SUNDAY COLUMN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 81, 18 November 1911, Page 2

SUNDAY COLUMN.

“Ho ahicloth faithful; He cannot deny Himself.”—2 Tim. 11. :13. Sermon by Dr. Alexander McLaren, Manchester. The faithfulness of God is a familiar enough phrase, but 1 suspect that tne depth and scope of the thought are not as familiar as the words. It is a favourite with Paul. He had proved it in a thousand dangers and struggles, and now when he has all but done with earth, ho “sets to his seal that God is true.” Let me put the question what the faithfulness of God means. When avc speak of one another as faithful avc mean that avc adhere to our Avord, that avc keep faith Avith men and discharge the obligations of our office and position. So avliou God is called faithful it means that He keeps His promise. It is a great truth that out of the darkness God lias spoken; that like some constitutional monarch He has declared the principles of His government, and so lias bound Himself by articulate expressions to follow out these in His dealings. He is not a despot: He is a King avlio has laid doAvn the hiAV to which He Himself avi‘ll adhere. His promises hang out over the troubled stream of life, like boughs from the trees on the bank, for His half-droAvn-cd children to grasp at and hold by.

“He cannot deny Himself” means, however, much more than the fulfilment of His every word. It means that He is bound by what He is, that Ho never can be in the smallest decree anything contradictory t0,.0r falling beneath, the level of His own consistent, uniform self. As God, He must be. true to the goodness and wisdom the very name implies. Wo drop below our best selves. No man is always himself. We are like the little brooks; that: are dried in drought and swelled in flood, arc parched in summer and frozen in winter; but this great river is always bank-full, always clear and flowing. This ocean is tideless and has no ebb nor flood ; and we can look down into its deepest depths and find that all is clear and pure. John says in his infantile-an-gelic way with a simplicity that is sublime, “God is Light and in His is no darkness at all.” The sun has spots; it has as astromoners toll us an envelope that gives light, but possibly its core is black and dark, bj't that is not so with the true Light. Now what does His faithfulness as a Creator guarantee to the creature whom Ho has made? It guarantees first that the faithful Creator will care for His creature’s well-being. The smallest microscopic animal, because it has the mysterious gift of life, has a claim on God, and He is bound to care for that creature’s well-being. The birds lay their eggs and hatch their young and then let these go as they will. Men sometimes forget the duties of parents and the responsibilities involved therein ; but God the Creator lots us, plead His faithfulness

and turn round to Him and say “Thou hast ,made me; therefore I bring in my hand Thine own bill, with Thine 1 own name to it. Pay it, 0 God!” Commit the keeping of your souls to Him as to a faithful Creator. Our needs created by Him will he supplied. Our wishes when they are right are prophecies of our possessions. God has put no craving' in a man’s heart which lie does not mean to satisfy. Remember the homely old proverb, “He never sends .mouths but he sends food to fill them.” All these necessities, of ours, all these hungry desires, ajl -those sometimes painful thirsts of the soul, that we try to slake at jjjyddy and broken cistern arc meant to take us straight to God. They are like the long indentations of the coast of our western shores, openings by which the flashing waters may .run far Inland and .bath, the,roots,pf the everlasting liills. The world is a bewildering and unanswerable riddle and mystery, and human life is one long misery, unless we believe and know that, because He is the faithful, Creator, uo man need hunger with a ravening desire after food that is not provided, nor need any man thirst with a thirst that there is no water anywhere to slake. Further, God’s faithfulness guarantees His forgiveimess. “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” So the gentle, tender attribute of mercy, becomes solemn, stately, and eternal, when it is regarded as the outcome of His faithfulness. In some topical forests you will find strong tree trunks, out of which spring the most radiant and ethereal-looking blossoms; to the fair flower of forgiving mercy springs from the steadfast hole of the Divine faithfulness. Again, God’s faithfulness promises the progressive perfecting of Christian character. As the prophet says about another matter, “His hands have laid the foundation of the house, His hands shall also finish it.” He does not begin a work and then get disgusted with it, or turn to something else, or find that His resources will not avail to carry it out to completion. That is how we do; but He never stops till He finishes. Like some patient artist, He lays touch upon touch on the canvas, or smites piece after piece off the marble, till die ideal is realised, and stand there before Him. Like some patient seamstress, He stitches needleful after needleful of varying colours of silk on to the tapestry, until the whole pattern is accomplished. “He is faithful; He also will do it.” Ultimate blessedness is also promised by God’s faithfulness. Just because God is faithful, therefore the Christian life here on earth, because it is so much and so little, because of its devotion and its selfishness, bears in itself the prophecy of a time when all that is Here checked tendency shall become triumphant realisation; and when the plant diat here was an exotic, and did not put forth buds, though poor and pale compared with what it would bare in its native soil, shall be transplanted into the higher house, and there shall blossom forever more/ God is a liar unless heaven is to complete the experiences of earth. If these poor natures of ours at their best here wore all that Christ had won by the travail of His soul, do you think He would be satisfied ? Certainly not. We J need heaven to vindicate the faithfulness of God. Then notice, that our faith must correspond with and be the answer to God’s faithfulness. As with two instruments tuned to the same pitch, when a note is struck on the one, the chords of the other vibrate it back again, so God’s faithfulness should awake the music of answering faith in our responsive and vibrating hearts. If He is worth trusting let us trust Him. What would you think of a man who had given to him some magnificent site on which to rear a fortress—if on the top of it, instead of piling granite* walls that might match their foundation, ho should run up some hasty shelter of lath and plaster or of fluttering canvas and so think that he had adorned, when he had insulted, the rock on which he built. Make your faith to match God’s. Why build upon a sand-bank when we can build on the Rock of Ages? If we will join our-

solves to the faithful God our hearts will be calm, our lives will be steadied, and wo shall be delivered from the misery of leaning on props which, like rotten branches, break beneath our weight. Then one day we may hear the wondrous welcome: “Well clone, good and faithful servant.”