W. Arthur Kale - "Wretched Are the Peacemakers"; Howard C. Wilkinson - "Prayer in a Secularistic Age" (October 21, 1962) / Duke Chapel Recordings / Duke Digital Repository

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These are troublesome times for peacemakers.

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Whether one finds them as members of a peace organization,

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or whether they serve in the governments of the nations

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or represent their governments in United Nations,

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or whether they speak from pulpit or podium,

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peacemakers live uneasy lives.

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Because they need encouragement perhaps,

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and because they've married it perhaps,

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a Sunday has been selected in the calendar year,

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and on this particular Sunday,

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peacemakers are given special recognition.

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Today is the Sunday.

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It is appropriate therefore that we who worship

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here in Duke Chapel, should join with others

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who worship God across America

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in observing this special Sunday, called World Order Sunday.

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Now finding a text for our sermon

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appropriate to World Order Sunday, has been easy.

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I have done as thousands of others in other days have done,

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namely, I've turned to the passage,

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the noble and oft quoted passage in Isaiah chapter two.

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A chapter which articulates in poetic fashion,

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the longing of the human heart for release

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from the costly and painful destruction of war.

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I read again a sentence from that poem

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and that expression of man's dream of peace.

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Isaiah 2:4, "He the Lord, shall judge between the nations

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and shall decide for many peoples

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and they shall beat their swords into plowshares

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and their spears into pruning hooks.

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Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

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neither shall they learn war anymore."

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As the spokesman at this particular service,

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I could wish that I might announce this text with confidence

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and with a sense of elation.

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But as I say, these are troublesome times for peacemakers

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and peacemakers are not confident today.

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Peacemakers carry in their hearts

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little of what might be described as elation.

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I have not forgotten that in the famous Sermon on the Mount,

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and in that section that we familiarly call the Beatitudes,

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that the seventh Beatitude of our Lord declares

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that, "Blessed are the peacemakers."

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I am paraphrasing this Beatitude

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and announcing it as my subject for today.

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Saying not blessed are the peacemakers

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but rather more accurately I suspect in our time,

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wretched are peacemaker.

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This is not the wretchedness of men who have espoused

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an unworthy cause, who have discovered their error

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and who have repented of it.

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The despondency in the hearts of peacemakers

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is not the result of complete failure in their enterprise.

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Dejection of spirit among peacemakers

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is inevitable in the first place,

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because many of the successes of the peace movement

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have been marginal rather than central.

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Marginal success is all right so far as it goes,

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but it is quite disappointing.

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A good example familiar to all of us,

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is the football team that makes more first downs

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than the opposing team and yet the opposing team

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makes more touchdowns and wins the game.

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No complaint against making first downs,

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but the result doesn't depend upon this marginal success.

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In the peace movement, we have had encouraging successes,

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which have to be classified as marginal.

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Take, for example, the rather lengthy and quite impressive

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succession of noble pronouncements across centuries

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from the day of Isaiah until now, perhaps,

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men have been able to formulate and to express impressively

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this dream of the human heart for a warless world.

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Orators have again and again, quoted Isaiah

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and paraphrased him and added their own perorations

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concerning man's hope.

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How vividly I recall from my boyhood days

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the pronouncements during World War I,

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that this was to be a war-to-end war.

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The dream of peace will be enlarged and developed,

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and man will accomplish the dream.

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But since the days of disillusionment following that war,

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we know very well that the thoughts we entertain

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then could not have resulted as we expected.

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But we have not ceased to formulate our expressions

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and hopes.

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During World War II, we had a number of fine examples.

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The Federal Council of Churches,

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as it was known in those days, in the year 1943,

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set forth what was described as Six Pillars to Peace.

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A great gathering of Catholics and Jews and Protestants

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formulated what was called a Pattern for Peace

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in the month of October in the year, 1943.

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Or, many of you are familiar with the famous,

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Methodist Social Creed that this denomination has formulated

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and included in its Book of Discipline

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for a good long while.

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And clergymen of this faith are required to read it

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to their congregations at least once annually.

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This formulation of a social creed, a position,

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a positive, hopeful, encouraging declaration it is,

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carefully thought out and formulated and stated,

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and yet only partially successful since many a person reads

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and forgets and others do not even read.

