America's Need — Vance Havner

Looking back over the years, we were talking about some of the great saints of other years that used to be here on the platform with him from time to time, and they've gone on to be with the Lord. Each time that we corresponded about his coming, the last, this time and the last time, I know he would write to Dr. Palmer and say, now, don't you go to heaven before I get there.

I want to see you. And then he'd write back and say, don't you go before you fill your commitment. So we're very happy they're both here, Dr. Palmer, still with us, and Dr. Havner is still with us. So this time did arrive, and they've kept the commitment.

Dr. Havner, it's a real joy and a privilege to have you here at Sandy Cove. Thank you, Al. Well, for I know if I was going to preach two sermons this morning, one for the one I didn't preach last night, but it doesn't work that way.

I'm sorry to be late, but I'd rather be Vance Havner late than the late Vance Havner. All I can say is we got stuck in the tunnel, that's all I know. And that short cut that turned out to be the longest cut that I've been in quite a while is a perfect illustration of a lot of the things we're doing these days.

That's supposed to simplify the matter of getting here. Well, we could have gone through Baltimore and have been here earlier. That's sort of a sample, I think, of the way we're trying to shortcut a lot of things today and coming out disastrously in the process.

I am glad that George is still here and that I'm still here. He's a little older than I am, I won't say how much right now. But my father-in-law died a few weeks ago at 98. I went to see him a few weeks before and I said, Papo, how does it feel to be old?

And he said, well, you ought to know. That's all the thanks I got for making that kind inquiry. But we have to keep our chins up and face steadily forward. I heard of an old gentleman, 90 years old, who was starting on a trip around the world.

And a friend of his went over to the airport and said, I declare you just oughtn't to try this. Well, he said, I may never see you again. No, he said, that's right, you may be dead when I get back. So that's the way we want to face it.

I don't know of any better. Went up to Moody Church. Fourth of July brings this to mind. I was to speak there that night at a patriotic religious rally. Then it went on the wake all next week and I came down with some kind of an ailment.

I thought I could make it when I got up, but the farther I flew, the worse I felt. When I got up there, I said to Warren Wearsby, you get a doctor and see what he says. And the doctor said, go back home and have yourself checked.

And I went and spent five days in the hospital. So my 4th of July, this one, I won't forget. But it was quite a day and is quite a day, whatever year it comes in. What has been called the star-spangled bonanza has sort of played out by now.

And we've put away a lot of the decorations and taken down the banners and lowered the flags and life is getting back to abnormal again. I don't say normal because never will be normal again. Subnormal or abnormal, take your pick of the two.

America's Spiritual Crisis and the Foundations of the Nation

We've had the big birthday. Somebody has said that birthdays tell how long you've been on the road, but they don't tell how far you've traveled. And the big question is, how far has America traveled and where are we going?

Because we are America. I wouldn't want to paint any brighter halo around the brow of those founding fathers than they deserve, but they were a pretty good mixture. And they did have a mixture. They had a mixture of the faith of the pilgrims and the philosophy of Tom Paine and Tom Jefferson, Christian faith and deism, Puritanic austerity on one side and the belief in the perfectibility of man on the other.

We did not inherit an unmixed blessing, but God overruled it somehow. And they laid the foundations with the recognition of the place of providence in the affairs of man. Today, America stands alone in a hostile world that marvels at the way we're hanging ourselves with our own rope.

There is corruption everywhere in the government, the breakdown of the home, pagan education, moral putrefaction. I used to say that civilization was going to the dogs, but quit out of respect for the dogs.

I wouldn't want to insult the canine kingdom with any such remark as that, because plenty of people are doing things today beneath the dignity of any dog. Of course, all Americans were not going to prayer meeting before the Revolution.

Let's get it straight. There was sin and corruption then, just as there always has been. But much of it was changed by what was called the Great Awakening, the great revival that preceded the Revolution.

We ought to be commemorating that, but most Americans don't even know that it happened and couldn't care less than they do today. Those 56 gallant men who pledged their lives and fortune and sacred honor to sign the Declaration knew very well that if it didn't work, it might mean hanging for every one of them.

