Mm mm. Uh.

Let us pray. The words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable. And I sight, Oh, God, our strength and our redeemer. All we ask it in Jesus name, Amen. A discussion of suffering with John. Q Presbyterian is about as popular as a rattlesnake at a children's party. Somehow it's almost as though we fear that talking will cause the rattlesnake to strike. Best that we put this unwelcome guest out of our mind or out of mind, out of existence. But no, not really. For back, it comes even more unwelcome. Now, what horrible thought? Is it possible that I too must suffer? And then one day it's dry. We cry. Oh, God, How can it be? Have these thoughts ever raced through that skull so hard to penetrate? Has it ever happened to you or to a loved one? Happen? What do you mean, happen? Does it happen to you? Do you bring it upon yourself? Does God send the punishment there? What does it mean to suffer? And so the mind searches for the questions arise even as they have gone down through the long centuries of man's existence. And what do you say, fellow Christian? What well-thought out answer do you have? Or what apparently rolls off the tongue so glibly? Pardon the sarcasm, but involvement in the search makes it difficult not to be so. Unfortunately, in this area of Christian thinking, there seems to be as much model of thought and fear. Pious nonsense peddled. If any there is. What do you say to a person who is suffering? Perhaps you first ought to think about what suffering is. No, no, that's much too painful and difficult. Much easier to quote scripture. Let's see. There's a man who just lost his son. Leukemia. How about whom? The Lord Loveth he also chasing. That ought to be a good one. Or maybe Lord have given in. The Lord have taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. That didn't help either. Well, I'll just reassure him. Have faith. Just have faith. It's God's will. God's will. God's will be damned. I hate God. And now what? Smooth talking question must withdraw and leave this man alone. Obviously, he's no Christian. And so it goes for mine. It hates to struggle, but struggle at most, for we have lived too long with our stereotyped concepts of suffering. You see, What is it? Is it a condition of the physical body? Is it merely an attitude of a disturbed mind? Or is it only a weakening of one's will? Is only the person who grimaces and complains. The recipient of our condolences. Look at that strong hearted Pugh sitting over there. He could almost retch at times from the pain, but no sign. That attractive looking lady looking so calm. Just lost her husband. Look yonder, that fine young couple. They just lost another child. That fine looking elderly gentleman, his only son wasting away with cancer. No, you can't always spot it. A bad or a complaining tongue doesn't always define the limits of suffering. Quality and quantity seem to be meaningless concepts in the midst of human suffering. Has the woman who has been in bed for 53 years suffered more than the woman who lived for five years with an alcoholic husband and who beat her regularly? I don't know. Do you? Which brings more pain than life of a surgeon or mental anguish over a son gone astray. I don't know. Do you? Which is worse, acute illness or chronic invalids? I don't know. You. Which is worse, to be bereft of one that you love or to watch him waste away. Slowly and painfully. I don't know. Do you? Are you sure? Are you still living with a stereotyped concept of suffering among human kind? It's much easier to put things in neat little packages. They're easier to handle that way. Oh, Lord. Deliver us from the easy thought helps us to settle for complacency. The Bible at least offers no false comfort. The Bible can look on life at its blackest and see it at its worst and still believe in God. My put it almost slip, says the psalmist. And there are many hours for the sufferer when it is dark and not light. But to the psalmist and to Joel, to Jeremiah and to the prophets, God was in the shadow, keeping watch above his own. Better admit the pain, the loneliness, the fear, the struggle of our souls. It is darkest before the lion, but perhaps dawn the perhaps when that dawn light break, we can look through the mist and see that God is still God keeping watch above His own. There appeared in the Reader's Digest not long ago Some Words to Live By, composed by a famous general who offered this advice to his men. Don't f t p don't fight the problem. By this, he meant that an officer shouldn't waste time wishing he didn't have a certain order to carry out. Best to use all his energy and strength, trying to find ways to carry that order out rather than fighting the problem. For centuries, men's minds have been fighting the problem of human suffering. Even the Old Testament enters into this. Certainly, no more penetrating or poetic exposition of the problem can be found than in the Book of Job and some of the songs. If suffering just didn't exist, life would be so much more peaceful. But it does exist. The New Testament doesn't seem to fight the problem. There seems to be no theory of suffering, no abstract speculation of the problem of pain. The problem is taken for granted and understanding is tackled. This understanding centers around Jesus Christ, our troubled mind. Perhaps our answer lies here. Let's look further. Look, there's a young man who just lost his wife in a freak accident. Poor sobbing soul. So can you see beyond the tears and behold, the agonized love and concern and the faith of God or God has suffered with us? Yes, He has even suffered for us. We have a fellowship with God amidst our suffering. For He was the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Indeed, he has borne the afflictions of us all. God comes to us in Jesus Christ and reveals the extent of His love and the suffering of our Lord. Can we not find in the suffering face of Christ a healing balm for our sores, for those who know deprivation in life? Even the son of man had no place to lay his head for those who are bereft. Jesus, too, wept at the grave of Lazarus. For those who are lonely, alone, deserted by his friends, misunderstood by his disciples, denied and betrayed by his closest associates, He no longer thirst, fatigue. Pain. Need we look further for a God who suffers for us. His suffering encompasses our very own, and God continues to be revealed through human suffering. It is His concern for the last the least and the lost in our society that continues our face to face encounter. Lord, When did we see the hungry and greedy or thirsty and give the drink? And when did we see the naked and clothed the You're a stranger and welcome the when did we see the sick and in prison and visiting the king will answer them truly I say to you as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it on to me. It is God who reveals himself in the extreme needs of our fellow men. It is God who speaks to us through their heartaches. What a strange way for God to come, argues the mind. Why not? As a brilliant theologian? A powerful military ruler. Suffering seems so unnecessary. What an insane waste it all is. All poor. Mind how hard it is to accept life at its deepest level. Much easier to bleed and let blood flow over the straw man of religious preoccupation than to share in the poignancy of the sick, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the imprisoned. But God shared it. And look through the mess there. God is still God keeping watch above his own. Look at that young man over there. It looks like he's lost his leg. What's that he's saying? Why did this have to happen to me? Quickly now, searching mind. What shall the answer be? Things could be worse. It could have been. Both legs. Are poor minds still more comfortable with the easy answer? Who knows why it had to happen? But there he lies. Now there is nothing but acceptance of the brute fact. Perhaps there is more. Perhaps there is learning. What were those words of Saint Paul? We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance, produces character and character produces hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God's love has been poured into our hearts. Is it possible, then, that through suffering, God teaches us some of the deeper meanings of life? Again, Paul wrote. When I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I gave up childish way. Between these two stages of a man's life, there is a large gap filled with what? Is it possible that growing pains can be identified with suffering? Is it possible that unless one leaves himself open to some of the painful processes of maturing, that God can never reach him or teach him? Yes, it is possible. And yet we protect ourselves and our loved one from