64 Years of Preaching

The Psalmist says, "Praise God with the sound of the trumpet." That crashing, triumphant note is to go sounding through all our songs! The trumpet is a neglected instrument. We hear more of the wail and the sob of the flute, than we do of the piercing, shattering notes of the trumpet. We pitch our tunes these days in a minor key. We are subdued, hesitant, and doubtful. We speak not the New Testament language of victory and conquest. We lack that note of confidence and joy which was the characteristic mark of that invincible apostolic church. I understand the great Scottish preacher who spoke of "The Lost wonder of the Christian faith."

There is an old Jewish legend which tells how each morning in heaven the trumpets ring out; and when Lucifer, son of the morning, was asked, after he had fallen from heaven, what he missed most, he replied, "I miss most of all the trumpets that are sounded in the morning." And that is what we miss in our lives these days–and I am persuaded in our church life–those notes of courage and confidence and victory. There is more wailing than shouting, more mourning than rejoicing.

The effect of this is to cripple and paralyze the church. A depressed and discouraged church is almost sure to be a defeated church. It is easy to look inward to the problems in our lives, the troubles of the world, the weaknesses of the church and grow discouraged. We need to lift up our eyes, look at our Lord. And what do we see? We see Jesus "crowned with glory and honor." We see Jesus enthroned at God’s right hand. We see Jesus waiting "until all his foes shall be made the foot-stool of his feet." How this battle with evil will end is not a matter of doubt, it is only a matter of time. When we see our reigning Lord that will bring back the sound of the trumpet.

What are those things that tempt us to lay the trumpet down? What are the things that turn the shout into a wail? Three things, perhaps, more than others: The Perplexity of Trouble. The Power of Sin. The Fear of Death.

The Perplexity of Trouble

There are certain tragic happenings in life that almost silence the song on the lips of the bravest of us. There are trials and burdens, bereavements and sorrows in all of our lives at sometime in the journey. There are problems on the job, tensions in our marriage, the challenge of our children, and, as Shakespeare said, "The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." Here are some sentences from a letter which Earl Grey, after the death of his wife, wrote to a friend: "I am having a hard struggle. Every day I grasp a little more of all that it means. Just when I have got my spirit abreast of life, I feel and understand more sorrow and sink again. Sometimes it is like a living death; and the perpetual heartache, which has set in, wears me down."

Stuart West was the minister of the Christian Church in Newberg, Oregon. One day he wrote these lines to his congregation in the church’s newsletter: "Right now there is a war going on inside of me that is largely invisible but it is destroying me. A cancer that was believed defeated has returned with a vengeance and I’m in a fight for my life. In the next few days I will be entering a treatment program that will hopefully turn the tide of battle in my favor…only God knows the outcome. Meanwhile, I will give it my best shot, trusting that the long valley into the shadows will open into the sunlight."

There was a young woman who loved her husband and had been faithful to their marriage for ten years. She had worked to put him through college and had encouraged him in the beginning of his career. One Sunday morning she got up early and went to church. When she returned home he was gone. He had left her for another woman. What a disappointment! What a heartbreak! What an adjustment!

How can we meet such difficult situations? How can we cope when the lights go out? Life has taught me one thing clearly: when sorrow and trouble come they will draw you closer to God or they will drive you farther away. They will make life mellow and kind or they will make you bitter and hard. It all depends on whether you try to bear your burdens alone or whether you take God into your troubles. How comforting are the words of Jesus: "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28). That doesn’t mean the way is made easy. It means that our God wants to share the hurts and sorrows of life–He is the suffering God–who can make us adequate to face anything that life may bring.

One of our most gifted preachers in the Christian Church relates this experience: "I remember as though it happened but yesterday a late Autumn day when I shaped my course to the Trinity Church in Boston.…I went halfway up the center aisle and knelt in prayerful meditation. I thought myself alone in the sanctuary, when suddenly I heard a woman sobbing, sobbing as though her heart was breaking. As soon as my eyes became used to the fading light, I saw on the other side of the aisle, and some five or six rows ahead of me, a woman kneeling in prayer, her face buried in her hands and her slender shoulders shaking convulsively as she sobbed. Suddenly the sobbing ceased, and the suppliant arose and came down the aisle, so close to me I could have reached out and touched her. A shaft of soft light silhouetted her head and shoulders as she passed. Lo! Her head was held high, her face serene, her shoulders erect. I knew then that her knees had found those altar stairs that slope through darkness up to God."

In one of his books H. H. Farmer tells how, as a young man, he once preached on the love of God. After the service an old Polish Jew who had become a Christian came up to him and said, "You should never preach on the love of God until you have seen, as I have seen, the blood of your dearest loved-ones flowing in the gutters on a grey winter’s morning." Farmer later asked him how he could believe in the love of God after that. The old man replied that at first he could not. But then he came to see that he was faced with a choice. Either the Cross was true and God’s love was real–or he was left alone with total despair.

