The Searchers in a Flaming
World
In the early dark hours before dawn on December 7, 1946, a raging fire engulfed the Winecoff Hotel on Atlanta's Peachtree Street. Before the last flames had been brought under control, scores of men, women, and children had died. Most were not actually burned to death. Instead they died as they searched desperately for escape. Many jumped in panic from high windows to perish on the pavement below. Others were overcome by smoke and heat as they searched for one safe exit after another. But for all of them it was too late. They simply woke up too late to escape the horror of that fifteen-story holocaust of flames, and they died searching for a way out.
Today with the world in flames on every continent and in every country, there are those who search for a way out. Indeed, this is the Age of the Search. In every area of life man is searching for truth. Recently the United States sent into outer space a rocket called "The Discoverer" to search for scientific truth. Just as man is searching for scientific truth, so he is searching for answers, for panaceas, for meanings, for remedies for his deepest spiritual needs. To this search man brings the accumulated wisdom of the past.
The President of the United States recently established a unique office in the government in which he installed a "think man," whose sole function is to offer new ideas for consideration. Industry realizes that tomorrow begins today. Change occurs so fast that men must project their thinking a decade or more in advance in order to keep abreast of progress.
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To bring this about, industry depends on "the corporate planner," whose job it is to search and probe, to discover and plan. His chief responsibility is to answer the question: "What is this business all about?"
All of this planning, thinking, and idea-making is well and good. But what about the great issues of life and death? Are there not deep moral and spiritual questions that must be answered? Man has always thought so, and this is why we have philosophers, psychologists, and theologians. However, today much of our quest is materialistic, naturalistic, and humanistic. A professor at the University of Michigan said to me: "As soon as we create life in a test tube, we won't need God any more." I answered: "This happened once before when man ruled God out and proposed the Tower of Babel. It ended in frustration, confusion, and judgment."
In a bull session at Harvard a student observed: "Does it not seem strange that millions should be spent trying to create life or to discover its origin? Is not our number-one problem to care for the life we already have?"
Either man began nowhere and is looking for some place to go, or he began somewhere and has lost his way. In either case, he is looking and searching. The Bible tells us that man began in the image of God and lost his way. A good indication of the human predicament today is a sign on the rear window of an automobile: "Don't follow me. I'm lost." Carl Jung, the eminent psychologist, once said: "Man is an enigma to himself."
There is within every man a certain sense of frustration. Voices echo from within the inner chambers of his soul: "I ought not to be the way I am. I was made for something higher. There must be a supreme being. Life was not meant to be this empty." These voices, often unconscious and unarticulated, cause man to struggle onward toward some unknown, unnamed goal. We may try to evade this quest; we
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may detour into fantasy; we may revert to the lower levels of life and seek escape from this laborious truth. Indeed, we may even give up temporarily, throw up our hands, and say: "What's the use?" But always some inner compulsion drives us back, and invariably we take up the quest again.
Men in every culture are engaged in this eternal search. I took some of my college work in anthropology, where we studied primitive societies. We never found a tribe anywhere in the world, no matter how primitive, that was not engaged in this search. It is a search to find purpose and meaning in life. It is a search to find truth and reality. It may be crude, primitive, or even vulgar; but it is still part of the search!
It is my conviction that the riots, pranks, escapades, and often the crimes of young people are symptoms of this search. The chaplain of a great Eastern university told me about a group of students who came to him one day and said: "We want to demonstrate for something, but we don't have a cause." As I have observed demonstrations for various causes around the world, I have seen "the search" written on the faces of the demonstrators.
In the lobby of the Ukraine Hotel in Moscow I sat beside a man of some obvious importance. One of the friendliest men I met in Russia, he spoke fairly good English. We began to chat first about the weather, then about Sputniks, and finally he said to me: "I have lived through two wars, I have seen a lot of changes, but there is one thing unchanged." Curious, I asked: "And what is that?" "The human heart," he said, patting his chest. "No matter what form of government or ideology we embrace, the heart always seeks peace."
From the jungle to the campus I have talked with people on every continent, from merchants to soldiers; and always in every place there is the age-old phenomena, the mystery of anthrapos, the "upward-lookingone," searching, probing, inquiring for life's deeper and often hidden meaning.