the realities of life, even spending beautiful castles in the sand in order to hide ourselves from reality. Is this life? Is this fair to answer to our children? Look out. Here comes a ball. Now there are no longer easy times. No more soft answers. No more pampering hand to care for us. Now there is only pain to accept. Now only the lesson to learn. Why is it that so many of us can only be reached by the loving hand of God when the crisis comes? Why is it that we have so little ability to see through those myths and see God as God? Look again, troubled by that woman over there has been in bed for 53 years. Horrible thought you say. Yes, but look at her. Have you ever seen such equanimity or such peace? Look, all everyone flocks to her. What's her secret? Let's ask, please, Lovely lady. What secret is yours? You are not always this way. You have to learn not to be afraid to depend on others. Strange answer, whereas dependance to do with it. Wait. There's an ancient story that tells of a man who died and went both to heaven and hell. He visited hell and saw it all present, or just as they had done on earth, except that they had elbows that would not bend even an inch. As he visited heaven, he found exactly the same situation. The people were just as they had been on earth, except that they had elbows that would not bend one inch. He could not tell any difference, therefore, between heaven and hell until he saw the denizens of each place seated at the table trying to eat. Here. The dramatic difference appeared in hell the stiff elbow. People were in turmoil. Knocking one another over the head and unable to eat because each one was trying to feed himself. But in heaven, great joy and communion was everywhere because each person was stiff, elbows fed the person across the table from him and vice versa. The capacity to depend and be depended upon often makes the difference between heaven and hell. Is it possible that God asked us to share our sufferings that Roman daily lives almost as though she were the one upon whom everyone was dependent? And yet, she says, I learned not to be afraid to depend on others. Is it even conceivable that God can use our suffering in a sense, can make us towards to other people through our suffering? It is entirely possible if we let God be God. But you are still troubled searching my. Now what is it? Why is it that though some people overcome suffering, some don't. Why is it the two people undergoing almost the identical pain and suffering will come through it with two entirely different attitudes? Is there no definite answer which both can use? Well, yes and no for mine. You see, it's not just the suffering and isolation, but it is the relationship of Bob to the sufferer that makes the difference. Some people never do anything but fight the problem. Some people refuse to search, to grow, to pray. They would rather deny the existence of suffering or run from it or gloss over it in some way. They refuse to let God run their lives. They refuse to let God be God. Or that would be weakness. And they will let this thing themselves. But you see their mind to let God be God. We must look at him as a is in Christ and see him suffering for us. Only then can we be comforted and give comfort. Listen again to the words of Saint Paul. Thank God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that He is our father and the source of all mercy and comfort, for He gives us comfort in our trials so that we in turn may be able to give the same word of strong sympathy to others in theirs. Indeed, experience shows that the more we share Christ's suffering, the more we are able to give of his encouragement. This means that if we experience trouble, we can pass on to you comfort and spiritual help. Or if we ourselves have been comforted, we know how to encourage you to endure patiently the same sort of problems that we have ourselves endured. We are quite confident that if you have to suffer troubles as we have done, then like us, you will find the comfort and encouragement of God. Yes, dear mind. God is still God and He still keeps watch above his own. Let us pray. Oh, God. Our father. We thank to you that thou has come to us in Christ. That all has even suffered for us. We ask that we might be open to all the realities and problems of our lives so that somehow we may be as obedient as was Christ our Lord. And so the army is to use us and the work of thy kingdom. Or we pray it in his name. Let us now worship God as we bring our ties and our offerings.

Maybe May needed. Merciful God, we beseech thee that our world now meet with us in this part of our service by opening our minds to thy truth, by warming our hearts, by love, by strengthening our wills that we may be able to do thy will through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Grace to Europe from God, the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Since writing the sermon or as you know, the sermon must be ready Saturday morning for its mimeograph so that you may pick it up at the close of the service, if you like. I was involved in a panel discussion in the Phenix area for mental health. This was Friday night and I was impressed by several different things which may or may not show up as I preach you this sermon. I was deeply grateful that the sermon I was preaching this Sunday was on Grace, the grace of God. For implicit in this discussion, in this panel panels awareness of why I think they called it aspects mental and mental health, aspects of sin and guilt. Something like the. We were trying to in some way thread our way through the various understandings of sin and guilt and a good majority of the people present. There was a large audience there. Seem to assume this came out from the questions that what the church really did in the world was promote guilt and sin, make it very difficult because we had all kinds of moral teaching laws and people couldn't live up to these laws or moral teachings, and consequently they would fall ill mentally because of this very bad thing, this religion, which was promoted throughout the world. Now, we as Christians, of course, disagree with this, but we know full well that some people do suffer from a feeling of guilt and sin, which is never resolved by their faith. Consequently, this is something we must take seriously. But the modern man seems determined to live his life, ignoring the fact there is a God of grace behind all of life. And the church exists not to simply tell people the difference between right and wrong so that people will somehow be good citizens and not get in anyone else's hair, but rather that out of a knowledge of God's acceptance of them in Jesus Christ, they may be free to live a life of justice and truth and beauty that comes from a living relationship with this living God. There is no theme which should occupy the attention of man in the church. More than that, this God who cannot be escaped has invaded time in order to be the God of these creatures of time, namely ourselves. This is an important theme, and I don't want to be misunderstood when I say theme. Too often modern man has escaped from God by talking about ideas about God. We have dogmatic conclusions, we have ideas, we have concepts, and and we are forever talking about these. And sometimes we fail to realize that the only reason the church says anything about this is because we have to put into words that which is the experience of man, that God has touched us, reached us, and we cannot help but say something about it, hence our dogma or teaching. I am too afraid that very often Protestant Christians have accepted the grace of God and made of it a dogma or a teaching or a concept. They're forever talking about this. They're like a student. Going to the university constantly acquires more and more knowledge, more and more data for his sometime to be written theme or thesis for a Ph.D., the perennial student who never has time to live his life on the basis of the wealth and wisdom that has come to him from his studies. We are thinking today on the theme A Life Built on the Grace of God and this scriptural introduction, which I have read to you from the book of Galatians, contains more than enough for us to focus our attention. And I hope our our spirits that God may reach us and help us again the phrase the grace of God. Has a great meaning for some of you. For many of you, I think it is simply another sort of a of an obscure phrase hung over from a lost weekend the church had some centuries ago. We're not quite sure what it means. We are not terribly concerned to ferret out how it applies to us. We know that maybe God is a sort of a nice being back there, but it's pretty empty. God, for many, is thought of as a first called or the sum