W. Arthur Kale - "Wretched Are the Peacemakers"; Howard C. Wilkinson - "Prayer in a Secularistic Age" (October 21, 1962)
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Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | These are troublesome times for peacemakers. | 0:22 |
Whether one finds them as members of a peace organization, | 0:32 | |
or whether they serve in the governments of the nations | 0:39 | |
or represent their governments in United Nations, | 0:43 | |
or whether they speak from pulpit or podium, | 0:49 | |
peacemakers live uneasy lives. | 0:54 | |
Because they need encouragement perhaps, | 1:04 | |
and because they've married it perhaps, | 1:09 | |
a Sunday has been selected in the calendar year, | 1:14 | |
and on this particular Sunday, | 1:20 | |
peacemakers are given special recognition. | 1:23 | |
Today is the Sunday. | 1:31 | |
It is appropriate therefore that we who worship | 1:36 | |
here in Duke Chapel, should join with others | 1:39 | |
who worship God across America | 1:45 | |
in observing this special Sunday, called World Order Sunday. | 1:48 | |
Now finding a text for our sermon | 1:59 | |
appropriate to World Order Sunday, has been easy. | 2:03 | |
I have done as thousands of others in other days have done, | 2:10 | |
namely, I've turned to the passage, | 2:16 | |
the noble and oft quoted passage in Isaiah chapter two. | 2:20 | |
A chapter which articulates in poetic fashion, | 2:28 | |
the longing of the human heart for release | 2:34 | |
from the costly and painful destruction of war. | 2:40 | |
I read again a sentence from that poem | 2:46 | |
and that expression of man's dream of peace. | 2:52 | |
Isaiah 2:4, "He the Lord, shall judge between the nations | 2:56 | |
and shall decide for many peoples | 3:04 | |
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares | 3:08 | |
and their spears into pruning hooks. | 3:12 | |
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, | 3:15 | |
neither shall they learn war anymore." | 3:20 | |
As the spokesman at this particular service, | 3:28 | |
I could wish that I might announce this text with confidence | 3:31 | |
and with a sense of elation. | 3:36 | |
But as I say, these are troublesome times for peacemakers | 3:38 | |
and peacemakers are not confident today. | 3:44 | |
Peacemakers carry in their hearts | 3:49 | |
little of what might be described as elation. | 3:51 | |
I have not forgotten that in the famous Sermon on the Mount, | 3:59 | |
and in that section that we familiarly call the Beatitudes, | 4:05 | |
that the seventh Beatitude of our Lord declares | 4:10 | |
that, "Blessed are the peacemakers." | 4:15 | |
I am paraphrasing this Beatitude | 4:21 | |
and announcing it as my subject for today. | 4:25 | |
Saying not blessed are the peacemakers | 4:30 | |
but rather more accurately I suspect in our time, | 4:33 | |
wretched are peacemaker. | 4:38 | |
This is not the wretchedness of men who have espoused | 4:44 | |
an unworthy cause, who have discovered their error | 4:51 | |
and who have repented of it. | 4:56 | |
The despondency in the hearts of peacemakers | 4:59 | |
is not the result of complete failure in their enterprise. | 5:02 | |
Dejection of spirit among peacemakers | 5:11 | |
is inevitable in the first place, | 5:15 | |
because many of the successes of the peace movement | 5:18 | |
have been marginal rather than central. | 5:23 | |
Marginal success is all right so far as it goes, | 5:31 | |
but it is quite disappointing. | 5:35 | |
A good example familiar to all of us, | 5:38 | |
is the football team that makes more first downs | 5:40 | |
than the opposing team and yet the opposing team | 5:45 | |
makes more touchdowns and wins the game. | 5:48 | |
No complaint against making first downs, | 5:51 | |
but the result doesn't depend upon this marginal success. | 5:55 | |
In the peace movement, we have had encouraging successes, | 6:01 | |
which have to be classified as marginal. | 6:07 | |
Take, for example, the rather lengthy and quite impressive | 6:12 | |
