THE NEW RELIGION: PEACE OF MIND

09/18/55a

II Timothy 4:1-4

 

            Tonight is one of those messages that I mentioned that I had in my heart before we begin again in the 1 Corinthian letter and the 5th chapter, our place to which we've come in preaching through the Bible.

            But before we begin, I said I had some things in my heart that I wanted to speak of and tonight is one. We're going to talk tonight about the NEW RELIGION: PEACE OF MIND.

            In the 4th chapter of the second letter to Timothy, Paul says to his young son in the ministry, "I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom, 

            "Preach the Word... 

            "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine.  But after their own lust shall they heed to themselves teachers having itching ears. 

            "And they will turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables."

            Now, that's my text.  After their own desires and likes, listening to the thing they want to listen to, they shall heap to themselves teachers.  They want to hear what they want to hear.

            And as in every area of life, there's always somebody, for a price, more than happy to supply what the public wants.

            Now, this new thing came about like this.  In World War I, our nation was involved in a conflict to make the world safe for democracy.  We were fighting a war to end all wars.  And we won that conflict.  We were victorious in that battle.

            And we looked forward to that immediate day when the whole world would be one great millennial kingdom.

            The preachers preached it.  The people believed it.  We had those "Roaring '20s."  And the stock market went up and up and up and up.

            And upon a day when we were just getting ready for the most luxurious bonanza the world had ever experienced, upon a day, the ticker tape out of the Stock Exchange at New York City said that all of the money the American people had invested in the stock market had been washed out overnight.

            Fellow one day was a multi‑millionaire and the next day he was walking the street trying to sell polished apples or pretty pencils.  That was in 1929.

            And then we went through all of those terrible years of the Depression.  And then just as we were coming out of the Depression, Hitler turned his hordes on Poland, then wheeled around and made his passage of death and destruction to the lowlands and into France, and all Europe lay prostrate.

            In those days, Hitler, almost as tried the civilized world, added to his conquest the eastern reaches of the Soviet Union.  And we, magnanimous and great hearted, we came to the rescue of our comrades in Russia.

            Marshall Stalin, the great representative and exponent of the people's democracy, and all of those fine, great, noble Communist leaders, our American boys would march shoulder to shoulder by their side.

            We took our airplanes, sent them over there to Russia.  We took our ships and gave them to Russia. And we took our gasoline and poured it into those great fighting machines of Russia.  And guns and tanks we sent over there to our comrades in arms.

            Nor would we dare to enter the environs of Berlin.  The Russians said they want it.  Why shouldn't they have it?  They're our friend.  And they marched into Bulgaria and they marched into Poland and they marched into Czechoslovakia, and they marched into Luk ‑‑ Yugoslavia, and they marched into Romania and they marched into Greece.

            Our great compatriot, our noble fellow fighters and sharers in this battle, the Communists, the Soviet Union.

            Bah, when you look back over those days, you marvel at the gullibility of the leadership of the American government and all of us, I suppose, who were soft brained and ‑‑ any way, it was a startling revelation when we awoke to the fact that the leaders of the American government had sold our people down the river, Yalta, and those secret privacies that we had made.

            It wasn't long until our government witnessed the defection of China into the Soviet orbit.  And one half billion people overnight became our mortal enemy.

            And we had given them all of Eastern Europe and we had given them Berlin and we had decimated the whole of the German people, who, by the way, we haven't fought a war over there who hadn't been on the wrong side.

            The German people are the finest people in this earth if you could ever get them to God.  And away from God, they are the most ruthless and cruel.

            Oh, if it were just possible that Germany could love God and the ‑‑ Germany and America could be good friends.  But no, we were friends of the Soviet Union.

            Well, if you've been like I am and like everybody else, you woke up to a world of frustration and despair.  Here are our friends with whom our men laid down their lives.  They are our mortal enemies.  We don't have any enemies that are as sworn to our death as the Soviet Union.

            We don't have any enemies that more bitterly attack us and propagandize against us, more than Red China in the Pacific.  And we just woke up one day, we just found ourselves one day almost alone in the earth and the entire world around us, an armed camp against us.

            Then another thing developed.  That atomic bomb didn't stay just that little thing over there in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  With ‑‑ the thing was like a baby.  It got bigger and bigger and bigger and it was like a Frankenstein.  It now scares us to death.

            It is no little old atomic bomb anymore.  It's an H-bomb.  It's a U-bomb.  It's the Lord only knows what kind of a bomb.

