Edgar H. Nease, Jr. - "Identifying God" (July 30, 1972)

Download
- Rights
- No Re-Use
  In Copyright
  More Rights Info
- Files (1)
- MP3
- Please be patient with media downloads. They are often large files.
Share

Embed Code
<iframe src='https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r49886p1k?embed=true' height='125px' width='100%' frameborder='0' marginwidth='0' marginheight='0' scrolling='no' loading='lazy' allowfullscreen></iframe>
Permalink

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r49886p1k
Skip to Item Info

Loading the media player...

Files for this Item

Transcript

Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.

Priest One	Well then disappointed	0:04
	by the contrast between	0:05
	what we are meant to be	0:07
	and what we are,	0:09
	but we come back ashamed of our performance	0:13
	yet aware that we are not quite ourselves	0:19
	when we stay away from thee.	0:24
	We ask in humble confidence for forgiveness	0:27
	for more than forgiveness,	0:33
	we ask for thy spirit within us	0:38
	and that our own self-centered lives	0:41
	may be displaced by thy presence	0:45
	to the end that we may behave like men and women	0:48
	whom thou has made thy known	0:54
	through Jesus Christ our Lord.	0:57
	Hear these words of a shortness of pardon	1:03
	from the first letter of John,	1:06
	our sins are forgiven for Jesus' sake.	1:11
	With that in mind, let us now offer unto God	1:21
	our unison prayer of Thanksgiving.	1:25
	Oh father in heaven who of thy great mercy	1:30
	has brought us to the beginning of another day.	1:34
	Give us thankful hearts	1:38
	as we recall thy continued goodness toward us.	1:41
	We thank thee oh Lord	1:45
	for all thy gifts to ourselves	1:48
	and to all the children for which we have,	1:51
	or have not prayed for help, recreation and refreshment.	1:55
	For interest in our work and power to do it.	2:02
	For all duties and trusts committed to us	2:07
	for all progress in things for which we care	2:11
	for the companionship for fellow students and teachers	2:15
	for all who have helped us with spiritual guidance	2:20
	or correction from the unity of those who live in the spirit	2:24
	and for the pardon of our sins	2:30
	and the inspiration of thy presence.	2:32
	Amen.	2:36
	(liturgical music playing)	2:40
	Let us hear the word of God as it is contained	6:27
	in the scriptures of the new Testament,	6:30
	in the gospel according to St. Matthew,	6:33
	the sixth chapter at the seventh verse	6:37
	part of the sermon on the Mount.	6:43
	And in praying do not heap up empty phrases	6:50
	as the Gentiles do	6:56
	for they think that they will be heard for their many words,	6:59
	do not be like them.	7:05
	Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.	7:08
	Pray then like this.	7:14
	Our Father who art in heaven,	7:18
	hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come,	7:21
	thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.	7:30
	Give us this day,	7:36
	our daily bread and forgive us our debts.	7:38
	As we also have forgiven our debtors and lead us,	7:43
	not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.	7:50
	For if you forgive men their trespasses,	7:57
	your heavenly Father also will forgive you.	8:01
	But if you do not forgive men, their trespasses,	8:08
	neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.	8:13
	And when you fast do not look dismal like the hypocrites	8:20
	for they disfigure their faces	8:28
	that their fasting may be seen by men.	8:30
	Truly I say to you, they have their reward,	8:36
	but when you fast anoint your head, wash your face	8:42
	that your fasting may not be seen by men,	8:50
	but by your Father who is in secret	8:54
	and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.	8:59
	He render the morning vessel.	9:06
	(liturgical music playing)	9:11
	The Lord be with you.	9:55
Crowd	And also with you.	9:58
Priest One	Let us pray.	9:59
	Let us offer unto God, three prayers of intercession.	10:09
	First, the genital intercession,	10:14
	oh Lord God, merciful and mighty	10:18
	help those whom we have neglected to help.	10:22
	Set our right those whom we have caused to stumble,	10:28
	visit those whom we have neglected to visit,	10:35
	bring back those whom we have led astray	10:41
