Quiet Hope That Remains For Christians

Chronicle (Levin), 27 June 1949, Page 4

Quiet Hope That Remains For Christians

"Ours is not the first generation of men over whose life the shpdows of fear and the promise of destruction have fallen. What the small nations of the world in our generation have had to face the tiny people of God faced more than once in the ancient world." Rev. A. Salmond made these comments preaching in St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church laSt evening. "In the days of King. Hezekiah the citizens of Jerusalem had the experience of knowing that just over the border were the armies of an aggressor nation, the powerful, well-alrmed and. unscrupulous Assyria, which for nearly 100 years had been rattling the sword and disturbdng the peace of the world. Boastf ully ; confident" " ih her own power and ctoverness, and riithlessly contemptuous of - anything like righteousness or kindliness, Assyria trampled down the smaller nations."

In a study of the prayer of Kmg •Hezekiah, iMr. iSalmond pointed out that though Hezekiah called on the" God of Israel he recognised that God was the God of all the Kingdoms of the Earth and that both Israel and Assyria came under his purpose of mercy and judgment. "Hezekiah prayed for the safety of his city not merely for the sake of the Nation but in order that God's glory might be known on the whole earth." Beside King Hezekiah stood Isaiah, the prophet of God, with his overmastering sense of the majesty and boliness of God and his faith that God was ih complete control of events. Proud and ruthless Assyria might well be the rod of God's anger. God's will and not Assyria's would prevail. "For Christians that is still their quiet hope and a stern call to repentance to them," concluded the preacher.