James G. Huggin - "Faith in the Future" (July 3, 1960)
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Transcript
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(muffled choir music) | 0:07 | |
(solemn organ music) | 0:36 | |
♪ (indistinct) O Lord ♪ | 0:52 | |
♪ Behold, thy King of kings ♪ | 0:55 | |
- | "All received. | 1:06 |
"Accept this offering of thy people; | 1:08 | |
"and so follow it with thy blessing | 1:11 | |
"that it may promote peace and good will among men, | 1:13 | |
"and advance thy kingdom | 1:17 | |
"through Jesus Christ, our Lord." | 1:19 | |
Amen. | 1:22 | |
- | I do not think it would be out of order | 1:54 |
if I, a visitor in this pulpit, | 1:58 | |
welcomed visitors in the pew | 2:02 | |
or I have an idea that this weekend, being what it is, | 2:07 | |
that at least some of you are not regular attendants here. | 2:13 | |
I hope that your delight in being here | 2:19 | |
is somewhat like my own, | 2:23 | |
for already, unexpectedly and happily, | 2:25 | |
I have run into a kinsman of mine in the choir | 2:29 | |
and a summer neighbor playing the organ. | 2:35 | |
Might be of interest to those of you who know him, | 2:42 | |
that the person playing the organ | 2:48 | |
is equally as skillful with a lawn mower. | 2:50 | |
It is a very real privilege | 2:58 | |
to be here in this church today. | 3:00 | |
It isn't easy to believe | 3:05 | |
that behind the moving events of history, | 3:09 | |
that is, tragic history, | 3:12 | |
that God can be at work, | 3:17 | |
working out his righteous purpose, | 3:18 | |
and is at work at his righteous purpose | 3:20 | |
if the events are not tragic, if the land is prosperous, | 3:25 | |
if the future is serene. | 3:28 | |
To men of faith who believe in God's gracious providence | 3:32 | |
needs little assistance, | 3:35 | |
even from preachers who have come to occupy pulpits. | 3:38 | |
When, however, each tomorrow | 3:44 | |
wears a visage as awesome yet terrifying | 3:49 | |
as any other to strike fear into the human heart, | 3:52 | |
it is difficult then even for Christians | 3:56 | |
to put down in their hearts | 4:00 | |
the rising doubt, the rebel shy. | 4:04 | |
And so on this Sunday, | 4:08 | |
in this time, in this year of our Lord 1960, | 4:11 | |
in this, our land, conditions being what they are, | 4:16 | |
does our biblical faith have something to say | 4:19 | |
to you and me that will steady us | 4:24 | |
and even it may be to set our hearts singing again? | 4:27 | |
Does it? | 4:29 | |
Yes, and this is it. | 4:32 | |
Behind the events of the day, | 4:35 | |
behind the historical movements, | 4:38 | |
God is at work | 4:43 | |
as he has always been at work, | 4:46 | |
fashioning his purpose, | 4:49 | |
and men of faith are in league | 4:52 | |
with him. | 4:56 | |
Now, | 4:59 | |
I want to take you to an old and fascinating story, | 5:01 | |
a portion of which I read in scripture awhile ago. | 5:07 | |
Strange and fearful things had happened to lead up | 5:10 | |
to this part of the prophecy of Jeremiah, | 5:14 | |
from which I read, | 5:17 | |
the mighty Emperor of Babylon had swept across the land. | 5:19 | |
He had drawn up his forces | 5:23 | |
just outside the walls of Jerusalem. | 5:24 | |
His men at arms, now, shortly, | 5:28 | |
would pour into Zion to pillage and burn, | 5:30 | |
sparing not even the Temple of God itself. | 5:34 | |
He would massacre the resisting people, | 5:39 | |
even the covenant people of God. | 5:41 | |
And when the carnage was over, | 5:43 | |
the brutal Chaldean shackled together such citizens | 5:46 | |
as remained among the smoldering ruins | 5:52 | |
of the ancient city, | 5:54 | |
to send them marching in agonizing procession, | 5:55 | |
