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“Is Anything Too Hard for the Lord?”

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Is Anything Too Hard for the Lord?

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

November 9, 1958

I want to talk on a subject very important to the Lord’s people. I want to give a talk on why God seems so far away; why when we pray sometimes God seems so far away, and why generally to Christians there’s a sense of remoteness. I want to talk about it tonight, and I think it will be worth your hearing.

This morning, in the 18th of Genesis, the Lord appeared unto Abraham in the plains of Mamre as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day. And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him. When he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door and bowed himself to the ground. He said, My Lord, if now I have found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant. And they said unto him, where is Sarah thy wife? There were three of them, and now it’s become one. He said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life, and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard it in the tent door. She was supposed to be inside, but she was listening. They’re all alike. And Sarah heard it in the tent door which was behind him.

Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age, and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. Therefore, Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old, shall I have pleasure, my Lord, also being old? And the Lord said unto Abraham, wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, shall I of a surety bear a child, I which am old? Is anything too hard for the Lord? The time appointed I will return unto thee according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son. Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not, for she was afraid. And he said, nay, but you did laugh.

I want to take a question from verse 14. Is anything too hard for the Lord? This is what is called, of course, a rhetorical question, which means simply that it contains its answer in itself. And of course, there is only one answer.

Now, God asked this question as a rebuke and a promise, and His deed supported His words. We might as well be realistic enough to admit that much religious talk is fanciful and unrelated to reality. The Christian message carries its own power in it, and where there is faith and obedience, that power emerges into practical deeds, as we’ll see here.

Now, God asked the question, Is anything too hard for the Lord? And I have examined into this very closely, so I’m not uttering mere shreds of opinion. I guessed when I read this that the word hard there in the original Hebrew was a bit different from our word hard when we say, for instance, that it’s hard to lift something. I figured that wouldn’t be the word used, and I looked it up and found that it is not the word used. There are two meanings to this word, hard and difficult, and they’re not quite the same.

Hard means tough and severe, as when it says, Pharaoh made their lives bitter with hard bondage. The hard bondage was the bondage where they labored as slaves, hard labors, the word we use. He was sentenced to hard labor. It means that he had, it wasn’t necessarily to do any skillful work, but he had to do work that required bone labor, hard muscle.

Then the word hard means great, difficult, and wonderful, and that’s the word that is used here. Is anything too great for God? Is anything too difficult for God? Is anything too wonderful for God to do? That’s the word here.

Now, you’ll notice that this question here wasn’t one of physical energy. It didn’t take muscle and power. It was a difficult thing. Sarah herself knew and chuckled over the idea, as it was proper that she might have. You see the difference, don’t you, between a thing being hard and a thing being difficult.

Let me illustrate it from the world of sport. Take a weightlifter, a great muscular fellow with a huge chest and bulging biceps. He lifts weights. I don’t know enough about it to know how many hundred pounds, but I understand that one fellow lifted over three hundred, perhaps much more than that, but I do know at least that much. He lifted straight up over his head.

Well, now, that wasn’t difficult. Anybody could do that that could do it. All you had to do was reach down, pick it up, push it up in the air. If provided, of course, you had the physical muscle, you were tough enough to do it. That’s what you call hard, meaning that it takes great energy.

But let’s look at another man. Let’s look at a man, why it bothers him, God knows, that never bothered me and will bother me now, but there is a man, a businessman, a hardworking man, he might even be a president. And there he is out on a beautiful little green, almost as beautiful as a green carpet, about the size of this platform. And right in the middle of that, or maybe off a little to one side, there’s a hole, a cup. And there lies a little white ball there. And his job is to get that little white ball to fall into that little cup.

Now, it isn’t going to take the muscle of a weightlifter. There’s nothing hard about that, but it’s difficult. It’s so difficult that you don’t even dare sneeze, nor make any noise while he gets down on his knees like a devotee burning incense to a rubber ball, and sights along to see just where that falls. And then, with great difficulty, taps it toward the cup.

And the last time I played golf was 20 years ago, I think. And I got that ball all over the green, every place but in the cup. I threw my golf clubs down and said to Mr. Lessard, with whom I was then playing, this is the last, and brother, it was. It wasn’t, it didn’t take muscle, but it took a coordination and skill that not only I didn’t have, but never could develop. There’s a difference, you see, between hard and difficult. It’s difficult to sink a shot, but it’s hard to lift a heavy weight.

Now, nothing is hard for God by either definition. God having all of the energy there is in the universe can, of course, naturally do the hardest thing there is to do. And God having all the wisdom there is naturally has all the skill there is to do it.

Now let’s look at why some things are hard for us. There are four or five reasons why they’re hard for us, difficult or hard. Some are hard because they require energy that we just don’t have, it’s beyond us, either physical energy, mental energy, and it’s beyond us. We just don’t have it, so it’s hard and we can’t do it.

But is anything too hard for God, or it requires a knowledge beyond our store? For instance, could you have sent up that rocket, that ill-fated rocket that went up a few hundred miles and then came back? I couldn’t have. I wouldn’t have the remotest idea what to do. The nearest I could get to it would be a slingshot or throwing a rock in the air. I don’t know how they do that. I don’t know. And I don’t feel any sense of inferiority. It isn’t my field; I’m not interested in it. I know some things they don’t know.

So you’ve got to have knowledge to do some things, and if you don’t have that knowledge you can’t do it. But is it possible to conceive of anything that requires a knowledge that God doesn’t have, when God knows all there is to know instantly and effortlessly?

And then third, it may require a wisdom beyond us, for you see, there’s a difference between knowledge and wisdom. Man may be very wise and not very knowledgeable, or he may be knowledgeable and not very wise.

Alexander Pope, in the oft-quoted little jingle, talked about the learned man whose head was full of knowledge, but he didn’t know what to do with it. He said, he’s a bookish blockhead, ignorantly read, with loads of learned lumber in his head. And that means he has lots of knowledge but no wisdom and doesn’t know what to do with what he knows.

Well, it may be that you have knowledge about how to do a thing, but the wisdom escapes you. But God possesses infinite wisdom.

And then maybe there are so many enemies, for instance, running to make a touchdown. Now it wouldn’t be hard or difficult either, but it’s both because of the enemies that are pitted against you. You grab it and you take two jumps and somebody’s on you. Well the enemies are there, that’s the game. I don’t care much for football, really, but then that’s the game, I understand. One fellow wants to get the pigskin across, and two or three or ten other fellows determined he can’t. So they block him.

And the devil is a great player, he blocks constantly, only he’s dead serious about it. And when you try to do something, he blocks it, he hinders you. And he pits himself against you and often brings you down, so you can’t do it.

But is it conceivable that the great God Almighty, the great God who telleth the stars and calleth them all by name and knoweth the number thereof, is it possible that God can be stopped? No, God doeth as He pleases and the armies of the heaven and the armies of the earth, and there’s nobody that can stop Him or say, what are you doing? He has His way in the whirlwind and the storm and the clouds and the dust of His feet.

He’s the sovereign God, and all the devils in hell could deploy themselves in whatever formation they chose, like players on a football field, and God Almighty can walk through triumphantly toward His goal, because He is God.

Jesus Christ walked straight toward the cross without hindrance, and rose from the cross without hindrance, and went to the right hand of God without hindrance, though they were trying to hinder Him all the way. You see, God demonstrates His power and His wisdom.

He said, is there anything too hard for me, and then proceeded to do something so difficult that nobody in the world could do it, cause a ninety-year-old woman to have a child.

And later on, there was Pharaoh. I’ve just been going through the book of Exodus on my knees. I’ve been reading it in my room down on my knees. And then God talked to me about Moses and Pharaoh and Aaron and the ten plagues and the power of God. Wonderful what God did.

No wonder Israel talks about it down to this day. No wonder it’s woven itself into history and into literature and into music. No wonder we sing about it. God opened the Red Sea and took Israel through and cast up the enemy dead upon the shore. God showed what he could do.

Later on there was Sennacherib. There he was with all of his mass people. It was like, say, it was as if England, yonder, England or the United States, were to decide they were going to have war with little Israel over there, tiny little Israel. There’s no parallel, certainly, between the Israel of Sennacherib’s day and the Israel that we know today over there.

But let us imagine that if a country the size of ours, with our unlimited potential, should decide to make war on little Israel, well, how are you going to stop them? How are you going to stop Sennacherib? How are you going to stop it?

Hezekiah the king got a nasty, blasphemous, obscene letter from one of the underlings of Sennacherib, and he read it out loud to the embarrassment of the women and to the horror of the king and those around him. And Hezekiah took that letter, turned it around and said, O God, read this. And God read it, and God sent Isaiah to say, don’t you worry about that, I’ll handle it.

And so, the angel of death spread his wings on the blast and breathed in the face of the foe as he passed. And the eyes of the sleeper waxed deadly and chilled, and his chest deep at once and forever grew still. And the might of the Gentile, unsmoked by the Lord, melted like snow at the breath of the Lord. God Almighty can handle it. So he proved that He can do it, and He’s done it all down the years, He’s proved it.

Now, why do we see so little of this? Why do we see so little of God’s ability to do the hard thing and His ability to do the difficult thing? Why do we see so little of it?

I want to read you a passage here. It was Jesus talking, and He said, I tell you a truth. Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land. But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.

And if that isn’t bad enough, many lepers were in Israel in the days of Elisha the prophet. But none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. And all lay in the synagogue when they heard that these things were filled with wrath. Notice later why they were filled with wrath.

But notice why when Jesus came to Israel with wonder at His fingertips, wonders, ability to do the hard thing, the difficult thing, at His fingertips, why was it that Israel saw so little of it?

Well, Jesus said the reason may be noticed, may be gotten, is hinted at, and may be gathered from the way God worked back in Israel. He said in the time of Elijah there were lots of widows in Israel. And yet those Israelitish widows had gotten accustomed to satisfying their religious yearnings with stories of other days. They looked back at other and grander times. They talked about Pharaoh and the Red Sea and Aaron and all the others. They no doubt were well versed in the history of Israel and the power of God for Israel, but they had gotten accustomed to satisfying their religious yearnings by talking of something that had happened and was now history.

And so there was a closed heaven. God never spoke to them. And when He had a prophet that He wanted to get, have entertained and wanted to feed, there were widows in Israel by the hundreds, maybe thousands in Israel, but there wasn’t one of them God could go to. They were God’s chosen people, and they were religious above all on the face of the earth, those Jews were. But God had to leave all the widows in Israel to sit.

And He went to Zarephath of Sidon and picked a pagan woman who was not of the seed of Israel and sent Elijah there because that pagan woman brought a fresh mind to the contemplation of divine things. She brought a fresh mind and when the man of God came to her, he said, give me to eat. And she fed him. After his experience by the brook here, she fed him and God fed her.

And Jesus said, don’t you see, you’ll read your Bible, can’t you interpret it? Don’t you know that all the power there is lie in these 10 fingers of mine, all the power I have it. Why is there so little of it manifest? Why was there so little manifest in the days of Elijah? There were lots of widows in Israel, but not one of them got any help because they were women of closed minds and non-expectation.

Then He went on and rubbed it in further still and said there were many lepers in Israel in the days of Elijah, but they went uncleansed because they had become accustomed to living with their sores. This is the tragedy of an old church or the tragedy of an old denomination.

We get used to living with our sores. The sophists come along, and the casuists and they spin a philosophy, a rationalizing. They rationalize a philosophy of explanation about why things aren’t better than they are. And the result is that we get accustomed to living with our leprosy.

They were orthodox, those lepers, but they were lepers. They were orthodox and they believed all they should have believed creedally, but their minds were closed. But a Syrian general brought an open mind, a Syrian general that was accustomed to kneeling in the house of a false god, went to the prophet Elisha and Elisha told him to go bathe in the river.

At first he was angry. At least he had enough gumption to get mad. He was angry about it and then when he saw that he was wrong, he humbled himself and went and bathed and lo, came with his flesh as the flesh of a little child.

God healed Naaman the pagan, the Syrian, and left the lepers in Israel uncleansed, though nothing was too hard for God to do. God could have spoken the word, and a wave of healing would have run throughout Israel like the light at the rising of the sun. And every leper would have been instantaneously healed, but they couldn’t take it because their minds were closed. They were religious people, and they had gotten used to their sores. And today that’s our trouble.

Is anything too hard for the Lord? No, impossible that it should be, but we bring God closed minds. And the customary becomes the normal in religious churches. The customary, all you have to do is to make a statement that sounds a little bit away from the customary and they challenge you immediately.

All you have to do is to suggest something that’s a little bit off the beam and that is a little bit off the regular path of things, the custom thing, and they’re raising their eyebrows and zut-zut-zutting and chuck-chuck-clucking and saying, what’s the matter with our pastor?

The lepers in Israel went uncleansed and the widows in Israel went unblessed, while the woman in Sidon and Naaman the Syrian were blessed of Jehovah God.

And today, we have whatever is customary, that’s normal, and we get a psychology of the customary. We can change our body model in the automobile. Women can change their body models very rapidly if somebody in Paris says they’re to do it.

And we make all sorts of changes, but when it comes to God, we expect God to behave Himself and to act according to the way He’s been acting and forgetting that He’s been acting like that because we haven’t had an open mind to allow God to assert His power. Today we’ve got the closed minds, and yet we’re orthodox, and yet we’re unbelievers.

You know, there are two kinds of unbelief. There is the bold, arrogant unbelief of the sinner who comes out and says, I don’t believe your Bible, I don’t believe your God. If there’s any God, why is there leprosy and polio and war and all that kind of thing? No, thank you, I’ve had enough, come, let’s have a beer. I don’t want any more of your religion, I’ve had enough, I don’t believe in it. That’s the man Jesus said, I wouldest thou wert hot or cold. There’s your cold man. He doesn’t believe in it at all and says so outright.

Then there is the unbelief of the religious man. He wouldn’t say, I don’t believe the Bible; he does believe the Bible. He buys them and gives them as presents and reads them assiduously. He doesn’t say, I don’t believe in your God. He does believe in God.

But he just can’t believe for anything new. He can’t believe that God means us now, that he means him. He can’t believe that this is the hour, this is the day.

God to him is always historic, and the Bible a historic book. He can’t bring himself to believe in the God of the present, the living God, the God of today and tomorrow. He’s perfectly willing to believe in the God of yesterday.

Believing in the God of yesterday makes us orthodox. Believing in the God of today releases God’s power into the midst. We bring God a closed mind and we have developed a chronic non-expectation.

I think that’s generally what could be said, we have a chronic non-expectation. We have a psychology of continuing defeat. We don’t expect anything else, and so we begin to make terms with our defeat, make terms with our captors.

We begin to learn to live in Babylon, the Church is learning to live in Babylon, slowly learning the language of the Babylonians. Blessed gorgeous old Hebrew, we still use it at home, but out in the marketplaces we use the language of Babylon. Because we don’t have God Almighty’s power released, why, we have to think our way through and confer our way through.

You want to see a pastor; he says he’s in conference. We’re conferring our way through. And we’re acting as if Christ was still dead, instead of having risen from the dead. You know what I think? I think that we ought to begin to magnify the resurrected Christ more than we do.

Dr. Walter Wilson has a brother, Dyke Wilson, he’s been writing me lately and sending me things. He’s quite a character, really, and there’s one thing that he insists upon, and that is that the cross is past, and that he did his work there, and that’s over with. But that one point where we should place our interest is the throne, that the Jesus of the throne, the Christ of the throne, the resurrected, glorified Savior, should be the object of our interest now. Not back to the cross, but up to the throne.

I believe he’s perfectly right. And I think that we are wrong in this. I don’t mean to say that I stand here to give sight-unseen approval to everything that Mr. Dyke Wilson believes. I merely quote him as saying that this is where his emphasis falls.

And incidentally, that’s where the emphasis fell in the early days of the Alliance. And that’s where it fell even when I got into the Alliance 40 years ago. They were then talking about, Jesus can do everything, Jesus is risen from the dead, the Lord is on the throne, he can do anything, is anything too hard for Jehovah?

That’s the way they were talking then. But we soon got over that, and now we’re acting as if Christ was still dead. Why do the children of the King go mourning all the day? Because they think the King’s oldest son is still in the grave.

He is not in the grave, but He is long ago risen from the dead, and all power is given unto Him in heaven and in earth, and that Power is waiting for you and me to dare to put away our psychology of non-expectation, put away the mental attitude of being satisfied with defeat.

What’s the result of this Christ that’s still dead? What is the result of this psychology of defeat? Well, the devil is satisfied, that’s sure enough, quite satisfied. And I believe also, and this is terrible, that the Spirit is grieved. I believe the Holy Ghost is grieved.

Did you notice that when Jesus charged Israel with unbelief, their wrath burned against Him, and they took Him out to throw him over a cliff and kill Him. They said, We’re orthodox, what do you mean? And believing to them means accepting a creed.

Believing to Jesus means accepting a creed and expecting something from the God of the creed. They could go halfway, but they couldn’t go the rest of the way. And it was this charge that caused them to snarl and grind their teeth at Jesus.

And there was the animosity that grew in intensity until they killed Him at last on a cross. But the God that finds nothing hard raised Him from the dead easily the third day. But the Spirit is grieved, my friends.

The Spirit is grieved because of our unbelief. We look to each other for help instead of to God. And our altar fires burn very, very low, and we are forced to look to the flesh and misplace our confidence.

Israel was always running to Egypt for help, looking somewhere and sending to this heathen king and saying, come over and help us. And they were always defeated when they did. God said, you’re My people and I’ll look after you, and He says the same to us today. So, we’re driven to the methods of the world.

This may shock some of you and make some of you downright mad. And if it does, don’t let it bother you, I don’t mind at all. But I am going to studiously stay away from all discussions on methodology. I’m going studiously to stay away from it altogether.

Maybe it has a modicum of good in it, but it seems to me that when we accept without knowing it the belief that Jesus is still dead, and we accept the customary as the normal, and we get a psychology of non-expectation and don’t expect heaven to open, then we develop methods. If God were to open heaven, we might have to get some methods to hold things together, you know.

The Methodists were called Methodists because they had methods. But they had methods to take care of a glowing, wondrous power that had come. But we don’t have the power, but we’re trying to generate it by methods. And it won’t work, my brethren, it’ll never work.

If a young couple marries and gets into a tiny little house and babies begin to come, and one every year, they’re going to have to have a bigger house. And they’re going to have to have methods of looking after them. They’re going to have to have budget, watch their money, and change some things, and live a little bit more according to the book. But it’s to take care of expanding life.

But suppose two silly young people were to marry and say, now we’d like a house full of children, let’s get a budget. And also let’s build two nurseries and three extra bedrooms. You can’t have life by a budget, and you can’t have life by a method.

And yet the Church of Christ has turned to methodology, and we act as if Jesus Christ was dead. If Christ is not risen, why monkey with the whole business anyhow? If Christ is not risen, why try to keep a church going at all? If Christ is not risen, we’re of all men most miserable. Let us eat, drink, and be merry, and have as good a time as we can before we die.

But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept. He is risen, and if He’s risen, we don’t need these other things. They got our confidence misplaced; you see.

Whole magazines have gone over to methodology in recent times. The Alliance Witness is one of the few that’s still holding on to the editorial position that we ought to feed the souls of men. You can learn how to pet and how to make dates and how to build buildings and how to heat the parsonage. You can learn anything from the magazines now. They’ve gone over to methodology. Methodology without the Holy Ghost is a sepulcher, a whited sepulcher full of bones.

But where there’s faith, there’s God. And we ought to take this seriously and do some real repenting, my brethren. We ought to do some real repenting. We ought to call a moratorium on requests and do some real repenting, for the Spirit is waiting, hovering over chaos, ready to say, let there be light when we’ll believe Him. Let’s repent.

Let’s repent of our mentality that takes things as they are, as things as they should be, and accept the customary as the normal, forgetting that God says, talk not about the old things, lo, I will do a new thing, now shall it spring forth.

I will even make a way in the wilderness and streams and the desert, and I will plant the chitaw tree at the top of the mountains, and I will do the impossible things, for I am God.

That’s our God, my brethren. That’s the God we have. That’s the Christ we have. Let’s have an afternoon of repentance. Let’s go to God and ask him to forgive us.

Israel got mad when Jesus talked like this to them. Are you going to do it that way, or are you going to humble yourself and ask God to give you a refreshed mind.

A psychology of non-expectation, chronic defeatism, with Christ at the right hand of God, looking down eagerly, ready to help us in the power of the Holy Ghost right here in our midst? Why can’t we believe?

Let’s repent, and let’s ask God to blow away the fog that shrouds us and take the dust off our souls and remove this miserable business and dare to believe again, dare to believe again.

Then when we are believing and the grace of God is flowing, we may have to look around for channels to let it flow into. That’s normal and right. Paul did that, so he had his methods. But he didn’t try to substitute methods for the Holy Ghost. Let’s not do that, either. Let’s look to Jesus Christ, risen and glorified, and expect him to do the impossible for us. Amen

Brother  McAfee, I’m going to close differently this morning.

Dear friends, you’ve heard me, some of you, 30 years, which means, I suppose that I have to preach twice as hard to get half as much impression. When we get used to things, we’re used to them. Are there those here who will say, I feel that in the measure you have described me, I feel that there is that sense of acceptance of conditions instead of daring to believe God boldly for my own life, for my home, for my business, for the Church.

I want God to release power into my life and into my home and church and business and life. And I admit that I’ve got this psychology of unbelief, and I want to be delivered from it. I want to bring to Jesus Christ these days just ahead an open mind and a sharp expectation. I want you to pray for me.

Are there those who will say, pray for me, Pastor, will you stand where you are, please? Is it clear? It’s a confession that this dull unbelief has spread over your mind to some degree. It’s not a confession of outbroken sins, but of this that Israel had, non-expectation, chronic defeatism. Don’t expect God to do anything, and consequently He doesn’t.

And you want to be delivered from it. You want to ask God somehow to throw you out into a crisis where He has to help you. And you’re ready to be daring and bold enough to pray that He will.

O God, God our Father, thou knowest we’re followers of thy Son. We know we are, and we’re not backing out, and we’re not allowing the devil to tell us we aren’t. We know we are. We’re known of him because we know him, and we bless Thee.

But O thou knowest, Father, the chronic non-expectation. Dear Lord, we are as Israel was in some measure anyhow. We don’t expect anything from Thee. We pray and pray and pray and pray the same words, Wednesday after Wednesday, and expect nothing. Forgive us, Lord, forgive us.

For all these who now stand saying, saying, pray for me, I do lift up my heart to Thee, and pray for myself too, O God. O thou knowest, Father, how easy it is to get into a mental rut, so easy to let yesterday dictate tomorrow, and let things that were, decide things that will be.

But Thou hast said, Thou art a God who maketh all things new, and we pray that Thou will touch the hearts of all these friends and give them a faith that will rise and dare to begin to believe Thee to do the unexpected and even the impossible. For Thou art the God of the impossible.

O God, break out, even over the next days upon us here, in such measure, in such fullness, that there will be, that Satan will begin to feel ajar, that he’ll know that he’s not running things. He’ll know that Thou hast risen. Bear Thy mighty arm, O God, and give us faith to trust Thee, that we may not grieve Thee by our chronic unbelief.

Everybody stand, please.

Now, Father, we ask that Thou will bring us to the house of God tonight, after an afternoon of penitence and waiting on Thee. Bring us to the house of God tonight. Bring in others and give us a wonderful, refreshing, glorious time together.

And now may grace and mercy and peace from the Triune God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost be with us forever.

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A.W. Tozer Talks

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“Death Is Not the Worst Thing“

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A.W. Tozer Talks · Death Is Not the Worst Thing

Death Is Not the Worst Thing

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

May 24, 1959

Please turn to Revelation 9, and we’ll read it together, that is, we’ll read it responsibly, all taking part in it. We’ll go over this chapter, chapter 9 of the book of Revelation, reading responsibly.

And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.

And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.

And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.

12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter. And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.

And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them. And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.

By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths. For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt. And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.

Now, you have heard, of course, on the radio today that the great Secretary of State, former Secretary of State, has died. And you may have also heard that there will be coming from Geneva, the foreign secretaries of England, France, and Russia, along with our own Herter, back for the funeral which will take place on Wednesday.

These are important things. That Geneva conference, which will be resumed, I presume, after the funeral. But we have read tonight, within the compass of twenty-one verses, truth so vastly much more important that the day will be when we, looking back with the wisdom of hindsight, as they say, looking back upon ourselves, this May, so that we may be able to remember this Sunday of 1959, we will say how foolish we were to be interested in anything else but the revelation of God, which is a light shining in a dark place.

Now, in this ninth chapter of the book of Revelation, we will touch some high spots in it. But you will know, if you have been listening to me over the last few Sunday nights, that my method in this series, and in fact I should say that my method generally, has not been to attempt to interpret all the symbols.

The Bible is a book of symbols. It has a great many as it weres and like untos. Do you notice that? The Bible rarely leaves you stuck with a symbol. It smooths it and softens it and takes the sharp edge off and says it is like unto and it is as it were.

The reason for all this is that the intensity and immensity of spiritual things is so great, the two being one, it is so great that human language will scarcely avail, it will not avail, to express it. So we fall back upon these symbols and the as it weres and like untos and after the appearance of as you find in the Bible so much.

Now, I say that it is not my intention to try to interpret these symbols nor force every passage to fit a pattern. I rather pity the man who starts out with a foregone conclusion and then trims every passage to fit it. When I first began to study the Bible, I of course was indoctrinated immediately into prophecy as a young man, and I still have an old Bible with a wide margin. I went over that Bible when I was too young to know any better, and I explained everything in the margin.

And all the passage I said, now this fits into verse 4 over here, and then further on it says, and that belongs to over here, and there never was a Daniel that knew more about where everything belonged than I did. But you see, that’s when I was a young man and didn’t know any better. But now I would not attempt to force every passage to fit a pattern.

It is far better to come to God and say, O God, thou knowest all things, and I do not. Thou art in heaven and I am on earth, and then expect God to give you a direct truth, the direct revelation to your heart of what things mean, than to try to take truth and bend it and shave it and fashion it to fit preconceived ideas.

You know, there was a Greek man once. He was an old rounder, a kind of a gangster, we would say now, and he had a very nice house. He kept an inn and had a nice house. His name was Procrustes, and he had a bed there, and as a sort of a lark, a sadistic prank, he would force everybody that stopped by for a glass of water and a bite to eat before they left, he would take them in and make them lie on his bed. And if they were too short, he called in his servants and stretched them to fit it. And if they were too long, he chopped them off. And that has been known ever since as the bed of Procrustes.

Well, Bible teaching can be like that if we don’t watch. We can start out with the bed already decided upon. We know how long it ought to be. We don’t make any allowance for some people being a little shorties and other people being tall. We say this is how tall people ought to be. And whether it’s more painful to be stretched to fit or cut off to fit, I leave it to those who underwent that terrible agony.

But I wonder if the Word of God breathes and bleeds and lives and suffers and feels, if sometimes when we in our attempt to show that our Procrustes’ bed is the only length that we can pull the verses of God’s word to fit them and cut others off. I have found places where it said in the margin that there were seven points there and I counted eight. I’ve done that over and over. And I found only six at times. But we’ll pass by that. And I’ll point out that we will attempt tonight to see what this is saying to me now.