of altruism and man. Or he's a name for the mysterious elements which are found in life. Some may even think that he is the ground of all being. I want to leave it there to have any idea that this God has anything to do with man who who has to have to struggle on this planet of ours. This is alien. And for all the phrase used in the sermon this morning, I take seriously the fact that God is behind all of life and that out of God's very nature we cannot help as Christians but understand that He is a gracious God, that he has acted on our behalf in spite of all the question marks we have in the living of life, and that a true understanding of this may change our approach to living and certainly be a an element in integrating our lives and helping us to wholeness again. From the interpreter's Bible, this word about the word grace. For the writer. Grace was the most beautiful word in all the tongues of men and angel gracefulness, attractiveness, graciousness, kindness, goodwill, and plain whatever pleased man was, Grace in Christ made the world still more beautiful by making it mean God's favor. Contrary to man's desert, grace was God's gift of himself to sinful men before Christ came to live in Him. Paul It felt like an enemy alien, a guilty criminal, a bankrupt debtor, a slave without money to buy freedom, an orphan in a demon ridden universe, and in Christ. All this was changed. Now, you and I have an understanding of this word and the key to God's very nature by looking at Him, of course, through Jesus Christ. This is the summing up of all that Jesus Christ has done for man. When we ask whether a man can accept grace or not, I think we're up against something very interesting, especially in modern life. Modern man has very little place for recognition of a need for God or his responsibility to a living God. We're not able to take kindly to any word that declares us bankrupt in the modern universe. We've surrounded ourselves with all kinds of reminders of how erudite, how smart we are. We don't look very pitiful, do we? One Within the last several days, we have shot something off into the air, and now it's orbiting hundreds of thousands of miles away, orbiting the sun for the first time in the history of the universe. Something alien and strange is there because man is so able, so capable. What? It matters very little to God, it seems to me, whether man can develop his toys and tools to such a degree that he can that he can play hide and go seek with a planet if he is incapable of understanding the God who hung the planets and of relating himself to him and to his brother. Wheeler says the end of mankind is to become a community of persons in freely willed and complete dependance on and harmony with the all Holy God or whatever this kind of word is said to modern man. He gets his back up. He does not want to think of himself as estranged from his fellows or from his God or from himself. But God is still there. I don't know whether you pay attention to the reading of the Scriptures as you might, but if you listen to the 139 Psalm, here is the experience of a man hundreds of years ago who couldn't shake off the consciousness that God was there. Whatever he did, wherever he went, whatever he thought there was God. And this became an annoyance to him. And somehow or other, though, he was glorying in it in part of the Psalm at one place, he focuses on those who hate God and says, Oh God, how I hate those who hate you. Though this may be my modern psychological interpretation of the Psalm, I cannot help but feel that this is what happened to the man. He tried to get away from the living God who was always there, and he found that he couldn't express himself against God. But he finally focused on those who didn't think that he did and expressed his hatred for at least one poor man cannot really stand to be exposed to the glaring light of a God who is not only holy, but who is loving. Sometimes some of the most anguished soul that I speak to find their anxiety from being beloved by someone to whom they cannot return love. This in itself causes all kinds of consternation. Well, God has loved us, and He has given us a full account of himself in Jesus Christ. And if you and I are going to have an adequate understanding of what men do in reaction to this God who invades all of life, just remember what men did to price. His contemporaries turned against him. He came to his own and his own received him not. And finally they hung him on a cross. And the eternal God who has the whole world in his hands is now seen by the Christian as the God of the pierced hands hung on a cross. Because this is the price, the pain, the difficulty that comes from the estrangement in the life of man. And this is what the church has the opportunity to speak to. We talk very clearly about that which is wrong, that what you saw were that which is rebellious, that which is so earthy that it destroys our vision of what God intended for man. And in the saying of it, men say the church is making me uncomfortable. I can name for you a half a dozen people who refused to come to Mountain View Church anymore because the preaching from the Word of God makes them feel guilty. Well, now, if there was ever any attempt on the part of anyone in this church to make anyone feel guilty, this is missing the mark completely. But what do we do? Point up that which makes us aware of how far we drift from God and from God's intent for the world and for our lives. And we become uncomfortable. Maybe it's then that we can begin to move out into wholeness and salvation, as the Scriptures say, for the God of grace here, that we are destroying our lives. We, the ones who are capable of orbiting something around the sun, also are capable of pointing our missiles at our fellow man across the world. And here we stand, the victim of possible annihilation. I recommend to every single person in this room Seeing the picture on the beach for this picture is not a dream. This picture can be actual reality within our generation. When God seeks to tell his children you're on the wrong path, this ultimately may lead to your destruction. He makes us uncomfortable and we wonder, Can this be a God of grace? But the Scriptures cannot help but say, Look, you're driving on the wrong side of the road, and if you do not get back on this right side of the road, the oncoming traffic will annihilate. And if the church has to say this, we do not seek to create some great neurosis in the world, but rather to bring man again to some knowledge of how he may live life in contact with God and with the others who inhabit this planet with Him. One of the dangers that we have in preaching a sermon like this is that men will be so absorbed in the concept of a God of grace who loves them with an everlasting love, and who knows that they will never be perfect, that they will always forever have this estrangement at the heart of things until their lives are over, until God has a whole new order of being for them. And men begin to justify, as one author puts it, justify the sin instead of justifying the sinner. There is much of this in Christendom. We have ways of excusing the fact that we are so mean that we are so incapable of letting the grace of God invade our lives. You and I cannot know the grace of God unless we give ourselves to Him. If we begin to talk about the grace of God without that ultimate love affair with the eternal you and I make a mockery of the whole business. For God never is pictured in the Christian religion as the God who doesn't care what happens to his children. He cares desperately. He cared enough to invade the world. He cared enough to suffer in price. This is how much he cares what God forever hates, the thing that bedevils the life of the sinner. But he never once turns his back on the sinner. Who responds to his maker? This is what we have to say to the world before God has given us. He has justified it, if you please, in Jesus Christ. Well, justified is almost as poor a word for modern Christians as is the word great. But the easiest and I hope I'm not misunderstood here, the easiest way to say this is a man who is justified, is treated by God. Just as if I'd never seen. Can this be so? Well, this is the way the Scriptures say that he treats has been Christ the God through Christ, perfect obedience and Christ's love, that He is the man, the God man who leads us to God and says, This is our offering to thee. And when God sees us, He sees us just as if we had not seen, but never without the pride and the price in event in effect for the modern Christian is that of giving himself to God. One of the things that annoyed the Catholic priest who was on the panel with me Friday night in Phenix was that he said, when you talk