Speaking That Is Spiritually Effective

So spake they that a great multitude believed. Acts 14:1

Evidently it is not only what you say, that is of consequence, but how you say it.

Whatever it took to make effective and convincing the voice of Paul and Barnabas, they had met the qualifications.  They spoke in such a way that multitudes believed.  Their words didn’t roll off; they dug in.  These apostolic brethren had earned the right to say what they were saying.  They were able to say it savingly and searchingly.  It is, you know, possible to speak so that nobody believes.

More is implied here than clear diction or eloquence, through certainly anything worth saying is worth saying distinctly and pleasingly.  More was perhaps involved in Moses’ “slowness of speech” than the need for greater fluency of words.  Again, more is here indicated than speaking with physical force.  Then too, the words of these brethren were certainly more than “something recited”-something passing from one mind to another without ever reaching anybody’s heart.  The people accepted from them what they would probably have rejected from others unqualified to speak.  Why?  The answer is not to be over-simplified, but it is worth searching out.

The church needs Spirit-anointed men today to speak up and speak out God’s message to the body of Christ.  We are scarcely able to say as the early Church, “the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly” (Acts 6:7).  The explanation that “they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he [Stephen] spake” (6:10) would, as a rule, be an over-statement today.  We need desperately the voice that presses clear through to the heart.  Moreover, grievous wolves, cunning craftiness of men lying in wait to deceive, form without power, ritual without reality, zeal without knowledge, light without love, activity without souls, busywork without burden, Sinai without Calvary-all of these conditions and may more prey upon the flock of God.  The voice of the New Testament priest and prophet must be heard.  The thunderous tone must shake to the foundations houses built upon the sand.  The sharp two-edged sword must glisten where the soothing word has lulled sinners in and out of the church to sleep.  The bold and brassy hardness of men must have the penetrating torch of God’s promised judgments.  For the murderer there must be the voice of an Abel’s blood crying out from the ground.  For the golden-calf followers there must be the decisive question, “Who is on the Lord’s side?”

Who is qualified to thus speak?  Who is willing?  The Church suffers for lack of voices speaking with spiritual maturity, authority, and power.  Many believe they have something to say who have not learned to speak to the Church or to the unbelieving masses.  Others though seemingly filled with words have scarcely the spiritual right to speak at all.  It is relatively easy for the uninformed to be dogmatic.  Few issues in the complex pattern of today’s life have simple solutions.  Moreover, others are silent because their voice would be self-reproving.  Some withhold pronouncements upon basic spiritual issues lest they seem to speak as partisans in self-defense.

The pastoral word must balance the punitive word.  The life-giving note must undergird the voice of correction.  The assuring word of access to Christ and identification with all the God’s saints is necessary along with the word that discriminates.  The bracing word of commendation where merited, the shepherding word of love and concern, are required to qualify for the voice of denouncement when and where needed.

Good men sometimes fall into the “habit of the derogatory” until they are unwittingly regarded as anti-church and in fact almost anti-everything even though they do not mean so to be.  The derogatory note is not redemptive.  Something must be added to it to turn people to righteousness.

So the need is urgent for voices today-voices qualified under God to speak up, speak out and speak on, guiding and grounding the people of God in Truth.  What to say?  That may be relatively easy.  Saying it convincingly and savingly.  That is our challenge-to so speak that multitudes believe.

--General Superintendent Harold K. Sheets  --Dec, 1959

Holy Bible: Book Divine Part II

            The Bible Is Needed Today

            Some admire the Bible’s triumphant emergence through the fires of criticism and the acid test of critical analysis, yet ask whether we need it today.  Man’s unquenchable thirst and insatiable longing for fellowship with God and an authoritative guide to that desired goal evidences his need for the Bible.  World situations are distressing.  Chaos seems to threaten.  Men speak freely, and fearfully of the “disintegration” of things of value.  They seek something which will give light and offer hope.  The Bible is the Book they need, for

“It sweetly cheers our drooping hearts,

In this dark vale of tears;

And life and light and joy imparts,

And banishes our fears.”

