Ten Shekels and a Shirt - Part 3 — Paris Reidhead

Liberalism and the Pursuit of Happiness

We don't know that there's a heaven. We don't know that there's a hell. But we do know this, you've got to live for 70 years. And we know that there's a great deal of benefit from poetry, from high thoughts and noble aspirations.

And therefore it's important for you to come to church on Sunday so that we can read some poetry, that we can give you some little adages and axioms and rules to live by. And we can't say anything about what's going to happen when you die, but we'll tell you this, if you'll come every week and pay and help and stay with us, we'll put springs on your wagon and your trip will be more comfortable.

And so we can't guarantee anything about what's going to happen when you die, but we say that if you'll come along with us, we'll make you happier while you're alive. And so this became the essence of liberalism.

It has simply nothing more than to try and put a little sugar in the bitter coffee of the journey and sweeten it up for a time. This was all that it could say. Well, now the philosophy of the atmosphere is humanism.

Fundamentalism and the Reduction of Salvation

The chief end of being is the happiness of man. There's another group of people that have taken umbrage with the liberals. This group of my people, the fundamentalists, that say, we believe in the inspiration of the Bible.

We believe in the deity of Jesus Christ. We believe in hell. We believe in heaven. We believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. But remember, the atmosphere is that of humanism. And humanism says the chief end of being is the happiness of man.

And humanism is like a miasma out of a pit. It just permeates every place. And humanism is like an infection, an epidemic. It just goes everywhere. And so it wasn't long until we had this. The fundamentalists knew each other because they said, we believe these things.

They were men, for the most part, that had met God. But you see, it wasn't long until, having said, these are the things that establish us as fundamentalists, the second generation said, this is how we become a fundamentalist.

Believe in the inspiration of the Bible. Believe in the deity of Christ. Believe in his death, burial, and resurrection. And thereby become a fundamentalist. And so it wasn't long until it got to our generation, where the whole plan of salvation was to give intellectual assent to a few statements of doctrine.

And a person was considered a Christian because he could say uh-huh at four or five places that he was asked to. And if he knew where to say uh-huh, someone would pat him on the back, shake his hand, smile broadly, and say, brother, you are saved.

And so it had gotten down to the place where salvation was nothing more than an assent to a scheme or a formula. And the end of this salvation was the happiness of man because humanism has penetrated.

Liberalism and Fundamentalism Compared

And so if you were to analyze the fundamentalism in contrast to liberalism of a hundred years ago, as it's developed, for I'm not pinpointing at any time, it would be like this. The liberal says the end of religion is to make man happy while he's alive.

And the fundamentalist says the end of religion is to make man happy when he dies. But again, the end of all of the religion that was proclaimed was the happiness of man. And whereas the liberal says by social change and political order we're going to do away with slums, we're going to do away with alcoholism and dope addiction and poverty, and we're going to make heaven on earth and make you happy while you're alive, we don't know anything about after that, but we want you to be happy while you're alive, they went ahead to try to do it only to be brought up with a terrifying shock at the First World War and utterly staggered to the Second World War because they seemed to be getting nowhere fast.

Selfish Appeals to Salvation and Heaven

And then the fundamentalists along the line are now tuning in on the same wavelength of humanism until we find it something like this. Accept Jesus so you can go to heaven. You don't want to go to that old, filthy, nasty, burning hell when there's a beautiful heaven up there.

Now come to Jesus so that you can go to heaven. And the appeal could be as much to selfishness as a couple of men sitting in a coffee shop deciding to go to rob a bank to get something for nothing. And there's a way that you can give an invitation to sinners that just sounds for all the world like a plot to take up a filling station proprietor's Saturday night earnings without working for them.

Humanism is, I believe, the most deadly and disastrous of all the philosophical stentures that's crept up through the grating over the pit of hell. And it has penetrated so much of our religion. And it is in utter and total contrast with Christianity.

Micah, the Levite, and the Betrayal of God

And unfortunately it's seldom seen. And here we find Micah wants to have a little chapel and he wants to have a priest and he wants to have prayer and he wants to have devotion because I know the Lord will do me good.

And this is selfishness. And this is sin. And the Levite comes along and falls right in with it because he wants a place. He wants ten shekels and a shirt and his food. And so in order that he can have what he wants and Micah can have what they want they sell out God for ten shekels and a shirt.

And this is the betrayal of the ages. And it's the betrayal in which we live. And I don't see how God can revive it until we come back to Christianity as in direct and total contrast with a vengeful humanism that's perpetrated in our generation in the name of Christ.

Human Happiness as a Distortion of Christianity

This is the end of... I'm afraid that it's become so subtle that it goes everywhere. What is it? In essence it's this. That this philosophical postulate that the end of all being is the happiness of man has been sort of covered over with evangelical terms and biblical doctrine until God reigns in heaven for the happiness of man Jesus Christ is incarnate for the happiness of man all the angels exist in the whole... everything is for the happiness of man and I submit to you that this is unchristian.

Isn't man happy? Didn't God intend to make man happy? But as a by-product and not a prime product. What is... it was... that good man that's so admired by the fuzzy thinkers of our day out there in Africa dear Dr. Schweitzer bless his heart he's a brilliant man a philosopher a doctor musician composer undoubtedly a brilliant man but Dr. Schweitzer is no more Christian than this rose and he would call it a personal insult if he were to say he was a Christian because he doesn't see Christ as having any relevance to his philosophy or life.

Dr. Schweitzer and Reverence for Life

Dr. Schweitzer is a humanist. Dr. Schweitzer was sitting on the bow of a boat going up the broad Congo River toward his station watching the Belgian government officials with their high-powered rifles shooting at the crocodiles sunning on the mud flats along the river and they were expert marksmen and as they would use these dum-dum bullets that would explode inside the crocodile and just send them spinning up into the air from the contraction of muscles and he said, how do you know so much about it?

Well, to my shame I was guilty of the same thing in the Nile and they were there. This is what their sport was. They'd bag them and they'd keep cows and they'd put strings around the place where their gun was.

They'd have a little place for the gun. And then they'd tie knots so that they could see how many crocodiles they killed. A colossal waste of life. And it was there that Schweitzer saw the essence of his philosophy.

And do you know what it is? Three words reverence for life. Reverence for life. Crocodile life human life and other kinds of life. My friend George Klein who was with us last week going back to the Gaboon was just about 50 or 60 miles away from Dr. Schweitzer's station.

You know, Dr. Schweitzer is so convinced of the reverence of life that he doesn't like to sterilize his surgery. He has the dirtiest surgery in Africa because bacteria are life. And he doesn't want to hurt any of the good bacteria with the bad.

So he sort of lets them all grow together. His organ broke. Someone had sent him out an organ and the means of playing it. So Mr. Klein is an expert organist and an organ repairer as well. So he went over to see Dr. Schweitzer.

And Dr. Schweitzer said George do you think you could fix my organ? He said I wouldn't be surprised. Let me try it. So he took the back off and to his amazement he discovered a huge nest of cockroaches with characteristic American enthusiasm and zeal.

George started toppling all over the cockroaches not to let a one of them get away. And the good doctor came out his hair standing straighter than it had for a long time. And because of his anger and he said you stop that right now.

George said why? They're hurting your organ. He said that's alright. They were just being true to their nature.