CHURCHES OF CHRIST

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 101, 31 March 1937, Page 4

CHURCHES OF CHRIST

PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. The address of the president (Mr G. Moyle, of Auckland), to the Churches of Christ conference in Ptilmerston North was based on John 15-13-: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” When they turned to the pages ot ‘the Book of God. said Mr Moyle, they found no record of defeat about God's purposes; but on the contrary they found so many records of victories won, as also the promised victories yet to be accomplished for Him. A writer years ago had said : “The social and political systems of every European nation are crumbling to pieces, either under the influence of sin or the increased development of Christianity, and it must be confessed that the energies of evil were never organised so completely as at the present time.” Since those lines were written, the Western and Eastern worlds had come into the same category; men. were turning this way and that in order to find a solution for the great world unrest. Problems were intensified with the dawn of another day. As God used the shepherd hoy of Israel for the defeat of the Philistine, so surely would man’s opposition to His plans for the world he brought to nought. Tlie text on which his address was based was embodied in the Sermon on the Mount. Was it because the world had forgotten the sermon that conditions were so? Christianity embraced two principles: That they believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another; and the second was the consummation of the whole, and the most important of the two — “For now abideth faith, hope, love, and the greatest of these —love.” The conference sermon was preached by Dir Youens, of Auckland, the Scripture Lesson being read by Mr J. Tvrrell-Baxter. Dir Youens quoted tlie words: “Jesus has never been surpassed.” “The man Jesus,” stated the speaker, “delivered parables to the multitudes that have become a reality. His language was figurative, yet great in simplicity.” In referring to t;:e parable of the tares the speaker stressed the point that the servants of the husbandman were told to await the harvest rather than destroy, the noxious weeds that had grown up amongst the grain. The master had explained that the field of the parable was the world. He was calm, yet became agitated with men who neglected the great for the small. “If any man will be Dly disciple, let him deny himself—cancel his ‘personality.’ ” Dir Youens added that before the close of the first century certain men had turned the world up-side-down. In the Christian Church we had not shown that utter abandon to self as to turn the world upside-

down. The speaker went on to say we must, as the agents of the Dlaster, strive tp achieve the objective He desired.