The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-04-16

Thus the greatest consequence of the risen Jesus is the assurance of His divine and eternal sonship. with it's winning of our devotion and humble worship. To Him who is victorious over death. we this day bow the knee in humble adora- ton. Our Lord and our king is not the saviour of the crucifx, not dead historic Jesus. He is the Son of God. the van ouisher of death the saviour alive for evermore. But brethren that you might draw more closely to this blessed, living saviour, let us note a very precarious truth that is involved in Jesus and the resurrection.
 Losses Are Gains.
 By His rising from the dead He is our leader in the greatest truth of human life. viz: that our losses are our gains. TO complete self-sacrifce was given llfe's greatest victory. T am among you as he that serveth." It was His experience physically to go through the grave and gate of death to a joyful resurrection. but not until there had been over and over again it's greatest moral victory that human life had known. The possession of every means of avoiding pain and anguish, yet Jesus willingly suffered that large ends might be accomplished. Jesus submission to suffering must always be understood as prompted by the over wheming desire to fulfill His work
 "Thinkest thou that l cannot now pray to M1, Father, and He shall Even now give Mo more than twelve legions of angels?"
 His love demanded love. Human hearts bear hardest unrequited love. Devotion among us to live must feed on responsive ness. Jesus loved His own, yes "I1e came unto His own and they received Him not "A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" but always the victor. Have any right to think of Jesus as al- ways saddened by His burdens? We must feel that the consciousness of righteous ness though he suffered and was buffeted, and was misunderstood gave 70 his coun- tenance a quiet light of divine peace. It seems almost impossible for the artists of the resurrection to portray sympathetically the great peace that su preme victory must have given. The wounds of the cross, the bitter agony. should somehow lose all .heir marks of pain in the glory of the triumph. Pain and sorrow and death, yea, and n death unto sin, He endured them all for the fulfilling of the Fathers purpose in Him, for tine love He bore the sons of men. Thus Christ has manifested to us the Fathers eternal purpose It Is the pre- cious truth of the victory that God has decreed for unselfshness.
 For most Of Us the resurrection of the body, that spiritual body of which St. Paul speaks, is seen only by the eve of faith; but when God raises LIS up out of the degradation of sin into new life. tho resurrection of the body seems but a natural step Of divine provision to keep alive. 10 environ the soul which he has loved into eternal life.
 Uprootne seIfshness.
 The thing most earnest, God fearing Christian men and women are occupied in doing here. is the uprooting of this mis- erable senshness which keeps out count ing gains in this life and deploring losses It is chrictianity to part with your houses and lands for the ends of God and humanity. Did we once see the beauty in the priests ugly jeer. ''He saved others, himself he cannot save and never lose our hold upon If. what changes for God and man would be done in our day. Our possessions don't belong to US except for the privilege of rightly losing them.
 Our lives are not ours: ye are not your own is the scripture teaching: we are bought with price. Christ has laid hold on you. you Christian people. has taken you into His unsefishness and has put His own living heart into your hearts. These lives are given to be lost. What precious meaning on an Easter morning fills the words: He that loseth his life for my sake. shall find it. How entirely Jesus found his life, but only by losing If for my sake The resurrection texts all have the same story: Jesus of Naza- reth which was cruoified. is risen.'
 St Paups Messaue
 Are we dying that we might live? St. Paul tells of the resurrection body in his great chapter to the Corinthians and as his last word, in a'k.lication of the truth, writes: "Therefore. my beloved brethren be ye stedfast. immovable. al- ways aboundng in the work of the Lord. forasmuch as yc know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord
 How shall we abound? Shall our pos sessions of thls worlds goods be our ah- swer9 Shall power and authority among our fellows be the work of it2 Shall E4euuess of business or professional traiu- ing be fhe expression of onr strength? Not one of these things will bring us nearer tn God or make lis a bls ssine to our neighbors. Unless We know how to lose ihem to get rid of them for God. to be unsclfsh in getting and in usiug what thcv bring All of musl fight the fight against sin some sort of gra flea lion we have to let go some deui.G to make. but iuss so soon as we make t. victory. q resurrection is accomplished