VOICE OF THE CHURCHES

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 51, 24 November 1930, Page 15

VOICE OF THE CHURCHES

SERMONS FROM WELLINGTON PULPITS

“GOD IS LOVE”

The Master Key

The Rev. T. R. Richards, preaching in Wesley Church, Taranaki Street, last evening, based his sermon on I John, iv, 8: “God is Love.” “A traveller "standing on the banks of a stream which he is anxious to cross may form the impression that the water is shallow and may be crossed easily,” said the preacher. “When he takes the first step he finds the water is of considerable depth, and quite beyond him. His eye was deceived by the crystal quality of the water and the shining sand. 'The casual reader may imagine that the shining trait in the character of God is a surface commonplace thing, but the thoughtful mind discovers the unplumbJd depths of the great sea of divine love. The mind ventures on a great ocean without a bottom and without a shore. “Over this text may be written the words .‘Multuni in parvo.’ In these words man finds all he wants. They are three words of three syllables. They arc bigger words than, all the words found in our greatest dictionaries. They are the three words out of which all other words come. The text covers the whole Bible. ‘God is love’ is the whole of divine revelation in miniature. Love shines upon every page of the Bible, like so many gems on a royal garment. The sun that shines to-day will set in darkness, slimmer streams shall freeze and earth’s deepest wells go dry. But God’s love is a sun that never sets, a stream that never freezes, a well that never goes dry. A child may go down to the great sea and dip its hand in the waters, but how- little can it carry away in the hollow of its hand. The soul may bathe in the great ocean of divine love, but how little can it carry away, how vast the love remains. Revelation of God’s Character. “The Bible presents a three-fold revelation of the love of God. This is shown in three words of vast content: ‘God is Love,’ ‘God is Light,’ ‘God is Spirit.’ There is no contradiction in this revela,tion as one thought is common , to the .three, viz., ‘Effusion’ —they all give out. Lave has its laws of diffusion and communication. The first thing love does is to give out. The divine love was so full that it must give out, and it did in the person and cross of Christ. God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son. True love must always give out —and it gives of its best when it gives of its own nature. “The earth is bathed in sunlight, not because the earth lias any peculiar power to draw the light down, but the sun radiates of its own nature because it is so full and active that it must give out. The streams run down the mountain sides, not because of the desert sands that absorb the streams but because the upper springs overflow and must give. The merchant may erect the shutters of the shop and exclude the sunlight, but that does not prevent the sunlight from playing about the building. Lamp of Divine Love. “The ingratitude of man does not restrain the free grace and favour of God. The cross of Christ is where the love of Christ meets in a great white heat. The love of the great heart of God is death-proof. It dipped into the mystery of death and rose again in resurrection splendour. Christ loves along the lines of a royal and a divine dignity. It is a love that is never baffled or turned aside by the unworthiness of its object. It follows man through the march of the ages, and like a lamp shines above the whole journey of life. It sheds its light and warmth on the providence of God, all the problems of human life and experience. This lamp of divine .love, shines above the mystery and darkness of death and assures us that just as the sky enfolds the earth, God enfolds the human race in the all-embracing love of His cross.”

SALVATION TO ALL The Grace of God

“For the grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us, to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world.” (Titus ii, 11) was .the text upon which the Rev. James McCaw’ based a sermon in Knox Church, Lower Hutt, yesterday. The connection between evangelical Christianity and the purest morality was most clearly set for in St. Paul’s Epistle to Titus, Mr. McCaw said. The miracle of the grace of God must produce the miracle of Christian living. Christian conduct must correspond with professed faith in Jesus Christ. The impiety that had prevailed in Crete must give way to piety toward God. The grace of God came laden with salvation to all men, but it came also laden with teaching, and tlie teaching was emphatically this, that the end of all Christian doctrine was practice. In this epistle to the Romans when Paul had set forth his great doctrine of justification by faith, he at once proceeded : “I beseech you therefore by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service.” And here in this epistle to Titus he implored the young evangelist to teach with all authority that Christ died to redeem man from all iniquity and to purify unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works. This was Paul’s gospel and it produced a deep impression on a corrupt aud gainsaying generation. Starting Point and Goal. “Grace was the root and conduct was the fruit,” the preacher continued. “It ali had its beginning in the unmerited favour of God. It was always so, it is so to-day, and will be while the world lasts. It is the starting point and the goal of the Christian life Had it not been for the grace of God salvation would never have come to us. No work we can do entitles us to grace as a reward. The door of deliverance from sin and death revealed in the gospel of Christ does not open in response to human merit, it only opens in response to the movement of Divine mercy. "In the most moral life a mau can lead, there is nothing entitling him to. claim heaven as a right at the hands of God. Here is a man who says he has kept all the commandments of God. Jesus loved such a man when he met him.. But his commandment keeping gave him no right to demand a entrance into the. Holy City. Here is n man whose reputation is not worth a shekel on the world’s morality market. How will it fare with him? The grace of God will allow him —being penitent, to go to his house, justified.. “The grace of God conies laden with salvation to all men, the commandmentkeeping man and the reprobate. There is an equality of privilege. What did John the Baptist mean when he came preaching and saying, ‘Every valley shall, be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low?’ He meant this, I think, that the gospel brings down the mountains of self-righteousness and exalts the valleys of spiritual despair. The golden gates of mercy are wide open to all sorts, and conditions of men. All because of grace. God’s grace. ' Teaching Also. • “But this grace comes laden too with teaching; that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. It is grace that enables us so to conduct ourselves in duty to ourselves, to our neighbour and to God. There is no other force in the world to enable us to .do this than an apprehension that we have not earned the favour of God, hut that we are debtors to the undeserved grace of God. This is the power of. God’s grace working in men both the will and the deed. “The apostle enjoins that these truths should be taught and with no uncertain sound. For the Christian needs direction. Life sometimes, indeed often, gets into a tangle, so the great Teacher appoints teachers. Besides, men often mistake high spiritual fervour as an offset for moral backsliding. “St. Paul taught Christian people not to lie, not to steal and not to give place to the devil. He gives a summary of his exhortations in this chapter: (1) Elderly men must be sober, grave, healthy in faith, in love, and in endurance. The congregation that has no elderly men in its membership would be poor. The Bible always speaks of these with reverence. But the influence of the aged men will depend upon the sweetness and purity and mellowness of their character. (2) Aged women's behaviour must be such as bocometh holiness, for by example and precept they have to train the young women in the Christian womanly virtues. Young mothers especially will always be seeking counsel of fhem. The responsibility of the aged women is great. (3) Young men are exhorted to be. soberminded, given to play but not to frivolity, ever ready to endure hardness as good soldiers of Christ.”

SOUL AND BODY

Christian Science Churches “Soul and Body” was the subject of the lesson-sermon in First and Second Churches of Christ, Scientist, Wellington, yesterday. The golden text was Matthew vi: 22: “The light of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” _ almong the citations which comprised the lesson-sermon were the following from the Bible: “Return unto thy rest. O my soul; for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.” Psalm 116: 8, 9. The lesson-sermon also included the following passage from the Christian Science textbook: “Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures,” by Mary Baker Eddy: “If it is true that man lives, this fact can never change in science to the opposite belief that man dies. Life is the law of soul, even the law of the spirit of truth, and soul is never without its representative. Man’s individual being can no more, die or disappear in unconsciousness than can soul, for both are immortal.” Page 427.