The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1907-05-23
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DY THE REV. A'VSsss
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Subject: The New Note.

BROOKLYN, \. Y.-Preaching at
the Irving Square Presbyterian
Church, Hamburg avenue and Weir
field street, on the theme, The
Church's New Note" the Rev. I. w.
Henderson. pastor, took as his text
Mark 1890: Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind, and with all thy strength" He
said:
The adaptability of the Gospel is
wonderful In every epoch and in
every age wherever the truth of God
as it has been revealed in Jesus Christ
has been preached, it has been found
to be fit guide for the leading of the
minds and hearts and souls of men,
true solvent for the evils of the
epoch and the age in which it has
been declared. Always it has pos
sessed a message that has been pc
clliarly adaptable to the Individual;
and social iniquities and to the ind!-
viduai, and social spiritual yearnirSs
and necessities of the society To which
it has been proclaimed When in
apostolic times the preciouSness of
budding human life Was discounted
and largely unrecogniZed the vitaliZ-
ing Gospel of Jesus Christ revealed
the beauty and the value Of life it
Self. When in the ante-Reformation
days the truth was endangered by the
regrettable unwisdom OF the ecclesi-
astical authorities of that day ana
time the compelling Gospel of Jesus
opened wide the treasury of written
truth that had been preserved in all
its fragrance through the centuries
and new era for mankind began.
AS In those times SO throughout
Christendom it has been. Whatever
may have been the sins, the spiritual
yearnings, the mode of thought, the
manner of expression, of any genera
tion, the Gospel has always adapted
itself and been found humanity adapt
able to the sins, the warnings, the
thoughts, the Technology of the
period. Every revival in Christian
history, especially in the history al
the last four hundred years, has had
its peculiar message, adaptable to
the sins, the warnings, the spiritual
needs, the thought and the terminol-
ogy of the time in which it has been
preached. Historians tell us that
when in the days of Jonathan Ed.
wards-days in which Christianity
was largely legalistic in thought and
speech-the fiery prophet of the liv-
ing God wished to bring men into an
open realization and confession CT
their sinfulness and their accounta-
bility to God he preached them SER
"a 70
sity of Divine sovereignty; and with
burning zeal declared to humanity, as
God gave him opportunity to SOW the
seed Of His truth, the wisdom Of
yielding self into the control of the
Divine Ruler Of the universe. Wesley
preached the truth of the freedom of
the will to a nation to whom freedom
was life. "Whosoever will may come
was not all the Gospel then, nor is it
all the Gospel now; but it is the lever
of truth by which men in the days
of that great revivalist were most
quickly turned to love and serve God.
We are face to face with another
great worldwide revival. We are
in the midst Of it. 1t may not be rec
ognized in some quarters and it may
be blinked in others. Many men
refuse to recognize it or they may fail
to have the insight to perceive it, but
it is here none the less. Evidencing
itself within the church it is express
ing itself more largely perhaps out
side of the church than within it.
Men are Gospel-hardened to the
messages of yesterday. Not that they
disdain Christ, but because the pro-
carnations of the past have lost,
through perfunctory familiarity with
them, the power to cut deep into their
souls. The edge of the truth has
become dulied for them. 1t needs to
be brought to the tempering fire of
flaming truth that shall startle and
attract men. It must be laid hard on
the wheel of compelling Divine ver- \
ity that shall put an edge on all that
has become dulled. The preaching of
Edwards will not do it, the oratory of
Wesley will not do it, the burning
messages of Finney will not do it, the
declaration of Gods love in the
mouth Of Moody will not do it. These
are our places of departure. The
truth that these men have declared,
the men-we-are-after know. We
must vitalize that dormant truth by
finging new message into, their
souls. We must warm the chilled
embers of their own religious ex-
periences with the blaze of modern
message that, having it's inspirations
in the historic Christ, shall be in
dwelt of His presence and energized
of His spirit for special ministry
to-day. Men know that God is SOW
ereign; they know that the human
will is free, for are they not exercis-
ing it against God every day? They
know that personal responsibility for
personal sin or decency is inescapa-
BILE; they know that GOD is love. We
do not need to prove these things to
them most insistently. What we need
to do is to proclaim before them a
new note from the old Anthem Of
Gods revelation of His truth and
Himself in Jesus Christ that shall
find correlative note in their own
souls and lead them back into har-
mony with the age-long chorus of the
redeemed of God. It is the business
of the church of Jesus Christ to strike