VOICE OF THE CHURCHES

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 46, 18 November 1929, Page 12

VOICE OF THE CHURCHES

SERMONS FROM WELLINGTON PULPITS

GATHERING SPOIL

THE VALLEYS OF VICTORY

That the incidents so powerfully portrayed in passage after passage of the Old Testament are but prototypes.of experiences which befall Christians in all stages of their lives, was strikingly portrayed by Commissioner John Cunningham at the Salvation Army Citadel on Sunday morning, when he dealt with the manner of deliverance God gave Israel through His servant Jahaziel. From 2 Chronicles xx the Commissioner read concerning the great gathering of the enemies of Israel for a concerted effort against the chosen of the Lord. Drawing a parallel between Israel of old and New Zealand of to-day, the Commissioner stated that he had wondered just what effect would be created in New Zealand should messengers burst in with the alarming tidings that a tremendous enemy force was about to land. Would the people, taken so utterly aback, be content to exercise implicit faith in the God of their fathers, or would their morale be so affected as to leave them an easy prey to alien force? Narrowing his remarks down to individuals, the Commissioner said that from his own experience he knew of men who, taken by such circumstances as seemed well-nigh insurmountable, had from them risen to experiences as had never been their lot before. On the other hand there had been those who had collapsed entirely under the strain and gone down defeated. It was all a question of faith in God, and the man whose faith was strongest, and whose trust was the most implicit, and. whose experience was the deepest survived. Their First Step. Going back to the case of the Israelites, however, the Commissioner pointed out that, faced with so tremendous an issue, their first step was towards the House of God, where the King presented their need to the Almighty and earnestly prayed that Divine intervention might meet that need. As is so often the case, God’s answer came from an unexpected channel, when instead of the wrath of heaven being poured out on the forces of Moab and Ammon, the Spirit of the Lord fell on a young man Jahaziel, never heard of before or since, by which the promise was given that the battle was not theirs but the Lord’s. Accordingly, obeying the instructions received, the Israelites rose up in the morning, and singing the psalm of praise, ascended to the watch tower in the wilderness. The Israelites Saw God Fight. “Then,” said the Commissioner, “occurred one of the most remarkable battles in the history of the world. The Israelites, from their point of vantage saw God tight. Disputes arose between the units comprising the enemy, until every man lay dead in the valley.” Then did the children of Israel go down into the valley, gaining spoil more than they could carry away. Leaving the Old Testament setting, the Commissioner dwelt on the fact that, in the Christian warfare, victories can be gained, the spoil of which is never wholly taken away. Over and over again it is possible to return to these valleys, where the hand of the Almighty came to give victory, and in re-contemplation of those wonderful victories comes a spiritual impetus. The Eye of Faith. Appealing to his congregation. Commissioner Cunningham said that if there were any in the building who had not such valleys to contemplate, then they had missed a great deal. Perhaps such a condition was the result of not being prepared to trust God, or of never having seen God, with the eye of faith; for God, lie said, had never changed at all, and He who so marvellously guided Israel through their trials, would guide men to-day. Even as the fear of the Lord had come to the nations and peoples around about Israel after the defeat of their enemies, so when men and women were prepared to take God at His word, to launch out on His promises, to live the life that was of Him, others would realise that, and would be afraid to interfere with their faith and belief.

