Reformation And Regeneration

Helpful for the Sunday school lesson for September 19, 1920.

All reformation is after the pattern of Matthew 12:43, “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.” When one form of amusement is cut off from the wicked-doer, he immediately sets about to find another set; when one mudhole is denied the pig, he immediately proceeds to find another. By law men have tried to make men keep Sunday. Their first purpose was that men might go to church, but, though we have more Sunday enforcement than the world has ever known before, we have less church attendance.

That cartoon in the paper the other day, where the clergyman was standing at the golf links to take up his collection as the golfers came up to tee off, had more truth than poetry in it. They quote very glibly that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath, and swing their golf sticks onto their shoulders, or burn up a little gasoline. The hedges that are built about for the purpose of making men serve God are only changed from one hedge to another. True, in each one of these reforms, men get some benefit, but God gets no glory. Reformations are splendid and have a very good effect upon men, but none of them ever drive men to love God, or to worship Him, or to praise Him, or to thank Him, or even to consider Him.

A great prohibition wave has swept over the world. Men cannot buy the booze, so they have turned to the elixir of lust. The vampire sparkles and scintillates and moves before the lust-mad eyes of men in place of the bubbling champaign. “Wine” has been left out, so there must be more “women and song.” The theatre and amusement, the hotel and the tempting forms of women have come to take the place of booze. The heart of man is still desperately wicked and deceitful above all things. Nothing but the blood of Jesus, nothing but His saving power can transform a human heart.

The force that made public opinion, causing prohibition to succeed, was the great American dollar. Manufacturers found out that they could not compete and efficiently produce the goods with booze as an antagonist, and since modern business efficiency eliminates waste and takes up the slack, booze met its Waterloo at the hands of American business efficiency. Many thought it was a moral wave. It is not and was not. A moral wave brought it to the public’s attention, but the public’s nerves ran into its pocketbook, and when it was shown that a dry town was a jail-less town, that the bills were paid and the banks got deposits and the men worked—as soon, I say, as this information was passed about, modern business took up the cry of “Down with the demon, rum.” It is a great victory, and one that will decrease in untold measure the suffering of poor human hearts. But, sad to relate, even though prohibition has come, men have not turned any closer to God.

Let those who know the Gospel, preach it. To the world it is foolishness, but to us who believe the cross, it is the power of God and the wisdom of God.