River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1910-03-10
| Religion as |
Friendship God
By REV. DR.. HUGH 7. KERR
Pastor Fullerton Avenue Presbyterian
Church, Chicago !

The man in the street believes in
nonresident God. Occasionally he
visits this world, and then we have
miracle. For him God is what the
philosophers call transcendent The
men and women who have poetic tenn
peraments, and artistic tastes believe
in a God who is everywhere, whose
dwelling is in the round ocean
and the living air and the blue sky
and in the mind of man." For them
God is what the philosophers call "im-
manent." The third way of thinking
about God is the Christian way, and
it combines what is true in both Of
the preceding views. 1t proclaimS
that God, while still remaining the in
finitely holy God, is yet with us.
closer to us than breathing, nearer
than hands or feet"
This was and is no new idea; it is
as old as the Bible. In beautiful and
majestic language the first chapters of
Genesis picture the coming of the
Lord God into the garden to walk and
talk with his children in the cool of
the day. Certainly l will be with
thee" is the promise of God to Moses,
and in promises ofttimes repeated God
insists that he will never leave nor
forsake his people.
This was the very truth God was try
ing to reveal to his people throughout
the full length of their recorded his
tory. God never changed his attitude
toward his children, but they, blinded
by prejudice and selfishness, refused to
understand. So it was, line upon line,
precept upon precept. 1t is like all
great revelations. What is given is
not always revealed. We are both be-
ing given on every hand facts of mu-
nicipal corruption and political job
berry, and yet the great majority of our
citizens are still unconcerDed.
The reason that made the revelations
of the Old Testament ineffective lay
in the fact that words conceal as much
as they reveal. All that God could
sa, and tell about himself was not
sufficient to create a personal friend
ship. The world did not know God.
He was still hidden, misunderstood,
and misinterpreted. God was a king,
a Judge, a detective. The promise OF
companionship and personal friendship
with a detective who is sworn to
shadow you and finally arraign you be-
fore the bar of judgment is not ap-
pealing, to say the least.
ITO many people of the olden times,
and to many people even yet, God is a
sort of self-appointed detective. His
eve is on us; his hand is over us; his
ear is open to hear; but his presence
distresses when thought of under such
categories. So it was that at last God
had to speak, not in the words of any
human language, but in the language
of a human life. 1.-THE Word becomes
flesh" Last of all, he sent his Son,
and in the living characters of hui
man early life we understood what
God had beer trying to tell the world
for centuries They called his name
s'Immanuel-God with us"
Under this new conception of the
nearness OF God to our human life,
common things became sacred. The
supernatural is expressed to us In the
terms of the natural We look for God
no longer in signs and wonders and the
spectacular, but in the moving OF the
Spirit of God through the things
among which we live. We no longer
see an occasional bush that is af1ame
with a strange revelation, but we be-
hold earth crammed with heaven and
every common bush af1ame with God
The little Child, the manger and the
cattle in the stalls; the stars above us,
the sheep in the field, the wise men on
their long search, fatherhood and moth
erhood-all become sacred and the
new year would become singularly
fruitful ~ blessedness and peace ii in
the daily round and the common task
we could be sure that God is with us.
The presence of God with us in the
days and duties of this new year means
hope and inspiration. Twill God in
deed dwell with men? The heaven
and heaven of heavens cannot contain
him." But if it is true that God does
indeed dwell with his people there is
high hope for all of us in that.
The other week our president went
down TO the SluLuS OIL NEW 4OIh CITY
and talked to the men who, as the
world says, were down and out" Next
day a wondrous thing took place. Men
who had trailed their honor in the dust
held up their heads with a newborn
hope. eff he has faith in us to come
here and tell us we still have chance,
perhaps it is worth while to try" And
if the eternal God has faith in the chill
dren of men to enter personally and
permanently into their life of sin and
sorrow and shame perhaps there is
more wondrous redemption in a love
like that. Through him we are born
again into living hope.
If religion is friendship with God,
and if God has entered into compan-
ionship with us, then religion as
friendship with God becomes a vital
and beautiful reality. Mrs. Browning
asked Charles Kingsley to tell her the
secret of his happy and beautiful life,
and he replied to her sympathetic re-
quest: 81 had friend"