	cheer the hearts of those whom we have made sad.	10:46
	They're all with the cords of thy love	10:51
	those for whom our love has grown cold,	10:54
	save them all oh Lord and have mercy upon us.	11:01
	For the sake of Christ our Lord	11:08
	Let us offer a prayer of intercession for the sick	11:14
	in the Duke hospital and Watts hospital	11:17
	and Lincoln hospital	11:20
	in the nursing homes at home.	11:22
	Oh Lord, we doust feel the pain of the world.	11:27
	Look down upon all sick and suffering persons,	11:30
	old and young and fold them with thy love	11:35
	that in the midst of pain, they may find thy presence	11:41
	to doctors or nurses, grant considered hearts	11:47
	and healing hands.	11:52
	And if it be thy will get health again in body and soul	11:55
	for thy tender mercy seat.	12:00
	Let us offer a prayer of intercession for prisoners of war.	12:05
	Oh, mighty God who threw thy profits and thy son	12:13
	hast instructed the church to proclaim release	12:17
	to the captives and liberty for those who are pressed.	12:21
	Hear our special prayer of intercession for our countrymen	12:27
	who are prisoners of war or missing in action,	12:32
	whom we would neither forget, nor abandon.	12:38
	Be with them.	12:44
	Be our representative.	12:46
	Be thou the comforter	12:50
	remedy the folly,	12:54
	the wrong doing of those who led us into this conflict,	12:56
	which has so little obvious meaning	13:01
	and who depend on others, the young,	13:04
	the drafted, the out of place	13:08
	to carry out their doubtful strategy.	13:12
	Yet their fault is our fault because we elected them.	13:17
	We can do so little for our fellows who are prisoners.	13:26
	We have to leave them in thy hands.	13:31
	We commit them to the asking thee,	13:35
	asking thee to keep reminding us,	13:38
	to remember them	13:42
	and let us offer a prayer of supplication for ourselves.	13:47
	Eternal God in whom is our health and our peace.	13:53
	How may we utter our need of thee?	13:58
	Our minds need thee to give them poise.	14:03
	Our wills need thee, to give them strength.	14:08
	Our hearts need thee to give them quiet.	14:12
	We need thee, as we worry about a better world,	14:18
	very urgent is our need of thee	14:23
	if we are to face persistent evil	14:26
	with hopeful determination.	14:28
	Oh thou understand'est us better than we do ourselves,	14:33
	grant unto us a healing hearkening consciousness	14:39
	of thy presence	14:44
	and now as our savior Christ has taught us	14:47
	we humbly pray together.	14:50
	Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,	14:53
	thy kingdom come.	14:59
	They will be done on earth as it is in heaven.	15:01
	Give us this day,	15:06
	our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses.	15:07
	As we forgive those who trespass against us	15:11
	and lead us not into temptation,	15:15
	but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom	15:18
	and the power and the glory forever.	15:22
	Amen.	15:27
Priest Two	One does not return to his alma mater.	15:44
	without recalling many episodes and experiences.	15:46
	Many of which I dare not recall publicly.	15:52
	The temptation to reminisce is tremendous	15:58
	about the days here and singing in this choir	16:01
	and other activities.	16:04
	I shall forego that temptation and simply say,	16:07
	I am happy and honored to be here this morning	16:10
	and to preach from this pulpit.	16:16
	The story is told of a minister who was in the habit	16:20
	of preaching a children's sermon every Sunday morning.	16:23
	He began on this particular Sunday by asking the question,	16:28
	what is it that lives in trees,	16:33
	gathers nuts, has a bushy tail and two little beady eyes?	16:37
	A youngster on the front seat immediately answered, God.	16:42
	As part of the congregation sat in amazement	16:48
	and the other part, tittered in amusement,	16:52
	the father marched down to the front pew	16:54
	ushered the boy out.	16:56
	And before adding a few stripes to the seat of his fancy,	16:57
	he said, son, why did you answer the minister this way?	17:01
	The boy said, oh dad, I knew it was a squirrel,	17:05
	but he ought to have been talking about God.	17:09
	You know, I think the boy had a point.	17:13
	We talk so much these days about social ills,	17:17
