CONVENTION SERMON

White Ribbon, Volume 23, Issue 2, 1 April 1951, Page 8

CONVENTION SERMON

Delivered at Hanover Street Baptist Church, 25th February, 1951 Preacher: Rev. E. W. Batts Note. —This sermon was deli\cred as one of a senes ol pre-Easter addresses on “Tlie Seven Sayings of our Lord from the Cross,” and was adapted to the needs of the Convention members attending the service. Text: Mark 15:34. “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" It was the ninth hour —three in the afternoon. Darkness covered ti p earth. And there was darkness in the soul of Jesus. It was "His Hour," concerning which He had often spoken, an hour of dense darkness. But what can I say about such a word as this? Here is a word that plumbs the depths of Hell; a word too deep for measurement with mere words; too deep even for our finest human feelings. You will remember how l'aul once said that “He who was without sin, became sin . . . for us.” Who can understand what that meant to Him? 0 help me understand it, Help ine take it in— What it meant to Thee, the HOLY ONE, to bear away my sin. Can we ever know what it cost the fine sensitive soul of Jesus to become “Sin," to accept into His pure heart on that great Day of Atonement all the foul, horrid, deceitful, blatant sin of the whole wide world ? Last week 1 spoke to you about the physical sufferings of cur Lord. They were intense, desperately intense. But they were as nothing to this deep anguish of spirit that wrung the heart of Heaven’s Spotless Son as He "became sin" and bore its weight on the cruel Tree. There, on the Cross, the nails tearing at His flesh, the thorns piercing His blessed brow, and Jesus suffering the anguish of DERELICTION—that awful, appalling sense of desolation with the Father’s face turned away, the Holy God incapable of looking upon sin . . . In that agony of soul which in measure sometimes visits men and women when awakened to a vivid and acute sense of their sin and wickedness, Jesus accepted the sinner’s lot and entered the darkness of separation and loneliness. It was then He cried, “Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani"—“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Of that hour Elizabeth Browning has written: Once Immanuel’s orphaned cry His universe hath shaken. It went up single, echoless—“My God, I am forsaken!” It went up from the Holy’s lips amid His lost creation, That of the Lost, no son should use those words of desolation. Our Lord’s bitter words were heard by those standing by. To some, like Peter and John, and the dear Mother, His words w r ere dimly understandable. They had shared the yearnings of His sou! for lost mankind

and had been told some of His secret. Their Lord had warned them of this day and that the path of the Redeemer must be by way of vicarious sacrifice. They knew, too, how closely He had lived with His Lather and could guess something of what it meant to Him to be "alone.” He was going where no other man had ever been or could ever go. He was going to the very depths, out into the darkness that we, by His stripes, might be healed. "He bore our sins, in His body, on the Tree." But there were some w’ho did not understand. They mistook and misconstrued His meaning. “He calls for Elias," they cried. “Let us see if he will come and sa\e him! No! He does not come. What a mischievous fellow is this!" Jesus was misunderstood often in the days of His flesh. He was misunderstood in the moment of His death. He cried —“Eli, Eli... My God, My God " They said. "He cries for Elias.” Now what message are we to get from this tonight? We have with us in this service this noble band of women who represent a great Crusade. You are a spiritual organisation banded together to fight against sin and indecency and to lift the banner for social righteousness and personal honour. Yours, my friends, is a costly undertaking, indeed, all undertakings that dare to invade *he enemy’s territory are costly undertakings. Lost Man is a perverse creature. So long has he gone astray and turned to his own way and so long has he practised his evils and bis infidelities that his judgments are warped and his will beclouded. The Scripture says simply "He loves darkress rather than light >» When our Lord lifted His banner and marched out to fight sin and to redeem the lost, he was immediately engaged in mortal combat with those He would save. He began a fight that led him eventually (and insvitably) to the Cross. He was misunderstood, even by His friends. He was maligned and falsely charged. He was scorned, despised and deserted. He walked a long and lonely road. He paid the price in blood —but at length He u’on through. And we fight against principalities and powers, against rulers of darkness and spiritual wickedness and there is no easy way to victory. If you would engage in a war against Satan you must be ready to bear wounds. Misunderstood? Ever been called a wow’ser, or a kill-joy ? Scorned! Laughed at! Your good evilly spoken of . . . Stoned! Beaten! Imprisoned' Killed! "Lord, for thy sake we are killed all the day long, we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” The w'ay of the reformer is always the hard way, and it has ever been the lonely way. The reformer strides ahead of his day. He is a leader, and as a leader, he walks alone. Today we honour the names of men and w’omen who have done good, such as Elizabeth Fry, William Wilberforce, General Booth and his godly wife: Florence Nightingale, Louis Pasteur, Lord

Charnngton, Dr. Barnaruo and a host of others. They stand out against the world’s rugged history as rocks in a weary land. They were the giants who now rest in peace while a nation rightly honours them, but did you ever read the story of their lives? Their struggles, their disappointments, tlie manner in which they have endured calumny and misrepresentation How they were plotted against and defied and waylaid and sometimes, in the bitterness of the battle they even felt that God had deserted their cause. But they trusted! They trusted through the dark night of tlieir soul. They trusted in the validity of their cause, in the rightness of right and the wrongness of wrong. They trusted in God and went bravely on . . . They saved others, but themselves they did not spare. 1 realise that tonight that between my text and the little that we can ever do or be, there is a great gulf fixed. W’ho can ever know what it meant to Him to cry, "My God," but in the light of that, the price He was willing to pay, may we find our inspiration to go on and to do and to dare despite the cost. Thou, Lord, hast borne for me More than my tongue can tell Of bitterest agony To rescue me from Hell. Thou sufferest all for me, What can I bear for The«? RIGHT IS RIGHT Oh, it is hard to work for God, To rise and take His part I’pon the battlefields of earth, And not, sometimes, lose heart. Thrice blest is she to whom is given, The instinct that can icll That God is on the field, when He Is most invisible. For :igiit is right, since God is God, And right the day must win. To doubt would be disloyalty, Tc falter would be sin. —Frederick William Fisher