C087 2/17/57
© Project Winsome International, 1999

There's no denying the fact that we here in America have a great life. No where else in all the world do people live such a lush and lavish existence.

Let me be specific for a moment.
In the last ten years, medical science has made such phenomenal strides and we have dealt such a death blow to disease that situations which were fatal, even a few years ago, are now handled as a matter of routine. Almost every day we read of new break-throughs against such things as mental illness, cancer and heart disease.

Higher education is now accessible to almost every person in our land. What the states and cities cannot provide in terms of educational opportunities, private industry makes possible through its programs of
scholarships,
student loan funds,
and educational grants.

Our standard of living has been raised to a dazzling level. The average citizen of our land lives better than some of the so-called "affluent" in other countries.

The danger of unemployment is becoming less of a danger every day. We are told that while, in the next 20 years the total population of our country will increase by 30 million, the working population--that is, people in the age bracket of 20-65--will increase by only 7 million, which means that job opportunities are going to increase rather than decrease.

Our life span has lengthened at an astonishing rate and, with more and more leisure time available due to a shorter and shorter work week, it is the understatement of the century to say that we never had it so good!

This is just the beginning. If you think we are richly blessed now, take a look at the fabulous age before us.

The Royal Society of Arts in England tells us that by the year 2,000, advertising will be projected in the night sky and space will be sold according to the position of the stars.

We are told that letters will literally be shot by rockets to places as distant as Australia.

Pedestrians will do their marketing on moving sidewalks which will carry them from shops on the second floor level while traffic goes by unheeded down below.

According to a book entitled Atomic Science and Power,
"No baseball game will be called off because of rain; no airplane will bypass an airport because of fog; no city will have a traffic jam because of snow.

"Summer resorts will be able to guarantee any kind of weather their guests desire. Artificial suns will ripen tomatoes and corn indoors."
Indeed, we are standing on the threshold of a Golden Era.
The Downside of This Upside
However, there are some puzzling aspects to this fantastic panorama of scientific and material progress. By a kind of reverse English, our ingenuity has created as many problems as it has solved. There is a downside to this upside.

President Griswold of Yale University said it this way:
"We know how to destroy the world, but we do not know how to govern it."

Someone else suggested that
"We have speed, but we do not have direction...we are constantly going someplace, but never getting anywhere."
And then the writer asks,
"What's the hurry when you're not so sure where you're going?"

Yes, we have knowledge, but we do not have wisdom.
We have a conglomeration of stuff, but we do not have any calmness of soul.
We are so intrigued by all the planning of travel to the moon that we do
not have time to visit the lonely soul who lives next door or down the street.
The dilemma of our day is that we have everything to live by and nothing to live for.

The paradox of our present problem is found in the fact that our greatest need is that we appear to have no need, and our greatest tragedy is that we are not conscious of the tragedy which is all about us.

As a nation we live
so rich and rotund,
so lush and lavish a life
that a climate of collective complacency has settled upon us.

To many of our people, God is no longer the Supreme Fact of life. He is a matter of local option to be taken "as needed" as if He were on a par with a country doctor's prescription for dyspepsia.
Because people feel they can take God or leave Him alone, they leave Him alone!
Their material abundance has resulted in spiritual inertia and huge hunks of our society have joined "the cult of the undisturbed".

Well, the Bible has something to say to people like that and, next Sunday in my sermon "The King Was In The Counting House" I'll be talking about the gospel for the undisturbed. This morning, however, I want to direct our thinking down a totally different line. For out of
this age of prosperity,
this era of plush and plenty
has come a strange phenomenon. I call it --:

The Fellowship of the Searching Heart.
The vast majority of people are anything but undisturbed. A haunting sense of apprehension and uneasiness gnaws away at their soul. They are filled with unrest. Deep down in the labyrinthian caverns of their souls is heard the rumblings of an inner voice which haunts them with the devastating news that it's possible to own everything and possess nothing. And they have found this to be true.

The shallow shell of things in which they have encased themselves has been pierced and torn, exposing their emptiness. They are grasping and groping, seeking and desperately searching for something that will satisfy. So this morning I want to proclaim