The American Who Got Me Confused

The American Who Got Me Confused

by Thomas Carruth

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

We come here tonight to share with you this message on the meaning of Christian love. I call to your attention this very solemn fact, that there’s probably more hatred right now in the United States of America, between American people, than there’s been at any period since the days of Reconstruction. If you read Claude Bowers’ book entitled The Tragic Era, you know something of the meaning of deep, bitter inner hatred in the United States. Last night, a man met with 1,000 people down in Birmingham and talked to them about the demands of the Negro people. Today, a new war has started on the other side of the world. And a man stood up and spoke to 50,000 people, screaming, yelling, wild with madness and hate, and tonight two nations are at war. Some time ago, Mr. Kennedy said that we probably will have to live through this tension all the rest of our lives. This is something new for a new generation, isn’t it? Some weeks ago, we sat in a hotel in Moscow, in company with Dr. Martin Niemöller. We had heard him preach… We heard him preach that night to the Russian people, and tell about his experience of being in prison for eight years under Hitler. Our crowd had just gathered around Dr. Niemöller.

We were hanging eagerly on each word he had to say. I said, “Dr. Niemöller, what about our relationship to the Russian people?” The first thing he said was this. He said, “We’re not going to get anywhere with this business of hatred.” And this will surprise you. He said, “There are just as many godless people in our country as there are in Russia.” He talked to us about how we ought to love the Russian people. One day while we were in Leningrad, there are two or three others here who were with us there, I talked to the little girl named Vera, who was our very friendly and intelligent guide. We were coming back home to the hotel from our guided tour. And I said, “Vera, do husbands over here love wives?” And she said, “Yes.” “Well,” I said, “do the wives love the husbands?” She said, “Yes.” I said, “Do parents love the children?” She said, “Oh, yes.” “Well,” I said, “do you believe in love?” She said, “Yes.” “Well,” I said, “if you believe in love, you believe in God.” She looked at me and kind of half-way smiled. She said, “That is logical, isn’t it?” Later on that afternoon, I had a little aluminum cross just like this one. And I’d be glad to give it to one of you. You, of course, cannot read the printing on it here.

Have on it here, Jesus Christ is Lord. Multiplied thousands of them have gone out across the world. I took one of these little crosses and handed it to Vera. She said, “What does it mean?” I said, “Well, it can remind us of a person who lived a good life a long time ago. He was interested in some of the good things in which you are interested.” She said, “Well, what shall I do with it?” “Oh,” I said, “you can take it and throw it away.” And I looked at her and smiled. “Or,” I said, “you could drop it in the dust and maybe somebody else will pick it up.” She shook her head, and I want you to get this now. Remembering our previous conversation, she said, “No, I’m not going to throw it away.” She said, “I’m going to keep it in memory of the American who got me confused.”

You know what she was thinking? She was thinking if she believed in love, maybe she did believe in God. I came to see in that moment, dear friends, that the way to the heart of a Russian communist is through love. I said, “Vera, have you ever prayed a prayer in your life?” She said, “No, I’ve never prayed a prayer.” She’s about 25 years old. You don’t pray at night? No. You don’t pray in the morning? No. You don’t pray when you have a meal? No. She never prayed one single prayer in her life. And yet she believed in love. I come to say to you splendid people tonight, that as a reaction, a deliberate and intelligent reaction, a studied reaction, to this tide of hatred we have in our nation and our world, there is coming alive across the earth a movement of Christian love that I think in its ultimate demonstration and destiny is going to be the greatest creative movement of love this century has known, maybe in the history of the world. Now, in the midst of this deliberate Christian movement of love, there are two or three great demands that are coming to the front. The first one is this. We see the demand in our century for a new type of Christian in love, such as nobody in this room has ever witnessed with his eyes.

You’ve read about it. You’ve heard about it. Maybe in another century. With sustained tension, with confusion, with hatred, with uncertainty all around us. I cannot imagine anyone, and I know this is a wonderful group, I cannot imagine anyone in this group standing tonight on your feet and saying, “I’m satisfied with the kind of love I’ve had in my yesterdays.” We’ve got to repent of our best. We’ve got to know a measure of love, an outgoing sense of love, that people in this century have never known. A new Christian in love. We’re not only a new Christian in love, but we’ve got to have a new willingness to communicate love. Don’t you think that too many people are too silent about their love? They say, “Well, if I love, people are going to know it. What’s the use of doing anything and telling them about it?” We don’t learn other things that way. I grant you, in one country, they do have a way of teaching through mental telepathy. People go in a room and they’re silent and the teacher’s silent. They try to pick up what’s in his mind. Not many of us are trained to do that. It’s a lot better for them to spell it out or to say it. There’s a great way.

