Calling Youth to Christ

Messages by Billy Graham

Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people (Proverbs 14:34).

STANDING on the shores of the Mediterranean during a recent tour of Europe, I meditated for a few moments. My thoughts centered about that great land four thousand miles away which we call "America." Somehow a person looking at America from another country can get a clearer picture of her and can analyze more correctly her status among the nations of the world. Millions throughout the world are looking to America today for leadership, materially, economically, socially and spiritually. The eyes of the world are on America! Whether we are conscious of it or not, whether she wants this responsibility or not, her place in the affairs of nations is foremost. In Paris some time ago a Frenchman said to me, "America is at her zenith. Her fantastic twentieth-century civilization has reached the top." Has it? I began to consider other civilizations of the past that have risen to glorious heights but are now found only in the history books of the world's libraries.

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I. THE TESTIMONY OF THE PAST

A. Antediluvian Civilization

"Archaeology substantiates Noah's Flood," said the London Times in 1929. The article that followed also gave an archaeologist's view of the civilization that existed prior to the Flood. The Bible also gives a vivid account of the corruption and the sin of that day. At least two thousand years of human history had intervened since the spotless purity of Eden. During that same period there had been a vast increase in population with woeful deterioration resulting in appalling moral corruption. The ultimate issue of this corruption is described in the Genesis account. Sin, crime, immorality, the breaking of home life, unnatural affection, murders, demon possession — these were common characteristics of the civilization immediately preceding the Deluge. God, looking down from heaven upon this sin, said, in substance, that He repented that he had made man. He decided to destroy every living thing by the fearful judgment of a flood. This He proceeded to do, and the great civilization that had taken two thousand years to build was destroyed in the space of forty days. I make bold to say that the Flood never destroyed the people of that day! Sin had done its deadly work of eating out the heart and core of the antediluvian civilization before the Flood came.

There is a fundamental law of God, a law apparent from Genesis to Revelation, that says, "The wages of sin is death." The wages of a nation's sin, the wages of an organization's sin, the wages of individual sin, is death. No nation, organization or individual who has continued in its sin has escaped the judging hand of God.

B. Israel Beginning with the promises of God to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Israel became a mighty nation. Not only was she entrusted with the knowledge of the true God,

Page 13 but she was also a great military power to be reckoned with on any battlefield. Morally, spiritually, economically and materially under David and Solomon she became one of the "great" powers. However, sin, corruption, idolatry and immorality entered her way of life. "The wages of sin is death." She fell from her pinnacle as all the nations before her fell.

In 586 B.C., the Babylonians invaded and destroyed her capital city. Today the people of Israel are scattered throughout the world. Israel has suffered more than any other nation. I say again that the Babylonians did not defeat Israel twenty-five hundred years ago. Sin had done its deadly work before the Babylonians arrived.

C. Babylon

During the age of Hammurabi, two thousand years before Christ, Babylon was the dominating power of Asia. By the time of Nebuchadnezzar Babylon controlled an empire that included thousands of square miles. Her capital was located near the Garden of Eden, a spot world-renowned for its splendor and wonders that amazed even inquiring scientists. Babylon's palaces and towers were second to none. Her hanging gardens were among the seven wonders of the world. She was the commercial center of the world at the crossroads of antiquity. Contemporaries said that Babylon was destined to rule until the end of time, but sin began to do its deadly work. One fatal June night during a drunken spree directed by the young king Belshazzar, the Medo-Persian army changed the course of the Euphrates River, marched under the mammoth protecting walls, and that night Babylon fell never to rise again. Again I say that the Medo-Persians never defeated Babylon. Sin had done its deadly work by gripping Babylon's society before the enemy arrived.

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D. Greece

Under Alexander, Greece became a great power in the world of that day. Beginning at the dawn of mythology in the age of Homer, continuing through the union of the Hellenic states, the famous battles of Marathon and Salamis, and the brilliant era of Pericles and Socrates, character and culture attained a zenith unreached by any civilization. Her athletes were world-famous. At the age of twenty, Alexander the Great assumed command of the great army that swept like a meteor eastward over the lands that had once been ruled by Egypt, Assyria, Babylon and Persia. Within four years the entire world lay at his feet. At his death, however, art and culture began to deteriorate. Sin, immortality and corruption entered. Although there were many other factors, the basic cause for the humiliating defeats at the hands of the Romans and the ultimate occupation was the fact that sin had brought about moral weakness. Greece was unable to protect herself against the day of trouble.

E. Rome The greatest city on earth, the center of history, for one thousand years the dominating power of the world, the "Eternal City," a city of a million and a half and the capital of the mightiest empire the world has known, built on seven hills and founded by a strong, sturdy people of the soil — that was Rome. Gibbon, in his Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, lists five contributing factors in the disintegration of this mighty civilization. (1) the rapid increase of divorce and the consequent undermining of the home; (2) the craze for pleasure; (3) the building of gigantic armaments when the real enemy was within; (4) the decadence of the people; (5) the decay of religion. That which caused the destruction of Pompeii, that which was the contributing cause of the downfall of the great

Page 15 nations of the past, entered the heart and the core of the Roman way of life until in 410 A.D. Rome fell without a battle. Where were her mighty legions? Where her strong shields and bucklers? Where the mighty generals? They were powerless under the grip of the dread disease of sin! They were like flies in a spiders web. Mighty Rome toppled and fell. The foundations that had made her strong had been eaten by cancerous sin.

II. THE TESTIMONY OF THE PRESENT

Some months ago I was a guest in the home of Mrs. J.W. Van De Venter at beautiful Temple Terrace, Florida. As we were sitting on the verandah talking I noticed suddenly that the house next door was unoccupied. It looked as if it had been standing for some time without inhabitants. I remarked to my hostess that this seemed strange in view of the appalling housing shortage. She told me this story: "That house has been standing unoccupied for several years. A heavy wind could blow it over. Termites have eaten the foundations. The superstructure could fall at any time." I wonder if that could not be said concerning the nations of our day!

A. France

Some weeks ago I stood on a hill overlooking Paris. The sun was sinking in the west. The evening shadows were beginning to gather. In the distance I could see the dome of St. Paul's. To my right, towering above the city of light, could be seen the Eiffel Tower. The lights were coming on, and Paris' famous night life was about to begin. I let my mind wander back to 1940 when Hitler's legions had marched down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. France had been beaten and shamefully crushed.

After the First World War, France became one of the great nations of the world. She had the proudest army in Europe. She had one of the finest navies on the seven

Page 16 seas. Her empire extended around the world and she had friends on both sides of the Atlantic. Besides all this she was safely behind her Maginot Line, which had been called the finest defense mechanism in the history of the world. France was invincible. France could never be defeated. Smug in their complacency, the parisians went on with their dancing, eating, drinking and merrymaking. "Gay Paree" was the center toward which nobility, playboys, gamblers, dope smugglers and harlots moved. If one wanted to have a fling, he went to Paris, where there was moral corruption and lasciviousness such as the world had not seen since the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. Sin is a reproach to any people! "The wages of sin is death," says the law of God. Could France continue and get away with it? Never! No more than a leopard can change his spots. The day of reckoning had to come.

France had forgotten God; atheism was rampant; agnosticism had been substituted. Frenchmen had no time to think of God. They were too busy with their sensual pleasures and money-making schemes.

The invasion of the Low Countries, the hammering of the Maginot Line, the sweep of the Panzer divisions — atheistic France fell, and a stain is on her flag, a stain that will require generations to remove. Again I say that the Germans never defeated France. Sin had done it's deadly work before the Germans ever marched under the Arc de Triomphe.

B. Germany

Germany has long been regarded as the world-center of culture. German universities were long regarded as the best in the world. German scientists, German chemists and German musicians were the world's best. Germany was the home of the Reformers. The Germany of Martin Luther, the Germany of Goethe, the Germany of Schiller,

Page 17 the Germany of Wagner was known throughout the world as a country where God was honored, the Bible was respected, and where culture was at its highest. But the learned people of Germany, the sceptic people of Germany, the aristocratic people of Germany, decided to throw out God. Modernism swept the churches. Higher criticism became the theme of her theologians; atheism was rampant among her political leaders; she gave herself over to hate, rapine (plundering), murder and beastliness. Could Germany survive? Could she rule the world by murder, lies, broken treaties, hatred for the Jew, atheism and immorality? No! Never! "The wages of sin is death." "The nation that sinneth shall die!" "Sin is a reproach to any people." Before the Russians reached Berlin, before the Americans and the British reached the Ruhr, Germany was defeated by the sin of atheism and corruption at home.

C. America

Someone has said, "Europeans came to South America seeking gold, and they came to North America seeking God."

America has been a land of religious freedom; a land of law and justice; a land of revival; a land whose foundations rest upon the Bible. During the past two hundred years in every great crisis our godly leaders have, without exception, found true, Scripture's declaration that "the Throne is established by righteousness" (Proverbs 16:12). When at Valley Forge George Washington prayerfully knelt in the snow asking God for help, there came to him by divine revelation a vision for the future of our great republic. If the infant nation would be properly established it must be by righteousness, not by appeasement on the one hand, nor by alliances on the other; not by total reliance on huge armies or navies or military might, for of these Washington had none. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord," was the truth in which Washington trusted.

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At the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia representatives from thirteen colonies came together, each with his own opinion, each so dogmatic that he would not budge an inch. When, after some deliberation, they had almost decided to go back to their homes and form thirteen separate nations, Benjamin Franklin stood and said, "I have lived a long time and the longer I live the more convincing proof I see that God governs in the affairs of man, and if a sparrow cannot fall without His notice, is it probable that a nation can rise without His aid? 'Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.' Without His concurring aid we shall proceed no better than the builders of Babel." A prayer meeting followed, and out of that prayer meeting came the Constitution of the United States, whose laws and policies are based largely upon the Word of God. Our founding fathers were men of God. In 1812, on the third Thursday of August, President James Madison proclaimed a day on which all should acknowledge the "transgressions which might justly provoke divine displeasure" and seek "merciful forgiveness on." This attitude did not go unrewarded. Andrew Jackson once remarked concerning the Bible, "That Book, sir, is the rock upon which our republic rests." Daniel Webster uttered a solemn warning when he said, "If we abide by truths taught in the Bible we will go on prospering, but if we do not, catastrophe may suddenly overwhelm us."

After every great crisis in American history we have always had a revival. The people have felt the desperate need for calling upon God, and God has always answered with a gracious outpouring of His Holy Spirit. Anthropologists tell us that there are three factors in society: social, spiritual and material. Socially and spiritually America reached a high point immediately preceding the First World War. The effects of the Moody campaigns were evident everywhere. Billy Sunday was

Page 19 stirring the nation. Church attendance had reached one of its highest points. Higher criticism had scarcely begun to make itself felt. An atheist was still looked upon as a social outcast. There was lawbreaking but not as we observe it today. Divorces were not nearly so prevalent; there was only one divorce for every thirty-three marriages. Materially we were advancing by leaps and bounds. New scientific discoveries by American inventors were beginning to shape our way of life and fashion the most fantastic standard of living the world had known. We fought the First World War to "save the world for democracy." When President Wilson came to the Palace of Versailles he was hailed as a Moses to lead Europe out of destruction, bondage and disillusionment into the light of a new and glorious day. America rejected her responsibility as a world-leader. She crawled into her shell of isolationism. She went on a gigantic spree that started an era of decline which has become so rapid that our politicians and statesmen are beginning to tremble.

Termites are at work eating the heart out of American civilization. Hundreds predict that if our country continues to decline at its present rate, America as we know it today cannot possibly reach 1975. Let us take a brief glance at our beloved nation.

No one dares to deny that socially there is at this moment an unprecedented moral decline and breakdown of the home. Licentiousness and adultery have swept nation after nation out of existence. Immorality brought fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah. It carried Rome, Pompeii and Naples to ruin. We in America have become lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Forty years ago there was one divorce for every thirty-three marriages; today there is one divorce for every three. The home has always been the basic unit of society. When the home begins to break, the nation begins to slide. No nation

Page 20 of the past has done away with its home life and survived for long.

Reno has set a fast pace, and other cities and states are fast following in her wake. We are eating, drinking and making merry, marrying and giving in marriage. Idolatry and immorality are openly and unashamedly practiced. No longer are girls and fellows considered social outcasts if they have an "affair." It has become the natural thing. In her dress, manners and morals, America has become sex- conscious. America has overtaken France as the leader among the nations in sex-consciousness. Trial marriages are openly advocated in colleges and universities. The behavioristic philosophy of giving vent and expression to one's feelings and emotions has invaded every realm of American thought. Our youngsters of ten and eleven "know more" than their parents did at twenty.

The crime situation is alarming. Sixteen million crimes were committed last year, and the staggering bill was seventeen billion dollars. There has been an 800 percent increase in crime during the last forty years. Most of the arrests made last year involved seventeen-year-olds. Prostitution among young people is increasing at the rate of 40 percent each year.

"Petty crimes among high-school young people have reached an alarming state," says J. Edgar Hoover. Drinking among high-school students has reached the tragic figure of 70 percent.

In 1933 it was said that the old saloon would never return. There are now 750,000 saloons in America! Each year 40,000 people are dying on our highways, and 90 percent of these deaths are caused by drink. We are drinking ourselves to suicide. We spend two million dollars a day on narcotics. What is the cause?

Hoover declares further, "These conditions are secondary in importance to the disastrous decay of religion. Over sixty million of our fellow citizens profess no religion;

Page 21 many of them don't believe in God. This is America's greatest peril."

America's greatest enemy is not the "hammer and sickle." America's greatest enemy is the internal decadence that is causing us to rush faster than any civilization before us toward destruction and hell. In the educational realm we are talking about a "false culture." There are many zealous hearts that think education is the answer, but our entire educational system is rampant with evolution. Our universities and colleges that were founded as a result of revival are now teaching either atheistic or theistic evolution. As a result thousands of young people are coming out of our educational system either as skeptics, agnostics or atheists with little or no regard for God.

In his book The Origin of Species, Darwin uses more than eight hundred times such expressions as "we infer' and "we may well suppose."

Guided by these flimsy phrases, we are expected to reach the conclusion that man, impelled by internal forces, climbed from beasthood and before that, from a single cell, without intervention from God

Through the years other schools have added to and taken away from what Darwin supposed or inferred. On this frail foundation of inference, supposition and the wild guesses of those who hate the Bible and have little love for God, the theory of evolution was built.

Evolutionists deny direct creation as taught in the Bible. They deny a personal, creating God. They are taught that man, noble man, is growing stronger and wiser and better every day; is climbing upward in the light. Evolutionists deny the fact of sin. They teach, instead, the "trial and error" method by which man is supposed to make himself better and better in every way every day.

Present-day events and scholarships have removed, one after another, the props of the evolutionary theory. Man

Page 22 is not growing better! Man is not climbing upward. Monkeys are not making men of themselves. Evolution is in reverse. We now have devilution.

Instead of progress in man himself there is degeneracy — degeneracy of body, mind and spirit. Man is going downhill socially, but, alas, our poor blind leaders of the blind are still teaching, in the classroom, to students who are still swallowing it hook, line and sinker, the falsehood that evolution is accomplishing progress, that we are climbing, and that a new day is about to dawn.

Yes, socially, America is fast degenerating!

Spiritually, we have wandered far from the faith of our fathers. Their faith is not living still!

One of our state governors declared, "America is sick because it has forgotten God. Democracy can be saved only by the spiritual strength of its people, and spiritual life is needed today as it has never been before." No nation which relegates the Bible to the background, which disregards the love of God and flouts the claims of the Man of Galilee, can long survive.

Is there not now a decay of religion? Less than 5 percent of the citizenry of our land frequented a place of worship last Sunday night. Is there not something wrong? The President of the Ministerial Association of the greatest churchgoing town in America told me some time ago that 85 percent of the people in his city never darken the door of a church or attend Sunday school. Is there not something wrong when during the last ten years ten thousand churches have been forced to close their doors? Is there not something wrong when last year seven thousand churches reported not one convert? This means that seven thousand ministers preached for an entire year without reaching one lost soul. Using a low average, suppose that they preached forty Sundays, not including extra meetings, which would mean that these seven thousand

Page 23 ministers preached five hundred and sixty thousand sermons in a year. Think of the labor and the money expended on salaries to make this possible, and yet five hundred and sixty thousand sermons preached by seven thousand ministers in seven thousand churches to thousands of hearers during the last twelve months failed to bring one soul to Christ! There is something radically wrong somewhere. There is either something wrong with these seven thousand ministers, or with their five hundred and sixty thousand sermons, or both!

John Wesley said, "The Church has nothing to do but to save souls: therefore spend and be spent in this work. It is not your business to speak so many times, but to save souls as you can; to bring as many sinners as you possibly can to repentance."

Thousands of these men have denied that the Bible is the Word of God. Thousands of men standing behind the sacred desk today lied when they spoke their ordination vows. They deny the blood atonement; they deny the virgin birth; they deny the bodily resurrection of Christ; they deny the total depravity of man. One segment of the Church has gone into apostasy, another segment has gone into a state of lethargy, indifference, passionless, cold, formal, orthodoxy. Another segment has gone to the extreme of so-called "ultra-Fundamentalism" whose object is not to fight the world, the flesh and the devil, but to fight other Christians whose interpretation is not like theirs. Thus the Church has lost its power. Our beautiful sanctuaries have steeples that tower toward the sky, but the millions of dollars that are being spent every year are making less impact upon the nation today than at any other time in our history.

The Church should be setting the pace. The Church should be taking its proper place of leadership in the nation. But, alas, it has failed sadly, with the result that millions of the new generation never enter a church. They

Page 24 walk the streets without God, without Christ, without any religious instruction whatsoever. God help the Church to wake up!

Another sign of the terrible and awful spiritual degeneracy is sin in our fine arts, such as music and art. Music is degenerating from Beethoven, Chopin and other masters to the weird "boogy-woogy" of our day. Modern jazz originated among the Hottentots of Africa. Art is degenerating also. The man who can paint the greatest monstrosity is declared to be the greatest artist.

Our magazine racks are filled with crime and sex pulp-magazines that are being read and devoured by millions of young people. Tragically, our government is powerless to fight the evil.

Eighty million of our young people are seeing each week the trash that Hollywood produces. Truly our children are "movie mad." One of the greatest curses in America is not the moving picture itself but the use to which it has been put by the ungodly, sex-crazed, demon-possessed money-grabbers of Hollywood.

A few years ago films began to be shown on Sunday, and church attendance was reduced by thousands. To some extent, however, the Church was at fault because it offered only formalistic and ritualistic philosophy and book reviews.

Yes, socially and spiritually, America is on the way down.

You may say, "But materially — that is where America really shines!" There are more telephones in New York City than in all Great Britain. There are more bathtubs in New York than in all of Europe. We have set the pace in aviation and in other modes of transportation. We have invented the atomic bomb and have done more research in the field of atomic energy than any other group. One of our scientists declared recently, "The world would be startled if they could

Page 25 but know what American scientists were doing in their laboratories." Can you see the danger? Socially and spiritually we are going down, while materially we are going up. We are not maintaining proper balance. We are progressing and at the same time degenerating.

