Alan Walker - Religion Emphasis Week (March 5, 1956)

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Moderator	(indistinct) coffee hour	0:08
	this afternoon at three o'clock, here at (indistinct).	0:10
	Excuse me, it's in 208 Flowers Building.	0:14
	I had to reread the (indistinct).	0:18
	Following the coffee hour at three o'clock,	0:19
	the panel this afternoon will be held at three thirty.	0:22
	The topic at that time is Faith's Intellectual Difficulty.	0:27
	As part of the panel, there will be a book display,	0:32
	a sale of certain selective books,	0:35
	which the book committee of (indistinct) has prepared.	0:38
	One of the books,	0:43
	which you will very likely be interested in,	0:44
	is Doctor Walker's book, My Faith is Enough,	0:46
	which will be on sale after the panel this afternoon,	0:50
	in the Flowers Building.	0:53
	And let me call your attention to the posters	0:55
	that are distributed over the campus	0:58
	for other announcements concerning religious (indistinct).	1:00
	Last evening, I was talking with	1:05
	one of Dr. Walker's colleagues	1:07
	who was here visiting this week.	1:10
	And we were referring to Dr. Walker's	1:12
	unusually concise and precise manner	1:14
	of handling the panel discussion on Sunday evening.	1:18
	This worthy gentleman described Doctor Walker	1:22
	as being a very ruggedly educated man.	1:26
	And so now without further ado, I present to you	1:30
	Doctor Alan Walker from Australia,	1:32
	Her Majesty's very rugged subject.	1:35
	(audience laughter)	1:38
	(audience applause)	1:40
Dr. Walker	All right, we'll make it rugged	1:51
	and we'll barge straight in.	1:53
	(audience laughter)	1:55
Dr. Walker	The subject is the answer to atheism.	1:56
	And the folk here at the table	2:00
	suggest that if we have time, we may have some questions,	2:02
	and I'd certainly readily wish that, if the clock permits.	2:07
	I wonder in America,	2:18
	do you know anything of the old-fashioned picture puzzle?	2:21
	We still have in Australia,	2:29
	sometimes printed in magazines and in books,	2:31
	a picture of, shall we say, a winter scene in a garden,	2:36
	with a tree standing stripped of its leaves.	2:42
	The puzzle is to try and find	2:46
	in the twigs and the branches of that tree,	2:51
	the outline of a horse's head, or of the face of a man.	2:56
	And so you take this puzzle,	3:06
	and you peer at it and you turn it this way and that,	3:08
	looking for this hidden tracing in the branches.	3:12
	Presently, you see it. There it is, obviously.	3:19
	The outline of that horse's head.	3:24
	The tracing of the profile of a man.	3:27
	From then on, whenever you pick up that picture puzzle,	3:31
	you can't see anything else	3:38
	but the pattern that you've already discovered,	3:42
	whereas before it was so difficult to see it.	3:44
	It seems to me that the fact of God is something like that.	3:50
	Quite frankly, I find it hard to talk about	3:57
	proving the existence of God, if such can be done.	4:01
	It's almost like trying to explain why you always see	4:06
	the horse's head in a picture.	4:12
	Once you have discovered God,	4:15
	it seems to me you see him everywhere.	4:18
	That doesn't mean that one denies the difficulty	4:24
	of that first discovery.	4:27
	But once having found him, there he is.	4:30
	Now, I of course today can't prove to you	4:37
	the existence of God.	4:43
	I can't give you completely, satisfyingly,	4:45
	an intellectual answer to the problem of atheism.	4:49
	For you see, God can't be treated as a thing can be treated.	4:53
	We are under the tyranny	5:01
	of scientific method in our civilization.	5:02
	And we imagine that that which cannot	5:06
	be scientifically analyzed and demonstrated	5:09
	is somehow either non-existence or a lesser form of reality.	5:13
	We forget, of course, that scientific analysis	5:20
	is only one way by which truth may come to us.	5:25
	There's so much that cannot be demonstrated	5:29
	by a scientific method.	5:34
	Not everything can be put in a test tube.	5:38
	For example, I challenge any man in this room	5:42
	to prove to me the existence of a memory	5:45
	by scientific method.	5:49
	I know sometimes we sing, I've seen a dream walking,	5:52
	but none of us has seen a memory walking.	5:56
	(audience laughter)	5:58
	No, you can't prove to me by scientific method	6:01
	something that happened to you	6:06
	which exists in your memory yesterday,	6:08
	which nobody else shared in.	6:10
	But there it is.	6:13
	And particularly when examinations come round,	6:15
	by heavens you live by a memory,	6:17
	and yet you can't scientifically prove	6:20
	the existence of a memory.	6:24
	Neither can God be placed in a test tube.	6:28
	Incidentally, neither can the love man has for his wife,	6:32
	nor a loveliness of a sunset.	6:38
	No, let's be people who break	6:42
	this silly tyranny of the test tube.	6:45
	And let's say that scientific analysis	6:48
	is only one way by which truth, reality, comes to us.	6:51
	Well, having said that,	6:59
	let me go on and give some suggestions	7:01
	as to the reality of God.	7:04
	Any one of these outlines that I would give	7:08
	may seem inconclusive of itself.	7:12
	Add them together,	7:15
	I want to claim they make a pretty strong case	7:17
	against the falsity of atheism.	7:20
	First of all, there is, it seems to me,	7:24
	an intellectual answer to atheism.	7:28
	I propose atheism, disbelief in God,	7:33
	really comes at us in two ways.	7:38
	One of your American thinkers said some time ago,	7:41
	science makes God progressively less essential.	7:47
	Now he's really expressing this conviction	7:53
	that's risen in our culture, that, well, after all,	7:56
	many things that religion once did	8:02
	and which fell within its area of activity	8:04
	have been taken away from it.	8:07
	Won't that process go on until,	8:10
	just as education once belonged to the church,	8:14
	and medical healing belonged to the church,	8:17
	they've been cut off and become segments of our culture	8:20
	and important segments on their own?	8:24
	So step by step, everything that religion once met	8:26
	will be met by other means in our advancements.	8:30
	Now, I wonder, does that really bear analysis?	8:36
	I would claim that the three basic human experiences	8:41
	are pain, sin, and death.	8:47
	And I would claim that modern man,	8:54
	in spite of all of his advance,	8:57
	when he encounters pain and sin and death,	9:01
	stands as stripped and helpless as did primitive man.	9:08
	Oh, I know we can deaden pain with chloroform.	9:13
	I know with our psychology we can	9:19
	give the twistings of our thinking and emotions a name.	9:22
	That isn't always to explain them,	9:26
	but we give them a name anyway, in psychological jargon.	9:27
	When we face the fact of death,	9:32
	we may be able to	9:34
	make it easier to take by keeping us subdued and drugged,	9:38
	but we still have to face it.	9:43
	Has God become progressively less essential	9:46
	in facing the problem of pain?	9:50
	Not the endurance of it, but the fact of it.	9:53
	Sin? Death?	9:56
	I question whether the claim of a scientist	10:01
	that God has become progressively less essential	10:05
	on the deepest levels of human experience,	10:08
	I question whether it can be substantiated.	10:12
	Or, let's look frankly at this whole question	10:17
	of the explanation of human existence.	10:20
	If we were thoroughly logical,	10:24
	ruthlessly logical in our thinking,	10:27
	we'd come to this position.	10:30
	That really there are only two possible explanations	10:33
	of where the world has come from	10:37
