Clovis G. Chappell - "Road to Greatness" (February 9, 1958)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | This one thing I do, | 0:02 |
forgetting those things which are behind | 0:05 | |
and reaching forth unto those things which are before, | 0:07 | |
I press toward the mark for the prize. | 0:11 | |
It would be next to impossible | 0:15 | |
to exaggerate the man who uttered these words. | 0:18 | |
Whole nations could be dropped into the ocean | 0:23 | |
and not be missed as much as | 0:26 | |
we should miss this one tremendous personality. | 0:29 | |
He has breathed on all the centuries | 0:34 | |
like a reviving springtime. | 0:39 | |
Now, we can't share the secret of his genius, | 0:44 | |
but we can share the secret of his greatness. | 0:46 | |
And the first part of it was | 0:50 | |
that he was a man of one purpose, | 0:52 | |
this one thing I do. | 0:54 | |
It doesn't matter how abundant your gifts may be, | 0:58 | |
if you never make up your mind | 1:02 | |
as to what you're going to do with those gifts, | 1:04 | |
you are likely to squander them for a poor second best. | 1:06 | |
I do not care how | 1:12 | |
excellent your car may be | 1:14 | |
and how abundant may be your supply of gasoline, | 1:16 | |
if you don't know where you are going, | 1:21 | |
you are not likely to reach anywhere they go. | 1:24 | |
I remember years ago, my wife and I were touring | 1:27 | |
the New England states and we came about two o'clock | 1:31 | |
in the afternoon to the Wayside Inn, | 1:34 | |
since destroyed, as ya know. | 1:36 | |
Then, we resumed our journey, | 1:40 | |
and we drove, and we drove, and we drove, and we drove | 1:43 | |
till it was about 10:30 at night. | 1:46 | |
And we saw a light in the distance | 1:50 | |
and agreed that if that should happen to be a hotel, | 1:52 | |
we had better stop for the night, and it was a hotel. | 1:55 | |
It was the Wayside Inn. | 2:00 | |
We had left it eight hours ago, | 2:04 | |
and had driven with all diligence. | 2:07 | |
And we'd got back to where we started. | 2:11 | |
Nothing wrong with the car, nothing wrong with the gasoline, | 2:15 | |
the only trouble was with the man at the wheel. | 2:19 | |
Coleridge had a genius almost equal to that of Shakespeare, | 2:24 | |
if he had written every book that he'd planned to write, | 2:28 | |
he would've filled a small library, | 2:32 | |
and yet all he left behind him was | 2:34 | |
a handful of glittering fragments. | 2:36 | |
He could never say this one thing I do. | 2:38 | |
On the other hand, if you can say this one thing I do, | 2:42 | |
the impossible becomes possible, even for the mediocre. | 2:46 | |
There is no dreaming | 2:51 | |
what one life may do | 2:53 | |
if it's organized | 2:55 | |
around one great central purpose | 2:57 | |
or around one great central personality. | 3:00 | |
While I was pastor in Washington, | 3:05 | |
the government set me down to speak to the operatives | 3:06 | |
in the Canal Zone. | 3:10 | |
I spent nearly two weeks there. | 3:12 | |
I got there just as the canal had been recommissioned. | 3:15 | |
It had been put out of commission for some six months | 3:19 | |
by a landslide | 3:21 | |
at what they call the Culebra Cut. | 3:23 | |
In order that such a calamity might not occur again, | 3:27 | |
they were removing the overhanging mountain. | 3:29 | |
They were not removing it | 3:33 | |
as we should doubtless do today by bulldozers, | 3:35 | |
but they were removing it by hydraulic pressure. | 3:38 | |
I watched them turn streams of water on that mountain, and | 3:42 | |
small trees were uprooted, | 3:46 | |
and boulders would be pushed out of their places. | 3:47 | |
Yet, when that water fell from the heavens, | 3:52 | |
it fell so gently that it wouldn't have hurt a baby's face. | 3:54 | |
But now it was saying this one thing I do, | 3:59 | |
and the mountain was taking to its heels. | 4:04 | |
There is no measuring the power of a life | 4:08 | |
that's properly organized around one great purpose | 4:11 | |
