Howard C. Wilkinson - "The Grasshopper Attitude" (September 4, 1966)
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| - | To assist us with our congregational singing | 0:18 |
| on these two Sundays, | 0:21 | |
| we use the piano instead of the Oregon. | 0:22 | |
| And we are grateful to Mrs. RG Dunnigan | 0:25 | |
| for serving as our pianist today. | 0:27 | |
| Those of you who saw the Sessile Beat and Mill movie, | 0:33 | |
| "The 10 Commandments" | 0:37 | |
| will remember that | 0:40 | |
| at the end of this very long movie, | 0:41 | |
| the plight of the children of Israel | 0:45 | |
| from Egypt through the wilderness | 0:49 | |
| and up to the promised land is depicted. | 0:52 | |
| And Moses is having to remain | 0:56 | |
| on the Eastern side of the River Jordan, | 0:58 | |
| as the children of Israel, | 1:01 | |
| under the leadership of new men | 1:04 | |
| who have not been their leaders primarily before | 1:06 | |
| contemplate going in to take the land, | 1:10 | |
| which they believe almighty God has promised them to take, | 1:13 | |
| promised that they should have, | 1:18 | |
| promised would be their inheritance | 1:20 | |
| and their rightful possession. | 1:22 | |
| Now I not only saw the movie, I read the book. | 1:26 | |
| And so I know of what happened after this part in the movie. | 1:32 | |
| That is where the movie left off. | 1:36 | |
| When Joshua | 1:40 | |
| and Caleb | 1:42 | |
| and other new leaders who were coming to the front | 1:43 | |
| and the children of Israel found themselves | 1:47 | |
| looking at the river Jordan | 1:50 | |
| and the promised land across it to the west. | 1:51 | |
| Instead of simply moving on | 1:55 | |
| across the river, into the promised land, | 1:58 | |
| they did something which sounds very American, very modern. | 2:00 | |
| They first sat down and appointed a committee | 2:05 | |
| and they sent the committee ahead to spy out the land. | 2:09 | |
| There were 12 tribes, as you will recall in Israel. | 2:15 | |
| And so they picked one of the top leaders of each tribe | 2:18 | |
| and put them all together into a committee of 12 | 2:23 | |
| and sent them over to see what the land was like. | 2:27 | |
| As you will recall from Mike Shasbi's reading | 2:31 | |
| of this passage in Numbers, | 2:34 | |
| these 12 men spent some time in the promised land, | 2:37 | |
| the land which was supposed to be theirs. | 2:42 | |
| Seeing what kind of fruits were there, what kind of animals, | 2:45 | |
| what kind of people, | 2:48 | |
| kind of spying out the terrain. | 2:50 | |
| And after they had surveyed the situation, | 2:53 | |
| they came back across the river, Jordan | 2:56 | |
| into the Israelite camp and made their report. | 2:58 | |
| There were two things on which all 12 of the spies agreed. | 3:02 | |
| And then there was a point of disagreement. | 3:06 | |
| All of the spies | 3:10 | |
| agreed | 3:12 | |
| that | 3:13 | |
| it was a good land. | 3:14 | |
| It was a desirable place. | 3:15 | |
| It was a | 3:17 | |
| section of the world that they would like to live in. | 3:19 | |
| A land flowing with milk and honey. | 3:22 | |
| Now, secondly, | 3:26 | |
| all 12 of the spies agreed | 3:27 | |
| that there were difficulties to be encountered, | 3:30 | |
| problems to be solved. hurdles to be jumped | 3:33 | |
| if they were indeed to come into possession of the land. | 3:36 | |
| The land was already occupied in other words. | 3:39 | |
| There were people living there, | 3:41 | |
| signs of Anak | 3:43 | |
| who were | 3:45 | |
| formidable looking people. | 3:47 | |
| There was no disagreement about that. | 3:49 | |
| There were problems to be faced. | 3:52 | |
| But now the third point | 3:53 | |
| is one on which they did not all agree. | 3:55 | |
