be question-
ed, for God has not ceased to talk through
spiritual impressions and suggestions to his
people. Yet we need to be very cautious
when we lay claim to such speech from on
high. Not every voice that we imagine is
from above comes from that source. It is
an easy matter to confuse our own wish and
desire with the voice of God. It is occa-
sionally the fact that we hear people who
pretend to great familiarity with the Lord
-speak almost flippantly about what God says
to them. It may not be meant for such, but
it is not far removed from blasphemy. We
have no patience with that sort of assumed
familiar friendship with the King of Kings
and Lord of Lords. God never so approaches
men as to make himself puerile and com-
mon. He is seated upon a throne which is
high and lifted up and needs to be spoken
of reverently and worshipful ly. He has one
method of speaking to all people and through
this medium we need never mistake his
THE SIMPLICITY OF FAITH.
The very simplicity involved in the exer-
cise of faith renders it a mysterious process
to many people. They imagine that there is
about it something difficult, awe-inspiring
and incomprehensible. That was the verv
trouble that Naaman encountered when he
approached the old prophet in quest of a
remedy for his leprosy. He expected some-
thing strange and extraordinary, but when
he was told to go to Jordan and dip himself
' seven times in its waters, he turned away
disappointed and even disgusted. The rem-
edy was too simple and commonplace to elicit
his confidence. He expected the prophet to
work some sort of miracle upon him, or to
do something of a mysterious character. And
when you talk to most unconverted people
about accepting the Savior and becoming re-
ligious, they at once assume an air of wonder
and listen to you with a degree of misgiving.
Just how to go about it seems to be a puzzle
to them. They regard the subject as an inex-
plicable and recondite matter. Why this is
we do not know, unless from infancy they
have grown up with an utter misconception
of the subject. There is nothing mysterious
or puzzling about an exercise of saving faith.
Christ is an actual Savior. He came to seek
and to save those who are lost. Sin is an
actual fact. It is ruinous to life and char-
acter. To take Christ is to give up sin, to
accept Christ is to believe in him with all
the heart as one who is able to deliver from
transgression. How easy it is to love a
2—
fairs of the community as a citizen, he tran-
scends his bounds and is open to censure.
Especially if he takes part in local option
agitation, or if he makes a choice between
candidates for office and casts his vote ac-
cording to his judgment, or in any way ex-
presses his candid judgment as to the quali-
fications of men for public office, there are
those who hold up their hands in holy horror
and exclaim, “He is mixing the affairs of
Church and State.” Well, we are willing to
admit that the specific vocation of the
preacher is to preach the gospel and attend to
the pastoral duties of the Church. And these
sacred and beneficent duties will engage the
major part of his time and attention. Fur-
thermore, while in the discharge of these
duties there is no room for lugging in secu-
lar matters, literature, politics or anything
else specially worldly. When he enters the
pulpit, the gospel is his only message to the
people. Nevertheless, aside from all these,
and in connection with them for that matter,
the preacher is a citizen as well as a minister
of the gospel. It is his duty to inform him-
self of the current civic and political matters,
to interest himself legitimately and wisely
in the selection of good men for public of-
fice, and to exercise the privilege af his fra:-
chise. And when it comes to the question
of civic righteousness and the promotion of
any cause which has for its object the sup-
pression and overthrow of the saloon, it is his
bounden duty to take an active part and ex-
ert his influence for the good of the commu-
nity. If he fails at these points he is a very
poor and unworthy American citizen. Still
in all such matters he is to be as wise as a
serpent and as harmless as a dove. He ought
always to be careful to. guard against hurtful
and pernicious extremes, otherwise his influ-
ence as a minister will be impaired. Now
we are approaching a heated political cam-
paign; into this campaign a certain set of
political agitators have projected the local
option issue and they are thus making it
semi-political; and it will, therefore, be nec-
essary for every man, the preacher as well
as the rest, to do his duty to the State in
this emergency. He must keep his eyes open
and his ear to the ground, lest the enemy
take us unawares. You need not become a
politician, but be a good and worthy citizen
and do your duty in this hour of peril.
THE POWER TO APPREHEND
CHRIST.
Christ is a spiritual presence. He does
not stand out before us in bodily form.