or one great personality. | 4:15 | |
Not only was this man a man of one purpose, | 4:19 | |
but it was a worthy purpose. | 4:21 | |
Oh, so often, | 4:24 | |
we | 4:25 | |
sell out far too cheaply. | 4:26 | |
I went down to perform a marriage ceremony some years ago, | 4:29 | |
and some pranksters had got hold of the honeymoon car | 4:33 | |
that the bride and groom were to leave in, | 4:37 | |
and the whole rear of the car | 4:40 | |
was hidden by an immense placard. | 4:42 | |
Up in this corner was a snarling woman, | 4:45 | |
and down in the lower corner was an equally snarling man, | 4:48 | |
and running across it was this pessimistic motto: | 4:54 | |
"When you get what you want, you don't want it." | 4:57 | |
Well, that's true of more than brides and grooms. | 5:04 | |
Years ago, there was a charming story | 5:11 | |
written by a Virginian, | 5:13 | |
called Santa Claus Pack That. | 5:17 | |
The hero of the book was a young chap | 5:19 | |
who had started from scratch, | 5:21 | |
and was rapidly becoming rich. | 5:24 | |
And there's no harm in making money given a right motive. | 5:27 | |
It's just as right to make money | 5:31 | |
as it is to go as a missionary. | 5:33 | |
One of the grim jokes that the devil has played | 5:36 | |
on a certain type of church member | 5:38 | |
is to make them think that while money, it is an essential, | 5:41 | |
it's just a little bit vulgar, | 5:45 | |
and when you introduce it, especially in a worship service, | 5:48 | |
the temperature goes down. | 5:51 | |
I've always enjoyed preachin' on money. | 5:55 | |
I love to watch the liberal enjoy, | 6:00 | |
and I love to see the stingy suffer. | 6:03 | |
(audience laughs) | 6:06 | |
And let me say in all sober seriousness, | 6:10 | |
let me steal this quote Paul is | 6:14 | |
saying money is the root of all evil. | 6:16 | |
Paul never said anything of the kind. | 6:18 | |
If he hadda said it, I say in sober reverence, | 6:21 | |
it wouldn't of been true. | 6:23 | |
But, it can be the root of endless evil | 6:25 | |
in the hand of an evil man. | 6:28 | |
It can be the root of endless good | 6:30 | |
in the hands of a good man. | 6:32 | |
Dug from the mountainside, washed in the glen. | 6:35 | |
Servant am I of the Master of men. | 6:37 | |
Earn me, I bless ya; steal me, I curse ya. | 6:39 | |
Grip me and hold me, a fiend shall possess ya. | 6:43 | |
Lie for me, die for me, covet me, take me. | 6:46 | |
Angel or devil, I am what ya make me. | 6:48 | |
Money is a sacred thing. | 6:53 | |
There's nothing under God's stars, | 6:56 | |
more sacred than the so-called secular. | 6:57 | |
And he was making money, and a fine old friend | 7:00 | |
said to him, "What is your ambition?" | 7:03 | |
He said, "I'm gonna be worth a million dollars." | 7:04 | |
He said, "That's fine." | 7:06 | |
But he said, "Why do you wanna be worth a million dollars?" | 7:07 | |
And here was the lay down. | 7:11 | |
He said, "So I can tell the other fella to go to hell." | 7:12 | |
It's not as grim as he sounded. | 7:15 | |
What did he mean? | 7:17 | |
I wanna be worth a million dollars, | 7:18 | |
so I can be absolutely independent. | 7:20 | |
But nobody's absolutely independent. | 7:22 | |
We are bound up in a bundle of life with the other fella, | 7:25 | |
and you can no more unloose yourself from him, | 7:28 | |
than you can unloose yourself from your own shadow. | 7:30 | |
And instead of abundant wealth making you independent, | 7:34 | |
just makes you that dependent on that many more people. | 7:37 | |
If I owned a little grocery store here in Durham, | 7:40 | |
that had 10 customers, I'd be dependent on 10 people, | 7:43 | |
but if I owned a chain of stores, | 7:47 | |
stretching from New York to San Francisco, | 7:49 | |
I'd be dependent on millions of people. | 7:52 | |
I'm not forgetting the self-made man. | 7:57 | |
I've had him in every congregation I ever served, | 7:59 | |
and I agree fully when the only great purpose he serves | 8:03 | |
