Howard C. Wilkinson - "On Casting out Satan" (November 30, 1969)
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| (choir music and singing) | 0:07 | |
| (choir music and singing continues) | 0:57 | |
| (choir music continues) | 1:32 | |
| - | The scripture lesson for the day | 2:17 |
| is taken from the gospel according to Saint Matthew, | 2:19 | |
| chapter 12, verse 22 through 28. | 2:24 | |
| Let us hear the word of God. | 2:31 | |
| Then a blind and dumb demoniac was brought to him, | 2:40 | |
| and he healed him | 2:46 | |
| so that the dumb man spoke and saw. | 2:48 | |
| And all the people were amazed and said, | 2:54 | |
| "Can this be the son of David?" | 2:57 | |
| But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, | 3:01 | |
| "It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, | 3:05 | |
| "that this man cast out demons." | 3:11 | |
| Knowing your thoughts, he said to them, | 3:16 | |
| every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, | 3:20 | |
| and no city or house divided against itself stand. | 3:26 | |
| And if Satan cast out Satan, | 3:33 | |
| he is divided against himself. | 3:37 | |
| How then will his kingdom stand? | 3:41 | |
| And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, | 3:45 | |
| by whom do your sons cast them out? | 3:50 | |
| Therefore they shall be your judges. | 3:56 | |
| But if it is by the spirit of God that I cast out demons, | 4:01 | |
| then the kingdom of God has come upon you. | 4:08 | |
| Here ends the reading of the lesson for the day. | 4:14 | |
| (choir music) | 4:22 | |
| (choir music continues) | 4:58 | |
| The Lord be with you. | 5:16 | |
| Let us pray. | 5:20 | |
| Let us offer unto God our unison prayer of thanksgiving. | 5:24 | |
| Oh Lord, our God, | 5:33 | |
| the author and giver of all good things, | 5:36 | |
| we thank thee for all thy mercies. | 5:40 | |
| And for thy loving care over all thy creatures. | 5:43 | |
| We bless thee for the gift of life, | 5:48 | |
| for thy protection round about us, | 5:53 | |
| for thy guiding hand upon us, | 5:56 | |
| and for the tokens of thy love within us. | 5:59 | |
| We thank thee for friendship and duty, | 6:04 | |
| for good hopes and precious memories. | 6:08 | |
| For the joys that cheer us and trials that teach us | 6:12 | |
| to put our trust in thee. | 6:17 | |
| Most of all we thank thee for the saving knowledge | 6:21 | |
| of thy son, our savior. | 6:25 | |
| For the living presence of thy spirit. | 6:28 | |
| For thy church, the body of Christ. | 6:32 | |
| For the ministry of word and sacrament, | 6:36 | |
| and all the means of grace. | 6:40 | |
| And all these things, oh Father, | 6:44 | |
| make us wise unto a right use of thy benefits, | 6:47 | |
| that we may render an acceptable thanksgiving unto thee | 6:53 | |
| all the days of our life. | 6:58 | |
| For Jesus Christ, amen. | 7:01 | |
| May we continue in an attitude of prayer as | 7:19 | |
| we offer our intersessions and our partitions | 7:22 | |
| for others and for ourselves. | 7:28 | |
| Oh mighty God who is committed to thy people, | 7:33 | |
| the ministry of intersession, | 7:36 | |
| hear us, we ask as we pray for others needs and our own. | 7:39 | |
| And grant that our hearts may be so filled with peace | 7:45 | |
| and with courage that we may be fit instruments | 7:49 | |
| of thy will for our neighbor's need, | 7:54 | |
| and for our own lives' amendments. | 7:58 | |
| Let us pray for the whole church of God | 8:05 | |
| throughout all the world. | 8:08 | |
| Oh Lord of the church, unite thy church we ask. | 8:14 | |
| Point her to the issues, raise her eyes, | 8:22 | |
| amaze her heart, | 8:28 | |
| stir her imagination, | 8:32 | |
| raise her temper, | 8:35 | |
| call her into the crisis. | 8:38 | |
| Show her the headlines, we ask, oh God. | 8:42 | |