True, he lived in the flesh among men, taught
the truths and did the work recorded in the
gospels, was crucified, buried, arose from
the dead in his veritable body and went back
to the Father to become our intercessor; but
we no longer see him with the eye, or touch
him with the hand, for to us he is not mate-
rial as he was to the disciples. We accept
all the facts of his life and believe them, and
they constitute the basis of our faith as great
historic evidences, but our deliverance from
the power of sin through him is the result
of a spiritual apprehension of him as our
Savior and a personal appropriation of his
grace to our hearts and characters. There
are thousands of people to-day who accept
without question the bare facts of Christ’s
life and teachings as set forth in the gospels,
but they are far from being saved by his
totement. They make no tacit profesion
of faith in him as a Savior, to say nothing
of a public acceptance of him. They lack
something else, and that is a clear, spiritual
apprehension of him preceded by genuine
repentance. To become the beneficiaries of
Christ’s salvation from sin he must be spirit-
ually discerned and spiritually embraced. It
is the result of soul knowledge of him and
his redemption. We may entertain our-
selves till doom’s day with the historic evi-
dences of his life and death and resurrec-
tion as the Christ manifested in the flesh
and then have no saving knowledge of his
existence. But when the heart grows tired
of sin, reflects upon the folly and wayward-
ness of iniquity, passes into a godly sorrow-
fulness for wrong doing and wrong thinking,
and then lifts its voice and thought toward
the invisible Christ and craves his mercy
and forgiveness, salvation comes into such a
heart through this spiritual process of seek-
ing and knowing a Savior and his love. To
know him thus is to know him unto life
eternal, and then the earthly life he lived
among men becomes the example we follow.
But he must first become formed within us
the hope of glory and our vital faith must
transmute him into our spiritual habit,
thought, instinct, desire and motive before
we can in any way appreciate and properly
understand his personal life in the flesh.
Hence having never seen him in bodily form,
nevertheless We know him, have fellowship
with him and enter into his likeness. We
see and understand him spiritually. And
this is the import of the Savior’s words to
• Thomas, “Blessed are they that have not
seen and yet believed.” Therefore, in the
true and better sense, we apprehend and
know Christ through faith to-day more in-
telligently and savingly than did his disci-
ples prior to his death and resurrection.
They saw him with their eyes and handled
him with their hands, but we see him
through the eye of faith and touch him with i
our inner spiritual sense. And he is even 1
Our opinions belong to the sphere of the
head, but our friendships originate in the
heart. Therefore we may often difer from
the opinions of a man without in any way
disrupting our friendship for him. The man
who falls out with you because you combat
his views is narrow in his mind and very
small in its heart. His friendship hangs
upon a very fragile cord.
Official Organ of all the Texas Annual Co., Aces of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
friend. His very voice is sweet, his presence gospels and the epistles contain about all that
is joyous and his interest in you is shown it is necessary for God to say to dying men.
by his acts and manners toward you. Now if we can not find his voice there, it is doubt-
Christ comes to us as a friend to love us, ful whether our inner spirits will hear any
to have communion with us, to make life other voice through prayer. When, however,
and character beautiful and luminous. Is we acquaint ourselves with this recorded
there any difficulty in reciprocating such sen- voice in his Word and come into harmony
timents toward him ? He says, “If you love with its requirements, and then in secret we
me keep my commandments and I will pray call upon God for special light and guid-
the Father, and he shall give you another ance, we will not be disappointed. But for
comforter.” Then again, “If any man will the every-day duties of life we usually hear
do my will he shall know of the doctrine all that is needful for us in the revealed
whether it be of God.” Believing, loving and pages. Let us read them and we will not be
doing are the simple acts of faith. When left in darkness or uncertainty.
we do these and follow on after righteous-
ness the work of salvation is accomplished. THE PREACHER’S RELATION TO
Then God’s Spirit bears witness with ours CIVIC DUTY.
that we are his children. Where, then, is There is a foolish idea in the minds of
there mystery ? There is none except as we many people that a preacher eliminates his
create it. The learned, the ignorant, the citizenship when he enters the ministry,
rich and the poor can approach God through They desire to fix for him a given sphere and
Christ without the least mystery, without say to him, “Thus far shalt thou come and
any tremor, and without the work of a mir- no further.” He must occupy his parsonage
acle. “Ye arc my friends if you do whatso- home, visit his people half of each day in the
ever I command you.” And to enter into week, put in his time during the other half
friendship with Christ is to possess all there studying, preach on Sunday, hold a prayer
is in faith. Loving obedience to his will, service Wednesday evening, bury the dead
with a denial of our own wills, is all there is and marry the living, and when he has per-
to an acceptance of our Lord. And when- formed these duties there is no other sphere
ever we submit to him, the battle is fought that has any claim whatever upon his time
and the victory won. We do the obeying and or attention. If he goes beyond these pre-
he does the saving. scribed limits and takes any part in the af-
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Rankin, George C. Texas Christian Advocate (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 50, No. 33, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 7, 1904, newspaper, April 7, 1904; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1594210/m1/1/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Library and Archives Commission.