is to save the Lord of a lot of embarrassment. | 8:07 | |
A covetive of youth was standing some time ago, | 8:17 | |
on the banks of the Tennessee River, when it was at flood, | 8:20 | |
and one of the boys saw a rabbit swim | 8:24 | |
and take refuge | 8:27 | |
on a lumber stack, out some 300 yards from the shore. | 8:29 | |
And knowing the rabbit is not a good swimmer, | 8:34 | |
He said, "I'm going out and catch that rabbit." | 8:37 | |
And he went out and caught him, | 8:40 | |
for the rabbit was less afraid of the boy, | 8:41 | |
than he was of the water, | 8:43 | |
and he knocked his head against the plank, | 8:45 | |
put him down in the pocket of his old, blue overalls, | 8:48 | |
got in his boat, and started back to the shore. | 8:51 | |
But he wasn't skillful in the handling of a canoe | 8:53 | |
and it capsized, and he drowned. | 8:56 | |
And when the drag first bought in | 8:59 | |
and found it three days later, | 9:00 | |
one of his companions came up, | 9:03 | |
and pulled that old, dead rabbit | 9:05 | |
out of his pocket and held it up | 9:07 | |
and said, "That's what he gave his life for." | 9:08 | |
Well, whether it's for a million dollars | 9:10 | |
or an old dead rabbit, it's too cheap. | 9:12 | |
I bargained with life for a penny, | 9:15 | |
and life would give no more, | 9:18 | |
however I begged at evening | 9:20 | |
when I counted my scanty store. | 9:22 | |
Life is a just employer, she gives us what we ask, | 9:25 | |
but once we have set the wages, | 9:30 | |
then we must bear the task. | 9:31 | |
I work for a menial's hire only to learn dismayed, | 9:33 | |
that whatever I'd ask of life, life woulda gladly paid. | 9:38 | |
Always selling out at a big price, what is he after? | 9:42 | |
He has said, "I'm out to lay hold of that, | 9:46 | |
for which I have been laid hold of by Christ Jesus. | 9:49 | |
Right here is the biggest thing in the universe, | 9:52 | |
far and ahead the biggest: the realization of the fact | 9:54 | |
that God meant something when He created you. | 9:58 | |
That He meant something when He redeemed you, | 10:02 | |
and that you are a priceless personality. | 10:05 | |
You may have read of that | 10:07 | |
pitiful | 10:10 | |
letter written by a suicide in New York. | 10:11 | |
He said, "I don't amount to a thing. | 10:14 | |
"I'm just a peanut, | 10:18 | |
"round | 10:22 | |
"at the baseball park. | 10:23 | |
"I'm gonna step on myself, and end it all." | 10:26 | |
Paul said God had a purpose in my life. | 10:31 | |
I am out for the realization of that purpose. | 10:34 | |
That is the biggest thing that any | 10:37 | |
personality can do, | 10:42 | |
either in time or in eternity. | 10:44 | |
And he went about the achieving | 10:47 | |
of that purpose, in the most sane way. | 10:48 | |
Now, somebody said once that we use less common sense | 10:52 | |
in our religion than we do in anything else. | 10:56 | |
What cynic said that? | 10:58 | |
Jesus. | 10:59 | |
He has said the children of this age, | 11:02 | |
are for their generation, wiser than the children of light. | 11:05 | |
Paul went about this in the sanest possible way. | 11:10 | |
How did he go about it? | 11:13 | |
He kept a wastebasket, and he went through | 11:16 | |
the desk of life day by day, | 11:18 | |
and he threw away anything that he thought would hurt him, | 11:19 | |
and kept what he thought would help him. | 11:24 | |
Now, that's good sense. | 11:26 | |
He's the sanest thing in the world. | 11:28 | |
He put it this way, forgetting the things that are behind. | 11:31 | |
When Paul said, forgetting the things that are behind, | 11:34 | |
of course, he didn't mean that he forgot everything | 11:37 | |
that was behind, that would be | 11:39 | |
at once impossible and immoral. | 11:41 | |
Christians, if you go through the desk of yesterday | 11:44 | |
and find some unpaid bills, don't throw them away. | 11:47 | |
I knew a man who went broke 25 years ago, | 11:52 | |
and paid off 25 cents in the dollar. | 11:55 | |