            Now man’s omnipotence complex has failed him.  He realizes how much he needs God.  And the Bible is, as one has remarked, “Man’s highway to God, and God’s highway to man.”  Whether his problem concerns guilt, pollution, suffering, fear, disappointment, or whatever else it may be, man can find help and hope in the Word of God.  It not only leads man to God, but it becomes the channel through which God comes to him.  And what a transformation it works in him, deepening his love for God and man, and fortifying him with an “unfaltering faith in an unfailing God.”

The bible Has Relevancy

            By relevancy we mean that the Bible sustains close, logical relationship with, and importance to, the matters in hand.  Its messages are very appropriate in today’s life.  To those who seem hemmed in by a sense of hopeless despair and futility, the Bible’s message is that life has real meaning, the night will not last forever, and evil will not always triumph.  God’s will may be postponed but cannot be thwarted forever.  It shows how ordinary people with extraordinary devotion to a right cause, through right procedures may accomplish significant things for God.

            Much is said about the needed “peace of mind.”  The Bible is full of promises which give peace that the world cannot take away.  There is a great clamor for security.  The Bible declares that true security is not in the things one may possess, but in Christ and in moral and spiritual values.  There is a cry for pardon from guilt and purging from pollution.  The Bible tells of One who takes all guilt away and cleanses from all unrighteousness.  Man faces the end of life and questions about the future.  The Bible gives hope and assurance concerning the life after death-for those who put their trust in Him who conquered Death and is alive forevermore.

--Roy S. Nicholson

Holy Bible: Book Divine Part I

            Each Christian Heart at the sight or mention of the Bible senses the meaning of Burton’s lines: “Holy Bible, Book divine, Precious treasure, Thou are mine; Mine to tell me whence I came, Mine to tell me what I am.”  And as one journeys through its pages and behold its beauties he exclaims with Holder:

“Thy Word is like a garden, Lord,

With flowers bright and fair;

And everyone who seeks may pluck

A lovely cluster there.

“Thy Word is like a deep, deep, mine;

And jewels rich and rare

Are hidden in its mighty depths

For every searcher there.”

            With the multitude of books, magazines and other reading material that clamors for attention we are in danger of neglecting the precious Book.  We need, as a recent writer has remarked, to saturate our language with its vocabulary, our minds with its truth, our heart with its love, our conscience with its law, and our life with its spirit.  It is the “source book of culture,” and a very vital part of worth-while living.  It is as relevant to this day’s problems as it was when its messages were originally delivered.

What It Will Do

            Many assume an apologetic and timid attitude toward the Bible.  To such the testimony of Dr. Joseph R. Sizzo concerning the Bible is pertinent: “it will do for all what it did for me: lifts horizons, push back foothills, and give courage to live unashamed and unafraid.”

            Despite its wonderful diversity this “Rock divine” reveals a basic unity.  Many authors representing all grades and conditions of men across many centuries of time contributed to it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  These different personalities from many lands, and languages, are in such agreement that one is convinced that this Book is not of human origin.  To deny that it is the divinely inspired word of God involves far more difficulties for the honest inquirer than to believe that it is.

            In Psalm 119, thirty-five times one meets the expression “thy word.”  Nevertheless, the chapter contains such other terms as “thy percepts,” “thy testimonies,” “thy ways,” “the judgments of thy mouth.”  But always the Psalmist recurs to the expression, “Thy word,” which is most significant.  Whatever aspect it may present to the mind of the reader, it is ever and always: The Word of God, revealing God and His eternal divine purpose for man.

            This Book has been hated more bitterly than any other book in the world.  In some lands, to won a copy has been a serious crime, punishable by the severest persecution.  Despite that opposition it has been circulated secretly by those to whom it meant more than life itself.  To possess its own copy of the Bible has sometimes required real sacrifice by an entire family but such has been joyfully endured in order to possess this precious treasure.  Shame on us who take our Bibles for granted!