Suppose that I could tell you that I could give this to you in detail and tell you exactly who the star fallen from heaven was, and what the bottomless pit is, the pit of the abyss, and exactly what the key of the bottomless pit is, and what the smoke is that comes out of the pit, and what happens when the sun is darkened and the air by reason of the smoke. And if I could tell you exactly who these creatures were that came up in verse 7 as the shapes of locusts, like under horses prepared under battle, with hair, the hair of women.

Now what locusts would be doing looking like horses and having women’s hair? If I could tell you all these details, I don’t mean to make light, I only mean to say that I cannot stretch all these on that bed of Procrustes because I do not quite know what they all mean. Now I don’t. But if I could tell you what about those breastplates and the sound of the chariot running to battle, and who Abaddon is, and Apollyon, if I knew all these, and the angels of the Euphrates, the four angels that had been bound in the great river Euphrates, if I could tell you all that, still there is something that would be missing. And that that would be missing is what I want to try to find here tonight.

In other words, certain great underlying spiritual truths that are here and that are discoverable and that stick up like mountain peaks above the clouds to see, they’re here. So tonight, instead of trying to explain all this, if you wanted it explained, there are hundreds of preachers who will be glad to do it for you. But let me, instead of making careful explanations of all this, let me say to you what this terrible, awful, wonderful ninth chapter said to me.

Living as we live now in this 1959 coming into summer, some of us old, some of us young, some of us middle-aged, some women, some men, some married, some single, and some well-off and some having to scrape the bottom of the barrel, a general cross-section of a city like ours, what does this say to me? What can I get out of it?

Now, with your patience, I want to give you five truths here that I find sticking right up at me, saying, here, here, if you don’t know every detail here, you know this.

First one, I’d like to have you take them down. First one is that the world is essentially spiritual. You will notice here that we see things happening on the earth. There are strange and terrible things happening on the earth. There were locusts upon the earth and given power like scorpions. They were commanded not to hurt the grass. In those days, men seek death and not find it. There were locusts unlike unto horses.

There was one-third of the population of the earth that was slain and had fire and smoke and brimstone were issuing out of the mouths of certain mysterious creatures walking about on the earth.

Now, that’s what we see on the earth. But do you notice here in this chapter that all of this issued out of another world altogether? In the book of Hebrews, it says that the things that are seen do not originate with the things that are seen. That the visible comes out of the invisible. The material comes out of the spiritual. The earthly comes out of the divine.

And here we see it illustrated again. Now, this is something, brethren, that the great leaders don’t know. They don’t know it. We’re trying to discover how we can fight Russia. And I have wondered whether I ought not personally, myself, to study more carefully on this terrible plague that has come upon the earth we call communism. And I have wondered whether I ought not, myself, to throw myself into the battle to save the free, Christian world from this terrible plague of bubonic locusts that is moving over the earth and eating and killing and destroying everything as they move.

Yet I say unto you that this bubonic plague, this plague of rabid locusts did not originate on the earth. That is, they were born and lived down here. But the reason they are what they are and are as they are is a spiritual thing.

Adolf Hitler cannot be explained by psychology and the shape of his bone and his skull structure. He’s got to be explained by realizing that everything in this world is spiritual in essence and comes out of a spiritual world.

All of this terrible, frightful, fearful thing that we find here in the ninth chapter of Revelation as taking place on the earth got its start in that place, they call the pit of the abyss, the bottomless pit. It got its start by a fallen angel, not a falling one, but a fallen one, a star, a star that had come down, that had fallen, perhaps that star that once shone on the throne of God. It was a spiritual thing.

When they came to Jesus and began to talk about what they’d seen on earth, he said, I saw Satan as lightning fall from heaven. He knew that the origin of evil was a spiritual origin, and He also taught that the origin of righteousness is a spiritual thing. He taught that goodness that God accepts is not the goodness of mechanical acts, but it originates in the spirit. He also taught that evil was not the unwashed hands or the breaking of one or another day, but it was a wrong spirit.

This is a spiritual world, my brethren, and the visible world is a manifestation of spirit. We only see the external things, and we desperately try to understand them, but we can’t understand them because we have decided that the things which are can be explained by the things which are, that the things which are visible can be explained by the things which are visible. And all this is wrong.

The things that are seen can only be explained by the things that are not seen. And all of our psychological and nervous and physical and social and political problems are spiritual in their essence. This is what the world has forgotten, and this is what I see in this chapter. I see this terrible, this terrible, these armies moving upon the earth. Where did they come from? They got their start in the pit of the abyss. I see Apollyon and Abaddon, the call of the destroyer, and I see men die.

I see one man out of every three die on the face of the earth. I see corpses piled pyramid high. And then I try to explain it. I explain it by saying, well, it was a wrong choice made back there at Versailles. It was a wrong choice made at Potsdam. It was a wrong choice when we elected so-and-so and didn’t elect the other man.

Those are not the explanations, my brethren. The explanations lie back of all that and behind all that. They talk now about so much; we hear it everywhere. Every program on the radio is interrupted to tell us that we’ve got to give to the folks with mental trouble. How is it? What is the percentage? I’ve forgotten for the moment, but one out of every four people in every hospital bed in America are there for mental troubles? And we’re trying to understand it.

I talked to a good brother who used to be, well, he is still, used to be a psychiatrist. He was another denomination, a very learned fellow, a practicing psychiatrist, but he’s going to be an Alliance missionary now. I wanted him to know that I wanted him to get away from the psychiatry, so I called him a head shrinker. He took it good-naturedly, but I said, Doctor, this head shrinking now, are you through with it?

He said he felt that a man with a Bible, or at least he agreed with me, that a wise, prayerful man with a New Testament could do more than all the head shrinkers in the world, because the head shrinker is looking for natural causes, whereas the man with the book in his hand knows that everything has a spiritual cause. And if you want to solve your problem, go to God and get a spiritual solution. You and I are not men with souls, we are souls with bodies. And it’s not the body that matters, it’s the soul, it’s the spirit of the man.

Now, the springs of human conduct Jesus taught are spiritual, and that even fleshly sins, however gross they may be, even fleshly sins, are the outflow of the poisoned spiritual springs lower down. Out of the heart are the issues of life, that’s an Old Testament quotation, and Jesus said, Out of the heart proceedeth adulteries and fornications, and He named a whole list of sins and said they proceeded out of the heart.

It was this that set Jesus off above and apart from and placed Him beyond the other religious teachers. He knew that you could only explain politics if you knew about heaven and the bottomless pit. He knew you could only account for a Hitler or a Khrushchev if you knew about the bottomless pit or heaven.

He knew that you could only explain a Lincoln by heaven or hell, not by his body structure or his skull shape. He knew it. Jesus knew all this and He taught it. And of course, He was kicked out and finally crucified. He was rejected and crucified because He did teach this very thing.

Well, that’s point number one. We learn that the woes of the world are not the result of the, cannot be explained by any chains of cause and effect here, but that they are the result of something that lies deeper. That should have really been the sermon tonight. I shouldn’t have attempted to go any further than that because there’s so much more to be said and I don’t want to stop there.

There’s so much more to be said about this. You can argue and talk until we’re red in the face or black in the face, and when it’s all over, what a church is spiritual is what a church is finally. What a man is in his spirit is what the man is finally, and there’s nothing else that can be said about it.

And when this earth gives up her bones and her blood and her woes and her wars, it’ll be because there’s one who will come down like rain upon the mown grass from another world and will introduce new spiritual things into the world. And when men are no longer tempted, it’ll be because one is taken out of this world and put in the bottomless pit and chained there.

Now the second point is, right now in this world, this moment in history, the world hasn’t seen anything yet. That’s your second point. We’re trying to work it out. I want to be patient. I want to be a patient man. I’ve never been a patient man, but I would like to be patient, and I would like to understand, and I would like to be patient with men who go and try to confer with gangsters. I’d like to be patient, but I can’t be, because I do not believe that there’s going to be peace on this earth. I do not believe that. I wish I could believe it.

I saw our latest acquisition, no hair, red face, mouth that you could put this in easily, today, our latest, 16th. And I think of those little fellows and their children after that. And I’d like to believe that this would be a good world. I think of Becky and my family, and it’ll be living on. And I wish that I could say, oh, well, cheer up. I believe in the essential goodness of mankind. I don’t believe in anything of the sort.

I believe the world hasn’t seen anything yet. You can take all your gas chambers and all your concentration camps and all your decimation of populations and all your sinking of ships and all the rest and add them all together for the last fifty years, and when it’s all over, you’ll have to say the world hasn’t seen anything yet. This has always been a harsh, a violent world, a bloody, a sinful world, a tear-stained, a terror-filled world. It’s always been because of the price of the monstrous inversion.

What is that monstrous inversion is what I’ve been trying to tell you in point number one, that the roots and sources and springs of the world are spiritual, and men insist upon declaring that they’re natural and that they are material, and we try to explain ourselves by the laws of nature and forget that we were made at once in the image of God and that we’re fallen angels, so to speak, although of course we were never angels, we were human beings.

And we’re fallen, and this monstrous inversion is accepting the natural man as the right man and forgetting that the source and the springs of our existence are spiritual, and going down to the level of the beasts that perish in the vain hope that somebody somewhere will find a way.

Somebody will find a way, we say. Only one more conference, one more. And they say so plaintively that you could cry, we’ll keep the door open, we won’t close the door to any possible hope of peace, and I’m for them, and I hope for the best, but I haven’t any hope because it’s a vain hope that somebody will find a way; that peace shall come to the earth and men shall brothers be for all that and all that, and they shall beat their swords into pruning hooks and their spears into plowshares and sit under their own vine and fig tree.

It will never be till He comes, whose right it is to reign. When He who is the Lord of Peace, the Prince of Peace, when He comes, He will introduce a new spiritual principle into the world. Then it will come. But because the conduct and doings of the world spring out of spiritual fountains, it’ll never be until that time. Never, never, never.

So, I can’t hope, for the hope is vain, and the voice of prophecy cries out against our hope, cries out against the hope that we shall be able to get along with Russia. Cries out against the hope that if we all learn the English language or some other language and all intermarry and integrate and get together and love each other and put our arms around each other, all will be well.

It’ll never be so, because the voice of the prophets cried down the centuries, and the echo of their voices continue to cry, no, no, that there will be wars and rumors of wars and nations shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and it shall continue to be so till he comes who is the Prince of Peace. The world has seen nothing yet, but I wish I could say otherwise. I wish, I wish that I could say otherwise.

I get invited to the weirdest places, you know, I really do. I get invited to the oddest places. I don’t know why, because what I write and what I say I think is plain enough, people know where I stand.

But they want me to join this, there’s a psychic, a psychic, what do they call it, I don’t remember, but they’re psychic, and they want me to join them, you know. And I don’t believe in that psychic stuff, a woman down in a rented basement room with a weird babushka on her head looking into a bowl of blood and telling the future of mankind, I’d run like the devil to get away from that, wouldn’t you? I would. I remember.

I remember Saul went to the witch of Endor and he came limping back to die the next day in battle after he’d had his round with the witch of Endor. I want nothing to do with it. I believe there’s such a thing as being psychic. Psychic just means of the soul.

McAfee tells of the American businessman that went to Europe to do Europe, and when he came back, they asked him what it was in Europe that impressed him the most, and he said he thought that it was in an art gallery in Rome, the statue of Persuchus. Well, psyche, psyche is what he, I guess, meant to say.

But anyhow, this psyche, the soul, it’s possible to be of the soul, but if you trust your soul, brother, you’ll be worshipping Persuchus, because it’s spirit that matters. It’s a man’s spirit, and the root of our conduct is a spiritual thing. And the world hasn’t seen anything yet. God help us. God help these little fellows.

I saw a little girl. And she was so tiny that she hadn’t learned to walk straight, and she’s kind of wobbling while she ran. She was running down the sidewalk here, and I stopped her and said, hi. And she stopped and looked up at me, and I said, where are you going? She said, toe, which meant store.

And I looked in her two little black hands and there wasn’t a penny, so I stuck a nickel in. And she left me in a whirl of dust, starting for the store out here. I think of them, little black ones and little yellow ones and little white ones, little blonde ones and little brunette ones, all around the world.

And the world hasn’t seen anything yet. It has seen wars that last 30 years. It has seen pogroms and persecutions and assassinations and massacres, but it hasn’t seen anything yet.

Third point is that death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you. For I read in this chapter that situations in those days of the tribulation are such that men seek death and desire to die, but death flees from them, and they cannot find it. Death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you.

If the devil can make you believe that the most desirable thing in the world is to live and the most awful thing is to die, the devil has succeeded in cheating you pretty well. My friend, death is not the worst thing that can happen to you, for just out ahead of us in this very world where we live, there will be a situation that will pinch the spirits and bodies of men until they want to die and can’t and would look to death as a relief but can’t find it.

Now for the Christian, death is a journey into the eternal world. Death is a quick space flight to the celestial country. Death is what Paul wanted. It’s a triumph and a victory and a rest and an eternal delight.

Our brother here tonight used a phrase that I’m going to pick it up, a rediscovery of the old hymns. I think also there ought to be a rediscovery of a place where good people go when they die. You know, there was a day of the Methodists and the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and others in other Protestant countries when they looked forward to heaven with a shine on their faces.

And then along came the prophecy teachers, and I’m one of them, and we changed heaven into an eschatology. And now it’s eschatology and future events, and what Daniel saw. And I think of the ignorant preacher one time, Jerry Zimmerzill heard, he said, what did Daniel saw? I’ll tell you what he seen. And Daniel seen all right, and we are more concerned with what Daniel saw than we are with Jerusalem, the golden, with milk and honey, blessed.

At council, a committee on memorials, you know what the committee on memorials is? They get up and they say in the nicest language they know and in a solemn tone of voice, on August the 14th, there are left these earthly shores, the reverend, so and so, our brother. And on September the 3rd, there went to be with his Savior, sister, her savior sister, so and so, the wife of thus and thus.

And there’s a long list of them now. The Alliance is growing and we have a long list. And while they were reading that, I said to somebody beside me, well, there’s one committee you can be glad you’re not on yet. There’s one list you’re glad you’re not on.

But after all, it’s not so bad. And I am not at all sure that these brethren whose names were read weren’t better off than we were, whose names weren’t read. I’m not sure. I said it the other way, but I’m not sure. And when it was all over, they had read the list, they stood to pray. I don’t remember what the man who prayed said, but what I was saying was, Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blessed, beneath thy contemplation, sink heart and voice oppressed.

I know not, oh, I know not what joys await me there, what radiancy of glory, what peace beyond compare. They stand those halls of Zion, all radiant with song and bright with many an angel and all the martyrs throng. The prince is ever in them, the daylight is serene, the pastures of the blessed are decked with glorious sheen.

If we’re Christians indeed, and we’re not too bogged down in our overstuffed car seats and too fond of our TV sets and our fine homes. If we’re cut loose and are free, we’ll feel a little nearer to Jerusalem the golden than we do Chicago the dirty. But there are too many people that are all bogged down in Chicago, the sinful, instead of Jerusalem the golden. So, this tells us in this nineth chapter that there’s such a thing as a situation where death would be welcome.

One of the French novelists, I’ve forgotten which, there’s no confession, it’s just I guess I haven’t had any reason to say it before, but when I was a young fellow I was a great reader of the French writers, and I forget whether this was de Maupassant or Balzac who wrote this, but it was a story built around the idea that a situation could occur where the best and most desirable thing a man could do would be to die.

And he built this situation up, I think it was taken from the French Revolution, and the character in the story had reached a place, his people had been killed and his heart was broken and he expected and was looking forward with real anticipation to be the next one shot.

But instead of that they called him out and he stood at attention before the court and they sentenced him to live. And he went out with his broken heart and his tears to live when he had hoped to die. We’re too scared, that’s our trouble. We’re too scared because we haven’t known the prince who went to prepare a place for us well enough to want to go see Him.

Suppose, young lady, that you were just married, or suppose you older women who still love your husbands, suppose your husband went to Florida or California or Arizona or wherever you like to prepare a place and said, I’ll wire you, and when you get the wire, fly down, I’ll meet you at the airport.

First, I’ll get it ready. You know where your mind would be, you know the last thing you’d think of at night. You know that every time the phone rang, you’d hope it was a telegram read over the phone to you. You know that every time the gong rang you hoped it was a boy at the door. You know where your hope would be and your expectation. You wouldn’t look forward with fear and apprehension, but with keen, bouncing anticipation to rejoining your husband again in the land, the new land, the new country, the new place, in the new home among the palm trees.

And our Lord went and said, I go to prepare a place for you, and I will come again. And if we get the tiny little, tiny bit sick, the elders have to come wearing their shoes and soles off, rushing to pray for us lest we go to be with the Lord.

We are worldly minded, we’re earthly minded, we’re made of the clay, we belong to the frog pond and the swamp and the clay pit and the dust. God Almighty made us in His image and remade us in Christ into the newness of life. And heaven is our home, and the face of God is our landscape and our vision forever.

And if we get a little bit sick, we’re scared stiff. And it’s a proof of our carnality and our worldliness and our lack of spirituality. There’s a lot of worse things than you can do than die. And for the unsaved, of course, the terrible, terrible deception out of this world into a worse one for the lost.

Now, the fourth thing is that God holds our lives in His hand and says, and they shall not find it. Men shall seek death and not find it. They shall desire to die and death shall flee from them. Men have a certain amount of freedom, but God withholds His permission. When He withholds His permission, the murderer can’t kill and the suicide can’t die. They sought death and couldn’t find it.

We’re not as free as we thought we were. Do you know it? Listen, now some of you Methodists and with a strong Salvation Army and Methodist background, you will want to shag me home cleared down the avenue tonight for saying this.

But there’s more than a little bit of truth in the old Calvinistic idea that God runs His world still and that you and I are not as free as we think we are. Here were people that tried to die and they couldn’t die. They searched for death with all the scientific knowledge of the civilized world and couldn’t die. If God doesn’t give you permission to die, you can’t die.

Well, I don’t know how important that is, but I think it would help us to humble ourselves a little bit if we knew that God still held the world in His hands. That God isn’t the Santy Claus the modern gospelers have made Him. That God isn’t the kind man upstairs. God is the great and terrible God who holds the life of the world in His hand. He speaks and it’s done. He commands and it stands forth. Myriads of angels rush to do his will.

Last of all, the fifth point is, and I’ll learn it from this chapter if I didn’t know it from any other, that rebellious men can’t be forced to repent. You can’t force a man to repent by punishing him. Here we have it in the verses, their power. The rest of the men who which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands that they should not worship devils and idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and wood.

Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts. Now here, invisible to the eye and audible to the ear and present to the touch, was the most terrible hell that the world had ever seen. With these strange creatures that had come out of the smoke that had issued from the abyss, and these strange creatures with breastplates of iron and the sound of their wings as the sound of chariots, and these that came out of the river Euphrates, Apollyon and Abaddon and all the rest. Here was hell turned loose on the earth, and one-third of the earth’s population died. And yet there were two-thirds of the population of the earth left grinding their teeth in angry rebellion and saying to God, You and who else?

Brethren, sin is an awful thing, and an impenitent heart is harder than the lower millstone. I’ve always heard, and evangelists always use it, we preachers always use it, and we think it’s so, but it bears a little bit of looking into that if you don’t repent, God will punish you and make you repent. Brother, if God doesn’t put repentance in your heart, all the punishment in the world can’t make you repent, for the Bible tells us here that they repented not.

The rebellious heart of man is altogether too hard to be frightened into repentance. It doesn’t say the fear of hell leadeth thee to repentance, it says the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance. And if the goodness of God in a vision of a cross with a man dying for His enemies in blood and sorrow, if that doesn’t melt you and bring you down to repentance, earthquakes and fire out of heaven won’t do it.

They repented not, it says, even though one out of every three men on earth was lying dead. The other two that still remained were too hard to repent. The simple fact is that all men are morally obliged to repent, and if they do not repent, they will perish. And yet they will not unless the goodness of God leads them to repentance.

We’re pretty much in the hands of God, brethren. If you’ve hardened yourself and been stubborn and stuck your jaw out and said, that fellow will never, never succeed in winning me, I’ll never listen to him.

Well, I don’t mind, because I’m just working for God. But if you’re so hard that nothing will melt you, I don’t know what in the great heaven above or hell below could ever melt a man. If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they repent, if one go to them from the dead.

Our psychic friends are trying to bring back the dead, you know. Trying to some old fellow that died, and they set up a situation and they bring him back, and he always comes back and talks like a fool. They never manage to sound it. They’re always half-witted, I guess, but they sound half-witted, even though they might have written great books, painted pictures, you know, and done wonderful things while they’re on earth. But when they come back, they sound like idiots. I’m all well and happy and feel good to hope you’re the same, you know. Sounds like a hasty letter. And they’re trying to get a message back from the other world.

But listen to me, if your husband or father or relative or friend who died some years back could come back and stand by your bed and speak to you and warn you, it wouldn’t help you, because if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they repent, though one came to them from the dead.

There’s something terrible about the impenitent human heart, something violent and stubborn, too much to describe. Only the goodness of God can soften a man’s heart. But oh, how thankful we ought to be if there’s a tear, if you’ve got it in your heart to be sorry, if there’s something inside of you that grieves, if there’s something in you that’s sorry you did it.

If you look on His cross and bow your head that you put Him there, how thankful you ought to be, for there are millions that don’t care. Electric chair facing a young man, he’ll set his jaw and go. Sometimes they repent. But if they got pardoned, I wonder what they will do. I’ve had more funerals in my time, and the sorrowing relatives promised me they’d come to church. And some of them came once, but I never remember any of them that ever came twice, with one exception.

I have in my mind now a family, and I could talk about it, but I won’t. But outside of that, I can’t recall. Mostly they don’t show up at all, or if they show up, they don’t show up twice. If the human heart loves its sin, it will love its sin, even though locusts and fiery horsemen are everywhere about it. The sun is clothed in darkness, and the moon turned into blood. The human heart will still love its sin.

They repented not of their fornications and of their evils, even though the world around them was dark and men were dying on every hand. Dear friend, if you want to know God, if you want to know God, you’re so much better off than most people, for they don’t. And if you feel in your heart a longing to become a Christian, you’re so much better off than most, because most people don’t. And if you’ve got a sorrow unto repentance within your heart, you ought to thank God and nurture it, nurture it.

The story I read of the two men who were lost in what they call Norther, out in the far west in Montana. Incidentally, those Indians were from Montana that were here this morning and not from South Dakota, as I erroneously mentioned. But out in Montana and the Dakotas, where the terrible Northerners come down, they were caught, these two men. And they knew as night came down that it was a little fire or terrible death by freezing, and they searched their pockets all through. Matches had all been used up, no lighters, nothing.

And finally one fellow, getting way down into the seam of an old leather jacket, got hold of half a match and held it up, half a match. And they looked at it in the waning light, and they said, our life is between my finger and thumb. If this thing works and we can get a little fire here on the lee side of the hill, we can live.

If the wind blows it out or the wood doesn’t catch, we might as well shake hands, but we’re done. No searching party would find them for days and days, and then would find their cold, stiff bodies in stark death. Then they took their coats, held them tight, stood as close together as possible, and got some rough material and prayed and struck the match. Flew up and then dimmed down, and then leaped out and caught a little chip and then a piece of wood, and then they got it down on the ground and began to pour it on. Pretty soon they had a roaring fire. Managed to live it out and stay alive until the searching parties came.

But at one moment they held in their hand, between thumb and finger, a half-match. You know what that half-match is, man? That’s your desire to repent. You got it there. God gave it to you, or you wouldn’t have had it.

Oh, how you should nurture it. How you should ask God for help, that it might catch and flame up and lighten your soul.

Shall we pray? Now we’re going to have a moment of prayer. And before we do, I’d like to know if you’d like to be prayed for. Is there anybody here who would say, Mr. Tozer, would you please pray for me that that little… Yes, God bless you, sir. I see your hand. Go up back there. Who else? Yes, sir. I see your hand. Who else? Yes, I see you. Who else? Yes, I see you, too. Yes. Who else?

Holy Father, there are three men and one woman. They have asked us to pray. O Father, they hold in their hand tonight a little truth, which if it lives and flares up, it could be life to them. But if they let it die and go out, it could be death to them. For Jesus’ sake, Father, grant that these may have help now from Thee. We pray it in Christ’s name.

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“The Soft Peaceful Waters of Shiloah“

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A.W. Tozer Talks · The Soft Peaceful Waters of Shiloah

The Soft Peaceful Waters of Shiloah

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

December 18, 1955

Brother McAfee kind of left me dangling here. He said there would be selections by the choir, the pastor would speak also. He put me in a footnote there, he didn’t mean to do it, but I want to mention that I shall give tonight the second of three sermons on loving our Lord Jesus Christ.

Last week I talked about whether you could know or not that you loved Him. This week, tonight, the benefits of loving Christ, and next Sunday night, Christmas Sunday night, the assurance that we love him. Now, Christmas Sunday morning, I shall bring a Christmas message, though Christmas messages with me don’t differ greatly from any other message, because I build all of my messages upon the fact that He has come.

Then also I want to emphasize what Brother McAfee has emphasized, that Sunday night, or Wednesday night at 7.30, there will be studies in Christian doctrine. We will be beginning our studies on the Trinity. I hope that you can come in spite of the fact the night it is, in the middle, just before Christmas. I hope you can be here because this is most important teaching for Christians. We ought to know what we believe about the Trinity. We’ll begin, we can’t close, we can’t finish it next Wednesday, but we’ll begin.

Then the New Year’s Eve meeting begins at 10 o’clock and continues two hours, and the latter half hour will be taken over with the Lord’s Supper. I hope everybody will plan to be here instead of somewhere else. We are Christians, and we ought to celebrate like Christians, not like the world, minus the liquor. But be here, if you can at all. 10 o’clock, New Year’s Eve.

Now, this morning, in the book of Isaiah, the 8th chapter, verses 5 to 8, the Lord spake also again unto me, saying, forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son. Now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong in many, even the king of Assyria, and all his glory. And he shall come up over all his channels and go over all his banks. And he shall pass through Judah, he shall overflow, and go over, he shall reach even to the neck, and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.

Verse 6 is the one that I have particularly in mind. This people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son. I want to talk a little about the waters of Shiloah that go softly. This stream, Shiloah, sometimes called Siloam, is said to be the only perennial one in the city of Jerusalem. That is, it is the only one that didn’t go dry. And it seemed to me that it’s exquisitely named as if God Himself must have named it, because this Shiloah means tranquility, rest, and peace. The waters of Shiloah are the waters of tranquility, the peaceful waters that go softly.

Now, this that I shall say for the next five minutes will be very familiar to everyone, because we preachers have to repeat it often, for the reason that the Bible repeats it often. You’ll find it all through the Bible, and what you find all through the Bible, it is only common sense that we preachers should keep repeating all the time, even though we may be accused of being repetitious, and that is the value of water.

