The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1905-02-17
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
A STRONG DISCOURSE ENTITLED,
"coMF oaTlNC CERTklNTlES.
The Rev. DIR. Robert Bruce Halls Talk
on the Words Addressed to Nicodemus
The Person That the Verities of Our
Precious Faith Cluster About.

BROOKLYN, n. Y.-Sunday morning the
Rev. DR.. Robert Bruce Hull, pastor OF
Greenwood Baptist Church, preached on
| Comforting Certainties." The text was
| from John it'll: I'VE speak that we do
/ know" DR.. Hull said in the course of his
sermon:
These words were addressed to Nicode.
mus. lie was an earnest. honest, yet tind
inquirer after truth. He had come to
Jesus under cover of the darkness. As an
! official of the Jewish Sanhedrim. he did
not dare to be seen talking with the Naza-
rene Teacher Yet he is convinced in his
own mind that Jesus is a prophet and
that too, a prophet sent of God. This
much he confesses to the Christ. Then be-
gins the wonderfully instructive interview
from which the text is taken. This inter-
view is evidently only an outline, but the
outline is marvelously suggestive. Nco-
demus was a good man. He was a religious
man. He conformed to all the religious
forms and ceremonies of his nation. His
outward department was blameless and
his standing in the community was honor
able. But he was not n spiritual man. He
was not what we would call to-day con-
verted man. To him Jesus thrice used the
solemn double Amen, amen, / say unto
thee"
Nicodemus could not understand what
Jesus meant by being born again. He was
unable to see whdt that new spiritual life
was of which he himself was lacking Then
it is that the third double amen Of Jesus
introduces the words of the text ''Verily,
verify [ say unto thee, we speak that we
do know and testify that we have seen"
In this utterance Jesus uses the word
I'VE" not simply as the plural of majesty,
but connecting Himself with all His disc-
pies, SO that it is perfectly proper and
right for us to-day to use His words and
say: I'VE speak that we do know" Chris
tlans are competent witnesses to the GER
tainties of religion While in sense it
may be said that ''the Bible and the Bible
alone is the religion of Protestants," yet in
Christ is Christianity. His life in Himself
and in His disciples is the spirit and the
power OF true religion. We have something
more than opinion; something better than
creeds; we have as one of the eternal veri-
ties Jesus Christ as the manifestation of
God. 1t has been well said that Christ
either deceived mankind by conscious
fraud or He was Himself deluded and de-
ceived or He was divine. There is no get
ting out of this tlilemma. 1t is inexor-
abe He stood before the men who knew
Him best and said He that hath seen Me
hath seen the Father and again declared
to them: II and My Father are one" This
was tremendous assumption and awful
biasphemy if it was not the truth. That
course of Christianity both abundantly de-
clare.
The veritieS of our precious faith cluster
about person This person was God,
manifest in The flesh, and for all the cen
turies since Bethlehem the MODEST, wisest
and hottest have bowed before Him, rever-
emily exclaiming. MY Lord and my Cod"
It matters not from what point we view
Him, Jesus stands before the world as
more than man. 1t is said of safe and
perfect arch that it must meet two require
ments Its feet must not slip and its mid
die must not bend. Jesus Christ is the arch
connecting humanity and divinity. The
weight of the centuries of Christianity rest
on that arch and they rest there safely, for
Jesus is God; there never was time
when He was not;
BoundlesS. eternal, merciful, the word, |
the Sire begot
Backward our thoughts through ages
stretch onward through realms Of
bliss,
For there are two cternities and both
alike are His"
Another of the certainties is that the |
Christian life is a divine life. This was a
new thought to Nicodemus. 1t is new
thought to many to-day. 1t was not a
figure of speech, but plain statement of |
fact, when Jesus insisted that it was neces-
heaven. Those of Nicodemus' time would |
have said it was necessary to reform, to
deal honestly, to behave kindly, to live up
rightly. So many say to-day, and if by all |
this they mean uprlghtness in its perfect |
form they are right. But no man has ever
lived who Las been thus upright "All |
have sinned and come short of the glory of
God" The history of mankind shows that
we must not seek holiness in order to God,
but God in order to holiness. Christ must
come into the soul of man with His divine
life. and then, and not till then, are we in
harmony with the divine holiness.
When that life comes in then there is
the 'expulsive power of new
affection" better still, the expulsive power
Of new life. Nothing less than life can
Account for the change in men. Nothing
but life can exert the power which the CEN
turtles OF Christianity have manifested. In
physics we affirm confidently that every eff
feet must have an adequate cause This
also is true in the realm of spirituality. If
prosecutors are changed into preachers, if
those once thoroughly depraved have been
moIded INTO recognized SAINTS, II the dregs
Of society have been transformed into UNI
Daralleed martyrs for the truth if common
people have been fashioned into those OF
whom the world was not worthy-we ask
what cause or what power is adequate for
ruch marvellous alterations. We know
know the power.
Twice each day our city is washed by a
mighty ebb and flow of tides that sweep in
and out, despite all the winds that bow
Your child recognizes the fact, but he is
puzzled to think that the pale. silent moon.
serene amid the clouds, is the cause of
hose resistlcss floods. The child is puz-
lied ,Afut when your philosopher explains
10 yoS that the moon does this by attrac.
lion of gravitation, and you ask him to ex.
plain to you this attraction of gravitation,
then he, too, is puzzled. Yet he knows the
power. knows it so well he can measure it
md use it. SO, too. with Christianity, and
is power. We can recognize its force and
Use it, but its secret is the secret of life.
Like all force, in its origin it is a mystery.
rennyson says:
1--WE have but faith VIC cannot know.
For knowledge is Of things we see"
1his is not nuitc t11In knnMiednn Is Of