| 10 of the 12 said, | 3:59 | |
| "The people who are there are too big for us. | 4:02 | |
| "They are too strong. | 4:06 | |
| "They're too vicious. | 4:07 | |
| "Why they even devour the land | 4:09 | |
| "and we cannot go up successfully against them. | 4:12 | |
| "We are, as we look at them in our own sight, grasshoppers, | 4:16 | |
| "and we were, as they looked at us grasshoppers." | 4:22 | |
| But Caleb and Joshua | 4:27 | |
| not denying the fact that there were difficulties, | 4:30 | |
| not denying the strength of the inhabitants of the land | 4:33 | |
| said, "We can take the land. | 4:35 | |
| "It's ours. | 4:38 | |
| "If we go in and, | 4:39 | |
| "do what we can do | 4:43 | |
| "by the strength of God, | 4:45 | |
| "claim the land." | 4:47 | |
| Now we have the benefit today of hindsight | 4:51 | |
| in this situation, | 4:55 | |
| we do not have to guess what the outcome of the matter was | 4:57 | |
| because we had the record. | 5:02 | |
| Actually, | 5:05 | |
| the children of Israel could have taken the land | 5:06 | |
| if they had gone in | 5:10 | |
| as is proven by the fact that a generation later, | 5:12 | |
| they did go in and take the land | 5:15 | |
| with those same inhabitants and their sons being there, | 5:16 | |
| even more numerous than they were | 5:20 | |
| at the time this report came in | 5:23 | |
| and was accepted by the children of Israel. | 5:25 | |
| But we also know from hindsight that they voted not to do it | 5:29 | |
| when they heard the report of the majority of 10 | 5:33 | |
| and the minority report of two, | 5:37 | |
| they'd be in Caleb and Joshua, | 5:39 | |
| they voted to accept the majority report, | 5:40 | |
| which was a discouraging report, a defeatist report. | 5:44 | |
| It was a report that said, | 5:48 | |
| "We'd better just sit still where we are, | 5:50 | |
| "or else go back to slavery in Egypt. | 5:53 | |
| "Because though we have come all the way | 5:57 | |
| "through the desert, the wilderness | 6:00 | |
| "for the purpose of coming into this land, | 6:03 | |
| "which God has promised for us, | 6:05 | |
| "we can't take it. | 6:08 | |
| "We'll have to go back or sit still." | 6:09 | |
| So with the kind of indecisive decision, | 6:13 | |
| they sat still for a generation. | 6:17 | |
| Until all 10 of the leaders of those 10 tribes | 6:19 | |
| who had brought in this majority report | 6:23 | |
| that led them to a discouraging decision, had died. | 6:25 | |
| And then they made the decision | 6:30 | |
| to cross over the river Jordan, | 6:32 | |
| go into the promised land and possess their inheritance. | 6:34 | |
| Now, as I say, | 6:40 | |
| we have the benefit of hindsight | 6:41 | |
| and we know that had they gone in | 6:43 | |
| under the leadership of Caleb and Joshua at that time, | 6:45 | |
| they could have taken the land, but they did not. | 6:47 | |
| They sat where they were. | 6:51 | |
| They did nothing. | 6:52 | |
| Now try to imagine | 6:54 | |
| if you can, | 6:56 | |
| the situation. | 6:57 | |
| Suppose that you and I | 6:58 | |
| had been members of the camp of the Israelites at that time. | 6:59 | |
| I think it would help us a little bit | 7:04 | |
| to understand the situation. | 7:05 | |
| If we should assume | 7:07 | |
| that Coach Harp would send three of these coaches | 7:08 | |
| up to West Virginia | 7:10 | |
| to see what kind of football players, | 7:12 | |
| the University of West Virginia has. | 7:15 | |
| Suppose, let's say he sent Coach Sam Timer, | 7:18 | |
| Coach Howard McElhaney and Coach Stan Christon up there | 7:20 | |
| to find out what this West Virginia team was like. | 7:23 | |
| Suppose that Timer and McElhaney came back and said, | 7:28 | |
| "These are the sons of Anak. | 7:31 | |
| "And as we looked at them, | 7:33 | |