It’s old familiar truth that three-fourths of the earth’s surface is covered with water, and that 70% of the human body is water, and that there is a large water content in our food, and that without water there could be no birth, no growth, no digestion, no cleansing, no plants, no animals, no life, no atmosphere. And that if we were to take away water from the face of the earth, this globe now that we call our familiar earth would be little more than a parched and ghastly death’s head flying endlessly and meaninglessly through space.

But not only are the scientists interested in this, but the plain man, the farmer. Every farmer knows that water is necessary. I used to see my father when a great heavy snow would fall, a great heavy, thick snow, and fall on the wheat and rye fields and snow them under with several inches and lie there through long weeks.

My father would shrug his shoulders, and every once in a while, express his thanks to nobody in particular, but how glad he was for this great heavy snow. Being a boy, I thought that that wheat and rye there under the heavy blanket of snow would probably freeze to death and that would be the end of it. My father knew better. He knew that if you’re going to have a good spring crop, you’re going to have to have heavy snow, because the snow not only keep the ground warm, believe it or not, but their slow melting in the spring give exactly the moisture needed.

And every farmer knows how precious water is. Go into the south land down in what they call the valley down around McAllen, Texas, and other parts of the south, certain other parts, and you will find those waterless plains irrigated. They have the great pipes there and the great pumps and the deep ditches, and they will pour, at given intervals, water in. And our oranges are brought that way, brought to fruition that way, and much, much other fruit and many other vegetables.

The farmer knows that without water he can only have futility and emptiness, that nothing will ever come to fruition. And the herdsman knows it, knows that unless he has a place for his cattle to water, that he cannot possibly use the grazing grounds.

And the traveler who travels must have water, and to go into the desert without a supply of water and without a guide means to invite death, would be the simplest, not the most painless, but the simplest possible way to commit suicide, would be to start out across the Sahara or any other of the great deserts of the world without a guide and without sufficient water.

Now, thus water becomes precious, as precious as our blood of which it is a large part. And either it’s water as a fatal necessity or it’s a quick and speechless death. Strange thing, nobody dies crying for water, because by the time the poor victim has arrived at that place where death is within minutes, he can’t cry for water. His swollen tongue and cracked lips and dry mouth will not form the word. So without water, it is not only death, but it’s a speechless death, a death that can’t even cry.

So, when God would give us a true and adequate figure to express salvation, He said, I will give you water. You’ll find it throughout all the Bible. You will find it in figures of speech. You will find it in invitations. You will find it in poetry. You will find it throughout the whole Bible, closing with that last chapter where the Spirit and the Bride say, Come and whosoever will, let him come and take of the water of life freely. So, this teaches us that water is as necessary to our inner man as it is to our outer man. There are those who are very much concerned with the outer man.

We have a lot of evangelists now traveling up and down the country known as healing evangelists, and they capitalize on the preoccupation that people have in their outer man. Of course, I don’t mean they don’t preach salvation too, but I mean that the emphasis falls upon the body. You can get evidence that somebody’s body has been helped, why God’s really been working.

Brethren, that body of yours is one of the least important things you have, now believe it or not. That body of yours is the outer tabernacle, but there’s an inner man. And Paul was willing to let the outer man die a little at a time in order that the inner man might be renewed.

You and I ought to throw the emphasis where God throws it. All through the Bible, God looks after the inner man. That is not to say that He’s not concerned with the outer man, for He is. It even says in one place, the Lord is for the body. You remember that? As well as the body for the Lord.

So, there is Scripture, and a lot of it, that teaches that God is concerned with our body. This is not in any wise to say that we should not pray for our healing when we’re sick. It is only to say that if we become too physical in our outlook and too body-minded, we put the emphasis in the wrong place. God is not so much concerned with the outer man as He is with the inner man. So, He gives us water, the sweet waters, the soft flowing water of Shiloah, the water of tranquility and peace, and He gives it to the inner man.

Have you ever stopped to consider your inner man? I suppose there never was a time, and I want to be cautious here, because I know preachers have a certain ministerial immunity, and they can make statements there’s not a word of truth in, exaggerate, and nobody dares call their hand because everybody respects the pulpit. I don’t want to take advantage of that.

If I exaggerate, I want you to come up and tell me so, because I want to be a realist and stick by facts. But I suppose there never was a in the history of the world when there was more interest being taken in the human body. If you don’t believe me, go home if you have one, and I’m sure you’ll do a magazine and flip it open. And there’s not one thing in there about your soul, not one thing about your spirit, but everything about your body; everything, how you can fix your body up.

And there are those in the beauty of their youth, say from 15, well we won’t put a ceiling on it because everybody around that would feel bad, but there’s a period in there when the human body’s quite something. The pains and troubles are at a minimum, the strength and energy and beauty are maximum both for men and women, and it’s quite something.

Well, the world is waxing fat and rich on our great love for our bodies. I think when I see how they groom the human body, I think of these stock shows where they bring in Julius the first, an Angus bull, and brush his teeth, actually brush his teeth. Every day they brush his teeth. They curl his forehead carefully just like a young fellow curling himself up to go to see his girl. And they brush them and groom them, I mean and take such care of them and watch their weight in order to exhibit them.

Is that all there is to it, brothers and sisters? Is that it? Is that what we’re here for in the world, to look after that outer man? Why, you couldn’t sell yourself for as much as Julius was sold for. Fifteen, was it sixteen thousand, some hundred dollars? Couldn’t do it.

And yet here we are preoccupied with our outer man, and the world is busy with the outer man. Whereas one of the least important things, I repeat, that you have is your outer man. It is the inner man that matters, for the outer man must perish and go back to the elements from which it was taken. But the inner man lives on when the outer man can’t move.

We laid away last week, Wednesday, an outer man, the shell of a woman that had walked among us for twenty some years, Mary Hoffman. But nobody that looked at that little cold body there ever dreamed that was Mary Hoffman. She’s gone. There’s an inner man. You’ll find that in the Scriptures all the way through.

Jacob said, I go down on this sheol mourning for my son, and yet Jacob was buried naked, you can tell where his body was. What did he mean? I go down. Jacob didn’t say I and mean his body, Jacob said I and he meant his inner man.

And Jesus said, Father, into Thy hand I commit my spirit. And they laid His body in the grave, and it was there three days. But His spirit, His inner man, was committed unto the Father.

And Judas, it is said, went unto his own place. Yet we know what happened to his body. It was buried somewhere, but he went to his own place. There was a Judas apart from his body. There was a Jesus apart from His body. There was a Jacob apart from his body.

And there was Dives, the rich man, who lifted up his eyes. He couldn’t have lifted up his eyes in hell if he’d meant his body, because his body was buried over there. It said the rich man died and was buried. He had a big funeral commensurate with his widow’s ability to pay.

But yet he lifted up his eyes, and his body was up on the surface of the earth somewhere buried in the grave. What was it? His eyes. Ah, it was the eyes of the inner man. And Lazarus rested in Abraham’s bosom. Was it Lazarus’s poor body whose sores the dogs had licked? No. Lazarus’s body was lying someplace in a potter’s field, for he was a pauper, and of course they buried him in a potter’s field.

But Lazarus was leaning back in the arms of old Father Abraham. Was it Abraham’s body that was there in paradise? No, for Abraham’s body was lying in the cave of Machpelah, and the mold and the dust of centuries were resting upon that body. But the real Abraham was there in paradise, and the real Lazarus went to the real Abraham.

Brothers and sisters, there is a sense in which you and I will never know each other until we shuck off this old temple of deception. There is a sense in which you and I will never know each other, I say, because there’s a sense in which our body veil us from each other. We don’t quite know. We shake a hand, look at a face, and we’re more or less influenced by the face or the hand. But that influence is a physical thing, and the real you, the inner man, is beyond all that and deeper than all that and past all that.

And when Jesus Christ came into the world, let’s not think for a minute that He merely came to bring peace so there would be not war in the world, nor that He came merely to give prosperity to people’s bodies so we could eat more and sleep in softer beds and live in finer homes. No, Jesus came in order that our spirits might prosper, that our inner man, the eternal part of us, might prosper.

And so precious was that water that Jesus Christ died to open that fountain. Not only the fountain to cleanse us, that was the fountain of His own blood. But the water and the blood ran out of His side, and we need the water as much as we need the blood. And when the Spirit of God came down on Pentecost to come into the world to fill the hearts of men, it came as a stream of water on men. Many, many figures show forth the Spirit, and the dove was the one chosen in that holy moment. But elsewhere He’s talked about as rain and water and streams and so on.

Now, what is this water? God offers us the waters of Shiloah, the waters of peace, tranquility, and rest. And let’s ask what it is. Either we know or we don’t. Either this is simply poetry that I’m regaling you with this morning to earn my living, or else there’s reality back of this.

Can you put aside all of the poetry and figure and metaphor and get through to anything you can bite into and say, this is it, and I have it. Yes, thank God. There’s mercy. There is mercy for the guilty conscience. I heard the voice of Jesus say, behold, I freely give the living waters; thirsty one, stoop down and drink and live.

I came to Jesus, and I drank of that life-giving stream. My thirst was quenched, and my what? Soul revived, that’s it, and now I live in Him. Well, there it is. There is the mercy of God. You see, our difficulty now is that we have religion without guilt. And religion without guilt makes a big pal out of God.

But a religion without guilt is a religion that’ll go to hell and plunge everyone there and deceive and destroy at last, everyone. Religion without a consciousness of guilt, my brother, to start with, is a false religion. If I come to Jesus Christ without a consciousness of guilt simply to gain a benefit, woe is me, for so did the Pharisees before me.

But if my guilt drives me to Jesus, then I have my guilt taken from me, and I have mercy. Oh, the mercy of God. We sing about the mercy of God, and I hope we know what we’re singing about.

O Depths of Mercy, can it be that gate was left ajar for me? The good mercy of God. And that’s the water to a thirsty man, the man whose conscious guilt and whose sins are causing him the same anguish that lack of water causes to a traveler. That man can come to the Lord Jesus and drink of the waters of Shiloah, the waters of mercy. My brother, you will never have inward peace until you’ve got rid of your guilt.

Now we might as well get it straight there, because you have a conscience, and your conscience will never let you rest until you get rid of the guilt. Your conscience, if there’s a guilty conscience, it will never let you rest until you get rid of the guilt. It must be taken away, taken away. Oh, you can be smoothed over and given a little theological massage and patted on the head and told that it’s all right, but it won’t work.

I used to know a man by the name of Brother Love. I always thought he had an awfully nice name, Brother Love. He was a converted Catholic, and he had a little sense of humor, though he was basically a very serious man. But he rose in testimony meeting one time and told us this rather terrible but rather humorous thing.

He said, I used to go and make my confession and be granted absolution and told that my sins were pardoned, and I would go out from the church feeling very good that my sins were pardoned. But he said when I began to hear the gospel preached and I met Jesus Christ face to face, I found that every one of those sins came back to haunt me. He said they weren’t forgiven at all. I was only told they were forgiven. Absolution doesn’t forgive, but Jesus Christ forgives.

And then the sin that He’s forgiven never comes back to haunt you, never, never while the world stands, because He beats it back out of being, so it doesn’t exist anymore. Why is it that it says, I will not remember thy guilt? God must remember everything that is, and the only way to figure it is that God must beat it back out of being, so it doesn’t exist. The sin that God pardons and cleanses doesn’t exist anymore. It’s not any longer an entity. It’s gone.

We talk about the covering of our sins, and I know it’s a phrase we use. I suppose I’ll use it myself, but it’s a figure of speech. Sin is not covered. Sin is cleansed. There’s a difference, brethren, between covered sins and cleansed sins. In the Old Testament, they covered them and waited for the Lamb to die on a cross. But in the New Testament, they looked back on a finished job, a work already done, blood already spilt, and they’re not covered now, but they’re cleansed.

And so, there’s the waters of Shiloah. A Christian can have peace. And there’s the water of grace, for it’s all the same water of grace to the poverty-stricken and the bankrupt, spiritually. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ flows like the waters of Shiloah, not the turbulent waters of the Jordan, not the wild overflowing waters of the Mississippi, but the quiet waters that you can get to.

Did you know that a sheep can’t drink running water? Did you know that. A sheep, his nostrils are too close to his mouth, too on a level here. And so, if a sheep starts to drink and the water is moving, he chokes. He’ll drown in the thing. So, they have to dam it up so it stops running. And when it’s no longer moving, it’s still water. Then he can drink it and put his muzzle in and drink away because he doesn’t choke, doesn’t gasp for air.

And when our Lord, or when David wrote about our Lord being our Shepherd, he said, He leadeth me beside the still water. Now, why did he lead them beside the still water? Because running water had bubbles in it and a sheep can’t drink water with bubbles in it. It can only drink the still water, like the water of Shiloah, the water that goes softly. If it moves, it moves so softly that it seems to be still to the sheep.

And so grace is like that. Grace flows out, the grace of God. O Grace of God, how you’ve been wounded in the house of your friends. Grace of God, how you’ve been made into a fetish before which modern men worship. The sweet grace of God, how it’s been used to hide people and cover them. How the grace of God has been preached so that it has damned men instead of saving them. And yet it is here, the grace of God.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. That grace that amazed our forefathers. They were amazed by that grace of God, that sweet, still, smooth water that flowed with a still motion.

You can understand that. So that the poorest, most, the weakest and most helpless sheep can reach his muzzle in and drink and drink and drink. I came to Jesus, and I drank of that life-giving stream, the grace of God.

If God treated you as you deserve, I don’t care how good you are, there’d only be one possible thing for you to do. God would turn an angry face to you in life and turn his back to you in death. And that’s the best person that ever lived and they don’t care who he is. But oh, the grace of God, that God will go beyond our merits, beyond our desserts. That no matter if our sins have been like the mountains, the grace of God like the clouds,

Then there’s forgiveness. I’ve already mentioned it. To the sin conscious, there’s cleansing for the defiled to be cleansed.

When we come in of a summer’s day and we’ve been at work and we’re traveling and we’re just plain dirty with all of the travel of the day, and our pores are stopped up and we just feel bad. A good bath and clean clothes makes you feel like as if you had an education, doesn’t it? It really does. It makes you feel good. Just cleansing is good. It’s good, a garment that is trampled into the dirt and then washed and out in the sun to bleach and then ironed.

Cleansing is a beautiful thing, to be able to cleanse. It’s good that there is a cleansing element in Christianity, a cleansing element. There’s an element of purgation there, that old word purgation. That’s where they get the word purgatory. I believe in the first, but don’t believe in the second. I believe in purgation. There’s a water that cleanses and a blood that cleanses from defilement.

I picked up a magazine somewhere. I don’t remember where now. Yes, it came to the office here Saturday. And on that magazine, it showed four men. One of them was a young preacher preaching his first sermon, 26 years old, and the pastor of that Baptist church in whose pulpit he was preaching, a judge who had sentenced this young preacher to prison and the prosecutor who had prosecuted the case.

So here they had the prosecutor who had shown that this young fellow ought to be in prison and the judge who had sentenced him to prison and the young fellow who was sentenced to prison. There’s one man that wasn’t there. He had a sentence of 199 years, and he won’t be around for a while, obviously.

But while he was in prison, he became converted. And then this young fellow came to prison. And this fellow who was in for as long as he could last, he won this young fellow to Jesus. And the young fellow became a Christian, decided that he wanted to preach the gospel, and as soon as he got out, got ready, and now he’s preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now, I think that’s a beautiful thing. And here stands the judge that sent him to prison and the prosecutor that argued in favor of sending him to prison, and they’re both having to admit there is a purgation in the blood of the Lamb. There is a power to cleanse and change a man from defilement and make him over.

Why should this thief, this car thief, stand here with a big grin on his face and an open Bible ready to preach the gospel? Because the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin, because there is a fiery purgation in the Christian message that takes a car thief and makes him into a saint. And the man who would not come to hear that ex-thief preach may be guiltier than he and may die under his guilt.

For the wicked fellow who was wicked and admitted it, he’s delivered from it all, and what God has cleansed, call not thou unclean. And I’d rather be preached to by a converted car thief than to be lullabied to death by these educated gentlemen who make Christianity nothing more than a psychology of comfort. Come to church and be comforted. Come to church and be comforted.

I’ve had two people come to me within the last 10 days and tell me that my preaching had cut them to pieces and made them miserable, and in one instance for a long period of time, miserable. I think that’s a beautiful thing, and I thank God I’m unworthy of that.

You people don’t come here to get consolation. If you want consolation, there are lots of preachers that’ll rock you to sleep and say, bye-bye now, and here’s your bottle. You don’t want consolation, brothers and sisters.

You want to know the facts. Where do I stand now before God Almighty? And if I should have a sudden heart attack and go out, where would I go, and where would it be with my soul? That’s what you want to know. You want to know how you can go on to be holy and live holy and go right with God and get rid of sin and live in the Spirit.

That’s what you want to know. You don’t want somebody to give you a Swedish massage and relax you. You want to know the facts. The facts are the blood of Jesus cleanses, and there’s a purgation element in Christianity.

Then there’s the Holy Spirit. The waters of Shiloah, the peaceful waters of Shiloh, they come and they’re peaceful, and they come to the heart. The blessed Spirit of God is the stream that brings us to communion.

Now in the next few minutes, God invites us all this morning, and He invites us to this water. He invites us to the stream, the only perennial stream there is in the world, the only stream that doesn’t run dry, the only stream that never overflows and destroys anybody, the only stream.

And yet the prophet said, oh, I don’t understand. There was a note of incredulity in the text. They refuse the waters of Shiloah. Why, said the prophet, beguiled with amazement. How can it be? Israel refuses the soft waters of Shiloah that God sends out, the healing, tranquilizing stream that brings peace to the heart and conscience. They refuse it, and they turn to reason.

All right, said he in the text, if you choose to turn away from the soft waters of Shiloah, therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth upon you the waters of the river strong and many, and they shall come over all these channels and go over all these banks. If you don’t want the waters of God, then you may have the overflowing torrent of judgement.

There it is, and we must make our choice. But the prophet couldn’t understand. It seems to me that I feel a sense of incredulity, of unbelief. What possessed Israel thus to forsake her own mercy? Why did she turn somewhere else?

Oh, I’ve had people say, I can’t take you. You’re too strict. I can’t take that kind of a strict message. My only apology for preaching a strict message is that I’m not as strict yet as the Bible is. I’m still not up to the Scriptures. I’m trying, but I’m still not as strict.

We had a young man come here some years ago to our place, and he got among our young people, and he was a nice fellow, and everybody liked him, and then he disappeared. And I thought, what’s become of so-and-so? And I asked around.

Well, somebody said he gave his testimony and left. And his testimony was this, I can’t take it at the Alliance Church. You’re just too strict for me. I want to go among young people where I can dance and have a good time, and I can’t take this strict Alliance business.

Well, now could I apologize for that? No. I don’t make it as tough as the Bible makes it. I don’t tell people, you can’t join this church unless you’re ready to turn on father and mother and everything in your life also, but Jesus says it. He says it. He says unless you’re ready to turn from everything and follow Him, you’re not ready to follow Him. And unless you’re ready to die for Him, you’re not ready to live for Him. That’s what the Bible says. I won’t be around. I’m going to face the judgment.

The whistle will blow one of these times, and I’ll have to appear and tell God how I carried on my work. So therefore, I can’t afford to let down. And in order to hold a young fellow who wants to go to hell and still be in a church A young fellow like that, carnal, young, fleshly, buck-loving himself, he’ll come in and play with any young people’s group, because carnality as big as a hunk of mutton sticking out all around him. But he wants to go where he can dance and raise hell like other folks and still be in the church.

What I’d like to know is why do people like that go to church? Boy, I know what I’d do. Oh, if I said to myself, eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we’d die, I know where I’d never show up. I’d never show up at 70th and Union. Never. I’d never show up. And if I ever did, I’d go to the furnace room and stay till it was over. I’d never show up because I wouldn’t go to church at all.

There are only two kinds of preachers, brother, the preachers that preach the truth, and thank God there are lots of them, and the ones that don’t preach the truth. And the ones that preach the truth will tell you you’ve got to be separated to be a Christian, and the ones that don’t preach the truth I wouldn’t respect not to listen to.

So, I wouldn’t listen to either kind. If I want to imagine an old boy like me saying, eat, drink, and be merry, tomorrow I’d die, I’m going to go out and get drunk, or have myself a time, I wouldn’t go to a gospel church where a man preached the truth because he would cut me to pieces, and I wouldn’t go and be comforted by some traitor because I wouldn’t respect him.

So I’d just duck the church and be out of it. I’d do like our old dog did. He had an old brown dog named Mack. He got old, and he was a great fighter, greatest fighter in all around Clearfield County thereabout. But he got old, and he was licked one time soundly, chewed to pieces, and almost killed by a young dog named Jack, Jack and Mack. Jack came out on top.

Well, old Mack was pretty smart, and he knew that his fighting days were over. So when he’d walk down the road near where Jack lived, he’d slip off into the woods and make a little circle and then come back onto the road about a quarter of a mile down. He wasn’t afraid, but there was just no use getting chewed up again.

And that’s exactly what I would do in the church of Jesus. If I was going to look for the devil, I would give it a right berth, as they say, and when I saw a church coming up, I’d cross the street and hurry by. And yet they’re doing it, they’re doing it, the waters of Siloah, the blood of Jesus Christ, the cleansing power of God, the sweet inflowing of the Holy Ghost, and yet people don’t want it. They don’t want that; they want something else altogether.

And there was a day when you had to take your choice, either take the world or take the church. But amazing wonder in these last days, we have now succeeded so with our selfishness and our casuistry, we have now succeeded in fundamental circles of enabling people to take both, telling them they’re saved because they’ve accepted Jesus. So, we can now have the world and the church both. We think that you can. It’s either the waters of Shiloah or it’s the torrential overflowing stream of judgment.

And which will it be, how odd, how strange, how wonderful, how terrible, that men should refuse the waters that go softly from the throne of God, that brings peace and inner tranquility, that gives water to the inner man and satisfy themselves with the dirty, brackish streams of the world. But one of these times they are going to pile up like the angry Jordan and overflow all its banks, and we’re going to be swept away.

Floods are terrible things, brethren, floods are terrible things. Out in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, those three states were hit by those floods, you remember? Addie Anderson, one of the writers, now retired, at that time retired, the treasurer of our Alliance Church in Brooklyn and his wife, were at some summer convention. And those three perished. The waters suddenly overflowed. There they found themselves surrounded, and before they could get to high ground, the roaring, crashing waters swept down and carried them away to death. They found their bodies buried in silt.

Later on, they reverently took them out and washed them and dressed them as being erstwhile temples of the Holy Ghost and laid aside the treasurer of our Brooklyn Alliance Church with his wife and by their side Miss Anderson, the aged Sunday school writer who’d worked for the Alliance for so many years. That’s what a flood will do. Not only those three, but many, many others as you know perished too.

Floods will destroy cities, and the Lord says, I give you the water that goes softly. I give you the peaceful waters of forgiveness and cleansing and deliverance. I give you those waters, stoop down little sheep and drink. But if you won’t, if you won’t, if you turn away and refuse, then I’ll release the watersheds, and down will flow the roaring brackish waters and sweep you away, and it’s coming. God knows it’s coming.

And men are afraid. They come back flying back from Europe or from Asia, and they come back and go in and secretly talk to the president about the terrible dangers that lie ahead. You can’t flip your radio to any responsible commentator anywhere, but saying about the same as the other, there’s danger ahead. They can’t even, little old Israel can’t even go back and inhabit the Holy Land without getting a chip on her shoulder and getting her hackles up and threatening to fight. War and rumors of war and dangers everywhere.

One of these days, God Almighty will snap a button and turn his back. I think he can’t bear to watch and let the waters of judgment sweep over the world. In the meantime, all those who have first previously accepted his peaceful waters by the blood of Jesus, they’ll be safe, and they’ll be all right.

Are you among them? You don’t have to be good; you only have to be willing to be good, and the blood of Jesus Christ will make you clean, and the Spirit will come and make you good. You don’t have to have had a pure and perfect life; you only have to have a willingness to know Jesus Christ and He’ll take care of that. He’ll make you clean. He’ll wash you.

How about it this morning? It’s getting near to the end of 1955, and you promised your member last year at the beginning what you’d do and how you’d live and you haven’t done it. How about it now? Why don’t we get straightened out? This people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly and they’ve chosen Rezin and Remaliah’s son, they’ve chosen the world and the pleasures of the world.

Oh, the Jordan, the waters shall overflow their banks. Don’t risk it, don’t risk it. Come while it’s possible. The invitation is still up. The Spirit and the bride say come. And whosoever will, let him come. And let him take of the waters of life freely. Now we have some adverbs and adjectives in there. Take of the water of life, that’s the kind of water it is. Now how do you get it? Freely. Take of the water of life freely.

So, while we bow our heads in a moment of prayer, you just turn your thoughts up to God and say, Father, I’ve been a fool and I’ve been selfish and I’ve been carnal and I’ve been stubborn, but I’m not going to make the final strategic mistake of refusing the waters of Shiloah. I’m going to take the water that Jesus gives now.

I pray thee, Lord Jesus, to bless these friends. The time is rolling on unceasingly, it never stops. The power is never turned off. Never is there a turning backward. Never is there the reliving of one day twice, nor one hour twice.

We’re moving on, Lord. Nature and time are beating us out. Our bodies are soon to perish like the grass and be cut off. But our inner man, our inner man, our “I” is waiting there.

O Lord, we pray we may take care of our inner man. We pray that that which we variously call our spirit, our soul, our inner man, may come to know the cleansing and purifying waters, that we may be clean and right and good and ready for life or death.

Bless these who’ve listened this morning. Turn their thoughts toward Thee. Make us spiritual people who worship God in spirit and in truth. Save us, Father, from outward things.

Save us from the inartistic, bizarre, crass spirit of Christmas. We see all around about us great glaring chunks of green and red. O God, and hoarse, out of focus, horn bellowing out, silent night, holy night. All this is exceedingly offensive to the child of God who has an inner life.

We pray Thee, save us from getting caught in the world and feed our inner lives. For Jesus’ sake, amen.

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“Practical Aspects of the Holy Spirit“

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A.W. Tozer Talks · Practical Aspects of the Holy Spirit

Practical Aspects of the Holy Spirit

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

January 10, 1960

The text we found in the 24th chapter of Luke, and in Acts 1, familiar passages. Our Lord says, Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be imbued with power from on high. And Acts 1, it says, He showed himself alive after his passion, and being assembled together with the disciples, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.

In my previous talk, I attempted to show who the Holy Spirit is, and with great reverence and imperfection, what He is. I tried to show that He’s a real being and not an abstraction, that He is a person and not a thing, that He is very God, having all the powers and attributes of the Deity, and that He is of one essence with the Father and the Son. Now, granted this is true, what has this to do with you and me?

I don’t like to teach in a vacuum. I have never liked to have someone hear a sermon and after hearing, go home and say, so what? If that was the case, I might as well have been somewhere else, as well as yourself unless there is some moral imperative, some obligation lying upon us as a result of what we know, some privilege which is ours as a result of what we can find out.

