THE SABBATH HOUR

Northern Advocate, 5 November 1932, Page 9

THE SABBATH HOUR

THE CALL TO SERVICE. A sermon preached by Mr M. J. Byrt on 23, 1932, “In the year the King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne.” —Isaiah 1:1. ■Some seven hundred years before the birth of Christ a young, man stood in the temple at Jerusalem, His mind was deeply troubled with the affairs in the day in which he lived. The king had died —a successful king —but Lis latter days had been marred by sin; leprosy, the result of his sin, had driven him from his throne. Death finally had ended his career.

The young man was greatly troubled. Ho was a patriot, who loved bis country. As he mused, he could see corruption at homo, and uncertainty abroad. His heart was troubled, and, like men of all ages, in a time of trouble he had turned to bis God with the hope that somehow, some way, ho might find a way through the darkness. And in the quiet of the temple a great experience came to, him, in the form of a vision, and bis fears took flight, for bo learned that whoever the earthly king might be, the real ruler of mankind was God. And so it was that in after years he wrote the words of our text.

"Now, no man hath .seen God at any time," says the evangelist in his gospel. But here we have a man who had an experience so real and vivid that in writing of it he could describe it in no other way than this, "I saw the Lord,"’ and to the young man comes the great chorus, ‘‘Holy,.holy, holy." Isaiah feels the shock of a personal contact with One who he is utterly unfit fo meet. And then, as he sees God in His holiness and glory, lie suddenly sees himself as he is. There come to him two convictions: the holiness of God and his, own state. ‘ ‘ Woe is mo, for I am a man of unclean lips." But with the awful sense of sin in contrast with the purity of God, comes the knowledge of the Divine forgiveness. And the experience of that sin and its purging is so real that nothing but fire will serve to describe it. He feels the purging of the blazing coal, and the words of the seraphim: "Thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin forgiven." Oil the wonder of that, experience. Then, with the knowledge of his sin forgiven, lie becomes conscious of the voice of God himself. What he hears is not a command but a request, and ho answered not as one compelled, but glad and free: "Hero am I, send me." And with that experience of God in his life he went forth to a half-cen-tury of tireless service for God in the face of opposition and discouragement. Few men have had such a graphic and striking experience of God; but is it too much to say that there were certain elements in that, experience that, are re-enacted every time a human being has an experience of God, whether it be thought of as a vision, conversion or call?

Are there not the same fundamental elements in them all? What are these elements? Seeing 1 God. Seeing •oneself. A. sense of forgiveness, A call to service. Seeing God—what is it’ It is not, of course, with the eyes of flesh that man sees God. Bather, God is infinite, and can ho seen only by that part of man which is infinite—the spirit or the soul. Only with the eyes r.f the soul can man see God, for God is Spirit. But when that, experience comes thore is such a sense of contact

witli the Creator that man can only describe it by saying he lias seen God. He lias become conscious of the very presence of God —a personal, unforgettable experience. .

But with that consciousness of seeing God comes the seeing of one's self. One cannot see' God and fail to see himself, and then we become conscious of the awful contrast through our flaws and stains. “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear," said Job, “but now mine eyes sceth Thee; therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." A heard-of God means a self-complacent hearer, a God really seen —and man is on his knees before Him. When a man lias a real experience of God he gets some idea of what ho must look like in God’a sight. We jmgin to realise what” selfish lives we live. Sin is only made plain by God's contact with man. . A man must have been on the heights before ha can know there arc depths. Think of the experience of Paul, Augustine, and Bunyan: they had seen God and consequently had seen themselves.

But the glory of it all is that with the sense of sin there comes the divine forgiveness. Without the seeing of one’s true self, there can be no sense of forgiveness, because there is felt ho need for it. We' can talk about it, but we can never know what it is until we crave for it and receive it. Isaiah heard these words coming from the seraphim. Today the Christian faith proclaims that God has most fully revealed Himself to men through Jesus Christ His Son, We may see God today through Jesus, We need only to hear and believe the -words of Jesus: "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father," The glory of the Christian religion is that any man, "whosoever" he be, may see God in the same sense that Isaiah saw Him, in the face of Jesus Christ, and may have the same sense of forgiveness, through the "one mediator between God and man." Isaiah’s experience did not end with the realisation of forgiveness, nor does any man’s experience of God through Christ so end. His experience was not complete till he heard the voice of the Lord, saying "Whom shall I send?’’ and ho answered "‘Send me.’’ Nor is any man's conversion complete until ho lias heard and answered that call. A conversion without a dedication to some, work for God is no conversion at all. The voice that Isaiah heard calls to every Christian. How many of us are useless members of the Church today? What is the secret of our uselessness? Is it not that our experience of God has been incomplete? Have we not failed tp respond to the voice of God calling ns to His service?

Th (3 call for workers comes to Christian men and women today. .Ft by the grace of God we have scon Him in Jesus onr Lord, how can wo rest until all others have seen Him too? i\'n one is exempt from the Christian call to work. “Go work in my vineyard today. “The vineyard is large—the village, the city, the nation, the world. Have you scon God? Have you hoard His voice saying “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us‘?“ Then answer, “Here am 1; send mi 1 ,"