	about the problems of man, the troubles in our world.	17:22
	We continuously speak about buildings and budgets	17:27
	about bombs and brotherhood.	17:30
	And certainly all of these are important	17:33
	and need to be talked about.	17:35
	But all to seldom do we get around to talking	17:38
	about God.	17:42
	God is the most taken for granted fact or entity	17:45
	in our world today.	17:49
	This is precisely the reason that the God is dead philosophy	17:52
	arose some years ago.	17:56
	We had said so little about God	17:59
	that God had ceased to be real.	18:02
	But church is blame, to some extent at least	18:07
	for much of this attitude.	18:10
	Our literature, our teaching, our preaching,	18:13
	have been so man oriented that God has been bypassed.	18:18
	He has been assumed rather than a circuit.	18:24
	And as a result,	18:29
	we have raised two or more generations of people	18:30
	of which most of us here this morning are a part.	18:33
	who believe in God,	18:37
	but who do not know how to identify God.	18:39
	Some months ago, a poll was taken of youth	18:45
	and their attitudes and philosophy of life.	18:49
	One of the questions I asked was, do you believe in God?	18:52
	And it was heartening to find	18:55
	that 90% of our young people today to believe in God,	18:56
	but then when the questions were asked	19:00
	as to how would you identify God?	19:02
	How would you describe God?	19:04
	What would you say about God?	19:06
	There was a complete vacuum,	19:08
	no answers of available.	19:10
	You see, we have an identity crisis on our hands.	19:13
	Not only about self, as many of us are asking, who am I?	19:17
	What is my place in the world?	19:19
	But we have an even greater identity crisis	19:21
	when it comes to God.	19:23
	Who is God?	19:25
	What is He doing in this world?	19:27
	What is his relationship or my relationship to Him?	19:30
	All too often, we have falsely identified God.	19:35
	Dr. Theodore Runyon of Candler school of Theology	19:40
	at Emory University has said	19:43
	one of the reasons that God is dead for so many people,	19:45
	is that we have identified him with the established order,	19:49
	which has now rapidly changing.	19:53
	How true.	19:57
	As we have blasted man into outer space,	19:59
	we have blasted many a man's concept of God	20:02
	into smithereens.	20:05
	As we have learned to control birth and life and death,	20:09
	to some extent our faith in God has diminished.	20:12
	As we have learned to knock down mountains and build	20:19
	superhighways and super structures and skyscrapers.	20:21
	Yes and to get our answers out of computers,	20:25
	we have begun to question the greatness of God.	20:30
	In short, as the old order changes	20:35
	and gives way to a new order	20:37
	God just isn't as big or is near or as real	20:39
	as he once was.	20:44
	For the things which we have attached to God	20:47
	and by which we have identified God	20:51
	have either changed or are in the process of changing.	20:55
	And so we do not quite know what to say about God.	21:00
	How do we, how can we then identify God today?	21:06
	The ancient Hebrews had this problem.	21:12
	And I suppose to some extent,	21:15
	every generation has this problem.	21:17
	At first for the Hebrews,	21:20
	God was a rather abstract entity known by the rather obscure	21:21
	name of I am.	21:27
	Later he became known as Yahweh a mountain God	21:31
	who dwelt in Mount Sinai or as	21:35
	more commonly known in those days Mount Horeb.	21:38
	But he was always a far away God.	21:43
	Removed, removed from the people	21:46
	a God who commanded at the distance.	21:49
	This was not unlike the concept of God	21:54
	that other cultures and their beginnings had too.	21:56
	For instance, the Greeks had as their chief God Zeus	21:59
	who dwelled on Mount Olympias	22:03
	and no one dared approach Zeus or Mount Olympus.	22:05
	The Romans had as their chief God Jupiter	22:10
	who dwelled high in the heavens above all peoples.	22:13
	The Germans had as their God,	22:18
	one known as Wotan who dwelled	22:20
	in the deep dark forest of Germany, away from people.	22:23
	That even as the Hebrews made their way	22:29
	into the promised land, God was still remote.	22:32
	Oh, he changed his residence from Mount Sinai	22:37
