Northwestern Bible School - Scroll Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

Page 74 text:

Except a com of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit ' (John 12:24.) But while seed is an absolute essential, bread is an absolute necessity. It may be written, Man shall not live by bread alone : in fact, our blessed Lord said it, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, (Matt. 4:4.) However, it has never been questioned, and certainly never denied, that bread in some form is necessary to man ' s existence. How gracious, then, Gods gift of rain and snow to the earth that it may bring bread to the eater, A. G. H. Knight in one of his volumes has said: All of us, without exception, need daily food: the old as well as the young, the strong as well as the weak, the king as well as the beggar (for the king himself is served by the field ), the philosopher as well as the child ' THE ASSURANCE OF RESULTS So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. That is the climax of these verses. What a blessed assurance it is! The Word of God will never return void! This is the text upon which I have leaned for years to find it among the promises of God that faileth not. This is the text with which I have enheart- ened every graduate student who goes forth from Northwestern to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ. This is the text with which I would enbolden every timid Sunday School teacher and every diffident personal worker in the land. Speak the word; it is the power of God unto salvation I It is never void. There are times when we proclaim it without apparent results but I am increasingly persuaded that though the results may not be apparent they exist just the same. A. J. Gordon, Boston ' s best Bible teacher and most spiritual pastor, said; I saw a sign painter take a dish of gold dust and pour it over the board upon which he was working and when he turned the board over all of it seemed to slide off; but it was a mere seeming. The lines where his brush had been drawn a few minutes before with the adhesive preparation caught the glittering particles and held them firmly, and the letters were plain. So, thought I, must the teachers of God believe when they pour the golden sand of the Gospel over the congregation, for much of it seems to slide off to take no hold upon their hearts; but they can yet be assured that where the Spirit Himself has touched that heart with His own preparation it will hold fast the Word, and that Word will not be void. That is the encouragement of preaching; yea, that is the joy of proclaiming the truth. I know that I preach not in vain. I know that every man and every woman who faithfully proclaims what the Scriptures say will have souls for his hire. But better yet, it will do more than never return void; it will accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it ' In other words, its Divine objective shall be accomplished. I know not how many people have been saved as the result of the Word preached at my lips. E have never attempted any catalogue of them, f have seen thousands of them with tear-dimmed eyes and quivering lips seeking the Lord, and 1 believe the great majority of those actually found Him; and, if so, that was not by my might nor by my power, but by His Spirit, In every case the (Continued on Page 73) (70)

Page 73 text:

The Preacher’s Promissory Note By W. B. RILEY For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall pros¬ per in the thing whereto I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10 and 11.) Let me call your attention to three great lessons irom these two verses: (1) The Source of Blessing; (2) The Subject of Favor; (3) The Assurance of Results, THE SOURCE OF BLESSING Heaven is the prolific source of blessing] This statement is truer than most o! us comprehend. We are a bit prone to think that heaven is the source of our spiritual blessings and that earth is the mother of blessings temporal] Such is not at all true. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, He is the Author of all good. Heaven, therefore, is the source of all blessing. That fact is brought out by the prophet Malachi who, when he, desiring for Israel Divine benedictions, reminded them of this unlimited source saying: 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 you out a blessing, that there shall not he room enough to receive it. (Malachi 3:10.) The fact is that most of us receive good and accept it as belonging to the natural course of events, forgetting God. ft is little wonder that the Scientists of this day are pigmies in the presence of those of yesterday, and that the artists of this century are untutored children as compared with great-souled singers and painters of times past. To lose or forget God is to fail in highest living. THE SUBJECT OF FAVOR “For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud Heaven is the source of good; earth is the subject of it. The Creator is back of all; the creature is the subject of all. As the Psalmist said: The earth is lull of the goodness of the Lord, (Ps. 33:5.) It is doubtful if there is any part of the earth that is sterile by nature. We have hundreds of thousands, yea, millions of acres in America, as they have in Asia and Africa, that are desert; they produce nothing. Why? There is but one reason! No water! The very moment that water, by rain or snow, is brought on to the desert sands, they fulfill the prophetic description and blossom like the rose; but no land is rich enough to produce, without water, either seed or bread. Seed is an absolute essential! That fact is recognized in all farming That is one reason why, even before the days when our American Government began to provide a living to all who were not successfully securing one, it was giving seed to the destitute farmer. That is why Christ, the Creator of all things and the One familiar with all natural and supernatural processes, said: ( 69 )

Page 75 text:

WHITE AS SNOW By R. L. Moyer Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow (Isa, 1:18.) This text is the message of God to the rebellious, sinful house of Israel. It has its application, however, to ail men born of Adam. The language of the text is figurative. The color is symbolical of spiritual states, foseph Parker said, There is a philosophy of colors: a theology of hues. We shall attempt to set that forth in this study CONDEMNATION Scarlet is the color of sin. I have read that the old law of England did not declare the color of the letter “A,” which was to be sewed on the dress of an adulteress. When Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter, he added the scarlet because he felt that to be the proper color to symbolize sin Men make a mistake in classifying only certain sins as scarlet. For example, a sinful woman is sometimes called a scarlet woman. Scarlet, however, is not the color of just a certain class of sins. It is the color of all sin. All are sinners; all must be classified as scarlet. Sin means to miss the mark; that is, to miss the Divine standard of holiness and perfection The Word of God is built about two perfect Things. In the Old Testament we have the Law of God, and we read concerning it that the Law of the Lord is perfect. The New Testament is built about the perfect Son of God. These two de¬ clare God ' s standard of perfection. Every man, however, has fallen short of that standard—he has missed the mark of God ' s perfection Man is condemned not only because of the Scarlet; he is condemned also by the White. Everyone knows that white is the color of righteousness, but man is not White. The Scriptures declare over and over again that the sinner is an unrighteous man. The White declares what man should be, but demonstrates also what he is not. All have sinned gives to us the condemnation of the Scarlet. There is none righteous, no not one gives to us the condemnation of the White. The Scarlet gives to us a positive aspect of sin, while the White brings to us the negative aspect of sin. The Scarlet tells us of the evils we have done, but White tells us of the good we have failed to do. The Scarlet tells us v hat we are; the Y hite tells us what we are not. In the mind of man, red is always connected with danger Man ' s danger signal is a red light. The scarlet of a man ' s sins in itself is a warning signal, calling out to a man the danger of judgment, declaring to a man the neces¬ sity of being saved. SUBSTITUTION Humanly speaking, it is impossible for the Scarlet to be made White—just as impossible as salvation by human means, Hugh MacMillan said, The ancient world could not make a black fleece white, nor could it make a scarlet cloth white. The modern chemist is just as helpless His most power¬ ful chemicals still leave a trace of red, I once asked a paper mill owner what he did with the red cloth that came to his mill. He said, ' We sort it out and make pink blotting paper out of it We can take out all colors but red. We can reduce the red to pink, but that is as far as we can go ' The only way whereby scarlet sins can be made white is through the sub¬ stitutionary, sacrificial death ol Jesus Christ. Nineteen hundred years ago there came One into this world Who was White. He was the sinless One. He was the Man without fault. The Scriptures declare that He had no sin. He did no sin; He knew no sin. Never in deed, word, nor thought did He (71 )