A STRIKING SERMON.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 121, 27 June 1914, Page 11

A STRIKING SERMON.

REV. J. D. JONES AT TRINITY CHURCH".

Despite the fact that it was raining heavily for an hour prior to the commencement of the service, there was a large attendance last evening at Trinity Church, on the occasion of the preaching service at which the address was given by the Rev. J. I). Jones, M.A., D.D.

After a short service of praise the preacher addressed the congregation, taking his text from the Gospel according to St. Luke, chapter nineteen, part of verse nine, "He also is a son of Abraham." The speaker quoted the whole verse, "Zaecheus, make haste to come dowu, for to-day X must abide in your house," and emphasised the action of our Lord in choosing a publican, a godless man, to act as His host and entertainer. Christ's critics had forgotten that He could accept the publican's hospitality and the latter part of the verse was Christ's apologia —His defence of His own action. He meant more than that Zaecheus was a Jew by race. He meant that the little .man was spiritually kith and kin to Abraham. It was a platitude, but it expressed the hopefulness of Jesus. The preacher drew a powerful moral from his text, and went on to emphasise the Saviour's amazing optimism. The different points of view taken up by Christ and the Pharisees were contrasted. The Pharisees saw Zaecheus as a piece of waste land, but Our Lord saw in him the possibility for good. Nowhere in the Bible perhaps was such a light thrown on this phase of Christ's character. It was the sanguine Christ, hopeful and believing the best of men, with a superb faith in their ultimate essential goodness. As Paul said, '' We are saved by hope." None would stick to ! a job that they thought hopeless, and it was in this light that the Pharisees regarded Zaecheus, thinking af- him as one of the submerged tenth; not worth praying for. Our Lord dared to hope for the best. This mail, a despised low outcast, a miserly cheating publican, was also a son of Abraham.- In a book recently published by J. T. Stevenson, entitled "Religion and Temperament," the author selected four of five various temperaments, and discussed their merits and attributes. In the last | chapter he discussed the temperament of Jesus, and combined all these attrij butes in forming an ideal. Christ was above all an optimist, but He was alsa an optimist who did not ignore the bad side of things. He did not pretend optimism as was often done now-a-days. He did not pretend that everything was all right, but rather He knew and admitted the world was a guilty world. He had a capacity for indignation, and a sense of tragedy, but both these qualities were overshadowed by His sanguine and hopeful spirit. On the eve of what looked like the final catastrophe He had magnificent confidence about His own personal destiny. When He was the sport and derision of all Jerusalem He still showed his amazing optimism. A philosopher had once said that He could believe in humanity were it not for man. We could idealise human nature,"and admire it, but about individual men and women tjhere was a great deal that was mean and vile. In the London slums there was evidenced all that was brutish and debased in man. It was here that discouragement must be met for the very indifference of these people filled one with something like despair. Then on the other hand there Avere the follies of the rich, and their wicked waste of wealth. A preacher had to hear a great deal and he for one could sympathise with Henry Drummond about whom a pathetic story was told. He had been addressing a class of students, and had come home afterwards where he was found by the people with whom he was staying, despondent and downcast. Asked what was the matter, he turned, a white drawn face, and cried out, "Oh, the sin of these men; I wonder God can bear it." Christ had an extraordinary belief in the spiritual worth of the ordinary man in the street. He believed the hearts of such men would respond to His teaching. People talked of Our Lord's ability.as a teacher and without decrying this the preacher suggested that it was more optimism than ability. He was not afraid of wasting time or truth 011 barren souls, as instance the j sermon to the despised Samaritan j woman. His reason was that He did! not believe any ■ soul barreu. Christ j would rake the gutters for His saints, j He saw that degenerates might become I regenerates, moral perverts men of j honour. He believed not only that He j could snatch the brand from the burning, b.ut that He could set it perfect before the Throne. His words to the woman who had been found in sin showed this. He said, "Neither do I condemn thee; from henceforth sin no i more.'' His faith in Peter was no less remarkable. He took this man, unstable as he was, and said, "On this rock will I build My Church." He had the same faith-i'or the twelve. They were just ordinary, everyday men, not brilliant or clever even, and not one of them had had a university education. He would doubtless have taken better men had they offered, but these were the best on hand, and He accepted them with all His wonderful optimism, saying to them, "I give unto you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven." He believed He could make saints, teachers, martyrs, apostles, out of these simple fisherfolk. He saw deeper and further than anyone else and knowing what was in the man He could afford to hope. On Sunday at 11 o 'clock in the morning the Rev. Jones will preach in the Linwood Congregational Church, at .'5 o'clockjn the Tennyson Street Church, and at 6.30 p.m. in the Trinity Church.