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Word
Records Waco Texas 1950
Sermons
of Samuel Shoemaker W-3240-LP
Side 1, Band I
Samuel
M. Shoemaker Will you keep in your mind this verse from Psalm 84: "Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee; and whose heart are Thy ways. Who going through the vale ol misery use it for a well; and pools are. filled with water." Besides what religion has to give to human beings of intellectual interpretations of life, it has two plain and practical problems, which are always facing it. It has got to give men some power by which to get more mastery over themselves and their sins, and it's got to help them when they're in trouble to find peace and comfort. Religion is therefore both a strenuous and a soothing thing. Much of our difficulty has arisen from our being strenuous when we should have been comforting and perhaps more often from our being soothing when we should have been drastic instead. We're to think now of religion in its power to tide us over the places of sorrow and trouble in our lives. I suppose no man or woman gets past thirty years of age who lives and thinks at all who doesn't have to reckon with sorrow and trouble. We all have our early years of easy optimism when things are going well with us--the sky is full of sunlight. We ought to be glad for those years for sometimes they're the years in which we form our great resolves and set out with magnificent hope toward great goals. But the time will come when something flings itself across our path, which seems to chill our hope and put out the fires in our hearts. We set out upon a plan of work with that mixture of motives- -selfish and altruistic, which is so nearly universal. We put our heart into it and work for all we're worth, but do what we will the thing begins to drag. Doesn't seem to be altogether our fault when a combination of forces--some of which we can't control. And one day we must face it bravely, but honestly. We have failed. Or a young man undertakes a large piece of work, which is going to demand of him the - maximum of intellectual and physical energy. And one day he begins to feel bad. A doctor tells him he must pull out of it all and go into a high atmosphere for he finds a spot in his lung. And that man turns from what he hoped to do and packs himself off to the country to try to regain his health. And the things he dreams there are full of fear and sadness. Or a family watches two beautiful children grow up amid every opportunity they can pro- vide--and gives them all the world's best and finds that they only expect more. One makes a good marriage which doesn't last very long because it's got no foundations of religion. The other one turns as hard as flint and has no human concern for anything but pleasure. And these two children who began with so much promise, still in the eyes of the world appear so well, are disappointments to their parents who carry in their hearts heavy misgivings whether it wouldn't have been better if the kindness had been tempered with less of the selfish joy of giving to one's own and more of the iron that makes for character. Or we see a family happy in its full circle, each contributing something to the whole life and then one by one they fall sick and wither and drop away like the leaves off a tree until one alone is left to try to go on and make the best of it when the world no longer holds of much interest. It’s no good to keep on with this list--we can picture a thousand such instances. Everyone of them would evoke the response of somebody who is listening in and who has been there. We live in a lonely and terrifying world. Men seem sometimes to be the playthings of a fortune which has in it neither. reason to explain it nor rhyme to soften it. You haven't lived at all if you have come to the conclusion that all's well with the world. You've been sitting back in pudgy comfort where you don't see life as it is--what tragedy is fastened upon-human beings. I wish you could see what a minister sees in the course of a week if he's on his job. The reason welve got such shallow views about what Christ did for the world, and make him a kind of a smiling cheermonger, is that we don't reckon with the exceeding sinfulness of sin—the What Shall We Do With Trouble- Page 2 exceeding sorrowfulness of
sorrow--and the very great force of evil itself. Now I'm not giv- ing
much sentimentalizing about trouble. I generally try to say things which
imply that most of man's difficulty is of his own making and can be of
his own unmaking. I say those things be- cause they are the zone of hope
in human life. Because I believe infinitely in man, in his freedom to
choose and carve out a wide destiny for himself if he will seek the Will
of God. But I've seen too much of life not to know that sadness and sor
*row are not to be dismissed with any facile jesture of
hard-hearted optimism such as parades around us in these days in a
hundred self-deceived cults--evil is serious business in all its
aspects. Sorrow and trouble are one of them. You will not glorify God by
minimizing the reality of trouble in the world. The New Testament does
no such thing. "In the world ye shall have tribulation"- -that
is the verdict. Now what are we going to do about it? Everything
depends upon how you take it--what you make of it. I'm not attempting
any guesses now as to the question of why sorrow is here. I want to look
into the practical ques- tion of what to do with it now we've got it.
