G. Henton Davies - "The Greatest Text in the Bible" (May 18, 1969)

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	(slow organ hymn starts)	0:57
	(slow organ hymn continues)	1:10
	(slow organ hymn continues)	1:25
	(slow organ hymn continues)	1:39
	(slow organ hymn continues)	2:02
	(slow organ hymn continues)	2:30
	(slow organ hymn continues)	3:01
	(slow organ hymn continues)	3:35
	(choir sings hymn)	4:03
	(choir hymn singing continues)	4:32
-	We love it not as a perfunctory matter at all,	5:03
	but as something which we need to do.	5:06
	May we unite our hearts	5:11
	and our voices in our prayer of confession	5:13
	and for pardon.	5:17
	Let us pray.	5:18
	Oh most merciful Father,	5:20
	who will is not the death of any sinner	5:23
	but rather that he should return	5:26
	onto thee and be saved.	5:28
	Comfort us who are aggrieved	5:31
	by the weight of our sins.	5:32
	We confess to thee that we have been slow	5:35
	to believe the good news made known in Jesus Christ.	5:38
	We confess that like the disciples of old,	5:42
	we have not expected great things to happen to us.	5:45
	We have doubted the power	5:50
	of Christ's resurrection in our lives.	5:51
	Forgive us for believing	5:54
	that the triumph of right	5:56
	is too good to be true.	5:58
	Restore us through thy pardoning grace	6:00
	to a childlike faith.	6:04
	We pray in Jesus' name.	6:06
	Amen.	6:09
	Now let us hear the words of scripture,	6:13
	which certainly are comforting to all mankind.	6:15
	"God so loved the world,	6:21
	that He gave His only begotten Son	6:23
	and whoever believeth on Him,	6:27
	should not perish,	6:29
	but have everlasting life."	6:31
	Amen.	6:34
	(choir sings slow hymn)	7:16
	(slow hymn singing continues)	7:36
	(slow hymn singing continues)	7:59
	(slow hymn singing continues)	8:27
	(slow hymn singing continues)	9:02
	(slow hymn singing continues)	9:30
	(slow hymn singing continues)	10:00
	(slow hymn singing continues)	10:37
	(woman coughs)	11:13
-	The lesson is written in the 1 Corinthians 15.	11:17
	"Now I would remind you brethren,	11:23
	in what terms I preach to you the gospel,	11:24
	which you received, in which you stand,	11:28
	by which you are saved,	11:30
	if you hold it fast,	11:32
	unless you believed in vain.	11:33
	For I delivered to you as a first importance,	11:36
	what I also received,	11:38
	that Christ died for our sins	11:41
	in accordance with the scriptures,	11:42
	that He was buried,	11:46
	that He was raised on the third day	11:47
	in accordance with the scriptures	11:48
	and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the 12.	11:51
	Then He appeared to more	11:54
	than 500 brethren at one time,	11:55
	most of whom are still alive,	11:57
	though some have fallen asleep.	11:59
	Then He appeared to James,	12:02
	then to all the apostles.	12:03
	Last of all, as to one untimely born,	12:06
	He also appeared to me.	12:08
	For I am the least of the apostles,	12:11
	unfit to be called an apostle,	12:13
	because I persecuted the church of God.	12:14
	But by the grace of God, I am what I am,	12:18
	and His grace toward me was not in vain.	12:21
	On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them,	12:24
	though it was not I,	12:28
	but the grace of God which is with me.	12:29
	Whether then it was I or they,	12:33
	so we preach and so you believed.	12:35
	Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead,	12:39
	how can some of you say that	12:42
	there is no resurrection of the dead?	12:43
	But if there is no resurrection of the dead,	12:46
	then Christ has not been raised;	12:48
	if Christ has not been raised,	12:51
	then our preaching is in vain	12:53
	and your faith is in vain.	12:55
	We are even found to be misrepresenting God,	12:58
	because we testified of God	13:01
	that He raised Christ,	13:03
	whom He did not raise if it is true	13:05
	that the dead are not raised.	13:06
	For if the dead are not raised,	13:09
	then Christ has not been raised.	13:11
	If Christ has not been raised,	13:14
	your faith is futile	13:16
	and you are still in your sins."	13:17
	Here ends the lesson.	13:20
	(slow organ hymn continues)	13:23
	(choir sings slow organ hymn)	13:30