Since then, he's got rich. | 11:57 | |
He still owes that 75 cents, but he hasn't paid it. | 11:59 | |
You can't cover up dishonesty with illegal verbiage | 12:02 | |
and make God call it white. | 12:05 | |
Don't throw away your vows to the church, | 12:09 | |
or to God and the church. | 12:13 | |
Don't throw away your marriage vows. | 12:17 | |
A great many folks are. | 12:19 | |
Then, don't throw away the kindnesses | 12:21 | |
that have been shown ya. | 12:23 | |
That is so vastly important. | 12:25 | |
For us, not only in our younger years, but all the years. | 12:27 | |
Man said to me some time ago, "Nobody ever did me a favor." | 12:31 | |
I knew two facts about him. | 12:34 | |
First of all, he wasn't tellin' the truth. | 12:36 | |
Second was, he was a grouch. | 12:39 | |
(audience laughs) | 12:42 | |
Well, I've had so many favors, and that from rank strangers, | 12:46 | |
that it just makes me ashamed, that I don't give more. | 12:50 | |
Well, I was going home from | 12:54 | |
an engagement some time ago, | 12:57 | |
and it was about 10:00, 10:30 in the night, | 12:59 | |
and pouring down rain, and I had a puncture. | 13:03 | |
And I pulled outside of the road to | 13:06 | |
exchange my tire, | 13:10 | |
and didn't even have a screwdriver | 13:13 | |
or anything else to take off the hubcap. | 13:15 | |
And there I stood in a pouring rain, | 13:18 | |
thinking I was gonna spend the night, | 13:21 | |
but I hadn't been there, dare I say, two minutes | 13:23 | |
till a light blazed behind me, | 13:25 | |
and a young chap got out, I should say in his early 20's, | 13:27 | |
and he said, "Anything I can do for ya?" | 13:31 | |
I said, "There certainly is. | 13:33 | |
"I haven't any screwdriver to get my hubcap off." | 13:35 | |
He said, "I have one here," and he hurried | 13:37 | |
to get his screwdriver, and he came back | 13:40 | |
to where the light fell a little better upon my face | 13:42 | |
and he saw that I had a touch of Methuselitis, and... | 13:45 | |
(audience laughs) | 13:49 | |
Now, don't you think I'm grieved because I do have, | 13:57 | |
because I'm not. | 14:01 | |
I don't wanna be young. | 14:02 | |
I wouldn't be as young and ignorant | 14:04 | |
as a lot of you, for anything in the world. | 14:06 | |
(speaker and audience laughs) | 14:08 | |
Well, he said, "I'll fix it for ya." | 14:16 | |
and, ya know, he got down there in the rain | 14:19 | |
and fixed my tire, and I started to talk religion to him, | 14:22 | |
and by dog if he wasn't a Baptist. (laughs) | 14:27 | |
(audience laughs) | 14:30 | |
And I've thought more of the whole | 14:37 | |
waterlogged lot ever since. | 14:40 | |
(speaker and audience laughs) | 14:42 | |
Somebody ran an arm through yours when you walked alone, | 14:48 | |
sent you a flower when everybody else | 14:52 | |
just seemed to have forgotten. | 14:54 | |
Put it away in a book, look at it sometime, | 14:56 | |
with eyes of appreciation, and it'll bloom again. | 14:59 | |
Then, don't forget the mercies of God. | 15:07 | |
You may have had some rough sledding, | 15:10 | |
but,you know, even when | 15:14 | |
your skies were black, you weren't alone. | 15:17 | |
Paul found himself in many a hard and harsh situation. | 15:21 | |
I can see him writing in a prison cell | 15:26 | |
and fumbling behind him as he shivered | 15:28 | |
for his old coat that he had forgotten. | 15:31 | |
Not enough clothing could keep him warm, | 15:35 | |
but he had enough gratitude always, to keep his heart warm. | 15:38 | |
Don't throw away your sense of the mercies of God. | 15:42 | |
But there's some things you oughta throw away. | 15:45 | |
One of 'em I suggest is: your failures, | 15:47 | |
except as they help ya. | 15:49 | |
Now failures, educate some people. | 15:51 | |
They paralyze others. | 15:54 | |
Years ago, when I was quite a young preacher, | 15:57 | |
as Shakespeare said, it was in my salad days, | 16:02 | |
when I was green in judgment. | 16:04 | |
I was preaching on gossip, | 16:07 | |
