Foursquare City Subject At Services

1930

Evangelist Deals With Universal Longing At Baptist Church

"It is our purpose at this hour to deal with a universal longing," declared the Rev. John W. Ham, evangelist, in opening his talk on "The City Foursquare" at the First Baptist Church, Monday evening. "The leaf in immortality antedates the Christian revelation of Heaven. The hope of Heaven is humanity wide. No race has been found that does not possess a basic idea of life beyond the grave. This hope often expressed in crude form is present in all dialects."

"The Old Testament conception of man and its revelation of God sets up in a pagan world the doctrine for immortality and Heaven. Man is set forth as made in the image of God. Sin marred that image.

"An unprejudiced study of the hopes and aspirations of the New Testament saints will convince that they held firmly to the hope of Heaven. They desired a better country. They were in search of perfection. Their lives were modeled according to that hope.

"The New Testament saint is seen wishing to go but willing to stay for the benefit of others. This marks a decided advance in the knowledge and hope of the one who stands in the full glare of a revelation, final and authoritative on the question of Heaven.

"There are three Heavens set forth in the Bible. We all live in the first Heaven. It extends up for fifty miles. The second Heaven is the area in which the constellations have their position. The vastness of space in this second sphere staggers the mind. The third Heaven is positioned beyond the second. Paul was caught up to this position. Stephen looked up and saw Jesus in the third Heaven, standing at the right hand of God. Jesus went up into the third Heaven while his disciples stood gazing.

"Materialistic science and philosophy has steadily denied the literal aspect of Heaven. Strange to say the majority of this group accept as literal a city called Babylon, described in the seventeenth chapter of Revelation, but reject the literal aspect of the new Jerusalem.

"It is interesting to study the characteristics of the City Foursquare. The external views of the city beautiful are set forth in language that is in thorough keeping with the spiritual ideals and hopes of the race.

"The streets of gold are transparent like the most perfect glass. The illumination staggers the imagination. The light will be of an uncertain character. It will need no material power to sustain it.

"The architectural harmony and beauty of the city will surpass the most exalted imagination of the artistic mind. There is neither symmetry, harmony or beauty in the lines of long rows of buildings. The perfect city will not assault the artistic sense of such a conglomeration of structures. Beauty and harmony will be written in every line of its streets.

"God loves the beautiful. He is the author of beauty. Nature witnesses to that fact. At certain seasons of the year, the earth is crammed with the beautiful that feeds the artistic sense lavishly.

"Sin marred the beauty of the first paradise. It was lost. The redemption on Calvary made possible its regaining. Heaven is a place of intellectual activity. Its internal characteristics are in keeping with its external beauty. We live in the prep school of eternity at the present.

"Social activity will characterize the citizens of the City Foursquare. Jesus in good-bye conference, pointed out that he was going away for the purpose of preparing mansions. That word suggests social activity.

The City Foursquare will be free from all trouble and sorrow; pain and crying will have passed away. Nerve wracking, fatiguing toil will be unknown. It will be a place of rest.

"John saw a city with twelve gates, three of these opened on the north, three on the east, three on the south, three on the west. These gates symbolize the various groups of earth, temperamentally and religiously.

"The New Testament closes with a call. The spirit and the bride utter the word 'Come.' The redeemed join in this invitation. Any who have tasted the water of life are in turn to issue the invitation to those that are thirsty. Six hundred and forty-two times the word 'come' is iterated and reiterated between Genesis and Revelation."

—Olean Times, Olean, NY, April 1, 1930, p. 3.