There are many great ways of communicating love. And then, dear friends, we’ve got to join our lives and our loves, our hearts and our hands with all loving people around the world. Dr. Glenn Clark and I used to have a motto we use, and I still love it as I remember him with great love, “Let’s quit building fences and start building bridges.” Couldn’t you do that tonight in your spare time, even while you’re listening? It’s a lot more fun to build bridges than it is to build fences that separate our city. Now, here are some specific insights in the challenge of love that I’ve found very helpful. I hope they’ll be helpful to all of you. If you still have your February issue of the Reader’s Digest, I hope when you get back home, you’ll open it and turn to page 80. Maybe a number of you have read the article. The title of it is, The Awesome Power of Love. Now, it goes on to give a brief review of one of the finest of modern books entitled, The Humanization of Man. And in this book, they state something that was certainly news to me. They say that it was not until about the year 1900 that religion and intellectually honest science began to come together in a concentrated study on human nature.

Up until about 1900, it had largely been left to theology and philosophy. Now comes in this whole new day of the study of the science of human nature and the great wave of psychiatry and psychology that we have across our world, which has done so much good to enlighten us about the true nature of man. Now get this witness tonight. He goes on to say in this article that science, which is intellectually honest, and religion have come together on one great point. And they say it and they reaffirm it and they re-echo it across the world for all the centuries that are to follow to hear them say it. What is it? That the most essential experience in the life of a human being on this planet is the experience of love. It took him 1900 years in science to catch up with Jesus. He said it a long time ago. Now in a sense, that’s crowning Him Lord in that respect by saying what He believed and what He taught and what He lived. Now they give some interesting experiments in this book. I hope you had a copy in your hand. A rather expensive book. They tell about some leaders of schools and homes in America who had a conference in 1915. Some of these homes were places where unwanted children were brought.

There was nowhere else to carry them. And the doctors made an amazing report. In some of these schools, every child, some of these homes rather, every child had died who was admitted when he was under two years of age. Except one school. There was one home, rather, where one child had lived. Now what was missing in these places? Food? No, they had plenty of food. They had good doctors. They knew how to bathe their bodies. They saw they were getting the rest. They did not have one element they needed and that was love. And they came to see that the lack of this love was a factor in claiming the lives of these children. Now let’s look at another experiment. Some time ago, a man named Lohr, L-O-E-H-R, performed what I think is a very significant and far-reaching experience with a group of plants. Perhaps many of you know this man or you’ve met his wife or you’ve read the book. Now you’re familiar with what happened. How he took the particles of dirt, about the same kind of dirt in each container, the same kind of seed, planted them at the same time, kept his records accurately, made his photographs, recorded the photographs and the dates and the records. Some of the plants he loved and prayed for, some were abused and hated.

And the record stands there for itself that the plants that were loved responded better on a whole than did the other plants. Now this is significant, my friends, not only because it demonstrates again the power of mind over matter. That’s what someone would say, I’m sure. And that’s important. But the most significant thing about this is that it demonstrates to us that God has put inherently in the structure of living things some element that responds to the love we have in our hearts. How many of you ladies have ever heard a person say, “That woman has a green thumb”? Now that doesn’t mean she has fingernail polish that’s green, does it? No, I haven’t seen that color yet. There are many colors. It means that when that lady touches a plant, it just seems like the plant wants to grow far. Well, go ask this lady how she feels about plants. What’ll she tell you? “Well, I just love them. I’d rather be working with them than anything in the world.” And they’ve been responding that way for centuries. A lady down in Florida, Bradenton, Florida, who ships whole carloads of gladiola bulbs told me years ago, she said, “There’s some relationship between the life of the flower and the life of the person who loves the flower and works with it.”