wouldn't hardly dare it now, but, | 16:11 | |
And I started to quote the witches' cauldron in Macbeth, | 16:17 | |
as the gossips' cauldron, | 16:21 | |
Double, double, toil and trouble; | 16:24 | |
Fire burn and caldron bubble. | 16:25 | |
Filet of a fenny snake, | 16:27 | |
I forgot that whole pile of verbiage, | 16:31 | |
and I jumped over them and ran for my honeyed life. | 16:34 | |
I never have found out till this day, | 16:39 | |
whether | 16:41 | |
anybody knew I'd forgotten or not, but I knew it. | 16:44 | |
And for the next six months to a year, | 16:48 | |
whenever I had to start to quote anything, | 16:49 | |
I'd feel the blood run to my face | 16:51 | |
and I'd say, "What about if I were to forget this?" | 16:53 | |
Now, memory is no mark of great intelligence, | 16:56 | |
but it's a great convenience. | 16:59 | |
Throw away your slights, ya get some of 'em sometime, | 17:03 | |
those petty injuries that come to us | 17:08 | |
in the daily grind of living. | 17:11 | |
Paul was a wise man when he said, | 17:15 | |
don't let the sun go down on your wrath, | 17:17 | |
because if you do, your anger will, | 17:19 | |
little by little, harden into hate, | 17:22 | |
and hate will harden into hell. | 17:24 | |
Don't carry round the grudges. | 17:27 | |
Collect stamps if ya want to, but don't collect grudges. | 17:28 | |
There's some people good at it. | 17:34 | |
I used to tell my congregation, when I was a pastor, | 17:37 | |
that, "If any of you wanna insult me, go ahead, | 17:41 | |
"but after you get the job through, | 17:42 | |
"you better take me to one side and explain it to me | 17:45 | |
"because I'm not lookin' for it, | 17:47 | |
"and the chances are, you'll be wastin' your time." | 17:50 | |
I used to get a lot of anonymous letters. | 17:54 | |
Oh, some of 'em were as sweet and tender as sea music, | 17:56 | |
and some of 'em were gaslit. | 18:00 | |
The worst one I ever had, I think, | 18:04 | |
came to me while I was pastor of First Church, Memphis. | 18:05 | |
It oughta been written on asbestos. | 18:09 | |
(audience laughs) | 18:11 | |
I don't see how it got through the post office | 18:15 | |
without setting the building on fire. | 18:17 | |
And, you know, I read it, and | 18:21 | |
I went, then hurried down and opened up my safe deposit box | 18:24 | |
and put it carefully in there, | 18:28 | |
and went down and reread it every morning, | 18:32 | |
just to keep myself mad. (laughs) | 18:34 | |
(audience laughs) | 18:37 | |
No, | 18:40 | |
didn't have that little sense. | 18:42 | |
You know, I read it over and I said, "Why this chap, | 18:44 | |
"is trying to get under my skin, but I'm already there. | 18:48 | |
(audience laughs) | 18:54 | |
"And I'm not gonna move over." (laughs) | 18:58 | |
(audience laughs) | 19:00 | |
And I'm telling you a sober truth, | 19:02 | |
I don't know who signed that letter. | 19:04 | |
I couldn't tell for the life of me, | 19:05 | |
whether anybody signed it or not. | 19:07 | |
Pet a canary if you want to, but don't pet a vulture. | 19:09 | |
Throw away your little grudges, | 19:12 | |
and then your sins, | 19:14 | |
your sins. | 19:17 | |
We don't think as much about them, | 19:17 | |
maybe, as our fathers used to, | 19:20 | |
but we're just as guilty of that. | 19:21 | |
And whatever you may be, | 19:24 | |
your attitude towards your own. | 19:25 | |
Of all the things that I could possibly say | 19:27 | |
to you this morning, there's nothing | 19:30 | |
that would offend you so completely, | 19:32 | |
there's nothing else that would | 19:34 | |
so completely alienate you, | 19:36 | |
as this: for me to stand here and say I have never sinned. | 19:39 | |
No, we all have 'em. | 19:43 | |
What are we gonna do with 'em? | 19:45 | |
Leave 'em at the foot of the cross, and then forget them, | 19:47 | |
in the realization that remorse | 19:50 | |
can be just as deadly and damning as impenitence. | 19:53 | |
That was the insight of the greatest of the prophets. | 19:57 | |
I will forgive their iniquities. | 20:01 | |
