I once, when a boy, disobeyed my father. I have in mind a particular instance of disobedience, and of a character very trying to his patience. When I came rightly to myself and realized my sin I was afraid to meet him. He discovered, without any confession on my part, what I had done. I expected severe punishment. To my surprise he met me with a smile. Taking me by the hand he said: "Let us go out into the orchard." We sat down upon the fallen trunk of an apple tree, and gently placing one arm around my neck, he said: "Peter, do you know that I love you?" I instantly broke down under the weight of this arm of love, and answered as well as my sobs would let me, "Yes, sir!" "Do you love me?" he next said. Again I answered, "Yes, sir!" "Then never again disobey me, my boy, and we will have a sweet and happy life together." And I can say from my heart, right here, I never did.

I now think, dear Brethren, that you are prepared to understand what Peter meant by the words: "Unto you therefore which believe he is precious." You feel that he is precious to you, because he has taken away your sins by giving you a new heart and filling you with his love. You can now say with the Apostle John: "We love him because he first loved us." Now then, inasmuch as ye love him, "abide in his love," and "the God of love and peace shall be with you." May his grace, mercy and peace be with us all forever. Amen!

Sermon by Elder John Kline.

Preached at Tobbins,
Sunday, January 10.

Text.—As ye therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.—Col. 2:6.

Paul addressed these words to the church at Colosse, a city of Asia Minor, in the Roman province called Phrygia. It may be of interest to you for me to tell you something about the character of these people at the time Paul first visited them. Ancient history gives a very dark picture of this. What Paul said of Athens applied equally to Colosse: "The city was wholly given to idolatry." The lower classes, especially, were very ignorant, having no knowledge of God save that which the light of nature gave them.

But when Paul went into their midst, preaching the Gospel of salvation, the prophecy of Isaiah, concerning Zebulon and Naphtali, was fulfilled unto them, as it had been before at Capernaum on the shore of the Galilean Sea: "The people which sat in darkness saw a great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, to them did light spring up." They opened their eyes to the light and rejoiced to see it; and their hearts to the love it revealed, and they took it in. They accepted Christ Jesus the Lord in all his fullness. Faith became to them a living principle. They felt its truth as surely as though with their natural eyes and ears they saw and heard all that it comprehended for time and eternity, for earth and heaven.

But you want to know how I find all this out. Turn with me to the first chapter of Paul's letter to them, and I will show you. Now notice that right in the beginning he addresses them as "saints and faithful brethren in Christ." By "saints" he means that they are holy; and by "faithful brethren" he means to tell how they got to be so. This, I think, is saying a good deal for them; but he goes on: "We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you; having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus; and of the love which ye have toward all the saints, because of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens."

You now see that these Colossian brethren had the three essentials that distinguish a Christian from a pagan, a saint from a sinner, and an angel of light from a demon of darkness. These three are faith, hope and love; but of these Paul says that "love is the greatest." This they had in large measure, because it extended "toward all the saints." It is natural for every Christian to love some of the saints when he is free "to pick and choose;" but to love all is quite another thing.

If you will thoughtfully read this first chapter through, you will see the high place these Colossian brethren held in Paul's confidence, not only as to faith and love, but also as to the enlightenment of their understandings with heavenly wisdom. He sets forth our Lord Jesus Christ as the triune God—Creator, Redeemer and Savior—in loftier terms than are to be found anywhere else in his epistles. Had there been any doubt in his mind as to their ability to understand these revelations, and thus profit by them, they would have been withheld. He would have fed them with milk, as he did his Corinthian and Hebrew brethren, and not with strong food.