	(singing of hymn continues)	13:51
	(slow organ hymn continues)	14:01
-	The Lord be with you.	14:12
	(congregation chatter)	14:14
	Let us pray.	14:15
	All mighty God, our heavenly Father.	14:27
	We now pause,	14:31
	fix our attention upon thee,	14:34
	to return thanks to thee,	14:37
	who are the giver of every good and perfect gift.	14:39
	We are grateful to thee,	14:45
	for this community of learning	14:47
	of which we are a part.	14:49
	We thank thee for students,	14:52
	we thank thee for teachers.	14:55
	We thank thee for administrators	14:58
	or maintenance people	15:02
	or trustees	15:05
	or people who give us money,	15:07
	so that we can operate.	15:09
	We are mindful of those who have gone before us,	15:13
	on whose labors we have built,	15:16
	who now rest from their labors.	15:20
	We pray for those whose hands are presently	15:24
	upon the plow of learning.	15:26
	For those who are engaged in examinations,	15:30
	for those who grade examinations,	15:36
	for parents who have rared us	15:41
	and who even now support us.	15:43
	We thank thee for the opportunities	15:47
	we have in this chapel to worship	15:49
	with our brothers and sisters in Christ,	15:51
	neither asking nor caring about denomination	15:54
	or creed or race or nation.	15:58
	We are mindful oh God that as we worship here,	16:03
	we are not alone,	16:08
	that throughout all the continents of the earth,	16:11
	there are many others who joined	16:13
	their hearts in praise to Jesus Christ.	16:15
	Whether in the jungles,	16:19
	whether in little chapels,	16:21
	in great churches,	16:24
	on hospital beds,	16:26
	in solitary places,	16:29
	in circumstances, which thou does know and see.	16:32
	Our heavenly Father, we offer our prayers	16:39
	of intercession for all thy children,	16:41
	both for those who call us brother	16:44
	and for those who call us enemy, around the earth.	16:47
	We pray especially for those who call us enemy	16:51
	and for those whom we call enemies,	16:55
	enable all of us to draw Christ's line of distinction	16:59
	between the sin and the sinner,	17:04
	realizing that we all are sinners,	17:07
	that our own hope for forgiveness	17:10
	or redemption rests upon	17:13
	our willingness to forgive others.	17:15
	We offer our intercessions for students	17:21
	who find current events confusing,	17:24
	that they may find the information,	17:27
	sense of direction and the tranquility needed	17:30
	to discover a path out of their confusion.	17:32
	We pray for those who find the Bible confusing	17:37
	that they may by study and by prayer,	17:41
	discover the eternal words speaking to them	17:44
	out of the bewildering array of books	17:46
	and that they may supremely discover	17:51
	the word made flesh in Jesus Christ, our Lord.	17:53
	And we pray thee, that we may all hear	17:59
	and see the living word in our time	18:02
	and in our place.	18:06
	Oh God, we offer our prayers for the sick,	18:11
	for the crippled,	18:15
	for the bereaved,	18:17
	for those who are chronically ill,	18:19
	for those who are about to die.	18:22
	We pray for the lonely,	18:26
	the bitter,	18:29
	the recalcitrant,	18:31
	the reactionary,	18:33
	the rude,	18:36
	those who are stubborn,	18:39
	those who are prejudiced.	18:41
	We pray for all who brings healing	18:45
	into situations like this.	18:47
	Nurses, Physicians,	18:50
	Surgeons,	18:53
	Editors,	18:55
	Pastors,	18:57
	Scholars,	18:58
	Reformers,	19:00
	Social workers,	19:02
	Professors.	19:05
	We pray for those who bear the burdens	19:09
	of responsibility in the heat of the day	19:11
	and in the wee hours of the night.	19:14
	For maintenance man,	19:17
	dining hall workers,	19:21
	Painters, Plumbers, Secretaries,	19:24
	Accountants, and Clerks.	19:28
	Grant that we may all heed in his own way,	19:32
	seek after thy will and grace	19:37
	and find it.	19:40
	Together may we grow our way through worship,	19:43
	through study, through argument, through action,	19:46
	through service, through humility,	19:50
	to thy perfect kingdom.	19:55
	We make our prayer through Jesus Christ, our Lord,	19:59
	who has taught us whenever we pray together	20:02
