Unity gained at the sacrifice of principle, is expensive indeed.
When a man comes face to face with the Christ of experience, he can never again be the same.
The itch for novelty is the curse of many a preacher as well as the snare to many a congregation.
It is folly to peck away at the leaves when the ax needs to be laid at the root of the tree. Let us not dwell on externals, but on internals.
Am I a preacher, or a lecturer? Do I present the gospel, or am I merely an expounder of religious teaching? Men and women are dying. What are we giving them?
Any encroachment of slang in the pulpit, or in our denominational press, should be resented and rebuked. The dignity of the supreme message of God to men must be maintained against the growing vulgarisms of the age.
Sparkling epigrams, smart sayings, and engaging stories utterly fail in comparison with the presentations of the Bible preacher who feeds the people. These effervescent presentations grow stale, but the gripping truth never loses its freshness.
Assertion is not proof; nor is the citation of some pleasing quotation accredited as evidence. Our citations must be authoritative, and our use of them in harmony with both content and intent. Let us make our own corrections, and not be forced by our enemies to make them in humiliation.
May we be delivered from blind partizanship which leads to rejecting a truth just because a certain individual presents it. Truth is truth, irrespective of personalities.
Some workers have become intoxicated with their own brilliance. It has gone to their heads, so that the simplicity of the radiant Christ is obscured. We need the sobering influence of humility. Otherwise God will have to chastise us.
The banker's advice was sound: Familiarize yourself with genuine money, and you will instantly detect the counterfeit. Moral: Study positively and preach positively. It is the affirmation of truth, not the negation of error, that is needed. The soul that really sees the truth will automatically detect and discard error.
In these days when there is much needed emphasis upon tithes and offerings, let us beware of repeating the tragic mistake of the Jews in failing to stress proportionally the " weightier " matters,— righteousness, judgment, mercy. Their mistake grew out of a distorted sense of values. There may be legal adherence to the one and utter barrenness of the other. The peril lies in separation of the two. They should be joined, with emphasis on the " weightier." The one is essential; the other is indispensable.
The dimming of the advent hope is the saddest tragedy that can blight the life and service of a worker in the advent movement. Some are being unconsciously swayed by appearances the magnitude of our task, the slowness of growth, disillusionment and disappointment in men, and so forth— until the glad day is being crowded into a receding future. Nay, but it will be sudden, unexpected, sooner than appearances would warrant. We must never forget the fact that the Lord will cut the work short in righteousness. The righteousness of God, which is the heart of the third angel's message, should be the theme of the most earnest study of every worker.
Gun tendency is to make the simple truths of salvation intricate, involved, and vague. Let us simplify, clarify, and make concrete. And this is possible only as these provisions are a vivid actuality in the worker's life,— a daily, living experience.
L. E. F.