Albert F. Fisher - "Famine in the Promised Land" (August 25, 1974)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
| (contemporary gospel music) | 0:03 | |
| (contemporary gospel music continues) | 1:00 | |
| - | I will bless the Lord at all times. | 3:52 |
| His praise shall continually be in my mouth. | 3:55 | |
| Oh, magnify the Lord with me, | 3:59 | |
| and let us exalt His name together. | 4:01 | |
| Look to God, | 4:05 | |
| and be joyful. | 4:07 | |
| Let us pray. | 4:09 | |
| Fill our hearts and minds, oh God. | 4:12 | |
| As we gather in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. | 4:14 | |
| With the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit. | 4:18 | |
| That we may sing your praises with joy and gladness. | 4:23 | |
| Offer our prayers with faith and love, | 4:28 | |
| and learn, and then obey the lessons | 4:32 | |
| of your holy word, | 4:35 | |
| through Jesus Christ our Lord. | 4:37 | |
| Amen. | 4:41 | |
| (contemporary gospel music) | 4:43 | |
| (contemporary gospel music rises) | 5:30 | |
| As we confess our sin before God, | 8:29 | |
| and with one another, | 8:33 | |
| let us simply acknowledge our individual | 8:37 | |
| and corporate humanness. | 8:39 | |
| The reality of evil within us, | 8:44 | |
| and then accept the forgiving grace of God. | 8:48 | |
| Let us pray. | 8:54 | |
| Oh, holy God. | 8:57 | |
| We come together before you remembering all the things | 8:59 | |
| which we have not done that needed to be done. | 9:02 | |
| We have seen the needs of the people around us, | 9:06 | |
| but we refuse to get involved. | 9:10 | |
| We have had the power to help the hungry and the homeless, | 9:13 | |
| but we have not noticed them. | 9:17 | |
| We have had the chance to be friends to the lonely, | 9:20 | |
| but we have not heard their cries or seen their tears. | 9:23 | |
| Help us oh God, | 9:28 | |
| To know our faults, | 9:30 | |
| and may we, by the memory of our omissions, | 9:32 | |
| be inspired to join in your action in the world. | 9:37 | |
| May we realize again that we have not fulfilled | 9:41 | |
| our calling in the world, | 9:45 | |
| to which we were called by Jesus Christ our Lord, | 9:47 | |
| in whose name we pray. | 9:52 | |
| Amen. | 9:54 | |
| Let us continue in silence, | 9:57 | |
| with our very personal words of confession. | 10:00 | |
| God gives power to the faint. | 10:20 | |
| And to those who have no might, He increases strength. | 10:23 | |
| Everyone who asks will receive. | 10:29 | |
| Everyone who seeks will find. | 10:32 | |
| And the door will be opened to everyone who knocks. | 10:36 | |
| May the peace of God's forgiving spirit | 10:42 | |
| be yours. | 10:46 | |
| Amen. | 10:49 | |
| (contemporary gospel music) | 10:59 | |
| (contemporary gospel music rises) | 12:03 | |
| Let us hear the word of God | 13:59 | |
| as it is contained the book of Genesis | 14:00 | |
| Chapter 12:1-10. | 14:04 | |
| "Now the Lord said to Abraham. | 14:09 | |
| 'Go from your country and your kindred, | 14:12 | |
| and your father's house | 14:15 | |
| to the land that I will show you. | 14:18 | |
| And I will make of you a great nation. | 14:21 | |
| And I will bless you and make your name great | 14:25 | |
| so that you will be a blessing. | 14:28 | |
| I will bless those who bless you, | 14:31 | |
| and him who curses you, I will curse. | 14:34 | |
| And by you all the families of the earth | 14:38 | |
| will bless themselves.' | 14:41 | |
| So Abraham went, as the Lord had told him. | 14:44 | |
| And Lot went with him. | 14:48 | |
| Abraham was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. | 14:50 | |
| And Abraham took Sarah his wife and Lot his brother's son | 14:56 | |
| and all their possessions which they had gathered. | 14:59 | |
| And the persons that they had gotten in Haran. | 15:03 | |
| They set forth to go to the land of Canaan. | 15:07 | |
| When they had come to the land of Canaan, | 15:12 | |
| Abraham passed through the land to the place of Shechem, | 15:14 | |
| to the oak of Moreh. | 15:17 | |
| At that time, the Canaanites were in the land. | 15:20 | |
| Then the Lord appeared to Abraham and said, | 15:24 | |
| 'To your descendants, I will give this land' | 15:26 | |
| So he built there an altar to the Lord | 15:30 | |
| who had appeared to him. | 15:33 | |
| Thence he removed to the mountain on the East of Bethel, | 15:35 | |
| and pitched his tent. | 15:40 | |
| With Bethel on the West, and Ai on the East. | 15:42 | |
| And there, he built an altar to the Lord | 15:45 | |
| and called on the name of the Lord. | 15:48 | |
| And Abraham journeyed on still going toward the Negev. | 15:51 | |
| Now there was a famine in the land. | 15:57 | |
| So Abraham went down to Egypt. | 16:00 | |
