THE CHURCH AND THE CRISIS

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20957, 11 September 1933, Page 8

THE CHURCH AND THE CRISIS

WHAT MEN NEED UNSELFISHNESS AND DEMONSTRATION "This is still God*s world, although in many cases God is not God of this world, yet it we would live successfully we must live to let, God be God and cense to defy or ignore His will," said Mr G. Sterling in a sermon, "What men need," in the Cathedra) last night. This was the first of four sermons by laymen on "The Church and the Crisis." God was revealed in the Scriptures, said Mr Stening, as a God to love and to pray to, but also as a God of plans and purposes, and a God who took sides. He had made man upright in his own image but too often to-day man was found stooped and crooked in his ways and in his character. Through the centuries man had persisted in making and worshipping in some form a golden calf. He had had a wrong sense of values of what constituted life. He had to realise that unless lie turned to God the problems facing the world to-day would intensify until there was chaos. Living Unselfishly. Christ had said, "If any man would be my disciple he must take up his cross and follow Me." He had taught that to make a success of life man had to live unselfishly—"Seek ye first the kingdom of God." Man needed above all things to realise that we were getting further and further from that plan. But through the ages men had demonstrated that the life of service and unselfishness was a happy one. Lack of Demonstration. . A second thing needed by man, said Mr Stening, was demonstration. The world had suffered because, while it had plenty -of exaltation, demonstration was lacking. "What the world needs from us," he said, "is a demonstration that what we have been preaching is practicable. Are you and I willing to pay the price and be demonstrators? Whether we are or not it is expected from us by God. God's plan was that his disciples should be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. We were meant to keep it sound, sweet, and wholesome. We were to give light to the world and be small moons, that men seeing our good works should glorify our Father that is in heaven." Examples of mission nurses preferring their work to the work in the government hospitals where the pay was eight times as much as theirs, and of African chiefs who had left their kingdoms to teach in the native schools because of the joy they found in their work, were quoted by Mr Stening. "So this is not just a theory: it is a practicable thing," he concluded. "Man's need in face of the world's chaos is to be brought to a knowledge of God's plan as distinct from man's plan, and God looks to us to be His demonstrators. Unless we back up God's message by living it out ourselves it will be a long time before the kingdoms of the world become the kingdoms of Jesus Christ."