But I wonder if we have progressed materially. Perhaps our two highest achievements in the field of research and science are the atomic bomb and the airplane. What have we used them for? Their greatest use has not been for peace-time development but for the destruction of the very civilization on whose foundations we expect to build a new and better world.

One of our great leaders said not long ago, "We are involved in a civilization that seems stirred by a will to death, maddened by a thousand forces and frustrations. In very truth the front page of every morning newspaper looks like sheer lunacy.

The President of the British Board of Trade said recently, "I do not believe the people of the world have yet realized to the full what the atomic bomb means for the future. It is quite idle to imagine that it could be preserved as a secret. If there is another war in ten years or thereafter, our civilization will be destroyed. War has become certain national and international suicide."

Plans are being made to prevent another war. Unfortunately the world's past record is not an encouraging one. D. R. Davies tells us that there have been ten major wars in Europe in the last eighty years; that since 1100 A.D. England has spent half her time at war. Fifty years of war for every fifty years of peace! Since 1440 B.C. there have been eight thousand peace treaties, and their average life has been two years. What have we been fighting for? We have been fighting for peace!

At the moment our nation seems to have fallen into a treacherous unseen hand. It seems that a strong and mighty arm is carrying our nation over a precipice. If

Page 26 we are not destroyed by weapons which other nations create, it seems almost certain that we are bound for destruction on the inside by the fifth columns of the devil. It is the prevailing belief that momentous events are before us — events uncontrollable by man.

Is there no way out? Is everything hopeless? Is there nothing we can do? Must we continue to commit national suicide? What is America's hope?

1. It does not lie in a political party. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have the solution to our present problem.

2. It is not in social improvement. We have the greatest social organizations and institutions in the world, and yet we are the most lawless nation under the sun. Social reform is not the solution.

3. Education is not the answer. There is less illiteracy in America than in any other nation. This is certainly not the solution to our problem.

4. It does not lie in the U.N.O. The U.N.O. has solved few of our problems and has proved to be as weak and helpless in the face of world-conditions as was the League of Nations.

5. Our hope is not in a higher standard of living. Our standard of living is two or three times higher than that of any other nation.

To use the words of President Truman, "The only hope of America is a spiritual reawakening. If we don't have it, we are done for."

The Word of God says, "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land" (II Chron. 7:14).

The Psalmist cries, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord."

Abraham Lincoln gave this reply to an officer who requested,

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"Pray, sir, that God will keep on our side." "Never," replied the President. "Rather, let us pray that we may be on God's side." One of our great Western university presidents said recently, "America's salvation is an old-fashioned revival of the Wesleyan type. As the preaching of John Wesley and George Whitefield saved Great Britain from the French Revolution, so we need a revival to save America."

General McArthur warned, "We have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem is basically theological."

Wake up, America! Stir thyself! If righteousness will exalt a nation and merit God's favor, then sin will prove its ruin. "Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save," cries the Prophet, "but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear" (Isaiah 59:1-2). Sin is a stigma, and not until we repent individually and nationally of our wickedness will God fulfill His promise of divine reinforcements.

A United States Congressman asserted, not long ago, "Most of our present-day troubles are due to the fact that we have forgotten the faith of our fathers and no longer do we, as a nation, follow in the footsteps of the Lord."

There is a fundamental law of God which declares that we reap what we sow. "The wages of sin is death." "The [nation] that sinneth, it shall die." "Your young men have I slain with the sword . . . yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord."

God definitely spoke to us during the recent war, but we have forgotten our war dead. We have forgotten the voice of the Lord and we have gone on in our pleasure-mad, money-grabbing spree. God help us to return before it is too late!

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In his famous call for national repentance, Abraham Lincoln said, "We have forgotten God. The awful calamity of war that now desolates the land is divine punishment."

Jeremiah saw the fate of his nation in the event of a victory by either the Babylonian or Scythian armies; yet in the face of threatened invasion and national dilemma, he demanded repentance toward God as the only alternative.

Someone has said, "Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom." A national revival is desperately needed today.

There are many indications that revival may be on the way:

1. The recent move by many denominational and Christian organizations toward child evangelism has been used of God to win hundreds and even thousands to Christ.

2. Such laymen's organizations as the Christian Business Men's Committee, the Gideons and the National Laymen's Association are doing a tremendous job of rousing America to the need for revival. 3. Such Gospel broadcasts as the Young People's Church of the Air, directed by Percy Crawford, the Old Fashioned Revival Hour, directed by Dr. Charles Fuller, the Lutheran Hour, led by Dr. Walter Maier, Jack Wyrtzen's Word of Life Hour, the Haven of Rest broadcast and numerous other radio programs are covering the nation like dew with the glorious soul-saving Gospel of Jesus Christ. Such radio stations as WMBI and others which broadcast nothing but the Gospel from morning to night are being used mightily of God throughout the nation to awaken the people and instruct the nation in paths of righteousness.

4. Bible conferences and Bible camps are springing up everywhere and are presenting the Gospel of Jesus Christ to thousands every summer.

5. New Christian Bible schools are springing up everywhere and the established institutions are growing rapidly.

6. The great Youth for Christ movement that has spread

Page 29 like a meteor from coast to coast and from the Gulf to the Great Lakes claims a million in attendance every Saturday night and conducts giant rallies at which ten, twenty, thirty and even seventy-five thousand are in attendance.

7. Evangelists in America have united in wielding the sword of the Lord in citywide campaigns from coast to coast.

All these, I say, are indications that a great and mighty revival may be just around the corner.

As the pastor of the first Presbyterian Church of Cheyenne, Wyoming, said some time ago, "We may be in the midst of a revival now and not know it." Perhaps we are, but I doubt it!

I think we are seeing indications of revival, but there is no sign of a nationwide turning to God as yet. We are still reaching only a small percentage.

America, I present to you a spiritual call to arms. "Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath . . . smitten, and he will bind us up." America cannot organize her way out, nor buy her way out. She must pray her way out.

Someone has said, "The man who can bring us to our knees in contrition will do most to mold this generation aright and will prove the nation's greatest benefactor."

To safeguard our democracy and preserve the true American way of life, we need, we must have, a revival of genuine old-fashioned Christianity, deep, widespread, in the power of the Holy Spirit. May God forgive our sins, change our stupidity, help us to repent, turn and pray, and hurl us into the spiritual conflict!

Our only hope is revival. Retreat! Stand! Advance!

But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness (1 Timothy 6:11).

IT was cold, cloudy and rainy as the Dakota got into position, warmed its motors taxied down the runway, zoomed into the air, circled the airport and rose into the clouds, which for a few moments were so thick that nothing was visible. Then, quick as a flash, we burst into the light of the glorious Mediterranean sun. Far to the right we could see, through broken patches in the clouds, the blue Mediterranean. In front of us lay the great Alps of Italy. Below was the beautiful coast of the French Riviera, which we could scarcely see because of the thick cloud formations.

Cruising at one hundred and sixty miles an hour, we were soon twelve thousand feet in the air. The great mountain peaks that have made the Alps world-famous could be seen jutting through the clouds as they made their way skyward. Soon the stewardess pointed out Mont Blanc. Far in the distance we could see Wetterhorn,

Page 31 where only a few days before the thrilling rescue of marooned passengers had taken place.

The thing that attracted our attention, however, was the fact that all the valleys were filled with clouds and we knew that below it was cold and raining. High above the clouds, on the mountain peaks, the sun was warm, glorious and brilliant. The clouds, instead of being gray, dark and gloomy, were white and wispy. The snow-covered peaks were brilliant and glistening with the many colors of a rainbow.

After what seemed to be only minutes we were told to fasten our seat belts because we would be landing in Geneva, Switzerland. Sure enough, the plane began to descend through the clouds into the valley of lovely Lake Geneva.

As we got out of the plane it seemed as if we were in another world. It was dark, foggy. A sprinkling rain, mixed with snow, was falling, and our spirits, which had been so high just a few moments ago while we were soaring above the clouds, had fallen, and we were depressed. We longed to be above the clouds and in the sunlight of the mountain peaks. We could hardly wait until we got to our hotel, changed our clothes and took a train that would carry us far above the clouds to a sunny winter sports resort on some high mountain slope.

Many of you have experienced the thrill of flying above the storm and clouds and I am sure that you, on many occasions, have thought, as I have, how that experience is paralleled in our spiritual lives. Wherever I go, young people have virtually the same problems, most of which revolve around two or three pivots. Christian young people often ask me, "How can I get the joy and thrill of Christian living that you have been talking about? I have not been living above the clouds: I have been living in the valleys. I am miserable in my Christian experience." A young worldling said to me the other day. "You Christians

Page 32 seem to have a religion that makes you miserable. You are like a man with a headache. He does not want to get rid of his head, but it hurts him to keep it. You cannot expect outsiders to seek anything so unfavorable!"

Is that true in your life? Have you been living an up and down experience? I am convinced that it is possible for young people to have lives of inward rest and outward victory. It is your birthright. Many of you can remember the shout of triumph your soul gave when you first met Jesus Christ! How sure you were of victory then! How easy it seemed to be more than a conqueror through Him that loved you! Under the leadership of such a general you can never be foiled in battle, yet how different has been the experience of many of you! Your victories have been few and fleeting, your defeats many and disastrous. You have not lived as you think a Christian ought to live. Perhaps you have a good understanding of doctrinal truths and you know a few Scripture verses and have made a study of the Bible: possibly you believe in Christ, you talk about Him and you know you are saved; but somehow there is something wrong. In the very depths of your heart and soul you realize that your experience is not a scriptural experience. Many of you have given up in despair and have said, "It is impossible. All I can expect is an alternate life of victory and despair. I must always live in the valley! I can never enjoy the sunshine of the sunny mountain slopes! It is impossible always to fly above the clouds." Is that your experience?

There are three words that I want to use which may touch upon the secret of your failure. You will find them in the writings of Paul to young Timothy.

They are: retreat; stand; advance. First and Second Timothy are good books for any Christian young person to read and study. Timothy was a young man, very much like some of you. He faced the same temptations, the same trials, had the same burdens and the same problems

Page 33 that you have. He was a man of like passions. Timothy had been converted at an early age and answered the call to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the greatest challenge and call that any young man can have.

Now, there are a lot of people who think that to be a preacher all you have to do is to preach twice a week and conduct prayer meetings — about an hour and a half's work per week. Many consider the ministry an easy and lazy profession and many have said, "If you cannot be anything else, be a preacher." But a preacher who is true to the Word of God must not only preach the Word (2 Timothy 4:2) but must expose false teaching (1 Timothy 1:3). A minister who is true to his calling must warn people against the danger of heresy and false doctrine. Many times he is tempted to soft-pedal because people may misunderstand and he may make enemies. That is why Paul said, "I am praying for you day and night, Timothy." Your pastor needs prayer that God will give him courage to stand true. Timothy was called upon to "reprove." That was a hard thing for a young man to do! Paul told him to "rebuke." That, too, is hard! First Timothy 5:19 tells us that Timothy was instructed to handle church discipline. All these problems are faced by a minister of the Gospel. Your pastor or evangelist carries a thousand and one problems and has hundreds of things to do that you never hear of. Yet Timothy was a young man and Paul charged him with these great responsibilities. The greatest challenge and thrill in the world is to preach the Gospel — even though many times it costs!

I. RETREAT

In the sixth chapter of First Timothy we find in the eleventh verse that Paul says this: "But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness."

I think that General Timishinko of Russia will probably go down in history as the world's greatest leader of strategic

Page 34 retreat. You will remember that he led the armies of Russia back from the Polish border all the way to Stalingrad and kept them intact until the time came for the forward move that carried the great Russian Bear to the heart of Berlin.

There comes a time in our lives when God says, "Run! Flee! Get away! Leave it alone! Have nothing to do with it! Avoid it! Paul was giving this advice to young Timothy.

Let us give attention to some of the things which he was anxious that young Timothy should avoid. Notice that he mentions —

Pride

A friend of mine tells the story of Dr. Stuart Holden who was sitting one day in the lounge of his club as a number of people around him were discussing golf. One of them turned and said, "By the way, Holden, what is your handicap?" Without a moment's pause Dr. Holden replied, "Myself!" How true that is! Self, the capital I, is the universal problem, the handicap of us all. We are told in the Word, "These six things does the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: a proud look . . ." Notice! A proud look is the first thing that God hates. We are told that "pride goeth before a fall." We are told that "the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world."

The root of all sin is pride. Perhaps the greatest sin that has crept into the lives of Christians is the sin of pride. No young person can expect victory and inward rest until the capital I has been conquered. God commands us to "humble ourselves." We are never told to pray for humility! That is our job! If we are to live above the clouds, the sin of pride will have to be confessed and forsaken. It is deadlier than the poison of a rattlesnake. It stunts, stifles, weakens and destroys Christian victory.

When I was a student at Wheaton College a great revival swept Page 35 our campus. Dr. Harold Warren was the human instrument, but it was the Holy Spirit who did the job. From ten o'clock in the morning until eleven at night on two successive days, classes and meals were forgotten as students confessed their sins and God took over. The sin that was confessed most often publicly and privately was the sin of pride. Students, staff and faculty alike realized that this awful sin was ruining their individual victory with God. If that is your sin, confess it today and be rid of it.

Strife

This is the next thing from which Paul urges young Timothy to flee. Do you get angry easily? Are you impatient? Are you irritable? Do little things vex and annoy? Are there uprisings within? Do you lose your temper? Does wrath hold you at times in its grip? All of these things engender strife. God calls it sin! Many Christian homes where I am entertained are filled with strife. The father and the mother are continually bickering and arguing. The children, instead of being well disciplined, argue with their parents. The sweet aroma of Christian love is weakened. God says that such strife is sin. Let us confess and forsake it.

Envy

This is the green-eyed monster that has wrecked so many young Christians. It creeps in unexpectedly and slays us before we know it. God says (Proverbs 6:34), "For jealousy is the rage of a man: therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance." Some young people are jealous because others are more handsome and more beautiful than they; jealous because others can play the piano and they cannot; jealous because the pastor shakes hands more cordially with others than with them. These things can ruin your Christian experience and keep you in the valley of gloomy defeat. "But thou, O man of God, flee these things." Avoid jealousy.

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Railing

Railing simply means old-fashioned gossiping, talking about your neighbors without foundation for what you have to say. It is sin. Scripture says, "Be swift to hear, slow to speak" (James 1:19); "The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity . . . and it is set on fire of hell" (James 3:6). Your tongue is one of the smallest members of your body, yet it is more powerful and deadly than an atomic bomb. Let us pray more for our friends — and talk less! Everywhere I go someone wants to take me aside and tell me an evil story about some Christian worker. I hate it! I don't want to hear it! Ninety percent of the stories that go around about men of God are untrue. Let us confess our sin. Let us confess these filthy communications. They grieve the Holy Spirit.

Evil Surmising

The searchlight of the Holy Spirit goes deeper than the tongue. It exposes even the thinking of our minds and hearts! Paul says, "Timothy, avoid thinking evil about others!" Think the best of everyone! If you follow this rule in your Christian experience you will find your life cleaner, happier and more vibrant. Gossiping and evil surmising can become habits that stunt our Christian growth and development.

The Love of Money

Paul mentions in the tenth verse of the sixth chapter of First Timothy "the love of money." Many young Christians have been caught in this subtle trap of Satan. You say, "But I have no money to love." I have talked with many people who did not make five dollars a week, but the love of money was keeping them from living victorious lives in Christ. Christ demands the prominent place! He demands leadership! Striving after money and this world's goods is called sin!

A young fellow came to me one day in Belfast, Ireland, and he said

Page 37 he was living a defeated life. I tried to find the cause and the secret of his defeat. He read the Word; he prayed; he seemed to be living a good, clean honest life, but there was something wrong somewhere. Finally I asked him, "Do you give a portion of your income to the Lord's work?" He hung his head and shamefully said, "Not very much." I said, "That is it! There is your trouble! You have been robbing God." Young people, learn this: you cannot rob God and expect to grow and have power in your life. God says, "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it" (Malachi 3:10). Has this been your trouble?

Youthful Lusts

Writing to Timothy on another occasion, Paul warns him to flee something else: "Flee also youthful lusts" (2 Timothy 2:22). Young men and women, lust is a deadly thing. Every outward immoral sin begins with a thought. Guard your thoughts. Keep them clean. Keep them pure. Purpose in your heart that you will not defile yourself. Don't let your eyes look upon that which grieves the Holy Spirit.

Dr. V.R. Edman, president of Wheaton College, said something in chapel one day which I shall never forget: "The first look is not sin. It is the second look!" You may be unable to help the first look, but watch and guard that second look. "Flee youthful lusts."

In my imagination I can see Paul as he thinks upon all these temptations of Satan to young Timothy. His fingers tremble as he writes. A tear courses down his cheek and blots the paper. A lump comes to his throat and he says, with all the passion of his heart, "O thou man of God,

Page 38 flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness."

I heard some time ago of a young boy who was in the trenches of France. The order was given to attack, but as the bullets and the bombs began to explode and whizz around him, the boy became nervous and frightened. Throwing down his rifle, he began running toward the rear. The captain yelled, "Hey, François, where are you retreating to?" Hardly slackening his pace, the boy yelled over his shoulder, "Boss, I'm not retreating... I'm just advancing to the rear." This is exactly what God wants you to do. By retreating and avoiding these sins you will in reality be advancing in your Christian experience.

II. STAND

The sun was shining in a clear blue sky. Semitropical Pasadena was filled with an air of excitement. It was not just an ordinary holiday. It was the one big day of the year when the eyes of the sports world turned to this Los Angeles suburb. Palm trees, orange groves, balmy breezes and the Rose Bowl game were going to make New Year's Day southern California's "big day." T.W. Wilson and I had been given "hard to get" tickets by Miss Henrietta Mears, "The Lady" at Hollywood's First Presbyterian Church. We made our way to Section D, seats 21 and 22. Soon we were shouting, laughing, eating peanuts and having a good time. T. W. and I, being true Southerners, were loyal to Alabama's Crimson Tide. By the end of the first quarter it was apparent that it was Alabama all the way. (Alabama won 34-14, it was 1946) As the Tide neared the Southern California goal line, the cheering students of USC broke out in this chant: "Hold that line! Hold that line!" As I watched that scene so filled with tenseness and excitement it seemed that I could see a spiritual drama being enacted. I could see myself before "so great a cloud of witnesses" and being tempted by Satan, while the great witnesses of the past who

Page 39 had lived for and died in this same arena were shouting to me, "Hold the line. Don't yield. Stand, and having done all, stand!"

I am sure that many of you, when just about to yield or compromise in your Christian lives, have heard the still, small voice of God saying, "Hold that line. Don't yield to Satan's subtle temptations, 'that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil' " (Ephesians 6:11). Again God has said, "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong" (1 Corinthians 16:13) or again, in Galatians 5:1, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free."