| "we were grasshoppers in our sight. | 7:35 | |
| "And as they looked at us, | 7:37 | |
| "we were grasshoppers in their sight. | 7:38 | |
| "And so we don't have a prayer of a chance | 7:41 | |
| "of winning a football game | 7:45 | |
| "against the University of West Virginia." | 7:46 | |
| And suppose then there was a squad meeting | 7:49 | |
| and Stan Christon said, | 7:51 | |
| "I do not deny the statistics about the team. | 7:52 | |
| "They are heavy, they're big, they're strong, | 7:55 | |
| "they're well prepared, | 7:57 | |
| "but I believe that we can take them." | 7:58 | |
| And the squad lesson to the majority report | 8:00 | |
| and the minority report in the squad said, | 8:03 | |
| "Well, in view of the fact that | 8:05 | |
| "these are the sons of Anak | 8:06 | |
| "and that we are as grasshoppers in our side | 8:08 | |
| "and as grasshoppers in their side, | 8:10 | |
| "there's no need to play these fellows | 8:12 | |
| "we'll stay here in Durham." | 8:13 | |
| And on Saturday afternoon, a couple of weeks from now, | 8:15 | |
| there'll be no contest. | 8:18 | |
| Now that is just about the situation that existed | 8:21 | |
| only a little more existentially | 8:24 | |
| on the day that the report | 8:27 | |
| of the 10 spies was adopted | 8:29 | |
| by the children of Israel. | 8:33 | |
| And as I say, we're in a very fortunate position here, | 8:37 | |
| as we look at this situation, | 8:40 | |
| because we know what history tells us | 8:42 | |
| about the outcome of this whole business | 8:46 | |
| and therefore, I believe this can serve for us | 8:47 | |
| and our Christian life as a very profitable incident, | 8:51 | |
| to examine a little more carefully, | 8:55 | |
| to see what lessons we can learn from it. | 8:57 | |
| I think it can be said without any question that | 9:03 | |
| if the children of Israel on that occasion | 9:09 | |
| had made up their minds to go into the promised land, | 9:13 | |
| they could have taken the land. | 9:17 | |
| If they had followed Caleb and Joshua | 9:21 | |
| with the courage of Caleb and Joshua | 9:24 | |
| and in the spirit of Caleb and Joshua, | 9:27 | |
| they could have taken the land. | 9:29 | |
| This was established by the fact that a generation later, | 9:32 | |
| they did it with no better resources. | 9:35 | |
| In fact, with an inferior comparative position, | 9:37 | |
| than the one that they had at the time | 9:41 | |
| that Caleb and Joshua wanted them to move in. | 9:43 | |
| They could have taken it, | 9:46 | |
| but they did not. | 9:48 | |
| It's an interesting thing how, | 9:51 | |
| when God gives us something as an inheritance, | 9:53 | |
| we still have to take initiative ourselves | 9:56 | |
| in order to possess it. | 9:59 | |
| God has given us a mind, | 10:02 | |
| but a person who has inherited the mind | 10:04 | |
| does not always possess a mind. | 10:07 | |
| The mind has to be improved. | 10:10 | |
| It has to be used. | 10:12 | |
| It has to be disciplined. | 10:13 | |
| Practically all of us | 10:15 | |
| have inherited some kind of a normal body. | 10:17 | |
| But a great many of us do not possess a strong body | 10:20 | |
| because an inheritance that is not possessed | 10:24 | |
| does not reach its full possibilities. | 10:28 | |
| There's been a debate in recent years | 10:34 | |
| as to who it was that discovered America. | 10:36 | |
| Did the Vikings discover America first, or was it Columbus? | 10:40 | |
| Or historians at Yale university who tell us today that | 10:45 | |
| the Vikings clearly were the ones | 10:48 | |
| who first discovered America, | 10:51 | |
| because there are maps to prove the fact that | 10:53 | |
| someone knew what the coastline of the Northern part | 10:56 | |
| of the north American continent looked like. | 11:00 | |
