Spoken Word Messages - Page 96

Many exalted exhortations are spoken with the passing of each week from the world's pulpits and platforms. Enough good advice is given In the run of an average day to make the world a veritable heaven - if that advice were accepted and acted upon; but that which is proclaimed from the pulpit and the public plat- form is not nearly so important as what goes on over the back fence and what transpires harbored behind the closed doors of those places wherein we dwell, and what is in the minds and hearts of men.

So long as we live in a world composed of people who do not accept a single law of conduct, a single standard of ethics, or a single code of morals, we shall have to face the problem of differences of opinion and disagreement among men. So long as we mingle socially and in business and in our schools and communities, with people whose views and standards of living are not identical with ours, we shall be confronted with a choice between being different In some respects from other men or sacrificing our own standards and beliefs for the sake of not being different.

So sure and unfailing is the certainty with which remorse follows our misdoings, it is greatly to be wondered that men persist in disregarding the rules of life. Perhaps there may be some who would ask what there is to restrain us or to induce us to do otherwise. Certainly not threat of physical punishment. Fear of physical punishment never made a good man in any land In any age. The most relentless penalties of a man's misdeeds are things less tangible and more terrible - the accusation that comes from within, the dull heaviness of a heart that knows it is not clean, the dogged pursuit of a conscience that allows no peace and no surcease, the heaviness of spirit that comes with the disapproval of our Eternal Father whose children all men are; these are the real price a man pays for his own misdeeds, as David of Israel testified with heartbreaking conviction when he cried out,. "Hide Thy face from my sins and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, 0 God; and renew a right spirit within me." (Psalm 51:9)

We have read of those times and those places when a man's principal weapon was his honest and open physical strength. Life must have been very simple then. You know what to do with a man who wields a club - or even with a man who carries a gun. But it is a far cry from that day to the currently prevalent practice of using all manner of concealed weapons-- such weapons as false statement, subtle propaganda, untruthful teaching, misrepresentation of facto and motive.

A modern apostrophe to the mountains reminds us of a text from the Psalms: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord who made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: He that keepth these will not slumber.” (Psalm 121:1-3) Before us are those hills at the crossroads of the West—with their sure footing and their refusal to be moved by the winds of strange doctrine—hills with their strength, their peace, and their quiet assurance—hills that do not run to and from, chasing false Utopias, following after blind leaders—hills that turn neither to the right hand nor to the left, but stand with calm majesty on rock foundations, no matter what storms may be raging around them—hills that quietly speak age-old truth to all who will listen and learn. “God give me mountains, and strength to climb up.”