You remember the three Hebrew children who refused to bow before the king's image. The king had made a great golden image and had ordered that every man fall down and worship at the sound of the musical instruments. The decree was: "And whoso falleth not down and worshippeth, that he should be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace" (Daniel 3:11). Everyone bowed down and worshiped for fear of the king except three men: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The king immediately called them before him and said, in effect, "Fellows, perhaps you did not understand my command, but I will give you another chance. When the instruments play again, either you fall down and worship the image that I have built or I shall have you thrown into the fiery furnace that has been heated seven times hotter than an ordinary furnace!" The king's words received one of the most heroic and thrilling answers any group of God's men has ever given. Listen to it, young people. Hear it. Feel it. See it. "O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, Page 40 nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up" (Daniel 3:16-18).

These three fellows did not know whether they would escape the fiery furnace or not, but of one thing they were certain: they would not yield to Satan's subtle temptation to compromise their decision. They were going to stand and having done all, stand. When the instruments played, the three refused to bow. The king was furious and had them thrown into the furnace. The men who threw them in were burned to a crisp. When the king looked in to see how his victims were roasting, he saw instead of three men, four, and the fourth one was like unto the Son of God. God had vindicated their stand! They had remained true! He would see them through! He would not leave or forsake them! Notice that the king could get them neither to "bend" nor "budge" nor "burn."

Young man or woman, you have been compromising in your Christian life. You have been giving in, yielding here and there. Satan has slipped in and done his deadly work in times of weakness. Your eyes have looked upon things they should never have seen. Your feet have taken you places you should never have gone. Your hands have touched things they should never have touched. Your mind has thought upon things you should never have thought upon. Your tongue has said things you should never have heard. Oh, young people, I beg of you to stand and having done all, stand. In this day when young people are leading "wild, strange, foreign-flavored, globe-girdling, radio-riding" lawbreaking, frivolous, superficial lives, it is glorious to see a young man or woman living a clean, honest, uncompromising spiritual life for Jesus Christ, a life which will result in constant daily victory over sin and inward rest of soul.

Yield everything to Him! The greatest thing you must yield is yourself, because the greatest burden one has to carry in life is self — his daily living, his failings, his

Page 41 special weaknesses and temptations, his peculiar temperament, his inward affairs of every kind. You must hand all these to God and leave them there. He demands that you surrender your reputation, your Christian work, your love affairs, your houses, your children, your business, your employees — everything, whether inward or outward — to Him. Not only must you commit the things of the future but more difficult still, you must commit the present to Him. If you have committed your problems to the Lord, forget them. Don't worry about them. Most people take their burdens, troubles and sins to Him, but they bring them away with them again and are as worried and unhappy as before.

Some of us are like the fellow who had a house to rent. He said, "I will rent the entire house except for one room." The prospective tenant said, "This is strange! What are you going to keep in that room?" "Oh, not very much," he replied. "Just a couple of pet tigers." You may smile at this ridiculous story, but perhaps that is exactly what you have said to God. "Lord, You may have my heart, my soul and my body but there is one little room I want to keep myself. I have a couple of pets that I want to keep." God will expect no less than all. We must confess with our mouths the Lord Jesus. He demands Lordship. Thus, when you are entirely yielded to Him, He fills you with His Spirit, and His powerful dynamo called the Holy Spirit will enable you to stand against every onslaught of Satan. "When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them: for the Lord thy God is with thee, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt" (Deut. 20:1).

It is not a battle with flesh and blood; it is a spiritual battle against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness

Page 42 in high places. The Holy Spirit is absolutely the only one who can give you the ability to "hold the line." Are you holding? Are you standing? Only as you "stand" against every attack can you say you are living above the clouds in glorious sunlight on the mountain slopes of God's love, peace, joy, happiness and pleasure. "In thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand are pleasures forevermore."

III. ADVANCE

When I was seven my father bought me my first bicycle. I had never ridden one. Patiently my family and friends tried to teach me the art of cycling. I soon found that there was one thing that I must do if I was to stay on the bicycle: keep moving forward. If I ceased to go forward I would fall and hurt myself. So it is in the Christian life. Paul told Timothy not only to endure hardness as a good soldier but to "strive" for masteries. Peter said, "But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18).

You can never live this glorious life on the highest plain unless you are continually growing and moving forward. If you are not closer to Christ and more mature spiritually today than at any time in your Christian experience, there is something wrong with your life. You should be closer to Him today, heart, soul and body, than at any time in your life. There should be a constant growth.

John spoke of fathers, young men and little children (1 John 2:13). He was speaking of spiritually mature men — young men who were growing but who had not reached spiritual maturity — and babes in Christ. There are degrees of spiritual growth. You cannot grow in justification; there is no development in the standing of your relationship with God.

You ask, "How can I grow? How can I advance? How can I move forward?" First: Bible reading: "Desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2). Read it! Study it! Meditate on it! Memorize it!

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Ninety percent of the Christian's difficulties and troubles are caused by a lack of reading and studying the Word. Do not be content to skim through a chapter merely to satisfy your conscience. Hide the Word of God in your heart. A little portion well masticated is of greater spiritual value to your soul than a lengthy portion scanned hurriedly. Do not be discouraged because you cannot understand it all. The greatest theologians have had to say, "The half has not been told." However, the Holy Spirit will make hard passages plain to you, and the Word will become a living reality in your heart.

Dawson Trotman's Navigators have a splendid system of Scripture memorization that has been a blessing to me. This system advocates carrying index cards daily and memorizing the Word of God during odd moments. The Bible is food for your soul. Don't neglect it! "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee."

Prayer

The enemy is attacking. We need to fortify our prayer lives. Prayer is the Christian's greatest weapon. Young people, you cannot get along without it. You can never live the life above the clouds without being instant in prayer in season and out of season. This doesn't mean that the only time you can pray is when you are alone or hidden in a private closet. You have access to the throne room at any moment of the day. You are the child of a King. It is your royal privilege to talk with your Father. He is interested in every detail of your life. The little heartaches, burdens and troubles that nobody else knows about — in these He is keenly interested. He has numbered the hairs of your head. He wants to help you with even the most simple things that you would ordinarily not bother anyone about. God is interested. Let Him bear your burdens. Let Him solve your problems. Learn to pray victoriously. Such prayer is necessary for spiritual growth.

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Witnessing

God's purpose for you and me after we gave been converted is that we be witnesses to His saving grace and power. Are you a daily and constant witness? Are you one of God's minutemen? Are you a commando for Christ? He expects you to witness at every given opportunity. "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men," Christ said, "him will I confess before my Father which is in heaven."

Acts 28:23 presents a thrilling scene. Paul, held in bonds at Rome, persuaded men concerning Jesus from morning to evening. Concerning each of us it should be said every day, "Behold, a sower went forth to sow."

As Dr. Harry Rimmer indicates, very little originality is permitted a Western Union messenger boy. His sole obligation is to carry the message he receives from the office to the person to whom it is addressed. He may not like to carry that message. It may contain bad news or distressing news for the person to whom he carries it. But he cannot stop on the way, open the envelope and change the wording of the telegram. His duty is to take the message.

We young Christians have the Word of God. Our Great Commander has said, "Go and take this message to a dying world." Some are neglecting it; some are tearing up the message and substituting one of their own; some are taking out a part of it; some are telling the people that the Lord does not mean what He says; others are saying that He really did not write the message but that it was written by ordinary men who are mistaken about the meaning of it.

Let us remember that the Apostle Paul exhorted the Christians centuries ago to preach only the Word.

Remember, we are sowing seed. Some indeed may fall on beaten paths and some among thorns, but it is our business

Page 45 to keep on sowing. We are not to stop sowing because some of the soil looks unpromising.

We are holding a light. We are to let it shine though it may seem but a twinkling candle in a world of blackness. It is our business to let it shine.

We are blowing a trumpet. In the din and noise of battle the sound of our little trumpet may seem to be lost, but we must keep sounding the alarm to those who are in danger.

We are kindling a fire in this cold old world full of hatred and selfishness. Our little blaze may seem to be unavailing, but we must keep our fire burning.

We are striking with a hammer. The blows may seem only to jar our hands as we strike, but we are to keep on hammering.

We are using a sword. The first or second thrust of our sword may be evaded and all of our efforts at striking deep into the enemy may seem hopeless, but we are to keep wielding our sword. It is the sword of the Spirit.

We have bread for a hungry world. The people may seem to be so busy feeding on other things that they will not accept the Bread of Life, but we must keep on giving it, offering it to the souls of men.

We have water for famishing people. We must keep standing and crying out, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." We must persevere. We must never give up. Keep using the Word.

The seed will find some good soil and spring up and bear fruit, even thirty or sixty or an hundredfold. Somebody will hear the trumpet, even in the din and tumult, and will flee to the Refuge and be safe. The fire will kindle a sacred flame in some cold hearts and make them contrite and yielded to God. The sword will pierce the armor of sin and cut away the self-satisfaction and the pride and open hearts to the Spirit of God. Some hungry

Page 46 men and women will take the Bread of Life and some famishing ones will find the Water of Life at our hands.

Let us as Christian young people declare the whole Word of God. Young people, are you retreating where you should retreat? Are you standing where you should stand? Are you advancing where you should advance? Only by doing these three things faithfully can you climb above the gloomy, discouraging spiritual valleys of this life into the glistening, thrilling experience of sun-bathed heights on mountain peaks.

It was a cold, dreary, snowy night. The father was sitting in the lounge reading a newspaper; the son was absorbed in a novel. Seeing that the fire was about to go out, the father turned to the son and said, "Son, kindly go out into the woodshed and get a stick of wood and bring it in and put it on the fire." There was no reply. Again he repeated his request, and the son made no indication that he had heard.

Being an Irishman, the father lost his temper and said angrily, "Son, if you don't get that stick of wood and bring it in and put it on the fire, you can leave this house."

The son jumped to his feet, angrily threw down his book, stalked out and slammed the door.

Two weeks passed and the father had not received word from his son. Though he was brokenhearted, yet he was stern. He was teaching his son a lesson in obedience.

It was another cold, dreary, snowy night. The father was trying to read the newspaper and occasionally a tear trickled down his cheek as he thought of his boy. The fire was about to go out again. He heard a knock at the door. Going to it, he saw his son, hungry, tired, cold and pleading. "Father, please forgive me! Let me come in! I'm sorry!" The father softened for a moment. Then he grew stern and, pointing to the woodshed, said, "Son,

Page 47 that same stick of wood is in the woodshed. Get it, bring it in, put it on the fire, and you can come in."

God is saying that same thing to you today. There are sticks in your life. They are in the woodshed, away from the altar of consecration. God says that you will have to get all of those sticks and bring them to the altar before you can have the thrill, the warmth, the joy and the glory of His hearth.

A Midnight Tragedy

Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap (1 Galatians 6:7).

ANOTHER Youth for Christ rally was over and we had just returned to our hotel room. It was midnight. Scores of young people had made decisions for Christ.

While getting ready for bed, T.W. Wilson and I were aware of the fact that there was a wild spree going on next door. We heard drunken laughter, shouting, kicking of furniture, and beating on walls. Finally, after the lights were out, we tried to get to sleep. The next morning being Sunday, we must be up early to fill our morning appointments. Below, on the street, things were riding high in San Antonio. They didn't roll up the sidewalks in this Texas town at twelve o'clock on Saturday night!

But the street noises did not bother us half so much as the party next door. For two hours we rolled and tossed. T.W. said, "Let's go next door and ask those people to stop that noise." We put on our robes and slipped quietly into the hall. T.W., being the larger of the two of us, went to

Page 49 the door first. A quick rap and the door opened. The room was blue with smoke, and the smell of whisky nearly knocked us over.

A drunken man asked, "What do you fellows want?" T.W. said quickly, "We are trying to get some sleep next door, and we would appreciate a little more quietness." The man, overly jolly, said, "Won't you boys come in and have fun with us? We are having a wonderful time." We declined the invitation and went back to bed.

The party roared on past four o'clock. Even though we had called the house detective, it seemed that nothing could stop the wild festivities.

When we wakened next morning about eight o'clock, after having had only about four hours of sleep, all was as quiet as the night before Christmas. T.W. mischievously looked at me and, we started kicking and shouting. In a few minutes we received the desired result. Our boisterous friend of the previous evening came to the door with heavy eyes and foggy voice and said, "Won't you boys please be quiet so that we can get some sleep?" With friendly gestures and in a jolly manner we asked, "Won't you and your crowd come in and enjoy the fun? We are having a great time!" With a growl and an angry look he hustled back to bed. I think he had learned his lesson!

Many a Saturday night as I have walked back to my hotel room from a Youth for Christ rally I have heard the din, the boisterous noises and the hollow laughter of places of iniquity, places filled with evil and sin that certainly must be obnoxious to God. Often I have seen the world having its fling, enjoying the only heaven it will ever know.

I have often thought how glorious and wonderful it is to be a Christian; to know real joy and happiness; to be able to have a genuine ring in our laughter; to be able to smile in the face of every adversity. The crowd that is having

Page 50 the best time in the world is that crowd of young people who know Jesus Christ.

I want to take you in your imagination back twenty-five hundred years. Babylon rules the world. Situated at the top of the fertile Crescent, enclosed within walls so thick that four chariots could ride abreast around the top of it, pierced by a hundred bronze gates where sentinels stand watch day and night.

Babylon, mighty Babylon, on the left bank of the Euphrates River, the mightiest city in the world, at the crossroads of antiquity; the center of world-commerce; the richest city on earth. Out on the far flung battlefields of the world her armies were gaining victory after victory under the leadership of the victorious general Nabonidus.

The hanging gardens of Babylon were one of the seven wonders of the world and were built by Nebuchadnezzar for his Median queen the beautiful daughter of Xerxes, who had helped his father conquer Nineveh. These gardens were constructed on several tiers of arches, one over another, each bearing a solid platform four hundred feet square. The terraces were covered with flowers, shrubs, trees and gardens. Underneath, in the arches, were luxurious apartments.

As one looks at the ruins today he finds it hard to realize that there once stood the great Babylon, a city of extravagance and luxury beyond imagination, unsurpassed in the history of the world, but now a scene of utter desolation and ruin.

The king of Babylon at this particular time was Belshazzar (Daniel 5). He was young and handsome, a haughty, proud and high-spirited young man, puffed up with false glory that he had never earned. He was the kind of young fellow who never gave the serious things of life a second thought. His motto was: "Eat, drink and be merry, and have a good time." God was far from his thinking. He was determined to sow his wild oats and to

Page 51 have his fling. Although God had said, "The wages of sin is death" and, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," Belshazzar thought he could beat the game of sin. he thought he could get away with it.

Thus, in spite of the warning of God's servants, he determined to have a banquet, a party that would be second to none that the world had ever seen.

The luxury, the splendor and the brilliance of his extravagance would be the talk of the empire.

One day he called his chief servant and said, "I am going to put on a party that will be the biggest that this old world has ever seen. I want you to get the finest foods, the rarest wines, the best orchestra, the hottest dancers, and send invitations to a thousand of my lords and noblemen. I will show them." Thus the preparations got under way.

Could he get away with it? Could he disregard God in his life? Could he flout sin in God's face? Only a few years ago God had thrown his grandfather, Nebuchadnezzar, from the throne because of sin. Could any man beat the game of sin? Could any young man go on, have his fling, sow his wild oats and never have to pay for it? Let's see! The day dawns. The sky is an oriental blue. This day has been declared a holiday throughout all Babylon. The king is throwing a party for a thousand of his lords and noblemen. It will be the most extravagant banquet the world has seen. Everyone is excited. Bands are playing the national airs. Flags are unfurled. There is dancing in the streets. Gaily colored costumes are evident everywhere. Jeweled chariots are coming in from every part of the empire bringing ambassadors, army officers, nobles, lords and men of high distinction to Belshazzar's banquet.

The evening shadows gathered, and hundreds of people line the walks and streets to see the notables enter the great banquet hall. Belshazzar is the host. The soft oriental

Page 52 music excites the mind and flesh. Dancers dance; wine flows freely. The party continues into the night. The orchestra plays wilder tunes. The dancing gets faster and faster. Immorality and disgusting sin are evident everywhere.

A cloud comes over the moon that has been riding high in the sky as if to hide its face from the wicked scene below. A soft breeze sweeps over Babylon as if the elements are trying to blow away the shameful stench of sin.

It is almost midnight. Suddenly the intoxicated mind of the young king seems to have gone wild. He calls a servant to him, whispers in his ear, and the servant leaves the hall. In a few moments the servant comes back bearing in his arms the gold and silver vessels of God. What is the young king about to do? Does he dare to shake his fist in God's face? Are not these the vessels that had been dedicated to the use of God in the Temple at Jerusalem? Are they not sacred? Does he dare to desecrate them?

He stands and orders the servants to pass the vessels. Then he proposes a toast to the gods of silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood and stone. The guests are breathless. They did not think that the young king would dare to go this far but in their wild, intoxicated, carefree spirit they assent with ungodly laughter. The party grows wilder and wilder.

Again Belshazzar stands to propose a toast and holds in his hand one of the ornate golden vessels of God. Suddenly the vessel crashes to the table. Belshazzar's face turns white. The joints of his loins are loosed and his knees smite one against the other. A deathlike silence grips the banquet hall. Women scream and faint. Every person's eye is riveted to one spot on the wall. An armless hand is writing over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall. The young king has come face to face

Page 53 with the supernatural for the first time in his life, and he is afraid.

He has an army, but he is afraid. His coffers are filled with silver, gold and precious jewels, but he is afraid. He is surrounded by his best friends, but he is afraid. Isn't it strange that people can go through life and never give God a thought, live their own lives and go their own way instead of God's way, but when they come to die they regret the past and are afraid.

I talked with a man in America some months ago about eleven o'clock one evening. He was dying. He gripped my hand and said, "I am afraid to die. I am afraid to die." This man had been a strong, healthy man who had lived his own life in his own way, never giving God, Christ or the Bible a second thought, but when he came to die he was afraid.

Before I was converted I lived as I jolly well pleased until I got into a tight spot and didn't know whether I would get out of it or not. I was always nervous and afraid and wished that my past life had been different. I felt it was perhaps too late for me to find a new direction.

Belshazzar was frightened. He tried to interpret the writing on the wall, but he could not. He called in the astrologers, the Chaldeans and the soothsayers and said to them, "Whosoever shall read this writing, and shew me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom" (Daniel 5:7). They were an overconfident lot. They were the scientists, the philosophers and the psychologists of the day. Certainly they could read and interpret anything. Confidently they could read and interpret anything. Confidently they set about their work. Soon their faces turned white, and trembling they left the banquet hall one by one. They could not read the writing. Why? I will tell you. It is impossible for a man outside of God to read God's handwriting (1 Corinthians 2:14): "But the natural man receiveth not

Page 54 the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

That is the reason many of you do not understand the Bible. It is like a foreign language to you because these things are spiritually discerned, and only a man whose mind and heart has been illuminated by the Holy Spirit can read and understand God's handwriting.