--Roy S. Nicholson

THE DIGITAL STORY OF THE NATIVITY

A Second Chance

WILL GOD play fair? Is there a second chance after death? The common answer everywhere is this: We'll all pull through somehow. And lately a word has been added, "Easily." 

There are those called Universalists, who say there is a disciplinary value in punishment after death, and then all are included in the universal salvation. 

There is a sort of first-cousin group to these who would include Satan and his hosts. These call themselves Restorationists. 

Others say that you won't have a second chance after death because there is no "you" left then. These say that if you believe in Christ you are saved, and if you don't when you die that’s the end of you. They call this Conditional Immortality. Others called them Annihilationists. 

The common orthodox answer says if you believe in Christ you are saved, otherwise damned, unqualifiedly. This is the answer of a diminishing minority. 

Now turn to the Book. It is the one dependable source of information. Its answer in effect is this: so far as the character of God's love is concerned man’s chance never runs out; but-underscore that but-but, so far as man's decision is concerned there is not another chance. And man's decision is vital thing. He casts the decisive ballot. 

The old Book is chock full of statements that death is the dividing line of opportunity. But it also makes it unmistakably clear that everyone shall have the fullest, fairest opportunity. And on his use of that opportunity hinges his future. 

It is striking to find that God is controlled here by a principle of strong tender love. It is this: every man shall be utterly free to choose, and always will be, so far as God is concerned. 

At the beginning of the Book there are two standing in a garden by a tree. It is distinctively the Tree of Choice. God is saying in effect: "Please don't eat of this tree, simply because I ask you not to. 

"This is your opportunity to choose to keep in intimate touch with me, with all that involves. But you're free to do as you please." 

Now on the last page of the Book is this: "He that is set in his choice to be unrighteous, still let him be utterly free to follow the bent of his choice, even though it be to choose the wrong." And the threefold variation following gives the peculiar emphasis of repetition. 

Now, slowly turn the leaves from first page to last. And you will find a ceaseless repetition of this. Choose; choose right; don't choose the wrong; but you choose, with countless illustrations of bad and good choice. 

With that principle goes a process. It is the process by which man goes-the pen sticks in the paper with sheer pain-by which man goes to hell. No one is sent there, nor put there by superior physical force overcoming his own choice. 

Every man there goes on his own feet, in his own shoes, by his own free choice, against the will of a brokenhearted God. In the Cain story he said, "Thou hast driven me out." But a few lines lower down it says that "Cain went out." 

The Eden story uses the same words "drove out." Clearly the driving power was moral. Utterly abashed and humiliated before that pure Face, the guilty pair shrank away. The Book is full of just this. 

Now, what are the chances that a man who chooses not to choose what he thinks right now, will change his choice across the dividing line of death? 

You know there is a science of chances. The life insurance companies do a business in billions, based on the findings of certain experts in the science of chances as applied to length of life. The Britannica has 28 pages of close print on the science of chances. 

This is a question of chances. What are the chances here? Let me put it this way. The man who thinks in his inner heart he ought to accept Christ as his Savior now, with whatever chance of habit that implies, but he simply doesn't, he is fool. He isn't even a bright fool. I'm talking just now solely from the standpoint of the science of chances. 

Why? Because he has made a choice. And the choosing power in him is like the concrete mixer, it has become set. A hardening has begun. Not much, but some. And that goes on. It gets harder and more set, like the concrete. Until by and by it loses the power of changing. 

For, mark keenly, the thing that softens a hardened will back to normal freedom of action is not pain, not suffering, not judgment. It is the thing commonly called the grace of God. This man shuts out the one normalizing factor. 

And so I repeat again the sentence put down at the start. So far as the character of God's love is concerned man's chance never runs out; but so far as man's decision is concerned there is not another chance. And man casts the decisive ballot. 

The science of chances and the old Book of God tally. God may be brokenhearted by the way man uses his freedom of choice, but He never takes that freedom away.

God plays fair.

--S. D. Gordon

The Land of Widening Horizons

One of Christianity’s richest blessings is that a man never catches up with his horizons.  There is always something not yet attained, some goal not yet reached.

