SUNDAY COLUMN

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 33, 18 November 1939, Page 3

SUNDAY COLUMN

NEWS OF THE CHURCHES. (Conducted by the Ashburton Ministers’ Association). PRAYING MISSIONARIES. William Carey, the shoe cobbler, used a map of tho world as his prayer book. David Livingstone died on his knees praying for Africa. Raymond Lull prayed his way into Africa. ‘ Xavier died with a prayer on his lips for China. Hudson Taylor drew his breath in prayer, and saw miracles wrought. Johu Hunt’s last words were, “O God, save the Fiji Islands.-” Adoniram Judson testified that he never prayed faithfully for anything and tvas denied. George Whitefield gave much time to prayer and Bible study on his knees. John Eliot, missionary to the Indians, said, “Prayer and pains through faith in Jesus. Christ will accomplish anything.” Charles Cowman died with a map of China before him, and his heart-cry was. “Do your utmost to evangelise China.” KEPT BY THE ONLY BEGOTTEN. (By Bev. F. B. Meyer, D.D.) That is a remarkable alteration which is made in the Revised Version, of John v. 18, “We know that whosoever is horn of God* sinneth not; hut he that is begotten of God keepeth him, and that wicked one touchcth him not. It used to run, “He that is begotten of God keepeth himself.” It is a great light on the text to strike out self, and to learn that it is not left to the weak and lonely saint to keep himself; but that his Lord is prepared to undertake the keeping of his soul if once it is committed to His care, and to secure it from the defiling touch of the Wicked One, the great enemy of all who bear Christ’s brand. In one of the capitals of the Continent the Imperial regalia is exposed to view on an open table, which is covered by cloth of crimson and gold, hut apparently unprotected. It would seem at first sight as if there were nothing to prevent the hand of the thief from plunder. And yet that table has never been rifled of its contents. They aie absolutely safe; and for this reason: All around the precious symbols of royalty, set with jewels worth a monarch’s ransom, there js being constantly poured a strong stream or current of electricity. Let any hand be stretched out toward them, and it would he instantly struck down benumbed and paralysed. It is an invisible, but inviolable protection. *

Kept from Known Sin. So are we kept from known sin, and indeed from harm. The Lord is oui Keeper, our shade upon our right hand, our Rock and Fortress and High Tower. And yet His dear environing presence is as 'invisible as the electric current. It is a film, an atmosphere, an aureole, of which our dearest, and even we.ourselves at times, may be unconscious, but which is none the less our ever-suffi-cient safeguard. What the envelope is to the letter within, preserving its contents from the soil of many hands and the invasion of prying eyes; what the iron safe is to the precious contents amid the devouring flames that feed on factory -or home; what the film of air is to certain insects, in which they enwrap themselves before they dive for food into the stagnant pool—that, to us, is the protecting presence of our Blessed Lord “in whom wo live and move and have our being.” Let us ever trust it. Let us, so to speak, incase ourselves afresh in it ere we go down into the day’s life, as some precious article of artistic beauty may be safely packed for transit by rail or waggon, so that immunity is secured from all jars and shocks and careless hands. There is no possibility of the sea touching the inmates of the divingbell, though there is no visible defence between it and them, because the air is being pumped in at so great a pressure; aud similarly the saints are kept from' the inroads of evil by the enwrapment and enswathement of the Divine Presence, and that Wicked One toucheth them not.

It is very necessary to remember that we are inside, unless we voluntarily go out. We may not always be thinking of Christ Jesus, or consciously abiding in Him, but we may reckon on our being so unless we have broken through the holy chain, and gone out of it by yielding to conscious and known sin, or to worrying care. But conscience will ever tell us when this is the case, and directly we are sensible of having departed from the living God, we should never rest until we have gone back in penitence and confession, and put Him between us and all possible evil. Then the sun shall not smite by day, nor the moon by night. He shall beset us behind and before, and cover us with His feathers. Temptation Innocuous. All temptation is rendered innocuous in having to pass through God to us. But there are times when He permits evil things, suggested by the malevolence of our foes, to roach us. It may he a letter, an insult, a. traitor’s kiss, an assassin’s stab. Not one of these can reach us except by His permission. He must, so to speak, "open the mail of His protection to let them through, and whenever He does so, that which emanated from the malignity of our foes will become God’s will to our hearts. Shimci cursed David, hut the royal exile accepted it from the W ill of ‘ God—“ The Lord hath said Curse David.” Judas, in the hour of nower of darkness, led .armed men against his Lord, but Jesus said, ‘"The cup which My Father giveth me to drink, shall I not drink it?” Heaven is not safer than garth to those who are kept by the Only Begotten of the Father. Foil’ them, as for Him, there is absolute triumph. Our Shepherd is more than a match lor our foes. He will keep His dock and not one shall be missing when He te , s the tale in the pasture lands, unswept by storm, unpilaged by T thief.