Paul Hardin, Jr. - "Let the Redeemed Say So!" (November 15, 1959)
MP3
Loading the media player...
Transcript
- Download transcript as:
-
Text
-
PDF
-
WebVTT (includes timecodes)
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
| - | It is always a pleasure to come back to North Carolina. | 0:12 |
| One does not quickly forget 22 wonderful years spent | 0:17 | |
| in this fine state. | 0:23 | |
| It is pleasant too to come back to this pulpit, | 0:27 | |
| especially on the Dads' Day Sunday. | 0:32 | |
| I wonder if I am not the only father | 0:37 | |
| who has two sons at Duke, | 0:40 | |
| One teaching, the other in the Law school. | 0:43 | |
| I've had several happy visits to this pulpit. | 0:51 | |
| It was Dads' Day in 1948, | 0:56 | |
| Mothers' Day a little later, | 1:01 | |
| and now Dads' Day again. | 1:05 | |
| I would like to announce that I am rapidly qualifying | 1:10 | |
| for Grandfathers' day, if and when that day is celebrated. | 1:14 | |
| However, my visit here to preach | 1:24 | |
| the Commencement Sermon in 1952 stands out in my memory | 1:26 | |
| because of the unique intellectual appraisal | 1:34 | |
| of the graduating class, given by one of its members. | 1:38 | |
| Just prior to marching into this beautiful | 1:44 | |
| and magnificent chapel, | 1:49 | |
| I was talking to one of the seniors of the class of '52, | 1:51 | |
| and I said, "Jim, Tell me about your class. | 1:57 | |
| Are they smart?" | 2:02 | |
| "Well," he said, | 2:06 | |
| "they're just like the average senior class, I guess. | 2:07 | |
| Some of them are graduating magna cum laude | 2:11 | |
| and others 'Lawdy how cum'" | 2:14 | |
| (congregation laughs) | 2:16 | |
| I'm quite sure that the intellectual level | 2:23 | |
| of the seniors has risen since 1952. | 2:25 | |
| The 107th Psalm | 2:32 | |
| is a summons to thanksgiving, | 2:36 | |
| which makes it, I think a good psalm | 2:40 | |
| to consider in the month of November. | 2:44 | |
| The writer is reminding his readers of their debt to God. | 2:49 | |
| God has redeemed them from trouble. | 2:56 | |
| God has redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. | 3:01 | |
| God has brought them in from the east | 3:07 | |
| and from the west and from the north and from the south. | 3:09 | |
| "Let men," says the writer, | 3:14 | |
| "thank God for his goodness." | 3:18 | |
| Now to that, I would like to add a hearty and sincere | 3:23 | |
| Amen. | 3:30 | |
| You will remember that these psalms are really songs, | 3:33 | |
| songs that were sung in the temple. | 3:39 | |
| And I like the way the psalter ends. | 3:43 | |
| For the last four psalms or songs are songs of praise. | 3:46 | |
| The 107th and the 147th songs are alike, | 3:55 | |
| in that they very realistically list a number of reasons | 4:00 | |
| why the people of God should be thankful and happy. | 4:05 | |
| Indeed, why they should be enthusiastic. | 4:13 | |
| But a contrast that is, | 4:20 | |
| with much of the cold, formal, | 4:24 | |
| washed-out and faded and timid thing | 4:29 | |
| that we called religion today. | 4:33 | |
| Henry Sloane Coffin was right | 4:38 | |
| when he said that ours is an age that is wistful | 4:41 | |
| in matters of religion. | 4:46 | |
| We want something that we don't have. | 4:51 | |
| We feel the need of something | 4:58 | |
| that is left out of our personalities, | 5:02 | |
| our make-up, | 5:06 | |
| our lives. | 5:10 | |
| Christ never intended that a Christian should be wistful, | 5:13 | |
| He meant for us to be enthusiastic. | 5:21 | |
| In all honesty, I cannot blame a non-Christian | 5:26 | |
| for not being attracted to Christianity today. | 5:32 | |
| There are a number of valid reasons | 5:38 | |
| why he shouldn't be. | 5:42 | |
| For one thing, we are so very uncertain | 5:46 | |
| about what we believe. | 5:49 | |
| Especially is that true among protestants. | 5:53 | |