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The latest illustration that I have in this area

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is the declaration that the President of The United States

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made just about two years ago,

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appearing before the Assembly of United Nations,

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soon after the death of Doug Roosevelt,

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President Kennedy, challenged the Soviet Union

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to a race for peace as a substitute for a race to arms.

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In the current news,

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just this last week as a matter of fact,

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the Methodists again, sent to the White House,

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it was announced that they sent to the White House,

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a great petition bearing 30,000 signatures

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of individual American citizens

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who are supporting our president

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in this so-called race for peace.

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A partial success, no one complains of it,

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one rejoices in it, but at best, but a marginal success.

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Perhaps the best of illustrations is United Nations itself.

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Just 17 years ago, this coming Wednesday,

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or on October 24 in the year, 1945,

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51 nations having sent their representatives

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to the great conference in San Francisco,

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declared themselves in favor of peace.

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And in our various, impressive,

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preamble to the constitution of United Nations

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or Charter of United Nations, it was solemnly affirmed

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that these nations believe in justice,

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in brotherhood, in peace, in order.

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As we look across 17 years, we rejoice in successes,

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successes in a variety of ways, I cannot name many,

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I illustrate by references to two.

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To the accomplishments under that section called

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the World Health Organization and to other, perhaps,

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more significant contributions or successes under UNESCO,

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in 17 years much has happened.

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Great good has come as a result

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of the faith and the action of 51 nations

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who took their action 17 years ago,

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that we have a world of order, we cannot report.

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At best, the success of United Nations

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is fractional and marginal, not at all complete,

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and only in a limited sense, is it central.

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So the peacemakers are a bit despondent in spirit,

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they are not happy people.

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And we can say paraphrasing the Beatitude,

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wretched are the peacemakers in our time.

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Their wretchedness is of another kind.

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It is the uneasiness of not being ready,

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fully ready, when the moment of opportunity comes.

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That ours is a day of revolution we cannot deny.

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But this current era of revolution

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may suggest an opportunity for the peacemaker,

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if he could feel himself prepared.

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Life is saying to us day after day, "The time is right."

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Human affairs are in a state of readiness,

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not merely for a new scientific and cultural era,

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not merely for the new era called the peace era,

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but for a new era in human relationships.

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Again, I can only give examples,

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I cannot survey all the evidence that might be brought here.

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Let's pick up the great continent Africa

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or take a look at the great continent of Africa.

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In my boyhood days, and in fact, in more recent times,

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it was commonly referred to as the "Dark Continent",

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that is no longer an appropriate, descriptive, expression.

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Africa is the emerging continent.

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Africa is ready.

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220 millions of people growing at a rate,

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which is one of the fastest rates

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of population growth in the world,

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having grown about 13% since the year 1950.

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With representatives of all other continents,

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6 million Europeans, 12 million Indians and other Asians,

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with 800 different Negro tribes,

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with a large section of Arabs in the north

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and on the east coast,

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Africa is saying to all other continents and peoples,

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"We are ready for a new era."

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Industrially, the revolution is already underway.

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Here is a great developing water power system.

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In the Congo is a mighty supply of copper and cobalt.

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In South Africa, one finds the world's largest

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producer of gold, of gem diamonds, of platinum, of chrome.

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The iron and coal oars are almost inexhaustible.

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I was impressed as I read recently

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of the great gold mine called Western Deep,

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2 1/2 miles deep.

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And someone has proposed that it could take 16 Eiffel Towers

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and stack them one on top of the other in that mine,

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or you can take eight Empire State Buildings

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and put them in the great western mine.

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Politically, the balance in Africa

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has already swung from colonialism to nationalism.

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New nations have gained their independence

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with breathtaking rapidity.

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In that great continent, and in another parts of the world,

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newly independent nations, as symbols of man's new freedom,

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add a new dimension to the need

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for some kind of political instrument

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for collective guidance and action.

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And the need is now, it is immediate, it is urgent.

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Because the peacemakers feel that they are poorly prepared

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for this moment they have a sense of uneasiness.

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We have not forgotten that we were unready for other days.

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We were not ready for December 7, 1941.

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We were not ready for August 5, 1945,

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when bombs were dropped upon two Japanese cities,

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and abruptly the world passed from one era into another.