	to the Ark of Covenant and into,	22:40
	into the holy of Holies in the temple.	22:41
	But no one was ever able to get near God was inaccessible	22:43
	except to the chief priest.	22:47
	He was always the mighty sovereign,	22:50
	the powerful God one who was high and lifted up	22:54
	away just by and large.	22:58
	This was the main concept of God	23:03
	throughout the Old Testament.	23:05
	Although every once in a while,	23:08
	there was a breakthrough when men saw God as accessible and	23:10
	even personal, this was the exception rather than the rule.	23:14
	God was somewhat akin to the Oriental emperor.	23:19
	He was to be admired, obeyed	23:25
	respected and even feared	23:29
	always at a distance.	23:33
	The Psalmist in the 29th Psalm	23:38
	pretty well sums up the concept	23:40
	the idea of God in the old Testament,	23:43
	when he writes the voice of the Lord is upon the waters.	23:46
	The God of glory thunders,	23:52
	the voice of the Lord is powerful.	23:55
	The voice of the Lord is full of majesty.	23:58
	The Lord sits in throne over the floods.	24:03
	The Lord sets in throne as keen forever.	24:07
	Now Jesus brought out the humanness	24:14
	and the closeness of God to man.	24:17
	He did not take away from the divinity of God	24:21
	nor take away from the power or the majesty of God.	24:24
	He simply made God accessible, new, more understanding.	24:27
	And he did so with one little word.	24:34
	He called him Father.	24:38
	As you read the new Testament,	24:42
	you find this reference to God over and over again.	24:44
	As Jesus speaks of Him and speaks to Him, Father.	24:47
	In the very earliest days of his life,	24:52
	as he was there in Jerusalem with his father and mother	24:54
	and attending his first Passover festival.	24:57
	And he became lost when,	25:02
	when found again by his parents and they asked him	25:05
	where he had been and what he had been doing, he said,	25:08
	did you not know I must be doing my Father's business.	25:10
	When the disciples came to him and asked him,	25:16
	how do we pray?	25:18
	He said to begin with these words,	25:21
	our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.	25:22
	Constantly he is referring to God as Father	25:28
	as depicted in the scripture reading this morning.	25:32
	The last words upon his lips there on the cross were Father,	25:36
	Father forgive them for what they do.	25:40
	Father into thy hands I commend my spirit.	25:45
	One new Testament scholar has said that the chief reason	25:52
	that the new Testament is really new	25:55
	is the fundamental shift it brings about	25:58
	in our understanding of God,	26:00
	that is knowing him as a Father.	26:03
	This concept of God, as a father	26:08
	has opened up a whole new vista.	26:11
	And yet it is a Vista though 1900 or more years old	26:15
	a vista that far too few of us have ever really seen.	26:19
	If you'd like for us to look more closely at it this morning	26:27
	that we might put further identify God.	26:29
	For you see identifying God has much to do with living,	26:34
	living meaningfully and purposefully.	26:39
	From this very pulpit some years ago,	26:44
	that I heard the Dean of this chapel	26:48
	make this statement that I shall never forget.	26:50
	He said many things in class that I forgot,	26:54
	but this from the pulpit, I never forgot.	26:56
	He said the most important thing in a man's life	27:00
	is what he believes about God.	27:03
	A man's belief about God hinges on how he identifies God.	27:10
	So it is, we ask what kind of a father is God?.	27:19
	I would suggest, first of all	27:24
	this morning that God is a prudent Father.	27:26
	He knows what to do for His children.	27:31
	On one occasion,	27:36
	Jesus asks some men as they were gathered around	27:37
	how many of you would give to your son a stone	27:39
	if he asks for bread?	27:42
	Or how many of you would give to your son a snake	27:45
	if he asks for a fish?	27:49
	The man looked at him and he said, oh,	27:53
	of course we wouldn't give our son such things.	27:55
	We love our sons.	27:57
	Then Jesus said, ah yes.	27:58
	Then if you as mortals,	28:00
	know how to give good gifts to your children,	28:02
	how much more so does our heavenly Father know	28:05
	how to give good gifts to His children?	28:09
