Charles S. Hubbard - "God and Secularism" (June 15, 1975)
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| (church organ playing light music) | 0:06 | |
| (church organ playing light music continues) | 2:01 | |
| - | Almighty God, to whom belong adoration and praise, | 5:53 |
| illumine our hearts by the light of Thy grace, | 5:58 | |
| that our lips may praise Thee, | 6:01 | |
| that our lives may bless Thee, | 6:03 | |
| that our worship may glorify Thee, | 6:06 | |
| through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. | 6:09 | |
| (church organ playing light music) | 6:14 | |
| Dearly beloved, to praise God honestly, | 9:03 | |
| moves us to acknowledge and confess our sins before Him, | 9:06 | |
| our heavenly Father, | 9:10 | |
| with a humble and obedient heart | 9:12 | |
| to the end that we may obtain forgiveness | 9:15 | |
| by His infinite goodness and mercy. | 9:18 | |
| Therefore, I beseech you, as many as are here present, | 9:21 | |
| to accompany me with a pure heart and humble voice | 9:26 | |
| and confess our sins to almighty God. | 9:29 | |
| Oh God, you who are before and after all things. | 9:34 | |
| By whom and before whom everything exists that exists. | 9:39 | |
| In whose hands, lie the mysteries of each yesterday, | 9:45 | |
| today, tomorrow, and today. | 9:49 | |
| We are those | 9:52 | |
| who knowing the wonderfilled dread of your presence | 9:53 | |
| have lacked the courage of our awareness. | 9:58 | |
| Vainly, striving to hide ourselves from you. | 10:01 | |
| We are those who knowing life is good | 10:05 | |
| have murmured against our fate, | 10:10 | |
| abusing the world about us and all they're in. | 10:12 | |
| We are those | 10:17 | |
| who knowing that life is given to us only in the present | 10:18 | |
| desperately cling to our false images about the past, | 10:23 | |
| and our imagined fantasies concerning the future. | 10:27 | |
| Knowing that we are called to live, | 10:31 | |
| to not elect to be called. | 10:34 | |
| Have mercy on us, oh Lord. Amen. | 10:37 | |
| Let us continue our confession in the quiet of the moment, | 10:42 | |
| and the privacy of ourselves. | 10:45 | |
| Hear these words | 11:18 | |
| of assurance of God's pardon of our sins here confessed. | 11:19 | |
| By Christ death and His body of flesh and blood, | 11:24 | |
| God has reconciled you to himself. | 11:28 | |
| He rescued us from the domain of darkness | 11:32 | |
| and brought us away into the kingdom of his Son, | 11:35 | |
| in whom our release is secured, and our sins forgiven. | 11:38 | |
| Amen. | 11:43 | |
| (chorister singing melodic song) | 11:58 | |
| The scripture lesson this morning is taken from John 17:1-5. | 14:53 | |
| "When Jesus had spoken these words, | 15:02 | |
| He lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, | 15:04 | |
| 'Father, the hour has come. | 15:08 | |
| Glorified Thy son, that the son may glorify Thee. | 15:11 | |
| Since Thou has given him power over all flesh | 15:15 | |
| to give eternal life to all whom now has given him. | 15:19 | |
| And this is eternal life that they know Thee, | 15:24 | |
| the only true God, | 15:28 | |
| and Jesus Christ whom now has sent. | 15:30 | |
| I glorify Thee on earth, | 15:34 | |
| having accomplished the work which Thou has given me to do. | 15:36 | |
| And now Father, | 15:41 | |
| glorified Thou me in Thy own presence with the glory | 15:42 | |
| which I had with Thee before the world was made.'" | 15:46 | |
| May God at his blessings to the reading of His holy word. | 15:51 | |
| (church organ playing light music) | 15:55 | |
| We are not alone. | 16:38 | |
| We live in God's world. | 16:40 | |
| We believe in God, | 16:43 | |
| who has created and is creating. | 16:45 | |
| Who has come in the truly human Jesus | 16:48 | |
| to reconcile and make new. | 16:51 | |
| Who works in us and others through the spirit. | 16:54 | |
| We trust God, | 16:58 | |
| who calls us to be the church, | 17:00 | |
| to celebrate life and its fullness, | 17:03 | |
