“WHAT MAN NEEDS”

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 980, 24 May 1930, Page 5

“WHAT MAN NEEDS”

EVANGELIST’S ADVICE Speaking at St. Matthew’s Church on “What we all need and how we may get it,” the Rev. W. E. Bentley said that around the text, “Come unto mo all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” centred the whole Christian religion. “Some people doubt if God was really God,” Mr. Bentley said. “My answer is that if He were not, then there is no real religion for anyone, and that this verse is the most preposterous and blasphemous made by human lips. “To begin, Jesus was a young man and He was ignorant, for He had never attended any of the schools of the prophets, either at Bethel, Jericho or Gilgai. All that He knew He learned at His mother’s knee, or in the little village school at Nazareth. And yet even His hearers exclaimed, ‘How knoweth this man letters?’ and ‘Never man spake like this man.’ “Then He was poor and lowly. This young man, without money, social standing, education or prestige of any kind, stands in the streets of Jerusalem and with His arms extended calls all the weary, troubled and heavily laden to come unto Him, and He will give them rest and peace. “What is the matter with the world today?” Mr. Bentley asked. “This constant restlessness, failure of faith, lack of grip on the unseen realities, looseness of morals as evidenced by our divorce courts, rebellion of youth and so forth—all more or less the aftermath of the insane world struggle we have just passed through. We have tried every way, but Christ's, to run the world, and see what a hopeless mess we have made of things! Surely we shall see before it is too late that what I-Ie said was true for all time —‘I am the way.’ “Wo shall have to learn it sometime and the sooner the better for us all.”