Chapter One
Rediscovering Lost Values
I want you to think with me this morning from the subject:
"Rediscovering Lost Values." There is something wrong with our
world, something fundamentally and basically wrong. I don't think we
have to look too far to see that. I'm sure that most of you would
agree with me in making that assertion. And when we stop to analyze
the cause of our world's ills, many things come to mind.
We begin to wonder if it is due to the fact that we don't know
enough. But it can't be that. Because in terms of accumulated
knowledge we know more today than men have known in any period of
human history. We have the facts at our disposal. We know more about
mathematics, about science, about social science, and philosophy
than we've ever known in any period of the world's history. So it
can't be because we don't know enough.
And then we wonder if it is due to the fact that our scientific
genius lags behind. That is, if we have not made enough progress
scientifically. Well then, it can't be that. For our scientific
progress over the past years has been amazing. Man through his
scientific genius has been able to dwarf distance and place time in
chains, so that today it's possible to eat breakfast in New York
City and supper in London, England. Back in about 1753 it took a
letter three days to go from New York City to Washington, and today
you can go from here to China in less time than that. It can't be
because man is stagnant in his scientific progress. Man's scientific
genius has been amazing.
I think we have to look much deeper than that if we are to find the
real cause of man's problems and the real cause of the world's ills
today. If we are to really find it I think we will have to look in
the hearts and souls of men. (Lord help him)
The trouble isn't so much that we don't know enough, but it's as if
we aren't good enough. The trouble isn't so much that our scientific
genius lags behind, but our moral genius lags behind. (Well) The
great problem facing modern man is that the means by which we live(Help him God) have outdistanced the spiritual ends for which we
live. (That's right) So we find ourselves caught in a messed-up
world. (Well) The problem is with man himself and man's soul. We
haven't learned how to be just and honest and kind and true and
loving. And that is the basis of our problem. The real problem is
that through our scientific genius we've made of the world a
neighborhood, but through our moral and spiritual genius we've
failed to make of it a brotherhood. (Lord have mercy) And the great
danger facing us today is not so much the atomic bomb that was
created by physical science. Not so much that atomic bomb that you
can put in an airplane and drop on the heads of hundreds and
thousands of people-as dangerous as that is. But the real
danger confronting civilization today is that atomic bomb which lies
in the hearts and souls of men, (Lord have mercy) capable of
exploding into the vilest of hate and into the most damaging
selfishness-that's the atomic bomb that we've got to fear
today. (Lord help him) Problem is with the men. (Yes, yes) Within
the heart and the souls of men. (Lord) That is the real basis of our
problem. (Well)
My friends, all I'm trying to say is that if we are to go forward
today, we've got to go back and rediscover some mighty precious
values that we've left behind. (Yes) That's the only way that we
would be able to make of our world a better world, and to make of
this world what God wants it to be and the real purpose and meaning
of it. The only way we can do it is to go back (Yes) and rediscover
some mighty precious values that we've left behind. Our situation in
the world today reminds me of a very popular situation that took
place in the life of Jesus. It was read in the Scripture for the
morning, found over in the second chapter of Luke's gospel. The
story is very familiar, very popular; we all know it. You remember
when Jesus was about twelve years old, (Well) there was the custom
of the feast. Jesus' parents took him up to Jerusalem. That was an
annual occasion, the feast of the Passover, and they went up to
Jerusalem and they took Jesus along with them. And they were there a
few days, and then after being there they decided to go back home,
to Nazareth. (Lord help him) And they started out, and I guess as it
was in the tradition in those days, the father probably traveled in
front, and then the mother and the children behind. You see, they
didn't have the modern conveniences that we have today. They didn't
have automobiles and subways and buses. They walked, and traveled on
donkeys and camels and what have you. So they traveled very slow,
but it was usually the tradition for the father to lead the way.(Yeah)
And they left Jerusalem going on back to Nazareth, and I imagine
they walked a little while and they didn't look back to see if
everybody was there. But then the Scripture says, they went about a
day's journey and they stopped, I imagine to check up, to see if
everything was all right, and they discovered that something mighty
precious was missing. They discovered that Jesus wasn't with them.(Yes) Jesus wasn't in the midst. (Come on) And so they paused there
and looked and they didn't see him around. And they went on and
started looking among the kinsfolk. And they went on back to
Jerusalem and found him there, in the temple with the doctors of the
law. (Yeah, that's right)
Now, the real thing that is to be seen here is this: that the
parents of Jesus realized that they had left, and that they had lost
a mighty precious value. They had sense enough to know that before
they could go forward to Nazareth, they had to go backward to
Jerusalem to rediscover this value. (That's right) They knew that.
