Worth of a Religion of Sense.
There is a good example of the unworth of a religion of sense in the fourteenth chapter of Acts. The people of Lystra saw a cripple healed. Without regard to the principles of righteousness involved, the people at once concluded that the workers of the miracle were divine, and proceeded with much pomp to render them worship. This, of course, the true messengers of God refused. A little later some shrewd enemies of these men of God came to Lystra, circulated evil reports, and then these men of Lystra stoned the healer, and he was dragged out of the city supposed to be dead. Such is ever likely to be the fruits of a religion of sense,—of feeling and appearance. There will yet be seen in these days of multiplying delusions manifestations of this sort of sense religion. Those who have accepted of the true religion from the emotional side will in times of trial, when principle only will hold, see greater manifestations or appearances of power among the false religion, and will yield as tumultuously as did the people of Lystra; and many of those who have been deceived by the healings of "Hypnotism" or "Christian Science," believing it to be "the great power of God," will as readily yield to some other delusions. Many stand as did the Jews to whom Jesus said, "Except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe." The only religion which will hold in these days is that which is founded in the simple truth of God, entirely apart from all manifestations, save the fruits of the Spirit, implicit obedience to God.