The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1907-05-23
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THOUGHT AND REASON NEEDED.
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By Rev. Charles e. Jefferson, d. d.
Come, now, let us reason together,
saith the Lord.-Isaiah rs.
The greatest of the Hebrew prophets
puts these words into the mouth of
God. The Almighty is represented as
bewailing the fact that men do not
think enough in their religion Israel
doth not know, my people doth not
consider" so runs the divine arraign-
ment- According to Isaiah, God wishes
men to think. and he wishes them to
think with him. The weakness of re-
ligious people in all generations has
been that they have not thought
enough.
1t is wicked not to think. A man
gives up his manhood who does not
think. We are unworthy of the Chris
tan name if we are too tinlid to scru-
tinize and investigate and reason about
every doctrine which the religion Of
Jesus teaches
Suppose that thinking does lead you
into doubt Doubt is oftentimes me-
dicinal. There is more faith in honest
doubt than in a creed about which you
are afraid to think. Doubt is an expe-
rience which belongs to growing life.
A man must fight his way through
doubt to the clear and sunlit spaces
which lie beyond. He can do this only
by hard and honest thinking.
'Come, let us reason together. saith
the Lord" This has been the exhorta-
ton of the Almighty from the begin
ming. In the fullness of time Jesus
came and in Jesus we heard God say
ing: Come, now, let us reason to-
gether."
Jesus was always reasoning 1t has
been said that He never argued and
that is true If we mean He never ar
gued in the form of occidental syllog-
isms. But in the deepest sense He
was always arguing. His whole speech
was reasoned argument His ques-
tons are mightier than syllogisms and
help the mind to reason. rs not man
better than sheep?" "yyhat think
ye? If man have hundred sheep
and one of them be gone astray, doth
he not leave the ninety and nine and
goeth into the mountains and seeketh
that which is gone astray?"
The priest, the Levite. the Samari-
tan: (which now of these three think
est thou was neighbor unto him that
fell among the thieves?
"When the lord of the vineyard COM
eth what will he DO unto those hus-
bandmeny''
IF We. being evil, know how TO give
good gifts unto Your children, how
much more will your heaveny Father
give the holy spirit to them that ask
Him?"
The Christian religion is Gods voice
saying: Come, now, let us reason to-
gether."
Many man is not a Christian be-
cause he is not willing to reason the
matter out with God and Christ. If
our convictions are becoming fiabby,
it is because we do not think. If the
old distinctions between right and
wrong are fading out, it is because we
have ceased to reason with God. If
the sense of sin is to-day disappearing
from the hearts of men. it is because
they are too busy to sit down and
mediate with God.
have heard men bewail the fact
that they had no time to get acquainted
with their wives and children. This,
indeed, is tragic, and it is also tragic
to have no time to get acquainted with
ones self. We never know ourselves
until we think about our life with
God.
Let us, then spend more time in rea-
soning with Him. Let us pick up the
things which we have lost. Let us sit
down and think about that man which
we fully intended to be and which,
alas, we have not yet become.