It is not simple and it is not easy, but in the midst of life’s heartbreaks and troubles we can learn to put the trumpet to our lips and sound a blast of confident trust in God that will put courage and hope into every heart. Sound the trumpet! "There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole." Our God is a great God who comes to us in our sorrows and lifts us up. God gives us strength! God never leaves us nor forsakes us. God helps us to pass the breaking point without breaking, "The Lord is the strength of my life." Praise the Lord! Sound the trumpet!

The Power of Sin

Sin is not one of our favorite subjects. We often try to get rid of it by changing the label–we call it "mistake" or "blunder" or "goodness in the making" or "absence of light". Someone said when the prodigal son fretted at home, wanting to be away, he called what he was doing "independence". That was such a nice name. Out in the far country with bright eyes looking into his, he called it "pleasure." When he lost all his money he called it "bad luck". When he got down to feeding the pigs, he called himself "a fool". But when he thought straight about what he did, he said, "Father, I have sinned". That is authentic! That is real! That is our problem. Henry Van Dyke once said, "It is better to be sobered by the saddest fact than to be deluded by the merriest lie." Sin has great power to seduce us and make us stoop below our best. We are all susceptible to the power of sin. We all have inside information on the subject.

It was a college girl who asked, "Professor, what the dickens is sin?" I was brought up in a culture where sin was dancing, playing cards, going to movies and drinking "licker". These things may be "sins", but "sin" is a far more serious matter. Sin is disobedience, breaking the law of God, doing things we know we should not do. But sin is not only "bad"; there is a sense in which it is "sad". Sin is breaking the heart of God–the heart of love. That is always sad. Sometimes we are sad for what we have done, and sometimes we are sad for what we have become–for what we have not been able to become.

I never cut my neighbor’s throat,
My neighbor’s purse I never stole;
I never spoiled his house and land,
But God have mercy on my soul!

For I am haunted night and day
By all the deeds I have not done,
That unattempted loveliness,
Oh, costly valor, never won.

~ Guilty by Marguerite Wilkinson

Sin is the corruption of human nature due to our rebellious separation, alienation, turning away from God. Sin corrupts all of us–the whole person–body, mind and spirit. The root of sin is not in the body but in the mind and spirit. The most terrible sins are spiritual sins–unbelief, pride, and self-righteousness. The root of sin is unbelief, caused by the pride which refuses to recognize our human limitations and claims for ourselves that which belongs to God alone. Sin is the contradiction of the very essence of our being–we turn away from trusting God, and since we all must trust and worship something, we love and worship ourselves. Sin is essentially selfish egotism, putting self in God’s place. That means self-sufficiency, instead of trust in God. As Milton in Paradise Lost has Satan say, "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." It means self-will instead of submission to God. It means self-seeking instead of honoring God. It means self-righteousness instead of contrition and humility before God. I have said all this because I do not want to minimize the power of sin. We must not treat sin lightly. The scriptures surely do not. Paul writes to the Ephesians: "Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (6:11-12). There are powerful forces aligned against God and God’s people. They manifest themselves in the contemporary world as racism, nationalism, hate, fear, uncurbed sexual desire, drug addiction, and alcoholism–powerful destructive forces of evil. Political systems that oppose God and play god should be included also.

While we ought not to underrate the power of sin, neither should we whimper and whine as if we were defeated persons. The men and women of the Bible, when they confront sin, do it always with the trumpet to their lips. The victory does not lie with the evil powers. Sin is a broken and defeated power in the scriptures. Our Lord led the way in this triumph. "In the world you face persecution. But take courage", Jesus said to his timid and frightened disciples, "I have conquered (overcome) the world" (John 16:33). It looked as if evil had finally won when Jesus hung upon the cross. It appeared that darkness had put out the light, that hate was stronger than love, that evil had defeated the good. But facing all of this Jesus sounded forth the note of conquest: "I watched (beheld) Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning" (Luke 10:18). Through it all he praised God with the sound of the trumpet. And Jesus’ disciples caught his spirit. The evil world (the principalities and powers) rose up against them with fire and stake to stamp them out. But they never faltered nor flinched. They never imagined for one moment the world could crush the Church. You remember John’s cry as he faced Imperial Rome, drunk with the blood of God’s people and bending all her strength to stamp out the tiny Church: "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!" (Rev. 14:8). And this is the vision with which the book of Revelation ends–the Devil and the beast and the false prophet and earth and Hades all cast into the lake of fire. "Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunderpeals, crying out, ‘Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory’" (Rev 19:6-7). It is on that triumphant note the Bible ends–sin destroyed, the new earth created! Sound the trumpet!

And we may sound the same confidant note in our lives. There is no need for us to cower and quake in the face of the hosts of evil. We are troubled by the failures in our own lives and the power of evil that bedevils the world. We need to remember that in the Christian Gospel sin is a broken and defeated power. When our Lord went down to die he overcame death, hell, and the grave–the power of sin. When he rose victorious he shattered forever the power of sin. The issue was settled at the cross and the empty tomb. We live in the interval between D-Day (the death and resurrection of Jesus) and V-Day (the return of Christ and the final consummation of God’s great eternal purpose). In the meantime the powers of evil are able to give considerable trouble, but their defeat has already been accomplished. Evil cannot win. Sin is a broken power. "Sin will have no dominion over you" (Rom. 6:14). Sound the trumpet.

