SUNDAY READING.

Shannon News, 31 October 1924, Page 4

SUNDAY READING.

THE CHURCHES' URGENT NEED.

" Text* "Through the power of the Holy Ghost."-Rom. XV. 18. "Bythe power of the Spirit of God." Rom. in trying to speak of the great necessity of the Church— namely, hei being moved vigorously by the powei Of tlie Holy Spirit—l earnestly pray that we may enter upon this subject with the deepest conceivable reverence. Let us adore while we are meditating; let us feel the condescension of this* blessed Person of the Godhead in designing to dwell in His people and to work in the human heart. Let us remember that this Divine Person is very sensitive. He is a Jealous God. We read of His being grieved and vexed, and therefore let us ask His forgiveness of the many provocations which He must have received from our hands. With lowliest awe let-us bow before Him, remembering that, if there be a sin which is unpardonable, it has a reference to Himself—the sin against the Holy Ghost, which shall never be forgiven, neither in this world nor in that which is to come. In reference to the Holy Ghost we stand on very tender ground indeed; and if ever we should veil our faces and rejoice with trembling, it is while we speak of the Spirit, and of those mysterious works with whjch He blesses us. In that lowly spirit, and under the- Divine overshadowing, follow me while 1 set before you some works of the Holy Spirit, which? are most necessary to the Church for its own good, and equally needful to her in her office of msisionary from Christ to the outBide world. 1. To begin, then, the power of tne Holy Ghost is manifested in the Quickening of Souls to Spiritual

Life. All the spiritual life which exists in this world is the creation of the Holy Spirit, by whom the Lord Jesus quickeneth whomsoever He will. The Spirit of God in infinite mercy came to us with His mysterious power, and made us live. The first token of life was a consciousness of our being in the realm of death, and an agony to escape from it; we began to perceive our insensibility, and, "if I may be pardoned such an expression, we saw our blindness. Every growth of spiritual life, from the first tender shoot until now, has also been the work of the Holy Spirit.

See, then, our ;absolute dependence upon the Holy Spirit; for if He were gone we should relapse into spiritual death, and the Church would become a charnel-house.

2. Next, it is one of the peculiar offices of the Holy Spirit to enlighten His people, He has done so by giving us His Word, which He has inspired; but the Book, inspired though it be, is never spiritually understood by any man apart from the personal teaching of its great Author. You may read it as much, as you will, and never discover the'inner and vital sense, unless your soul shall be led into it by the Holy Ghost Himself. You must be taught of the Lord, or you will die in ignorance. Nothing do we really know unless it be burnt into our souls as with a hot iron, by an experience which only the Spirit of God can give. 3. One work of the Spirit of God is to create The Spirit of Adoption. "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, whereby ye cry, Abba, Father!" "For ye have not received the spirit" of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father!" We are regenerated by the Holy Spirit, and so receive the nature of children; and that nature, which is given by Him, He continually prompts. and develops, and matures; so that we receive day by day more and more of the child-like spirit. This may not to be of very great" importance, at first sight; but it is so; for the Church is never happy happy except as all her members walk as dear children towards God. Now, mark you, this will have a great effect upon the outside world. A body of professors performing religion as a task, groaning along the ways of godliness with faces full o£

misery, like slaves who dread the lash can have but small offect upon the sinners around them. They say, "These people serve, no doubt, a hard Master, and they are denying themselves this and that; why should we be like them?" But bring me a church made up of children of God, a company of men and women whose faces shine with their Heavenly Father's smile, who are accustomed to take their cares and cast them on their Father as children should, who know they are accepted and beloved, and are perfectly content with the great Father's will; put them down down in the midst of a company of ungodly ones, and I will warrant you they will begin to envy them their peace and joy. Thus happy saints become most efficient operators upon the minds of the unsaved. O blessed Spirit of God! let us all now feel that we are the children of the great Father, and let our childlike love be warm this morning; so shall we be

Fit to Go Forth. and proclaim the Lord's love to the prodigals who are in the far-off land among the swine. 4. The Holy Spirit is especially called the Spirit of Holiness. He never suggested sin nor approved of it, nor has He ever done otherwise than grieve over it: but holiness is the Spirit's delight. The Church of God wears upon her brow the words "Holiness to the Lord." Only in proportion as she is holy may she claim to be the Church of God at all. An un-. holy church may pant and struggle after dominion, and make what noise she can "in pretence of work for Christ, but the kingdom comes not to the unholy, neither have they themselves entered it. ; ,The testimony of

unholy men is no more acceptable to Christ than was the homage which the evil spirit gave to Him in the days of His flesh, to which He answered, "Hold thy peace?" "Unto the wicked, God saith, What hast thou to do to declare My statutes?" The dew is withholden, ■ and ■ the rain cometh not in its season to the tillage of those who profess to be the servants of God, and yet sow iniquity. After all. ■ The Acts of then Church Preach More.