	You see God is wise in knowing what we need,	28:14
	He knows us better than we know ourselves.	28:19
	He knows our needs before even we are aware of them.	28:22
	He is not fooled by our whims or our schemes	28:27
	by the charades we play or the masks we wear.	28:30
	When I was a boy in high school, I played some basketball.	28:35
	One evening as I got ready to leave the house	28:39
	and go down to the gym for the game,	28:41
	my father stopped me and told me	28:43
	that he wanted me to return immediately	28:46
	from the gym to home.	28:48
	And I've been staying up rather late	28:50
	and then had not gotten my rest	28:52
	and that I must come directly home.	28:54
	He knew what was best for me.	28:58
	But as the game progressed, I,	29:02
	I looked up into the stands	29:03
	and I saw a certain blonde headed little girl	29:05
	that had captured my attention	29:07
	for the previous few months.	29:09
	And it just so happened that after the game had ended,	29:12
	she was available to be taken home.	29:15
	It was the only gentlemanly thing to do.	29:19
	Now we went directly from the gym to her home.	29:23
	I didn't linger at her door.	29:29
	Well, not for long anyway.	29:32
	And then in order to make up lost time,	29:35
	I ran about three fourths of the way home.	29:38
	Then I walked in very calmly and casually and	29:42
	my father looked at me and he said, how was the game?	29:45
	And I thought I had been successful.	29:49
	I said oh the game was great, we won.	29:51
	And then he said,	29:54
	and how was the walk home with Betty tonight?	29:55
	He hadn't been there.	30:00
	No one had told him.	30:02
	He just knew.	30:05
	Now if an earthly father knows our schemes and our plan,	30:09
	most assuredly our heavenly Father likewise knows.	30:16
	We do not fool him as to our actions or our needs.	30:22
	As a prudent father	30:30
	He is not insensitive to our aches or pains	30:31
	to our doubts or our disturbances.	30:35
	Jesus knew this in the Garden of Gethsemane.	30:39
	He knew it as He hung on the cross.	30:41
	He called on God, not out of desperation,	30:44
	not with a sense of futility.	30:47
	He called on God because He knew that his Father was aware,	30:50
	of his hurt and his pain of the disturbance in his life	30:55
	of the need of a decision to be made.	30:59
	And he knew that God, His Father was directing him	31:01
	to make the decision that was important,	31:06
	not only for his own life,	31:10
	but for the lives of others.	31:13
	And so you see, because God is a prudent father.	31:16
	We too can pray for direction.	31:20
	For He knows and He wills for us that which is best.	31:24
	But not only is he a prudent Father.	31:33
	He is also a pardoning Father.	31:36
	Jesus told the most gripping story to make this point.	31:41
	He said there was a father who had two sons.	31:46
	He loved them equally well,	31:48
	but one of these boys was an adventuresome soul.	31:50
	A boy who was very self-willed who wanted his way,	31:52
	who had come to the point	31:55
	that he wanted to buck the establishment.	31:57
	So he came to his father and said,	32:00
	give me that which belongs to me.	32:02
	I want to go make my own way.	32:03
	He wasn't ready.	32:07
	But the father nevertheless	32:08
	gave him that portion which belonged to him.	32:09
	And the boy went out to make his own way	32:12
	to do his own thing.	32:14
	And after a while he had lost or spent	32:15
	everything that he had.	32:18
	In order to survive he had to take the most menial task	32:21
	that was available in this foreign land.	32:24
	That of tending swine.	32:28
	One day as he was out in the hog pen,	32:32
	in the mud of the hog pen,	32:36
	amid the stench of the hog pen	32:38
	he came to himself.	32:42
	He realized that in his father's home,	32:45
	no one had to do this,	32:48
	but there was a better place in life for him.	32:51
	And so he swallowed his pride and went home.	32:53
	Now here's the point.	32:57
	Jesus pointed out that the father	33:00
	did not lecture the boy.	33:04
	When he returned, he did not lay down demands.	33:07
	He opened up the best that he had	33:13
	gave a banquet and forgave him for what he had done.	33:16
	Jesus said, this is precisely what God does.	33:22
	When a child sins, when he becomes selfish,	33:27
