SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 10 February 1934, Page 14 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

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the J. D. McL. WILSON

the second best TEMPTATION OF OUR LORD. the ideal of perfection. Reading—Matthew chapter 4, verses 111. It is a familiar saying that the good is often the enemy of the best. Thats greatly true I It is only pie hardened sinner who loves' evil ' for its own sake. The ordinary person finds his temptations to lie, not in incitements to positive wrong-doing, but in the choice of some lesser form of good. That was so with Jesus Himself, in those critical temptations in the wilderness. There could have been nothing wrong in the performance of a miracle to save life or preserve it. There was nothing reprehensible in the thought of Jesus ruling the - kingdoms of the earth that indeed was His very aim and intention. The temptation and the sin lay in the gaming of His ends by unworthy and unspiritual means. Most of us, let us repeat, are not so much tempted with evil, but with inferior. forms of good which, yielded to, lead into sin. ... For irf all the most difficult thing in life is the living but of our Christian faith—the practice of our religion. . Most of us are only two thirds or I half Christian. And worse still we are satisfled, to remain content vzith something which falls very far short of the highest in character and conduct. We are like a certain Spanish cathedral, which embodies grand conceptions imperfectly realised. Wherever you look you see the poor carrying out of great ideas, the bungling of fine lines, the trumpery character of rich ornamentation. And it is exactly thus with our character, morals and actual living. It seems to have been the same in Christ’s day. The Jew then had the glorious code of Sinai expanded by prophet and psalmist, the Greek sage had written eloquently on moral science, and the Roman had built up* a magnificent system of jurisprudence. Yet civilisation was dropping to pieces through, the rottenness of public and private Now to save the people from such declension, and to inspire them to loftier heights'has ever been the task of priest, prophet, and Lord. Thus Ezekiel s demand for a . holiness of spirit. Thus Paul’s for a sanctification universal and entire. Thus Jesus’ for a perfection nothing short of divinq, To Christ the chief aim and end of life was not happiness but perfection; similitude to the Creator-God, worshipped. It was, “Be ye perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.” At first thought, as F. W. Robertson observes, there appears to be, a measure of blasphemy in that, or if not, a futile idealism which can only chill enthusiasm and smite effort dead. But nevertheless we find the God-man, Jesus Christ, calmly and insistently demanding not simply a consciousness of God, but a living likeness to Him, intentional, constant, and complete... This requires in us right being —a perfection in character, to be irreproachable and lacking nothing in zeal, humility, holiness and charity, to be just honest and lovely in every respect, ever reclaiming the wild spaces in our nature, ever reducing the chaos to or.der, ever bringing everything into subjection to Jesus Christ, and going on from “strength to strength, victory to victory, glory to glory.” It requires also, perfection m doing, exhibiting in our very homes, parliaments and municipalities the spirit of the Redeemer—until such a day as Watkinson dreamed of, draws on. “A. glorious day when men will do bitter penance for giving their brother an angry

look; when they will condemn their soul to- the tread mill for having put the big strawberry on the top; when they will rather don the cast off rags of the leper, than wear purple, stained with a workman’s blood or a seamstress’ tear: when the ledger, the inkpot, the plough, the loom—all the vessels of industry, all the tools of toil, all the instruments of science, shall be as the vessels on the altar.” All these things are possible as Christ strengthens us, and the greater the number of those cherishing these ideals and making them expressive in and through the community, the more speedily will the grand hour come. It is interesting to see how men have seized upon this ideal of perfection. Goethe preached it as an original thought, and proclaimed that the prime vocation of every man, was to be all that his Maker meant him to be. Our own Matthew Arnold made this a similar shibboleth. It must be said quite frankly, however, that their idea of -perfection was vastly different from that of Jesus Christ. Be that as it may, it is for us all to arise from our sloth, our mean satisfactions, and to bestir ourselves if we would avoid the contempt of the righteous Judge of all the earth, and win the shining tablelands of heavenly approval. Let us not forget what the poet says:—

“Better to have failed in the high alm, Than vulgarly in the low aim succeed, God be thanked, I do not.” Have we ever thought, that our failures in this respect are not only regretful, but actually sin against God ? The Bible is rich in words expressive of our moral declension, and in the Hebrew and the Greek, there are terms like, “chata” and “hamartano,” translated “sin” in our Authorised Version, which mean nothing more than “missing the mark”—“falling short.” Have you ever thought how Christ is cut to the heart to see His disciples and fellowlabourers so stunted and imperfect and insignificant. We know these are difficult and trying days, but do we really need to toil and moil so perpetually over earthly things? There is time, if we would take it, to improve our higher nature. There is opportunity, if we would seize it, to grow in grace and in the likeness of Jesus Christ our pattern. Let us set before ourselves the motto which our Bible Class girls have inscribed upon their blue banner—“ The Utmost for the Highest.” Let us take heed of the Apostolic injunction to “Put first things first.” Let us lay to heart Christ’s own demand, “Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” The closing lines are from John Drinkwater’s “Preludes” in the poem “David and Jonathan.”

“It was .courage, The clear heart, undivided in its doing That Jonathan loved above all enterprise. • He knew, or the rarer man within him knew,— That once your ‘Yea’ in holy meditation Had shaped itself in the perfect syllable, Thenceforth no ‘Nay’ from any other tongue, Or wise, or passionate, or masterful, Could be listened to without the shame of sin Corrupting all your constancy for ever. He knew the curse of good betraying good, Till both in bleak irresolution fall, And all his years was Jonathan’s ■anguish only To keep this tillage of his wisdom clear.” “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.”