Lo the world than the words of the , Church. Put an anointed 'man to preach the Gospel in the midst of a | really godly people, and his testimony i will be marvellously supported by the church with which he labours; but place the most faithful minister over an ungodly church, and he has such a weight upon him that he must first clear himself of it, or he cannot succeed. He may preach his heart out, he may pray till his knees are weary, but conversions will be sorely hindered, if indeed they occur at all. There is no likelihood of victory to Israel while Achan's curse is on thecamp. An unholy church makes Christ to say that "He cannot do many mighty works there, because of her iniquity.

5." The Spirit of God is in a very remarkable manner the Giver of fellowship. So often as we pronounce the | apostolic benediction we pray that we ttiay receive the communion of* the Holy Ghost. .The Holy Ghost enables us to have communion with spiritual things. He alone can take the key and open up the secret mystery, that we may know the things which be of God. He gives us fellowship with God Himself: through Jesus Christ by the Spirit we have access to the Father. ' Our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ, but it is the Spirit of God who brings us into communion with the Most High. So, too, my dear brethren. Our Fellowship with One Another. so far as it is Christian fellowship, is always produced by the Spirit of God. If we are to tell upon the world, we must be.united as one living body. A divided Church has long been the scorn of Anti-christ. Divisions are our disgracei our weakness, our hindrance and as the gentle Spirit alone can preevnt or heal these divisions by giving us real loving fellowship with God and with one another, how dependent we are uopn Him for it! Let us daily cry to Him to work in us brotherly love, and all the sweet graces which make us one with Christ, that we all may be one even as to Father is one with the Son, that the world may know that God hath indeed sent Jesus, and that we are His people.

Therefore, as at the first so say I at the last: all this dependeth upon the Holy Ghost, and upon Him let us wait in the name of Jesus, beseechingl Hih to manifest His power among OUR MOTTO AND MODEL. Text: "I do always those things that please Him.—John viii. 29.'' If we study the records of x our Lord's sublime career, we shall see that the secret of His power was the presence of His God, —"He that sent Me is with Me"; and the secret of His comfort was fellowship with Jehovah, —"He hath not left Me alone," If you would know you can enjoy the presence and fellowship of the. Lord, and all the power and comfort which come thereby, the Saviour tells you the secret in th 6 following; words: "For I do always those things that please Him." If we should have God with us, we must be agreed with Him. "Shall two walk together unless they be agreed?" Remember the words,of the Lord Jesus, how He said, "He that hath My commandments and koepeth them, he it is that loveth Me, and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him" (John xiv. 21.) To do the things which please God is the way to secure His presence, and. "consequent power and happiness. It should be Our Intent and Earnest Design

to please the Lord. We shall not do this by accident; we must give our whole souls to the work and labour mightily. No arrow reaches this target if the bow be drawn at a'venture; the heart must aim with earnest intent and vehement desire. May the Holy Spirit work in us to will after thi s fashion, and then in due time we shall be sure that H e will work in us also to do of His good pleasure. I, Mark attentively that the text doe's not deal with negatives, though it implies them. Christ did not say, "I do not the things which displease Him," but He said, "I do always those things that please Him." The sentence is positive and practical, relating to actual deeds, and not to negatives. We must copy our Master in all the practical virtues, and what a 'Model He is! What a pattern He has set before usf Brethren, what was the most conspicuous thing in the life of Christ? I cannot tell you, everything is so conspicuously admirable; there is a harmony, a blending of every virtue in the life of Christ, that you can scarcely put your linger upon one thing and say, "This wa s superior to the rest.' But -if there be some excellent things more marked than others, one of them is prayerfulness! How continually do we read "as He was praying," or "as He was praying in a certain place," or "every man went to his own home, and Jesus went to the ' Mount of Olives." We are told that