            And they get more terrible with every passing day.  Every nuclear physicist who studies about it adds something to its horror and its terror.

            And it is absolutely possible at this minute for America as we know it to be absolutely destroyed.

            They ‑‑ any man can tell you.  Any general, any leader will tell you that with all of the defenses of America and our radar and however else we may try to defend our nation, if the Soviet Union were to send five hundred long‑range bombers over here, we might knock four hundred and ninety of them out of the sky, but the ten that remain that would get through.

            How many hydrogen bombs would it take to destroy Dallas?  How many hydrogen bombs would it take to destroy Chicago, New York City, any of these great metropolitan centers?

            And they'll tell you there is no such thing as knocking all of them out of the sky.  Some of them would certainly get through.  That is possible at this moment.

            Now, that and a thousand other things that one might name hurriedly tonight plunged our people into despair.  We almost lost heart, having fought one war and then another.  And both of them to no end and no effect.  All of their fruits of victory taken away.

            And our former allies now are bitter enemies.  And as far as a man can see down the rest of the years, we must remain like an armed camp, great armament, tanks and planes and soldiers and conscription, far down as you can see that lies ahead.

            And anything can set it off at any time.  And the more they blabber about peace, the more certainly are they working for the destruction of our nation and our people.

            Now, I say against a background like that, our people were harassed, and in despair and frustrated and didn't know where to turn.  And then like a meteor in the sky, just suddenly, just nobody knows quite where, suddenly there came to the American people a little packet neatly put together.

            This was the answer to our problems.  This was the solution to our despair.  And we were like chickens, gobbling up corn, grains of corn when they were just starving to death.

            That was the American people, and that thing came to pass in 1946.  There was a Jewish rabbi in Boston by the name of Joshua L. Liebman.  And in the midweek services of his synagogue, he had been talking to his people about the marvelous potentialities when you link Freudian psychology and religion together to relieve modern tensions.

            And some publicity hound got the idea that if you could put that in a book, it would be a wonderful seller.  So they put the thing together.

            And in 1946 there came out Joshua Liebman's Peace of Mind, and he struck oil.

            For one hundred seventy‑seven consecutive weeks, Peace of Mind was a best seller in all this world.  And say, did we have a deluge there after.  You wouldn't have time to list the titles of books that came out following the Peace of Mind; The Magic of Believing, Peace of Soul ‑‑ that's by the Bishop Sheen.  The Way to Security beyond Anxiety, Man's Search for Himself, mined a lie.  And a thousand other titles.  The world was swamped with them.

            And above all, that noble exponent of the ‑‑ of the positive and the obvious, the incomparable Norman Vincent Peale.  His book, The Power of Positive Thinking, has passed a million volumes already.

            His book, A Guide to Confident Living, is still selling at the rate of three thousand a week.

            Beside his book, The Art of Living and his Guideposts, which are very interesting.

            And like an editor who publishes a newspaper to give what the people want to read, the pulpits of America have simply been turned over to Peace of Mind religion.

            "Brother, where is the psychoanalyst?  I got to see him."  "Where is the authority on psychosomatic medicine?  I got it in my stomach.  I got it in my legs.  I got it in my joints and my bones."

            "Where is this psychiatrist?  I've got to have him.  I got to see him.  I'm all right with myself."

            And the world and these preachers have turned into first‑class psychiatrists.

            They take clinical study.  They know all about psychology.  They're trained in these elusive things of the mind, all of those cerebral ‑‑ cerebrations that have to do with our pernovations [sic].  And we're all trying to find peace of mind.

            And as I say, there's nobody, there's nobody that's gone all out for it like the marble collegiate church in New York City where Norman Vincent Peale presides over this staff ‑‑

            Now, you look at this, Billy.  You look at this. This is his church staff.  He has four ministers with clinical training.  That is, they've been examining the knots on people's heads so they know what's the matter with them.  Four of them.  Four of them.

            He's got one psychiatric social worker.  He's got nine psychiatrics on his staff.  Nine of them.  And he's got four psychologists.  That's the marble collegiate staff in New York City.

            Now, Norman Vincent Peale's religion, his preaching, well, let's look at it.  These are the first five sermons by which he began this year.  The first one was "The Key to Self‑Confidence."

            The second message, "How to Feel Alive and Well."

            The third one, "Ways to Improve Your Situation."

            The fourth one, "Live with Joy and Vitality."

            And the fifth one, "Empty Fear from Your Thoughts."