God made it that way all the time. Haven’t you been enjoying these beautiful trees here around Kenlake? Did it ever occur to you that every leaf that hangs on a tree is a love letter from God? How about going by tomorrow and picking up some of your letters? They’re out there all over the ground. All of them are written to you and everybody else. When you step on the grass sometimes, step back and look at it. Maybe every blade of grass that you press down with your foot is some expression of God. And while you press it down, the grass comes back up and tries to say, “I love you.” But not only is the insight in nature like that around us, all of us know how animals respond in love. Some time ago, I was down in Georgia visiting a preacher friend of mine. He told me this interesting story. Maybe you can send it to Reader’s Digest and get $100. He turned to his little boy and he said, “Son, I believe you love this dog more than you do me.” The boy had the perfect answer. He said, “No, I don’t. I love both of you just the same. Both of you just the same.” All right. Why did he love that little dog?

Because that little dog loved him in his own way. And he could respond. And if any of you have had a little child and a little dog and you had to get rid of the dog, you decide to keep the child. Well, you know very well you had a funeral on your hands. We had that experience. We were on television one night with Dr. Charles Allen down in Atlanta, New Year’s Eve. Operator called in and said, “There are a thousand long distance calls trying to get in at one time.” What would you do with a thousand people calling you tonight at one time? Among the people calling in that night was a little girl. She said, “Dr. Allen, my dog died yesterday. Would you pray for me?” He said, “Honey, how old are you?” She said, “I’m 12 years old. But I suddenly remembered if God would stop His busy program or stop gazing at His busy program maybe and attend the funeral of a sparrow, that He wouldn’t let a little girl go unnoticed if she had to say goodbye to a dog.” And maybe God’s trying to say something to us through the animals and the birds around us. We’ve got some bird watchers here. Just one reason why they watch the birds.

They love them, that’s all. And they keep on watching because the birds seem to love them back. I can take you out in Paris, Texas, if the man’s still living, and show you there on his farm where hundreds of Canadian honkers come there and light down just outside of his yard in the lot he has and he feeds them. And other men travel hundreds of miles and hiding blinds to get close enough to them so they can shoot. Why do they come down? Does he have a sign painted saying, “I love all you birds, drop in and have lunch with me”? No, he doesn’t have that sign painted. He just has that feeling in his heart. How do they pick it up? I don’t know. I don’t know. Just between them and God. They know to come in there because it’s a place of love. Now let’s turn to another helpful experiment. One of the greatest experiments that’s going on in human nature right now is the study of extrasensory perception. Perhaps all of you are familiar with the work of Dr. Rhine down at the University of North Carolina. Well, this study, of course, is still in its infancy. Someone has predicted that a million years from now, people will not use their mouths to talk with you.

That thoughts will pass over from one mind to another. Let’s give you an advanced broadcast. That’s happening right now in this room. Better be careful what you think. And if thoughts are passing over from one mind to another, then we fulfill what Dr. Lorbeck says. What does he say? He says that we’re all broadcasting stations. And right now, you’re broadcasting thoughts. And they tell us that you won’t stay on any one thought more than seven seconds. I think they allow a woman about three or four changes in seven seconds. But the average man won’t stay on more than seven seconds. Therefore, what does it mean? It means that in our thought life, we are contributing to the reservoir of love in the world. Are we contributing to the reservoir of hate? Are we just negative? Are we in a neutral mood? Now, the greatest person in prayer that I know is a man named Canon Best in York, Pennsylvania. He said something that created a whole dividing line in my life. I hope it’ll haunt you like it’s haunting me. He said, “I’ll never have a neutral moment in my mind.” Now, that’s strange. Not all thinkers agree with you. I never have a neutral moment. When your mind is on positive love, then your mind is not being invaded with evil.

When you let out the bars and invite anything or everything to come in, you may find yourself in a dangerous and a desperate mood. Of course, the highest form of a supersensory relationship is not just between our minds, but it’s picking up the mind of God. And we know in this book by John McGee, for instance, he says, “The real you is invisible.” If they opened a window in the side of your head or my head tonight, I don’t know what they’d see. Probably a lot of room for rent upstairs. My attitude. But one thing’s sure, they wouldn’t see you. Dr. Einstein’s brain is preserved. They’d probably march it out before class and say, “Study the greatest brain ever produced on the earth.” But they don’t turn and say, “Now, Dr. Einstein, your brain’s here. How about letting your mind give a lecture?” One day, his mind moved out, but it didn’t knock a hole in the wall. It just went out like that. Nobody saw it go out. There are a million things in your mind tonight. They’re invisible to some other person. And so, Dr. McGee gives us this statement. It’ll give you intellectual indigestion if you think about it too much. He says, “You’re not in any one place at any particular time.”