| To sojourn there. | 16:03 | |
| For the famine was severe in the land." | 16:06 | |
| Here ends the reading of the lesson for the day. | 16:12 | |
| May God's spirit bless to our hearing and understanding. | 16:15 | |
| These words from his holy word. | 16:19 | |
| Amen. | 16:23 | |
| (contemporary gospel music) | 16:24 | |
| Let us affirm our faith. | 17:06 | |
| All | We are not alone. | 17:10 |
| We live in God's world. | 17:12 | |
| We believe in God who has created and is creating, | 17:15 | |
| who has come in the true man Jesus, | 17:19 | |
| to reconcile and make new. | 17:22 | |
| Who works in us and others by His spirit. | 17:26 | |
| We trust Him. | 17:30 | |
| He calls us to be in His church, | 17:31 | |
| to celebrate His presence, | 17:35 | |
| to love and serve others, | 17:37 | |
| to seek justice and resist evil, | 17:40 | |
| to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen. | 17:43 | |
| Our judge and our hope. | 17:47 | |
| In life in death. | 17:49 | |
| In life beyond death, | 17:52 | |
| God is with us. | 17:54 | |
| We are not alone. | 17:56 | |
| Thanks be to God. | 17:58 | |
| - | The Lord be with you. | 18:02 |
| Congregation | And with your spirit | 18:04 |
| - | Let us pray. | 18:05 |
| Oh God. | 18:15 | |
| Our Creator, Father and Redeemer. | 18:17 | |
| We thank you for the wonderful gift of life,. | 18:21 | |
| With all its joys and responsibilities. | 18:26 | |
| It's struggle and its meaning. | 18:29 | |
| We thank you for good health and daily food. | 18:34 | |
| For shelter from the storm and loyalty from our friends. | 18:38 | |
| We thank you for the cycles of life | 18:45 | |
| as they bring to our lives, variety and goodness. | 18:49 | |
| A time of work, and a time of rest. | 18:54 | |
| A time of night, and the time of day. | 18:57 | |
| A time to rejoice, and a time to weep. | 19:01 | |
| A time of going out, and a time of coming in. | 19:05 | |
| A time to give, and a time to receive. | 19:10 | |
| A time to help, and a time to be helped. | 19:14 | |
| A time to love, and a time to let love come into our lives. | 19:19 | |
| Oh God, help each of us to say. | 19:26 | |
| "I rejoice in your gift of life to me, | 19:30 | |
| and I am grateful." | 19:36 | |
| But now God help us to look beyond ourselves, | 19:40 | |
| and to know that we have others to be concerned about. | 19:43 | |
| Those who think that darkness of soul | 19:50 | |
| is all that there is to life. | 19:53 | |
| Those who are living this moment | 19:59 | |
| in the valley of the shadow of death. | 20:01 | |
| Those who fear what this day may bring | 20:06 | |
| and who wonder if there will be a tomorrow. | 20:09 | |
| All those who have more of their life behind them, | 20:15 | |
| then they have a head of them. | 20:20 | |
| Little babies who have begun life this week. | 20:25 | |
| The children who seem most of all | 20:29 | |
| to live life to its fullest. | 20:31 | |
| And the youth who have the energy to live. | 20:34 | |
| And those of us older who have some answers, | 20:39 | |
| and many questions. | 20:45 | |
| We do not want life to be an escape, oh God. | 20:50 | |
| We want meaning goodness, | 20:54 | |
| joy, peace, | 20:57 | |
| satisfaction, | 21:00 | |
| good health. | 21:02 | |
| And most of all, the assurance | 21:03 | |
| that all is well in our relationships with you, | 21:05 | |
| and with our neighbor. | 21:09 | |
| Oh God, be very near to us now. | 21:12 | |
| So near that we not only believe, | 21:17 | |
| but we know. | 21:22 | |
| As Christ came to obey you and to love others. | 21:25 | |
| So may we be obedient and loving. | 21:31 | |
| We offer these prayers in the name | 21:36 | |
| and the spirit of our Lord, | 21:39 | |
| even Jesus Christ, | 21:41 | |
| who taught us as His disciples to pray as we pray together. | 21:44 | |
| All | Our father who are in heaven. | 21:50 |
| Hallowed be thy name, | 21:53 | |
| thy kingdom come, | 21:56 | |
| thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. | 21:58 | |
| Give us this day, our daily bread, | 22:02 | |
| and forgive us, our trespasses, | 22:06 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us. | 22:09 | |
| Lead us not into temptation, | 22:13 | |
| but deliver us from evil. | 22:16 | |
| For thine is the kingdom, | 22:18 | |
| and the power and the glory forever. | 22:20 | |
| Amen. | 22:25 | |
| - | It is good to be back again. | 22:31 |
| I've been away for several weeks on vacation and traveling. | 22:34 | |
| And it's good to be back home. | 22:38 | |
| And so in the name of God, | 22:43 | |
| may I welcome you to this service of worship. | 22:44 | |
| As I pray that His spirit may speak to you | 22:48 | |
| in a way that will be meaningful and rich, | 22:51 | |
