Howard C. Wilkinson - "Spiritual Isometric Contractions" (January 27, 1963)
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| - | Last October '21, a space probing craft was sent a loft | 0:17 |
| by the United States Space Agency. | 0:25 | |
| And it passed by 300 miles away from the moon | 0:29 | |
| on a perfectly executed trip, | 0:34 | |
| which was entered into for the purpose of exploring | 0:38 | |
| the moon and photographing the moon | 0:42 | |
| by means of television cameras, | 0:45 | |
| which were carefully built into this spacecraft, | 0:47 | |
| which went by the name of Explorer 5. | 0:52 | |
| When this spacecraft passed by 300 miles from the moon | 0:58 | |
| it was in perfect position to take the pictures | 1:03 | |
| which would have revealed more information about the moon | 1:06 | |
| to American scientists and they had received | 1:09 | |
| and all of the previous years put together. | 1:13 | |
| This multi-million dollar project, | 1:18 | |
| however, was completely frustrated. | 1:21 | |
| It did not accomplish any of the things | 1:24 | |
| for which it was sent aloft, | 1:27 | |
| all of the money at the time research equipment | 1:29 | |
| and tremendous power that went into this project | 1:34 | |
| was for not. | 1:37 | |
| Ranger 5 did not function at the strategic moment | 1:40 | |
| for a very interesting reason. | 1:46 | |
| The power which went into the rocket | 1:49 | |
| which set it into orbit and finally then out of orbit | 1:52 | |
| into space. | 1:56 | |
| The tremendous power that was needed to guide the rocket | 1:58 | |
| and make it respond to the directions | 2:03 | |
| that were being sent aloft by scientists on earth | 2:04 | |
| was sufficient, but the relatively small amount of power | 2:09 | |
| that was needed to operate the television cameras | 2:17 | |
| at the strategic time that they needed to operate | 2:21 | |
| to take the pictures of the moon at the time | 2:26 | |
| Ranger 5 was passing the moon, was missing. | 2:29 | |
| The small batteries that were supposed to have the power | 2:35 | |
| to operate the camera were dead. | 2:40 | |
| This I think is a rather dramatic illustration | 2:46 | |
| of the fact that great power in general can be for not | 2:49 | |
| unless there is specific power to do the job. | 2:54 | |
| So that all of the other work and the other power | 2:59 | |
| that went into this project was quite insufficient | 3:01 | |
| because the project lacked specific power | 3:06 | |
| at the point it was necessary to get the job done. | 3:08 | |
| Now I mentioned this at the beginning of a sermon | 3:14 | |
| here in the Duke Chapel today | 3:16 | |
| for the purpose of illustrating the fact | 3:17 | |
| that the Christian movement in the world, | 3:20 | |
| the Christian enterprise, the Christian Church | 3:23 | |
| is very much like this. | 3:26 | |
| The Christian Church has tremendous power. | 3:29 | |
| If we were to assess the power of the Christian movement | 3:33 | |
| in the world today it would stagger the imagination. | 3:36 | |
| If you were to read the statistics as I have recently, | 3:40 | |
| that have been compiled by the National Council | 3:45 | |
| of the Churches of Christ in America. | 3:47 | |
| The number of Christians of each and every denomination | 3:50 | |
| in this country and in foreign countries, add them all up | 3:54 | |
| and see how many people there are in the world | 3:58 | |
| who named the name of Christ. | 4:00 | |
| It is a staggering total. | 4:02 | |
| And then if we were to consider the financial power | 4:05 | |
| of the Christian movement, | 4:08 | |
| that is to say not only the money that is possessed | 4:10 | |
| by these people who call themselves Christians, | 4:13 | |
| but the amount of money they give to Christian institutions, | 4:15 | |
| it is an impressive figure. | 4:18 | |
| Protestantism alone in the United States | 4:20 | |
| on the dimension one branch of Christiandom in one country | 4:23 | |
| contributed nearly $3 billion | 4:26 | |
| to the coffers of the Christian Church during the last year, | 4:30 | |
| this is financial strength. | 4:35 | |