succession of noble pronouncements across centuries | 6:17 | |
from the day of Isaiah until now, perhaps, | 6:24 | |
men have been able to formulate and to express impressively | 6:28 | |
this dream of the human heart for a warless world. | 6:33 | |
Orators have again and again, quoted Isaiah | 6:39 | |
and paraphrased him and added their own perorations | 6:44 | |
concerning man's hope. | 6:48 | |
How vividly I recall from my boyhood days | 6:52 | |
the pronouncements during World War I, | 6:56 | |
that this was to be a war-to-end war. | 6:59 | |
The dream of peace will be enlarged and developed, | 7:04 | |
and man will accomplish the dream. | 7:09 | |
But since the days of disillusionment following that war, | 7:17 | |
we know very well that the thoughts we entertain | 7:22 | |
then could not have resulted as we expected. | 7:25 | |
But we have not ceased to formulate our expressions | 7:30 | |
and hopes. | 7:34 | |
During World War II, we had a number of fine examples. | 7:38 | |
The Federal Council of Churches, | 7:44 | |
as it was known in those days, in the year 1943, | 7:46 | |
set forth what was described as Six Pillars to Peace. | 7:49 | |
A great gathering of Catholics and Jews and Protestants | 7:56 | |
formulated what was called a Pattern for Peace | 8:00 | |
in the month of October in the year, 1943. | 8:05 | |
Or, many of you are familiar with the famous, | 8:11 | |
Methodist Social Creed that this denomination has formulated | 8:14 | |
and included in its Book of Discipline | 8:19 | |
for a good long while. | 8:22 | |
And clergymen of this faith are required to read it | 8:24 | |
to their congregations at least once annually. | 8:27 | |
This formulation of a social creed, a position, | 8:31 | |
a positive, hopeful, encouraging declaration it is, | 8:37 | |
carefully thought out and formulated and stated, | 8:42 | |
and yet only partially successful since many a person reads | 8:47 | |
and forgets and others do not even read. | 8:52 | |
The latest illustration that I have in this area | 8:57 | |
is the declaration that the President of The United States | 9:01 | |
made just about two years ago, | 9:05 | |
appearing before the Assembly of United Nations, | 9:08 | |
soon after the death of Doug Roosevelt, | 9:12 | |
President Kennedy, challenged the Soviet Union | 9:15 | |
to a race for peace as a substitute for a race to arms. | 9:19 | |
In the current news, | 9:26 | |
just this last week as a matter of fact, | 9:27 | |
the Methodists again, sent to the White House, | 9:30 | |
it was announced that they sent to the White House, | 9:34 | |
a great petition bearing 30,000 signatures | 9:37 | |
of individual American citizens | 9:41 | |
who are supporting our president | 9:44 | |
in this so-called race for peace. | 9:47 | |
A partial success, no one complains of it, | 9:52 | |
one rejoices in it, but at best, but a marginal success. | 9:55 | |
Perhaps the best of illustrations is United Nations itself. | 10:02 | |
Just 17 years ago, this coming Wednesday, | 10:08 | |
or on October 24 in the year, 1945, | 10:13 | |
51 nations having sent their representatives | 10:17 | |
to the great conference in San Francisco, | 10:21 | |
declared themselves in favor of peace. | 10:24 | |
And in our various, impressive, | 10:29 | |
preamble to the constitution of United Nations | 10:31 | |
or Charter of United Nations, it was solemnly affirmed | 10:35 | |
that these nations believe in justice, | 10:40 | |
in brotherhood, in peace, in order. | 10:45 | |
As we look across 17 years, we rejoice in successes, | 10:52 | |
successes in a variety of ways, I cannot name many, | 10:58 | |
I illustrate by references to two. | 11:01 | |
To the accomplishments under that section called | 11:04 | |
the World Health Organization and to other, perhaps, | 11:08 | |
more significant contributions or successes under UNESCO, | 11:12 | |
in 17 years much has happened. | 11:17 | |
Great good has come as a result | 11:21 | |
