God And Beauty

When my daughter was little I use to take her for a ride on a mini bike

through the fields. There were a number of wild flowers, and just on impulse

I said to Cindy, "Let's see how many flowers we can find out here." Every

time we saw a different kind of flower she would pick it, and we would go on

with the search. In a matter of minutes we were amazed at the variety, and

within half an hour we had the most beautiful bouquet of 23 different kinds of

wild flowers. Such an experience made a deep impact on both of us. We were

impressed with the fact that God is a lover of beauty, and that there is more

beauty in God's creation than most of us ever see. If you keep your eyes open,

you never know when or where you will experience new beauties. Douglas

Malloch put it in poetry-

Along the journey here and there

You often find a flower,

Just anytime or anywhere,

No special place or hour.

They are not planted in a row;

You never guess, you never know;

Around a bend a fellow goes,

And right ahead he sees a rose.

If a Christian is not feeding his soul on the beauties of life, he will not be

growing in beauty himself, and will be failing to fulfill the purpose of God in

his life. Rousseau said, "Take from our hearts the love of the beautiful and

you take away the charm of life." Beauty plays an important role in the life

of a believer, but it is seldom given serious consideration. Dr. Harry Fosdick

once said, "Nothing in human life, least of all in religion, is ever right until it

is beautiful." Nothing that is truly Christlike is ever ugly. All of the fruits of

the spirit are beautiful.

William Blake went so far as to say, "A Poet, a Painter, a Musician, an

Architect, the man or woman who is not one of these is not a Christian." He

is saying that every true Christian will add some beauty to life, or he is not

being Christian. Marion L. Bliss in her book The Way Of Wonder explains

why this is so. "Because to be a Christian is to be a follower of perfection,

and a man who seeks perfection soon becomes an artist. The true philosopher

is a follower of truth; the true musician is a follower of harmony and law; the

true architect is a follower of order and design and symmetry; the true

painter is a follower of light and beauty; the true poet is a follower of love.

These paths are the paths of perfection, truth, harmony, law, order, design,

light, beauty and love, and all lead to one goal-God."

The Gospel and beauty have always gone hand in hand in their

transforming march across the world scared by sin. Whenever men turn to

Christ their lives and their environment become more beautiful. When John

Wesley rode up and down through the English countryside during the last

half of the 18th century, his soul was touched by the poverty, and ugliness of

the village life. He decided to start a contest. He distributed flower seeds to

all of the housewives, and he offered prizes to those who could raise the most

beautiful gardens. The result is that the English countryside has the

reputation of being the most colorful in the world. Wesley not only changed

the history of Christianity in the English world, but his love of beauty

changed even the physical environment. He would have said amen to the poet

who wrote,

If of thy mortal goods thou are bereft,

And from thy slender store to loaves alone to thee are left,

Sell one, and with the dole

Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.

Our purpose in this message is to show that the Bible supports this

emphasis on the importance of beauty. It is not a luxury, but a necessity for

the good and godly life. Philosophers have always included beauty among the

highest values of life. Their trinity of values have always been the good, the

true, and the beautiful. We want to consider this subject under three

headings: The fact of beauty; the form of beauty, and the force of beauty.

Let's look first at-

I. THE FACT OF BEAUTY.

Our text tells that God has made everything beautiful in its time. If there

is any man who cannot see that God loves beauty, he is blind indeed. You just

as well try and teach a stone to appreciate Bach as to try and teach such a

person to appreciate the Master Artist of all beauty. Such persons are rare,

however, and Clarence E. Macartney, the great preacher, was convinced that