FROM THE PULPIT

Waikato Independent, Volume XXX, Issue 3202, 22 February 1930, Page 2

FROM THE PULPIT

GOD’S ARRANGEMENT OE THINGS MUST BE FOLLOWED. Preaching in S. Andrew’s Church on Sunday evening last, Archdeacon G. Gordon Bell took as his subject the vital necessity of everything in human life being conformed to the -known Will of God, if life is to be happy, free and full. He took as his main illustration the question of the marriage relationship, and treated his subject in a striking manner that made a big '-appeal to his congregation.

On Septuagcsima Sunday, the Archdeacon said, the Church calls attention to the wonder 'and beauty of God’s work in creation, for the purpose of drawing the contrast between the world as God made it, and the world as it now is, preparatory to making the call, which the Church makes throughout the season of Lent, to all Christians, to put their lives in order. From the consideration of the love of God revealed in the Holy Incarnation of Jesus Christ, our minds are turned to the remembrance that, when Love Incarnate was made manifest m the world, the world was not ready to receive that revelation, and was able to bring home the fact of God’s iove only through suffering and death. The thought of the treatment meted out to Him must always move Christians to that penitence which will resultin their forsaking sin and letting Him come into their hearts.

Yet, in spite of the revelation of God’s love, and of the damage wrought by people thinking that they could manage their lives better without God, or on ways plainly contrary to God’s will, people still refuse to conform to God’s plan.

In things material it was quite evident, and generally recognised, that God’s arrangement of things must be followed, and that any violatiolf of the laws of nature —God’s law in nature — resulted in evil consequences. Engineers might wish that they could make water flow upwards or make piles to stand firm on soft mud, but they realised that they were obliged to accept the conditions of things which prevail in nature. We do not grumble if lire burns or sharp steel cuts.

But, in the spiritual and moral -spheres, man commonly tries to shape things contrary to God’s law, forgetting that consequences similar to those seen when natural laws were disregarded must ensue. This is most plain-. ly seen in the marriage relationship. God, in. the very beginning of things, revealed the truth that there was only one standard of relationship between man and wife, namely, that their marriage created a new spiritual unity, a unity which could be broken only by the death of one or other of the parties. Yet, throughout the ages, although the standard had been maintained in theory, and lived up to in the Jives of many people with most happy results, many people had disregarded, and were still increasingly disregarding, God’s law in this most important matter! The consequences, in human degradation and misery, wore appalling. First Divorce Act. In 1857 the first divorce act was passed by the English Parliament. I« was then contended that the passing of that Act would result in an increase in the sum total of human happiness and an improvement in the morality of the people. Anyone who had had anything to do with the divorce courts, or who observed social conditions, must realise that, far from this having resulted, the departure from God’s law which divorce entailed was working havoc in the world, destroying home life, encouraging unlawful passions, undermining moral standards, and bringing damage and unhappiness to countless children, robbed, by the divorce of their parents, of that parental care which God intended them to have, and weakening the morale of the whole populace by encouraging the idea that men and women 'could, with impunity, disregard solemn obligations entered into by their own free will and accord.

It was contended by the advocates of divorce, that, if people could not agree together, it was better for them to be allowed to separate, and, possibly, seek happiness afresh with some new partner. Those who took this view garded the damage wrought to the whole community by the encouragement of people to sit loose to solemn obligations, and disregarded the fact that marriage, by God’s revealed will, created a relationship closer than that between parents and children, a relationship generally recqgniscd to be indissoluble. It was far better that some people should have to endure unhappiness, rather than that the morals of the whole of the people should be undermined. Besides, there were countless cases in which husbands and wives had stuck loyally to their partners, in spito of cruelty and neglect, and bad, in the end, succeeded in winning back to themselves in full love and affection,

those who had been drifting from them. The loving- self-sacrifice of a badly treated wife who refused to leave her bad husband could work wonders. In New Zealand, the laws had departed so far from God’s revealed will in this matter that it had been made an offence for ministers of the Gospel to declare that marriages permitted by the State were no marriages, and this when divorces according to the law of the land were obtainable on the most slender grounds. He had no hesitation in saving that there were hundreds of marriages in New Zealand which were noj; marriages in the sight of Almigh.y God, and that the permission by the State of this disregard of God’s law is working havoc with the morale, of the people of the Dominion. In some countries where divorce had become prevalent, notably in France, there was a strong movement towards the abolition of all divorce laws and a return to the Christian standard. Only by some such step could it be hoped that the moral standard of New Zealand, with the recognition that solemn obligations must be treated as binding, be restored. In no human relationship could God’s repealed will be disregarded with impunity. Love demanded sacrifice. That, was shown to us clearly in the Sacrifice of Himself which Jesus made for us. Mutual self-sacrificing love was necessary as between man and wife, and this always brought its reward, even when the bulk of sacrifice was with one of the parties concerned, and that party had to endure much in the mak- ' ing of it.

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