The Holt County sentinel., 1897-08-20

Text. LIST John 4-S: God is Love.
Hebrews, 10 %: God is a consuming
fire.
Here are two definitions for God, both
coming with authority because OF their
origin and yet apparently one a coutra-
diction OF the other God is Love
God is consuming fire.
When a man sits down to read the
bible he almost invariably and without
knowing it, pursues what may be termed
an electIc course OF reading. That is,
according to his temperament and pre-
disposition, he will select a certain class
of truths and all the rest he will neglect.
He may not notice them nor grasp them
at all. Inc same principle applies gen
orally.
Here il lumberman. He travels over
the country and about all he sees are
the forests and the lumber that is in the
trees, or at least he sees this whether he
sees anything else or not. Here is the
farmer he notices only the cultivation
Of the farms and their products. The
minister notices the churches, the teach
er, the schools, the lawyer the court
rooms, the merchant the stores and thus
do we find people giving their attention
to so me one thing to the exclusion it
may be of all else.
So also a man with the lump OF JUS
tice and OF law largely developed will be
likely TO discover in all the scriptures
only such passages as pertain to the jus
tice snd judgments Of God. Such man
will be Calvinist because he was born
one. III he becomes a missionary or a
preacher he will do a grard work in
arouslng the slothful and dead con.
scie nses of men in using such texts as
that part OF ours which declares, that
''God is consuming fire."
But an other man, born Of an other
stock, nursed and trained by a different
mother, a mother no more worthy than
the mother of the first, only more tender /
it may be and more easily grieved-the
man OF such mother will seldom select
text tha, presen is the justice OF God,
and when he does;--it will be through q
sense of duty and not Of choice. He
reads the same bible as the other man |
or the other preacher but to him it tells |
of God who pIties us as we pity our
own child, who knoweth our frame and |
remembereth that We are dust. He loves |
to linger upon such descriptions of God |
as that of David when he declares that |
the Lord Is merciful and gracious slow |
to anger and plenteous in mercy" To
such man the whole bible is only an |
illustration of the words Of John-when |
be said, Beloved, let US love one an |
other; for love is of God and every one |
that loveth is born Of God and knoweth |
God. lie that loveth not, knoweth not |
God. for God is love-" Now both OF
these are right and both Of these are
wrong. Each is right in discerning enc
side of great truth and each Is wrong
in magnifying the side they do observe
to the exclusion of the other. They |
would treat two such selections Of scrip, |
ture as chosen this morning as though |
instead OF being two parts OF a complete
whole, they were antagonistic, 30 that
il one were true the other Of necessity
must be false. When we find such an
apparent antithesis, the part Of wisdom
is neither to take the one nor the other
as the whole structure OF truth but to
60 down until we can discover some un
derlying principle which joins them
both and makes them one.
Therefore it might be asked, "what is
the underlying principle which lies at
the root of the controversy between
those on the one side who feel that God
Is too good to punish the creatures whom
his own hands have made, and tho Sc on
the other side who feel that he is too
just to permit the ungodly to escape? i
What is it that will reconcile these two
statements--"God is love and God is a
consuming fire?" Either by looking in !
to the scriptures, or by questioning our
fellow men We will find that we are not |
the only ones who have asked these
questions. As far back as Jobs time
there were those cropping after an an
swer to the problem, How shall men
be Just with God?" At times such state
ments may, almost Seem incongruous,
and some would say these texts present
a contradiction but they do not. Each
is necessary to the other and together
they form one whole. just as the differ
ent colors of the rainbow, mingling to-
gether be come pure white, so all the>at-
tributes of God, though they may seem
to differ as much as the indigo color diff
fers from the red, or the orange from the
blue, mingled together they become pur-
ity itself.
1t would be we'll for US this morning
to consider the fact that God who is love
is also a consuming fire and that God
who is a consuming fire is also love. He
who sometimes appears in the burning
bush-the God who is a consuming fire
Is none OtueE btihu no WIZ ID iouS euucE-
ing and of tender mercy, not willing that
any should perish but that all should
csme to a knowledge of the truth.
To accomplish our purpose let US first
dwell little upon beneficence and law.
Every beneficent agency becomes a
blessing to us only when We put our
selves into right relations to it,and on the
other hand when we do not put our
selves into right relations to it, instead OF
blessing us it consumes us.
Suppose you plant a garden vegeta-
BILE or fiower-(either will serve our pur-
pose) but let it be a flower garden. You
plant your geraniums, fiocks, heliotropes
and SO on and the sun comes out and
shines upon your garden. Because your
flowers are growing in the soil where God
intended them to grow they look up to