| I have read as not as you have | 11:03 | |
| with a great deal of interest, | 11:05 | |
| the revelations of our modern historians, | 11:07 | |
| about what history has to say about this. | 11:11 | |
| Having read all this, | 11:15 | |
| I still found it rather interesting to read | 11:16 | |
| Harry Golden's word on this whole controversy. | 11:22 | |
| He said that, | 11:26 | |
| "It really doesn't matter who first saw America. | 11:27 | |
| "It was really Columbus who discovered America | 11:31 | |
| "because the Vikings came over and looked | 11:35 | |
| "and they did nothing to initiate an expedition of settlers | 11:38 | |
| "to come to this country. | 11:43 | |
| "They did nothing to organize an expedition | 11:45 | |
| "to come and possess this land. | 11:48 | |
| "And it was only Columbus | 11:52 | |
| "and those who were associated with him | 11:53 | |
| "who took the initiative | 11:54 | |
| "to come over and take possession of America. | 11:56 | |
| "Therefore, he said, | 11:59 | |
| "historians will be an error. | 12:01 | |
| "If they say | 12:03 | |
| "that the Vikings really were the ones | 12:04 | |
| "who discovered America, | 12:06 | |
| "it was Columbus because action | 12:08 | |
| is always the important thing | 12:10 | |
| "in any situation." | 12:12 | |
| Well, the children of Israel on this day | 12:15 | |
| looked over at the promised land. | 12:18 | |
| They saw it, but they did not then possess. | 12:19 | |
| And this is the important thing. | 12:24 | |
| All right, now let's move on to the second observation, | 12:26 | |
| which we would make about the situation before us. | 12:29 | |
| And that is | 12:32 | |
| that if the children of Israel | 12:34 | |
| had moved across the River Jordan into the promised land, | 12:36 | |
| but had done so | 12:41 | |
| in the spirit of the 10 spies | 12:43 | |
| who were filled with discouragement, | 12:47 | |
| they could not have taken the land. | 12:48 | |
| There does not seem to be any question about that. | 12:51 | |
| And if that wasn't the spirit, which they had, | 12:55 | |
| it really was quite unnecessary for them. | 12:57 | |
| And indeed foolish would have been | 13:00 | |
| for them to have moved ahead. | 13:02 | |
| They would have been defeated. | 13:05 | |
| They would not have occupied the land. | 13:07 | |
| The sons of Anak would have been too much for them. | 13:09 | |
| And they would have met total defeat. | 13:12 | |
| Now, why do we say this? | 13:15 | |
| We say this on the basis of the fact that the spies | 13:17 | |
| whose report was adopted | 13:21 | |
| and thus became the attitude of the children of Israel, | 13:22 | |
| felt that they were in their own sight as grasshoppers. | 13:26 | |
| They had a grasshopper attitude. | 13:31 | |
| We're adjusted grasshopperS. | 13:34 | |
| What can we do? | 13:35 | |
| While in comparison with the obstacle to which we face, | 13:37 | |
| we're nobodies. | 13:40 | |
| They were a men of fear. | 13:44 | |
| They were a men of anxiety. | 13:47 | |
| They were not men of faith. | 13:49 | |
| They saw the sons of Anak | 13:51 | |
| much more clearly than they saw God. | 13:52 | |
| They saw their problems, | 13:56 | |
| but they could not fix and focus their | 13:58 | |
| vision upon their strength | 14:01 | |
| and upon the promises, which were theirs. | 14:04 | |
| It took counsel of their fears rather than of their faith. | 14:07 | |
| You recall the incident which Jesus gave of the man | 14:11 | |
| in the new Testament, who was given a talent. | 14:14 | |
| And he said, | 14:18 | |
| "Well, I only have one other people have two, three, four. | 14:19 | |
| "I know that my Lord said to me, | 14:24 | |
| "to take this talent out into the world | 14:26 | |