Thy sin will I remember no more. | 20:04 | |
I don't know of any promise in all the Word of God | 20:08 | |
that's so startling, and yet, to me so comforting. | 20:11 | |
How Jesus illustrated it. | 20:16 | |
I know the story's a critical story. | 20:18 | |
When they brought | 20:21 | |
a woman into His presence once and flung her down, | 20:23 | |
and they said, "There she is, | 20:27 | |
"taken in the very act of shame." | 20:28 | |
Moses said, "Stone her to death; what do You say?" | 20:31 | |
And Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground. | 20:35 | |
A rather intelligent woman | 20:38 | |
asked me some time ago, what Jesus wrote. | 20:40 | |
Your guess is as good as mine. | 20:43 | |
I don't think He wrote anything. | 20:45 | |
I simply think He was stooping down | 20:47 | |
and marking on the ground to keep from looking at her. | 20:50 | |
Everybody else was staring | 20:54 | |
and the poor creature was dying of sheer shame, | 20:56 | |
and He wouldn't look at her, and the fold thought | 21:00 | |
they had Him on the run and they said, "C'mon now, | 21:03 | |
"C'mon, Moses said stone her. | 21:06 | |
"What do You say?" | 21:08 | |
And then He raised up and said, "Alright, | 21:10 | |
"stone her by all means, provided, provided, | 21:12 | |
"provided that you have never sinned yourself, | 21:16 | |
"not the same sin. | 21:18 | |
"Don't lump that in, it's not that. | 21:19 | |
"Any sin." | 21:21 | |
But what could be more absurd | 21:23 | |
than for one sinner to stone another sinner? | 21:25 | |
That is utterly ridiculous. | 21:28 | |
And they were honest enough to face it, then. | 21:31 | |
The leading Pharisee turned to his comrade, | 21:33 | |
and said, "Well, that lets me out," | 21:37 | |
and so he started out, and the second one said, | 21:39 | |
"Let's me out too," | 21:41 | |
and the third one, and the fourth one, | 21:42 | |
and if I'da been there, I'da trooped along | 21:44 | |
behind that last one, and when I looked behind me, | 21:47 | |
I would have expected to have seen | 21:51 | |
a regular, academic procession. (laughs) | 21:52 | |
(audience laughs) | 21:56 | |
The only thing about you that God ever forgot was your sin. | 22:02 | |
He never forgot a single upward look, | 22:07 | |
never forgot a single, courageous stand, | 22:10 | |
never forgot a single hand outstretched to help. | 22:13 | |
The only thing He ever forgot about you, is your sin. | 22:17 | |
Since He forgot it; you forget it. | 22:22 | |
Oh, you say, but how? | 22:26 | |
Well, I'll tell you how not. | 22:27 | |
You'll not forget by simply saying, "I got to. | 22:31 | |
"I'm gonna forget." | 22:34 | |
You can't make your mind a vacuum. | 22:36 | |
Now and then, I go to bed thinking about a sermon, | 22:39 | |
and I see that, that sermon is gonna do for me, | 22:42 | |
what it might not do for my congregation on Sunday, | 22:44 | |
and that is keep me awake. | 22:48 | |
(laughs) | 22:49 | |
And I said, "I've got to forget this sermon." | 22:52 | |
I done forget it by thinking about something else. | 22:54 | |
I start decoding Scripture for instance, | 22:57 | |
and by and by, I'm off to sleep. | 22:59 | |
Paul forgot what is behind by | 23:03 | |
fixing his hopes, and purposes, and dreams, and loves | 23:06 | |
on what is still ahead. | 23:10 | |
What are some of the values that are still ahead? | 23:13 | |
Whether you're nine, 19, or 90, | 23:16 | |
nevermind what your age, | 23:21 | |
if you're a Christian, far and ahead, the best is yet to be. | 23:24 | |
First of all, just to mention a value too, as I close, | 23:29 | |
God is ahead. | 23:32 | |
You haven't run past Him yet. | 23:34 | |
Run past many a good chance, maybe, but not past God. | 23:37 | |
The old geographers, after they had drawn a map, | 23:42 | |
for the known world, used to put way out there, | 23:45 | |
in the vacant places, | 23:50 | |
such inferences as these: | 23:51 | |
here are dragons, and here are demons that devoured men, | 23:54 | |
