WHAT IF there were no GOD? I was startled when suddenly that question flashed into my mind.
This column is personal. In it I want to be free to talk with our readers in a more intimate, personal way. I think it's good for people to be able, once in a while, to be more personal — intimate and frank, without embarrassment.
Let me tell you what led to that opening question: "What if — just what if there were NO GOD?"
It is now, as I write, ten minutes to four in the morning. Rather early to be up and writing a PLAIN TRUTH talk with our readers! Yet not "early" for me. You see, I just arrived back in Pasadena from England last evening about six. Only, for me, it was not 6 p.m., but 2 a.m.! For I had left London the same morning at 10:45 a.m.
There was no space on the nonstop "polar" flight, so I had to fly to New York, and with an hour-and-a-half stopover, take another flight on to Los Angeles. My stopwatch said I had spent 12 hours 35½ minutes in the air, not counting the 90 minutes clearing customs and changing planes in New York. It is eight hours later in London than in Pasadena. So, by the time I arrived home in Pasadena it was 2 a.m. by the time to which I had been adjusted.
Even though it is now summer vacation, and college is out until September, quite a group of students, working for the summer on campus, were waiting to greet me. It was only 6 p.m. for them! But I was very travel-weary. I got to bed about 7:30. But that was 3:30 a.m., for me!
So, you see, here I am in my study, at home in Pasadena, at my typewriter, before 4 a.m., Pasadena time. But it is already NOON in London — according to the time to which I had become adjusted. This jet-flight gets one a third of the way around the earth in a hurry — but it does upset and unbalance one's bodily metabolism, and require some adjustment. But we live in a fast-moving, speedy age — the SPACE-AGE! And my very urgent responsibilities require that I move at a fast clip!
Now back to my question: "What if there were no God?"
I was unable to sleep longer, so I dressed and came in to my study to get some work done. But first, I knelt at my prayer-bench, and began THANKING God (as I also did last night) for delivering me safely back at Headquarters, and for a new grandson, the news of which came by long distance telephone on arrival home; and for many, many other things. But just then I was reminded of Jesus' "Lord's Prayer," in which He told us after which manner to pray. His "sample prayer," as a brief example to us of the manner in which to pray begins with "Our Father which art in heaven, HALLOWED BE THY NAME!" First of all Jesus taught us, we should EXALT GOD!
Nearly always I do begin a prayer with exaltation of God, which brings to my mind HOW GREAT — HOW WONDERFUL — is the ALL-Mighty One to whom I am speaking! So immediately I broke off the thanksgiving and the gratitude temporarily, to praise and exalt and extol the Supreme CREATOR GOD! Yet I just naturally continued my giving thanks — now thanking God for Himself — and realizing how grateful I am that God IS — that there IS the Great GOD — that He is the living God!
And immediately, as if God Himself put the thought in mind, came the question, "WHAT IF THERE WERE NO GOD?" What if the highest power that exists were just MORTAL MAN?
Immediately it flashed to mind HOW HELPLESS man really is, of and by himself! And of course, that status is precisely that which the greatest minds in terms of ability to compete with white laborers, Negroes are generally not equal to most groups with which they find themselves competing.
Individually, many a Negro American can reach an absolute pinnacle of achievement. But collectively, talking of the entire Negro population as a whole, Negroes are among the weakest ethnic, religious, and economic groups.
Don't allow racial prejudice to make you DENY these facts! FACE them — because they're TRUE!
What most people do not realize is that the conditions among the general Negro population of the United States has been growing much WORSE, of late, not better!
In terms of dollars of income, standards of living, and the years of education received, the gap between the Negro and nearly every other group in modern American society is growing WIDER every year! And every one of these problems is a matter of FREE CHOICE.
OF COURSE, there are obstacles. Of COURSE there are racial prejudices and biases!
It is difficult for Negroes to become employed in many places.
But it is not IMPOSSIBLE!
A young man who had escaped the life of the Harlem ghetto pointed out that many of his fellows become defeated and discouraged by the pressures they see around them — and simply give up, and become almost afraid to leave the life of the "ghetto."
He wasn't afraid — and he succeeded.
Only when each individual Negro family begins to live according to God's laws — learning what it is that binds marriages together, learning the proper methods of child rearing, developing a sense of real honesty and decency, and calling out to God for the trust and courage it takes in the face of all obstacles, will real progress be made in this or any other country toward solving what is growing into more and more of an insoluble problem.
You're living in a world that is absolutely SICK.
It's a world sick with hate, jealousy, prejudice, class distinction, poverty, fear, illegitimacy, immorality, licentiousness, resentment, divorce, crime, disease, riots and WAR!
And the ONLY real solution is the return of Jesus Christ to establish His WORLD-RULING government on this earth, and straighten out all peoples once and for all!