"The One Thing Needful"

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 41, 22 September 1892, Page 2

"The One Thing Needful"

♦ Last Sunday evening the service in the Wesleyan Church was conducted by Mr G. Grant, of Sandon, who chose the aboye text for his discourse from Mark 10, 21. The preacher said that was a beautiful incident, told in a veryr interesting way. A young man. breaking forth from the crowd and kneeling before Christ and asking : " What must he do to inherit eternal life." He was the embodiment of integrity, and it is said that on looking on him " Jesus loved Him." Every test was satisfactorily met but the last, and then see the effect : he went away sorrowful. Jesus said : " One thing thou lackest." Just as with a stone brought for a jeweller's inspection— he applies the usual tests, it is weighed, held up to the light— but the crucial test reveals the thing as a worthless bauble, it lacked one thing, A man is going on a long sea voyage ; the vessel chosen is magnificently fitted in every part, it leaves the dock and goes out to sea, a severe storm arises and the sun does not appear for days, then it is discovered the compass is worthless, and its course is unknown ; its mighty power is likely to urge it to its own destruction ; for the lack of the one thing needful. The preacher went on to show . that in this land we had amongst us numbers of people, young and old, who reach to almost every required excellency so far as the human standard goes. Everyone must admire persons who possess the virtue of purity and integrity, and who haye never uttered a false word. There were such people among us, and they deserved the highest praise that could be awarded them ; but it was possible they might be like the worthless bauble or the ship without a compass. The essential conditions of salvation were then pointed at which included that a man must realise his necessity of a Saviour, that, left to himself, he would perish for ever, that man deserves God's wrath and cannot deliver himself. The discourse was concluded with an impressive appeal to the congregation to accept the complete atonement which had been effected by the death and resurrection of Christ.