There is no greater tragedy that can come to a soul than to have no more unreached goals, no ideals not yet attained.

One of the deadening things in a life wholly secular is when middle life is reached, and retirement is the next step, and the dreams of youth have faded, the soul has caught up with it horizon.  He has no more dreams to realize.

The ancient prophet Joel, living 800 years before  Christ, declared that in the dispensation of the Spirit “your old men shall dream dreams.”

To a man filled with the Spirit, there are no dead-end streets.  There is no such thing as having received a final blessing.  Always there is more, farther along.

The man filled with the Holy Spirit has discovered the “fountain of youth.”  Within his soul are songs never yet sung; music never yet penned; poems never yet written.  There are aspirations not yet realized that pull him on to the hills of eternal life.

Our dreams are the golden ladder by which we climb to higher altitudes of living.  They are the lanterns by whose light we pass safely through the dark valleys.  They are the flames that give us drive and energy for the struggle.

To the man filled with the Holy Spirit come new visions of God, and new exploits are attempted in the outreach of faith.

“Your old men shall dream dreams,” declared the ancient prophet, and a thousand men this day are ready to witness to the truth of his statement.

We follow not a lost cause.  We are not engaged in a losing venture.  The future is bright with the promises of God for those filled with the Spirit.

The brothers of Joseph said: “Here comes that dreamer.”  A dreamer is always a comer.  Let it be remembered that those lured on by outreaching horizons will someday reach the Land of Boundless Horizons.

--Oliver G. Wilson

This Is Glorified Humdrum!

J. Hudson Taylor once said, “I learned to think of God as the one great circumstance of life, and all lesser external circumstances as necessarily the kindest, wisest, best because they were either ordered or permitted by Him.”

We usually think that God is in action in the extraordinary circumstances of life, or that he especially caters to those whose lives are designed for special religious activities.  But God may be included in the commonplace activities of the mother who washes the clothes, the father who provides the bread, the teen-ager who carries his books from room to room, or that wiry junior who chooses the tree in the front yard for his tree house.

God is not one whom we greet only on Sunday; He is the Person we work with all week.  His is the transforming power that takes the ordinary and brings it to a height of glorifying God.  “Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”  This ought to beautify the most drab and incidental affairs of life, and transform the rut into a river of joy.

Let Him become the Great Circumstance of your life.  If we, as the children of God, possessed this secret, there would be less frustration in our lives and less frowns on our brows.  Complaint, worry, fret, and fear would be strangers to us if your hearts could only say, “There is none upon earth that I desire beside thee,” and, “For me to live is Christ.”

A minister once said to his wife, while watching her perform the many duties of a mother, “Wife, you are doing more than washing clothes and mixing formulas; you are raising a man for God.”  This is Glorified Humdrum!

--Don Polston

The Christian's Greatest Challenge "Prayer" -- Part II

            The greatest challenge before the Christian today is that which is held out by the promises of God.  It should cheer his heart immensely to realize that “all the promises of God in him [Christ] are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.”  The true intercessor should reason thus:  The end is drawing on, my loved ones are unsaved and God, through His pledged Word, has eagerness, to “show great and might things” to those who will call upon Him in truth.

            When the preciousness of souls, the length of Eternity and the truth of the promises becomes luminous to his soul, the true Christian beseeches God, if needs be, to take away money, position, health, prospects and all else if only He will enable him to pray in the Holy Ghost.  When the necessity and majesty of intercessory prayer fills the soul, this world with its comforts and rewards becomes as a shadow.  Things which hitherto appeared important will shrink down into the merest trifles and the true standard of life will not be ease, comfort, prosperity or even merely human happiness but will rather be access to the Mercy Seat.  The God that remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the overthrow still hears and answers prayer.

