Thor Hall - "An Instrument for God" (May 3, 1964; July 12, 1964)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
(organ music playing) | 0:03 | |
- | Let us pray. | 0:32 |
Let the words of my mouth | 0:39 | |
and the meditations called forth in our hearts | 0:42 | |
be acceptable in thy sight O, Lord | 0:46 | |
our strength and our redeemer, amen. | 0:49 | |
I have an instrument in my home, | 0:59 | |
a violin that is lying on the top shelf of a bookcase | 1:01 | |
in my living room. | 1:05 | |
It's a beautiful instrument. | 1:08 | |
The work of a young and promising violin builder | 1:11 | |
in the southern part of Norway, has a very nice, slim form. | 1:16 | |
And the color is light, | 1:23 | |
the light of the color of natural wood. | 1:24 | |
And it has a good tune. | 1:29 | |
I know it has because even the most amateurish hands | 1:32 | |
can lure forth some of its richness at times, | 1:36 | |
but somehow the faith of that instrument makes me sad. | 1:43 | |
When I look at it lying there unused | 1:50 | |
or being handled by unskilled hands, | 1:52 | |
misused by untrained fingers, | 1:57 | |
I always think of what that instrument might have been. | 2:01 | |
If it had fallen into the hands | 2:07 | |
of Jascha Heifetz or Isaac Stern, | 2:09 | |
they would have transformed this silent piece of wood | 2:14 | |
and these idle cords into a source of endless beauty. | 2:19 | |
They could have made it laugh and cry, | 2:24 | |
chase the flight of a bumblebee | 2:28 | |
or express the solemn requiem of a heart. | 2:32 | |
They could have filled a concert hall | 2:37 | |
with its soulful tune, | 2:39 | |
making it explode with the fireworks of phōtismos | 2:42 | |
or they could have made it entice the individual | 2:48 | |
with the woes of its voice, | 2:54 | |
that he'd weep the tears of the pianismos. | 2:58 | |
But instead, this instrument has fallen into my hands | 3:04 | |
and I cannot do a thing with it. | 3:07 | |
Its richness, it's never explored. | 3:10 | |
Its tune has never freed. | 3:15 | |
Its soul has never released. | 3:19 | |
While we were on vacation recently, | 3:26 | |
two of its strings broke, | 3:27 | |
I guess in sheer desperation for the treatment | 3:29 | |
its getting at our house. | 3:31 | |
I ought to put some new strings on it. | 3:34 | |
That's the least I can do for it. | 3:36 | |
But I know that this violin | 3:39 | |
is going to continue to make me sad. | 3:41 | |
It's the potential in it that disturbs me | 3:45 | |
to think of what that instrument might've been. | 3:49 | |
Sometimes I wish it had a will of its own to go somewhere | 3:54 | |
and find a master who could play on it. | 3:57 | |
Do you recognize, of course, | 4:02 | |
that I'm speaking in a parable here? | 4:03 | |
And I intend to use it as such. | 4:07 | |
A parable of our life. | 4:10 | |
Only that as all good parables, | 4:15 | |
this one breaks down if you press it too far. | 4:19 | |
But it was that we were intended to be from the beginning. | 4:23 | |
We were to be His instruments, | 4:28 | |
expressing in our lives the will of our master, | 4:33 | |
our creator, serving Him with gladness, | 4:38 | |
finding our fulfillment in such service, | 4:42 | |
and returning to Him the honor and glory | 4:46 | |
and praise of a heart that finds fulfillment in His service. | 4:49 | |
As the Presbyterian so fittingly express it, | 4:54 | |
"Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." | 4:57 | |
It was for this purpose that God endowed man, | 5:06 | |
His most precious instrument | 5:10 | |
with potentials far above any other part of His creation. | 5:15 | |
There's the intelligence of man | 5:21 | |
by which he can investigate the secrets of his surroundings. | 5:24 | |
There's this comprehension | 5:29 | |
of the invisible laws informing the universe | 5:30 | |
and inventiveness to use these laws. | 5:35 | |
It is the strength of body and skill of hands | 5:39 | |