Now, you thought you were here tonight, but according to Dr. McGee, you might be in New York or London or back at home or worried about a letter that you’re supposed yesterday. You’re going to write yesterday. I should have written yesterday that you’re going to write tomorrow. You might not be here tonight. Your body’s here and you’re looking in this direction, but I have no idea what you’re thinking the way some of you people look.

And so, this is tremendously important in the element of love. You can be a thousand miles away right now loving somebody and having loving thoughts about them, and they may have a strange awareness that you’re loving them far away. If you doubt it, just find two young… some people who are in love and who go through the house singing the same song 1148 times. You wonder why they do it. And then maybe they have a certain time when they think of each other. This greatest of all preachers in Germany, they say the greatest preacher in the world, Dr. Tillich, I think that’s a correct pronunciation. He said the German soldiers during the war who were Christian, who had their devotions tonight, had a beautiful practice. While they were seated out, while they were resting out there in the fields of battle, stretched out on the grass sleeping, they looked at a certain star at a certain time. And the people back at home would look at the same star at the same time. They had their evening devotions and fellowship with the star, though they were separated by the battle lines and the distance of hundreds of miles. Try it sometime with a person. The moon might be helpful if you’re not too old. It has been used by a lot of people for a lot of purposes.

Then let’s come now into another field that’s very helpful in creating and developing love. This field is one in which all of you are familiar. It’s this whole field of psychosomatic medicine. Isn’t it interesting to get a half a dozen books on this and have an unhurried day in a library and begin to read what’s happening to the minds of men and to the diagnosis of intelligent doctors as they see person after person coming in their office and waiting. They prescribe a yellow pill, a pink pill, a white one, a small one, or a large one. And it seems to help the people. But over and over they’re saying in their heart, “What’s wrong with this person is their attitudes are wrong.” And so many times all of us know, dear friends, that people are sick simply because they hate. They hate somebody in their family. They hate somebody who’s treated them wrong. They have a silent resentment. I asked Louise Eggleston once, I said, “Louise, what is the psychosomatic base of cancer?” I’m sure many of you have heard her say this. She said the psychosomatic base of cancer is an inward hurt. And she said if that inward hurt has not been healed, they’re probably not going to be healed through prayer. The strange thing is it may have happened in your life 20 or 30 or 45 years ago.

You may think you have it sealed off while you’ve forgotten it. You may have forgotten it with your conscious mind, but it’s sealed off there and festering up in your subconscious mind may later take expression by cells going on a rampage in your body. Now, we know, my friends, that because of resentment and a lack of love, that many people do not know how to relax. And I’m not a doctor, and you know more about it than I do. But you know many of the forms of internal illnesses that come to people simply because they cannot relax. Now, there are probably a half a dozen ladies here who have aspirin tablets right now or anisons. If you need to take them before you get through listening to me, I’m sure Joe or someone will get you a glass of water. That would be understandable. But if you had to take them all the time to relax, maybe some of you are like the lady who I heard about. She had two types of pills. She had a pill that would pep her up and another pill that would slow her down. So she just checked to see which way she wanted to go up or down or in or out or faster or slower than she could take a pill.

I had a lady came the other day. Honestly, I wish I had a picture. She had the most beautiful collection of pills I have ever seen. I’ve never seen such a variety and a color as she had them all in a little special box. What good to do, did I really do not know. Now, aren’t you thankful that doctors and ministers and Christian people are coming to work together and to see that the element of love and the nature of a person really has something to do with its total physical being? And they’re admitting that every cell in your body and every nerve and every fiber of your physical being has some kind of relationship to love. Let’s come now to another field of hope in this. I say this with great joy because I majored in sociology in college and I still love the study of it. In sociology today, the people who are Christian are coming to say with one voice with the doctor and the minister that the wisest type of living is love. It is not only a matter of sentiment and Christian claim and joyful aspiration. That love is the highest form of intelligence on this planet. Now, illustrate it this way. Suppose you saw a boy and girl who were getting married.

