The Ultimate Design
W. Carl Ketcherside
[Page 103] |
A few years ago I was summoned to a hospital to see a brother who had been involved in a highway accident. He had fallen asleep at the wheel and "totaled" his car. I stood by his bedside praying with the family that the concussion he had sustained would not prove fatal. After what seemed an interminable wait, he opened his eyes and stared at the unfamiliar surroundings. Then he asked the first question sparked by returning consciousness, "What am I doing here?"
That is the question of multiplied thousands in our world today. They are caught up in the wreckage of a social structure which has undergone three major conflicts in this unfinished century. They have read of the holocaust at Dachau and Buchenwald where malign forces sought to practice genocide and six million lives were snuffed out in a frightful experiment designated "the ultimate solution." They know of the massacre at My Lai and are aware of the suffering endured by prisoners in "tiger cages." They have seen a reversal of what men call evolution and an enthronement of devolution.
They also know that with the cracking of the atom and the release of nuclear energy, science brought the material universe to the place where hope and despair are balanced on the sharp cutting edge of the knife of destiny. Two days before Albert Einstein died, there was read in Caxton Hall, London, the Manifesto drawn up by Bertrand Russell and himself. In it they appealed "as human beings, to human beings; remember your humanity
[Page 104] |
It is quite obvious that science does not have the answer to the question the world is asking. The scientist is no longer a god. He is hardly a hero. His feet of clay are not qualified to support the image conjured up for him at the outset of the century. He is now more likely to be thought of as a kind of watered-down Frankenstein or a mad engineer vainly pressing buttons to try and direct technology which Alvin Toffler, in his book Future Shock, describes as "that great, growlihg engine of change."
In Technopolis, Nigel Calder writes, "The apparent inability of the human species to make discriminating use of science induces a sense of helplessness. The impression is that we are passengers in a runaway train...there seems to be no one driving in the cab." Ralph Lapp says, "No one--not even the most brilliant scientist alive today- -really knows where science is taking us. We are aboard a train which is gathering speed, running down a track on which there are an unknown number of switches leading to unknown destinations. No single scientist is in the engine cab and there may be demons at the switch. Most of society is in the caboose looking backward."
In a time of cosmic upheaval, what is the reaction of modern men and women? I have always been intrigued by the news reports from the Cyrenaican front during the North African battle in World War II. The Axis and Allied forces were shelling each other in the desert so close to Alexandria that the sound of the guns and the "whump" of the shells could be heard. But inside the city the night life went on unabated. Men and women were drinking and dancing, gambling and fornicating, as if they were phantoms prancing on the periphery of perdition. Their fatalistic philosophy had made them giddy. "Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die."
The same heady wine seems to intoxicate Hugh Hefner and the human moths drawn to the bright light of Playboy Magazine. Hefner is a hedonist, one who believes that pleasure is the sole good in life and that moral duty is fulfilled in the gratification of pleasure-seeking instincts and dispositions. The hedonist is not opposed to religion. Gratification is his religion. How deeply this fatal venom has been injected into the bloodstream of our social corpus can be understood only as you listen to brilliant young people argue heatedly on the campus that "If it makes you feel good do it, because it is good!" Or, "What does not make someone else unhappy cannot be evil for you!"
The modern world nurtured on the "spiked pap" that God is dead, that the supernatural is non-existent and there is no message from above or from outside, has no answer to the question, "What am I doing here?" The scientist has no answer! The humanist has no answer! The hedonist has no answer! In a fragmented, twisted, distorted cosmos severed from its creator, there is no sense of direction. The hand of the compass does not point. It merely whirls. Gilbert K. Chesterton pointed out that the opposite to belief in God is not belief in nothing, but belief in anything!
To dismiss God is not to straighten out your thinking, but to corkscrew your mind. It is but to scramble your brain. It is not to become free but to become fickle. I know why I am here! I do not have one wavering doubt about it. It is not to make money, accumulate treasure, bask in beauty, or pursue pleasure, although none of these are sinful except as they banish God from the throne room of my heart and usurp His dominion over my life and being. They may even be good so long as they are windows through which I can see His blessings and not curtains which shut out the sunlight.
What am I doing here? Ask what I should be doing here. Why was I created? Why do I dwell in a clay tenement, or inhabit a frail tent? How shall I order
[Page 105] |
Let all nature tune its ear to hear! Let no alien sound interfere with the announcement! Let the birds of the air cease their cheerful song. Let the wheels of industry halt their humming. Let angels pause in flight and men bend their earthly frames in homage. The supreme purpose of man in the intricate universe, the design of his very origin and ultimate in his attainment is to glorify God, the creator and redeemer. He who glorifies God justifies his existence, he who does not forfeits his right to eternal life with rational beings. He is dead even while he lives.
