THE DAY OF REST. REST FOR THE TROUBLED IN HEART.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 223, 8 October 1887, Page 1

THE DAY OF REST. REST FOR THE TROUBLED IN HEART.

, " Let not your heart be troubled : 70 believe in Got!, believe also in Mo."— John xiv. I. About lasb words spoken by friend to friend there is always a peculiar charm and a -lemnity. As the time for separation dravrfc near the sympathies that bind heart to heart grow stronger, and every moment of time seems to become more precious. Both memory and anticipation are quickened, and language, however eloquent, becomes inadequate to express the thoughts that crowd the mind. Our text is taken from amongst the last words spoken by Christ to His disciples previous to His crucifixion. He was, indeed, to see them again after His resurrection, and, in a spiritual sense, He was to be with them always, even unto the end ; but for a time they were to be left alone ; and Jesus knew how heavily the sorrow of that separation would rest upon them. He knew that the cause to which they had devoted their lives would seem, for a time, to be crushed, and that their faith would be sorely tried. Knowing all this, He spoke to them in wOl ds that even at this distance of time, and tou?, are still fragrant with the perfume of a more than human love and tenderness. And these words were not mere rhetoric. They contained, for the disciples, the moat real and earnest advice. These disciples were religious men, but their religion was one-sided. They believed in God, but they did not yet understand what it was truly and fully to believe in Christ. Without tint further faith they would be utterly unequal to the sorrows and conflicts that lay before them : with it they would be more than conquerors. All this the Saviour knew, and His aim was to kindle in their minds thoughts that would not only comfort them in their hour of gloom, but afterwards burst forth in triumphant enthusiasm. But if the disciples needed these words, do we not need them, and are they not addressed to us as w ell as to them ? We all believe in God, but do we all believe in Christ with that higher faith whicli gives reet to troubled hearts ? The religion of many is a mere Theism, and, instead of filling their hearts with a genial happiness and lighting up their lives with prophetic brightness, it fills them with doubts and fea> < and overshrebws them with gloom. (1) To make us happy and to lift life up to the dignity of true success our religion must enable us to realise the personality and fatherhood of God. Such a realisation belongs not to Pure Theism. It come 5 ) to us through faith in Christ. Without Christian faith God is simply a great power of force. That there is such a power behind \isible and tangible phenomena may be a settled conviction of our minds ; but when the tides of adversity have swept away our earthly possessions, or when we stand beside the death-bed of those we have loved, what can 6uch a conviction do to comforb us ? Gravitation is a reality, but it cannot speak to us, it cannot love us. Electricity is al&o a reality, but we cannot call it Father. And it makes na difference if we think of God as the aggregate of all forces. Such a God is still not a Person, not a Father. We may cry for help, but He will not hear us ; we may suffer } bub Ho will not pity us. Bub when we truly believe in Christ all this is altered. God is no longer an impersonal force, or the aggregate of all forces in the universe, but a living, personal Father. Christ, in His identification with humanity, reveals the nature of God ; and when we truly believe in Him \ wo no longer keep saying, "Show us the Father, and itsufficeth us ;" bub we assent to the truth of the Saviour's words, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." Our religion is now no longer a futile gazing up into heaven, but an intensified interest in the joys and sorrows of those around us. The exponent of the mind and heart of God is no longer mere science, bub the great throbbing heart of humanity with Jesus Christ as it? true representative. (2) The doctrine of God's Fatherhood carrio3 with it the further doctrine of forgiveness ; and so true faith in Christ enables us to realise that we are forgiven. Without this faith it is impossible to know that there can be or ever will be mercy for the transgressor. Nature sometimes smiles and sometimes frowns, and it is impossible bo elicit from her any decided answer to the questions, Can the guilty be pardoned ? Can the sin-defiled be made pure ? Christ, however, through the medium of His human personality, affirm 3 and demonstrates the mercifulness of God. He Himself is the all-sufficient Mediator and Propitiation. Through Him every prodigal may arise and go to his Father. Through Him every spiritual leper may be cleansed. He shows us that God made us to be happy, and that if we have lost the path of happinesswe can come back to it. Under the light of this teaching the healing processes and suggestions of mercy which the natural, woild undoubtedly presents receive a new significance, and are capable of teaching us lessons which the mere Theist dare nob accept. And the inference, drawn from the, whole revelation of God, and wrought out into experience and life, is conscious pardon and spiritual victory. (3) But there is another great trouble of Che heart. We may be gladdened and restored by forgiveness and spiritual healing here, but what will, there be for , us when the earthly house has yielded to dissolution ? He who believes in God bub not fully in Christ can have no certainty on this supreme question. He can believe that God is an immortal spirit, but he caunot say that he himself will survive the shock of that physical death which is so certain and so near at band. Everywhere around us there are the signs of incompleteness. Our hearts throb- withit* with aspirations that can never here be realised., The wfyole machinery of our moral nature points onward. The longest and beat career is but as the beginning of a I being — a mere childhood, , full of promise and expectation, indeed, bub falling short of maburiby. Our graces and accomplishments at the best only reach an initial stage, suggesting that we .are but learners in some great school. Our friendships, pleasant though they may be, are too short-lived to fulfil tho expectations they awaken,, All

