Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-10-04
MESSAGE OF BALAAM.
A Great Thought in the Word He
Brought Back to His King
In THE HOUR OF HIS TROUBLE.
The Father Listens to Sincere Prayer Of
Pagan and Christian.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOD AND MAN

Two men stood together on hilltop and
looked down through the mists of the early
morning at an army encamped upon the
plain beneath them. One was a king
against whom this army had come to fight
the other was priest who had come to helT
the King The King had summoned the
priest to curse the invading army. And the
priest, after his pagan fashion, had built
him seven altars along the meadow on the
top of the hill, seven piles of stone amidst
the grass, and had built fire on every altar
and had offered on every altar bullock and
ram. That was his way of calling upon
God, of attracting, as he thought, the atten.
tion of God. And then he went away by
himself to hear what might be uttered il
his heart by that God who attends to all the
prayers of all His children.
"And the Lord met Balaam and put a
word in his mouth, and laid. Go again unto
Balak and say thus" So back he went, the
priest to the King, and the first thing that
he said was this, which have taken for Q
text, "GOd is not man."
IMPORTANCE OF THE IDEA.
The most important truth that anybody
can learn is truth about God. Because q
mans idea of God is certain to affect all the
the other ideas which man has about life.
1t is not likely that any two men have ex-
aetly the same conception of God. But it
is evident that every mans real thought
about God must represent that mans real
thought about that which is right and best.
No man sets himself above God. On the
contrary, all men set God in their thoughts
very far above themselves. All that is
most desirable in character, as the man sees
it, meets in the mans idea Of
God. When you know what any
human being actually and honestly thinks
about God, you know what sort of lite he
honestly thinks is the best life to live.
The old savage, who believed in a cruel
God, held cruelty to be virtue. Careles.
people, who have hazy ideas about duty and
make no sharp distinction between wrong
and right, believe at the bottom of theil
hearts in q careless God. 1t makes all the
difference in the world what man believes
about God. The most important truth which
anybody can learn is truth about God.
There is truth about God in this text
which we can learn before we come to read
even the first word of it. Sometimes it j:
not so much the word that is said as the
man who speaks that makes the profoundest
impression upon us. Preaching is the com
bination of truth with personality. The
most impressive part of the sermon which
heard Phillips Brooks preach the othel
Sunday was the presence of Phillips Brooks
The first, and perhaps the most notable
fact about this text is that it was uttered BY
Balaam.
A FATHER TO THE PAGAN.
For Balaam was pagan priest. Tht
Bible story tells us that God listened to the
prayer of that pagan priest and gave an an
swer. And that is q truth about God worth
thinking Of God is the universal Father
Wherever He sees human being He see,
one of His children. And the heavenly
Father loves His children, every one o.
them. 1t matters not to God what dialec
His children speak. God understand
Chinese as well as English. 1t matters no
what is the color of a mans skin, nor where
he lives, nor how wise he is, nor how civil
lied he is. And, more than that, it matters
not what name the man sets at the begin
ming of his prayer, Allah, or Odin, or JOve,
or God-what cares the universal
Father? This pagan priest in
the old story, uttering his mistaken
incantations, building his foolish altars, was
heard of God as directly, as attentively, as
lovingly, as if he had said his prayers be.
meath the roof of cathedral.
All religion, ali petition, the whole world
over, ascends into the great heart of the one
universal Father. People sometimes SPEAK
as if they thought that different religion:
have addressed themselves to different gods,
or as if, not appealing to God as we con.
ceive of Him, they have not appealed to Goo
at all But the truth is that every wor.
shipper who in an honest and sincere spirit
has spoken word into the air, and begged
q blessing of the Invisible, has prayed tC
the same God to whom we pray, and is our
llow-worshipper, and our brother in the
family of God. The same Father who
listens to the intercessions of the Christian
lltany listens also to the grinding of the
prayer wheels of Thibet, and
WELCOMES ALL GENUINE DEVOTION
there and here alike. All religion, under
whatever name, is the expression of man S
longing for closer intercourse with God. The
difference between Christianity and pagan
ism is not that God loves Christians
and hates pagans, but that we know some
what more than they do of that infinite
truth of which the wisest of ms know but q
little. From the East and from the West shall
men come in the day of the Great Assembly,
out of all nations and languages, out of all
religions, and shall sit down with Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob, with Peter and John
and Paul, in the kingdom of heaven, while
some of the "children of the kingdom"
shall be cast out into outer darkness.
We may look, then, into the great
heather world which lies beyond the oceans,
outside the circle OF Christian light, be-
levers in mistaken thoughts of God, wor-
shippers of idols, and we may be sure that
the same Divine Father who heard the
prayer of the pagan priest who spoke this
text hears all the pagan prayers, knows all
the pagan hearts, teaches His truth, even as
He taught Balaam, by the teachers of all
the pagan creeds, and saves there as He
saves here all those who love Him. "Of a
truth" said the Apostle Peter, 81 perceive
that God is no respecter of persons; but in
every nation he that feareth Him and
righteousness is accepted with
Him."
The pagan priest came back from his an
swered prayer and told the King that God
is not q man. Thank God that God is not
man!
AN EMBODIED PERSONALITY.
We must, of course, both speak and think
of God under the figure of a man. In the
old days this was the only possible concep-
tion of God, just as it is with little chill
lren. The men and women of the worlds
childhood had 10 mind for distractions.
Everything must be concrete. All motion
must be the push or pull of somebody's
band. The sun came up in the morning out
If the sky because somebody. sitting in
hat flaming chariot, drove it, drawn by
lorses of red cloud. There was no concep-
ion as yet of any disembodied force or ex-
stence. The supreme fact of which men
we're aware was the fact of embodied per-
'onality. God, accordingly, to be thought
If at all, must be thought of as
IN embodied personality He was a great
man, having feet and hands,
md parts and passions like man.. God
anne down and walked beneath the trees of