| to love and serve others, | 17:06 | |
| to seek justice and resist evil, | 17:09 | |
| to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen, | 17:12 | |
| our judge and our hope. | 17:16 | |
| In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. | 17:19 | |
| We are not alone. | 17:25 | |
| Thanks be to God. | 17:27 | |
| The Lord be with you. | 17:30 | |
| (congregation responds indistinctly) | 17:32 | |
| Let us pray. | 17:34 | |
| Oh, God of love. | 17:44 | |
| We lift our hearts to Thee this day with thanks | 17:47 | |
| for that which you so richly have given us to enjoy. | 17:50 | |
| For health and vigor. | 17:55 | |
| For the love and care of home. | 17:57 | |
| For joys of friendship. | 18:01 | |
| And for every good gift of happiness and strength. | 18:04 | |
| We praise Thee for the gospel of your love to men | 18:09 | |
| and for the word of salvation to all people. | 18:12 | |
| We thank Thee for good hopes and precious memories. | 18:16 | |
| For the joys that cheer us, | 18:21 | |
| and the trials that teach us to put our trust in Thee. | 18:24 | |
| Oh Lord, give us a tender heart. | 18:30 | |
| Let us do loving things that surprise even ourselves. | 18:33 | |
| Let us stop daily to talk to people who need a good word. | 18:38 | |
| To mend what is broken and touch what needs to be loved. | 18:43 | |
| Make us more aware of the tiny surprises | 18:48 | |
| that are scattered like secrets around us. | 18:51 | |
| Let us notice such things as we have forgotten, | 18:55 | |
| and those persons of whom we have grown weary. | 18:59 | |
| May we see them in a new way | 19:03 | |
| so that we may have a kind word for them. | 19:05 | |
| As we visibly set out to do the large tasks, | 19:11 | |
| may we find more time for a small celebrations. | 19:15 | |
| Oh, Christ, give us the grace to live out each day | 19:20 | |
| as though it were a gift. | 19:24 | |
| Surprise us often and let us know our great surprise. | 19:26 | |
| Oh Lord, who made the air | 19:34 | |
| and instructed us to take care of it. | 19:35 | |
| Who made breath and told us us to take care of our life. | 19:38 | |
| Remind us daily of our responsibility to all creation. | 19:42 | |
| Let us see the sky and the sea and the land as sacred. | 19:47 | |
| May we as redeemed people, | 19:54 | |
| discover a new attitude toward nature. | 19:56 | |
| May our salvation enlighten us to think highly | 20:00 | |
| of all those things and those people | 20:03 | |
| by which and through home we can take care of life. | 20:07 | |
| Almighty God, teach our teachers. | 20:14 | |
| May they care about the truth and face it. | 20:17 | |
| Scan horizons and go there. | 20:21 | |
| Seek secrets and explore them. | 20:24 | |
| And through them, | 20:27 | |
| enable us to find the hungry and feed them. | 20:29 | |
| To detect injustice and destroy it. | 20:33 | |
| To learn music and make it. | 20:37 | |
| Into your hands, oh Father, we commit the sick. | 20:42 | |
| Those crushed by task | 20:45 | |
| for which they think themselves incompetent. | 20:47 | |
| Those who have lost their grip on life's meaning. | 20:51 | |
| We offer today a special prayer for those who are lonely, | 20:56 | |
| who sends more than usual, your absence, your silence. | 21:01 | |
| During this hour, | 21:08 | |
| when it seems so easy to feel your presence, | 21:09 | |
| teach us also how in our awareness of your absence, | 21:12 | |
| you speak to us most clearly. | 21:17 | |
| Keep us faithful, oh Lord, | 21:22 | |
| precisely when we need most to be kept faithful. | 21:23 | |
| Such as the prayer we lift to Thee this day, | 21:30 | |
| knowing that Thou did understand our need | 21:33 | |
| before we uttered it. | 21:35 | |
| Yet greater than all of these other needs | 21:37 | |
| is the need we have of Thee. | 21:39 | |
| Receive us. | 21:42 | |
| We pray through Jesus Christ, our Lord, | 21:44 | |
| who taught us to say, as we pray, | 21:46 | |
| our father who art in heaven, | 21:50 | |