urged on by the harsh voices of the brutal guards. | 6:00 | |
Their faces would turn toward the plains of the east, | 6:03 | |
far from their beloved hills, | 6:10 | |
where was the dwelling place of their God | 6:12 | |
All their fierce pride | 6:15 | |
was then a poor, dead thing. | 6:19 | |
And in their minds, | 6:21 | |
there was a searing question to which, for them, | 6:22 | |
there was no answer. | 6:25 | |
"Why did God visit this terror upon us?" | 6:27 | |
Now, | 6:32 | |
while the city was still under siege, | 6:34 | |
Jeremiah, the prophet, told the people | 6:36 | |
that Jerusalem would go down. | 6:41 | |
It looked pretty obvious. | 6:42 | |
And he said it would happen. | 6:44 | |
And then because he said it would happen, | 6:45 | |
they put him in prison. | 6:47 | |
After all, | 6:48 | |
this was God's city. | 6:50 | |
Near was the temple, the very dwelling place | 6:52 | |
of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. | 6:54 | |
God would bear his mighty arm | 6:57 | |
and save the city of his covenant nation. | 6:58 | |
He'd done it before. | 7:00 | |
A hundred years before, | 7:02 | |
Isaiah told them the city wouldn't go down | 7:03 | |
under similar circumstances. | 7:05 | |
It didn't. | 7:06 | |
They'd been saved in the nick of time before. | 7:08 | |
God was inviolable, and this was God's city. | 7:12 | |
And therefore, God's city was inviolable. | 7:14 | |
And cowering within the walls of the city | 7:18 | |
and the Emperor of Babylon with his siege mounds | 7:21 | |
built up all around the wall, | 7:23 | |
this people said when utter confidence, | 7:26 | |
"It can't happen here." | 7:30 | |
Jeremiah said, "Ah, but this time, | 7:36 | |
"God will not arise and save the city." | 7:38 | |
It was for that they put him in jail. | 7:44 | |
After all, he must... | 7:47 | |
He was an arch-traitor, and he was an arch-heretic. | 7:49 | |
Now, there isn't an investigating committee in the world | 7:55 | |
that will allow a subversive character like that | 7:58 | |
to go around loose. | 8:00 | |
And so, | 8:04 | |
while Jeremiah was in prison, | 8:06 | |
a cousin of his came, of all things, | 8:09 | |
to sell him a piece of land out in one of the provinces. | 8:12 | |
It was a little bit like a man | 8:18 | |
calling you up over the telephone, | 8:19 | |
offering to sell his place at the beach | 8:21 | |
with a hurricane headed that way. | 8:23 | |
And Jeremiah saw an opportunity to say, | 8:26 | |
through symbol, what they would not listen to in word. | 8:29 | |
He bought the land, | 8:32 | |
and he did it with a flourish. | 8:33 | |
He paid the money. | 8:35 | |
He signed, then sealed the papers | 8:36 | |
with witnesses with whom he had called in to make it public, | 8:38 | |
to show, he said, "his faith in the future of the country." | 8:42 | |
For the days just ahead, | 8:50 | |
no hope. | 8:52 | |
For the safety of his associates, | 8:55 | |
for the safety of himself, | 8:59 | |
no assurance whatsoever. | 9:02 | |
But aye, the story was far from over. | 9:05 | |
This was God's land. | 9:09 | |
These were God's people. | 9:11 | |
And God was indeed behind the tragic present | 9:14 | |
that there might be a more felicitous future. | 9:18 | |
Jerusalem had to be destroyed in judgment | 9:23 | |
if Jerusalem were to be restored in mercy. | 9:26 | |
The future belonged to Almighty God. | 9:30 | |
"And I bought the field at Anathoth | 9:36 | |
"from Hanamel, my cousin." | 9:40 | |
"Oh, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, | 9:44 | |
"'Houses and fields and vineyards | 9:47 | |
"'shall again be bought in this land.'" | 9:50 | |
The future, as a preparation for the present, | 9:55 | |