To glorify is to magnify, to praise or to exalt! It is the work of the whole man to glorify God, and not of the spiritual remote from the natural. "Run from fornication. Every other sin a man can commit is outside his body, but a fomicator sins against his own body. Do you not realize that your body is a shrine of the indwelling Spirit who is God's gift to you? You do not belong to yourselves; you were bought with a price. That is why you should glorify God with your body and spirit. They are His."
Sex employed as God ordains it glorifies God. A purchased slave of God does not abstain from pre-marital or extra-marital sex because he is afraid of contracting a venereal disease, or because she is afraid of becoming pregnant, but because abuse and misuse dishonors God. Marriage is honorable in all. It is whoremongers and adulterers whom God will judge.
We have lifted the glory of God out of the world of reality and floated it off into a world of fantasy until we equate it with stereotyped performances at stated intervals in places we have tried to consecrate with humanly-devised dedication ceremonies. We think of glorifying God as achieving the divine purpose in comfortable pews lined up like in a theater, as we sing age-old hymns which have come to us as a heritage from simpler yesterdays. We glorify God on Sunday but feel the tug of the world at other times when stained glass windows do not filter God's sun in vari-colored flecks upon the backs of our hands.
But none of this is part of God's plan or purpose! Every word we speak and every deed we do is worship when done under the Lordship of Jesus. We do not go to church. We are the church and it is the church which does the going. We do not attend worship, it attends us, every day and hour. It is within us, the bowing down and prostration of the spirit before God. There are no "acts of worship" for the Christian, for the simple reason that there are no acts that are not worship. We glorify God not only when gathered with the saints whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life, but when scattered to our tasks. One of the greatest truths we can learn is that Jesus came to remove the barrier between the secular and the sacred.
We glorify him in our bodies. The husband and wife who love one another deeply and honor their commitment to each other achieve more than sexual gratification in their conjugal embrace. They glorify God and their love is sanctified by the word of God. The woman who devotes herself to her family, wiping noses, changing diapers, washing dishes and sweeping floors, glorifies God. It is not necessary to leave home with a stack of dirty dishes in the sink to go out and "witness for Christ." Sometimes the best witness you could give that Jesus is real in your life would be to wash the dishes, clean up the mess in the closets and sweep under the beds.
Neglect of daily responsibility is not compensated by formal expression of praise on the first day of the week. It is not partaking of the Lord's Supper which makes our life acceptable to God, it is our life which makes partaking of the Lord's Supper acceptable to God. More important than a "calling night" once per week is a "calling life" every day. "Whatever you are doing, whether you speak or act, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Fa-
[Page 106] |
Our motive should be to praise God and not to receive praise. Only the deed done without expectation of remembrance, remuneration or repayment has any real value. It was this Jesus had in mind when he said, "Be careful not to make a show of your religion before men; if you do no reward awaits you in your Father's house in heaven" (Matthew 6:1). He said, "Like a lamp you must shed light among men, so that, when they see the good you do, they may glorify your Father who is in heaven." Good works bring help to the needy and praise to the God of all mercy.
We should strive to glorify God by the way we die as well as by the way we live. Paul said, "I eagerly hope that I shall have no cause to be ashamed, but shall speak so boldly and openly that Christ will be magnified through my life, or through my death" (Philippians 1:20). That is my own hope. I say that in all humility and weakness. I do not want to be ashamed and I do not want to shame him. Praise his wonderful name! I hope to glorify him in life, for I have been raised to life through him. My life lies hidden with him in God. He is my everything, he is my all. When he is manifested I want to be manifested with him in glory.
It is easy for us to be turned aside from the thought of glorifying him through death. We no longer appear before Roman tribunals and refuse to declare that Caesar is lord. We are not called upon to salute his statue and burn the pinch of incense which recognized him as one of the pantheon of deities. Paul had his head severed from his body by the swift stroke of the sword of the royal headsman and executioner. He could fill up in his body what was lacking of the sufferings of Christ But death does not seem very heroic to us.
When William Tyndale was sentenced to be strangled and burned he went to the stake without flinching. His last words were, "Lord, open the eyes of the king of England!" He glorified God in his death!
When Hugh Latimer, the Protestant martyr, was condemned to be burned at the stake with Nicholas Ridley, he turned to his companion and said, "Be of good cheer. Master Ridley, for today they shall kindle a fire in Britain which shall never be put out." His burning flesh was incense in the nostrils of heaven. He glorified God through his death.
When Robert Ferrar was burned in the market place at Caermarthen, on March 30, 1555, he watched his own hands burn off and held up the blackened stumps. When Richard Jones, a knight's son, lamented at such suffering Ferrar said to him, "If you see me even stir in the pain of burning, then give no credit to the doctrine I have taught." He continued to pray audibly while the flames seared his flesh and tissues, until Richard Gravell, who could stand the sight no longer, struck him on the head with his staff and his body went down to be consumed to ashes in the flames. He glorified God in his death!