| hallowed be Thy name, | 21:53 | |
| Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, | 21:55 | |
| on earth as it is on heaven. | 21:58 | |
| Give us this day our daily bread, | 22:01 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses | 22:04 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us. | 22:07 | |
| And lead us not to temptation, | 22:11 | |
| but deliver us from evil. | 22:13 | |
| For thine is the kingdom, | 22:15 | |
| and the power, and the glory forever. | 22:17 | |
| Amen. | 22:21 | |
| - | Good morning. | 22:41 |
| I know that out there, | 22:45 | |
| in the dark somewhere are a few friends. | 22:46 | |
| I do not recognize you | 22:52 | |
| because of the vast distances in this chapel. | 22:53 | |
| And most of you do not recognize me | 23:00 | |
| because of this white robe. | 23:03 | |
| Only my mother thought I would ever wear a white robe. | 23:07 | |
| My father never did. | 23:11 | |
| I'm sure that both the University of North Carolina | 23:15 | |
| and Duke Divinity School questioned it, | 23:18 | |
| but this is not my first time in this pulpit. | 23:23 | |
| I used to preach here in 1938 as a student preacher, | 23:27 | |
| when students had rights around this place. | 23:32 | |
| And we also had a lot of fun. | 23:34 | |
| I'm already retired, | 23:41 | |
| I'm just enjoying this morning with you. | 23:44 | |
| As again I hope in your name | 23:48 | |
| and for his sake to witness to my God. | 23:51 | |
| Now in this scripture, read to you by my brother Mr. Cox. | 23:58 | |
| Jesus said this, | 24:06 | |
| "And this is eternal life, | 24:10 | |
| that they know Thee the only true God, | 24:17 | |
| and Jesus Christ whom Thou has sent." | 24:21 | |
| Now, that is the beginning, the roots of a faith. | 24:28 | |
| A faith that in its immediate strength and power. | 24:35 | |
| Overwhelm the known world | 24:43 | |
| with a new sense of being a new concern for people, | 24:47 | |
| a new concept of living, | 24:51 | |
| a new hope for the common man and woman. | 24:55 | |
| A lot of time has passed since then. | 25:01 | |
| And as we gather here to celebrate | 25:05 | |
| not just the fourth Sunday after Pentecost, | 25:08 | |
| but in another way, Father's Day. | 25:13 | |
| I think that as we have looked from time to time | 25:20 | |
| to the love and gentleness | 25:27 | |
| that should have come and mostly did come from our mothers. | 25:30 | |
| This is a good time for me to point to you who are fathers, | 25:35 | |
| and someday will be fathers, | 25:41 | |
| that to you, Christ looks for strength, | 25:45 | |
| and leadership in this world today. | 25:50 | |
| Now there are many reasons for the mounting problems, | 25:56 | |
| traumas, and shame that are so apparent in America, | 26:01 | |
| and throughout the world today. | 26:04 | |
| And I could spend the entire morning reciting to you | 26:08 | |
| the reasons that all people give, | 26:11 | |
| which is of course, something somebody else did to them, | 26:14 | |
| or caused to be. | 26:20 | |
| Some former administration in politics. | 26:23 | |
| Some evil in economics. | 26:28 | |
| Some selfishness in labor. | 26:31 | |
| Some imbalance in race relations, | 26:36 | |
| and on and on and on we can go. | 26:41 | |
| With 1,001 excuses and little reasons that are given today | 26:45 | |
| for the trouble we're in. | 26:50 | |
| But frankly, ladies and gentlemen, | 26:54 | |
| there's only one big reason. | 26:56 | |
| And that one big reason is the rise in dominance, | 27:00 | |
| our secular materialism in the world today. | 27:05 | |
| How drastically different our religion is | 27:12 | |
| from what it was as given us by the Lord Jesus Christ | 27:16 | |
| and proclaimed by John in our lesson today. | 27:22 | |
| Now there are many varieties of secularism | 27:29 | |
| and its attendant materialism | 27:32 | |
| which makes God of little account, | 27:35 | |
| and man, the center. | 27:40 | |
| There are many varieties in shades of this evil | 27:44 | |