The Fear of Death

Death is a formidable foe. It fills our minds and hearts with dread and fear. Job called it "The King of terrors"(18:14). Paul refers to it as "The last enemy" (I Cor. 15:26). Shakespeare describes it as "The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns" (Hamlet). It is the most democratic of all institutions. It seems so final and distressful. Aristotle said, "Death is a dreadful thing, for it is the end."

Before Christ came men and women feared death. They sobbed and wailed in fear. They placed food in the caskets with money and weapons. Even today we paint the faces of the dead and pretend death is not real. But Jesus Christ has robbed death of its terror. He has made it known to us, not as an end but as a new beginning; not as the finish of life but as the commencement of a life more rich and noble. In the faith of a risen Lord we have been able to sound the trumpet in the presence of death.

Paul writes to the Thessalonians: "But we do not want you to be uninformed…about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.…Therefore encourage one another with these words" (2 Thess. 4:14,15,18). With Paul we are able to sound the trumpet in the face of death: "Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Cor. 15:54,55,56).

The early Christians knew the power of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The most characteristic word of the Christian Gospel is resurrection. Those early Christians had seen Jesus coming back out of the shadows to tell them all was well. Jesus was always saying to them "Be not afraid." They were men and women of great faith and great courage. And so, we hear Stephen, when he was being stoned to death crying out, "Look, he said, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God" (Acts 7:56). Later Perpetua, preparing to face death in the Carthaginian Arena, declared, "This is my day of coronation". James Guthrie the Scottish Covenanter, when the grey dawn of the day of execution came stealing into the condemned cell where he lay sleeping peacefully on his last night on earth, awakened to exclaim, "This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it." That is what it means to "remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead." Fear not! Lift up your hearts! Sound the trumpet!

But no one has pictured the triumph we have in death so tenderly and so powerfully as James Weldon Johnson in his poem sermon - "Go Down Death".

Weep not, weep not,
She’s resting in the bosom of Jesus.
Heart-broken husband–Weep no more;
Grief-stricken son–Weep no more;
Left-lonesome daughter–Weep no more;
She’s only just gone home.

Day before yesterday morning
God was looking down from His
Great high heaven,
And His eye fell on Sister Caroline,
Tossing on her bed of pain.

And God’s big heart was touched
With pity,
With the everlasting pity.

And God sat back on His throne,
And He commanded that tall, bright
Angel standing at his right hand;
"Call me Death!"
And that tall bright angel cried in
A Voice
That broke like a clap of thunder
"Call death! Call Death!"
And the echo sounded down the
Streets of heaven
Till it reached way back to that shadowy place,
Where Death waits with his pale
White horses.

And Death rode up to the great white throne and waited for God’s command. And God told Death to go down to Savannah, Georgia, down in Yamacraw and find sister Caroline. She has borne the burden and the heat of the day. Now she is old, and tired and weary. "Go down and bring her to me." And old Death rode down past the galaxies of the cosmos. "Straight on down he came."

While we were watching round her bed
She turned her eyes and looked away.
She saw what we couldn’t see:
She saw old Death. She saw old Death
Coming like a falling star.
But Death didn’t frighten Sister Caroline.
He looked to her like a welcome friend,
And she whispered to us: "I’m
Going home.
And she smiled, and closed her eyes.
And Death took her up like a baby,
And she lay in his icy arms,
But she didn’t fell no chill.
And Death began to ride again–
Up beyond the evening star,
Out beyond the morning star,
Into the glittering light of glory,
On the Great White Throne.
And there he laid Sister Caroline
On to the loving breast of Jesus.

And Jesus took his own hand and
Wiped away her tears.
And He smoothed the furrows from her face.
And the angels sang a little song.
And Jesus rocked her in His arms,
And kept a-saying’:
Take your rest,
Take your rest, take your rest."
Weep not—Weep not!
She is not dead:
She’s resting in the bosom of Jesus.

The Christian faith is at its best when it faces the reality of life and death. Jesus said, "Because I live, you shall live also." Clement of Alexandria said of Jesus, "He has turned all our sunsets into sunrise." The poet said it well:

"Death’s flood has lost its chill,
Since Jesus crossed the river."

They who are in Christ never meet for the last time. Sound the Trumpet! Sound the Trumpet!

These are days when we need strong faith, courage, confidence and triumphant joy as we face life at the beginning of a new millennium. And we shall get it as we lay fresh hold upon the reality of God in Christ. For if God was in Christ, then love is on the throne, sin is a broken power, goodness works through sorrow, and death is nothing but going home to God.

Only one question remains–Do you believe it? Do you possess it? Does the trumpet sound in your life, or, are you living a life of quiet desperation? The Lord Jesus Christ will turn your defeats into victory, your night into day, your fear into faith. Cast aside your doubts, your fears, and your hesitations and open your heart to God. Sound the trumpet! Sound the trumpet!