that the present is a preparation for the future. | 10:00 | |
That was what Jeremiah had in mind. | 10:03 | |
In the customary flood of addresses, | 10:06 | |
mainly school closings, | 10:09 | |
there was one this June by Dean Acheson, | 10:12 | |
which caught the eye of a perceptive newspaper editor. | 10:17 | |
"We need something," said Mr. Acheson, | 10:20 | |
"which is very hard for Americans to understand. | 10:23 | |
"That is, we need an understanding of plans, | 10:27 | |
"wherein the future is as pressing as the present." | 10:30 | |
Americans, he said, just don't believe the future exists. | 10:34 | |
We can be told all sorts of things are going to happen. | 10:37 | |
We never believe it, | 10:40 | |
until it's happened. | 10:41 | |
We've got to have a sense that the future | 10:43 | |
is quite as pressing as the present. | 10:45 | |
Then the editorial commenting on the sentiment | 10:50 | |
went on to observe, | 10:53 | |
"We need to create the capacity to see | 10:54 | |
"our model economic, military, educational status | 10:57 | |
"as what it is, | 11:01 | |
"inadequate to meet the tremendous dangers of the 1960s." | 11:02 | |
Now, inadequate we may be | 11:09 | |
in all of these sentences mentioned, | 11:10 | |
but I want to fasten on this conception, | 11:12 | |
that the future, the years ahead | 11:17 | |
are as important as the present. | 11:20 | |
Well, that, you see, of course, is the meaning, | 11:26 | |
the ultimate meaning of the apocalyptic writings | 11:29 | |
of our Bible, "Daniel", "The Book of Revelation", | 11:32 | |
these books that you find so very strange, indeed. | 11:34 | |
Well, are they simply strange utterances | 11:38 | |
who were put there by mystics | 11:41 | |
who were beside themselves when they wrote? | 11:42 | |
Not at all. | 11:44 | |
They commended themselves to these practical people | 11:46 | |
who formed the canon of our Scriptures. | 11:49 | |
These writings announce and speak for | 11:52 | |
the everlasting future, | 11:55 | |
and try and symbol, however strange, | 11:57 | |
to describe it and to prepare men for it. | 12:00 | |
The people who built this chapel, | 12:06 | |
they were impressed with a sense of the future, | 12:10 | |
as well as of the past and of the present. | 12:13 | |
They wrought in timeless stone and glass | 12:15 | |
to give permanence to this creation. | 12:18 | |
They had visions of generations of students, | 12:20 | |
centuries away, | 12:24 | |
coming to this place to have their spirits lifted | 12:25 | |
toward the eternal God. | 12:29 | |
Many in our generation | 12:32 | |
don't want to wait on the future. | 12:36 | |
They want all the good here and now. | 12:42 | |
And if they don't have it, | 12:47 | |
they don't believe it. | 12:50 | |
If the good to which we seek eludes us, | 12:54 | |
then they say, | 12:59 | |
"It just cannot exist." | 13:02 | |
If God's righteous purpose for his children | 13:05 | |
is not realized now, | 13:09 | |
then there is no such purpose. | 13:13 | |
High moral and spiritual values, therefore, cannot be real. | 13:16 | |
"Let's face it," they say. | 13:19 | |
"There isn't any such thing | 13:23 | |
"as high moral and spiritual values." | 13:24 | |
So our fiction grows cynical | 13:28 | |
and our drama purposeless. | 13:32 | |
"My Fair Lady", | 13:38 | |
observed a critic recently, | 13:40 | |
has had an astonishing run on Broadway, | 13:42 | |
to quote him, "in spite of its decency." | 13:46 | |
Why be decent if life's values | 13:52 | |
lie in another direction all together, | 13:54 | |
indeed, if there would be any objective values? | 13:56 | |
Therefore, many of our most brilliant writers | 14:01 | |