By this time Belshazzar's mother came. Thank God for godly mothers! Even when we grow older, the advice and counsel of a godly mother is better than that of wise men. I thank God for Christian parents who reared me in the fear, nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Belshazzar's mother realized the predicament of her young son and said, "O king, live for ever: let not thy thoughts trouble thee, nor let thy countenance be changed: there is a man in thy kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of thy father light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him; whom the king Nebuchadnezzar thy father, the king, I say, thy father, made master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers; forasmuch as an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and shewing of hard sentences, and dissolving of doubts, were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar: now let Daniel be called, and he will shew the interpretation." Immediately Belshazzar took his mother's advice and sent for Daniel. Daniel was brought in. Though they put him in a lion's den he would stand true to God. He was strong, magnificent, of sterling character. His righteous, piercing eye convicted Belshazzar before either had spoken.

"Daniel! do you see that writing on the wall? If you can read that writing I will put a gold chain around your neck. I will make you the third ruler in the empire, and I will put royal robes on you." Notice Daniel's answer.

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There was no weakness here! Young people often think that when they come to Christ they have to be sissies. They think Christianity is a sign of weakness. Let me tell you, there is no place for weaklings in the kingdom of God. God wants real men and real women who are willing to stand the gaff, who have real blood in their veins — men and women of courage and strength.

Then Daniel answered and said before the king, Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to another; yet I will read the writing unto the king, and make known to him the interpretation. O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honour: And for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him: whom he would he slew; and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would he set up; and whom he would he put down. But when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him: And he was driven from the sons of men; and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses: they fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven; till he knew that the most high God ruled in the kingdom of men, and that he appointeth over it whomsoever he will. And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this; But hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou, and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified: Then was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was written. And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.

Belshazzar quaked and cringed. He was afraid. His heart was pierced with conviction at his own folly. God's words came back to him: "Whatever a man soweth, that shall he also reap"; "The wages of sin is death"; "The soul that sinneth, it shall die."

The piercing scream of a sentry could be heard at the

Page 56 gate. While the party had been at a high pitch the great Medo-Persian army had changed the course of the great Euphrates River and had marched under the walls of Babylon. That night Belshazzar the king was slain. His soul went out into eternity without God and without hope to a place of everlasting punishment! God had said, "Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting."

Notice, he wasn't weighed in the balance of what other people thought of him or even in the balance of his own thinking. He was weighed in God's balance. He didn't weigh enough. He didn't measure up. He didn't stack up. He was like the man of whom Jesus tells who looked from one moonlit field to the other and said, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry."

The king retired to bed. An agonizing scream pierced the midnight air. The servants rushed here and there. Finally one of them said, "It is the master's room." Breaking down the door, they found the master writhing and dying. His hands were folded in a strange manner as though he had been holding on to something and suddenly it had slipped away. Then a voice from heaven was heard which said, "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee." The king had been weighed in the balance of God and found wanting.

Tonight God is weighing you! How much do you weigh?

Let's look at an old pair of country scales for a moment.

On one side is the holiness of God. On the other side is you.

God says the scales must balance. In other words, you must be as holy as God before you can enter heaven and before the scales can balance.

Let's see what God requires. Have I broken God's commandments? Am I a sinner? Have I sinned against Him?

1. Sin is any transgression of the law in act, in thought,

Page 57 or in implication (1 John 3:4): "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law."

We may say that the law is summed up in the Ten Commandments. The entire moral law is summarized in these rules of life, which express God's holiness. The ceremonial laws were expressly commended to Jews under the law and to nobody else, but the moral laws are for all.

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Perhaps you have broken that commandment by permitting a heart affection for money or something besides God. If so, you have bowed to another idol. To bow and to worship before a saint of any kind is idolatry, whether that idol be a picture of Christ or an image of the Virgin Mary or a crucifix or the likeness of a saint. If you have bowed before it, you have sinned. You have transgressed the law. Let's look at another commandment. "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." Cursing or using God's name as a byword, saying "Praise the Lord" when we don't mean it from the heart, pretending to praise God in prayer when actually we are thinking more of the people than of God, closing a prayer in "Jesus' Name" when we are not asking the petition for Jesus' sake — these are sin, violation of the third commandment.

Another of the commandments says, "Honour thy father and thy mother." If there has been a time when you have not, you have sinned. You have transgressed if you have failed to provide for your parents' needs when they were old or dependent.

"Thou shalt not kill" is the fourth command. Jesus said, "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer." You are guilty!

"Thou shalt not commit adultery." Jesus said, "I say unto you. That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." In God's eyes lust is adultery.

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"Thou shalt not steal." Most of us have broken this command. We have pulled a few shady deals. We have gotten the best of bargains.

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour." Even little so-called "white lies" break this commandment. All of us are guilty of transgressing this law.

"Thou shalt not covet." Perhaps we have coveted something that is our neighbor's. If we have broken only one, and that only slightly, we are transgressors nevertheless: "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all" (James 2:10).

How do you balance?

Today you are being weighed in the balance of God. On one side is God's holiness, summed up in the Ten Commandments. On the other side are you, a lawbreaker, condemned and guilty.

These commandments were summarized by Jesus in Matthew 22:37-40:

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Commands to do are simply particular details of the one great command to love. Obedience to God's commandments which doesn't flow simply and naturally out of a heart of love for God and all mankind is not genuine fulfillment of the law. Outwardly you may be perfectly blameless concerning the Ten Commandments, yet you may have violated every one of them in your heart. 2. If you have neglected a known duty, you have sinned (James 4:17): Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." Every time you abstain from what you ought to do, you sin. "And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for

Page 59 whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Romans 14:23). If you fret or worry, that is sin. Faith is the highest virtue a man can have. Unbelief is the worst sin.

3. Even the thought of foolishness is sin (Proverbs 24:9): "The thought of foolishness is sin: and the scorner is an abomination to men."

4. If you have made a vow to God and not kept it, you have sinned (Deut. 23:21): "When thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord thy God, thou shalt not slack to pay it: for the Lord thy God will surely require it of thee; and it would be sin in thee." Have you kept all the resolutions you have made? God's standard is His own standard of perfection and righteousness. You cannot give the excuse "Others are doing it" or "There are hypocrites in the Church."

Today God is weighing you by His own standard. As you are being weighed in the balance, God says:

1. "There is no man that sinneth not" (1 Kings 8:46).

2. "There is no man which sinneth not" (2 Chron. 6:36).

3. "There is none good but one, that is, God" (Matthew 19:17).

4. "What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin" (Romans 3:9).

5. "There is none righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:12; Psalm 14:3).

6. "There is none that doeth good, no not one" (Romans 3:12; Psalm 14:3).

7. "There is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:22-23).

8. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1 John 1:8).

You are nervous and afraid. From the depths of your heart and soul you want these scales to balance. How can you balance them? Where can you turn? You decide to join a church because you think that getting your name on a church roll will help to balance the scales, so you

Page 60 commit the salvation of your soul to a church. You perform the rites, pay the money and think you have done all you can do, but you are still worried. You are still not sure. You still have doubts. The scales still do not balance. There is no church, no religion, no priest, no minister, no church sacrament, no ordinance that can save your soul or balance the scales. You may join the church, be faithful to it, give of your money, and still be lost. The church cannot save.

Then you decide to be good. You treat your neighbors as you would have them treat you. You do your best to live up to the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount. You follow the Golden Rule. You do the best you can. You become respectable. No, no, you can't earn eternal life! If I could make the scales balance that way, or if I could get to heaven in such a manner, I would be able to throw out my chest and cry, "Look at me! I saved myself. I got here by doing the best I could!" The Bible says, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8).

You decide to follow the teachings of Christ, but if teachings could save, you could turn to Buddha or Confucius. Their teachings are among the most beautiful in the world, but they cannot save. Nor can the doctrines and the precepts of Christ save. His teachings tell us how to be saved, but they don't save.

You decide to be baptized and take communion because you think that somehow being dipped in water or taking of the wine and bread will save your soul. But, alas, you are disillusioned.

How, then, can the scales be balanced? "What can I do?" you cry: Here is the simple and plain answer from the Word of God: "Tell us the way!" exclaimed Thomas. "We know not the way to God. How can the scales balance?"

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Jesus answered, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." Ah, there it is!

"Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3:16-18). "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9). "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name" (John 1:12).

There is the answer! Simple childlike faith in Jesus Christ.

One night ten years ago I put my hand by faith in His nail-scarred hand. My heart was thrilled and my soul leaped with new life as in the twinkling of an eye I was clothed in the righteousness of Christ. The scales balanced for the first time in my life. I knew I was saved. There was no doubt about it. It was not "maybe so" or "I hope so" or "I think so." It is a glad shout: "I know so!"

A young college atheist wrote to his godly father, "I don't believe in God. When I come home on vacation I don't want you to cram religion down my throat by taking

Page 62 me to church." His father, who was a Baptist deacon down South, was brokenhearted.

War came. This young man volunteered for the Army Air Corps. Because of his brilliance and ability he was made a major at the age of twenty-three.

He had bombed Germany fifty-two times and one night was on his way back across the Channel after having dropped his bombs on Berlin. Suddenly one of his motors caught fire. He ordered the crew to jump. He set the controls and then he jumped. To use his own words, "By the time I hit the silk (parachuted) I was praying to the God who a few months ago I denied existed, and by the time I hit the water I knew my father's Christ." Converted in an instant from a sinner to a saint! When the motor caught fire he was on his road to hell! By the time he plunged into the water he was on his way to heaven!

Salvation is the most simple process in the world. It is simple, childlike faith in Jesus Christ. He can accept you now. At this instant He will hear your prayer and save your soul.

Final Exam

ON a hot May afternoon in 1943, Jimmie Johnson and I sat side by side taking our comprehensive examinations. Four years of hard work were to be summed up in a four-hour exam. If we failed, we would never receive our degrees from Wheaton College. We had crammed for days. So many figures and statistics were looming up in my mind that I could hardly think straight. All around I could hear groans or grunts and exclamations giving evidence that the professor had asked the wrong or the right question. If we came to a question we were not quite sure of, the best thing to do was to write a lengthy epistle and hope that somehow we could bluff through, which is next to impossible at Wheaton College. Would we pass? If we didn't, the consequences were no degree, no graduation and another year or two of hard work. Had we been conscientious? Did we really know our subject? This examination would tell.

I heard once of a boy who went into a drugstore telephone booth to call a well-known

Page 64 business establishment and ask for a job. He was refused. He came out, and his pearly white teeth gave evidence that he was extremely happy. The drugstore proprietor, having overheard the conversation, asked, "How can you be so cheerful when you have just been refused a job?" The boy replied, "Sir, that was my boss that I was talking to. I was just checking up on myself." I want each one of you to check up on yourself. Let's see if you can pass the examination God gives in First John.

The Gospel of John speaks of eternal life as manifested in the son of God: "But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name" (John 20:31).

The Gospel of John was written in order that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ. The First Epistle of John was written to people who believe that Jesus is the Christ but who have never come into full assurance of their present position or of the possession of eternal life. "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may continue to believe on the name of the Son of God" (1 John 5:13). If you have any doubt concerning the atoning death of Christ or about His deity, read the Gospel of John, but if you have believed the message of the Gospel and you are still perplexed as to the question of assurance, read the First Epistle of John.

Everywhere I go people come to me and ask me how they may know.

A young fellow came to me one night in Brussels and said, "I have done everything I know to do, but I still have no assurance." I find that is true of hundreds of young people. They have believed; they have accepted; they have done the best they know how; but somehow they are lacking in assurance. They are bewildered and perplexed.

There are other thousands of young people who think

Page 65 they are saved but in reality, when they take the acid test, they find they have never been born again of the Spirit of God. If they died they would never go to heaven. So let us take the test. Let us examine ourselves. Let us check and see how we stand in the light of God's Word. Are you ready? Here goes!

I. DO YOU BELIEVE ON THE SON?

"And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment," and His commandment is that we should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ. "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him" (1 John 5:1).

Have you really, truly and definitely accepted Christ as your Saviour? Has there come a period in your life when you were convicted of the Holy Spirit and you confessed Christ, not only as Saviour, but as Lord? The word "believe" means to have trust in and to lean upon Christ, to confess Him as the Lord of your life and the Saviour of your soul.

The greatest difficulty I have in dealing with young people is to get them to rest upon the facts of the Word of God. So many rest upon their feelings or upon the church or upon morality, or they try to follow the teachings of Jesus, or perhaps they say, "Christ and . . ." "Sacrament and . . ." or something else. No, it is Christ, and Christ alone. His answer to Thomas was: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

It was night. The dungeon was cold, damp and rodent-infested. Grunts and groans could be heard everywhere. Then, from somewhere, came a strange noise. It sounded like singing! Paul and Silas were having a song and praise service at midnight in a Philippian jail. God, looking

Page 66 over the battlements of heaven, said "Amen" so loudly that the prison walls shook on their foundations and crumbled. The warden of the jail was about to fall upon his sword and commit suicide. In the excitement of the moment, Paul glanced in the warden's direction. "Don't kill yourself; we are still here," he shouted above the din and the noise. The warden glanced with frightened eyes toward these two strange prisoners that he had scourged and locked up a few hours earlier.

Having already heard their testimony in song and word, he fell upon his face and said, "Sir, what must I do to be saved?" Paul answered, "Join the church and thou shalt be saved." Oh, no! "Live the best you can and thou shalt be saved." Oh, no! "Get baptized and thou shalt be saved." Oh, no! The answer which rang through the crumbled Philippian jail that night and answer that has been ringing down through the centuries is the same yesterday, today and forever: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." All the evangelical values are in that. The infinite music of the Gospel is thrilling through it like an anthem. That is the first question! Do you pass?

II. WHAT IS YOUR ATTITUDE TOWARD SIN?

"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us" (1 John 1:8-10).

Do you hate sin as God hates it? Do you detest it? Is it loathsome, filthy, ugly to you? When you stumble and fall or yield to Satan's temptation in a moment of weakness, do you immediately confess?

Do you hate covetousness, jealousy, gossip, deceitfulness, malice, hypocrisy, intemperance? The Scripture says, "If

Page 67 we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." If you are really born again of the Spirit of God, immediately upon yielding to Satan you will realize your sin and you will immediately confess it. God will graciously forgive and pardon.

That is the second question! How do you stand? Do you pass?

III. ARE YOU AN OBEDIENT SERVANT? "And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments" (1 John 2:3). The next verse says, "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." Do we say that we are Christians? Do we maintain that we are God's children? Then we must prove it by our lives! The law had said concerning the man who keeps His commandments, "Which if a man do, he shall live in them." But under Christ the man who lives by faith will do His commandments. The person who is born of the Spirit will delight in obedience to the will of God. This doesn't mean that you are obedient in everything all the time! You should be, but in reality there is only one who can say, "I do always those things that please him." The one who knows Christ as Saviour will find springing up within him a glorious love to do the will of God.

John uses the strongest language. He says, "If you don't like to do the will of God, if you don't like to obey His commandments, that is a good sign that you are not a Christian." "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar."

There are certain relationships in life that require from the parties involved only moderate degrees of devotion. A certain degree of reserve and distance seems to be suitable in such relations as these, but there are other relationships in life where all this is changed when friendship becomes love. Two hearts give themselves to each

Page 68 other to be no longer two but one. A union takes place which makes the property of one the property of the other. Instead of being separated, their interest and paths are now together. The reserve and the distance suitable to mere friendship become fatal in love. Love gives all and must have all in return. The wishes of the other party become binding obligations, and the deepest desire of each heart is that it may know every secret wish and longing of the other in order that it may do all in its power to gratify those desires.

Listen, young fellow, if you have ever known love like this, even though it is puppy love, you know that sacrifice and service on the part of the fair young maiden is a joy. We usually laugh at a young fellow in love and say that it is "puppy love," but always remember that it is real to the pup. If a wholehearted abandonment of your will to the will of another person has ever been your privilege as a sweet reality, then by all the tender, longing love of your Heavenly Lover would I beg of you to let it be so toward Christ. He loves you with more than the love of friendship.

As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so He rejoices over you. He has given you all, and He asks all in return. The slightest reserve will grieve Him to the heart. Be glad and eager to throw yourself unreservedly into His loving arms and to hand over the reins of government to Him. Give up forever everything that has separated you from Him. Let Him make all the choices. When this happens you will not want to go where He cannot go with you. You will not want to read that which He cannot read with you. You will not want to have friendship that He cannot enjoy. Your hands will never touch that which His hands cannot touch. Your eyes will never look where His eyes cannot look. Your love makes necessary a separation from the world of which a low type of love could not conceive. He claims from you because of your union with Him Page 69 far more than He does from anyone else. Are you obedient in all the things that He calls upon you to do? Do you talk about Him to other people?

It was a cool spring afternoon when Johnnie Streater introduced me to a beautiful young campus queen. Our eyes met for the first time. I was impressed, timid and bashful, but something went straight to my heart that I could never describe. The love bug had bitten me. A new faraway expression came into my eyes. Her every wish was a command to me from that moment on. Classes and studies were forgotten when I thought or talked about her. Her letters were read scores of times. The slightest little indication that she was returning my love thrilled me from head to toe, and though we have been married for many months, yet we are sweethearts still.

Is that the kind of love, affection and obedience you have for Christ? If not, the Scripture indicates that you can put a big question mark over whether you have ever really been born again. Do you pass?

IV. ARE YOU SEPARATED FROM THE WORLD?

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever" (1 John 2:15-17).

God calls us to be a separated people. "Come out from among them, and be ye separate." We are a peculiar people — not, however, in the sense that we dress strangely or are eccentric. We are a chosen group. The moment you came to Christ you were adopted into the family of God. The old things you used to love you now hate. Things you used to hate you now love.

The world consists of:

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1. Lust of the flesh. This means a strange urge to gratify your own desires, not only sensual desires, but all types of fleshly lusts.

2. Lust of the eye. This is a fierce passion to see and enjoy that which the flesh desires.

3. Vain glory. This means show, pomp, and is evident when you strut before your inferiors or class, when you show off or display a cocky attitude.

All of this is worldly.

Don't make a mistake, however. Don't become the victim of the unscriptural teaching of separation which Stacy Woods calls "legality in the guise of spirituality." This modern legality has placed its taboo on certain practices, while sometimes ignoring more harmful ones. We call a person "separated" if he does not attend certain places of amusement. This is one of Satan's lies and has become a great stumbling block to many young people.

What is worldliness actually?

Mr. Woods describes it very aptly: "It is the self-indulgent attitude of the heart and mind toward life . . ." It is not merely doing certain forbidden things or going to certain places. Worldliness is what we are not just what we do. It is in reality an inner attitude, for as a man "thinketh in his heart, so is he." Any Christian whose interest is directed toward himself is worldly.

In Belfast, Ireland, a woman came to me one night and said, Oh, Mr. Graham, I enjoyed your message, but I lost the blessing. I asked why. She said, "I think I detected lipstick on your wife's lips." I answered, "My wife doesn't usually wear lipstick, but that is a strange place to have your blessing. Your blessing is resting on lipstick instead of on the message of the Word of God."