	to say, "Our Father who art in heaven,	20:05
	hallowed be thy name,	20:10
	thy kingdom come,	20:12
	thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.	20:14
	Give us this day, our daily bread	20:18
	and forgive us our trespasses,	20:21
	as we forgive those who trespass against us	20:24
	and lead us not into temptation,	20:27
	but deliver us from evil,	20:30
	for thine is the kingdom	20:32
	and the power and the glory forever.	20:34
	Amen."	20:37
	It was my very great privilege in 1958	20:52
	to share one hour of worship	20:57
	in this chapel.	21:02
	An hour of worship, memorable and glorious,	21:04
	and for the repetition of which I have long desired.	21:09
	I, therefore counted the very great privilege	21:15
	and honor to be allowed to speak	21:17
	in this beautiful chapel	21:20
	and to share in this worship today.	21:23
	I have chosen as the theme,	21:27
	the greatest texts in the Bible.	21:31
	Although of course, I am not sure	21:35
	whether we should agree about that.	21:37
	Perhaps you will turn your mind to that question.	21:41
	While I tell you something about the pilgrimage,	21:45
	which has brought me to what I think	21:50
	and believe is the final definition of the text.	21:54
	More than 40 years ago,	22:00
	I thought that the greatest	22:02
	and most wonderful text in the Bible	22:04
	was the text that brought me to the kingdom of God.	22:06
	One Sunday night in a church in Cambridge, in England.	22:12
	When I was a school boy,	22:17
	the Minister then preached on the words	22:21
	in the book of Revelation.	22:23
	"Behold, I stand at the door and knock;	22:26
	if any man hear my voice and open the door,	22:30
	I will come in unto him and will sup with him,	22:33
	and he with me."	22:37
	That night I believe	22:41
	the door of the kingdom of God was open to me.	22:45
	I'm born by that text,	22:50
	I am.	22:53
	So, you may imagine	22:55
	the charm and the power	22:58
	of that text	23:01
	in the inauguration of my Christian life.	23:04
	When later I was in seminary	23:10
	and fell under the spell	23:13
	of a very great British scholar called Dr. Wheeler Robinson.	23:15
	It was a wonderful experience	23:21
	in the weekly communion service in the seminary	23:22
	to find them repeat this text without fail.	23:26
	And so through the years it has nourished me,	23:32
	as well as in the first place,	23:37
	launching me into the kingdom.	23:40
	But as time went on, of course,	23:45
	I began to have a deeper understanding	23:48
	of the Christian experience and the Christian faith	23:50
	and my mind inevitably turned to a text	23:56
	which was fuller and deeper and more comprehensive.	24:00
	I began to realize that there was a text	24:07
	which we used in every service of worship in England.	24:09
	It was a text that I inevitably	24:15
	and invariably was called upon to pronounce	24:18
	in every Christian act of worship.	24:22
	And no doubt here in the States,	24:26
	it has its same place and same function.	24:29
	At the end of his correspondence	24:35
	with the Corinthians,	24:38
	the apostle Paul	24:42
	sums up	24:44
	the whole of his message	24:47
	in those words that are so well known to us,	24:50
	the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ	24:55
	and the love of God, our Father,	24:59
	and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,	25:03
	the comforter, be with us all.	25:05
	And for a long time,	25:10
	for many, many years,	25:14
	this text became the comprehensive theme	25:16
	of my preaching.	25:21
	For I discovered in it not merely a summary	25:24
	of Paul's correspondence with Corinths,	25:27
	and not only	25:33
	a summary of Paul's understanding	25:36
	of the whole of the Christian gospel.	25:39
	But I found in it,	25:44
	as summary of the gospel itself.	25:46
	The great words are in the text, aren't they?	25:50
	The word 'Grace',	25:54
	which is the whole mark of Christianity	25:57
	and the word 'Love', though much debased in our day,	26:02
	and the fellowship of the Spirit.	26:09
	The characteristic note of worship	26:12
	in the New Testament to be set along side	26:14
	of that theme of adoration,	26:18
	so characteristic of the Old Testament.	26:21
