VOICE OF THE CHURCHES

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 34, 4 November 1929, Page 12

VOICE OF THE CHURCHES

SERMONS FROM WELLINGTON PULPITS

SPIRITUALISM A WARNING AGAINST IT In St. Paul’s Pro-Cathedral last night Canon Percival James took for his subi ject “The Communion of Saints.” The neglect of this essential part of the Christian faith, he said, had been followed by a twofold penalty; First, the materialism which refused to believe in j the survival of personality beyond physical death; secondly, the crude superstition of sotcalled “Spiritualism” and kindred cults, the appetite for which was created by spiritual starvation. “There are mourners,” said the Canon, “who, in their impatience, have had recourse to the methods of alleged communication with the departed, which have passed under the name “Spiritualism,” but should more properly be termed spiritism. It is an old snare, as old as mankind. It is, in fact, fraud, in part delusion. Is there anything else .in it? In answer to some of their claims you need only ask, with Deaq Inge: Can there be physical evidence of the spiritual world? There are only three forms under which matter can exist, solid, liquid, and gaseous; and disembodied spirits belong to none of them. It is claimed that the evidence must rightly.be allowed to speak for itself. To attempt to extract and weigh evidence from the fraud-stained annals of spiritism seems to me an undertaking of doubtful value. But such evidence seems to indicate that the communications which are claimed to have come from the spirit-world have come,, by their own showing, from and through spirits of ,a low order, evil spirits of mischief and malignancy. If you must dabble in spiritism ask yourself:; Are such the agents through which the God of Saints and Father of Spirits has willed you to hold communication with your loced ones in His keeping? “The wiser advice is this: Have no-

thing to do with this modern necro- ' mancy. Put no trust in the claims of ‘Spiritualism,’ even when they are supported by men justly distinguished for their knowledge and prowess in other and more legitimate spheres of human activity. These men are out of their depth, and should have known better than to be carried there. Have nothing to do with this recrudescence of primitive magic. That way lies fraud, disappointment, heartbreak and the loss- of all reasonable faith. That way, too often, lies madness. “To many questions which we would fain ask concerning the unseen world and our loved ones who have passed into it, there is no answer in this life. We do not know. Our Lord, when he recalled the dead to life, seems tff have sealed their lips against any revelation from another World. He Himself did not lift the veil that shrouds the great unseen. God is a loving Father, who, for our own good, keeps us ignorant of many things during this lifp. He has many things to show us, but we cannot bear them now.”

THE THEOLOGY OF THE LORD’S PRAYER

THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD The subject chosen by the Rev. C. Wickham, special preacher for Sunday at The Terrace Congregational Church, was “The Theology of the Lord’s Prayer.” “A layman once said to a minis'ter, “I don’t want any creeds or theology. The Lord’s - Prayer and Ten Commandments are enough for men.” He-spoke as-.if there was no theology in the Lord’s Prayer.” said the preacher. ? “Theology is simply the science that tries to explain the existence and nature of God and man’s relation to Him. I wish to show that behind almost every sentence in this model prayer much theology is tacitly assumed. What is so simple in expression that a child can lisp it is so profound in its theology that a philosopher may be lost in its depths. “In definanee of the atheism and materialism of this age, as we offer this prayer we confess our belief in the'existence of God. and this is the supreme problem of theology. To Us God is not a mere impersonal force or the causes of all cause, but He is a person Who wills and reigns, and has His headquarters in a spiritual sphere we call “Heaven,” where He is worshipped and served by spiritual beings called angels. He is so high and holy that His very name should be ‘hallowed’ and spoken by men only with the deepest reverence. Surely this is a basis sufficient for a theistic theology. But it is a Christian prayer, and carries us much further. In the light of Christ’s marvellous revelation of the heart of God we are encouraged to address the Most High God of Heaven as ‘Father,’ and when we say ‘Our’ Father we are praying for the whole family of God, and we thereby acknowledge that all people of every colour, race and condition are God’s children. So we approach God with the most solemn reverence, and yet with the trustfulness of children. “Such being our creed, we first offer three petitions that God’s glorious ‘name,’ which expresses His holy nature and absolute authority, may be reverenced by all, and that His rightful ‘kingdom’ may come and His gracious will may be ‘done’ on earth as loyally as in Heaven by the angels. Having thus sought ‘first the Kingdom of God’ we venture to pray hopefully yet submissively for four great blessings, blessings which we and all men need, namely, daily food, forgiveness of sin. kind consideration-of our frailty, lest we be tried beyond our strength, and for Divine protection against the evil one. “Now mark some of the theological assumptions behind all this: First, that all men stand in a definite personal relation to God and that they should always be concerned about the extension of His spiritual realm and the fulfilment of His gracious will; second, man’s utter dependence on God’s provision for his daily food,-and this is in spite of the advances of science and commerce; third, the fall of the race and our spiritual bankruptcy. We all owe God that which we can never pay. and therefore we pray to be forgiven our ‘debts,’ Luke says ‘sins,’ and this is a confession that we need a Saviour; fourth, Man’s inability in his own strength to face the trials, temptations, sufferings and sorrows of life and his need of an Almighty Deliverer from the Evil One; fifth, that the final victory is well-known to those who offer this prayer, for they believe that God’s kingdom and power and glory shall .be

for ever and ever. Before anyone can truly say ‘Amen’ to this glorious prayer he must be a true Christian and a real theologian, with a very definite faith in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.”