| The young woman who sat in my study not long ago | 5:58 | |
| and sought counsel, as she considered | 6:03 | |
| marrying a man who was of another faith | 6:06 | |
| was not unusual in her condition | 6:12 | |
| of not understanding or knowing | 6:19 | |
| what she was really supposed to believe as a protestant. | 6:22 | |
| Too many of our so-called Christian people today | 6:30 | |
| have no sincere, basic fundamental Christian belief. | 6:36 | |
| They are behaviorists. | 6:44 | |
| They are ethical, many of them. | 6:48 | |
| But they have had no deep religious experience. | 6:53 | |
| And they do not know Jesus Christ as a personal Savior. | 7:00 | |
| When Michael Faraday was facing death, | 7:08 | |
| Friends asked him, "what are your speculations?" | 7:11 | |
| "Speculations?" He said, "I have none, only certainties. | 7:17 | |
| I know whom I have believed | 7:23 | |
| and am persuaded that He is able to keep that | 7:27 | |
| which I have committed unto Him until that day." | 7:30 | |
| I can't blame an non-Christian | 7:36 | |
| for not being drawn to the Christian faith | 7:40 | |
| on the basis of the certainty | 7:45 | |
| of the average protestant church member. | 7:51 | |
| For the average protestant church member | 7:55 | |
| doesn't know what he or she believes. | 7:59 | |
| I cannot blame the non-Christian for being unattracted | 8:06 | |
| by the Christian faith today, when we consider | 8:11 | |
| that it seems to make so little different in our lives. | 8:14 | |
| The Christian businessman conducts his business, | 8:20 | |
| not according to the code of the Christian faith | 8:27 | |
| and religion, | 8:31 | |
| but according to the code that is existent | 8:33 | |
| in business circles in this day and age. | 8:36 | |
| The behavior of the average church member | 8:42 | |
| is no different on a weekday | 8:46 | |
| than the behavior of a respectable non-church member. | 8:49 | |
| Some several years ago, | 8:57 | |
| I was changing my shoes in the clubhouse | 8:58 | |
| at a golf course in Birmingham. | 9:01 | |
| While I was sitting there | 9:06 | |
| I listened to a foursome | 9:07 | |
| that had just come in off the 18th hole by way of the 19th, | 9:09 | |
| and one of them was doing most of the talking | 9:17 | |
| and every breath he drew, | 9:21 | |
| he profane the name of God and of Christ. | 9:24 | |
| Finally, I could stand it no longer. | 9:30 | |
| I just walked over to where he was | 9:34 | |
| and I tapped him on the shoulder. | 9:36 | |
| And I said, "I want to invite you to church." | 9:37 | |
| He looked up at me in a rather startle way. | 9:42 | |
| He said, "What are you, a preacher?" | 9:45 | |
| I said, "Yes, I'm a preacher." | 9:47 | |
| "Where do you preach?" | 9:50 | |
| I said, "I'm pastor of the First Methodist church, | 9:52 | |
| here in the city." | 9:54 | |
| "Why," He says "I'm a Methodist!" | 9:55 | |
| And I hope God will forgive me | 10:05 | |
| when I said under my breath, | 10:07 | |
| "Thank God you don't belong to me personally." | 10:09 | |
| A seeker once said to Pascal, | 10:18 | |
| "If I had your creed, I could live your life." | 10:21 | |
| And Pascal said in reply, | 10:26 | |
| "If you would live my life, you would have my creed." | 10:29 | |
| Non-Christians will never be drawn | 10:36 | |
| into the Christian faith | 10:38 | |
| on the basis of the living | 10:41 | |
| of the average church member today. | 10:44 | |
| Furthermore, we seem to care so little | 10:50 | |
| about giving it to others. | 10:52 | |
| The early Christians were enthusiastic | 10:58 | |
| in their desire to share their faith with non-believers. | 11:02 | |
| They went out and testified | 11:10 | |
| to the saving grace of Jesus Christ, | 11:14 | |
| and to the fact that faith in Christ | 11:18 | |
| and forgiveness of sin through that faith | 11:22 | |