| and satisfying for this hour, which you have given to Him. | 22:54 | |
| To those of you who are new here. | 22:59 | |
| And there are some new students | 23:01 | |
| and perhaps new faculty and staff. | 23:03 | |
| Someone told me this week that the football players | 23:06 | |
| and the law school students have to get an early start | 23:10 | |
| on everybody else. | 23:12 | |
| So, if you fit into either one of those categories | 23:13 | |
| or in any other category, which makes you new among us. | 23:17 | |
| Let me welcome you. | 23:22 | |
| And to those of you who worship here often, | 23:25 | |
| let me say also welcome | 23:27 | |
| in the name and in the spirit of Christ. | 23:30 | |
| May I say a word about the Reverend Al Fisher? | 23:35 | |
| Our preacher for the day. | 23:40 | |
| One of the real leaders of the United Methodist Church | 23:43 | |
| in our area of the church. | 23:48 | |
| Having just completed | 23:51 | |
| a term as district superintendent | 23:54 | |
| of the Goldsboro District in the North Carolina Conference, | 23:57 | |
| of the United Methodist Church. | 24:00 | |
| One who is recognized as an administrator, surely. | 24:04 | |
| As a committed churchman, yes. | 24:09 | |
| But one about whom I have heard | 24:12 | |
| it said more than anything else, | 24:14 | |
| who really cares about other persons. | 24:16 | |
| And having been a district superintendent, | 24:21 | |
| I've heard it most of all from men | 24:23 | |
| and others who have served | 24:25 | |
| in his district. | 24:28 | |
| And so he comes to Durham now. | 24:31 | |
| As the Associate Director of the Office | 24:36 | |
| of the rural church of the Duke Endowment, | 24:39 | |
| working with Dr. Wilson Nesbitt. | 24:41 | |
| He also is on the staff of the Divinity School. | 24:44 | |
| He and his wife Becky have a son who will be | 24:48 | |
| a first year student here at Duke beginning this week. | 24:50 | |
| Another son at Jordan High School, | 24:54 | |
| and a daughter at Hope Valley. | 24:57 | |
| And so we not only welcome you out | 24:59 | |
| to the pulpit today. | 25:02 | |
| But welcome you and your wife and family to Durham. | 25:06 | |
| And may your sojourn here be most satisfying to all of you. | 25:11 | |
| In the name of God. | 25:16 | |
| Now we hear you as you bring to us the word for today. | 25:17 | |
| - | To each of you loved of God and called to be | 25:37 |
| Christ men and women. | 25:40 | |
| Grace and peace from God the Father, | 25:42 | |
| and from our Lord Jesus Christ. | 25:45 | |
| The scripture lesson this morning, | 25:57 | |
| tells us, of a little heard and a little you story. | 26:02 | |
| Of the children of Israel | 26:08 | |
| first venture into the promised land. | 26:10 | |
| You know, we usually think of Moses | 26:15 | |
| and connection with the promised land | 26:17 | |
| as he led the children of Israel through 40 years | 26:19 | |
| in the wilderness. | 26:22 | |
| Story which ends tragically for Moses, | 26:24 | |
| as he's not able to enter the promised land | 26:26 | |
| because of his own failures. | 26:29 | |
| But actually Abraham was the first to go into that country. | 26:34 | |
| And this story out of the 12th chapter of Genesis, | 26:40 | |
| tells about it. | 26:44 | |
| God speaks to Abraham. | 26:46 | |
| Tells him to leave his country as Kindred. | 26:49 | |
| His father's house and go to a land | 26:54 | |
| to which he would direct him. | 26:57 | |
| And Abraham did. | 27:00 | |
| Taking with him Lot. | 27:02 | |
| They cared all of their belongings and their families | 27:04 | |
| and made the long journey. | 27:07 | |
| When they came to this land. | 27:10 | |
| We find the first thing Abraham does | 27:13 | |
| is to build an altar to his God. | 27:16 | |
| Abraham found, however that the promised land | 27:22 | |
| was not the paradise that he had anticipated. | 27:24 | |
| We can imagine something of his dismay to have come so far. | 27:28 | |
| Travel being what it was in that time. | 27:34 | |
| Only to find this land which God had directed him, | 27:38 | |
| to which God told him he would give to his descendants, | 27:42 | |
| to be a land of starvation and famine. | 27:45 | |
| The scripture doesn't tell us what went on | 27:51 | |
| in his mind at this time. | 27:54 | |
| Perhaps he panicked. | 27:57 | |
| Obviously he did not wait to find out what the Lord | 27:59 | |
| would direct him to do in this time of crisis. | 28:02 | |
| But we find him packing a gain, | 28:06 | |
| and moving on in to Egypt. | 28:09 | |
| And we know from the scripture, | 28:13 | |
| that this was not the best alternative for him. | 28:16 | |
| The lesson that we learned from this story | 28:21 | |
| is that there is famine, even in the promised land. | 28:23 | |
