Faith of Our Fathers – Part 4

The local historian G.R. Balleine was also a clergyman, and in 1940, at the outbreak of the Second World War, he penned a series of 52 lessons around the Apostle’s Creed. Balleine being first a foremost a historian, there’s a lot of history there that I’ve never come across before, and I have studied church history quite a lot.

He’s also master of the pithy anecdote or illustration to bring something to life, which is why Frank Falle says the original history, flowing freely, is a better book to read that its more worthy revisions. Joan Stevens was a fair historian, but she could not write nearly as well as Balleine, who has an almost intimate chatty style.

How times have changed though - " A few people profess not to believe this. We call them Atheists"! Balleine uses Paley's watchmaker argument against that position, which was perhaps the strongest argument for what was called "Natural Theology", but which, as Stephen Jay Gould explains, addressed thoroughly by Charles Darwin.

Here's the linkwhich is worth reading (from Gould's masterpiece) "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory"
http://www.mprinstitute.org/vaclav/Gould1.html

I would also recommend this article:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-ruse/can-a-darwinian-be-a-chri_b_618758.html?guccounter=1

I’m hoping to put some or all of Balleine's book online on Sundays.

Faith of Our Fathers – Part 4: Belief in God
By GR Balleine

Lesson II

Belief in God

I believe in God.

PASSAGE TO BE READ : Genesis xxviii. 10-18.

TEXT TO BE LEARNT : " Thou art about my path and about my bed, and spiest out all my ways " (Ps. cxxxix. 2. P.B.V.).

Aim : To make the fact of God's invisible Presence seem very real and delightful.

Hymns: “O God, our help," and " My God, how wonderful."

APPARATUS : Picture of Jacob's dream.

HOMEWORK: Write down six emergencies in which you would be specially thankful to know that God exists (e.g. when a friend dies, when unjustly accused, etc.).

THOUGHT FOR TEACHERS : True religion is betting one's life that there is a God. Donald Hankey.

GOD IS.

(a) Last week we saw how necessary it is to have a strong belief : but that belief is of little use, unless it is a belief in something true and important. Some believe that the earth is flat, but that belief never helps them, because it is false.

Others believe that beetles once had two extra legs. That may be true, but it is not important enough to make any difference to one's life. The Christian Creed can only deal with things of supreme importance, and the most important fact in the universe is that there is a God. So we begin with the tremendous words, " I believe in God."

(b) A few people profess not to believe this. We call them Atheists. But it must be very hard to believe their Creed.

A clergyman had on his study table a beautiful little globe. An atheist who came to see him asked, " Where did this come from ? " " Some might say from nowhere." " How did you get it ? " "A number of atoms happened to group themselves into this globe by chance."- " Nonsense. Somebody must have made it." " Why should it not have come together by pure accident ? " " Do you think I am a fool ? " " Sometimes I fear you are. Look out of the window at the great world there, a thousand times more wonderful than my papier mache globe. You say truly that my globe must have had a maker, yet you assert that no Maker was needed for the world on which we live ! " It is a thousand times harder to believe in Atheism than to believe in God.

(c) And belief in God makes such a difference to us. A famous Frenchman as a boy was wrecked with his father on a desert island. The father was an unbeliever, and so did not teach his son anything about God. When the child was tiny, he thought that his father must have made everything. When storms roared and lightnings flashed, he thought how wonderful his father must be to be able to do such things.

One day he told his father this, but the father only laughed. " I do not make the thunder and I cannot control it." Then the boy was terrified. The lightning might strike him, the floods might drown him, since there was apparently nobody in control. His whole life was full of fear, until a ship came, and took him back to France, where he learned to say, " I believe in God." But he says that he can never forget those terrible days, when he did not know that there was any God.

(d) The mysteries of life cease to trouble us, when we believe in God. A well-known Professor was giving a lecture to children on plant-life. He showed how the seed produced the plant, the plant produced more seeds. He told them how every part of the plant was built up of tiny cells, full of a wonderful thing called protoplasm, which made them live and grow. " But," he said, " I do not know how protoplasm gets its power of living and growing. That is a closed door of mystery. I should be very glad if anyone would tell me what is behind it." One of the smallest children chirped in : "Please, sir, I know." "Well, what do you think is behind that door ? " " Please, sir, it is God." She was right.

