Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1904-12-22
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
AN ELOQUENT DISCOURSE BY THE
REV. HUGH BLACK, M. A.

Subject: "Jesus His Own Sign and Mir
acle''-Mere Wonder Working is No
Evidence of the Things Christ Came
to Teach the World.
New YORK CITY.-Fifth Avenue Pres
byterian Church, which is very large
morning to hear the Rev. Hugh Black,
MA, associate of DR.. White in the Free
st. Georges Church, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Mr.. Black had for his subject "Jesus His
Own Sign and Miracle The text was
from Matthew xii :38: "Then certain of
the scribes and of the Pharisees answered,
saying: Master, we would see sign from
Thee. But He answered and said unto
them, An evil and adulterous generation
seeketh after sign; and there shall no
sign. be given to it, but the sign of the pro-
phet Jonas" Mr. Black said:
We gather from it's source, as coming
from the Pharisees, that this question had
thority of the new Teacher with the peo-
pie by asking from Him what He could
not or would not perform, but from the
historical connection in which the evan
gelists place it the purpose was not only
malicious, but almost insulting. Our Lord
had been in the pursuit of His benefcent
healing ministry, had cured many suffering
nation was that He had power from an
evil source; He did it, they asserted, by
virtue Of His connection with Beelzebub,
the prince of devils. And now, after this
explanation of the signs and wonders
Jesus did among men, they came with the
sign from Thee What sort of sign
did they want, and what sort of evidence
could convince them if they could attrib-
ute His healing ministry to diabolic art?
The yelled insult of the demand is the
supercilious passing over of all He had
been and of all He had done, as if it did
not count and as if He must now begin to
convince them that His pretensions were
trustworthy.
| Now there is a. demand for evidence
which is legitimate, evidence which is
necessary for the highest faith, but in this
case, apart from the hypocrisy of the ques-
ton, there underlay wrong conception OF
revelation and wrong conception of the
nature and the place of miracles. They
wanted Christ to perform some prodigy, as
if piece Of wonder-working could be real
evidence of spiritual things; hence, our
Lords rebuke. 1t is religious rebuke.
God should be recognized for what He is,
and the recognition Of Him should not be
| dependent upon external signs, which in
themselves, after all, have no spiritual sig
nifcance. Christ's feeling as regards this
is seen through a graphic touch recorded
by ST. Mark, who writes that when the
Pharisees came seeking sign from Him
Jesus sighed deeply in His spirit. 1t
showed to Him lamentable dullness of
soul, to think that the recognition OF the
spiritual should be made to hang on prodi-
gies and on miracle-mongering of any kind.
There shall no sign be given unto this
generation" This attitude Of our Lord,
notice, is not contradictory to the value
He elsewhere placed on miracles as evi-
dence. He pointed, you remember, to His
deeds Of mercy to authenticate His claims
when, as in the case of John the Baptist
there was sincere desire to know the
marks Of the Messiah, but His miracles
were moral acts to educate and to reveal
not to surprise and to astonish. He knew
from sad experience that it was possible
for men to believe in the reality of miracles
and at the same time lose all its true evl
Dental force, even to ascribe it to evl
powers as the Pharisees did.
7 "There shall be no sign given to curios
ity mongers." There can be no sign give1
to those who imagine that the splrltua
can be proved by the material. Mere won
der working is no evidence of the thing
when Jesus came to teach the world. Mel
are not to be led to God, then or now
men are not to be led to God, in the sens
that Jesus meant-by displays and conjur
ing tricks. The demand or the FhaflSee
showed a radically false idea of the who'll
nature and place of the miracle and th
same mistake is possible to us, and posi-
BILE to us in many ways and forms. w
make the same mistake, for example, whel
we think that faith in God would be easie
to us if only some portent were vouch
safed to us; if only we could see some ply
sical evidence, especially designed to con
vince us. We fall into the Pharisees' erro
and merit their rebake when we sigh fo
the certitude which We imagine woul
come from celestial appearance or from
voice from heaven, or if we could put on
finger into the print of the nails.
To understand Christ's attitude on thi
question we need to have our minds dis
abused Of the idea that mere miracle i
the sense OF prodigy is ever evidence c
spiritral things. Some miracles are sign
indeed, but only when there is spiritus
evidence in them; that is, when they az
more than mere woodworking, whic
the Pharisees here desired. For exampl.
our Lords healing ministry was a grea
and constant sign of the love of God, ca,
rying revelation with as truly as any lo'
ing word Of the Master ever did. This lei
light lin upon the true way in which