to carry out whatever scheme he has in mind, | 5:45 | |
whether he builds or destroys, | 5:48 | |
travels under the Arctic ice or explores outer space. | 5:51 | |
And there's creativeness beyond measure in man. | 5:58 | |
In fact, and in the expression of thoughts, | 6:01 | |
in form, in color, in words, in music, | 6:07 | |
what an instrument that man is. | 6:13 | |
As he springs from his master's hand, | 6:17 | |
what potentials are there for goodness and greatness, | 6:20 | |
for growth and for glory. | 6:25 | |
From this perspective, you see the renaissance was right, | 6:30 | |
and the enlightenment spoke the truth. | 6:34 | |
Man is truly a wonderful being, the crown of creation. | 6:37 | |
He ought to discover his potentials | 6:44 | |
and he ought to use them to the fullest. | 6:46 | |
We have no quarrel with such a view of man. | 6:48 | |
Only as Christians, we want to say | 6:53 | |
that the meaning of our creativeness and our endowments | 6:56 | |
is to be found in God's intentions for us. | 7:02 | |
It is God's man that we are, | 7:08 | |
endowed so richly because He wanted us for His own. | 7:12 | |
We are made to be his instruments | 7:18 | |
to express the tune on His own heart, | 7:21 | |
to rezoned with the full volume of His will, | 7:25 | |
to vibrate with the warm music of His love. | 7:29 | |
And like any master builder, God placed His stamp on us, | 7:35 | |
even His own image from the beginning | 7:40 | |
and forever we carry upon us | 7:44 | |
the seal of His high intentions for us, | 7:48 | |
and whatever happens to us, | 7:53 | |
there is nothing that can base | 7:56 | |
the fact that we were intended | 7:58 | |
to be His instruments to be played by the master Himself. | 8:00 | |
But what happens to this instruments? | 8:09 | |
That is the tragedy of our life. | 8:13 | |
As with the violins built by a mastercraftsman | 8:17 | |
only a few find the way | 8:21 | |
into the hands of a master player, | 8:23 | |
so with the lives of men. | 8:28 | |
Antonio Stradivari of Cremona, Italy | 8:33 | |
was probably the world's most ingenious violin builder | 8:37 | |
between the years of 1700 and 1737 | 8:42 | |
when he died, he built something like 1,100 violins. | 8:46 | |
Everyone having the true excellence of form and tune, | 8:54 | |
which is the distinction of Stradivari's. | 9:00 | |
Today, such an instrument | 9:04 | |
is an artist's most prized possession. | 9:08 | |
And the few Stradivari's violins that are left | 9:11 | |
are valued anywhere from 15 to $65,000. | 9:17 | |
When kind of bad wonder what happened to all the others? | 9:24 | |
All the many instruments, | 9:31 | |
which carried the Stradivari's seal, | 9:33 | |
who owns them, how are they being used? | 9:39 | |
What conditions are they in? | 9:45 | |
Is their true potential | 9:48 | |
and their real value acknowledged and recognized? | 9:50 | |
Obviously not even some of know Stradivari's instruments | 9:56 | |
were discovered by sheer accident, | 10:00 | |
but where are the others? | 10:04 | |
In trunks, in the Artics of old mansions in Spain | 10:06 | |
or in the hands of a hillbilly descendant | 10:14 | |
of a proud British nobleman, | 10:16 | |
or maybe on the top shelf of a bookcase | 10:19 | |
in the living room somewhere | 10:22 | |
where nobody knows how to play such a superb instrument, | 10:25 | |
or maybe they are played by men | 10:31 | |
who have no concern for the quality of music | 10:33 | |
that these instruments were intended to play. | 10:35 | |
Maybe they are being grabbed by a man | 10:39 | |
who pervert their tune | 10:43 | |
into the lustful style of the Tavern. | 10:45 | |
Maybe there are the used by men | 10:50 | |
who would not even hope | 10:52 | |
to bring out the potential of a homemade instruments. | 10:54 | |
There is tragedy in such possibilities. | 10:58 | |
And again, you recognize we're speaking in a parable, | 11:02 | |