In fact, Harrison of Virginia, who was a heavyset man, turned to Geary of Massachusetts, who was a skinny specimen like myself, and said, well, we may hang, but I'm heavy and will die instantly, and I imagine you'll dangle around for quite a while.

That's the way they faced it. Of course, they had then the Olive Branch men who wanted to work out a policy of peaceful coexistence with George III. They didn't call it that then, because the Communists invented that term, but they did want peace at any price, those fellows did.

And we still have that crowd among us, like the Israelites in Exodus who said, we were better off under Pharaoh, we did have security then, and you hear it today, better red than dead. Everything seems to be geared to biological survival, anything that will keep us here a little longer.

The obsession to stay alive at any cost. Somebody asked a boy the other day, a little fellow, what do you want to be when you grow up? And he said, alive. I can understand that in an atomic age like this.

Peace at any price, they say, is better than no peace, and life at any price is better than no life. But it looks to me like we're willing to risk our honor to save our hides, and the way we're going we're going to end up with neither hides nor honor.

We tell the world that America is a place with two chickens in every pot, and two cars in every garage, and a fairyland of plastics and gadgets and giveaway shows, and every other man with his hand stuck out toward Washington for a handout.

If that's all we've got to offer this world, in America, we're out of date. We ought to tell what it really means to be an American, and the price our fathers paid in blood, sweat, and tears to make this the land of the free and the home of the brave.

George Washington's foot sore soldiers did not stain the snow of Valley Forge to create a politician's paradise, and Abe Lincoln didn't walk the floor of the White House night after night just to pass the time away.

It costs a plenty to purchase this freedom, and it'll cost a great deal more to keep it. And this is no time to despise our birthright and make light of our liberty. One good way to appreciate this country is to go to some other and visit it.

Then when you get back, you welcome the Statue of Liberty and the sound of familiar voices. We're living in an epidemic of mudslinging and muckraking and character assassins having a field day defaming some of the great souls of our land.

And some of them think it's better somewhere else. I'd like to see that crowd get up to New York, and I'd like to see them take off for the land of their heart's desire, and I'd like to wave at them just as long as I can see them.

I like it over here. This is the best touch of dirt I know anything about, and that's why. So we have those who are defaming the dead and the living, even vultures, feet only on the dead. Every great American from Paul Revere on down has been vilified and scandalized, it's become a disease.

It's about time we had a kind word about some of our forefathers and what's right in this country. There's still some things right here. I'm not going to waste my time on this smelly business of specializing in scandal, because if you get into that, it rubs off on you.

A bulldog can whip a skunk any time, but it's not worth it, and it boils down to this. We'll not have a better America till we have better Americans, and that means a better breed than many of them are.

How are you going to have patriotism and honor and decency and integrity and morality and character when every man does that not which is right in his own eyes, but what he wants to do, whether it's right or not?

In his last days, Woodrow Wilson, broken and disillusioned, said, the sum of the matter is that our civilization cannot survive materially if it is not redeemed spiritually. I think the Presbyterian in him came to the forefront when he said that.

And Douglas MacArthur said, the problem is basically theological. Now, think of that, by one of the greatest of our soldiers. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flame. I think it's significant that near the end of their careers, two of our greatest Americans, one of our top statesmen and certainly one of our top soldiers, carried out the decision that sounds like a preacher's opinion.

The pattern is, the problem is theological. We hear a lot about freedom. Let freedom ring. And, of course, we've heard sermons galore on, ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Now, I'm getting around to my text about halfway through the sermon, but I'm going to stay with it.

Faith That Continues in Christ's Word

There's more to that passage, however, than that one verse. It's a great mistake to take as a text for a sermon any verse that starts with and and treated as though God were saying all he means to say in that particular portion.

That verse, John 8, 32, begins with the word and, and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Now, if we're going to get all of this, we'd better start a little further up. So you start with verse 30, and it says, as he spake these words, many believed on him.

Now, it was a superficial faith in this case, because just a few verses further on, he called them the children of the devil. It wasn't real. But there is real faith, and we start, therefore, with faith.

Then said Jesus to those Jews which believe on him, if ye continue, if ye continue, in my words, then are ye my disciples, indeed, and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Now, don't you see what a difference that makes?

