SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 53, 20 July 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING.

FORGIVENESS; IS THERE A LIMIT? Being ail Address given to men at St. , Mary's Church, New Plymouth, on ( Sunday, July 14, by the Vicar (Rev. , A. 11. Colvife, M.A.) j (St. Matthew, 18.) ' ''Christianity stands or falls on its i teaching about forgiveness"—These are ; the words of a writer who does not pro- ] fess to believe in Jesus Christ, and yet - they are words of one who shows that . he understands the deepest need of the j human lieart, and the tremendous im- . portance of the claim of Christianity to , satisfy it. I know that it is idle to j speak of forgiveness to those who have j never felt the need of it. It is like speak- J ing of the power of love to those who j have never experienced love. It is like . speaking of the pangs of hunger and thirst to those who have never known . wliat it is to be without a good dinner. 1 There are men to-day who will tell us that the sense of sin which brings with 1 it the felt need of forgiveness, is a mor- 1 bid and unreal thing, and in itself a bar I to a. man's progress—a confession of , s weakness unworthy of a real man to s make. "As a matter of fact," says an ; eminent teacher and scientest of to-day, 1 "the higher mail is not worrying about i "his sins at all, still less about their punishment. His mission, if he is good for anything, is to be up and doing." By another we are told that forgiveness is against the very nature of things, and it is immoral to expect it. The law of consequence forbids such a thing as forgiveness. Ought a real man to desire ft? "Forgiveness," says Mr Bernard j Shaw, "is a beggar's refuge; we must * pay our debts." The sum and substance of all their teaching is practically this: ' Let a man eschew all this mawkish penitence and longings for forgiveness. Let 1 him cease to worry about what he calls 1 his sins, and let him stand upright be- - fore his God, as a true man should do. ' We will think again of these statements ' later on. 1 THE CENTRAL MESSAGE OF ' CHRISTIANITY. 1 < Now without doubt the central message , of Christianity is the message of forgive- , ness. Jesus Christ addressed Himself , [first to the sinner, and held out to him ( , as the remedy for his unrest and hope of I his progress—the promise of pardon. 1 ; "Jesus Christ," said St. Paul, "came into ' the world to save sinners," and, lie ! adds, "of whom I am chief." There you 1 1 have a confession by one who was a I real man, a real worker —no sentimen- ! talist, no morbid self-analyser. They : ; are words which express not the mockl modesty of one popular preacher, but 'the deep feeling of thousands of human I souls who in very age, and in every sort ' of circumstance have felt within both their own unrest, and the need of God ; and His forgiveness. And I am speaking to you this afternoon about forgiveness both because it is the central message of Christianity, and no honest preacher of the Gospel would dare or wish to belittle it, and also because I am sure that there are many here listening to me who have l felt that need in the past; nay, who are j feeling that need now at the present I moment. W'liich of us men indeed can > look back and say: "I have a stainless past. I have never done anything of which I am ashamed, of which my conscience is afraid. There is nothing ugly in my life and never lias been. I stand j clean and pure in the eyes of Almighty God." Who can say that? Not I, for one, my brothers. NO NEED OF FORGIVENESS. I know that I stand in perpetual need of forgiveness. All that I have to be thankful for is that T do feel that need. Is that not the attitude of the average man who believes in an All-mighty, and an All-Just, and an All-loving God? and is conscious that there should be a very real and a very deep relation between his own soul and the God who gave it? Let us think for a few minutes this afternoon of the nature of forgiveness. Are we justified in hoping for it? What will it do for us? is there a limit beyond which we cannot expect God to go?. First of all. it seems to me we are justified in hoping for it not only because of our own need (and it is safe to assume that a father would wish to satisfy his children's needs), but because WITHOUT FORGIVENESS WE CANNOT DO GOD'S WILL. We cannot do this work He intended for us to do in the world. We can make no progress. Think for a moment of the first statement I have quoted, belittling forgiveness: "The higher man ) of to day is not worrying about his sins at all. His mission is to be up and doing." It is grand to be "up and doing," but can we be "up and doing" witli the burden of sin still tightly bound upon I our backs? Is it not a true picture I John Bunyan draws in the "Pilgrim's Progress"? The man who was just starting on the road of progress had first to go to the uioss and get rid of his burden, carrying which lie would have been unfit for the hard road, unable to clmb the "Hill of Difficulty" or pass through the darkness of the "Valley of the Shadow of Death"? And it is that sense of sin which make a man uneasy and restless, and unable to concentrate his mind and his energies on what he is doing—it is that that is the barrier to his progress, and it is forgiveness that breaks down the barrier. Carry your thoughts down the long years of the past. Can you remember how, when you were a little child, things seemed to lose their savor when you had not your father's, or, perhaps more frequently, your mother's, forgiveness—when