            Now, how do you do all that?  Well, he puts out little how ‑‑ how‑to cards and ‑‑ and ‑‑ and it's all packaged, you know.  And it's always in ten easy rules.

            So here's one of them.  One of his how‑to cards is how to overcome your interiority complex ‑‑ no, your inferiority complex.  Well, listen to it.  This is the gospel of the Peace of Mind.

            First, How to Overcome Your Inferiority Complex. First, hold in your mind a picture of yourself  succeeding.  Your mind will seek to actualize this image.

            Second, when a negative thought comes to mind, deliberate[ly] cancel it out with a positive thought. That's right.

            Third, do not build obstacles in your imagination.

            Four, do not be awestruck by other people or try to conquer them.

            Fifth, get a competent counselor to help you understand the origin of your inferiority feeling which often begins in childhood.

            His eighth one, realistically estimate your ability, then raise the estimate ten percent.

            Develop a whole self ‑‑ self‑respect.  "Brother, look at me.  Here I come and I'm ten percent better than you think I am."

            Now, his last one.  Believe that God is with you, for nothing can defeat that partnership.

            Well, that's Peace of Mind religion.  That's it.

            What about it?  Pastor of a ‑‑ of a great historic Protestant church.  And he's just one.  There are a thousand and a thousand little Peales just like him all over this nation, all over this nation.  Even the seminaries now are teaching the preachers all kinds of  clinical procedures and psychiatrical approaches and psychoanalytical understandings.  That's the new day. That's the new religion.

            Well, what about it?  I have four or five comments to make.  And the first one is this, it comes parisly ‑‑ perilously close, it comes dangerously near to being nothing other than a gimmick.  It comes almost near turning religion into magic.  This is the way to get what you want.  Using God.

            Well, to make God nothing other than an instrument by which I raise my self‑esteem, I conquer my complexes.  I rise to great heights of success in the world.

            That's not the Bible presentation of God, for the will of God may be something altogether different from what I might want.  For I remember reading in this Book that those Old Testament prophets, sometimes they ended just disastrously.

            I also remember reading in this Book that Jesus Christ Himself was nailed to a cross.

            Now, that may be a success of some kind.  It may be an achievement in some category, but it certainly isn't that kind of an achievement.

            You know, people like to hear what pleases some.  We're just made that way.  I can be ‑‑ what do you want to be?  I can be beautiful, so I'll take myself handsome.  I can be, oh, a scintillating personality, so I'll paint myself to be a scintillating personality.

            I want to succeed, and I can think myself into success.  Positive thinking.  That will do it.  That will do it.  And the way to achieve those successes is to get a hold of God, use God.

            Well, there's something that He's God, I suppose. But I say it's like a gimmick to get what you want. It's using God for personal purposes and personal reasons.  It's making God the source of the success that you want to achieve.

            But it's not always what God wills, what God says is what we want.  And we like the things that please us.  So when the minister says all those things, we go away, oh, somehow lifted up, elevated.  "I can do that.  Why, God will be with me in it."

            And we like that.

            I want to take a story out of the Old Testament to illustrate this thing.  Do you remember Ahab who married Jezebel?  He was some king.  He had prophets around him.  He had Norman Vincent Peale on that side of him.  He had Joshua Liebman on that side of him, and he had all of those little copycats all around him.  The Bible says he had four hundred of them around him.

            Now, Ahab decided he wanted something.  Over there, across the Jordan River, Ramoth Gilead was the city in the hands of Damascus, the king of Syria, and he wanted it.

            So the way to get what you want is to use the power of positive thinking.

            So Ahab said, "That belongs to me.  Now, if I'm to get it, I got to have God with me."  Why, surely you do.  If you're going to similaze [sic] as a personality, if you're going to achieve success in business, get God on your side.

            That's what he said.

            So Ahab said, "I got to have God on my side."

            Well, he had a visitor at that time.  He had Jehoshaphat who was the king of Judah.

            Now, he had said, "Jehoshaphat, looky here."

            And he called four hundred of those prophets before him and he said to each one of those four hundred prophets, he said, "Tell me, if I go over there and fight against Ramoth Gilead, will God give Ramoth  Gilead into my hands?"

            And every one of those four hundred prophets said, "Positive thinking will do it.  All you got to do is go over there and God will be with you, and you'll take Ramoth Gilead."

            Well, Jehoshaphat was a little skeptical.  He was a little cynical.  He was a fly in the ointment.  And Jehoshaphat said to Ahab, he said, "Ahab, is there just one other prophet here that I might ask?"