This poor deluded woman had been taught that the slightest bit of make-up was an evidence that a person was worldly, while in her own heart she had come to a

Page 71 place of pharisaical and religious pride, which was far worse.

In many places young people have been debarred from Christian fellowship because they did not conform to certain standards set by a local group. I find that throughout the world there are differences in custom. For example, in some places in the South they consider a person worldly if he goes swimming with a mixed group. In France even the most spiritual Christian drinks wine because of a lack of good water. In Holland the very finest Christian smokes.

You cannot set your standards by what others are doing! Do not use other people as a "canon"! Do not make your "Christianity negative! When you become a Christian, you are a new creature in Christ Jesus. You no longer live to satisfy certain appetites and desires; rather, you love to obey and follow Christ. Christ demands more than adherence to some form or standard of life. Becoming a Christian is marriage to Christ and the surrender of the right of independent thought and action.

There are certain things we know to be right. There are other things we know to be wrong. It has always been right to tell the truth, to be honest and upright. It has always been wrong to steal, lie and murder. But in between there is a "no man's land" which puzzles us. There are certain habits, friendships, amusements, sports, purposes or plans which we are not certain would be pleasing to God, things about which the Bible doesn't definitely say, "Thou shalt" or "Thou shalt not!" It is a perplexing problem!

Here are six questions you should always ask yourself as a test:

1. Does it violate any particular part of Scripture?

2. Does it take the keenness off my spirituality? 3. Can I ask God's blessing on it?

4. Will it be a stumbling block?

5. Would I like to be doing that thing when Christ returns?

6. Is it expedient?

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Have you been indulging in worldliness? John says, "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him."

Do you pass this test?

V. ARE YOU ANTICIPATING THE COMING OF CHRIST?

"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure" (1 John 3:1-3).

The first coming of Christ is the greatest event in world history. At once it becomes the center of the two eternities; the main spring in the clock of prophecy, the pivot around which revolves all the purposes of God.

Today the world faces another crisis: Christ's second coming. This time He is coming not in humiliation but in glorification to receive from this scene His own blood-bought children. Evidences abound that the time is almost here. Since "Ascension Day" when the heavenly witnesses said "This same Jesus . . . shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go," the eyes of Christians have been turning heavenward. They look for Him and perhaps as never before expect Him at any moment. "Maranatha!" What a thrill to those who know Christ! The Lord cometh! His coming is as certain as the dawn. It is as sure as seedtime and harvest; cold and heat; summer and winter; day and night. What a moment that will be when the realms of death are invaded by the power of Christ! The dead in Christ shall rise with bodies incorruptible, finished as unto the body of our glorified Lord. Those still living will be changed next. In a moment mortality shall be

Page 73 swallowed up in life. Physical imperfection shall be put off. What a hope! How it helps us bear our difficulties, distresses, burdens, problems, crosses and infirmities.

This is the blessed hope of every person who knows Christ. Are you ready for that day? It could be as the sun is rising over the eastern horizon tomorrow morning. It could be at noonday when the sun is riding high in the sky. It could be as the evening shadows are gathering and twilight spreads itself over the land. It could be at midnight. Are you looking for that day? This hope should be constantly, moment by moment, in the heart of every Christian.

Do you pass this question?

VI. DO YOU LOVE THE BRETHREN?

"We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death" (1 John 3:14).

Lord Nelson stood on board his ship. His fleet was drawn up in battle array. The Dutch fleet was over the horizon. He saw two English officers quarreling. He stood at attention and sternly pointed to the ships of Holland as he said, "Gentlemen, there are your enemies!" The greatest need among professing Christians today is love. The one great command that is laid upon us by Jesus Christ is that we love one another; not that we should love another as a husband loves his wife or as a mother loves her child; oh, no, far deeper than that. Our love for each other should be comparable to God's love for us. Is your love like sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal? You may know Greek and Hebrew. You may know church history, physiology and philosophy, but if you have not love, it profiteth you nothing. The kind of love that suffers, that is kind, that never envies, that does not puff itself up, that never seeks its own, that is not easily provoked, that never does evil, that never takes joy in sin, that is

Page 74 always happy and thrilled when the truth is presented, that endures everything — is this the kind of love you have?

I know men in Christian work who are great theologians and preachers but they seem hard, cold and unapproachable. The kind of love John is talking about is warm, tender, gracious, courteous, approachable. We profess love for each other, but many times behind each other's backs we cut like the point of a rapier. I wonder if we should not go to the quietness of our rooms and pray, "Oh, God, You know I was selfish. I was not considerate. I didn't act in love. I didn't manifest the spirit of Christ." Then if our hearts condemn us not, we have confidence toward God.

The great commandment that Jesus left was that we should love one another. Check up on your love life. Are you really in love — desperately in love — with Him and those around you?

VII. DO YOU PRACTICE SIN?

"We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not" (1 John 5:18).

Now, don't get alarmed! This verse should never have been translated as it is in the King James Version. Look at the words "sinneth not." The verse should read: "Whosoever is born of God doth not practice sin." In other words, if I see a man going on in sin after he has professed conversion, I have a right to doubt that man's salvation. He may stumble and fall. He may even yield to Satan and commit a sin in a moment of weakness, but he will immediately right himself and ask God for strength to be an overcomer. If a man tells me that he has quit drinking whiskey and I see him drunk every Saturday night for a month, I certainly have a right to doubt that the man has reformed. If you are continuing in your old sins and no change took place when you professed conversion and you continue to slip into the old mud holes, then you

Page 75 should certainly search your heart and see if you have been born again of the Spirit of God.

As Gavin Hamilton says, "There is an infinite difference between the professor and the actual possessor of Christianity." Peter's Second Epistle makes this crystal clear. In chapter 1:3-4 he says, "According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust."

Here we have a description of the man who is truly born again and who escapes the corruption that is in the world through lust. It is a positive and eternal deliverance.

On the other hand, in the second chapter the apostle deliberates upon those that have made a profession of Christianity but do not have actual possession. Here are his words: "For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire" (2 Peter 2:20-22).

Again, in 1 John 2:19, John says, "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us; but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us."

He that is born of God does not practice sin.

Do you pass this question?

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We have given you seven questions. What is your score? I trust you made a hundred and are a hundred percent out and out for God.

Jim Johnson and I were excited when the examination was over. "Let's go and celebrate," I said. Then we began to think. What if we had failed! It would shame us before our fellow students and our families. For the next four days we were in agony. We could hardly sleep or eat. We were very quiet and prayerful. We were hoping against hope that somehow the heart of the professor would be touched or that we had managed to get the right answers to the questions.

I will never forget when he called us in and smiled as we entered the door. We felt a tremendous relief, but unless he experiences it, no one will ever know the joy and the satisfaction of a young student who has worked hard and hears from his or her professor the words "well done." We received our papers and went into a state of hilarious ecstasy when we saw the grades written thereon. We were thrilled, overcome and overjoyed.

The examination was over and we had not only passed but had exceeded our expectation and had heard the professor say, "Well done."

How will it be when we stand before the great judgment seat of Christ? The various points of our lives will be scrutinized; the examination will be given. The most glorious hope within my breast is that someday I will hear the words of the Great Professor after the examination is over: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

The Power of Secret Sin

He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy (Proverbs 28:13).

THE luxury liner pulled out of Glasgow with full steam. Passengers whose nationality was reckoned from every country of Europe were on their way to Montreal. War clouds were hanging low. It was September 1, 1939.

The ship was brilliantly lighted. The orchestra played at dinner as usual. The cinema entertained the guests in the evening. Eating, drinking, playing, the passengers idled the hours away. The ship ploughed its way through the waters of the North Atlantic heading to the west of Ireland. (Cruise ship Athenia)

Three days out the news was flashed to the ship that Britain and France had declared war. Lights were doused; passengers went fearfully to their cabins; quickly and desperately the ship was painted a battleship gray; emergency guns were mounted in the stern and bow, for the wireless had just brought news that enemy submarines were lurking near.

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It was midnight. Few passengers were sleeping. Everyone was nervous, excited. Would the ship make its destination in safety?

Out of the darkness and silence from nowhere the tension was broken by a mighty explosion, another swish, then a second explosion (missiles from a German submarine). Cries of despair, anguish and suffering rent the cold air. The ship began to list. Lifeboats were lowered. Out of 1103 passengers, 112 perished that night in the dark waters of the North Atlantic. The voyage that began full of anticipation, joy and happiness for so many had ended in stark tragedy.

I have seen many young lives start out well after young men and women had trusted Christ as their Saviour. There was a new vigor in their voices, a new sparkle in their eyes, a thrill in their souls all the day long. They loved the prayer meeting. They were fond of Bible study. Spiritual things held a great attraction for them. The battle with Satan was won time after time. Temptations were overcome. There was victory.

Then something happened! It was not noticeable at first except to their close friends. Then everyone began to notice it. There was a lack of interest and a coolness toward spiritual things. Gradually the fire that had once raged in their breasts became only charred embers. The joy and thrill of Christian experience was now a thing of the past. Their lives were powerless and fruitless. They now yielded to temptation; instead of being overcomers they now were overcome. The spring had left their step. What was wrong? What had made such a radical change as this? Has this been your experience? If so, let's see if we can find the secret of your difficulty. Let's study the sixth and seventh chapters of Joshua and see if we can find a parallel to your own tragic experience.

The children of Israel, under Moses, had been led out of the slavery and bondage of Egypt. Victoriously they had marched across the Red Sea. Pharaoh's armies had perished.

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Through a waste of howling wilderness God had safely led them. At last they stood at the Jordan River, the gateway to the long awaited Promised Land. Another miracle, another answer to prayer, another victory was theirs: the waters of the Jordan parted. Triumphantly, gloriously the splendid armies of the Lord moved. Enemies were defeated and their banners were always triumphant. Nations fled before them. It seemed that they could never suffer defeat.

Then they stood before Jericho. Jericho was one of the largest and most ancient cities in Canaan. Jericho was excellently situated and a strongly fortified city. Broad and lofty walls ran around the city and the only way in and out was by the great gates which were scrupulously shut every night at sundown. There were great foundries of iron and brass in Jericho and also countless workshops of silver and gold.

God reassured Joshua with these words: "I have given into thine hand Jericho." Then God proceeded to give instructions as to how the city of Jericho was to fall. The rich and licentious city was doomed of God to swift overthrow and absolute extermination.

There was one thing, however, that God stipulated. God said, in effect, I want you to keep yourselves from the accursed thing. If you take the accursed thing, then you will make the whole camp of Israel a curse and there will be nothing but trouble" (Joshua 6:18).

What was the accursed thing? The next verse tells us. All the silver and gold and vessels of brass and iron were to be consecrated unto the Lord. They were to be put into the treasury of the Lord. If anyone took any of these things he would be touching something which God had consecrated to His own use. Thus, he would be sinning. Punishment for this sin would be death for the individual and defeat for the entire company of Israel.

Joshua gave his orders. For six days the Israelites

Page 80 marched around the city, and on the seventh day, the seventh time around, we see the tribes marching proudly and triumphantly. Each tribe had its own regiment entering battle under its own ensign. The trumpets blew; the walls fell flat and that day Jericho fell before the armies of Israel. (It is interesting to note that Dr. John Garstang, director of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem and of the Department of Antiquities of the Palestine Government, excavated the ruins of Jericho. He found that the Biblical description was absolutely accurate according to his study of what remains of ancient Jericho.)

The battle was over! Night fell on the prostrate city and the hour of temptation struck for Joshua and all his men. "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life," and Joshua and all his men received the crown of life that night — all but one.

Who is that stealing about among the smoking ruins? Those are the movements of one of Joshua's men! Has he lost his way? He hides! He listens. He looks through the darkness. He disappears into the night.

The sun rises over the eastern horizon. A new day dawned. A victory had been accomplished. The Lord was with Joshua, and his fame was noised through the whole country. Joshua was confident of victory in Canaan now. Only a few more short months of military campaigning and the rich and luxurious land of milk and honey would be his. The next city to be taken was Ai.

Ai was only a small town. Joshua decided to send spies to see what sort of place Ai was and what type of defense the city would put up. The spies came back and reported that since the Israelites had so mightily taken the city of Jericho, it would only take a small force to capture the defenseless city of Ai. So Joshua decided to send only a small detachment of troops. Notice in passing that Joshua

Page 81 made a tragic mistake. He was resting on a victory of yesterday.

Young men and young women, that is always fatal in your Christian experience. Because you won the victory over temptation yesterday, because you won a glorious spiritual victory yesterday, does not necessarily mean that you will win today. It takes as much prayer, it takes as much yielding today as it did yesterday. Satan never sleeps. He works twenty-four hours a day. He brings all of his armies — the world, the flesh and the devil — against us every day. Never be confident in your own strength to win the battle. You are no match for Satan. Joshua seemed to have forgotten that God had delivered Jericho into his hands, that Israel alone would never have won the battle. After the great German victories, contrary to the advice of his generals, Hitler was overbearingly confident that the Nazi Panzer divisions could sweep into Moscow in a few weeks. He underestimated the strength of the enemy. Mussolini was confident that his Black Shirts would soon overthrow the poor and weak Greeks. He was mistaken. Don't ever make the mistake of underestimating your enemies. On one occasion he may be a "roaring lion" and the next time you may meet him in battle as an "angel of light." Be continually clothed in the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of Satan. Paul said that he had "no confidence in the flesh." The only way to be sure of success is to have this promise as a reality: "The Lord thy God is with thee . . . The Lord your God is he that goeth with you, to fight for you."

The children of Israel were still celebrating the glorious victory of Jericho when down the mountainside from the direction of Ai came the first stragglers. Their news put a damper on the whole camp of Israel. Their man had suffered defeat. Thirty-six had fallen casualties. Scores were wounded. The army was retreating in shame and disgrace. Joshua, who a few moments ago had been proud and confident, rent his clothes, put dust on his head and fell on the earth on his face before the Ark of the Lord. He began to complain to God. "Alas, O Lord God, wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us? would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side Jordan! (Joshua 7:7). All victory was gone. There was nothing but utter shame and defeat. Soon the news would be spread to other nations. They would gain confidence, link themselves together and come and destroy Israel. The light that had blazed so furiously a few hours before was now quenched. Hearts were sad. The people were crestfallen. All their anticipations and hopes melted in the distance.

Has not this often happened to you? One minute you were sailing high with a smile of glorious victory, and the next you were discouraged, defeated, disappointed and disillusioned. You could not truthfully say that you were a conqueror in Christ.

But God did not wait long to answer the prayer of His faithful servant. The Lord said to Joshua, "Wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? Israel hath sinned . . . They have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen . . . they have put it even among their own stuff . . . neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed from among you."

Ah, here was the secret! This was the reason for the terrible defeat! Secret sin somewhere! Someone had stolen some of the valuables of Jericho and hidden them in their own possession. God says, "Be sure your sin will find you out." If God had not halted their progress, they would have gone on in sin. Their hearts would have become hardened. They would have gone from one sin to another until they became hardened. This thing which might have seemed small at the moment would have led to larger and

Page 83 more tragic consequences. God demands absolute obedience.

There is one obstacle that can block the channel and check God's power, and that obstacle is sin. Sin is a great barrier. It alone can hinder the work of the Spirit. "Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear" (Isaiah 59:1-2). Sin is the great barrier; it must be put away. There is no alternative. There can be no compromising. God will not work as long as there is iniquity. If we do not come out in open confession immediately, God will uncover our sins for us. The uncovering process may be hurtful and bring tragic consequences.

God said, "Joshua! I want you to take the children of Israel man by man. Someone has sinned. Find out who it is." Notice that God said, "man by man." Often it is easy to say, "Everybody else is doing it." The yardstick for your Christian living is not what others are doing or saying. You have one yardstick alone: the Word of God. When you stand before the judgment, you will not be held accountable for what others do. You will stand alone. You will be accountable for your own life. God told Joshua to take them "man by man." They couldn't lean on their families, on their friends or loved ones. They must stand alone.

What a day that is going to be when the searchlights of God are going to be fastened on us, when the record of all our thoughts, motives and actions is played. The screen will portray every event from the cradle to the grave. We must answer alone.

The eliminating process began. Finally Joshua came to a man by the name of Achan. Joshua, apparently seeing his guilty look, said, "My son . . . make confession unto [the Lord]; and tell me now what thou hast done." Achan answered Joshua, and said, "Indeed I have sinned against

Page 84 the Lord God of Israel . . . when I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and . . . silver and gold . . . then I coveted them, and took them; and, behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent."

Notice the sequence: "I saw . . . I coveted . . . I took."

Sin begins with a look or a thought.

In Thomas à Kempis' famous description of the successive steps of a successful temptation he says, "There is first the bare thought of the sin; then upon that there is a picture of the sin formed and hung on the secret screen of the imagination. The strange sweetness from that picture is then let down drop by drop into the heart, and then the secret sweetness soon secures the consent of the whole soul and the thing is done."

Achan's eyes had become his fatal snare. It was his eyes that caused Israel to suffer shameful defeat and later caused his own death.

It was through Adam's and Eve's eyes that the devil came into man's heart at first.

Immediately after Achan had surrendered to the temptation he should have come and confessed to Joshua, to God and to the entire camp of Israel. He would have been forgiven and God would have graciously cleansed him as He had cleansed David and many others of His servants. Instead, he covered his sin. He tried to hide it. He took the whole thing and buried it in his tent. This will never do!

I wonder if this has been the secret of your difficulty. Can this be why the joy and the thrill of your Christian experience is no more? Is this why your life is only a dying ember of a flame that once blazed? Achan never confessed his sin until he was found out! Thus he must suffer the consequences.

Remorse over being found out will never gain cleansing and forgiveness from God. Judas was filled with remorse but he never repented. David was guilty of both murder and adultery but he immediately confessed his sin and

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God graciously forgave him. (Even so, there were consequences to his sin that David had to endure.) God is able to restore a broken and contrite heart: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy" (Proverbs 28:13). "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and contrite heart O God, thou wilt not despise" (Psalm 51:17). "Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the Lord" (Jeremiah 3:13).

You know that thing in your life that has kept you from having victory. It may be malice, spite, hatred or enmity. It may be that you are carrying a grudge against someone, that you have an unforgiving spirit. Perhaps you have lost your temper, or possibly there was jealousy or envy. Perhaps you are too easily offended. You may be puffed up with pride. Dishonesty, gossiping, criticism, robbing God, worldliness, frivolity, worry and anxiousness, lustful thoughts, unbelief, prayerlessness, neglect of God's Word — any of these things both negative and positive could prevent the joy of salvation from swelling up in your soul and hinder the Holy Spirit's taking possession of your life. These are secret little sins. Many of them could be hidden from the view of men, but never from God. When you confess it, confess it by name. Don't say, "Lord, forgive my sins." Don't generalize. Make it definite. Then when you confess that sin, ask Him to give you the power and the strength to overcome it. He will. He has promised. Take Him at His word. "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it" (1 Cor. 10:13).

