RELIGIOUS LIFE

Southland Times, Issue 24153, 15 June 1940, Page 19

RELIGIOUS LIFE

[By

ICHTHUS

NOT AFRAID OF EVIL TIDINGS

Tonight I discovered a new example of the wonderful way in which the Good Book meets every human need. There seems to be no phase of experience through which we have to pass but the Bible has forestalled it, and has some direct message from heaven for that very experience and hour. That remarkable fact about the Book was brought to my notice rather oddly yesterday by a friend. He is passing through a trying illness which not only will keep him in bed for several months, but entails a good deal of discomfort and calls for resources of real patience and endurance. He is a great reader and lover of the Bible, and when I called on him a copy was lying on the table beside his bed. He picked it up with a smile. “A thing happened yesterday,” he said. “I had a pretty beastly day and could not lie comfortably in bed, do what I would. I am afraid I got a bit irritable and cross, and late in the afternoon I grumbled to my wife that it was strange that no one in the house seemed able to make a bed so that it was comfortable! She fixed things up for me, and after she had gone out I felt a bit ashamed of myself. I took up my Bible, and turning over the pages I began to read Psalm 41. To my astonishment I found myself reading: ‘Thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness.’ I called my wife in and said to her: ‘Look at this. There is Someone in the house Who can make a bed after all,’ and' we had a good laugh together. The curious thing,” he went on, “is that since I read that the discomfort has entirely gone. I had the best sleep last night that. I have had for weeks, and I’ve been lying here today as comfortable as you like.” Then, with a whimsical look, he added: “I never thought before that God can make a bed, but He seems to have made mine all right.” It. sounded quaint and odd. But there it is. AFRAID OF EVIL TIDINGS However, that is not what I set out to say tonight; but it leads up to it. Margaret has just come home from town, where she has been for the past three days. We were all glad to see | her, for somehow the house seemed I empty and lonely with her away. She j was telling us at tea how a telegram | came for the old mother of the friend , with whom she was staying. “The I poor old dear,” said Margaret, “thought I it must contain bad news, and was [ afraid to open it.” “Grandad must be • ill,” she said, “or it is one of the boys.” ; That wrought on her daughter so that she, too, hesitated and demurred. In * the end they handed it to Margaret, I and she opened it and read it, only to I find it was from Grand-dad wishing ' Grand-ma joy on the anniversary of; their wedding-day! Margaret said that ; they were all greatly relieved, and it I seemed as though a cloud had lifted. | We went on then to speak of how | many people there are who are dis- > turbed when a telegram comes, and ■ hesitate to open it. We both admitted that we had more than once had the j same feeling ourselves. We came to ' the conclusion that there are very I many people who go through life afraid of evil tidings. When one of us has been away we always share our experiences and tell of the little things that have happened.

So I told of my visit, and of my sick friend’s odd story of how the Bible had helped him. “Why,” said Margaret, “isn’t there something in the Bible about not being afraid of evil tidings?” None of us at the table could remember the exact passage, but we were all sure we had read something like that somewhere in the Bible. So I went for a Bible and a Concordance. It was quite easy to find the passage. I looked up the word “tidings” and was directed to Psalm 112, verse 7. There :t was. It was a description of the righteous man who trusts in God. “Unto the upright,” I read, “there ariseth light in the darkness. . . . Surely he shall not be moved forever. ... He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord.” We laid down the Book, marvelling at its way of speaking a direct message to every soul in its hour of need. If this is not inspiration, what is it?

A MESSAGE FOR TODAY Before the children went to bed we read that whole Psalm for our evening Worship, and when Margaret and I were alone by the fire we spoke together of these dark days when so many are afraid of evil tidings, and of how this passage seemed a direct message for such times. For there are so many people who have lads away overseas with the Air Force, or the Navy, or in the Ist or 2nd Echelon, or in camp. It needs no imagination to understand the anxiety and dread that must needs spring up in the heart at any and every telegram that comes to the house. Any unusual Government letter—and there are plenty of them coming to every household nowadays—would bring the blood to the heart, and be opened with shaking hands. Not only that. We have received so many setbacks, so much bad news, since the war began, that most of us open our daily newspaper with anxiety, and we hang over the radio at every fresh Daventry broadcast with something like foreboding. One day, for instance, brought the news of naval losses, and of Italy’s entry into the war. Yet that night—why that night of all nights?— the Great Book was speaking straight to our hearts its divine message: “Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness. . . . Surely he shall not be moved forever. . . . He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord. His heart is established, he shall not be afraid.” We all need such a message badly. And there it is, for all who will receive it. There is darkness enough just now. Let us open mind and heart to the light that is sown for us. It is promised that we shall not be moved forever, and, as Dr Livingstone said, in days that were desperately lonely and perilous, “That is the word of a very fine gentleman: I will go on and not be afraid.” We, too, can fix our hearts, not on the ebb and flow of battle, or on the moves and counter-moves of the combatants,' but far above those shifting and gloomy scenes, on the God of Righteousness in whom our trust is. If we do that, we can conquer the anxiety and dread of these dark and terrible days and keep a quiet heart. “He shall not be afraid of evil tidings.” Our God means us to achieve that victory, both for our own and others’ sake; and, as ever, He provides the means.