about this relationship with God and all the rest, that somehow or other you have made this, He said, I agree with your subjective interpretation, but he says what we need is something objective. This is what he meant, that there be the church. He never quite spelled this out, but anyone who knew the background could see it very clearly. We need a church that can say, You can do that, you can't do that. And I had to say, Well, no, no, Reverend, sir, we we don't have the kind of specifics that you have in terms of spelling out what a man must do and how he must do it. He had used an illustration in his presentation that went something like this. A person is working for a man who has lots of money and lots of food. And so this man who needs food for his family takes the food home. Well, of course, the Roman Catholic Church can say that this is not stealing. But he had already said somewhere else in his presentation that stealing was a universal principle, that wherever it happens, it's sin. And I said, I cannot present to the Christians some idea of how to live his life by saying, you can steal so much before it becomes this kind of a sin. This is annoying. Well, he didn't show it, but, you know, we clerics understand each other. Somehow or other, you and I, in hammering out, he asked, How do you know the will of God? Then you don't have a church to tell you. Yes or no? No, we don't. Within the life of the church, within the love we share for one another. There may be some guidance and some help, but we are free to respond to the grace of God in whatever culture we are placed. And if this is subjective, this is also existential that, no, we have to make up our mind. We have to live. We have to fight for justice. We have to love. This is part of living and in the living of life. We live it by the grace of God, knowing full well that whatever we do will be in fact one friend this morning. So I don't like our first confession because it says there is no health in a pretty healthy character. And he didn't like this. Well, he is a healthy character. But I said it means simply, sir, that regardless of how healthy you are, you're still infected. And this Christian man understands he is forever infected As long as he lives all his life on this earth, he is infected. But this does not mean that the health of God Almighty cannot come in and move in and help us in spite of our infection so that we are free to do what little we can and what little light we have from from the face of Jesus Christ, which lights up all of our horizon. And we know full well that no matter what we do, it may still have some elements of selfishness and wrongness in it, but God's grace covers this. This does not, however, justify the sin, the estrangement, the loveless, the selfishness, the hatred. You and I, when we stand in the presence of a gracious God revealed to us in Jesus Christ, cannot help but say, Here, Oh God, take my life. And from that day forward, if there is a watershed in your experience, you begin to walk with an awareness of a Holy God who would touch everything in life of a loving God, who would help you to shape, to build, if you please, the living of life. In the seventh chapter of Matthew. Jesus said, You're going to have to build. He doesn't give you lots of time. He says, By the way, it's a narrow gate. It's a tough goal. It's not an easy Broadway. Too often we Protestants have said. The justification by faith covers everything. We have no problems. God does not justify us by faith until we say, My whole life belongs to the old God. And then we begin to build a brick at a time of a relationship at a time. And this is hard going and this is precarious building. But a God who is gracious can make us great, and a God who is Christ like can make us Christ like. And just as under grace, I have used the word justification. Now, under the peace with God, which is what Paul is talking about here. We may talk about sanctification. What in the world is that word mean? Well, these two words get balled up in Christian thinking all the time. Once a man has said to God, and of course we must say it over and over again, God, I accept your love. I know I am bankrupt. Without it, I give myself to the Then God begins to help us in the building of life, so that as we continue day by day through the short span we have, he makes us like unto Christ. When I'll grant you, I don't know too many terribly Christ like characters in Mountain View, and I am sure that you would be the first to say you don't see any terribly Christ like characters on the staff of Mountain View, but God in Christ is still dedicated to making us like unto His son. And it comes along sometimes in the least expected moment, in the quiet conversation, in the small deed, and the moment any of us would say that is Christ like the one accused would say, No, no, not really. But again, an illustration of the grace of God for God may so lift us out of ourselves that we can begin to walk with our brothers in the love of Christ. God can make us agents in a divided world for reconciliation. And the minute we say, Can you use me? We don't see how, but the Christian faith says that he does, and that God's first intention is to make those His children who have responded to His grace like unto Christ. The Catholic priest the other night gave us a long dissertation. He was a Jesuit, so it was very carefully spelled out, took more time than he should have. But that's just a Protestant glory. But he gave us a description of mental health. Then he asked me for one. In effect, I could only say for the Protestant Christian, our picture of mental health is Jesus Christ himself. And insofar as any Christian begins to approximate the life that God intended for us, it is because we look just a bit like Christ. The reason why Abraham Lincoln and this is a tired illustration, but you know it the reason why Abraham Lincoln is honored by the whole world is not because of the little things that were strange and very human about him. But he is honored because in the big things, this man made decisions as Christ would have him make. And when the South and the North were at each other's throats, he agonized over his nation as Christ agonized over Jerusalem. This is what makes a man universal. This is what makes a man truly belong. If you would have accused Abraham Lincoln Lincoln of being Christ like he would have been the first to be cast, for he could not see it in himself. But God forgives us as we build our lives cannot help but help us to be forgiving. If we find it impossible to forgive those who will find us and who somehow hurt us in the deep recesses of our hearts. If God cannot help you to forgive, then perhaps we need to reexamine again whether we've really been justified, whether God's process of sanctification. Hidden though it seems to be, has or has not been at work in your life in mind. The God of grace. The God of peace. Are these stupid empty words, or are these the hard realities upon which the world must be built or else the world perishes? What are you building your life on? What really do you focus on? Some kind of family heritage, some kind of herd instinct, some kind of unspoken creed. That's about us in the American scene. Too many Protestant Christians do just that. But if the God who invades, even the American scene is there, and if he is the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has acted to bring us back to himself again, then this is the God who can help you in the building of your life. This is so practical that before this day is over, your acceptance of this kind of allegiance or rejection of it will be in part, inevitable. One hopper, whom I've been reading recently, is this wonderful passage in his first chapter on the cost of discipleship. Happy are the simple followers of Jesus Christ who have been overcome by His grace and are able to sing the praises of the old sufficient grace of Christ with humbleness of heart. Happy are they? Who, knowing that grace can live in the world without being of it, will, by following Jesus Christ, are so assured of their heavenly citizenship that they are truly free to live their lives in this world. Happy are they? Who know that discipleship simply means the life which springs from grace, and that grace simply means discipleship. Happy are they who have become Christians in this sense of the word for them? The word grace has proved a bond of mercy. Grace to you. And peace from God, the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amy. Let us continue our worship by the bringing of our pies and offerings to God.

Be seated. But I pray in silence that God may speak to us now through the preaching of His Word. In the name of the Spirit of Christ. Amen?