There are certain sins that have been committed against

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God alone. This requires private confession. No one except God needs to know anything about them. It is a family matter, just between you and Him. There are other sins that have been committed against another person. Such transgressions should be confessed not only to God but also to the one who has been wronged. There will never be peace until the confession has been made and forgiveness sought. "Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift" (Matthew 5:23-24).

There are other sins that have been committed against the church, the family, a class, an organization and similar groups. These should be public confessions. Let us uncover our sin. Let us make straight the crooked ways. Let us gather out the stones, and then we may ask in faith and expectancy for showers of blessing upon our lives. Perhaps your sin is still covered. Perhaps you committed it years ago and have almost forgotten about it. Remember — time never covers sin. Because you have forgotten it does not mean that God has forgotten it. Be sure your sins will find you out.

A little boy down South was hungrily watching a watermelon patch on a hot June day. His father realized what was taking place in his son's mind and so he said, "Son, don't touch those watermelons. They are not ripe yet. They will make you sick." The father got into his automobile, went off to town on business and left the boy. The little boy decided to investigate for himself, so he began to thump the melons here and there and finally he found one that he knew was ripe. Cautiously looking around, he soon convinced himself that no one was looking. He plucked the melon, put it under his overalls, carried it to a creek, cooled it, took it out and broke it over a stone. "Boy, oh, boy!" he exclaimed as he ate the heart. Nothing tasted

Page 87 better than a nice cold watermelon on a nice sunny day. Then he began to worry, for his father would see the rind and the seeds and the boy knew that would mean a real thrashing. So he took a little stick, dug a hole, buried the rind and the seeds, covered them with dirt, fixed pine leaves in place and went merrily on his way, thinking that his father would never discover his disobedience.

Everything was all right for about two weeks. The boy soon forgot the incident until one day his father was driving a cow up the pasture and coming to a barbed-wire fence, he saw, to his astonishment, a strange sight. He saw little watermelon sprouts everywhere. Taking a stick, he dug until the evidence confirmed his suspicions. "Oh, I see." A couple of hours later the little boy saw, too — in a different place!

You covered that thing yesterday, a month ago, a year ago, ten years ago, but God saw, and He says, "Be sure your sin will find you out." The chicken will come home to roost someday. The skeleton will come out of the closet. The watermelon seed will sprout.

Confess your sin now. There will be joy, glorious victory, happiness, wonderful peace awaiting you this very moment if you call your sin by name and straighten it out with God, yourself and your fellow man.

Can secret sin be the awful cause of your tragic experience?

The Dakota took off from the Copenhagen airport. Everyone was gay and happy. It was a special event. The passengers included Prince Gustav of Sweden, and Grace Moore, the famous opera singer. Into the air the plane roared — it was a normal routine flight — when suddenly something happened. The nose shot up, the motor stalled and to the horror and amazement of hundreds of spectators, the plane plunged earthward.

An explosion, a flash and the flight that had started a few moments before ended in tragic horror and death.,

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The world was shocked.

Investigation later proved that a small block on the tail had not been removed. A ground attendant had been careless. One little wood block had caused the death of a prince, a world-renowned singer and nineteen other passengers.

One small, tiny, insignificant sin may be the cause of all your difficulty. Confess and forsake. God is plenteous in mercy and will abundantly pardon.

Youth's Hero

Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Psalm 16:11).

FIFTEEN young Marines of World War II stood on Iwo Jima receiving their orders from a lieutenant. The battle was raging hot and heavy all around, but all unknown to them a lone Japanese sailor was slipping cautiously from boulder to boulder behind them. In his hand was a grenade. Just as the lieutenant was finishing his directions the arm of the Japanese sailor flashed, the grenade was thrown, and just as it was about to land, in a split second, Jim, a young Marine from Louisiana, saw it out of the corner of his eye. Without thinking of his own life he pounced upon the grenade as it exploded and sent him into a hundred pieces. But his comrades escaped with only minor injuries.

As I read that story in a magazine I thought, This young fellow Jim will go down in the annals of American history as a great American hero. He gave his life for his friends. He died in the line of duty.

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You know, there is something about American young people that makes us love heroes of every type, whether they be on the cinder track, the baseball diamond, the gridiron or in a tank.

I shall never forget how in my first year in high school Babe Ruth, the great "King of Swat," came to my small home town to play a great exhibition game. Of course, all of us kids were on the front seat shouting and yelling at the top our lungs. My father, who had taken us to the game, arranged for me to shake hands with the great Babe. I will never forget the thrill of shaking hands with this fellow who was the idol of our young hearts. I remember I didn't wash my hands for about three days. On the next day I went back to school. I was envied by all my friends, for it was known throughout the school that I had had the privilege of shaking hands with America's great baseball hero.

During my last years in high school my keenest ambition was to be a professional baseball player. I shall never forget how, as I played on the sandlots of North Carolina, I used to dream of someday playing at Wrigley Field. Of course, these are dreams of a million high-school kids. I used to read every word in the papers about my favorite baseball heroes, Lou Gehrig, Schoolboy Rowe, Babe Ruth and others.

At the age of seventeen, after finishing a high school game, I was invited to go to church one evening. I was told that a "fighting" preacher was going to preach. If there was going to be a scrap or a fight my interest was immediately aroused and so, forsaking my studies, I went to church that particular evening. To my amazement, it was a great evangelistic campaign, and some five thousand people had gathered. The clergy and the laymen of our town were conducting a united effort. I sat in the rear of the building, curiously watching all the strange happenings. I was not quite sure what was going to take place next.

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I had always thought of religion as being more or less "sissy" and a fellow who was going to be an athlete would have no time for such "sissy" stuff. It was all right for old people and girls, but not for a real "he man" with red blood in his veins. I had gone to church, but that was as far as it went.

This night a great giant of a man stood and began to preach in such a way as I had never heard a man preach. About halfway through his message he pointed in my direction and said, "Young man, you are a sinner." I thought he was talking straight at me. I ducked behind the person who was sitting in front of me and hid my face. The idea of his calling me a sinner! "Why, I am as good as anybody. I live a good clean healthy moral life. I am a member of the church!" I told myself. But then he began to quote various verses from Scripture. "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God," "There is none righteous no, not one," and others. For the first time in my life I began to realize that I was a sinner, that my soul was bound for hell, and that I needed a Saviour. When the invitation was given, I rushed out into the night and made my way home. I will never forget the struggle that followed. All night long I wrestled and fought. The next day I could hardly wait for evening so that I could get back to the service. This night I sat near the front and the preacher got up again but this time he seemed to smile at me, and said in tenderest tones that God commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

I thought, This is for me! I am a sinner. God loves me. When the invitation was given, I made my way to the front with the others, gave my hand to the preacher and my heart to the Saviour. Immediately joy, peace and assurance flooded my soul. My sins which were many were gone, and for the first time I had met the Person who became

Page 92 the Hero of my life, and after eleven years He is still the One I idolize. I had sought thrills; I found them in Christ. I had looked for something that would bring perfect joy and happiness; I found it in Christ. I had looked for something that would bring pleasure and that would satisfy the deepest longing of my heart; I found it all in Christ. "In thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." Christ had become the Hero and the Idol of my heart and soul. He challenges, thrills and satisfies.

At the age of thirty-six, William Jennings Bryan swept the Democratic Convention off its feet by his powerful and brilliant oratory. At this early age he was nominated to the presidency of the United States. But the Hero of my soul stood before the doctors and philosophers of His day and astounded them by His knowledge of their laws, statutes and science. The same God-man, Jesus Christ, after nineteen hundred years is the answer to every problem facing young people in this twentieth century. He has the blueprint for your life. If you want to get the very best out of life and enjoy it to the fullest, if you want a life full of zest, push, adventure, excitement, gaiety and thrills, let Him have full control as Lord and Master not only of your soul but of your life. In the darkest hour He can direct and lead over the roughest path. He knows the safest place for the sole of your foot to touch. He who knows the end from the beginning can lead and direct.

We are told that Enrico Caruso could sing with such volume that he could break a glass tumbler twelve feet away, and that if his voice were put in an ordinary throat it would shatter it. But I know a Person who, while the storm was raging in all its oriental fury, the lightning flashing, the thunder roaring, the wind howling, the sea sending up its angry billows, stood in a storm-tossed little boat filled with fearful men, beckoned to the wind, and said, "Peace, be still." The angry sea subsided, the wind was hurled back

Page 93 into the north, the clouds folded like a scroll, the stars and moon peeped through, the thunder was heard no more, and the lightning fled at the power of the voice of the Man of Galilee.

Some of you today are on a troubled and treacherous sea. Your life seems to be filled with troubles, difficulties, miseries and a smiting conscience. It seems at times that your little boat is about to sink. I invite you to yield your body and soul to the touch of this God-man who can transform your life and speak peace to your troubled heart. "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid" (John 14:27).

Marconi experimented with radio so successfully that today one can turn a dial and get to the other side of the globe, but I know a Man who sits at the right hand of God the Father, a Man who can hear the cry of thousands who cry unto Him, "God be merciful to me, a sinner." I can hear you saying, "I am not a sinner. I live a good life. Why should I be converted?" The Bible thunders back, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way," "The wages of sin is death" and "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." "According to the Word of God, everyone of us has broken the law of God. We have sinned and deserved death, but today, just where you are, you can cry, like the publican of old, "God be merciful to me, a sinner," and He will hear and answer by saving your soul. Aga Khan has been called the world's richest man. We are told that every year he gets his weight in gold from his loyal subjects and every twenty-five years his weight in diamonds. He weighs more than two hundred and fifty pounds. But I know a Man who owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He owns the gold and the silver and all the resources of the world, and He says to me, His child

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"It is all yours! I will supply all your needs according to My riches in glory by Christ Jesus."

When you accept Christ as Saviour you are immediately adopted into the family of God and become a joint-heir with Christ. It is by adoption that you can become a prince or princess in the royal family of God. Think of it — royal blood flowing through your veins, an aristocrat born from on high! What a thrill surges through your heart as you contemplate such a privilege!

Young people everywhere come to me and say, "If I become a Christian I will have to give up so much. You can't have a good time and be a Christian." Listen, young people, you do not begin to live until you know Christ. The young people around the world today who are having the best time are the young people who know Jesus Christ as their Saviour. They know what real living is. I have heard the hollow, shallow laughter of the world. I have heard the genuine laughter of the beaming young Christian. I know there is a difference.

A young fellow got off the train in south Illinois some months ago to play for me in a service. He had just been saved and thought that to be a Christian one should have a long face, a sober and gloomy expression, and should never smile or laugh. When he stepped from the train he was wearing a black unpressed drape suit, black socks, black shoes, a black tie, a dirty blue shirt and black horn-rimmed glasses! He thought that this was the proper attire and countenance for a Christian. I was bowled over with amusement and asked him to come with me. We went to the business district. I bought him a red tie, a white shirt, a red handkerchief and red socks, had his shoes shined, his suit pressed, and told him to get a big smile on his face, which he gladly did. We went to the youth rally and had a glorious time. There were more than one hundred and fifty conversions.

A few months ago I met him in another city where he

Page 95 was residing. He came up to me after the service. He wore a great big red bow-tie and was smiling from ear to ear. He asked, "How am I doing?" I said, "Boy, you are cooking with gas now. That's the stuff!" Christ wants you to have a good time, enjoy life to the full and get all you can out of it, remembering to put Him first and in the prominent place twenty-four hours a day.

There is nothing that will discourage unconverted young people so much as the thought of living a solemn, sober, gloomy, uninteresting life. We have nothing to be ashamed of. Get a smile on your face. Walk down the street with your shoulders back. Dress as attractively as you can. You are an aristocrat, a child of God. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Paul said, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ . . . in whom also we have obtained an inheritance . . . that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ." We have been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. We are men and women of eternity.

Abraham Lincoln has been called the "Great Emancipator." With one stroke of his pen he set free millions of slaves, but I know a Man, the Hero of my soul, who died on the Cross of Calvary nineteen hundred years ago to set me free from the bonds, fetters, ropes and chains of sin. Satan had blinded me. Scales were on my eyes. I was completely bound. I had nothing to pay. I could do no work that would be accounted for righteousness. I was helpless and hopeless before a Holy God, recognizing that I deserved eternal banishment from His presence, when one day I made my way to His pierced feet and embraced His offer of mercy. My only plea was that He had invited me to come.

Many of you have found it thus, and discovered also that "with the Lord there is mercy, and . . . plenteous redemption." You heard Him say, "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out," and your heart leaped for joy. He had

Page 96 redeemed you, bought you, paid the awful price for your sins, and while you were at the stake, tied and bound by Satan, and about to suffer for eternity, by faith you looked up into His blessed face, and that look of faith was enough! He stooped, cut the chains and ropes, and now you are at liberty, and freedom is yours for eternity. "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." We are not redeemed "with corruptible things, such as silver and gold . . . but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot."

After all these glorious and magnificent things that this God-man called Christ has done for us, no wonder we are thrilled to call Him the hero of our lives and the idol of our hearts! In His presence is "fulness of joy," and at His right hand there are "pleasures forevermore."

A tough young Marine said one day, "I don't believe in God. I don't care about your Christ. I am a Marine. I am tough. Religion is for "sissies," "old people" and "women," not for a real "he man"!

Later he was stationed at Dutch Harbor, Alaska. The Japanese started dropping their bombs. The Marine was riding in a jeep around a little land-locked harbor. Thinking one of these bombs might be meant for him, he jumped off the jeep, hid behind a lumber pile and started praying with all his might. God had mercy upon him, answered his prayer and saved his soul.

Right now you can come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ by simple faith in Him. All you have to do is to confess Him as Lord and Saviour and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. He will do the rest!

A Scarlet Thread

For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul (Leviticus 17:11).

THE sun was riding high in a Mexican sky. Hundreds of people were gathered at the foot of the ancient pyramid. It was 1300 A.D. Since early morning they had been waiting anxiously for the great event. By the sundial it was almost time! Suddenly a great shout arose; for as they gazed as far as they could see across the lake, they saw a little boat coming their way. As the boat approached they could discern the figure of a young Indian, handsome, athletic, in the prime of life. As this young Indian slowly paddled his boat to the sandy beach, the jewels on his magnificent garment glistened in the sunlight. Slowly and deliberately, with a dead-pan expression, he made his way through a path which the crowd gladly made for him, toward the pyramid, while garlands of tropical flowers were thrown for his path. Scores knelt and cried, "Take

Page 98 my sins . . . Take my sins . . . Take my sins" or "Remember me . . . Remember me . . . Remember me."

Just as he reached the stone steps leading to the summit, priests came and quickly stripped him of all his garments. Blue, white, red and yellow paint was put on his body. After preparation and more prayers, alone he slowly climbed the hundred pyramid steps. The crowd waited anxiously, breathlessly, excitedly. At last he reached the top. Out of nowhere stepped six priests. Quickly four gripped each limb of his body and quickly bent him over a convex stone. A fifth held his head. A sixth priest had a long, curved, jeweled knife, sharp as a razor's edge. Looking toward the small temple erected on the top of the pyramid and gazing at the face of the stone-carved god, the Indian chanted a few syllables. Like a flash the knife pierced the heart of the young man. A skillful twist and the heart was out.

Each priest reached madly into the place where the heart had been and sprinkled his face with the warm blood. The heart, still palpitating, was rubbed over the face of the image. The twitching body was thrown, head first, over the side of the pyramid. A mad scramble followed. Knives flashed. Each person scrambled to get a piece of flesh to take home for use in a communion service which would bring added blessing.

The sun was sinking over the western horizon when the crowd melted in the distance. Each felt that his sins were forgiven and that the evils that had come upon himself or his family were now atoned for. This was not an unusual scene to the ancient Aztecs, for it happened somewhere in their domain every day. They had eighteen months of twenty days each on their calendar, and each day there were many gods and goddesses to receive sacrifices. Thus twenty thousand human beings a year were slaughtered on the altars of ancient Mexico.

These ancient people engaged in constant warfare to get their

Page 99 sacrificial victims from neighboring tribes and nations, for the victim sacrificed must be innocent of the particular sins and evils that were to be atoned for. Thus he must come from outside the realm. He must be young and without physical blemish. For many months before the sacrifice he was carefully trained and was treated in many respects as a god. He was the substitute bearing the sins of the people.

In Athens, the cultural center of the ancient world, when a plague struck the city, usually a man of the poorer class offered himself as a sacrifice to atone for the sins of the people. After prayer and confession was made he was taken outside the city and stoned to death. The people thought that as his blood oozed from his wounds, atonement was made for their sins.

In Thrace, several men were sacrificed every year to purify the city.

In Saxony, as late as 785 it was necessary to prohibit human sacrifice.

The Persians always sacrificed the first captive in their battle, thinking that it brought them good luck with their god.

In ancient Egypt, at the City of the Sun, three men, after being scrutinized to see if they were free from blemishes, were stripped and sacrificed every day of the year.

The Scythians cut out the heart of one out of every hundred captives. The blood was caught in a vessel and poured over the altar, and the flowing blood was thought to appease their gods.

In Dahomey, Africa, between Nigeria and the Gold Coast, a royal execution takes place each year. A platform of branches is built. While thousands of people are clamoring and working themselves into hysteria, priests cut the throats of goats, cattle and chickens and throw them down; those below smear themselves with the blood. To climax the slaughter, scores of innocent human beings taken in

Page 100 battle with neighboring tribes are slaughtered in a similar manner. This is done to appease the gods.

We could give you example after example, such as the sacrifice of the morning star by the Pawnee Indians, or we could tell you that only a few years ago the United States Government had to send troops into New Mexico to prevent the constant shedding of blood in religious ceremonies.

In his book The Golden Bough, Frazer makes the startling revelation that 90 percent of the world's population have practiced human sacrifice in religious ceremonies at some stage in their history.

Dr. Alexander Grigolia, the great Christian anthropologist, states that the percentage is more like 95 percent.

"Where do these beliefs and practices originate?" you ask?

Dr. Grigolia tells us that his research reveals that it is innate in man to believe that he has wronged or sinned against his god or gods, and that the only way of appeasement or atonement is by the blood sacrifice of some sort. Did these practices originate in some mythological unknown past? Were these superstitions something that "just happened"? Or was there a basis at the dawn of history for such practices that have later corrupted into the orgies that we have described? The answer is found in the Bible!

BIBLICAL ATONEMENT

"Without shedding of blood is no remission," declares the Word of God. There is a scarlet thread of blood from Genesis to Revelation, for God taught man from the very beginning that the only approach to God was by the blood.

A young person said to me some time ago in London, "How repulsive! You don't mean to tell us that your religion is a slaughterhouse religion?" Another young man said to me in Stockholm, Sweden, one night after a message by Charles Templeton, "I cannot understand why God

Page 101 demands blood." A young lawyer in Manchester came to the inquiry room, and his first statement was: "I would accept your Christ if I could understand the meaning of the shed blood." A young United States Marine said to me one day on a plane from Los Angeles to San Francisco, "I cannot understand why Christ had to die for me." These questions are common and natural among the young people of today. They demand explanations and answers.

