life is spoiled, and He says: I will be the new center. Second, the prince, the one who has held men in his thraldom, is cast out, and Christ says: If I be lifted up out of the world, I will bring all men into relation with my kingship and my government. "I will draw all men unto myself." What does this mean? I believe that as Jesus, the Christ, was lifted up, all men will come to a recognition of His supremacy. Henceforth every man must make his choice as in the presence of those spiritual principles for which Christ stood, and which He has made possible for man by His cross. By the cross Jesus Christ set the human will at liberty. Here is a man who says: "When I would do good, evil is present with me. I will, and yet I can not. The forces of evil that have taken hold upon me and have mastered my life have made it impossible for me to act according to my own willing. My will is spoiled, dominated, hindered by something within me." Jesus Christ says: Come to the cross and your will is set free, for by the way of this cross I have cast out the prince of the world; and by virtue of what I have done you may do the things that in the past you have not been able to do. When a man stands face to face with the cross of Christ he can say: When I would do good, the power of that cross is present to enable me." The power of sin is broken and in the presence of the victory of the cross every man may choose what he will do. There is no other power that will save a man or society than the power of the cross, which alone is able to lift a man out of the things that pull down and the things that spoil. Thus in the midst of human history, according to the judging of the Lord Himself, that cross became judgment against the world, a verdict found; that cross became the destruction of the prince of the world, a force that cast out the evil thing; that cross became a great attractive center, men being drawn into the power of which they are set free from every other power and every other force that tends to their destruction. Right here and now the cross of Jesus is still the discerning power; it is still the throne of judgment; and if you want a true verdict about a man, about a movement, about society, about a nation, arraign it before the cross of Christ; and if it does not harmonize with all that cross stood for, then the cross condemns it. If it does harmonize, then the cross crowns it and pronounces it permanent. We must test everything by the cross. And to-day, the crucified Christ is still the only power sufficient to the casting out of the prince of this world. If we attempt to correct material despotism by material methods, we will simply initiate a new material despotism. If we attempt to correct animalized culture by a new animalism, we will simply create a new sensualism. If we attempt to throw off the burden of a materialized priestcraft by material methods, we will create a new and more pernicious sacerdotalism. It is only the cross of Christ that sets man free from the tyranny of material oppression, from the slavery of cultured materialism, from the priesthood of materialism. Finally, if we want to lift a man out of all the forces that pull and wreck and spoil, we must take him to the cross. There is no other way in which a man can be lifted out and made superior to the things that spoil and that wreck. This cross still stands, and Christ's word about it is still true. But the question for each one to ask himself is this: How does my life stand in relation to that cross? What verdict does that cross pass upon my life? Does it condemn it? Then it is condemned. Does it approve it? Then it is approved. Is my life in harmony with that which the world attempted to cast out, or with that which Jesus cast out? Is my life in harmony with that spiritual ideal for which the Savior stood, or is my life governed by the material ideal that crucified Him? Let me ask another question: Which prince rules in my life? The prince that attempted to cast out the Prince of Life, or the Prince who cast out the prince of the world? How shall we know? By deciding whether that cross lies on all my life as the expression of my life's sacrifice and my life's going down into death, that through it I may come into the larger life that lies beyond. If any child of the King is mastered by some evil power, it is because he has lived too far from the cross. He who was first lifted by the cross out of the earth, lifts you out of the realm over which the evil forces reign. Does it seem to-day as if the world was casting out the Christ? It does not seem so half as much as it did when that cross was first lifted. Let us take these words of Christ and repeat them until they become a perpetual song of victory in our hearts. We are not fighting a battle which is critical. We may be fighting a battle of administration, but in the hour of that cross the final victory was won. All the slow-moving processes of the centuries are after all but the years through which in patience and in pity God by the Spirit and the church is administering the victories won in the hour of that cross. "Now is the judgment of this world: now is the prince of this world cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself." BOILING HOT BLOOD HEAT WARM LUKE WARM COOL COLD The Ideal Church. Always Abounding in the Works of the Lord. Prays and Longs for Members to Go. Missionary Sermons Most Popular. Gifts for Foreign Missions Equal to or in Excess of SelfSupport. Prays Earnestly. Gives Freely to Missions. Living Link or Share in Station. A Power in the Local Community. Deepening Interest in Missions. No Apologies. Studies the Fields and Forces. Evangelistic Passion Growing. Assents to Missionary Teaching. Little ACtion. Apologies for Missionary Offering. Thinks Charity Begins at Home and Ends There. Not Much Charity at Home, Either. Callous about the Heathen and about Everybody Else. AN OPEN-AIR MEETING OF THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF KOREA, AT PYENG YANG (See page 70) BY MISS CAROLINE L. PALMER, NEW YORK JAPANESE evangelist fores, either of that which is right tells the story of one of his own countrymen who took a long journey from his village home to the city of Tokyo, in order to buy a clock. In the Orient clocks are for ornament, nevertheless this man cherished his possession. It went the way of all clocks and finally stopt. The man took it carefully apart, returned on his long journey to the city, told his tale of the clock and, when asked to produce it, carefully untied his furishika and produced the hands of the clock, for these he explained were all that had gone wrong, the rest seemed all right. Observations of the Far East are apt to be as superficial as this examination of the clock, and all tourists can do is to point to the hands of the clock; the why, and the where or wrong, we can not claim to understand. The Country The first and obvious impression of Japan is the country-the beautiful hills covered with trees and foliage, the terraced rice-fields, the attractive gardens and flowers, all give one the sense of a people who love the beautiful. The Japanese cook who, looking up from a less than frugal meal, said "What does any one want of a supper when he can see such a sunset as that," was only revealing the esthetic nature which he shares with many another. We hear of it as the land of cherryblossoms, but a stay of a fortnight at the foot of Mt. Asama, an active volcano with its pillar of cloud by day and often the pillar of fire by night, is just as symbolic of this mysterious island people. the Japanese heroes-all so strange and unbelievable to us. The tragedy of the suicide of General Nogi follows still so wrapt in mystery added to this the story of the man who very recently asked a missionary to read the Bible to him. Together they read the Gospel by Luke; and his interest, as the days went on, kept increasing, until he was filled with horror when he reached the verse, "They all forsook Him and fled." The man who must wait for another day to finish the narrative turned with the only solution for all of this seems to be to arrive at His mind via His parables with their lucid illustrations of true life, His teaching of the nature of the Father and what He requires of His Son to at last understand that He only is worthy to be the hero of all men. Chesterton has said that the suicide dies for the sake of dying. Jesus died for the sake of living, and for the sake of giving life to others; seeking in every way to show forth the worth and value and purpose of life. |