	and what is at the background of human life.	10:39
	One explanation would go something like this.	10:43
	Way back millions of years ago,	10:46
	a piece of molten material broke away from the sun.	10:47
	It sped through space	10:50
	and for some quite accidental reason suddenly stopped.	10:51
	And then it began to cool.	10:55
	And again, for some quite accidental reason,	10:56
	it reached just the temperature to sustain life,	10:58
	and stopped cooling at that point.	11:00
	And then through another series of fortuitous circumstances,	11:02
	presently life, primitive life,	11:05
	appeared on that planet which we now know as the earth.	11:07
	And over a series of centuries,	11:11
	of millions of years perhaps,	11:14
	life developed from primitive forms	11:15
	until it last man stepped on the scene.	11:18
	And here we are, for no particular reason.	11:20
	Just children of chimps.	11:23
	And here we shall remain,	11:26
	until there will be further changes in the heart of the sun.	11:28
	It will increase in temperature and will become so hot	11:30
	that everything on this earth will be shriveled up,	11:33
	and the long mystery of existence will be over.	11:35
	Just don't worry about it.	11:39
	The last estimate is	11:40
	it will happen in 53 billion years time.	11:40
	But that's one possible explanation.	11:43
	Another would go something like this.	11:47
	Way back, millions of years ago,	11:51
	a piece of molten material	11:54
	probably did break away from the sun.	11:55
	It sped through space and it stopped and began to cool,	11:59
	but not because of chance,	12:03
	but because God was in the process	12:05
	of bringing his world into being.	12:09
	Presently, primitive life appeared, the simplest forms,	12:12
	moved forward until man stepped on the scene.	12:17
	But not just by a process, as it were, of cause and effect.	12:21
	For I deny that any man can explain a cabbage	12:27
	by looking at a stone, or a rabbit by looking at a cabbage,	12:29
	or a man by looking at a monkey.	12:35
	There has come into this developing evolutionary story	12:38
	a new fact, a new creative act of God, along that process.	12:44
	And here we are.	12:51
	Not children of chance, but children of God,	12:53
	created with his intention and for his purposes.	12:56
	And here we shall stay until at the end of time,	13:00
	God in his own way, and for his own purposes again,	13:03
	shall bring this whole mystery of existence to an end.	13:07
	But at that time,	13:12
	it will not be brought about by just physical changes.	13:14
	Not by some silly fool blowing up the world	13:17
	with a hydrogen bomb.	13:19
	But it will be God, who began history, ending it.	13:21
	And at that point, we shall be able to look back	13:25
	and really realize how much God has loved the world.	13:28
	Now I would claim that if you are logical,	13:33
	you can't suggest to me any third possible explanation.	13:36
	Either it's God or it's chance.	13:41
	I don't know how you feel about it,	13:47
	but I personally find the second of those explanations	13:50
	far more intellectually satisfying than the first.	13:54
	I believe this theistic conviction	13:59
	answers more fundamental problems of the human mind,	14:02
	ties up more ragged ends of human experience,	14:07
	is more comprehensive in its range,	14:10
	than any other explanation of life that you can give.	14:13
	Now, I don't want to develop that further at the moment.	14:21
	I haven't the time.	14:23
	But I do ask you to be logical,	14:24
	and to see that presently, you're cornered,	14:29
	and you must say God or chance.	14:32
	Some of us would say,	14:38
	I believe in God, the father almighty,	14:42
	maker of heaven and of Earth.	14:46
	The second piece of evidence	14:53
	that I think is worth putting on a list	14:55
	is the testimony of many witnesses.	14:59
	We used to sing a song, 50 million Frenchmen can't be wrong.	15:03
	Well, they can be wrong. 50 million of anybody can be wrong.	15:06
	But when over centuries of time,	15:11
	men and women in all kinds of circumstances,	15:15
	in all kinds of cultures,	15:19
	have said steadily, I've seen God.	15:21
	I question whether you can likely dispense	15:26
	with that testimony.	15:29
	Here is a Abraham, long ago, meeting God as he journeyed,	15:32
	setting up his altars on his way.	15:38
	Here is Moses, swinging around a mountain,	15:42
	feeling he's on holy ground.	15:47
	Here is Isaiah in a temple.	15:50
	I saw the Lord, high and lifted up.	15:52
	Here is a man like Saul of Tarsus,	15:55
	on the road to Damascus, saying I heard a voice.	15:58
	It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.	16:03
	Or a man like, shall we say,	16:07
	Augustine, walking in his garden.	16:09
	Or a man such as (indistinct).	16:12
	Or a man like John Wesley.	16:15
	Or a man like William Temple, or Studdert Kennedy.	16:18
	or Flynn of the Inland in Australia,	16:21
	perhaps our greatest churchman.	16:23
	All giving out of their experience an account of the moment	16:26
	when they said, I met God.	16:31
	As far as I'm concerned,	16:36
	the supreme testimony at this point is Jesus Christ,	16:39
	the finest and the fairest life, by common consent,	16:45
	that was ever lived.	16:48
	He whose purity causes all of us to drop our eyes before it.	16:51
	He whose courage challenges us all.	16:58
	This man, in good days and ill,	17:02
	amid the acclaim of the people of Galilee.	17:06
	And as he died, pain-wracked on a cross,	17:08
	this man said steadily from beginning to end,	17:11
	I see God.	17:17
	To me, it's of tremendous significance	17:20
	that the greatest life ever lived	17:22
	was so sure of his father in heaven.	17:25
	And I think of my own life.	17:30
	And I can only echo the sentence of (indistinct)	17:34
	when he said,	17:39
	I have had experiences which materialism can't explain.	17:41
	This testimony of many leads us to a third	17:52
	step in our case.	18:01
	It's in the evidence	18:03
	of what has happened in lives that have said, I met God.	18:05
	Some of you will remember that Marie and Pierre Curie	18:12
	really found radium by seeing the effect of it.	18:17
	Their instruments showed some element of which	18:22
	they could not in anywhere else find an explanation of.	18:28
	And so, because they discovered this effect of something	18:34
	as yet unknown, they set to work and they searched,	18:39
	and they went through their hundreds of experiments	18:42
	seeking to isolate radium from pitch blend.	18:45
	And in the end they found it,	18:48
	and found it because an effect led them to the cause of it.	18:50
	Here are lives in whom we see the effect of something.	18:56
	Now, I know it's the fashion,	19:06
	and has been for numbers of years,	19:11
	to give varying names to the experience	19:13
	that the Christian calls an experience of God.	19:17
	I suppose our psychologists today	19:21
	would still say in some senses,	19:24
	why, this talk about God is the projection of your wishes.	19:26
	It's the throwing onto the canvas of your mind,	19:30
	of your optimism, of your hopes, of your desires.	19:34
	Of course, he can't have it both ways.	19:38
	I'd say that the person who has no belief in God,	19:39
	he's merely projecting onto the canvas of his mind	19:44
	his own despair and his own despondency.	19:46
	At least we're about equal, anyway.	19:48
	But there's something else.	19:51
	It was a very famous occasion in the City Temple, London,	19:55
	back at the end of last century,	19:59
	where the famous Joseph Parker	20:01
	referred to the then current way	20:04
	of explaining Christian experience,	20:07
