"OF WHOM THE WORLD WAS NOT WORTHY"

                                                                         -33-

JANUARY      

 31, 1686 --France. The Duke of Savoy declares amnesty is at an end, and the Waldensians are ordered to become members of the Church of Rome. An Edict is issued forbidding the exercise by the Vaudois of their religion, and their places of worship are ordered demolished. Pastors and schoolteachers refusing to be converted are ordered to quit the country within fifteen days upon pain of death, and the confiscation of all their property. All Protestant refugees from France are ordered to leave under the same terms. All children born of Protestant parents are to be compulsorily educated as Roman Catholics.

31, 1834 --Burma. Adoniram Judson, who read Buchanan’s Star in the East and became sensible of God’s calling him to leave New England for Burma, today completes his translation of the Word of God into Burmese.

31, 1892 --France. At 11:00 this Sunday evening, Mr. Charles Haddon Spurgeon dies in the Hotel Beau Rivage in Mentone, France. On his tomb can be found the words, “Here lies the body of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, waiting for the appearing of his Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.” This Baptist preacher has been called the greatest preacher since the days of the Apostle Paul.
His pastorate at Park Street Church has grown from one hundred people to a crowd of ten thousand when he preached at the Surrey Gardens Music Hall. He has established the Pastor’s College, the Stockwell Orphanage and has edited the monthly magazine, the Sword and Trowel. He leaves behind nineteen hundred sermons including various books among which is Our Own Hymn Book, the Treasury of David --which is a three thousand page commentary on the Psalms, and the Gospel of the Kingdom --which is a series of expositions of the book of Matthew.

31, 1933 --Germany. Adolph Hitler is named Chancellor of Germany. In four weeks, Communist saboteurs will burn the Reichstag, which is the parliament building. The following day he will discard the constitution and create a dictatorship by forbidding freedom of speech and of the press, as well as invading the privacy of the mails, and by calling an end to public meetings. Search and seizure, originally illegal is put into force.

   
   

“There is the suggestion of the present hour: if the world will not come to Jesus ... shall not the church go down to the world? Instead of bidding men to be converted, and come out from among sinners, and be separate from them, let us join with the ungodly world, enter into union with it, and so pervade it with our influence by allowing it to influence us. Let us have a Christian world . . ..
    “Certain ministers ...are treacherously betraying our holy religion under pretense of adopting it to this present age. The new plan is to assimilate the church to the world. ... By semi-dramatic performances they make houses of prayer to approximate to the theatre; they turn their services into musical displays ... in fact, they exchange the temple for the theatre, and turn the ministers of God into actors whose business it is to amuse men . . .. This, then, is the proposal. In order to win the world, the Lord Jesus must conform Himself, His people, and His Word to the world. I will not dwell on so loathsome a proposal.
     “My dear hearers, how much I long to see you saved! But I would not belie my Lord, even to win your souls, if they could be so won. The true servant of God is responsible for diligence and faithfulness, but he is not responsible for success or non-success. Results are in God’s hands.     --Charles Haddon Spurgeon

 

 

Previous   Next