| "and gain more by means of the use of this. | 14:28 | |
| "But I'd better be careful. | 14:32 | |
| "I'd better play it safe. | 14:34 | |
| "The best thing for me to do is to be sure | 14:36 | |
| "that this talent is here when my Lord returns. | 14:38 | |
| "And so I'll bury it | 14:41 | |
| "and I'll hold onto it and I'll sit on it | 14:44 | |
| "I'll see that it is not diminished." | 14:45 | |
| He was a man who did not have, | 14:49 | |
| did not have courage | 14:51 | |
| who was not willing to enterprise, | 14:53 | |
| who could see all the problems, | 14:55 | |
| but could not seem to see any solutions. | 14:57 | |
| Therefore, | 15:00 | |
| he accomplished nothing | 15:01 | |
| except to earn the condemnation of his employer | 15:03 | |
| when his employer returned | 15:06 | |
| and that which he had was taken away from him | 15:09 | |
| because he would not use it. | 15:12 | |
| So if the children of Israel on that occasion | 15:15 | |
| had gone across the River Jordan, | 15:19 | |
| they would have been unsuccessful for the reason | 15:20 | |
| that they were in their own sight as grasshoppers. | 15:24 | |
| Now, there is a second reason | 15:30 | |
| why they would not have been successful. | 15:31 | |
| And that is. | 15:33 | |
| that they were as grasshoppers | 15:35 | |
| in the side of their opponents. | 15:37 | |
| Well, of course, | 15:40 | |
| what else would you expect? | 15:42 | |
| If I am a grasshopper in my side, | 15:45 | |
| I'm going to be a grasshopper in your side as well. | 15:47 | |
| Our enemies, our opponents tend to look upon us | 15:52 | |
| and pretty much the same thing | 15:56 | |
| as we look upon ourselves at this point, | 15:57 | |
| if we say that we're in whole bodies, | 15:59 | |
| they're going to decide that we are too | 16:02 | |
| and govern themselves according. | 16:05 | |
| I recall some years ago when my family lived in Asheville | 16:09 | |
| and I was pastor of a church in that city, | 16:14 | |
| we bought a dog, | 16:17 | |
| we got it down at the seed store. | 16:20 | |
| And it was just a little puppy, | 16:22 | |
| the cocker spaniel | 16:24 | |
| Had floppy ears, | 16:25 | |
| long hair, | 16:27 | |
| quite innocent. | 16:29 | |
| And we thought very highly | 16:31 | |
| of this little Cocker spaniel puppy, | 16:33 | |
| but we never thought of it as a watchdog | 16:35 | |
| or as anything ferocious. | 16:38 | |
| We never thought of this dog as something that would | 16:40 | |
| dominate the neighborhood with ferocity. | 16:45 | |
| But one day we were driving around out in the mountains, | 16:49 | |
| several miles outside the city of Asheville. | 16:52 | |
| And we had this dog in the back seat. | 16:54 | |
| We saw a clear, cool mountain stream on this hot day, | 16:58 | |
| we decided that we would like to stop the car and get out | 17:03 | |
| and walk in this stream | 17:06 | |
| and enjoy the beauty and grandeur of the open air country. | 17:08 | |
| Dog got out, | 17:14 | |
| came over into the stream, | 17:15 | |
| a little cocker spaniel puppy that she was. | 17:18 | |
| While we were looking at the water | 17:21 | |
| and the rocks in the stream, | 17:23 | |
| the dog came up on the other side of the stream | 17:25 | |
| and surveyed the meadow that was just beyond the string, | 17:29 | |
| about a 10 acre pasture there. | 17:34 | |
| And in this pasture was a lone cow, a huge cow, | 17:37 | |
| eight or 900 pound animal. | 17:42 | |
| And simply out of curiosity, | 17:45 | |
| nothing more dangerous than that. | 17:48 | |
| The dog moved toward the cow. | 17:51 | |
| And before we realized what had happened | 17:55 | |
| or what was taking place, | 17:59 | |
| the cow saw the dog coming | 18:01 | |
| and turned and ran rapidly in the opposite direction. | 18:04 | |