Regardless of their financial resources or whether you thought they were old enough, maybe they wait till they’re 18 or 19 now to get married. You know very well that the wisest thing for them to do is to love. One year we had this famous governor, Jimmy Davis, speak to our annual conference. He’s one of the most charming speakers I’ve ever heard. He’s governor of Louisiana. He told us the story of a boy and girl who were engaged. The day for the wedding came and just before they were to march in, the bride said to the groom, “Well, I must ask you a very personal question.” He said, “All right, what is it?” She said, “How much money do you have saved up?” “Oh,” he said, “I think about $100.” Well, she shook her head and looked sad. She said, “I don’t think that’s enough.” He said, “How much should I have?” She said, “Well, at least $25,000.” She said, “We ought to buy a home and have it paid for and be able to live without any financial strain.” She said, “Suppose we put off the wedding now until you can work and save up more money.” With great reluctance, he said, “Yes.” He went away and he was gone 24 years. And he came back and they greeted each other, but a little bit longer and a little bit stronger than usual.

And as they leaned back from each other, she said, “How much money do you have saved up now?” He said, “$104.” She said, “That’s close enough.” Just kidding. That’s close enough. All right. Now, my friends, that has to do with the higher wisdom. You can’t understand how people love… some people love each other. You don’t know how they’re going to get along, but God knows, and maybe they know, or maybe they will know. It’s some higher wisdom of love. All of us are aware of the fact tonight that the number one social problem in our nation has become the race question. On the one hand, you find this question exploited by the politicians. On the other hand, you find the Catholics and the men who invest are afraid of the problem. And on the other side, you find too many times that the churchmen are ignoring the problem. They don’t know what to do and what to say. But I think everyone in this room will agree on one thing tonight. There is no solution to this problem outside of love. If you know any way to solve it outside of love, please tell me after this meeting is over, and I’ll go out and preach it across the United States and the world. I don’t know any way on earth to solve it outside of love.

I don’t know the practical applications of how the problem can be worked out. It’s very, very complex indeed. But I only know in my own heart that I don’t want anybody looking in my face when it’s silent. I’ve finished my work on earth. Whether a person is black or brown or red or yellow, young or old, I don’t want them looking at me and saying, “There’s a person who did not care.” And like all of you, I’m sure, I’ve found an endless number of opportunities to show courtesy and kindness to people of other races. And every time you do it, you can see a sense of response and gratitude over and over again. And you know in your heart you’ve done the right thing. Now tonight, what is our real hope? Is what we are talking about and what we’re living and what we’re sharing here just a sentimental indulgence of people who take a refuge from the reality of life? Well, it could be that. But I dare to believe with all of you that something is happening by the grace of God in our society that spells hope written in capital letters. And I want to share this with you as I try to wrap this up tonight. Some months ago, I was teaching in a graduate school in Atlanta.

I worked out a bibliography of books on prayer and the end of life, the spiritual life. Some 84 books. After the bibliography had been worked out, you know how they do in a graduate school, you list the publisher and the year in which it was published. I noticed something very unusual. I noticed that none of these books were published 1930 to 1940. I noticed that ten of them were published 1940 to 1950. Get this now. I noticed that 47 of them were published 1950 to 1960. How many of you Spanish people are aware of the fact tonight that there have probably been more great books on love and the inner life and prayer in the last decade, get this now, than all the 50 years of the first part of the 20th century. Now, what does it mean? May I say it slowly and prayer? It means that we have come into a culture change in Protestantism. And we’re swinging now from the activism of the post-war years, which in a sense was natural, to a consideration of the inner life of man. So that our greatest problem on earth is not how to get a man on the moon or how to get a man in space, but what to get on the inside of the space, on the space inside of the man.