| And then if we were to add up the power of influence | 4:39 | |
| which Christians have in the world today, | 4:42 | |
| judged by the positions of influence | 4:46 | |
| that Christian people have, this too would be impressive. | 4:48 | |
| The number of heads of governments who are Christians, | 4:53 | |
| the number of business and industrial leaders | 4:56 | |
| who are Christians, | 4:58 | |
| the number of educational leaders who are Christians. | 4:59 | |
| It would seem that the Christian movement in the world today | 5:02 | |
| has a great deal of general power, | 5:06 | |
| of whatever kind you might mention | 5:10 | |
| and of whatever kind is needed. | 5:12 | |
| But it is worth our while looking at the fact | 5:15 | |
| that unless we have developed, and if we do not have it, | 5:18 | |
| then unless we do develop specific strength at the points | 5:22 | |
| where the Christian movement must make contact | 5:28 | |
| with the problems of the world, | 5:30 | |
| we may fail as totally to win the world for Christ | 5:33 | |
| as Ranger 5 failed to execute the mission | 5:38 | |
| which had justified all that went into it. | 5:43 | |
| It is my opinion that the Christian movement | 5:47 | |
| that is to say you and me and people like us, | 5:50 | |
| are very often in the category of this space probing craft | 5:56 | |
| of the American Space Agency. | 6:02 | |
| We have great power in general, theological power, | 6:04 | |
| ecclesiastical power, liturgical power, | 6:07 | |
| but we do not have specific power | 6:12 | |
| when it comes to making any effective witness | 6:14 | |
| for the Christian movement in our day. | 6:18 | |
| At this point, I believe there is a very helpful lesson | 6:24 | |
| which the Christian movement can learn | 6:28 | |
| from the athletic world. | 6:29 | |
| And I would like therefore for you to think about | 6:32 | |
| a recent development in the athletic world, | 6:34 | |
| which has brought great benefit to athletes, | 6:38 | |
| to athletic teams, and which if we were to copy and apply | 6:41 | |
| to the Christian movement | 6:45 | |
| would bring equally great benefits to the church. | 6:46 | |
| I speak of a development that is known | 6:50 | |
| by the term Functional Isometric Contraction. | 6:53 | |
| Isometric contraction is a rather simple device | 6:58 | |
| that was developed | 7:03 | |
| mainly in the laboratories of Louisiana State University. | 7:04 | |
| It has been described in a number of publications. | 7:08 | |
| The principle of isometric contraction is simply this. | 7:12 | |
| It involves the development of functional athletic strength | 7:18 | |
| by static tension, by motionless movement, | 7:24 | |
| by the development of the muscles through great exertion | 7:36 | |
| in the position where greatest strength is needed. | 7:42 | |
| If an athlete needs his greatest strength with his arm bent, | 7:48 | |
| then the exercise is carried out | 7:54 | |
| with the arm in the bent position. | 7:56 | |
| If his greatest strength is needed | 7:59 | |
| with his arm outstretched, | 8:01 | |
| then he pushes with all his might | 8:03 | |
| against an immovable object with his arm outstretched. | 8:05 | |
| If his greatest strength is needed in his legs | 8:10 | |
| with his legs straight, then he pushes against something | 8:13 | |
| that isn't immovable with his legs straight. | 8:16 | |
| And it has been demonstrated in the laboratory | 8:21 | |
| that if an athlete will do this | 8:23 | |
| for a period of approximately 10 seconds, 10 to 12 seconds | 8:26 | |
| at the end of a general workout period, | 8:31 | |
| and he will do this once a day | 8:34 | |
| for a period of several months, | 8:36 | |
| he will increase his efficiency and his ability | 8:39 | |
| by as much as 20% and in some cases, 40%. | 8:43 | |
| This is certainly very often | 8:49 | |
| the margin between defeat and victory in athletic events. | 8:52 | |
| If a shot putter wants to excel in throwing the shot, | 8:58 | |
| it is important for him that he had general strength | 9:03 | |
| to be sure. | 9:05 | |
| But an athlete who wants to throw the shot | 9:08 | |
| may have great strength in general, | 9:11 | |
