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with the palsy, telling him to take up his bed and
walk. See Him spitting on the ground and touch
ing the blind man’s eyes with the clay. And so
all along His life was given to healing and bringing
strength and vigor to the body of the men with
whom He came in contact.
And, my brethren, it was true in the New r
Testament church after the departure of Jesus.
His disciples continued to work upon the same line
and in the same way. In every single instance
where the New Testament work is spoken of you
will find there was a ministry for healing as well
as a ministry of salvation and of comfort. Does
this not mean something to us in our efforts to
spread the gospel?
I have recently been reading from one of our
modern writers upon New Testament and early
church history, and I want to give you a section
from it that stirred my heart. Says he, “One
'cause of our present 'enfeebled icondition as a
church before the world is through timidity. We
have not kept the original enterprise of the Church
of Jesus Christ. The church has allowed herself
to be side-tracked and relegated to a small and
secondary role in human affairs. When" Ave look
back into the so-called age of faith to the days
when the church was everything, what impresses
us most is the wisdom with which she spread her
self over the whole sphere of human life, entering
every department of human activity, leading every
great movement of human progress. In those days
of religion, knowledge, scienceT" art, philosophy,
even the chief pleasures were in her entire keeping.
When men travelled, it was to go on long pil
grimages to the home of Christ. From the cradle
to the grave, on week-days and on Sunday, the
church surrounded human life. Nothing of im
portance went on without the knowledge, co
operation or consent of the church. Therefore peo
ple believed with a devotion and an intensity of
faith which we have no comprehension in this day of
small faith.”
My brethren, if ever there were words written
that spoke my own heart’s conviction, it is the
words I have just quoted. On my last visit to
Scotland I was taken around by a friend to see the
church in which the mighty Chalmers used to
preach. Chalmers under Christ has been perhaps
my greatest incentive to Christian work. The man
who showed me the edifice in which he preached
said, “When Chalmers died, Scotland lost her
church.” He meant that with the passing of
Chalmers there passed a conception for which he
stood of the Christian church that was rapidly
sweeping the whole of that country and indeed the
whole world; and that when he passed away there
was no one else at hand to go and carry out the
schemes and the principles that he had given his
life to establish.
The great burning passion of this mighty man
of God was that Jesus as the God-man was anxious
to head and direct every single department of life.
Everything that man had to do with came under
the sway of the Prince of Glory. According to
Chalmers the church was to do the work of educat
ing the people, was to provide asylums for the
insane, hospitals for the sick, homes of refuge
where the outcast could be gathered, work-shops
where men and women out of employment could
be employed. Everything that appealed to man’s
nature and need came within the scope of the
church of Chalmers, and while Scotland with his
passing did not lose her church to some extent, thank
God the spirit of Chalmers did not die, and today
here and there are men who under God have fallen
under the influence of his teaching and have been
fired by his principles who are today reincarnating
them in the life and conduct of the world.
FREEDOM OF THE BODY.
Then there is the freedom of body. How was it
that Jesus gave this freedom of body? What was
the philosophy that underlies the ministry and the
healing of Jesus? I think it is clearly of a two
fold character. It is first a supernatural or God
touching power. It is second a psychic or soul
inspired power. When Jesus stood by the side of
that man with the palsied am he stood by the
side of a man who had no faith, but he had faith
The Golden Age for January 28, 1909.
before he got healed. When Jesus said to that
man, “'Stretch forth thine hand,” he said it in
such away and with such a voice and with such a
divine personality, with such a God-inspired faith
Himself that He at once flashed into that mind the
light of hope, which light of hope became his
faith of healing.
Can you see Him as He stood by the side of that
poor fellow who was lying waiting for someone to
put hm into the angel-touched waters? He knew
nothing of Christ, but Christ as he came and stood
by him so impressed him at once, either by his sweet
tender words or by his pure, divine, immaculate
face, or by the tone of his voice, with the fact
that He had the power to speak health to the
diseased, that then upon the spot there was born
a faith that actually revolutionized and reversed
the machinery of the man’s physical make up and
at once he stood and walked.
So you might come through the entire dealing
of Jesus with the diseased and you will find that
it was after all not some system of faith about this
man that inspired the faith that was needed to
produce the healing, it was the man Himself. It
Singing In the 'Rain.
Heeding not dropping rain and leaden
skies,
The brave bird trills his song to
cheer his mate,
Perched on a wind-swept bough, while
lightning flies
And thunder rolls, he sings, blithely
elate,
Wh’le in her nest within the cedar’s
heart,
His listening mate feels all her fears
depart.
Soul, heed the lesson; love thou, and
be strong;
What though the sky be dark and
tempests low r er?
