SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 October 1915, Page 9

SUNDAY READING.

SERMON PREACHED BY REV. H. A. FAVELL at Holy Trinity, Tc Henui, on Sunday, October 24, 1915.

The lesson of to-day's Gospel lies on the surface. It requires no great searching to rind it out. It is the great lesson that holds the secret of all spiritual power and force—simple trust in a personal helper and Saviour. That is the great secret, as it is also ..the real motive power of our Christian religion. Other religions offer rules and systems and observances; but what the human heart longs for, what it really needs, is a real living and loving Person, Who can feel and sympathise and understand, Who can help and strengthen. Now look at the story. We see a man, of secure position and good standing, prosperous and respected, in sad trouble. His child is sick, likely to die. All that was possible to be done to stay the sickness and save the child had been done. The verdict of the doctors had been given—there was no hope. It is a simple picture of a not uncommon situation. And then the father learns that Jesus, the new Prophet, had returned from Judaea into Galilee, and is near at hand, and at once a hope—faint and feeble, it may have been, but still it was there—springs up in 1113 heart. Perhaps the new Prophet may be able to help him; may be able to heal the child. With this new hope urging him. on, the father hurries off to seek the Prophet and beg for His help. And, at first, his reception; does not appear to be very encouraging. Our Lord, Who "knew what was in man," and Who knew the secrets of this man's heart, had His own reasons for testing his faith. "Sir, come down, ere my child die," is the earnest, eager, desperate prayer of the man. He had come with the desire and intention to bring the Prophet to his home, to take Him into the sick-room, to be with Him when he placed His hands upon the child. It was His company and presence he desired for the healing of his child. And he is simply told, "Go thy way; thy son liveth." The Prophet is not going with him. It seems but a poor answer to his prayer, for he ha 3 left the boy at the point of death. It was a poor answer—unless lie had faith in the power of the mere word of Christ. Remember, these were early days in the ministry of our Blessed Lord —He had not yet raised the dead to life, nor had He given many of the signs of His power of which we know to-day. Although we know so much, know, at all events, of the great facts of His life and ministry, do we not sometimes find it hard to exercise that complete faith, which means not only believing, but trusting? And this man stood the test. He believed and trusted in the mere assurance, the mere words of Jesus Christ. "He who had faith to come needed a greater faith to go away." "The man believed the words that Jesus had spoken, and he went on his way," is the simple announcement of a great victory of faith: a victory as great and triumphant as any we read of. The story teaches its own lesson, one of the simplest, yet one of the most difficult really to learn and practice. It is when the lesson is unlearned that individuals become faint-hearted, and the Church is feeble. When the lesson is learned there is no room for hopelessness or discouragement, or even for anxiety. Is it not true that there is a morbid and unhealthy craving for signs and wonders to-day? Men and women feverishly look for signs and tokens from the spirit world: intellectual conceit sometimes usurps the place of personal devotion. Curious and speculative minds and morbid dispositions revel in the fascinating and fatal dreaminess of occult discussion. And at the back of it all is just this want of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Blessed Lord is either the only-begotten Son of God, or He is not. He is either the full and final revelation of God given to man, or Christianity is untrue. "God may have other words for other worlds, But for this world the word of God is Christ"— is the real Christian position; and no discussion or. speculation or guess-work that does violence to the unique Sonship of our Lord Jesus Christ, or interferes with His paramount claim upon the devotion and worship and obedience of men is allowable to the Christian. Undoubtedly it is want of faith—that simple faith in a living, loving, present Person; want of faith in His power to heal and to help; in His power to satisfy the longings of our hearts, the needs of our souls and bodies, the questionings of our minds—that allows of other allegiances, other contrary, or at least inconsistent claims.

Now, can and does Christ satisfy? Satisfy all our longings and anxieties and wants? It is a question that has been asked—and answered by countless thousands in every age since Christ walked this earth; a question that is answered to-day, by thousands of lips in every country with a glad and triumphant "Yes." Christ can, and He does, satisfy, not only the emotions and feelings and aspirations of men, but the real and deep anxieties of mind as well. The remedy for our mode'rn religious unrest, for doubts and anxieties, is largely to be found in a renewal of faith, tue simple faith that just accepts and trusts the mere word and assurance of Jesus Christ our Lord, conscious that all His power and all His love are behind the word.

Arfl that is a faith that no difficulties can overthrow, for it is a faith that brings with it patience; it trusts, and so it can wait—wait when troubles and distress and sorrow threaten to overwhelm, because wc realise that God knows best, and

"God is a zealous pruner, For He knows— \

Who, falsely tender, spates the knife

But spoils the rose." Wait—when things are perplexing and hard to understand, when the answer to prayer seems long in coming, and when the answer is neither what we desire nor expect—realising that God knows best, and in His own good time will explain and make things clear. Wait, simply because there is trust, simple and entitre confidence that God knows best, and will do the best.

Think of the position of the man who came to our Lord. What was his knowledge compared with ours? Hardly any of the mighty works of which we know had been wrought; Christ's power had scarcely at all been openly shown; and yet that man trusted to His mere word. And now, with fuller knowledge to strengthen and confirm it, is our faith as real? Are we prepared to trust? With the knowledge of so much that He did, with the evidence we have of His life and works, and conquest of death, evidence confirming every claim that He made, can we, and do we, make the venture of faith and trust? Trust Him to da for us, and with us, as He did with His earliest followers and disciples?

Without such trust, our religion, wnat religion we have, must of necessity be rather a feeble thing, for it is shorn of its greatest power. The faith for which our Blessed Lord looks, which He desires to see in each one of us, the faith that saves and uplifts, that brings forth fruit in thousands of humble and holy lives, is the faith that simply accepts and trusts His word. Content to wait when things perplex, when troubles press, and it is difficult to see His hand beyond the overhanging darkness; content to wait when difficulties and doubt 3 thrust themselves in our way and challenge answer now or never; relying on His assurance, "Lo, I am with you all the days, even to the end of the age."