SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 May 1921, Page 9

SUNDAY READING.

OUR SOVEREIGN SAVIOUR. “For He must reign, till He hath put all His enemies under His feet.” / —I. Cor. XV. 25. (By the Rev. A. H. Collins, New Plymouth.) The fear is sometimes expressed that the sovereignty of Christ does not hold the plaee it once held in the thoughts and lives of men. It is said that whilst men acknowledge Jesus Christ’s claim as Teacher and Example and Saviour, they do not hail Him as King, entitled to swift obedience and loyal service, that while they come to Him for pardon and solace, they do not surround Him as tHe Scots surrounded Prince Charlie, when they bowed the knee, not to implore favor or b 'seech rewards, but to offer their swords and their service, and, if need be, their lives. How far this criticism is founded on fact I do not pause to discuss. One thing is certain. any failure here means a departure from the letter and the spirit of Holy Writ. For the prophets and bards of the Bible, are unanimous in proclaiming Christ As- King. ‘'Behold, thy King cometh, just and having salvation.” “He shall have dominion from sea to sea.” “Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion.”

“Herod’s question is, “Where is He that is born King?” Pilate asked, “Shall I crucify your King?” The capital charge laid against the early Christians was that they served another King, one Jesus. Saint Paul describes Jesus as the “King immortal and invisible.” Saint John saw Him riding on a white horse, and “on His head were many crowns, and His vesture dipped in blood, and on His thigh a Name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”. All down the Christian centuries the church, in noble Te Deams, has chanted, “Thou art the King of Glory, 0 Christ,” and we in this church sing “Crown Him with many crowns.” Moreover, the Lorship of Jesus Christ is a truth we cannot let slip without grave loss. For see what it involves. The Sovereignty of Jesus Christ means the sovereignty of eternal goodness, the enthronement of Divine wisdom, the omnipotence of Holy Love. It means that Almighty Power is armed for the defence of the weak, that the ultimate overthrow of evil is assured, and that “good will be the final goal of ill.” The Lordship of the Son of God pledges the progress and blessedness of the whole world, and if that is not a gospel, I do not understand the meaning of God’s evangel.

A QUESTION TO CONSIDER. But there is another and a previous question to be considered. We may admit that the reign of Christ would be great, good news, if it were true, but the question is not whether it is desirable, but whether it is assured. Must is the word of a King. Is there regal authority behind the “must” our text? No doubt Saint Paul said “He mustf reign.” The Apostle expected Jesus would come to universal Empire. But the wish is sometimes father to the thought. A great mind may be unhinged. What we need to do is to test this great saying. Is it true? Does it look probable? Has Christ ever reigned? Can you put your finger on any period and say, “He reigned then”? Can you point to any single spot on the map of the world, and say, “He reigns there”? Can you indicate any single province of human thought or activity, and say, “He is supreme here”? Now, there are three lines along which we may move in attempting to answer that the sovereignty of Christ ia pledged and sure. There is,the textual method, what our fathers called “proof texts,” and I have already reminded you that prophets and apostles dreamed their dream of a day when the King of Griefs and Tears would be the King of Glory. Nor do I see any escape from the conviction, if our appeal be to the Holy Book, or, using the language of modern science we might say that it is the law of the universe that the best must rule, the fittest to survive must survive, and this means that Jesus Christ must reign, for .He alone is worthy to come to moral ascendancy and wear the crown of universal sovereignty. But there is another line of evidence. You recall how Russell Lowell sings:—

