Norwich bulletin., 1920-04-19
CALL OF GOD IS TO
 GREAT WoRES SAys n

Congregational church Sunday from the text Greater works shall ye do.'
 In part he spoke as follows.
 Here are some emphatic words. First,
 Believing is one. He that believeth in Me Great promises are made to great believers. Paul is supposed to specialize
 on Faith and Jesus on Duty, but Jesus is
 the author of Faith and the specializer.
 He does nothing, offers nothing except to faith. It is the condition of healing
 and forgiying and redemption. We get things only on the challenge of faith
 Second. Works is another emphatic word. He uses the word almost exclu- sively. He did not appeal to the wonder | | provoking word miracle. He avoided the | thaumaturgical element The superhuman | things He did were the ordinary happen- | ings of the day. He did works transcend- | ing ours. but they were just His big way | or doing things. If you have a merely 1 human Christ you may well stare at what 1
 He did. But being a Divine Being these things were just the divine way of doing things. They are part of the days work 1 Why should He not heal the sick and | feed the multitude and still the storms
 and hush the wild tempestings of the sea? That is the way God has of doing 1 things. Theseus was proved of divine derlVation because he did everything like a God. So Jesus never surprises us. We do not wonder when Gladstone sways a
 crowd or Lloyd Georges spell binds the parliament benches It is their way of doing things. Jesus did nothing to ex- cite our wonder. He was God manifest
 in the flesh and the things He did We
 expected Him to do. It is too late to
 tumble and stammer in reading the gos- pels or church history in our effort to re-
 duce Him to the ranks; we are wasting
 time in our frantic endeavor. History.
 
 liever'S faith and his common sense have
 settled this question for the thousandth
 time. The humanitarian's Christ is not
 in the New Testament or in history or in
 the great souls who have followed Him.
 Third. Another is the word greater Greater works shall ye do. We have a
 long list of identities Believers have
 with Jesus common Father, a common destiny, the Fathers house. a common
 life, common peace, common privilege , to ask what they will and common ' share and co-partnery in His work. The believer is taken into the firm though
 with little capital We are workers to- gether with God. Yes, greater works. It is enough to give us pause and hold , our breath but true?
 r First. greater message. Jesus did not teach a full evangel He came to | make gospel for the world, not to teach but to do. Until He had passed through the garden and the cross there was no
 gospel, no basis for the faith that saves
 the grace which forgives, the life which
 cleanses and regenerates The saved
 man glories in the cross knows nothing
 as redemptive power but Christ and \ and Him crucifed. The power of Chris tianity lies in the atonement, the simple naked, but unplumbed fact that Christ
 loved us and gave Himself for us. with :, out which there would be no forgiveness and no salvation. Ethical teaching is - not saving or the moralists would have saved us Fine examples are not say. ing or the Stoical ethicists would have n saved us All these were in the world = before Christ died for the world and the, s left Roman society and Chinese societ, and modern European society a rotten e fostering mass of corruption. It is tn,
 cross that bends and breaks the verte d bral column of mans deep deDravitie > and nothing beside can touch the blacl $ core of human guilt and human rebel
 lion. There is nothing to the cheap glib 't perish about salvation by character. Onl U faith in an atoninG Christ can creat 2 holy character. David Brainerd's Indian II only needed the vision of a dying Chris
 to break them from their sins But eth d ics follow the cross. do not precede it O -c eclipse it. Yes, the Christian believe ,' has greater evangel because a com U, pleted one. II was finished at the eros! Second. But 0reaier works. Not thei
 own but the Lord working with then
 Through the church Jesus releases th
 might of His power to save. Yes. H le healed disease, stampeded demons. raise ~ the dead, handled with easy and faci " touch the powers of Nature But Il st takes us into copartnershin. He uses | . 10 heal disease. Ten thousand hospita ,a - bear witness He opens blind eyes. todd ne casts out the demons of evil life on 10 vastly larger scale. Restores to ma 13 through man the mastery of Nature Ii His Galilee miracles look diminutive. I, But He works on . vastly large .s scale, new type of man. He restore " the wanton Magdalene recovered f; to ,a moral and physical sanity of u nJ Gadarene. Ht took the brittle sha sa He found in Gallilean fishermen aI i,o made Rock men Of tl,em He took o- company of uplearned peasants ar , made them the authoritative teache ar to all the ages. We'll. He has been q ,r- ing this on an infinitely larger scale. ,.o enumerate the great souls made gre -o by the power of Jesus Christ ,gorkil ro by the church is to enumerate all tl
 greatest spirits of history The m ,- who have turned from Him and liy in unto themselves have passed into eclip ,a and deserved oblivion. The men w % have made great history for this wo, w nave been linked up with the wond ,io inspiring energy of the living Chri
 Nho continues His resistless mar ,, through the ages. Greater works sh m. ye do. These words strike the note nd the worlds progress. Its law is fir, ~. great to greater and We cannot rest of the church or the worlds past. Tn,
 is no use in parading what the chur
 has done. Don't live on your fathe
 greatness Make some new listc of yourself. To this the church in each q ing IS called: Our faith in great things ol- day is challenged and appealed to.
 are called to great ventures and ,ss, cannot overstate the things God is a, of ing of us. Jesus never said your fla she overreaches my resources. It was ars ways, 70 ye of little faith, ye ask tnd little" These little midgets who . trying to call down the faith of vii rec visioned Christian men had better h frs their tongues and keep silence in 8 Trs. eraI languages. If they are incapa rec Of a great faith there are others wh yn programmes are as large as their N of ters' It would be pitiable in { aid world crisis if the Master cannot Llso ialtn on the earth and must needs W
 TOT greater age of stalwarts z
 tnoroughoreds who will attempt gr
 things and do them. MT. Mott has D, or telling us that this rising spiritual UT as expressed in the interchurch mo the ment is the only thing to wi H. stand the fast encroaehing chaos.
 his We go back to the old standards z for the old methods we will be swamped 7 her drowned in this spreading ocean