Rediscovering Lost Values
Reverend Simmons, platform associates,
members and friends of Second Baptist Church, I need not pause to
say how happy I am to be here this morning, and to be a part of
this worship service. It is certainly with a deal of humility that
I stand in this pulpit so rich in tradition and history. Second
Baptist Church, as you know, has the reputation of being one of
the great churches of our nation, and it is certainly a challenge
that, for me to stand here this morning, to be in the pulpit of
Reverend Banks and of a people who are so great and rich in tradition.
I'm not exactly a stranger in the city of Detroit,
for I have been here several times before. And I remember back in
about 1944 or 1945, somewhere back in there, that I came to Second
Baptist Church for the first time—I think that was the year
that the National Baptist Convention met here. And of course I have
a lot of relatives in this city, so that Detroit is really something
of a second home for me, and I don't feel too much a stranger here
this morning. So it is indeed a pleasure and a privilege for me
to be in this city this morning, and to be here to worship with
you in the absence of your very fine and noble pastor, Dr. Banks.
I want you to think with me this morning from the
subject: "Rediscovering Lost Values." "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,
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 aeroplane 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 to our . . . [recording interrupted]
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 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 a 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 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. (Lord help
him) If we are to make of this a better world, we've got to
go back and rediscover that precious value that we've left behind.
(Yes)
And then there is a second thing, a second principle
that we've got to go back and rediscover. (Help him) And
that is that all reality has spiritual control. In other words,
we've got to go back and rediscover the principle that there is
a God behind the process. Well this you say, "Why is it that
you raise that as a point in your sermon, in a church? The mere
fact we are at church, we believe in God, we don't need to go back
and rediscover that. The mere fact that we are here, and the mere
fact that we sing and pray, and come to church—we believe in
God." Well, there's some truth in that. But we must remember
that it's possible to affirm the existence of God with your lips
and deny his existence with your life. (Amen, Preach) The
most dangerous type of atheism is not theoretical atheism, but practical
atheism (Amen)—that's the most dangerous type. (Lord
have mercy) And the world, even the church, is filled up with
people who pay lip service to God and not life service. (That's
right, Filled up with, Come on, Lord help him) And there is
always a danger that we will make it appear externally that we believe
in God when internally we don't. (Yes) We say with our mouths
that we believe in him, but we live with our lives like he never
existed. (That's right) That is the ever-present danger confronting
religion. That's a dangerous type of atheism.
And I think, my friends, that that is the thing
that has happened in America. That we have unconsciously left God
behind. Now, we haven't consciously done it; we have unconsciously
done it. You see, the text, you remember the text said that Jesus'
parents went a whole day's journey not knowing that he wasn't with
them. They didn't consciously leave him behind. (Well) It
was unconscious; went a whole day and didn't even know it. It wasn't
a conscious process. You see, we didn't grow up and say, "Now,
goodbye God, we're going to leave you now." The materialism
in America has been an unconscious thing. Since the rise of the
Industrial Revolution in England, and then the invention of all
of our gadgets and contrivances and all of the things and modern
conveniences—we unconsciously left God behind. We didn't mean
to do it.
We just became so involved in getting our big bank
accounts that we unconsciously forgot about God—we didn't mean
to do it.
We became so involved in getting our nice luxurious
cars, and they're very nice, but we became so involved in it that
it became much more convenient to ride out to the beach on Sunday
afternoon than to come to church that morning. (Yes) It was
an unconscious thing—we didn't mean to do it.
We became so involved and fascinated by the intricacies
of television that we found it a little more convenient to stay
at home than to come to church. It was an unconscious thing—we
didn't mean to do it. We didn't just go up and say, "Now God,
we’re gone." (Lord help him) We had gone a whole
day's journey (Yes) and then we came to see that we had unconsciously
ushered God out of the universe. A whole day's journey—didn't
mean to do it. We just became so involved in things that we forgot
about God. (Oh yes)
And that is the danger confronting us, my friends:
that in a nation as ours where we stress mass production, and that's
mighty important, where we have so many conveniences and luxuries
and all of that, there is the danger that we will unconsciously
forget about God. I'm not saying that these things aren't important;
we need them, we need cars, we need money; all of that's important
to live. But whenever they become substitutes for God, (Yes)
they become injurious. (Amen)
And may I say to you this morning, (Lord help
him) that none of these things can ever be real substitutes
for God. Automobiles and subways, televisions and radios, dollars
and cents can never be substitutes for God. (Amen) For long
before any of these came into existence, we needed God. (Amen,
Yes) And long after they will have passed away, we will still
need God. (Oh yeah)
And I say to you this morning in conclusion (Lord
have mercy) that I'm not going to put my ultimate faith in things.
I'm not going to put my ultimate faith in gadgets and contrivances.
As a young man with most of my life ahead of me, I
decided early (Oh yeah) to give my life to something eternal
and absolute. (All right) Not to these little gods that are
here today and gone tomorrow, (Come on) but to God who is
the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Amen, Amen)
Not in the little gods that can be with us in a
few moments of prosperity, (Yes) but in the God who walks
with us through the valley of the shadow of death, (That's right)
and causes us to fear no evil. (All right) That's the God.
(Come on)
Not in the god that can give us a few Cadillac cars
and Buick convertibles, as nice as they are, that are in style today
and out of style three years from now, (All right) but the
God who threw up the stars (Come on) to bedeck the heavens
like swinging lanterns of eternity. (All right, Oh yes)
Not in the god that can throw up a few skyscraping
buildings, but the God who threw up the gigantic mountains, kissing
the sky, (Amen) as if to bathe their peaks in the lofty blues.
(Yes)
Not in the god that can give us a few televisions
and radios, but the God who threw up that great cosmic light that
gets up early in the morning in the eastern horizon, (Oh yes)
who paints its technicolor across the blue (Oh yes, Come on)—something
that man could never make. (All right, Yes)
I'm not going to put my ultimate faith in the little
gods that can be destroyed in an atomic age, (Yes) but the
God who has been our help in ages past, (Come on) and our
hope for years to come, (All right) and our shelter in the
time of storm, (Oh yes) and our eternal home. That's the
God that I'm putting my ultimate faith in. (Oh yes, Come on now)
That's the God that I call upon you to worship this morning. (Yes)
Go out and be assured that that God is going to
last forever. (Yes) Storms might come and go. (Yes)
Our great skyscraping buildings will come and go. (Yes) Our
beautiful automobiles will come and go, but God will be here. (Amen)
Plants may wither, the flowers may fade away, but the word of our
God shall stand forever and nothing can ever stop him. (Bring
it down) All of the P-38s in the world can never reach God.
All of our atomic bombs can never reach him. The God that I'm talking
about this morning (Come on) is the God of the universe and
the God that will last through the ages. (All right) If we
are to go forward this morning, (Well) we've got to go back
and find that God. (All right) That is the God that demands
and commands our ultimate allegiance. (Right)
If we are to go forward, (Oh yes) we must
go back and rediscover these precious values: (Well) that
all reality hinges on moral foundations (Lord have mercy)
and that all reality has spiritual control. (Yes) God bless
you. (Amen, Amen, Amen)
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