of the faith and the action of 51 nations | 11:24 | |
who took their action 17 years ago, | 11:29 | |
that we have a world of order, we cannot report. | 11:34 | |
At best, the success of United Nations | 11:41 | |
is fractional and marginal, not at all complete, | 11:45 | |
and only in a limited sense, is it central. | 11:52 | |
So the peacemakers are a bit despondent in spirit, | 11:59 | |
they are not happy people. | 12:05 | |
And we can say paraphrasing the Beatitude, | 12:07 | |
wretched are the peacemakers in our time. | 12:11 | |
Their wretchedness is of another kind. | 12:19 | |
It is the uneasiness of not being ready, | 12:23 | |
fully ready, when the moment of opportunity comes. | 12:30 | |
That ours is a day of revolution we cannot deny. | 12:37 | |
But this current era of revolution | 12:44 | |
may suggest an opportunity for the peacemaker, | 12:50 | |
if he could feel himself prepared. | 12:55 | |
Life is saying to us day after day, "The time is right." | 12:59 | |
Human affairs are in a state of readiness, | 13:06 | |
not merely for a new scientific and cultural era, | 13:11 | |
not merely for the new era called the peace era, | 13:16 | |
but for a new era in human relationships. | 13:21 | |
Again, I can only give examples, | 13:30 | |
I cannot survey all the evidence that might be brought here. | 13:32 | |
Let's pick up the great continent Africa | 13:36 | |
or take a look at the great continent of Africa. | 13:39 | |
In my boyhood days, and in fact, in more recent times, | 13:44 | |
it was commonly referred to as the "Dark Continent", | 13:47 | |
that is no longer an appropriate, descriptive, expression. | 13:52 | |
Africa is the emerging continent. | 13:59 | |
Africa is ready. | 14:04 | |
220 millions of people growing at a rate, | 14:08 | |
which is one of the fastest rates | 14:14 | |
of population growth in the world, | 14:16 | |
having grown about 13% since the year 1950. | 14:20 | |
With representatives of all other continents, | 14:26 | |
6 million Europeans, 12 million Indians and other Asians, | 14:30 | |
with 800 different Negro tribes, | 14:36 | |
with a large section of Arabs in the north | 14:40 | |
and on the east coast, | 14:42 | |
Africa is saying to all other continents and peoples, | 14:45 | |
"We are ready for a new era." | 14:49 | |
Industrially, the revolution is already underway. | 14:54 | |
Here is a great developing water power system. | 15:00 | |
In the Congo is a mighty supply of copper and cobalt. | 15:05 | |
In South Africa, one finds the world's largest | 15:09 | |
producer of gold, of gem diamonds, of platinum, of chrome. | 15:13 | |
The iron and coal oars are almost inexhaustible. | 15:19 | |
I was impressed as I read recently | 15:25 | |
of the great gold mine called Western Deep, | 15:27 | |
2 1/2 miles deep. | 15:30 | |
And someone has proposed that it could take 16 Eiffel Towers | 15:34 | |
and stack them one on top of the other in that mine, | 15:41 | |
or you can take eight Empire State Buildings | 15:45 | |
and put them in the great western mine. | 15:48 | |
Politically, the balance in Africa | 15:53 | |
has already swung from colonialism to nationalism. | 15:56 | |
New nations have gained their independence | 16:01 | |
with breathtaking rapidity. | 16:04 | |
In that great continent, and in another parts of the world, | 16:08 | |
newly independent nations, as symbols of man's new freedom, | 16:14 | |
add a new dimension to the need | 16:21 | |
for some kind of political instrument | 16:25 | |
for collective guidance and action. | 16:29 | |
And the need is now, it is immediate, it is urgent. | 16:33 | |
Because the peacemakers feel that they are poorly prepared | 16:40 | |
for this moment they have a sense of uneasiness. | 16:46 | |
We have not forgotten that we were unready for other days. | 16:53 | |
We were not ready for December 7, 1941. | 16:59 | |
We were not ready for August 5, 1945, | 17:04 | |
when bombs were dropped upon two Japanese cities, | 17:08 | |
