SUNDAY READING

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXVI, Issue 7908, 28 September 1929, Page 3

SUNDAY READING

; WOODBINE WILLIE'S 1 LAST SERMON • MAN’S IMMORTALITY THE CHRISTIAN FAITH A remarkable sermon, written by the late Rev. G. Studdert Kennedy (“Woodbine Willie”) just before he died, was read in Worcester Cathedral recently by the Dean the, Very Rev. W. Moore Ede. Many of those who heard the sermon were profoundly impressed. Taking as his text the words from St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians: “If Christ be not raised your faith is vain. Ye are yet in your sins,” Mr Kennedy asked: “What does it mean? Is it true?” It is the utterance of a Christian who finds himself standing defiant in the last ditch face to face with final doubt. “Suppose Christ did not rise from the dead,” wrote Mr Kennedy, “then of course all His dreams died with Him. If death got Christ, then assuredly he gets us all. It may be that life is eternal, but that the forms of life are purely temporary. Is that how it is with men and women: are they mere temporary forms of life? That is the choice with which the Christian is faced when he takes his stand in the last ditch and faces the final doubt. I know that last ditch well; I have stood in it many a time and I know that, before I die, I shall stand there again and again. There is not, aud never can be, any immediate certainty about it. Not even Christ can give us immediate certainty.

THE CHALLENGE “Historical evidence for His resurrection is good, as good as perhaps it could be for such an event, but it. is not conclusive. Many noble and honest minds have had doubt about it. It comes back to the challenge, 'Do you believe that Christ Himself was deluded and mistaken?’ “As to His sincerity there can be no doubt in the minds of any decent and reasonable person, but sincerity, alas, is no guarantee of truth. Jesus of Nazareth was undoubtedly sincere, but was He deceived. That question argument and the careful balancing of evidence can never finally decide. “Immediate certainty about eternal life we cannot have in this world; we must make a venture and follow Him, and folowing Him means living as though we were immortal, and had eternity for our inheritance, not grasping greedily the good things of this life.

“To follow Him is to live as He lived, taking with joyful gratitude the good things of this life as»gifts of God, using them with reverence and restraint because they are His gifts, and valuing them as we value gifts, more for the sake of the giver than for the gift Itself. “Certainty comes, and only comes, as He forever dwells in us and we in Him.” '