FROM THE PULPIT.

Southland Times, Issue 19655, 4 October 1922, Page 7

FROM THE PULPIT.

DIVINE ANXIETY SERMON BY REV. J. L. ROBINSON Casting all jour care upon Him, for He careth for you.—l Peter 5: 7.' It is sometimes difficult to recall the true shade of meaning that any Biblical passage had to those who first heard it. Familiar as are the words of the text, and often as they have been used to ctfffifort the anxious and sorrowing, it is doubtful if they convey to us the sense they once possessed. Perhaps we may get a little nearer to their meaning if we paraphrase them thus:— “Throwing all yfiur anxieties upon Him, for He is anxious for you.”

And reading them in that way we seem to hear the echo of an Old Testament psalm: “Cast- thy burden on the Lord. He will sustain and He will comfort you.” Here we have one of the deepest secrets of true and gracious living. It was because their life was so care-free, because they obeyed the injunction of our text, that the early Christian society gave such an effective witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Writing of these Christians, Lecky tells us that the universe to them was transfigured by love, till its phenomena, all its catastrophes, were read in a new light, were endured with a new significance, acquired a religious sanctity. Christianity offered a deeper consolation, than any prospect of endless life, or of millenial glories. It taught the weary, the sorrowing, the lonely, to look up to Heaven and say: "Thou God carest for me.” They had discovered that true religion was not a burden but a lift. They had discovered that the true God was one on whom they could lay their burden, not least the burden of themselves. And that is peace, even if war be all Ground. “Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you.” 1 Our acceptance of this fact depends upon our idea of God. Generally we are obsessed by the thought of His omnipotence. We think of God as awful, mysterious, remote, and unimaginable, “beyond all knowledge and all thought.” And it is a true conception, for God is all of these. But if our idea of God stops at that we do Him less than justice. He is more than that. He is a God who is near, and intimate, and loving, whose interest in His children is so close and affectionate that He knows everything about them. He is interested in birds and flowers, and is—we say it with deepest, reverence—so much like what we expect the best of men to be. God is near, anxioup for us, land helpful. And yet for some reason or other more from our friends and intimates than we do from God. It is not hard to believe that our earthly parents thought for us and were anxious for us; that they worried about us and planned and schemed for us. In Luther's "Table Talk” he says: "I expect more goodness from Kate my wife, from Philip Melancthon fnd other friends than from my sweet a and blessed Saviour; yet I know for certain that neither she nor any other person on earth, will> or can suffer for me that which He hath suffered. Why then should Ibe afraid of Him ? This my foolish weakness grieves me very 7 much.” And is it not so with us? We also have need to come to the conviction that God is what He says He is, what Jesus says He is, and that His care for us is so immediate and intimate, that the hairs of our head are all numbered. Can we not come to think of God aS Peter did? Think of Him as worrying about us, and caring really enough to worry about us? Do not thoughts of his awfulness, remoteness, mysteriousness obsess us to the obliteration of every 7 dear and intimate idea? We must try to think of Him as caring for us so much that He is constantly 7 thinking upon us for our good, planning and scheming for us as a lather would plan and scheme for his only 7 son. And His care is individual. He loves the mass, but He loves the individual too. "He calle th his own sheep by name”— knows them individually, and knows them intimately. He individualises. That is the overwhelming truth. God, who made the earth, The air, the sky, the sea, Who gave the light its birth, Careth for me. And He does all the caring. He is the great burden-bearer. He says: “Cast your anxieties on Me. I’ll bear the care, the thought, the worry of things.” Jesus said: “Be not, anxious overmuch for the morrow, what ye, shall eat, or what ye shall drink ” No, let. God be anxious about that, it is His concern. “Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.” We are but Frail children of dust and feeble as frail, In Him do we trust, nor find Him to fail. Think of God as you are accustomed to think of Jesus Christ. He is not merely a great living energising power who overshadows and overwhelms the whole of life. He is near to us, knows us altogether, and is anxious for us. 2. Our acceptance of this fact will make all the difference to this life of ours. If we are assured in our hearts t£at God cares for us in just such a way as Jesus Christ says, well that is going to prove a revolutionary thing in our conduct. A man must be depraved indeed to injure one who loved him. thought for him, and carried all his anxieties. And if it is true that God loves and cares for us in the way that Jesus taught, then we can’t help feeling that He is worrying and anxious about us at all times when we are not just what He wants us to be. When we are hard and brutal and selfish and mean—then we 'are, le tus say it, cantankerous—just those

common things that make life hard, and human nature not fine and interesting and true, then we cannot help feeling that we are wounding the heart of Him who thinketh on us only for our good, and to labour every fresh outbreak of temper, or violence, or wrongfulness on our part must be a sore disappointment. If we see this—as we must if there is any sensitiveness or refinement about us at all—then we shall know that all these things distress Him even as the insincerity, and hardness, and coldness of His day distressed our Saviour, Jesus Christ. That cannot fail to make a difference in any fife not wholly given over to the devil. Otherwise we must be brutal beyond description. There is not one of us, however depraved, who would wound and grieve our best friend. Rather would we be prepared to undertake quite a lot. of self-denial, if indulgence would cause distress. No man will willingly Haunt obstinacy and defiance in the face of love. One would rather confess- and make a clean breast of things than do violence to our own inmost feelings of what is due to those that love us. So if one fee’s that God cares for and loves us. and is distressed by any lapse on our part from the path of virtue or of holiness, will not one go to Him with quite feeling and tell Him all about these things—put the matter before Him just as we would put the matter before Jesus Christ? I think that would make a difference in our life. I think it would make all the difference. It would lead to a more implicit confidence between Him and us. It would burn away the tyarriera set up by our wrongfulness of heart. A relationship intimate, tender and loving would be established on the basis of a perfect understanding. 3. In conclusion notice that the anxious care of God for us is helpful care. God is love; He is also omnipotence. His hand is pitiful; it is also strong to save. Human love is often helpless; it can do nothing. Its pity may be aroused but without practical helpfulness. We have been touched recently by stories of the Russian famine. But we were very powerless about it. We could do almost nothing. But with God it is different. “He can save to the uttermost”—that is the word. And why is He able ? It is because “we have not. an high priest that cannot be touched with a feeling of our infirmities, but one who was tempted in all points like as we are.” If we have passed through deep waters, so has He. There is no depth of human sorrows but He has.sounded it to the bot-

tom; no waste of dried up love but He has explored every inch. If you have stood at the graveside of a friend, His friend also died. If you know what it means to be desolate, lonely, neglected, He knows it too. “And because he'has suffered being tempted He is able to succour them that are tempted.” In the Father anxiety is linked with omnipotence, ability waits on mercy, helpfulness attends on pity, care is swallowed up in providence. “Throw all your anxieties upon Him, for He is anxious for you.”