devote their remarkable talents | 14:03 | |
to fascinating characterizations, | 14:06 | |
at best, are those whose only virtue | 14:10 | |
was a kind of elemental fortitude, | 14:14 | |
and at worst, are those who live out their existence | 14:15 | |
in the snake pits of human degradation. | 14:19 | |
Strange and incongruous, therefore, | 14:23 | |
to all such is the insistence that, | 14:25 | |
that this is a model universe | 14:29 | |
and that there is a God of righteousness | 14:31 | |
who is at work in it, | 14:33 | |
that his creatures must observe the rules | 14:34 | |
or be broken by them, | 14:37 | |
that if they are broken by them and disaster comes, | 14:38 | |
God isn't through. | 14:42 | |
He hasn't washed his hands. | 14:44 | |
He has a purpose to fulfill, | 14:45 | |
and he intends to fulfill it. | 14:47 | |
The future belongs him. | 14:49 | |
This is the Christian's faith. | 14:56 | |
Every generation is a part of that unfolding purpose of God, | 14:59 | |
a part of the pattern of the whole. | 15:03 | |
It took more than six centuries | 15:08 | |
to build the Cathedral of Cologne, | 15:10 | |
but it was completed at last | 15:14 | |
according to the plan made when first it was conceived. | 15:16 | |
God, | 15:24 | |
our Almighty God is at work | 15:26 | |
according to his original plan. | 15:30 | |
With America, he is at work. | 15:35 | |
With Russia and with China, | 15:39 | |
with Tibet and Pakistan and the islands of the seas, | 15:42 | |
and with you and me. | 15:47 | |
This is human material with which he works, | 15:51 | |
and men rebel. | 15:54 | |
Israel forgets, | 15:58 | |
grows insensitive to the pressures of the divine, | 16:01 | |
will not hear his emissaries, | 16:05 | |
throws his prophets into prison. | 16:06 | |
Then the Chaldean comes | 16:09 | |
and there follows the long night of captivity, | 16:11 | |
and God is in it from first to last. | 16:14 | |
And where in such times as that | 16:20 | |
is true faith to be found, | 16:23 | |
when the social structure collapses | 16:26 | |
and the sacred monuments fall to dust | 16:29 | |
before the battering rams of the faithless pagan? | 16:32 | |
Where is faith then? | 16:36 | |
Hidden away, | 16:41 | |
in a prison, | 16:43 | |
where a piece of land is bought | 16:46 | |
because the prisoner has heard God say | 16:49 | |
he is not through with Israel, | 16:52 | |
that the future as well as the present | 16:56 | |
is his arena. | 16:59 | |
Now we have here, you see, | 17:04 | |
a principle upon which we can depend, | 17:09 | |
a dependence upon providence beyond what we are able to see | 17:13 | |
or figure it out. | 17:21 | |
Now, mind you, | 17:25 | |
dependence upon providence, | 17:27 | |
no easy reliance upon God to make everything | 17:29 | |
come out all right for us. | 17:33 | |
Many in our time have turned to the Christian religion | 17:40 | |
to find some cure for their anxieties, | 17:42 | |
as though the end of faith were their personal comfort. | 17:47 | |
There is comfort here, to be sure, | 17:53 | |
but it's always a byproduct. | 17:56 | |
They liked the alteration that Dean Eng | 18:00 | |
made in one of our familiar hymns. | 18:03 | |
Many of you remember this one. | 18:06 | |
Notice the slight change in the last line. | 18:08 | |
"They climbed the steep accent of heaven | 18:12 | |
"through peril, toil and, pain; | 18:15 | |
"O God, to us may grace be given, to follow | 18:18 | |
"by the train." | 18:22 | |
Not long since, | 18:26 | |
the jukeboxes were beating out | 18:29 | |
a fine ol' Negro spiritual. | 18:31 | |
There ought to be a law against it, | 18:36 | |
but there isn't. | 18:37 | |
The fashion soon passed | 18:39 | |
and is now happily left to Marian Anderson | 18:42 | |
