1/15/50

Scripture: Psalm 138

Text: Psalm 138:8; “The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me. Thy mercy, O Lord, endureth forever. Forsake not the works of Thine own hands.”

I would like to have you think of this text, the closing verse of the 138th psalm, with considerable imagination. Think for a while of the words, but imagine also the life of the man through whose lips or pen the words might first have been spoken. For these three sentences from the Word of God are also the word of a person like ourselves. That is the marvelous thing about the Word. It “becomes flesh,” so to speak, again and again in the lives of people who make it their own.

It would be fascinating to meet on the street a man who could have first spoken the words of this psalm in human flesh. He would be dressed not flashily nor in rags, but moderately and soberly. He might not be especially noticed until he smiled. But when he smiled, one would say secretly, “There is a man who has found the way.” If we were to talk with him for a while, he might discern our own turmoil of spirit and say, “I, too, once doubted so that I was tossed around like a ship without a rudder.”

Why do I imagine that? Because his expression of trust, his words of faith are the kind that come out of a life that has known doubt and been redeemed of it. You have to read between the lines to see the former doubt, but it is there. “The Lord will perfect,” he says. Does he not imply, “Life always seems to us mortals unfinished?” And the apparent unfinished state of so much in life causes us to doubt, for our human view is that of one profoundly convinced that it ought to be as finely finished as a table completed by some master craftsman or as a symphony composed by one of the immortals. We chafe and fret and press ahead on unfinished business, or we get discouraged or doubtful when we see it so unfinished. Musicians say that the so-called Unfinished Symphony of Schubert is at least two thirds completed. But our life and much of the world seem not more than just begun. The largest item on our agenda is always “unfinished business.”

We dream of peace; it is an ideal almost covetously desired. But we survey the world, battered by the blood-letting of centuries, and realize, with near panic, that annihilation seems as nearly possible - even probable - as does peace. In our private lives (as much as we do have private lives in this publicity-mad time) evil and harmful habits that we thought we had conquered recur. Memories we thought were buried rise from the dead to plague us. And we think, is life doomed to incompleteness?

Man has deeper doubts - and this man seems to have had them. When he says, “The Lord will perfect,” is he not saying in a sort of undertone, “For I cannot perfect; the job of completing life is beyond me.” It is beyond any of us. Who can redeem the past? We can recognize the errors of the past, repent of its sins, seek the healing of forgiveness; but the past carries its scars, its incompleteness.

A fellow built a work shop with a roof that had too shallow a pitch. In the winter the snow stayed on that roof in such depth as to threaten to cave it in if it were not propped up inside. To change the pitch by rebuilding would prove too costly. Also he did not feel that he had the time. Anyway it would always look rebuilt.

That old shop is symbolic of our life - an anxiety in the present because of our mistakes in the past. You know at what points you botched some things in the building of your life and the unsightly scar remains. Anyway, death comes when one would have expected to arrive at some wisdom by which to live! Must we always be cursed by our blunders?

There is a further evidence of doubt revealed between the lines in this man’s words. For he prays, “Forsake not the work of Thine own hands,” thus revealing that he has known fear that God had forsaken His world and his people. We can easily understand it. For we have said, have we not? - Why should Gandhi, apostle of non-violence in our time, explorer of an undreamed-of power in non-violence, be slain by a gun in the hand of a violent man? Why do the faculties of some good man fail so piteously when it seems his body should still be supporting effective human endeavor? Why did even our Lord, Jesus Christ, cry out upon his cross, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” [Matthew 27: 46]. Of course he was probably quoting from the book of Psalms in which he was so marvelously versed. But we hardly know whether he spoke in trust or in a momentary sharing of mortals’ bleak dismay.

To us, the word forsaken, suggesting the thought, forsaken by God, is the ultimate extreme in doubt --- our “terror by night.” All through the space between the lines of these three sentences is evidence that this man has really doubted.

But there is more, if we will give our imaginations enough play to read it. As the smile breaks on the man’s face, it is as though he were saying, “I began to doubt my doubts.” Here is a first sign of spiritual health. Doubts do plague us all. A youth in difficulty wrestling with mighty ideas as yet new to him, perhaps says in desperation, “There is no God.” There is a comment of maturity on that, too, in Scripture: “The fool hath said in his heart ‘There is no God.’” Foolish because one can not prove by measurement that there is not a God any more readily than he can prove that there is. And his declaration is simply a form of surrender.

But when we have dropped some of our arrogant self-confidence and have received the mantled of humility - the kind of humility that has characterized the truly great souls of the past - we begin to doubt our doubts.

The man seems to say, “There is a Purpose working in the world.” Is this not clearly implied when he uses the word “perfect?” How can a task be completed if there be not a plan and a Planner?

