Dr. Ralph W. Sockman Sermon, 1964-01-26, Are Morals Going Godless?

very high sense of privilege like come to this great shirt troops present and former ministers i have long held in high regard in deep affection in our country today the most intensely discussed subject is morality our daily press keeps ever before us the delinquencies are you the scandals and so called society the crimes of our lawbreakers and the conflict of interest among our lawmakers our periodicals may feature articles of morals in september look magazine lay's and across its front

page the subject will rather pay us a with a subtitle do we need new clothes and morals for our moral crisis and only this week time magazine features its articles sex war is a more eloquent way i read the uae ok we'll follow the magazine variety that's a magazine not often quoted in the pulpit of lies and glad that i got this from a reprint in the new york times about two years ago rayborn yemen wrote a public relations expert wrote these arresting wires silently contagious lee sometimes inside and sometimes outside of the

mall but an actual cheating habits deepens contract kickbacks shady deals political grafting media playoffs business and basil mint income concealment labor feather betting capital price fixing farm overpayments shoddy workmanship the new journalism academic living and perhaps worst of all and americans stampede away from responsibility now add to these immoral evasions the cruel and unjust frequent between races and the feelings between nation and i think we are inclined to share with the archbishop of canterbury's recent pew after you get over his country and all that but we're suffering a breakdown

in a sense of duty the obligation and a principal it may not go further keeping our distressing moral situation what i do to read the explanation given by the senior editor of the magazine in september he had been commissioned and to interview other leaders of sparked in large areas and he came up with this conclusion the heart of their message is a warning we are heading into danger we are in the midst of a moral crisis because the great majority of americans who want to try to live a moral lines no longer can be certain what is right and what is wrong i'm not six dr to his diagnosis

but i do think it points out the state but in our moral situation we face both the task of securing obedient as to the moral laws we know and showing people what the moral law is and that was due to broadcast the prophet jeremiah case it is it's a chapter each talks duis people about their peak perpetual backsliding he said they were running like horses headlong into battle they claimed a legacy but that wasn't all they were also being misled by false prophets and so he turns to them in the eighth worst of it why do you say we are why a lot of people were is with

us that's the question people are putting to the church today and when we have the church presumed to speak on one knows quite often the crowd will save the preacher doesn't know those realities of life for them already scolding from a bible which was written centuries ago and has not adapted to modern exigencies furthermore how do we know that the moral code and not by moses came from god or the precepts of the gospel art of divine origin and still more they say how do we know there's a large whale let's start first of all where people are you know where they are and it can answer that question we must start with our own

waters of our own constitution of our bodies that makes it all to link says the moral imperative is to be actually what we are essential that is to bring out the true nature of our being whenever we do that we're doing the right but what is the true nature of the seventh generation ago while rose or in the focus of public thought after the jazz humor and drop wrestling life of large apartment russell about the right to be happy and she said this and those we are and animals we remain and the path to our regeneration and happiness if there

be such a power line is to our animal nature and she protested against and leave fourteen of our animal impulses but she admitted that are an adult impulses in the training to be developed ah yes even know that only cure we need discipline to fulfill that nature years ago i used to see pictures of the wild horses on the western plains the mustang jack wild horse that was before hollywood teamed up with the west with westerns i must confess their daughters were utterly free but i never felt that the mustang was quite this folio horse as the finely trained race for the top of the world i believe are receiving animal

genius what the well with all its freedom a while this is so filled with tears and greed but in my imagination i never felt it was enjoying the fullness of life in a good long as it was a boy's best friend oh yes sometimes and are restrictions you know and our responsibilities we say i'm leading a dog's life but even that's been a little slack we apply that during world you know to certain may all of the speeches and announced the corners other public places looking for their prey they may get what they want but after a while they no longer want what they get well so why isn't the full line but man is so much more than an animal shakespeare says what a piece of work is a man i'll not only reason

are included in faculty informing moving all express an admirable in action how like an angel in apprehension how like oh god yes ma'am lending his body his mind is spent it is like a great organism with many impulsive and windowed anyone impulse gives a certain temporary pleasure but the solemn temporary pleasures is not happiness about two hundred person could come into this raid warden an activity and get it so that might be pleasing but he beat fight to touch all the keys at once it wouldn't be on monday leon boom former premier of france says life never gives itself to anyone who's trying to get all its advantages at once