	the fact of God in human lives.	20:10
	It was a neurosis then.	20:14
	And Saul of Tarsus, well really what he suffered	20:16
	on the way to Damascus was an epileptic fit.	20:19
	And so Joseph Parker one night referred to him.	20:23
	And he began by reading the story of the Book of Acts.	20:27
	And he read Saul, breathing out threatenings and cruelties	20:31
	against the disciples of the Lord.	20:37
	He read a sentence or two out of the stoning of Stephen.	20:40
	And then he jumped the sections	20:44
	and he just read the whole Saul prayer.	20:46
	Then he made this comment.	20:53
	Something has happened. Something obviously has happened.	20:55
	It's brought to an end the man who could harbor murder,	20:59
	and created a new man, and such a man.	21:03
	What is it that's brought this result?	21:06
	It's suggested it is epilepsy.	21:09
	Then say I, fly on now, mighty epilepsy.	21:12
	How do you explain the quality of just Christian martyrdom?	21:22
	The Albert Schweitzer in the heart of Africa.	21:29
	The quiet thousands of Christians	21:32
	toiling in distant and near places,	21:34
	in the slums of great cities,	21:37
	and lonely places such as in the Australian outback.	21:40
	How do you explain?	21:45
	What if the explanation that the person gives	21:49
	is the right one?	21:53
	I've met God. But there's one other thing to be said.	21:56
	We come to know God,	22:04
	not in a sense, by intellectual argument,	22:07
	but through commitment to him.	22:10
	It's obvious to us, isn't it?	22:14
	That we come to know a person in a very different way	22:17
	from the way we come to know a thing,	22:22
	You can take your piece of iron ore.	22:26
	You can take your element and analyze it.	22:29
	Put it under your microscope. You can deal with it.	22:33
	There it is passing before you.	22:35
	You cannot so come to know a person.	22:40
	You don't put your wife under a microscope	22:45
	and learn very much about her.	22:47
	No, it's as you commit yourself to a person,	22:51
	so you come to know that person.	22:56
	You who are engaged or married will know.	23:00
	You saw somebody, you were interested.	23:03
	You looked from a distance.	23:06
	The day came when you committed yourself to each other.	23:08
	Will you marry me? And she said, yes.	23:12
	And from that moment, knowledge began.	23:15
	And it will continue in commitment.	23:19
	And only as you give yourself to each other	23:22
	do you really come to know each other.	23:25
	A person is always discovered in that way.	23:28
	And so it is with God.	23:34
	You may sit in a study circle. You may take part in a panel.	23:37
	You may argue with yourself or someone else,	23:43
	but in the last analysis,	23:47
	you can never know God while you treat him as a thing,	23:49
	an object to be analyzed.	23:54
	It is by commitment to him that you discover God.	23:58
	It's as you begin to believe	24:04
	and live as though there were a God,	24:06
	that you find there is a God.	24:10
	But you cannot find him on this side of commitment.	24:14
	For God is a person.	24:22
	He's much more than a person,	24:24
	but he's not less than the highest category that we know.	24:26
	And therefore,	24:31
	the characteristics whereby we come to know a person	24:33
	lie in this realm of religious discovery.	24:37
	It is this, you know, that the great Albert Schweitzer,	24:41
	missionary doctor to Africa,	24:45
	stresses at the end of his famous book,	24:46
	The Quest of the Historical Jesus.	24:49
	The final paragraph reads like this.	24:52
	He comes to us as one of old, unknown.	24:57
	He speaks and sets us to the tasks which he has to fulfill	25:02
	for our own time.	25:08
	He commands.	25:10
	And those who follow him, whether they be wise or simple,	25:12
	shall learn in their own experience, who he is.	25:19
	Now that's a tremendously discerning word.	25:25
	He commands.	25:30
	And those who follow shall learn in their own experience	25:32
	who he is.	25:42
	That's why,	25:46
	if you want an answer to your fundamental religious problem,	25:48
	is there a God? Who is he?	25:54
	He can only be found.	25:57
	Bringing all your mind, yes. Analyzing as best you can.	26:00
	All that may build up in understanding of it.	26:05
	But in the end, we reach the point	26:09
	where without commitment, there can be no final discovery.	26:14
	Quite frankly,	26:22
	lots of us have talked about God long enough.	26:24
	We've debated him sufficiently and we'll get no further,	26:28
	until we begin to say some sentence like this.	26:37
	I commit my life to thee, oh God.	26:44
	Now we have a few moments, I think. Very few.	26:54
	But if anyone desires some questions,	26:57
	we'll do our best to answer them.	26:59
Moderator	If you have any questions,	27:05
	would you address them to Doctor Walker?	27:06
Male Speaker	I have a lot of things I'd like to say.	27:11
	I would like to request the privilege (indistinct).	27:14
Dr. Walker	I'm sorry, I didn't catch that.	27:20
Male Speaker	May I please come	27:22
	to the center of the room?	27:23
Dr. Walker	Yes.	27:24
Male Speaker	Thank you.	27:25
Dr. Walker	But make it quick, will you?	27:26
	We've only got about five minutes	27:27
	and we'd like two or three to come.	27:28
	Give us a question if you can, or just a brief statement.	27:30
Male Speaker	A statement. I would prefer a question.	27:34
	You challenge anybody to demonstrate a memory.	27:42
	I would like to suggest that a memory is not a thing,	27:45
	but is an explanation for behavior.	27:48
	You may suggest that God	27:52
	is an explanation for something else.	27:54
	All right, I'll put it in the same category,	27:56
	both of them explanations.	27:58
	You say there are only two explanations	28:01
	of how life on this earth may have arisen.	28:03
	I say there are not. Chance, God, okay.	28:07
	If God is indeed an explanation, but how about this?	28:11
	How about an explanation of basic physical laws?	28:16
	That is that once something or other happened,	28:19
	everything else had to happen,	28:22
	according to way physical laws exist.	28:23
	Not through chance.	28:25
	There is a distinction I think,	28:27
	between the operation of centrifugal force	28:28
	and your chance.	28:31
Dr. Walker	Why centrifugal force?	28:34
Male Speaker	What is it?	28:35
Dr. Walker	Why centrifugal force?	28:36
	Not what is it. That's the wrong question.	28:37
Male Speaker	Why?	28:39
Dr. Walker	Yeah.	28:40
Male Speaker	What do you mean, why?	28:41
	Why does this universe contain a force	28:42
	known as centrifugal force?	28:46
	What else?	28:49
Dr. Walker	Why not the opposite of centrifugal force?	28:51
Male Speaker	Why should the opposite exist?	28:53
	See, you can always (indistinct) anything and say,	28:59
	why should that be?	29:01
	But very often the person asking it has	29:02
	no better explanation of why anything else should be.	29:04
	This is the universe. We have it.	29:07
	It may always have been here, for all we know,	29:10
	always have existed.	29:13
	We don't know that it didn't.	29:15
	It may always have existed this way.	29:16
	It may be the most reasonable way for it to exist.	29:18
	Why should you expect anything else?	29:21
Dr. Walker	Right, now, if you've got a question,	29:23
	I mean, we've only got a couple of minutes and I think...	29:24
Male Speaker	Well, I just wanted to suggest	29:27
	that there was another explanation	29:29
	for existence of life on this earth.	29:30
	I would also like to say that	29:33
	I think I knew my wife pretty well before I got married.	29:34
	I don't think I had to commit myself to her to know her.	29:37