And that’s where we are tonight. So in this decade, I make this prediction, that there will be more great books on Christian love and Christian prayer and the inner life of man that have ever been published in 10 years in the history of the world. Why? Because the task is on our front doorsteps. We’ve got to do something about it. And it doesn’t begin in Moscow or Washington. It begins in your heart and my heart and the heart of every person around the world. I read somewhere that when Margaret Mitchell wrote this great book called Gone With the Wind, that she rewrote the first chapter 70 times. No wonder it’s gone into millions and millions of copies. I tell you what I think is the greatest line in the book. I’m sure you’ve seen it on the picture show, I mean on the screen, or perhaps you’ve read the book. It’s when Rhett Butler says of Melanie after she just died, he came in his dramatic and impressive way, and he said, “Please get this tonight.” He said, “She was the only completely kind person I ever knew.” He stands there with the roughness of his sinful life written across his face, but his words echo in your heart. Hear it again. “She was the only completely kind person I ever knew.”

Will you dear people face one solemn fact with me tonight? There are many people in every community represented here tonight who have never known one individual who is completely kind. They don’t know it in their home. They don’t know it in their community. They don’t know it where they were. And if you call them tonight and said, “Tell me the name and address of a person who is completely kind,” they’d have to answer, “I do not know.” And so what is the great need in our communities? It’s for us to go back as Christians and convince people that somebody can live a completely kind and a completely courteous life. You know what’s happened to our witness of love? Sometimes, dear friends, we Christian people are guilty of intimate arrogance. I worked with a man who said he was as mean as the devil. And the only trouble was he lived up to it. Yet he’s considered to be one of the great Christians in America. I could tell you another man. I’ve appeared on platform with him. I say this in kindness tonight. He’s pastor of a great church. He was so mean to his janitor. The janitor drew his fist back and said, “Dr. So-and-so, I’ll have to hit you if you don’t stop.”

He’d stand up and preach a sermon like a saint. You’ve seen people who work in church schools sometimes. Somebody want to come in and help them. When they storm out and say, “I’m running this church school. Now you sweet little children, be quiet. I’m going to talk to you about the love of Jesus today.”

No, it’s not a very good witness then. I’m coming to confession now along with you. Why is it, dear friends, that we practiced our worst manners with the people we love most? Oh, if you look like saints, you just brought your saintly face up here. Hope you don’t change it before you leave. But we don’t always look like this at home, do we? What happens on Sunday morning if everybody’s dressed, you’re eating a late breakfast, just about ready to go to Sunday school. This little boy that you told 1,489 times, “Son, do not reach. We’ll hand it to you.” But in all the same time he reaches that morning, his elbow catches a glass of milk about that high. What verse of scripture do you quote then? What song do you start singing? Do you kiss him on the cheek and tell him what a lovely boy he is? What a gracious person. Go with me, Your Honor, to the town of Oxford, England. Let’s walk out there in the street tonight and ask the man to hold his searchlight. Let’s look at the cross there and ask a question to you. Why is that cross in the middle of the street? Because centuries ago, two men named Ridley and Latimer were brought to that spot, and they were burned at the stake.

But they were so kind to them while they burned them, they read the scripture. They had a religious service there. Christian people burning Christian people alive. Wasn’t done by the communists. Done in the name of the Lord. I could run this on and on to you pardon the expression, you’d want to hang your head and vomit outside tonight. I know from personal experience. I’ve been hurt so bad I’d have to stretch out on a hotel bed to regain my composure. Hurt by the communists? No, hurt by Christian people. Many of you had the same experience. Now friends, that’s ruined our witness. It’s ruined our witness. I’m trying during these hundred days of love, which we started on September the 21st, to live love 24 hours a day. If you think I’m kidding, I’m just up here making a lecture tonight. You go in there at the phone and call 443-4294 in Clarkston, Georgia, and I’ll pay for the call, especially if you make it at 9 o’clock.

That’s where my wife and girl live and where I live sometimes. I’m trying to practice this at home. I made a rule working with girls in offices that I’d never speak an unkind word to a secretary. You don’t have to be unkind to a secretary. Tomorrow morning there’ll be 10,000 secretaries go to work who are afraid of their bosses. That ought not to be. That’s not the witness of Christian love. Is anybody in this room wants anybody else to be afraid of you? No, I don’t think that person’s here tonight. We want to live in love and kindness so other people will feel at ease around us and know that we love them. Last Saturday I flew out to Amarillo, Texas, for a very important conference. The pastor of that great church, the largest church in the conference, told me an amazing thing. He said the other day as the Roman Catholic priest was getting ready to fly to Rome, he called me and what do you suppose he said? He said, “I want to come over and spend the morning with you.” No, not just 15 minutes or come by and tell you goodbye. “I want to come over and spend the morning with you.” For more than two hours a Roman Catholic priest and a Methodist preacher sat there, exchanged their sense of love one for the other.