and abruptly the world passed from one era into another. | 17:11 | |
We, particularly here in America, we're not prepared | 17:16 | |
for what we now call Sputnik Day, September, 1957, | 17:19 | |
and the space era really began. | 17:27 | |
We were not quite ready for April 21, 1961, | 17:31 | |
for the man in space day. | 17:36 | |
We have not forgotten that we have been poorly prepared | 17:41 | |
for certain conditions and ideologies | 17:45 | |
that have come into life in our time. | 17:48 | |
For automation in industry, for mechanization in farming, | 17:51 | |
for the mighty systems of swift communication, | 17:56 | |
for this rather unusual social phenomenon | 18:00 | |
that has been called (indistinct), | 18:06 | |
the elongated cities that stretch not across a county | 18:10 | |
or even a state but across several states, | 18:15 | |
as an illustration, the great finger city | 18:18 | |
is stretching from Washington to Boston. | 18:21 | |
Or one perhaps better known to many of us | 18:25 | |
that is soon to be realized | 18:27 | |
from Richmond to Atlanta and beyond. | 18:29 | |
We've not been quite ready | 18:32 | |
for these sociological changes and shifts in our time. | 18:34 | |
We have not been ready for integration in public education. | 18:42 | |
Partisans on both sides of the issue | 18:47 | |
are agreed on that point, we were not quite ready. | 18:50 | |
Some bemoan the fact that we were not ready | 18:54 | |
and have said, "Let's postpone it for a long while yet." | 19:00 | |
Others are declaring that it cannot wait, | 19:05 | |
and we were all aware that likely is true. | 19:07 | |
In Christian circles, | 19:15 | |
we are in the midst of the great ecumenical movement, | 19:16 | |
but again, we are agreed that we're hardly prepared for it. | 19:21 | |
We can make reports, some of which are encouraging, | 19:25 | |
but again, many of us are puzzled about the future, | 19:28 | |
and are asking all kinds of questions | 19:32 | |
about how it's to be worked out. | 19:34 | |
We rejoice as we read the news | 19:36 | |
of the great event in Rome today, | 19:38 | |
yet what the future holds we cannot say, | 19:41 | |
we're an unready people. | 19:43 | |
Now the peacemakers add, | 19:47 | |
that although there is an opportunity immediately ahead, | 19:51 | |
they and the whole of humanity are hardly ready. | 19:56 | |
Let me conclude this particular thought by reminding you | 20:02 | |
in the words of Charles Forman | 20:05 | |
in a little book called," A Faith for the Nations". | 20:08 | |
"That ours is a world that will not wait | 20:11 | |
to be introduced formally and appropriately | 20:14 | |
and by means of the customary expression, | 20:18 | |
ours is a world that's rushing in upon us, | 20:23 | |
and mighty is the force of the rush, | 20:28 | |
in the presence of some | 20:34 | |
who would call themselves peacemakers." | 20:35 | |
Finally, peacemakers are uneasy lest they fail to declare | 20:40 | |
a message of hope in this time of crisis. | 20:48 | |
This brings me again to the scripture of the morning, | 20:52 | |
the verses in chapter two, | 20:56 | |
which express man's dream of peace. | 20:57 | |
Are you aware that there's a very startling parallel | 21:00 | |
between conditions in the world of the 8th century BC, | 21:04 | |
and the world that we know here in this period | 21:10 | |
of the 20th century AD? | 21:12 | |
There were two rival powers, great empires, | 21:15 | |
located approximately 500 miles apart from border to border | 21:19 | |
on an axis that stretched roughly northeast to southwest, | 21:25 | |
as Syria at the northeast, Egypt at the southwest, | 21:30 | |
and the little kingdoms between caught in squeezed plays | 21:35 | |
and in the pressures and tensions of the time. | 21:39 | |
Isaiah was the prophet to the little nation Judah. | 21:43 | |
In the atmosphere or context of the tension and crisis | 21:47 | |
of that era, there came from that era this dream of peace, | 21:51 | |
this expression of man's longing. | 22:02 | |