not perhaps bv punishment, but by grief and disappointment your mother showed how deeply you had by wrongdoing hurt her love and expectation for you? How your plans for yourself seemed to lose their fascination! How halfhearted von were in your work and your play! Life seemed quite out of joint until you were restored to favor and forgiveness. Don't think this is sentimental. I hate sentimentality. It is an illustration that expresses a common experience. When we were very young our parents stood to us in the place of God. A good father or a good mother can by their life and conduct bring God close to their children, and it is from their attitude towards their children's deepest needs that those children learn something of the heart and mind of God. What God would have them do and be is for them what their parents would have them do and be, nor can they do anything worth doing without the parents' forgiveness, which is to them the forgiveness of God Himself. THE BEGINNING OF PROGRESS. Forgiveness is, then, the beginning of progress. It destroys all those inward limitations of which sin makes us conscious, and sets free all our best faculties so that with real power we can serve God and ur fellow men —"up and doing!" It is when we have "worried" about our sins and felt the burden of them to be intolerable; it is when we have come to God and claimed his forgiveness; it is when we feel that we are restored to a right relation with our Father—it is then that we can in a very real sense be "up and doing": doing the things He would have us do, and living the life He would have us live. And then we are confronted by the statement, so daunting and paralysing, that forgiveness is against the nature of things, and we must not expect it. The

law of .consequences forbids such & thing, Weil, my brothers, we know that there is

A LAW OF CONSEQUENCES that holds good in the world in which we live. It is true that the natural i world knows nothing of the forgiveness i of siu. As regards our natural life i there is no return of opportunity. You miss your chance, and it cannot be recalled. Nothing will bring it back. You : may wish ever so much that you had | < not made that mistake which has marred J your life, but once made it has passed 1 beyond you, and no amount of wishing i will ever undo it. Or you may injure i your body by excess, by drunkenness or i impurity, and you may be ever so sorry i and give up excess entirely, but no 1 amount of sorrow will give back the 1 steadiness of hand, or the sureness of 1 sight that you used to have, for there is < no forgiveness of sin in nature. The 1 law of consequences runs through all i the natural world, and if it be true that i God Himself is bound by that law, that i it is out of His power to forgive us, that 1 we must drag the burden of sin with us all through our lives, and be for ever tortured by the pangs of remorse and the thrusts of our consciences, then we ' sinners are of all men 1 the most miser- ' able. Then, indeed, it is not over the 1 gates of hell, but over the threshold of 1 birth that those terrible words must be ' written: "All hope abandon ye who enter here." ' THE POWER OF LOVE-AND < FORGIVENESS. j 1 But what man who believes in the • ' power of love could really doubt the ' possibility of forgiveness? Have we not seen in the people who love us in this ' world that power in operation, in constant —aye, in almost daily—operation? I ' I am sorry for the man who has never 1 known what it was to be forgiven by a j woman—a mother or a wife or a friend —'by one who forgives freely because she knows you are sorry, who forgives freely because she loves. Has not such forgive- j ness brought you peace, and at the same 1 time made you feel (and here we catch ■ the first glimpse of the just and righteous limit to forgiveness) that there are 1 things which you must bear in connec- i tion with that restored relation—greater responsibilities as regards your future conduct towards her, certain outward penalties that have to be bravely endur- i ed, which, however, make no difference to the inward peace which her forgiveness has brought you? The better she is, the purer and higher her nature, the better worth having is her forgiveness, | ; and the greater do you feel to be your I . sin, and the deeper your responsibility ' in your future relation to her. f ; GOD AND FORGIVENESS. ) ; And if it is possible for a good man or j a good woman to forgive, is it impossible | with God? Could the creature surpass j the Creator? Could men do noble things ! that God would not do, or think noble I thoughts that He could never conceive?,! Nay; every virtue that we find in our J fellow-men is not only a mere faint re- . flection of the virtue that is in God, but | is an actual expression of the thoughts i of God to man, so that it is true to say { that man forgiving on earth is a warrant, of God forgiving in heaven; and it was j to show us both the joy of God in lor- J giveness and his perpetual readiness to j pardon sin that He. became man and j lived among men, that He might bring to all men who felt the need, and longed J for a fresh start on the road of progress, i the peace of His own perfect forgiveness, j "A BEGGAR'S REFUGE. "Forgiveness is a beggar's refuge," J says another clever writer of to-day whom I have quoted. "W 7 e must pay j our debts." I want to emphasise that because it contains a great truth, which surely we must not disregard or lightly pass over. I wish to emphasise it because it helps us to see the limit of for- j giveness and