| Send her into danger, | 8:47 | |
| make her children glad, | 8:50 | |
| make her youth zealous. | 8:53 | |
| Make her men brave, make her women free. | 8:57 | |
| Make her ministers martyrs, | 9:04 | |
| make her bishops servants. | 9:08 | |
| Make her risk her life, oh Lord, | 9:12 | |
| as Christ laid down his own life freely | 9:16 | |
| for thy people. | 9:21 | |
| May we offer unto God our partitions | 9:27 | |
| for those human needs gathered in this sanctuary | 9:30 | |
| and in all parts of God's world. | 9:35 | |
| Oh Lord, remember and help us in our special needs, we ask, | 9:43 | |
| as thou remembered the old man Noah | 9:51 | |
| and the ark so long ago. | 9:55 | |
| And the young man Jesus on the cross. | 9:58 | |
| Remember us all in the lonely places of our lives, | 10:05 | |
| for life is but memory. | 10:12 | |
| Where traffic is gone, where crowds have left, | 10:16 | |
| where travelers are disperse, where seats are empty, | 10:23 | |
| and where rooms are vacant. | 10:29 | |
| Remember us oh Lord in our loneliness where laughter | 10:34 | |
| is but an echo. | 10:38 | |
| Where bouquets are dried, where pictures are framed | 10:41 | |
| and where events are passed. | 10:47 | |
| Remember us, oh God our Father, | 10:52 | |
| for we still travel as nomads. | 10:56 | |
| We too have our memorial stones and our memory lanes | 11:01 | |
| to which we turn with nostalgia, with loneliness, | 11:05 | |
| with gratefulness, and with reflection. | 11:11 | |
| Remember us, oh God who art always | 11:19 | |
| on the move toward the future, | 11:22 | |
| and lead us from our memories into thy hope. | 11:26 | |
| Oh Lord, | 11:37 | |
| we pray now for those who are caught | 11:40 | |
| in the structures of their lives | 11:47 | |
| and the structures of an inhuman world. | 11:50 | |
| Restore the ones, we pray, who are caught in the routine, | 11:55 | |
| in the structure, in the system. | 12:02 | |
| Release the ones, oh Father, | 12:08 | |
| suppressed by the advice of others, | 12:11 | |
| by the rules, the guidelines, the by-laws, | 12:14 | |
| the schedules, the time clocks and the dead lines. | 12:19 | |
| Refresh us all we ask, oh God, | 12:26 | |
| for we become exhausted by pressure. | 12:31 | |
| We are dazed by the loose ends of our lives. | 12:36 | |
| We are bewildered by the procedures, | 12:41 | |
| we are confused by the temptations, | 12:45 | |
| we are distraught by the deceptions and | 12:49 | |
| chained by the job. | 12:52 | |
| Oh God, who has power to give life where there is death, | 12:56 | |
| return the lost, refresh the weary, | 13:02 | |
| release the enslaved, restore the caught, | 13:09 | |
| and renew the bored. | 13:16 | |
| Come in this season of advent, oh Christ. | 13:19 | |
| Come and show us the people, | 13:26 | |
| and our hearts will be made glad. | 13:30 | |
| Come into our chaotic and warring world, we pray thee, | 13:34 | |
| as Christ came, with healing and with peace. | 13:40 | |
| Thou shall find us proud, our Father, | 13:49 | |
| for we have not yet learned what it means to be humble. | 13:53 | |
| Thou shall find us guarded and defensive, | 14:00 | |
| for we are weak within and full of fear. | 14:05 | |
| Thou shall find us irritable and not a little arrogant, | 14:11 | |
| oh God, for we are uncomfortably guilty | 14:16 | |
| and are not often willing to admit the frailty of our sins. | 14:22 | |
| While we dress and parade like | 14:29 | |
| little Herods and lordly pilots, | 14:31 | |
| we know we have a deeper, stronger need of thee. | 14:36 | |
| Come again in this season of Christmas, | 14:44 | |
| thou meekest of all kings, | 14:49 | |
| and save us from ourselves, | 14:54 | |
| so we may learn to live joyfully for others. | 14:58 | |
| In the name of Christ of Bethlehem, | 15:05 | |
| our light, our hope, and our peace, | 15:10 | |
