FROM THE CHURCH

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 22, 17 April 1950, Page 3

FROM THE CHURCH

St. George’s Anglican Whakatane HARVEST FESTIVAL Preaching at the Harvest Festival at St. George's Church, Whakatane, last night on the text from Genesis, chapter one, verse 31, the Vicar, the Rev T. M. Loten, emphasised the importance of the words of the text:

“And God saw everything that he made, and behold, it was very good.”

The world as created by God was perfection, the Rev Loten declared. Each stage of creation was supervised by God Himself. “Without God there would have been nothing, and today we must learn the lesson that without Him, there is still nothing, for life lived without God is meaningless, pointless and fruitless and until man makes God the centre of his interest, the source of inspirations and the goal of his aspirations, distrust, envy, greed and selfishness will continue to flourish and abound.

“In the beginning God created all things to serve Him, the animals, birds, fish, vegetation all these serve God by fulfilling the purpose for v/hich thee were created.

“The beauty of flowers, of vegetation, the instructive powers of animal life, bare eloquent testimony to the glory of God and to His creative energies and more, to the sustaining powers of Divine Life. That which we call Nature, with its laws of seed time, growth am. development is God’s creative powers daily manifest in the world for all to see. “Into this world of order anW beauty,” the vicar continued, “God placed the glory and crown of creation—man. Man made in the image and likeness of God—with an immortal soul, man made so much higher than the animals to love and serve God freely and gladly., “At the very beginning God could look and see that all He had created was very good. Today as God looks upon the world the story is not the same for evil entered into the world and tainted man’s nature and today man is very far removed from original innocence and righteousness.

“It was for that very reason that God sent His Son into the world to call man back to all that had been lost, to restore to him his birthright and lead him by the hand back to the narrow but sure road which leads to Immortality.

“Only in our Lord Jesus Christ can this be done. The mesage of the Easter Festival which we will celebrate links itself very happily with our Harvest Thanksgiving.

“Until we who are Christians realise that Christianity means Church going Worship Thanksgiving, Repentance, Confession and Self-de-nial we have missed the truth of cur calling. We cannot be Christians on our own, we must not claim that just by trying to lead a good life and doing nobody any harm, are we pleasing God. That is not Christianity—Christianity is life—life lived with God—life in which worship and churchgoing plays a real and important part,” the Rev Loten added.