PULPIT MESSAGES

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 227, 22 June 1936, Page 2

PULPIT MESSAGES

Wellington Churches

UNREALISED HOPES OF HUMAN LIFE Service Greater Than Results Speaking yesterday In the Kent Terrace Presbyterian Church ou the subject, “Unrealised Hopes of Human Life,” the Rev. W. Gilmour took as a text the words, “The Lord showed him the land of Canaan, and said unto him, I have caused thee to see it with thine own eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. So Moses, the servant of God, died there in tire land of Moab according to the word of the Lord.” “Moses,” said Mr. Gilmour, “looked down upon the land of promise he was just about to possess, and he was forbidden to enter it. And yet in its tragic crisis his death is a fitting close of his great heroic life. What a place iu the world’s imagination he fills 1 From the day he was received from the bulrushes to the day when he died in solitude on Nebo, died ‘by the kiss of God' a courtier, a patriot, a miracle-worker, a warrior, a legislator, a national leader, fie surely fulfilled the greatest mission ever entrusted to man and exhibited the noblest elements of character ever moulded into greatness. ‘Get thee up into this mountain and die,’, said God. Without remonstrance, without hesitancy, he obeys the stern injunction. A good man knows how to die. It was a strange death-chamber; it was death under strange conditions. Alone with the vision of promise in his eye, with his foot upon its margin, separated from it only by the Jordan, he is imperatively prohibited from entering the Promised Land. It is a parable of the unrealised hopes of human life, the frequent disappointments, the unfulfilled purposes which to the philosophy of life are so mysterious and painful. “Every life is a pilgrimage seeking its goal in'some Canaan of rest. How we picture it, dream about it, struggle aud endure for it, and sometimes seem on the very verge of realising it; we see it with our eyes, but in the mysterious providence of life suddenly, perhaps, we are forbidden to go farther. Our purposes are broken off; realisation is forbidden us. ‘ No wonder that we feel disappointed and something like resentment. Why am I forbidden to enter? Why is the promise of my hbpe broken. It may be that our striving may never accomplish its purpose and our opportunity be prematurely ended. In the midst of our usefulness, in the crisis of our work, just when we have brought a great enterprise to the verge of success and we seem most indispensable; just whep about to cross the Jordan and to realise that we have lived for —the stern mysterious prohibition comes: ‘Thine eyes shall behold it, but thou shalt not enter it.’ “Is not life full of such experiences? In' a thousand ways we fail to realise its htipe, to reap what we have patiently sown. What a great idealism is sometimes ours in the religious life. How we picture the religious hdiiiiess; and love and service of our discipleship. We do not realise the serpent that is in every Eden, the failure that mars every purpose, the element of disappointment that comes with every illusion. What a mournful contrast between the promise, and the performance, Still the idealism has its great uses. What would life be without it? ' - “Moses died while his strength was undiminished. He died in his full strength—not of decay. He died while there was yet a great work to be done. He left the field half ploughed; toe building half erected; the book half written. What can we say to all this? Can we say anything that will explain the mystery, or justify the ways of God to man? “Success is not the chief nobiljty of life. Success is generally more important to others than to the worker himself. It is more important to become than to achieve. Service is greater than its results. In the great character which he had moulded, In the love ano veneration which he had won, Moses realised a greater reward than Canaan. It is good to die when the work justifies the worker, that he is not ashamed to leave it fo r completion. The Pentecostal Church did not see the rniUennium for which it looked. How grander the millenium which is the result of cross-bearing, and testifying, and martjirdom.”

SANCTIFICATION THE FINISHED WORK

"Is Sanctification a Second Blessing?” was the subject of an address by Major L. B. Tong at the Salvation Army Citadel, Vivian Street. “No man receives the new name of a child of God without at the same time receiving a new nature,” said Major Tong. “He becomes there and then a partaker of Divine holiness. The Scriptures describe this work of the Holy Spirit as a new creature—'born again,’ a passing from death unto life, quickened with Christ. Regeneration is holiness begun. Although the element of holiness is imparted, the work of inward renewal is only begun. Regeneration does not fi' ee the s °ul from depravity, but introduces a power which cheeks the outbreaking and depravity into actual sin. "Bishop Foster said : ‘Sin committed and depravity felt are very different: one is an action, the other a state of Ihe affections.’ A regenerate believer is saved from the one, and he has grace to enable him to have victory over the other. But his disposition itself, to some extent, remains under the control of a stronger power implanted, but still making resistance, and indicating actual presence and needing to be entirely sanctified. “In regeneration, sin is conquered but not destroyed, the disease is modified but not eradicated. In other words, the branches or trunk of the tree have been cut off but the roots remain. Sin does not reign but exists, and the ten-

dencies to sin are controlled but not destroyed, waking a state of the flesh and spirit antagonistic to each other. “Sanctification is the finished work. The element of holiness is planted in regeneration, and the crucifixion is putting to death the body or life of sin. The war within ceases, and God reigns without a rival, for the Holy Spirit does not dwell in man to be controlled by him, but .to control him.”

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCHES\

“Is the universe, including man, evolved by atomic force'?” was the subject of the lesson-sermon in all Churches of Christ. Scientist, yesterday. The golden text was Proverbs, iii: 19, "The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.” Among the citations which comprised the lesson-sermon were the following from the Bible: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. and the "’ord was God. All things were made by Him; aud without Him "'as not anything made that was made. In Him was life and the life was the light .of men.” (John i: 1,3, 4.) There were also the following pas sages from the Christian Science textbook, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," by Mary Baker Eddy: “The creative principle—life, truth, and loye—i s God. The universe reflects God. There is but one creator aud one creation. This creation consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities,, which are embraced in the infinite mind and forever reflected. These ideas range from the infinitesimal to infinity, ami the highest ideas are the sons and daughters of God.” (pp. 502. 503.)