	It does one good just to hear the words, doesn't it?	26:26
	To delight in them and to dwell upon them,	26:31
	the grace	26:36
	and the love	26:39
	and the fellowship,	26:41
	this Trinity of Christian emotion	26:44
	and experience	26:49
	and delight,	26:51
	qualities which we know in our own hearts	26:55
	and discover in God's dealings with us	27:00
	and tastes in Christian experiences of all kinds.	27:04
	And not only is it a word	27:10
	that is full of rich vocabulary,	27:12
	all the Christian family is there, aren't they?	27:14
	The Son of God,	27:22
	Jesus Christ,	27:25
	the Master,	27:28
	the Lord of life,	27:31
	the Prince of glory,	27:34
	and the Father is there.	27:39
	Our creator	27:42
	and our destiny	27:45
	and the Holy Spirit is there,	27:49
	whose festival we shall celebrate in one week's time.	27:54
	We must set this verse, of course,	28:04
	against the experience of Paul	28:06
	up until the Damascus road.	28:10
	In the manner of speaking,	28:14
	Saint Paul had a Unitarian faith,	28:15
	a staunch monotheistic rigidity,	28:19
	but the experience of the Damascus road,	28:24
	where the persecuted Lord confronted him,	28:27
	disrupted and	28:31
	disbanded his Unitarianism.	28:33
	And so in this great text,	28:37
	the apostolic benediction, as we call it,	28:40
	we find Paul setting forth the gospel	28:43
	in the chronological order,	28:46
	in which it touch down in his own self.	28:49
	He was confronted by it,	28:54
	the claim and the command of Jesus Christ.	28:56
	And this is where it all begins	29:02
	for most of us, isn't it?	29:04
	Whether it comes by call	29:07
	or whether it comes by comfort,	29:10
	some day or other He steps across our path.	29:14
	And we know that we have reached the arc,	29:18
	in His presence	29:22
	and in His chapel.	29:25
	And then Paul	29:28
	so confronted	29:30
	has to set this new	29:33
	and astonishing and devastating experience	29:36
	within his	29:41
	concept	29:43
	and knowledge	29:45
	of the old Jehovah God of Israel,	29:47
	only to find that concept enlarged	29:50
	and enriched, in the fullness of Christian love	29:56
	and forgiveness and salvation.	30:01
	And then Paul coming to the solution	30:06
	of the Jesus who claims	30:10
	to be present in the world	30:13
	and is yet at the right hand	30:15
	of the Majesty on high.	30:17
	Finding the solution of that polarity	30:19
	and that separation in the experience	30:23
	of the Holy Spirit,	30:26
	shared abroad in the heart	30:28
	of the Christian church.	30:31
	And thus it was for a very long time.	30:34
	I felt that I had reached the fullness of the gospel,	30:38
	the summation of the Christian faith.	30:42
	And it was a delight and a joy	30:45
	to be expounding the articles of that text	30:48
	and to revel in and to rejoice in the person of the faith.	30:52
	It was one of the great signposts	31:02
	in my thinking and teaching and preaching	31:06
	and its power still remains.	31:11
	No doubt we should share it once again,	31:15
	before this very hour is over,	31:18
	because it is	31:23
	a summary of the faith as we know it.	31:24
	But I expect that when you read on the service paper,	31:31
	this seemed the greatest text in the Bible.	31:35
	I expect that you	31:39
	were turning instinctively to another place,	31:42
	to a place which must I think	31:48
	be called the greatest text in the New Testament.	31:51
	I know for example, that if I would turn	31:56
	to the members of my own communion,	31:58
	to the Baptist faith and order,	32:01
	99% of my fellow communion	32:03
	would inevitably turn	32:08
	to find the answer to the question in the gospel,	32:10
	according to Saint John 3:16,	32:13
	"For God so loved the world,	32:21
	that He gave His only begotten Son,	32:24
	that whosoever believeth in Him,	32:27
	should not perish	32:29
	but have everlasting life."	32:32
	So, often I am told	32:37
	that this is the final text of the Bible.	32:41
	This is the ultimate round	32:45
	of our faith	32:49
	and of our religion.	32:50
	And when you contrast it with the apostolic benediction,	32:53
	you learn a lot about the Christian faith.	32:59
	Saint Paul	33:04