            And Ahab said, "Yes, there's one more, but I hate him 'cause he always says something evil and not good."

            Well, Jehoshaphat said, "Who is he?"

            And Ahab said, "He's Micaiah.  His name's Micaiah and he's a prophet of Jehovah God, but he says bad about me.  He never says anything good."

            "Well," said Jehoshaphat, "let's hear him.  Let's hear him."

            So they sent for Micaiah, and Micaiah stood before King Ahab and King Ahab said, "I'm eliminating the negative and I'm accentuating the positive.  I'm going after Ramoth Gilead.  Is God going to be with me?  All those four hundred say, `Yes, sir, God's with you.'"

            And Micaiah said, he said, "You go over there to Ramoth Gilead and you're not going to come back alive, 'cause God said He's going to scatter the people over the country and they're going to be without a leader and without a shepherd.  You're not coming back alive."

            And Ahab turned toward Jehoshaphat and said, "Isn't that what I told you?  That's exactly what I told you. He doesn't ‑‑ he doesn't prophesy good.  He says God's against me."

            Zedekiah went over and slapped Micaiah in the face.  And Micaiah said, "When Ahab comes back slain and you crawl into your inner chamber ashamed and abashed, you're going to see the truth of the Word of the living God."

            So they put Micaiah in chains and in prison and sent in water of affliction and fed him bread of affliction "until," Ahab said, "I will come back again in victory and in triumph."

            So they went over there to Ramoth Gilead.

            Now, Ahab, in order to protect himself, dressed like an ordinary soldier.  He took off his kingly garments.  And the Bible says that in the midst of the battle that one of those Syrian Damascene soldiers drew back a bow at a venture ‑‑ at a venture and just let the arrow fly.  He never aimed.  He just let the arrow speed its way.

            And the Bible says that arrow found an aperture in the joints of Ahab's armor.  And it entered between the joints of his armor and pierced his heart.

            And Ahab fell down in his chariot and he died there in his chariot and his blood ran out in the chariot.

            And when they took the chariot back to Samaria, they washed it out and the dogs licked up his blood, according to the word of ‑‑ of Elijah, the man of God, and according to the word of Micaiah, the prophet of the Lord.

            God doesn't always speak what we want Him to speak.  And He's not used by us.  And the false prophet is always around us, saying sweet things, prophesying beautiful things, encouraging us in the things we want to do.

            But that doesn't mean that the living God is that way at all.  The judgment of the Lord may be the opposite of what we want.  And the will of God may lead diametrically to something that we are aghast at.  The judgment of the Almighty.

            Religion is not a gimmick and it's not a magic "get God on our side to do for us the things that we want."

            All right.  That's one observation.

            The second observation is this, according to the religion of the New Testament, we are born in sin.  We are alienated from the purposes of God.  And in order to be back again in the kingdom of God, we must experience a personal relationship with Jesus Christ that we call the "new birth."

            We have to be born again.  We have to become Christians.  According to the religion of the Peace of Mind, anybody, anybody can follow these ten rules and the ten other how‑to rules and he achieves these successes with no reference to a personal experience with Jesus at all.  And that's not the religion of the Book.

            The religion of the Book is first, I must confess myself to be a sinner.  The only way my sin can be forgiven is through the redemptive act of Almighty God in Jesus Christ.  And in Christ, I can find a personal Savior and the forgiveness of my sin and guilt, and I can be adopted into the family of God.  But all of that is what we call the new birth.

            And this religion makes no reference to it whatsoever.  I can be an infidel.  I can be a heathen. I could be a Buddhist.  I can be a Confucianist.  I can be nothing and follow all ten of these rules.  No reference to Christ at all.

            All right.  A third thing.  Did you ever notice how much of this Bible is negative, how much of it is negative?  The Ten Commandments, it seems to me, kind of broaches on the negative side once in a while.  Do you remember them?  Isn't that a strange thing how God thunders about those things, "Thou shall not," negative, negative.

            Did you ever notice in the religion of Jesus Christ how it begins.  Not with tough love, not with raising your estimation of yourself ten percent after you've struck it up there as high as egotism will allow.  But the religion of the New Testament begins like this, "Depart from me, O God.  I am a sinful man."

            Or like the prodigal son, "Father, I've sinned against thee and against heaven and I'm no more worthy to be a son.  Make me a hired servant."

            It begins like this, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God."

            Self‑love is the antipodal attitude of the Christian faith.  It is personal depreciation in humility.  It is coming to Go