            As the purple shadows of approaching night fall across our Dispensation, we are reminded that ere long we must give account of our prayer stewardship.  God has providentially allowed our time to fall in a season of great challenge.  Will we, by His grace, accept this challenge, search out and successfully plead His promises for the salvation of immortal souls or will we become so busy with earthly things that night will overtake us with our task woefully unfinished?  This question should cause us to go down before God until He comes and breathes in our hearts those “groaning which cannot be uttered.”  When our prayers, framed according to the promise and inbreathed by the Holy Ghost are presented through the infinite merits of the interceding Christ to the Father Almighty, hell itself must give way.  Thus and only thus can we face the issues of our lives in the unparalleled day.

--R. A. Kerby (1959)

The Christian's Greatest Challenge "Prayer" -- Part I

            Every devout, enlightened Christian knows that our day is one of unprecedented trouble.  This knowledge fills him with a great desire to do something about it.  But, coupled with this sad knowledge and this burning desire is the conviction that this trouble is deep-seated and world-wide.  As the Christian scans the heavens he sees that the skies are filled with black clouds which boil with maddened fury.  The granite indifference of the masses, the vast population explosion in heathen lands, unbelief and worldliness in the sanctuary, an almost incredible lawlessness and sensuality in the nations and the very real threat of total nuclear destruction all combine to fill the Christian with dismay.  As he compares these conditions with the Word of God the realization dawns that the end-time is upon this unhappy world.

            Should the Christian, along with sinners, shrug his shoulders and say that because he cannot materially alter the world-wide picture he will therefore sit with folded hands and await the end?  Such an attitude would be ruinous to his own soul and treasonable to the spiritual need about him.  This attitude would also involve direct disobedience to the Savior who charged, “Occupy till I come.”

            The general fact of a world gone mad with sin becomes very pointed and particular as the Christian realizes that he has many acquaintances; friends and loved ones who are “daring to remain unforgiving” even in these awful days.  This fact, if he walks in the Spirit and does not allow the din of modern life to drown out spiritual things, will become the dominating thought of his days and the crushing burden of his nights.  The thought that some of his own circle are now, through unbelief, condemned already and may soon be damned eternally becomes almost intolerable to him.  Realizing that mere human persuasion is totally important against deeply entrenched sin, the Christian is driven to his knees and a devout inventory of the promises of God. Right here it is in order to say that the great majority of Christians should humble themselves in deep repentance over the fact that they have successfully pleaded so few of these promises.

            It is true that God will not, and under His laws of free-agency cannot, compel the surrender of a soul.  But it is also true that He can and does bring great pressure to bear upon unconverted souls in answer to believing prayer.  His hornets have a way of helping folks make up their minds.  We need not fear that our prayers will induce God to invade the citadel of free-will and thus essentially ruin those for whom we pray.  We should, rather, mourn over the fact that all too often our intercessory prayers have been so weak and intermittent.  This lack of faith and persistence has “limited the Holy One of Israel” in His efforts to save our loved one.  How will we answer in the Great Day of Judgment if we have allowed the “exceeding great and precious promises” to go unclaimed and unfulfilled? 

--R. A. Kerby

The "Tedium"

A PROMINENT PREACHER has pointed out that we human beings tend to start each endeavor with a bang but lose our enthusiasm when the “new” wears off. He calls the point when the “new” wears off the "tedium."

Many marriages fail because husband and wife cannot weather the "tedium" of making a living and providing for a family.

The movies, short stories, novels, radio and television all tend to leave the impression that marriage is one long uninterrupted honeymoon. The truth is that true love and successful marriage are achieved by facing life's "tedium" together and working out life's problems as a team.

Our spiritual lives are the same. Christian living does not consist of constant emotional blessing. If we lived at such a height all the time, we would become insane. Besides, we have not been saved simply to shout; we have been saved to serve, to solve the world's problems in Christ's way.

    Our church life is like that, too. At first it may appear that we shall be "carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease," but then as we know the church better we become aware of problems that need to be solved. We did not become church members for a free ride, but rather that we might throw our weight on the side of right, no matter how thick the "tedium" might become.

