THE NEEDS OF HUMANITY

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 260, 16 October 1933, Page 4

THE NEEDS OF HUMANITY

GOD’S WORK IN THE WORLD THE EVERLASTING MORAL LAW The Rev. J. J. Anderson, from Waipiro Bay, preached to the congregation at St. John’s Church, Napier, yesterday morning. He gave an affirmative answer to the question: “Dare one assert that God is working in the world—His world; that the Church is adequate for the desperate needs of humanity!’’ He denied that Christianity had failed. The only explanation of life was a spiritual one, said the preacher, and the outlook of the writer of Ecclesiastes was that of many modern thinkers, even if they did not reach his conclusion—namely, that to fear God and keep His commandments was the final end of man. In fact, it constituted the whole of man. Ecclesiastes asked the same question 2000 years ago as did man to-day. One admitted that there were many shades of opinion between materialism and the highest expression of the spiritual life. “Looking out upon a world of confusion and disorder, it is difficult for some minds to believe that God is working actively in it,’’ he said.

The deist of a past generation was content to believe that God made the world complete and left it, “Someone has defined science as thinking the thoughts of God after Him. It is reasonable to believe that science aud religion are not in conflict. Read the Old Testament and you will find much that is uninteresting. But you will find ideas as to how God is working His purpose out. The prophets, scientifically ignorant, but spiritually wise, believed they were acting for God. There is a very insistent claim in the twentieth century that man has progressed to such a degree as to have changed his essential nature; that rulfcs once applied to human living no longer apply to him. Man’s nature has not changed; his problems are ever the same, and he disobeys the everlasting moral law at his peril. “To some minds the existence of pain, sorrow, social evils, poverty, crime and war are real difficulties to faith. They eannot reconcile them with a God of love and power, creator and sustainer of all things. Others see the Christian religion expressed through various systems. They cannot feel that the God of the universe works only through them. It does not help them to be told that God may limit us but not Himself,’’

Personality to-day had the deepest and richest meaning, he continued. Personality to the Christian was impossible without God. It had been said that human life was tolerated on this planet only ou condition of good behaviour. Departed civilisations represented now by mounds of rubbish landed to confirm this statement. Dare one assert that God was working in the world—His world—that His church was adequate for the desperate needs of humanity! The humble, but confident reply was “Yes.’’ Christianity had not failed—it had been tried and found difficult, since it worked under conditions; it required faith, and a conception of God which corresponded with the needs of men.