	tells us how it happened to him.	33:06
	First, it was the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ.	33:09
	First, it was the initiative of the faith,	33:14
	that's how it began.	33:18
	But it led on from that to a new	33:20
	and fuller understanding of the character of God,	33:22
	seen and felt and known	33:26
	in this ministry of the Holy Spirit.	33:29
	But Saint John sets it in quite a different setting.	33:34
	He begins not with the second person of the Trinity,	33:39
	not with Jesus Christ, but he grounds his verse,	33:44
	as he grounds his teaching in Almighty God.	33:50
	He begins not with the Damascus road	33:56
	or a human scene,	34:00
	he begins in eternity.	34:02
	"For God",	34:06
	he said,	34:07
	"for God,	34:09
	so loved	34:11
	the world."	34:12
	The shape of the text is very interesting.	34:16
	If the text begins	34:22
	in heaven	34:24
	and I'm sorry to be so old fashioned	34:26
	as to be pointing upward.	34:28
	But the up-ness of God is something	34:32
	that's built in psychologically	34:35
	that nobody can destroy.	34:38
	And you understand what I mean.	34:40
	The text begins with God,	34:44
	the text begins in eternity.	34:48
	It begins with the mind of God,	34:51
	setting for such a strategy of the kingdom.	34:54
	In a few words, in a very few words,	34:59
	it descends and we find ourselves in the world.	35:02
	"For God so loved the world,	35:08
	that He gave His only begotten Son."	35:11
	And he has already said, and we beheld His glory,	35:16
	the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,	35:21
	full of grace and truth.	35:24
	He dwells among us,	35:27
	long ago	35:29
	in Palestine,	35:32
	but soon the text turns back to its origin	35:37
	and it begins to claim once again,	35:41
	into that ultimate of fellowship and of eternal life,	35:44
	which are the characteristic of Saint John's gospel.	35:49
	"That whosoever believeth in Him,	35:53
	should not perish but have everlasting life."	35:55
	And so the text is claimed back to where it started from,	36:01
	its beginning and its end are the same,	36:06
	but in between are the drama of redemption	36:09
	and the good news of the great kingdom of God.	36:14
	So, when we think of the apostolic benediction,	36:18
	we see the chronological order of the gospel.	36:22
	But when we look at John 3:16,	36:25
	we see the eternal strategy of the gospel	36:27
	and we see the grand design set	36:31
	in terms of eternity and of the ultimate.	36:34
	There is of course, so much that maybe said	36:42
	about every one of these texts	36:45
	and every clause of these texts	36:48
	and every word of every clause,	36:51
	in this John 3:16, the Greek order is different.	36:59
	And in the Greek order,	37:03
	there is a different emphasis from the English	37:04
	because of the word is so picked out	37:08
	and heightened and made emphatic.	37:12
	Among other things then the text wishes	37:17
	to emphasize the manner	37:19
	and the mode of forgiving.	37:21
	For God so loved the world,	37:24
	He loved the world in this way, that He gave.	37:25
	Here is the gift of God.	37:32
	Here is the sacrifice of Almighty God	37:35
	and the gift of His Son for our redemption.	37:37
	The Father loved the world and gave the Son.	37:43
	And Saint Paul goes on to tell us that	37:48
	the Son behaves in the same way.	37:50
	Oh the Son of God loved me	37:53
	and gave himself for me.	37:55
	Here is the great characteristic	37:58
	of the Christian gospel, you see?	38:00
	The family to whom we belong,	38:03
	are the family of givers.	38:05
	The Father loves and gives,	38:08
	and the Son loves and gives.	38:11
	This is salutary for us to remember,	38:16
	especially in this Western civilization,	38:20
	especially I may say in our own country, in England.	38:24
	We are becoming a society of getters.	38:29
	I don't to use a harsher and an unkind word.	38:34
	And so I will stop at the word getters.	38:40
	To get,	38:44
	to get,	38:46
	to get.	38:49
	One would almost say that this was the motto	38:51
	of industrial life in England at this time,	38:57
	but the Christian life, is the life of giving.	39:02
	The great partners in the concern	39:08