to continue to tell us in moving song | 18:45 | |
that he's got the whole world in his hand. | 18:49 | |
It's a comforting thought, | 18:54 | |
but dependence upon providence in the prophetic sense | 18:57 | |
is not what too many of us mean by it. | 19:01 | |
We mean that, in spite of appearances, | 19:04 | |
God is surely making the world safe for our generation, | 19:07 | |
self-righteously confident that God's eternal purpose | 19:13 | |
is somehow to make things come out all right for us. | 19:16 | |
Somewhere along the way, | 19:21 | |
we've lost a strong doctrine, | 19:22 | |
that we exist in order that God may be served. | 19:26 | |
The Presbyterians have a confession of faith. | 19:31 | |
They can't answer its catechetical questions anymore, | 19:36 | |
but still they know they have a confession of faith. | 19:39 | |
"The chief end of man," says this historic statement, | 19:42 | |
"is to glorify God, | 19:45 | |
"and enjoy him forever." | 19:49 | |
We turn it around to go, | 19:50 | |
"The chief end of God is to help man glorify him forever." | 19:51 | |
That isn't what depending upon providence means. | 19:57 | |
And depending upon providence does not mean either | 20:00 | |
that, at long last, a society as good as possible | 20:04 | |
in this world has been achieved, | 20:08 | |
society laid out along the liberal, | 20:12 | |
democratic lines of the West, | 20:14 | |
that we have, therefore, | 20:18 | |
as close an approximation of the Messianic Age | 20:19 | |
as men have a right to hope for. | 20:23 | |
With all the dangers, | 20:27 | |
so goes the delusion in the minds of those | 20:28 | |
who hold that our society is the final achievement | 20:31 | |
of a righteous God. | 20:33 | |
Providence is on our side, and the thing, | 20:35 | |
as we understand it, our way of life, | 20:37 | |
our organization is somehow bound to bring us out | 20:39 | |
at the right place. | 20:43 | |
War and famine belong to history. | 20:44 | |
From here on out, | 20:49 | |
our way of life will go on from glory to glory, | 20:50 | |
despite national political conventions, | 20:54 | |
and there will be all the manifold benefits | 20:57 | |
to all of us lumped together in that blessed term, | 21:00 | |
social security. | 21:04 | |
But the Messianic Age has not dawned. | 21:09 | |
Indeed, we shall have no age of gold | 21:14 | |
so long as people are made like they are now. | 21:19 | |
Men are stubborn, | 21:23 | |
and women too, but that's not a sum of them. | 21:25 | |
Human nature is vain and selfish and proud | 21:28 | |
as well as venturesome and heroic | 21:31 | |
and with an astonishing capacity for self-denial. | 21:33 | |
Human nature can be changed, to be sure, | 21:39 | |
and is constantly being changed, by the grace of God, | 21:40 | |
but we are on no escalator carrying us ever higher | 21:43 | |
toward the city of God on earth. | 21:48 | |
We shall have no age of gold within history | 21:51 | |
so long as people are made like they are now, | 21:55 | |
which simply means that the world is often | 22:01 | |
teetering on the brink of disaster, | 22:04 | |
as in 1941. | 22:10 | |
And I remember so vividly that December day | 22:15 | |
when on the steps within sight of me right now | 22:20 | |
through that open door, | 22:23 | |
a member of this faculty told me | 22:26 | |
about the attack on Pearl Harbor. | 22:27 | |
Teetering on the brink of disaster. | 22:31 | |
1914. | 22:33 | |
1861. | 22:36 | |
1776. | 22:40 | |
Aye, it's a long and somber road, | 22:43 | |
these dates that mark the disasters in the human story. | 22:45 | |
We may be sure the roll is not complete. | 22:51 | |
Now, Robert Frost is a venerable poet, | 22:56 | |
