Peter Daniels – Words Make the Man.

Good morning, gentlemen. Nice to have you here. Thank you for coming. If you have come to this meeting this morning to be comforted, you may leave disappointed. We are here with serious intent to examine the status quo and what we know to be true against the frailties of a world of change and crisis. The title of my talk this morning is Words make the Man. Let me repeat that. Words make the Man. My Bible tells me that all of us live and stand in judgment on the very words that come out of our mouth in what we say, in what we confess to, and what we say to disclaim. We are aware, of course, that our voice can be used as God's greatest instrument in music. And generals use it to shout soldiers into battle. Great orators use it to persuade their audience. And it can whisper the warm words of love or the cruel words of hate. Words can condemn us, and at times they may rescue us. Words are flexible. They can stimulate laughter or sob out the deepest pains of grief. Strange as it may seem, we can be identified by the sound of our sighs, our cough, and even the way we clear our throat. Yes, this magical sound, the spoken word, draws immediate attention to our presence. It reveals our thoughts and it declares our intent. Unknowingly, your voice can expose your temperament and. And mood. It may surprise you to know that the tone you use with your voice towards others is always covered by a curtain of restraint. And the content of what we say presents a picture of how we view the world and the way we treat our fellow man. And once verbally announced, a statement is not very easily withdrawn. It is a powerful tool of life. Like the flow of running water, it stimulates conversation. The mere structure of a sentence can entrap us or release us. And the laughter of a little child lifts our spirits. And the word pictures that we paint create an imprint on the mind of all who hear what we say. But nothing, nothing, gentlemen, reveals the purity of our soul or the invincibility of our will as a proven, irrefutable fact. That if we accept the title Men of honour, then our word really must be our bond. And if it is, then our character remains intact and strong. Now, the basis of that statement. I want to suggest to you this morning that there are at least four vital principles that we must build our lives on as men of honor. And the first one is truth. I accept my Bible as the citadel of all truth. It assures me that the truth will set me free. No more doubt, no more indecision. And I don't need a good memory. Jesus. Says I am the way, the truth and the life and your word, kept or broken, can make the man or ultimately destroy him. Yes, words indeed make the man. You know, the Macquarie dictionary describes honour as possessing public credit by truth and responsibility. The question is, how do we measure up in this world of distrust that we live in today, where there seems to be a gap between belief and disbelief. And often we find it difficult to know what or who to believe. But as men of honor, we have a biblical moral compass and it is the foundation of all truth. The Bible is true. University professors and college history teachers accept and teach as accurate that Alexander the Great died on 10 June at 5pm at 323 years before the birth of Christ. And then they have the audacity to cast doubt upon biblical accuracy because it was so long ago. Now I've done some research and I found something that I believe will get your attention. And here it is. According to some genius mathematical scholars, they assure us that biblical prophecies can be measured by the law of compound probabilities relating to a person, place or event to make it valid. But it would need to have 25 details beyond the possibility of human collusion, calculation, coincidence and comprehension to be accurate. And on the basis of that fact, There is only one chance in over 33 million of an accidental fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Now that ought to clear your sinuses. You see, the Bible is full of accurate time frames, predictions and events many centuries before it's happening. And it's truth, it is the very foundation of our faith, our personality, our acceptability and all possibilities. That is why we can stand confident in our biblical faith now. Many years ago, I had a friend called Johnny. He was not reliable. Anything that Johnny said, you always had to add or subtract something from it. In essence, Johnny was a stranger to the truth. He used the truth with great economy and he grew up with many big ambitions, but they were predicated upon false assumptions. Johnny's judgments were always out of whack. He never became conscious of the fact that the truth would set him free. I've heard that everyone wants the truth, but no one wants to be honest. Well, the first thing you need to have is a conscience before truth and morality can exist. Because when we pursue truth through false fact, we always arrive at fantasy. And even when we accept the lesser of two evils, we're still choosing evil. Some years ago, before we had computers, I had real estate offices in three countries. And at times it was a nightmare to manage. One day, to my horror, I discovered a massive economic problem that was becoming very difficult to resolve. All senior staff members were on high alert. We were all racking our brains trying to trace the cause of the problem so it could be corrected. And then one of our recently employed junior girls came to me and confessed that she was the cause and it was all her fault and she was the one that made the