	I don't think psychiatrists have to commit themselves	29:40
	to their patients (indistinct)	29:42
	in order to know their patients.	29:44
	(indistinct) questions,	29:47
	but I would like to suggest that this religion of ours	29:49
	should be based upon something more substantial	29:52
	than the arguments given today,	29:56
	with due humility to you, sir.	29:57
	Thank you.	29:59
Dr. Walker	Well, now another question.	30:02
	It's very interesting, of course,	30:03
	that you noticed that the discussion	30:05
	began a long way down the road.	30:07
	It began talking about centrifugal force,	30:10
	but it didn't go back to answer the basic questions of why.	30:13
	Why? Chance?	30:17
	Was it chance that you've got centrifugal force?	30:18
	Or was it the creation of somebody	30:21
	who patterned his world that way?	30:23
	It's always my query, this kind of discussion,	30:25
	which is really answering the work of the easier letter,	30:29
	how.	30:33
	Not going back to the base of things, which is why.	30:34
	Therefore I hardly think it touches	30:38
	the basic alternative that I gave.	30:39
	Now, another question? Yes.	30:41
Male Speaker 2	To me, it seems like you have a god	30:43
	that's a receptacle of unresolved problems.	30:46
	(indistinct) Anything you can't solve...	30:50
	That takes a lot of weight off.	30:54
	I think that's what you have,	30:55
	a receptacle of unsolved problems.	30:57
	(throat clearing)	31:07
Male Speaker 3	I've always wondered that	31:09
	the origin of the universe should be a starting point	31:13
	for the intellectual proof of the existence of God.	31:16
	Actually, the origin of the universe has always struck me	31:20
	as being very irrelevant.	31:23
	And I think that's one of the only	31:26
	intellectually (indistinct)	31:28
	theologians can really adduce.	31:30
	That is, I doubt that there is any intellectual support	31:37
	for the existence of God,	31:39
	other than this predilection for writing N,	31:42
	a name which accounts for that which we do not know.	31:47
Dr. Walker	I'd be inclined to agree with you.	31:56
	As I said at the first,	31:57
	I don't think any one of the suggestions I made	31:58
	are particularly strong themselves,	32:02
	and the weakest of them is the first.	32:04
	But in the chain of thinking, I think it has its place.	32:06
Moderator	I believe that we're going to have to	32:12
	call time on questioning.	32:14
	If those of you who would like to ask Doctor Walker	32:16
	further questions would come and speak to him afterwards.	32:19
	I think we actually have a few additional programs.	32:22
	(indistinct)	32:25
	And then again,	32:25
	I recall your attention to the panel this afternoon	32:27
	that some of you might be interested in.	32:28
	We are dismissed, sir. No further (indistinct).	32:32
Male Speaker 4	Most gracious father,	32:43
	who withholdeth no good thing from thy children,	32:46
	and in thy providence has brought us to this day of rest,	32:50
	and of the renewal of the soul.	32:55
	We give thee humble and hearty thanks	32:58
	for the world which thou hast prepared	33:01
	and furnished for our dwelling place	33:05
	For the steadfast righteousness,	33:08
	which suffers no evil thing to gain the mastery.	33:11
	For the lives and examples of those	33:16
	who were strangers and pilgrims,	33:19
	and found the better inheritance in peace of soul	33:23
	and joy in the holy spirit.	33:28
	And above all, for the life, teaching, and sacrifice	33:31
	of thy son, our savior Jesus Christ.	33:37
	For the daily round of customary duties,	33:43
	also we thank thee.	33:47
	For our friends and kindred, and for that larger home,	33:50
	which we find in the society of those seen and unseen	33:54
	who have loved thee and served their brethren.	34:00
	For the various prosperities that gladden us,	34:05
	and for the disappointments which remind us	34:08
	that here we have no abiding city.	34:12
	We thank thee also	34:16
	for the manifold ministries of thy helpful spirit,	34:19
	for the joy that comes unbidden when our hearts are sad.	34:24
	For the various encouragements that come unsought	34:29
	when the way is long.	34:33
	For the pain that comes unwelcomed when we fall from thee,	34:37
	and for the assurance of unseen aids,	34:43
	in every time of our need.	34:47
	Oh God, who has given us light,	34:52
	and who grieves because we have	34:56
	so often loved the darkness better.	34:58
	Thou has called us to follow that which is good,	35:02
	and to flee from which is evil.	35:06
	And thou knowest how hour after hour, day after day,	35:10
	we have yielded to the temptations in our path,	35:16
	have done that which thou has forbidden,	35:21
	and have left undone the work thou has given us to do.	35:24
	Forgive our folly and excess, our coldness to human sorrows,	35:30
	our envy of those who prosper and are at ease,	35:37
	our passion for the things of the moment	35:43
	that perish in the grasping,	35:46
	our indifference to those treasures of the spirit,	35:50
	which are life and peace,	35:54
	our neglect of thy wise and gracious laws.	35:58
	And so change our hearts,	36:04
	and turn all our desires into thyself,	36:07
	that we may love that which thou provest	36:11
	and do that that which thou commandest.	36:15
	And with strength and resolution,	36:19
	walk in uprightness and charity	36:22
	to the serving of our brethren and the glory of thy name.	36:26
	Through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.	36:31
	Let us offer unto God our unison prayer of confession.	36:40
	Let us pray.	36:48
	(indistinct background speech)	36:50
	Have mercy upon us, O God.	36:52
	According to thy loving kindness,	36:55
	according the multitude of thy tender mercies,	36:58
	blot out our transgressions.	37:02
	Wash us thoroughly from our iniquities,	37:05
	and cleanse us from our sins.	37:09
	For we acknowledge our transgressions,	37:13
	and our sin is ever before us.	37:17
	Create in us clean hearts, oh God,	37:21
	and renew a right spirit within us.	37:24
	Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.	37:29
	And now as our savior Christ have taught us, we pray.	37:35
	Our father who art in heaven, hollowed be thy name.	37:40
	Thy kingdom come,	37:46
	thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.	37:48
	Give us this day our daily bread,	37:53
	and forgive us our trespasses,	37:56
	as we forgive those who trespass against us.	37:59
	And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil.	38:03
	For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory,	38:09
	forever. Amen.	38:14
	(indistinct background speech)	38:18
	The Lord be with you and with thy spirit. Let us pray.	38:20
	(pages turning)	38:28
	Most gracious father,	38:34
	who withholdeth no good thing from thy children,	38:38
	and in thy providence has brought us to this day of rest	38:42
	and of the renewal of the soul,	38:47
	we give thee humble and hearty thanks	38:50
	for the world which thou has prepared	38:54
	and furnished for our dwelling place.	38:57
	For the steadfast righteousness	39:01
	which suffers no evil thing to gain the mastery.	39:04
	For the lives and examples of those	39:09
	who were strangers and pilgrims,	39:12
	and found the better inheritance in peace of soul,	39:16
	and joy in the holy spirit,	39:21
	And above all, for the life, teaching,	39:25
	and sacrifice of thy son, our savior Jesus Christ.	39:30
	For the daily round of customary duties also,	39:38
	we thank thee.	39:42
	For friends and kindred.	39:45
	And for that larger home,	39:48
	which we find in the society of those seen and unseen,	39:50
	who have loved thee and served their brethren.	39:57