A store arranged an interesting and unusual display in one of its windows. The display consisted of one of those bee hives with a glass side - having the appearance of a bee hive cut in half so that one may watch the bees at work. Fascinated watchers could see the whole kingdom of those tiny insects at work. Over the hive was a placard which read, “The World’s Oldest Government.”

If we be human bees, some energetic workers, some drones, we have a mysterious freedom, not by blind instinct alone but by conscious choice. By our use of choice we can snarl up the plan, at least for a time. But we are conscious that there is a plan, somewhat on which we can solidly depend. The stars will not explode next Tuesday nor will the sun rise in the northwest on Friday. And the years will not run backward toward the pangs of birth. A scientist would not move an inch in his research but for the vast world of justified assumptions on which he has learned, by testing, to depend.

This man seems to say not only, “I began to doubt my doubts” but to say also, “There is a progress or pilgrimage in our life.” Isn’t that thought right there beside that word “perfect?” What else could it mean? If we say that anyone will complete a task, we mean that the task is more than begun, and its direction is set. However stubborn we may be, you and I do learn. We may think that the thousand dollars the other fellow has would bring us happiness if we could get it. -- Unless we perchance do get it, whereupon experience promptly teaches us a different lesson -- that happiness is not inherent in material, but in spirit. And unless material has opened a window of the spirit, it has nothing whatever to do with spirit. It is, of itself, neutral. It can be good or bad only by the uses to which it is put.

We learn; slowly, stubbornly. We may even come to the understanding that “He that loseth his (lower) life shall find it (his real life).” That life which is given, lost, spent (not squandered but purposefully given) is not lost but found! We do make progress on this pilgrimage.

The man says more behind the word “perfect.” This he says: “The light flashed on me, and I knew!” Is this not in part what Jesus was talking about when he said, “Ye must be born again;” when in so many ways he tried to impart to his followers the meaning of entrance into “the kingdom of heaven?” Rescue from the bleakness of doubt and despair! Liberation from the burden of unbearable sin! Salvation to lasting peace and harmony and joy !

“The light flashed upon me and I knew.” It is a change, a conversion. “I used to be in bleak dismay,” the man seems to tell us. “Then I began to doubt my doubt. Then I was moved to a sure faith. The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me.”

Just how he was moved to completed trust we cannot say; for every man has his own secret pilgrimage. Each one differs in his own soul before God. But there is a clue in this man’s prayer: “Forsake not the work of Thine own hands.”

God made us. We did not ask to be born. We could not, of ourselves, ever have found this adventure of mortal, earthly living. We did not seek this heartache and laughter and bafflement. We had no choice as to our own era of history in which to appear. The color of our skin was not of our planning or purpose. The gifts of ability were not on our order - ours is only to receive and make use of them. We come to what we are by a Creator, not ourselves, to Whom we look as Father.

A parent could cast off a child and drive him from the door, but not with a clear conscience. A fellow said to his neighbor, whose son had brought sorrow and shame to the home, “If I were that boy’s father, I’d send him packing, but quick!” “But,” said the other man steadily, “You are not his father -- I am.”

Perhaps that is how this man of ancient time came to faith: “Forsake not the work of Thine own hands!” He had a claim, that even a prodigal could make, on the goodness of God! Not even we poor earthly parents would forsake a child of ours. Whence came this tenderness? Surely from the God who will not, in any wise, forsake his own.

God has not now, nor has He ever, forsaken us. If we be, for the night or in the storm, in darkness, the day will yet break and the shadows melt away! To our seeking eyes, the sunlight is given. To our ears come not mockery but the world of sound. Our loneliness need not become despair. For we have friends, and A Friend, regarding us with healing love, like the flecks of summer light coming through the leafy shadows of man’s cruelty. Our souls are not left bereft. For Christ came, and continually comes.

Gandhi’s body falls, but not before his soul has made a witness upon earth - a stronger witness to stir the human heart than the power of a nation’s army. If Christ be crucified to the death, yet is his life infinitely more moving than all the empires that rise and fall through the ages.

It may be midnight while you pray - bleak, black, oppressive, starless midnight. It is not so even in every Gethsemane? Perhaps our prayers, for long, are uttered in desperation, while we can not tell in our bafflement whether to follow the tragic signs or the manifest joy. But morning comes; midnight is at length rent by light. Surely God has a day beyond our darkness. In it we shall rejoice, or do rejoice, in His salvation.

You labor, and laugh, and struggle, and the years of your age creep on with your bravest hopes yet unfulfilled. Life now and then seems a foolishness or a mistake. You hate to count on the blood-stained centuries.

But the Lord made you a distinct and separate soul. He thought enough of you to fashion you in a unique way - the only you in all the ages - with your own finger print and your own mind print for the fulfilling of His holy purpose. Therefore give yourself freely, with abandon, to the faith that “The Lord will perfect that which concerneth you.”

Let us pray. “Lord, forsake not the works of Thine own hands.” Amen.

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delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, January 15, 1950.