| changed the man and made him a different, | 11:25 | |
| a new creature in Christ Jesus. | 11:28 | |
| When life and faith are blended, | 11:35 | |
| we speak for God. | 11:41 | |
| Then too, we are so lacking in enthusiasm | 11:45 | |
| when we do speak of religion or discussing. | 11:49 | |
| I am indebted to Dr. Harold Bosley, | 11:54 | |
| one-time Dean of this Divinity school | 11:56 | |
| for reminding me that the word enthusiasm | 12:00 | |
| has a religious origin. | 12:03 | |
| It was actually born of religious ceremony | 12:06 | |
| and fervor in ancient Greece. | 12:09 | |
| The Greeks had a name for it. | 12:12 | |
| After days of celebration, festival, drama and sacrifices | 12:17 | |
| the Greeks felt tremendous joy | 12:21 | |
| and they actually gave us two words, | 12:25 | |
| Enthusiasm, meaning God within | 12:29 | |
| and inspiration, meaning spirit within. | 12:34 | |
| We would certainly coin no such words | 12:41 | |
| from the average spiritual experience of today. | 12:45 | |
| The tragedy of that thing is | 12:51 | |
| that we do cherish and covet | 12:55 | |
| what we so vaguely call the American way of life, | 12:58 | |
| not knowing that the roots of that American way of life | 13:03 | |
| sink deeply into the soil of religious faith and conviction. | 13:12 | |
| Dr. Roy L. Smith was right when he said that | 13:21 | |
| four things that the Jews believed are believed | 13:24 | |
| by the true Christian, | 13:28 | |
| and out of those four things come our democracy | 13:30 | |
| and our so-called American way of life. | 13:35 | |
| First, that this is a theocentric world | 13:40 | |
| that God is in the center of it. | 13:43 | |
| Next, that humanity is divine. | 13:46 | |
| Next, that the individual is sacred. | 13:49 | |
| And finally, the consent of the governed, | 13:52 | |
| that you cannot have good government | 13:57 | |
| unless those who seek to govern have the consent | 14:00 | |
| to those who are to be governed. | 14:05 | |
| The tragic thing when the American people | 14:09 | |
| ignore and neglect | 14:15 | |
| the soil from which their democracy, | 14:19 | |
| their concept of the rights of people | 14:24 | |
| and individuals, rose. | 14:27 | |
| Actually our situation reminds me of a very sad experience, | 14:33 | |
| an incident of olden times. | 14:40 | |
| You find it in 137th Psalm. | 14:43 | |
| When the writer of the song cries out plaintively, | 14:46 | |
| "How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" | 14:51 | |
| He will remember of course, that the children of Israel, | 14:58 | |
| many of them, are in bondage in Babylon. | 15:02 | |
| And they find it very hard | 15:07 | |
| to keep up their religious practices | 15:09 | |
| and their religious faith in a foreign country. | 15:11 | |
| They're ready to hang their harps on the willow trees. | 15:17 | |
| They find it hard to sing the Lord's song in a strange land. | 15:22 | |
| It is most fitting, I think, | 15:30 | |
| that many people should ask that question today. | 15:32 | |
| How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? | 15:39 | |
| How can we sing the Lord's song | 15:46 | |
| in the strange land of science? | 15:48 | |
| This is a world today, | 15:54 | |
| and ours is a nation today, | 15:56 | |
| in which science is pre-eminent. | 15:59 | |
| Ever since Sputnik flared into the sky | 16:04 | |
| there has been a mad race, | 16:09 | |
| in the realm and world of science. | 16:13 | |
| We have the Redstone Arsenal in a Alabama. | 16:18 | |
| The most important man perhaps in Alabama today | 16:24 | |
| is Dr. Wernher von Braun. | 16:26 | |
| Incidentally He is a very charming | 16:30 | |
| and a very gracious man of Christian faith. | 16:32 | |
| But science is our God. | 16:36 | |
| John Sutherland Bonnell | 16:40 | |
| tells us that a young student was so scientifically minded | 16:43 | |