The solution is not a theoretical one--it's a practi- cal one. Trouble
crushes one life and softens another. Embitters one--makes another sym-
pathetic, because of the different ways it's taken. Letme make a few
suggestions that have helped me when trouble was present. In thdl@first
place, see your own trouble in its setting as part of the long tragedy
that's everywhere accom- panied human life. You're not alone in it. I
remember once going up on a-
the Bosporus one afternoon in considerable distress of mind. And
I began to think of the infinite pain that had been suffered in that
region where I stood. I thought of Roman Legions giving themselves that
Constantine might build his capital. I thought of the workmen who toiled
to build Santa Sophia and of Justinians' vain cry when the church was
completed: "I have con- quered thee, Oh Solomon. 11 Of the splendid
folly of the crusaders crossing this state into Asia Minor never to
return again to Europe. Phillipi was a few hundred miles down the
narrows and the bones of English lads filled a gigantic graveyard not
far from the sea. Across the water lay Asia Minor where Paul had labored
and preached and worn himself out- -more Mohammedan than Christian
today. Possibly there were more Christians in Asia Minor at the end of
St. Paul's life than there are now. And I began to realize that my own
trouble was very small--must be looked at in the light in all of this
pageant of pain down the ages. Sorrow, like sin, isolates its victims
and makes them believe they are alone in their suffering. I think it a
considerable help to make ourselves conscious of the conspicuous place
which trouble and sorrow have been given in human experience. If you
believe life is explainable at all you must dignify the experience of
trouble by granting that it has its place and carries some kind of mean-
ing. And (ss
e c @on set your trouble in the light of the Cross of Christ. The best
the world ever saw came to this. He did not move ierenely and
indifferently across the stage of human affairs scattering roses and
smiling His way into men's protecting affections. The closer He got to
meeting the world's need by showing the world where it stood in its
relation to God, the closer did He come to treading upon the toes of men
who wouldn't stand for it- -and finally broug1t Him to a criminal death.
It would have been a mockery and a joke on us if He had come into the
world in luxury where men are in want. And had slipped through the world
in success where men fail. And lived to enjoy the full fruit of His
labors where men are cut off in the bitterness of disappointment. If He
be God this had to happen. I should have no use for a God who wouldn't
share this colossal tragedy by coming into it and bearing it. I should
deny Him a fraction of homage. But God did share it--shared the extreme
of it in ignominy and disappoint- ment and physical pain. The simpliest
meaning of the Cross is that God suffered and in the end that may be for
us while here below the profoundest meaning. When you suffer, remember
that God suffered, and suffers still. AndlZr
our t@rouble. I don't mean share it for the relief it brings to
you to talk about it, for that may be after a while, a very selfish
thing to do. I me Ln share it where it will create an atmosphere in
which someone else in trouble can share the trouble with you so !hat hey
n -L
lief. There are gushing people, moist with piety and dripping
with senti- mentality who will find dissipation in unburdening their
troubles on other people. Plainly, ~ ally one does, who still, after
rebellious years have passed, still grudges the loss of her child or her
husband--still reproaches God for a sorrow He didn't Will, but is
-anxious to guide and use--I believe this person is nursing a sorrow or
a kind of morbid joy which comes from cling- ing to it. You
can't seek the meaning of a sorrow while you hug it to yourself
andyP-UL11 not give it to God to shed Hi
it. Fo-T-must-le-T Him make something of it or Vou-will in
Pilgrims Progress where a Christian goes through the valley of
humiliation. The story says "this valley of humiliation is of
itself as fruitful a place as any the crow flys over. And I am persuaded
if we could hit upon it, we might find somewhere hereabouts something
that might give us an account of why a Christian was so hardly beset in
this place. Amd, thus, to read sorrow in the light of the s orrows of
others and of our Lord Hims elf - -to allow sorrow to make us more
sympathetic than we could possibly have been without it--to see what may
give us an account of why we were so beset in this place--is to go
through the vale of misery and use it for a well. The kind of faith
which interprets experience in this fashion finds that the pools are
filled with water--water enough for us to bear out and give to a thirsty
world full of men who are like as in a desert. It looks back upon all
the events of life and says that God has wonderously led and that all
things do work together for good to them that love Him. It's no
Christianity which tries to make good out of evil and says that sorrow
doesn't exist.
orrow.
