FROM THE PULPIT.

Southland Times, Issue 19772, 21 February 1923, Page 7

FROM THE PULPIT.

THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM. (Sermon by the Rev. John Collie.) And he believed in the Lord : and he counted it to him for righteouMieas.—Genesis xv-(J. These words are quoted no less than three times in the New Testament to show the true attitude of the soul to God. Without faith it is impossible to please Him. We must believe that He is and that He. is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. We must trust His promises and have hearts responsive to the great visions of life and the ideals of holiness to which He calls us. We must believe in His faithfulness when He calls us to follow the nobler way, and endure as seeing Him when we meet with difficulties or discouragements’ This was an hour of discouragement in the life of Abraham. He had come into a new land, and there were enemies on every side. Though it was a land of promise, a land that God had said would be his, it was not a land that fell without effort to his hand. He had to fight for it and to defend it strenuously. And it was by striving valiantly that he was to show his faith in God’s promise, not by waiting idly for the prize to drop into his hand. But at times the opposition seemed to prevail, and he might well doubt if the promise of God were not after all a delusion of his own fancy. Added to this was the fact that he had no heir, though the land had been promised to him and to his seed, and it was told him that God would make of him a great nation So he was faced with the seeming non-fulfilment of the promise that once thrilled his heart and started him on a new life. Faith in God was at the ebb. Abraham was beginning to doubt if His promises were real. We do not know the trials that he may have had to face. But we can well believe that they were real and many. The promise does not put a man in possession of the inheritance. The Christian believer, as he puts his trust in God, is sure of the end; but he knows that his utmost efforts are needed to make it his own. The law of the practical Christian life, is "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you.” We are to be always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as we know that our labour is not in vain in the Lord, not to be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not Some in the ardour of early enthusiasm think that the victory over all the evil in their nature is witnin easy range. But it is not necessarily so. “Think not that sudden, in a minute, All is accomplished and the work is done: Though with thine earliest dawn thou shouldest begin it, Scarce were it finished with thy setting

sun. And then the slow response of men to a message received in glowing faith and felt to be fraught with blessing for the world, often brings a disillusionment that is dangerous to faith. This has been the trial of many an ardent soul. And perhaps one’s own Christian course is not so clear or so free from distressing perplexities as he would like. The guidance of God in practical matters, or even in matters that seen, intimately connected with His cause, is no.

so plain and unmistakable as we had expected. And so it was with Abraham. He had to struggle, to do pioneer work, to lay foundations, to exercise his sense of right and wrong and to use his own judgmentin difficult passes. Often be found the fulfilment of his dearest hopes long delayed. Little wonder if sometimes he might doubt the faithfulness of God. But just when it was needed God revives His servant’s faith. The Bible teaches constantly that God has a care over each one of us, and draws near with inward strengthening just when the pressure of temptation threatens to become too great for us. “He will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation provide also the way of escape that ye may be able to bear it.” Stephen in the crisis of his life, facing death for the faith that was in him, .is strengthened by a vision of his Lord, just within the unseen, standing as if ready to succour him. More than once Paul received divine encouragements when the clouds hung low over his path. And here we have the story of how Abraham is strengthened anew to fare forward on the lonely path of faith. God comes to him in the stillness of the night and speaks to his soul. Under the stars that promise of a divine inheritance is renewed. “O holy night, from Thee I learn to bear What man has borne before: Thou layest Thy finger on the lips of care, And they complain no more.”

How his faith was restored we cannot know* exactly; by outward sign or by inward monition. We see these great spiritual results, and know not whence cometh or whither goeth the power that moves so mightily. A man brought nigh to despair by discouragements and perplexities is made to see all things with different eyes and from a new view-point. He is lifted up by a revived faith in God and in what the future holds for him. He gets a new* faith in God’s purpose for him, and is saved by hope. How that came he hardly knows; but he knows it is of God. W’hen Abraham lay down that night the splendour of the eastern sky would seem but a mockery of his misery and helplessness. There arc times when the vastness and calm of the heavens seem to accentuate our helplessness and fretfulness. But when our faith in God is restored they seem to carry messages and strengthening to our hearts. Their steadfast calm brings quiet and reassurance into our hearts. Their purity becomes to us some image of Him in whom we believe, their ordered harmony a parable of the life which we are called to live. And to Abraham that night these cold and distant heavens, so oblivious of all human weakness and woe, became radiant with an infinite promise. They became a symbol to his heart of the inheritance that was to be his. “And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven and tell (count) the stars, if thou be able to number them • And he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.” And Abraham rose with new strength, the strength of faith, to do God’s work in the world. Faith was the secret of all that he was able to do. An old man, he was by it inspired with the energy and purpose of youth.” He wavered not because of unbelief, but waxed strong through faith. He refused. to be staggered by seeming impossibilities. It is by this that he is an example for all generations. It is faith such as this that is the source and sustaining power of Christian enterprise, the faith that comes now and again to men that God is calling them to something great and worthy. The Church of God needs men of vision—-vision that is drawn from God’s truth revealed to us. We need not get beyond For the Bible is full of calls to heroic enterprise for God and man. Abraham was called to go out into a new land, which he should afterwards receive for an inheritance. He had to break with his old life, and in obedience to what he felt to be the call of God, to take up the burdeft of a great destiny, to enter on a future that was to he so rich in blessing for all the families of the earth. God’s call to men to-day may not be to go out into a new land. But He waits for those who will hear His call to build for a new future—to make some great departure for human good in obedience to a Christian ideal kindled in their hearts. Christiahity is dead when it becomes a matter of routine. It demands men who will see new possibilities. The ] world to-day is full of opportunities in the cause of the kingdom of God; and Christ’s word 1 still sounds in our ears, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” God works his work through the visions of men who begin new settlements or open new missions with a prayerful and definite Christian purpose, or who dare t-o believe that the face of society can be changed by the power of a truer Christian spirit in life. The moral incubus on the Church of God is the rooted feeling of many that no great change for the better is possible. The Church is paralysed by aequiesing in evil conditions as inevitable, and by the practical acceptance of a cynical or despairing view of life. Believe greatly and you will do greatly. And remember that faith must be practical and it must be enduring—never despairing. Faith is complete devotion to what you feel to be the will of God for you. We often get gleams of duty and of divine possibility for the world as we read God’s word. But too often we refuse to take them seriously. But some day Christ makes these vaguely felt duties and these dimly seen visions compelling for our hearts,

and then we know that God has called ue to serve Him in this way. If such conviction comes to you, do not be disobedient to the heavenly vision. Faith is to accept that, and to trust completely that God will not deceive you in your highest hope, or in the end leave the glory of His promise unfulfilled. There may be checks and hindrances and Harkenings of the sky. But do not be tempted by these to disbelieve that the best is the truest. ‘Though the vision tarry, wait ye for it.” Christ himself for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising shame. And our subject to-night reminds us that in the ebb of faith, in the hour of depression, God’s reassuring word comes to the lonely but faithful heart, as it came to Paul at Corinth and to Elijah at Horeb, raising it up in the ardour and strength of a new hope. His servants through such experiences get a new sense of His presence working with them. Their faith for the future becomes more clearly and definitely the outcome of their faith in God, faith in His covenanted word, faith that He has called them, and that His promise will not fail. Even though their wa5 r be one of suffering they commit their souls unto Him in well-doing as unto a faithful creator.