| that are all about us. | 27:48 | |
| But I think that the best definition of this term | 27:51 | |
| is that it is when we simply leave God out. | 27:54 | |
| And you can't leave God out and prosper. | 28:02 | |
| Now, many secularists I know. | 28:10 | |
| Many of whom belong to churches. | 28:13 | |
| Some of whom even get into pulpits of churches. | 28:17 | |
| Accept the principles of Christianity. | 28:21 | |
| They sometimes are its most great defenders | 28:26 | |
| that it's at least in part, | 28:31 | |
| but they have no Christian theology. | 28:34 | |
| They have no real sense | 28:40 | |
| of the relationship of man and woman with their God. | 28:42 | |
| They have no roots to their faith. | 28:50 | |
| I must describe the religion | 28:54 | |
| I see so much today in our churches | 28:57 | |
| as a cut flower religion, | 28:59 | |
| beautiful, very orderly, | 29:02 | |
| but separated from the roots of power. | 29:08 | |
| Simply because the power is not recognized, | 29:13 | |
| or else it is diminished and compartmented, | 29:18 | |
| and sentimentalized, we won't let God be God. | 29:24 | |
| We would rather do it ourselves. | 29:32 | |
| This is where our trouble must begin. | 29:39 | |
| Now, since this is a vacation time and a warm day, | 29:44 | |
| I think I should not belabor you too long, | 29:50 | |
| but I do want to mention some | 29:53 | |
| of the expressions of secularism | 29:56 | |
| I have noted in recent days. | 29:59 | |
| Expressions, which tempt me, | 30:04 | |
| and expressions, which I know tempt you as well. | 30:08 | |
| Now, one of these expressions | 30:15 | |
| is when the values of the world are simply accepted, | 30:17 | |
| on their face, and they become our values, | 30:24 | |
| and then we transfer these values into our church, | 30:30 | |
| and try to make these values | 30:37 | |
| the values of the church as well. | 30:39 | |
| I think we can, but look at the emphasis on numbers, | 30:46 | |
| the emphasis on budget, | 30:54 | |
| the emphasis on show, | 30:58 | |
| that tells us very plainly | 31:05 | |
| where our chief interest has been placed. | 31:10 | |
| Now it's very easy for a preacher | 31:16 | |
| to suffer in this conference, | 31:18 | |
| if he does not accept certain standards | 31:20 | |
| which in my opinion are not the standards of Christ, | 31:25 | |
| but the standards of an organization | 31:29 | |
| that is far more human than it is divine. | 31:33 | |
| Having the same measures of success | 31:39 | |
| that a corporation may have. | 31:42 | |
| And having the same suffering from failures | 31:46 | |
| of not meeting that type of success | 31:50 | |
| that is also placed upon employees of that corporation. | 31:53 | |
| We worry about members in a church. | 32:03 | |
| And I have attended meeting after meeting | 32:09 | |
| of how you can get more members into a church. | 32:11 | |
| Frankly, I do not think that the numbers involved | 32:19 | |
| are as important as the quality | 32:26 | |
| of who and what is asking them to belong to, | 32:31 | |
| and the demands made upon them who are asked to join. | 32:40 | |
| I think it has become so easy | 32:48 | |
| to become a member of a church today, | 32:51 | |
| it's that most any snake can crawl in | 32:53 | |
| and call you brother. | 32:58 | |
| We have transferred too many of the values of the world | 33:05 | |
| and society as man in his consensus makes it, | 33:09 | |
| and adapted these things to our churches. | 33:16 | |
| Now, if you want to know why | 33:22 | |
| a lot of the young are staying away from the churches, | 33:23 | |
| this is the main reason. | 33:27 | |
| If you want to know why they're losing members today, | 33:31 | |
| and every denomination is, I think this is the reason, | 33:35 | |
| is because the church is not being the church. | 33:42 | |
| It is not being the voice of God. | 33:47 | |
| It has become a consensus. | 33:51 | |
| You know, back in my country days, | 33:58 | |
| which I am entering again, | 34:00 | |