| You know, we have a way of looking forward | 28:28 | |
| to a new land, or a new set of circumstances, | 28:30 | |
| a new position, | 28:33 | |
| as being able to solve all of our problems. | 28:35 | |
| Parents look to the time when their children will be grown, | 28:40 | |
| finish school on their own, | 28:44 | |
| as a time when they can do some of the things | 28:46 | |
| they haven't been able to do through the years. | 28:49 | |
| Only to find that there is an emotional famine | 28:53 | |
| in their lives because they're alone. | 28:57 | |
| Young people look to marriage | 29:02 | |
| and assume that it will mean that | 29:03 | |
| the solution of their problems, | 29:06 | |
| that they will now be accepted as full members of society. | 29:09 | |
| Only to find as a clan of old that they've simply swapped | 29:15 | |
| one set of problems for another. | 29:19 | |
| During World War II, | 29:24 | |
| our country was caught up and carried away | 29:24 | |
| in a great patriotic effort. | 29:28 | |
| We believe that if we could vanquish the Nazis | 29:31 | |
| that we would be living in the promised land. | 29:34 | |
| We did just that. | 29:38 | |
| But what did we find? | 29:41 | |
| We found that our troubles were many, | 29:45 | |
| in different arenas, perhaps, but many. | 29:48 | |
| And yet I would have to say this morning that we truly live | 29:53 | |
| in the promised land. | 29:56 | |
| There is no question about that. | 29:59 | |
| Never in the history of man, | 30:01 | |
| has there been a more affluent people, | 30:05 | |
| than those of us who live now, | 30:09 | |
| in this time, | 30:11 | |
| in the United States of America. | 30:13 | |
| I'm just amazed at what I see. | 30:16 | |
| As Bob indicated in his introduction | 30:22 | |
| this morning about our background. | 30:27 | |
| We've served for 20 years in the Methodist Church, | 30:31 | |
| and we've lived in Methodist parsonages. | 30:34 | |
| And they've been provided for us, and in a marvelous way. | 30:36 | |
| This new job that I've come to, | 30:41 | |
| means that we have to provide our own housing. | 30:43 | |
| And so we've had to go out on the marketplace | 30:46 | |
| and furnish a house... | 30:48 | |
| Buy a house, first of all and then furnish it. | 30:51 | |
| You know, I've never had the opportunity of shopping | 30:56 | |
| for the things that go into a house. | 30:59 | |
| When you start looking for appliances, | 31:03 | |
| you can find just anything today. | 31:05 | |
| Looking for a refrigerator, for instance. | 31:10 | |
| You can find them that not only cool, | 31:13 | |
| but they freeze, and then they have a compartment, | 31:16 | |
| that'll keep ice cream real cool. | 31:19 | |
| They have one that'll keep butter real soft, | 31:22 | |
| all within the confines of the refrigerator. | 31:24 | |
| They have dispensers that you can get on the doors | 31:29 | |
| that you can fill with soft drinks, | 31:32 | |
| and have your own soda fountain. | 31:34 | |
| They make ice, and they never have to be defrosted. | 31:36 | |
| Now, this kind of marvel, | 31:40 | |
| to one who can remember | 31:42 | |
| when the ice truck went through town, | 31:44 | |
| leaving its telltale trail of water. | 31:47 | |
| The stove, amazing. | 31:53 | |
| A timer that can cut food on, | 31:56 | |
| and you don't even have to be there, cut it off. | 31:59 | |
| The oven has a new unit that heats in a hurry. | 32:01 | |
| Not only that, | 32:05 | |
| you turn a button and the oven will clean itself. | 32:08 | |
| Or I could go on to the washing machine | 32:13 | |
| that another marvel of our time. | 32:15 | |
| Has a half dozen settings for soft fabrics | 32:22 | |
| and hard for warm water, | 32:25 | |
| cool water, you name it, we can find it. | 32:27 | |
| And I can remember the wash pot in the backyard. | 32:31 | |
| Now what I've said about appliances, | 32:36 | |
| we can say about almost any area of our existence. | 32:37 | |
| The marvels of the medical world, | 32:44 | |
| the food industry, | 32:46 | |
| the things that you and I go down | 32:47 | |
| and purchase without even thinking about it. | 32:49 | |
| It is the promised land. | 32:57 | |
| But alas, there is famine | 33:02 | |
| in the promised land. | 33:05 | |
| The famine is obvious in several areas. | 33:08 | |
| Today, a tremendous amount of legislative time | 33:13 | |
| and tremendous amounts of money are being poured | 33:16 | |
| into a program to eliminate poverty. | 33:22 | |
| Yes, in the promised land of America, | 33:26 | |
| there is poverty. | 33:29 | |
| I clipped an editorial cartoon | 33:33 | |
| out of the news and observer sometime ago. | 33:35 | |
| This cartoon showed a typical American home. | 33:39 | |
