Covenanter Witness Vol. 54 - Rparchives.org

you."
you"
reap."
The Counter Charge
Mr. Judge, Your Honor, and Ladies and Gentle
men of the Jury : While we have not claimed to have
wholly established our
innocency of the charge of
failing to challenge our readers as we should have
done, we do claim that we have challenged them in
every issue, to some extent. If they have failed to
find a challenge, perhaps the fault lies in them. When
Ezekiel was mysteriously transported and set down
in the Valley of Dry Bones, very many and very
dry, he was asked, "Son of Man, can these bones
live"
and on his expressing doubt he was command
ed to prophesy to them. Strange to say, there was a
faint rattle becoming noise of ankle bones joining
shin bones, shin bones to knee bones, knee bones to
thigh bones, etc., and flesh came upon them, and the
four winds were called to breathe upon these slain,
and they stood up an exceeding great army. The sub
stance of that message, must have been, "I dare
But without that breathing of the Holy Spirit
on those bones, they never would have stirred. I
dare you to read the pages of the Covenanter Wit
ness, sincerely praying for The Holy Spirit to chal
lenge you, and not to feel a tremor.
The Holy Bible is the most challenging Book
ever written. Do you ever hear God saying to you,
"I dare "I dare you to be a better servant
or master, a better child of God." Is it not on every
page "What is that in thine hand" The human
hand itself is a mighty challenge, the most won
derful of machines, a mass of levers and motors,
made to grasp things, to hold one, two or five talents,
with capability to increase them to ten or more. A
little daughter was mending her father's vest and
sewed a buttonhole too small. He couldn't button it.
But it called his attention to the wondrous skill of
that hand as he watched it making the attempt.
Never before had he realized that the hand had a
memory all its own. It never asked the brain for help
on the thing it had done before. The brain was only
called in emergencies
a stand-by consultant. Is your
hand skilled only in the use of a knife, fork and
spoon, and complacently satisfied Your bones are
very many and very dry. Your body, mind and spirit
are constantly saying by their undeveloped possibili
you."
ties, "I dare
Dare You Take a Dare
Are you daring in the noble sense of the word
Here is your chance to prove it :
Dare No. 1. 1 dare you to write one, two or three
passages from scripture that challenge us, on a postal
card, and mail them to us, such as "Make straight
paths for your feet" (Heb. 12:13). Initial them if
you will. We ought to get a few thousand answers
soon. When we have a page full, we will print it as
your challenge to others.
Dare No. 2. Send us quotations other than scrip
ture that dare us to do worthwhile things, such as
"Thoughts unused are soon diffused." "Count that
day lost whose low descending sun views from thy
done."
hand no worthy action
Dare No. 3. Have you a child in your home of
pre-school age. Send us a picture (Kodak will do),
write on back, name, age, parents, congregation. (We
hope to print a few pages of these if results justify.)
A small offering (strictly voluntary) will make this
venture self-liquidating.
We have a number of daring things to propose
later, if you prove that you will take a dare.
A Blessing
and a Curse
by Rev. Joseph A. Hill
(A devotional address delivered before Synod and the Young People's Conference at Grinnell, Iowa
on July 20, 195A).
Deuteronomy 11:26-28 Behold, I set before
you this day a "blessing and a curse ; a blessing, if ye
obey the commandments of the Lord your God,
which I command you this day: and a curse, if ye
will not obey the commandments of the Lord your
God, but turn aside out of the way which I command
you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have
not known."
The "Covenant of 1954" is really the Crisis of
1954. It places before the Covenanter Church both
opportunity and danger. For the alternatives set
before us in this covenant are clear cut: either o-
bedience or disobedience. The outcome of the cove
nant is also plain: either blessing or curse.
God's covenant with man is as a sharp twoedged
sword. It is both a blessing and a curse at
the same time. Moses, in this chapter, reminded the
children of Israel that through God's covenant his
people were delivered at the Red Sea while the Egyp
tians were destroyed. The same mighty act of God
was both a blessing and a curse.
A blessing and a curse are set before us in
April 13, 1955
this Covenant. Placing our names on a document is
not the essence of our covenantal relation with God.
Unless the relation is already established by God,
we will not be blessed through this Covenant. If
our signing the Covenant proves to be merely a
formality, we may expect to see the Covenanter
Church go downhill rapidly after Grinnell. The re
ward of disobedience, as Moses warns, is a curse.
On the other hand, if this Covenant draws us
closer to our covenant-keeping God, so that we are
enabled to keep the oath of obedience, we should see
a real revival in the Covenanter Church. We may
see a considerable increase in the growth of the
Church. God will bless us if we obey Him. He will
show His favor upon us in all the work which we
undertake,
at home and abroad.
"Be not deceived, God is not mocked: whatso
ever a man soweth, that shall he also And
whatsoever a Church soweth, that shall it also reap.
If we obey, we will reap God's blessing; if we dis
obey, we must endure His displeasure and His wrath.
"Behold, I set before you this day a blessing
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