| we used to call this type of leadership, | 34:03 | |
| hound dog leadership. | 34:05 | |
| I can remember my granddaddy, | 34:09 | |
| and they were back in the days of wagons, | 34:11 | |
| you see young people, I'm really an old codger. | 34:13 | |
| But back then in Guilford County, | 34:18 | |
| I remember my granddaddy with me sitting on that wagon, | 34:20 | |
| going down a country road, | 34:23 | |
| and of course there was this hound dog leading us. | 34:25 | |
| Now, when we got to the Forks of the Road, | 34:29 | |
| the hound dog would go up apart, maybe 10 feet and stop. | 34:32 | |
| He wanted to see which Fork we were going to follow. | 34:37 | |
| Now, when he found out, | 34:42 | |
| then he'd get in front and lead us again. | 34:43 | |
| And all too often, that is our leadership today. | 34:47 | |
| They want to see where we are going, | 34:55 | |
| and then they get out in front like a majordomo | 34:59 | |
| to lead us in glory and in triumph. | 35:04 | |
| As a result, we must look at another type of secularism, | 35:09 | |
| I see so clearly. | 35:13 | |
| That is when the vital issues, and ideas, | 35:16 | |
| and actions of our society today are compartmented. | 35:23 | |
| Now religion and the church | 35:31 | |
| are of course assigned their compartments. | 35:33 | |
| And so is God assigned his place. | 35:37 | |
| But this is one of the most insidious moves | 35:42 | |
| of the secularist materialist philosophy of today. | 35:48 | |
| Religion is a personal thing, so secularism says, | 35:54 | |
| it is an emotional thing. | 36:00 | |
| It has nothing to do with business. | 36:05 | |
| It has nothing to do with the hungry. | 36:08 | |
| It has nothing to do, God forbid, with politics. | 36:13 | |
| I deny every bit of it. | 36:20 | |
| I claim that if God is not God of a free land, | 36:24 | |
| and its effort to govern itself, he is not God here at all. | 36:30 | |
| I claim that if God is not God of your life, | 36:38 | |
| Monday through Saturday, | 36:42 | |
| and of course, Sunday afternoons, as well as this hour, | 36:44 | |
| then our worshiping Him is a fareth | 36:49 | |
| and the great hypocrisy of the day. | 36:52 | |
| I have been told in my younger days | 36:57 | |
| what I ought to preach about and what I ought not to do. | 36:59 | |
| I think a lot of ministers have been told that. | 37:04 | |
| Now, I did not react very nicely to it, | 37:07 | |
| and I hope that you will not either. | 37:13 | |
| Let God be God, | 37:18 | |
| because if God is not God of the valleys of this life. | 37:22 | |
| If he is not God of where you make your money, | 37:27 | |
| and where you place your vote, and whom you care about, | 37:32 | |
| then I'm afraid he's not your God at all. | 37:39 | |
| Now another secular expression | 37:46 | |
| that I have seen all too often and it seems to be growing, | 37:48 | |
| is the expression of making religion | 37:54 | |
| only emotional and simplistic. | 37:56 | |
| I hear it on my radio some mornings, | 38:01 | |
| you can catch it on TV, sometimes. | 38:04 | |
| Their church is here and there filling up with it. | 38:07 | |
| We're talking about the no responsibility, no theology, | 38:12 | |
| no commitment of any other resources of this world, | 38:16 | |
| but just get God. | 38:22 | |
| That's all, get God. | 38:25 | |
| We're being told that that is a solution to every problem. | 38:30 | |
| All you've got to do is get God, and it's all done for you. | 38:33 | |
| I think probably one of the things that bugs me | 38:39 | |
| is this emphasis on the power of positive thinking. | 38:44 | |
| That is in itself too, a form of secularism, | 38:53 | |
| that all you've got to do is think yourself | 38:58 | |
| enough into a position you're going to be | 39:01 | |
| exactly that kind of a person. | 39:05 | |
| Well, I don't think so. | 39:12 | |
| I refer you to this little book I have here, | 39:15 | |
| called a New Testament, | 39:18 | |
| that's just filled with negative thinking about people. | 39:19 | |