not a theologian, | 22:58 | |
but he came near the mark | 22:59 | |
when not long since he spoke thus to a reporter. | 23:02 | |
This is Robert Frost. | 23:06 | |
"I was reading some of these young poets | 23:09 | |
"who feel so miserable about the way the world is going. | 23:11 | |
"They should be glad to live in such mighty times. | 23:18 | |
"This is one of the most formidable times in history. | 23:20 | |
"Too many people want to cuddle some universe. | 23:25 | |
"It just doesn't work that way. | 23:29 | |
"The big problems always lie ahead. | 23:32 | |
"In a way, in a way, | 23:35 | |
"the world is always on the brink of war." | 23:38 | |
And what measure, then, may you and I, | 23:47 | |
as Christian people, depend on providence? | 23:50 | |
Well, look at Jeremiah. | 23:55 | |
Whatever the situation, God has not given up, | 23:58 | |
and God has not exhausted his resources. | 24:02 | |
Is anything too hard for God? | 24:07 | |
That was the question, | 24:11 | |
which had its obvious answer in the mind of Jeremiah. | 24:13 | |
In our times, the diplomats try and fail, | 24:17 | |
and nobody knows what the end will be. | 24:19 | |
Russia, with all her missile rattling, | 24:21 | |
says you don't have to have war. | 24:24 | |
China, | 24:29 | |
going on rapidly towards a billion population, | 24:31 | |
says war is quite probable and perhaps desirable, | 24:37 | |
and she can expend 300 million and still survive. | 24:41 | |
Where does that put us? | 24:48 | |
Where does that put the world? And what's the solution? | 24:51 | |
Well, of course, nobody has the answer for that. | 24:56 | |
Only men of biblical faith can give an answer. | 25:01 | |
"Nothing is too hard for God." | 25:06 | |
He is in his world, and in manifold ways, | 25:09 | |
is guiding, disciplining, | 25:12 | |
hammering out the destiny of his people. | 25:16 | |
He's got the whole world in his hand. | 25:21 | |
Now, | 25:28 | |
we can go further than the prophet, | 25:30 | |
however magnificent his faith, because | 25:33 | |
we passed from the Old Testament to the New, | 25:37 | |
from the revelation through the prophets | 25:40 | |
to the revelation in Christ. | 25:42 | |
And here there is this to say, | 25:45 | |
the Christian has to do with a person. | 25:47 | |
Da Vinci, it is said, had completed a portion | 25:54 | |
of his "Last Supper" when a friend came to look at it, | 25:57 | |
and on the table, in the picture, | 25:59 | |
there were two cups into which the artist had put | 26:01 | |
such a wealth of detail | 26:05 | |
that the visitor gazed at it in open-mouthed amazement. | 26:07 | |
And at that, da Vinci seized a brush, | 26:10 | |
with one stroke, painted out the cups and says, | 26:12 | |
"Not that. Not that. | 26:14 | |
"That isn't what I want you to see. Look at the face! | 26:15 | |
"It's the face I want you to see." | 26:19 | |
No discordant truth. | 26:23 | |
No idea of floating on the boundless sea of pure theory, | 26:26 | |
but a life lived, | 26:33 | |
a voice heard, | 26:35 | |
a courage that went to a Roman cross, | 26:37 | |
a resurrection that makes available his living spirit | 26:40 | |
to the hearts of (speaks faintly) | 26:44 | |
in every age. | 26:47 | |
The other thing is, | 26:49 | |
that this revelation is one of undefeatable love, | 26:51 | |
Christ on the cross. | 26:57 | |
Those, who a few days before, had shouted, | 27:00 | |
"Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." | 27:02 | |
Before Pilate screamed, "Crucify him." | 27:06 | |
Yet, when he was reviled, he reviled not again. | 27:11 | |
When he suffered, he threatened not. | 27:13 | |
Do you want to know the temper | 27:17 | |