	when he leaves the places that he ought to be,	33:30
	and then returns home	33:34
	he finds not only a welcome, but a full pardon.	33:37
	The story is told of a boy who repeatedly disobeyed	33:44
	his father by doing a certain act.	33:49
	The father looking up from his newspaper said, son,	33:53
	if you do that again,	33:55
	I'm going to send you to the attic without your supper.	33:56
	And you'll have to spend the night there.	34:00
	The boy was persistent.	34:03
	He repeated the act.	34:04
	The father had to be consistent.	34:05
	So he took the boy,	34:08
	gave him a glass of water and a piece of bread	34:10
	and sent him up to the attic for the night.	34:12
	The minutes the hours ticked on	34:16
	and the boy became frightened, but he knew he had to stay.	34:18
	And then as the dark began to settle into the attic,	34:24
	he heard steps down below.	34:27
	And it was a shaft of light as the door opened.	34:29
	And he saw his father coming up into the attic	34:32
	in his hand was a glass of water and a piece of bread.	34:37
	That father came over to where the boy was seated,	34:43
	crooked his arm and placed the head of that boy	34:46
	upon his shoulder.	34:50
	And there, the boy spent the night,	34:53
	in the safety and comfort of his fathers arms.	34:55
	That lad never forgot that night.	35:02
	As an older man, he recalled it many times.	35:05
	And before a large gathering, he said that night,	35:08
	I learned more about the forgiving love	35:11
	of a heavenly father	35:15
	than I had ever learned before or realized since.	35:18
	You see, this is our God.	35:24
	He reaches far beyond our wildest expectations	35:28
	to pardon.	35:33
	Of all His virtues, none exceeds his pardoning power.	35:35
	Not only is he a prudent Father and a pardoning Father,	35:45
	he is a personal plus Father.	35:50
	He is more than my father.	35:54
	He is our Father.	35:58
	He's the Father of all people.	36:01
	He's the Father of the red man, the black man,	36:04
	the yellow man and the white man.	36:06
	He's a Father of the ignorant and the learning.	36:08
	And he's the Father of the rich and the poor.	36:10
	And we never fully know God as a Father	36:13
	until we realize this truth about Him.	36:18
	Someone once prayed	36:24
	God bless me and my wife, Mary and our son, John,	36:25
	we three and no one else.	36:28
	We cannot so separate ourselves from others and truly pray.	36:32
	We limit God when we do this.	36:37
	We make him exclusive.	36:40
	And this is completely contrary to His nature.	36:42
	For He is the God and the Father of all man-kind.	36:47
	And only as we identify ourselves with others,	36:53
	irregardless of race or color of creed	36:56
	others as our brothers,	36:59
	others as partners with us on this planet ship earth,	37:01
	do we then come to know God in the realest sense,	37:06
	a college boy changed his plans one Christmas instead of	37:16
	taking the gifts and giving them to his friends and	37:21
	fraternity brothers and even to his family,	37:23
	he decided to take a family on the other side of the tracks	37:26
	and the tenements section.	37:29
	That evening just before Christmas on Christmas Eve,	37:33
	as he had finished sharing with these people,	37:36
	he left and later he wrote of that experience.	37:40
	God was never so real to me as on that night,	37:44
	when I walked down those tenements steps.	37:49
	You see it was by sharing with others	37:55
	by coming to realize that there were others in this world	37:58
	different than himself,	38:01
	that he came to know the greatness and the vastness of God.	38:03
	He came in that night to be able to know God	38:09
	truly as our Father.	38:12
	In April of this year,	38:18
	I had the privilege of attending the general conference	38:19
	for the United Methodist Church in Atlanta.	38:21
	Perhaps the most thrilling thing to me there was,	38:26
	was the appearance of Bishop, Abel Muzorewa.	38:29
	Bishop of United Methodist church in Rhodesia.	38:34
	But more than that,	38:36
	the man who has been selected	38:37
	to head the United front of the Rhodesian	38:38
	and their fight for justice and independence	38:40
	and a right to live.	38:45
	When Bishop Muzorewa flew into London,	38:49
	the parliament called a special session to hear it.	38:52