| And this book tells me | 39:26 | |
| that you separated from the Lord Jesus Christ | 39:28 | |
| or without power and without hope. | 39:31 | |
| It tells me that you being separated from his gospel | 39:36 | |
| as well as from Him, | 39:40 | |
| are also without power and without hope. | 39:43 | |
| And it tells me that any people, that any civilization, | 39:47 | |
| who and which may separate themselves | 39:53 | |
| from the one through God, his son, | 39:56 | |
| and this gospel of truth, | 39:59 | |
| is doomed to sink down | 40:01 | |
| into the cemetery of forgotten nations, | 40:04 | |
| like so many have before us. | 40:07 | |
| We are not to look upon God | 40:13 | |
| as a kind of a glorified Santa Claus. | 40:16 | |
| To pray our gimme prayers, to be used for our selfish ends. | 40:20 | |
| We are not to look upon God who accepts our "Humanity," | 40:27 | |
| who overlooks our "Weaknesses," | 40:34 | |
| and who blesses all our human enterprises. | 40:38 | |
| Without sacrifice, without commitment, | 40:45 | |
| there will be no result. | 40:51 | |
| You know, there's another thing | 40:55 | |
| I've discovered about the secularist trend | 40:56 | |
| in our churches today and in our so-called Christians. | 40:59 | |
| And that is that the word sin is not used very much anymore. | 41:04 | |
| We have many substitutes for it. | 41:11 | |
| We can call it confusion or influences. | 41:13 | |
| We can call it weakness. | 41:18 | |
| We can call it peculiarities. | 41:19 | |
| We can call it individualism. | 41:21 | |
| We can call it all sorts of things. | 41:23 | |
| We can call it, seeking the truth, | 41:26 | |
| But sin is sin. | 41:30 | |
| Now we can see sin in other people, | 41:33 | |
| but it's very hard to see in ourselves. | 41:36 | |
| Secularists do not sin, they make mistakes. | 41:40 | |
| It's the other people sin, | 41:45 | |
| who try to take what they've got, who want to change them, | 41:47 | |
| or who criticize them in the slightest. | 41:51 | |
| There was written not long ago, a version of the 23rd song. | 41:57 | |
| The 23rd being one of my favorites. | 42:02 | |
| I would like to show you how I think | 42:06 | |
| it can be warped even facetiously to point up, | 42:08 | |
| of course, in caricature, | 42:16 | |
| some of the main things that's wrong with you | 42:19 | |
| and me today in our faith. | 42:22 | |
| Science is my shepherd. | 42:28 | |
| I shall not want. | 42:32 | |
| You may give me to lie down on foam rubber mattresses. | 42:36 | |
| He leadeth me beside the six-lane highways. | 42:41 | |
| He rejuvenated my thyroid glands. | 42:45 | |
| He leadeth me along the paths of psychoanalysis | 42:51 | |
| for peace of mind sake. | 42:54 | |
| Yay, though, I walk through the valley | 42:56 | |
| of the shadow of the iron curtain. | 42:59 | |
| I will fear no communist. | 43:02 | |
| Well they aren't with me, | 43:06 | |
| thy radar screen and thy hydrogen bomb, | 43:08 | |
| they comfort me. | 43:11 | |
| I prepare us to banquet before me | 43:14 | |
| in the presence of a world's billion hungry people. | 43:16 | |
| Thy noticed my head with, well, hairspray. | 43:22 | |
| My beer glass foameth over. | 43:28 | |
| Surely pleasure she'll follow me all the days of my life. | 43:32 | |
| And I shall dwell in Shangri-La forever. | 43:37 | |
| Brothers and sisters of the faith. | 43:46 | |
| There are a lot of things I do not know | 43:51 | |
| but I know the marks of a great church today. | 43:53 | |
| And I know that the church can be measured very precisely | 44:00 | |
| of whether or not it is serving its God, | 44:05 | |
| and serving its people today. | 44:09 | |
| And those of you who have visitor from a far off, | 44:13 | |
| I suggest you may take it home and measure yours. | 44:16 | |
| A church is great | 44:23 | |
| according to the amount of its resources it gives away. | 44:26 | |
| The amount it gives away for others | 44:35 | |
| and does not keep for itself | 44:37 | |