They knew that they couldn't go home to Nazareth until they went
back to Jerusalem. (Come on)
Sometimes, you know, it's necessary to go backward in order to go
forward. (Yes) That's an analogy of life. I remember the other day I
was driving out of New York City into Boston, and I stopped off in
Bridgeport, Connecticut, to visit some friends. And I went out of
New York on a highway that's known as the Merritt Parkway, it leads
into Boston, a very fine parkway. And I stopped in Bridgeport, and
after being there for two or three hours I decided to go on to
Boston, and I wanted to get back on the Merritt Parkway. And I went
out thinking that I was going toward the Merritt Parkway. I started
out, and I rode, and I kept riding, and I looked up and I saw a sign
saying two miles to a little town that I knew I was to bypass-I
wasn't to pass through that particular town. So I thought I was on
the wrong road. I stopped and I asked a gentleman on the road which
way would I get to the Merritt Parkway. And he said, "The Merritt
Parkway is about twelve or fifteen miles back that way. You've got
to turn around and go back to the Merritt Parkway; you are out of
the way now." In other words, before I could go forward to Boston, I
had to go back about twelve or fifteen miles to get to the Merritt
Parkway. May it not be that modern man has gotten on the wrong
parkway? (Lord help him) And if he is to go forward to the city of
salvation, he's got to go back and get on the right parkway. (Amen)
And so that was the thing that Jesus' parents realized, that they
had to go back and find this mighty precious value that they had
left behind, in order to go forward. They realized that. And so they
went back to Jerusalem and discovered Jesus, rediscovered him so to
speak, in order to go forward to Nazareth. (Lord help him)
Now that's what we've got to do in our world today. We've left a lot
of precious values behind; we've lost a lot of precious values. And
if we are to go forward, if we are to make this a better world in
which to live, we've got to go back. We've got to rediscover these
precious values that we've left behind.
I want to deal with one or two of these mighty precious values that
we've left behind, that if we're to go forward and to make this a
better world, we must rediscover.
The first is this-the first principle of value that we need to
rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In
other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral
laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws. (Lord
help us) I'm not so sure we all believe that. We never doubt that
there are physical laws of the universe that we must obey. We never
doubt that. And so we just don't jump out of airplanes or jump off
of high buildings for the fun of it-we don't do that. Because
we unconsciously know that there is a final law of gravitation, and
if you disobey it you'll suffer the consequences-we know that.
Even if we don't know it in its Newtonian formulation, we know it
intuitively, and so we just don't jump off the highest building in
Detroit for the fun of it-we don't do that. Because we know
that there is a law of gravitation which is final in the universe.(Lord) If we disobey it we'll suffer the consequences.
But I'm not so sure if we know that there are moral laws just as
abiding as the physical law. I'm not so sure about that. I'm not so
sure if we really believe that there is a law of love in this
universe, and that if you disobey it you'll suffer the consequences.(Yes) I'm not so sure if we really believe that. Now at least two
things convince me that we don't believe that, that we have strayed
away from the principle that this is a moral universe. (Lord help
him)
The first thing is that we have adopted in the modern world a sort
of a relativistic ethic. Now I'm not trying to use a big word here;
I'm trying to say something very concrete. And that is that we have
accepted the attitude that right and wrong are merely relative
Most people can't stand up for their convictions, because the
majority of people might not be doing it. (Amen, yes) See,
everybody's not doing it, so it must be wrong. And since everybody
is doing it, it must be right. (Yes, Lord help him) So [it's] a sort
of numerical interpretation of what's right.