Fragment from the book in the New Testament, which is the history of the first century of Christian missionary activity. The Book of Acts seventh chapter in the sixth verse, where the men of Thessalonika are concerned about Paul and Silas. And they said, These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also. This text sounds more like a description of Communist agents than Christian apostles when read in the 20th century. Well, that fact is enough food for thought in itself. The recent Air Force manual ruckus, which you may have read about in your magazines and newspapers. Has restored a bit of confidence to at least one pastor. It is a regular procedure for ministers of the Gospel to fill out letters of recommendation to governments and agencies that those who are Christians and religious are to be trusted to conform to everything that the government does and to cause not anyone any trouble at all. As a Christian minister, I prefer the atmosphere of suspicion to some degree. For the Christian church has been accused of being subversive from Roman times until today. And in a sense, for good reason. I am not attesting to the truth or falsehood of these accusations, but I think the position will be clear by the end of the sermon. First. Fear. Much of the name calling and uneasiness comes from our doubts about ourselves and our social and political institutions. Now, many of you would say, Who, me? No, not on your life. I think that things are doing very well. When you're afraid, there has to be something or someone upon whom you can invent your terror. And it's revealing to some extent that there are those who take the church and the faith seriously enough to look to it for help. And when they are disappointed, their reaction has emotion in it as well as thought. In this case, it must be. People would say that the enemy has taken over the churches and so stifled her ability to speak and act to lead us out of our fears. Now, the accusations of the sort that you've been reading in your magazines, the newspaper has come from men who, it would appear are on the inside of the church. What makes it more credible is that these men gather together in associations and councils, but they are usually Christians of a certain stripe who accept blindly our historic stance as Americans. They endorse, without question, our nationalistic self-righteousness. They say they represent a segment of Christendom when actually there are but small groups of hate mongering fundamentalists and to some extent some Roman Catholic propaganda which would seek to discredit the Protestant wing of Christendom. They use scare tactics. Guilt by association is a common practice. The McCarthy era still echoes in what they write and say. We can't blame the poor man who writes the manual for this kind of material that we read between the lines. How was he to know? They say where there's smoke, there's fire, and the fire is solely the hate and the envy of some of these people who represent themselves as responsible spokesmen. I remember another era not too many years ago when John McCain, Dr. McKay, was then president of Princeton Theological Seminary, was called one of the leading pink churchmen of his time. I know, Dr. McKay. I am a personal friend. I have heard him lecture. I read his books. I think I know his mind. But the people at that time said. Look. Read what he said. And I read with dismay. I think most of us are aware that you could sit down in conversation with someone with a tape recorder for about two or 3 hours, and he could ask you questions about certain topics and you would talk on with some vehemence and interest. And then he could take that tape home, use his scissors properly, and you could come out endorsing. You could be writing a television ad, buy what you said as an endorsement for Crime, Inc., and that what you really wanted to do was to kill your mother. And this is precisely the kind of literature that is being used to make this kind of alignment of the of the Christian church. Now, some men are fearful also that Christians would dare to utter any word which does not echo Caesar's political defense of the West. One of the great assumptions of our country is that the church should teach us the difference between right and wrong, and that we should do a few little deeds of kindness and stick to the gospel or something like that. Failing to realize that there are segments of our society and population which would cloak in self-righteousness and with an aura of religion, special interests. The America First doers are the first to say their prayer and also to undermine everything the church holds dear and even America. Now the universal revelation of the person and purpose of God is turned into a parochial dynamic for particular interests and the love for all men who are the objects of God's love is inconceivable to the people who worship the flag in the party. There's another area which strikes some fear into the souls of our countrymen. Some of the things said by Christians sound like some of the things said by communists. Never mind what the motivation is on either side of what the man meant by what he said. If the Communist says he's for it, we ought to be against it. This is an idiot philosophy. The church has suffered from the I'm against folks, especially when they're within the ranks. And we've done this for a long time. This is a statement that never takes into account truth, God's truth, and will It can crush people under the guise of being consistent. And loyalty to a no is a loyalty of negation. One of the examples of this was the Cleveland Conference on World Order held by the National Council of Churches this time last year. Church one gathered without prejudice to see what should be said to the world situation from the standpoint of the gospel. In the discussions, it became clear that to them, the hundreds of millions of Asiatic were divorced from the rest of the world by the current arrangement of the Nations of Man. They thought their thought was that these people went unrecognized in the world and in this isolated condition, there was very little chance of their ever sharing in the problems and solutions which might be recognized if they were to understand it. As we live side by side on the globe, the recognition of Red China seemed to them to be the one step which should be taken to move in a direction of beginning to work out some of the difficulties that we face. There were no communists present at the meeting. There was no one fronting for their ideas. In fact, the communist world was already disturbed by internal suspicion between their two great powers the Soviets in Russia and Mao Zedong. More light could be let into the relationship of nations if we did not act as though Red China did not exist. But the world began to cry out in protest that the Turkmen were being taken in by the Communists. And this was said without reference to what had actually happened, or the arguments which were said for. Fellow Christians, we have seen the void and the vacuum in which man is called to live in the 20th century. And we're scared because of the demise of imperialism in which we've lived so long. Through the changes which have come through industrialization in the world, we ceased to have any real sense of security. And our life appears to have lost its meaning and didn't scare anyone. If God is dead too, can panic. I think our situation is sort of like there's churchmen who want to face up to this properly. A letter which appeared in the Manchester Guardian respected sir. When I got to the building, I found that the hurricane had knocked some bricks off the top, so I rigged up a beam with a pulley at the top of the building and hoisted up a couple of barrels full of bricks. When I fixed the building, there were a lot of bricks left over. So I hoisted the barrel back up again and secured the line at the bottom. I then went up and filled the barrel with the leftover bricks and came down and cast off the line. Unfortunately, the barrel of bricks was heavier than I, and before I knew what was happening, the barrel started down jerking me off the ground. I decided to hang on and halfway up I met the barrel coming down and received a severe blow on the shoulder. I then continued to the top, banging my head against the beam and getting my finger jammed in the pulley. When the barrel hit the ground, it burst its bottom, allowing all the bricks to spill out. I was now heavier than the barrel and so started down again at high speed. Halfway down, I met the barrel coming up and received severe injuries to my chin. When I hit the ground, I landed on the bricks, getting further painful cuts from the sharp edges. At this point, I must have lost my presence of mind because I let go of the line and the barrel came down, giving me another heavy blow on the head which put me in the hospital. And I request, please, respectfully, some sick leave. When you begin to build and rebuild in the world of today, you've got problems, especially when there's fear of what? Now I want to talk about a force. Communism is a force in our modern world, which Americans have come to understand that very few numbers. If you were to ask the man on the street what communism teaches, what its goals and objectives are, you would get more heat in response than you would like. There is very small awareness that for many in the modern world, communism can offer first an explanation of what is happening in the world and a solution to a movement strong enough to achieve power and establish its solution. Three. A total philosophy that gives a scientific and certain foundation for its program. Well, this package is very marketable in some parts of the world. We can't understand why people can become