| Well, now this presented a completely new situation | 18:10 | |
| to this cocker spaniel pup. | 18:13 | |
| Here was a mighty animal fleeing obviously from her. | 18:15 | |
| And all of a sudden she decided | 18:21 | |
| that she was indeed a great raging lion | 18:23 | |
| and she gave pursuit to this cow. | 18:26 | |
| The cow ran all over the pasture | 18:28 | |
| and we did everything we could to call the dog off | 18:31 | |
| and to spare the farmer's cow, | 18:33 | |
| but nothing would stop that ferocious animal | 18:37 | |
| that was pursuing this enormous cow | 18:40 | |
| and this small floppy cocker spaniel puppy | 18:43 | |
| in her own eyes became a mighty giant. | 18:47 | |
| And this cow was nothing but a grasshopper | 18:51 | |
| because did not the cow fleet from the dog. | 18:53 | |
| And it was two or three years after that incident, | 18:58 | |
| before this dog ever came to field, | 19:01 | |
| that she was not the master of any animal | 19:04 | |
| that walked the earth. | 19:06 | |
| While a dog four or five times her size | 19:08 | |
| was still not nearly so big as that cow. | 19:10 | |
| And she would bark and growl at this much larger dog | 19:13 | |
| and the dog would turn and run. | 19:16 | |
| A lot of this went on and | 19:19 | |
| this dog felt that she was invincible | 19:21 | |
| until one day a dog just about her own size, | 19:23 | |
| took her measure and conquered her. | 19:26 | |
| And from then on, she ran from everything. | 19:28 | |
| But at first she felt | 19:33 | |
| that the cow was as it were a grasshopper | 19:36 | |
| because the cow felt that she was a grasshopper. | 19:39 | |
| Now, therefore I believe we would see from this, | 19:44 | |
| that both we ourselves and those who oppose us tend to | 19:47 | |
| be influenced by the attitude | 19:53 | |
| which we have with regard to our obstacles. | 19:55 | |
| Now, what are some of the people who possessed the land | 19:59 | |
| in the world today that have been promised to us? | 20:02 | |
| Jesus Christ has said to his church | 20:07 | |
| that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. | 20:10 | |
| Jesus Christ has said that the whole earth | 20:14 | |
| is fair territory for Christian people. | 20:18 | |
| And that we are to go and possess the land. | 20:23 | |
| Who are some of the people that occupy the land | 20:26 | |
| that belongs to us? | 20:30 | |
| Well, there is a great movement in the world today | 20:33 | |
| that is called communism, | 20:36 | |
| which is possessing the hearts, | 20:38 | |
| millions and millions of people. | 20:40 | |
| The hearts that belong to God, | 20:43 | |
| hearts of people of the allegiance and loyalty of people | 20:46 | |
| who were made by God and were destined | 20:50 | |
| for citizenship in his kingdom, | 20:52 | |
| for membership in his family. | 20:54 | |
| But the sons of Anak | 20:57 | |
| possessed that land, | 21:01 | |
| but God has asked us to move in and take it. | 21:04 | |
| Now unfortunately, there are a great many people | 21:08 | |
| who call themselves Christians | 21:10 | |
| and who are members of Christian churches | 21:12 | |
| who feel that before the communists, | 21:14 | |
| the Christian Church is simply a grasshopper. | 21:17 | |
| That the Christian Church does not have the power | 21:21 | |
| to claim this ground. | 21:23 | |
| The hearts and minds, the allegiance of mankind. | 21:25 | |
| And that the only resort we have therefore, | 21:30 | |
| is to kill off these people who are communist. | 21:33 | |
| That is the only way we can reclaim the land, | 21:35 | |
| the hearts, the loyalty, and the allegiance | 21:39 | |
| that had been promised to the Christian Church. | 21:42 | |
| We feel therefore that the communists are giants. | 21:46 | |