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We, particularly here in America, we're not prepared

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for what we now call Sputnik Day, September, 1957,

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and the space era really began.

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We were not quite ready for April 21, 1961,

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for the man in space day.

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We have not forgotten that we have been poorly prepared

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for certain conditions and ideologies

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that have come into life in our time.

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For automation in industry, for mechanization in farming,

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for the mighty systems of swift communication,

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for this rather unusual social phenomenon

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that has been called (indistinct),

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the elongated cities that stretch not across a county

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or even a state but across several states,

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as an illustration, the great finger city

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is stretching from Washington to Boston.

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Or one perhaps better known to many of us

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that is soon to be realized

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from Richmond to Atlanta and beyond.

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We've not been quite ready

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for these sociological changes and shifts in our time.

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We have not been ready for integration in public education.

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Partisans on both sides of the issue

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are agreed on that point, we were not quite ready.

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Some bemoan the fact that we were not ready

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and have said, "Let's postpone it for a long while yet."

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Others are declaring that it cannot wait,

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and we were all aware that likely is true.

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In Christian circles,

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we are in the midst of the great ecumenical movement,

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but again, we are agreed that we're hardly prepared for it.

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We can make reports, some of which are encouraging,

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but again, many of us are puzzled about the future,

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and are asking all kinds of questions

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about how it's to be worked out.

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We rejoice as we read the news

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of the great event in Rome today,

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yet what the future holds we cannot say,

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we're an unready people.

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Now the peacemakers add,

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that although there is an opportunity immediately ahead,

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they and the whole of humanity are hardly ready.

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Let me conclude this particular thought by reminding you

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in the words of Charles Forman

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in a little book called," A Faith for the Nations".

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"That ours is a world that will not wait

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to be introduced formally and appropriately

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and by means of the customary expression,

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ours is a world that's rushing in upon us,

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and mighty is the force of the rush,

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in the presence of some

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who would call themselves peacemakers."

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Finally, peacemakers are uneasy lest they fail to declare

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a message of hope in this time of crisis.

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This brings me again to the scripture of the morning,

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the verses in chapter two,

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which express man's dream of peace.

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Are you aware that there's a very startling parallel

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between conditions in the world of the 8th century BC,

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and the world that we know here in this period

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of the 20th century AD?

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There were two rival powers, great empires,

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located approximately 500 miles apart from border to border

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on an axis that stretched roughly northeast to southwest,

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as Syria at the northeast, Egypt at the southwest,

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and the little kingdoms between caught in squeezed plays

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and in the pressures and tensions of the time.

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Isaiah was the prophet to the little nation Judah.

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In the atmosphere or context of the tension and crisis

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of that era, there came from that era this dream of peace,

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this expression of man's longing.

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The noble words of Isaiah's utterance

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were born in that particular period,

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swords into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks,

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the very thought that nations shall not learn war.

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Now friends, our day needs a similar message.

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It will not be expressed in terms of displaced swords

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and refashioned plowshares, but in terms of world order,

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the accomplishment of freedom for all under law,

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the rule of the majority

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combined with protection for minorities.

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The encouragement of diversity within an overarching unity.

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The restraint of those who cannot restrain themselves

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by some international body when necessary

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of those who act against the general welfare.

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Can this be more than a tantalizing dream?

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Can this become for us a confident expression

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of expectation?

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The peacemakers feel a sense of responsibility.

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And though dejected because their successes

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to now have been fractional and marginal,

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yet the very obligation they feel

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makes them the most significant body

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in this moment of destiny,

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so far as the human race is concerned.

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Let us therefore pay our tribute

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to peacemakers this morning, let's offer prayer for them,

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let's support them.

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We sang it a while ago in the second hymn

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used in this service.

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These things shall be (indistinct)

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no hath known shall rise

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with flame of freedom in their souls

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and light of knowledge in their eyes.

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They shall be gentle, brave, and strong,

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to spill no drop of blood,

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but dare that all may plant man's lordship

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firm on earth and fire and sea and air.

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Nation with nation, land with land.

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In arms shall live as comrades free

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and in every heart and brain

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shall (indistinct) of one fraternity.

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This type of hope for Isaiah, and I am persuaded for us,

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can be achieved only through a solid, religious faith.