	are the great givers.	39:10
	God so loved the world, that He gave	39:12
	and the Son of God loved me and gave.	39:15
	And if you want to belong to this family,	39:19
	if you want to be seen as belonging to this family,	39:22
	if you want the characteristics of this family	39:26
	to be upon you, so that all men will know	39:29
	that you belong to this family	39:32
	and are members of this great kingdom,	39:34
	you will be a giver and not a getter.	39:36
	Here is then the challenge for our faith	39:44
	and for our conduct,	39:48
	and for our example in the world.	39:50
	Giving,	39:54
	not getting.	39:56
	Get as much as you can,	40:00
	in every way	40:03
	and in all directions.	40:06
	But get in order to gain,	40:11
	so that the balance is in the giving.	40:15
	So, that the distinction is in the giving,	40:17
	so that the characteristic and essential mark	40:21
	of character is in the giving,	40:24
	in the giving.	40:28
	How it may be that you will think,	40:34
	"well, he's reached his greatest text in the Bible",	40:36
	but with perhaps some reluctance,	40:42
	I must confess	40:47
	that I have changed my mind again.	40:51
	So, I know you'll say,	40:55
	when I talk to you about the fourth text	40:57
	that I want to mention,	41:00
	well we can't take him very seriously	41:01
	because he'll probably change his mind again	41:03
	in the next five years.	41:05
	Perhaps you will let me say very simply	41:10
	that I think I've come to the final here.	41:12
	I have remained steady in this last text	41:19
	for nearly 20 years.	41:22
	And I don't believe that I am going to go from it,	41:26
	but I believe that I have come in the last	41:31
	text that I want to mention to you.	41:37
	To the final text,	41:41
	the greatest text	41:44
	and the most wonderful texts in all the Bible.	41:47
	Let me give you a clue.	41:58
	It is the text which comes most often in church.	42:04
	I don't mean anything like, "and the Lord said",	42:10
	I mean a complete sentence.	42:16
	And I really do mean the text that comes most often	42:21
	in the whole Bible.	42:25
	Surely there's no need for me	42:26
	to say it to you at all, you know it.	42:27
	Indeed I always have a very friendly argument	42:33
	with my wife at this point,	42:36
	because I never want to say what it is,	42:37
	(clears throat)	42:39
	but she says, being much wiser than me,	42:41
	that I should say what it is,	42:44
	but I'm not sure.	42:47
	It's a text of four words	42:50
	and only four words.	42:54
	It's a complete sentence.	42:57
	And it comes most often in the scripture.	43:00
	If you can't think of it in this moment,	43:03
	you will surely lie.	43:07
	How would it be then if I left?	43:11
	I wonder if there would be enough Christian curiosity,	43:17
	to drive you to seek it out.	43:25
	On the whole I think I'll do what my wife says.	43:31
	And tell you what it is.	43:34
	You're going to reject it at once.	43:40
	So, I don't want you to make up your mind finally	43:47
	about it for several days.	43:51
	Perhaps until, not until next time.	43:54
	The text to which I have come	44:03
	as my final haven is this,	44:05
	"I	44:11
	am the Lord."	44:13
	It's only two words in the Hebrew,	44:16
	it's four words in English.	44:19
	"I am the Lord",	44:21
	God proclaimed himself.	44:24
	God tells us about himself,	44:28
	here is his self-proclamation	44:32
	as we call it.	44:36
	Here is all authority,	44:40
	for you cannot go through this text,	44:43
	or go round it,	44:47
	or get behind it,	44:49
	or pass underneath it.	44:52
	It's the final panoply of Almighty God	44:55
	as sworn your path.	44:58
	It is the fullness of God's compassion,	45:06
	to elaborate it	45:11
	and to add something to it,	45:14
	is but to weaken it.	45:16
	In its simplicity, it is total.	45:20
	In its totality, it is final.	45:24
	It is God,	45:29
	announcing himself,	45:31
	introducing himself.	45:33
	It is God speaking to each one of us	45:36
	and telling us who He is.	45:39
	And he said,	45:41
	"I	45:42
	am the Lord,	45:44
	I	45:47
	am the Lord."	45:48
	And these four words,	45:51
	the sovereign sentence of all scripture,	45:53
	are the way in which God places himself across the path	46:02