| that as he whispered his endearments in his girl's ear, | 16:47 | |
| he kept his finger on her pulse to test her reactions. | 16:52 | |
| That may be the scientific method, but believe me, | 17:01 | |
| it leaves much to be desired. | 17:05 | |
| (congregation laughs) | 17:08 | |
| (clears throat) | 17:09 | |
| How can we sing the Lord's song | 17:13 | |
| in the strange land of statism and totalitarianism? | 17:17 | |
| Where you have a direct contrast | 17:24 | |
| between Christianity and Communism. | 17:27 | |
| Christianity. | 17:31 | |
| In Christianity, we live for God and for our fellow man, | 17:34 | |
| Man is born for the glory of God | 17:41 | |
| and for the service of mankind. | 17:44 | |
| Nearly every Sunday morning, | 17:48 | |
| from one to two or three little babies | 17:51 | |
| are presented to me for dedication | 17:53 | |
| and Christian baptism before the alter of the church. | 17:56 | |
| My congregation loves to see that service | 18:01 | |
| and frequently some of our young babies | 18:05 | |
| broadcast over radio at a very tender age. | 18:10 | |
| I understand that the Communists now have worked out | 18:16 | |
| some sort of a dedicatory service for babies. | 18:20 | |
| That they are now having a dedicatory service | 18:26 | |
| as they dedicate their babies to the state. | 18:29 | |
| How can we sing the Lord's song | 18:37 | |
| in the strange land of statism? | 18:40 | |
| How can we sing the Lord's song in the strange land | 18:47 | |
| of alien customs and crass materialism? | 18:50 | |
| That isn't easy. | 18:55 | |
| Some of you have read a book which has recently come out, | 18:58 | |
| written by Vance Packard called "The Status Seekers". | 19:03 | |
| Coming up here, Mrs. Hardin and I | 19:09 | |
| were alternating in the driving, | 19:11 | |
| and the person who wasn't driving | 19:15 | |
| would read loud from that book. | 19:17 | |
| It's a frightening thing. | 19:21 | |
| It's a disturbing thing. | 19:24 | |
| The whole thesis of the book is that all over our land | 19:28 | |
| people are status conscious. | 19:32 | |
| Here is a calling, a profession, a vocation, | 19:36 | |
| which ranks higher than another, | 19:41 | |
| and people seek to increase or elevate their status | 19:43 | |
| or standing in the community. | 19:48 | |
| He points out that in great companies | 19:53 | |
| you can tell the status or position of various men | 19:56 | |
| who work for that company | 20:00 | |
| by the automobile which they drive. | 20:02 | |
| Men on the lowest levels drive Chevrolets and Fords | 20:06 | |
| and Plymouths, with nothing but a heater. | 20:11 | |
| A little higher in the status scale, | 20:16 | |
| they have the better make or model of cars, | 20:19 | |
| with radios and power steering. | 20:23 | |
| And then you move on up, | 20:27 | |
| through the various fields or grades of automobiles, | 20:28 | |
| and top executives can drive Cadillacs, | 20:33 | |
| within the 51 to $5,200 scale or range. | 20:37 | |
| And the top executive can drive the best. | 20:42 | |
| He's at the top. | 20:47 | |
| I'm thinking seriously of suing that fellow. | 20:51 | |
| Until she read it in that book, | 20:56 | |
| my wife did not know that the only minister | 20:58 | |
| who had status in the community was the Episcopal rector. | 21:02 | |
| (congregation laughs) | 21:06 | |
| How can we sing the Lord's song in the strange land | 21:15 | |
| of crass materialism? | 21:20 | |
| How can we sing the Lord's song | 21:23 | |
| in the strange land of alien customs? | 21:25 | |
| Customs that is, that are alien | 21:29 | |
| to our Christian faith and practice. | 21:32 | |
| Just about the time that | 21:38 | |
| The Duke of Windsor was about to become the Duke of Windsor | 21:42 | |
| and no longer the King of England. | 21:45 | |
| The Archbishop of Canterbury said something | 21:49 | |
| about the International Set, | 21:52 | |