with which God pursued his eternal purpose for his children? | 27:19 | |
Then listen to his only begotten Son pray for the mob, | 27:27 | |
screaming for his blood. | 27:31 | |
"Forgive them, | 27:34 | |
"they don't know." | 27:37 | |
His righteous purpose is motivated | 27:41 | |
by a love that is undefeated. | 27:43 | |
I'll say, it's (indistinct). | 27:47 | |
That was Jeremiah's lesson | 27:51 | |
as he bought the land in Anathoth. | 27:53 | |
And there is a modern story, | 27:55 | |
which makes the point. | 27:57 | |
A writer once interviewed a man | 27:58 | |
that was a fire warden in Coventry | 28:01 | |
during that awful night when St. Michael's Cathedral | 28:03 | |
was destroyed by German bombs. | 28:07 | |
"I was on duty," said the man, | 28:10 | |
"when a group of incendiaries dropped on the roof | 28:13 | |
"and set it afire. | 28:15 | |
"It was a terrible sight. | 28:18 | |
"I felt that God had deserted us | 28:19 | |
"at the time of our greatest need. | 28:21 | |
"If the cathedral could not be saved, | 28:22 | |
"what use was it to fight for our homes? | 28:25 | |
"But as I stood by, | 28:30 | |
full of despair and bitterness at my helplessness, I, | 28:31 | |
"I suddenly heard the sound of a bell. | 28:36 | |
"It was 11 o'clock. | 28:39 | |
"The great clock in the spire of the doomed building | 28:42 | |
"was sending out its deep tones over the gutted city." | 28:45 | |
Then he continued, | 28:51 | |
"I just can't describe the effect | 28:54 | |
"that those bells had on me and the other people that night. | 28:56 | |
"It was as though God had sensed the depths of our despair, | 29:00 | |
"was himself standing within the flaming spire, | 29:04 | |
"beating out with his own hand the promise | 29:07 | |
"that although the city was destroyed, | 29:10 | |
"he was there in the midst. | 29:12 | |
"Within a brief time, | 29:14 | |
"all the vaulting of the cathedral | 29:16 | |
"had crashed into the nave. | 29:17 | |
"The lead roof was melting down | 29:20 | |
"over the shattered pillars and smoking timbers. | 29:22 | |
"At midnight, | 29:25 | |
"the clock again told the hours, | 29:27 | |
"and every hour thereafter throughout the hideous night, | 29:31 | |
"and every time it struck, | 29:34 | |
"the lines of an old hymn rang through my mind. | 29:36 | |
"'Fear not; I am with thee: | 29:39 | |
"'O, be not dismayed, | 29:40 | |
"for I am thy God and I will still give thee aid | 29:42 | |
"'I'll strengthen thee, help thee, | 29:45 | |
"'and cause thee to stand, | 29:46 | |
"'upheld by my righteous omnipotent hand.'" | 29:48 | |
"I tell you," the warden said, | 29:54 | |
"we went through hell that night, | 29:59 | |
"but God himself walked with us." | 30:03 | |
There is a future for the race because there is God. | 30:10 | |
True, we know not what hells | 30:15 | |
we may be called to walk, | 30:19 | |
but this we know: | 30:23 | |
God will be there shaping the future, | 30:26 | |
and above the sounds created by man's vanity and folly, | 30:30 | |
we shall hear the ringing tones | 30:35 | |
of his everlasting promise. | 30:38 | |
Amen. | 30:43 | |
Let us stand for prayer. | 30:46 | |
Grant us, oh God, a sure foundation of faith. | 30:53 | |
Teach us that above the earthquake, wind, and fire, | 30:57 | |
the still small voice speaks hope | 31:01 | |
to hearts that trust in the Lord. | 31:04 | |
We believe. | 31:09 | |
Help thou our unbelief. | 31:11 | |
The grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ, | 31:15 | |
the love of God, | 31:19 | |
and the communion of the holy spirit be with you all. | 31:21 | |
(recording device hums) | 31:29 | |
(recording device hums) | 31:35 |
Item Info
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