But how can one do that today in a sterile hospital in the intensive care division where a member of the family can come in only five minutes of each hour? Is not all dignity removed from dying when one is unconscious and forced to exist by machinery fastened to his frame and needles sticking in his veins? When one's lungs cease to function and are made to expand and contract like a rubber balloon by the rhythmic pulsation of a machine, is he really alive, or is he a mere extension of a cleverly-contrived apparatus? Does his life exhibit the image of God or the invention of a laboratory? When his heart muscle lies flabby and is only energized by electrical impulse is he living, or is he like a light bulb or an egg beater? Will he stop when you pull the plug from the wall socket?
Death under these conditions seems everything else but heroic, and yet I know of no alternative. Medical science being what it is and the moral status of society being what it is, we will no doubt con-
[Page 107] |
But I have found a solution for myself. It may not be meaningful for you, but it certainly is for me. I think most people fear death because it is a new experience. They have never gone through it before, so it is strange and a little frightening, as new experiences always are in anticipation. They do not know how to die, but the reason they do not know how to die is because they do not know how to live. The way to learn how to die is to learn how to live. If you live in the Lord you can die in the Lord. The blessings you had with the Lord in life you will then have in death. John actually heard a voice from heaven saying, "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord."
I have concluded that if I allow Him to live in me, which really means to love all men through me, for that is what life is all about, I can magnify and glorify him by my death. The other day I was reading about Jesus and Peter, especially when Jesus said to him, "And further, I tell you this very truth: 'when you were young you fastened your belt about you and walked where you chose; but when you are old you will stretch out your arms, and a stranger will bind you fast, and carry you where you have no wish to go!' He said this to indicate the manner of death by which Peter was to glorify God. Then he added, 'Follow me.'"
Of course, I will not be able to glorify God by being crucified head downward like Peter was. That is not my "manner of death." But I have a deep feeling that if Peter had not heeded the added instruction to "Follow me," it would not have made any difference how he died. It would not have glorified God. On the other hand if I do follow Jesus, it does not make any difference what manner of death I have, it will glorify God. I am quite convinced that when I am old I may stretch out my arms and a strange ambulance attendant will bind me fast and carry me where I have no wish to go. When that happens I trust that I will be rational and commit myself into the hands of Jesus as I prepare to die as I have sought to do while I am able to buckle my belt about me and walk where I choose. I have eternal life now in Jesus. I shall have eternal life then with Jesus!
It is Jesus who makes life glorious and it is Jesus who makes death glorious. He puts life here in the proper perspective and makes life over there a blessing.
Even the problem of suffering which seems so out of place in a universe created by God has no particular concern in my heart. If God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, and I am convinced that He was, I shall expect to share what He experienced here in order to experience what he shares over there. Fellowship is the sharing of a common life, and to be in fellowship with Jesus is to share everything with Him. Listen to this, "When we cry, Abba, Father, that is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, heirs along with Christ; if only we share his suffering in order to share his glory too. For I judge that the sufferings of this present time are not worth considering in comparison with the glory that is to be revealed to us."
The wonderful thing about what I am saying is that you do not have to wait until after you die to share the life of God. By being faithful to the task that comes to hand you can experience glory here and now. I think the best illustration of this I have ever read was in the book It Will Be Daybreak Soon, written by one of my favorite authors of yesterday, Archibald Rutledge. I am going to conclude with this excerpt from his pen.
On a day memorable to me, I boarded a tiny tugboat I used often on a southern river and saw that we had a new Negro engineer. He sat in the doorway of the engine room reading the Bible; he was fat,and black, but immaculate and in his eyes was the splendor of ancient wisdom and peace with the world. I noticed that the characteristic odors that had always emanated from the engine room were no longer there. And the engine! It gleamed and shone; from beneath its seat all the bilge-water was gone. Instead of grime and filth and stench I found beauty and order. When I asked the engineer how in the world he had managed to clean up the old room and the old engine, he answered in words that would go far toward solving life's main problems for many people.
[Page 108]
"Cap'n," he said, nodding fondly in the direction of the engine, "it's just this way: I got a glory."
Making that engine the best on the river was his glory in life, and having a glory he had everything. The only way out of suffering that I know is to find a glory, and to give to it the strength we might otherwise spend in despair.
I've got a glory, too!
(Editor's Note: this talk was recorded at the time when I first gave it by Ted Ratliff. It is available on cassette by simply sending $2.25 to Vernon H. Woods, 2413 Dale Avenue, Eugene, Oregon 97401, and asking for "The Ultimate Design" cassette. We think you might like to use it for gifts for your friends.)