radar towers and for that he wore at the repressive certain keys he doesn't use them it developed others that the way to the rich full life and that's what price or jesus wasn't an asset trying to repress our normal impulses he was artistic if i may use the phrase trying to harmonize like he said i am come but they might have life and added a london today of course to harmonize why he was rich great at certain points are certain key to go play and we have so accepted the things that we can do more alert but you get the idea that the moral life is useless and join us all to be sure in the life of

christ pictured there are some restraints and sacrifices but here's the difference the good things in life have to be paid for in advance the bad things in life are paid for afterward in that is woe installment plan of remorse crisis came they show us the laws that are in the harmony of our nature when president eisenhower came up from washington to lay the cornerstone of the building so this chart he said i have just heard a definition of it is the best i know why fasten onto you it's this freedom is the priceless opportunity for self discipline that far when we look through christ and his followers and say why do you say the way of law the lord is unless he can answer because the law's

idea that the constitution of our own nature as a dust tilley says the moral imperative is to develop that as central nature within us now we have to go on the second step but only is man person who was developed his own nature he's a person among other person and the second answer that we could do in this where is that rice played down the laws that that person's among other person and as a social animal bones in a doable writes i enjoyed i must see the others enjoy them too no land use another person for his own advantage without being immoral mr robbie of using another present is seeing in

the relations between men and women and sexual intelligence it seemed sometimes in families between parent and child it is certainly seen between raising rates the day and it's seeing between nation and nation or i can even go make us lowe had another as you love yourself he's a person not to treat other as a person you mustn't see him as a person like models have a friendship thing of importance of the leash he said one of the greatest hurdles we have in international relations is this that we judge ourselves by our ideals and intentions what we judge other people lose by their actions how true that is christ cadence to help us get that's sensitive insight that taking of them open the be not our eyes but we can

see others as we want them to see us and when you look at a person's about there and judge their actions we must look week on the extra vote back when you mention the word of morality a popular mind at first i think the set then we think practicing oh that ruling robert dixon's cheating stealing borrowing physical thing which you know jesus spent more time denouncing the silver lining in the cities of the body why because a bodily scenes tend to be get is abou disgraced i get beastly drop or break up a whole it's of no but suppose i just see in my mind like jesus said that most respectable pharmacies

republicans and the house going to the kingdom before you ate harpo was selfish respectable president can do more damage in that doesn't dampen directs do the last act of course is immoral but lustful thinking said jesus is also tomorrow i commit as seen when i meet a person even though i did not physically hurt him jesus would have us look at persons beyond their acts he would have us look at them in their situation like a simple demonstration suppose i went to a gymnasium tomorrow and i so young fellow playing basketball and i said do we my dear fellow you look sick you want to be in bed that might be an act of kindness might save him from serious illness would support i went the home of a friend of mine the day who was sitting up after

long weeks in bed and i said to him my dear fellow you look sick you wannabe and at precisely the same we're in one case they would be crying in the other case they would be cruel calif for the larger seed back in nineteen twenty two i went on a student's to work to europe we came one night too in his book city in austria it was at the time at the austrian curtain say had depreciated to almost nothing you could buy a hold she thought they'd put a few americans and that night in a public restaurant one of our american boys and whispered a rather youthful innocent fun took a high denomination austrian curtain say roll it into a tape at the kendall on the table a lighted his plight i

almost wanted to write that in it austria it was a reflection on the national pride of the austrians if we are to be moral we must be persons of another person's we must see them as persons we must not unusual except to be with them as persons we must see beyond their external x yes when people ask say that we must have a new code there are new situations recall what jesus said i did not come to destroy the law and the prophets it and so forth that's what we need gold was eight commandments are still cool but they need to be brought down to date now on the new frontiers of completion stealing isn't as simple as a the day's a lot maybe people wouldn't think of stealing in and do and dealing with the new standards for

but they will keep the government or large impersonal if you're going to discuss that older man let's discuss it in the long range complexities of our corporate life take your commandment do not bear false witness while course we recall the wire we called a liar as almost fighting words but i know some people will i think would not have an outright lie but they are such thin skin supersensitive you wish you always have to keep lying to them to keep their friendship they just generate insincerity post poll it insincerity is how they'd be sheet life or think about all alone in terms of the new day we've got to bring