-C. Russell Bremer 

A Warm Heart

CHARLES WESLEY SAID, concerning the presence of Christ, "One moment leave me but alone, and my heart is turned to stone." Moment by moment we need the merits of the Blood to keep our hearts warm. God has promised, "A new spirit will I put within you; I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh; and I will give you a heart of flesh."

There is that initial introduction to Christ, which removes at once the frozen nature of the soul, that resulted from long rebel­lion against the will of God. But even that first fragrance of the new life will lose its scent, if we do not frequent ourselves to the same Fountain from which we first drank.

Sometimes the soul feels that others condition their faith or spiritual fervency or victorious life in Christ. But the adversities sum up to a trivial point when the soul has experienced a fresh thawing under the crimson stream. Our trouble is not from with­out, but from within-a cold heart!

Who is this woman that frequents herself so often in the events of the Savior’s life? One time she washes His feet with her tears and dries them with her hair. She watches when His silent and broken body is placed in the cold, borrowed tomb. On the morn­ing of the resurrection she is the first to inquire, "Where have you taken my Lord?" It is none other than the warmhearted Mary!

She was endowed with the greatest of all gifts from God, a warm heart. How often she renewed her utter devotion to the Lord Jesus. The fidelity of her faith remains with us today. Will you not hide anew in the fresh wounds of Jesus, the source of heart warming? He will melt your heart into a stream of devotion. He will melt the heart of stone.

--Don. H. Polston

Easily Led

            We do not advocate a ready adaptation to one’s environment, a chameleon-like accommodation to the social customs of those with whom one associates.  Nor can we approve that general laziness of character that allows one’s will and emotions to be steered quickly in on direction or another.

            The fact is there must be a steel-like hardness in every person’s character.  That hardness remains quiescent until some opportunity for deceit or self-advantage looms, then that tough core of loyalty prohibits on from easily yielding to siren voices of evil.  Without this “steel,” life has no single purpose, no definite destination.  Like surface water, life would follow channels already in existence.

            But this hardness is only to be called into action when there is enticement to wrong.  Toward God and righteousness the soul is to be pliable and easily instructed.

            David graphically advised, “Be ye not as the horse or the mule whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle lest they come near unto thee.”  As Adam Clarke observes: the horse is headlong and the mule is headstrong.  One tends to run away from responsibility, the other balks at it and refused to accept it.

            The pliable Christian can be guided by the eye.  A glance from the Savior, a hint from His Word, will suffice.

            In like manner the Christian will easily agree with his brethren when moral or spiritual issues are not at stake.  The Christian will find his joy in co-operation with God’s elect, not in disdainful separation from them.

--George E. Failing

Racing the Motor

            The heart of any automobile is the motor.  We want power, economy, smoothness.  The salesman will lift up the hood and let the customer listen to the motor.

            But the customer, if he buys the car, will not take the care home, start the motor and simply listen to it run.  Or, if he wants to get somewhere in a hurry he will not simply start the motor and race it.  Power and purr are desirable and necessary, but there must be more.

            A good car must have a good transmission, a series of gears or converters, to transmit the motor’s power through a drive shaft to the wheels.  If the car is to move, power must activate the transmission.

            Automobile specialists warn us against racing the motor of a standing car.  But there is no harm done to a motor when the car is driven at a good speed on the highway.  The motor is made to be geared to motion.

            Is not this a parable of spiritual life?  We pray for power, fullness of power, smoothness of power.  Without doubt that power, is available from God.  But when we receive that power, do we transmit that power to active service?

            Assuredly we ought to do as Peter and John:  “Such as I have, give I thee.”  As we receive, we should give.

            May our revival efforts be more than “racing the motor.”  May our own prayer and devotional efforts be geared into actual service for Christ in our church, community, neighborhood.

            Let us pray for a good “transmission.”

--George E. Failing

Advent Prayer

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, hard hearts, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live from deep within your heart where God's Spirit Dwells.

     May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.

    And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world and in your neighborhood, so that you will courageously try what you don't think you can do, but in Jesus Christ you'll have the strength necessary to do.

     May God bless you so that you remember we are all called to continue God's redemptive work of love and healing in God's place, in and through God's name, in God's Spirit, continually creating and breathing new life into everything and everyone we touch.

