McCracken Sermon, 1964-02-09, The Seven Cardinal Virtues

room know the text is taken from the bulk of the sam's chapter one hundred and eleven bass taking the fiasco of the law and is the beginning of wisdom at this time last year and we land in mind i began a series of sermons on the seven deadly sins this year as a companion clinton study i propose to deal with a seven cardinal that shows four of them wisdom justice temperance

courage christianity inherited from the pre christian world but its own the distinctive stamp on the remaining three faith a whole and love which embraces as well as their shoes christianity brought out of its own treasury and dana century there's several have been an outdated as the basic standard all behavior or fought personal character and an ordered society now i might as well tell you that i have hesitated somewhat overly cds far liane this year i anticipate that there may

not be quite the interest in the harp know that shows that there was in the deadly sins one of the mysteries of preaching is that congregations appeared to enjoy hearing about their sins but as with newspapers not those plays that show is never as good copy as vice what is it in human nature that process to the one more than the other for example why is it so difficult to write an outstanding be good novel about a superlative really good actor dostoyevsky in the india sought to do just that

as he put it to portray a truly beautiful soul he cannot be said to have been in paris successful and crying one month wall has had a far greater appeal wayne with a marble has been a matter of practical relevance reaching today is pointless if it doesn't come to grips with the contemporary situation i don't have to tell you that in this country we're in the throes of a social revolution civil rights says they affect schools and housing and label and community relations and jet flights and were present this country with its major domestic issue ok and shrinking away back to wait till an

irs topple and the new testament and the fire conveying an impression of remoteness well signs so broad comprehensive general lending themselves to add subtract scholastic discussion is this nineteen sixty four is this the time to concentrate on land to the extent of having seven holes sunday mornings to them that's the question i kept wanting to myself or through january and into february i have decided to go ahead with them but i'm going to try very hard to avoid generalizations and dips directions and he'd close two are based nineteen sixty four and to the issues and crises confronting us in our

day what i did in williston which is custom of la apartment right of race among the cardinal is that that shows was numb often a very short definition wisdom is moral insight if you have if you're a person capable of a true discrimination of values you have an understanding of what life was about and the what is most worth living for and to the degree that you have it you have miles to the art of living in the babel of the rich farmer how long has broadened call the man a full now by flo is not meant that he was stupid on that he was at say nine he must've been

smocks and shop to have succeeded so well what is meant is that his sense of values is his scale of values was foolish was was absurdly out of proportion and this is something that applies not only to individuals but to add to the gates of individuals and nations wives if it has more insight if it has a sound grasp on values and understands want to opt for the public good to aim at and strive after and root for us it is one of the deepest needs of our civilization and the more you get to thinking about wisdom the more you appreciate that it is not a commodity that can be produced on demand this false in the biblical

saying that wisdom cannot be purchased with goat or so there we have well we have education we have a control of our environment that would have left the late an obvious doctoral beeping but along with them a death of wisdom and the desperate confusion of values shot we go all out for intellectual understanding and emotional satisfaction a lot of people find emotional satisfaction in the strangest quarters what a fuss is being made over those ridiculous beatles the herald tribune yesterday

featuring the moments from me the new york times with its ban on all the news that fit to print featuring them on the first page of its six second section one wonders whether the newspapers and radio and television appreciate the extent to which they are the taste makers just in this sort of thing so that if only out of curiosity the majority of us will be wanting to be on the southern out tonight i tell you those the beatles must be the weirdest exports from britain in many many moons well we have efficient is in our perception of parallel universe

is in molly's site is inability to face the practical problems of existence person on social and work our way voter that solution should understand that it will be to our advantage to look a bit closer at the virtual we call wisdom it's a practical joke mrs thompson of character than of intimate it has to deal with the handling of everyday of fans and human relationships wise man as hiro in making his talk a show in worthy action he has a motive is very clearly on the agenda the choose and decide rightly

is a man with a broad and through understanding help them distinguish between boot and bad growth and forceful the nsa's situations and signaling them and that every aspect and giving to each its do weight he offers sage so and we prefer his advice to that of many persons who may know more about what we trust less moreover it has lavender and profited from observation reflection experience so the jaw area and sorrow ho disappointment gas plant failure success they have all talked to profound lessons and breaded in not only a perception and a sound sense of values but with those sympathy and compassion he can't enter into the

experience as well as their joys and their sorrows for their well nigh as real and then had to him as his own as i have been saying these things stay up i had one man in my mind in the view of many and remain calm was the wisest and most fundamentally same man who ever took a big part in the affairs of this pamphlet and his was the wisdom of the heart as well as australia now i emphasize that last sentence because wisdom and knowledge about to be distinguished we have so much more of the letter yet it doesn't necessarily follow that the more we know the lives that we become in this sensory we have made tremendous strides in

our acquisition of knowledge there are things we know that rachel but that doesn't make us wiser lemley so thomas brown wrote a book in which he maintained that the idea that they asked swim around the sun was too foolish to be concert that we know better but we ought not for that reason to suppose that we are wiser than so thomas wisdom doesn't depend on sexual knowledge the modern intellectual with all he knows about science and current affairs and politics is inclined to be very conscious of intellectuals to be idiotic it has to be in mind it that it isn't enough to know the facts it is

necessary to perceive that meaning to be able to handle them the facts about nuclear energy to be able to handle on the constructive use and this is where our generation with its knowledge of the constitution of the physical universe with its knowledge of the physiological and psychological constitution all film and make sure as so calamitous to a field as a wise man knows more than facts he has said their city in the affairs of life and it is true to their sagacity in moral integrity and spent your sensitivity wisdom as wide as it is deep intellectually or how a man they have a brilliant mind but willett the ignorance of the person who