| with which the Duke and the Duchess | 21:55 | |
| were running at that time. | 21:58 | |
| Some of you will recall that he said, | 22:01 | |
| "Their ways are not our ways." | 22:04 | |
| That can also be said of many of the social practices | 22:11 | |
| and customs of the day, | 22:15 | |
| and we stopped to think that they are not the ways | 22:18 | |
| of devout Christian believers. | 22:21 | |
| It used to be, when I was a boy, | 22:26 | |
| That non-church members dared do nothing | 22:29 | |
| that would offend the church members. | 22:33 | |
| Nowadays, I'm sorry to say that all too often | 22:38 | |
| it seems to me that church members dare do nothing | 22:42 | |
| that would offend the social practices and customs | 22:47 | |
| of their communities, regardless of what their | 22:50 | |
| Christian faith has say to them about those practices. | 22:53 | |
| How can we sing the Lord's song | 23:02 | |
| in the strange land of alien customs? | 23:06 | |
| Christians can say that or ask that today. | 23:14 | |
| The tragedy is that we have left | 23:21 | |
| our familiar land of religion | 23:23 | |
| and are not satisfied | 23:27 | |
| with the strange lands into which we have moved. | 23:31 | |
| I think one of the most tragic things | 23:37 | |
| that I have seen in the newspapers recently | 23:38 | |
| was this story of the man from America, | 23:42 | |
| who not long ago, openly and publicly disavowed | 23:44 | |
| his American citizenship, renounced it | 23:48 | |
| and wanted to be a citizen of Russia. | 23:51 | |
| And within 24 hours | 23:55 | |
| after he had made that drastic decision | 23:58 | |
| and taken that fearful step, he wanted backed into America. | 24:02 | |
| What a tragic thing when so-called religious people | 24:12 | |
| grow ashamed of their religious convictions | 24:16 | |
| and their religious faith. | 24:19 | |
| Give them up, to take up the customs | 24:22 | |
| and traditions of these strange new modern lands | 24:25 | |
| into which so many of us have moved. | 24:29 | |
| And then having moved into those lands, | 24:32 | |
| and missing the homeland of Christian faith, | 24:36 | |
| they grow wistful and long to be at home again. | 24:40 | |
| If we don't sing a song of Christian faith | 24:52 | |
| with great enthusiasm, it's because we have no song to sing. | 24:54 | |
| The song, if we had it, | 25:01 | |
| is in here inside us. | 25:04 | |
| But we restrain ourselves from enjoyment and enthusiasm. | 25:08 | |
| Somebody might think that we are really religious | 25:15 | |
| and that would be tragic. | 25:20 | |
| In America, the Methodist Church | 25:24 | |
| to which I belong grew leaps and bounds as it rode the crest | 25:27 | |
| of a self-created wave of religious enthusiasm. | 25:33 | |
| What has happened to many Methodists today? | 25:41 | |
| You can answer that as well as I. | 25:46 | |
| Many of you are familiar, | 25:48 | |
| I'm sure with Bishop Roy's short story of The church | 25:49 | |
| that had become very formal and ritualistic | 25:54 | |
| and somewhat cold in the process. | 25:57 | |
| And they were attracting the right kind of members, | 26:01 | |
| you know now, in the right section of the city, | 26:03 | |
| with the right status. | 26:08 | |
| But they had one fellow in the church | 26:12 | |
| that just about the time this beautiful service | 26:14 | |
| was reaching its climax of magnificence, beauty, and appeal, | 26:18 | |
| this old boy would shout. | 26:24 | |
| Well, they did what every church does in an emergency. | 26:29 | |
| They appointed a committee to go talk to him about it. | 26:32 | |
| Committee went down to where the old man lived | 26:38 | |
| and they found him down in the cornfield | 26:41 | |
| back of the house, plowing corn. | 26:44 | |
| So they waited till he got to the end of a row, | 26:47 | |
| and they said, "Now, Mr. So and so, | 26:50 | |