| who taught us that we should pray together, saying, | 15:17 | |
| "Our Father which art in Heaven, | 15:21 | |
| "Hallowed by thy name. | 15:25 | |
| "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done | 15:28 | |
| "on Earth as it is in Heaven. | 15:33 | |
| "Give us this day our daily bread | 15:36 | |
| "and forgive us our trespasses, | 15:40 | |
| "as we forgive those who trespass against us. | 15:43 | |
| "And lead us not into temptation, | 15:48 | |
| "but deliver us from evil. | 15:52 | |
| "For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory. | 15:56 | |
| "Forever. Amen." | 16:03 | |
| One of the favorite preaching techniques of our Lord | 16:42 | |
| was the asking of a question which forced his hearers | 16:50 | |
| to focus their attention upon the impossibility | 16:59 | |
| of something they were attempting to do, | 17:05 | |
| or upon the error of their ways. | 17:10 | |
| He had the ability to ask questions | 17:16 | |
| in such fashion that his hearers were almost compelled | 17:22 | |
| to give themselves the correct answer. | 17:29 | |
| For example, | 17:34 | |
| Jesus questioned, | 17:38 | |
| "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain | 17:41 | |
| the whole world and lose his own soul?", | 17:46 | |
| demands the answer, "It shall profit him nothing." | 17:52 | |
| Again, his question, | 18:00 | |
| "Why call me, "Lord, Lord", | 18:02 | |
| "and do not the things that I say?", | 18:06 | |
| calls for the obvious answer, | 18:13 | |
| "Nothing is gained by calling Jesus Lord | 18:16 | |
| "under those circumstances." | 18:20 | |
| Now in similar fashion, Christ turned to his critics | 18:25 | |
| on the occasion referred to in the morning scripture lesson, | 18:30 | |
| and which is also described in Mark, the third chapter. | 18:35 | |
| He asked them a question which destroyed | 18:41 | |
| the entire basis of their criticism. | 18:45 | |
| They were doing their best to discredit | 18:50 | |
| his curing of an insane man | 18:53 | |
| by contending that he cast out demons by | 18:59 | |
| the power of Beelzebub, the alleged prince of demons. | 19:03 | |
| Jesus then taxed their minds with one of | 19:11 | |
| those devastating rhetorical questions. | 19:14 | |
| How can Satan cast out Satan? | 19:22 | |
| It will be profitable for us, also beloved, | 19:31 | |
| to ponder that question today. | 19:36 | |
| I doubt that now is the moment, | 19:41 | |
| and perhaps here is not even the place, | 19:44 | |
| for us to struggle with the question of whether Satan | 19:49 | |
| is a personal potentate | 19:53 | |
| who is the conniving source of unlimited mischief. | 19:55 | |
| And who is hiding somewhere in the cosmic basement, | 20:01 | |
| devising all the damnation possible | 20:05 | |
| for as many mortals as he can. | 20:08 | |
| Some Christians hold to one view on this, | 20:13 | |
| and some Christians hold to another. | 20:16 | |
| In passing, it is worth noting that many thousands | 20:23 | |
| of church members have a concept of Satan | 20:28 | |
| which is derived more from Thandi and Milton | 20:33 | |
| than from the Holy Bible. | 20:37 | |
| In his Paradise Lost, Milton pictured Satan as | 20:42 | |
| a crafty, prideful and stubborn tyrant | 20:48 | |
| who would rather rein in Hell than to serve in Heaven. | 20:53 | |
| However, even Christians who hold this personalistic view | 21:01 | |
| of Satan agree with other Christians that | 21:06 | |
| the only way in which mortals encounter Satan | 21:10 | |
| is through certain bad qualities of character | 21:14 | |
| in individual people, | 21:20 | |
| and certain inhuman practices in society. | 21:23 | |
| Very few normal individuals report that | 21:29 | |
| they are personally acquainted with | 21:34 | |
| such a personage as Milton described Satan to be. | 21:37 | |