It's like Romans 12, 1 and 2. You hear sermons on, Be not conformed to this world, the transformer, the renewing of your mind. That's a great verse, but the first word's and. And you know what's in the verse before, I beseech you that you present your bodies living sacrifice and be not conformed to this world.

So we ought to give it all, and if we may use alliteration here to remember it by, I think you have here freedom through faith that follows. It doesn't just start, it keeps on going. We have first, we believe, we continue in the word, we become disciples, we know the truth, and we are set free, for if the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.

The New Testament says so much about keeping it up, continuing, there's so much of what it calls in one place, patience, continuing, if ye continue here in my word. James 1 .25, Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein.

Now Pentecost was a great day, but they didn't try to live on Pentecost the rest of their days. They had to come down the mountain, as it were, to where the need was, and so I read the next thing they did after that wonderful experience at Pentecost, they continued daily.

Now that's the test of a Christian experience, can you keep it up? But I know that as it has been said, salvation is not spelled D-O, but D-O-N-E, I know it's a finished word, but our Lord said a lot about doing, ye are my friends if ye do the things which I command you, if ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them, he that doeth the will of my Father the same as my brother, sister, and mother, why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he that is in love with me, and then he says, I'll make myself known to that person, John 14, verse 21, he that heareth my words, and doeth them, shall be like a man that buildeth his house on a rock, not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, but he that doeth the will of my Father in heaven, rather blessed are they that hear the word of the Lord, and keep it, be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, James says, deceiving your own selves.

And many times over the country I read the Great Commission, and on purpose I leave out two words, and then I ask the folks what words did I leave out, and I've never had more than half a dozen who knew that I even left them out.

Out of the Great Commission. I think you'd run a little higher average here, I'm not going to try you out on it, but the two words that these churchgoers didn't seem to live were the words to observe, teaching them to observe the things, to do them.

You haven't taught your class anything if you haven't taught them to do it, and you haven't learned anything if you haven't learned to do it. Charles G. Finney, the great revivalist, said, Revival is the new beginning of obedience to God.

I don't know of any better definition of revival. Now, there's nothing in that to hoop and holler about and stomp your feet, sounds very unemotional. And there's a place for being emotional, yes, but that's exactly what a revival is, when people become obedient to God, in their relationship to him and to each other.

Christian Character, Revival, and Obedience

We need a restructuring of our thinking about the country and the church, we've had enough oratory and celebration, it's time to be American. It's time to be Christian, the word American, or the word Christian is both an adjective and a noun.

We say so-and-so is an American, that's a noun, we say he's an American man, that is an adjective. We need more adjective Christians today, more Christian Christians, Christian in their life, in their daily conduct.

Jesus didn't say, Be the soul of the earth, he said, You are the soul of the earth. He didn't say, Go out and be the light of the world, he said, That's what you are. He didn't say, Be my witnesses, he said, That's what you are.

Let the church be the church, let Christians be Christians. And if we see another revival such as Finney was describing, it will be brought about, I think, by a persecuted minority scorning the values of this world and living by rigid discipline.

Too many of our church folks are good at a dress parade, but that's about it, and they're interested in wearing medals and not scars. Too much Americanism and too much Christianity, like the Reubenites in the days of Deborah and Barak.

They didn't go to the battle, you remember, they stayed at home and played. The Hebrew background seems to carry the idea there. They made little reeds, little fifes, little flutes out of the reeds that grew by the water, and they would play little tunes to pass away their time.

And the picture here is that they were at home doing that while others had heard the trumpet call to the battle. There's an awful lot of people doing just that today. By the water courses of Reuben, the scripture says, there were great searchings of heart.

They were patriotic, but they didn't go to the battle. We have some of them in the church today. If they ever get shot on the field of battle, it'll be in the back, you can be assured of that. They take the light jobs.

You know, the folks, when you start to move a piano, they want to carry the dance. We have some of them in the church. They're not going to get any scars out there in the battle. I sometimes get a little bit bothered when I see a comfortable congregation in the church, especially on a Sunday morning, singing, The Son of God goes forth to war, and onward Christian soldiers.