He’s getting ready to go to what I think is a history making conference. And it may be that even in the day and generation of which you and I are a part, that somehow, someway, God is going to build His community of love around the world, between the churches, maybe as we’ve never known in all the days of our life. I love to ride in Virginia. When the leaves are green, especially in fall of the year, they’re turning a little. Some weeks ago I was riding in Virginia with a great friend of mine. He told me this unforgettable story. I dare you to ever forget it. He told me the story of a family in the eastern part of the United States that lost their boy during the war. He was missing. He was in the Navy. He’d been missing so long until, out of reasonable thought, they’d just about given up hope. And one day the phone rang and the mother rushed to get it. And she was excited beyond my power to describe when she heard the voice of her own son way out on the Pacific coast, calling to her, telling her he was alive. How happy she was to know that he still lived. But as they progressed in that conversation, he made a very unusual request.

He said, “Mother, I have with me a buddy. And he’s kind of shot up. He’s lost a leg, he’s lost an arm, and he’s lost one eye. He doesn’t have anywhere else to live in America. And I want to know if I could bring him home and he could live with us and be a part of our family.” And followed an embarrassing silence over the phone. And she waited a moment. Finally, she said, “Well, son, you bring him by here for a good visit. But we mustn’t think of trying to keep him in our family. He’d be a little bit too much trouble. We’re just not prepared to take care of him.” The next day, this lady got a telegram that her son was dead. He jumped out the fifth-story window down in California. The Navy Department wanted to know what they should do with his body. She requested that his body be sent home. The body was sent home. The undertaker had prepared it. She walked down to the funeral parlor to see the face of her boy. What do you suppose she saw? She saw that one arm was gone. She saw that one leg was gone. Doubtest this eye was closed along with the other. But one of the eyes also was gone.

Well, you take this way to tonight. She realized that she had killed her own son. Just as clearly as if she’d fired a gun point-blank in his face. Oh, I know what you’re saying. You’re saying, “Brother Tom, but she didn’t know it was her boy.” Oh, that’s what makes it so bad. You and I never know who it is we kill when we don’t love. If I just handed you a pistol tonight and said on the way out, “Take a shot at one of these CFOs, see if you can comb their hair with a couple of bullets.” Well, you look at me now and say, “Listen, fella, this is some kind of joke. I’m not interested in shooting people.” I tell you a lot easier way to kill people than shoot them. Shells are very expensive now. Make a lot of noise. You know a way to kill a person back home? Just let them alone. Don’t have anything to do with them. Go by on the other side. I want to tell you how I helped to kill a person. Have you ever helped to kill a person? Wait with your confession until you’ve heard mine. This man worked in the office of the Board of Evangelism in Nashville, Tennessee at one time. I think his desk was not more than 25 feet from mine.

I went out from that building across the world to preach, to talk to people about love, to tell them about Jesus. I just passed him by. One day he went out south of Nashville, took some poison. They found him dead on the front seat of his car. I came to a member of the staff, called his name. I said, “Sir, we are involved in the death of this man.” He looked at me in indignation. He resented what I had to say. No, I was never investigated by the grand jury. I was never indicted by the grand jury. But in the courts of God, I’m guilty. I’m guilty. I just let him alone. And he went out and killed himself. I don’t think he could have ever had the impression that I was really interested. Oh, I was courteous when I’d meet him, just like you would be. Some weeks ago, I walked in a hospital in Atlanta, Emory Hospital. They asked about a lady who was 93 years of age. The nurse cheerfully said to me, “Oh, she’s gone home today.” Then she said, “That’s the lady where the members of her family come around to see her, and they stay with her every hour of the day and night.” In her spare time, she had raised about 11 children.