knows nothing except what he sees with his eyes and taxes with his fingers on the other hand and in an academic community like ours this has to be said then out people with little formal education low profile only wise or not and they may be quite on record but they have insight and understanding that is applying to ponder in the state of several law that alec baldwin ok at the faith new law when plato on aristotle and their mothers who in this realm no more than some theological protesters no infested bill with intellectual activity wisdom with

marlow and spiritual activity we out in the predicament that has overwhelmed us in our century because we are proficient in the wind intellectual know and especially in the other side we have extra nature but so little control of ourselves and even less of the forces that bedevil in civilization long ago the question was asked where and wisdom be found in the main that i've been through and says one is the onset of the pre christian wiman the world of the greeks in particular of socrates plato embarrassed yeah so it is a do it yourself on set and has its modern count the poppy and humanism and one another of its many manifestations

weston so the argument runs is a show that can be self cultivated it can be achieved by observation reflection discipline and socrates was so many years the bat from state as sentence about him in plato's the dough is often quoted oh the man oh this dining room i have no no he was the wisest and the justice and the bass socrates threatened from the study of the physical sciences for the study of human nature he was to be found in the marketplace the stadium the banquet hall among artists politicians sochi talk to people about their interests and activities about the latter day off their beliefs and values i'm sending any

individual that it showed any proposed line of action any social institution the practical test he would raise loss is it wise or is it still good and he urged people to do what he did to reflect to meditate about themselves and the life our own don't see until they found meaning and understanding and sold to rip it was the mark inside a true sense of what really matters and is most worth living for a nice at all of that in so far as it goes after wisdom this is the way taken by our generation the dough it yourself way the question where their wisdom the phone there's another non so it's provided by the bible and they're working out

of the acc to perfection in jesus christ and the first thing to say about the answer is that it shifts the center of attention from man of the bible doesn't teach that the secret of living well and wisely allies within our reach and that if we will only apply ourselves and discipline ourselves we can take a load of it from moscow to the bible takes a dim view about ability when on our own to the deal wisely would be that bass note on social relationship there are repeated warnings in its pages the illusion of self sufficiency about our capacity to solve all our problems here are all our meals eliminate

all evils from our will comply with weekend managed do it gain the knowledge and wisdom it until friends asked to be told that we are in the position of the boy was persuaded to stand in a bucket and tried to lift himself up yet the long history of man's attempts to deal with the marvel problem which is his knees a problem revealed this the measure off his inadequacies and fellow coast ports in north chesterfield are saying i'm very sure that any man of common understanding may by corrupt or shot care attention believe that make himself or whatever it pleases and lopez goes on protesting lake in norwalk were owed one

wonders built the play it ok imagine such an aunt's he wear and wisdom they've owned the bible raises the question comes up quickly on so wisdom is defined in a lot of fraud is all lies he is the source of wisdom and the denial that we can have it if we outlawed in our personal lives and the life of our nation but i we must have it but the way to do it first and foremost is through our relationship to go on our dependence on bond contact with an added its inspiration is not only a person to home we are a comfortable is a pattern for now

allying symbolized madness that brought the man who delights in the law of the long and meditates on it b and night ought to put it in another way wisdom is the ability to look at all things your personal affair as your attitude to civil rights your your judgments about russia on cruise ship and cuba and cops throw in the light of god the theory of a lot of fear doesn't mean fun but oh and reverence which read integrity and patty the fear of a lot of this the beginning of wisdom and our neighbor a professor at boston university is to say the beginning all is the gentleman air in its principal

pot the person who enters into an abiding relationship with god this is what we see supremely in our master jesus christ gains from it more insight clients a true discrimination of values understand swapped light is about them what is most worth living for the word of god which came to one of the biblical writers was this and it's a lovely since i showed light a candle of understanding in your heart which shall never be put out there's a passage in the book of kings that tells how god appeared to the youthful solomon and said pass what i shall give you and this was

someone's request or lot michael malice made by seven king in place of david my father and that seventies in the midst of that the poem about past shows and create people good nice to have when they're far and understanding mind the government by people that i made is aaron between good and evil plot who is able to go out and this guy ray eight people and god says barnes because you have lost lives and have not ask for yourself our actions are the likes of your enemies but have asked for yourself understanding to design what is right below that i now do according to your word in

load i give you a wise and discerning mind i guarantee you also what you have not gas riches and on our in solomon's prayer there is a listen for as though that people are not be inclined to the secularists at heart now do it yourself facing duty and responsibility we tend to rely solely on our own intelligence that you know their death of brainpower among us but the zone that month alone where all moral perception of this confusion of values that was in the old world too and when you find pollen that corinthian letter criticizing the vaunted wisdom of

this world and insisting but it was not wisdom but finally it was because he was thinking about those south say infect you intellectual brilliance reliance on it with reliance on a week in those you know self sufficient say and little more oil sands little insight into two values alienation from bottle that sauce that inspiration is not surprising that was done renters whereas among the cardinal directions on late it's one thing to say yes it is place and to believe in the words of

scripture but it is the rest of the almighty and then target once life and see there's one has opportunity to log of the life of society accordingly so as we enter man it reminds you of the saying of james the brat of oral a video of you fall short in wisdom he should ice it from law and it will be given him now a prayer oh god by rome the meek i guided in judgment and light rises up in darkness of the public eye and tell us in all our doubts and

uncertainties the grace to ask what about what is to have us to do that the spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices and the daylight like we may see light and then dies straight off may not stumble for christ's sake are men fb

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