| And as they survey the attitude of these people, | 21:52 | |
| they decide themselves | 21:56 | |
| that they have a better answer than Christian faith. | 21:58 | |
| And there are some communists in the world today | 22:02 | |
| who have gotten this attitude | 22:04 | |
| from some people who are Christians. | 22:05 | |
| They feel therefore that | 22:09 | |
| if they keep preaching their | 22:10 | |
| gospel of hate, | 22:12 | |
| of division, | 22:14 | |
| of murder, | 22:16 | |
| of slaughter, | 22:17 | |
| of domination, | 22:19 | |
| that we have no answer for this, | 22:22 | |
| except the answer | 22:24 | |
| simply to kill off all the people like this. | 22:25 | |
| I do not believe | 22:29 | |
| that we need to adopt any such attitude as this. | 22:30 | |
| I do not believe that the people of the world today | 22:33 | |
| want to get what they need by the root of communism. | 22:36 | |
| I did not believe that | 22:41 | |
| the people of the world prefer hatred over love, | 22:42 | |
| that they prefer violence | 22:47 | |
| over the democratic processes of consent. | 22:49 | |
| I do not believe that the people of the world | 22:52 | |
| want to be upset, divided, suspicious, | 22:55 | |
| and always | 22:59 | |
| working against each other. | 23:02 | |
| After the communist pattern, | 23:04 | |
| I believe that really deep down in their hearts, | 23:07 | |
| the people of the world today would like to have truth | 23:10 | |
| instead of lies, | 23:12 | |
| love instead of hate, | 23:13 | |
| brotherhood instead of division. | 23:15 | |
| But that is a land | 23:20 | |
| which the Christian Church must move in and poses | 23:22 | |
| by our efforts with the grace of God helping us. | 23:27 | |
| And which, if we do not thus us move in and possess, | 23:32 | |
| we will never have. | 23:36 | |
| There will always be an elusive inheritance, | 23:38 | |
| which will not be ours, | 23:42 | |
| but God is calling today to move in and possess that land. | 23:44 | |
| We will not do it with any view | 23:49 | |
| that Christianity does not have the answer, | 23:50 | |
| that communism really has the answer that man wants to buy. | 23:53 | |
| And that the only way therefore to eliminate communism | 23:57 | |
| is to eliminate communists by killing them. | 24:01 | |
| I believe that an intelligent Christian philosophy of life | 24:06 | |
| is the answer to every man's longings and every man's needs. | 24:11 | |
| We need to move in and possess that land. | 24:15 | |
| There is a second force, | 24:20 | |
| which occupies land | 24:22 | |
| that has been promised to the Christian Church. | 24:23 | |
| That force is secularism. | 24:27 | |
| It is a rampant force in the world today. | 24:30 | |
| It is one which is trying not only to hold the ground, | 24:34 | |
| which it has, but to gain new ground. | 24:38 | |
| The essence of secularism is | 24:41 | |
| that if there is a God it doesn't matter | 24:44 | |
| whether he is alive or dead is irrelevant. | 24:48 | |
| Whether he ever was or was not, | 24:51 | |
| it doesn't make any difference. | 24:55 | |
| As long as | 24:56 | |
| when we begin to make plans, | 24:58 | |
| we make plans without reference to God. | 25:00 | |
| When we make decisions, | 25:04 | |
| we make them without reference to God. | 25:06 | |
| When we adopt a philosophy of life and a way of living, | 25:10 | |
| we do it as though there were no God, | 25:13 | |
| or if there is a God, | 25:16 | |
| he doesn't really matter | 25:18 | |
| in the practical affairs of human life. | 25:19 | |
| This is what secularism is. | 25:22 | |
| And there are forces in our country today, | 25:25 | |
| which are very strong, which are very active, | 25:29 | |
| which want to plant this philosophy of life | 25:32 | |