| and for its show and its comfort. | 44:39 | |
| Our church is great in relationship | 44:43 | |
| of how many of its members give themselves away. | 44:45 | |
| A church is great, | 44:53 | |
| in relation to how many young people | 44:54 | |
| are honestly attracted to it. | 44:57 | |
| And a church is great, | 45:03 | |
| in relation to how quick it is to enter controversy. | 45:06 | |
| When a true calls that is Christian is at stake, | 45:14 | |
| a church which will not put its corporate body | 45:20 | |
| in front of its profession, | 45:24 | |
| is not worthy to be called a church of Christ. | 45:28 | |
| And neither is a so-called Christian. | 45:33 | |
| Now that's what we need. | 45:37 | |
| I think we are called today to comfort the afflicted. | 45:42 | |
| And on top of that in our churches | 45:47 | |
| to afflict the comfortable. | 45:49 | |
| I think we're called on to remember our roots, | 45:54 | |
| and not forget that there is no power in any faith | 45:59 | |
| or in any human effort, | 46:06 | |
| define brotherhood or sisterhood or peace, | 46:09 | |
| except it come from the roots | 46:14 | |
| of the one true God and his son, Jesus Christ. | 46:17 | |
| I confess to you, | 46:23 | |
| I've been tempted and I have sinned under secularism, | 46:24 | |
| and you have too. | 46:31 | |
| It is by the truth of God | 46:36 | |
| that we today can lead our country into a better day. | 46:38 | |
| Not by selfishness, | 46:43 | |
| not by isolation, | 46:47 | |
| not by more technology. | 46:52 | |
| Let us drop the semantics of materialism, | 46:57 | |
| and pick up the humble phrases of faith. | 47:03 | |
| Let us, let God be out and help us, | 47:09 | |
| and bless us, and forgive us of our sins. | 47:13 | |
| I think that's all I need to say. | 47:19 | |
| Let us pray. | 47:24 | |
| Thou art the Lord, we are only Thy children. | 47:30 | |
| And sometimes, oh God, we are little children indeed, | 47:36 | |
| selfish, wanting our toys, | 47:40 | |
| jealous and envious of our playmates, | 47:46 | |
| hateful toward those that we fear, | 47:50 | |
| insecure, unhappy, depressed, | 47:56 | |
| in the midst of all the goodies of a world. | 48:02 | |
| Oh God, forgive us for putting other gods before Thee. | 48:05 | |
| Help us now to worship Thee in truth | 48:14 | |
| and in the spirit of Christ, | 48:17 | |
| that the things of this world may be consecrated | 48:21 | |
| and then bless us. | 48:25 | |
| That food and drink, and clothing and houses, | 48:29 | |
| and transportation and capital, | 48:33 | |
| may be used to the glory of God first, | 48:37 | |
| and then for his children. | 48:42 | |
| We pray it humbly in Christ's name. Amen. | 48:45 | |
| (church organ playing light music) | 48:54 | |
| (church organ playing solemn music) | 51:38 | |
| (chorister singing melodic song) | 52:52 | |
| (church organ playing light music) | 56:07 | |
| - | Of whose bounty we have all received, | 58:02 |
| except this offering of the Thy people, | 58:05 | |
| and so follow it with Thy blessing | 58:08 | |
| that it may promote peace and Goodwill among men, | 58:10 | |
| and advance the kingdom of our Lord, Jesus Christ. | 58:13 | |
| Amen. | 58:17 | |
| (church organ playing light music) | 58:19 | |
| And now go forth into the world in peace. | 1:01:48 | |
| Be of good courage. | 1:01:52 | |
| Hold fast that which is good. | 1:01:55 | |
| Render to no man evil for evil. | 1:01:58 | |
| Strengthen the faint-hearted. | 1:02:02 | |
| Support the weak. | 1:02:04 | |
| Help the afflicted. Honor all men. | 1:02:06 | |
| Love and serve the Lord. | 1:02:11 | |
| Rejoicing in the power of the holy ghost. | 1:02:13 | |
| And the blessing of God almighty, | 1:02:17 | |
| the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, | 1:02:19 | |
| be upon you and remain with you forever. | 1:02:22 | |
| Amen. | 1:02:27 | |
| (church bell ringing) | 1:02:30 | |
| (church organ playing light music) | 1:02:43 | |
| (church organ playing light music continues) | 1:03:57 |