SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 17 October 1931, Page 14 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

By the late

REV.A.H.COLLINS

•‘THE OI’TIMLSM OF FAITH.” “Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabcl tliou shalt become a plain; and lie shall bring tortli the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, ‘Grace, grace unto it.’” -—Zechariah, 4, 7. With perhaps one exception, the Prophets of Israel and Judah were invincible optimists. They simply refused to yield anything to the counsels 01. despair. No matter how dark and threatenin'’- the outlook, they told of a glory that .should follow. In the presence of errors most stupid, and sins most alluring there was no sign of quailing; but 3 the answer of a defiance that bordered on contempt. They poured streams of scalding sarcasm on all that “loved wickedness and worketh a lie.” The triumph of Elijah was so complete, and the irony of his words so terrible, that one’s heart almost pities tlio prophets of Baal. When the Psalmist speaks of Moab and Edom his word. 4 are charged with scorn: “Moab is my wash pot, over Edom will I cast my shoe.” Contempt can go no further than that. So here. The prophet calls on the daughter of Zion to. rejoice. Jerusalem is in ruins, and the temple a tumbled heap, yet Zechariah sees an angel with a measuring rod, laying out the plans of a new city on a scale vaster than before, and he declares that the glory of the latter house will eclipse the splendours of the past. In this chapter he seeks to hearten Zerubbabcl in the task of re-building the temple. The work is beset with difficulties; a huge mountain bars the way; but the obstacles shall melt under the mysterious power of God and the project shall succeed. The hand of Zerubbabcl laid the foundations and the hand of Zerubbabcl will place the capstone thereon amid universal joy. OPTIMISM AND CONFIDENCE. Now that is the spirit we all need to cultivate. For the servants of God are continually exposed to despondency and dejection, and never more than now. Gloom, like a clammy fog, has settled on the people. It is fashionable to be doubtful and cynical. There is a deep tone of sadness abroad, the echoes of which arc heard in literature, the fruit of it seen in insanity and suicide. Medical men tell us that whilst there are fewer raving maniacs there is an increasing number of melancholies. Christian folk° have ceased to expect Christ’s universal sway, and find dismal satisfaction in arguing that the converts to Christianity are fewer than the natural increase of population. “The good Lord Jesus lias had His day.” It must be confessed that pessimism is the legitimate creed of unbelief. If man is only a gilded bubble on a rapid stream, soon to be pricked by the spear of death, why should we be smiling and gay? If this old world is spinning down the grooves of time, with no hand to guide 5 , what reason have we for cheerfulness? If “the grave, not the sky is our goal,” where is the sense of Psalm singing? “Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die.” Only, the people who say that faith is a delusion, and religion a lie, inns, remember that with the decay of religion some other things will certainly go. “ BELIEF AND UNBELIEF. You must not pluck the sun out of the sky, and then bid men rejoice that they have escaped the slavery of sunlight. But if pessimism is the legitimate creed of unbelief, it has no place in the creed of a Christian. Wc are the children of the light. Our. songs should be songs of the morning. The Bible is the most hopeful Book in all the world. Christ's life marched to the music of good cheer. Despondency is no proof of superior, laith, but the reverse. Depression is fatal to progress. God can do nothing with disheartened men. "The joy of the Lord is your strength.’ Consider, then, some of the solid reasons against the creed of despair, and in favour of cheerful hope. On "the Hill Difficulty,” “Mr. Timorous” said to •‘Christian,’’ “The further I go the more difficulty I meet.” But “Mr. Timorous” was the brother of “Ready io Halt,’ and cousin of "Mr, Facing Both M aye.” How quaint John Bunyan saw to the heart

of things! Granted that evil looks huge and solid as a mountain, is it wise to judge by outward appearances? Granted evil seems powerful, and palpable in the habits, customs, laws and pleasures of the world, i.s it as mighty and stable as it seems? I say “No” and I give you reason. THE UNNAT UR ALNESS OF SIN. First, wickedness is alien to human nature. Sin .is unnatural, the most unnatural thing in God’s universe. The pessimist assumes that evil is an essential part of our nature, and permanent; that the world is corrupt by'its. very constitution. 1 say, “No,” sin is an intrusion and an impertinence. It has no right to be there, and it will not always be there. It is “neither the essence of the creature nor the act of the Creator.” “An enemy hath sowed tares in the field.” There have been periods in history when men seemed ruled by some mighty malignant power. The French Revolution was such a period, when the streets of Paris ran red; when women flaunted the blonde hair shorn from the decapitated heads of their sisters, and men strutted in breeches made from the skin of tiheir brothers, well tanned. So it is to-day. The times are out of joint. But Jesus Christ never said, that sin is man’s normal state, and He never so much as suggested that it is incurable. After looking into the inky depths, and knowing the human heart as. none beside, He preached the Gospel of inkmortal hope. Human nature has fallen amongst thieves and been wounded and robbed; but, as St. Paul would say, the grim, gaunt spectre that grins behind the ribs of life will one day be. cast out, and Death itself shall die. Sin is not natural, sin is not eternal. Christ came to repair the breach and reinstate the soul in its lost inheritance. THE WEAKNESS OF WICKEDNESS. A second faxst is that wickedness is inherently weak. It pretends to be what it is not. Its power is neither as great nor as compact as we imagine. Wc speak of “the forces of evil”; but that us not how evil men’ speak, for they know that their days are numbered. The shaking of a leaf makes them afraid. “The wicked fleeth when no man pursueth.” One of the big brewers of New Zealand said of local option, “It may not come in my time, but it will come”; and that is the secret conviction of all evil confederacies; and their loud boastings are only “Dutch courage.” Sin is fighting a losing battle, and knows it. But the chief ground of cheerful confidence lies in the vision Zechariah had. The prophet saw the golden lamp with its light mysteriously fed and sustained. Any religion that is worth having is supernatural in its source and its resource. If our confidence rests in our wisdom and the perfection of our organisation, we shall fail, and we deserve to fail. If wc are weak and disheartened it is because wc have failed to realise that “our weapons are but carnal.” “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit,” saith the Lord. Wc. are like the miser of San Remo, who died leaving a fortune of £120,000, yet never wore stockings because he could not afford tc have them washed. THE NEW SPIRITUAL POWER. The coming of Christ meant the coming of a new and spiritual power, and that power abides. For the Gospel is not simply that Christ came, two thousand years ago; but that He- is here to-day. Not that He lived once, but that He lives now. I say, then, we should resolutely refuse to despond. We should cultivate a bold confidence. Sin is an alien power. In the best sense, the soul is naturally Christian. The mountain of evil, is a crumbling mountain. Wc have an invincible weapon in truth, and. an immortal ally in God the Holy . Ghost. There is an application of the vision that is more personal. The mountain may be our own sin, and that mountain may seem immovable. We have failed over and over again. It is a struggle like holding a tiger by the jaw and fearing our strength will give out. Is there no hope? There is none in ourselves. .A drowning man cannot save himself by clutching at his own hair. Help, if any, must come from without, and God lias laid help on One that ,is mighty.”