communists if we don't see how Marx put these three things together. And it is the revolutionary age in which we live that makes this revolutionary power such a real form. There are two types of people to whom this communist philosophy is a live option. First to the intellectuals and the half intellectuals and to the farmers and workers. There are honest and sincere people in the world who are looking for some kind of solution to the problems which beset their particular nation. And it is too easy for us to simply say they follow this in order to get personal advantage. Well, the hard problem is that we in the Western world have not been able to demonstrate effectively our presuppositions and the ideas which underlie our approach to what's going on in the world. We have not sent out enough agents and emissaries to show these people what some of the causes and infections are, which make their condition less than helpful. We do not have the advantage of the slogan and the slick answer, which the communist worker or agent has at the tip of his tongue. Our theory has often been cumbersome. Whenever we've tried to carry it overseas now, for the farmers and the workers of the world, they have felt so mired in the mud and the debris of the centuries that they need a revolutionary, they think solution to break through into some kind of just land reforms are not one of the items which we have much experience with in this country. Vested interests of some parts of the world want to keep the low cost of labor where it is so that any changes in their kind of tradition will will not be the sort of changes which will hurt their pocketbooks. Unfortunately, in a way, the gospel is no canned program for which the church can sell either. Now, you and I may very clearly recognize that Marxism is a tyrannous power. Some of you may say, Well, I don't know why he's preaching on communism. I got problems. Believe me, this is one problem that he's shot through your daily life all the time. And I hope to be of some help to you in thinking about it. We know that this tyrannous power will betray the hopes of intellectuals and the workers alike. This powerful ideology can be a threat to their humanity. We live already, in a sense, in a post-communist era or many who have been through the mill. But this does not mean that communism is dead or it will be a force for generations to come. The hard facts we face as Christians in the church. Who look to communism with open eyes is that our call to sacrifice has been less heated than the call that's come out from Karl Marx in the Kremlin. Men have been willing to live in poverty to identify themselves with the dispossessed of the world, to preach and live Marxism, to die gladly for an idolatrous gospel, which put some of our sacrifices to shame. These agents of the force have moved with assurance at the height of the earthquake, and it's no wonder that men have listened and pondered long what they had to say. One of the things that causes me a bit of dismay is that this force has not tried to infiltrate the World Council of Churches Christianity in any serious way. One of the conclusions which we could draw from this is that the church is such a weak force in the life of the world that they can't be bothered. Communism has worked intelligently on the movie industry, on labor, on the university. But it's paid very little heed to. No. I think it would be unfair to leave an impression with the congregation this morning that the Christian faith is not a force in the world. It just simply isn't so. Whenever the faith is equated with any of the Western ideologies, it doesn't have any force to do the work in the world. Christianity is not an ideology at all. It's a force with which the world will be dealing more and more in the next dozen decades as they go by. But the effectiveness of this encounter will partially be the result of the obedience of Christians as the church working for the sake of the world of fear. A force of faith. What needs to be clarified now is that in the midst of fear and the forces at work in a disturbed world, the Christian has a faith which can sustain and it can heal and can endure in. Not as an ideology or a philosophy of history or a set of human values to be preserved. Ours is a faith in a living God who is active in our world today, guiding the lives of men and of nations, and that he has a goal which he will accomplish. It has to be said in spite of the fact that men everywhere think that they've cut themselves loose from the natural surroundings and the God who is behind the order of nature. This maturity on the part of modern man may truly lead to a richer relationship between himself and the eternal than that which he's known in the past for the grace of God can rescue from despair. One man has done all that he can in his power to make sense of chaos. I don't believe that many of us think that God is at work in the modern world. My experience with college students makes me believe that they are the least believer in this fact. That means the future generations will think so too. It's thoroughly biblical to say that God is using communism to accomplish part of his purpose in the world. He makes the wrath of man to praise him, and this statement alone is enough to antagonize a certain proportion of our population. But we still say God can reach beyond iron and bamboo curtains in spite of our fears that He cannot reach God's principal instrument for the realization of His purpose is this community which He established and which he directs, which we call the church. I don't think many of us believe this either. The message of the Gospel can help man to live in spite of the injustices in the world. And the sinners he has gathered into his church are well aware that there can never be any perfect society on earth. This is where the Communist is terribly vulnerable. The rationalism and the naturalism, which communism took from bourgeois culture, which he despises, is used as a philosophy of life. And using these, he thinks there will be an inevitable movement through revolution, through the establishment of a perfect order for the proletariat. He believes that he's honestly convinced of this. That's a soft spot. The Christian knows that God will accomplish this only beyond nature and history. The kingdom of our Lord is not of this world in that sense. And the Christian knows that a church ruled order or a priest directed culture is not the answer. But the Communist in his naivete turns over the direction of his world revolution to priest rulers who are accountable to no one. It can help its members to understand this God come in Christ so that they will not turn away from those who have tried to find some answers in Marxism. The party in the communist society lacks the human values that the Christian sees in Jesus Christ. And this Christ may lead to personal encounters with Communists, at least in other lands, so that the man within the Communist may find a friend who will listen, who will know and understand his troubles and the turmoil. There must be those who will point this out that the Communist makes a leap of faith when he embraces Lenin's doctrines or Marx, or some particular system which Khrushchev may endorse at the moment. He may point out when he is shown that he himself, the Christian, is willing to undergo the trial of not hiding this faith which is within him. Now you say, Well, that's fine for the men in East Germany and in Czechoslovakia and some of the other parts of the world. When the church today in America starts talking about social issues which have part are part and parcel of this problem. You know what we usually spend our time with? Let's clean up the pornography on the local newsstand. Now, I've been involved in those kind of things, and I think we ought to clean up the pornography on the local newsstand. But have you ever thought how stupid and ridiculous we look to the world when millions upon millions of people live in injustice and in the kind of situation you and I could not tolerate? And we spend our our real energy and effort in a kind of thing like that. There isn't a communist alive in the world today who doesn't look to America in the struggle she has with our Negro problem right now. The sit down sit ins in obscure places across this country are being reported minutely in every communist capital in the world. And people who are still making up their minds are wondering about what we are going to do in 1953. Gunnar Myrdal, I think is the way you pronounce his last name. Myrdal said this Mankind is sick of fear and disbelief. And if America in actual practice could show the world that the Negro became finally integrated into modern democracy, all mankind would be given faith again. And America would have spiritual power many times stronger than all her financial and military resources. The power of trust and support of all good people on Earth. America is free to choose whether the Negro shall remain her liability or become her opportunity. We have Negroid peoples coming to the University of Arizona. They have no guarantee that when they go to look for housing on the campus, they will be rejected because of the color of their skin. And some of these men will go back to their nation to repudiate not only America, but the gospel which is supposed to underlie our sense of freedom. What can you do? I can name up some more problems right from this point. In Tucson, Arizona, not too many years ago, people lived in fear and terror. And there was a force at work just east of here, known as the Apache. And men at night would close their doors and their windows and keep their guns close at hand. And whenever they wanted to scare their children, they could use the name of coyotes. But there was.

One.