| but unless he has specific strength | 9:14 | |
| in his arms and shoulders | 9:17 | |
| at the point where it makes a difference | 9:19 | |
| in throwing the shot, | 9:22 | |
| someone else may win the event and he would lose it. | 9:24 | |
| But by means of isometric contraction | 9:29 | |
| of the muscles in the position of throwing the shot, | 9:31 | |
| he can develop and increase his strength by as much as 20%. | 9:34 | |
| In football, a putter who wishes to get that extra five | 9:40 | |
| or 10 yards on his punt may develop specific strength | 9:46 | |
| at the point where it makes a difference, | 9:51 | |
| by practicing isometric contraction | 9:54 | |
| of the muscles of the leg | 9:58 | |
| in the position where he makes contact with the football, | 9:59 | |
| he may add those extra five, 10 or 15 yards to his punt. | 10:02 | |
| The difference would not be that his overall strength | 10:08 | |
| would be greater, but his specific strength | 10:10 | |
| at this crucial point would be greater. | 10:13 | |
| The same is true of the passing arm of a quarterback. | 10:18 | |
| It is true of the muscles which a guard uses in the line | 10:21 | |
| when he is making contact with his opponent in the line. | 10:25 | |
| In our gymnasium, there is a device that has been built | 10:30 | |
| into which the guard may fit his body. | 10:34 | |
| And when he is in that harness or device | 10:38 | |
| he is in the position which he finds himself in | 10:41 | |
| when in the line he makes contact with his opponent. | 10:45 | |
| And in that harness, if he gives this isometric contraction | 10:49 | |
| exertion daily over a period of several months, | 10:53 | |
| he will increase his ability to move the man opposite him | 10:56 | |
| in the line by as much as 20%, | 11:00 | |
| this is the stuff out of which | 11:03 | |
| football victories are a fashion. | 11:05 | |
| A study has recently been made of the first three games | 11:10 | |
| which the University of North Carolina basketball team | 11:13 | |
| played this year. | 11:16 | |
| They played Georgia, Clemson | 11:19 | |
| and the University of South Carolina. | 11:21 | |
| They won those three games. | 11:24 | |
| The fact is, that the average height of the Georgia team, | 11:28 | |
| the Clemson team and the University of South Carolina team | 11:33 | |
| was greater than the height | 11:36 | |
| of the basketball team of the Tar Heels. | 11:37 | |
| But because the Tar Heel team had a particular exercise | 11:41 | |
| worked out for practicing isometric contraction, | 11:47 | |
| they out rebounded all three of those teams | 11:51 | |
| by a significant margin. | 11:53 | |
| And the out rebounding | 11:56 | |
| was the difference in winning the game. | 11:59 | |
| Now let some of you think that because I'm giving attention | 12:02 | |
| here to the Tar Heel basketball team | 12:05 | |
| instead of the Duke basketball team, | 12:07 | |
| that I have a greater interest in the team from Chapel Hill, | 12:09 | |
| I would point out that I do not wish to give away | 12:12 | |
| any of the secrets of the Duke team | 12:15 | |
| and so I'm talking about the Carolina team. | 12:17 | |
| I do not mind giving away the secrets of our opponents. | 12:20 | |
| The fact is, that in whatever sport you are engaged, | 12:25 | |
| if you practice the development of specific strength | 12:29 | |
| through this isometric contraction program, | 12:32 | |
| you can very greatly increase your effective achievement. | 12:35 | |
| Now it is a simple step from that, | 12:42 | |
| to the realm of Christian faith and practice, | 12:47 | |
| we Christians are called to be witnesses to Christ | 12:50 | |
| and to the meaning of his gospel in this world | 12:53 | |
| and in our day. | 12:57 | |
| This is not a general call, | 12:59 | |
| though it involves a general response, | 13:02 | |
| that we are called upon as Christians today | 13:06 | |
| to be as effective as we can in the encounter with the world | 13:09 | |
| at specific points. | 13:15 | |
| And though we as a Christian movement | 13:17 | |
| may have very great strength of membership, of money, | 13:19 | |