| Even Martin Luther, who according to tradition, | 21:43 | |
| once hurled a bottle of ink at Satan, | 21:46 | |
| failed to leave us a detailed description of his physique. | 21:49 | |
| Apparently the nearest, | 21:57 | |
| anybody now residing in the Durham area, | 22:01 | |
| has come to having a visible confrontation | 22:06 | |
| with any person who lays claim to being the devil, | 22:11 | |
| as occurred when the spectators had filed | 22:17 | |
| into Wallace Wade Stadium to watch athletic contests. | 22:20 | |
| And they have seen the impish maneuvers | 22:27 | |
| of a Duke University student, dressed in blue, | 22:29 | |
| with an elongated appendage attached to | 22:34 | |
| the backside of his lap. | 22:37 | |
| Now this Satan has sometimes been cast out | 22:41 | |
| by the opposing cheerleaders, | 22:45 | |
| and occasionally by the Duke Dean's Office. | 22:48 | |
| However, although we do not expect in a given day's journey | 22:55 | |
| to meet a person who will introduce himself to us as Satan, | 23:01 | |
| it is very important that we not take | 23:09 | |
| the devil to be merely a funny joke. | 23:12 | |
| There was a time in the not too distant past | 23:20 | |
| when enlightened people assumed that mankind could dispense | 23:23 | |
| with the entire concept of Satan, | 23:29 | |
| whatever form it might take. | 23:32 | |
| But today, we find serious writers grappling | 23:36 | |
| with the reality of some kind of force | 23:40 | |
| or influence which they call Satan. | 23:44 | |
| Poets like W.H. Auden, | 23:51 | |
| novelists like Mann, Geed, and Dostoevsky | 23:54 | |
| accept the demonic as real. | 23:59 | |
| Now for the purposes of this sermon, | 24:07 | |
| let's define Satan as being all of the bad qualities | 24:10 | |
| of character which stand in the way of | 24:15 | |
| the full realization of the kingdom of God, | 24:19 | |
| as taught by our Lord and Savior. | 24:23 | |
| Now this would include hatred and lying | 24:28 | |
| and lust and pride, stealing, killing. | 24:35 | |
| The long list of anti-social and inhuman wicked ways | 24:41 | |
| of erring mankind. | 24:50 | |
| The problem which has plagued the human race | 24:55 | |
| from the very beginning, | 24:59 | |
| but more especially since the incarnation, | 25:01 | |
| is how, h-o-w, | 25:08 | |
| do we cast out these bad attitudes | 25:12 | |
| and practices and thus prepare our hearts | 25:18 | |
| and our society for the kingdom of God? | 25:22 | |
| How do we rid ourselves of hatred? | 25:29 | |
| Of lying. Lust. | 25:35 | |
| Pride. Stealing. | 25:37 | |
| Killing. Alcoholism. | 25:43 | |
| War. Communism. Poverty. | 25:48 | |
| Racial inequality. Illegitimate births. | 25:55 | |
| Broken marriage vows. | 25:59 | |
| How? | 26:03 | |
| How? | 26:09 | |
| The answer which our Lord gave is | 26:13 | |
| that Satan cannot be cast out by Satan. | 26:16 | |
| He must be driven out by the forces of righteousness, | 26:23 | |
| by the power of the kingdom of God. | 26:28 | |
| Our method of defeating the devil must be the method | 26:33 | |
| of the Holy Spirit. | 26:37 | |
| Satan is cast out by unselfishness, by love, | 26:41 | |
| by a dedicated imagination, | 26:47 | |
| by obedience to God, | 26:50 | |
| and by a determined faith. | 26:54 | |
| The truth, which it is essential for us to see | 27:00 | |
| in extremely sharp focus, | 27:06 | |
| is that however promising Satan's methodology may appear | 27:12 | |
| to be, Satan in fact cannot cast out Satan. | 27:19 | |
| Now consider an analogy. | 27:28 | |
| Suppose that you need to catch the 7:55 plane out of | 27:32 | |
| the Durham airport this evening going to New York. | 27:38 | |
| Suppose that you get in a car at 6:55, | 27:43 | |
| drive south on US highway number 15. | 27:49 | |
| Your mistake will not consist in taking | 27:57 | |