but the meaning of this parable for our life is clear. | 11:07 | |
It is the tragedy of our life | 11:13 | |
that we fall into the hands of one | 11:16 | |
who has no understanding for the high destiny | 11:20 | |
for which we were made, | 11:23 | |
who has no concern for the superb quality | 11:26 | |
which is there | 11:30 | |
who has no appreciation for the true value of our life. | 11:34 | |
It was upon discovering such a truth that David | 11:44 | |
or whoever wrote Psalm 51 in his name | 11:50 | |
wrote the Psalm expressing | 11:54 | |
the deep prayer of a broken heart. | 11:58 | |
He had fallen and he knew it, | 12:03 | |
deeper than he ever had dreamed of falling, he had gone. | 12:07 | |
Knowing full well what high intentions God had for his life | 12:15 | |
in raising him up from a shepherd boy | 12:19 | |
to become the anointed king of Israel, | 12:22 | |
David yet found himself the victim | 12:26 | |
of the unholy steerings of an undisciplined heart. | 12:28 | |
And then a series of this graceful acts | 12:33 | |
committed both adultery and murder, | 12:37 | |
sins for which the only possible penalty was death. | 12:41 | |
It's in this situation that David breaks down | 12:47 | |
and prays the prayer of a contrite heart. | 12:50 | |
It's a moving prayer | 12:53 | |
expressing both confession and petition and rededication. | 12:56 | |
Listen to the prayer as it falls within these three parts. | 13:05 | |
Here first is the confession. | 13:11 | |
"I know my transgressions and my sin | 13:14 | |
is ever before me. | 13:17 | |
Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned | 13:20 | |
and done that which is evil in Thy sight. | 13:26 | |
Thou desires truth in the inward being, | 13:30 | |
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart." | 13:33 | |
And that's the transition to his petition. | 13:38 | |
"Have mercy upon me O God according to Thy steadfast love. | 13:43 | |
According to the abundant mercy blot out my transgressions, | 13:48 | |
wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, | 13:52 | |
cleanse me from my sin, | 13:54 | |
purge me and I shall be clean, | 13:57 | |
wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. | 13:59 | |
Fill me with joy and gladness. | 14:03 | |
Let the bones, which Thou hast broken rejoice, | 14:07 | |
hide Thy face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. | 14:11 | |
Create in me a clean heart, O God | 14:16 | |
and put a new and right spirit within me. | 14:20 | |
Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation. | 14:24 | |
Uphold me with a willing spirit." | 14:29 | |
And then as transition to the rededication, | 14:33 | |
the phrase, which has been repeated | 14:38 | |
throughout the centuries. | 14:40 | |
"O, Lord open now my lips | 14:42 | |
and my mouth shall show forth Thy price. | 14:45 | |
Deliver me from death, O God, Thou God of my salvation. | 14:51 | |
And my tongue will sing aloud of Thy deliverance. | 14:58 | |
Then I will teach transgressors Thy ways | 15:06 | |
and sinners will return to Thee. | 15:10 | |
Open Thou my lips and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise. | 15:15 | |
Deliver me and my tongue shall sing aloud. | 15:22 | |
This is the prayer of a heart | 15:28 | |
who knows that God's intention | 15:31 | |
was that he should glorify God and then joy Him forever. | 15:35 | |
But they also show that he who praises | 15:41 | |
aware of the fact that his life is not | 15:44 | |
what it was intended to be, | 15:47 | |
open my lips, he says, deliver me. | 15:49 | |
I'm really Thine instrument, | 15:54 | |
but I have fallen out of the master's hand. | 15:57 | |
There's another, who is playing on this instrument | 16:00 | |
and he is playing strange and unholy music. | 16:03 | |
Bring me back where I belong, | 16:09 | |
let my life resound with the joy of Thy will, | 16:12 | |
the gladness of Thy grace." | 16:17 | |