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Peace cannot come by man alone.

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World Order Sunday is the day

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upon which Christian worshipers

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should call their own nation and the other nations

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back to have faith in Almighty God.

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Let God be God, oh, nations of the Earth,

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and in Him, shall peace be found.

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Let us pray.

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Eternal God upon whom men have called in centuries past,

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we acknowledged that in thee,

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and in thee alone we find our hope today.

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Look upon us in mercy and love, oh God,

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and give to us peace in our time.

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May the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ,

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and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit

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be with you all.

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Chapels and churches on the campuses of colleges

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and universities around the world,

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there's being observed today,

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the annual observance of World Day of Prayer for students.

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We are observing that here in the Duke University Chapel,

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as we do on the 3rd Sunday in February of each year.

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This is an interdenominational, international observance

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of something very real to the Christian community,

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for the benefit of individual students

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at individual colleges and universities,

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but also for the benefit of the world christian movement

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on the campuses of mankind.

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It is sponsored by the World Student Christian Federation,

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headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

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The executive committee

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of the World Student Christian Federation each year,

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selects a theme for use in college and university

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services of worship on this day,

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and they prepare certain material.

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Some of the prayers are prepared

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particularly for use in these services.

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So that today the prayers which we have used

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have been used in thousands of services around the Earth.

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So that our prayers have been raised together

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to the same God, for the same students,

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and the same concerns.

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Now the theme which has been selected for today,

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is being used everywhere in the world,

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but it is something of a problem.

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At least on the face of it,

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it appears not to communicate very much,

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unity, peace and the secular order.

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Now, when first you hear those words,

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there is not very much of a message communicated.

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It's about like saying,

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chicken feathers, sassafras and pine cones.

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What do those things have to do with each other?

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And what strung together do they say?

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Almost nothing.

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Unity, peace and the secular order.

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And then when you add to that,

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the fact that this theme is joined

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with an emphasis on prayer, you have unity,

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peace, the secular order and prayer.

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You could have mentioned presumably any other four things,

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that would be like adding something else

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to chicken feathers, sassafras, and pine cones,

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and saying, and blue books.

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What does this say to us today?

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That we should be joining in thought

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about these things on a universal day

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of prayer for students.

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Well, when we, as individuals, think of using prayer

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in an academic community and encouraging other people

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in the academic community to join us in prayer,

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we become aware of certain objections,

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which some of our colleagues

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make to be used for prayer into its validity.

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And one of the things we become impressed with

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as we face these objections is,

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that we are living in a secularistic age.

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I think it is important for us

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as we look at prayer in this context,

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to understand what we mean by this.

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Our forefathers used words which were meaningful to them

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and which were derived from the text of the Bible,

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which we do not use a great deal today,

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but we use two other words or phrases instead of that.

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Our forefathers talked about worldliness,

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they talked about another world.

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So, when they were talking about prayer,

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they were talking about something which had its origin

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and its significance not so much in this world

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as in a world that is not of this world,

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namely another world, the other world.

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And so when you were talking about prayer,

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you were talking about other worldly things.

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And if you were interested in prayer,

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you had other worldly interests.

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And those who did not have an interest in prayer,

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who did not participate in it and did not see significance

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in spiritual values, were referred to as worldly people.

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That is to say their orientation

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and their frame of reference was derived from this world,

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which either can or cannot, which either may or may not,

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acknowledge God and His relevance to the world.

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But you can eat and sleep, and study in this world

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without any reference to God.

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And those of another generation

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who did this were called worldly people,

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and those who ate and slept and studied in this world

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with a frame of reference which derives its significance

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in the other world were called

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other worldly people, sometimes.

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Now the terms we use today are sacred and secular.

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Prayer pertains to the sacred world.

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Eating and sleeping pertains to the secular world.

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The day's work are vocation.

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Politics, politics is in the secular world.

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Now, when a person today has his major orientation

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derived from this secular world without primary reference

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to the sacred world, we say, this person is secularistic.

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And in that sense, you and I today live

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in an age which is markedly characterized by secularism,

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which is some have said a secularist age.

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But here we come today as Christians around the world

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to talk about and to practice prayer in a secularistic age.

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We come with another worldly emphasis

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into this worldly age.