| an improper road to the airport. | 28:02 | |
| Your error will not be that you took and irreligious | 28:07 | |
| or an immoral or an unChristian road to the airport. | 28:12 | |
| Rather, you will miss your 7:55 plane to New York | 28:20 | |
| because you will have chosen to drive on a highway | 28:26 | |
| which does not go | 28:32 | |
| to the airport. | 28:36 | |
| A great many people mistakenly assume Jesus meant | 28:46 | |
| to tell us something like this. | 28:49 | |
| Now, now, you naughty people must quit casting | 28:52 | |
| out Satan with Satan. | 28:57 | |
| The heavenly Father is very touchy on this point. | 29:00 | |
| And it is extremely embarrassing to him every time | 29:05 | |
| one of his followers casts out Satan with Satan, | 29:10 | |
| because that seems to imply that Satan | 29:13 | |
| is one of God's helpers. | 29:16 | |
| But my friends, this was not the point | 29:21 | |
| of Christ's teaching at all. | 29:25 | |
| Instead he was informing us that just as highway number 15 | 29:30 | |
| simply does not go to the airport, | 29:35 | |
| so the use of Satanic methods to achieve righteous goals | 29:40 | |
| is a mistake for the sufficient reason | 29:45 | |
| that such methods do not, in fact, achieve righteous goals. | 29:48 | |
| Now let us consider some of the ways in which | 29:59 | |
| we have been tempted to employ Satanic methods | 30:03 | |
| to cast out Satanic evils. | 30:08 | |
| Many could be chosen from history, | 30:14 | |
| and the current scene also offers many examples of this. | 30:18 | |
| We'll look at a few from the past and | 30:25 | |
| a few from the present. | 30:27 | |
| Now since we are not responsible for what happened long ago, | 30:30 | |
| it's more comfortable to think about the errors of the past. | 30:37 | |
| So let's take our first example from | 30:42 | |
| the late Medieval period. | 30:45 | |
| You can relax on this one. | 30:48 | |
| Among the many legends which were being told in | 30:52 | |
| the British Isles at that time was the tale | 30:58 | |
| of a dashing figure known as Robin Hood. | 31:02 | |
| We do not certainly know whether such a character | 31:09 | |
| as Robin Hood actually lived. | 31:14 | |
| Perhaps there was at least some kernel | 31:18 | |
| of historical truth upon which the legend was built, | 31:21 | |
| and from which it grew. | 31:25 | |
| The story, whether fact or fiction, | 31:29 | |
| was about a man who loved the poor, | 31:32 | |
| and who was sorry the poor had too little money, | 31:36 | |
| too little food, too little clothing. | 31:41 | |
| He wanted them to have a sufficient amount | 31:45 | |
| of these necessities, | 31:48 | |
| so he decided to get them by the only means he knew | 31:50 | |
| at the time would accomplish that objective. | 31:54 | |
| Namely, to steal from the rich | 31:59 | |
| and give to the poor. | 32:05 | |
| By dent of his inspired skill, | 32:09 | |
| he took the access of the wealthy from them, | 32:15 | |
| and alleviated the poverty of the poor. | 32:20 | |
| Although we don't know whether | 32:26 | |
| any person named Robin Hood actually lived, | 32:28 | |
| we do know that the circulation of | 32:32 | |
| this quaint legend made a contribution, | 32:34 | |
| not so much to the feeding of the poor, | 32:39 | |
| as to teaching the poor to steal. | 32:44 | |
| Poverty and starvation are indeed evil realities, | 32:52 | |
| which mankind needs to cast out. | 32:57 | |
| But Robin Hood must learn that stealing also is evil, | 33:01 | |
| and that one wrong cannot cast out another. | 33:08 | |
| You see, the tantalizing assumption which makes it | 33:15 | |
| so tempting for Christians to continue trying | 33:20 | |
| to cast out Satan with Satan, | 33:24 | |
| is the illusion that we can control Satan | 33:28 | |
