p. 388 | God’s Challenge

Signs Publishing Co. · Melbourne, Victoria · Jun 21, 1920

FromAustraliasian Signs of the Times, Vol. 35, No. 25.

God’s Challenge

PREACHING recently at the anniversary of the Albert Park Methodist Church on the text, “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for Me?” (Jer. 32:27) the Reverend J. H. Cain said that the challenge which God addressed to the prophet in the days of old was the challenge which still met us in our modern life. The God of infinite resources, he said, was always appealing to the faith, courage, and expectancy of His people. This is a ‘note which we are glad to see struck in these times when so many are pinning their faith to human speculation rather than to the prophecies and promises and power contained in the Word of God. He continued:—

The tendency among many was to limit the interference of God in human affairs. But experience taught us that in individual and national life God was always doing the impossible on our behalf. Men and women who seemed to be beyond the pale of salvation were constantly being redeemed by the grace of God. Difficulties which appeared to be insurmountable were

taken out of our pathway; problems which looked unsolvable found their interpretation; social evils which were our despair were beginning to disappear in answer to Christian faith and effort. A new vision of the all-sufficiency of God on the part of Christian men would transform the world. The age of moral miracles was not yet past, but would shine upon the world in all its glory when we saw God in all His beneficent fullness. The man who would listen to and believe in God would find that the resources of God never failed and his simple unshaken faith will never be put to shame.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God today, and His power is no whit less than in the days when He liberated an enslaved nation, opened the waters of the Red Sea, led His millions of Israelites through the uninhabited waste and wilderness of Arabia for forty years, stayed the waters of the Jordan, flung down the walls of Jericho, closed the mouths of lions, quenched the heat of the fiery furnace, and performed a myriad other miracles which none but the Almighty God could do. It is in such a God and in His power and love and beneficence and fatherly care we place our trust for time and eternity. The God who unrolled the history of the future to His prophet Daniel, writing in advance the details of history which have never needed to be revised, has told us in His infallible Word that the day of His coming is near at hand. We have passed waymark after waymark, and are rapidly nearing the end of the wonderful journey. Soon, in harmony with the revelations of His blessed Book, we shall see Him coming in the clouds of heaven with His mighty hosts of angel attendants in all the glory of heaven to redeem His faithful people and to put an end to the tragedy of sin. In that blessed hope we trust and rest. And may the glad day soon come when the fruition of that hope shall be realised by all His waiting servants.