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Now, what do we have to say about prayer

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in a secularistic age?

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We who call ourselves Christians who believe that in God

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is our center of reference,

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and in prayer to God is our great hope and our strength.

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I think we might commence our conversation

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with a secularistic age by an examination

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of the reasons often given by the secularists

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for abandoning prayer, for rejecting it,

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and for saying that it does not have power and meaning

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for that age and those people.

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The first reason so often given is,

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that intellectually discerning people have said

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that many, many prayers which they have heard or read,

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have been unworthy prayers.

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And so they have rejected prayer altogether,

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because they have rejected as being

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unthinkable for an intelligent person,

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the prayers which they have heard.

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They read in the newspaper that a group of people

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in Miami, Florida, pray that when the hurricane

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approaches Miami, it will not strike Miami,

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but that it will go farther up the coast

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and hit those people up there.

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They read in the newspaper that a group of people

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are meeting together to pray that it will commence to rain,

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because there has been a long dry spell,

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or they meet to pray that it will stop raining

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because it has been raining too long.

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And they say that they feel that the weather

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is not governed by the prayers which people pray,

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and that God does not from day-to-day,

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or anyone from day-to-day by conscious deliberate choices,

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decide what the weather will be that day.

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Now they have forgotten as they concentrate

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upon rejecting these two kinds of prayer,

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that Jesus Christ did not enjoin upon His followers,

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either one of those types of prayers

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or any of the other kinds of unsatisfactory

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and unacceptable prayers,

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which are sometimes prayed by intelligent people,

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and sometimes prayed by unintelligent people.

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Jesus said, "God sends His rain

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on the just and on the unjust."

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He never did enjoin anybody to pray

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that it would commence to rain,

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or that it would stop raining.

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He certainly never asked anyone to pray

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that a natural disaster might avoid us

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and our friends and strike others.

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Just the opposite of that would be the spirit of Jesus.

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And so these people who reject prayer for these reasons,

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because they have seen some unintelligent

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and unacceptable forms of it,

35:32

should take a new look at prayer.

35:34

They've been guilty of generalizing from too few

35:38

and too unacceptable particulars.

35:41

Aristotle it was, who said that the true nature of anything

35:45

is to be ascertained with reference to its best expression,

35:48

not with reference to its worst expression.

35:53

And if we were to follow Aristotle in that then certainly

35:56

we would have to say that if you want to know

35:59

what real prayer is, what the real nature of it is,

36:01

look at Jesus and His praying,

36:05

not as somebody who's trying to use prayer

36:08

as a means of escaping a hurricane

36:11

or a little bit too much water

36:15

or a little bit too little water.

36:16

Yes?

36:20

I think that not only with reference to prayer

36:23

in particular, but with reference to all of our thinking

36:25

about religion, our secularist age is guilty

36:27

of this kind of selective inattention to real religion.

36:31

You recall that when the Russian astronauts

36:37

were circling the Earth, they made a mental note of the fact

36:39

that they did not look out the window of their spacecraft

36:44

and see God anywhere.

36:47

And so when they came back down, they said,

36:48

"There is no God, because we've been up there,

36:50

where some people say He is and we didn't see Him,

36:52

and so we conclude there is no God."

36:55

Well, John Glenn didn't see God either

36:58

when he went up and circled the Earth

37:00

in approximately the same location

37:02

that the Russian astronauts did.

37:03

But he didn't expect to see God there.

37:05

And therefore, it was not any damage to his faith at all,

37:08

that he could not point out the window of his spacecraft

37:13

and say, "Oh, there, I see God."

37:15

He had read the New Testament which said, "God is spirit."

37:19

You do not get in a spacecraft and go off towards the moon

37:24

somewhere to try to see God.

37:27

Not if you accept the conception of God,

37:30

which is given by the New Testament.

37:32

I went to the basketball game last night,

37:36

I did not see Fidel Castro there,

37:38

but that doesn't prove anything about Castro

37:40

or the Duke basketball team either,

37:42

I didn't expect to see him there.

37:44

To say that you do not recognize the reality of God

37:47

or the work of God in answering prayer,

37:52

simply because you do not see Him

37:55

in some way that you arbitrarily decide you must see Him,

37:57

is to be even more unintelligent

38:01

than those whose prayers have been found unacceptable.