but, you know, the author of a certain Psalm | 24:00 | |
who lived way back in that day, | 24:02 | |
had a sunnier reading of things. | 24:06 | |
It is that, even out yonder in the unknown, is God. | 24:09 | |
Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? | 24:13 | |
or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? | 24:16 | |
If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there. | 24:20 | |
If I make my bed in hell, | 24:24 | |
behold, Thou art there. | 24:27 | |
If I take the wings of the morning, | 24:30 | |
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; | 24:33 | |
even there, | 24:37 | |
even there, | 24:39 | |
even there, | 24:40 | |
shall Thy hand lead me, | 24:41 | |
and Thy right hand shall hold me. | 24:44 | |
Tragedy's ahead for some of us: | 24:47 | |
bigger and better Sputniks with bigger and better fears, | 24:49 | |
bigger and better terrors, | 24:54 | |
the withering of the body, the coming on of old age, | 24:57 | |
a thousand things that we should like to avoid perchance. | 25:02 | |
But there's one thing, I speak to you soberly, | 25:07 | |
that steadies me: that whatever is in tomorrow, | 25:11 | |
God is in tomorrow. | 25:15 | |
I can get along without much else. | 25:17 | |
You remember when they rushed a fanatic to old Emerson, | 25:20 | |
and said Mr. Emerson, "The world's a comin' | 25:24 | |
"to an end next Friday." | 25:28 | |
He said, "Very well. I can get on without it." (laughs) | 25:31 | |
(audience laughs) | 25:35 | |
Eternity's ahead. | 25:39 | |
You may not like it. | 25:41 | |
While I was a student at Harvard, | 25:44 | |
a young, brilliant younger person said one day, | 25:45 | |
"Sometimes I think there is such a thing as immortality. | 25:48 | |
"Frankly," he said, "When I get through with this life, | 25:52 | |
"I've lived as long as I wanna live." | 25:55 | |
Never thought he was quite telling the truth. | 25:57 | |
There's life. (mumbles) | 26:01 | |
'tis life not death by which we pass. | 26:04 | |
But whether ya like it or not, life goes on. | 26:08 | |
You're going to always be you, | 26:12 | |
and I'm going to always be I. | 26:14 | |
God's going to always be God. | 26:17 | |
You got eternity in your hand, all your hands. | 26:19 | |
And because God and the eternity are ahead, | 26:22 | |
if you're facing in the right direction, | 26:25 | |
perfection is ahead. | 26:27 | |
Sometimes, we Christians are not very impressive, | 26:29 | |
but we're becoming something, and the power to become | 26:33 | |
is so tremendous that it makes the atomic bomb look cheap. | 26:36 | |
There's nothing equal to the power to become. | 26:39 | |
Beloved, | 26:42 | |
know ye the sons of God, and it has not yet | 26:44 | |
been made manifest what we shall be, | 26:47 | |
but we know that when He shall appear | 26:50 | |
we shall be like Him, | 26:53 | |
for we shall see Him as he is. | 26:55 | |
With God, | 26:58 | |
eternity, | 26:59 | |
and perfection ahead, | 27:01 | |
we can go steadily on. | 27:03 | |
And I'll tell you, it'll do this for ya. | 27:07 | |
It did it for Paul. | 27:08 | |
It'll hang your sun forever in an eastern sky, | 27:10 | |
and give you the privilege | 27:16 | |
constantly, | 27:19 | |
to brush the dewy flowers of life's morning. | 27:20 | |
Such a man can never get old. | 27:25 | |
Now to stand. | 27:30 | |
Oh, Lord for the riches of grace | 27:38 | |
in Christ Jesus, we give Thee humble thanks. | 27:41 | |
Blessing Thy holy name for the way | 27:46 | |
this faith has worked out in other lives. | 27:49 | |
Blessing Thee, for the way this faith | 27:54 | |
is working out in the lives of many here present. | 27:57 | |
May every one of us give it a chance to work. | 28:01 | |
The Lord bless you and keep you. | 28:05 | |
Lord make His face to shine upon you | 28:09 | |
and be gracious unto you. | 28:11 | |
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, | 28:14 | |
and give you peace. | 28:17 |
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