Bravely default hasten world3/27/2023 ![]() ![]() This is the reason why God sets such high motives before the Church. ![]() It would appear from the above, if souls are to be reached, if men are to be made inwardly right, if the things which make for eternal security and blessedness are to be obtained, that divine motives, leading to divine methods and results, must prevail. For, while it is always true that Christianity civilizes, it is never true that civilization Christianizes. Besides, though a total transformation might be secured in these respects, the peoples so affected as the present condition of Japan demonstrates-would have been brought no nearer to God than they were before. The conditions above named are all "under the sun," and they have to do with the present temporal life. But such conditions do not constitute the appeal which God makes to His people when He urges them to Christianize the nations. It is certainly true, as men say, that non-Christian nations are in a pitiable state, governmentally, educationally, commercially, socially and physically and it is equally true that nothing but Christianity will alter the conditions which are existing. And this has resulted in a development of weakness, both in the appeal and in its results. But more recently there has been in many quarters a positive decline in this respect, the scriptural and spiritual giving place either to the selfish or to the simply humanitarian. There was a time-within the memory of many-when the motives proclaimed were markedly scriptural and spiritual. And it is to be noted that this condition, as compared with the past, marks a change in the kind of motive which is being presented to men in order to induce them to give themselves to missionary service. Instead of discovering, as we should anticipate in such a relationship, that these are always upon the high plane of the divine and heavenly, we find often that they are upon the low plane of the human and earthly. When we contemplate the motives which largely prevail in these days in respect to missionary service, we meet with a surprise. "The love of Christ constraineth us" ( 2 Corinthians 5:14) Director for North America of the China Inland Mission, ![]()
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