Where We Stand                                                                             9/8/46 (editor’s

                                                                                                              guess on date)

Scripture:  Read Philippians 2: 1-13 (Moffatt)

 

Text:  Philippians 2: 12b;  “..... Work out your own salvation .......”

 

You and I, many of us who have worshipped for years in the atmosphere of a liberal church, can well remember that certain passages of Scripture were read some years ago - if read at all - with a qualified, even condescending note.  Recall such a passage as that from II Peter 3: 10,11:  “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with a fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.  ----  Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness?”

 

To sophisticated theological minds of the past generation, that sounded weird and unbelievable.  But recently the atomic scientists have been saying, to everyone who will listen, that all that the old prophets said to all people who would listen in their time will be as child’s play compared to what will happen in our time, if we prove morally and spiritually incapable of controlling the new and terrible power developed from atomic fission.

 

This is not to say that the prophets of old had some uncanny knowledge of the future whereby they could foretell the destruction of 60,000 people in a few seconds at Hiroshima or Nagasaki; or the possible destruction of far greater numbers in the same way, or in some yet more fearful way, in days to come within our lifetime.  I do not believe that the prophets had any such knowledge.  The accounts of their prophecies read like the convictions of men who were talking about what they thought could happen to the men and women to whom they spoke right then.  There seems, for instance, to be an overwhelming amount of evidence that the apostles of Jesus expected his return in the flesh and the end of the world they knew immediately, within their lifetime!  And they did not expect to grow old waiting for it, either.  As natural scientists, they proved themselves inaccurate.

 

But as men of spiritual discernment, they proved themselves, like the ancient prophets before them, eternally right.  Unless people rise to levels of moral judgment and moral action that are much higher than the inclinations of their own animal nature ---- unless, in truth, they rise to a level that is higher than that to which they can themselves attain unaided, they are in for trouble and disaster.  People desperately need the direction of a regenerate heart and the salvation of a divine grace, if they are to rise above the destruction that continually hangs over an evil world.  The prophets have never failed to be right on that!

 

At this moment in history, however, the learned men of natural science predict a physical extermination in the world more violent and terrible than the prophets ever proclaimed.  And the tone and urgency with which scientists have spoken indicates that they believe the terror will come unless all mankind is quickly converted to a higher moral and spiritual level, capable of controlling the new power now discovered.  Aside from a dim awareness of the danger, the progress of mankind during the last year in this necessary spiritual direction is not yet reassuring.

 

At the close of World War I, David Lloyd George, then prime minister of England, remarked that it was either Christ or chaos for the world.  If that was true then - and it was - then it is emphatically true now, and in greater degree.  It is either Christ or destruction of most, or possibly all, of what we think of as making earthly life worthwhile - and possibly of all earthly life itself!

 

As if the atomic bomb had not given the earth enough to shudder at, the military services of the United States now announce that it is possible to use disease germs in warfare on a scale that quite overshadows the destruction of the first atomic bombs.  The excuse for developing these large scale means of destruction is that the enemy was also attempting feverishly to develop them first, and that enemy countries had been known to experiment actively with bacterial warfare during previous hostilities.

 

A widely discussed article in the Washington Post , by Herbert Elliston, entitled “Five Years of Grace,” tells readers that while the United States is at present the greatest power on earth, this distinction is temporary; that scientists give us only a five-year run on the supremacy granted by the perfection of atomic power.  After that, it is altogether possible that other nations will have caught up with us and will be prepared to confront us on an equal basis.  What we do, then, for world peace - on the basis of our advantageous position - must be done in the next five years.  If we can find, and propose and get into operation, no workable solution for the war problem in that time, the doom of our civilization to disaster is sealed.  That is the thesis of more than one responsible writer today.

 

Charles Clayton Morrison, editor of The Christian Century , observes that the world now faces unimaginable danger.  It is possible that it may become a dead planet like the moon or Mars; or a ball of heat and flame like the sun.  From now on we may not take the future of the world for granted.  “The Creator has entrusted the very earth to men, with the ability to make it a garden of the Lord, or to destroy it.”

 

English Prime Minister Attlee is not an alarmist.  But in sober statement at the opening of the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization he declared:  “The coming of the atomic bomb was only the last of a series of warnings to mankind that, unless the powers of destruction could be controlled, immense ruin and almost annihilation would be the lot of most of the highly civilized portions of mankind.   It is for the peoples of the world, through their representatives, to make clear their choice between life or death.”

 

This, clearly, is no time for frivolous living, shallow thinking, or lukewarm discipleship.  Each of us is faced with the terrific responsibility of helping to create a better world.  The words of Saint Paul become more than an ancient exhortation.  They become now a contemporary command:  “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling!”  The Apostle Peter asks, “What manner of persons ought ye to be?”  It is time for us to answer, quickly.  Here are a few simple suggestions drawn from a fellow minister, Edward H. Pruden [First Baptist Church, Washington, DC].