So, with that in mind, what is the practical effect of the person of the Holy Spirit? What are we to expect and what are we to do? How should it affect my outlook as a Christian? And how should it affect the outlook of your church?

The Father promised the Spirit as a gift to His children. And I don’t know whether this is right or not, but I think God maybe had in mind the example of love people have for their children. He did say, if you being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

And in making the Spirit, the Promise of the Father, I wonder if He didn’t want to show that you don’t have to be afraid of the Holy Spirit. This is one thing that it is very difficult to get a Christian over, the fear of the Holy Spirit. By that I don’t mean reverence for Him. You cannot reverence the Holy Spirit too much, but you can be afraid of Him.

And I am sure that a lot of people are afraid of the Holy Spirit. But if you could remember that He is the Father’s promise that He is given to us as the Father’s promised gift; just as a man offers or promises his son a bicycle for Christmas, or whatever he wants, and the boy remembers. I know they remember. And they come back and remind you sometimes in an embarrassing time that you’ve promised. And nobody is ever afraid of a promise made by a father who loves him.

I believe the members of the Redeemed Church should be bound in a bundle of love with the Holy Spirit. The truth is that God never thought of His church apart from the Holy Spirit. We were born of the Spirit. We are baptized into the body of Christ by the Spirit. We should be anointed with the Spirit. We are led of the Spirit or should be. We are taught of the Spirit. And the Spirit is the medium, the divine solution in which God holds His Church and has His Church. The Holy Spirit is the essence of the Godhead uncreated; I think the poet or the hymnist said.

God never dreamed of his people apart from the Holy Spirit. And he made a lot of promises to them. Let’s note some of the promises that he made. He said, until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest, then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field. And the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever.

Then, further on in Isaiah, He says, I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring.

Then there’s that famous passage in Joel 2:28-29, it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.

Those are the words of the Father, and Jesus interpreted these words and called them the promise of the Father. And whenever you have Jesus, our Lord, interpreting the Old Testament, you stay close by His interpretation.

Don’t depend too much or lean too hard on the interpretations of men because we can be wrong, but our Lord, the man Christ Jesus, never was. And He called this the promise of the Father. That is, the Father, through the Old Testament, through the years, had promised, and now Jesus sums it up and calls it the promise of the Father.

In Luke 24 Jesus says, tarry ye until ye be endued with power, and I will send the promise of the Father upon you, and in John 14, 15, and 16, you’ll find our Lord talking about the Holy Spirit and His coming to the Church.

And now I notice that in the Church, in the Gospels and Acts, and over into the Epistles, there are three periods that are discernible with respect to the Holy Spirit and His work in the Church. There is what we call the period of the Promise, that is, from John the Baptist to the resurrection of Christ.

Now, the marks of this period, this three-year period, shows the disciples were called, and they were commissioned, and they were taught. Do you know, believing friend, if we could get together a congregation that was as spiritual as the disciples were before Pentecost, we would consider it a very spiritual Church. We’d make bishops out of those boys. We would. We’d elect them to the boards, and we’d write about their lives and name churches after them if we could find somebody just as spiritual as they were before the Holy Ghost came at Pentecost.

They were getting ready, you see. The disciples were called, there’s no question, they were called and they were commissioned and they were taught of the Lord. We talk about these ignorant disciples. Do you know that these disciples had three years in the best Bible school in the world? There isn’t a seminary on earth that can equal the seminary with Jesus as the whole faculty. He was teaching them and instructing them and sitting with them.

They used to say a university consisted of Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a boy on the other. Put a young fellow on one end of a log and Mark Hopkins on the other. If the log wasn’t too long, you had a university. And a Bible school, a seminary, consists of our Lord Jesus Christ and a willing student. The disciples went to the best Bible school in the world.

Now, they didn’t get a degree which they could frame and put on their study wall, but they had a degree inside of them. And they loved Christ our Lord. These disciples did. They loved Him living, they loved hHm dead, and they loved Him living again.

That was the period of the promise when they hadn’t received anything yet, they had only been promised something. And all this time until His death and even after, Jesus was creating expectation in them. He was telling them there was a new kind of life coming to them. It wasn’t to be a poetic life. It wasn’t to be psychic or to be physical, but it was to be an aflatus from above. It was to be something that was to come to them out of the world, beyond them and over the threshold of their beings. It would come into the sanctum sanctorum, into the penetralia, into the deep of their spirit and live there, and teach them and instruct them and lead them and make them holy and give them power.

Jesus taught that all the way through wherever He could find a time and the people were about him and the circumstances were good, He would tell them these things. And as He came nearer to the end of His earthly life, He intensified this teaching as is indicated in John 14, 15 and 16. He told them there was a new and superior kind of life coming. And He told them it was to be an effusion, an outpouring of spiritual energy. And then He left them.

Then there was a second period, the period of the preparation. In some measure, they were being prepared while He walked with them. But after He had gone, then they began to prepare. They stopped their activities.

And you know what’s the matter with us in our day? We are the busiest bunch of eager beavers that probably have ever been in the religious world. The idea is that if you’re not running in a circle, if you are not breathing down the back of your own neck, you’re not pleasing God. When the fact is, the Lord said, don’t go yet, you’re not ready to go.

You know Peter leaped to his feet when the Lord said, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Peter leaped to his feet and I doubt grabbed or scooped up his hat on the way out. He was going to go right now and maybe found or start something. But the Lord said to Peter, tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high.

I think one of the biggest mistakes we make with our young people is to get them born again and then start them out right away. Most people are not prepared to do the work of the Lord when they’re just born again.

The priests were born priests, but they had to be anointed priests before they could serve. They were born priests. They had to be born of the tribe of Levi, of the family of Aaron and Kohen. They had to be born into the priesthood, or they couldn’t be priests. But they didn’t serve even though they were born priests. They didn’t serve as priests until they had been anointed.

Blood was put on their ears, on their thumbs, on their toes and then on the blood was put oil, fragrant sweet oil, a type of the Holy Ghost. Then after they had been anointed for the priesthood they went and served in the Old Testament priesthood.

But you and I, just as soon as we get a fellow born into the tribe of Levi, we give him a bunch of tracts and say, now Bud, get going. And the result is, Christianity has taken on amateurism.

I heard Dr. Busby, the former president of Wheaton College one time say that we are suffering from a rash of amateurism in Christian circles, and we surely are. Christianity has leveled down and down and down, and the high quality, the specific gravity and the weight of it has gone. We’re light as butterflies and we flip, flip, flip around in the sunshine and imagine that we are eagles flapping our broad wings above the rocks of God but instead of that, we’re butterflies. We’re trying to work when we’re not prepared to work. And so there needs to be some preparation, some getting ready. They stopped their activities.

I have said lots of radical things in my ministry, but I don’t apologize because I wouldn’t have enough time. But among the things I have said, and I would stand for it, that the church would be better off if we would call a moratorium on activity for about six weeks, and just wait on God to see what He would do for us. Just wait on God. They did that very thing. They cleaned up the loose ends and they got united.

We pray, O God, send thy Holy Spirit upon us so we’ll be united. We might just as well repeat the three blind mice. God doesn’t hear that kind of prayer because it doesn’t have any sense in it. The Holy Spirit did not come upon the disciples to unite them. The Holy Spirit came upon the disciples because they were already united, being of one accord and in one place.

Now the scholars who are supposed to know, tell me it’s a musical term, that being in one accord is a musical term. It means being one in harmony. They were already one, in harmony with each other. And then they were all together in one place.

If we could only get God’s people, all together today in one place. The trouble is with some of us is, we are here, but we are not all here. Our minds are skattered when in church, wandering around all over, but you are physically present in your body. But they were all together in one place.

Somebody once said that we have yet to see what God can do with a man if He can get him and others all together in one place. If He can just get them together and in one place; get them focused and get them together. And they were there.

And then came the third period, the period of the realization. The Holy Ghost came upon them suddenly. Recently I saw a word here in the Book of Acts, and I found that word occurs quite often through the Scriptures, and that is the word suddenly. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.

And I rather smiled to myself because that word, suddenly; God’s people are so afraid of suddenly. They always want things to slip up on them a little bit at a time, slowly. Everybody is willing to be filled with the Holy Spirit, provided God does it very gingerly and very slowly, and doesn’t take away their faith or embarrass them any, or doesn’t frighten them.

But the Scripture says, suddenly, they were filled with the Holy Ghost. It even says, suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host. I think you’ll find that word, suddenly, occurs pretty near to whenever God did a wonderful thing. He did it suddenly.

But we’re afraid of that. We want to grow in grace. We want to grow, because you can grow and not embarrassed if an altar call is given, and you go to the prayer room and get down on your knees and seek Almighty God. And God comes and fills you and you get up and get your handkerchief out and rub your eyes and say, thank God the Comforter has come.

It’s embarrassing, you know. And it takes a little bit away from your reputation. You’ve got a feeling, like, look at me. I used to be the chairman of the board, and I taught an adult Sunday school class in my home church, and now for me to suddenly be filled with the Spirit, and maybe even break down and cry, or say, praise the Lord, it would be awful.

And the result, of course, is we go on year after year and learn to live with death. We learn to live with a spiritual corpse. We learn to live, but our breath is frosty, and our cheeks are pale, and our toes are frostbitten and we haven’t much spirituality. Yet we learn to live with that and imagine that’s normal and we write books to prove that that’s normal. It’s not normal at all, it’s subnormal, it’s abnormal, it’s below normal. The Holy Ghost isn’t on us and that’s our trouble.

But the period of the realization came suddenly, and the Father fulfilled His promise, and the expectations were fully met and more. Always remember this, that God is always bigger than anything God can say, because words are inadequate to express God and what He can do.

Any promise that God ever made, God has to over-fulfill it. The reason being that God is so great and His heart is so kind and His desires so intense and tremendous, that language doesn’t express it. Not the Greek, not the English, no language expresses God, it can’t. If language could contain God, then language would be equal to God. So, everything God says in the Bible must be understood to be a little greater than what He says, even as God is greater than language.

So when God promised them that they should receive power, that that power should be an aflatus from heaven above which should come upon them. It should cross the threshold of their spirits and enter into the deeps of their soul and dwell there forever. And should work within them to lead them, purify them, instruct them and teach them. We have got to believe that the fulfillment will be greater than the promise because the fulfillment of God and the promise are words. God is always greater than words. Don’t forget that.

Old Testament Scripture says every man shall know the plague of his own heart. But there was deliverance, a balm in Gilead, and there was a fountain opened in the house of David to deliver us from the plague of our own heart.

Now there’s a great modern error abroad the states that the individual Christian is not affected by this promise of the Father, that this happened to the Church once, and it’s not to be repeated, just as the birth of Christ happened once and is not to be repeated. The death of Christ happened once and is not to be repeated. The resurrection of Christ happened once and is not to be repeated.

So, Pentecost happened once, and that’s it now; the church no longer is concerned. It has taken place, that is a historic fact, the same as the birth of Jesus, the same as the death of Jesus, and so it is brushed off.

I’m going to pose some questions now and let you do your own thinking, so you make your own decision without having it rammed down your throat, so to speak. You will have made your own decision about it. There are nine questions I want to ask you, and you decide.

The first question is, was the Father’s promise for the first century Christians only? This promise of the Father that was to come, was that for the first century Christians only, or did that carry over to the second century and the third century and the fourth century?

My theological education came out of the Schofield Bible, and do you know what the Schofield Bible says? The Schofield Bible says that the period that Joel had in mind when he said that it shall come to pass in the last days that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh. C.I. Schofield says that period, the last days, began at Pentecost and continues until Christ returns. We are living in the period of the last days when that text of Joel’s is active and efficacious and applicable to you and me.

I quote Dr. Schofield because often he is quoted as not being on the side of the Spirit-filled life. But he was an honest man and he stated that; that we are now living in those latter days when God will pour out his Spirit upon all flesh. That’s what he believed. Dr. Torrey said that when Peter said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and receive the gift of the Spirit which is promised is unto you and your children and as many as are far off. It wasn’t that first generation crowd only. You and your children and as many as are far off.

How far off is Palestine from where you are? I’m a better theologian than I am a geographer so you will have to guess at it. It says, as many as are far off. That’s the first problem. Now you settle it, friend. If I try to make you believe something, you’ll go away and if you meet a man that’s a better arguer than I am, he’ll make you believe the opposite.

That is always the reason I believe in the witness of the Spirit. If you can argue a man into believing he’s filled, he’ll meet another man that’ll argue him out of believing he’s filled. If you can argue a young fellow into thinking he’s born again, he’ll meet some fellow that’ll argue him out of it.

This is why I don’t ever argue with anybody. I point to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, and after that God and the man is on his own. Then if I drop dead he’ll have the promise of the Father and he won’t have to go back to me to find out whether it’s so or not. That’s question number one, was the Father’s promise for the first century Christians only?

Question number two is, does the new birth of the first century Christians make my new birth unnecessary? The Lord said that we have to be born again, and he said we were to be filled with the Spirit. And they come along and tell us that that meant they were to be filled with the Spirit. Granted, they were filled with the Spirit, but I happen to be born 1897. That’s a few hundred years too late for that first century and here I am high and dry hanging on a wire and if I didn’t live back there then I’m finished. I don’t have any hope at all. I won’t listen to that kind of teaching. I won’t because you can’t reason it this way.

Consider that Peter was born again. What does Peter being born again do for me? Peter was filled with the Spirit, then what does Peter having been filled with the Spirit do for me? I want to ask you this question, would a breakfast of ham, not ham and eggs, would a breakfast of eggs that Peter ate in 33 A.D. nourish me living today two thousand some years later? No, Peter ate his eggs and drank his milk and ate his brown bread.

But Peter’s breakfast in 33 A.D. won’t do me one bit of good now. I have to eat now if I’m going to be nourished now. Peter’s being born again won’t help me right now all these years later. I must be born again now as he was born again then. Peter’s being filled in that day won’t help me now, I must be filled now as he was filled then. Is there any difference between that and the outpouring of the Spirit?

Another question I want to ask, is it to the church today that the church in Jerusalem was filled with the Holy Ghost? This idea that the church being filled with the Spirit back there in the first century made it unnecessary for the church to be filled with the Spirit now is nonsensical. How silly can you get? No Christians living today were living in the first century. I wasn’t and nobody I know was either. We weren’t even in the minds of our great-grandfathers yet at that time.

But way back of that is the hour when the Holy Ghost came upon the church and the church went out in a blaze of fire to preach the gospel to the known world in the first hundred years, then the long lacuna, the long gap. Now, all these years later, and we have teachers that are so silly as to come and tell us that all we have to do is just go quietly along until the Lord comes and makes us ruler over many cities. They had the Spirit back there and all we have is the echo and the memory and the hope.

Those who believe Pentecost was a one-time event, tell us at conversion we receive what they received back there at Pentecost. Now I want to ask you, have you ever seen anybody at his conversion receive what Peter received in the upper chambers? Have you ever met anybody like that? Do you know anybody like that?

And I want to ask you yet another question. When you were converted, did you have the power Peter had when he was with these brethren? You’ll even level it down below Peter, to the common folk that were around him; just the plain people whose names were not even known, except a few of them. Didn’t they have something that we apparently don’t have in this day in which we live? I think they did.

Now I want to ask another thing. Is modern fundamentalism a satisfactory fulfillment of expectation raised by the Father and Christ? Our Heavenly Father promised the gift to the Holy Ghost to come upon his children. Jesus promised that we should have the Spirit, that He should come and take the things of Christ and make them known unto us. He should bring all things to our memory. We should have power when the Spirit came. He promised all this.

When I look around at the cold, dead, dried-up fundamentalism, textualism, hanging out to dry, and then am expected they want me to believe that what they have now is what they had back there then. I just can’t do it. I just can’t do it. We Christians now are a scrub lot compared with those Christians back there. We’re scrub.

When I was a boy on the farm in Pennsylvania, we had scrub chickens. Occasionally my mother would go out and bring in some buff coachins and Plymouth rocks and some others and try to improve the strain a little bit. But if you just let the hens go a while, just let them go for five or six years, and they’ll revert back to type and they’ll go back to scrubbing. You can’t figure out what they are, and they’re just little old dried-up clucking biddies that lay little eggs, not too many of them, and don’t provide much meat.

We Christians, we’ve just reverted back to the old Adamic type when were thoroughbreds in those early days, thoroughbreds. The early Christians had come from God, or something from God had come to them, and they blazed with light and power and life, and look at us, look at us. And then we try to say we have the same thing that they have. Do you think we have? Now you think it over and answer that question for yourself.

And then I want to ask you one more question. Does your heart personally witness that what you now enjoy is what our Lord promised to His people? Does your heart now bear witness that what you now have is all God meant when He painted that wonderful picture of the fulness of the Spirit, or is there something more for the church?

I am sure some readers want to ask, who is this man, Tozer. What is he? Is this Pentecostal tongue-ism that he’s preaching? No, absolutely not. It’s only what the Christian Missionary Alliance has always believed. It’s only what Dr. Reuben Archer Torrey believed. It’s what Billy Sunday believed, and Billy Graham believed, though Billy was gifted of God to preach to sinners, and he doesn’t enter this too much because his gift is a bit different. He preaches straight to sinners and wins them. But it’s what Torrey, I insist, believed. It’s what Dwight L. Moody believed down in the city of Chicago.

Down on the South Side of the city there was a little home where lived a little nice old lady full of the Holy Ghost named Mother Cook, and a young fellow got converted into the city. He would have made a good salesman. He was a very busy fellow. He loved to run in circles, and he did. He went everywhere running in circles, and his name was Dwight Lyman Moody.

And one day the little old lady, Mother Cook, saw Dwight, and she said, son, I’d like to have you come over to my house sometime, I want to talk to you. So, Moody went over to her house, and she sat him down on a chair, and she said something to this general effect, now Dwight, it’s wonderful to see you saved so beautifully, it’s wonderful to see you so zealous, but you know what you need? You need to be anointed with the Holy Ghost. Well, he said, Mother Cook, I want whatever God has for me. All right, she said, get down here. And she got him down on the linoleum. And they prayed a while, and she prayed, O God, fill this young fellow.

Well, he died out there, and opened his heart and brought his vessel, his empty vessel to the Lord, and took the promise by faith, but nothing happened. A few days afterward, he was out east in New York, and he said, as I was walking down the street, suddenly, now there’s his word again, suddenly, God fulfilled the promise he had made to me in that kitchen. And down unto him came a horn of oil, and the Holy Ghost came on him.

He said he crawled up an alley and raised his hand and said, O God, stay your power or I’ll die. Then he said, I went out from there, preaching the same sermons with the same text, but oh, the difference now, the Holy Ghost had come.

Now the Holy Ghost had been there; He had caused him to be born again. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he’s none of His. It’s quite a different thing to have the Spirit as my regenerator and have the horn of oil poured out on my head. Quite a different thing. The reason I can talk about it with a good deal of authority is I went through it, and I know what I’m preaching about. I didn’t learn this at Bible college. The Holy Ghost did this. God did this, so I’m giving it to you. You’ll possibly learn this at Bible college, too, but that wasn’t where I learned it.

I know ask you to ponder these things I have said. There isn’t any use to try to push a person into anything. Too often, we try to push God’s poor children around, pick them out of their shell, and all the result is we get a lot of weird monstrosities instead of saints. I don’t want to do that. I want you to do this. I want you to set aside some time and I want you to search the Scriptures and see whether these things be so.

Some people say they’re not so. Some people say that all I’m doing is confusing people. I once wrote a series of articles for a magazine on the Holy Spirit, and there’s a fellow who publishes things about me, saying I’m confusing the Saints. I wrote him a letter and said to him, my dear brother, if the Lord’s people were as eager to be filled with the Spirit as they are to prove you can’t be, the church would be quite a different church. He published that, too. But it’s true, isn’t it?

It’s true I am not preaching a thing our Baptist brethren don’t believe when you press them. I am not preaching a thing that the Methodist brethren don’t believe. I am not preaching a thing the Salvation Army doesn’t teach. I am not preaching a thing that our Puritan fathers didn’t believe.

So, I don’t apologize. It’s here. Set aside time and search the Scriptures. And if the Scriptures don’t convince you that the Church and the individuals in the Church ought to be living a happy Spirit-filled life, then don’t listen to me. If I was to preach for five hours straight and not preach according to the truth found in the Bible, I am wrong, no matter how eloquent I try to be.

Pray and yield and believe and obey and see what God will do for you in the coming days. Will you do that? See what God will do for you in the days ahead as you search the Scriptures and seek God for what He has provided for you in His great mercy and abundant grace.

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“Christ Offers Us Spiritual Power-Why We Don’t Have It“

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Tozer Talks · Christ Offers Us Spiritual Power-Why We Don't Have It

Christ Offers Us Spiritual Power-Why We Don’t Have It

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

September 29, 1959

Now, it is a privilege any time to take the Word of God and expound it to any group of people anywhere. But it is particularly, it is a particular privilege to be able to preach to preachers, because when you preach to a preacher, if it does him any good, then you are preaching to everybody he preaches to after that.

If you preach to a congregation, you preach to a congregation. But if you preach to preachers, you preach to everybody they preach to after that.  So, it is a particular privilege for me to address the members of Conference, and it’s odd that the congregation is composed almost exclusively of the delegates.

Now, there are two little passages of Scripture that I want to read. One is found in the first chapter of Acts. When they were come together, they asked Him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

And He said unto them, it is not for you to know the times or the seasons. You see, He caught them up on a word. Wilt Thou at this time, and He said, it’s not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power, but ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Then, in 2 Corinthians 7:10, 11, for godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of, but the sorrow of the world worketh death. For behold, this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort. What carefulness it wrought in you, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what revenge, and in all things ye have proved yourselves to be clear in this matter.

Now, I want to talk first about the offer of our Lord, that we should have power. And then, try to show why we don’t have, and that will be the second text.

Now you will notice that in the verses from Acts, that the word power occurs twice. Greek sharks complain all the time that the Greek has so many meanings in it, that they can’t find any English word that has enough meanings. But it so happens that here we have an English word that has too many meanings, and that’s the word power. It has enough meaning in that one word to take in both Greek words. For in verse 7 it says, which the Father hath put in His own power, verse 8, but ye shall receive power. The same word in English.

But this English word has two meanings, and so it covers the two Greek words. One meaning ability, and the other meaning authority. In Luke 4, verses 35 and 36, we read of our Lord performing an act, Luke 4, and it says that the power and authority of Jesus, it refers to His power and authority, and there you have both of the meanings.

Now, authority is the right to do, and power is the ability to do, but it so happens that power in English means both of these things. We have to distinguish. Jesus here did not promise authority. That is dealt with elsewhere, but here the word authority, or the thought of authority, is not present. He’s talking about ability to do.

And He said when the Holy Ghost comes upon you, you shall have moral ability to do. This supernatural potency, he said, was to come upon them. It was to be an invasion from outside of them, from beyond them. It was to invade their nature. It was to come into their personality from outside of them.

And here is the great gulf that separates between the faith of Christ and all forms of occultism. There’s Baha’ism and New Thought and Unity and Yogiism and Applied Psychology and Autosuggestions and New Thought and what have you.

Well, they all try to do the same thing, and you know the odd part about it is that they’re not all bad. They have a little good in them.

If a fellow is downcast and hand-pecked and brow-beaten and discouraged and blue, and you can talk him into believing that he amounts to something, it’ll help him a little. You know, he’ll go home and back and face it, or he’ll go to his work and face it. It does him a little bit of good.

Thinking positively helps a little bit. But all of these occult or psychological religions say the same thing, wake up the giant within you. Some of us have no giant, we have a mouse in us. But wake up the giant within you. Others say tune in your hidden potentials.

A man sent me a book called, “You Are Greater Than You Think,” and he autographed it for me, inscribed it, said he knew I’d enjoy it. And then another fellow says, make friends with your solar plexus and learn to think creatively.

Now, all of these are the occult, forms of occultism and psychology. And I say that they’re not wholly bad, not wholly bad, because they help a man to get his chin up and take it. And it’s better than nothing at all for a short time.

But it isn’t what Jesus was talking about. These things have nothing to do with Christianity whatsoever. Our Lord had nothing like that in mind. He knew there was no giant within us. He knew that our hidden potentialities were potentialities for sin. And He knew that our solar plexus was simply the central switchboard for fallen nerves. He knew that. And He knew that we could think until the world came and not create anything. He knew it.

So, He said, what you’re going to have to have is an invasion from outside of you, an afflatus from above, a potency that has come from another world. And you’ll receive that when the Holy Ghost comes upon you. You’ll receive that moral ability that you don’t have now. You’ll receive it.

Now, this has to come. And that’s why ethical Christianity is not sufficient. You know, evangelicalism in one fringe at any rate, very important fringe, is moving the way liberalism moved 50 years ago, going the same direction.

And they’re beginning now to talk about the importance of Christian ethics. Well, Christian ethics, my friends, simply means obeying the commandment of Christ. That was the name for it. But that sounds too dumb. So now we’ve invented terms to sound more learned, so we can hold up our heads among the PhDs.

And all of this ethical Christianity is inadequate. It isn’t enough because it doesn’t bring something to you. It simply whips up a weak dog. It whips up a weak animal, that’s all. When you lay the lash on an old spaven swayback mule, all you can bring out of him is what he’s got in him. If you want an Arabian stallion, you have to have an Arabian stallion.

And so all that books on Christian ethics can do is to whip up the poor old spaven Adam nature that you’ve got, and it isn’t enough. It isn’t sufficient. It won’t do.

So, the Lord Jesus Christ said, you shall receive a potency from above. You shall receive an afflatus of power coming upon you with ability to do, moral ability. If Christianity doesn’t provide this, then it is only one more of the religions of the world.

Now, this power of course is the Spirit of God, and I will say “It” sometimes, meaning the power, abstracting in thought, the power from the Spirit, who is the Power, but only in thought. There can be no division, no cleavage between the Holy Spirit and His power, but I shall talk about power and sometimes say “It.”

So don’t think that I’m going wrong here. It is only the weakness and ineffectiveness of human language that forces me to do it. The power of the Spirit, the Spirit of Holiness, the Spirit of Life, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of the Father, He is the Spirit of the Father, and therefore this power that God, that our Lord offers us, is the power of God.

Now, I want to talk a little about how that power operates. It operates by an unmediated force applied directly to the human spirit by the Holy Spirit.

The wrestler works in the same way. He operates by applying physical power to physical power. The great bruiser applies, he reaches his ends and succeeds, that is, in pinning the other man by applying great lumpy muscle to another fellow who has great lumpy muscle, but maybe not quite as much.

So, the wrestler achieves his end by the pressure of body on body, and the thinker achieves his end by the pressure of ideas upon the mind. And it’s amazing what an idea will do when it gets into the mind.

That little peasant that was over here from Russia the other day, he’s a brainwashed fellow. He’s sold on his proposition. Ideas hit his mind, and they bend him and shaped him and molded him. And even though an Iowa farmer can raise 16 times as much corn to the bushel, he thought he knew how to tell the farmer how to raise corn. That’s because ideas have hit his mind, and the raw force of ideas on a little shrewd mind has turned him into a devoted communist.

