PULPIT MESSAGES
Wellington Churches
FACING THE FUTURE
Thankfulness and Courage
Speaking at the Vivian Street Baptist Church, Wellington, on Sunday, on “Thanking God and Taking Courage” (Acts 28, 15), the Rev. L. J. Boulton Smith said :—“Nineteen-thirty-four has about finished Its course and our minds are turned to the future. The year just closing has brought its joys and privileges. The minds of many have been .sorely teased by the problems confronting us in this world. Many have been visited by sorrows and trials. Many have carried heavy burdens of responsibility. Some have lost those whom they love. Some have undergone severe disciplinings. “And now a New Year will presently dawn, shrouded in mystery. It is tight-lipped, and di-ulges no secrets for its intentions will be rationed out to us day by day. Joys and sorrows may await us, but we have no intimation concerning them. Ours is the ‘Path that no fowl knoweth and which the vulture's eye hath not seen.’ “I wish,” said the preacher, “to speak to you about the two-fold attitude of thankfulness and cojirage, for it seems to me that here is a very practical and Christian way of facing the future. I would remind you that when St. Paul t-hanked God and took courage'—he was on the way to Rome, whither he was being taken as a prisoner of Caesar. If anything, it all looked like an anticlimax to a strenuous and devoted career. Yet with his destination and perhaps his doom in sight this intrepid Christian ‘thanked God and took eour”“Takiiig life by and large (I speak as a Christian),” the speaker continued, “there is more in our past year’s experience to be glad about than there Is to be sad about. However great our difficulties and however heavy the crosses we have borne, the Christian has some peculiar and distinct compensations. What, for instance, could we do without the fellowship of the Saints? In this Scripture incident before us we notice the wave of gladness which swept the apostle’s soul when he. the prisoner,, was met and greeted by some of the local Christians. As they conversed with him and assured him of their love and loyalty to Christ he thanked God and took courage.
Friendship of Men.
“During the year we have all been blessed and helped by the friendship of good men and women. In sorrow and perplexity their counsel and cheer lias meant much. It is through the personalities of those who love Him that God touches us. He speaks to us through a beautiful human soul, whose charm and kindliness carry us in thought to His feet. An English writer Ims declared that he believes in God. ‘I believe in the Great Mind just as when I sec a cathedral I believe in the architect. But I do not believe that the architect has any iiersoua] interest in the molecules of clay that made up the bricks. We must do the best we can for ourselves.’ “This statement begins well enough, but it slumps fatally. Jesus proclaimed a God of Love —who is knowable — and' whose love extends to the tiniest molecules as it were, for the very hairs of our head are numbered. It is out of this radiantly joyous experience of the Love of God that great courage is born. Royce of Harvard defined faith as ‘the soul’s insight or discovery of some “reality” that enables a man to staiul anything that can happen to him in the universe.’ Faith and courage are twins and the persion who is sure of God will stand firm in a difficult world. Knowing God, he will five thankfully and bravely. He will look with steady eyes into tiie face of danger and in" times of panic he will be full of peace. Armed thus, the Christian faces the unknown.”
NEW WORLDS FOR OLD Dr. C. R. Mitchell’s Sermon The Rev. Dr. Cyprus R. Mitched, M.A., 8.D., preaching at the Unitarian Free Church, Channing Hall, Lambton Quay, took as his subject "New Worlds for Old.” "Jesus’s . permanent religious value and signifiance lies in his vision of a new world—a new world to be found in and made out of the world as he found it,” he said. "But it is an open question whether his would-be followers and his critics understand the real nature of his new-world vision and how it ’s to be accomplished.
"Until Jesus’s day mankind had been expecting a new world. The possibility of a new world had been the leading light in their hopes and needs. But this new world was to come into being chiefly by the magical actioh of Deity. “Jesus in his ‘temptations’ grappled with this particular problem. He asked himself whether the Kingdom of God was to be gained by feeding men, by miracle, or by conformity to worldpower. He rejected these means. Man is a free, creative spirit. He is God’s son; God loves him; find therefore God has (lone his part in the making of the new world. God waits on man's cooperation. Mau lives not alone by bread, alone by God's action (miracle), but by all the decrees of God. The decree of chief importance in the divineIniiiian relations is man’s creative freedom. The kingdom is not a matter of geography; the Kingdom of God is within man's free, creative spirit. It is the proper use of the spiritual freedom with which God r as endowed man. “To-day we see the truth of this contention. Man never tins been so richly supplied, nor so splendidly equipped to master the harvest; yet we are in the world’s most horrific ‘depression.’ Tue fault is not in the nature of the physical world-order, nor in the moral laws which govern the release of hunur.i freedom: the fault is in ourselves —in our use of our freedom. Man’s Parochialism. “The major fault in man's use of his freedom is seen in his parochialism Man lias not caught the universalbrotherhood vision of Jesus. Jesus, in the temptation parables, evidently decided that since he is a son of God all men are potentially sons of God; therefore he decided to take life on the same terms as the rest of mankind must take it. He refuses miracle. Parochialism demands miracle, mystery and coercive authority. But Jesus accepted and taught creative moral freedom and spiritual responsK bility. No num before Jesus ever saw as he did that the blessings of God are accessible to all men and women Irrespective of social, educational, political, ecclesiastical or hereditary accidents. His vision was of the glory-
of the liberty of the children of God ; and for the proper use of this freedom the whole universe waits in eag-r anticipation. (Romans viii.)
“Jesus learned obedience by the things which he endured and he thus qualified to be the ‘pioneer and perfection of faith.’ “New worlds for old are waking on man’s proper use of his creative, spiritual freedom. His freedom must be exercised in the light of man’s potential divinity—in the light of his inherent affinity with God. IT.: flli.il use of creative freedom de .ands ■
sideration of men and women as the supreme glory of God’s providence. The divinity of our freedom cannot be realised in "moral or spiritual mimicry, but in a creative act which expresses our own convictions. We are n>t primarily servants but ‘friends’ of God; heirs of and sharers in the faith of the pioneer spiritual prophets of all ages. Hence the Kingdom of God - new worlds for old —is within us . . . is waiting on the spiritual and democratic use we should make of our liberty as the children of God. Thus the New Year can mean not only a New Year for an old; it can mean new worlds for old.” CHRISTIAN SCIENCE Christian Science was the subject of the Lesson-Sermon in all Churches of Christ, Scientist, on Sunday. The Golden Text was Isa. 52:10, “The Lord hath made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.”
Among the citations which comprised the Lesson-Sermon were the following from the Bible: “O how I love thy law! it is my meditation all the day. I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” (Psa. 119:97,101, 105).
The following passages from the Christian Science textbook: “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” by Mary Baker Eddy, were also taken; "Some individuals assimilate truth more readily than others, but any student who adheres to the divine rules of Christian Science and imbides the spirit of Christ, can demonstrate Christian Science, cast out error, heal the sick, and add continually to his store of spiritual understanding, potency, enlightenment, and success” (IX
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Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 84, 3 January 1935, Page 2
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1,482PULPIT MESSAGES Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 84, 3 January 1935, Page 2
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