But I'm here to say to you this morning that some things are right
and some things are wrong. (Yes) Eternally so, absolutely so. It's
wrong to hate. (Yes, that's right) It always has been wrong and it
always will be wrong. (Amen) It's wrong in America, it's wrong in
Germany, it's wrong in Russia, it's wrong in China. (Lord help him)
It was wrong in 2000 b.c., and it's wrong in 1954 a.d. It always has
been wrong, (That's right) and it always will be wrong. (That's
right) It's wrong to throw our lives away in riotous living. (Yeah)
No matter if everybody in Detroit is doing it, it's wrong. (Yes) It
always will be wrong, and it always has been wrong. It's wrong in
every age and it's wrong in every nation. Some things are right and
some things are wrong, no matter if everybody is doing the contrary.
Some things in this universe are absolute. The God of the universe
has made it so. And so long as we adopt this relative attitude
toward right and wrong, we're revolting against the very laws of God
himself. (Amen)
Now that isn't the only thing that convinces me that we've strayed
away from this attitude, (Go ahead) this principle. The other thing
is that we have adopted a sort of pragmatic test for right and
wrong-whatever works is right. (Yes) If it works, it's all
right. Nothing is wrong but that which does not work. If you don't
get caught, it's right. [Laughter] That's the attitude, isn't it?
It's all right to disobey the Ten Commandments, but just don't
disobey the eleventh, "Thou shall not get caught." [Laughter] That's
the attitude. That's the prevailing attitude in our culture. (Come
on) No matter what you do, just do it with a bit of finesse. (All
right) You know, a sort of attitude of the survival of the slickest.
Not the Darwinian survival of the fittest, but the survival of the
slickest-whoever can be the slickest is the one who [is] right.
It's all right to lie, but lie with dignity. [Laughter] It's all
right to steal and to rob and extort, but do it with a bit of
finesse. (Yes) It's even all right to hate, but just dress your hate
up in the garments of love and make it appear that you are loving
when you are actually hating. Just get by! That's the thing that's
right according to this new ethic. (Lord help him)
My friends, that attitude is destroying the soul of our culture.(You're right there) It's destroying our nation. (Oh yes) The thing
that we need in the world today is a group of men and women who will
stand up for right and to be opposed to wrong, wherever it is. (Lord
have mercy) A group of people who have come to see that some things
are wrong, whether they're never caught up with. And some things are
right, whether nobody sees you doing them or not.
All I'm trying to say to you is (Have mercy, my God) that our world
hinges on moral foundations. God has made it so. God has made the
universe to be based on a moral law. (Lord help him) So long as man
disobeys it he is revolting against God. That's what we need in the
world today: people who will stand for right and goodness. It's not
enough to know the intricacies of zoology and biology, but we must
know the intricacies of law. (Well) It is not enough to know that
two and two makes four, but we've got to know somehow that it's
right to be honest and just with our brothers. (Yes) It's not enough
to know all about our philosophical and mathematical disciplines, (Have mercy) but we've got to know the simple disciplines of being
honest and loving and just with all humanity. (Oh yes) If we don't
learn it, we will destroy ourselves (That's right) by the misuse of
our own powers. (Amen)
This universe hinges on moral foundations. (Yeah) There is something
in this universe that justifies Carlyle in saying "No lie can live
forever." There is something in this universe that justifies William
Cullen Bryant in saying "Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again."(My Lord, amen) There is something in this universe that justifies
James Russell Lowell in saying
Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne.
Yet that scaffold sways the future. (Lord help him)
Behind the dim unknown stands God,
Within the shadow keeping watch above his own. (Amen)
There is something in this universe that justifies the biblical
writer in saying "You shall reap what you sow." (Amen) This is a
law-abiding universe. (Amen) This is a moral universe. It hinges on
moral foundations.
Continues.