Such is the prayer of a heart returning to God, | 16:22 | |
such is the prayer of all sinners. | 16:27 | |
Those who have fallen helplessly | 16:31 | |
into the hands of an evil artist | 16:33 | |
who only distorts the human instrument | 16:35 | |
to earn holy purposes, | 16:39 | |
but not all of us fall in this obvious and dramatic way. | 16:43 | |
Not all of us are sinners of the same caliber. | 16:51 | |
Some of us might not even be aware of any direct | 16:56 | |
and conscious compareness to God in our heart. | 16:59 | |
When preachers fonder over the evils of the human heart, | 17:04 | |
we have difficulty applying this to ourselves. | 17:08 | |
We're not really opposed to God's will, | 17:11 | |
we rather puzzle as to what this will is | 17:15 | |
and how we limited as we are can find it. | 17:19 | |
We're not really as proud | 17:24 | |
and presumptuous as we are made out to be, | 17:26 | |
we are rather in search for something, | 17:30 | |
someone who can fill the empty spaces | 17:35 | |
of our crossword puzzle | 17:40 | |
and give it meaning both horizontally and vertically. | 17:43 | |
And the symbolism of our parables, | 17:49 | |
it isn't that our lives instrument | 17:52 | |
is being grabbed by the evil one | 17:54 | |
and perverted to fit the style | 17:56 | |
of the lustful tavern. | 17:58 | |
For some of us and I dare say many of us | 18:01 | |
it is rather a situation of finding ourselves | 18:07 | |
with out a master unfulfilled, | 18:10 | |
with tunes in our lives that could be played | 18:17 | |
with potentials, which could be released, | 18:21 | |
with usefulness which goes to waste, | 18:26 | |
with praise, which is never expressed | 18:30 | |
as the instrument on the top shelf | 18:35 | |
of a bookstand in my home never realized, | 18:37 | |
never fulfilled, never coming in to its own. | 18:42 | |
We have the quality of music in us, | 18:47 | |
but we have never been in the hands of the proper master. | 18:49 | |
We have the seal of the master builder upon us, | 18:54 | |
but we have never become what the master's intention was. | 18:58 | |
There is more than, than drastic sin, | 19:04 | |
which can destroy our life as instruments of God. | 19:08 | |
There is an old saying in the East, which goes like this, | 19:14 | |
"Do not let rats know the strings off of your instruments." | 19:20 | |
Maybe that's what's happening to us. | 19:26 | |
There is no music in our lives, | 19:29 | |
no fulfillment of our praise to God, | 19:32 | |
no release of our full spiritual potentialities | 19:36 | |
because we have allowed the rats of modern living | 19:40 | |
to know the strings off of our instruments. | 19:43 | |
And God knows there are numerous rats. | 19:47 | |
For fear of allegorizing, I'm not going to name them, | 19:55 | |
but have you thought of what the pressures | 20:02 | |
of modern life does to our understanding of God | 20:04 | |
and our understanding of ourselves. | 20:09 | |
There's the popular intellectualism, | 20:12 | |
which cannot and will not comprehend anything | 20:15 | |
which supersedes the multiplication table. | 20:18 | |
To these intellectuals, | 20:23 | |
there's no religious dimension, | 20:24 | |
no dimension of meaning beyond the obvious. | 20:28 | |
There's the so-called scientific worldview, | 20:34 | |
which considers it merely a matter of time | 20:36 | |
until the secrets of the universe have been uncovered. | 20:39 | |
They recite their creed | 20:44 | |
energy equals mass times velocity squared | 20:46 | |
and feel cold in their souls. | 20:51 | |
There's the widespread materialism | 20:55 | |
in whose view all aspects of life even God, | 20:59 | |
even faith are to be forced into orbit around ourselves, | 21:04 | |
to contribute to our material and psychological wellbeing. | 21:12 | |
There is no God to worship and fall down before | 21:17 | |
in such a view of life. | 21:22 | |
And there is the steadily expanding secularism, | 21:26 | |
