Notes of a Sermon Preached by Rev. W. Robbins, M. A., in Holy Trinity Carthedral on September 23
Jeremiah 18.6. "Behold, as the clay in the potter's hand, so ave ye in my hand, O house of Israel."
A challenge from the prophet" to his countrymen to reflect on the Power behind the world, and from the nature of the case this challenge is as full of force today as then; it is one calculated to make us think hard in view of present world conditions.
Now it is good for us at times to break loose from orthodox and conventional Christian teaching and try to get at the truths about God otherwise.
Many years ago Zophar the Naamathite challenged his friend Job, thus '"Can'st thou by searching find out God?' The answer to which is both "yes" and "no." No, we cannot in Zophar's words "find out the Almighty to perfection."' That has to be given by revelation. It needed a personal visit of God's own Son, who came as the "express image of God," and who rebuked Philip's blindness _in those matchless words:
"He that-hath seen me, hath seen the \Father; how sayest thou then show us the Father Man by searching could never have imagined Jesus Christ. God had to come down to our plane and force Himself on our notice before man could understand even dimly what He was like.
But the answer is also "yes." Man, if he will only think, can find out God to a certain extent, and when we consider how clearly has left His traces in the world and in man himself, it is strange that the latter misses Him Then that mysterious force un-denying matter and causing it to cohere. Physicists tell us that the atom is composed of numberless electrons in a state of motion, yet all held together in orderly. fashion by some permeating force. Think of all the matter in the universe of different types and forms yet all held together by this force. Here is a marvel which is beyond us.
Gravity again, another inherent force apparently unlimited in its range. Of course it may be that afl "these are really manifestations of one and the same fore interpenetrating and governing matter, but that does not affect the argument. Here is a stupendous and bewildering exhibition of force within and around us and as reasonable beings we argue that whoever created it is greater fan the sum of Be created energy, he cannot be less.
Man can, by utilizing forces within his competence, create a situation where he is infinitely less in comparison to the force which he has produced e.g. the discharge of a 15 inch gun, but that is quite different. He has not created the force generated in the gun, he has merely used his knowledge to concentrate existing force for his own purpose.
We are concerned now with the fact of force in the universe, it is there and we infer that someone greater put it there.
What then can we search out about God, the great Potter who claims that He moulds the human clay to His purposes? A great deal, but to-night we will look- at three attributes only
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.