organs a propagandist from using false facts false information for his cause just as surely as we stop a man from the line against a neighbor now shalt not due course or is is a mr david moses day but killing changes back in nineteen fourteen it might have been quite feasible perhaps defensible to speak of fighting goes on with tanks and fitness for self defense for the day in this age of nuclear weapons as i heard tracks were going past a justice we pick up nuclear weapons in self defense is just self destruction you occasions teach you donate via makes agent good uncle they missed the ports along word would keep abreast of true why a price that your followers do you say a lot of orders

with you because right kate through food fuel will all that in our very constitution as persons in to get it but we can't stop there there's the third answer that it must be really does matter rice moral principles are in line with the constitution of this universe we are born into a load which we did not really a week i'd ask the creator to change his physical world pursue our desires as we might ask a landlord to change the apartment listen to our case yes for his round or nearly so the prevailing color of the heavens is blue we get tired of the wrongness of europe of the borders of the sky that's just too bad it's there that changed he rose there's

your physical universe with was like the force is like a lot of force of gravity may seem a nuisance at times it was a racy tragic do is that there are some blogs you know we didn't meet we discovered them in this universe there are laws of the mind and spirit just is discoverable as laws of the physical world the sequence of sowing and reaping applies on the soil of the mind as on the soil of the earth that's what the old philosophers used to call them all of nature some years ago radio listener federal judge out in san francisco sent me a copy of a speech he made to a convention of federal judges in that speech his point was that the tendency for

years as being too make laws as if they were just made with the government as expedience for the good of the people without any thought of the law of nature and his point was that such flexibility for expedience sake could lead to all sorts of distortions we must test our laws by this law of nature we mustn't criticize and change some of these commemorations of jb priestly said once loyal patriotic citizen has had to do with government you'd be like that of a latino living life to her cousin yeah the faithful loving wife will do anything for her husband except to stop criticizing and trying to improve it well life has a right and a duty

to try to improve her husband provide it she's doing it to fit back next rule not for our own patients are nagging why not like a beatnik of the protests against everything back for his self interest but the profits with the people so try to change things in line with a lot major also be not conform to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may show what is the will of god what is good and acceptable and perfect that's our right and our duty and if we're moral we must be ever try nate our own personal self fulfillment and our life in communities this wall of nature now here is where christ says his greatest want he sells us that the law of this universe is love

or god is a father with a nazi is love and all ties with the law that universe is love that's what gives us pot to do the moral things i don't agree with the look magazine that a great trouble is that good people want to be good but they don't know quite what is right and wrong no i think there's some truth in that but by no means the whole truth is us longer motive to do what we've always right and lover farley says that will be president elliot have harbored used to say but the strongest plea he could make to a wayward student was to remind that boy of the sacrifices veterans made to send him to college and when the lab walks through this jumble of new york and he used the type of education as long as to be you to remove oh love and sacrifice of those parents

and that that girl who goes with the temptations pointing at him the strongest appeal to him is low low of a woman he loved land beyond one hundred thirty movies as christ told this is the solomon lovell caught therefore is we just sang christ is the true light of the world that's what gives it a strength do you recall charles rangel really in terrible meek makes the roman centurion apologized to marry the mother of the air with a soldier's gambling for jesus garments why we do it even a hardened soldier knew that rule so he apologized many said well they weren't always that they want money or they want power when

she said that had that happened that they've won know he said maybe they haven't won as long as your son angel across a huge range about that nice man on the cross that's why paul said i preach christ crucified the wisdom and the power of god it's the pall over low oh if you didn't get what frances fox and the medical student did he said he ran away from moral duty underwriting laughter and all the vices of london but he said that was always the heart or always a voiceover shoulder saying all things big prey the who betray us me cry you'll follow what you say

we're wyden warns unless because he's in line with our own regions our own relationships to our neighbors and our constitutional vision of us christ is like at the top of the word spray our fallout in the beauty of this place and of this day may we see the beauty of holiness and do we forget the lure of this leftist above hello temptations and tempt us with the higher hopes and love we ask for

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