Of course, ideas don’t have to be communistic. They’re ideas all up and down the scale from bad to good, and they achieve their ends by naked contact with the human mind.

Then when we come to morals, morals achieve their end by the pressure of obligation upon the conscience. A man does right because his conscience has obligation. He feels a sense of moral obligation upon his conscience.

Now, those are illustrations merely, but when we come to the Holy Spirit, we come to something else altogether. He may make use of ideas, and He may make use of a sense of obligation and a conscience. He may make use of it.

Though I preached a sermon on conscience one time up in your district, the one you came out of, brother, before you came out of it, I mean before you got in it, years ago, and they ran me ragged for talking about conscience.

I believe in conscience. The words in the Bible, and I’ll never run from the words in the Bible, it’s there, the Holy Ghost may use conscience, the Holy Ghost uses ideas. But when Jesus said, Ye shall receive power, he was not particularly thinking about ideas nor about conscience. He was thinking about the application, the pressure of the Spirit of God upon the Spirit of man, the ability of God being brought into contact with the Spirit of man, enabling the man to do what he couldn’t otherwise do or ever hope to be able to do.

Now, it can be experienced, this power, but it can never be described, and never worry about that, any of you preachers. If anybody runs you in the corner and says, define, never worry about that at all, because no scientist can define, no philosopher can define, you can’t define at all. You can only describe.

Definitions are for dictionaries, and they belong there. I cannot define how the power of God works in a man, I don’t know, I can’t define, but you’ve seen it work. You’ve seen the Spirit of God come into a drunkard and kill the desire for liquor, you’ve seen that. You’ve seen the Holy Ghost come into a dope fiend and take away that terrible love of dope. You’ve seen the Holy Ghost come into a man with a fiery, vicious temper and calm him down and smooth him off and make him as quiet as a lamb. You’ve seen that. It can’t be explained.

The Holy Ghost does this, He uses the awe and fear of the supernatural. He secures the end, independent of the intellect.

Now, the greatest force, of course that the Holy Ghost has, the greatest force is His ability to make spiritual entities real to the mind. When the Holy Ghost has come, He shall take the things of mine and He shall show them unto you. There is a veil between the mind of a man and spiritual things until the Spirit of God comes and makes it possible for him to see them.

The Holy Ghost doesn’t create the objects any more than the sun, when it comes up in the morning, creates the landscape. You can stand on a hillside and look down on a valley where there are beautiful farms and lovely farm buildings and little lakes and flowing rivers and see nothing at all, for it’s dark there.

Then the sun comes up in its blazing glory and you see the silver rivers and the little lakes and the farmhouses and the fields all laid out in squares and the highway weaving between. The sun didn’t create those things, they were there, but you didn’t see them. But when the sun came, you saw what was there.

The Spirit of God comes to show you what’s already there. He doesn’t create them. He doesn’t project imaginary things out of your mind. They’re there, but you can’t see them. Then when He comes, He shows them to you. I say this full effectiveness is when the Spirit of God reveals Jesus Christ unto us and enables us to do what you have to do, He enables you to do.

Now, the next question is, with this promise here, with its having been fulfilled at Pentecost and with the perpetuation of Pentecost, and I will say, I do not believe in the repetition of Pentecost, I believe in the perpetuation of Pentecost.

Pentecost is not to be repeated, it is to be perpetuated. But if you have been brainwashed by some of the dispensationalists, why, you will be asking me the question or quietly and smugly, smiling at my ignorance and saying, don’t you know that Pentecost came and went? And I reply, no, I know nothing of the sort. Pentecost came and stayed, it did not come and go.

The Spirit of the Lord, God, came down into human flesh, and wherever there’s a heart that’s open to His incoming, he still does the same thing. But somebody says, that happened back there once for all, that can’t, we never can have that that they had back there.

I say that I might as well try to live on a meal that Peter ate in Jerusalem, as to live on the blessing that Peter got in the upper room. And if I can’t have the same afflatus of power, the same incoming of potency from beyond me, then what good did it do Peter? Peter was filled with the Holy Ghost, but Peter’s dead. Much, much wind has blown over the moor since that hour. In another part of the world, in another age, way back yonder, Peter was filled with the Holy Ghost in the upper chamber.

And they say, now, shh, be quiet, let it go at that. That’s what it meant; you shall receive power. That happened back there, but they’re all dead.

Neither the church died with them, or else the Lord Jesus Christ meant that that should be perpetuated to the end of the age. I believe the latter. I believe that the Lord meant that the power of the Holy Ghost he offered His church here should be perpetuated to all His people and beloved friends. If you read your Schofield Bible margin, you’ll find He believes it too.

Now, why don’t we have this? We Alliance preachers, we claim to believe in the deeper life, the Spirit-filled life. But I preach for an awful lot of people. When I go to New York next week, I’m going to preach for a week in the Alliance church, and then I’m going to preach to a convention of Pentecostal preachers, believe it or not. Then I’m going to preach to a convention two days later of Baptist preachers. And I’m going to preach just about the same thing.

And I’d like to say to you Alliance preachers, I find that we don’t have a thing the rest of them don’t have. We don’t have a thing except the memory of A. B. Simpson. Where are you going to go to find Alliance preachers that have anything extra? Why don’t we have? We’ve got Christ in the Bible series, we have days of heaven upon earth, we have all of those books. We’re supposed to believe in these things. But we’ve learned the ways of the denominations. Some denominations are ahead of us, edge us out.

I run into people, I run into preachers who are hungry for God, that it’s pitiful. A pastor of a Bible church, a Calvinistic Bible church that’s not supposed to believe in these things, told me this. He said, Brother Tozer, I’m so hungry for God, I can feel it in my body, in my flesh. I long for God with a longing that I can feel in my body. I know what he meant, for David said, my flesh and my heart cry out for the living God. I haven’t had an Alliance preacher say that to me in 25 years.

I’m preaching to Alliance preachers, but brethren, if I were preaching to Baptists, I’d never say this. I’m as loyal as a dog when I’m preaching to others, but I’m talking to you, I want to be frank, tell you what I think of you. Why don’t we have this? Why do we preach about it and not experience it?

Why are we satisfied to take a little church, preach to a few people and stay three years, then write the superintendent and get shifted and then two years more, go someplace else and quit and go into evangelism, and evangelism for a year and then go back into the pastorate? Why are we satisfied to do that kind of thing? Why must we always be little and without much ministry?

I’ll tell you, my brethren, why. And incidentally, it’s not because this truth doesn’t stand here, ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you. Isn’t it that we’ve misinterpreted that? No. It’s because we don’t have what Paul called, a vehement desire. A vehement desire creates a vacuum in the human spirit.

And just as nature loathes a vacuum, so God loathes a vacuum. And He never allows a vacuum to stay in the human spirit. If we empty ourselves out and long for God until a vacuum is created, only one thing can happen, the Holy Ghost will rush in to fill the vacuum.

This longing for God is a vital ingredient in the religious life. It’s found interwoven, of course, with the experience of the saints everywhere. It has other names in the Bible, hunger, for instance. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness. Covet is another word Paul used. Long for, yearn, ardor, and fervency, all of these words. But vehement desire, desire that stops being conventional.

The trouble with us, brethren, the trouble with you, is you’re too conventional. You’ve got a cheap brand of sophisticated Christianity, and you’d rather be conventional than to please God. And you’d consider it a terrible thing if anybody said you were fanatical. If you’re going to please God, you’re going to have to run the gamut, and you’re going to have to be accused of everything.

I’ve been accused of everything imaginable, including being a liberal, if you can imagine that. But I’ve been accused of being a liberal. I’ve just had a little of everything. But you’ve got to be what Paul said here. Yeah, what indignation!

A man has to be a little bit tough and a little bit mean to serve God. You know what I mean by that? I mean, if you’re a soft pussy afraid of your reputation and afraid of what the superintendent will think of you, afraid of what the chairman of the board will think of you, afraid of what the women’s prayer band will think of you, you’ll always be a little mouse.

But if there’s a longing for God and a repentance and a sorrow of heart over your own weakness, that is of a godly sort that works in you, carefulness and a clearing of yourself, and indignation not against others but with yourself, and fear and vehement desire, you’ll get a reputation of being different, of course, and they’ll say, he’s weird, he’s different. And somebody says, let’s get so-and-so as our pastor, and somebody says, just a minute, just a minute, I know that fellow, because he’s vehemently longing after God.

But if you’ll go ahead anyhow, if you’ll do it anyway, if you’ll seek the face of God anyhow, if you’ll shut yourself up and seek the face of God until the afflatus from God comes on you, give yourself five years, they’ll be coming to you. The first year they’ll run away from you, and the next four they’ll be coming to you. Remember that. What longing after God, Paul said.

Now, the effect of absence of desire is all around about us. We examine our own hearts, it’ll confirm the truth of what I’ve said, the state of our spiritual desire.

Now, here you are at conference, and you’re going to elect a new district superintendent, and I think that I could safely and charitably say that who your new superintendent is, is the most important matter in the minds of most of us. Brethren, it doesn’t matter much at all. Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost comes upon you, and you shall be visited by a supernatural afflatus from another world. That’s what matters.

And if we could meet God’s terms, and we could create by indignation and a clearing of ourselves and a yearning after God, if we could create within our hearts a vacuum and this mighty Spirit of God would flow in, almost anybody will help us to lead us. But we take the least important things and make them to be important, and the one important thing we overlook.

When Peter later on got up and grabbed his hat and started to preach the gospel to every creature, the Lord called him back and said, Peter, you’ve misunderstood me. I said you should go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, but you’re not ready to go yet. Don’t go yet, because ye shall receive power, then you go. But never go until you do.

I’ve always claimed that before any man is ordained, he ought to give proof that he either has been filled with the Holy Ghost or he’s longing with vehement desire. But we never ask him that question, at least we rarely do.

So, we grade up and down from practically no desire at all to a very little desire, to a desire that’s stronger than any emotion in the human breast. A longing after God, a longing for God’s Spirit, a longing for holiness of heart, a longing for ability to do.

And if you’ll remember this, that our spiritual state always corresponds with the intensity of our desire. Everybody listening to me has as much of God as he actually desires. You are as holy as you want to be. You are as full of the Holy Ghost as you really want to be.

Remember, that we can think we want to be filled with the Spirit of God, but not want too bad enough to pay the price to be filled. We cancel out our longing and we don’t want to be at all.

If you can make terms with God; a man will kneel at the altar and begin to make terms with God. He’ll never be filled. Man will kneel at the altar and begin to argue with God. He’ll never be filled. It’s when desire goes beyond all dickering and all making of terms and becomes a vehement thing, a tempestuous thing, a torrential thing, then God will bless and fill that man with the Holy Ghost.

I preached to a conference of Baptist preachers some time ago, a few years back, and I preached about Isaiah seeing the Lord high and lifted up. Two years later, two Baptist preachers came to my home out in Longwood Drive and said, we’d like to talk with you, Brother Tozer. I said, Come on in. I knew one of them, and the other was introduced to me. One of them said, do you remember when you preached to a conference of Baptist preachers up in the name of the town up north of Chicago? I don’t remember which one it was. I said, I remember.

Well, he said, you remember when you preached on Isaiah seeing the Lord high and lifted up and he saw that he was no good, he was all dirty inside, he needed to have a hot coal, a flaming coal to touch him. I said, I remember this sermon.

Well, he said, You know what happened to me? I conceived that day such a longing to be filled with the Holy Ghost that it ruled my life, it controlled me, it became the biggest thing in my life.

And he said, For months and months I sought God. I went on with my pastorate, but I sought God. And he said, one day, after more than a year, one day I stood in the middle of my living room floor and I suddenly looked up and I said, God, I won’t wait any longer.

And he said, Instantly and suddenly, wonderfully, there came down an afflatus of the Holy Ghost upon my life. Oh, Brother Tozer, he said, what God did for me. I said, don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to the Pentecostals. I’m a Baptist preacher. I’m going right back and preach right the way I’ve been preaching. But he said, Oh, I got what you preached about.

I could illustrate by telling you case after case, person after person, who, whatever their shade of theology might have been, I never worry much about that, as long as it’s orthodox. But the point is, when they get a longing after God sufficiently, then the Spirit of God will rush in and fill the vacuum.

And always remember, I repeat, you have as much as you want. Maybe you don’t have as much as you’ve prayed for, but you have as much as you really desire. It is wonderful what strong desire will do for a man.

Paul Rader used to tell about a man cast up on an island with just one can of beans. He said he just had a can of beans that floated up there, and he was alone. He said he hadn’t a thing. He didn’t even have a fountain pen. He said, there are the beans. He said, as the days went on, that man got hungrier and hungrier and hungrier. But there were the beans in the can, and he didn’t even have a sharp rock.

But he said, do you know something? That man will get that can open somehow, and he will. You put a man up on an island with a can of beans and let him get hungry enough, he’ll get that can open somehow.

And the man who wants God bad enough, he’ll get God. A man who wants that afflatus of power badly enough, he’ll get that afflatus of power. It may take him five years to figure it out theologically, but the power of God will come upon that life. And this is what we need in our day. This is what we need.

Back a few years ago in Nyack, some of the boys, one of them from this church, Harry Post, some of the other fellows from different places, they got the idea they wanted to have a prayer meeting.

So, they went down in the furnace room of the great big old Simpson Hall, I think they call it now, and they had what they called a glory hole. They were young enough, you know, to be kind of silly, but old enough to be longing after God.

So, they called it the glory hole. And down there they went. And they got to praying, seeking the face of God. And God got to meeting them and bothered the faculty terribly. So, they called them together and straightened them out theologically.

But they were just a little too late to head off the power of God. God had met this half dozen fellows, I could name them on my fingers, and everyone went out to be outstanding missionaries. Everyone. Not ordinary missionaries, outstanding missionaries. You know Harry Post. He gets up, you know, and flaps his ears and talks and moves people when he talks. God came on him. God came on these boys.

Always there’s somebody running and saying, let the Master alone, let the Master alone. When they run, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. And some dig and said, let him alone, let him alone. Jesus said, you let him alone. I want to help him. What do you want? He said, I want to see. He said, okay. He touched him and he saw.

But we’re so afraid of getting fanatical. That’s what always tickles me when I get in Alliance churches. They say, now, we don’t want to become fanatical. We’re so far from being fanatical, we couldn’t get there by jet airplane in two weeks. No.

Fanatical? Fanatical, brother? Is a man likely to die of a fever when he’s only, he’s only, he’s only gotten a temperature of 80 in the shade? No, no. You won’t die of fever. We Alliance preachers don’t have to worry. We can go miles toward God, brother, before we strike any place where we’re likely to get fanatical.

And if you’re moving toward God, you’ll never get fanatical. It’s only when you stop moving toward God and start moving out after somebody. As long as you’re longing for God, you’ll never become fanatical. Ah, for the fanaticism of power, the fanaticism of Memminger, and the fanaticism of Dr. Wilson, and the fanaticism of these holy men that founded the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

Well, what shall we do about this absence of desire? Well, we ought to consider it a deep soul sickness. We ought to consider something’s wrong with us.

Now, we can lead in prayer, we can read the Scripture, we can whip up a sermon, we can be chairman of the board, we can build a new church, we can do all sorts of religious things.

But you know, you can do that without God’s help. Did you know that brethren? You can preach a sermon without the Holy Ghost. You can. You can conduct a church for a year without the Holy Ghost. You don’t need the power of God to carry on a church the way we’ve got them organized now. All you need is a pleasant smile and a little patience.

Does that shock you? Well, thank God something happened anyhow. Is it shocking? It’s true, nevertheless. There are churches in this town where the Holy Ghost hasn’t been for generations, but they carry on just the same. All you have to do is get your constitution, get organized, get an understanding of who’s running things, and sing some, and give some, and preach some, and pray some, and visit some, and be nice, and you’ve got a church. But you haven’t got what God talked about.

Ye shall receive a potency from without you, that shall enter into you and give you moral ability to do. And if we don’t want this and we’re not longing for it, we ought to consider ourselves spiritually sick.

A man gets up in the morning and has no appetite, goes to noon and still has no appetite, at supper time his wife can’t persuade him to eat, and the next morning he has no appetite. He’s sick.

And the lack of longing, the lack of appetite, is a spiritual sickness. And we ought to consider how it’s keeping us helpless in this hour of the death struggle, this terrible hour of the death struggle, when evangelical Christianity is going off in four or five different directions.

Oh, how God needs sane, sound men with sound doctrinal position, but aflame with the Power. How desperately we need it, but we’ll not have it as long as we’re satisfied with what we’ve got. Give the average young preacher a little parsonage, second-hand car, and two weeks’ vacation a year, and pay his way to conference, and that’s about all he wants. He’ll probably have a couple of babies, or three, four. But that’s about all. He’s very happy.

Oh, for the men and women, the young fellows that won’t be satisfied with this. They’ll go off and seek God until something happens to their lives. I’d be happy if a young fellow who thinks he’s called to the ministry would seek God until he found whether he was or not.

You know this fellow, Duma. Is that his name? D-U-M-A, I think. Over there in Africa, South Africa. How he, ignorant fellow, Zulu, if I remember. No education, nothing, but he felt called to preach. He came to Dr. Cook, now at Fort Wayne Bible Institute College. He said, Mr. Cook, I believe God’s calling me to preach. And Cook tells it on himself. He said, I didn’t think any of these were ever called to preach. He was ignorant. He was uncouth. He had nothing.

He said, I told him, oh, you better give it up. I don’t think you’re called to preach. He said he disappeared and was gone two weeks. He went up in the hills and went in a cave. He spent two weeks waiting on God to be guided, to be filled with the Holy Ghost, to be prepared, to find out whether he was called or not. At the end of two weeks, he came back with his black face shining.

And he went to the Baptists and said, I’d like a church. And they said, all right. Gave him a church of six members. In a year or two, he had that many hundreds. It was only a little while until he became the outstanding preacher of South Africa.

They say that ignorant man, black as ebony, many times called into the homes of the white governors to pray for their sick. And he prays for their sick and they get well. Nobody, nobody doubted his call when he came back from his two weeks with God. He shall receive power when the Holy Ghost comes upon you.

Now, brethren, you can do anything you want with this. You can interpret it. And you can say that it’s not scriptural, a sound, scriptural position. Do as you please about it, but always remember, whatever you do about it is what you’ll have in your ministry. You’ll get as much as you’re hungry for. You will have as much as you long for.

And if the self-indignation and the clearing of yourself and the godly sorrow and the yearning after God that becomes vehement, if it takes over, you don’t know what God may do for you. Coming upon you in great power, the power of enabling, the power of moral enabling, the power of spiritual penetration, the power to see through the fog bank, power of x-ray vision. God wants to give you that, my ministerial brethren.

The price has all been paid on the cross of Calvary. No price yet to be paid, only conditions to be met. I pray that before this conference is over, some of you may have met those conditions. For when you meet them, instantly the work of God is done. You shall be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Now, I know this is not a good motive to suggest, but I’m going to tell you something. The Christian and Missionary Alliance believes what I’ve preached tonight. But we’re doing so little about it that there are other groups who had not been taught it, but who have in recent years become hungry, and they’re going into the kingdom of God ahead of us.

Now, it’s not a good motive, of course, but I’m just warning you that if we won’t, somebody will. If we’re not, somebody is. May God grant that yet the Christian and Missionary Alliance, with its 850, nearly, missionaries around the world, may go back to Bethel, back to where we found God and start over. Let us pray.

O Lord Jesus, Thou knowest the propensity of the human heart to backslide. Thou knowest how quickly the temperature of the human spirit cools off. Thou knowest how easy it is to become satisfied with ourselves, to be at ease in Zion, to invent instruments of music and stretch ourselves on beds of ivory, and drink wine out of bowls, and care nothing for the captivity of Israel.

Lord, we see this among us. O deliver us, we pray Thee, from complacency. Deliver us from fallow ground. Deliver us from the unplowed heart. Deliver us from deadly contentment. O Lord, we beseech Thee, deliver us from taking by faith and not receiving.

Forgive us, we pray Thee, for our conventional Christianity. Forgive us, we pray Thee, because we’re afraid to be extreme. O Lord, cleanse our hearts from cowardice, and deliver us, we beseech Thee, from being little frightened preachers in the hour when we need lions and prophets and bold reformers and seers who wear the crown of spiritual ascendancy and rule by prayer and the Spoken Word.

We beseech Thee, disturb us, upset us. Let us not settle down to the grind of business, but rather let us, we pray Thee, while we do the business, always have the subconscious yearning, the longing, even if we have to push it out of our mind a little, may it come flaring back like a fire to burn in our bones. Until we seek Thy face and are filled with the Holy Ghost, we ask it in Christ’s name. Amen.

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“Seven Dimensions of the Soul“

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Tozer Talks · Seven Dimensions of the Soul

Seven Dimensions of the Soul

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

June 14, 1959

Now we have sung and quoted scripture and prayed and heard a testimony from an outgoing missionary and we’ve had a good meeting up to now and suppose we suppose we turn together to the 11th chapter of Revelation and read them read the first 15 verses responsibly and reading together the 15th and closing there, the 15th verse of the 11th chapter of the book of Revelation.

And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court, which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.

And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth. And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed. These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.

And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.

And after three days and an half the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them. And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted and gave glory to the God of heaven. The second woe is past; and behold, the third woe cometh quickly. And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

Now, this is one of the most difficult of all the chapters in the book of Revelation. Difficult, but not impossible. There is a predictive element in it, as you know there is in this entire book, a predictive element, and it is said to cover a period of three and a half years. Twelve hundred and sixty days, forty-two months, three and a half years.

Now, in as much as it states it in three different ways, I am inclined to believe that it is trying to tell us that it is literal and that we are not to look around for a fanciful interpretation. If it had said forty-two months, maybe we could have found some reason to spiritualize it. If it had said three and a half years, we might have, but since it said it three different ways and all adds up to three and a half years, I believe that it is a period that yet lies ahead of us.

And in that period, there shall occur these items. The temple will be rebuilt, if not in that period, before that time. Jerusalem will be overrun by the Gentiles. Then there will be the appearance of the two witnesses. These two witnesses, of course, are the two personalities hard to identify.

I am usually cautious, but I am going to go out on a limb and tell you who I think they are. I think they are Moses and Elijah. I will tell you why I think so. It says that if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth them, and they have power to shut heaven that it rained not in the days of their prophecy.

Now, there was only one man in the Old Testament times that was able to call down fire. It didn’t proceed exactly out of his mouth, but he spoke, and fire came down. That was Elijah, and he certainly had power to shut heaven that it didn’t rain. That would seem to identify a man as Elijah. Then they have power over waters to turn them to blood and to smite the earth with all plagues as often as they will. Only one man in the Old Testament ever had such power, and that was Moses.

Now, I have another reason for believing that these two were Moses and Elijah. They were the only two men in the Old Bible that I can think of that either didn’t die or didn’t die like other people. Remember that Moses, when he was 120 years old and still never had had an overhaul job, nothing wrong with him, not a rattle, his eyes were as good as ever, and his strength was not abated, and everything was as it had been. Suddenly, about the time he was expecting to go on for another term, God said, Moses, it’s time you come on up and die.

And I think Moses must have been very greatly surprised, if not downright astonished. Why he said, I don’t feel like dying, there’s nothing wrong with me. And God said, that’s all right, I have to take you out of here, you come on up. And he went up and died. And he is the only man that I ever heard of in the Scriptures that died completely well. You’re going to get something wrong, but not Moses, he was perfectly well.

So, since he simply quit breathing at the command of God, that would seem to leave something to be desired there yet. If it was appointed unto all men to die, and Moses didn’t die like other men, he just quit breathing because God told him to, and there was even a quarrel over his body. And God took away his body, nobody knew where it was, as though God were preserving it in a special way.

And of course, we all know that Elijah didn’t die, Elijah went up in a whirlwind into heaven, threw back his mantle, which Elisha picked up. We all know that story well. So, that would leave me to believe that the representative, the supreme representative of the law and the supreme representative of the prophets should now be testifying in the world. And they testified for a while until; and there are their pests, of course, and nuisances. A good man in the bad world is always a nuisance. Now, keep that in mind.

There’s an awful lot of romantic back-patting and cooing over men of God, but the simple fact is, if he’s a man of God enough, he’ll be a nuisance to the people who aren’t men of God. If he’s just a nice, soft, kindly, old stuffed grandpappy of a fellow, why, we can all love him. But if he’s living with God to such an extent that he frowns on our worldly ways and our carnal habits, then, of course, he’s a nuisance.

And these men certainly were. They were witnessing in a critical and extremely sinful hour, witnessing of heaven, and of course, nobody likes it. But they couldn’t do anything about it for a while, and then the beast had them killed.

Now, that seems to be the way it goes. After they’d been killed, God spoke to them again, and they rose up, and there was an earthquake, and there were many men slain, and there was a voice saying, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our God and His Christ. And we’re going to let that rest there, because we’ve heard that taught so much, and I can’t add anything to it much.

But once more, I’m going to do what I’ve been doing in this book of Revelation, in the series I’ve been giving. I’m going to pick out a verse or a passage from the chapter which has meaning bigger than its prophetic meaning, and bigger than the period that it touches. It has meaning applicable to all worshipers everywhere, in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, to the Jew, to the Church, and to that temple which shall be in the days out ahead.

Now, the text would be then this one, rise and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. Now, a great crisis time had come upon them, and there was a semblance of worship. A temple had been built. And don’t imagine that temple is going to grow there suddenly without an architect, and without builders, and without money, and without sacrifice. It’s not.

It’s not going to grow up like a mushroom. It’s going to have to be built. Somebody’s going to have to have zeal. Somebody’s going to have to have generosity to give to make it possible. Somebody’s going to have to work hard, and they will, and they have a temple there. And there is worship going on there, and will be worship, I mean, going on there. But something was wanting, obviously.

So, a mysterious hand was stretched out and gave John a rod, and said, John, take this rod, this reed, this yardstick, take it, John. And John took it. And he said, now go measure the temple, measure the altar, and measure the worshipers.

Now, I’ve checked this out very carefully to see whether this is actually what was said. One or two versions says, count them. But the major versions have it, measure them, and I’m going to stand with the large majority of translations, measure them, he said, measure them.

So, these worshipers that are here in this temple are going to have to have the apostolic test. They’re going to be measured. The apostle must measure them, John must measure them with a rod, not that he had concocted, but that God had given him. And all the worshipers have to have this apostolic test. And the result of the test is not published. There’s nowhere that I can find that any answer is given, but somewhere it was recorded. And there were consequences that followed the recording of the measuring of the temple and the worshipers therein.

Now, we live in a critical period. We do not live in that period. It would be extremely foolish to try to equate what will happen in that period of three and a half years with what’s happening now. They are not identical, although the Spirit is the same. They are not identical historically. They’re not identical.

So, we’ll not say that we live in that time, but we will say that we live in a critical period too. And there is great zeal and activity and even generosity. And there’s a great deal of building, and more churches are going up than you can imagine. And more people are going to church than ever were since the beginning of our country. A great deal of money is being given, more probably than ever was given before.