	When he flew into New York city,	38:57
	there was a special session called at the United nations	38:59
	that they might hear him.	39:01
	When he came to Atlanta for the general conference,	39:04
	the program was shifted in order that the delegates	39:06
	might hear this man of God.	39:09
	A man who has been not on revolution in the world,	39:12
	but on reconciliation.	39:14
	And he spoke to us telling us what he hoped to do	39:16
	for the black peoples of this country.	39:18
	We were thrilled and when he had finished,	39:22
	we stood as one to applaud him.	39:23
	And in the midst of the applause,	39:26
	there came a different sound.	39:28
	Someone was singing.	39:31
	And then as we looked,	39:35
	we saw that the Bishop had approached the microphone	39:35
	and his two bodyguards beside him	39:38
	and they were singing a hymn in their native tongue.	39:39
	And as I listened, I didn't recognize the words,	39:45
	but I recognize the tune.	39:48
	They were singing what a friend we have in Jesus.	39:50
	And as they came across that phrase, oh,	39:54
	our sins and griefs to bear	39:56
	I suddenly realized that God sent His son,	40:01
	not just for my sins,	40:04
	but for the sins of every person in that auditorium.	40:06
	For every a person across the world.	40:10
	No how I identified with those people and how I realized	40:14
	that God was not only mindful of ed niece,	40:18
	but he was mindful of every person by name	40:21
	in that whole place.	40:23
	I tell you,	40:28
	it's a marvelous moment when we see God in a personal way.	40:30
	But it is a magnificent moment	40:38
	when we see him as personal plus.	40:41
	My dear friends, God is not dead.	40:47
	He is alive and he is for real.	40:51
	I would pray this morning that each of us	40:55
	through this experience of worship	40:57
	and through the days ahead in our own personal pursuits	40:59
	might get to know Him better.	41:03
	That each of us might know Him in truth	41:07
	as a prudent Father a pardoning Father	41:09
	and a personal plus Father.	41:14
	For then and only then do we become alive.	41:19
	And are for real.	41:25
	Let us pray.	41:32
	Almighty God thou who art our Father.	41:36
	We praise thy name for all thy blessings.	41:43
	We asked that through this hour of worship,	41:50
	there might be revelations to us individually	41:51
	that we might come to understand thee and know thee better,	41:56
	especially then we might learn thee,	42:02
	as a prudent, pardoning, personal yes	42:05
	but personal plus Father.	42:10
	But then we too might be alive	42:15
	and count for something worthwhile	42:20
	for it is in thy holy name through Christ Our Lord, we pray.	42:25
	Amen.	42:30
	(liturgical music playing)	42:35
	(choir singing indistinctly)	43:00
Priest One	All things come of thee oh God,	52:41
	our silver and our gold.	52:45
	And of our, of thy known have we given thee	52:48
	as the symbol of ourselves,	52:52
	accept them in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ,	52:56
	our Lord.	53:03
	May the blessing of God come upon you abundantly,	53:08
	may it keep you strong and tranquil in the truth	53:14
	of His promises through Jesus Christ, our Lord.	53:19
	(choir singing)	53:31
	(bell ringing)	54:39
	(liturgical music playing)	54:57

Item Info

Title:

Edgar H. Nease, Jr. - "Identifying God" (July 30, 1972)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r49886p1k

Date:

July 30, 1972

Speaker:

Nease, Edgar H.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0627
ref6457_p90
uachapelsermaud
duke:627978
dcrau002612
ark:/87924/r49886p1k
69140116-da36-46d5-9523-780fa7df6a30

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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.

Rights:

No Re-Use

In Copyright

Rights Note:

This material is made available for research, scholarship, and private study. Copyright in this material has not been transferred to Duke University. For reuses of this material beyond those permitted by fair use or otherwise allowed under the Copyright Act, please see our page on copyright and citations: https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

Sponsor:

Sponsor this Digital Collection

Transcript

Item Info

Duke University Archives

More Info & Options