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The owner of a luxurious resort hotel in Miami Beach confided in me: "Billy, I have everything a man could have materially. I thought I had it made, but lately I have been fed up with it all. I have always wanted these things, but now that I have them they seem less than I thought they would be. I believe life is more than this." He was right. Jesus said: "A man's life does not consist in the abundance of things which he possesses" (Luke 12:15).
In India a professing Hindu said to me: "I need something here," as he patted his heart. This is the cry of all men of all times: "I need something here!"
At the end of the First World War we thought we had found the answers. Science had come into its own. The "war to end war" was finished. The League of nations was formed. Progress became a god of the age. Optimism reigned everywhere. But we did not get far into the twenties before it seemed that history had been thrown into reverse. Crime increased, morals declined, faith waned. Then the Depression came. Fascism and Nazism sprang up, the atomic bomb exploded — and millions had died in the bloodiest war of history. When the spree was over, we woke up with a hangover called "the balance of terror."
Man's Self-Examination
While the West had lulled itself to sleep with the comforting doctrine of man's achievements, a great revolution had been in progress in Russia. The hammer pounded and the sickle gleaned until a new social order called Communism emerged as one of the most powerful ideologies of all time. It challenged every concept man had ever held. It threatened the life of the whole world. It became the greatest challenge Christianity had faced in 2000 years. Soon it was recognized
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that Communism was far more than economic determinism. It was a fanatic religion that asked questions and demanded answers. Throughout the world students began to ask questions as never before.
Once again man has been forced to examine his soul. The questions we thought were answered are being raised once more. What is man? Where did he come from? What is his purpose on this planet? Where is he going? Is there a God? If there is a God, has He revealed Himself to man? Can man know God? Is God relevant to daily life? Does God really matter?
Dr. Jung has said that "the central neurosis of our time is emptiness." Putting his words into action, he himself embraced Christianity to fill the void in his own life. Here and there, other intellectuals, disillusioned with the shallow goals of a materialistic society, began to examine their souls. Many turned to the ancient book called the Bible. Thousands flocked to various messiahs, and still others turned to the escapist drugs, such as DMT, UM-491, LSD-25, and CI-395. Others went into strange cults. Nevertheless, many began to find an answer in a renewal of the faith of their fathers.
Everywhere people are searching for something that works. We would like to save ourselves, for this would feed our egos and our pride. It nourishes our self-esteem to believe that we can manage independently of God. Like Lucifer, we say: "I will be like the most High" (Isaiah 14:14). The destructive power of pride is that it countenances nothing higher than itself. Because of an inherent fault in our nature, man's bias is on the side of error. In our willful desire to live independently of God, we have severed the lifeline that flows from the source of all life. We have cut ourselves off from the one hope.
Never has a generation been called upon to experience more intense suffering, trouble, heartache, and despair than ours.
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Paralyzing fear, benumbing pain, devastating war, tragic death, intellectual pessimism — all because man in his pride refuses to turn to God! We are reminded of the words of Jesus, who said: "Man shall not live by bread alone" (Matthew 4:4). Man is so constituted that he cannot subsist without God. Material prosperity alone will not suffice. We must have God. To penetrate space, to land on the moon or on Mars, as thrilling and as exciting as that may be, will not satisfy man's inner hunger. He must have God! To have more leisure time, to live in split-level homes, to drive high-powered cars, to watch color television — these are not the answer. Man must have God!
At the end of his life Buddha said: "I am still searching for truth." This statement could be made by countless thousands of scientists, philosophers, and religious leaders throughout all history. However, Jesus Christ made the astounding claim: "I am the truth" (John 14:6). He is the embodiment of all truth. The only answer to man's search is found in Him.
Faith versus Prideful Intellectualism
Nor will an analytical attitude toward God suffice. We live in a day when the emphasis is on prideful intellectualism. The Bible teaches that man by wisdom cannot find God. Job asked the question: "Canst thou by searching find out God?" (Job 11:7). Notice that Job did not ask: "Canst thou by searching find God?" Job was saying that a man, with his limited mental capacity, cannot even measure and comprehend the immensity of God. It is possible to find God; but it is impossible to "find out" the infinitude of God's immensity. In other words, man would like to put God in a laboratory. We would like to contain Him in the confines of our little
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brains. This is, of course, impossible. We cannot even prove the existence of God, but we know that He does exist.