| Had a big picture window. | 33:44 | |
| And on the front door, the letters USA. | 33:47 | |
| As you looked into the big picture window, | 33:51 | |
| you could see a family sitting at the table. | 33:53 | |
| And the table was laden with food. | 33:57 | |
| All kinds. | 34:00 | |
| I can remember the picture very vividly, | 34:01 | |
| the largest single item, being a turkey. | 34:04 | |
| The candles are lit, as if it's a festive occasion, | 34:07 | |
| Thanksgiving, Christmas, the 4th of July. | 34:11 | |
| And as the family's beginning to eat, | 34:15 | |
| a knock comes at the door. | 34:18 | |
| Standing at the door is an emaciated, | 34:20 | |
| gaunt, stooped old man. | 34:23 | |
| Written across his back | 34:27 | |
| the words "hunger at home" | 34:30 | |
| The voice from inside calls out to him, | 34:33 | |
| "You must have the wrong address, | 34:36 | |
| we're a prosperous people" | 34:39 | |
| And yet I was visiting in the hospital | 34:43 | |
| and was asked to visit, | 34:45 | |
| a young girl, five years old. | 34:48 | |
| She was only the size of a two-year old. | 34:50 | |
| She had been found just before she starved to death. | 34:53 | |
| And that in North Carolina. | 34:58 | |
| Poverty may be viewed as a downward circling spiral, | 35:04 | |
| whose parts continually feed upon each other | 35:08 | |
| to drive the spiral further down. | 35:11 | |
| For example; | 35:15 | |
| Unstable employment, is conducive to ill health, | 35:16 | |
| which means that a person can't hold a job regularly. | 35:20 | |
| Low family income, | 35:24 | |
| encourages a youth to drop out of school. | 35:26 | |
| And this sets the limit, | 35:30 | |
| in the kind of advancement he can hope for in life. | 35:32 | |
| A slum environment, | 35:36 | |
| fosters crime and juvenile delinquency. | 35:38 | |
| Which in turn produces an environment | 35:41 | |
| of social disorganization and apathy. | 35:44 | |
| And the slum worsens. | 35:48 | |
| Thus, the spiral continues downward. | 35:51 | |
| We have famine | 35:54 | |
| in promised land. | 35:56 | |
| And if I'm any judge today, | 36:00 | |
| we have a new type of famine in our country. | 36:01 | |
| It comes to those who live on fixed income. | 36:06 | |
| Living with a fixed income. | 36:11 | |
| They're caught up in a runaway inflation. | 36:13 | |
| And I can think about some of my own family | 36:18 | |
| who are living on on Social Security | 36:21 | |
| and how impossible it must be, | 36:23 | |
| to live in these times of inflation. | 36:27 | |
| There are other kinds of famine. | 36:34 | |
| There's a moral famine in promised land. | 36:37 | |
| No better example can be found and that of Watergate. | 36:41 | |
| last Sunday's Durham morning Herald carried | 36:47 | |
| an article about the 97th Convention | 36:49 | |
| of The American Bar Association. | 36:51 | |
| A great part of the time at that convention | 36:54 | |
| was spend on Watergate, why? | 36:57 | |
| Why did it happen? | 36:59 | |
| What were the factors that brought it on? | 37:00 | |
| At least two of the key speakers there, | 37:04 | |
| said that the men | 37:08 | |
| who perpetrated Watergate were immoral. | 37:09 | |
| Men in the highest positions in our country. | 37:15 | |
| Senator Sam Ervin speaking at The Bar Convention said. | 37:19 | |
| "The lust for political power of the presidential aides | 37:24 | |
| who perpetrated Watergate on America, | 37:27 | |
| blinded them to the laws of God, | 37:30 | |
| as well as the laws and ethics of men" | 37:34 | |
| Senator Ervin went on to say that the laws of men | 37:39 | |
| would not keep Watergate from happening again. | 37:42 | |
| The law, he said does not make men good. | 37:47 | |
| The tasks can be performed only by ethics, | 37:50 | |
| or religion, | 37:54 | |
| or morality. | 37:55 | |
| I heard an interesting statistic, | 38:01 | |
| while driving in my automobile last week | 38:04 | |
| that verifies what Senator Sam was saying. | 38:06 | |
| This commentator was talking about, | 38:12 | |
| the number of people in prison, | 38:15 | |
| in various countries throughout the world. | 38:18 | |
| And he gave an example from a Scandinavian country | 38:21 | |
| where 50 people for every 200,000 people | 38:24 | |
| are in prison. | 38:28 | |
| In the United States, | 38:30 | |
| 200 people of every 100 thousand | 38:32 | |
| are now in prison. | 38:35 | |
| We could continue to talk about areas of famine. | 38:39 | |
| There are many others. | 38:43 | |
| There's the permissiveness of our time. | 38:44 | |
| The famine caused by the misuse of our natural resources. | 38:47 | |
| It must be obvious to you as it is to me, | 38:52 | |
| that even though we are the most affluent people | 38:56 | |