Sing in the rain, as in the sun; no
wrong
Shall come to one, who, with love’s
tender power
Seeks to bless others. Love thou Him,
oh, Soul,
And all He made —and vain Fate’s
thunder roll.
Hear thou the bird, take courage, learn
of him,
That neither sun that smiles nor
storms that ride,
Thy record shall illumine or shall
dim,
Thy deeds alone the judgment shall
decide,
And others will be blest if thou canst
cling
Unto the storm-lashed bough and
bravely sing.
The above graceful poem comes to
me unsigned and with the first verse
partly torn away.
in its effect as to speak faith, which faith in itself
was the divine personality that was so masterful
meant power.
My brethren, this is what Jesus meant when He
said, “As thy faith, so be it unto thee,” and “If
you have faith even as a grain of mustard seed ye
shall say to this mountain, remove, and it shall
remove.” Oh; if that be true, what of our little
faith? We have tried to stimulate faith by the
recitation of creeds and dogmas and systems.
We will never come to a place where we will have
the mastering faith until we feel that we are in
the very living presence of the Master, Jesus.
And then too the healing of the New Testament
church was one of the same character. When
Jesus had gone He had said to the disciples,
“Greater works than these shall ye do,” and He
meant what He said. That sentence means more
than a mere bundling together of words. The
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disciples went out in the exercise of those words.
They believed that Jesus meant what he said, and
they went, inb tied with the faith of the presence of
the real Christ, not a creed, not a system, not a
mere church record, but the real person Christ,
accompanied every one of them. Those men when
they stood and spoke to the man diseased imparted
to him something that was from above. They
spoke with so much assurance themselves of that
which they were trying to convey to him that
their faith became contagious and this diseased
man, as the result of their faith leaped into the
realm of faith and that faith in the Christ for
whom the disciples spoke quickened in them new
energy and new life, new power, new resources,
and just as it is true of the New church,
it is true with us today. Let me say it. I believe
that the present church has departed from its
apostolic teaching and example. We have the
power if we will only exercise it, not from heaven,
but of heaven, the power of strong faith; the
power that can in .itself speak faith into a faith
less life.
The church of today can cast out devils. It
ought to be casting out devils, and that upon the
spot. What do you mean by casting out devils?
I mean exactly what they meant; the devils of
appetite, of passion, of ill temper, of untruth;
these devils, of whatever character, can be driven
out by the faith of the church as the church itself
believes and imparts its faith to the man in need.
DIVINE HEALING.
The same is true of the healing of the sick. We
have tried to come up to this in hundreds of
different ways. We have tried to make provision
in and for our separate faiths and creeds and
dogmas and the like. Oh, thank God, I believe
the church today is coming to the place where it is
about to re-discover its real Christ, the Christ of
ministry, the Christ of the early church, the Christ
of our Father, the Christ is about to be re-dis
covered and by His abiding personality and the
truth of His faith filling and thrilling us, we can
accomplish the impossible, and as we believe we
inspire belief in others and it is through this psychic
and yet altogether divine principle that we are to
accomplish the work of Christ in this world of
need.
I have read a story of Alexander the Great, that
at one time an old king presented to him three
valuable pups. These pups he regarded as of
exceeding value as they were hunting dogs. After'
they were old enough, one day he decided to test
them. The first one he turned loose on a stag in
his park. The dog took a look at it, wagged his
tail, and went off and lay down. Alexander
ordered him to be shot. The second dog he turned
loose on a deer, and he likewise took a look and
then went to his shed. He was ordered shot.
Then he turned the other dog loose and he,just gave
the deer a glance and walked away.
Some time later this old king came to see Alex
ander and wanted to see his dogs. Alexander said,
“Your pups were no good.” Then he told him
what he had done, and the old king with great
surprise reproached Alexander, saying, “Yo>*
should have given them a chance. You turned them
loose on stags and deer. You should have turned
them loose on a lion. My dogs do not trifle with
stags and deer.”
Oh, my brethren, is it not true of us in our
church life that wo have been trying Jesus only
upon the smallest things that we could? Jesus
Christ has not had a chance in this day, I tell you.
The world today does not see Jesus as the world
in the days of the Apostle saw Him, and the reason
is because we do not give Him a chance. We should
turn loose before Him the lions of difficulty. Let
them come with their growls; let them come shaking
their shaggy manes, our Christ is only at His best
when he is conquering the lions, and what we must
come to and what we are coming to, o relse we will
come to nothing, is to that place where our faith
will be so great in the real abiding personal work
ing Christ as that we ourselves through it and
Him can do the impossible deed; can travel the
impossible way and accomplish the impossible
things. That is the test of Jesus, the Son of God.
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