| we'd like to talk to you just a minute." | 26:52 | |
| He said, "Gentlemen, I'm delighted to see you." | 26:54 | |
| And they said, "You know, our church | 26:57 | |
| has gone through some changes recently. | 27:00 | |
| We have a far more beautiful service now | 27:05 | |
| and we are attracting the kind of members we want | 27:08 | |
| in our church and everything is going beautifully. | 27:10 | |
| We have a very wonderful minister, gifted and eloquent | 27:15 | |
| and things are just going along fine. | 27:19 | |
| But every once in a while, you break into a shout | 27:21 | |
| and that disturbs people. | 27:23 | |
| And we've been a part of the committee to come down | 27:27 | |
| and ask you if you will stop it." | 27:29 | |
| Old man said, "Yes, gentlemen, I'll try to stop." | 27:33 | |
| He said, "I know I shouldn't do it. | 27:36 | |
| I'm sure it disturbs people." | 27:38 | |
| But he said, "When I look at these old dusty shoes of mine | 27:41 | |
| and know that someday I'm going to wear gold slipper, | 27:44 | |
| I look at these old worn-out clothes of mine | 27:49 | |
| and know that someday I'm going to wear a long white robe. | 27:52 | |
| And I look at this old battered and beaten hat of mine | 27:57 | |
| and know that someday I'm going to wear a starry crown, | 28:00 | |
| here one of you fellows hold this mule, | 28:04 | |
| I'm gonna shout right now!" | 28:06 | |
| What has come over us? | 28:15 | |
| I'm not pleading for shouting. | 28:17 | |
| But I am pleading for enthusiasm in our faith. | 28:21 | |
| Are there not thousands of us who have been redeemed | 28:29 | |
| through faith in Christ? | 28:32 | |
| Then let the redeemed of the Lord say so. | 28:37 | |
| Let the redeem say so by word of mouth. | 28:44 | |
| Speak up for God. | 28:49 | |
| Don't be ashamed of your religious faith | 28:52 | |
| and of your religious convictions. | 28:55 | |
| Your country was built upon that foundation. | 28:57 | |
| Let the redeem say so by the way we live | 29:03 | |
| honestly, soberly, | 29:06 | |
| constructively, ethically, if you please, | 29:08 | |
| but always in a way that is compatible | 29:11 | |
| with Christian preaching and Christian teaching. | 29:15 | |
| Let the redeemed of the Lord say so by the way we love, | 29:20 | |
| unselfishly, purely. | 29:25 | |
| Let the redeem the Lord say so | 29:31 | |
| by the way we serve and give, | 29:33 | |
| because we enthusiastically believe | 29:37 | |
| that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. | 29:41 | |
| Of course things aren't rosy. | 29:47 | |
| But that doesn't discourage the true Christian. | 29:52 | |
| William L. Sullivan says | 29:58 | |
| that the Christian religion has deposited | 29:59 | |
| upon the alter of wisdom. | 30:02 | |
| The most profound and most beautiful | 30:05 | |
| set of paradoxes ever laid there. | 30:10 | |
| Defeat with lips to the bugle of victory. | 30:16 | |
| Hopelessness, burning with expectation. | 30:23 | |
| Sadness, radiant with love. | 30:30 | |
| Darkness, dazzled with mourning. | 30:35 | |
| Death, shaken with the song of immortality. | 30:42 | |
| Let redeemed the Lord say so. | 30:50 | |
| O Lord our heavenly Father, | 31:06 | |
| Thou who hast redeemed us | 31:10 | |
| through the death of Thy Son, | 31:13 | |
| have mercy upon us, we pray thee. | 31:17 | |
| That we have grown so cold and so indifferent. | 31:21 | |
| Renew right spirits within us. | 31:26 | |
| And help us, we prey thee to reflect | 31:30 | |
| in our speech, in our living, | 31:33 | |
| in our loving, in our giving, | 31:36 | |
| and in our serving, | 31:38 | |
| the gratitude, which we feel toward thee. | 31:41 | |
| The Lord bless you and keep you. | 31:51 | |
| The Lord make His face to shine upon you. | 31:55 | |
| The Lord lift up his countenance upon you, | 32:01 | |
| and give you peace now and forevermore. | 32:04 |