these things suggest immortality, and yet they fail to lead us beyond an agonising perhaps. They awaken an intense longing for a future life, and then leave us with only the longing. But when we truly believe in Christ we hope as well as long for a life beyond — a life of realised aspirations, a life of rostored friendships, a life of progressive and successful activities. To give the assurance of this is the Saviour's especial object in the words that follow our text. The creed held by His disciples embraced the doctrine of a future elysium, but the doctrine was narrow and vague. He told them of a home that would be vast enough for all comers, and varied enough to satisfy all tastes, and He assured them thai. Ho Himself would tonduct them thither. In all these ways and many more the higher faith in Christ does for us what mere belief in God must ever be unable to do. It leads us to the knowledge of a Divine Father. It lifts ofF from us the burden of our guilt, and brings us into contact with the forces that regenerate and sanctify. It interpiets to us the otherwise insoluble enigma of human existence, and brightens up the whole horizon of our future with hopes the most exalted and ennobling. It fills our troubled hearts with peace. It supplies patience and strength for our burdens, resignation for our disappointments, courage for our battles, and enthusiasm for our duties. Look again at those disciples. Before the crucifixion they loved Christ and followed Him, but they knew nothing about the higher faith in Him. Hence, when the great crisis came, they were all for the time crushed and heart-broken. But when they had witnessed the resurrection and the soulstirring scenes of Pentecost that higher faith took entrc possession of their minds ; and forthwith they presented co tho world the unpiecedented spectacle of perfect peace and tranquillity amidst the fiercest persecutions and the sorest deprivations. And peace was attended with power. Henceforth no enterprise was too costly or too arduous for them, if only their Master's cause required it. Enthusiastic love and hope gave them the most efficient command of all their consecrated talents, and they went forth to assured success. Now how is it with us ? Is our faith only like tint which the disciples had before the crucifixion ? Is it a faith founded too much upon our own ideas as to what Christ ought to be and to do ? Is it a faith that is enervated by selfishness and worldliness ? If so, we need not wonder that our hearts are troubled, for such a faith can never save us from the torment of anxious cares and fears. The secret of all our heart trouble and weakness is exactly here : we do not fully and truly believe in Chi'ist. We must, therefore, listen afresh to His words and fee' at those words are spoken to us : 'Ye be eve in God ; believe also in Me. 5 A fearless and whole-hearted response to this exhortation will not lesult in disappointment. Many thousands have thus believed, and have, consequently, been blessed with a peace passing all understanding. And tho covenant is as sure to-day as when Jesus spoke to His disciples on earth. Let us put that covenant to the test at once, and for ourselves individually, and we shall find Him saying unto us, as He said to His disciples later on in this same discourse, 'Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you : not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.' And with that peace in our hearts we shall not have to tarry long for the power which we further need for the trials and duties of our life.

There's a beautiful land on high, To its glories I fain would fly ; When by porrow pressed down, I long; for my crown, In that beautiful land on high. In that beautiful land I'll. bo From earth and ito cares set free : My Jesus is there, He's j?one to prepare A place in that land for me. There's a beautiful land on high, And my kindred its bliss enjoy ; Methinks I now dee how they're waiting for me, In that beautiful land on high. There's a beautiful land on high ; And though here I oft weep and sigh, My Jesus hath said that no tears shall be shed In that beautiful land on high. There's a beautiful land on high, Where we never shall say " Good-bye ;" When over the river we're happy for ever In that beautiful land 6n high.