The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1907-11-06
Vision of Divine Method.

Forevermore. ~.
w. c. Martin, in the Christian Herald.
Vision of Divine Method.
From bondage to freedom and theDe
to obedience, That Is the Divine
method of development. Those are
the three stages in development. We
have passed the first; we have
reached the second; we are on our
way to reach at last the third. It lie
the only way in which it can be
reached. We cannot go at once from
bondage to obedience. We can only
go from bondage, through freedom,
to obedience.
We see that sometimes strikingay
Illustrated In the individual life; In
the cas of a young man. He has
reached his majority; he is free; free
from the bondage of his fathers
house, of his fathers rule and direc-
ton. He goes out into the wilder
ness free! And o, how he feels and
enjoys his freedom; how he plays
with it, and sports with 1t, wandering
In the wilderness where and as he
pleases; sometimes wandering with
wild excuses in it! He is on his way
to obedience. Do not worry about
him, father and mother; do not break
your heart ovsr him. He will, reach
it.; sooner or later he will reach his
fathers house again; not perhaps to
be again an actual dweller in It; but
the %counsels, the VISIONS, the rules
Of his fathers house-he, will zee
lbon he will understand fbop,s 'boF
will appreciate them, he will take
them to himself as he never did in
his youth, and as when it was OF
seemed to be a house of bondage to
him. Not only to his earthly fathers
house will he come, but to his heayen-
ly Fathers house, to Sinai, the Mount
Of God, obedience-through the Will
ierness!
What we see sometimes as strik-
lngly illustrated In one individual In q
I broad and general way we see il
all life, social and national, the world
life. The qualities that are in it, the
forces, faculties, tendencies, which
In the house of bondage were hidden
and latent in it, must be brought out
and freed first in order thus to be
redeemed at last and tanned.
II, my friends, We see such forces
coming so freely out, sometimes so
excessively and SO wildly out, In hui
man life to-day, that is what they are
coming out for-to be redeemed, ALI
Of them; in order that the whole Of
human life-not a part of it, not a
little bit of it., but the whole of tt
and everything that Is in it, every
force, every passion, may be at last
redeemed.
Then give the people freedom; free
dom to think, freedom to vote, free
dom to live. They may at times, they
certainly will, misuse it and abuse
1t, going wrong with it, going wild
with it, going drunk with 1t! Yet.
give the people freedom and never
despair. 1t is the Divine method OF
development-from Egypt to the
Wilderness, and then to Sinai; to-
Sinai through the Wilderness.
That is the great lesson which In
and through and by means of their
freedom the people to-day must learn
obedience, obedience to those great
words of God, which, through az
Prophet greater than Moses, and On a
holier mountain than Sinai, He has
spoken to the world. 1t is the lesson
which all of US must try to learn.
The wildness that Is in us-and there
Is a wildness In us-we must tame
and we shall learn to tame it, through
the experiences and the disciplines
and the Establishments of the Wild l
erness; we shall learn to tame 1T.
We shall be made to learn that life
means, that faith means, that religion
means, not bondage and not freedom
but obedience, to Jesus Christ.
And far beyond ourselves perhaps
will that obedience in which We are
engaged, as Professor James Of Har- |
ward says, Seems to be not merely,
q fight for ourselves, but for the uni
verse as well; as though there were
something really wild in the universe
which we, by our localities and faith
illnesses and o~bediences, are needed
to redeem"
So it sometimes seems; so 1t some
times feels; a fight here in the Wild
erness whose successes Of obedience
reach to other spheres beyond us,
working out some redemption there,
which we when there shall know!
The glory there, the far-illuminating
glory of obedience here! The de-
minion there, the far-extending do
minion of obedience here; the re-
demption there, the far-reaching re-
demption of obedience here, which
here and now we give to those great,
commanding words of God, spoken
through Jesus Christ to the world
From Visions" a Volume Of Ser
mons, by Bishop Greer.