The Penn's Grove record., 1910-05-20
THE PULPIT.
A BRILLIANT SUNDAY SERMON BY
THE REV. E. r. SANDERSON.
Theme: Gods Redemptive Power.

tAE VII Inv "
Cod" He took his text from Nehe-
miah 9:27: ''In the time of their
trouble. when they cried unto Thee,
Thou heardest from heaven, and &C
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 seer all that they held most
holy desecrated and ~despoiled; but
an unconquerable faith still flames
within them-the faith that Will
give saviours to His people. o
of all it's narrowness and-its partial
isms, it is the simple faith of man
kind in the redemptive power OF
God. ~ ia 5E LJE
When we speak of that power we
are dealing with the mightiest pr1n-
ciple in the universe. II we a but
ayes 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 a tree n God
sends saviors those redemptiVe
forces in the tree itself which set up
the work of healing-and redeem the
tree, You e 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, retaining the life from de-
struction and decay.
1 can believe that when this planet
was all aflame 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, a garden of supernal
beauty, with fair cities and peopled
with a joyous multitude. believe
that that ideal will yet be realized
and I believe that Gods redemptive
power is atwork 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 ~redeen1ing this world from the
forces of destruction is a ~never-end-
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 a~nalyzing these redemptlve
forces and bringing them to bear
upon afflicted districts. Thus scien-
lists become laborers together with
God for the redemption of the earth.
Through man God is retaining the
waste places of the earth. Through
great irrigation systems and h
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 r~edemptive 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
stultiies. 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 its operation is enlarged,
for we are dealing with souls n
eternity. Here, too, we strive to
catch Gods purpose for the race, for
only then car 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 1t will
shine like a FURNISHED lamp in your
| 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.
I believe that the omnipotence OF God
is moving the race OF men toward
that ideal. l believe that everything
in u civilization which antagonizes
that ideal must go.
kI.A ~ ~ -frA -nf 1nIHGh-
ness must crumble and the empire OF
love supplant it. The man who i've
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,
d~iyinely perceived at first, misinter-
preted, distorted, but seer with in
creasing clearness as the ages have
passed. The moral attachments 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 CLEAN" of the soul at the
centre of the universe.
GOu 10 SNSA 6AfAA5 4AAhASS'A -
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 a world in
which His plan could be antagonized,
in which forces could be generated
which would work against His idea!
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. I do not think of God as
surprised by these antagonisms, as
amazed at the sin and error of mar
f~:-l Hop Won think, IF Cod &c ha-