Dr. Gene E. Bartlett Sermon, 1966-08-28, What Is Happening To Our Belief In God?

the ms bee they're the words of my mouth and the medications of our hearts be acceptable in his sight who is our strength and our redeemer years of fast quickly since h g wells force approaches short story for the new yorker and titled answer to prayer but the inside of it seems no less about

it's all of an archbishop who came to the close of day strangely disturbed and severe things have not gone well and remembering how often he had advised others inside circumstance to pray he decided to take his own counsel so it went into this private chapel knelt on the altar stairs pulling his hands in the approved manner and began with a voice that had something more humility than usual oh god and after speaking on the word there came back from the altar of whites neither friendly nor a fastball just press yes what is it they found the archbishop the next morning sprawled on the altar spires they said his early the mace was to disarm unexpected shop or

sudden surprise so even a passing moment of friction can be a mirror in which we can see ourselves for a moment there is evidence enough and more about one of the most crucial missing notes in our contemporary faith analysts expect and so we got our souls believe there is most of us but it may have been a long time since we expected anything to come of it something has happened to our belief in god it isn't difficult to recall the influences which brought it about it's a story often told we often say that our world view has strained since the bible or a hundred times and more so that that old flat earth with its inverted bowl of the firmament like slacker

child's toy compared to the universe we know where men that day maybe taking pictures of the moon moreover our standards of right and wrong has shifted on their access while the biblical man might've asked what does the law require openly we contemporaries begin by asking what does my corporation or my community or myself and restore my pleasure require of me right and wrong has shifted at the same time we've very practically do for our souls many of the things to which we once looked abroad for many a modern man in a secular day a discussion of the meaning of god is like that of a conversation beyond the weather between men who really were in an air conditioned office makes an interesting subject for a conversation but it doesn't really affect the climate in which they work tomorrow

that's already under control add to it the manifest fact that one we can't do it the experience of modern man more men experience the absence of broad ban his presence and it is not surprising that professor the oscars of germany could say quietly something enormous has happened to the reality all western man well why don't we accepted why not settle for us it's a way of life why not counted against secular life and be done with it and a strange answer comes the bible war letters it has an uncanny way of standing off against us keeping us under tension less

somehow we should settle for too little too soon bluntly speaking we are at a point where we have to make up our lives our culture and our time either the bible is wrong about what is at the center of things or we are and something has to get a look for example at those words which is set down in the opening chapter of second peter it's not much of a book it was so limited and so spotty that it was a question whether it would be included in the canon but it has its moments and one of those is in that first chapter when an unknown writer in the middle of the second century summarized it by saying we do not follow cleverly devise meth when we make known to you the power and coming of jesus christ but we were eye witnesses are his

majesty they believed it wasn't meant it wasn't meant to stay and they've seen it and even in our secular sufficient say something jar of sauce in that if that's true is there any life that would not count itself somehow more joyous more serene more grounded more fulfilled if we could be eyewitness says all his majesty us on that for a moment that we want it then does the bible there was an elite does it help us recover the lost reality of god even in contemporary life and it seems to me that the bible offers two main lines of guidance and thought it said something to us for one thing it makes clear that there are

some things we do not need to do it sets us free from some of our striving for one thing we do not need to make an image of god this battle so many of us in the modern world how can you think of a god and the biblical man had an understanding even in his tiny concept of the world that god's majesty would exceed anything god man could bring forth and to make an image would be to define him and finally to combine him and ultimately today file him so the bible says you do not need to make an image it is not only impossible it is even an improper like ten years someone saying come on now you can't really get away with being what we are we have to have something to hold to

some way of thinking of him so we do and the biblical word reaches out to arnie it offers a symbol in which this church is so rich it says you don't need a picture but there are wordless means of communication some little thing that calls the whole experience you use symbols in your personal life somewhere in your home as in mind there are some mementos which really don't amount to anything but you keep them because they stand to your for some great hour in your life for someone who knew deeply cherished and it's a symbol on one you couldn't possibly holy picture so in the household of faith there are the symbols which recall and therefore recover the word less means of god they do not picturing him but joe klein a word they presents him the

symbol then there is the story the bible's main thrust is and that that's posting on an experience too one two man made and discovered that they have a common acquaintance they don't begin to define or describe him they began to tell stories about its reminiscence one man recalls something the other says that sounds like and that's just what to expect and in the telling of the story all of a sudden be absent one draws near and to draw closer to each other it was reminiscent son's story that did that so christians gather generation after generation to tell stories strange thing that the bible should have endured and barnett's word in such a way you do not need an image we are surrounded on every side by the word of him and symbol and in story moreover you do not

need to find him strange isn't it but it ought to be strange when we recognize why should the creature find the ones who made him does not god's around every life and the need is recognition you have brought to your home a newborn child ought to have some idea of this you remember those first weeks when you cared for him night and day and i do mean it you remember those days when you thought that the most vivid description of fatherhood as a hundred and twenty first song either a cape with a show me their slumber northward you love them before every loved you it could not possibly have been by his persuasion it was waiting for him when he came but what made the first smile such a great event it was the first sign

of the recognition of a lot prior to his wanting of the bible says that in so many ways it may be in a declaration that in the beginning was god it may be in the old myth that it was god who walked the garden in the quiet of the evening what a beautiful figure of poetry and called out and buy name nana hiding god seeking it may be in the story of jacob who won a fugitive journey deepen guilt before his brother lies down in a barren place rises the next morning to say shirley the lord was in this place and i i knew it not to maybe and a pulsation of the gospel which repeat deadly declares that god was in christ reconciling the world and to himself all right maybe in that word which christians wrote to one another in an ancient world we love him because he first love us