Touching on the duty of Salvationists and of Christians in general, the Commissioner said: "There is nothing I believe so much as the fact that the business of Salvationists is first and foremost to glorify God. He to-day is waiting for men prepared to dedicate themselves to the serving of Himself and the making of His name great. When that band of men is forthcoming, -then the world will be a different world and the cause of the Lord will flourish.” INTERNATIONAL PEACE HOW IT MAY BE BROUGHT ABOUT ‘‘Men and women,of goodwill, earnest, and lovers of their kind, regard peace among the nations as the ideal condition for the human race. International peace, moreover, is a desperate need of this ece. because of the progress, of science as applied to destructive agencies, and because of the interlocking of the nations,” said the Rev. R. S. Watson, M.C., M.A., in a sermon in Khandallah Presbyterian Church.. ‘‘There are occasions when peace seems shameful to some people. They say : ‘Peace is not the greatest of goods, nor war the worst of evils.’ That is to say, peace appears an evil and the greater of two evils. That is the situation as many people saw it at the beginning of their participation in the Great War. Since the war the‘peace-at-any-price’ and the ‘peace-at-almost-any-price' people have increased in numbers. It is necessary to go far enough back and stop such a seeming necessity as the decision to go to war. Sins are the real causes of war. They are always our real foes. We Christians must give ourselves more wholeheartedly all the time tp battling against wrong. Victories of Peace. ‘‘Peace should be looked upon as the securer of opportunities for all to develop and display the virtues that war calls for, and that men and women praise —which are not accompanied as they necessarily are in war —by other things that a Christian should not do. There are, that is to say, victories of peace that are better for the soul than the individual and collective victories of war —which produced a limited number of virtues nnd some vices. Truly. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’ Some Things That Help. “What are some things that help? Experiments, like the Pax Romana, the Holy Alliance and the Balance of Power, that have failed, have yet taught us lessons. Conferences, etc., that have been held and that failed to stop the World War, planted and nurtured a plant—the will to peace—which is stronger than ever because of the Great War. Intercourse, conference, friendship between the representatives of different nations is a help. Disarmament is a necessity. The old motto, ‘lf you want peace, prepare for war,’ has been somewhat discredited. The slogan of to-day is: ‘lf you wish for peace, for peace prepare.' And yet Mr. <7. L. Garvin recently pointed to the mockery of the fact that Britain is spending £2OO a minute on armaments as against about 2/6 for peace, apart from the other purposes of the League of Nations, and some other nations are guiltiei perhaps. The fundamental change needed is a change in the hearts and minds of men. This calls for religion to convert, and to produce the ethical plant that bears the fruit of peace. The biggest requirement of the world to-day is more of the Christian religion. In support of this contention the statements of many well-known men can be given. This of ex-Rresident Coolidge must .suflice : ‘ there is just one way of gaining international peace, and that is thorough religion.

“THE BREAD OF LIFE”