I feel like saying, Hold everything! I want to go down and say, That sounds good, but just what battles have you been in? Name a few. Amy Carmichael had it right. You haven't followed Jesus far if you have no wound, no scar, because you won't travel that road long, because you'll accumulate the marks of the battle.

I buried in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. They were sure enough marks. I was down in Florida for 10 weeks this winter, preaching all the time, too much to never do it again. I didn't use good fence, eight or nine meetings in a row.

I keep forgetting I'm not fifty any more, slightly past that. And down at Shell Point, out of Fort Myers, that wonderful retirement home of the Christian missionary life, a fabulous paradise of a place, I preached there after the pastor was kind enough to tell me to come over and just be my guest for a week, take a room here and get over the flu, which I'd had.

And we had a great time, and I met a distinguished old General, 88 years of age, who liked my sermon on Sunday morning and came over to talk with me. He had known every American President since Theodore Roosevelt.

He was a walking encyclopedia, I tell you, I kept him talking all the time. And he told this story. He said, General George Patton and I were in the Battle of Normandy, and we were standing there one day, and here came a bunch of boys, 30-odd of them who'd been all shot up.

And some of them would die in just a little while. He said, Patton went over to them and said, Boys, how are you? And everyone who could get his hand up to his head, saluted. And they all said, Fine, General.

Some of them just almost dead. General Wilbur said, We walked down the road a little ways, George Patton, and he never said a word and I never said a word. Finally I looked out of the corner of my eyes and the tears were coursing down the face of old George Patton.

And they called him Old Blood and Guts, but that got him, that got him. When I heard that, I said, Lord, I wonder if we're growing that kind of boys now in America. If we have a nuclear war, you won't have time to find out, of course, but how many today all shot up can still say, It was for the country, I'm fine, General.

We're growing a lot of Christmas and Easter Christians, Sunday morning time, farewellers. But a long time ago an old warrior wrote to a young recruit and said, Thou therefore end your hardness as a good soldier, Jesus Christ.

Enduring Hardship as Soldiers of Christ

Now, you talk about somebody that had been all shot up, old Paul had been, five times beaten, thirty-nine strikes, three times defraud, one time stoned, three times shipwrecked, the night and the day had drifted in the deep, perils of waters, of robbers by my own countrymen, perils to the heathen, perils of the city, the wilderness, perils in the sea, perils of false brethren, weariness, painfulness, watchings, orphans, hunger, thirst, thirsting, cold and nakedness, and beside all that, the care of the churches, and that's enough to kill a preacher sometimes.

With all that, he didn't have anything much of this world's good. He had stocks and bombs, yes, and his feet were in stocks and had bombs around his wrists. And he'd been shell-shocked and shot up as few preachers of the gospel have ever been.

But I have a feeling that when the great General, and that makes me think about a chaplain out in Corregidor with MacArthur, and the chaplain said, the General never missed one of my services. One day I congratulated him on his faithful attendance, and he said, MacArthur looked at me and said, Chaplain, I'm just the commanding General here.

I press the button and give the orders, but one of these days I won't be here. I shall have gone the way of old flesh, here today and gone tomorrow. Chaplain, thank God you're not serving that kind of a General.

You are not serving an ordinary four-star General. You are serving the seven-star General in the book of Revelation, the seven-star General who is alive forevermore and whose kingdom endures forever.

Chaplain, don't ever forget that. You know, I hadn't thought about my Lord being a seven-star General, but that's what he is. And I tell you, beloved, the test of all this business of being a Christian, and whether you're a good soldier, the test is how can you take it, not when the bugles are blowing and the flags are waving, but when the fighting gets the hottest and your comrades have been killed around you and you're battling with the stub of a sword and you're shell-shocked and wounded and deserted, and all men forsook me, even as they did our Lord and even as they did Paul.

Ah, the test, isn't it? Are you able to say, it's all right, Lord, a lot of things I don't understand, but everything's okay. He could do it. He said, I fought a good fight, I finished the course, I've kept the faith, I've been faithful to the faith, I've been faithful to the fight, and I've been faithful to the finish.

He said, now I'm waiting for my crown. He didn't go out defeated, he went out in victory. It's already hours, we're fighting a strange battle, the battle was won at the beginning of this war. You generally have a great battle at the last, but we've had our Waterloo a long time ago.