GOD IS A SPIRIT.

(a) When we have grasped the fact that behind everything is God, then we begin to ask the question, What Is God like?

A little girl, who was asked this, answered, " I think God is like an old, old Gentleman, sitting on a throne a million miles above the sky." She was wrong. God is not the least like an old Gentleman, nor does He sit on a throne far above the sky.

(b) " God is a Spirit " (John iv. 24), and a Spirit is invisible. A Spirit has no body. The little girl's mistake is a very common one. In some old churches we see carved over the door the figure of an elderly man with a long beard, holding in his lap a crucifix, and on his wrist a dove. This was meant to represent the Blessed Trinity, but it is absurd. God is " without body " (Article I), and you cannot carve a statue of Someone Who has no body. "No man hath seen God at any time " (John i. 18) : for God is a Spirit, and a Spirit is invisible.

(c) But, if no one has ever seen God, how can we be sure that He exists? Only a very foolish person would say, " I will not believe in anything that I cannot see."

Many of the most powerful things in the world are invisible. No one has ever seen the wind : but we see the branches move as it passes, we see the boats spread their sails and rush forward by its help, we hear it whistling round the corner, we feel it in our faces. No one doubts its existence.

No one has seen electricity. But we see the wire in the lamp grow white-hot as it rushes through, we feel its shock in our body, we see the heavily loaded tram move as the electricity reaches it.

No one has seen God, but we know that He is there by the influence He exerts, the work that He does, the things that can only be accounted for by His Presence.

Let us fix firmly in our minds this thought. God has no body. He is not the least like "an old, old Gentleman." He is invisible like the wind or electricity. We worship a God " Whom no man bath seen or can see " (1 Tim. vi. 16).

GOD IS EVERYWHERE.

(a) The second mistake our little girl made was to say that God lived miles above the sky. God is everywhere. God is here in this schoolroom. If we could be caught up into Heaven, we should not be an inch nearer God than we were in our own homes or when walking through our streets. (Let children repeat Text.)
The Psalmist continues, " If I climb up into Heaven, Thou art there. If I go down to Hell, Thou art there also. If I take the wings of the morning (i.e. fly with the swiftness of light from the east to the west) and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there also shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me " (cxxxix. 7-9).

(b) Now read our Bible story. Jacob had played a shabby trick on his father and his elder brother. Isaac had meant to give the solemn blessing which conferred the headship of the clan to Esau, his eldest son, as soon as he returned from hunting. Jacob had dressed up in his brother's clothes, and fastened goatskins on his neck and arms to make them feel hairy like Esau's, and taken advantage of his father's blindness, and stolen his brother's blessing.

Of course Esau was furious, and Jacob had to fly from home. Instead of the comfort that had been his as son of a wealthy sheikh, he was a lonely exile. He lay down to sleep in the open air with a stone for his pillow. He probably thought, according to the ideas of the ancient world, that he had left his God behind him, that Isaac's God could only be found near Isaac's altar, that he was not only homeless, but Godless. But that night a wonderful dream taught him a new lesson. There were steps to Heaven even from that lonely hillside. God seemed to say, " Lo, I am with thee, and will keep thee  hithersoever thou goest." He learnt that God is everywhere. When he woke, he said : " Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not."

(c) We must grasp this truth. Teach the class Tennyson's lines :-

Speak to Him thou for He hears, and spirit with Spirit can meet :

Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.

One night a lady met a child in a dark country lane. She asked, " Are you not afraid to be alone in the dark ? " " No," said the boy, "you see God is everywhere, and He takes care of us." This is what the first four words of the Creed ought to mean to us.

I cannot see the cool fresh air

With my weak mortal eye,

But yet my mind will never dare

Its presence to deny,

For I am sure that it is there

Without it I should die.

However hard these eyes may stare

My God I cannot see ;

Yet I believe He's everywhere,

And I am sure that He,

Whone'er I breathe a little prayer,

Draws very close to me.