Some months ago after I had given a message at a large southern resort on "The Meaning of the Cross," a former professor at Cornell University came to me and said, "Young man, I enjoyed your message, but if you want to be a successful preacher you will have to leave out that 'Blood Stuff.' It is out of date. No enlightened man of the twentieth century will swallow that."

However, any man who accepts the Bible as the Word of God must come to the conclusion that Christianity is a religion of atonement. Its redemption feature distinguishes Christianity from any and all other religions. If you separate this distinctive religious doctrine from its creed, this supreme religion is brought down to the level of many other prevailing religious systems. Christianity is not merely a system of ethics. It is the story of redemption through Jesus Christ.

Let us make a hasty sketch of this doctrine of blood which is taught in the Word of God. Even in the Garden of Eden we see it. Adam and Eve had sinned. God had said, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." They believed Satan's lie rather than God's truth. They ate. Thus they died. Immediately they saw themselves naked. They were afraid. Instead of becoming gods as Satan had told them, they found that in actuality they had broken God's law and were now naked, alone and fearful. They ran into the bushes to hide, but they were still afraid. They gathered huge fig leaves, sewed them together,

Page 102 and made themselves aprons to cover their nakedness. Often in the cool of the day God would come to walk with Adam and Eve. This time they hid from His presence. God called to Adam and said to him, "Where art thou?" and Adam said, "I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself." Immediately the earth, the serpent, the man and the woman were cursed.

God is a holy God! He is purer than to behold evil and cannot behold iniquity (Hab. 1:13). He went into the forest and the Scripture says in Genesis 3:21, "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them. Thus blood was shed for the first time. God was teaching man in the very beginning that the only way he could possibly approach a holy God was through shed blood.

Adam and Eve were sinners; thus they begat sinners: Cain and Abel. "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Romans 5:12).

Cain and Abel were reared together; they lived together; they had the same advantage, the same environment, the same heredity. Cain decided to be a farmer. Abel became a rancher. The time of the year came when they were to bring their firstfruits to God. Cain had worked hard to make the firstfruits of his crop as attractive as possible. Abel went out into the herd, slew a lamb and brought it to God as a sacrifice. God had already taught them that the only way they could approach Him was by blood. Cain had ignored it. He came in his own way. He brought the fruit of the ground. Though he had labored long and hard, yet his righteousness was counted as filthy rags. It must be God's way or not at all. God rejected it! Abel's sacrifice was accepted. He probably did not work

Page 103 as hard as Cain, but his sacrifice was blood. He had come in obedience and God accepted his sacrifice.

There are thousands of people today that are coming to God on the merits of their own works. Either they are sewing on fig leaves or bringing the fruits of their own labors. But God sees through the fig leaves and denounces their works. Salvation is by blood, and by blood alone! Man has no merit or work that God can accept.

The first thing Noah did after leaving the ark was to offer a sacrifice: "Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl and offered burnt offerings on the altar" (Genesis 8:20). Noah, too, walked the highway of blood.

The story of the Passover is well known to us all. In every house of Egypt the first-born was smitten by the destroying angel who, at midnight, passed through the land. God said, "The blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt." The Egyptians and the Israelites in many cases dwelt near each other, and so a sign must be set on the door of every Israelitish house that the destroying angel might not enter there to slay.

The sign was the blood of a lamb slain by the father of the family. It was to be sprinkled on the doorpost. It was to be an assurance by which the Israelite might have entire confidence concerning the safety of his family. The blood was to be a token of redemption. The death of the lamb was to be considered as taking the place of the death which each man had deserved by sin. That night in Egypt they were busy buying and selling, eating and drinking, living delicately and boasting about their power and wisdom. The devil has lulled thousands to sleep by the business and enjoyment of the day. Hundreds had not believed the Word of God. They were not prepared. The

Page 104 blood was not sprinkled! God had said, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you," not "when I see your good works," not "when I see your good intentions or motives." The only thing that counted that night was whether the blood was sprinkled on the doorpost or not!

It is recorded that on the Passover night there was an old gray-haired man who lived in the house of his first-born son, and he himself was the first-born son of his father. His son also had a first-born son. Thus there were three first-born sons in the house, all of whom must die if the destroying angel entered the house. The old man lying on his bed, sick, but he heard with interest everything his son told him about God's command to Moses. Toward evening he was often restless as he thought of their danger, and he said, "My son, are you sure that you have done everything that has been prescribed?" His answer was: "Yes, Father, everything." For a moment he was satisfied. Then he asked again, "Are you sure? Has the blood been sprinkled on the door?" Again the answer was "Yes, Father, everything has been done according to the command." The nearer it came to midnight, the more restless he became. Finally he cried, "My son, carry me out if you please, that I may see it, and then I can rest." The son carried his father to a place where he could see the blood on the doorpost and the lintel. "Now I am satisfied," he cried. "Thank God! Now I know that I am safe!"

In the awful day of judgment when you stand alone before God, the only thing that will count is the blood of the Crucified One. Has it been sprinkled by faith on your heart's door? Soon the death angel will be passing by. Be sure the blood is there.

All through the Old Testament God taught His people by type, by symbol, by illustration, that their only approach to Him was by shed blood.

To Moses he said, "Thou shalt also take one ram; and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head

Page 105 of the ram. And thou shalt slay the ram, and thou shalt take his blood, and sprinkle it round about the altar" (Exodus 29:15-16).

In it all God was teaching man how He hates sin. The holiness of God is the message of the entire Old Testament. To the prophets God was absolutely the Holy One, the One with eyes too pure to behold evil, the One swift to punish iniquity. It is His holiness by which God desires to be remembered, as that is the attribute that glorifies Him. It is this vision of God that we so desperately need today when the tendency to deny the reality and the prevalence of sin is so evident. Superficial views of God and His holiness will produce superficial views of sin and atonement. God hates sin. It is His uncompromising foe. Sin is vile and detestable in the sight of God. Abraham's sin had raised a partition wall. The infinite difference between the sinner and God is caused by sin. The sinner and God are at opposite poles of the moral universe.

Again, God was teaching by the shedding of blood on Jewish altars the tremendous fact of substitution. Innocent blood must be shed if the sinner is to be justified and God remain just and holy.

But all these Old Testament sacrifices were only types and symbols of the Great Sacrifice: "For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins" (Hebrews 10:1-4).

These Old Testament sacrifices were good only in that they were made good by Christ, who was slain before the foundation of the world. They were not the very image

Page 106 of the things, for shadows are only outlines. Shadows do not give details or colors and perspective. Old Testament believers looked forward to the death of Christ and were justified thereby. New Testament saints looked back to Calvary and were at peace with God.

WHY DOES GOD DEMAND BLOOD?

Young people ask this question perhaps more than any other. Let's see if we can find an answer.

Go back with me in your imagination to Eden for a moment. God said, "In the day that thou eatest of this particular tree, thou shalt surely die." Man ate it. He died. Suppose that God had said, "Adam you just made a mistake! That was a slight error on your part! You are forgiven, but please don't do it again." Reverently speaking, I say that God would have been a liar. He would have not been holy; neither would He have been just. He was forced by His very nature to keep His word. God's justice was at stake. Men had to die spiritually and physically. His iniquities had separated between him and his God. Thus man had to suffer. He had to pay for his own sins. Each of his children's children had to pay for their own sins.

The question is: How can God be just and still justify the sinner? It must be remembered that the word "justify" means the clearance of the soul from guilt. Justification is infinitely more than forgiveness. Sin must be put away and made as though it had not been! For justification the soul must be put into a place of purity, so restored that there shall be no spot or blemish or stain.

How can God be "just," that is, true to Himself in nature and true to Himself in holiness and yet justify the sinner that is to receive Him upon the basis of freedom from sin? Each man had to bear his own sins! Life must be extracted from each individual Let us go back to our text: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood." When the blood is extracted life disappears and death follows. Page 107

The only solution to the problem was for an innocent party voluntarily to give his blood, an act which would be followed by death, as a substitution before God for the death that was ever man's due. Where was such an individual? Alas, there was none on earth, for "all have sinned." There was only one possibility! God's own Son was the only personality in the universe who had the capacity to bear in His own body the sins of the world.

But would He? If He did, He would have to come to earth, live as a man, be despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He would have to bear our griefs and carry our sorrows. Then He would have to be smitten of God and separated from God, be wounded for our transgressions, be bruised for our iniquities, receive stripes that we might be healed, be oppressed and afflicted. Then, in a dark moment, God would lay on Him the iniquity of us all. He would have to make Himself of no reputation. He would have to take the form of a servant. He would have to be made in the likeness of men. He would have to humble Himself and become obedient unto death. He would have to grapple with sin. In the form of sinful flesh he would have to meet and overcome Satan, the enemy of man's soul. He would have to buy sinners out of the slave market of sin. He would have to loose the bonds and set the prisoners free by paying a price. That price would be his own blood. He would have to be a propitiation, a covering, as the mercy seat covered by the ark. He would have to reconcile, by the blood, man to God. He would have to be a substitute. He would have to die in the place of sinful man. All this would have to be done not by force, but willingly!

Hallelujah! That is exactly what happened!

Looking down over the battlements of heaven, He saw this planet swing into space, doomed, damned, crushed and bound for hell. He saw you and me struggling beneath our load of sin and bound in the chains and ropes of sin.

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He made His decision in the council halls of God. The angelic hosts bowed in humility and awe as heaven's Prince of princes and Lord of lords, who could speak worlds into space, got into His jeweled chariot, went through pearly gates, across the steep of the skies, and on a black Judean night, while the stars sang together and the escorting angels chanted His praises, stepped out of the chariot, threw off His robes and became sinful flesh. Jesus Christ partook of flesh and blood in order that He might die (Hebrews 2:14). "He was manifested to take away our sins" (1 John 3:5). Christ came into this world to give His life for many (Matthew 20:28). The very purpose of the coming of Christ into the world in all its aspects was that by assuming a nature like our own He might offer up His life as a sacrifice for the sins of men. He came to die. He came to have His blood extracted. The shadow of His death hung like a pall over His entire thirty-three years. He suffered as no man had ever suffered: the night watches in Gethsemane; the light of the torches as they flashed upon the darkness of the night; the kiss of the traitor; the arrest; the trial before the high priest; the hour of waiting; the palace of the Roman governor; the journey to the palace of Herod; the rough handling by Herod's brutal soldiery; the awful scenes through which Pilot strove to save Him while priests and people clamored for His blood; the scourging; the howling multitudes; the path from Jerusalem to Golgotha; the nails in His hands; the spikes through His feet; the crown of thorns upon His brow; the sarcastic and mocking cry, "You have saved others. Now save Yourself."

Through these awful hours, into which eternities were compressed, in silence He endured the Cross, despising the shame. As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth. He underwent physical suffering, died physically that men might some day be clothed with bodies of immortality.

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He voiced neither complaint nor appeal but simply a statement by which he let us know in two words something of the physical pain He suffered when He said, "I thirst." The blood was being extracted! God demanded death, either for the sinner or a substitute! Christ was the substitute!

Gabriel and ten legions of angels hovered on the rim of the universe, their swords unsheathed. One look from His blessed face and they would have swept the angry, shouting multitudes into hell. The spikes never held Him. It was the cords of love that bound tighter than any nails that men could mold. But the physical suffering of Jesus Christ was not the real suffering. Many men before Him had died. Many men had become martyrs, but the awful suffering of Jesus Christ was the dying spiritually. It was when He had reached the final issue of sin, had fathomed the deepest sorrow, it was when God turned His back and hid His face, that He cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Alone in the supreme hour of the history of mankind, Christ uttered these words. Light blazed forth and gave us a glimpse of what He was enduring, but the light was so blinding that no eye could bear to gaze. The words were uttered, as someone has said, "That man may know, and that man may know how much there is that may not be known."

He who knew no sin was made to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. On the Cross He was made sin. He was God-forsaken. Because He knew no sin there is a value in the penalty which He bore that He does not need for Himself. If in bearing sin in His own body he created a value that he did not need for Himself, for whom is the value? For me! For you! He bore my sins in His body upon the tree!

As another has said, "Behold Him on the Cross, bending His sacred head and gathering unto His heart in the awful isolation of separation from God the issue of the sin of the

Page 110 world, and see how out of that acceptance of the issue of sin He creates that which He doesn't require for Himself that He may distribute to those whose place He has taken."

Standing overwhelmed in the presence of this of this suffering, feeling my own inability to understand or explain, and with a great sense of might and majesty overwhelming me, I hear the next words that passed His lips: "It is finished." Hallelujah! Thanks be to God! How in the depth of the darkness it was accomplished, man will never know. I know only one thing: He bore my sins in His body upon the tree. He stood where I should have stood. The pains of hell that were my portion were heaped on Him, and I am able to pass through the pearly gates into heaven and merit that which is not my own but is His by every right.

All the types, the offerings, the shadows and the symbols of the Old Testament were now fulfilled. No longer do the priests have to enter once a year into the holiest place. The sacrifice was penal, substitutional, redemptive, propitiatory, reconciliatory, efficacious and revelatory and as "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many" (Hebrews 9:27-28). "But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down at the right hand of God" (Hebrews 10:12), and God says, "Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." We now should exercise a boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which He has consecrated for us through the vale. Old Testament saints looked forward to this grand and glorious event by faith. Every time the priest put his hand upon the head of the lamb he was giving evidence of his faith that one day the Lamb of God would come to take away the sins of the world.

THE RESULTS OF THE BLOOD ATONEMENT

First: It redeems — 1 Peter 1:18-19: "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things,

Page 111 as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot."

Not only are we redeemed from the hands of the devil but, hallelujah, from the hands of the law. The law condemned me, but Christ satisfied every claim. All the gold, the silver and the precious stones of earth could never have bought me. What they could not do, the blood of Christ did. Redemption means "buying back." We had sold ourselves for nothing, and Christ redeemed and bought us back.

Second: It brings us nigh — Ephesians 2:13: "But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ."

When we were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world, Jesus Christ brought us nigh unto God. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus."

Third: It makes peace — Colossians 1:20: "And having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven."

The world will never know peace until it finds it in the Cross of Jesus Christ. Dwight L. Moody used to tell this story about the American Civil War.

"When many men were deserting from the South, Secretary Stanton sent out a notice from the War Department that no more refugees be taken into the Union army. A Southern soldier hadn't seen that, and he came into the Union lines. They read the order to him, and he didn't know what to do. If he went back into the Southern army, he would be shot as a deserter, and the Northern army wouldn't have him. So he went into the woods between

Page 112 the armies and stayed until he got starved out. He saw an officer going by, and he rushed out of the woods and told this officer that if he wouldn't help him he would have to take his own life. The officer asked what was the trouble. He told him. The officer said, 'Haven't you heard the news'?

"No, what news?"

"Why, the war is over. Lee has surrendered. Peace is declared. Go to the first town, and get all the food you want."

"The man waved his hat and went to the town as quickly as he could.

(Moody continued) "I want to say that peace is declared, and the war is over! Be ye reconciled to God, and the whole thing will be settled. The trouble is on your side. The blood is on the mercy seat, and as long as it is there, the vilest sinner can enter and be saved for time and eternity."

Fourth: It justifies — Romans 5:9: "Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him."

It changes men's standing before God. It is a change from guilt and condemnation to pardon and forgiveness. The forgiven sinner is not like the discharged prisoner who has served out his term and is discharged from every punishment, but with no rights of citizenship. The repentant sinner receives back under His pardon, through the blood of Jesus Christ, the full rights of citizenship. "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us" (Romans 8:33-34).

Fifth: It cleanses — 1 John 1:7: "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin."

The key word in this verse is all — not part of our sins,

Page 113 but all of them. Every lie you ever told, every mean, lowdown, dirty thing you ever did, your hypocrisy, your lustful thoughts — all are cleansed by the precious blood of Jesus.

Dr. Oswald J. Smith has thus described the picture of Barabbas on the day of the Crucifixion: It was night. Another day had gone, and all was still. But what matter? It was always night in the cold, clammy dungeon where Barabbas lay. The sun now and then did manage to penetrate the inky blackness that ever reigned beneath the surface of the ground. But even then it could not be called light; it was only less dark.

And yet there was a difference, for this particular night it was the night of doom for the murderer who awaited the execution of his awful sentence. It was the last night on earth for him, and well he knew it. His career was ended; his last crime committed.

Back in the darkest corner he crouched, deep in thought. A few more hours and all would be over. Ah, but would it? In the morning he would hear the footfall of the death warden as he came along the corridor. Then for a moment it would cease as he paused before the door of his dungeon. The great key would clank in the lock, the bolt fly back, and the heavy door swing slowly open. And then he would be dragged out, led to the fatal spot, and nailed to a cross. And there for hours, it might be, he would suffer the most excruciating agony that Roman ingenuity could devise, exposed to the public gaze of an indifferent populace; for he must pay the penalty of his crimes.

In the morning he did hear the steps of the jailer coming along the corridor. The key was placed in the lock. The bolt did fly back, and in another moment the great door was opened. And Barabbas still crouched in the darkest corner as before. But that was as far as his surmises of the night were realized.

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"Barabbas, have you heard the Good News?" It was the warden's voice, jubilant and strong.

"What Good News?" retorted the condemned man in a bitter tone. "All I know is that this is the day of my execution, and that you have come to lead me out to be crucified for my crimes." And he shrank farther back against the cold, wet wall.

"Ah! but you don't know," replied the warden in the same triumphant tone. "Listen, Barabbas: Somebody died for you!"

"Somebody died for me! What do you mean?"

"Come with me, and I will show you, Barabbas."

"Through the door, along the corridor, past numerous cells, into the street, and beyond the wall of Jerusalem, they made their way, the jailer forging ahead, hurrying his dazed prisoner along. At last they paused.

"Do you see yonder cross?" he inquired, placing his hand on the shoulder of the other, and pointing to a hill some distance away.

The condemned man looked, but it was a few moments before he could comprehend the scene before him, so unaccustomed were his eyes to the light of day. But at last he saw and spoke. "Yes, I see. There are three, are there not?"

"But do you see the center one?"

"Yes."

"Well, Barabbas, that center cross was made for you, and you were to have died on it this morning."

"Slowly the light dawned and broke on his beclouded mind.

"Then, then that Man hanging on it is dying is my place, for me!"

"Yes, Barabbas, for you. Did I not tell you that Somebody died for you?"

"Can it be possible! For me, dying for me; taking my place! But, yes, that cross was made for me, and I should

Page 115 have been hanging there now. And yet He is dying in my stead. He has taken my place. I can't understand it. I don't know why He did it. But He did, and I can't help but believe it. He is really and truly dying for me."

"Yes, Barabbas, for you."

"And for you, too, sinner friend. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, hung there that day for you as well as for Barabbas. He took your place, died in your stead, became your Substitute, bore your sins, gave His life that you, a poor, lost and guilty sinner, might live."

Yes, the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, can cleanse from the vilest sin and make you whole this very moment. Believe it! Receive it! Accept it! Sprinkle it by faith! Plunge in the fountain!

There is a fountain filled with blood

Drawn from Emmanuel's veins

And sinners plunged beneath the flood

Lose all their guilty stains.