He Silent. Whole Nights in Prayer.. upon the mountain-side, He was always in communion with God. For God to speak out of heaven to Him was not a strange thing, for Christ was always speaking up into heaven to His God. B e ye such. It cannot please the great Father for Hi s child not to speak to Him by the hour together, and to be indifferent to Him, to giv e Him no word either of request or of thanksgiving. Alas! I fear some professors seldom speak with their heavenly Father in spirit and in truth If we fail here, w e certainly fail Hi one of the things which please Him. Next in Christ's life one of the more

prominent qualities was. His love—His love to God. "We ought to, love ,#o« with all our ; hearts, and spend and oe spent for. meat and drink to do the will of Him that sent us, and to finish ; His. work if w e are, to do the things which please Him. But our great Exemplar also showed the warmest love tomen. • How He pitied, the fallen!. With, what tenderness He spoke to sinners! How gently .did He warn! How sweetly did He woo! Brethren, ..we must De gentle, too. That,which, is hard and domineering savours more of the princes of the Gentiles than of the lowly Lamb—we must put it away. Like our Master and Lord, we must wash the disciples' feet, and bear one another's burdens. Gently, kindly, tenderly we must labour for the good of all. and not consider ourselves. This is to do the things which please God, If we would follow Christ

We Must Practise Self-denial." for He "pleased not Himself." It should be said of us, a s of Him, "He saved otheirs; himself he cannot save." Did you ever in anything find Christ making provision for Himself? Can you discern a speck of selfishness In His nature? There i s a crown before Him, but He will not have it; He longs to see us crowned. What cares He about being made a king? His joy is that the Lord reigneth. He felt it better to obey His Fattier than to sit on a throne. Oh that we might catch His spirit! " '

The life of Christ is peculiar, too from its separateness from sinners. He was with sinners; He ate ana drank with them; He went to their marriage feasts, and sat at their banquets, but He was as distant from them as the sun from the ash-heap upon which it shines. He was without the camp in spirit, even when He was in it in person; He bore reproach all His life ieng, and last of all bore it up to Calvary. We, too, must be different from other men, not conformed to this world, but transformed by ttie renewing of our minds. It is folly to be singular, except when to be singular i s to be right; and then we must be bravely singular for Christ's sake, and in the lonely path of holy nonconformity we shall find Jesus more near than ever we knew Him to.be in the whole course of j)ur lives. I cannot enlarge here. The picture is so beautiful that merely to dwell upon

A Touch or Two of the Pencil, is to give you no idea of the matchless perfection of the work. Be ye as He was; copy Him as disciples should copy their Master! 2. Now, note particularly this — that these things must be actually done. "I do," says Christ, "those things which are pleasing." It will not suffer to talk about them, nor to pray about them even; they must be done. Do not merely feel charmed with a virtue, and fascinated with a duty, but go and actually carry it put; let not the purpose be strangled hi its birth, but let it be born into actual being. There is a word in the text which is a hard one to put in practice—"always" —"I do always those things that please Him." It will not suffice to say,; "I do ? the things that please God when 1 go out to worship," I hope you do but the Christian 'must aim to ,'say, "I do always." At home, husband, there must be such a - discharge or your relationship that, as a husband and a father, you please God. My good sister, it must be aj3 a wife, and a mother, and mistress that you please God. In all those relationships, at all times, you must act as in .His sight. True religion is, perhaps, better tested at the fireside than anywhere j else. What a man is. at home, that lie is and though he be a saint abroad, if he be a devil at home, you may depend upon it that the last is his; real character. A father has been astonished that his boy s have not turned out Christians, while every onq except himself can see that it would have been a thousand miracles if. they had become religious; for their father's religion is of that sour, .melancholy, rigid, frigid, unlovely jtype. Have you. failed to do as the.! text says? Then grieve t over it. Do! you wish to do a s Jesus did? Then He will help you, for He worketh with us mightily. Commit yourself unto His teaching, give yourself up to the spurlfying power of His Spirit, and Hf will bear you up to heights of grace and glories of character which you have never thought you could reach, hut which when you reach them will not puff pou up, for you will feeL constrained to cry, "Not unto us,= not unto us, but unto Thy name give praise!" If we have done all, we are \ unprofitable servants; we have only done that which it was our duty to have done; of Christ, for ever and ever Amen.