| if we can only keep him in the employ of the righteous. | 33:35 | |
| Satan becomes sanctified when he's hired out to Christians, | 33:42 | |
| so we like to think. | 33:49 | |
| We seem to feel that a wolf in sheep's clothing | 33:53 | |
| becomes a sheep. | 33:57 | |
| It is not so. | 34:01 | |
| A wolf, in whatever clothing, is still a wolf. | 34:05 | |
| Satan in the hire of Christians is still Satan. | 34:14 | |
| And according to Christ, Satan cannot cast out Satan. | 34:19 | |
| We sometimes are deceived by the short term success | 34:28 | |
| of Satan into thinking that he can be useful in our cause. | 34:33 | |
| But often a short term success can be a long term defeat. | 34:40 | |
| I recall in high school, two of my female schoolmates | 34:46 | |
| were competing for the affection of a boy. | 34:51 | |
| One day they argued over him until they began | 34:56 | |
| to shout at each other. | 34:59 | |
| They had to pull each other's hair and at last | 35:01 | |
| to claw each other's skin. To hit, kick. | 35:04 | |
| One was stronger, soon subdued the other. | 35:09 | |
| She won the fight, but lost the boy. | 35:16 | |
| Because he said he'd rather have a sweetheart who | 35:23 | |
| was less able to claw and fight than one who was more able. | 35:28 | |
| Well this is one dimension of the protracted debate | 35:37 | |
| about the Vietnam war, which has been almost ignored | 35:44 | |
| by Americans who have been discussing it now | 35:49 | |
| for these many years. | 35:53 | |
| Yet I feel it's an aspect of the war | 35:58 | |
| in which no honest and thoughtful American should ignore. | 36:01 | |
| Let me put it this way. | 36:08 | |
| The reason which the American government gives | 36:12 | |
| for its long standing military involvement | 36:15 | |
| in an undeclared war in Vietnam | 36:23 | |
| is that we must oppose communism, | 36:26 | |
| and communism is in Vietnam. | 36:30 | |
| I do not believe that any intelligent Christian | 36:36 | |
| will disagree that Marxian communism should be opposed. | 36:42 | |
| The vices of atheistic and materialistic communism | 36:51 | |
| are so numerous and so vexing | 36:55 | |
| as to justify our putting the label of Satan on it. | 37:00 | |
| And I believe it is the duty of every Christian | 37:11 | |
| to bear witness against the lies, the hate, | 37:15 | |
| and the materialism of communism. | 37:20 | |
| And to work and pray for the conversion of those | 37:25 | |
| who are held in the grip of its system of error. | 37:30 | |
| But it is the highest form of true Christian patriotism | 37:39 | |
| to ask the question whether our present military operation | 37:47 | |
| is having the affect of casting out | 37:54 | |
| the Satan of communism from southeast Asia. | 37:58 | |
| Many intelligent, well-informed, freedom loving, | 38:05 | |
| patriotic Christians have reported from Vietnam | 38:11 | |
| that it is not doing so. | 38:16 | |
| The Board of Directors of | 38:22 | |
| the American Friends Service Committee, | 38:23 | |
| appointed a working party of experts, | 38:27 | |
| some of whom are internationally famous | 38:32 | |
| in their fields of competence, | 38:34 | |
| to prepare a proposal for solving the plight | 38:38 | |
| of the tortured land of Vietnam. | 38:43 | |
| After much investigation and consultation, in 1966, | 38:48 | |
| they published their proposal in a book entitled | 38:56 | |
| Peace in Vietnam, | 39:00 | |
| which contained a serious of very concrete suggestions | 39:03 | |
| that the working party believed were realistic | 39:08 | |
| and would be successful. | 39:13 | |
| If you've not already done so, | 39:16 | |
| I commend to you the reading of this little book. | 39:18 | |
| But it is the opening paragraph of the volume | 39:24 | |
| which has particular relevance to our topic at this moment. | 39:28 | |