--Ancient Franciscan Monks

Will God Play Fair?

Is there a second chance after death? The common answer everywhere is this: We'll all pull through somehow. And lately a word has been added, "Easily."

There are those called Universalists, who say there is a disciplinary value in punishment after death, and then all are included in the universal salvation.

There is a sort of first-cousin group to these who would include Satan and his hosts. These call themselves Restorationists.

Others say that you won't have a second chance after death because there is no "you" left then. These say that if you believe in Christ you are saved, and if you don't when you die that’s the end of you. They call this Conditional Immortality. Others called them Annihilationists.

The common orthodox answer says if you believe in Christ you are saved, otherwise damned, unqualifiedly. This is the answer of a diminishing minority.

Now turn to the Book. It is the one dependable source of information. Its answer in effect is this: so far as the character of God's love is concerned man’s chance never runs out; but-underscore that but-but, so far as man's decision is concerned there is not another chance. And man's decision is the vital thing. He casts the decisive ballot.

The old Book is chock full of statements that death is the dividing line of opportunity. But it also makes it unmistakably clear that everyone shall have the fullest, fairest opportunity. And on his use of that opportunity hinges his future.

It is striking to find that God is controlled here by a principle of strong tender love. It is this: every man shall be utterly free to choose, and always will be, so far as God is concerned.

At the beginning of the Book there are two standing in a garden by a tree. It is distinctively the Tree of Choice. God is saying in effect: "Please don't eat of this tree, simply because I ask you not to.

   "This is your opportunity to choose to keep in intimate touch with me, with all that involves. But you're free to do as you please."

Now on the last page of the Book is this: "He that is set in his choice to be unrighteous, still let him be utterly free to follow the bent of his choice, even though it be to choose the wrong." And the threefold variation following gives the peculiar emphasis of repetition.

Now, slowly turn the leaves from first page to last. And you will find a ceaseless repetition of this. Choose; choose right; don't choose the wrong; but you choose, with countless illustrations of bad and good choice.

With that principle goes a process. It is the process by which man goes, the pen sticks in the paper with sheer pain-by which man goes to hell. No one is sent there, nor put there by superior physical force overcoming his own choice.

Every man there goes on his own feet, in his own shoes, by his own free choice, against the will of a brokenhearted God. In the Cain story he said, "Thou hast driven me out." But a few lines lower down it says that "Cain went out."

The Eden story uses the same words "drove out." Clearly the driving power was moral. Utterly abashed and humiliated before that pure Face, the guilty pair shrank away. The Book is full of just this.

Now, what are the chances that a man who chooses not to choose what he thinks the right now, will change his choice across the dividing line of death?

You know there is a science of chances. The life insurance companies do a business in billions, based on the findings of certain experts in the science of chances as applied to length of life. The Britannica has 28 pages of close print on the science of chances.

This is a question of chances. What are the chances here? Let me put it this way. The man who thinks in his inner heart he ought to accept Christ as his Savior now, with whatever chance of habit that implies, but he simply doesn't, he is a-listen softly, please, it's hard to tell the story lest it sound only harsh. He is a fool. He isn't even a bright fool. I'm talking just now solely from the standpoint of the science of chances.

Why? Because he has made a choice. And the choosing power in him is like the concrete mixer, it has become set. A hardening has begun. Not much, but some. And that goes on. It gets harder and more set, like the concrete. Until by and by it loses the power of changing.

For, mark keenly, the thing that softens a hardened will back to normal freedom of action is not pain, not suffering, not judgment. It is the thing commonly called the grace of God. This man shuts out the one normalizing factor.

And so I repeat again the sentence put down at the start. So far as the character of God's love is concerned man's chance never runs out; but-but, so far as man's decision is concerned there is not another chance. And man casts the decisive ballot.

The science of chances and the old Book of God tally. God may be brokenhearted by the way man uses his freedom of choice, but He never takes that freedom away.

God plays fair.

--S. D. Gordon