Christianity can never be reduced to reason alone. This is one of the differences I have with some theologians who try to reduce the whole content of the Christian faith to an intellectual gymnastic exercise. If man is to find God, he must come in simple childlike faith and in complete dependence on His revealed Word. The word "faith" is used ninety-two times in the Gospel of John alone, indicating something of the great emphasis the Bible puts on faith.
I have a friend who vowed in college that he would be a millionaire before he was twenty-five years old, and he achieved that goal with little effort. He became a successful businessman. He had arrived. He married a beautiful woman. He could say: "Soul . . . take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry" (Luke 12:19). However, they were both miserable in the midst of their affluence. Out of curiosity they came to one of our meetings and responded to the appeal to receive Jesus Christ. Christ demanded a decision, a plunge, a choice! They took that plunge, and today they are two of the most radiantly happy people I know.
The Bloodless Revolution
There is going on in the world today a quiet, bloodless revolution. It has no fanfare, no newspaper coverage, no propaganda; yet it is changing the course of thousands of lives. It is restoring purpose and meaning to life as men of all races and nationalities are finding peace with God.
Dr. Fred Smith was one of the world's great biochemists. Educated in Great Britain and until his recent death a professor at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Smith came to one of our meetings "to see the show." Through science he had been
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searching for the answers to the deepest questionings of his heart, and that night after a simple message he found the answer.
It is at this point that the account of the Atlanta hotel fire ceases to serve as an illustration, because there is a way of escape. Safety and security are available for every one who searches. Man need never plunge recklessly into certain destruction to escape the problems of this world. For despite the modern philosophers who tell us that there is no way out, Jesus Christ still beckons to all who search. He still says: "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6).
My friend, Dr. Kenneth L. Pike, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Michigan, has written an incisive little book entitled With Heart and Mind. In it is a chapter called "Prescription for Intellectuals" in which Dr. Pike says: "The down-and-outer who wants to be cleansed, forgiven, and straightened out does not need extensive understanding of how help comes; he only needs help and needs it quickly." If you are about to drown, you simply yell "Help!" At that moment you do not try to reason out how you got into your dangerous predicament. You know you need help, you shout it, and you grab anything in sight. And that is all the person who is "down" does. He is one who is helpless and knows it. You don't have to know about the philosophy of Christianity to get help. The Scripture says: "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Romans 10:13).
However, Dr. Pike points out that the same thing is not true for the intellectual who already has his mental outlook logically formed into a coherent system with all of the pieces fitting together in a neat mosaic, so that the removal of one piece destroys the pattern. The intellectual thinks he must be able to understand before he comes to Christ. The intellectual just cannot reach out and grasp a helping hand because he must have the situation explained in terms of his system of
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thought. He wants to know the source of that help, the manner of that help, because he has already committed himself to a set of assumptions that are rigid and all-inclusive. From his point of view, his system is complete.
Nicodemus was an intellectual. He, too, had a rigid philosophical and theological system worked out, and it was a good system. He had even included a belief in God. The intellectual structuring of his philosophical religious system excluded Jesus as the Son of God.
But what did Jesus tell this intellectual? He said something like this: "Nicodemus, I am sorry that I cannot explain it to you. You have seen something that does not fit your system. You have seen me to be good, and you have heard me say that I am God, that I act with the power of God. This does not fit your system, but I cannot explain it to you because your assumptions do not allow for a starting point. Nicodemus, to you it is not logical. Nothing in your system permits it. I am sorry I cannot explain. You will just have to be born again" (John 3:1-5).
In other words, Nicodemus had to start without even being logical from his own point of view. He had to start without fitting what Jesus said into his system. He had to take a leap of faith into a new system.
If you are to find the answer to your search, you too may have to reject much of your old system and plunge into this new one. As Dr. Pike says: "The intellectual needs to be told that his system as a whole must be replaced . . . that he must be born again. Christianity is not an accretion, it is not something added. It is a new total outlook which is satisfied with nothing less than penetration to the furthest corners of the mind and the understanding."