Solomon who said, This shall not be so. And he said, I will go and talk with the chief. And one of the few fine, splendid chapters in the history of Arizona is the success of which this man met when he went to talk to the feared enemy. Don't tell me you didn't have a hard time in the saloons of Tucson and that there weren't many men who wish she would kick the dust of Tucson from his feet and leave because he was subversive. Whenever we try to tackle some of the real problems, there will be all kinds of accusations thrown. The Christian message has tremendous political consequences, as it is proclaimed across the world, and becomes incarnate in men who are actively engaged in public life. It offers possibilities for understanding and meeting the principal causes of the revolution, which cannot be easily found elsewhere. And the Christian faith makes it plain that we can give only qualified loyalty to any political movement, and this often irritates those who are in power. It always has. But this qualified loyalty may be so much better and stronger than the blind loyalty of the faithful that it would soon be preferred because they knew we mean business. If men want to accuse the church of having communism in it, let them. If they will listen, they may find that we belong to a far more revolutionary force because of our faith than anything that the Kremlin hold. As a matter of fact, we do want to change our government through lawful means to a more just and a fairer order. And this is what redemptive religion has always had in mind. And unthinking men will confuse this issue many times, and we shall be tarred with all kinds of labels if we are true to our faith. Christians, we have no neat scheme. There is no clear system. Christianity is not an ideology, but this faith is dynamite when it addresses the wrongs within any social order which defines God and His definition of man seen in Jesus Christ. And I am here to say in concluding that as a churchman who circulates among churchmen a good deal, I can say that I never met a communist in the ranks, not once. And I think I know enough about it to spot one or any mortal headed fool who is fronting for a communist organization. What disturbs me is that among the Christians I meet, both Lay and Cleric, I find few who realize the full implications of the faith that they prefer. And it will not be said of many as it would set of the apostles. These are the men who have turned the world upside down. Let us hope. There will be somebody here today who will qualify in this, however, because their faith has become a force. Which displaces their fear. Let us bring. Oh, God. Our father. We too long have sympathized with those of our who have struggled with some of the deeply dynamic forces of our day and who thought ourselves not involved. We beseech the. The deal will help the Christians of our world and of this congregation to realize that in humility, because there is no perfect system, we move out to meet the needs of men by the grace of God, for we to need them. Will God make us alive? Help us to not share in the fear. May our faith be so clear that though our decisions at times be ambiguous, our hearts will be fixed in obedience to the Christ who forgives, who cleanses, and who redeem. Where we pray this prayer in His name. For every dollar, $1 out of three. Some of that goes to help men who face this kind of struggle face to face. So as you give this morning, give generously in the name of Jesus Christ.

My mouth and the meditations.

Which are part. Right. What? Spock.

And so God addresses not just individuals, but he also addresses groups of men and women. So it is that we can't be content with an individual type of Christianity alone. And this is one of the weaknesses in the fundamentalist position, why I choose to redefine it here and say that we have to be able to communicate is good news of Jesus Christ to people on the outside. Now, when we look around at this jungle of our world, and some people have called it a jungle, I think we are honest in saying that there are certain areas of it. We're in the light, has not penetrated very well, and some of us who are in the jungle of the world would admit further that there are certain areas of our life that have little dark spots about them. Somebody said, My life is an open book, but some of the pages are stuck together and this is the picture of most of it. But we must concentrate here on bringing, or at least providing, an avenue for the life of God's truth in Jesus Christ to illuminate the dark corners of the world and of people in it. Now, in order to do this, we must know a little something about what lies behind the darkness, or this will at least help. And I would single out two groups, not because they are the only groups that we might single out, but because they're in some ways vastly representative of great numbers of people in our world. And these are the hedonists and the humanists. What in the world is a hedonist? Some of you know, I imagine the dictionary says that a hedonist is one who follows the doctrine that pleasure is the soul of chief good in life, and that moral duty is fulfilled in the gratification of pleasure seeking instincts and disposition. All that also like hotcakes. And what's more, it does. Well, if you don't understand that definition, maybe you understand hedonism. When we describe it as the wine women in thong type of thing, or if this is still over your head, some people would say the beer old lady in TV. Now, it is not exactly genteel, but it speaks the language of great segments of our population. And we in the church must be forewarned, lest we be speaking in a language to the people who need to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ in such a way that they can understand it. These are where the great masses of men live. The humanists, on the other hand, are not quite so earthy. They lacked some of the romantic charm and appeal that many times characterizes the the hedonism of the one who seeks pleasure. And we really like needing it in time until we become the object of their pleasure seeking. Then they are not quite so amusing. The humans is of a different sort. He is generally suave, sophisticated. He's been blessed by a great deal of education. Not always normally. He feels that in some ways he is a little above God, or least not quite so blunt as that, but that he is of approaching God and wisdom and maybe even sometimes he even beats God out just a little bit and he can inform God of a few things that are happening down here where, well, we're coming along pretty well. Generally speaking, universities are crawling with this sort of person. No, I'm not proposing that we go into the university and and stomp out all of these humans before they can reproduce. Neither am I saying the same about the hedonist, because I am sure that God is using both of these classes of people as much as is using some of us as Christians, and certainly in the Bible makes it very clear that God loves the nurses and the humanists and all the rest every bit as much as He loves the Christians. This as Christians we must always be aware of lest we become arrogant and proud, which is the very essence of sin that. Someone asked Philip Brooks, why is it that some of these men who call themselves atheists seem to leave such moral lines? They have to reply. They have no God to forgive them if they don't. When somebody comes to us and with the proposition, well, look, I can make out quite well that God, why can't anybody live without an acknowledgment of God in his life? Our answer has to be sure you can't. Millions do it. They make out rather well with never thought God Almighty crossing their minds from birth. Great. But it must be added. We are talking about not an either or proposition, but a quality of life. Sure, you can drive your car on four cylinders if you want to. I'm sure you can operate your TV receiver without the use of any antenna whatsoever. But if you use one, you'll get a lot better reception. And certainly you can go about your cooking without using any sugar or salt. But if you use those which are so readily available, so easy to use, how much more will you appreciate them? Good culinary artistry. And so it is with this matter of living. We can't say that we as Christians have all the hot nuggets and that we are the totally what what the ones who have been flooded with the light of God's truth and the four other grumbling souls have no indication or no notion at all of what God is saying to them. No, it's not that simple. Life just doesn't work out this way. It's a kind of a mixture. There is a little bit of all of this in every one of us. But what we can say confidently, can we not look complete? There is so much more to life. Look what you're missing. Now, this certainly should not offend too many people. However, let us be forewarned before we go out and start button holing people about this business of religion. There is a basic thing about human nature that people don't really learn much until they ask the question themselves. In other words, as Christians, our pitch to the people on the outside should wait to the point where they are either asking the questions out loud or else we sense that they are asking them inwardly. You can't sense this in a person unless you don't know him very well. You can't think or intuit what's going on in the mind of another person unless he's a good friend. How many good friends you have outside the church? You should have a good number of a good number up there, and it takes a great deal of love and concern sometimes to be able to be sensitive enough to a person's inner needs that you can intuit when they are asking the kind of questions that you can come in, not give them the whole answer, but can say at least, well, look, I know someone other than myself, someone, others in capital letters who has helped me. Maybe