Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-10-06
HEAVENS OPEN DOOR.
The Only Way to Loving Intimacy
With the Omnipresent Spirit.
PHILIPS REQUEST OF CHRIST.
Vague Longing for Clearer knowledge
of the Father.
HILIP'S REQUEST OF CHRIST.
he THAT HATH SEEN ME HATH SEEN HIM
rwRIrrEN FOR THE DIsPArcH.l


Most people know who their neighbors
word. We know pretty well that everybody
to whom we can be helpful is our neighbor.
And as for loving our neighbor,
we know well enough what God wants of
us. 1t is true that we do not always love
our neighbor as ourselves. But the defect
is on the side of doing, not on the side of
knowing.
But if we are to win eternal life, it is es-
sential, as began to say last Sunday, that
we love God. And a,h sure that this con-
dition of eternal life-the love of God-pre-
sents itself to many as being something mys-
terious, intangible and exceedingly difficult
ofperiormance.
We have all to confess that we fail in love
30 God. Prayer-to take text-which is
the act of communion with God, an entrance
into Gods presence, and which, if we
devotedly loved God, would be as delightful
as a visit TO our dearest friend is very often
irksome to a good many of us. There is no
use denying it. We pray conventionally.
1t is a duty which we do not like to omit.
We have an uncomfortable feeling if the
day begins or ends without it-at least
some people have; but sometimes prayer
seems pretty long, and We get tired, and
when it is done we draw long breath, and
are secretly glad that that is over. This
would be impossible il we loved God.
Then, when doubts intrude upon us as to
the Justice the care the love of God, some
how we let the doubts into our minds, and
they give us 3 good deal of anxiety and
trouble at once. But if a suspicion is
raised in any company about friend whom
you enthusiastically love, you put that
suspicion away at once. You do not credit
it for single instant. Even a hali-dozen
straight facts cannot stir you. You know
that there is perfectly satisfactory ex-
PLANTATION behind those facts. Because you
love your friend. But sometimes when
intellectual difficulties are set before us,
and still more when sorrow comes into
our neighborhood and touches us, and
tests
THE REALITY OF OUR FAITH
in God, somehow We fail, sometimes. We
do not stand out in the face of all doubts
like Abraham-'fthe friend of God" We do
not CRY with Job, Though He slay me, yet
will trust in Him." We fall long way
short OF that Because our love for God is
not strong.
But how can man love God? How can the
q
shut about by our small world of the senses,
who are so swayed BY what we hear and see
love the inaudible, the invisible, the omni-
present Spirit? 1t is like loving the univer-
sal sky. Sometimes it seems as if God were
too intangible, too unknown and mysterious,
too spiritual for us to love Him.
/ make no doubt but that the Apostle
Philip had this difficulty in his thought of
God when he made that singular request OF
Christ: Lord, show us the Father, and it
sufhceth usp' 1t is hard to think what sort
of answer he could have imagined would fol-
low his question. Would the sky open and the
light of heaven glow about that little COM
pany, and God be seen, scepter in hand, sit
ting on great white throne, upon floor of
polished sapphire? 1 do not believe that
Philip expected that, or that he definitely
expected anything. There was in his heart
a vagueness, a longing, a something which
needed supplying. He wanted a clear idea
about God, that he might the better believe
in Him, and the more devoutly love Him.
He stood before the mystery OF God Just as
a good many Of us stand, desiring to know
something plainly.
AND you remember how Christ answered
him. "He that hath seen Me, hath seen the
Father"
Because Christ came into the world not
only to set us an example how to live, and
not only by the sacrifice of His death to save
US from our sins, and not only to bring us
revelation from God the Father, but to be
Himself a revelation of God the Father,
we who see and know Him, have seen and
known Almighty God. We who love Christ,
love God. There is good deal of difference
between bringing revelation and being
revelation. 1t is the difference between
Christ and all others whom men have called
master.
THIS is THE SECRET,
then, of loving God. To love Christ-that
is to love God. This is not the whole secret.
The men of the old time to whose words we
go, as 1 said, when we want to put religious
thought into its right expression, they
loved God devoutiy. And they knew not
Christ. And in 100 lands to-day, where
Christ is yet unpreached, and so men have
no chance of knowing and loving God in
Him, in 100 lands where men and women
are yet in the Old Testament part of their
religion, and the light which we know mas
not dawned YET, still God is known and
loved. The world is revelation of God.
And people who see the sun, and To- up at
night into the boundless space where the
stars shine, and hear the rush of storms and
the songs of birds. and listen to the voice of
their own hearts, recognize God. God has
not lett himself without witness anywhere
But Christ is the revelation of revelations.
If it seems to anybody hard thing to
really love God, this is what it is best to do:
take the story of the blessed life and read it.
chapter by chapter, day by day, slowly,
trying to realize Christ. Put yourself by
His side, and look and listen as He goes
about along the roads of Palestine. His
unfailing unselfshness; His gladness, His
longing desire TO help and comfort people;
His kindly hand upon the arm of the leper,
and upon the head of the little child: His
unfailing patience with those blundering,
misapprehending, slow-minded disciples of
His; the fash OF His strong Indignation in the
sight of hypocrisy and cant; His perfect
serenity in the face of discouragement and
disappointment; His tenderness toward
neglected and despised people, and those
for whom the influential had the hatred of
prejudice; His quick appreciation of the
, good in everv man; His love ior sinners. and
His unceasng efforts to help them QUITO sin;
His unhinching courage of both kinds,
physical and moral; finally, his willing
sacrifice of His life, for love of men. upon
the shameful cross-study that lie, think
what it means, and remember, as you turn
the pages, that this is but the merest
glimpse OF heaven. Multiply this by
infnity, and you are beginning to get a
dim idea OF
WHAT GOD REALLY IS.
The consciousness of that in another
which is wholly OF love, is a step toward
love. We need have no indefniteness
about this here, for behold Him. whom we
NAV see plainly, and whom having known
and loved we are knowing and loving God.
The consciousness of being loved is an