entry mistake. My senior lady wanted to fire her immediately. I wouldn't hear of it. I said. This girl could have easily covered it up to save her job, but she didn't. She has a strong character. We will not fire her. We will keep her on. We need people like this. And it reminds me again and again of Psalm 15 where it talks about people who honor God and shall keep a commitment even when it hurts. Escapism by situation, ethics and manipulative Flexible justification to dodge the consequences of a decision has no place in the life of a man of honour. Sometimes bad things can and do happen, and we often don't speak when we should. Lying can be done by silence, facial expression, a frown, a roll of the eyes, or a shake of the head. You see, gentlemen, what we are prepared to allow, we encourage. My advice is be careful. Don't be too hasty with your commitment. You can purchase a lot of time with truth. The key to being responsibility is accepting reality, and it is there you will find your manhood. Character can take years to build, but it can be destroyed in seconds. You want to be a man of honor? Then tell the truth, whatever it costs. Silence gives consent. Words make the man. And when entering into any agreement on paper or in discussion, you need to read all the small print and ask for the unspoken details. Beware, your character is at risk. Do not leave any gaps in your understanding. Have you got it? The first principle of man of honour is to tell the truth. The second principle in being a man of honour may surprise you is productivity. In Proverbs 14 it says, in all labor there is profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. Gentlemen, it's time we got back to basics. Man was put in the garden, not just to smell the roses, he was put there to work. Productivity is inseparably tied to purity. In Matthew 25, in the story of the Talents, there is a great lesson for us all on productivity. And in the parable of the sower in Matthew 13 it's quite clear, do not waste your energy and ability by concentrating where your efforts are not going to be productive. But what do we have today? We have a system that increasingly attacks work and subsidizes non work. Sometimes I wonder if the only thing that energizes lazy people is when they're forced to get up from their lounge chair. When the laptop registers only 10% of the battery remaining work and productivity is love made visible. A lazy mind has nothing to do with race. Sometimes people are so lazy it takes them an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes. Laziness is simply resting before you get tired. I often wonder how Moses would have gone if he had had to wait to stop to get someone else's opinion. Or if he'd had to stop to take a vote. The Bible says clearly, if you don't work, you shouldn't eat. Now, gentlemen, we can complain as much as we like. We can preach our heart out. We can pray until our voice is hoarse and our knees are bleeding. We can beg for help and weep for souls. We can hand out pamphlets and sing songs. But until the rubber hits the road and we pay our bills when they are due, until we protest against injustice and oppression and until our light is clearly seen before men and our works are a testament to our faith, then we have denied the scriptural call when it clearly says faith without works is dead. If you profess to be a man of honour, then whatever you do, put your mind and energy into it, do your best, then beat it. Yes, productivity is and will always be a strong pillar of Christian character. The third principle in building a man of honor is kindness. Good manners and kind words will take you where money and fame will not. Kindness is not just throwing a coin to a beggar. Kindness is a way of life. It can reverse anger, improve relationships and provide relief to the sick and the needy. Real kindness expects and wants nothing in return. I'm often asked how Robina and I have kept our marriage together for over 60 years. People say, how do you do it? Well, there are many reasons, but one of them is kindness in words and in action. And we must relate that to people who are doing it tough for whatever reason. We need to show them our kindness without interrogation. Be kind and give. Now, I want to relate to you a true story. And to do that, I have to take you back to 1937. And looking around here, I think I'm the only one that was alive at that time. But the world was shocked by the Japanese rape of Nanking in China. They slaughtered over 300,000 civilians. This was prior to their surprise attack on Hawaii in 1941. And their brutality remained their modus operandi. They kidnapped and forced into prostitution 100,000 Korean teenage girls for use by their infantry. Their cruel and merciless treatment of prisoners of war, too, is legendary, most of which they still deny even to this day. I hated the Japanese. I hated them. And it was over 30 years after World War II before I was able to bring myself to purchase anything stamped made in Japan. And I tarred them all with the same brush. And that was until I heard the story called a conspiracy of kindness. It was about a Japanese diplomat named Jehun Sigihara, who was stationed in Europe, located in Lithuania, at the outbreak of World War II. And at that time, the Jewish people in that country were being rounded up by the Nazi belief, to be sent to the gas chamber for complete annihilation. The only way of escape was to have an excellent passport to leave the country and an entry passport to receive a country. And they were almost impossible to obtain. This young Japanese diplomat was to