| in all time. | 38:58 | |
| Truly the promised land, | 39:00 | |
| there is famine here. | 39:03 | |
| What do we do about it? | 39:07 | |
| How do we cope with it? | 39:09 | |
| Well, of course the immediate possibility | 39:12 | |
| is to escape to Egypt, as Abraham did. | 39:15 | |
| As it turned out, | 39:20 | |
| this was not the best possibility for Abraham. | 39:22 | |
| To exist in Egypt meant that Abraham had to live | 39:27 | |
| in a false situation. | 39:32 | |
| We didn't go ahead and read the last part of that chapter, | 39:34 | |
| chapter 12 this morning. | 39:39 | |
| If you go on and read that, | 39:41 | |
| you'll find how as they went into to Egypt. | 39:42 | |
| Abraham became quite concerned for his own safety. | 39:46 | |
| Sarah his wife was a very beautiful woman. | 39:52 | |
| And he knew if the Pharaoh saw her. | 39:56 | |
| Living in that kind of a world. | 39:59 | |
| That he'd take care of Abraham | 40:02 | |
| so that he could take Sarah into his place. | 40:04 | |
| Abraham knew this. | 40:11 | |
| And so he had Sarah to become his sister. | 40:14 | |
| And this way she was still taken by Pharaoh, | 40:18 | |
| but Abraham was able to preserve his life. | 40:21 | |
| A far greater importance than that even, | 40:25 | |
| was the fact that in Egypt | 40:29 | |
| he could not call upon his God, | 40:30 | |
| could not build an altar to his God. | 40:32 | |
| He had to live a lie. | 40:35 | |
| But he chose to live with these kinds of ambiguities. | 40:39 | |
| You know, we're often caught in the same situation. | 40:45 | |
| We find ourselves in places where it's much easier | 40:48 | |
| to try to escape from facing the realities. | 40:52 | |
| Even if it means we have to live a lie. | 40:59 | |
| There are many ways of escaping, | 41:06 | |
| it's possible to escape in religion. | 41:08 | |
| We can accept an unrealistic religion | 41:13 | |
| and by such action, escape. | 41:15 | |
| It can be said of a certain kind of religion | 41:19 | |
| that it's so heavenly minded that it's no earthly good. | 41:21 | |
| It is this kind of religion that Karl Marx called | 41:26 | |
| "The opiate of the people" | 41:29 | |
| I suppose it was the only kind of religion that he saw. | 41:34 | |
| And he took this as normative, | 41:38 | |
| of what the Christian life is about. | 41:40 | |
| Some people are saying that there's | 41:44 | |
| a religious revival underway in our country today. | 41:46 | |
| It is an extremely personal religious experience | 41:50 | |
| as emphasized, if indeed such a revival is going on. | 41:54 | |
| My observation of the new pietism of today | 42:01 | |
| is that it too has a danger, | 42:03 | |
| of being so inwardly directed, | 42:07 | |
| and so preoccupied with personal salvation, | 42:10 | |
| that it fails to seize | 42:13 | |
| the concern that God places upon all of us, | 42:15 | |
| for all of the people about us. | 42:20 | |
| It is though possible. | 42:25 | |
| For us to find an escape, | 42:28 | |
| in our religious experience. | 42:31 | |
| There are other ways of escaping. | 42:36 | |
| We can employ easy solutions. | 42:40 | |
| This is to take an action that will handle | 42:44 | |
| the situation for the moment. | 42:46 | |
| I suppose that, | 42:53 | |
| we could look about us at our friends | 42:57 | |
| and find many people who find various kinds | 42:59 | |
| of temporary means of escape. | 43:02 | |
| A man finds that he's in trouble with his son. | 43:06 | |
| And he says to him, | 43:08 | |
| "I know you can do better. | 43:11 | |
| I'm going to give you an automobile, | 43:13 | |
| will you do better?" | 43:14 | |
| What's his response? | 43:17 | |
| "Of course dad" | 43:19 | |
| Does he? | 43:22 | |
| Of course not. | 43:24 | |
| Not even God helps in that kind of a situation. | 43:26 | |
| God can only help him change | 43:31 | |
| when the pain of his rejection has been removed. | 43:33 | |
| So many people in their personal experiences though, | 43:41 | |
| try to escape from the realities about them | 43:45 | |
| from the famine that seems to have come to their lives. | 43:47 | |
| One of the great problems of our time is alcoholism. | 43:52 | |
| More often than not it is an escape. | 43:55 | |
| A temporary solution to a problem | 43:59 | |
| that needs to be handled. | 44:02 | |
| Well, serving for 15 years in local churches | 44:05 | |
| across Eastern North Carolina. | 44:08 | |
| I watched an interesting phenomenon take place. | 44:10 | |
| During a normal pastorate in a church. | 44:17 | |
| There would be a time when | 44:21 | |
| there would be a new family to come in to the church. | 44:22 | |
| Usually they would have moved from another church | 44:26 | |
| within the community. | 44:29 | |