"THE WORD OF GOD" ALL THAT IT MEANS AND STANDS FOR “Whn the Word of God comes to a man who has bent a listening ear to catch the Divine message, and who goes forthwith to obey the Divine behest, a new day dawns for the world,” said the Rev. R. J. Howie .preaching at St. Andrew’s Church, yesterday morning on the subject, “The Word of God.” “If a word be the expression of a thought and honest speech, a doorway into the mind, then ‘the Word of God’ must be a medium through which we see the mind of God at work and His sovereign purposes revealed. “The phase is used in several senses. We speak, for instance, of the Bible as ‘the Word of God.’ We believe that in this written record we have a very real glimpse into the mind of God; that here we may learn how, through long years, God has been gradually unfolding His mind and purpose for the world. The Bible is a record of man’s discovery of God, and no one who is really anxious to explore the background of life, and know something of the great purpose that fills all life can afford to pass by this Book as one of no consequence. Moreover, it may be said, and to this every Bible Society will bear faithful testimony, that as often as the Word of God has come to a people living in the wilderness of ignorance, idolatry and superstition, a new day has dawned for them and a new epoch begun. .... “The phrase is also used as indicative of the Divine illumination that came to particular individuals, who because their lives were tuned in to the infinite, were able to pierce beyond the veil and enter a very intimate way into fellowship with God. Man had an experience of God before there was a written record of that experience. In a very real way God spoke to the prophets and seers of the Old Testament who were moved to speak God’s word to the nation. As often as Israel heard and obeyed that word, they made an advance onward, when it was rejected they were faced with disaster. God revealed His will through the prophets who spoke as the spirit gave them utterance, and the rejection of the prophetic message by the nation was its own undoing. “Further, the phrase is used to denote the Person of Jesus Christ. We are told that ‘the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.’ When we wish to get a glimpse into the mind and purpose of God, we have it in the life and ministry of Jesus. He came as God’s final word for the world, and when He came the last veil that hid the face of God was rent from top to bottom. No longer is God the Great Unknown and Unknowable, for Jesus answers,-‘he that Hath seen me has seen the Father.’ Christ is the Door through which we get a full revelation of the mind and heart of God. He is the ■Word of God, and in Him God s purpose for the world has been revealed.” UNOBTRUSIVE WORK BRINGING ITS OWN REWARD The Rev. E. S. Harkness, preaching in the evening at the Hataitai Methodist Church on the occasion of the Sunday School anniversary, based his address on Ecclesiastes xi, 1. “Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days.” “The allusion,” he said, “is to the Oriental method of cultivating rice in fields which have been inundated by overflowing rivers or irrigation. While the water is still covering the soil, the rice seed is literally. cast on the surface of the waters and takes root in the silt and soil as the waters subside. When we remember than for more than half the population of the world rice is the staple article of food it is easily understood that.it is their ‘bread.’” The preacher touched upon a' few points of analogy between the Oriental farmer scattering the rice upon the waters and the present-day Christian worker engaged in such active enterprises as the Sunday School. “In the first place we can say that the work is very largely unappreciated. To cast upon the waters the rice which might have been given to hungry people and appreciated may seem a waste of good food. And it would, be if it had reference only to the sowing, without any hope of a harvest. It is well known that unselfish labour of sincere workers in moral and religious spheres is often unappreciated by those in whose interests it was exerted, and for whom sacrifices have been made. “But. should the unappfeciate reception of one’s earnest endeavours be sufficient reason for ceasing to do anything further?

“Then we may say that our work is often unobtrusive. Who can say that work done in a quiet and unobtrusive manner may not be of considerable importance? That our tasks, generally, are of a very ordinary character, and unknown out side our small circle of acquaintances, should never be an excuse for slovenly work. “Another thought is that very frequently Christian work is carried on under unpromising conditions. Sunday school teachers face many difficulties in their work. There is a tendency to despair at the comparative fewness of active workers for so important and large a task. Yet net us take courage. Science has discovered many good things in most unlikely places. From the residue of gasworks that formerly was tossed away as useless, some of the sweetest scents and the rarest dyes are now extracted. Saul of Tarsus, with his intense bigotry, seemed very unpromising material for a devoted advocate of Christianity. However unappreciated the work may seem; notwithstanding that it has to be carried out unobtrusively, and though it may appear at time so unpromising in its results, let it be ours to ‘toil on, faint not, keep watch and pray’ ; and we shall have the joy of knowing that the reward will be ours, even though it may only be ‘after many days.’ ”