Show St Pauls Chapel II Rev L B Ridgely vicar preached at St Pauls yesterday morning on I The Spirit and the World taking his text from St John xvi 8 and 13 revised I re-vised version When He is come He will convict the world in respect of sin I and righteousness and of judgment C Howbeit he shall guide you I unto all truth Mr Ridgely said in part The forty days between our Lords resurrection and ascension are proof of the reality of His risen life One wonders not that He spent them with us but that they ever came to an end I Why did they I First because his disciples were not perfected They needed to learn a lesson J i les-son impossible so long as they saw i him Second because he had a work to do I for the world impossible so long as he Ihvd visibly in ita rallying point for i i crowds a physical centre for criticism I and controversy That work Jesus Indicates I will i send the spirit And he shall convict the world of sin and of righteousness I and of judgment I is legal formula that he uses As if the world were indicted before God I with three counts in the indictment indict-ment There are three things that men of the world pride themselves upon One their excellen In the sight of any reasonable God Another their justice toward fellow men A third the excellence I excel-lence of their own judgment The worldly mind recognizes cruelty I and fraud because these hurt men and endanger society I cannot recognize sin because it is not cognizant of God The philosophic worldly mind ever denies sin So too the worldly mind believes it is night in its dealing with fellow men even when it repays meanness with I meanness So when t judgment conflicts with Christian judgment the worldly mind I wrong assumes that Christian judgment is I Christianity therefore sets itself i against this pride of the worldly heart Its very aim Is to convince the world j that it is sinful and that Its standards stand-ards of righteousness and judgment are wronsr This is the reason why Christianity is not more popular with the crowds Notice that it is not the plan of God merely to preach the gospel to a man and then if he will not believe be-lieve to dub him a sinner and doom him to hell The spirit comes to convince the world of its own sin to make men stand convicted in their own eyes Note again that all men in and out grn of the church are sinners The difference differ-ence is that we who believe in Christ I have the clue by which we are emerging emerg-ing from the labyrinthine catacombs of sin Those who believe not are In hopeless case But note also that Jesus is not only the clue but also the touchstone of life He who sees and hears Jesus yet rejects him has in fact seen and rejected re-jected holiness and proved the loved sin better than holiness Therefore Jesus says Of sin because they believed be-lieved not In me1 Again i Jesus had lived on visibly in the world many would have declared de-clared him today an eccentric ascetic whom no really sensible person could follow His theories of righteousness would have been rejected because new never tried by hosts of men Therefore he went to the father and left his disciples that they might put the principles In practice and win the world for admiration of his typ of righte ousness Filially by his resurrection Jesus proved the prince of his world a de I ceiver and his principles worthless I and began the destruction of satans power TJhe priests the Pharisees and I j Pontus Pilate had followed that prince and his principles They had sacrificed truth religion and humanity on the altar of policy for selfinterest Their own judgment said this is for your Interest The event showed that selfishness selfish-ness is in fact ruin to men and to the world Little by little the world is learning even this lesson and more and more the standards of Jesus are coming to rule life The world is accepting them The spirit has convinced the world I i step by step that mere expediency mere selfinterest its own canons of judgment are faulty and that the laws of love for the whole race is the true basis of civilization We need not despair of a time when the world shall see also that human nature must be a Jesus judged and said regenerate reinforced from on high if life in the I world is ever to be perfect |