Hell

FLIGHT Twenty-one was late from Indianapolis on its way to Chicago. Anxiously peering out the window from time to time to see what progress we were making, I suddenly realized that we were nearing Gary. Suddenly the overcast sky seemed to be illuminated by a thousand fires. It seemed as if the earth was spouting forth huge flames many feet into the air.

The man sitting next to me smiled and said, "It looks like hell, doesn't it?" Without thinking, I hastily agreed. Later, fixed very comfortably in the corner of a limousine on its way from the airport to the Chicago Loop, I began to think about the recent incident. What is the nature of hell? Is hell a myth or a fantasy? Did it originate in the imagination of the ancients? Must it haunt us through life with a dread fear of death and its consequences?

These and a thousand other questions concerning the future dwelling place of the soul are frequent and natural inquiries among young people. In my travels I have met hundreds of young people with these same questions — even Christian young people!

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In our recent British campaigns, Cliff Barrows and I were in the city of Reading, England. I was about half-way through my sermon to the capacity crowd of young people when suddenly a man stood in the rear and shouted at the top of his lungs, "I protest. This man is preaching heresy to our young people." I suddenly realized that I had casually mentioned eternal punishment in the course of my address.

While a student at Wheaton College I was privileged to serve as pastor of the Wheaton Gospel Tabernacle, attended largely by students and faculty. Some of the zealous students on the campus had been trying to win to Christ some of the unbelieving servicemen stationed in that area for specialized training during the war. It seemed as if we were against a brick wall, as only a few responded to our methods of approach. One day the co-captain of the football team said to me excitedly that twenty of the servicemen had promised to attend my church next Sunday if would preach on the subject of hell. Quickly I agreed, and with the help of Dr. Howard Cleveland, Wheaton's professor of theology, I prepared an address. With curious expressions on their faces and neglect in their hearts, eighteen of those fellows filed in on Sunday night. When the appeal was made, eight responded to receive Christ as personal Saviour.

Some time ago it was my privilege to preach in a very large and "important" church. In the morning service I preached on the miracles of Christ. Everyone seemed to be thrilled and many spoke kindly. Being led of the Spirit, I presented a message on eternal punishment in the evening service. After the message the people filed out and no one present ventured to shake my hand. The pastor came to me later and said that I had preached on the most unpopular subject that a person could preach on in his church and that I would probably never be invited back again.

During the course of a great city-wide campaign in Manchester, England,

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I presented this message again. One of the leaders came to see me and said, "This is the first time I have heard a message on this subject since R.A. Torrey was here years ago." He said, "I don't think you made too many friends because you preached it." Most people like to hear about the love of God and glories of heaven, but there is no sermon subject more unpopular for a young preacher than the subject of eternal punishment. There is no subject that will cause more controversy, misunderstanding and debate than this topic. However, if we are true to the Word of God, we must deal in some way with this subject. It has a prominent part in Scripture. The Bible says more about hell than about heaven. Because truth is unpopular does not mean that it should not be proclaimed.

Since there are many questions in the minds of young people wherever I go, I find it necessary to deal continually with this subject in the light of Scripture.

Daniel must have had similar difficulties when he said, "O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things?" (Daniel 12:8). What is the end, the final testing, of the individual? Does he end at death, or does he enter into another state of being? Under what conditions of happiness or woe does he exist there? What is the end, the final aim, of the great whole?

Certainly we cannot tell young people not to ask these questions. They will ask them and they must ask them! I find, in conversations with young people, that they are seeking reality and are examining eagerly every scrap of fact or trace of evidence which indicates an answer. They try from the experiences of the past and the knowledge of the present to deduce what the future will be. They peer as far as they can into the unseen, and when knowledge fails, they weave pictures from their hopes. The truth concerning hell is probably the hardest of all the teachings of Christianity for youth to receive. If we ask

Page 119 the reason, we receive various answers. Some tell us that to hear about hell makes them feel guilty and that their consciences tell them that unless they repent and return to God, awful doom awaits them. I have had people tell me, "You should never mention hell to young people because it strikes horror to their hearts!"

A young university student in Newcastle, England, told me that teaching concerning hell was repulsive to him. A young woman in Belfast, Ireland, said that future anguish seemed incompatible with the fatherly love of God.

Many seminaries are teaching young ministerial aspirants to avoid this controversial subject. They are also teaching young students that fear is not a legitimate motive to use in winning men to Christ. Yet we cannot avoid a question that is in the minds of thousand of people and plays a prominent part in the Word of God. There must be no cowardliness in proclaiming the doctrine of future retribution, however awful its presentation may be.

I. OBJECTIONS

There are three primary teachings concerning the doctrine of hell that are finding widespread acceptance among university and college young people today. A. Universalism

This teaching finds its modern exponents in such men as Dr. Samuel Cox. They summarize their view in a sentence: "Through the power of redemption there will result the general restoration of all human souls."

Perhaps Tennyson had this in mind when he said, "The wish that of the living whole no life may fail beyond the grave." This view is held by the author of the Concordant Version, whose very purpose was to propagate this view of eternal punishment. This theory is pure speculation and has absolutely no scriptural background. In other words, they say that sometime, somewhere, everyone will

Page 120 be saved. They maintain that Dillinger, Hitler and Mussolini will go to the same place as Wesley and Moody. Cox and his followers believe that the word "eternal" or "everlasting" does not mean "forever." However, the same word which speaks of eternal punishment is used also in describing the length of reward to those in Christ.

Dr. William Evans says, "Fairness demands that we make the joy of the righteous and the punishment of the wicked both qualify as they are the same Greek word, are the same duration."

Eternal punishment will last as long as the joy of the righteous. Further, the Scriptures present the punishment of the wicked not only as eternal but, as the Revised Version puts it, "unto the ages of the ages." Here is the picture of ages tumbling upon ages in eternal succession: "And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up for ever and ever" (Rev. 19:3). "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever" (Rev. 20:10). "And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name" (Rev. 14:11).

B. Annihilation

Russellism, Millennial-Dawnism, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Watch Tower and Tract Society (their name changes so often that I am not sure what the latest is!) maintain that the wicked shall be absolutely destroyed and put out of existence at death. In other words, the moment you die, you cease to exist. Stress is laid upon passages dealing with destruction and consuming fire: "The text most strongly urged as teaching the annihilation theory if rightly interpreted will be seen to refer to the removal of the earth and not to future retribution" (Evans).

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For example, those who teach annihilation quote as a supporting text Psalm 37:20: "But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away." This Psalm was written for the encouragement of Israel and against her enemies and their power on the earth. This earthly power shall be utterly destroyed and shall be of no more account than the smoke of a burnt sacrifice. The great truth taught in this verse is that the earth is the habitation of the saint and that the wicked shall have no part in it. Yet our friends who advocate annihilation blindly take texts out of their context and build entire philosophies and doctrines around them. Many young people untaught in the Word are led astray by these zealous but blind missionaries of heresy.

C. Future Probation

In my early teens I listened frequently to sermons on this subject. Once I heard a prominent preacher say that after several thousands of years of suffering the wicked would have a second opportunity for salvation. This sounded good to me. I could live as I liked here and if I rejected salvation I would still have another chance! But as I study the Word of God carefully I do not find one verse of Scripture that even hints or indicates that there will be a second chance after death. God's Word strongly declares, "Now is the accepted time; behold now is the day of salvation." The Bible indicates that the moment your heart stops ticking and your last breath has gone, your last opportunity of salvation has gone also.

II. THE CERTAINTY OF PUNISHMENT

A. The Bible says so.

"I am tormented in this flame" (Luke 16:24). "Whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire" (Matthew 5:22).

"The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they

Page 122 shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 13:41-42).

"So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 13:49-50).

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41).

"And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go to hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9: 43-44).

"But he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (Matthew 3:12).

"In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power" (2 Thess. 1:8). "The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night" (Rev. 14:10-11).

"And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire" (Rev. 20:14-15).

"But the fearful, the unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and

Page 123 idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death" (Rev. 21:8).

There are scores of additional Scripture verses we could quote, but there is one in particular that I want you to notice.

A young man said to me some time ago, "My religion is the Sermon on the Mount. I don't believe in Hell." In Matthew 5:29 and 30 we read that as Jesus was in the midst of His Sermon on the Mount He said, "And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."

Yes! the New Testament is full of teaching concerning hell. Jesus, Paul, John and Peter spoke concerning it. If you accept any part of the Word of God, you must accept the fact that there is a place of punishment for those who reject God's plan of salvation.

B. All peoples have believed in it.

Throughout my college days I emphasized the subject of scientific anthropology. We studied the history, the culture, the physical characteristics and the religions of peoples the world over. We did not find one group of people who did not believe that somehow, somewhere, they would pay for their sins and errors against their God. Innate in the heart and mind of man is the belief that when he breaks the moral laws of the universe he must suffer. I make bold to say further that man believes innately that after death there will be some form of punishment for the wicked, wayward life he led in his sojourn here.

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C. Human experience teaches it.

Some years ago while helping in a Brush Arbor meeting in South Georgia I was called upon to visit a sick man. One evening I talked to him about the importance of life and death. With a half sneer he rejected God's plan. At two o'clock in the morning his family heard a scream from his room. They rushed in and found him writhing in dreadful pain as his life was slipping away. Suddenly, with his face in a contortion of agony, he shouted with all his remaining strength, "Lost! Lost! Lost!"

It is said that Voltaire, the French atheist, said as he lay on his deathbed, "I am taking a fearful leap into the dark."

In England I was told of a man who rejected Christ throughout the fifty-two years of his life. Hardened and obstinate he continued in his rejection until one day he was stricken with a heart attack. Before losing consciousness, he cried, "I can feel the flames of hell-fire."

These are not deathbed scenes which we can ignore and shun because they are repulsive to our thinking. These are actual experiences that take place every day when men die outside of God. They play their part in life and go on their way without giving thought to spiritual matters, but when they come to die they are terrified.

Several years ago I came to know one of the finest young couples I have ever met. Deeply consecrated and wishing to fulfill God's plan for their lives, they had set the sails of their lives toward South America. The trackless, malaria-infested jungles of the Upper Amazon held no horror for them. Both of them beamed with the radiance of in inward joy which a person outside of Christ cannot know, understand or explain.

Suddenly this young woman was stricken with a dreadful disease. The doctor announced that she couldn't last an hour. Several friends were in the room. Her young husband was tremblingly holding her hand. Suddenly she sat

Page 125 up in bed. Her face glowed like the noonday sun; her sky blue eyes sparkled like diamonds. She exclaimed in a loud voice, "Walter! Walter! He is wonderful, He is wonderful — more wonderful than I ever dreamed." And she was gone.

I shall never forget when the old grocer in my home town passed away. He gripped his wife's hand and said, "Listen to the music. It sounds like a thousand choirs. It is the angelic chorus welcoming me home." Then he went to be present with Christ.

Near his eighty-third birthday, Dr. Harris Gregg, one of the greatest and most beloved Bible expositors America has ever known, summoned his family. He had been ill with pneumonia. He read the Bible, then, propped up in bed, began to pray. Suddenly, with the glory of salvation on his face, he said, "Father, I commend my spirit to Thee." Then he was gone. "To be absent from the body" is "to be present with the Lord."

These experiences teach us that there is something beyond the grave, that those who live godly lives in Christ Jesus are going to a different place than those who live their own lives in their own way and leave God completely out. III. WHAT IS THE NATURE OF HELL?

There are several words used in the Bible which are translated in the Authorized Version as "hell." The Hebrew word sheol is used thirty-one times in the Old Testament and means the "unseen state." Often the words "sorrow," "pains" and "destruction" are used in connection with the term.

In the New Testament we find three Greek words translated "hell." The first is hades, used ten times. Its meaning is virtually the same as sheol, the "unseen world." Judgment and suffering are usually connected with it, for example, in Luke 16:23, where the rich man is described

Page 126 as being in great torments in hades. The word tartarus is used only once, in 2 Peter 2:4, where Peter says the disobedient angels were cast out to tartarus. The idea expressed here indicates a place of judgment, such as a prison. Finally, the word gehenna is used eleven times, ten times by Christ, and once by James. The term means "The Valley of Hinnom," which was a place outside the city of Jerusalem where rubbish and debris were burned continually. One could see the smoke rising at any hour of the day. Thus Jesus used what is common knowledge among the people to illustrate a great spiritual truth. Notice that the thought of burning is often associated with hell.

Wherever I go, on both sides of the Atlantic, hundreds of young people have asked, "Does the Bible teach that there is a real fire in hell?" Today in evangelical circles two primary views are held concerning this: The first maintains that the Bible uses symbolic language when it speaks of fire in hell. Those that hold this view use such Scripture passages as James 3:5-6: "Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell."

They say, "Surely James doesn't mean that every time one's tongue slanders another person a literal flame is kindled in one's mouth." They say that the fire to which the apostle refers is, of course, far worse than simple combustion. It is the fire which destroys men's character, for example, malice, hatred, jealousy, strife.

Using the story of the rich man and Lazarus, those that hold to this view show that the rich man was tormented in flame while he was a disembodied spirit. "How can this be?" they ask. The flame again is a symbol.

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There are others who believe equally strongly that there is literal fire in hell. They say that in the Old Testament, God many times uses fire as a means of punishment for sin. They say that fire is a proper symbol of the wrath of God and is so used throughout the Bible. In Genesis 19:24 we read that God rained fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah.

Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, were destroyed by fire because of their sin. In Numbers 11:1-2 we read of God's punishment by fire of the rebels of the entire nation of Israel.

We read in the seventh chapter of Joshua that Achan was stoned and then burned by fire as a punishment for sin. Second Kings 1:10-12 tells us that Elijah asked God to let fire come down from heaven and consume a group of soldiers, and there came down fire from heaven and consumed them.

Revelation tells us that fire is frequently used as a means of punishment.

Throughout the Old Testament the burnt offerings and the animal sacrifices pictured by fire the wrath of God upon sin. Two things stand out in our minds as we read God's Word as it speaks of these sacrifices: the blood and the fire. Those that hold to this view refer to the scores of Scripture passages which use the word "fire" in connection with the punishment for sin and hell.

Whether there is really literal fire in hell or not, all these are descriptions of God's hatred for sin and they portray a Bible truth.

Certainly hell is not less real, but more so. Hell will be a place where the flames of lust and passion and hatred will burn throughout eternity. It will be a place where the darkness of man's sin will be unrelieved by the brightness of His presence.

If there is no fire in hell, then God is using symbolical language to indicate something far worse. Certainly no words in any language of the world can describe the awfulness

Page 128 and the horribleness of spending age after age without God, without hope, without light, where the fire is never quenched and the worm dieth not.

Let's consider the Bible's description of hell. Let's find out how God's Holy Word describes this awful place:

1. Rev. 20:15 — The lake of fire

2. Psalm 11:6 — A horrible tempest

3. Psalm 18:5 — A place of sorrows

4. Matthew 13:42 — A place of wailing

5. Matthew 8:12 — A place of weeping

6. Matthew 13:41-42 — A furnace of fire

7. Luke 16:23 — A place of torment

8. Rev. 20:11-12 — A place of filthiness

9. Rev. 16:11 — A place of cursing 10. Matthew 8:12 — A place of outer darkness

11. Rev. 14:11 — A place of unrest

12. Luke 16:27 — A place where people pray

13. Luke 16:24 — A place where people scream for mercy

14. Matthew 25:46 — A place of everlasting punishment

15. Matthew 25:41 — A place prepared for the devil and his angels

16. Luke 16:24 — A place where one begs for a drop of water

17. Isaiah 33:11 — A place where one's breath is a living flame

18. Luke 16:24 — A place where one is tormented with fire

19. Rev. 21:8 — A place where one is tormented with brimstone

20. Luke 16:25 — A place of memory

We need not add to or take away from this description.

Among those Christians to whom hell means little, Calvary means less. There is less emphasis on redemption by the blood of Christ. There is less teaching about sin, and very little warning of judgment.

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General Booth once said, "If I could take every candidate for the Salvation Army and let him see hell for five minutes, that would be all the schooling he would need." On the other hand, there have been scores who have left the Word and followed their vain and wild imaginations. The Word is enough.

IV. WHO IS GOING THERE?

Inquiring young people have asked me in a score of inquiry rooms, "How can a God of love send anyone to hell?" This is an honest question that arises often in the minds of thinking youth. My answer to this question is that God will never send anyone to hell. If you go to hell, it will be because of your own deliberate choice. Hell was never prepared for man but for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). If you choose to follow Satan you will follow him to his ultimate destiny, but you will do it in spite of all that God has done to stop you. He sent His prophets. He gave you His Word. He has given you a faithful pastor and the prayers of a godly mother. He sent His only Son. The Holy Spirit is constantly warning you. What more can a God of love do? You are a free moral agent! God did not create you as a machine to be compelled to love Him! You can choose either to obey or to disobey Him. You have the power of free choice. Never forget that God is a God of love. Only those who reject or neglect Christ will be in hell. No man will go to hell because he lived an immoral life. Men go to hell because they reject God's plan of salvation in Christ. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life: but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:36).

The only way to salvation is acceptance of Christ as Saviour. The only way to hell is rejection of Christ. In no other is there salvation, for "neither is there any other name under heaven that is given among men whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

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Just as heaven is prepared for those that accept Him, so hell is prepared for those who reject Him.

Get the picture? Two worlds are swinging in space throughout eternity. One is the world of the saved — paradise; salvation; glory; splendor; brilliant and dazzling beyond human comprehension or description; a place of joy and laughter, with gates of pearl, walls of jasper, palaces of ivory, streets of transparent gold, a river of life. The dwellers — who? All those who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb, those who have accepted Christ as Saviour, whether they be Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians or no church members at all, the redeemed of all ages who by faith accepted Christ!

The other world is the world of the damned. In that world through time without end, eternity, there will be weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. There is no love there because men by rejecting Christ have slain their own power ever again to feel His presence. Hell will be a place of tormenting memories.

My friend, you must make a choice. Life is but a vapor; it is but a weaver's shuttle; it is but a tale that is told; it will soon be over. What you do with Christ here and now decides where you shall spend eternity.

During the Middle Ages there was a court fool who could make the lord of the manor laugh more than any other clown. One day his master called him in and said, "Fool, you are the greatest fool I ever met. Take this staff and keep it until you meet a greater fool than thyself. Then pass it on to that greater fool."

Years passed, and one day the fool heard that his master was sick. He went to see him. "What is the matter, master?" he asked. "I am going on a long journey," was the reply. "Where are you going?" inquired the fool. "I don't know,"

Page 131 was the faint sigh. "How long will you be gone?" questioned the fool.

"I shall never return."

"Have you made any preparations for the journey?"

"No." "You mean to tell me that you are taking a long journey from which you will never return, and you have made no preparations for the trip?"

"I guess that is it."

"O master, take this staff, for thou are a greater fool than myself."

Young man, young woman, father, mother — a heart attack, an atomic bomb, an automobile crash, a hotel fire, and perhaps you will start your long journey. Have you made preparation? Are you certain that you know where you are going? "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9)