We're just engaged in mopping up operations today. But it's still a battle. I agree with R. A. Torrey when I meet one of these soldiers who comes bouncing along who seems never to have had any trouble, and got all his eyes dotted and all his teeth crossed.

Got all the answers I feel like saying when he tells me that he never has worried in forty years and never has frowned in thirty and all the rest of it. I begin to put my hand on my pocketbook when he talks like that.

And I think of what old Torrey said, he said that there is a rest of faith, but there's also a fight in prayer as well as in effort. And those who would have us think that they have attained some sublime heights of faith and trust because they never know any agony of conflict or prayer have gotten beyond their Lord and the mightiest victors for God that Christian history has ever known.

Now if you've been along the road long you know that's true. You start out to live for Jesus Christ and the devil gets the idea right away. Most of our church members today don't give the devil enough trouble to even get his attention.

But if you really mean business, he's going to plot against you from then on, you're in trouble. The rest of your day is to thank God it's been fixed here. Now, beloved, it's a time in this bicentennial of renewed pledges of allegiance.

There are too many faded documents and declarations that have grown dim. The old declaration itself, barely legible, some of it, even John Hancock's bold signature may fade with age. But the worst of it is not the fading of a paper.

We're forgetting its original intent and its ultimate purpose. We need more editions of the Declaration of Independence walking around in human flesh. And then we need to have a lot of marriage certificates shined up again.

Renewing Covenants in Marriage and the Church

And even in Christian circles, some of them fade. A million divorces last year, to say nothing of the others who still managed to hang together somewhere or other with no heart, no love. I heard of two old folks in a rest home some time ago, and he thought he'd cheer her up a little bit.

And he said, she couldn't hear well, but he said, I'm proud of you. And she said, hey, he said, I'm proud of you. She said, I didn't get it. He said, I said, I'm proud of you. Oh, she said, I'm proud of you too.

Well, anybody here in that fix this morning? Shame on you. Shame on you. Better renew the covenant. Sit with them this morning. Tell them, oh, you say she knows it. Well, I know, but tell her again. Never miss the water till the well goes dry.

And let me say this morning, I speak from experience. It's not likely that you'll both go at the same time. It's a rare thing. Now, when one does, you will see today, if you really had it in there to begin with, that you'd give everything for just any old age.

The most humdrum day you ever had, you'd give all you got for that one. For the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still. Now, you quit taking your husband or wife or your parents, God's people, the Church, the Bible for granted.

Church members do it. Any other organization with no more loyalty to its founder, no more joy in its program, has used as much raw material and turned out as poor a finished product as the average Church would be out of business.

If I were a non-Christian and dropped into some of these churches with a handful of Church members trying to get some new recruits during a so-called revival, trying to get some more soldiers for the Army of the Lord when most of the crowd they already had had gone AWOL, I'd feel like saying either Christianity is not what it's supposed to be, or you've been sold a brand, inoculated with a mild form, and immunized against the real thing.

I believe with joy. Oh God, he said, I'm tired of the heathen, the pagans, the world, going by saying, where's your God? Where's the God of Abraham and Isaac? And they're asking it of the Church today, where's your God?

You sing about him, where is he? We need to renew our vows of dedication. Romans 7, verse 4 says you're married to Jesus Christ. He had adulterers and adulteresses, James says, and he wasn't talking about physical adultery alone there.

Any Church member who is a worldly Christian is living in spiritual adultery because he goes right on to say that if you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you, so whoever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

Not much is said about worldliness anymore, and we never had more of it. There has never been a culture, and there never will be, there has never, since Christianity started, there's never been a culture in which a Christian, a New Testament Christian, could feel at home.

Not one. You cannot feel at home in this world. My dear wife liked good music and finest type of music, but her favorite was one of those little quartets that you hear every once in a while. This world is not my home, I'm only passing through.

And that's the way it is. And the Church today is too often like those Jewish eggs out in Psalm 137 over there in Babylon, saying, how can we sing the Lord's song? It's a strange thing. And if there are preachers here this morning, ah, the preachers need to renew their vows.

