GREATEST REWARD OF ALL

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 119, 5 June 1937, Page 15

GREATEST REWARD OF ALL

The passages that iollow are taken from a characteristically llne '-sermon by Dr. J. D. Jones, of Bournemouth. Tlie words in the iiitk chapter oi the lirst Epistle of John formeci his text — "This is the victory that hath overeome the world, even our faith." To believe in Jesus is to belaeve that Ihe life which refers everything to God and which moves amid eternai things is the true life for men. In so iar as we really hold that belief we shall share in the victory which Jesus won. This is not theory. This ls matter of fact and, experience. John does not refer to this "victory" as a speculation or an inference. He states it as an aceomplisked and verified fact. "This is the victory which had overcome the world, even our faith." Think of St. Paul. The world oifered the best of its prizes to him. Fame, wealth, power. At a certain stage in his career these things were all his desire and purauit. But there came a point in his ilfe's story when they ceased to have any attraction for him. He was emancipated from the dominion of the world. What had happened? He had come to belaeve that Jesus was the -Son of God.' "What things were given to me," he says, "these I counted loss for Christ." From that day when that faith became his, Paul lived by eternai sanctions for internal reward. Or take another illustration. I can see little groups of men and women lruddled together in the arena of the Roman amphitheatre. They are there self doomed to die, and to die by the fangs and claws of savage beasts, while savage human beasts looked on and gloated over the ghastly speetacle. Who are these people? Men and women who had overcome the world. They might have had life and all life meant if they had been willing to abjure their faith, But they reineuibered Jesus, and though life was sweet, better die aud keep faith than fivo and be false. They over came the world. Or come to modern iimes. There came to John Cairns, when he was minster at Berwick, the oifer of the greatost academical position in the whole of Scotland. But the brilliant ofl'er did not move him. He elected to remain a simple preacher of the Gospel. Worldly honours were not what John Cairns lived for — he lived to do the will of God. This was the victory that overeame the world, even his faith. Dr. Sehweltzer is one of the great geniuses of our age. A superb musician, the greatest living exponnent of Bach; a supreme scholar, scliolar who, before he was 30, had written an epocli-makiug hook — a great pliilosophcr. Dr. Schweitzer miglit have been anytliing, he had the world at his foet. But be turned liis back on all the glittering prizes the world had to offer and found Iii? life work in administering as a doctor to tlie primitive black people of the French Gaboon. What inspired him

to do it? He has believed in the Son of God. He took Jesus seriously. And it is not a case only of a few conspicuous people winning this great victory. Multitudes have won it whose Tiauies are not blazonod abroad. Young people who live clean and wholesomo lives in spite of the fcemptatioms that beset them; men of brisiness who eafe more for Christ and His Kingdom than they do for gold; men and womenn in every walk of life 'who value God's "well done" more than any reward the world can give.