And this we must not forget that God is not looking at us as we look at ourselves. God never checks statistics. He sends an apostle to measure things and says, you’ve got to pass the apostolic test.

The church is founded upon the Rock, Christ Jesus, and the foundation of the holy apostles. And we got to measure up to the apostolic test. And we are being measured by the apostles. The New Testament is our measure. You can’t tell by how much money is given. You can’t tell by how big a building is. You can’t tell by how many people are present. You can’t tell that way because that’s the way human beings measure things. But there’s an apostolic test, a measurement of an apostle.

Here, John, take a reed, go lay it along the soles of the men that are worshiping there, and the women that are kneeling there, and then come back and record it. And John went, and John measured, and John came back.

Now, it’s relatively easy to measure the temple and the altar. It’s a very extremely easy thing to do. You can tell how many were in your Sunday school, and how much money you took in, and how much money went to missions, and how many went to school, Bible school or seminary from your church. That’s measuring the temple. That’s quite easy to do.

And then whether you have had or have not had, if you go to the altar or make a testimony of faith, that’s measuring the altar, and I suppose that’s relatively easy too. These are our specifications, you know, they’re ours. They have to do with size and cost and membership and the treasurer’s report. And that’s the external thing.

But then there is this terrible thing. I don’t know how these things affect you, but I’m affected by the Scriptures. I wince under it. And I wince under this:  and measure them that worship therein. Now I wince under that, because the measuring of them that are there, the apostle lays a rod, you see, across our souls. And that becomes then tremendously important. If I don’t get it straight about the three and a half years, or if somebody else differs with me a bit about it, that isn’t important. But what is tremendously important to me is that if God measures me by the apostolic test that I measure up.

Now I’m going to ask you in a very quick close here tonight, how you measure up. Now there will always be, said one man, a real and a conventional, a true and a formal. There will always be the real and the conventional. There will always be the true and the formal. There will always be everywhere those who have a name to live but are dead.

But the apostolic test is there, and then the results of the test are recorded somewhere, and there are consequences that follow. And I’m interested in that, deeply concerned with that. I believe that our Father in heaven knows the times and the seasons, and He knows, and not even an angel knows, when our Lord shall return. I believe it will be soon, and I hope it will be soon.

But I also know that there’s a lot we can’t know, but there’s a good deal that we can. I can’t escape the words of the old devotional saint who said that he would rather know compunction and feel it in his heart than to know the definition of it.

And I say that I would rather be measured by the apostles and measure up than to know all the meaning of the revelation, though I am trying to place this before us, and I’m a believer in prophetic truth. But I want now to talk just a little about some of these measurements. You see, there are different dimensions.

We have several different dimensions. I’m going to mention seven of them. The dimensions of your soul, of your Christian life. May the Holy Ghost take this home to my heart and yours.

Now, first of all, there’s the dimension we call faith. And I wonder if it’s real or conventional. What difference has your faith made to you? Now, there was a time when you didn’t have faith, and now you say you have faith.

Now, I’m not challenging your having faith, but I’m asking you, what difference has the coming of this faith had? What are you now doing that you didn’t do before? What are you now not doing that you did do before? Has the coming of this faith made a specific change in your life? Is this faith dimension such that when the apostle lays the rod upon it, it will measure up?

Now, that to me is vastly more important to my eternal future than to be sure who the true witnesses are. I’m quite sure who they are. That’s one thing I’m dogmatic on. I’m quite sure I know who they are. I think they will come back and that they will stand as witnesses to the law and the prophets declaring God’s righteousness among men.

But if I should have missed the mark on that, if I have faith, and that faith is real, and the dimension when the Lord lays his rod upon my soul and finds that faith is there, real faith is there, I can afford to be wrong on the explanation of the text, but I can’t afford to be wrong when it comes to the apostolic test.

And then there’s a dimension that we call love. That’s another way God measures you. Just as a doctor will take a half a dozen different tests and then add them up and see how you are, how healthy you are, so there are these tests, these dimensions, there’s love. Now, we Christians say that we have love, but do you know I wonder how real our love is? John says, if a man says he loves and doesn’t love his neighbor, how could the love of God be in that man, if he doesn’t love his brother.

And Jesus said that after the love of God, the love of the neighbor was next. And that those two, the love of God and the love of our fellow man, they added up to all that a man had to be, to be pleasing to God.

Now, a love that lies supine is not biblical love and it will never stand the apostolic test. James wrote caustically about any kind of faith that did not do anything. And John wrote caustically about love that didn’t do anything. So, these two men are measuring us.

When you sit down to a great bulging, steaming Sunday dinner, did you ever stop to think of the not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of people who haven’t had enough to eat today?

One of the most shocking things that our superintendent, Mr. Thomas, brought back to us was in telling about walking through the streets of one of the Eastern cities early in the morning and having to walk gingerly, picking his way to keep from tramping on little arms and legs and feet and faces and hands and bodies of little boys and girls and babies sleeping on the sidewalk because they had no place else to sleep. To wake, to wake like grass growing up suddenly. There there were whole mobs of them when the sun woke them, not a bite to eat.

Now I believe that love that doesn’t do something to alleviate this is not love at all. And I believe that faith that doesn’t bind my heart to my fellow man is not faith at all. But I’m not saying that we don’t have it. I’m only saying, oh God, the apostolic test is here. The man of God is laying the reed like a rod, rod like a reed upon our hearts. And what does that dimension say, that faith dimension? Remember the Jews believed they had faith all during hundreds of years of their history, but found they had not faith at all, but were rejected because they had creed without true faith.

There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah the prophet, but to not one of them did Elijah go, but to a pagan woman of Sarepta. And she had the faith that the Jewish woman did not have.

The Sarah and the Rebecca and the rest of them named after the celebrated grandmothers and mothers of Israel. They were there by the hundreds, but they had not faith. And when God wanted to support a prophet, he had to send him out of the country and find a pagan woman.

And the Sarahs and the Rebeccas and the Hannahs looked down their nose at that pagan woman, but she had faith, and a miracle came to her home. So, it’s possible to think we have faith and not have faith, to think we have love and not have love.

Then there’s humility. That’s another dimension. Religion can be a source of pride. I was talking to a man who came to see me last week. He was here last Sunday night and asked for an interview, and he talked with me. He had been saved seven years, a wonderful Christian brother. I got a lot of help from him, and I hope he got some from me.

And as we were talking, he was telling me of his great yearning after God and his dissatisfaction with the Church he was in. He wasn’t criticizing, he was very kindly about it. But he told me that he said, just God isn’t there. And he said, in effect, I grieve because of all the foolishness and worldliness and nonsense and carnality that I see everywhere moving in and out of the Church, and I don’t like it. And I yearn that the Church should move toward God.

And I warned him, I said, watch one thing. You’ve only been converted seven years, and I believe that I can say that you’re among those whose hearts cry out after the living God but look out that Satan doesn’t slip around and remind you that you’re a superior Christian, that you’re crying out after God and these carnal church members around you aren’t. The further we go up into God, the more terrible the temptation toward pride. Spiritual pride is probably the most awful pride.

Suppose I put it like this. Spiritual pride is at the top as being the most damaging, injurious, and offensive of all kinds of pride, for that was the pride of the Pharisee. Next is intellectual pride, which is pride of intellect. There is only one other kind of pride that’s as nasty as the pride of intellect, the man who says, I am an intellect.

A man came to me before I preached somewhere one time not too long ago. I had preached Saturday, and then I had preached Sunday, and then I was preaching Monday at another place, and he was there. He came and said, Mr. Tozer, I heard you preach Saturday night, and I thought you lost a friend. I didn’t know what he meant. But he said, you recovered yourself nicely Sunday night.

And I still didn’t know what he meant. He said, you know, you spoke rather slightingly of the intelligentsia. But he said, Sunday night, you said something in favor of the intelligentsia. He said, I thought that you’d lost me as your friend. He said, you know, I’m an intellectual. He was an intellectual, a self-conscious intellectual. That’s the second worst kind of pride.

The third is pride of race. I’m a Swede, I’m a Dutchman, I’m an Irishman, I’m an Englishman, or I’m a mongrel. I am whatever I am, and the terrible part about that is the only thing we have to be proud of is all underground. They say that the man whose pride lies in his ancestors has got more underground than he has on top of the ground. That’s an offensive kind of pride.

And then there’s the pride, of course, that’s pride of our looks. Men, as a rule, aren’t bothered with that, but women are. Men are inclined to be more bothered by their biceps and their chest and the women by their looks; pride of person, that is. And then there’s, of course, pride of accomplishment. But the Holy Ghost lays a rod on our dimension we call humility.

I just wonder how humble we are. Stratton, after you’ve sung a good solo, do you ever catch yourself cupping your ear to listen, to wait for somebody to come and say, I enjoyed that?

Now, I’m not asking you, don’t raise your hand. That wouldn’t be fair. But that bothers me a lot. I hate it, too. I’ve done it, too. And after I’ve preached, particularly, you know, I’m used to it here, but if I preach somewhere where there are a lot of people present that I have reason to want to appear well before.

Do you know how I’ve settled that, brethren and sisters? You know how I’ve settled that? I go to God before I go into the pulpit. I did it twice in Buffalo in May when I preached there at our international council. And I say, God, let’s have an understanding. I’m willing to fail and disgrace myself publicly as a poor preacher if you’ll get more glory out of it. But if you can get glory out of my giving a good sermon, all right. But if not, then let me fail. And I know God knows I mean that, too. And I think that that’s one way to keep yourself down.

The preacher that preached the famous sermon on humility and how I attained it, is to be pitied because the man who thinks he’s humble isn’t. Humility is an unconscious thing, and it never knows it’s around. It’s transparent, and it has no smell, and you can’t see it, and you can’t hear it.

Humility cannot be detected. If it’s in a man, he doesn’t know it. And when you see a man do what I said I did, have to go and rub his nose in the dirt, he’s not too humble a man. God is measuring my humility to see how actually humble I am.

And then there is courage. Maybe somebody would say, but I don’t believe that courage is a dimension. Courage is such a dimension, so certainly one that the opposite of it consigns men to hell, for the fearful and the unbelieving shall have their part that burns in the lake of fire. Courage is that which gives you power to stand, and to be different and to be unpopular.

If you could just get a lot of people who are willing to be unpopular, who are willing to stand and be what they feel God wants them to be, and say what he wants them to say, and do what he wants them to do, whether the world likes it or not, you’d have a pretty good Christian. But if you had those who are willing to stand and do and be and say as God wants them to, whether the church likes it or not, then you have a better Christian.

You know, in fundamental circles there’s a hierarchy. They can’t put you in jail, they can’t excommunicate you, but they can frown on you and scare you. And the average young fellow who has gone through a school somewhere is so anxious to please his professors, and so anxious to please whoever happens to be the big evangelical raja in that neighborhood, that he’d shiver and scared stiff if he thought he’d uttered a word or made an interpretation that couldn’t be approved by the evangelical hierarchy. You’ve got to have courage to look into the face of God and do what God wants you to do if it means your neck.

How is your courage, my friend? Do you have the courage to be different? Do you have the courage to be unpopular? I hope so.

Then there is the carrying of the cross, we would call that self-sacrifice. it abideth alone, and there we have self-sacrifice. We’re here not to grow fat and to have much, we’re here to immolate ourselves. We’re here to offer ourselves.

Dr. Ironside wrote a devotional book called “A Continual Burnt Offering.” That’s what I mean. A continual burnt offering. It must be going up night and day on the altar of God.

Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. Two different figures, but it adds up to the same thing. We’re not to have our way, not self-aggrandizement, but self-sacrifice. Not self-praise, but self-sacrifice. Not self-love, but self-sacrifice.

And then purity of life, deliverance from sin, perfection, deliverance, likeness to God in Christ, habits and tempers, sharp tongue, and just how far have they gone? Are we delivered from them? Are we free? You say, I heard the voice of Jesus say, rise and I rose, I’m alive.

But Lazarus heard that, but he was bound all around with grave clothes. And if we could get the grave clothes off of the people that had been called awake by the voice of God in the new birth, if we could get the grave clothes off, we’d have a revival on our hands that would spread around the world and threaten the iron curtain. But God’s children are satisfied to stand up all wrapped around with their yesterdays; habits and all the rest that they should be free from.

Then I would give you the seventh dimension, and that is integrity. How transparent are we? How candid, how completely honest. You know Bacon, Francis Lord Bacon, in one of his essays, draws a distinction between simulation and dissimulation.

Simulation is pretending to be what you’re not. Dissimulation is pretending not to be what you are. And it’s everywhere, everywhere. In fact, we’ve made a creed out of it in America. We’ve made a creed out of it. We cover things up, paint them over, smooth them over, put chrome on them, put grease paint on them. God wants a simple-hearted people.

Could I tell you again, in closing, a story I told you, I guess, maybe, oh, 10 or 12 years ago when it happened. I was walking around with a man who’s since gone to heaven, dear brother Robert Kilgore, of Seattle.

And we were talking, and I said to Brother Kilgore, I long after God, I long to be simple-hearted, I long to be humble, I long to be Christlike, and I don’t see much example around me in the churches, and I long to be candid and direct and honest and transparent. And I said, if I could find a people that were like that, I think I’d go join them. He said, no, you wouldn’t.

Well, I didn’t know what he meant, but he went on to tell me, he said, you know, I got among the people like that over in the state of Pennsylvania here last summer. He said, I took three weeks off to go and meet God in a cabin, he said.

Now, this very brilliant thinking brother, teacher in a school, he said, I took three weeks off to go up country, and he said, I got up close to a camp meeting or Bible conference. He didn’t tell me the name of the people; it sounds like they might have been Mennonites or something. But he said, you know, they were just like you’re talking about, just what you’re talking about. He said, simple, candid, honest, transparent, through and through.

And he said, Mr. Tozer, Brother Tozer, I met God up there. He said, it was a crisis in my life. I met God among those people. He said an illustration. He said, I slept in a room with an old bearded German fellow who was one of them. He said, I woke up in the night and had gotten suddenly chilly in the night, it was real cold. He said, I slept up on a good bed and my roommate, an old gentleman, slept down on a cot. And he said, the moonlight was streaming into the room, and I looked and I saw that the covers had slipped off of the old man. But he was still sleeping away. He said, I thought, oh, I’ll cover him up.

So, he got out of his warm bed and went over and got the blankets back on the old man. I don’t know whether he put the beard under or on top of the covers, but that isn’t important.

But he got him fixed up and he slipped back to bed. And he was congratulating himself that he had not wakened the old gentleman. Then he said he heard a man in a very thick German accent praying. And he said, O Jesus, he said, you’ve been so good to me. And he listened. He said, you’ve given me a nice farm and some cows and a good wife. And he went on enumerating. And then he ended by saying, and a nice man stuck me in when I get cold. He said, there he was.

He said, Brother Tozer, that’s the way they lived and that’s the way they thought. You know, no, no, none of this jive stuff, none that far out, you know, and it’s the most, none of that. Simplicity.

God is going to judge us by our frankness, our candor, our moral and spiritual integrity. That measuring is going on and the whole New Testament declares that it’s going on, but it isn’t published yet. And I don’t know where I belong in this thing. Do you know where you belong? I know in some measure, but it isn’t published. It wasn’t published there. He just had to measure it and then God kept the record.

And you know, soon everybody will know I can stand up here and look dignified as I am able and pass and get away with murder because I’m a minister and I’m called Reverend. And I can walk down the street looking stern and stuffed and everybody will say, good morning, Reverend. But I can’t get away with a thing before the apostolic measuring rod. And neither can you. Not one thing.

Friends, can write you and tell you you’re wonderful, you’ve helped them, but it doesn’t mean a thing when the apostle lays his rod on your soul. It isn’t published yet. Soon everybody will know. There’s nothing secret that shall not be revealed and there’s nothing done in secret that shall not be shouted from the housetop.

Soon everybody will know, but there’s only one thing that can silence that shouting voice. And do you know what it is? I believe it’s the voice of Jesus’ blood that speaketh better things than that of Abel. I believe that the blood of the Lamb speaks louder in my defense than my own sins can speak against me.

And the only thing that can silence the voice of the prophet or the apostle is if the blood is on my soul. To repent, to tell God we’re sorry, to seek His face, to get out from under this two-facedness, this simulation and dissimulation, to have our love and our humility and our faith tested and tried before God. This we can do, and we can in sorrow repent before our God and our Father.

And as we do, the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin. And I said a while ago that we could not know. Now I wonder if I was quite accurate. I wonder if the teaching of the New Testament isn’t rather that God gives a witness, and you can know in your heart.

Other people won’t, but you can know in your heart. The proud man can know when he’s humbled himself till God smiles. The deceiver can know when he’s repented until God smiles. The loveless, hard man can break his own heart before God until God smiles.

And so, with all the other dimensions of the soul, shan’t we tonight, shan’t we ask God to search us? Search me, O God. Do you know that brother? We sang it, didn’t we? All right, could we sing it again? Search me, O God, search me and know my heart. Let’s do it now for just a moment while the brother leads us. It is not in the book, dear friends, but I’m sure it’s familiar to many. And we’ll sing it thoughtfully together.

Dear friends, don’t close your eyes and sleep tonight until you have settled it before God. We won’t press an invitation this evening but ask God to lay the rod of the apostolic test upon your life and measure you. And then meet whatever requirements, make any changes, any restitution, any amendment of life, and do it in faith and love, and you’ll be better for it.

O God, now we thank Thee for this evening. We thank Thee for the fellowship of the Christians. We thank Thee for the presence of the missionary. We thank thee for our friend, Shufelt.

We thank Thee and praise Thee for the Word and ask that as we go out tonight, we’ll go with a solemnity upon us, a cheerful solemnity and a seriousness, knowing that the results are not yet published before the world, but they will be.

So, help us to get to them before they’re published, bury them forever in the blood, and be clean to stand before God and man. Now be gracious unto us, lift Thy face upon us, and smile upon us through this week ahead.

In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, and all the people said, amen.

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“The Garments of Jesus“

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Tozer Talks · The Garments of Jesus

The Garments of Jesus

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

December 21, 1958

Let us turn to the second chapter of Luke and read the familiar but still very wonderful story. Luke 2, we’ll read the first 18 verses responsibly and all join on the last verse, that would be verse 18.

Luke 2: And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, everyone into his own city.

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.

Now let us pray.

Dear Father in heaven, we thank Thee for this Scripture. It’s as fresh and as imperishable, more so than the stars that shine. Nothing, nothing is as imperishable but the throne, the throne around which the rainbow curls.

For this, this is Thee, this is Thee speaking. These words are Thy words. Thou hast spoken to us. Thou hast told us this most wonderful, most wonderful story. We thank thee for all that it means. We thank thee, Father, that if the world were to dissolve today, there would be a victory that the ages would hear because of all who have believed it and all who have been saved. And that great multitude that no man can number, ten thousand times, ten thousand and thousands of thousands out of every tongue and tribe and nation and people around all the world for all these centuries.

So, nothing Satan can do now can hinder. Nothing, nothing, Lord, can stop us. And if the cause of missions should end now and Thou should close and slam shut and lock every door, we thank Thee that the gospel has found its people and they have come out from all tongues and tribes and nations and have joined themselves unto the Lamb and they shall stand on the sea, by the sea of glass, and they shall wave their palm branches and sing and their song shall be worthy as the Lamb that was slain. And we can only say Thine is the victory, Thine is the Kingdom, Thine is the power, and Thine is the glory. And, O Lord, Thou shalt yet take unto Thee Thy great power and reign.

And we thank Thee, Lord, our eyes are upon Thee and we’re looking to Thee, Thou baby Jesus who became a man, Christ Jesus, and who died and rose and lives and pleads with love in all His words and deeds.  And we’re victorious, we thank Thee we’re victorious, and Thy church is victorious, and Thy throne is victorious, Thou hast established Thy throne, O Lord. And the world and the things thereof and the sun from the rising to its setting tells the story.

And we bless Thy holy name that we are celebrating this hour, the coming of God to the world, the advent of Jesus Christ who is the Eternal Word and is now made flesh. And we know what it’s about and we’re not puzzled and we’re not caught in the whirl of it, but our feet are on the ground and our hearts in the heavens. And we can give account of why we feel like this about it and we can tell the people why we believe what we believe. And we have the solid theology of the Scriptures underneath our feet.

Blessed be thy name, blessed be the Triune God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And blessed be all His will and His purposes and His plans and His desires and His everlasting predestination, having predestinated all things after the counsel of Thine own will. And all the mysteries of these things we don’t understand, but we can stand with our hands raised to heaven and cry, it shall be done. Thou art God and nobody can stop Thee. And we thank Thee for Thy son, Jesus, now on the throne.

Oh, we pray that we may worthily celebrate. And Father, we pray for those who have had hard times and troubles over the last times, the last hours, the last days. We pray Thee, the tatters, Lord, who’ve lost this wonderful, fine, godly, old gentleman from them who’s gone only ahead a little while.

Bless them all, we pray Thee, and in thy kind love, fill the vacancy until they shall gather at the throne. Thank Thee for that home, for these people, for the influence and the stream of spirituality and godliness that has come down from this patriarch who is now with Thee.

And we pray Thee for Dorothy Elder of this church and her home and her people, Lord, with her father having died. And we pray thee, Father, thy blessing upon that home, too. Bless them all most graciously, O God, and undertake, we pray thee, and let thy blessing be upon them and upon Dorothy and upon her sisters and brothers and the wife, the mother. Let grace be upon them all.

Keep thy hand upon us today, may we honor Jesus Christ, our Lord, in a manner worthy of Him. Bless our country, we pray, our God, this northern part of our country lying under the great heavy snows and with very great cold.

And we pray thee, Lord, Thou wilt help and bless again, we ask Thee, out on the highways and up in the air and wherever people are traveling, for many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased. Lord, this is happening in our time, and we pray Thee for all who are traveling and all on the sea and all in the air. And let Thy blessing now be upon this service as we wait further on thee, in Christ’s holy name. Amen.

Now, I have a number of texts this morning, and I want to read them. Luke 2:7, She brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger. Mark 9:3, And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth could white them. Psalm 22:18, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture did they cast lots. John 20:6-7, Then cometh Simon Peter, following him, and went into the sepulcher, and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Revelation 1:13, In the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. Psalm 45:8, All thy garments, smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia, out of the ivory palaces. Isaiah 63:1, Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Basra? This that is glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength.

You will notice that each one of these verses which I read mention clothing. And I’d like to talk a little today about the garments of our Savior and let what I have to say revolve around this central verse, All thy garments, smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia, out of the ivory palaces. It’s one of my favorite verses, and no doubt I have quoted it very, very frequently and referred to it often in my preaching. But today I want to talk about seven garments which our Savior wears, or wore, and what they mean.

Now, in the text, all thy garments smell of myrrh, David is addressing one whom he calls one that is fairer than the children of men, and he describes him in radiant, beautiful language. He is fairer than the children of men. Grace is poured out by his lips. He is blessed forever. He has a sword girt upon his thigh. He is mighty and glorious and majestic. He rides prosperously in truth and meekness, and his throne is God’s throne forever and ever. And God has anointed him with the oil of gladness above his fellows.

Now, that’s the One who is described, and we know who that One is. It is none other than Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Now, garments, as you know, express two things. They express office and character. In the Bible we learn of the wedding garment. We learn of the white, spotless garment. We are told not to get our garments spotted, which is not to get our hearts soiled. We learn of the bride and her beautiful white garment, and we learn of the efforts of the sinner to make garments for himself, but they are filthy rags.

So, character is described here in the garment of Jesus, but there is more than character. There is office as well. For men dress as kings or as generals or as what they are, and so we see here in the garments of our Savior, His offices and His character. I’ll sing the character he wears and all the forms of love he bears exalted on his throne.

Now, this means then that His offices are many, for He’s the Infinite God, and that His character is perfect, and that He has an infinite variety of changes. Do not think that in talking of these seven garments, there are many more, that I am exhausting the possibilities, for He is an Infinite Savior, and being infinite, He has an infinite variety of changes.

Now, it says about His garments, all of His garments, no matter which ones, that they smell of myrrh and cassia and aloes. And in the Bible, we find that myrrh is used to describe bitterness and tears, and cassia is a healing herb that was medicinal in its use. And aloes, there was nothing about aloes that could heal, nothing about aloes that suggested character at all, but there was one thing about the little flower, it was fragrant and beautiful. No mortal can with him compare among the sons of men. Fairer is he than all the fair that fill the heavenly train.

So, we have these three fragrances, that of myrrh, which, while it is sweet to smell, has an undertone of bitterness, and cassia, while it is also fragrant, is used for healing, and aloes, which is just fragrant and beautiful.

Now, let’s look at these garments rather briefly, that our Savior wore, or that He wears, or that He shall yet wear. The first is in Luke, and she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes.

Now, the swaddling clothes worn by our Savior are emblematic of His true humanity, for our Lord Jesus was human, became human, and dwelt among us. He loved the title, the Son of Man. He loved it more, I think, than any other, because He referred to Himself in the third person often as the Son of Man, His favorite title.

Now, our Lord came clear down. I’ve often said, and I repeat now, that I am glad that we are redeemed not as a slumming project on the part of God, that God didn’t decide that we poor slum dwellers in the slums of the universe here in earth, that we needed help, and so he didn’t organize a do-good uplift organization, get them together and say, let’s try to help the underprivileged. But He came clear down where we were, and He took upon Himself all our limitations and took upon Himself all that we are except sin.

There was nothing that He did not take upon Him. He was born as we are born. He grew as we grow. He ate as we eat. He slept as we sleep. He developed and matured as we develop and mature. He stood on the earth. He watched the sun rise and set. He spoke the familiar language of His people. He wore the common garments of his people. Jesus, our Lord, was in every sense a human.

You see, the church has made two mistakes. She hasn’t meant to do it, but she’s made two mistakes. One is to talk too much of His deity, and the other to think too much of His humanity. We’ve got to keep them in balance.

We’ve got to remember that while He was God, He yet came to the world and was wrapped in swaddling garments to tell all the world, I was born into the human race. And I was immediately picked up and swaddled, covered over with the garments they call the swaddling garment.

And they took the little baby Jesus, and I don’t think there’s anything that’s quite so fragrant as a newly bathed and newly powdered and newly dressed little baby. And when they took the baby Jesus up after they had oiled Him and rubbed Him and washed Him and then had wrapped Him in His baby swaddling garments, if they had been as sharp and as penetrating, and probably there were some that were, they would have noticed a fragrance about His little baby garments that they had not put there. If indeed they had scented powders in those days, I know not. But if they had, they would have noticed three fragrances here. There was the smell of myrrh.

When we take a new baby in our hands, we don’t like to think of its future being sad or bitter or tearful or heavy. But when they picked the baby Jesus up, if they had had prophetic foresight, they would have known that this baby was born to suffering and to bitterness and tears.

But if they could have gone on and detected this other fragrance, they would have known that there was cassia there, for cassia was the medicinal herb, and aloes they would have seen and perhaps they did. I doubt whether they did at first, for the Scripture says there is no beauty in Him that we should desire Him.