Itis __771 Christianitv which finds the Hand of God in all
It was Jesus wKo said -In__U1_e world ye shall have tribulation.
11 That is the simple, inescapable fact of every h@nan being's
experience. But He also said, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome
the world. 11 And that, too, is the inescapable experi
those who have sought to put their troubles and their lives in hands What
Shall We Do With Trouble--Page 3 they must learn how to be unselfish
with sorrow so that they don't force it on everybody--but also do not
withhold it from those whom it will help. The sun alone can help free a
ship caught in forzen ice fields and you may keep a heart from breaking
if you can start an ice flow. The sharing of trouble which is for our
own relief is selfish and sentimental, but the sharing which builds a
bridge across into the heart of another person is one of God's
benedictions let inio the world. _URF@) try to find the meaning in your
trouble. Perhaps at the very beginning of trouble you may be expected
only to hold on tenaciously to old moorings and, as it were, to stand
it. But as the time runs on and pain gives place to peace you'll find
that God hasn't left you at any time. He's been leading you through the
darkness as well as through the day. You may find that a harshness has
been melted out of you forever because of the sorrow you have suffered.
You may find that your absurd trust in yourself--your pride in
prosperity--or pleasure in success--has given away to dependence upon
God and reliance upon Him for all your needs. You may find that when
someone you loved was withdrawn from you, for the first time you learned
to love humanity. Now perhaps you see your child in every child. Your
brother in every man. Your sister in every woman. I
came TRgicxa anti sisters to the world and men who became its
fathers and brothers. There's al- ways a hopeful way of taking trouble.
A dear old saint of God said to me in her last illness and weakness,
"now I have time to pray as long as I want for everybody I want to
pray for. Think of that.
ouble, for the first time in your li e ou
xercise enuine s m a
It's easy to coin smooth words to say to peop-re--when
they suffer, but no word at all is better if #iey know that you've been
through with what they're going through, and this alone is to suffer
with anybody. Now I don't believe, my friends, that God sends trouble,
or that God deliberately wills the trouble which comes upon the children
of men. Much of it is of our own making, some of it's due to natural
forces in the physical Universe to which we belong, some of it I give up
trying to understand. But I believe that God uses that trouble; turns it
to good account; works it into the whole fabric of our lives; gives
meaning to it. When I find a person, as occassion- ally one does, who
still, after rebellious years have passed, still grudges the loss of her
child or her husband--still reproaches God for a sorrow He didn't Will,
but is -anxious to guide and use--I believe this person is nursing a
sorrow or a kind of morbid joy which comes from cling- ing to it. You
can't seek the meaning of a sorrow while you hug it to yourself and
vo-u'll not give it to God to shed His light upon it. You-must let .
member in Pilgrims Progress where a Christian goes through the valley of
humiliation. The story says "this valley of humiliation is of
itself as fruitful a place as any the crow flys over. And I am persuaded
if we could hit upon it, we might find somewhere hereabouts something
that might give us an account of why a Christian was so hardly beset in
this place. Amd, thus, to read sorrow in the light of the s orrows of
others and of our Lord Hims elf - -to allow sorrow to make us more
sympathetic than we could possibly have been without it--to see what may
give us an account of why we were so beset in this place--is to go
through the vale of misery and use it for a well. The kind of faith
which interprets experience in this fashion finds that the pools are
filled with water--water enough for us to bear out and give to a thirsty
world full of men who are like as in a desert. It looks back upon all
the events of life and says that God has wonderously led and that all
things do work together for good to them that love Him. It's no
Christianity which tries to make good out of evil and says that sorrow
doesn't exist. But neith .1 t
Chri stianity which is overwhelmed and crushed by sorrow. It
ishave yourself been guilty of causing your d77, I-nth-e Christianity
which finds the Hand of God in all ex-perieng- It was Jesus who saii ,
world ye shall have tribulation. 11 That is the simple, inescapable fact
of every human being's experience. But He also said, "Be of good
cheer, I have overcome the world. f? And that, too, is the inescapable
experig-nop--ofthose who have sought to put their troubles and their
lives in T-th tj@e -hands of
do not seei-to-i-nt-e-rp-r-et-t-hem-unitiI they have deeply
pray-e-d-a-bou
em.
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