| It describes an event which took place | 39:34 | |
| in the city of Hua, South Vietnam, | 39:38 | |
| on a summer day in 1965, four years ago. | 39:44 | |
| It happened in a small square which was known | 39:49 | |
| as a rendezvous for American GIs and Vietnamese girls. | 39:53 | |
| Two military policeman were on duty to keep order. | 40:02 | |
| One of them has supplied himself with some candy | 40:08 | |
| for the children who crowded around the Americans. | 40:11 | |
| As soon as the children discovered that he had it, | 40:16 | |
| they pressed and clamored about him, | 40:20 | |
| whereupon he scattered it into the air. | 40:23 | |
| And as it fell to the cobblestones, | 40:28 | |
| the children descended upon it like a swarm of locusts. | 40:31 | |
| At this moment, a young south Vietnamese man, | 40:38 | |
| a school teacher, happened to come by. | 40:45 | |
| Seeing the school children, | 40:51 | |
| he spoke to them in a demanding voice, | 40:53 | |
| requiring them to give the candy back to the MP. | 40:58 | |
| Then facing the GIs, he spoke in measured English | 41:04 | |
| with a tone of suppressed anger. | 41:09 | |
| "You Americans don't understand", he said. | 41:14 | |
| "You are making beggars of our children, | 41:20 | |
| "prostitutes of our women, | 41:26 | |
| "and communists of our men." | 41:31 | |
| It is not unpatriotic to ask if | 41:39 | |
| that young south Vietnamese school teacher spoke the truth. | 41:42 | |
| Is our present posture over there manufacturing communists | 41:52 | |
| as rapidly as it is killing them? | 41:57 | |
| If not, how can we explain the admitted fact | 42:03 | |
| that after years of effort and the expenditure | 42:08 | |
| of between $100 and $200 billions of dollars, | 42:12 | |
| the loss of 40,000 American lives, | 42:17 | |
| the south Vietnamese countryside is today largely under | 42:21 | |
| the sway of the enemy. | 42:27 | |
| Can napalm, defoliation, scorched Earth, | 42:34 | |
| killing of civilians, and widespread adultery | 42:41 | |
| cast out Satan? | 42:46 | |
| Can it? | 42:51 | |
| Has it done so? | 42:54 | |
| Before taking highway number 15, | 43:00 | |
| perhaps we better find out if it goes to the airport. | 43:03 | |
| Before continuing our present policy in Vietnam, | 43:10 | |
| perhaps we had better find out if it is weakening | 43:13 | |
| or strengthening communism in southeast Asia. | 43:18 | |
| Now having said that it is both Christian and patriotic | 43:26 | |
| to question whether our undeclared war in Vietnam | 43:30 | |
| is being effective in casting out Satan, | 43:34 | |
| I wish to make it perfectly clear that | 43:39 | |
| this does not imply that those who sincerely believe | 43:43 | |
| we should continue our military involvement there | 43:47 | |
| are either unChristian or unpatriotic. | 43:53 | |
| I personally know many dedicated Christians | 43:57 | |
| who believe the war should go on. | 44:01 | |
| What we have on our hands is an honest disagreement | 44:06 | |
| between two groups of good people. | 44:09 | |
| But what both groups must realize | 44:16 | |
| is that in making their proposals, | 44:21 | |
| either for continuation or cessation, | 44:27 | |
| in so doing they make common cause | 44:32 | |
| with the strangest of bedfellows. | 44:35 | |
| The Christian who believes the continuation | 44:39 | |
| of the war is a mistake is joined by | 44:42 | |
| a handful of radicals and a whole lot of communists. | 44:47 | |
| This fact has been trumpeted from the housetops for months. | 44:53 | |
| What is equally true, but has not been admitted, | 45:01 | |
| is that the Christian who advocates a continuation of | 45:06 | |
| the war is likewise joined by a host of strange bedfellows. | 45:10 | |
| He makes common cause with the ruthless capitalists, | 45:18 | |
