The Good News of God eBook

If Christ had to be made perfect by sufferings, much more must we.  If he needed to learn obedience by sorrow, much more must we.  If he needed in the days of his flesh, to make supplication to God his Father with strong crying and tears, so do we.  And if he was heard in that he feared, so, I trust, we shall be heard likewise.  If he needed to taste even the most horrible misery of all; to feel for a moment that God had forsaken him; surely we must expect, if we are to be made like him, to have to drink at least one drop out of his bitter cup.  It is very wonderful:  but yet it is full of hope and comfort.  Full of hope and comfort to be able, in our darkest and bitterest sorrow, to look up to heaven, and say, At least there is one who has been through all this.  As Christ was, so are we in this world; and the disciple cannot be above his master.  Yes, we are in this world as he was, and he was once in this world as we are, he has been through all this, and more.  He knows all this and more.  ’We have a High Priest above us who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, because he has been tempted in all things like as we are. yet without sin.’

Yes, my friends.  Nothing like one honest look, one honest thought, of Christ upon his cross.  That tells us how much he has been through, how much he endured, how much he conquered, how much God loved us, who spared not his only-begotten Son, but freely gave him for us.  Dare we doubt such a God?  Dare we murmur against such a God?  Dare we lay the blame of our sorrows on such a God—­our Father?  No; let us believe the blessed message of our confirmation, which tells us that it is his Fatherly hand which is ever over us, and that even though that hand may seem heavy for awhile, it is the hand of him whose very being and substance is love, who made the world by love, by love redeemed man, by love sustains him still.  Though we went down into hell, says David, he is there; though we took the wings of the morning, and fled into the uttermost part of the sea, yet there his hand would hold us, and his right hand guide us still.  It is holding and guiding every one of us now, through storm as well as through sunshine, through grief as well as through joy; let us humble ourselves under that mighty hand, and it will exalt us in due time.  He knows, and must know, when that due time is, and, till then, he is still love, and his mercy is over all his works.

SERMON XXIX.  GOD’S CREATION

Genesis i. 31.

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good.

This is good news, and a gospel.  The Bible was written to bring good news, and therefore with good news it begins, and with good news it ends.

But it is not so easy to believe.  We want faith to believe; and that faith will be sometimes sorely tried.

Yes; we want faith.  As St. Paul says:  ’Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God; so that things which are seen were not made of things which appear.’