| of influence, theological power | 13:22 | |
| of great church buildings and so on. | 13:24 | |
| Unless we are strong at the points where the encounter | 13:26 | |
| is made in our day, we may lose and not win. | 13:29 | |
| We may be ineffective and not effective. | 13:33 | |
| Now, what are some of the points | 13:37 | |
| at which we need to develop specific strength as Christians? | 13:39 | |
| As Christians, we need to develop specific strength | 13:44 | |
| in the spiritual muscles | 13:47 | |
| which we use in kneeling in prayer. | 13:49 | |
| I am not here this morning to discuss certainly | 13:53 | |
| to debate whether or not a person should physically kneel | 13:55 | |
| when he prays. | 13:59 | |
| Spiritually he should kneel, in humility and in trust | 14:00 | |
| and in dedication to God in prayer. | 14:05 | |
| I believe that we Christians have weakness at this point. | 14:09 | |
| I believe that the people who make up | 14:13 | |
| the Christian movement certainly in America today, | 14:15 | |
| need to develop the spiritual muscles used in kneeling | 14:18 | |
| and in rising from prayer. | 14:21 | |
| I have in mind here both group prayer, corporate prayer, | 14:24 | |
| such as we have in services of worship from time to time | 14:29 | |
| as this morning, for example. | 14:34 | |
| And I have in mind also private individual prayer. | 14:36 | |
| It is very, very important that the people of God | 14:41 | |
| come together regularly for group prayer. | 14:44 | |
| Not only is it true that where two and three | 14:48 | |
| are gathered together in the name of Christ, | 14:50 | |
| there he is in their midst, but it is also true | 14:53 | |
| that we gain great strength from worshiping | 14:56 | |
| and approaching the throne of grace together. | 15:00 | |
| I need and you need the sustaining grace and strength | 15:04 | |
| which comes from worshiping God | 15:08 | |
| with your Christian brothers. | 15:11 | |
| Now, I know it is true as some people | 15:15 | |
| continually keep us reminded, | 15:17 | |
| that an individual may have communion with God in prayer, | 15:21 | |
| without going to the service of worship at the church, | 15:25 | |
| without joining together with others in prayer. | 15:27 | |
| He can do it in the privacy of his room. | 15:31 | |
| He can do it out on the golf course. | 15:33 | |
| He can do it out on a walk. | 15:35 | |
| He can do it driving along in his car between campuses. | 15:37 | |
| It is perfectly possible that he may be telling the truth | 15:39 | |
| that he can have communion with God | 15:43 | |
| without joining with others in prayer, | 15:45 | |
| in corporate services of worship. | 15:48 | |
| I will be honest and admit to him that he can do this | 15:51 | |
| if he will be honest with me and admit that he doesn't. | 15:54 | |
| The person who does not come to church to worship God | 16:00 | |
| very likely will not worship God solo. | 16:03 | |
| And so we do need to develop specific strength | 16:09 | |
| in coming together as the people of God for prayer. | 16:12 | |
| Also, we need to develop specific strength as individuals | 16:17 | |
| and going into our closets and closing the door | 16:21 | |
| and praying under the Heavenly Father individually. | 16:25 | |
| It is not a case of either, or it is a need for both end. | 16:31 | |
| And what I have said about group prayer | 16:36 | |
| could also be said about individual prayer. | 16:38 | |
| That unless we as individual Christians | 16:40 | |
| add to our group or corporate prayer, | 16:43 | |
| the practice of private prayer, | 16:46 | |
| it is likely that when we are present | 16:47 | |
| in a service of worship with others, we will not really pray | 16:50 | |
| when the prayers are being led or set. | 16:53 | |
| There is a kind of strength which comes from private prayer | 16:59 | |
| that does not come from anything else, | 17:03 | |
| and our Lord Jesus Christ made this very clear. | 17:05 | |
| The strength to stand alone, if need be, | 17:10 | |
| or at least to stand with a very small group | 17:13 | |
| or what you believe and know in your heart is right, | 17:17 | |
