More Enthusiasm!                                                                7/30/44

 

Scripture: Psalm 84

 

Text:  Psalm 84: 2b;  “My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.”

 

Professor J. M. P. Smith translated this passage: “My heart and my flesh give a shout of joy for the living God!”    ------    And Dr. James Moffatt translated it: “My soul and my body thrill with joy over the living God.”

 

The historic church believed in a living God, who does things in this world.  To our faithful fathers, God was the Almighty, actively moving and at work in the earth.  His might rules in the lives of persons and of nations.  The sturdiest of them were most zealous to know and do the will of God.  And their very devotion helped fill them with enthusiasm and courage.  Of those intrepid adventurers, for instance, who are known as Puritans it was said by one commentator that “they feared nothing, but God.”

 

There were others, doubtless, of their day, and certainly hosts of our day, of whom it might be said that “they fear everything except God.”  I believe in the love, and the mercy, and the goodness of God.  And you do, too.  But if we believe thoroughly in the divine goodness, must we not stand often in terrible awe before that Goodness that will not be denied, without the penalty of punishment for evil?  The “fear of God,” which is so often found in the expressions of scripture, is not something craven, but is a strong man’s respect for what is eternally right, and just.

 

Now and then some thoughtful person advances the thesis that the church, and organized Christianity, were saved from slow extinction by the revivalism of the past century, with all of the enthusiasm it generated.  Certainly the enthusiasm was good.  Probably the need of zest is what those folk have in mind who every so often predict hopefully that they foresee a great “revival of religion” in the near future.

 

Now this much seems certain to me.  The enthusiasm of religious experience ought not to be left to those who can work up their emotions without reference to reason.  I once attended a meeting of “Father Divine’s” adherents in New York City.  Though the thoughtful mind could not respect it as true religion, there was a genuine enthusiasm in the meeting that carried those people far into the night, and brought them back for more, and moved them to strange devotion with their possessions and their hopes.

 

But enthusiasm doesn’t need to be left to the cranks!  It belongs with all true expressions of religion and we have a right to expect it, and express it.

 

William James says of Tolstoy that he had lost his zest for living at about 50 years of age, and had become despondent.  He found no light that might make him feel that life could longer be lived.  Something reasonable told him to hide rope, lest he be over tempted to hang himself to the rafters of his room. 

 

The turning point came one day while he was walking in the woods, debating with himself his belief in God.  He noticed that every time he thought of God, there came a return of vital energy, that brought meaning and beauty again for a moment.

 

“Why do I look further?” he said to himself, “He is there.  He without whom one cannot live.  To acknowledge God and to live, are one and the same thing.  God is what life is.  Well, then, live.  Seek God.  And there will be no life without Him.”

 

From that moment of decision, living enthusiasm returned and made Tolstoy one of the great in human experience.

 

David could praise God in the midst of multiplied troubles and trials.  There is real exultation in the worlds of our text: “My soul and body thrill with joy over the living God.”  There is something with a far more vital and lasting quality than the thrill of a football game, of a horse race, or of the news of military victory.

 

The only reason for falling into the grip of despondency, is our turning from the thrill of the living God to the lesser fleeting thrills of our own manufacture.  If crime gets the eye rather than Christ; society rather than salvation; money for power rather than money for mission; life is bound to become jaded.

 

King Solomon complained, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”  That wail was unloosed not because his kingdom was tottering, not because of the approach of death, not because of the loss of his favorite wife, but because he was falling away from God!  He seemed not to have forsaken the temple.  Probably he was present each holy day.  But his mere attendance meant nothing without the enthusiasm of divine assurance.  He had become the despondent opposite to a certain big, simple-hearted fellow who was present at an old-fashioned testimony meeting.  His face aglow, this big fellow would tell of the happiness he had in knowing the lord.  Squaring his shoulders, looking around the room, and smiling broadly, he would say, “Boys, I don’t believe I could be any happier, unless I was bigger.”

 

When we know God, something dynamic happens.  After the vision on the road to Damascus, Paul rose to heroic stature.  When Wesley’s heart was moved in the little Moravian chapel in London, he was caught with a passion that sent him a quarter of a million miles with good tidings to hundreds of thousands.  Once the vision of God burst upon him, Luther stood forth in a fashion to stir countless men and women to a similar determined enthusiasm.

 

It is said that a movement is the lengthened shadow of a man.  If the man be caught with a vision of God, new eras are born and a glorious daybreak fills the world with joy.  Despondency and complaint give way to enthusiasm.