i really don't care which were to take but i care deeply lest anyone to go from a surface of christian worship without the unshakable conviction that his life is a family surrounded by god that not one is uninvited and counted unwanted unknown you walk a road through a mess waiting for the moment when sitting at your own table in the breaking of bread your eyes are opening and you recognize him aj gossip who had such a gift for vivid speech summarize it wants by saying all we should get our chance for he is more eager for it then we as always we are surrounded by a persistent ceo grace which

like the sea around the dutch dikes for searches for the tiniest opening and what it finds long socks and circles and at last tours in you do not need to find it not make you but there is a really awesome about the bible to add it acknowledges that god does not press is why even into contemporary life there are some things we do need to do for one thing we need so much to walk expectantly in the human experience whatever else may be said this is the realm of his disclosure and this is the point where the difference is no so when one meets a great christian is likely to say not first what a man of faith but rather what a great human being that's

precisely what henry drummond said a white all movie he was the biggest human being i've ever known so the showman run invites us to walk expectantly have you ever noticed how every human experience is always an original and not a copy no matter how many times we talk about what it means for a man and a woman love each other deeply whenever it comes it is not a copy of someone else's experience it's utterly all original and no matter how many times a child is born and that statistics about to the parent it is always a regional andrew lauber first with all your love and your love the second with all your love and the theory that it is not a visible it makes no sense and with matt medically but it

certainly does make sense spiritually it's always an original the pain you feel was not someone sells it either your own and so is the piece that comes in the midst of that does it not suggest that god addresses himself in the arts or originality all every human experience face it how does one experience god changed the question a moment what do you experience i experience is something there in which i live i experience other person's i love them hate them respond recess there are persons i experience than thirty years a community i am part of something bound together with others and i experienced myself the illumination by darkness the

anguish the plane there is something i experience now the question is there something else a separate category something set aside from these distinct athlete label god is there are problems to which only a few shell build up our humvees and the bible doesn't even stammer in its answer it stands up folds strength to say that the experience of god as not something separate from bees but in the midst of them in my community and my world and my personal relations and myself there god walks in every life we ought to be expected in it so martin buber said it beautifully the signs of god's address or not something extraordinary

something out of the order of things but in that which goes on all the time in any case what occurs to me address those me so that for contemporary secular man god maybe you know not in the burning bush but in a burning issue not in the separating of song waters of the red sea but in the holding back the tides of destruction which threaten us it maybe not and changing water into wine but changing border meant that jar it may be in bringing forth new life not out of song lazarus tune let out a sum up your depth of despair where life really has ended or you wished that one the secular man have no opportunity to say we do not follow cleverly devised mess but we were eyewitnesses are his

majesty it hasn't and it's in the midst of life walk expectantly that we may recognize him there but it has it seems to be a final word not only to walk expectantly but to walk obediently a god that has no claim of obedience doesn't matter one where the other contemporary novelists at it in one of his characters god you regard as an old man whom you choose and it doesn't matter it does matter when like thomas a campus you walk as he tells in his imitation of christ and what must be autobiographical walk into a chapel asking for insurance an inwardly of boys said to him what would you do if you had

that assurance this duke and it shall be well quickly have the times changed that answer that seems so not evenly and secular that man knows god by the next step of obedience right now it isn't the whole question it's that step that's where they issue a belief now rests i have a deep abiding conviction that god is making his own opening among us in our time we said for a long time til it's utterly for a bear that man whose extremity is god's opportunity but why do we suppose that it's always the lower extremity in a secular day the new experiment they maybe not that the deprivation but saturation

dr one we stand having so much only to discover that nothing absolutely nothing nor the sum total of everything else can take the place of knowing god loving god trusting god and we stand today in this hour i believe that man's upper extremities and that thanks be to god is his opportunity to macy gray exotic for us there's only one thing harder than climbing up its climbing down from a full speed the most mentally and if people are often those who toil to some respectable fight only to find that the true summit of the mountain is on the other side of the routine and that to richard they must descend and start again from a new approach that well be man's upper extremities and the secular day

to which though word of god comes in magnificent invitation last to speak of what is happening to our belief in god is really to say what is happening to us on the real purpose is to lay hold all the tremendous hope never ending years of my ministry have i have as great a sense of an impending fresh radical disclosure of the meaning of god in terms which we will understand we shall be eyewitnesses of his majesty he offers himself in the new excitement that comes in mind which are wary of nearly gathering facts and australia's beginning of the heart to say orin the

unexplained lifting of despair we are eye witnesses of his majesty the reconciliation of those have been separated and a discovery that law does not yield we are eyewitnesses of his majesty in the unexplained release of energy for justice in a no compassion reaches out to a brother and the courage to see peace through and the reversal of destruction we are eyewitness throws off his majesty and a new sense of life's meaning which makes us strangely sufficient and suffering and even serene in the face of death we are eyewitnesses of his majesty he offers himself that are worried and old concepts and all the images and always can follow

way back and go because very stand offering and sell in terms of our time and a generation which has been set back on its heels against the lean forward and to jolt of expectant say to see what god is doing what a tremendous day for duty oh god our father the word falters we come in the thought is not enough stand before the majesty of the i word and all that thou art and we are humbled but whatever is all but scrapped soon to be

forgotten what is of the grandest the cherry should live by a trusted rejoice in it let none of us go from this place in without the listing all the hearing world that we're in in jesus' name in london fb