| comes mainly from this kind of private encounter | 17:20 | |
| with God in prayer, | 17:23 | |
| in which bridges are built between God and you, | 17:24 | |
| which enable you to realize in the midst of any situation | 17:28 | |
| that no matter how small the number with which you stand, | 17:32 | |
| you stand with the majority because you stand with God. | 17:36 | |
| Do you know the name of a man Raymond Sullivan, | 17:42 | |
| does it mean anything to you? | 17:45 | |
| Last week I read about Raymond Sullivan. | 17:49 | |
| A man who worked at a truck checking station | 17:52 | |
| at Washington DC. | 17:55 | |
| And one day, early in last year, | 17:58 | |
| a Ford truck pulled into this checking station | 18:02 | |
| and Raymond Sullivan checked it. | 18:05 | |
| It did not meet his specifications. | 18:08 | |
| And the difficulty was not that the truck | 18:12 | |
| was out of adjustment. | 18:14 | |
| Raymond Sullivan decided after looking at the truck | 18:17 | |
| and checking it that the truck was made wrong, | 18:20 | |
| that the design of the truck was bad. | 18:23 | |
| And that this truck, | 18:27 | |
| if allowed to drive even in good condition, | 18:29 | |
| would almost certainly cause a wreck | 18:33 | |
| and someone would be killed. | 18:35 | |
| But this is crazy. | 18:38 | |
| Here is one man working in a truck checking station | 18:41 | |
| who seems to be saying, that the entire resources | 18:44 | |
| of the Ford Motor Company | 18:47 | |
| have been brought to bear upon the creation of a truck | 18:50 | |
| and it has been made wrong. | 18:53 | |
| Well, surely a man would doubt his own senses | 18:58 | |
| under those circumstances, wouldn't he? | 19:00 | |
| Because everything that comes out of the major | 19:01 | |
| automobile manufacturing companies today | 19:04 | |
| has been tested and tested and tested in their laboratories, | 19:06 | |
| on the roads, by their engineers, | 19:10 | |
| by their scientists, by everyone. | 19:11 | |
| Who is one man working at a truck checking station to say | 19:14 | |
| that all that multi-billion dollar power | 19:18 | |
| of a great corporation has made a big mistake, | 19:21 | |
| but he said it and he called up the Ford dealer | 19:27 | |
| in Washington and said, "Come out here." | 19:30 | |
| The dealer came | 19:32 | |
| and he pointed out to him what he had noticed. | 19:34 | |
| The dealer said, "I believe you're right." | 19:37 | |
| And they called the Ford officials in Detroit | 19:38 | |
| and the officials came down and looked at the truck | 19:40 | |
| and they said, "You're right." | 19:42 | |
| And they took that truck back to Detroit. | 19:44 | |
| And they took out of circulation all of those models | 19:45 | |
| of the trucks that had already been put out for sale. | 19:49 | |
| And they withdrew the entire issue, stop production on it. | 19:52 | |
| And at a cost of $5 million corrected the mistake, | 19:56 | |
| which this one man caught | 20:00 | |
| at a checking station in Washington, | 20:02 | |
| after all their experts had missed it. | 20:04 | |
| Now I ask you in the moral realm, | 20:08 | |
| what kind of courage does it take to stand up | 20:10 | |
| against the crowd, like Raymond Sullivan stood up that day? | 20:14 | |
| There are times when you and I have to do this or else | 20:19 | |
| be unfaithful because the light that is within us, | 20:23 | |
| but this kind of courage as Jesus said, | 20:26 | |
| comes not except by prayer. | 20:28 | |
| And we in the Christian movement today | 20:31 | |
| are going to have to develop specific strength | 20:34 | |
| in the muscles spiritually, | 20:37 | |
| which enable us to kneel in prayer. | 20:41 | |
| There is another set of spiritual muscles | 20:45 | |
| that we need to develop | 20:46 | |
| and in which we need to gain specific strength. | 20:48 | |
| I refer to the muscles which we use when we reach out | 20:51 | |
| to clasp the hand of our Negro brothers. | 20:54 | |
| It is not enough for the Christian movement | 21:00 | |
| to deal in pious platitudes and in wonderful generalities | 21:02 | |
| about the brotherhood of man and equality and justice. | 21:05 | |