 

To know God means that doubting gives way to trusting.  A man who had been blinded was cast out of the synagogue for his stubborn insistence that Jesus had restored his sight, and hence must be a man of God.  In answer to a direct question from Jesus, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” the man answered, “Lord, I believe.”  Note that there were no complicated doctrinal tests implied in the question.  It was as simple as though the Master had said, “Do you really believe in me,” and the answer was as simple as though the man said, “Of course I do.”  That simple faith is like a rock foundation against temptation, and dangers, storms and disappointments.

 

Once in a while our supposed faith gets a jolt from some unexpected quarter as if to set us in the right track and on the move again.  Dr. Guthrie set out one evening for church.  His little girl was going along and was carrying an umbrella.  “We won’t need that,” said her father.  “The stars are shining.”  With the faithful eyes of a little child, she looked at him and said: “Yes, but you prayed for rain this morning.”

 

Great causes are carried to fruition by the faith of men of vision, ability and means and by little children with equal trust.

 

Bishop McCabe had made an appeal for thousands of dollars for some worthy cause.  He later told how he had received a little envelope on which was written in childish scrawl: “Enclosed please find five cents.  If you need any more, let me know.”

 

When we know God, our fears are replaced by courageous oneness of purpose.  A story is told of a hunter who started one morning to hunt - nothing in particular, but just anything.  He struck the trail of a deer and followed it for hours.  Then he came upon the trail of a fox and decided to have a try at fox-hunting.  Toward night a rabbit trail crossed the one he was following and he decided he would catch a rabbit.  About dark, he saw a mouse trail and decided there was no time to catch anything but a mouse.  Then he went home with nothing.

 

Complete consecration is the secret of victorious living.  Aunt Dinah was described by a sister in her church as having “Jes’ enuf religion to make her miserable: too much to be happy at a dance, and too little to be happy at prayer meeting.”

 

When the great Michael Faraday was a lad, he earned his bread by selling newspapers.  While waiting for the morning issue one day outside the newspaper office in Edinburgh, he stuck his head and arms through the bars of the gate.  He began to speculate which side of the gate he was on.  “My head and my hands are on one side,” he thought, “and my body and heart are on the other side.”  On which side was he?  The gate was opened suddenly, and the wrench taught him, so he said, that he had better have head, heart, and hands all on one side!

 

When we know God, selfishness gives way to unselfishness.  No personal skill, or cleverness; no personal triumphs are able to bring happiness in themselves.  If our lives are to be full and satisfying, they must be dedicated to something greater than our own personal advantage.

 

Some years ago in New York City there was presented a play which attempted to turn the searchlight on the notion that happiness lies in having everything one wants.  In that play there was pictured a man of accomplishment and means entering another world after having been killed in an auto accident.  Not seeing anyone after he entered, he called out, “Is anybody here?”  An orderly appeared and asked what he could do for him.

 

“What can I have?”  asked the man.  “Anything you like,” replied the orderly.  “Can I have a crown with stars on it?”  “You can;” so a crown studded with stars was brought and placed on his head.  “What else can I have?”  the man keeps asking.  Always the answer comes, “Anything you want.”

 

So he orders all the good things he can think of, only to have them supplied as soon as he asks.  A luxurious apartment, oriental rugs, pictures, couches, the best foods, finest music, cigars, wines, finely tailored clothes.  If he expressed a desire for the society of a beautiful woman, she was immediately ushered in.

 

“Why this is perfection!” he thought.  But in a few weeks, he began to tire of it.  The speed with which the orderly filled all his wishes became unbearably monotonous.  He wanted some work to do, but no one seemed to work there.  One could have anything he wanted without working for it.

 

His accumulated irritation and impatience boiled over one day and be blurted out “I’m sick of this everlasting happiness.  I’m bored to death.  I’d much rather be in hell!”  A surprised look came over the face of the orderly as he answered, “Why, where do you think you are, sir?”

 

A movie shown in our own city this week approached the same theme from the positive side when it depicted an aviator, killed in courageous action, very busily at work in the world beyond, finally realizing happiness in that continuing, self-giving work.

 

When we know God, aimlessness gives way to purposeful living.  A gardener had a device for fooling caterpillars.  He set painted sticks around his garden to see if that might decoy the worms.  A caterpillar would climb a nice green stick, clear to the top, and then look and reach this way and that for some succulent twig or branch where he might begin gorging his appetite.  Disappointed, the caterpillar would return to the ground to try again elsewhere.

 

There are many painted sticks in our world, every one of which is disappointing if covered with the paint of self-concern, power, wealth, position, ease, fame - whatever is born of the desire to get:  all are disappointing until we find where and how to give ourselves.  Then living becomes a thrill again!

 

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, July 30, 1944