Slowly the Bible of the is writ. And not on paper leaves, and leaves of stor. 0 , Each age, each kindred adds a line, Texts of despair, or hope, or joy, or moan. What has the Bible of the race to say on the subject of Jesus Christ’s sovereignty? Emerson declared, “The name of Jesus is not so much ' written as ploughed into the history of the world.” That is true, and he might have added that it has been ploughed into all kinds of soil, under all types of sky, and that wherever ploughed it has yielded harvests of blessing. THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Proud intellectualists sometimes speak of the Christian religion as though it might be all very well for the. backward races, for rude and naked savages, but that it can contribute nothing to the masters of wisdom and wealth. History disproves the assumption. To whom did the first heralds of Christ go to win their earliest triumphs? They rarely visited any people who possessed a civilisation inferior to their own. Saint Paul could teach the Romans nothing about road-making, civic order, the rules of jurisprudence, or the science of war. It was no mere worldly wisdom the Apostle carried to Mars Hill. The first missionaries were not the peers of Roman Senators or Greek orators. They were the members of a race inferior to Greece and Rome in everything save religion. Y 7 et these simple, unsophisticated men planted the Cross on the topmost heights of the highest civilisation of the ancient world, and proved the power of Christ to capture the classic' cities of wealth and learning. He reigned in the centres of the world’s pride and power, and as Renau said, “He created a Paradise out of the Hell of Rome.” Scarcely less remarkable were Christ’s conquests over the Goths, the Franks, and the Saxons. He demonstrated His power to uproot the hoariest superstitions, and baptize barbarian tribes with a new spirit, give them a new civilisation. and change the climate of the world. “What is the Carpenter of Nazareth doing?” said an early critic. “Making a coffin for the dead faiths of the world,” was the answer, instant and complete. For that was? what He did. One by one He laid the gods of the sunlit Orient in graves that shall have no Easter Day. Christ has reigned. FIFTY YEARS HENCE. A further question arises, Is Jesus Christ reigning now? David Hulme wrote: “Fifty years hence, where will Christianity be?” Well, the fifty years have more than come and gone, and in the light of their happenings, we may;

ask, “Fifty years hence and where will Christianity not be?” Into what province of human thought and life has Christ not entered ? What evil has He not assailed? In what conflict has He been worsted? Is Christ reigning now? The wider you make the sweep of your enquiry, the more confidently you may answer “Yes.” Visit the galleries of Europe and you will find that if you take out of them the art treasures inspired by Jesus Christ, the galleries will be denuded of their noblest examples of art. Visit the homes of music, and if you remove the masterpieces scored to Christ’s praise, what have you Visit the chief libraries of the world, and banish the books which owe their existence to the influence and teaching of Christ, and what empty spaces’ Christ is King in the realm of Aft, and Music, and Literature. Yes, and if you go to business and politics, with all that is squalid, trumpery and mean in them, you will find that Jesus Christ is disturbing the hearts of men and is making them dissatisfied with low aims and paltry ambitions. He is letting light into dark places and breaking the slumber of the ages. I cannot join the Casandra cry of those who tell of a world growing worse and ever .worse, and will swiftly end in cosmic catastrophe. To the slogan of those who say, “Christ is coming,” we answer, “Christ is here.” One reason why lam not panic-stricken by the bogey of modern criticism is that I see Christ coming to His own in the realm of practical religion. Our faith does not rest in theology, old or new, Our faith does hot rest in a book, though that book be our dear Bible. Our faith rests on Christ Himself, and, as Dr. Fairbairn said, “Religion is growing more and more Christ’s centre.” In spite of many and grievous whongs, it is not a decadent, but an advancing world. Civilisation is not on its way down, but on its way up. Jesus Christ is not busy organising funeral marches to the grave.

WHO REIGNS NOW? Does Christ reign now? Look aroundWhy are our shops shuttered, and our mills silent to-day? You wrote a letter 1 yesterday, and dated it April 30th. 1921. Why that date? Nineteen han-, dred and twenty-one years since when? Why, you date your almanac, keep your ledger, order your life by the fact of,Jesus Christ’s advent. “A.D.” and “8.C.” are the water-sheds of history. Christ reigns with ever-growing Empire.

One question more. Will He reign? Frankly, it hardly looks as if He Will. There is what Faber calls “The Godless look of things” that might give us pause. Other religious systems have reigned and passed away. Will the Christian religion their fate? Yes, it wail, if there should arise a greater teacher, with loftier, purer teaching than Christ’s. But is that thinkable? How has Christ come to moral ascendancy? Bty love, sacrifice, and service. He reigns by exercise of qualities the world can never outgrow.' His symbol is a sword, but a sword directed against His own gentle heart; by a Cross, but not a Cross on which He sets His foe, but a Cross which is the altar on which He pours His rich atoning blood. Other Empires have been built on force of arms, brain, speech, and it is not by such ways the world’s heart is cleansed and subdued. If you would know the secret of Jesus, you must seek it in the Cross of Sacrifice, and because I cannot conceive of teaching purer or life more divine than His, I cannot imagine a time will ever come when the world will have outgrown its need of Christ. He is the tallest of the intellectual throng. His moral beaching shames our hearts. There is no pity like His, no love so pure and deep, no arm so far,-stretching, afe that wjhich was extended on the cross. “HE MUST ItfEIGN.”