| We have come upon a time when it is important | 21:09 | |
| for the success of the Christian movement, | 21:12 | |
| the effectiveness of the Christian witness around the world | 21:14 | |
| for we white Christians to develop specific strength | 21:17 | |
| in the muscles we use in shaking hands | 21:20 | |
| with the Negro Christian. | 21:24 | |
| Too long we have said, generalities. | 21:28 | |
| Now we must develop specific strengths. | 21:31 | |
| Governor Terry Sanford of the State of North Carolina | 21:35 | |
| said this past week, that the time has come when businessman | 21:37 | |
| must voluntarily work out specific ways, | 21:41 | |
| not generalities, but specific ways | 21:44 | |
| in which significant employment | 21:46 | |
| can be given to our Negro citizens in this state. | 21:48 | |
| And how does this apply to Duke students? | 21:52 | |
| Here we are on this campus, we are not in Raleigh, | 21:56 | |
| we are not in Wilmington or Asheville, | 21:58 | |
| we are at Duke University. | 22:00 | |
| I think one of the ways by which it applies to us here | 22:03 | |
| is that the students of this university | 22:07 | |
| have been calling upon other people for some time | 22:10 | |
| to be Christian about race relations. | 22:12 | |
| The students of Duke University for a long time | 22:15 | |
| hammered away at the trustees of the university and said, | 22:17 | |
| "Admit Negroes to the student body of Duke." | 22:20 | |
| The trustees finally did. | 22:23 | |
| The students of Duke University have been hammering away | 22:27 | |
| at the downtown merchants in Durham saying, | 22:29 | |
| "You folks ought to be Christian in your places of business | 22:31 | |
| and we demand that you desegregate your places of business." | 22:34 | |
| But now what about Duke University? | 22:40 | |
| What about student organizations at Duke University? | 22:41 | |
| I do not believe that we can any longer | 22:47 | |
| have a clear conscience hammering away at other people | 22:51 | |
| until we begin to do something about our own houses. | 22:54 | |
| There are Duke University students who have carried signs | 22:59 | |
| and picket lines downtown, who are members of fraternities, | 23:02 | |
| which even yet will not admit a Negro student | 23:05 | |
| at Duke University. | 23:07 | |
| What are you going to do about that? | 23:11 | |
| I believe the time has come | 23:14 | |
| when the students of Duke University | 23:16 | |
| who are going to have some Negro students | 23:18 | |
| in the student body next year at the undergraduate level, | 23:19 | |
| need to develop the muscles | 23:22 | |
| specifically by which we clasp the hand | 23:24 | |
| of our fellow students, whose color is different from ours. | 23:27 | |
| I realized that the problems in this area are not easy, | 23:33 | |
| but are the problems of Christian faith ever easy? | 23:36 | |
| Do we want to ask for easy solutions and easy problems? | 23:38 | |
| Specific strength at this point is very important | 23:44 | |
| because we have seen what has happened | 23:47 | |
| on some of the other campuses of the United States | 23:49 | |
| when Negro students have been admitted | 23:52 | |
| and a climate of specific acceptance has not been developed. | 23:53 | |
| We have the remainder of this year | 23:59 | |
| in which to develop a climate of acceptance, | 24:00 | |
| in which to gain specific strength | 24:02 | |
| in the muscles of the hand clasp. | 24:04 | |
| Third and lastly, | 24:09 | |
| we shall have time to mention here this morning | 24:09 | |
| is the need for developing specifically those muscles | 24:12 | |
| which we use in beating swords into plowshares | 24:14 | |
| and spears into pruning hooks. | 24:17 | |
| We are living in as all of us are quite aware | 24:21 | |
| in a dangerous period. | 24:23 | |
| When I was President Kennedy has said | 24:26 | |
| and as Premier Khrushchev has said, | 24:28 | |
| "Either by accident or by stupidity or by design, | 24:31 | |
| the entire human race can be annihilated, | 24:35 | |
| in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye." | 24:38 | |