	of all our purpose	46:10
	and of all our lives.	46:13
	My friends, will you spend some moments thinking	46:17
	about this text and coming beneath its spell?	46:20
	And may I also ask if you will kindly	46:24
	think over your own life in the terms	46:28
	of the signpost that have guided you.	46:31
	Here is my little collection,	46:35
	sufficient for me,	46:39
	but they have brought me to this hour	46:41
	and no doubt in God's great mercy	46:44
	will bring me to the final hold.	46:47
	What then are the signposts	46:52
	that have guided	46:55
	and are guiding?	46:59
	For those of you who are very young,	47:02
	what is the signpost?	47:06
	Let us now call him,	47:09
	in the name of the Father,	47:13
	and of the Son,	47:15
	and of the Holy Spirit,	47:16
	Amen.	47:18
	Let us pray.	47:20
	(clears throat)	47:21
	Oh God, our Father,	47:25
	we give thee thanks for the hour of rising worship,	47:28
	Grant in the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ.	47:33
	We enjoy thy love in the fellowship of thy Spirit.	47:36
	We thank thee for our salvation in Jesus Christ,	47:41
	for the means of grace	47:46
	and for the hope of glory,	47:48
	comfort us with these great assurance,	47:51
	as we bow before thee, in this moment.	47:55
	We remember too, oh Lord,	48:00
	that the hour of noon is approaching	48:04
	when the minds and hearts of many people	48:07
	are centered upon	48:11
	the great experiment,	48:14
	the penultimate blast off.	48:18
	We pray at this moment for the astronauts	48:22
	in their wait.	48:26
	We pray that thou will grant unto them,	48:28
	the steady spirit	48:30
	and the quiet nerves.	48:33
	And that thou will comfort these great people	48:36
	in the moment of their expectation	48:39
	and the (indistinct).	48:43
	Hear our prayers then oh good Lord,	48:46
	in the name of Jesus Christ, our savior,	48:50
	Amen.	48:54
	(slow organ hymn)	48:58
	(slow organ hymn continues)	49:23
	(choir sings slow hymn)	49:35
	(choir singing continues)	50:10
	(choir singing continues)	50:41
	(choir singing continues)	51:20
	(slow organ hymn continues)	51:49
	(choir singing continues)	53:00
	♪ Amen ♪	53:05
	♪ Amen ♪	53:11
	(choir singing continues)	53:15
	(choir singing continues)	53:35
	(choir singing continues)	54:09
	(slow organ hymn continues)	54:42
	(slow organ hymn continues)	55:24
	(choir singing continues)	56:07
-	Almighty God, our heavenly Father,	56:42
	who spared not your only Son,	56:45
	but delivered Him up for us all.	56:47
	And by your power has raised Him from the dead	56:50
	and who with Him has freely given us all things.	56:54
	Now help us, we pray you with all our gifts	56:59
	to yield ourselves unto you,	57:02
	that with body, soul, and spirit,	57:05
	we may truly serve you.	57:09
	And in your service find our deepest joy,	57:12
	through Jesus Christ, our Lord.	57:16
	Now may the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ.	57:23
	The love of God, the Father,	57:26
	the communion and fellowship with the Holy Spirit,	57:29
	rest upon us and abide with us,	57:32
	now and nevermore.	57:35
	(choir singing continues)	57:42
	(choir singing continues)	58:15

Item Info

Title:

G. Henton Davies - "The Greatest Text in the Bible" (May 18, 1969)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r46110t4b

Date:

May 18, 1969

Speaker:

Davies, G. Henton

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0483
ref6171_pl7
uachapelsermaud
duke:628590
dcrau002474
ark:/87924/r46110t4b
b99c16f1-65af-4286-a7a4-398f6191f066

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Related Resources:

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

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

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G. Henton Davies - "The Greatest Text in the Bible" (May 18, 1969)

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1. G. Henton Davies - "The Greatest text in the Bible" (May 18, 1969)

Duke University Archives

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G. Henton Davies - "The Greatest Text in the Bible" (May 18, 1969)

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