wake up one morning with hundreds of Jewish people at the gate of his resident embassy. They wanted to speak to him. They desperately needed a family, export and entry visa. Sugahara sent many urgent messages to Tokyo, Japan, pleading with his superiors to give him permission to grant the visas. Unfortunately, they were always rejected. The Jewish people pleaded with Sugahara, and he was moved with compassion. And he took matters into his own hands. And he did what he was not supposed to do. He went against the law. And with the help of some clever Jews, they quickly created thousands of passport visas. And night after night, he personally stamped and officially signed enough visas to rescue 10,000 Jews who, through him, obtained their ticket to freedom. And when the war was over, he was taken to task by his Japanese officials. And he was reprimanded and was sent, alone, without his wife, to a small outpost in Russia as a diplomat for many years, with no authority and only one room with an adjoining toilet. On returning to Japan in the closing years of his life, some Jews representing those lives that he saved paid him a visit to care for and honor him. And when they asked him why did he risk his life going against his government and issuing the visas, and his quiet reply was, it was the right thing to do. It was the right thing to do. The survivors and their siblings built a monument in Japan to honour the life of Sigihara and called it the conspiracy of kindness. His kindness marks him out as a man of honour. The fourth and final principle that confirms the life of a man of honour is a sense of permanence. The only real measure of value is permanence. We have great security, gentlemen, in what we believe, what we do and the heritage we expect to leave behind. But in our world today, life is full of expiry dates. Land obsolescence and relationships only exist on a temporary basis until all usefulness is used up. Electronic communication gadgets have rushed onto the market and anxious buyers arrive the night before to be the first one to buy one knowing full well that within a short period of time it will be superseded by a new model. Nothing seems to be solid or long lasting. It's out with the old and in with the new. And by ignoring the idea of permanence, we've overlooked that change itself as permanence in motion. Repetition can be described as another kind of permanence. But we as Bible believing Christians, we hold within our souls the only real security, which is a sacred trust of permanence. And as custodians of this great treasure, we understand that it's not predicated on the worthiness of our virtue or our life. It is a gift from God. And it comes from a holy sacrifice that defies the normality and mechanical pendulum of time. We hold within our hearts the title deeds of everlasting life. And steadfast to that great promise, dare we allow political correctness to hinder our cause or any persuasive collusion to sway us? No foreign gods will move us or threats of violence will frighten us. Yes, the libertines may laugh at us and unjust laws may be created to control or subdue us, and selective restrictions are posed in an effort to conform us. But we will not be moved. I grant you, gentlemen, there may be difficult days ahead. But when Jesus said on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, we became heirs to that great promise. Our political leaders have forgotten God is still in control. And in times past, in an instant, God confused a universal language and scattered great and proud nations at the Tower of Babel. In an instant, God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. In an instant, God parted the Red Sea and rescued the children of Israel. In an instant, God closed the mouth of the lion for Daniel. In an instant, Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead, fed the 5,000, turned the water into wine, made the blind deceased stop the waves foretold the future and conquered death. There is a great apostasy in our country today. Our wonders in technology and medicine are not being recognized as a gift from God. Mankind is now worshipping at the altar of science as a source of all knowledge and power, which has happened with or without intent. And we have stood by without protest and watched the spiritual walls of moral absolutism be broken down in our schools, in our personal behaviour, our governments and in our homes, our entertainment. The Bible says wide is a way that leads to destruction and narrow is a way that leads to life. Our way as we know it today exists at the hand of God's mercy and tolerance. And we as believers understand that the hardness of God is kinder than the softness of man. And our fear should not be the possibility of terrorism or nuclear attack or financial collapse or accident. Climate change, our future and survival as a human race could easily be changed by the will of God in a millisecond by a slight move of atmospheric pressure that would close down global commuters and relegate all this whiz bang technology and arrogance to the dustbin of history. We, gentlemen, are at the pivotal point of moral history of our nation. The urgent need of the hour is for valiant men to stand strong in our faith, immovable in what we believe. Long suffering and persecution if need be, never wavering examples to those who come after us that the future generations may proclaim with pride. There were a small group of brave men that set the standard and reversed the tide by truth, kindness, productivity and permanence. And they were rightly called men of honour. Thank you. It.