38:04

And so our secularist age

38:08

needs to take a new look at prayer,

38:09

if it has rejected it for this reason.

38:12

Now there is a second reason why a great many

38:17

intelligent people today have stopped praying,

38:19

and that is that they have prayed,

38:22

so they say, and I believe 'em,

38:26

and they did not get to that for which they prayed.

38:28

A university professor said to me about five years ago,

38:34

"For a long time I prayed and nothing happened,

38:37

and so I stopped praying."

38:39

Now that deserves our thought.

38:45

What do we do when we ask God to give us something?

38:49

When we make a prayer of petition or of intercession,

38:59

"Lord do this for that person, or do this for me,"

39:03

what are we doing?

39:08

Well we are doing exactly what our Lord Jesus Christ

39:10

asked us to do.

39:12

He said for us to pray.

39:14

And He said, you have not because you ask not.

39:17

But my professor friend said, "I did ask."

39:21

And then I needed to point out to him

39:26

that he had not read the rest of the sentence which said,

39:29

"And when you do ask, He ask amiss."

39:33

You do not pray rightly, in the right way,

39:41

for the right things.

39:45

It was not that God failed to hear the prayer,

39:49

nor is it true that God was indifferent to the petition,

39:53

but what might have been happening was something like this.

39:57

That God knew that that for which this man

40:02

and many others like him were asking,

40:05

was something that would have been very bad to have given,

40:09

He was trying to give something better instead.

40:13

In the scripture lesson which was read a while ago

40:18

by Ms. Lorenzi, you remember that Jesus said,

40:20

"Which one of you fathers if your son asked for a fish

40:23

will give him a snake?"

40:28

And God who is much more loving,

40:31

more powerful than earthly fathers,

40:33

will certainly do that well, if not better.

40:35

So we do not expect to ask God for bread and get a stone,

40:40

ask for fish and get a serpent.

40:46

As someone has written, when we reach eternity

40:50

and reflect back upon the praying

40:55

we have done here on earth, we will see that very often

40:57

when we were asking for a stone that looked like bread,

41:02

we will see that God was trying to give us bread,

41:07

which to our short sightedness looked like a stone.

41:10

Just because we asked for a million dollars

41:16

and God did not give us a million dollars,

41:19

just because we asked for that academic promotion

41:21

and we didn't get an academic promotion,

41:24

just because we asked God to help us get that particular boy

41:26

who plays on that team, and some other girl married him,

41:31

does not mean that God did not hear the prayer

41:34

and that God was not trying to give us

41:38

that which would be for our ultimate good.

41:41

And so our secularistic age, it has rejected prayer

41:45

because it has said, "Lord, bring me my house, shoes,"

41:48

and He didn't bring them needs to take a new look at prayer.

41:51

Suppose God were to give everybody,

41:58

everything that they ask Him for,

42:01

what a chaotic world this would be,

42:03

this would be bedlam compounded.

42:05

If God answered all the prayers in precisely the same form

42:07

that they were prayed, there would certainly be no order,

42:12

no justice, no love in this world.

42:17

Well, now there is a third reason why

42:21

our secularist age has criticized and rejected prayer,

42:23

and that has to do with the increasing mechanization

42:30

of technology and science and the increasing light

42:33

that has been shed upon the processes of the natural order.

42:39

Whereas our forefathers used to pray,

42:43

"Lord do this, Lord do that."

42:46

And if that happened, for which they prayed,

42:49

they thought God answered the prayer,

42:52

and if it didn't, they thought they hadn't prayed

42:53

hard enough for something.

42:56

And we have found since that in many of these areas,

42:58

what was happening was that natural law

43:01

was taking care of that, God's natural law,

43:04

and we don't need to pray about that.

43:08

We don't need to pray, "Oh Lord, please make the sun sink

43:10

below the western horizon this evening

43:13

and make it appear on the eastern horizon tomorrow morning."

43:15

That is not a proper object of prayer.

43:20

And in this day, when scientists have learned more and more,

43:25

how things operate and why, there has been a tendency

43:29

to feel that we do not need to pray.