Dr. Schofield used to say that every time he had a prayer with D .L. Moody, Moody would always say, Lord, renew Schofield's credentials. Said, I got sort of uneasy about that after a while. There are three things a preacher can do about those preaching orders and about his work.

He can resign, and that's the easy way, and the hard way out. But anybody can quit. He can become resigned to the situation and just get along with the status quo. Or he can be re-signed, and let God put a fresh stamp of approval on him.

He's not always a failure in some little church. He may be pastor of Ichabod Memorial Church down in the middle of town. Sargis had an aim to be alive and was dead. Jesus said, you don't look alive to me.

Or more, keep him and dress up a dead man and make him look more alive than he ever looked while he was living. And you can do that with a church sometimes. And it's all gathered up in one all-inclusive commitment.

Making Jesus Christ Lord in Every Area of Life

Make Jesus Christ Lord. And when you do, you will be the American you ought to be in, you will be the citizen you ought to be in, you will be the church member and the husband or the father or the mother or the young person, you will be the businessman, you will be whatever you ought to be.

But making Jesus Christ Lord is very serious business. It must be visible before man. That's what Jesus said. I don't believe in this sneaky business thing. Can I get saved back here on the backseat? Well, you could, but Jesus said, before man, before man, whoso will be ashamed of me, I'll be ashamed of him.

It must not only be visible, it must be audible with the mouth out loud. And many of our Christians today are like arctic rivers frozen at the mouth. They have no testimony. And then it ought to be credible with the heart.

Now, if it's those three, it's real. And it's time to renew it. Now, I hope you won't take what I've said this morning as is so often the case with comfortable churchgoers and say in your heart, I move, we accept this as information, then be dismissed.

I get the tired of that. It was intended to disturb you. And the hour we're living in ought to disturb us. If we aren't, then we're in bad shape ourselves. There's one thing worse than not going to church or wherever God's word is preached.

And that's going and not doing anything about what you hear. That's worse, because James says that if you hear it and don't do it. And I never hear anybody quote the rest of that verse. They always leave off the last few words.

Deceiving your own self. So you're on the spot this morning. We've not been talking Shakespeare. This is the word of God. And I don't care how advanced you are and how far along you've been. We must constantly give account for what we've heard and what we know.

And at a place like this, where much is given, much shall be required. God help us to rise to the responsibility of it. Our Father, we thank Thee that Thou hast made sublime in Thy word the path of life.

We complicate it, Lord. We get it all mixed up and make it harder than it is. And yet there is battle and there is persecution and there is opposition and there is the enemy. But help Thy people this morning to find freedom through faith that follows, that keeps it up, that continues daily in the way of the Lord.

Bless the truth to all our hearts in Christ's name. Amen. Thank you so much, Dr. Havner. Maybe this would be a very good place to remind of our couple's retreat after what he has said. Back on the table are some brochures of information in mid-October.

We are sponsoring this couple's retreat. Richard Canfield will be here with us. And it's just what it's called for couples. And no children. Get away together. And helpful instruction and seminars. And then I understand they renew their marriage vows as part of this program.

You say what age? Any age. Any age. From the youngest to the oldest. So just as we heard this morning, we all come under that category and there's always needs. We're so grateful for this message. And on this bicentennial year, most fitting indeed.

Now it's offering time. Just to say that some of you that are here from last week or you were here earlier weeks, you say, well, what happened? You were experimenting with taking just one a day. Well, an experiment is just what it's called, an experiment.

Sometimes it works out favorably and sometimes it doesn't work favorably. And our experiment through the month of July, we just feel didn't work favorably. And folks can't just shift gears and put in one time during the day what they might, you know, do twice during the day.

And then there's, of course, other extenuating circumstances. One of them is this. We've gotten our financial report through the month of July and up to this moment. And we need a lot of help for the radio.

Our radio fund is kaput. And it's always a difficult time in the summer. And now with this added evening broadcast on live every night in our evening service, we have some added expense. So the ushers are coming now and you can help us with this.

This will be for the radio and all of our morning offerings until we get out of this red in which we're in and we get the help that we need. So here's an opportunity to share in this and have a part. And I know God will bless you for your sharing.