VOICE OF THE CHURCHES

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 145, 16 March 1931, Page 6

VOICE OF THE CHURCHES

Sermons from Wellington Pulpits CONQUERING FAITH “We live in a difficult day, with much in it depressing and disheartening. »We are in grave danger of being so‘ obsessed with the black word ‘depression’ as to.let slip the faith that is in us. But it is instructive, comforting and inspiring to remember that there lived in even more difficult times than these a man who was capable of the truest, healthiest kind of optimism, and who did not shrink to express it along with his reasons for it when the burdens he had to bear seemed heavier and the anxieties more poignant than perhaps any other time during his tempestuous if triumphant career,” said Itev. J. Hubbard, preaching in the Kelburn Presbyterian Church from the text: •‘I never lose heart.” —2 Corinthians, iv. 10 (Moffatt’s translation). “That man,” he continued, “was the apostle Paul. Paul’s optimism was not of that all-too-common, shallow type which cries ‘pease, peace/ when there is no peace, and refuses to look facts in the face. That spirit is depressing as well as dangerous. No; Paul’s-optimism was not a shallow, namby-pamby, wishy-washy optimism, lie knew the darker side of things better perhaps than most, and he was deeply conscious that courage, industry and faith were very necessary qualities if success should come; but he wap more certain. that a hopeful view might be taken of the situation because of certain facts that he comes over in the fourth chapter of Corinthians, which records his glowing hopes. : “First he points out that we have a wonderful Christ; Who is the likeness of God. ' There is nothing He will not do for us. There are no lengths to which He will not go for us. He is to us to-day all that He ever was in the days of His flesh. Even , to-day faces lighten, souls' revive, hopes rise out of deep grooves, tangled lives are straightened and sheer impossibilities get done because of Him. This Christ lavished upon a hard, unworthy world the most beautiful life that was ever lived. He poured out of His soul that which has been for the healing of men and nations, and upon Calvary died the death which speaks of redemption. And more: Paul knowsHe is still living, still as gracious, still eager to help us through, and Paul could hear Christ greeting him with that favourite salutation: “Courage, lads.” With such a Christ to help us, Paul thinks we ought to be courageous, and so peals forth his own- bold ‘I never lose heart.’ “Secondly, Paul is emphatic that they bad heard-the very best of news—the good news of the glory of God in Christ. God' has come in; has thrown in everything that He has to make victory certain. 1 To-day our faith is . being put to the test, but if you are getting faint-hearted and unexpectant, the very best tonic is a glimpse of Christ’s cross proclaiming the tremendous love of God and' the ultimate triumph of goodness and the things that belong to Gbd. ' . , “Finally Paul is so optimistic because we have a wonderful hope, we Christian folk, which puts new courage and heart even into the most timid. ‘Why worry?’ he says, ‘for we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.’ Paul has a glorious certainty of immortality. He knows that if the ‘earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.’ If we have a belief that we are immortal souls—that nothing the world can do to us, that not even death itself can crush us —then surely that will give us a new scale of things and make us contemptuous of much that might frighten other®. With a living Christ to help us day by day. with a Gospel proclaiming God’s love and power and resources, all to be used on our behalf and with a hope that never until an endless eternity does end will God cease to think of us, how-can wc quail or falter or lose heart? To lose heart face to face with all we know seems to Paul sheer stupidity, if not cowardice.” \ : . A WISTFUL AGE Man’s Quest for God “There is something in every one of us that will not let us be content with material things alone, not even the best that the world can give to us. We want God and nothing less,” said the Rev. Harold Sharp, preaching at the Taita Methodist Church, from the text, “Oh that I knew where I might find Him 1” John xxiii, 3. “Whoever we are, and whatever we know or possess we cannot find real rest and peace until we have found God and entered into fellowship and communion with Him.” In religion this was a wistful age, he continued,•and the yearning for the deeper things of the mind and spirit was manifesting itself in many ways. On every side there could be observed a deep longing for a real religion. In the hearts of an increasing number of earnest and serious-minded men an’d women there was a cry for God. People were beginning to realise that God was a necessity in human life, a necessity for man’s physical, mental and spiritual well-being. The loss of the sense of . God was not a small thing by any means. There was no greater calamity that could overtake us as individuals or as a nation. For a long time there had been a decline tn church attendance and a slackening of interest in religion, but the consequences of the materialistic philosophy by which many lives had been guided were becoming more and more apparent. Human nai ture was being starved on the moral and spiritual side, and the reaction caused by a wholly worldly life was being felt. “At any rate,” said the preacher, “the time has come when from many causes the heart of man is hungry and deep calls unto deep. Man needs God in order to be all that it is possible for him to be. Man will never be himself until he lives in fellowship with God. He will never have the full enjoyment of his faculties, will never get the best out of life. ' “Man needs God to keep alive within him all that is best, truest and loveliest. We talk about making the world safe for democracy. We can only do that bv bringing God into the lives of men. The Church, the prophet, the priest, the Sunday school are among the greatest assets of a nation. If you would be really patriotic, see that these are not imperilled. , “Are we seeking God in the right spirit? Moral qualities play a big part in this quest. Are we seeking Him earnestly and honestly? He is not at the end of syllogism. We do not find God so much by our mental faculties as through those higher powers of our being bv'which we appreciate all those things which belong to the region of spirit. We do not surrender love, goodness, patience, beauty because we cannot dig them up or find them under a microscope. ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ Give Him a chance to speak to your soul. Without Him you are poor xind needy, weak and incomplete. With him you will find life a new thing —like a resurrection from the dead. With God all things are possible,.nothing shall daunt you, nothing really hurt you, nothing crush you.”