Isaiah 54:10

The famous comedian, W. C. Fields, was plagued by a recurring nightmare. He would dream of being stranded and broke in a strange city. He had either just stolen something or was trying to beat his hotel bill, for the policemen were chasing him. Just as they were about to nab him, Fields would wake up with a jerk.

And everywhere Fields went in his later affluent years he would open innumerable bank accounts, sometimes under fictitious names, in city after city, towns and hamlets all over the world. At his death it was discovered that he had over three hundred bankbooks with accounts in Walla Walla, Washington; Tuscumbia, Alabama; Paris; London; Baghdad. It was estimated that he lost several thousand dollars in a Berlin bank that was bombed, and there is no telling how much his heirs lost in bank accounts under fictitious names in unknown out of the way places.

When questioned by his friends, Fields would explain his humorous bank accounts: “Why, I might be there sometime and find myself broke. Then I could just go to the bank, present my passbook, and draw out the cash.”

Our world is plagued by the nightmare of insecurity and our frantic preparations to safeguard ourselves from the unseen hazards ahead are just about as silly as W. C. Field’s widespread bank deposits. Where, among all our frenzied armament preparedness programs, and atomic control schemes, and old age pensions, and bank savings — where — is real security to be found?

First and foremost security is to be found in an abiding faith in the omnipotence of God. Martin Niemoeller, coming out of the concentration camp where the Nazis had imprisoned him for seven years and inflicted unspeakable cruelties upon him, finding three of his children destroyed by the war, and his beloved homeland in the ruins of a shattering military defeat — Martin Niemoeller announced that he would preach to his people the following Sunday. When the pale, emaciated little man whose spirit Hitler could not break climbed into his pulpit do you know what text he took? Here it is: Isaiah 54:10 — “The mountains may tremble and the hills fall, but my mercy will not abandon you.” Place that calm persecuted spirit in juxtaposition with the pathetic comedian multiplying bank accounts. Security? Where? Why, in an unswerving faith in the omnipotence of God.

“Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished and that her iniquity is pardoned … The voice said, cry. And he said, what shall I cry? All flesh is grass and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth — surely the people is grass … Yes, the grass withereth and the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever.”

Mr. Henry Ford is reputed to have said on some occasion: “History is bunk.” Just what the famous industrialist meant in this observation, I do not know. If he meant that history as written by some historians is bunk, we can heartily agree. If he meant that human history itself as it unfolds in personal and social experiences is utterly without rhyme or reason, just unpredictable bunk — then St. Paul heartily disagrees.

For the apostle affirms: “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men … but the righteousness of God through the gospel is revealed from faith to faith.” So Paul takes his place in line with all the prophets of Israel and all her holy men who held that history is the realm in which the Lord works. History is not bunk. History is the revelation — the making plain — of God’s righteous judgments in the world. The judgments of God are sure and righteous all together and the wrath of God is the reaction of His divine righteousness when it comes into collision with sin.

So when the superstructure of history grows shaky and man’s bower of delightful ease is tottering — remember that though things go to pieces, they never go chaotically or meaninglessly to ruin. There is a moral law operative in the universe. Nothing could be more horrible than a world where sin and evil and unbrotherliness and cruelty could perpetuate themselves endlessly without ever running out to their just retribution. Yes, one of the most comforting passages in all the Bible is: “The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.” And the heart that so trusts has found the true source of security.

Arnold Toynbee recalls as a lad standing with his father in Fleet Street during Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee to watch the parade of troops from the far frontiers of Britain’s empire. He tells how his boyish heart beat faster to see the colorful uniforms of marching divisions of Canadian and Australian soldiers. Everyone then thought Britain would remain endlessly supreme. All her problems had been gloriously solved at home and abroad. Yet Toynbee says it remained for the patriot poet with a prophet’s eyes to forecast the melting away of all that glory and power under the sway of judgment of a righteous Omnipotent God.

God of our Fathers, known of old,

Lord of our far-flung battle line,

Beneath whose awful hand we hold

Dominion over palm and pine;

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget — Lest we forget.

 

Far-called our navies melt away;

On dune and headland sinks the fire;

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

Is one with Ninevah and Tyre!

Judge of the nations, spare us yet,

Lest we forget — Lest we forget.

In the flux and change of human history, the fundamental security for the human spirit is an unwavering faith in the Omnipotent God who rules and works His will in history, who knows no change save to go from glory to glory.

But more, there is a second important source of security we should not overlook in these panicky days of insecurity: There is security in men and women of moral and spiritual integrity whose minds are illumined by a saving knowledge of the God of righteousness and whose hearts burn with an abiding devotion to Him.