The noble words of Isaiah's utterance | 22:06 | |
were born in that particular period, | 22:10 | |
swords into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks, | 22:14 | |
the very thought that nations shall not learn war. | 22:18 | |
Now friends, our day needs a similar message. | 22:24 | |
It will not be expressed in terms of displaced swords | 22:27 | |
and refashioned plowshares, but in terms of world order, | 22:31 | |
the accomplishment of freedom for all under law, | 22:38 | |
the rule of the majority | 22:43 | |
combined with protection for minorities. | 22:46 | |
The encouragement of diversity within an overarching unity. | 22:51 | |
The restraint of those who cannot restrain themselves | 22:57 | |
by some international body when necessary | 23:02 | |
of those who act against the general welfare. | 23:06 | |
Can this be more than a tantalizing dream? | 23:11 | |
Can this become for us a confident expression | 23:17 | |
of expectation? | 23:23 | |
The peacemakers feel a sense of responsibility. | 23:27 | |
And though dejected because their successes | 23:33 | |
to now have been fractional and marginal, | 23:37 | |
yet the very obligation they feel | 23:40 | |
makes them the most significant body | 23:43 | |
in this moment of destiny, | 23:47 | |
so far as the human race is concerned. | 23:50 | |
Let us therefore pay our tribute | 23:54 | |
to peacemakers this morning, let's offer prayer for them, | 23:57 | |
let's support them. | 24:02 | |
We sang it a while ago in the second hymn | 24:04 | |
used in this service. | 24:07 | |
These things shall be (indistinct) | 24:09 | |
no hath known shall rise | 24:15 | |
with flame of freedom in their souls | 24:17 | |
and light of knowledge in their eyes. | 24:20 | |
They shall be gentle, brave, and strong, | 24:23 | |
to spill no drop of blood, | 24:26 | |
but dare that all may plant man's lordship | 24:28 | |
firm on earth and fire and sea and air. | 24:32 | |
Nation with nation, land with land. | 24:37 | |
In arms shall live as comrades free | 24:40 | |
and in every heart and brain | 24:43 | |
shall (indistinct) of one fraternity. | 24:45 | |
This type of hope for Isaiah, and I am persuaded for us, | 24:52 | |
can be achieved only through a solid, religious faith. | 25:00 | |
Peace cannot come by man alone. | 25:07 | |
World Order Sunday is the day | 25:10 | |
upon which Christian worshipers | 25:13 | |
should call their own nation and the other nations | 25:15 | |
back to have faith in Almighty God. | 25:19 | |
Let God be God, oh, nations of the Earth, | 25:23 | |
and in Him, shall peace be found. | 25:28 | |
Let us pray. | 25:37 | |
Eternal God upon whom men have called in centuries past, | 25:45 | |
we acknowledged that in thee, | 25:51 | |
and in thee alone we find our hope today. | 25:53 | |
Look upon us in mercy and love, oh God, | 25:58 | |
and give to us peace in our time. | 26:02 | |
May the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ, | 26:10 | |
and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit | 26:14 | |
be with you all. | 26:21 | |
- | Chapels and churches on the campuses of colleges | 26:26 |
and universities around the world, | 26:30 | |
there's being observed today, | 26:33 | |
the annual observance of World Day of Prayer for students. | 26:36 | |
We are observing that here in the Duke University Chapel, | 26:43 | |
as we do on the 3rd Sunday in February of each year. | 26:46 | |
This is an interdenominational, international observance | 26:52 | |
of something very real to the Christian community, | 26:59 | |
for the benefit of individual students | 27:03 | |
at individual colleges and universities, | 27:06 | |
but also for the benefit of the world christian movement | 27:08 | |
on the campuses of mankind. | 27:12 | |
It is sponsored by the World Student Christian Federation, | 27:17 | |
headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. | 27:22 | |
The executive committee | 27:27 | |