| Too many Christians for too long have relied too much | 24:43 | |
| upon President Kennedy cruise shop and mousey tongue | 24:47 | |
| to keep the peace. | 24:51 | |
| Just how unreliable that confidence is | 24:53 | |
| was shown us last fall, | 24:56 | |
| when the ships of the United States Navy | 24:59 | |
| were circling the island of Cuba | 25:00 | |
| and the ships of Soviet Russia | 25:02 | |
| were bearing down upon that circle. | 25:04 | |
| And there was one particular morning when we woke up | 25:06 | |
| that not a single citizen of the United States knew for sure | 25:09 | |
| that he would lie down to rest in his bed that night. | 25:13 | |
| And we listened to the radios, listen to the television. | 25:16 | |
| We asked the people we saw on the campus, | 25:19 | |
| what's the latest word, because we didn't know. | 25:22 | |
| And that one day the only thing which humanly stood between | 25:26 | |
| the annihilation of the human race | 25:30 | |
| and the situation in which we find ourselves this morning | 25:32 | |
| was the fact that Nikita Khrushchev backed down. | 25:36 | |
| I asked you, how long do you think we can safely rely upon | 25:40 | |
| that factor to keep the peace? | 25:44 | |
| We Christians are going to have to develop specific strength | 25:50 | |
| in the muscles which beat swords into plowshares. | 25:53 | |
| We are going to have to take the initiative | 25:56 | |
| in building those bridges and in creating those situations | 25:59 | |
| which make for peace and in the Christian gospel, | 26:02 | |
| there are the resources for the strengthening, | 26:05 | |
| but it is up to you and me to do it. | 26:08 | |
| Such projects as operation crossroads Africa, | 26:13 | |
| project Nicaragua, | 26:17 | |
| the short-term mission program of various churches, | 26:20 | |
| the long-term missionary program | 26:24 | |
| of our various denominations. | 26:26 | |
| These give a clue to the kind of strength | 26:28 | |
| which we in the Christian movement need to develop, | 26:31 | |
| the exchange of students | 26:35 | |
| from various universities centers around the world | 26:37 | |
| as an important way in which we can develop the strength. | 26:41 | |
| The giving of medical supplies and food | 26:46 | |
| to people in other nations | 26:48 | |
| is a way by which we can develop strength, | 26:51 | |
| but the strength must be developed. | 26:53 | |
| And if it is not, no matter how strong we may be in general, | 26:57 | |
| no matter how many Christian members | 27:02 | |
| we may have of our churches | 27:04 | |
| and how much money we may contribute, | 27:05 | |
| we shall do like Ranger 5 as it passed the moon, | 27:08 | |
| there will be great, massive strength in general, | 27:12 | |
| failing in its purpose, | 27:15 | |
| because it did not have the specific strength | 27:16 | |
| to do the needed job at the proper time. | 27:19 | |
| Yes, we need to develop strength specifically in prayer. | 27:23 | |
| We need to strengthen the muscles | 27:28 | |
| by which we clasp the hands of our brothers of every race. | 27:29 | |
| And we need to strengthen the muscles | 27:34 | |
| we use in leading swords into plowshares. | 27:36 | |
| Now, the Apostle Paul said when he wrote to the Corinthians, | 27:42 | |
| that athletes discipline themselves and dedicate themselves | 27:46 | |
| to the winning of a prize, or as he said, | 27:52 | |
| as it applied in that day, | 27:55 | |
| a reef that is a perishable wreath, | 27:56 | |
| but we Christians are striving for an imperishable wreath, | 28:01 | |
| the salvation of the world, | 28:07 | |
| the conversion of mankind to the Lord Jesus Christ | 28:09 | |
| and the development of a specific spiritual strengths | 28:15 | |
| in our day is very important in achieving this end. | 28:17 | |
| Oh God our Heavenly Father, thou has called us | 28:30 | |
| to a great and holy task in this high hour. | 28:35 | |
| Grant that by thy grace we may be faithful | 28:40 | |
| and that our response by thy grace may be sufficient. | 28:43 | |
| Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. | 28:48 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 28:57 |
