The Good News of God eBook

Not merely a master, but a Father, who gave good gifts, because he was good himself; a God whom they could love, because he loved them; a God whom they could trust and depend on, because there was no variableness in him, and he could not lose his temper as Thor and Odin did.  That was the God whom their wild, passionate hearts wanted, and they believed in him.

And when they doubted, and asked, ’How can we be sure that God is altogether good?—­how can we be sure that he is always trustworthy, always the same?’—­Then the missionaries used to point them to the crucifix, the image of Christ upon his cross, and say, ’There is the token; there is what God is to you, what God suffered for you; there is the everlasting sign that he gives good gifts, even to the best of all gifts, even to his own self, when it was needed; there is the everlasting sign that in him is neither darkness, passion, nor change, but that he wills all men to be saved from their own darkness and passions, and from the ruin which they bring, and to come to the knowledge of the truth, that they have a Father in heaven.’

SERMON XXVI.  THE HEAVENLY FATHER

Acts xvi. 24-28.

God that made the world, and all that therein is, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands . . . For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

I told you last Sunday of the meaning of the days of the week; but one day I left out—­namely, Tuesday.  I did so on purpose.  I wish to speak of that day by itself in this sermon.

I told you how our forefathers worshipped many gods, by fancying that various things in the world round them were gods—­sun and moon, wind and thunder, spring and harvest.

But if that seems to you at times wrong and absurd, it seemed so to them also.  They, like all heathens, had at times dreams of one God.

They thought to themselves—­All heaven and earth must have had a beginning, and they cannot have grown out of nothing, for out of nothing nothing comes.  They must have been made in some way.  Perhaps they were made by some one.

The more they saw of this wonderful world, and all the order and contrivance in it, the more sure they were that one mind must have planned it, one will created it.

But men—­they thought—­persons, living souls—­are not merely made; they are begotten; they must have a Father, whose sons they are.  Perhaps, they thought, there is somewhere a great Father; a Father of all persons, from whom all souls come, who was before all things, and all persons, however great, however ancient they may be.  And so, like the Greeks and Romans, and many other heathen nations, they had dim thoughts of an All-Father, as they called him; Father of gods and men; the Father of spirits.