SUNDAY COLUMN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 24, 21 September 1912, Page 8

SUNDAY COLUMN.

“He cannot deny Himself.”—2 Tim 11:13. <9 EXPOSITION BY THE REV. R. J. WARDELL. The verb in this Jittlo sentence moan; “to act in a manner unlike Himself.” It suggests “things that God cannot do.’’ it indicates right notions about omnipotence. The notion that God’s omnipotence means “power to do anyCling anyhow” is very prevalent, ano. leads some men into moral fault, anti many men into mental error. Hence there is a great need for right notions concerning God and His self-imposed limitations.

I. There are two kinds of compulsion in every department of life and thought—external and internal. Constraint imposed from without, and necessarily .springing up spontaneously from within. For instance, here arc Pwo men who cannot steal—one of them because he is in gaol, and the othei because .he has an active and educated conscience,. There is no necessity im posed upon God from without Himself. But because He is what He is there are certain things He cannot do, for Hti cannot act in a manner totally unlike Himself, y 11. He cannot prevent men from sinning. Sinning means wrong-doing. God gave man power to choose. He lias made man in His own image in this matter. Ho cannot prevent men from choosing wrongly without taking away l;ho power to choose, and thus unmaking man and contradicting Himself. Evil, vice, crime, are all connected with wrong-choosing as the branches of a tree are all connected with the roots. Therefore God cannot prevent them. He does not “permit” them, for to permit means not to hinder, and the whole gospel is the story of the way Ho has ever been hindering them. Ho does “suffer” them, bin because He cannot act in a manner unlake Himself, He cannot prevent them. Hence men have no right when discussing such things as evil, vice, crime, etc., to bring God’s omnipotence into the problem. 11. He cannot cease to love men who do sin. He is love and cannot contradict Himself. His love is universal. He loves bad men as well as good men. His love is eternal. Whom He loves He loves always. What we call Hi: wrath is the wrath of love. It is love resisted and thrown hack upon itself.

HI. He cannot save the men who will persist in sin. His laws are the expressions of His nature and He cannot be false to Himself. One of those laws is that human character tends to a final permanence. Up to a certain line a man may sin, '.beyond that line ho is almost compelled to. Compelled! to, not because of any external compulsion, but because of what he has become by sinning. TV. He cannot break His Word. God has many words, but he has only one Word. In that Word two big thing; are said about men sinning (a) That He will forgive the men who have sinned if they are sorry and desire to choose right, (h) That He will give moral reinforcement to any who try to choose right and seek for it. For the love of God is broader Than the measures of man’s mind, And the heart of the Eternal Is most wonderfully kind.

TABLOIDS. A littlo sin, like a pebble in the shoe, will make a traveller to heaven walk very wearily. Little sins, like little thieves, may open the door to greater ones outs’dc. Little sins like little faults in maidiinery may wreck the ‘ whole life. The one dead fly spoileth the pot of ointment. That one thistle may seed a continent. Let us kill our sins as often as wc can find them. One man said, “The heart is full of unclean, birds; it is a. cage of them.” “Ah, hut,” said another, “it is our business to wring their necks.” And so it is. If there be evil things we ought to destroy them. Was the trial sore? Temptation sharp? Thank Clod a second time! Why comes temptation but for man to .meet and master. And make crouch beneath his feet; and so he pedestailed in tri-

umph. The greatest affair in life is the creation of character, and this can be accomplished as well in a cottage as in a palace. Finer webs with more lasting and richer colour,, are wrought in poor Eastern huts than in the huge sounding factories where the black smoke trails across the sky. It was in a very humble borne that the Perfect Man lived; and lie has made the great success who, by patience and obedience in that which is least has grown into the likeness of the Son of God. The business of life is to be moving God wards. Christ is the door by .whom we go in to God and out to man. Duties are ours, events are the Lord’s. Every new experience is a jewel set into the texture of our life, on wlrcli God shines and makes interpretation and-revelation of Himself. The soul grows by the right use of the power of choice.