The Clio messenger. (Clio, Mich.) 1907-current, 1920-10-07

AlV come TO know this
v 80 ~ God and to be-
lieve In him2 In answering the ques-
ton, my mind runs back to childhood.
Tor was brought up to believe in God.
But by and by, ! experienced God;
that is, crisis came and prayed TO
him and he answered me. It was like
putting-out a little hand In the dark
10 feel for him and he took 1t. and
pressed 1t, and led me In the right
way.
BY and by. learned more about
him. in church and Sunday school,
and through the Bible and through
what others said.
But this was not enough. ! craved
for reasons, asked, l read. pondered
and thus learned that all men be-
lieve in God, a god of some kind.
Really there are no atheists.
How came they TO believe? The first
answer is, Creation. which is an effect
and must have a cause. Moreover,
there is harmony and order in creation.
Lord Kelvin, while walking In the
country with Liebig, the great scien-
list. asked him If he believed that
grass and flowers grew by mere me-
chanlcal force?
mo more" said he, than believe
work Of botany describing them
could grow In such q way"
In other words, we have not only
Creator, but an intelligent Creator.
Indeed, our own possession Of mind
determines this, because stream can
not rise higher than its source. If
made me must have the same. AS Des
Carries, the philosopher. said, "Man's
possession of the idea of an infinitely
perfect being is itself proof Of the
existence Of that being"
And then there is the fact of con-
seriousness which make this argument
still more real to us. That is, the
sense OF spiritual presence and pow
er In nature and In ourselves. AS
Wadsworth said:
"a sense of something far more
deeply interfused." Or as the inspired
Apostle Paul calls II In Romans l 20.
"The eternal power and Godhead."
1t is this power that man worships,
and worships as holy, personal
spirit standing over against his own
spirit and explaining or accounting for
It.
The knowledge of God thus comes
to man without reasoning. II Is writ
ten I'm his constitution. Even the child
or the savage knows what you mean
when you speak of God. He thinks Of
someone who is righteous, and holy
and Judge of men.
And 1t Is this consciousness that
makes us tremble at the thought Of
sin because we know that some time,
somewhere, we must stand before this
judge and give an account Of our
selves.
And this brings before us another
thought. If there Is such a God as
this, and If man, even by his own
fault, Is IN such distress as this will
not that God make himself known to
man In some other way?
VIII he not reveal to him the cause
of his distress, and means of escape
from It? Surely God of love and
mercy will do this.
And praise his Name, he has done
Il That is what the Bible is, and II
there were no other evidence that II Is
his revelation. the fact that 1t thus
meets mans deepest need were proof
enough to satisfy us.
And how~does II meet mans deep
est need? The answer is In Christ,
whom God hath set forth to be a
Precipitation through faith In his
blood" Romans 1925. How wonder
full is that declaration Of the inspired
Apostle Paul In his letter to the Corin-
thians, ''that God was In Christ, recon-
Cling the world unto himself. not i'm
putting their trespasses unto theml"
Therefore, II is the duty and the Joy
of gospel preachers to put themselves
side by side with Paul and say, "Now
then we are ambassadors for Christ,
as though God did beseech you by us:
We pray you In Christ's stead, be We
reconciled to God" ii Cor. $40, 20.
thus plead with you today, and
beg you to receive Christ by faith as
your Saviour. and confess him be-