SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 16769, 19 June 1920, Page 10

SUNDAY READING.

A Sermon preached in the Whiteley Memorial Church by the Rev. J. Napier Milne.

DIVINE ABILITY AND INABILITY

Mark 14. 36. “And Ho said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto Thee; remove this cup from Ale; howboit not what I will, but what Thou wilt.”

Napoleon’s consulting engineer ventured one day to laugh in his Koval master’s presence at the idea of carrying cannon across the Alps. “The thing is impossible,” ho said. The great Emperor stonily commanded him not to mention that hateful word in his hearing again; it had long been absent from his vocabulary. But he lived to learn that perforce it had a place there. The Bible makes no secret of the truth that there arc some things the Infinite and Eternal cannot do. "Wo greatly err. not knowing the Scriptures if wo take omnipotence to moan ability to perform literally anything that can be. thought of. When I was a little lad I used to wonder why Clod didn’t construct a mighty stairway to the stars and even to Heaven itself. To my juvenile, materialistic mind, it would have been a very practical, if a somewhat laborious method of attaining the .gates of pearl, and I .should have considered as hopelessly wicked and heretical the person who challenged the Almighty Power to build such a stairway in a moment of time. There are those who would hesitate to say ‘No’ if asked whether God could make an old man in a minute, undo real occurrences, abolish the past. Rut there need he, no hesitation. ‘No’ is the proper answer, inasmuch as God can do nothing that is contradictory or irrational. He can do whatever Ho will, but He does, not will to do anything that is foolish or stupid. The Divine Might can act only in harmony with .the Divine wisdom, nature and character. “The true idea of omnipotence is adequate ability,” ns Dr. TV. N. Clarke has said, “to all works that such a Being ns God can ho moved to undertake, and to all needs that arise under the sway of a God like Him.” His inability is mainly moral. “Thou canst not look on iniquity,” exclaims the prophet Habnkuk. It is declared by St. Paul in Second Timothy that the All merciful cannot deny Himself. We read in the letter to Titus of a God Who cannot' lie. The blessed impossibility lies in His goodness. Ho will do all that His Holy Will suggests. He can do nothing that is unworthy of the infinite perfection of His character. He will eschew every purpose and turn a deaf ear to every prayer that is not consistent with the highest good of the Universe and of men. That is why our Lord’s petition was unfulfilled and the hitter cup had to be pressed to His holy lips. Had that cup been taken away there would have been no atonement. The first part of the passage must always he road in the light of the last part of the passage. God’s power extends ta all actions of love and grace and beneficence, and nothing He undertakes is too great or too hard for the ability He possesses. There is in this glorious truth a mighty encouragement to prayer.

“Thou art coming to a King, Large petitions with thee bring.”

We are continually tempted, are wo not, to imagino that just beyond the limit of our own understanding and achievement lies the impossible, and we neither expect great things from God or attempt great tilings for God. Hear a beautiful parable which appeared some little time ago in a Friends’ Fellowship Paper. A dog tried to open • a door. He scratched it, threw himself against it. struggled to got his nose under it and burrow his way out, but at last lie decided the door would not open and never could open, sol ho lay down before it and wont to sleep. A child was watching the dog and ho laughed and turned the handle with his small fingers and the door was open. Then ho took a book, and, sitting • on the floor, turned over the leaves one by one and gazed at the queer black marks, upon it without knowing what they meant, for he was a very little child and could not roach As there wore no pictures to he found he tossed it away. But a boy picked up the book and laughed and read page after page of a wonderful fairy talc. Then lie went to school and puzzled his head over a sum which had to be brought to class that morning. Try as he might the sum would not prove and the boy said, “I can.’t do it, I’m sure it can’t bo done, there must be a mistake in the book.” But the pupil-tcnchcr laughed, and, taking the blotted exercise book from tho boy, he ouickly worked out and proved the sum. Then ho turned to his own studies, and went into tho laboratory—for ho was learning chemist-ry—-all the morning ho worked among the "gases and acids, but ho could not got tho right combinations, aWI only succeeded in making a loud explosion. “It’s all rubbish to say that potash and carbon form potassium,” ho said, “they simply explode, and I doty anyone to say they don’t.” But the master who had hoard the noiso came and took it into his own hands and soon the metal was dropping from tho condenser. “Abba, Father, with Time nil things are possible.” As the infant is to the animal, the boy to the child, tho teacher to tho youth, the science master to tho pupil-teacher, so, with the difference of infinite degree, is God to the mightiest human intelligence. Ho is equal to every situation. He is adequate to every need. What is impossible to us is to Him easy. Never be deterred from prayer by the difficulty of tho thing to he done. The towering obstacles which seem insurmountable to yon, before Him become a plain. He can dispell tho darkness that veils your life-path. Ho can lighten the heart-breaking burdens which arc tool heavy for yon la boar. Be sure only of this, that it is His will to deliver yon, and it matters not how impossible tho thing is from tho human standpoint. You will observe that our Ford's ascription to God of power to do all things was followed by a prayer that, he might do for Him one thing. It was the dread hour of His agony in tho Garden. The desolating loneliness, the tenable anguish of the passion had begun. Sore-grieved even unto death. Ho pleaded, “Take away this cup from

