A Christmas Message

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19374, 24 December 1932, Page 14

A Christmas Message

The Ministers of the Presbyterian Churches in Timaru are impelled by the approach of the Christmas season, to issue a call to the whole community to recognise the indispensability of Him who was born at Bethlehem.

“We are facing to-day,” says J. W. Stevenson, “a challenge to the spirit of man. more formidable perhaps than any in history. The real crisis is that, to balance an amazing increase in our mastery over the forces of nature, we have no corresponding mastery in the moral life, to direct these forces towards a spiritual purpose. Fundamentally, the crisis is not in the economic order, but in ourselves; and the question is not ‘How shall we retain or recover the old security?’ but ‘How shall we find the spiritual power which alone is adequate for our new responsibilities?’ ”

The old Hebrew prophets were a force for good in days of crisis, because they recognised the hand of God in the events through which the nation was passing and caught the living message God gave them. So, we believe, God is in the midst of what is taking place to-day in order to carry through His wondrous plan. Let us but catch his message and we shall find it the key to the present situation. We need net lose heart because in many quarters, men are at their wits’ end and chaotic conditions are threatening to supervene. There is One who is not baffled by any difficulties we have to face. He offers us the very leadership we need, amid the problems of to-day. Even in the hardest fight, He gives us the promise of victory. The future is in His hands. Let us rise up and follow Him and we shall have the joy of helping the world through its present stage of transition and standing behind the movement that is to usher in the new era.