which divides man's life up into compartments | 21:28 | |
considering one part, the religious one, | 21:32 | |
one seventh of the week, | 21:36 | |
and the other parts as belonging to us | 21:40 | |
to do with as we want. | 21:44 | |
And add to these modern, more is the pressures of economy, | 21:47 | |
the burdens of family, the worries over health, | 21:53 | |
the anxieties for our future, the loneliness of sorrow, | 21:58 | |
the temptations of youth, the trials of manhood, | 22:04 | |
the fears of old age. | 22:09 | |
It is really a wonder | 22:15 | |
that anyone can sing under such circumstances. | 22:19 | |
In this situation is it not fitting | 22:28 | |
that we also should make David's words our own. | 22:30 | |
"Fill me with joy and gladness. | 22:37 | |
Let the bones, which Thou has broken rejoice. | 22:42 | |
Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation | 22:48 | |
and uphold me with a willing spirit. | 22:53 | |
O Lord open now my lips | 22:58 | |
and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise. | 23:02 | |
Deliver me O God, Thou God of my salvation | 23:07 | |
and my tongue shall sing aloud of Thy deliverance." | 23:12 | |
We have spoken a parable | 23:21 | |
the parable of an instrument. | 23:23 | |
For our life is much like that | 23:27 | |
made by the master, intended for the master's hand. | 23:29 | |
But at times, we find ourselves in the hands of another, | 23:36 | |
or we find ourselves silent because our strings are broken. | 23:43 | |
This is the tragedy of our life. | 23:51 | |
But here, the parable breaks down | 23:55 | |
the tragedy is not final. | 24:01 | |
What in the world's perspective is a tragedy, | 24:06 | |
it's in the perspective of faith, God's possibility | 24:12 | |
in relation to God we are not as a dead piece of wood | 24:18 | |
and as an idol or broken string, | 24:26 | |
it is not entirely beyond our power, | 24:31 | |
who it is, who will play our instrument | 24:34 | |
and the quality of the music that is to be played. | 24:38 | |
It belongs to the divine scheme for our life | 24:45 | |
that we shall ourselves decide | 24:47 | |
who it is that shall be our master. | 24:51 | |
God's plan and intention is clear. | 24:56 | |
He made us for Himself to be His instruments, | 25:00 | |
to express the tune of His heart, | 25:06 | |
to resound with the full volume of His will, | 25:09 | |
to vibrate with the warm music of His love, | 25:13 | |
but if this is not our experience, | 25:18 | |
the tragedy can be the possibility | 25:21 | |
in the life of the believer | 25:25 | |
for we can choose to return to God, | 25:28 | |
to place our life back into the hands | 25:38 | |
from which we sprang, | 25:41 | |
to make it our lives melody, | 25:45 | |
our chief end to glorify God | 25:49 | |
and to enjoy Him forever. | 25:56 | |
There's no necessity then for an instrument | 26:00 | |
to be found misused in the hands of an evil artist. | 26:03 | |
There's no necessity | 26:10 | |
that we should lie unused | 26:14 | |
with broken strings in want of a master | 26:18 | |
to release our potential | 26:24 | |
and give meaning to our life. | 26:27 | |
The great master whose instruments we are | 26:32 | |
is waiting to play His tune | 26:37 | |
And now let us pray, | 26:46 | |
O God from whose hands we spring | 26:56 | |
and whose image we bear, | 27:00 | |
bring us now, even in this moment, | 27:04 | |
back into the fulfillment of Thy intentions for us, | 27:10 | |
and thus let our lives find its meaning in Thee. | 27:15 | |
And now unto Him, | 27:23 | |
that is able to keep you from falling | 27:24 | |
and to present you faultless | 27:28 | |
before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, | 27:30 | |
to the only wise God, our savior | 27:35 | |
be glory and majesty, dominion, and power | 27:39 | |
both now and evermore. | 27:42 | |
♪ Honor ♪ | 27:51 |
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