 

(1)  For one thing, let us improve the quality of our own Christian discipleship.  We have no right to assume that we are as Christian as we can be or ought to be.  Growth in Christian living is not automatic or inevitable.  It is the result of applying consciously the principles of Christ to the problems of our own daily living.  “Work out your own salvation” advised Paul, “for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”

 

Increase in years is no guarantee of growth in grace.  The men or women of advanced years may be set in ways that block the very values they so much desire.  Sacrifice is not an exclusive demand upon youth.  Even to serve Christ for a lifetime in the worship and fellowship of his church is not enough unless we absorb the spirit of the Master.

 

From childhood through all our increasing years our understanding and experience must be well-matched by increasing devotion to Christ, and by increasing demonstration of the fact that Christ does live in and through us.

 

(2)  Here is a second suggestion.  Let us make sure that our position on the problems of the world is governed by what is right - not by our own natural or personal reactions to those problems.  We have no right to assume that our personal feelings on a subject constitute a worthy approach to that subject.

 

I have frequently alluded to the relationship between races of people and even people of different religious creeds as problems requiring Christian solution.  This is commonly recognized among all thoughtful Christians.

 

Another minister who had spoken in a certain city on the rights of all people regardless of race or nationality was approached at the close of the meeting by a woman who said to him:  “Would you like to live in a world such as you described today?  Would you like to have these people about whom you spoke living around you and frequenting the places that you patronize?”  The minister was a Southerner and I think was then speaking in the south.  He hesitated in a moment of thoughtfulness.  Then he replied:  “No, I must confess that my Christianity has not taken me that far, but after all, it isn’t a matter of what I like, but rather a matter of what is right.”  Jesus was called on to do many things that he did not like and to face many situations that were far from comfortable.  But it never occurred to him to turn aside on the grounds of his personal feelings.  He chose rather to do the will of God in spite of every obstacle.  And so must we.  And we can not wait for Christianity somehow to carry us to flowery beds of ease.  We must take our Christianity into our conflicts, big and little - and we have no time to lose!

 

(3)  A third suggestion:  Let us begin today to live more in the spirit of brotherhood.  A young colored fellow was walking down Broadway in New York City a number of years ago.  It was cold, and the streets and walks were icy.  He carried two heavy suitcases in his hands.  There suddenly appeared at his side another young man who said, “Let me have one of those cases.  This is  no day to be so heavily loaded.”  One does not immediately hand his suitcase to a stranger in a great city.  But a glance at this fellow’s face inspired confidence and the colored fellow gratefully handed over one of the cases as they walked several blocks to Grand Central Station.  Years later, Booker T. Washington said that that was his first encounter with Theodore Roosevelt.  It is no wonder that he and his race continued for years to look to “Teddy” Roosevelt for friendship and understanding.

 

A pastor in Washington, DC obeyed a sudden good impulse to write a brief note to 6 or 8 Negro ministers whom he knew just before Christmas, expressing his appreciation of their ministry and assuring them of his interest in all that they were doing to strengthen the cause of Christ in our capital city.  He said later that he had never received such a response of appreciation as came from those ministers who had received these greetings.

 

These acts of kindness and courtesy did not involve any straw men of social equality, no red herrings of intermarriage such as prejudiced folk like to create.  They involved only simple Christianity on the part of those who follow the Friend of all mankind.  And that Christian friendship may be a basis for tackling the thornier problems; without it only strife may be expected.

 

(4)  And now a fourth suggestion.  Let us give our support to every movement that looks toward the alleviation of human suffering around the world.  We are told that people abroad look upon us Americans as fabulously rich.  But we are not universally regarded with admiration or devotion; for the suffering people of devastated countries feel that we have not done as much as we could and should have done in sharing our material abundance.  We don’t always feel that we are burdened with abundance.  But that is because we know nothing of the dire poverty in other spots of the earth.

 

All the while we should ask ourselves fearlessly, “What would Jesus do?” and “What would he have me do.”  A bride requests her friends to throw no rice after the wedding - that is food to starving children abroad.  A business man with acquaintances in hungry Europe walks into a bank and arranges to have a food package sent regularly through CARE, whose application blanks are in every bank.  A family eats a simple meal without dessert once a week, putting in a little box what they think is the cash saving on that meal to be sent through their church to needy people.  The calls and the possible ways of response are almost limitless.  It is a great day to live if you want to serve!

 

(5)  Finally, this suggestion:  that we all make more frequent, simple, sincere use of prayer. It does things in straightening out spiritual confusion.  When the Constitutional convention met in Philadelphia,

[the rest of the handwritten record is missing]  Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, probably in 1946 (reference to 5-’46 Xm. Cent.