| But they would see the church that I was serving | 44:32 | |
| as the answer to their needs, so they joined. | 44:34 | |
| It wouldn't be long before they began to find problems | 44:40 | |
| with that church, and with that preacher, | 44:42 | |
| and with that situation. | 44:44 | |
| And before many months were gone, | 44:47 | |
| they'd be moved on to another church. | 44:49 | |
| Trying to find | 44:52 | |
| a solution to their problem, a temporary one. | 44:56 | |
| They were trying to escape. | 45:00 | |
| Because they were not | 45:03 | |
| willing to look within themselves to see | 45:05 | |
| if the problem might really be theirs, | 45:07 | |
| and not the churches. | 45:10 | |
| While serving as superintendent | 45:13 | |
| I saw this in another way with churches | 45:15 | |
| who felt that their problem was with their pastor. | 45:18 | |
| And in the Methodist church we moved people, | 45:23 | |
| at annual conference time. | 45:27 | |
| And so a pastor normally stays for a year. | 45:29 | |
| And after Christmas usually as we began | 45:32 | |
| to work toward conference. | 45:35 | |
| Many of these churches will come and say, | 45:36 | |
| "you know, this man, or this woman | 45:37 | |
| is just not doing the job for us. | 45:40 | |
| We've got to have another pastor." | 45:42 | |
| And so it goes through the agony, | 45:45 | |
| and finally make a change. | 45:47 | |
| And next year is probably going to be | 45:50 | |
| the same problem again. | 45:51 | |
| Because very often, | 45:54 | |
| the problem is that of the churches, | 45:56 | |
| and not the pastors. | 45:59 | |
| No matter how we choose to escape, | 46:02 | |
| sooner or later we come to the moment of truth. | 46:06 | |
| That's what happened to Abraham. | 46:09 | |
| He was a good man. | 46:12 | |
| In fact, Abraham was a great man. | 46:14 | |
| We look at him and his life. | 46:17 | |
| We must come to understand that. | 46:19 | |
| But he was also a normal person. | 46:22 | |
| And so his tendency was to try to escape from his problems. | 46:25 | |
| So when the famine came to them, | 46:30 | |
| as they moved into Canaan, | 46:33 | |
| they began to look somewhere else, | 46:36 | |
| to try to escape from. | 46:38 | |
| But the day of judgment came to Abraham. | 46:46 | |
| The Pharaoh found out about his deceit. | 46:52 | |
| And he had to leave. | 46:57 | |
| And he did an interesting thing. | 46:59 | |
| For instead of continuing to travel he turned back, | 47:03 | |
| to where he had been. | 47:07 | |
| And this opens a second choice that's available to us. | 47:10 | |
| It's to tough it out in the promised land, | 47:13 | |
| during the time of famine. | 47:16 | |
| Perhaps if we struggle in these hard times, | 47:19 | |
| and these difficult times, | 47:22 | |
| and because of the struggle, | 47:23 | |
| we will find ourselves able | 47:26 | |
| to build a stronger tomorrow. | 47:29 | |
| To face the famine, is the manlier. | 47:32 | |
| Very often the one we try to avoid. | 47:37 | |
| This is exactly what Abraham did in the final analysis. | 47:43 | |
| Turning back, he went to where he had built the altar | 47:47 | |
| in the beginning, | 47:50 | |
| when he returned there to Ai, | 47:52 | |
| he fell down and call upon the name of the Lord. | 47:53 | |
| We cannot help, but wonder, | 47:58 | |
| how different it would have been, | 48:01 | |
| had Abraham done that in the first place. | 48:02 | |
| The trouble is, he wasted so much time, | 48:08 | |
| trying to escape, | 48:11 | |
| before he faced the reality of the situation. | 48:13 | |
| And you know, our tragedy is the same. | 48:17 | |
| We to try every means of escape we can, | 48:20 | |
| before we really face the issues, | 48:23 | |
| and try to deal with them constructively. | 48:27 | |
| We have in our stereo record collection, | 48:31 | |
| the music from a Broadway musical titled Purlie, | 48:36 | |
| the music is exciting. | 48:41 | |
| The major contribution of the play is the story. | 48:44 | |
| It takes place on a small Georgia town, in the recent past. | 48:48 | |
| The play is a story of Purlie, | 48:54 | |
| a young black preacher. | 48:57 | |
| And his attempts to get Big Bethel, | 48:59 | |
| which is a church not being used. | 49:02 | |
| From which he can preach his gospel of freedom, | 49:08 | |
| his new gospel as he calls it a freedom. | 49:13 | |
| Purlie talks about himself as a preacher, | 49:17 | |
| and he says, "I'm a New Fangled Preacher Man." | 49:19 | |
| He's come back to Georgia to free his people. | 49:23 | |
| But apparently finds himself frustrated | 49:28 | |
| as he tries to get Big Bethel. | 49:30 | |
| The only way he can get it is through Captain Ketchup, | 49:34 | |
| who is a white landowner in Georgia. | 49:40 | |