	For the various prosperities that gladden us,	40:02
	and for all the disappointments	40:05
	which remind us that here we have no abiding city.	40:08
	We thank thee also for the manifold ministries	40:13
	of thy helpful spirit.	40:18
	For the joy that comes unbidden when our hearts are sad.	40:21
	For the various encouragements that come unsought	40:27
	when the day is long.	40:31
	For the pain that comes unwelcomed	40:34
	when we fall away from thee.	40:37
	And for the assurance of unseen aids	40:41
	in every time of our need.,	40:45
	Oh God, who has given us light,	40:49
	and who grieves because we have so often	40:53
	loved the darkness better.	40:56
	Thou has called us to follow that which is good	40:59
	and to flee from that which is evil.	41:04
	And thou knowest how hour after hour, day after day,	41:08
	we have yielded to the temptations in our path.	41:15
	Have done that which thou has forbidden,	41:20
	and have left undone the work thou has given us to do.	41:23
	Forgive our folly and excess,	41:29
	our coldness to human sorrows,	41:33
	our envy of those who prosper and are at ease,	41:37
	our passion for the things of the moment	41:42
	that perish in the grasping,	41:45
	our indifference to those treasures of the spirit,	41:48
	which are life and peace,	41:52
	our neglect of thy wise and gracious laws.	41:56
	And so change our hearts	42:01
	and turn all our desires unto thyself,	42:04
	that we may love that which thou provest	42:09
	and do that which thou commandest.	42:13
	And with strength and resolution	42:17
	walk in uprightness and charity,	42:20
	to the serving of our brethren, and the glory of thy name.	42:24
	Through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.	42:30
	Oh Lord God, whose we are and whom we serve.	42:38
	May the words of our lips and the spirit of our lives,	42:45
	the meditations of our hearts and the gifts of our hands	42:52
	be acceptable in thy sight.	42:58
	We present our offerings in the name of the savior.	43:02
	Amen.	43:07

-	Hymn Two, second line.	0:07
	(organ music)	0:11
	(choir singing)	0:44
	♪ Amen ♪	1:56
-	(indistinct), we adore You, whose name is love,	2:07
	whose nature is compassion,	2:11
	whose presence is joy,	2:13
	whose word is true,	2:15
	whose spirit is goodness.	2:17
	(indistinct)	2:19
	Whose will is peace,	2:21
	whose service is perfect freedom	2:22
	and the knowledge of (indistinct) eternal life.	2:24
	Let's pray together.	2:28
Group	Our Father, who art in Heaven,	2:31
	hallowed be Thy name.	2:33
	Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,	2:35
	on Earth as it is in Heaven.	2:39
	Give us this day, our daily bread,	2:42
	and forgive us our trespasses	2:45
	as we forgive those who trespass against us.	2:48
	And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,	2:51
	for Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory,	2:56
	now and forever.	3:01
	Amen.	3:02
-	Before I introduce tonight's speaker,	3:07
	I would like to call your attention	3:09
	to several of the events of the program (indistinct).	3:11
	Tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 in the Union Ballroom,	3:16
	flowers will be.	3:20
	There will a panel discussion entitled	3:24
	Faith: Intellectual Difficulty.	3:25
	At that time, appropriate religious books will be sold,	3:28
	and those books will also be on sale in both Communions	3:32
	from 11:00 to 1:00 each day.	3:35
	At five o'clock tomorrow afternoon in the University Chapel,	3:38
	there will be a meditation period,	3:42
	and tomorrow night at 7:30, Dr. Walker and (indistinct)	3:44
	will be answering in a question box	3:49
	some of the questions which you have asked.	3:51
	And now, I would like to turn it over to Dr. Walker,	3:55
	who has chosen for a meditation, God is My Adventure.	3:58
-	As you have heard,	4:16
	the theme for this vesper service	4:18
	is God is My Adventure.	4:20
	Standing at the heart of Christian belief	4:26
	is the great doctrine of the Trinity.	4:30
	I suppose, of all Christian affirmations,	4:35
	it's the most difficult.	4:39
	It's the one many of us just can't repeat yet	4:42
	with our whole mind.	4:47
	For me, some of the obscurity that surrounds	4:50
	this tremendous assertion of the Christian faith	4:54
	vanished in reading a book of Nathaniel McCollum's	5:00
	What is the Faith?	5:04
	He makes the point that the doctrine of the Trinity	5:07
	isn't an explanation about God,	5:12
	it's the statement of affect about Him.	5:17
	It doesn't set out to show to us	5:21
	how God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit	5:26
	might be related one to the other.	5:31
	It simply says if you are a Christian,	5:34
	you are obliged to come to an understanding of God,	5:40
	at least in these minimum terms of definition.	5:46
	For, you see, this tremendous doctrine of the Trinity	5:51
	has arisen not out of intellectual inquiry	5:55
	so much as out of experience of God.	5:59
	This is how men, over centuries of time,	6:03
	have come to know God.	6:08
	You see,	6:11
	away in the distance,	6:13
	men, as they contemplated the nature and the being of God,	6:15
	they realized that, at least, He was Father and Creator	6:19
	and Sustainer of the Universe.	6:23
	They knew Him in those terms.	6:25
	And then when Jesus came,	6:29
	they had to say, at this one point in time,	6:31
	God, in a unique way, broke into history,	6:36
	crossed the thin line that divides God from His children,	6:39
	dwelt among us at a place on the map	6:44
	at a particular time in history.	6:48
	And so man said,	6:50
	"Well, we know God as One Who Came."	6:53
	And then, as experience unfolded about Him,	6:58
	they say, "My God isn't only a distant creator.	7:02
	"He isn't only one who came at a point in history.	7:05
	"He is a God who is in action now,	7:10
	"whose spirit is at work on the plans of history,	7:13
	"and in human consciousness.	7:18
	"Therefore, the Holy Spirit, which is really to say,	7:20
	"God is in action now, not an absentee being."	7:26
	This, too, became part of man's experience of God.	7:31
	And so the Church, seeking the formulae, as it were,	7:36
	have a minimum definition of what God is	7:40
	and what He is doing,	7:44
	they came to this triune assumption.	7:46
	Whatever else God is, He's much more than this,	7:49
	but He's not less than this.	7:51
	This is the iron ration of a Christian, as it were.	7:52
	God is Creator.	7:56
	God, as one who came and dwelt among us,	7:58
	God who is in action today,	8:02
	a living presence in His spirit.	8:05
	Now, if we had time to talk together tonight and I said,	8:09
	"What kind of a mental image do you carry	8:13
	"of God the Father?",	8:15
	I think you might be able to give me one.	8:17
	I think if I said to you,	8:21
	"What kind of image do you carry of Jesus,	8:22
	"the Son of God?", that would be easier.	8:26
	You'd see Him, splendid, matchless in His character,	8:29
	or on His cross or standing beside His empty tomb,	8:34
	radiant and glistening on Easter morning.	8:37
	You'd have your mental picture.	8:40
	God, the Holy Spirit.	8:42
	Why, God, the Holy Ghost.	8:45
	Why, the very word is (indistinct)	8:48
	and substantial, isn't it?	8:52
	Most of us find it much harder to carry	8:54
	relevant mental pictures and to know what we mean	8:58
	when we talk of God the Spirit.	9:02
	And yet,	9:06
	this faith in God,	9:08
	whose spirit is in action today,	9:10
	is of the very essence of the Christian religion.	9:13
	In my country, 95% of the people, by a Gallop poll,	9:18
	say they believe in God.	9:24
	I question whether 25% of them would really believe	9:27
