CHRIST THE LIBERATOR.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 70, 21 March 1908, Page 10

CHRIST THE LIBERATOR.

2&3E - THEODORE: Is. ; CUXLER, D.D.

"Loose him and let him go!" At this tpHEnand of Jesus. they:unwind the bandages from the limbs of Lazarus, and by the old familiar path he walks back to his old home. This was the master miracle of all which Jesus wrought during His incarnation, but He is still doing for imprisoned souls what He -lid for the body of His Bethany brother when it ii.id lain four days in the sepulchre. I looked not long ago with genuine pity on a noble eagle, caged in a public park, as an exhibition for schoolboys. The old grey mountaineer felt its galling imprisonment, and occasionally napped its wings as if it were homesick for the Ekies. "Loose him and let him go," was the thought inspired by the sorry sight, and how he would have sailed off to H3" in company with the sun! Kagles were not born for slavery. 1 thought, too. as 1 looked at the chained bird, how much lie resembled some fettered souls, yes. some Christian souls that are terribly tied down by unbelief. Too many people have enrolled themselves in the Church ' • —some have entered the ministry— with a heavy clog that binds them to the i lower earth. It hampers them, hinders ; them, and is fatal to all spiritual joy ' or growth in holiness. Mam' a young j convert begins his religious life with a doubting and desponding spirit. He Burses his fears in a morbid way and mistakes all his gruesomeness for humility. He is a chained bird from the skies.

Others are fettered by besetting sins, from which they have never cut loose. They have never made a clean break with the old sinful self or with the beggarly elements of this world; they are hoppled with practices and associates that they have never cut loose from. They have probably passed from death unto life, yet they appear very much as Lazarus would have looked if he ihad walked the streets at Bethany in his ghastly grave-clothes! This is a "pitiable sty]e of religion; it irings but little 3"oy co its possessor and gives him or her no power in the community. While they are content to be what they are, there is no hope for such manacled professors. Their only hope is in a timely and thorough repentance, and a fresh work of Christ, a deeper and thorough work, Und for this they must earnestly seek or else they will be chained birds in a church cage to the last.

Some really good people are clogged fey bodily ailment—dyspeptic stomachs or weak nerves, and they see but little sunshine in their Christian experience. Bunvan has depicted several specimens of these pilgrims who hobble toward leaven on crutches until death looses them and lets them go. Such Christians are to be pitied more than blamed; they are rather patients in Christ's hospital than soldiers on His battlefields.

False doctrine, false views of sin and ; of Christ are at the bottom of a great ■deal of this spiritual debility. Every error ;_ i≤ the enslaver of the soul. * Truth makes -us free indeed. Martin- Luther was a - chained eagle in the Erfurt Convent until - that heaven-sent truth, "The just shall live by faith," loosed him. Thomas Chalmers was another chained eagle, but when - the great doctrines-of man's guilt and - Christy's redemption" liberated him he - soared up into -tEe~ -empyrean, the - king of Scotland's gospellers. .John Wesley never attained jbo.alfull salvation until in that little London prayer meeting his Z eyes rested on ;theseL3yords; "The spirit _ of" life' in rChrist" Jesus' made mc free from,the law of sin and death." To every member of out churches who ; Ss dragging out a half-dead religion the ; Holy Spirit comes with the arousing call: V "T| ye be indeed risen with Christ, seek 7 those things which are above!* . Instead 7 of sitting in the gates 01 t1..-> "tomb, cast j away your grave-clothes and begin to : live as Christ's freemen and Christ's wit- - nesses and the heirs of a magnificent in- i lieritance, Look higher! live higher! - Get a new grip on Christ and then go out - and labour to draw sinners from the pit. ; This is the revival we all need.