THE NECESSITY OF CHRIST

At the Island Bay Baptist Church, Mr. C. B. Boggis (student pastor) took for his subject “The Bread of Life." Taking as his text John 6,. Verse 35, “Jesus said: “I am the Bread of Life,” he said Jesus Christ used the homely and familar .figures in presenting His message to men. All could appreciate and understand such words as "door,” “shepherd,” night,” "way,” "bread,” and these were the terms He employed. He did not bring to men intricate philosophies, but a message clothed in the commonplace words of everyday life.' In this remarkable assertion Christ speaks of I-liniself under the figure of Bread. We regard bread as a prime necessity, an indispensable part of our food. Kich and poor alike require it. The lack of this great essential food has caused many bitter, violent situations in the course of history. Mental and Spiritual Hunger. “But this material bread must be eaten constantly. It is the food of our physical being only. It is bread that perishes. Now there are other realms of our being ‘for which suitable nutrition is needed. We are not wholly physical, and man shall not live by bread alone. Man has mental hunger. Unless proper food and succour be given to the mind it will become dwarfed. Many people are unconsciously poisoning instead of mourishing their mental faculty. The imagination and thoughts are to be guarded and kept unstained. Inferior and injurious mental food must be excluded. It is not sufficient, however, to look after the mind. The spiritual side needs solemn attention. . Men who go no further than the mental side often become clever devils. It' is an awful thing to contemplate mental advancement without a corresponding development of the highest and holiest part of man’s being. The spiritual nature is starved in too many instances. Man is conscious of infinite needs above the material things of life. And for this chiefest need of man there is satisfying food. Christ is the bread of life. Our Lord has one panacea for all woes and wants, for the deepest longings in us, and it is Himself. Jesus did not simply come to repeat the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand day after day. The crowd who followed Him supposed that here was a Bread King who would give them all the food they required by the performance of a perpetual miracle. But Christ does what is far greater. He gives Himself to us as the bread of life, the satisfaction for the heart’s deepest hunger. “The True Bread.” “Christ the bread of life means strength in a man . and not simply without him. The power is incorporated and not just applied. As the strength of food supports us by becoming part of us, so thelife of Christ becomes part of the believing man and is a vital inner force. Even as bread contains all the elements needed for nutrition, so in Him there is to be found what is all-sufficient for our lives in their diverse needs. Christ was born in ‘Bethlehem,’ which means ‘The House of Bread,’ and He is the true Bread for all the world sent from God. Man cannot be satisfied with less than that which is of Heavenly origin. “Christ is a prime necessity for all true and successful life. Bread is not just an extra or a luxury. It is ‘staff of life.’ So many think of Jesus as if He were an optional addition to our living, but He is essential, and without Him life is impoverished and incomplete. Bread must be appropriated before it becomes life-giving We cannot eat unless we make the food our own. Each man eats for himself. So Christ is to be definitely and personally received.” SPIRITUAL BASIS OF LIFE LIVING FOR THE IDEAL Preaching in the Thorndon Methodist Church on Sunday evening from the words, “Labour not for the meat which perisheth but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you,” the Rev. E. D. s Patchett said: "Man has never been able to make himself a thor-ough-going materialist. In the midst of the .most materialistic age his spiritual instincts have always been in evidence. “However completely he may succeed in covering up his divine nature under an apparent absorption in the good and the bad things of life, he sooner or later finds his undying craving for God asserting itself. It was because Jesus knew that man could never be satisfied with ‘the bread which perisheth’ that His ministry was such a tremendously hopeful one. He was always appealing to the spiritual side of man’s nature

If we are wise- we will not overemphasise the -words “Labour not for the meat that perisheth.” We will not construe them to mean that Jesus was an impractical dreamer. That He was indifferent to the needs of men’s bodies. Had He nbt just fed the multitude when He saw them fnint with hunger? Was he not always a great Humanitarian Jesus,knew beyond most men the pressure of ordinary life. The “cost of living” was not outside his experience. The emphasis then is to be placed on the latter part of the text: Labour “for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life.” For in the manner of Christ’s speech' to say, “Labour not for earthly but for heavenly bread,” was only another way of saying that the latter was of far greater value than the former. So he was stressing here'what He was always saying, “the life is more than meat;” “man shall not live by bread alone.” He invited men then as He invites them now to break away from the tyranny of the physical and material things of life. Deliverance From Idolatory. There is a love of the world and a love of this present life which are not incompatible with the love of God, but there is also a love of the world and of self which is sheer idolatory. It is from such idolatory that this age needs to pray to be delivered; They, quite rightly, want the best that the State schools can supply for the bodies and brains of their children, and yet they sit down in peace while a secular system denies to their children in the schools God’s best, in the form of the Sacred Scriptures. Thus they tacitly agree to surround their lives with a secular materialism. To understand how blind and foolish we are in these things we only need to remind ourselves that at heart we no not believe that life can go on without God. This is-not merely a hypothesis ot the Church. It is a fact deduced from the long history of the race and from a knowledge of our own hearts and from God’s Word. Man’s history is the history of a spiritual being. So that to destroy the idealism of Jesus and adopt a materialistic attitude to life is to be false to all that is best in our traditions and in our blood. Nor is the ideal which i Jesus sets before men in our text an im- ! possible ideal. It does not encourage the idea that the sacred is to be divorced from the secular. Life in this teaching is ' a splendid unity. We believe that in the mind of the Master He could be labouring

‘ for “the meat which endureth unto ever- • lasting life” when He was busy at the carpenter’s bench just as truly as when He fed the multitudes or taught the disciples. The religious principle is operative in the whole of life. We may carry n spiritual motive into the lowliest tasks. IWe should carry it into them all. That is the wonderful thing Christ • enables us t» do.”