Me.” He oamo to the Father with a particular, well-defined and importunate petition. Are not many of our prayers too general? Such words as ‘all’ and ‘everything’ are too vague. Wo must speejfy our wants, tolling God our necessities, our hungoiyand thirst of soul. It was Doctor Parker who once said that if a number of persons were to hand into the House of Commons a petition worded in general terms, a document humbly praying their Honourable House to do everything for the nation, taking infinite cure of it, and lotting its concerns tax their attention day and night, the thing would ho laughed down. And it would be considered that the only good reason why the petitioners should not ho confined to a lunatic asylum would ho lost their insanity should alarm the inmates. “Take away this cup from, mo,” entreated the. Master in the supremo hour of His agony, “Nevertheless not as I will hut as Then wilt.” Our Lord has taught us to pray by example ns well as by precept. ' According to the pattern shown us in the Mount, true prayer has no wish but God’s Will. It is never the attempt to substitute ttie plan of the child for the purpose of the Father. Its proper object is never the obtaining of something that a man desires but God does not approve. Great and marvellous as are the prayer proniiscs, they arc none of them unconditional and ought not so to ho. “Whatsoever yc shall ask the Father in My name. I will do it.” “If ye abide in Me and My words abide in you, yo shall ask what ye will .and it shall be done unto you.” That is to say if our mind bo as our Lord’s mind, 'our point of view as His point of view, if we dwell deep with Christ in spiritual unity, our requirements will bo affirmatively answered. For some things we may ask without qualification. We may seek the blessings that belong to the Kingdom with the .certainty that God is more, willing to give than We are to receive. You may not pray for money as you would pray for mercy. You may not pray tor greatness as you would pray for goodness. God may not want to make yon a rich man ■ He does desire to make you a. man. There are other things which we may bo fairly certain God docs not mean to gwe us. it is presumption for example to pray that the laws of the physical world may' bo altered or cancelled for our sake. These laws may be regarded as a declaration of the will of God.' It is not the will of God to give us health if we neglect the law of sanitation. It is not the will of God to preserve us from disaster if wo build our house under the brow of Vesuvius. It is not the will of God to keep us from an old age of poverty if wo live at a rate of expenditure our income does not justify. There is finally a great mass of things about which we may indeed pray, bur. uncertainly. God aims at securing through our prayers our own. best welfare and that of the world at largo. It is for this reason that some of the supplications i’o the saints aro not granted. St. Paul besought the Lord thrice for the removal of his thorn. It hindered him in his work and made him painfully sensitive in the presence of the people td whom he ministered. Very sincere was his prayer that it might bo taken away. But it, was revealed to him that both for his own sake and for the sake of those to whom he carried his Gospel it was highly desirable his infirmity should .remain. The affliction"' which seemed to him a grievous encumbrance would tend to the furtherance of personal faith and to the advancement of the Master’s cause Whoso He was and Whom he served. It was on the ove of His Crucifixion that Christ prayed, “Take away this cup from Me.” Vv’c know that He drank that cup to its last drop. The awful flood was permitted to sweep over His sinless soul. He partook of the death in which the whole weight of sins consequence was concentrated. Had it been other .vise there would have been no redemption. The passing cT that cup would have signalised tho failure of tho loving will of tho Eternal. Especially when our petitions have reference to material good, to our “Abba, Father, AJI things are possible with Thcc,” wo must add, “Nevertheless, not my will but" Thine bo done,”