SUNDAY READING.

Shannon News, 29 July 1924, Page 3

SUNDAY READING.

steadfast in tribulation. t (By Rev. Charles Brown, 4.D.) “In all this God sinneu not, nor charged God foolishly.”—Joh. i. 22. It is a tremendous thing. A time oi trouble is always a time of temptation, and very often something gives way. Multiplied trouble means increased moral strain. If a man comes through that sort of fire unsinged, it is because another lias been with uhn in the furnace. Often there is an outbreak or a breakdown morally. Sometimes men fly to drink; sometimes they speak wild or bitter words; sometimes they throw up the effort to keep right and faithful. It is an immense thing when a man says under the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, “I am not going to surrender my integrity. I am non, going to render injustice for injustice or wrong for wrong. Whatever happens 1 am going to hold on to file right spin, and the right way.” It is a triumph of grace when a man. says that and does it. ;

Perhaps it.is a harder thing under such circumstances to hold last one’s laith in file goodness and wisdom of God, to fight down tlie spirit oi fierce rebellion. That Job does not continue to do.. He breaks out violently and curses the,day of his birth, and you have no longer a patient,bat a most impatient man sending out leverisn questions, bitter cries and challenges to liis Maker. But I am not aware that even in his bitterest mood he 'charges .God with foolishness.' Sub his faith abides. He cannot rind uu>. lor his searching. His eyes are dirn- , med with tears, hut he says,' "ru. kno.weth tlie way that 1 take.' When He hath tried me 1 shall come foiu, as gold.” One oi the easiest tilings and most foolish is to charge file Creator .with mismanaging the world, it might always he presumed that He who calied this mighty universe, and man, into being is wise- enough to govern what he has made. Two tilings may he said: I.—We often misconceive God. W ; e do that when we regard him as tlie author oi all tilings. In a, world oi .men who are morally free there are many tilings that never caiife from God at ail. He disapproves-and' condemns them. Job said, hath taken away.” Was it true? Did tlie Lord take away his oxen and his camels Was it the sw'ord of the Lord that slew liis servants? Perhaps in a rough'and unsettled time and with all his wealth he ought to have protected his servants and his property better. Perhaps his sons, instead of winedrinking and junketing), ought to have been on that business of w.atching and warding. There are, anyhow, many calamities that Go(l never sends. Trace them to their origin, and you will find some of them to he due to men’s folly or blunder or wickedness.. Also, it needs again to be affirmed that God does not bribe men to His service by guaranteeing them ,against the risks that attend human life.'' In the No vv Testament at least the faithful servant is promised tributiofi. The sneer of the Satan in this chapter js that Job’s goodness is just a piece of sellinterest, ,as though the service of God were such a dreary task that no nian would enter it or keep on in it unless he was handsomely bribed

The utmost we can say is that God permits the loss, and, then you may surely say that in your suffering He suffers too,.

(2) The other thing is that in many of our sorrows there is much instruction and education. Even the typhoon may teach , men how to build and earthquakes may warn them away from certain localities. The reasonable probability is that disasters, uke war and pestilence, may not be tie will of God at all, but just penalties for our neglect of His will, and that there a,re great apd high purposes of God which will take millenniums to realise. We may well trust, will Tennyson—“that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, To pangs of. nature, sin s o*f will, Defects of doubt and taints of blood, That nothing walks with aimless feet.” And we may trust because Christ, has come, healing the sorrows j.nd sins of men, healing their griefs, <.,nd saying, “God is like Me. 1-Ie that hn’h seen me hath seen God.”