| in every public school, in every public institution, | 25:35 | |
| in all of the educational centers of our country | 25:40 | |
| and every other place in American life, where they can. | 25:46 | |
| We operate our schools as though there were no God. | 25:50 | |
| We operate our government | 25:55 | |
| as though religion were irrelevant to it. | 25:57 | |
| This is the philosophy of secularism, | 26:01 | |
| and it is claiming the hearts and the allegiance | 26:03 | |
| of an alarming number of people in the world today. | 26:06 | |
| Now the hearts and allegiance of the people in America today | 26:10 | |
| that are under the stranglehold of secularism | 26:15 | |
| have been promised to us. | 26:19 | |
| God has given us that as an inheritance, | 26:22 | |
| but it isn't an inheritance that has to be possessed | 26:25 | |
| and it will not be possessed by a grasshopper attitude. | 26:28 | |
| Well, as long as I can | 26:33 | |
| go into my closet, | 26:36 | |
| shut the door and have a private prayer to God. | 26:37 | |
| It doesn't matter | 26:41 | |
| if I make no witness Christian faith outside the classroom. | 26:41 | |
| Religion as a private matter. | 26:47 | |
| And as long as God knows that I love him in my heart. | 26:49 | |
| It doesn't make any difference | 26:52 | |
| whether my relationships to my fellow, man, | 26:53 | |
| it doesn't make any difference whether the outer creed | 26:58 | |
| and practice of my life reflects the Christian faith or not. | 27:02 | |
| To take such an attitude as that | 27:08 | |
| is to take the grasshopper attitude, | 27:10 | |
| which will convince the secularist | 27:13 | |
| also that we are grasshoppers. | 27:15 | |
| And I believe that the attitude of Caleb and Joshua | 27:20 | |
| is the one which the Christian Church should have today. | 27:22 | |
| Say that the hearts and minds of mankind | 27:26 | |
| were made by God and | 27:30 | |
| will be restless until they find their rest in him. | 27:33 | |
| Jesus Christ is the Lord of all life. | 27:38 | |
| And it is not the will of God | 27:42 | |
| that any individual in this world | 27:44 | |
| should live in a stranger environment. | 27:46 | |
| We, as Christians should move in and possess the land. | 27:49 | |
| There will be difficulties of course, | 27:53 | |
| there will always be the report of those | 27:56 | |
| who say it can't be done, | 27:58 | |
| who say that the giants, | 28:01 | |
| the sons of Anak are too much for us, | 28:03 | |
| but there will also, | 28:06 | |
| I believe the, those like Caleb and Joshua who will say | 28:07 | |
| that we can do it, | 28:12 | |
| or the Lord of hosts is with us. | 28:14 | |
| We can do it because God loves these people. | 28:17 | |
| And he wants us to claim the land, not for ourselves, | 28:21 | |
| but for him, | 28:24 | |
| the gospel of Jesus Christ is what this world needs, | 28:27 | |
| what we as individuals need and what the | 28:31 | |
| difficult and complicated political | 28:35 | |
| and social and economic relationships with mankind need. | 28:37 | |
| There is no other workable substitute, | 28:41 | |
| and we need to take the faith and courage, | 28:46 | |
| Caleb and Joshua | 28:49 | |
| and move in and possess the land. | 28:52 | |
| Let us pray. | 28:54 | |
| Almighty God our heavenly father | 28:56 | |
| deliver us from the grasshopper attitude, | 28:58 | |
| help us place ourselves in thy hands, | 29:02 | |
| not count the cost, | 29:05 | |
| but simply asked for thy grace | 29:07 | |
| that we may be faithful to thee in our time, | 29:09 | |
| In the place which thou has given to us | 29:12 | |
| through Christ our Lord. | 29:16 | |
| Amen. | 29:19 | |
| Let us know then and sing the hymn, | 29:27 | |
| God, our helping ages past. | 29:30 | |
| (bright orchestral music) | 29:34 |