And Judas Iscariot: Together with other evangelistic addressesChapman, J. Wilbur (John Wilbur)
Religion
And Judas Iscariot: Together with other evangelistic addresses
Chapman, J. Wilbur (John Wilbur)
Evangelistic sermons; Presbyterian Church -- Sermons; Sermons, American
Third: We have only to remember the law of growth. We do not grow by
trying. Who ever heard of a boy growing in this way? Who ever heard
of a doctor who had a prescription for growth? Our effort for
Christian growth is just a succession of failures. How many times we
have said, "I am determined to be better; my temper shall never get the
better of me again"! We are beginning at the wrong end. Instead of
dealing with the symptoms, let us see that we are in right relations
with Christ and he will effect the cure. Let us, therefore, just
observe the right attitude towards Christ and we have the secret.
Henry Drummond has said in one of his books that the problem of the
Christian life is simply this: "Men must be brought to observe the
right attitude. To abide in Christ is to be in right position and that
is all." Much work is done on board a ship in crossing the Atlantic,
yet none of this is spent in making the ship go. The sailor harnesses
his vessel to the wind, he lifts his sail, lays hold of his rudder and
the miracle is wrought. God creates, man utilizes. God gives the
wind, the water, the heat, and man lays hold of that which God has
given us, holding himself in position by the grace of God, and the
power of omnipotence courses within his soul.
IV
We are in this world slowly but surely coming to be like Christ. To be
Christ-like is one thing--we may be in this way or that--but to be like
Christ is entirely different. Wonderful transformations have been
wrought in this world by education and by culture. I remember when I
was a lad in Indiana being told of a celebrated Indianapolis physician
who advertised for the most helpless idiot child and the most hopeless
was brought to him. For weeks and months no impression could be made
upon that child. He used every day to take the child into his parlor,
put him down on the floor and then lie beside him with the sunlight
streaming in his face. He said over and over one syllable of a word
until at last the child caught it, and I remember as a boy seeing that
same child stand upon a platform, repeat the Lord's Prayer and the
twenty-third Psalm and sing a hymn to the praise of God [Transcriber's
note: part of page torn away here, and one, possibly two, words are
missing] is wonderful; but more remarkable than that is the work which
is going on in us day by day. We are becoming more Christlike; one day
we shall be _like Christ_. "But _when_?" you say. This is the answer:
"Beloved, now are ye the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what
we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like
him, for we shall see him as he is."
AN UNHEEDED WARNING
TEXT: "_My Spirit shall not always strive with men._"--Genesis 6:31.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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