The Penn's Grove record., 1909-04-30
THE PULPIT.
A SCHOLARLY SUNDAY SERMON BY
DR.. ALVAH S. HOBART
Theme: The Unlisted Asset.

brooklyn, N. Y.-The Rev. DR.. A.
S. Hobart, of Grocer Seminary,
preached Sunday morning in the En-
manuel Baptist Church, Lafayette
avenu and st. James place. His
subject was THE Unlisted Asset"
and his text was Matthew 22:41-44:
while the Pharisees were gathered
together Jesus asked them, saying:
What think We of Christ? Whose
son is He?' They say unto Him, The
son of David He saith unto them,
How, then, doth David in spirit call
Him Lord, saying the Lord said unto
my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand,
till I make thine enemies thy foot
stool. If David then call Him Lord,
how is He his son?' And no nan
was able to answer Him a word,
neither burst any nan from that time
forth ask Him any questions" DR..
Hobart said:
Sometimes in the summer the Their
mometer runs up into the nineties,
and we call it hot weather, but we
take off our coats and attend to our
business and say to our friends: This
is summer, but after all l rather like
summer. I do not see that the sum
mer is to be so much dreaded" And
the next day the thermometer stands
just as it did the day before, but we
are nearly smothered, and we say:
81 cannot stand it at all. 1 think this
% about the worst climate; it is
enough to kill a man." What is the
difference? The thermometer does
not tell the whole story. To-day
there are only sixty degrees of hui
mildly, but yesterday there were nine
ty. THERE'S a certain unlisted ele-
ment in the weatherthatthet hermom-
eter does not make any account of,
but that unlisted element makes all
the difference in the world. A man
is sick and his doctor tells that he
has an incurable disease and cannot
live, because the medical records do
not show a single CASE of recovery
from that particular disease. Never
theless the man RECEIVERS completely,
and the only way the astonished doc
tor can account for it is by saying
that the man had a great fund of in
exhaustible vitality. That vitality is
the unlisted asset in the case.
This is the idea | have in mind
when l speak to you concerning the
unlisted asset in Jesus. These people
wanted to know certain things and
He wanted them to believe certain
things. There seemed to be some
doubt as to the Messiah, and Jesus
asked them what sort of a man they
thought the Messiah was going to be.
Whose son will He be when He
comes?" and they said, why, Da-
vid's SON." Then He said, Have We
not read the psalm wherein David
said, The Lord said unto my Lord?"
In the Jewish realm 40 man would
ever call his son Lord" How was
it? They did not know. They found
in the Old Testament Scriptures that
there was an unlisted asset. Now,
history presents a similar problem.
Things have happened that We cannot
account for in the ordinary way. Be-
fore, or soon after, A. D. 800, the pa
gan kings of Rome ceased to be, and
a confessedly Christian king sat in
the centre of the Roman Empire.
Now the teachers of that gospel did
not have philosophy like the Romans
or literary culture like the people of
Rome or Athens.
They suffered persecution and were
called "the of-scouringo of the world.
They had nc armies, nor temples, n
vet inside of $50 years they displaced
the Emperor on his throne by the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. How are you
going to account for that? Somehow
these unframed fishermen, and that
cast-out Pharisee of the Jewish eccle-
siastical institution, had gone ahead
with the unlisted power and won
these marvellous victories. Something
was there besides, something greater
than a son of David. A humble peas
ants son in Palestine prophesied that
His name should be above everything
and that all the nations of the world
should know it and bow down to it.
What do we see to-day? Why, the
statesmen of the world are being
guided by the fundamental principles
that that peasant taught. To-day the
philosophers of the world are slough
ing off all the speculationS that are
not in harmony with the fundamental
conceptions and the peasants ideas
of God. All are admitting that they
must come to the recognition OF the
existence Of an Infinite source and
personal God who controls all things,
and this is the specific statement OF
Jesus when He said: pray, our
Father, who art in heaven" Every
statement and every theory OF the
sociologists of this time is p~re-stated
in the language of the old Jewish
PEASANTS son and every great prlncl-
pie that guides us is stated better by
Him. When you look I'VE the world
you find that where this Gospel has
gone the world has new conceptions
80 v,o1 RAmhnro 0lcn do Won find
the conception of man Gin the image
of God" and standing in all funda-
mental essentials On a common plat
form. It has given new conceptions
of mans attitude toward God, OF his
duty to his fellow man. There was
no conception of international law I'M
til Christianity brought it. And this
peasants son in Palestine prophesied
all this recognition of these princi-
pies 1900 years before. What are
we to say about that? Is He more
than a peasants son or is there some
unlisted element there?
We must look around to find the
cause of this unaccounted for phe-
nomenon of history. We have ex-
hausted the assets of David's son, and
we must find something else. Some
things, it is true, can be accounted
for as the son of David, but not all.
The times and the character of Jesus
will account for some, but there is a
large residue left that cannot be ac-
counted for that way. Some say,
Jesus is undoubtedly the pre-emin-
ent teacher of the world. Nobody
ever eQualed Him before or since or
is ever likely to, but" they say,
Shakespeare was undoubtedly the
highest genius in his line, and he
went so high that nobody aspires to
touch him. Socrates was a philoso-
pher, and in his line nobody aspires
to take away his crown. And so
Jesus in His line was the product of
His day. He came from the Jewish
people, a most pious family, in a time
when the world was trying to be 10
wicked, and He was a splendid reli-
gious genius and we bow down to
Him pre-eminent in His sphere" Will
it do? We will admit that the cir
cumstances and times did for Jesus
about all that could be done to make
Him pre-eminent as a moral teacher,
but why did not other people-the
martyrs, the disciples-why didn't