	that God is a vivid reality now,	9:31
	someone to be taken account of in every day,	9:34
	somebody who impinges upon their life.	9:37
	They haven't just this picture of God the Spirit	9:41
	in action now.	9:45
	I dare claim that the real religious problem	9:49
	in lots of our minds	9:52
	is that we haven't any real understanding	9:54
	of an active God.	9:58
	I wonder, then, in the few moments I have,	10:02
	can I outline three or four ways in which I believe	10:05
	God the Spirit is in action today?	10:09
	Ways in which, if I may be a bit personal,	10:14
	I've discovered Him as my adventure.	10:17
	First of all, the New Testament makes the claim	10:21
	that God, through His spirit,	10:27
	is one who is the great creator.	10:31
	Now, we have had Christ upon our brow,	10:37
	the amazing crown of freedom.	10:42
	God always works within the limits of the freedom	10:45
	that He's given us.	10:50
	But within those limits, He works.	10:52
	His spirit is abroad in the Earth,	10:56
	within human consciousness,	11:00
	stimulating, suggesting, challenging, awakening, leading.	11:03
	God is the great preparer.	11:10
	You see, He has one characteristic	11:15
	that's denied to you and me.	11:18
	We have no interior access into the mind of another person,	11:20
	but the Holy Spirit has.	11:27
	He can enter our life,	11:31
	not to coerce and cajole,	11:33
	but to remind	11:37
	and to awaken	11:39
	and to challenge	11:41
	and to lead.	11:43
	God is the great preparer.	11:46
	Now, He's at work in the vast affairs of history	11:51
	as the great preparer.	11:56
	I wonder what explanation you give	11:59
	for the way in which, around the world,	12:03
	at certain times in history,	12:06
	ideas seemed to grip hosts of people's minds,	12:10
	movements come almost like the surge of an ocean.	12:16
	I wonder, could it be, that God is preparing	12:23
	for something He has for us?	12:28
	I wonder, for example,	12:31
	is the yearning that's expressed around the world today	12:34
	for freedom, political freedom, racial freedom,	12:38
	I wonder, is this rising up for freedom,	12:43
	I wonder, is it of God?	12:46
	I wonder, is He preparing for another great advance,	12:48
	another great gift of His spirit, when we're ready?	12:52
	And what is this	12:57
	cry from common people everywhere for peace?	12:59
	Is it the machinations of the commoners?	13:03
	What if it's God?	13:06
	What if it's God who's tired of man's war-making?	13:08
	And who is putting it into the common people of the Earth	13:13
	that they're beginning to hate war with a great hatred,	13:17
	so much so that no government now	13:20
	can ever go into a war and assume it has	13:23
	a united public opinion?	13:26
	God's divided public opinion.	13:28
	I believe He'll keep it divided.	13:31
	I believe His spirit is possibly preparing us	13:35
	for the great gift of world peace	13:39
	that He might have for us.	13:41
	Or economic justice,	13:45
	the rising of Asia.	13:47
	What if it's God who is preparing the Earth,	13:49
	preparing man for further great gifts of His love?	13:54
	For His love will allow	13:59
	in the turbulences of our time,	14:02
	the possibility that the Holy Spirit is at work.	14:05
	Certainly, He's at work in our own hearts.	14:11
	Have you had the experience where,	14:18
	perhaps looking back over a period of time,	14:20
	little things that have happened,	14:23
	the twists in your affairs here or there,	14:24
	suddenly, everything seems to fall into place,	14:27
	and you've reached a position or something's happened to you	14:31
	and all this seems to have prepared for it,	14:34
	but you didn't consciously prepare for it.	14:37
	But it's too sensible, it's too rational,	14:41
	it's too patterned to be chance.	14:43
	I suspect lots of us have had that kind of sense	14:48
	of somebody, as though it were a parent.	14:52
	You know, there's a magnificent illustration	14:56
	in the life of John Wesley,	14:58
	the founder of the Methodist Church.	14:59
	John Wesley was Oxford don,	15:02
	quietly going about his work as a scholar.	15:05
	To the surprise of his friends,	15:08
	he suddenly announced his resignation,	15:10
	said he was coming here to America	15:12
	to convert the red Indians.	15:13
	Privately, he said he was coming to save his own soul.	15:16
	He was a miserable failure in his task here.	15:19
	He got on ship to go back again,	15:21
	and halfway across the Atlantic,	15:23
	the ship ran into a terrific storm	15:25
	and it looked as though it was going to sink.	15:26
	Wesley found himself frightened to die.	15:28
	And in fear, he walked the boat.	15:32
	He noticed a number of other Christians from Arabia.	15:35
	Arabians from the heart of Germany.	15:38
	They were quietly going about their business.	15:41
	They were even heard singing at the height of the storm,	15:43
	completely without fear, seemingly, of death.	15:46
	And Wesley said, "What have they got that I haven't got?"	15:49
	He got to London and he went along to St. Paul's Cathedral.	15:54
	To his amazement,	15:56
	he heard the choir singing the 130th Psalm,	15:58
	"Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee."	16:02
	Remember, the word depths in the Bible	16:05
	is like our word, subconscious.	16:07
	"Out of the subconscious do I cry unto Thee.	16:08
	"Oh, Lord, hear my voice."	16:11
	It seemed to match his conviction.	16:14
	And then at a quarter to nine that night,	16:17
	he slipped into a little room	16:19
	in Oliver's Gate Street, London.	16:21
	And there, at quarter to nine of the clock,	16:22
	he said, "I felt my heart strangely warm toward God."	16:26
	And this little man, without literally to throw	16:31
	his leg across a horse,	16:33
	they sent out to change him.	16:35
	Looking back, he saw the meaning of	16:38
	the frustration and the disappointment,	16:40
	the stirring that came to him in Oxford,	16:42
	the sending of York and himself across to America,	16:45
	the happening on the boat,	16:47
	the strange word that came at St. Paul's Cathedral.	16:49
	He saw it as a pattern.	16:51
	God, who was preparing	16:54
	for a greater salvation than he'd had.	16:58
	"God is my adventure," said the Christian.	17:02
	And God is the great preparer.	17:06
	And God is the guide of us all.	17:13
	Do you remember how St. John's gospel talks of it so often,	17:17
	giving us these sentences again and again?	17:22
	The Holy Spirit and the Father will stand in my name,	17:25
	shall teach you all things.	17:29
	God is counselor and guide.	17:31
	The Spirit in action in each time of history.	17:35
	Why, Abraham setting out, not knowing where he was going.	17:41
	Men like Jerry Meyer bearing witness	17:46
	to the presence of God on his spirit,	17:48
	who come to people like Saul who became Paul the Christian.	17:53
	The evidence of God's counsel and guidance.	17:58
	You know how the Jewish people as a whole spoke of it	18:03
	as they wandered through desert,	18:06
	the cloud by day, the pillar of fire by night	18:07
	went before them to lead them.	18:10
	Their expression in symbolic terms of the guidance of God.	18:13
	God is a guide and a counselor.	18:19
	If we would recognize it, we'd perhaps be more sensitive	18:24
	to the gentle presence of His spirit that comes.	18:28
	We wouldn't dare make a vital decision in our life	18:31
	without reference to His great intelligence.	18:34
	We'd often, perhaps, be led to quiet, otherwise missed,	18:39
	if we were just obedient and we were listening.	18:48
	I'll give a very vivid experience in my own life.	18:51
	I have four little children,	18:56
	and Christmas before last,	18:59
