The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser., 1910-05-13
THE PULPIT.
A BRILLIANT SUNDAY SERMON BY
THE REV. E. F. SANDERSON.
Theme: Gods Redemptive Power.

The Pilgrims, preached Sunday morn
ing on THE Redemptive Power of
God" He took his text from Nehe-
miah 9:27: '1n the time of their
trouble, when they cried unto Thee,
Thou heardest from heaven, and ac-
cording to Thy manifold mercies
Thou gavest them saviours. Mr.
Sanderson said:
The Jews have returned from cap
tivity; they have drained the bitter
cup of national degredation; their
! pride of race has been brutally and
| shamelessly trampled upon; they
have seen all that they held most
| holy desecrated and despoiled; but
an unconquerable faith still flames
within them-the faith that God will
| give saviours to His people. Shorn
of all its narrowness and its partial
isms, it is the simple faith of man.
kind in the redemptive power OF
God.
| When we speak of that power we
are dealing with the mightiest prin-
cip1e In the universe If we had but
eyes to see it, it is evidenced on every
side-a power repairing, rebuilding,
redeeming. 1t is manifested in a
lower form when you strike your AK
into the trunk of tree and God
sends saviors - those redemptive
forces in the tree itself which set up
the work of healing-and redeem the
| tree. You see it when the germs OF
| disease enter the human system and
| God sends as saviors the lencocytes
those redemptive workers in the
blood who marshal their forces like
the knights of the Crusades, to drive
out the despoilers of the human body,
| and redeem it from disease. There
are redemptive forces in every living
creature, reclaiming the life from de-
struction and decay.
can believe that when this planet
was all afame in fervent heat, in
those days when the morning stars
first sang together, that even then
there was a picture in the divine
mind of what this round globe should
some day be, garden of supernal
beauty, with fair cities and peopled
with a joyous multitude. I believe
that that ideal will yet be realized
and l believe that Gods redemptlve
power is at work in myriad ways
combating the forces which retard the
coming of that ideal.
When hordes of rapacious insects
would lay a continent waste and bar
rem, God sends saviors, some form of
life which preys upon the pest and
redeems the vegetation. The process
of redeeming this world from the
forces of destruction is reverend
ing process. In fact, but for the
saviors in nature, the earth to-day
would be one vast temple of desola-
ton. Scientists understand this.
They are analyzing these redemptive
forces and bringing them to bear
upon afflicted districts. Thus scien-
fists become laborers together with
God for the redemption of the earth.
Through man God is reclaiming the
waste places of the earth. Through
great irrigation systems and the
drainage of vast areas of swamp land,
the wilderness is being redeemed
God sends saviors. God is at work
in the men in every land who are
fighting famine and plague and pow
erty and disease, fighting every form
of physical wretchedness and suffer-
ing. That redemptive force is in
creasing with every passing year.
Everywhere men are betting their
lives on to the redemptive energy of
God to redeem humanity from the
curse of an unfavorable environment
and harsh and oppressive conditions.
Never in the history of the world has
there been such a stupendious mani
festation of Gods purpose to redeem
the physical lot Of man from every
thing which debases and retards and
stultifies. The earth as the garden
of God where man can grow healthy
bodies and know something of the
joy of living, is a dream; yes, but a
dream that is coming true.
When we leave the plane of the
physical realm and enter that of the
moral and spiritual, we find the same
great principle at work. Here the
sphere of it's operation is enlarged,
for We are dealing with souls and
eternity. Here, too, We strive to
catch Gods purpose for the race, for
only then can we understand the play
of His redemptive forces. We be-
lieve that Gods purpose-the goal
of the universe-is an empire of life,
in which the Father Is King and men
are brothers united in the eternal
quest Of the true, the good and the
beautiful. Hold that ideal and it will
shine like a FURNISHED lamp in yohr
soul Belief in that is the North
Star of the Christian faith. We set
the compass of human purpose by
that conception of divine purpose 1t
gives unerring direction to our lives
and corrects all our wayward plans.
believe that the omnipotence Of God
is moving the race of men toward
that ideal. I believe that everything
in our civilization which antagoniZes
that ideal must go.
believe that the empire of selfish
ness must crumble and the empire of
love supplant it. The man who lives
for himself has the invincible purpose
of the universe against him. l be-
lieve that since the days of primordial
chaos God has been giving Himself
for the attainment of this ideal. All
the knowledge of the world has been
the forthgiving of the mind of God,
divinely perceived at first, misinter-
preted, distorted, but seen with in
creasing clearness as the ages have
passed. The moral attainments of
the race reflect in the same imperfect
way the eternal righteousness given
out of the great heart of God. The
spiritual life of men is just the ''fol-
lowing the gleam' of the soul at the
centre of the universe.
God is ever giving Himself to the
world for the achievement of His
ideal, but more than that, He is the
uncompromising antagonist of every
agency which would divert the race
from the goal which He has chosen.
Every destructive force in the uni
verse is opposed by the redemptiye
power of God. 1t is like the prin-
ciple of the gyroscope, every attempt
to disturb the equilibrium, to thrust
the mechanism from it's true perpen
dicular is met by a counter force
resident within.
Why God should make q H3rt ~
which His plan could be antag0niZed,
in which forces could be generated
which would work against His ideal
may seem mysterious, but it is pos
sible that the only way by which He
can achieve His ideal is along the
road of conflict and struggle and
choice l do not think of God as
surprised by these antagonisms, as
amazed at the sin and error of mar
kind. Can you think of God as be-
wildered by unexpected developments