| who is gorging his bank accounts with war profits, | 45:23 | |
| and who is feverishly pressuring the government | 45:27 | |
| to continue the war so he can get even richer. | 45:30 | |
| He's making common cause with the military officer | 45:36 | |
| who wants the war to continue until he gets his promotion. | 45:39 | |
| And he's making common cause with the | 45:45 | |
| contemptible chauvinist who wants America to rule the world. | 45:47 | |
| Now these are only a few of | 45:55 | |
| the many undesirable bedfellows he has. | 45:57 | |
| But I wish to insist that this Christian should not cease | 46:02 | |
| to advocate a continuation of the war | 46:08 | |
| merely because of his strange bedfellows. | 46:13 | |
| It is, however, time for him to stop criticizing | 46:20 | |
| his brother Christian who wants the war stopped, | 46:24 | |
| but who can't help having strange bedfellows either. | 46:28 | |
| Whatever course you or I may advocate concerning Vietnam, | 46:36 | |
| all who follow Christ must agree that evil | 46:41 | |
| is not the cure for evil. | 46:45 | |
| That Satan cannot cast out Satan, | 46:49 | |
| and we must continue to study what that means, | 46:53 | |
| in terms of every relationship of human existence. | 46:58 | |
| As long as we are uncertain, | 47:05 | |
| at this point we do not really know whether | 47:07 | |
| we are Christians or worshipers of Baal. | 47:11 | |
| A significant theological difference existed between | 47:18 | |
| the religion of the Baal cults in Palestine, | 47:22 | |
| and the religion of Jehovah. | 47:26 | |
| The profits of Jehovah taught that evil was evil, | 47:29 | |
| and could not be sanctified by hiring itself out | 47:35 | |
| to Jehovah's temple. | 47:40 | |
| The Baal religions taught the opposite. | 47:43 | |
| For them, prostitution, for example, | 47:49 | |
| could be a service to the Baal God | 47:53 | |
| if it were practiced in the temple, | 47:57 | |
| and a goodly portion of the proceeds | 48:02 | |
| were turned over to the temple treasury. | 48:06 | |
| Some of you Lamen may have wondered | 48:10 | |
| why the Old Testament profits | 48:15 | |
| had such a hard time keeping Israelite men away | 48:17 | |
| from the worship of Baal, | 48:21 | |
| and why the profits spoke so hotly against Baal worship. | 48:24 | |
| This is the reason. | 48:29 | |
| Baal people taught that religion could be served by evil, | 48:33 | |
| whereas the profits of Jehovah said it couldn't be. | 48:38 | |
| The Hebrew Christian scriptures have been clear | 48:45 | |
| on this point. | 48:48 | |
| That our God has revealed to us no way by which | 48:51 | |
| we can serve him or establish righteousness doing evil. | 48:56 | |
| Christ made it quite clear that the devil | 49:04 | |
| is not upended by the devil. | 49:07 | |
| It remains for us who call ourselves Christians | 49:12 | |
| to decide to use Christian means to achieve Christian goals. | 49:17 | |
| And to study prayerfully, | 49:23 | |
| to determine what are the Christian methods for us | 49:28 | |
| to use in our day to solve the problems of our time? | 49:33 | |
| Oh Lord, our God, we need thy presence. | 49:44 | |
| We must have thy wisdom. | 49:51 | |
| And so we pray for it. | 49:56 | |
| That we may be wise to know | 49:59 | |
| where thou wish have us to go. | 50:05 | |
| In Jesus name, amen. | 50:10 | |
| (choir music) | 50:17 | |
| (choir music continues) | 51:05 | |
| (choir music continues) | 52:12 | |
| (choir music continues) | 53:38 | |
| (light choir music) | 54:01 | |
| (light choir music continues) | 56:10 | |
| (light choir music and singing) | 56:31 | |
| (light choir music and singing continues) | 57:40 | |
| (light choir music and singing continues) | 1:00:07 | |
| (choir music and singing continues) | 1:01:58 | |
| (choir music and singing continues) | 1:03:26 |