I think therefore that our Savior did not show up until the time of His death any unusual marks of beauty. The only marks He showed were His moral beauty, and of course that in itself was wonderful. But just as they broke the alabaster box to release the fragrance that filled all the house where they were sitting, so when they broke Him on the cross of Calvary, they released to the world a fragrance like the aloes, a fragrance that was also a beauty, because you know it is possible that which is fragrant and that which is beautiful, they’re very closely related.

I have said to you in times gone by that when I was young, I don’t know what’s happened to it, maybe it’s atrophied since, but I used to be able to see color in music. When I heard an organ or an orchestra or anything, I heard not only the music but saw the color of it. And I thought it was just one more eccentricity on my part, until I learned that they can transmute the, what do they call it, across, the little impulses across, and that actually they are the same. Actually, all the five senses are one.

I thought that out when I was a young chap, and then later on I found out I had been right about it. That’s always comforting, but I had that the senses are all the sense of touch. They all go back to the sense of touch.

Something touches the olfactory nerves, and we smell. Something touches the ear, and we hear. Something touches the eye, and we see. Something touches the taste buds, and we taste. It all goes back to the sense of touch, and it can all be reduced to this one thing.

And so, when we say fragrant and beautiful, we are saying one thing. For we are saying that Jesus Christ is to the heart of a man that which fragrance is to the nose, which beauty is to the eye, which sweet sound is to the hearing. So He is that, and all this was in His clothing, if they could only have known it, when he became a babe and dwelt among us.

But then I ask you to note the second one, and that is in Mark. And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow, as no laundry, no fuller on earth can white them. Now here were His lustrous garments, the insignia of His very Godhood. If His swaddling garments were the emblem of His humanity, then His lustrous garments were the emblem of His true Godhood.

Would it be out of order if I quoted again that which I guess I have quoted once a year for the great many years, that glorious form, that light unsufferable, and that far-beaming blaze of majesty wherewith he was wanted heaven’s high council table to sit in midst of Trinal Unity, he laid aside and here with us to be, forsook the courts of everlasting day and chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

And this far-beaming blaze of majesty got out of hand only one time while He was on earth. He had become man so completely and so fully and perfectly did His humanity veil His deity that it never got out of hand but one time.

Once up yonder on the mountain where Peter, James, and John were with Him, He prayed. And as He prayed, His raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow. And the result, you remember, on Peter and the rest of them, they spoke not knowing what they were saying.

And they said, let us dwell forever here, build us three tabernacles, and bring back Moses and Elijah, and let’s live here forever. As soon as the lustrous glory of His Godhood shone forth, they wanted to stay where He was. And so, Jesus, who is man, is also God.

We must hold these two thoughts in careful balance. We must remember His swaddling garments. When we seem so poor and weak and human, we must comfort our hearts by remembering that He once wore our baby clothes. And when we become too bold and sure of ourselves, we ought to take a quick look at the mountain where He shone forth in His lustrous garments, whiter than any fuller on earth could make them.

So, He is not only man, but He is God, very God of very God begotten, not created. He was at home among the angels, and He was at home among men.

If we had sent a man to heaven to try to see God and intercede for us, that man wouldn’t have been at home there, for earth is his home, not heaven. If He had sent an angel to earth, the angel wouldn’t have been at home here, for heaven is the home of the angels, not earth. But Jesus, being God and having His home in heaven, and being born in the form of a man, thus could have earth as His home, we have united in the two, heaven and earth–God, God and humanity reconciled.

So now we have the two garments, and even yet if you could have seen or they could have gotten control of their faculties and could have remembered a little there His lustrous garments, they’d have noted they would smell of myrrh, because though He were God, He was not going to finish His redeeming work without tears and bitterness and sorrow.  And, of course, cassia, for that’s why He came, and aloes for all the beauty of His wonderful nature.

Can I ask you to note John 19:23, His seamless garment? We read about that in the Old Testament, they parted my raiment among them and for my vesture did they cast lots. We have that garment of Jesus, that garment that was woven. It wasn’t woven as a piece of cloth and then sewn together leaving seams. It was woven or knitted in some manner so there was no seam, all one piece.

You women are familiar with that kind of thing. I guess they do that with sweaters and other garments that are knitted to the general shape they want and thus have no seam.

So, this was the seamless garment of Jesus, and this was the only garment He had. When our Lord went on a trip, He did not take a suitcase. When He went on a journey, He did not take a bag with Him. They had no need for He wore His total wardrobe on His back. And wherever He went, He carried all He owned with Him. The foxes have holes and the birds have their nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

Think of it, my friend, his seamless garments were the emblem of His voluntary poverty, for He could have robed Himself in light.

You know, if Shakespeare had written this story, how different it would have been, or Aeschylus, or any of the other great dramatists, how different it would have been. He would have come down like some planet from afar, blazing round the earth and startling the world. But instead of that, He divested Himself of light and He laid aside His glory and came down with us.

He might have robed Himself in light. He might have had the sun for His covering. He might have had the moon under His feet and the stars round Him as a crown round His head. But our Lord came down and had but one seamless garment, the emblem of His voluntary poverty. And when He went to the cross, He didn’t even take that garment along with Him.

Think of it, my friends, this we don’t often talk about. And the artists, when they paint Jesus, out of common decency, manage somehow to drape over His holy form some ribbon of cloth to shield Him from the naked gaze of men. But actually, Jesus died naked. As He was born naked, He died naked. He died on a cross naked. They took off from Him all that He had.

And so, He died, and atonement was made. If those Jews or those Roman soldiers that took His last garment, his seamless garment, if they could have had the sense of smell that a prophet had, they would have smelled myrrh, and they wouldn’t have had to argue about that. The bitterness and the tears and the blood were there in evidence. But they would have smelled cassia, too, for that seamless robe smelled of cassia, the symbol of healing and of aloes, the fragrance and beauty.

Nobody looks good when he’s going out to die. They said of the man who was executed last Friday, last Thursday night at midnight, six minutes after midnight, they said of him that he cut a ridiculous figure as he walked with shaven head and with these trousers cut off a little above his knees as he walked and was guided, blindfolded to the chair.

Nobody going to die, put to death by society, can ever do it with any great dignity. And you’d have had to have the spiritual insight of an apostle to have seen any beauty there, any beauty there, as they tugged off of His warm body, the last garment He had and exposed Him to the sneers and leers of the public and flung Him down flat on His back and nailed Him on a cross and raised the cross and put it like a telephone pole into a hole with a jar, a sickening, shocking jar, and there He hung in nakedness. And the modest women looked aside, and the men grinned and little boys tittered, and God died.

And He died there in darkness and in thirst and in nakedness and in poverty. He died in darkness though the stars were His and all the trillions of suns and galaxies that lie out there, He had made them by the word of His power and all the shining light from all the multiplied heavenly bodies could have been His to light Him out of the dark.

And yet He died in darkness voluntarily and the garment that was had been His, smelled of myrrh and aloes, myrrh for bitterness and cashew for healing and aloes for fragrance. He died in thirst and cried out, I thirst, and the seven seas were His and all the rivers and all the waters in the world and yet He died in thirst. He died in nakedness and in poverty though the cattle on a thousand hills and all the beasts of the forest and all the metals hidden away in the hills and the mountains, and all the wealth of the universe was His.

He might have spun himself a robe out of sunlight. He might have made Himself a garment of stardust for it was all His, all His. But in voluntary poverty He went down as far as He could go.

They say some are poor and we hear of the poor and they tell us of the poverty that are in other countries and even when visitors come here from England, or from any of the more fortunate and advanced countries of the world, almost always when they’re being interviewed or when they’re making speeches, somewhere they put in the bracket, a little word saying, we were getting on fine in our country, of course nothing like America.

So, we’re very rich here but not as rich as He could have been. They could have brought Him orders from Edom, gold from Ophir, peacocks from Africa, singing women and playing men and choirs, all that Solomon had before him He could have had multiplied into infinity. But He died in poverty and blood.

The next is John 20:6,7, I read that to you also. And came Simon Peter following him and went into the sepulcher and he saw the linen clothes lying in a napkin, not lying with the linen clothes but wrapped together in a place by itself. I’m not going to go into detail here, but every Bible student knows what this means.

It means that Jesus Christ did not get up like another man and undress. It means that He came out without disturbing the garments. It means that the metamorphosis, the marvelous transfiguration, the change that came over the dead Man as He lay in the tomb, put Him where He was both matter and still non-material. Put Him where He weighed something and yet could slip through closed doors as though they were open. This wonder I shall never be able to explain. I only know that God did not allow an angel to come down and roll the stone away to let Jesus out.

Therefore, if He had, the angel would have had part of the glory. Somewhere in heaven there would have been an angel. And when the earthly choirs composed of the red and yellow, black and white, round the whole world for all human history, when they got together in a great hymn sing, to hymn the Lamb, it was slain but that had risen again.

Somebody would have pointed to an angel and said, there’s the angel that helped Jesus get up. There’s the angel that rolled the stone away. But when they rolled the stone away, they found He was already out.

And if they had sent someone to unwrap Him after He was dead, they wrapped Him in the garments of the dead. If they had sent some archangel to unwrap Him and let Him go free, as they had unwrapped Lazarus before Him, always when we celebrate in yonder glory, somebody would have remembered and said, there goes the archangel that unwrapped the Savior and let Him get out.

But just as nobody helped Him die, so nobody could help Him rise. He dismissed His spirit, and He rose from the dead. And His garments showed it. Lay a dead body down, wrapped in certain ways, and then take it away without immaterialize it and take it away and you have your garments where they were before, as though the shape of the body is there, but the body is gone.

So that was Jesus. What does that mean? Those burial garments, lying as they were lying, they are symbols of His triumph. He conquered all that men now deny.

We try to get on with ourselves and stay reasonably comfortable by denying the very ghosts that haunt us and the very dragons that threaten us but, Jesus Christ denied nothing. He denied not the devil. He said there’s a devil. He denied not sin. He knew there was sin. He denied not man’s lost condition. He knew man was lost. He denied not hell. He spoke of hell. He denied none of that which was against Him.

But He conquered it, and that’s a different thing. That’s quite a different thing. Instead of denying it and trying to dissolve it in thought, He met it head on and died under the impact of it, but God raised Him from the dead the third day. And because He came out so completely triumphant, He met and conquered all. And now we can say the three sad days are quickly sped. He rose in triumph from the dead. Hallelujah!

Well, then there is Revelation 1:13. John said, I turned, and when I turned, I saw. To see the voice, I saw seven golden candlesticks, and in the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.

He goes on to describe them, and what are these garments? They are the garments of His priesthood, and insignia of His priesthood, for the priest offers and prays. And this One who was born into our flesh, now is at the right hand of God, our Priest, offering Himself, not offering the blood of others, but offering His own blood. And He bears our names in three places: on His hands, and on His breast, and on His shoulders. On His hands, emblematic of work, and on His breast, emblematic of love, and on His shoulders, emblematic of strength. And the government shall be upon His shoulder, singular.

I’ll never forget when Dr. H. L. Zimmer was still preaching in the apex of his power, that great German voice of his boomed out once, and he preached, says, the government shall be upon his shoulder. Then he asked the rhetorical question, why do the governments of the world rest upon one of His shoulders? Then he lowered his voice and smiled, and said, so I can rest upon the other. He carries the world upon one shoulder, and His people on the other.

And then, for I must be brief, there’s His wedding garment, I’ve read about that, emblematic of His relationship to His people. You will find in that psalm, her garment and his garment. His garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia, and her garments, very, very beautiful they are. The king’s daughter is all glorious within, that is, she sits within, all glorious. And her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework. And the virgins, her companions that follow her, shall be brought unto thee.

There’s the wedding garment. Let us not get bogged down in politics. Let us not limit our thinking by the conquest of space. Suppose they do, and they will. Suppose they do visit Mars or Venus or the moon. Suppose they do.

There was a day when America seemed as far from Italy or Spain as the moon seems now from the earth. They’ll get there one of these times. Never say they can’t do it, they’ll do it.

I know one fellow won’t be on board when they go, but they’ll do it. But my brethren, when they do it, don’t let that bother you. Don’t let the voice of a president speaking out of outer space bother you.

There is one coming, wearing a wedding garment, with His sword girded on His thigh, and He’s coming not from Venus or Mars or some far galaxy. He’s coming from the throne of God, wherever that is. And I do not care geographically or astronomically where that throne is.

He is coming from there, and when He comes, He will be wearing His wedding garment. And His wedding garment will smell of myrrh. What? You mean that when He stands with His bride and presents her to the Father in great glory, that there can be a faint trace of myrrh on that garment? For myrrh stands for bitterness and suffering and woe.

Yes, it’s there, my brethren. All thy garments smell of myrrh. And in the hour of her triumph, His bride will remember with a tear that won’t hurt and with a sigh that won’t be sad and with a sorrow that isn’t grief, that she was there because He was there.

She wore her golden robes because He wore His cotton ones. That she stood before the throne because He stood before Pilate. And she’s infinitely rich because He was tragically poor. But she’ll never suffer again because He suffered beyond description. She’ll never quite forget that. Any of you that want to go to heaven and get where you’ll be happy, all happy, always happy, happy, happy, happy.

If you want to go to heaven so you’ll never remember the cross, I don’t think you’d better plan on going. For I’m sure that when they sing, worthy is the Lamb, to every redeemed mind, there will come the picture of a bleeding Lamb. But there’ll be no sadness anymore, no tears, and nobody will cry. But rather they will break out loud and laugh, laugh with holy laughter, to know that the Bridegroom by their side is the same One who once was wrapped in swaddling bands in poverty.

Last of all and I’m finished. His garment dipped in blood, that’s in Isaiah, the 63rd chapter.

Who is this that cometh from Edom? The dyed garments from Basra that this that is glorious in his apparel traveling in the greatness of his strength. I that speak in righteousness mighty to save I am he. Ah then the question wherefore art thou red in thine apparel and thy garments like him that treadeth out in the wine fat? Then he replies I have trodden the wine press alone and of the people there was none with me.

Understandably this verse has been misinterpreted and we talk about Christ on the cross treading the wine press. No, no. He trod no wine press on Calvary’s hill. How could he? His two feet were nailed there on the tree, and they were treading Him, not He them. I will tread them in mine anger and trample them in my fury and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments and I will stain all my raiment. Ah my brother, the garment dipped in blood is a symbol of His ultimate conquest.

The world with all its ocracies, its dilemma. Nobody’s good enough or big enough or strong enough to rescue us. But He is coming to rescue us. He’s the only one who has the right. He’s the only one who took on Him all our sorrows.

If there could rise in the world whether he be red or yellow, black or white or whatever race, if there should arise a man with a heart so big and great and wonderful that he could take into that heart all that’s wrong with us, all that’s wrong with us.

All our hates and our jealousies and our malice and our bitterness and our lusts could take them all into his heart and say I suffer with you. I suffer with you. Whether he was an American or an Englishman or a Vietnamese or a Chinese, I’d say there’s your man. There’s your man. I’d follow him. I’d vote for him if you could vote. There’s your man. I’d smell of myrrh. He knows my grief.

But politicians and kings and leaders and prime ministers and all the rest, they want power. They want authority. They want to go down in history. They’re not trying to help us. They’re trying to help themselves. And there’s nobody in the world that can take into his heart my grief, my weakness, my sorrow, my sadness, my loss, my terror. Nobody can do that.

There was One that did it and his name was Jesus. And He could do it because He came as a man. He’s the only one that has the right and he’s the only one I’ll vote for.

So, you needn’t fear to come to Him for He knows more about you than you know about yourself. And one of these times He’ll come back. I wish it were not so. That is, I wish it didn’t have to be like this. But He’ll come back and when He comes to reign, He’ll not fool with summit conferences. He’ll not fool with ultimata, ultimatums. And He’ll not fool with kings and ministers and diplomats and ambassadors and other liars. He’ll walk down and demand His right.

And the meek shall hear His demand and fall at His feet. And the proud and the God-hating shall feel the weight of His mighty brazen feet as He treads the winepress alone and sets up His own throne, King of Kings and Lord of Lords on this earth.

So, we can only close by reminding you that in the 18th of Revelation there is that passage where someone shouts out, take unto thee, take unto thee thy great power and reign.

He’s going to do that one of these times. I don’t know how far God is going to let the world go. I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m not wise enough to know how far God will let us go. But I know that one time soon He’ll get enough.

But even when He comes and tramples down the world in blood and reigns in peace over a peaceful earth, if you come close, you will smell myrrh. For He purchased that right in darkness and blackness and bitterness and tears and blood. And you will smell cassia, for He does it to heal the whole world.

Wonderful if we could wave a wand and heal the whole world. Wonderful if that Pullman car that’s flying around up there 17,000 miles an hour could diffuse healing to all the nations. And as it whistles by, every nation could be healed. All the hospitals empty, all insane asylums, all the old folks’ homes.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if when it passes around the world it could diffuse healing to all below? I’d go down and help shoot them up, wouldn’t you? I’d go down there and help shoot them up if I did nothing but carry water to that scientist in order to get them going around this world to heal all the poor world. I’d send him over Russia. We wouldn’t have any trouble with him then. I’d send them everywhere and heal the world, but we can’t do it.

But when He comes to reign, He’ll do it. He’ll go like lightning flash around the world and His goings forth will be for the healings of the nations. He will do it.

Blessed be God and blessed be His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. All His garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces.

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“The Anti-Christ“

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Tozer Talks · The Antichrist

The Antichrist

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

June 21, 1959

Now please turn to Revelation 12. We’ll read it. It’s quite a good-sized chapter. We’ll read the chapter. Pray that the Spirit of God may open our eyes even as we read. Suppose that we read as we usually do responsibly. The chief value of that method is to keep us from reading too fast. And then we’ll all read the last verse together. Revelation 12.

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. And there appeared another wonder in heaven, and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns upon his head. And she brought forth a man-child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up under God into his throne.

And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.

He was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought the man-child forth.

And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that it might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth bowed to the woman, and the earth bowed to the man. And the dragon was wroth with the woman and went to make war with a remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus.

Now, I note here that this chapter begins by saying, there appeared a great wonder in heaven. Of course, it was a sign, it was a wonder with significance. And I might begin by saying to you that we live in a world of wonders, if we only had eyes to see.

We live in a world of wonders, and I believe they are not only wonders, but they are signs. The poet you know said there were tongues in trees and books in the running brooks. He was only a poet, but sometimes the poet blunders into saying things that are very true, and that is one truth.

I wonder how we’d feel if we saw the sun come up for the first time, or if we saw the stars out for the first time. Imagine how the first man felt who looked for the first time at Niagara tumbling over the rocks, or the great Grand Canyon yawning there in its terrible beauty. The world is full of wonders, but if the earth can show wonders, how much more can heaven? There was an Englishman by the name of Lord Dunsany, whom I read a great deal when I was a younger fellow. He wrote a book called the “Book of Wonders.”

But the Book of Wonders had already been written. This Book of Wonders I hold in my hand, this Book of Wonders. It is not a book spun out of man’s imagination. It is a true account of actual events before they happen. You hear what I say? This book is an account of things that have happened, and a true account of things before they happen.

The prophetic past, I saw, and I saw, and I saw, and yet, to us, it’s a way out in the future. But that which is to be already has happened in the sight of God. And the man John, from his high lookout in the spirit, sees that which is to be as though it already had been.

And this Book of Revelation is a drama of wonders. It is unique in time. It tells us of things that never happened before and never will happen again. Some things God has repeated. We may see them today and wait and see them again tomorrow. Some things happened a century ago and will happen in the next century and the next.

But there are some things that only happened once. As, for instance, when our Lord told us of that terrible period which this twelfth chapter takes in, when nothing like it ever had been before and nothing like it ever was again.

So, this John, from this high lookout, sees the procession of the skies of heaven and earth and hell, and he sees here a woman.

Now, there are several views of this woman. I might mention them and pass on. One of them is that this is the Virgin Mary, and this glory in which she is clothed with the moon under her feet and clothed with the sun and the crown of stars about her head, that this is a picture of Mary. But we know better than this, and we dismiss this, because we do not believe that it has any support from anywhere else in the entire Word of God.

Then there is the view that this is Israel, and then there is the view that this is the Church. I believe there is only one view that is tenable and that can be supported by the Old Testament prophets and by other passages from the New Testament, and that is that this woman that appears as a sign in the wonder in heaven, clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and the stars about her head, is Israel. I cannot see anything else.

And I ask you to behold then the nation of Israel, a nation as men see her, humble from the beginning. Israel has always been humble. Her glory has never been the glory of Rome or Babylon or England. She came from a simple man who came out of her of the Chaldees and was a nomad traveling south. Her history is known, and she’s been in more trouble than she’s been out of, and she’s had more feet on her neck than we can imagine down the years.

She’s been humble, I say, from the beginning, often in exile and often in captivity. She’s been robbed and spoiled, but she’s been subjected to pogroms and assassinations even down to the present day. And she has been a snare and a curse and a hissing and a byword down to this hour. That has been Israel. That’s the woman as man sees her. But behold, a nation in the eternal purposes of God.

Oh, if we were only wise to be able to see as God sees and see what God sees, we might look at a little child, if we could see as God sees, and behold in that little child a receptacle for the glory of God for all the ages to come. But we see only a little freckled child who has a genius for getting under your feet. We don’t see as God sees.

It’s the same with the church. We see otherwise than as God sees. We ought to pray day and night for the anointed eye that we might see as God sees, that we might have God’s values of things, that we might look upon the world and see it as God sees it, that we might look upon little things and see them as big as they are in the sight of God, and upon big things and see them as little as they are in the sight of God.

This woman as man sees her is nothing. Go down on Maxwell Street and you’ll see her there. But as God sees her, a nation invested with light, the sun and the moon and the stars, crowned and crowned with the stars and clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet.

Now it says that there was a great red dragon there. And I call attention to the glory and the tragedy of being a moral creature. I can perfectly understand why John Bunyan, when he was under blistering, terrible, devastating conviction for sin, why he looked at a dog loping down the sidewalk and looked up and said, O God, I wish I were a yonder dog, for that dog can die and remain dead, and I, a man, have to die and come again to judgment.

The creature without moral quantities and qualities, that creature we can write off and dismiss. But the terror and the glory and the tragedy and the wonder of the creatures who were made in God’s image with progression and regression, degeneration and transfiguration, this we see, this great red dragon.

Now we have him pictured here. We know who he is. We don’t have to be great or profound scholars to know that this is the devil. This is that terrible beast that was once the covering cherub that has come to destroy men.

And some who stand on Mount Zion there, in the 14th chapter, later on in Revelation, they were at one time simple people that nobody, nobody ever dreamed that someday they would stand on Mount Zion. But there was the sun of the morning, that creature that was created by God to overshadow the fiery seat of God there, the throne and the stones of fire. That creature fell, and oh, how he fell and how far down he fell.

What does that teach you and me? It ought to teach us that no matter how far up we may go, it’s possible to descend tragically, and no matter how low down we are, it’s possible to rise in the will of God by the grace of God and be made new creatures in Christ Jesus. That’s the thought I throw in here about this great red dragon. And then here was the man-child.

Now, this man-child, you see, there are also two views about this man-child. I wish that sometime, I imagine when we get to heaven, there’ll only be one view of things. But almost everywhere you’ll find, always find two views.

And if I’ve had illumination on it and God’s spoken to me on it, and if it has to do with things that matter, I usually come down hard and have one view. But where you can believe either side and still be a good Christian, I’m a little more cautious, and there are more than one side.

We used to have a man in the Alliance by the name of William T. MacArthur. He was the father of the MacArthur who runs a big printing house in Oak Park and publishes the paper out there, Oak Leaves. He was the father of Charles MacArthur, the playwright. But he was a godly man, and he had a view, more or less, all his own about this.

And he says that this woman was the church, and that this man-child is that part of the church that’s ready at the coming of Christ. And that the great church in her glory that’s not prepared for the Lord’s return, she gives birth to the small church within her that is prepared. And that was his view.

And he got away with it, and it was all right, I guess. Not very many people followed him in that view, I guess. But I hold to the view that this man-child could be nobody but Jesus Christ, our Lord, and the church seen in one view. Christ Jesus the Lord in the church, Christ Jesus the Lord.

And here we see this woman, Israel, giving birth to the man-child. And of course it was Israel that gave birth to the man-child. And when she gave birth to the man-child, she also automatically gave birth to the church, for it was from the wounded side of Jesus that the church was born.

And here was this red dragon waiting before the man-child to destroy him. You well know that when he was born in Bethlehem, that Herod immediately sent out to destroy him. You know how he was hounded on down and killed another Roman pilot, had him taken out and crucified. You know the enemy, Judas, and you know how Rome persecuted the church.

Now this man-child was caught away. He was taken away and a cloud received him out of their sight. That was said of the head of the church. But you know every head has to have a body, just as everybody must have a head. And Jesus Christ was the head of the body, the church. So when we see the great woman here in her glory, seen as God Caesar, giving birth to the man-child, we see her giving birth to Jesus, the head.

But we also see her giving birth to the church, which is the body of Christ. And so, both that Christ was caught away to the right hand of God the Father, and his body will be caught away to the right hand of God the Father.

You know, my friends, it’s good to continue to believe some things. We have shifted, as I have had occasion to say several times during my talks from Revelation, we have shifted over the last years from the old-fashioned Scofield Bible view of prophecy. I mean, the fundamentalists and the evangelicals have shifted until they’re all mixed up among themselves. They won’t invite a man to come and preach on prophecy anymore without their first asking him what he believes.

I had some Jewish brethren come here one time to see me. They asked me what I believed about this and what I believed about that. And when I told them what I believed, then they cautiously invited me to their conference. They were going to have a world conference of religious or Christian Jews in the Calvary Baptist Church in New York. And there were to be, I think, twenty-three speakers at that. They were all to preach on prophecy.

And they had gone around and called them all out so every man would say the same thing. Well, you know what I did? I didn’t accept that invitation at all. They announced me that I, I said, no, I never told you that I would come, and so I didn’t show up. I didn’t go because I didn’t want to be told what I was to say. I wanted to have views of my own.

But it so happens that with all the study of the Bible that I can do, and all the praying, and looking at world events, and reading as widely as I can, I still believe that Jesus Christ is coming back to the world again, and that he’s going to catch away his church. The body has already been, the head has already been caught away to the right hand of the Father, and the body is going to be caught away.

You can’t separate the bride from the bridegroom. You can’t separate the body from the head. You can’t separate Christ from his church, and so there’s going to be a glorious rising to get out of it all, and to get away from it all.

And so I’m, I’m not going to go along with the brethren who argue with each other about details. There are enough details in the book of Revelation to keep man preaching from now until the next Democrat’s elected president.

But I am not going to go into details. I’m not going to do it. I’m only going to pass it over lightly here, and to say that there’s the great wonder, Israel, the nation of God, and the great dragon, that devil and Satan, who is determined to destroy not only her, but to destroy the man-child born of her, and destroy the church, which is His bride, and destroy every good thing. The devil hates every good thing that’s of God, everything that God blesses, Satan hates.