| And he seems frustrated at every turn. | 49:43 | |
| And finally, he develops a scheme, | 49:47 | |
| not all honest, | 49:50 | |
| but nonetheless away to get Big Bethel. | 49:51 | |
| But even that scheme is uncovered, | 49:55 | |
| and the plan fails. | 49:58 | |
| He's frustrated, he's defeated. | 50:01 | |
| So he sees it on it answer as for him to leave, | 50:04 | |
| to go back North. | 50:08 | |
| And at this point in the musical, | 50:11 | |
| he sings about it with a sister-in-law Missy. | 50:13 | |
| Purlie sings. | 50:17 | |
| "You can have your black-eyed peas, | 50:19 | |
| the morning glories and the trees. | 50:21 | |
| You just can't do the things you please | 50:24 | |
| crawling on your knees down home. | 50:26 | |
| Up North, that's the place to be Up North Up North. | 50:29 | |
| Up North ask Missy, | 50:33 | |
| you're seven living in a room, | 50:36 | |
| up above a cheap saloon. | 50:38 | |
| Your future is tied to a broom, | 50:41 | |
| freedom doesn't bloom Up North, | 50:47 | |
| down home about is better off, down-home." | 50:50 | |
| Purlie responds. | 50:55 | |
| "I'm sick of flopping in this shack, | 50:56 | |
| paper stuffing in the cracks, | 50:59 | |
| toting around a burlap bag. | 51:01 | |
| The world gets on your back, down-home. | 51:03 | |
| Up North sister, picture me Up North." | 51:07 | |
| and Missy Sings. | 51:11 | |
| "I see you sitting on a concrete step. | 51:13 | |
| I see you picking knots and three have been. | 51:16 | |
| You're never loving soul, he did. | 51:20 | |
| That's the deal you'd get Up North, | 51:23 | |
| down home a body is better off down-home. | 51:26 | |
| The answer brother to your prayers | 51:30 | |
| ain't living up no flight of stairs, | 51:32 | |
| is having you a fair share | 51:35 | |
| of the old country air, down-home." | 51:37 | |
| What Missy was saying to Purlie. | 51:43 | |
| What we come to understand out of Abraham's experience, | 51:46 | |
| as he went on into Egypt, | 51:50 | |
| is that the great issues of life, | 51:54 | |
| the times of famine, | 51:59 | |
| must be faced where they are. | 52:02 | |
| It is a marvelous country in which we live. | 52:08 | |
| It is truly the promised land, | 52:11 | |
| there are problems. | 52:14 | |
| Problems and the government. | 52:16 | |
| Problems in the culture in our society, | 52:19 | |
| in our community. | 52:22 | |
| In our own homes and in our personal lives. | 52:24 | |
| The escape mechanisms that we employ, | 52:28 | |
| our stop gap at best. | 52:31 | |
| For each of us, | 52:34 | |
| there must be a way to deal with them, | 52:36 | |
| now and effectively. | 52:39 | |
| For I believe that's the only hope | 52:42 | |
| for meaningful existence. | 52:45 | |
| And I believe that's the lesson | 52:49 | |
| that we come to understand, | 52:52 | |
| out of this first venture into the promised land. | 52:55 | |
| Let us pray. | 53:00 | |
| Almighty God who has given so much to us. | 53:05 | |
| Who has given us life in this time. | 53:14 | |
| Our prayer is | 53:24 | |
| that each day will find us growing, | 53:27 | |
| dealing with the problems that come. | 53:32 | |
| Knowing that famine is a normal part of life. | 53:36 | |
| And that if we live long enough, | 53:42 | |
| some kind of famine | 53:45 | |
| will test our faith. | 53:48 | |
| Give us the strength to deal with it at that moment. | 53:50 | |
| For we know that victory comes, | 53:56 | |
| as we seek to deal with these problems, | 54:01 | |
| with your help, | 54:06 | |
| and your strength. | 54:08 | |
| For you have promised us that through you, | 54:11 | |
| all things are possible. | 54:15 | |
| Amen. | 54:19 | |
| (liturgical organ music) | 54:25 | |
| (soft organ music) | 56:46 | |
| (man singing indistinctly) | 57:18 | |
| (bright organ music) | 59:50 | |
| (man singing indistinctly) | 1:03:23 | |
| (contemporary gospel music) | 1:07:54 | |
| - | Oh, Lord, our God. | 1:09:28 |
| Receive our praises and our prayers, | 1:09:31 | |
| and these offerings which we bring before you. | 1:09:33 | |
| With these gifts, we offer also ourselves, | 1:09:37 | |
| our souls and bodies, | 1:09:40 | |
| a living sacrifice. | 1:09:43 | |
| Holy acceptable to you, | 1:09:46 | |
| through Jesus Christ our Lord, | 1:09:50 | |
| Amen. | 1:09:53 | |
| (contemporary gospel music) | 1:09:56 | |
| The Lord bless you and keep you. | 1:12:39 | |
| The Lord make His face to shine upon you, | 1:12:42 | |
| and be gracious unto you. | 1:12:45 | |
| The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, | 1:12:47 | |
| and give you peace. | 1:12:51 | |
| Amen. | 1:12:54 | |
| (church bells toll) | 1:12:58 | |
| (jubilant organ music) | 1:13:13 |
Item Info
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