shows us the conditions under which alone we can claim it. "Forgiveness is a beggar's refuge." That is tr.ue, but I don't take it in the halfcontemptuous spirit in which it is said.. "A beggar's refuge!" Yes, and I am a beggar. I have nothing to offer God in return for what I claim from Him. I cannot come to Him with any record of -my good deeds which might recommend me. I cannot produce my testimonials for His inspection. I can only come to Him as a beggar asking for , alms. But I come to Him boldly be- t cause 1 believe that He is my Father, J and that it is not His will that sin should keep mc back from doing the things He j would have nic do, and living the life He would have me live. "I must pay j my debts." Yes; there is truth in that'. My actual debt to God I cannot pay. It is too enormous. Has Christ paid my debt? Yes, in the sense that He, by His sacrifice, has made it possible for me to be at one again with my Father. No, in the sense that by suffering for me He has taken away all the consequences of my sin, so that I should not have to suffer. There is the limit of forgiveness—that even when I am forgiven I ■have still to work out my own salvation in fear and trembling. I have to bear manfully the consequences of what I have done. I have to suffer the pains and penalties. THE MEANING OF A PARABLE. Would you have it otherwise? Look for one moment at the parable I have just been reading. We often think of this parable as proving that there is no i limit to forgiveness, and it does indeed teach us that we may not withhold our forgiveness from another who begs it of us if we in turn would claim forgiveness from God. But does it not teach us, too, that wholesale forgiveness under the stress of emotion, which lets oft penalties, is not only a practical failure but may even be a fatal obstacle to the development of character, because it takes away the legitimate consequences of actions, and these consequences have proved over and over again the educators and saviours of men? What more daunting thing could there be than the revoking of a forgiveness—the taking back of what once was given? Yet that is what happened in the parable. One of the lord's servants could not pay. We can assume that he had been extravagant, dishonest, or, at any rate, had done wrong of some sort. He pleads to his lord for mercy. He offers to do his best in the future. He is fully, frankly, freely forgiven. But consider: Does it do him any good? Does it touch his heart and strengthen his character? No; it is a failure, a gross, conspicuous, lamentable failure. He is hardened in his evil courses. The covetousness and selfishness, to have borne the consequences of which would have educated him, are intensified in his character. He is a worse man than he was befoie. He goes straight out of his lord's presence, ; and shows himself at once savagely cruel ■ and implacable towards a comrade who ' owes 'him a trifling sum. Forgiveness i of that sort did him harm. The result ! is that there has to be a deliberate re- - versal of that harmful leniency. Now s he has to pass through a fi'erv ordeal • through which alone his old nature can r be made to die to sin, and rise again i unto righteousness. He is "delivered ; to the tormentors until he should pay all that is due from him." THE DEEP LESSON. E My brothers, what is the deep lesson i this parable has for us? The obvious

lesson is, of course, that we dare not I claim from Cod that which we will not | give to our fellow men, and the perpetual readiness of God to forgive is another obvious lesson that we would do well to lay up in our hearts. But the deeper and perhaps more solemn lesson is this: '"We must pay our debts." No man may go on hugging to himself a secret sin; living secretly, let us say, the life of the sensualist, accumulating, as it were, an enormous debt under the delusion that an all-merciful Clod will make easy terms concerning it at the Day of Judgment. Whatsoever a man sows that must lie also reap, either here or hereafter, There can "be no letting off of penalties. That is the limit of forgiveness. Sooner or later we must be "delivered to the tormenters," to the torments of our own consciences, to the hard discipline of life, and the loving chastisement of God, until we pay all that is due from us. That is the plan and purpose of a God whose forgiveness is really worth having, whose forgiveness is designed to make us stronger and better and happier. A MESSAGE OF COMFORT. There may be some listening to me today who are already working out the consequences of past sin, who are already "delivered to the tormenters," and they, and they only, know how hard and apparently cruel is the way of salvation. Let me give them this message of comfort: The love of God is close to you now. Pie is near to you in your pain j that He may heal and restore you. The crucified Christ is always with the man who is being crucified, for He was and ever is "numbered with the transgressors." Only be patient and trust God's love and the power of His forgiveness, and soon the gates of that dark prison will open and you will go free quit of all your debt; aye, even to the uttermost farthing. And because you have tested the limits of forgiveness, because the pain and agony and humiliation you have suffered have made you understand how great a thing it is—therefore you will find that there is no limit to the' possibilities of progress, no limit to the joy of the forgiven soul, no limit .to the iove with which an all-merciful Father enfolds His penitent children.