	we went to an Australian seaside resort	19:03
	for Christmas vacation.	19:05
	And one rather windy, bleak afternoon,	19:07
	three boys, 11, seven and four years of age	19:12
	wanted to go for a swim.	19:16
	And so I took them down to the beach	19:18
	and to the rocks at the end of the beach	19:19
	where there's a big pool carved out of the rocks.	19:22
	We were only there alone where it was so cool,	19:25
	and others seemed to want to swim.	19:28
	And so we talked for awhile and then the elder boy said	19:30
	as we stood at the edge of the pool,	19:33
	"Daddy, I can swim the length of the pool.	19:36
	"Watch me."	19:37
	And so, he swam the length of the pool	19:39
	and I walked along the rocks beside him.	19:42
	He took quite the time,	19:44
	and when he got to the other end and we stopped and talked,	19:45
	and then I looked around.	19:48
	The youngest little fellow, Christopher, was gone.	19:50
	Something told me he was in the water, but where?	19:55
	I rushed back, panic-stricken,	19:59
	looked around where he might have gone in	20:02
	just down from the steps there.	20:04
	No sign of him.	20:05
	Whatever could one do?	20:07
	And then, just as clearly as I can indicate,	20:09
	a voice seemed to come.	20:12
	"There!"	20:13
	Away at the farthest end in the deepest part of the barge,	20:15
	I saw a little head just break the surface.	20:20
	I don't know	20:25
	whether it was the second, third time he was coming up,	20:26
	panicked running to him,	20:28
	or falling in and grabbing him,	20:29
	getting the water out of him, he was all right.	20:30
	Now you'll never convince me otherwise,	20:35
	it was the moment that best (indistinct),	20:38
	God, who is counselor and guide,	20:42
	said, "There!"	20:46
	And why not?	20:49
	God loves Christopher more than I do.	20:51
	He wants his life to find fulfillment, too.	20:55
	I'm convinced that in many of the situations of our lives,	21:01
	there is a guidance and there is a pressure.	21:05
	If man notices, God's with us.	21:10
	We're so often preoccupied,	21:13
	so often losing His voice against all the other voices.	21:16
	God is in action today	21:22
	as guide, as counselor.	21:25
	So then the New Testament gives us the promise	21:32
	that God is strengthener.	21:34
	When the Holy Spirit shall come,	21:38
	He shall be strengthener.	21:42
	This is our trust for the future.	21:46
	How many times do we look into the future	21:49
	and we're afraid?	21:51
	We're afraid because of a miscalculation.	21:53
	We imagine that that future,	21:57
	which may hold failed circumstances for us,	22:00
	testing circumstances, responsible circumstances,	22:03
	that that future will be faced	22:07
	in precisely the same strength that we posses now.	22:10
	We leave out of our calculations the powers of God,	22:15
	that at the moment of need,	22:19
	not before and not after, but at the moment of need,	22:21
	access of strength is available	22:26
	to him who has faith and obedience.	22:29
	There's a great story, you know, that came out the	22:33
	Nazi occupation of Holland during the war.	22:37
	In the Dutch Civil Service Department,	22:40
	the head of their department, a Christian man,	22:44
	one day received notice that the next day	22:46
	he would be obliged to dismiss anyone on his staff	22:49
	with Jewish blood in their veins.	22:54
	He thought about it that night	22:56
	and felt such discrimination	22:58
	on the basis of the blood a man is supposed to have	23:00
	in his veins	23:03
	was completely alien to his faith.	23:04
	Next morning, he entered	23:07
	and in front of his staff, having called them together,	23:08
	he tore up the instructions.	23:11
	And then he said this,	23:14
	"What my future will be, I know not.	23:15
	"But I know that when my strength gives way,	23:19
	"I may expect all strength	23:22
	"through Him that does not leave a man	23:25
	"in his greatest need."	23:27
	Almost before he finished, the door opened.	23:30
	The Gestapo took him away.	23:32
	He was never heard of again.	23:35
	The people who watched that incident	23:37
	and heard of his faith and courage,	23:39
	they were quite sure, as he said,	23:41
	when his faith, his strength gave away,	23:44
	all strength would be given	23:49
	by Him who does not fail a man in his greatest need.	23:51
	This our confidence in the future.	23:57
	God, at the moment of need,	24:00
	not before and not too late,	24:03
	you can not hoard it,	24:06
	you can not have any deep-freeze arrangements	24:07
	in relation to God,	24:09
	as you need, so you shall receive.	24:12
	God is (indistinct).	24:17
	But there's something else	24:23
	that this Holy Spirit does for us.	24:24
	He introduces us to Jesus Christ	24:29
	as our Savior and our Lord and our friend.	24:32
	You know, you can come to know Jesus Christ in two ways.	24:39
	You can know Him as a person of history,	24:46
	Jesus of Nazareth.	24:50
	You can also come to know Him as Christ,	24:54
	the living Lord and Savior,	24:58
	whose spirit is in the world today.	25:00
	Now, many of us never move from knowing Christ,	25:06
	the Jesus of history,	25:11
	to Christ as the Savior and living Lord in our lives.	25:13
	Although He remains with us in some measure,	25:19
	being of history, though, He's dead.	25:23
	His voice comes down through it	25:26
	because it was a great voice.	25:28
	His memory abides because He left an amazing memory.	25:29
	But, being of the past, He's dead.	25:33
	But there are many others who know Christ	25:39
	much more intimate in the immediate sense.	25:42
	He is somebody who is a companion of their way.	25:47
	He is, to the modern disciple,	25:51
	just as He was to Peter and James and John	25:54
	with the one exception that we modern disciples	25:57
	can't see with our critical eyes.	26:00
	In every other way, He is as He was then.	26:02
	That's the meaning of the Resurrection.	26:06
	It doesn't mean survival, it means victory.	26:08
	It means that this Christ takes His place in relation to us	26:12
	as a living fact of experience.	26:17
	But, oh, you say,	26:21
	how do you pass from knowing Jesus of history	26:22
	to knowing Christ, the Savior, in this world?	26:27
	Frankly, I don't know.	26:32
	But there's a great sentence in the Book of Corinthians	26:35
	that runs this way.	26:39
	"No man can say Jesus is Lord	26:41
	"except by the Holy Spirit."	26:46
	There's a great promise implied in that text.	26:51
	And if we may not know Jesus	26:55
	as more than a man of history,	26:58
	as Christ, as Lord,	26:59
	if we may not know Him by our explanations to each other,	27:01
	our groping attempts to tell at what He may mean	27:06
	from one to another,	27:09
	if we may not know Him, finally, that way,	27:11
	there is a way in which we are able to know Him.	27:15
	The Holy Spirit can reveal this mystery	27:19
	and lead us into this experience, not of Jesus of history,	27:24
	but Christ as Lord and Savior.	27:30
	This is the great Christian miracle of every century.	27:34
	Some of you know, at home in Australia,	27:41
	we've been engaged in what's been called	27:46
	the mission of the nation.	27:49
	In the last three years,	27:51
	I've seen thousands of people in our universities,	27:52
	in our factories, in our churches and our halls	27:57
	say that their lives have become assured	28:02
	as they passed from an awareness of Jesus of history	28:05
	to Christ as living Savior and Lord.	28:10
	But I think of a young radio announcer	28:13
	in the northern town of Bundaberg,	28:17
	agnostic, cynical to all the Christian faith.	28:19
	For a year, every week he had to present	28:22
