NICHOLSON MISSION

Southland Times, Issue 22187, 1 December 1933, Page 3

NICHOLSON MISSION

MESSAGE ON BELIEVING. The Rev. W. P. Nicholson, the Irish evangelist, dealt last night with the subject of “Believing” before a large audience in the Victoria Hall. “This is not an age of agnosticism and atheism,” he commenced, “but a day when all men and women believe about spiritual things. Men and women believe about Christ. They recognize Him as an historic fact, and believe in the record of the Bible concerning Him. But that is not a saving faith. It is possible to believe all the fundamental facts of the Bible, to believe that Christ is the Son of God, that He suffered a bodily resurrection, that He is capable of saving men and women by reason of the fact that He died in their stead—and yet not be converted. It is the position of believing everything with the head and nothing with the heart.” The preacher revealed the three steps by which a saving faith may be exercised. “Firstly,” he said, “the sinner must feel his need of Christ. Feelings apply in this case. It is not only knowledge, but feelings. We recognize hunger and thirst by our feelings and so must a man or woman feel his or her need of Christ. If your feelings are gone, you have murdered your convictions, and battered the brains out of your conscience. God gives us to feel our need. Secondly, we must believe that God is first able and then willing to save us. Let us not think that we are beyond His saving power. He saved the chief of sinners, the Bible tells us, and also that He can save to the uttermost, and He is willing, for He does not desire that one sinner should perish; His will is that they may through Christ be saved. Thirdly, we must decide for *

Him, venture on Him.” This last point was illustrated by the story of Blonden, the famous tight-rope walker, who performed his feat on a wire stretched across Niagara _ Falls. He announced on one occasion that the following day he would wheel a man across the wire in a barrow. The next day when the crowds were assembled a man went through them advertising Blonden saying, “He can do it. He will not fail. Blonden will not fail. He will easily perform the feat.” Blonden himself came to his would-be advertiser and said to him, “You’re the man I’m looking for. You believe in me. Get in the barrow.” This point introduced the missioner’s appeal to those who believed that Christ could and would save them to “get in the barrow” and venture on the Lord.