43:35

When an astronomer can tell you a year ahead of time,

43:39

when there will be an eclipse of the moon

43:44

and can inform the population precisely,

43:47

what parts of the nation will be able to see the eclipse

43:50

when it comes, and you find that it happens

43:53

exactly as he said every time, you begin to get the concept

43:56

of the overarching, all inclusive operation of natural law.

44:02

So why pray about it?

44:08

Is it true then that prayer is restricted only

44:12

to those areas where we still are ignorant?

44:17

That prayer operates only in those areas

44:22

of the world and of human life

44:25

in which we have not yet found?

44:28

Which law applies and how it applies?

44:31

And presumably when we do learn these laws,

44:34

then we'll all give up all prayer

44:37

because everything will then be known,

44:39

and there'll be no need to approach God in prayer at all.

44:42

Is that what it boils down to?

44:47

That prayer is being hemmed in from all sides now

44:51

by a world that is learning more about itself,

44:54

and eventually it'll be totally hemmed in

44:58

and there'll be no need for an intelligent man to pray?

45:01

Not at all.

45:06

The assumption on which that is based is fallacious.

45:09

The assumption is that the discoveries of science

45:15

and of education, have shown that prayer is not needed,

45:20

when this is absolutely not correct.

45:24

In fact, much of the discovery of this age of science,

45:28

which has too many justified the characterization of this

45:34

as being a secularistic age,

45:37

have been discoveries which have undergirded

45:39

the need for prayer.

45:43

Because of the fact that we have learned

45:46

that much of what makes for the abundant life

45:49

and for human peace and unity,

45:51

is the very stuff over which prayer has its greatest power,

45:57

the very stuff over which not much else but prayer

46:02

does have any power.

46:06

About the time that a great many intelligent people

46:11

were ready to abandon belief in the miracles

46:14

of the New Testament that had to do with physical healing,

46:17

there came from medical science itself,

46:21

new and fresh and compelling evidence

46:25

that most of the beds in hospitals are filled by people

46:30

who have physical illnesses that were caused

46:35

by attitudes and emotions.

46:38

Which you could not dispel or change

46:42

simply by snapping your fingers or giving a pill,

46:45

or performing an operation.

46:48

The way to cure that physical illness

46:51

would be to change some attitudes and emotions

46:54

in the areas of guilt, of hate,

46:58

of bitterness, of fear and anxiety.

47:02

And how do you do those things?

47:07

Prayer is the force, which above every other force,

47:10

can take a load of guilt out of the heart of a man.

47:16

Prayer is the force which can help to change bitterness

47:20

and resentment into acceptance and love,

47:24

and change anxiety into faith and confidence.

47:29

If you want a good book on this,

47:34

read Dr. Flanders Dunbar's book entitled, "Mind and Body",

47:36

in which as both a physician and as a psychiatrist,

47:41

she cites case after case of where a person became ill

47:43

not because there was a physiological reason,

47:47

but because there was a reason that operates in the area

47:50

where prayer operates.

47:53

Now that when a person got the right attitudes

47:55

through prayer and through Christian counseling,

47:57

the physical illness was healed.

48:01

So that it is now a very scientifically believable fact

48:03

that Jesus might have said to a man,

48:07

"Son, thy sins be forgiven thee,

48:09

rise, take up thy bed and walk," and that he did it,

48:12

whereas he could not before.

48:16

Dr. Paul Johnson of Boston University said that,

48:20

"Never before in the history of the world

48:22

have miracles of this kind had such believability as now."

48:25

J. A. Hadfield in his book on psychotherapy said,

48:32

that as he had been treating people with nervous disorders

48:36

and with various kinds of mental illnesses,

48:39

he had tried to heal many of them by assuring them

48:42

of the things on which they could rely

48:46

and building up confidence within them,

48:48

and bringing harmony to their personality.

48:50

He said over and over again,

48:53

as he had tried to do this in ways unrelated to God,

48:54

he had failed.

48:58

But then when he had been able to get this person

49:00

who had this nervous disorder,

49:02

or who did not have harmony in his personality,

49:05

to relate his confidence and his hope to God through prayer,

49:09

harmony had come, confidence had been restored,

49:15

and this person had been brought together as a unified whole

49:19

growing joyously toward the abundant life.

49:24

Dr. Hadfield said in this book, as he concluded this,

49:29

"My interest in saying this is not primarily theological,

49:33

because as a psychotherapist,

49:39

I have no interest in theology.