of the World Student Christian Federation each year, | 27:28 | |
selects a theme for use in college and university | 27:31 | |
services of worship on this day, | 27:36 | |
and they prepare certain material. | 27:39 | |
Some of the prayers are prepared | 27:42 | |
particularly for use in these services. | 27:44 | |
So that today the prayers which we have used | 27:48 | |
have been used in thousands of services around the Earth. | 27:50 | |
So that our prayers have been raised together | 27:56 | |
to the same God, for the same students, | 28:00 | |
and the same concerns. | 28:03 | |
Now the theme which has been selected for today, | 28:06 | |
is being used everywhere in the world, | 28:10 | |
but it is something of a problem. | 28:12 | |
At least on the face of it, | 28:15 | |
it appears not to communicate very much, | 28:17 | |
unity, peace and the secular order. | 28:20 | |
Now, when first you hear those words, | 28:26 | |
there is not very much of a message communicated. | 28:29 | |
It's about like saying, | 28:33 | |
chicken feathers, sassafras and pine cones. | 28:36 | |
What do those things have to do with each other? | 28:42 | |
And what strung together do they say? | 28:44 | |
Almost nothing. | 28:47 | |
Unity, peace and the secular order. | 28:49 | |
And then when you add to that, | 28:53 | |
the fact that this theme is joined | 28:54 | |
with an emphasis on prayer, you have unity, | 28:56 | |
peace, the secular order and prayer. | 28:58 | |
You could have mentioned presumably any other four things, | 29:02 | |
that would be like adding something else | 29:05 | |
to chicken feathers, sassafras, and pine cones, | 29:07 | |
and saying, and blue books. | 29:10 | |
What does this say to us today? | 29:15 | |
That we should be joining in thought | 29:17 | |
about these things on a universal day | 29:20 | |
of prayer for students. | 29:24 | |
Well, when we, as individuals, think of using prayer | 29:28 | |
in an academic community and encouraging other people | 29:32 | |
in the academic community to join us in prayer, | 29:37 | |
we become aware of certain objections, | 29:41 | |
which some of our colleagues | 29:44 | |
make to be used for prayer into its validity. | 29:47 | |
And one of the things we become impressed with | 29:51 | |
as we face these objections is, | 29:54 | |
that we are living in a secularistic age. | 29:57 | |
I think it is important for us | 30:02 | |
as we look at prayer in this context, | 30:03 | |
to understand what we mean by this. | 30:06 | |
Our forefathers used words which were meaningful to them | 30:10 | |
and which were derived from the text of the Bible, | 30:12 | |
which we do not use a great deal today, | 30:16 | |
but we use two other words or phrases instead of that. | 30:17 | |
Our forefathers talked about worldliness, | 30:23 | |
they talked about another world. | 30:27 | |
So, when they were talking about prayer, | 30:30 | |
they were talking about something which had its origin | 30:33 | |
and its significance not so much in this world | 30:36 | |
as in a world that is not of this world, | 30:39 | |
namely another world, the other world. | 30:42 | |
And so when you were talking about prayer, | 30:45 | |
you were talking about other worldly things. | 30:47 | |
And if you were interested in prayer, | 30:51 | |
you had other worldly interests. | 30:52 | |
And those who did not have an interest in prayer, | 30:56 | |
who did not participate in it and did not see significance | 30:59 | |
in spiritual values, were referred to as worldly people. | 31:03 | |
That is to say their orientation | 31:09 | |
and their frame of reference was derived from this world, | 31:11 | |
which either can or cannot, which either may or may not, | 31:15 | |
acknowledge God and His relevance to the world. | 31:19 | |
But you can eat and sleep, and study in this world | 31:23 | |
without any reference to God. | 31:27 | |
And those of another generation | 31:29 | |
who did this were called worldly people, | 31:31 | |
