Arizona republican., 1890-05-26
HAVE FAITH.
Summary of the Discourse of Rev. F. D
 Rickerson Yesterday.

Rickerson Yesterday.
 'By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts ; and by it he, being dead, yet speaketh." Hebrews II, 4.
 Two brothers came to sacrifice before the Lord. One brought the fruit of the ground, and the other the choicest of his flock. God commended the latter, but had no respect for the gift of the former. The inference is plain. God had ordained sacrifice, and the offering of Cain was direct violation of God s command. It was covetousness that grudged to God part of his possessions and, when rebuked for his conscious sin, Cain was lashed into frenzy by envy and jealousy and remorse. He en- ticed his brother into field, slew him and sought to hide the evidence of his guilt from the eye of man, and the sleepless search of God.
 Out of this story of blood rise facts sublime in their significance. One of these is that God is the avenger of innocent blood, a fact that we see shining forth through the history of all the centuries and the other is that God is the justifer. Abel obtained witness that he was righteous, for God testified of his gift. It was Gods testimony to willing obedience the ground of all justification.
 Faith and it's free, spontaneous ex- pression can no more be separated than the tree and its branches, light and heat, steam and its power, the worlds and their revolutions. To speak of a faith that did not seek and demand joy Ous utterance in worship would be as absurd as to speak of an artist whose imagination was an Overfull treasury of glorious ideals, but who sought to put upon canvas no expression, no testimony of his wealth of thought and feeling; as absurd as to speak of an inventor who never built a model, while his brain was a restless work shop of whirling machinery. Worship is the living gift of the heart, not the cold, passiOnless, tribute of the head, or the guarded service of the feet.
 "Work is worship" In an important sense it is true that living is worship. Our lives, whatever they are, make up our worship. Our ideas of God, our estimate of the Bible, our conception of the requirements of the religion of Jesus, are all embodied in this. This is an important truth when we consider the influence it has over others. In us men see our God, our Bible, our reli- zion. They will not be induced to go to the fountain head for their estimate of divine things. They will base their judgment on what they learn of these things in the every day life of protesting Christians, and as man meeting a hypocrite says religion is hypoc- risy," man meeting protesting Christian who is violent or uncharitable or untruthful or prOfane in his language 1; who is detected in petty vices or out breaking crimes, declares that religion is cloak for iniquity-an organization in which vile men swear to defend each other in wickedness.
 It is well established fact that in dividuals and nations become like the gods they worship. We become not necessarily like the God of the Bible, but like our conception of the God of the Bible-as heather nations were as simulated to their conceptions of the gods they worshipped. Among the Ro- man deities take Jupiter, the best of all the gods of ancient mythology. His character was twO-sided. On the one side he was pictured as just, almighty, Onnipotent-on the other as capricious, revengeiul, licentiOus. His worship CTS became like him, and it was far easier to copy the evil than the good side of his character.
 The practical truth forced upon us for consideration is this: In our daily lives we offer to the world our image of God our idea of his character; an image Of Christ-our idea of his power and authority; an image of the Bible-our idea of it's origin and value. Men are influenced by these images. The i'm, press of our conception of divine things is set upon them forever.
 We all worship some God. What God do we worship?
 We are all becoming like what we worship. Into what image are we growing?