49:40

My interest is in what helps people

49:43

and prayer helps people."

49:47

All right?

49:51

So the person in a secularistic age

49:54

who has abandoned prayer because he finds

49:57

that everything operates according to natural law

50:01

and we do not need prayer, needs to take another look at it.

50:03

What is the problem today

50:11

that is pressing most upon the world?

50:12

Isn't it the problem of the threat of nuclear war,

50:16

it would destroy civilization east and west?

50:20

How do you solve that problem?

50:24

Is there anything that you can do this morning

50:27

or that I can do, or all of us together can do,

50:30

by an act of will?

50:32

Could we go out from this chapel and say,

50:34

"We're all going to do this particular thing

50:36

and cure this problem and erase this threat?"

50:38

Nothing, we are totally impotent to go out

50:43

and do something like that today,

50:48

and bring the assurance of peace to our world.

50:51

And with all of our technology and science

50:56

and our knowledge of natural law and psychology

50:58

and what we are today as defenseless

51:00

against human destruction as we have ever been

51:03

in the history of the human race.

51:06

But prayer has tremendous power in this very area,

51:11

because peace is kept and war is averted by the very things

51:19

which prayer can produce, and over which it has control.

51:25

The greatest miracle that could be seen in the world today,

51:33

whether in the laboratory or outside the laboratory

51:36

would be for the miracle of peace to be assured.

51:39

Making ax heads float, the sun stands still,

51:44

would be child's play compared to that miracle.

51:47

And yet, if enough people will pray earnestly enough,

51:52

this miracle can happen.

51:57

Well, the secularistic age

52:01

needs to take a new look at prayer.

52:05

We have come back to the point now in human destiny

52:10

when we can have a fresh appreciation

52:13

of what Louis Pasteur said in his laboratory many years ago.

52:16

That off-quoted incident in the life of the man

52:22

to whom you may owe your existence because of his research,

52:25

has a fresh word to say to us today.

52:30

You remember that he was alone in his laboratory

52:34

bending over the microscope, and a student came in,

52:36

didn't know he was there,

52:39

saw him bent over and thought he was praying,

52:40

turned around and began to tiptoe out of the laboratory.

52:44

Pasteur raised his head and said, "Did you want to see me?"

52:47

He said, "Excuse me, I thought you were praying,

52:50

and Pasteur said, "I was."

52:53

By means of which he said that prayer is so related

52:56

to the vocation of a man that as he pursues his vocation

53:01

with faithfulness and diligence, he's involved in prayer.

53:05

And when he's involved in prayer, it is related to his life,

53:09

to his vocation, to what he's doing.

53:14

Unity, prayer and the secular order.

53:20

Whether it is preserving peace,

53:25

whether it is bringing health to the bodies

53:28

and minds of men,

53:30

whether it is any of the disciplines of the academic life,

53:33

prayer can be a part of it and the most powerful part.

53:37

But it is important in all our praying to remember

53:42

that only the prayer which is prayed in harmony

53:47

with the will of God through Jesus Christ,

53:50

is a useful prayer.

53:54

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that every time we pray,

53:58

we should begin with a verse of scripture

54:03

to be sure that our praying is according to the Word of God.

54:07

And then he said, "If we do this every time we pray,

54:15

the prayer will be heard and answered."

54:21

His life and his death proved

54:26

the truth of Bonhoeffer's words.

54:31

And so, how do we get unity and peace in the secular order?

54:35

Through prayer.

54:41

How do we find meaning for our lives?

54:44

Through prayer.

54:47

So, let us pray.

54:49

Our heavenly Father,

54:58

we thank thee that thou dost communicate with us,

55:01

thy children.

55:04

We thank thee that thou hast made it possible for us

55:06

to have fellowship with thee.

55:09

May we not neglect that conversation,

55:13

help us to build strong bridges between ourselves

55:17

and our heavenly Father.

55:22

And now may the grace of the Lord,

55:25

Jesus Christ be with you all.

55:27

(upbeat music)

55:34

W. Arthur Kale - "Wretched Are the Peacemakers"; Howard C. Wilkinson - "Prayer in a Secularistic Age" (October 21, 1962)

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