and those who ate and slept and studied in this world | 31:36 | |
with a frame of reference which derives its significance | 31:39 | |
in the other world were called | 31:43 | |
other worldly people, sometimes. | 31:44 | |
Now the terms we use today are sacred and secular. | 31:48 | |
Prayer pertains to the sacred world. | 31:54 | |
Eating and sleeping pertains to the secular world. | 31:57 | |
The day's work are vocation. | 32:00 | |
Politics, politics is in the secular world. | 32:03 | |
Now, when a person today has his major orientation | 32:08 | |
derived from this secular world without primary reference | 32:14 | |
to the sacred world, we say, this person is secularistic. | 32:19 | |
And in that sense, you and I today live | 32:25 | |
in an age which is markedly characterized by secularism, | 32:28 | |
which is some have said a secularist age. | 32:33 | |
But here we come today as Christians around the world | 32:36 | |
to talk about and to practice prayer in a secularistic age. | 32:40 | |
We come with another worldly emphasis | 32:46 | |
into this worldly age. | 32:49 | |
Now, what do we have to say about prayer | 32:54 | |
in a secularistic age? | 32:56 | |
We who call ourselves Christians who believe that in God | 32:59 | |
is our center of reference, | 33:04 | |
and in prayer to God is our great hope and our strength. | 33:06 | |
I think we might commence our conversation | 33:12 | |
with a secularistic age by an examination | 33:15 | |
of the reasons often given by the secularists | 33:18 | |
for abandoning prayer, for rejecting it, | 33:21 | |
and for saying that it does not have power and meaning | 33:25 | |
for that age and those people. | 33:29 | |
The first reason so often given is, | 33:33 | |
that intellectually discerning people have said | 33:35 | |
that many, many prayers which they have heard or read, | 33:38 | |
have been unworthy prayers. | 33:41 | |
And so they have rejected prayer altogether, | 33:44 | |
because they have rejected as being | 33:46 | |
unthinkable for an intelligent person, | 33:49 | |
the prayers which they have heard. | 33:51 | |
They read in the newspaper that a group of people | 33:55 | |
in Miami, Florida, pray that when the hurricane | 33:57 | |
approaches Miami, it will not strike Miami, | 34:00 | |
but that it will go farther up the coast | 34:03 | |
and hit those people up there. | 34:05 | |
They read in the newspaper that a group of people | 34:08 | |
are meeting together to pray that it will commence to rain, | 34:10 | |
because there has been a long dry spell, | 34:13 | |
or they meet to pray that it will stop raining | 34:15 | |
because it has been raining too long. | 34:18 | |
And they say that they feel that the weather | 34:21 | |
is not governed by the prayers which people pray, | 34:24 | |
and that God does not from day-to-day, | 34:27 | |
or anyone from day-to-day by conscious deliberate choices, | 34:30 | |
decide what the weather will be that day. | 34:34 | |
Now they have forgotten as they concentrate | 34:38 | |
upon rejecting these two kinds of prayer, | 34:40 | |
that Jesus Christ did not enjoin upon His followers, | 34:42 | |
either one of those types of prayers | 34:46 | |
or any of the other kinds of unsatisfactory | 34:48 | |
and unacceptable prayers, | 34:51 | |
which are sometimes prayed by intelligent people, | 34:52 | |
and sometimes prayed by unintelligent people. | 34:56 | |
Jesus said, "God sends His rain | 35:01 | |
on the just and on the unjust." | 35:03 | |
He never did enjoin anybody to pray | 35:07 | |
that it would commence to rain, | 35:09 | |
or that it would stop raining. | 35:11 | |
He certainly never asked anyone to pray | 35:13 | |
that a natural disaster might avoid us | 35:15 | |
and our friends and strike others. | 35:19 | |
Just the opposite of that would be the spirit of Jesus. | 35:23 | |
And so these people who reject prayer for these reasons, | 35:27 | |
because they have seen some unintelligent | 35:30 | |
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 |