For several decades American education has been preoccupied with turning out young men and women who were scientifically competent, or economically competent, or professionally competent — without caring a fig if they were moral and spiritual illiterates. At long last our folly is beginning to dawn upon us as one after another bright, highly trained scientist, or economist, or statesman in some place of responsibility is turned up by the F. B. I. as a traitor or spy. Then we see what difference does it make how clever or how competent a Fuchs may be in science or an Alger Hiss in Statescraft? Our national security rests or falls in whether or not they are men of moral and spiritual integrity.

“At a tea on the day General Dwight Eisenhower was inducted as President of Columbia University a retired professor took the occasion to assure him of the academic excellence of the university. ‘Right now in our graduate schools we have some of America’s most exceptional physicists, mathematicians, chemists, and engineers.’”

“Eisenhower asked softly, ‘But are they exceptional Americans?’

“‘You don’t understand, Mr. President,’ the scholarly gentleman said in the indulgent tones of an adult to a child. ‘These are graduate students.’”

“Quentin Reynolds, who records the incident, remarked that ‘There is a large vein on the left side of Eisenhower’s forehead, rarely noticeable, for its pulse seems to come only from anger. It was throbbing now.’ Eisenhower exploded. ‘What good are exceptional physicists, exceptional chemists, exceptional engineers, exceptional anything else — unless they are exceptional Americans? The job of a university is to turn out useful citizens. I have the greatest respect for the high academic standards of the university. But no university can live in an intellectual vacuum. Every man and woman who enters this university must leave it a better American, or we have failed in our main purpose.’”

But to ask a more pertinent question: Is the man an exceptional Christian? Are faith in God and allegiance to His Kingdom the guiding lights of his life? If he is, then he can be depended upon to do God’s will; and men far and near of every race and class can look to him as a source of their security. On earth there is no safer security.

There is a little town — oh, so small (and I doubt if it has grown even so much as one half of one percent in the last two national censuses) but I lived there once for a short while and I understand the sentiments of the banker from a nearby village who said: “If I had to pick a place in all the United States to be flat busted without a dime in my pockets, with my back broke, I’d choose Tchula, Mississippi.” He knew the kind-heartedness, the brotherly love, the unselfish generosity of those citizens in that little town, and it was not the bigness of the city, nor the wealth of its principal people — but the moral and spiritual qualities of his neighbors in which he placed his trust for security.

And there is a third source of security we don’t want to fail to take notice of in shaky times: it is here — in the daily faithfulness of the most obscure of us. Raymond Swing, whose widely read war correspondence has gained him somewhat of a reputation for creditable reporting of contemporary history, points up in a recent issue of the Saturday Review of Literature that the crucial events and persons upon which human destiny turns are often both small and obscure.

The firing on Ft. Sumter, which touched off the War Between the States in America, was really precipitated by the decisions of four rather unimportant people. The attempt of the Allied Fleet to force the Dardanelles in the First World War, a tremendously costly naval engagement, had really succeeded, for the enemy shore defenses had been pulverized, but one erroneous decision of one man in Allied high command robbed them of victory and needlessly prolonged a bloody war. A few weeks before the Normandy invasion of World War II, the Nazis found on the body of a slain American officer detailed invasion plans, in particular the plan to use no other landing place than the Normandy beaches. The whole enterprise hung by a thread. But the priceless papers, taken to German headquarters, met only with incredulity.

“If then the contributions of a single, obscure uncelebrated person can change history for better or for worse, as we have seen,” concludes Raymond Swing, “the challenge to the individual to live his life earnestly, by his best light is overwhelming. Who has not felt utterly inconsequential as a mote in the vast amphitheater of world affairs? A wise writing of history would not justify anyone thus to disparage his own life or abandon one whit his individual responsibility as a member of the human race.” Your daily faithfulness and mine in obscurity and unacclaim is a bulwark of security for our neighbors and ourselves in our world.

We are shapers of history. We can be the instruments of Almighty God for creating His saving, righteous Kingdom. Whatever security there is to be had in this world, we shall find in trusting His Omnipotent rule and in serving His righteous will.

• Scripture Reference: Isaiah 54:10-17 • Secondary Scripture References: n/a • Subject : Security; 681 • Special Topic: n/a • Series: n/a • Occasion: n/a • First Preached: 6/25/1950 • Last Preached: 3/25/1952 • Rating: 3 • Book/Author References: Saturday Review of Literature