The God Whom. We Implore

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 225, 21 September 1940, Page 2 (Supplement)

The God Whom. We Implore

By Thz Rev. C. If. Chandler

"DEING a God of this world is D no sinecure fojr an idealistic and ego-centric autocrat." say; John Hadham in his most stimulating book, "Good God." Indeed, it isn't. I sometimes wonder whether the thousands who whether the thousands who throng the churches to every National Day of Prayer bring their hearts with them when they come, because at other times so many of them are never seen.

After all there are certain conditions which we have to fulfil before we have any reason to believe that God will even hear our prayers. None of us could feel justified in asking for the loan of a "fiver" from one whom we- had almost completely ignored for months or even years past. We should expect to be told to go elsewhere. "Why come to me?" I can hear such a one saying. "You have never bothered about ine when things were going well with you. What right have you to expect me now to come to your aid?"

God being merciful and long-suffering can doubtless be relied upon to treat us better than that, even if we have ignored Uim. He is ever ready to wel-

come a prodigal's return, but, of coune, tie prodigal lias got to be in a repentant state of mind and heart. If, upon his return the Prodigal son of Luke 15 had said, "Well, dad, I've had a good time down yonder among all the boys and girls, but I've run out of cash, so I've come home for a ■while," I doubt whether the father would then have spoken in the terms of a calf and a robe and a ring.

When the Empire is called to praver millions answer the call, but it is little more than a patriotic display if those who come have no intention of coming again until next they are called. The first condition of effectual prayer is to believe that God is, and also to believe that He is the rewarder of 6uch as diligently call upon Him. When Jesus at one time during His earthlv ministry returned to Nazareth His home town, it is recorded that He could do no mighty work there because of their unbelief.

We are asking Him .to do a mighty work for us to-day—to grant victory to our arms. We have first of all to believe that He can, and if we don't believe this let us give up pretending that we do. On the other hand if we do believe that He can, then let us back up this belief by being on parade in His house every Sunday.

If you believe that I could show you how to make money I could not keep you from my threshold. If you really believed that I could give you a recipe for happy and successful living (which, by the way, I can) all you sad and weary ones would be making tracks to my door. It's because you don't believe that I can do either "of these things that you very naturally don't bother about me—Why should you?

I smpeet that God must be my quick at jumping to the right conclusions, and I suspect, that He is a little doubtful about the sincerity of many of those who called upon Him only upon State occasions. We have no right to bo bothering i about the defence of a Christian civili«a-v : tion unless we are Christians any more si than we have any right to call uoall God if we don't believe in Him According to Christopher Hollis la all recent "Spectator," it appears that many important people in England are bothering about this matter, anyhow. He says: "No honest man can sorely deny that a high proportion of those in charge of the destinies of thi« country are indifferent to the survival of Christi-if anity in any sense in which cither the * ; atican or, indeed, an orthodox Pro-,?* testant would' use that phrase." I do not think that God can h&p-us unless, as a nation and Empire, we truly believe in Him, and all the evidence is lacking that can persuade me that we do. •— Tke R»a CM I am inclined to think that every O.C. in the army of the living God should ' call the roll every Sunday on parade, and put an "X" against the names of all absentees. Ido not think that the S Church demands half enough of her people. If she demanded more they would re- _ spect her more. Instead of saying to the very casual worshipper: '"How nice it is to see you here," I think we should say: "Why the devil don't you come more regularly ?" If prayer is to be a force instead of being a farce it must be backed by belief, and belief must be backed by practice. It's not much good having a God whom we implore if, at the same time, He is "the God whom we ignore."