Many people thought she’d die. She had a broken leg or hip or something when she came to the hospital. But she lived through there, and I looked at the nurse a moment, and whole volumes began to light up in my own mind. I realized what had happened. These people loved this lady so much. If she woke up at 1:15 at night, somebody was there to say, “Mother, I love you. What can I do for you to make you more comfortable?” When she greeted the light of a new day, it wasn’t just in the cold loneliness of a hospital room, wondering when the nurse would come. There was somebody seated in the room who loved her. I don’t need to tell you she went home. She made it to 94. She made it to 95. You were standing outside of her window in the morning. She’s still going. I don’t know how far she’s going to go. About 10 o’clock in the morning, you might hear her singing what? Singing the doxology. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Reading the scripture, having her morning devotions. Why does she live? She lives, dear friends, because she means so much to so many people. One dry, warm summer, Sunday afternoon, I walked in a little church in the deep south and heard a presiding elder hold a quarterly conference.

I don’t remember what the questions were and I don’t remember what the answers were. But I remember one thing. I remember the title of the sermon that he preached that day. I dare you to ever forget it. He preached on the greatest sin in the world. What would you nominate tonight as being the greatest sin in the world? My dear friends, the greatest sin in the world is not murder or lust or adultery or stealing. And one of a thousand things you and I might name. This grand old preacher had one eye gone, one eye he could see a long ways with. He looked that audience straight in the face. And he said, “The greatest sin in the world is the sin of lovelessness.” Had a long southern accent. I could hear it now, droning out. The sin of lovelessness. You know what hell is for? Our friends, hell is for people that don’t care. If you put them in heaven, that would be hell to them. Because in heaven, everybody loves everybody else. And they wouldn’t enjoy that, of it in the world. You know, I made an interesting discovery the other day, way up in the sky. I don’t know whether you do much praying in an airplane. I do, especially if the weather’s bad.

I’m not ashamed of it. I feel sometimes like Charles Allen said he did when he got in the storm in the plane. He said he got so scared he defended his sins he never had committed. And sometimes that’s the way I feel when I get up there and the plane begins to rock a loop. I’m not ashamed of it a little bit. But you know, I made it really an amazing discovery. I discovered that when you get up by 35,000 feet in the air, some of the insights of Starr Daily really come true. That around you there is some kind of field of rest and relaxation and inspiration. And I found wonderful thoughts coming into my heart and I suddenly realized where I was. I’d been lifted up out of the turmoil and stress and strain of everyday life. I was up there with a group of people who were happily traveling along. Now the interesting thing is this. When it starts down and begins to bump a little, that mood leaves. I didn’t feel that anymore. While I was up there, I dared to write down some things. Would you turn now and tend a page in your heart and let me with a finger of love write it in your own heart? Because you love, you give the greatest gift in the world.

Because you love, you help meet the greatest need in the world. Because you love, you share the greatest message in the world, which is the message of love. Because you live love, think love, you give love, you share love, and you leave love everywhere you go. And because you love, you own everything under God that you need. And you’re not possessed by anything that you have. Because you love and keep on loving, you realize that you die every day to that which is unlovely and selfish and mean. And yet you never cease to live. Because God is love, and you live in love, and you live in God. And the greatest thing you’ve ever said to anybody is three simple little words. I love you. It’s the last thing you want to say when you write the last page of your book of life. It’s the first thing you want to hear when you enter heaven. It’s the greatest heritage you’ve ever received. It’s the greatest hope to which you’ve ever aspired. It’s the greatest experience of the human heart. To know love, and to know God. And to know how to live in this love, and share it eternally. Shall we bow our heads now for just a moment of love together?

Many times we bow our heads to pray, and that’s perfectly fine. But now would you just join with me thinking for a moment? The loving thoughts of the people around you? The person on the right and the person on the left? If you know their names, would you like to just affirm your love to them in the quietness of these holy moments?

Thank you. Now if there’s someone in the world tonight that nobody else loves, would you let God love that person through you right now? If somewhere in a far-off prison, a man is to die tomorrow morning for a crime he’s committed, and none of his family to be there, and nobody really cares for him, would you love that person tonight and pray for them? If somewhere on the streets of Calcutta or other places there’s someone dying of starvation because we didn’t get the food there in time, would you love that person tonight? If there’s someone who’s treated you wrong, who said something unkind or untrue about you and tried to hurt you, and they’d never apologize, would you love them and forgive them right now? Will you open wide your heart and receive the love of God and let it fill your total being tonight so that even while you sleep, you’ll go forward in the life of love? Now may we say together the beautiful words of John 3.16. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Amen.