he will help you too. This is one thing we can say, but remember that we first have to have the person asking the questions. There is nothing more chuckleheads than giving the answer to a question that a person has not even asked yet. And so therefore there is nothing more stupid for a Christian to do than to walk up to somebody and say, Are you? Am I what? Hey, what do you mean? A person has to have an inner need to see something that he needs to be saved from. And then we can talk sense. Then we can move it. When we're talking about basic Christianity, we don't want to confuse people on the outside with all the fine little hairsplitting detail. Let's keep it simple. And I think basically the gospel of Jesus Christ is simple. It's not a complicated thing. And we do people on the outside a great disservice if we tend to lord our superior understanding over them, but rather make it simple. That's why I'm speaking about basic Christianity and what characterizes basic Christianity. Well, in the first place, I think we can say this is almost needless to say. But it has to be said that the world is full of a kind of infection, infection whose symptoms are selfishness and fear and greed. The second basic fundamental we have to emphasize is that God has come to Earth in human form, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, indicating how the world can be cured of this infection and how the people in the world can be a little bit more like what God intended them to be when He created it. The third thing we can emphasize is Jesus invitation. Follow me. There has to be some responsibility put on the person to act. And if he says, I don't want to follow you. Well, this is one another thing, but it's true in many other things that you have to go out on a limb. You have to make a commitment to something before you can expect to get anything out of anything. Baseball or Christianity. Before we go further on this matter of fundamentals and making sense to people outside the church, let me suggest there's two little books. One is they're both in our library and they're covered sufficiently with piercings that I think they have been helpful to some people in the congregation. One is The Case for Christianity by C.S. Lewis. The other is Playing Christianity by J.B. Phillips. Both of these are very small, readable books and I would commend them to you. In order for us to communicate any of these fundamentals, we have to be able to recognize when the fundamentals aren't there. In other words, you have to know something about what it is not before you can say what it is. What happens when the fundamentals begin to fade out of our life? Well, in the world around us, in the last ten years, there have been a group of authors not related in any way, but they're coming up with an analysis of our present situation. Not particularly from a Christian point of view, but I think it's very true. It makes sense in the Christian faith. Such books and the whole spate of them, the organization, Man, The Lonely Crowd, Hidden Persuader, status, speakers, all of these, they have a constant theme or thread running through them, which has an effect that people no longer seem to have any thing that they can solid that they can put their feet on. They're always in a kind of a suspended somewhere between the floor and ceiling. This is not they don't know what they believe anymore, not simply about religion, but about economics, about politics, about morality, about social relations, about anything. Just free, no matter what. People are very foggy and and hesitant to make any commitments of any kind. Conformity is almost a truism. There are other indications that indicate fundamentals are fading. Technology, certainly we have made great strides in technical advances, but it must be said further that those who make the strides must also at some time realize the responsibility for controlling the strides that are made otherwise. The title of Frank Lamarck's book, Wake Up or Blow Up Other feels the same thing. Education as we become as education becomes more widespread, we all as a people become a little more sophisticated and feel that we can do away with some of our primitive dependance upon God and that we can paddle our own canoe quite well. And as a matter of fact, look how we're doing. Think this is the danger of education, that we are educated beyond our ability to understand in art. This is dangerous, particularly for one who doesn't understand modern art anyway. But I think in all fairness, one can say, and sometimes from the lips of the artist themselves, that there is an indication of a certain futility or meaninglessness in some of the Eagles and blobs in the wire and all the rest. Know I'm sure these things say something, but one of the things I'm afraid that they're saying is that the conviction of confusion, all of these things are indications sometimes that our fundamentals begin to fade out. Both of our Scripture lessons this morning, Mr. Hosier, who lived about 20 years before the Assyrians, came clattering in from the north right down the main street of Israel and upset everything. He was saying the same thing. He said, Remember, there's a vulture over the house of the Lord. Not a pleasant prospect, he said. The further the yes, you sow the wind and you reap the whirlwind. He said something further, as I recall, that yes, you have elected public officials, but not through me, meaning not through the Lord. This gives us a little quiver. And to sort of Pima County, when these things are abroad, a broad state, there are other indications that are of a more personal nature that the fundamental faith. How many people in your acquaintance expressed in their most honest moment to you, or how many of us feel the same thing? That life sometimes has no purpose. We're always waiting for something. We don't see any ultimate goal for which to strike. We're waiting till that gets enough money so we can get a new car, so we can move out of the neighborhood, so we can get the kids educated, waiting to retire. Waiting, waiting, waiting for something. We all wait for these things naturally, and nothing wrong with waiting for them. But what is wrong is how are you going to wait? Are you going to wait with a kind of a nervous anxiety wringing your hands until this grand and glorious thing comes to pass? And then we have like, Oh, no, no, I want something else. And this is accomplished now. I want. It's a vicious circle. We all wait for these things, but it's how we wait. The Christian as well waits for these things, but he waits in a certain way that that every day has meaning. There is something worthwhile in all of life, not just the pleasant, great occasions in life, the things that one looks forward to, but he looks forward to every day. And this, I submit. Characteristically, Christian, another personal matter or characteristic we see that indicates that the fundamental faith is that many people are at an end when their own personal resources run out. Why? Because they somehow feel that there's no God on which to depend. And when their efforts run out, that is the end. They have no no one else, no one other to depend on. And so naturally, human flesh alone is a bit frail when confronted with many of the things that we all have to face in everyday life. And if this is all we have to depend on, then life gets a bit futile. Such folk are do very well as long as they are well and prosperous, prosperous. But let some kind of financial failure or illness come into their life and then not some completely sideways because they have nothing other on which to depend. And there is another thing that we see abroad is that those who see more sense of God in their life have a bit of difficulty loving the unlovable. Now, to be sure, the Christian and the non-Christian alike, there are some people in this world and some even as close as our own homes who God alone can love. You've had this experience. Is it a totally different attitude when the one who has no God which says God alone can love them, but this is the end of the process. I have no more responsibility because I really believe in God. Britain, on the other hand, says, God, this is a hard person to love and I can't do it on my own. In fact, it's impossible. In fact, I hate him. But oh, God overrule this work through me, you see. So if any love does come out of the situation, it's not because of what the person did as a Christian. It's because what God did through him. So he doesn't have to be ashamed of any accomplishment that takes place here. But fear that somebody will say, Oh, you're proud. No, he's not proud. He's simply honest. God did this. I didn't. Well, there is a lot of things that can be said about when the fundamentals fade. I'm more concerned about what happens when the fundamentals are found. And there are a great number of people who have found the fundamentals. We don't need to be ashamed of it. To be ashamed of it. For being called arrogant would be no more arrogant than saying, Look, I am a Christian. I accept what the Christian faith is basically saying. This is what we can say without fear of being anxious or or arrogant. For a Christian, there is a certain inner sense of tranquility that basic center of his personality is at peace. You feel it in other people? I do in many people, because I am sure that they have bought this Christian package. There is an unquenchable spirit of gaiety about such a person. He doesn't take himself too seriously because he knows that the whole world doesn't depend on him, that God is in command and will overrule some of his mistakes so he can sit back and have a hearty laugh sometimes at the world. The humanist, on the other hand, realizes that if he doesn't do something, the world is going to go to hell. And so I feel like this is a Christian world depended on me in this way.

I'd be really serious too. I don't like it if.