s not strange that there is a
wide call for a "restatement of the truth," which usually proposes to
omit the new birth and substitute self-effort to be good, and character
building, in its place. It is not strange that the wise and cultured of
this world feel their aesthetic natures shocked by the blood of the
Cross, yet entertain no sense of their own abhorrent pollution in the
sight of the infinitely holy One. It is not strange that the world
assumes to have advanced beyond that which is repeatedly said to be the
manifestation of the wisdom of God; branding as bigots, insincere, or
ignorant, all who still hold to the whole testimony of God. It is not
strange that the atonement by blood is omitted, for it is Satan's hour
and the power of darkness, and the true child of God must patiently bear
the ever-increasing reproaches of his crucified Lord, until the glory
dawns and the shadows flee away.
Chapter X
Modern Devices.
It has been the privilege and duty of the Church throughout her history
to be looking for the return of the One to whom she has been espoused.
Had her eyes never wandered from that expectant gaze, she would have
been saved much sorrow and shame at His coming, for she has lost her
Scriptural character and much of her witnessing power whenever she has
said "My Lord delayeth his coming." It is then that she has fallen to
beating the manservants and the maidservants, and has become drunken
with the wine of this world.
True devotion to Christ must naturally issue in a deep desire to be with
Him and to see Him face to face; and though it is quite possible to have
been misled or untaught in regard to the conditions of His coming, the
contemplation of such a promise from Him can but kindle a glowing hope
in a truly devoted heart. It is a direct contradiction to claim supreme
affection for Him, and yet be careless of His promised return, or wholly
contented while separated from Him. The world, that cannot comprehend
such devotion to Christ, will easily chide the believer, and denounce
him for what they now call his "other worldness" when his affections are
set on things above, "where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God,"
and when his heart rejoices in the certain hope that "when Christ, who
is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in
glory."
It was necessary for Satan to rob the Church, to a great extent, of her
"blessed hope" of Christ's return, before he could attract
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