	our great radio program to go across the country.	28:24
	Always, he smiled as he introduced it to his listeners.	28:28
	Last Easter, at the end of our play,	28:34
	in the quietness of his own studio,	28:38
	he told us about the gift the power of Christ	28:40
	made in his life.	28:44
	He's changed.	28:46
	He's coming to our church.	28:48
	He's passed our preacher's examination.	28:50
	He's a new man.	28:52
	Or I think of the woman at (indistinct)	28:56
	in the southern state of Queensland,	29:00
	who tells how her marriage arrived around despondency,	29:03
	reaching bottom.	29:08
	It was actually in her search of mixing poisons,	29:11
	she (indistinct).	29:16
	At least out her witness came this evidence,	29:18
	a radio playing hymns,	29:22
	with the discovery of another solution	29:24
	to her life's problems.	29:27
	She came to see me a month ago,	29:29
	and she has a (indistinct) association meeting	29:31
	this evening.	29:33
	Her marriage is all right.	29:35
	She's back in the church, her life straightened out.	29:37
	I know it was Christ the Savior at work.	29:41
	Or one other.	29:46
	We had a convention in Sydney,	29:47
	over 3,000 young people that came from all over the land.	29:49
	One of them was a young engineer,	29:52
	a graduate of Millman University.	29:54
	6'2", magnificent Australian.	29:55
	He'd been up in northern Australia,	29:59
	building a dam on the Atherton table lands,	30:01
	120 men under him as he planned that small dam.	30:03
	He came to our convention, and I don't know why he came.	30:07
	He said, "I'd given Christianity away.	30:09
	"I'd been brought up in a narrow, sectarian kind of home,	30:11
	"always being taught that to be a Christian	30:15
	"was to sign on the dotted line	30:17
	"for a few narrow intellectual propositions.	30:18
	"I'd given it away.	30:22
	"In the last year up there,	30:23
	"I lived the life of an escapist,	30:24
	"played endless tennis	30:26
	"and listened to endless gramophone records."	30:28
	And he said, "I came to this convention,	30:31
	"and one day, the thing clicked."	30:33
	He said, "I suddenly realized that to be a Christian	30:36
	"was not to be loyal to a set of intellectual propositions,	30:41
	"but to be loyal to a person,	30:47
	"a living person named Jesus Christ."	30:49
	He said, "I'm going back.	30:54
	"I won't live the life of an escapist."	30:55
	In the last year, I know he hasn't.	30:59
	He's counted on that table land in the north,	31:02
	and he's learned the great secret that Christ	31:07
	(mic scratching).	31:10
-	Oh, God, who has put a song in our hearts,	31:24
	we give Thee thanks for every voice that praises Thee,	31:28
	the author of all things good,	31:33
	for the sunlight which brings light to the world,	31:36
	for everything that grows	31:41
	and lifts its head towards Thy light,	31:44
	for the stars in their courses	31:48
	towards Thy light,	31:52
	for the stars in their courses	31:56
	proclaiming a divine hand in their order,	31:58
	for or the kindness in human hearts than can not be crushed,	32:03
	for the hopes which, though crushed,	32:10
	arise eternally towards better things,	32:14
	and for the deep down impulses of the soul	32:18
	which set towards Thee.	32:22
	We also offer our thanks to Thee this morning	32:26
	for the dedicated laymen of Thy church,	32:30
	for their unselfish giving of their time,	32:34
	talents and sustenance,	32:38
	for their leadership in church and church school,	32:41
	and for the examples which they set	32:45
	for their families and communities,	32:47
	we give Thee thanks.	32:50
	Above all,	32:54
	we thank Thee for the light of the world,	32:56
	our Savior, Jesus Christ,	32:59
	for the battle he fought and the victory he won,	33:02
	for His abiding presence in the world He loved,	33:07
	and for the promise that all races and kingdoms	33:11
	shall finally acknowledge Him as Lord and Savior.	33:15
	Oh, God,	33:21
	the shepherd of Thy people,	33:23
	we beseech Thee mercilessly to look upon Thy church,	33:26
	that by Thy great love and power,	33:33
	it may be delivered from evil	33:37
	and may enter into Thy service more and more.	33:40
	Save us from self-righteousness and self-contempt,	33:46
	and from the easy speech	33:51
	of those who are not doers of the Word	33:53
	but hearers only.	33:56
	Save it from concern with its own increase,	34:00
	rather than with the increase of justice,	34:04
	mercy and truth.	34:08
	Save it from the love of the glory that is of man,	34:12
	that it may not defer to wealth and power	34:17
	and so betray the welfare of the people.	34:23
	Save it from pride of race or class,	34:28
	less it dishonor Thee in contempt of our children,	34:32
	and hinder the work of Christ.	34:36
	Oh, renew Thy people with Thy truth and grace.	34:41
	We humbly beseech Thee	34:46
	that Thy church may fulfill its ancient mission	34:49
	to preach good news to the poor, the sinful,	34:53
	the despairing,	34:58
	to set at liberty those who are oppressed	35:00
	and to do all which may serve	35:04
	and set forward Thy blessed kingdom.	35:07
	Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.	35:11
	Bestowed upon him life, health, family and friends.	35:16
	Oh, there are too many for us to name.	35:23
	I, (indistinct) in teaching	35:27
	this quality is outreaching and bold,	35:33
	that it believes in the future,	35:37
	believes that every good life,	35:40
	like every good road, leads somewhere.	35:42
	The A stands for action.	35:46
	Action is that quality	35:53
	which believes in good works	35:58
	as well as good deeds,	35:59
	believes that we are to really be doers of the Word,	36:04
	instead of hearers only.	36:07
	N stands for now.	36:11
	Christians seek to live like Christ now,	36:14
	not tomorrow,	36:17
	for they know that spiritual procrastination	36:20
	is a vice and not a virtue.	36:25
	That is, putting off good deeds til tomorrow	36:28
	may cause the conscience not to know when tomorrow comes.	36:32
	So let me suggest that the next time you want to	36:39
	know how to tell a Christian or a non-Christian,	36:46
	to just think of these qualities which I pointed out to you,	36:52
	C for commitment,	36:57
	H for humility,	36:59
	R for righteousness,	37:01
	I for integrity,	37:03
	S for sharing,	37:05
	T for thanksgiving,	37:06
	I for intention,	37:08
	A for action,	37:10
	N for now.	37:12
	And just as it takes the same nine letters each time	37:13
	to spell this word,	37:18
	so it takes at least these nine qualities	37:20
	to make a Christian.	37:23
	Let's pray.	37:25
	Our Heavenly Father,	37:28
	give us the strength to live the best we know,	37:30
	and to be a follower of Christ.	37:36
	Amen.	37:40
	When you think of this word, Christian,	37:43
	that you analyze and think of each of these qualities,	37:46
	C for commitment,	37:51
	H for humility,	37:53
	R for righteousness,	37:55
	I for integrity,	37:57
	S for sharing,	37:59
	T for thanksgiving,	38:01
	I for intention,	38:03
	A for action,	38:05
	N for now.	38:06
	And just as it takes the same nine letters	38:09
	to spell this word each time,	38:12
	so it takes at least these same nine qualities	38:15
	to make a Christian.	38:20

Item Info

Title:

Alan Walker - Religion Emphasis Week (March 5, 1956)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r49023h12

Date:

March 5, 1956

Speaker:

Walker, Alan

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0021
ref5263_pu7
uachapelsermaud
duke:628008
dcrau002073
ark:/87924/r49023h12
e102d354-23b1-482e-8434-fe474b96c711

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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