SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 September 1919, Page 6

SUNDAY READING.

THE CHRISTIAN'S BASIS FOB FAITH IN THE HOUR OF DEATH. A SERMON PREACHED BY REV. OSCAR BLUNDELL AT ST. AN- | BREW'S CHURCH ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, Text; Mark xii., 20-27. "And as touching the dead that they rise; have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac and t'.e God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead but the God of the living; ye, therefore, do greatly err." One notable and most gracious portion of the work accomplished for us by the loving Saviour of men, is to deliver from the bondage of fear all who are troubled by the fact of approaching death. It cannot fail, therefore, to afford the greatest help and encouragement to our faith, to note carefully this statement of our Lord upon the subject. "If a man die, shall he live again?" exclaimed the patriarch Job, and that question still exercises the minds of men. Thoughtful persons cannot avoid considering the matter, and it often fills them with an anxiety which is too deep to express. It is only when men remain wilfully ignorant and content to live without troubling to reason about the great facts of life and death that the grave question concerning the end of this life can be treated with even apparent bravado or turned away from as matters not to be thought of. It will only be a pretence in any case for even in the minds of those who appear to be most careless and indifferent there are moments of very real concern about this solemn subject. To' many the fear of death is a very' bondage, there is a certain vague undefined terror about the thought of it and yet not so much in regard to the fact of death in itself considered, as because of the dreadful uncertainty which hovers about it ,and enshrouds the ending of our present life like an impenetrable darkness. To all, there appears something repulsive about death; something irreconcilable with our highest feelings, needs and demands as though it were a wrongful intrusion upon us. It does not /help us to be told that death is perfectly natural, the universal end of all things living, because death to beings like ourselves is not merely what is termed physical death. As Dr. Denny has very truly said, "There is nothing whatever in human experience which is merely physical." No, death to us has a spiritual as well as a physical character; it is wore, much more than the debt of Nature, it is the wages of sin. We are constituted for immortality and consequently feel that death is entirely out of keeping with the fundamental fact of our living. It is for this r«ason that thinking men of every age in history have expressed a profound belief in a life beyond this present one, that death for such self conscious beings as we are cannot rationally be an end, but is rather a beginning. It is recorded of Socrates, that most noble philosopher of antiquity, that when his enemies had condemned him to death and he. was awaiting the day of execution- one of his sorrowing friends asked him "Where would you like us to bury you, Socrates?" The enlightened sage replied with an assured smile, "You can bury me where you like provided you can catch me," meaning, of course, that he, Socrates, would not only live on in the spirit world but would be enjoying active and conscious life. But to men to whom the God of all Grace has revealed Himself, such a belief finds an even surer basis than that which is provided by reason alone. They have constantly felt and have taught that the firmest ground of assurance of immortality is discovered in the unchanging love and faithfulness of God Himself. "Thou hast holdcn my, right hand (73rd Psalm). Thou wilt guide mo with Thy council and afterwards receive me into glory." And as our great modern poet expresses it, "Thou wilt not leave us in the dust, Thou madest man, he knows not why. He thinks he was not made to die and Thou hast made him, Thou art just." Any person who lives constantly in the presence of God and is conscious that God has held his hand all his life and who feels sure that he will continue to be so guided to the close, cannot believe that death ends all. Our faith in immortality therefore grows out of our faith in God.

-Now in the passage before us we see that our Lord Jesus takes this very fact of the love and constancy of God our Father as the true ground of our immortal hope, and in so doing He gives to us the strongest assurance that we are not made to be left in the dust of death, but are made to be eternally with God. Our Lord here reminds us of what God said to Moses, "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob," and He argUes, therefore, those men still live. For example, the Being who uttered these words was to the patriarchs all that is indicated by the name "God." God declared His love to these men, He delivered and aided and blessed them through all the course of their lives on earth. Was it then, in any possible way, that He should bo holden by them. It would have been a denial of God's own nature had One like His own Son been permanently overcome by death. And has He not also loved us and led and blessed us all our days? And did He not give His Son that we might, in Him, find the way back to God? It is not in the nature of our Heavenly Father to change, therefore the life we have in Him is eternal. Thus our faith in the resurrection springs from our faith in the constancy of God. To the Christian possessing a grasp of this glorious truth, death loses its sting for him; it has no more terror. Our gracious Saviour impresses upon us the fact that our whole dependence .may safely be placed upon our Father in Heaven who changes, not nor is this the only way in which He has taught us this. Jesus sets us nn example in the trust we may exhibit bothnn the course of our life and in the hour of death. When he Himself hung dying upon the cross He uttered these words of sublime confidence in God: "Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit." It is our privilege and our duty to exercise the same absolute confidence in God. We are to so live with Him by faith and to so realise His presence with and protection over us, that our last solemn act in life may be this act of faith; a final resignation of all to God, who, if we make Him, by our own free choice, the God of our life, will assuredly prove Himself to be our God for evermore. It is thus, then, that- love fear of death, love for God made perfect "castest out fear." Have you a sense of His presence with you? You may have. Coming io Him through Christ the only way and being thus by faith united to Him, you can say with all truth, "This God i-. my God; He will guide me through life, be with me in death, and bring me with joy into His everlasting kingdom for He is not the God of th« d«ad but of the living."