And now there was war in heaven. Have you noticed this, there was war in heaven? This is one of the astonishing sayings of the Bible. We could have understood it if it had said there was war in hell, because wherefore comes wars and fightings among you, if they come not even of your lusts, but war in your members.

And if the word had said there was war in hell, we could have understood it. And if it had said there’s war on earth, we could have understood it, because there’s hardly one of us alive that’s lived during some war or other. There’s scarcely been a period of one whole year and centuries that there hasn’t been war, big ones or little ones, somewhere among men. And yet they tell us that we’re righteous, basically, that we’re good, basically. And if we’ll only accept a few pointers from the psychologists and the sociologists, we’ll all brothers be for all that and all that.

But the simple fact is, we’ve never been able from the time Cain slew also his brother, we’ve never been able to get along together. Do you feel bad when somebody swears at you from the rear with a horn? You know, they manage to make these horns so they can swear with them.

I have ridden in many an automobile and heard some fellow swear behind you. He didn’t with his own voice, but they managed somehow to play a bunch of curse words on a horn. I’ve heard, just stand where there’s any red light changing to green and hear them. And so why should you worry? Why should you worry if you can’t get along with the neighbor next door, if he just won’t be decent? He’s human and that’s humanity.

So, if it had said there was war on earth, we’d have said, yes, how sadly true. Has there ever been a time when there wasn’t war on earth? And lately there’s been war in the sea and the sky because we’ve taken war down into the dips of the sea and up into the air. And we’re threatening to take it to the planets that revolve around and the satellites that girdle our earth.

But look at the words, there was war in heaven, the brazen effrontery of Satan. Whoever stopped to think what an insane genius this is, this Satan, what a rabid dog of the heavens, what a sin crazy outlaw we’re dealing with here, that he can take war to the very gates of heaven, that he can enter the very circle of Jesus’ disciples and enter a man. And Satan entered into him, it said of Judas, that he can follow Christ into the wilderness and up into the tower and tempt the very Holy Son of God.

There’s an old saying of which I do not believe one word, it is, tell the truth and shame the devil. To shame anybody, they have to have a sense of shame. The devil has no sense of shame. The devil can’t be shamed. The devil has nothing in him that can respond to shame.

He’s a shameless, morally insane, rabid, sin crazy being that hates God, and for God’s sake hates everything that God loves. And he’s against you, and he’s against this church, and he’s against every church in Chicago, and he’s against every praying man and woman, and he’s against the conversion of your family, and he’s against the solidity and cohesiveness of your family. He wants to scatter every good home and destroy every good church.

I remember when Dr. Philpott was pastor of Moody Church. He was preaching in one of our conferences, and he read that passage where Satan’s seat is. And he said, where is Satan’s seat? In the saloons? No, he dismissed that. Where is Satan’s seat? In the gambling dives? No, he said. Where is Satan’s seat in Chicago? And then he shouted in that great voice of his, “Moody Church,” he said. And that wasn’t because he thought Moody Church wasn’t a good church. That was because the better you are, the more you have to fight the devil.

The more you hold true to the faith, the more you have to fight the devil. And it so happens that Moody Church has stood true to the faith through these years. Wherever you go liberal, wherever you don’t care, wherever Shakespeare takes the place of and Browning crowds out Paul, Satan’s busy somewhere else.

But wherever the word of God stands as true and wherever Christ occupies the center of the hope of that church, that’s Satan’s seat, that shameless, conscienceless dragon. And so he carried war to the gates of God. Satan is there permitted to accuse the brethren, accuse the brethren.

You know, the devil can only blackmail you when he’s got something on you. The devil is a blackmailer, and he’ll blackmail you if he can get something on you. He went before God and tried to blackmail Job. But Job happened to be decent enough, though he needed a little bit of trimming up and God gave it to him. He happened to be good enough so that the devil couldn’t do anything with him.

We never have to be afraid of the devil telling on us if the blood has covered our hearts and God’s forgiven our sin. The devil can’t even utter a forgiven sin. Sin that’s been forgiven, God won’t even let him get his mouth open. He can only accuse us by lying and God knows better. I’m not worried much about the devil. I’ve never been particularly devil-conscious preacher, really.

I’ve had preachers in this pulpit that made your flesh creep. We’ve had a few of them here, good brethren. But they were so conscious of the presence of the devil that they preached and preached so much about the devil that I got hives listening to them, you know, almost. You know, actually your flesh creeps after they’ve talked about the devil crawling in and out of your body and all that kind of stuff. I get, I get jeebies.

Now, I don’t believe that we need, I don’t think we children of God need to worry about the devil like that. He hates us, he hates us, he’s after us, but they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. Just as the angel of death passed over Israel and passed over every house where there was blood, Satan stands back and growls, but he can’t come near the heart where the precious blood of Jesus. Let’s make an awful lot of the blood of the lamb.

We’re hearing a lot about Christ incarnate now in liberals. We’re hearing a lot about God being in Christ. We’re hearing a lot in learned religious circles about God coming into history. We’re hearing about God manifesting himself in time. All that sounds big and expansive and philosophical, but I still like to sing the dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day and there may I though vile as he wash all my sins away. I still believe in the fountain, still believe in the blood.

Somebody took that song and tore it apart and said it’s bad song, it’s not a good song, it’s not literary song. There is a fountain filled with blood, said that’s terrible. But oh, how many people are up there in heaven now that once sang there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel veins.

How many sang it under their voices when they long ago lost power to vocalize and couldn’t sing so they could be heard but sang it in their hearts as they went away to be with God. And how many will yet all around the world there’s a fountain filled with blood. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives under the death.

Those people that were left, who are these people that were left down here? Churches gone, who were these people? Well, I think either they’re people that are converted during that period or they’re people that didn’t go when the Lord came. Now that’ll shock some of you, but I don’t know. I don’t like this automatic idea that automatically everybody goes.

I wish that were so and I’d be happily glad if it was so. I’d be glad if it was true, as one celebrated evangelist said, that when the Lord comes there’ll be holes in the roofs of body houses and saloons where the children of God suddenly go zooming through. That isn’t the way I heard it, brother. Is it the way you heard it? I didn’t hear it like that. Ye have not so learned Christ is what I hear.

No, I don’t think God is going to go, I don’t think he’s going to send anybody combing through the honkytonks and bawdy houses looking for saints. I don’t believe the saints will be there, brethren. I don’t.

You say, what does that make you, an Armenian? No, it just shows I got some sense is all. It just shows I won’t allow a theory to lead me into gross nonsense. Children of God never did inhabit body houses and saloons and gambling dens and places of iniquity. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

But the evangelist, and it’s not Billy Graham, now don’t think I’m mocking good old Billy. He didn’t say that he’d know better. This man did. And he said that there’ll be holes in the roofs where the angels of God went looking for the saints.

Well, all I can say is if God sent me after the saints, I’d go elsewhere, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you? The Lord said, Knighton, go look for the saints. Where’d you go? Saloon? Gambling houses? Would you? Neither would I. Oh, you know, one might wander in there by mistake.

We had a fellow here one time, he wanted some food. And so, some of the brethren gave him two dollars. He started out. We had a man there, he’s not with us now, he lives in Grand Rapids. Brother Valentine, he was one of the practical, down-to-earth, James kind of Christians, you know.

And he suspected that the fellow didn’t want food, he wanted liquor, so he followed him down. Sure enough, he went into the saloon, and Brother Valentine went in after him. And when he slapped his dollar bill down on the moist bar and said, I’ll have a whiskey, he said, that’s what you think. And he took the money away from the fellow and left him there.

And if the Lord had come just at that time, there might have been a hole in that saloon, because Brother Valentine was in there, you know. And the Salvation Army girl selling the war cry in there, you’re giving them away, she might go out of there. But in other words, saloons aren’t the habitation of the just.

They’re bawdy houses and they’re gambling dens. All else being equal, the children of God are to be found where good people are. You don’t look for sheep down alleys and in dumps. You look for sheep where the shepherd is, and he never leads his sheep into the alleys. He always leads them into the green pastures.

Well, Satan accuses, but Michael the angel archangel stands to fight him. And there was such a battle as never had been before and there never will be again.

I had a book, have a book, that I read years ago called “Fifteen Decisive Battles of History.” Great battles, the Battle of Saratoga, the Battle of Waterloo, the Battle of Marathon, the Battle of Hastings, the great battles that have been fought.

But this battle, nothing like it has ever been before, nothing like it will ever be again. The gray dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil, and Satan, which deceived the whole world, he was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him.

And I heard a loud voice saying, in heaven now has come salvation and strength and kingdom, the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ. For the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accuses them before our God, day and night. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth. We imagine the things are just about as bad as they can get, don’t we? No.

Suppose electricity went off in your house and you have a deep freeze and a refrigerator. And suppose it went off in August with the temperatures in the nineties and stayed off for a week. Can you conceive of how your house would smell and what kind of house it would be in a matter of twenty-four to thirty-six hours? You couldn’t live in it. It takes refrigeration to keep corruption down.

And in this terrible world of ours, there are still restraining influences. There are still children of God. In every neighborhood there are children of God. Every church that stands like this on the corner tells the world as they pass by, there is another world than this. There is a God and a judgment day and a Savior.

Even though not all the Christians going to that church are good Christians, there is still enough salt left in the earth and still enough to change the figure, refrigeration left to keep the world from rotting.

But when Satan is cast down on the earth and the saints of God go away, what will be left but corruption? And there is no imagining how morally corrupt we can get when the restraining influences are taken away.

Jack Mabley writes for the Daily News, and I like to read what he has to say there on the third page of the Daily News. And he told the other day, I think it was he, it was in his column it appeared, of pornographic literature sold to eight-year-old boys. Pornographic literature. The vileness, the corruption, the putridity, the spongy, fetid mass of corruption that is the world.

When I listen to the McClellan committee and find out how many high authorities and how many big men in a community can go rotten, I suspect everybody. But I know not everybody is bad. I know that there are still some decent, good, honest people left in the world in spite of all the corruption. The church is still here. The body of Christ is still in the earth. There will be Antichrist when Satan is cast down.

Don’t ask me about Antichrist. I believe Antichrist will be a Jew. I don’t think he will be Mussolini, resurrected as some have said. I believe he will be born of a woman as Christ was born of a woman. I don’t believe it’s Khrushchev or any of the rest of these mafia gang. He knows better. Antichrist knows better than to come into the world like that. It’s God that sees him as a great red dragon. But he knows better than to come to the world, flaking his tail and snorting as a great red dragon. He knows better.

So, it comes a learned gentleman with religious words on his lips. He may become one of the most popular preachers of the day, but he’ll be Antichrist, nevertheless. And just as Mary bore the Christ, an incarnated God to be the Christ, so someone somewhere will bear an incarnate devil. And he will finally show himself to be what he is after he has brought all the world under his feet. Bloody persecution unto death begins, and the nation of Israel will have to take it.

Israel has always been the punching bag of the nation, always been the whipping boy that has caught the lash of the nation. She’s got to take it one time more, at least one time more. Well, this dire event can happen.

Now I’m going to read a passage of Scripture to you that I sometimes do like to read before a congregation. We’d like to get this all fixed out so we know we’re safe. But listen, I want to read this to you.

Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness in the cares of this life. And so that day come upon you unawares, for as a snare shall it come on all of them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore and pray always that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man.

What is the sensible position for the Christian? The sensible position is to say, O Lord, my brethren tell me that all born-again Christians will go when thou dost return. And I want to believe it, and I hope it’s true, Lord. But O Lord, I want to be morally worthy to join that band.

So please make me holy. Please help me to be separated and clean. Please help me, Lord, though by some act of the grace of God in redemption it could be that even if I were stained and even if I were not ready, I’d go. They tell me so. Still, Lord, I’m not trusting in that kind of interpretation. I want to be prepared. Make me worthy to go, Lord, and help me and make me count me worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man.

Let’s have an illustration. Two brethren, two men, two Christians, members of the First Baptist Church of Kickapoo, Wisconsin, or Chicago, Illinois. They’re Christians, both of them. They love God. One of them is so convinced that there wouldn’t be any possibility of any Christian missing the rapture that he gets careless. He’s so convinced that all has to be done has already been taken care of. His insurance is paid up, and he’s all ready to go.

The other one says, Brother, I hope that’s right. I kind of sneakily believe maybe it is, but you know something, I am going to live every minute as if Christ were coming an hour from now. I am not going to rest on theories. I’m going to trust the blood of the Lamb and keep the word of my testimony bright. I’m going to sacrifice myself so I love not my life unto the death.

Who’s the wise Christian there? If it’s true that all the ransom goes soaring away, certainly the man who tried to live so as he was ready, he’ll go all right. But about the other one, if there’s any doubt, he would be the one on whom the doubt would lie.

So, my urgent suggestion is tonight that you watch always. Be not like the man who said, My Lord, delayeth his coming, but be ready at all times, at all times, be ready. By the blood of the Lamb, by the word of your testimony, by a surrendered life, by the trust in the book, then no matter what comes on the earth or when it comes, it will be all right with you. And the Lord will take you to his Father’s house with rejoicing. And you need not be afraid that you will be ashamed at His coming. Let us pray.

O Dear Lord, when we stand outside of ourselves and think as the world thinks, how foolish is a talk like this tonight. How different from politics and philosophy and psychology and sports and entertainment, labor and capital and industry, and the rest. Thou hast called us, O Lord, and enlightened us, called us to thyself and given us information.

And our language sounds strange and remote and unlike the world. Nothing like this is found in newspapers or magazines, for the world doesn’t know a thing about it. The world is going on its way, doing the best it can.

O Thou hast called a people for thine own possession, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, peculiar people, a cross-carrying people who love thy holy Son, who call thee Father, who believe the prophets and the apostles, who believe the book of Revelation, believe what John saw in the Spirit.

Oh, that we might be among them. Oh, that we might be counted as that blessed group that would not only be ready in that day, but are ready now and will be ready and continue to be ready and will labor to get others ready and struggle and fight and pray and give and push and carry on the work until the story has been told around the world and the globe is girdled with the gospel, at least one time, so that red and yellow and black and white around this whole world can know that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he rose again according to the scriptures.

Help us now, Father, we pray. Now we’re going out into a week that promises to be hot and it’s going to be busy, noisy, there’ll be irritations, hostility and trouble, weakness, physical discomforts and pains. Oh, enable us to rejoice in it all, to be glad and to thank thee and to keep full of praise and to meet every trouble with praise.

Help us to keep praised up and prayed up. Help us to put behind us everything that would hinder us and lay aside every weight and the sin that does so easily beset us and run with patience, the race said before us. This we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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“Clouds of Concealment“

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Tozer Talks · Clouds of Concealment

Clouds of Concealment

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

March 3, 1957

Now you have been listening to me over these last weeks, and again we ask, what is the pastor advocating? What is this that he’s preaching? Well, I’m concerned that it be nothing else but Christ, because anything anybody offers you that is not just more of Christ is false. I am concerned that in doctrinal foundation it be the Scripture, and in its whole spiritual mood it be apostolic, and that it be in harmony with the best in the historic church, the best in devotional literature, the best in hymnody, and the best in biography. And yet, why does this preaching sound different? Why does it sound strange when compared with much so-called, and true, gospel preaching?

Well, I want to tell you this before I enter in really to the message for tonight, but I want to tell you that about a generation ago, textualism captured the gospel church. By the gospel church, I mean the fundamentalist church, the gospel church, those who believe in Christ as Savior and accept Him as such. And the scribes and the lawyers took over and set up a hierarchy in schools and Bible conferences and churches, and they all went over to it, and the rule became a rigid adherence to words.

Now, it so happens that I believe and have never believed anything else in my entire life, but in the plenary, that means full, verbal inspiration of the Scriptures as originally given. Now, you’ll be honest with me, and if you have reason to quote me, quote this, that I believe and have always believed as a responsible Christian teacher and believer in the plenary, verbal inspiration of the Scriptures as originally given.

But the problem was, and still is, that by school I don’t mean any particular school, I mean a school of thought. The verbal inspiration, the doctrine of verbal inspiration; rigor mortis set into it, and with the result that the religious imagination was stultified, the religious yearning was choked down, the religious aspirations slapped down, and the longing, aspiring wings of the children of God were clipped like a hen in a hen coop, and we were told to shut up and like what we had, that this was it.

Brethren, do you know what happened to this? The result of this thing, with the language of the New Testament persisting and the spirit of the New Testament grieved, do you know what happened? Well, I’ll tell you. There came about a revolt, a revolt against the scribes in two directions. The masses of evangelicals revolted without knowing they were revolting. They didn’t know it. It was the gasping of a fish in a bowl where there’s no oxygen.

The masses revolted into religious entertainment until the gospel churches are now camping on the doorstep of the theater, and then over against that and on the opposite side, some of the more intelligent fundamentalists and evangelicals revolted into evangelical rationalism, which is already busy making its peace with liberalism, and the result is that we just don’t hear what this that I’m speaking about.

It sounds strange to hear anyone preaching as I preach because on one side we have the masses saying, I’ve accepted Jesus, whoop-dee-doo, let’s go and have fun, and on the other side, serious reverent men thinking their way perilously near to the borders of liberalism. And the New Testament message, objectives, and methods have been allowed to lie dormant, and in the name of the lordship of Jesus, which is lordship in name only, we have introduced our own message, our own objectives, and then have thought out our own methods for achieving those objectives, which are in many cases not scriptural at all.

Now, my brethren, I want to ask you, is it heresy to yearn and pray and long after God? Is it heresy? Does it constitute a radical mind to yearn and pray and fight? Do you remember what I read the first night? The great prayer in the “Cloud of Unknowing,” God, I beseech thee so for to cleanse the intent of mine heart with the unspeakable gift of thy grace that I may perfectly love thee and worthily praise thee.

To long perfectly to love God and worthily to praise Him, and to mean more than words when you say it, mean if it costs you everything, is that heresy? Should they put a man in jail for it? Should he be ostracized for it? In the light of our hymnody, in the light of our devotional books back to Paul, in the light of the biography of the saints? No, I think not.

Now, I want to read to you just a brief little thing here from Nicephorus, from a book called the “Philokalia.” He starts out, he wants to help us Christians forward to know God, to do what “The Cloud” called being one with God, united with God. Now, I want you Bible Christians to ask yourself the question, could I go along with this?

Now, this Nicephorus Nicephorus was a Greek Christian. That is, he was over on the Greek side. He wasn’t a Protestant, and he wasn’t a Roman Catholic and he wasn’t a Martoma and he wasn’t a Coptic nor a Nestor. He belonged to over on the Greek side, but he was a saint. And he wrote a little book to help people to go on with God. And he said, you who desire to capture the wondrous divine illumination of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Do you believe in this, and who seek to feel the divine fire in your heart?

Now, here was a scholar and a saint and he wrote it into a book in the, I think, 16th century, which is a classic and is recognized as such. And he dared to use the word, who seek to feel the divine fire in your heart and strive to sense and experience the feeling of reconciliation with God. Who, in order to unearth the treasure buried in the field of your heart and to gain possession of it, have renounced everything worldly. Who desire the candles of your soul to burn brightly, even now, not in the future.

We have become so dispensationalistic-minded that we’ve pushed everything into the future, everything into the future. But this man says, you who desire the candles of your soul to burn brightly, even now. And Peter said, in this present world, and who for this purpose have renounced all this world, who wish by conscious experience, conscious experience, you’d think he was a modern psychologist, to know and to receive the kingdom of heaven existing within you. He said what I’m teaching all the time, that Christ dwells in the heart of every believer. Know ye not that Christ is in you except ye be reprobate. And if a man have not the Spirit of Christ, he’s none of his. And the riches of the minds lie potentially there.

But we have been forbidden to believe it or forbidden to say so. And we have been choked down and the oxygen cut off and our wings clipped and our longings chilled. And that’s why when I say sounds different and strange and people say what is this new doctrine, it’s no new doctrine at all.

Now my brother, I want to talk a little bit tonight about the cloud of concealment. Now Christ has made full atonement for us. Let’s start there. Christ has made full atonement. Christ has for sin atonement made, what a wonderful Savior.

Would you like to hear it said for you by somebody else that could say it better than the theologians? Little Lady Julian, here’s what she said. The precious amends or satisfaction our Lord hath made for man’s sin, turning all our blame into endless honor. Could it be said sweeter than that? The precious amends our Lord hath made for man’s sin, turning all our blame into endless honor. Paul said a little differently. He said where sin abounded, grace does much more abound, turning all our blame into endless honor.

Now God’s face is turned toward us. I want you to think like that tonight. Don’t let the devil cheat you. Don’t let doubt assail you. Don’t let anything I say or anybody has ever said cheat you from this glorious knowledge, that the face of God is turned toward you, and as a Christian the smiling face of God is turned toward you.

Why then do we not enjoy, now to use these words again, why then do we as Christians not capture the wondrous divine illumination of the Savior Jesus Christ? Why do we not feel the divine fire in our hearts? Why do we not strive to sense and experience, or why do we not sense and experience the feeling of reconciliation with God as well as the knowledge of it? And why do we not gain possession of it? Oh, I know they dismiss it by saying it, your position and your possession, but that can get so cold as dry ice.

Why is it that the candles of our soul do not burn more brightly even now? Why is it that we do not have the conscious experience and know and receive the Kingdom existing within us? Well, I’ll tell you why. Because there is between us and the smiling face of God a cloud of concealment.

Now my friends, there is never such a thing as a day when the sun doesn’t shine. In some of the cities, I think it’s Atlanta, Georgia, maybe I’m wrong, but one of the southern cities offers, a newspaper offers, that they will give all of that run, that day’s run to the newspaper free of charge if the sun doesn’t shine somewhere. Is it Atlanta? St. Petersburg? Well now let me tell you something, that the sun shines every day and there never has been a day from the hour God said, let the sun rule the day that the sun hasn’t shone. But there are dark days and misty days and cloudy days and days that get so dark you have to light the lights and days that get so dark that in the country the chickens go to roost. I’ve seen it.

Now there are dark days and yet the sun is shining just as brightly as on the brightest clearest day in June. Why then does it not shine on the earth? Because there is between the sun and the earth a cloud of concealment. The sun is all right, the sun is up there grinning broadly and just as bright and just as hot and just as radiant as ever. But he doesn’t get through to the earth because there is a cloud of concealment.

Now what is this cloud my brother? You know what it is from the standpoint of the weather but what is it as applied to Christians? Why? What’s the matter? Well it’s the cloud of concealment, a cloud that we allow to be over us as Christians.

And what is this cloud? Atonement has been made, there’s nothing to do for it’s all been done. Not a drop of blood needs to be shed, not a spear needs to enter a holy heart, not a tear nor a groan nor a drop of sweat, not a moment in agony. Death hath no more dominion over Him, it is done, it is finished, it is forever done.

And the face of God shines down upon us. And even upon Christians there’s that cloud, or above Christians there’s that cloud of concealment betwixt thee and thy God as the Brother says. Now what is that cloud? Well, it’s a cloud, it may be one thing, it may be many things.

There is the cloud of pride for instance. You are your father’s child and heaven is your home. And yet for a lifetime you may go without the wondrous divine illumination of the Savior Jesus Christ, without feeling the divine fire in your heart, or sensing or experience the feeling of reconciliation with God, and without the candles of your soul burning brightly, because you allow a cloud of pride to be over your head. And the devil says, well God hates you, God has turned His back; the devil lies. The back of God has never been turned to a child of God nor to a repentant sinner since the hour Jesus groaned and died and said, it is finished.

The face of God has turned our way. But we allow this cloud of pride and the cloud of stubbornness. There are some people that are just plain stubborn. They will not bend, they will not yield, neither to man or God or to anybody except the law and death, they will not. And so this cloud of stubbornness, God complained about Israel. He said your neck is brass and your forehead is hard, and He couldn’t get them to yield.

And then there is the cloud of self-will. Now self-will is a very religious thing, and it may become religious and get converted and enter right with you into the church when you join and with you with the chamber when you pray. Yet it’s self-will, and self-will, you’ll note, is good-natured only when it’s getting its own way. And it’s grouchy and ill-tempered when it is crossed. Now you think about that. Is your surrender to God sufficient so that you can be spiritual even when you’re cross?

And then there’s ambition. And you know there’s even religious ambitions. There are people that are religiously ambitious for something perhaps that isn’t in the will of God or that’s for self-aggrandizement. And the result is that it’s a cloud above them between them and their God.

Now there’s a little proverb, and in the Knox translation it reads like this. It rather amuses me because it’s so true and it is such a perfect picture of the human heart. He says, tripped by his own folly, a man eats his heart out, finding fault even with God. And you find Christians like that. Tripped by their own folly, they eat their heart out, finding fault even with God, having what God calls, a controversy with Me.

And then everything I claim for myself. Now this is the one thing I’ve been preaching I suppose that’s hard to grasp. That I’ve got to give up everything, that this pastorate that I have here, must go on the block, and I must be ready at any moment to give it up and let it ride away on any sermon I preach or any position I take. I dare not stick to it. My job as editor of the weekly, my position in the religious world, everything has to be on the block and ready to go.

If I own it, it is a cloud over my head and it becomes a cloud of obscurity that nothing will penetrate. And people try to pray through it, but you can’t pray through it, nothing can penetrate it. You try to fast through it. There are people that fast for days out of nothing but stubbornness. You know that. The history, I won’t go into politics, but over the world in the last 25 years, you remember that there were some who fasted and died for political reasons, just sheer downright stubbornness.

And there are those who try to fast their way through. You can’t do it, brother. The cloud of concealment, if it is something that you say is yours and you won’t give up, you think you do, but you don’t, it’ll put a veil over it. And if there’s any sun, it will not be very bright. It’ll be a cloud, and you can’t pray through it, this idea that if you pray long enough, everything will be all right.

Why, God got some people up off their knees and told them to quit. Two different instances, the Lord stopped prayer meetings. Did you know that? He said, it’s no use. There was the man Samuel, l and he was praying and praying. God came and put His hand over his mouth and said, Samuel, don’t pray anymore for Saul. He’s through. He said, don’t pray for him and shut him up.

And then there was another instance where Joshua was lying face down praying. We’d have written a tract about him. We’d have said, oh, what a saint. But God says, what’s the use of lying there on your stomach? I don’t honor a man for lying on his belly. Get up off your feet and deal with the situation in your crowd and then I’ll bless you and save all that lying around groaning.

So, remember, that this modern idea that if you pray long enough, everything will be okay. It’s not right, brother. The saint of God loves these long seasons of prayer and God gives an answer to prayer and prayer is the soul’s sincere desire and the breath of the saint and all that I believe, and I think practice in some measure. But the idea that I can hang on to things and then pray the cloud away while I’m hanging on to the cloud. No, no, you can’t do it. And that’s the trouble, so nothing will get through it.

And then there is fear. Fear is always a child of unbelief. No matter what you’re scared about, whether you’ve got cancer or whether your child’s likely to have polio or whether you’re likely to lose your job or whether Russia will send a guided missile and destroy Chicago, remember always that fear is a child of unbelief. And fear over your head is a cloud of obscurity and hides that smiling face from you. It doesn’t turn the face away for the blood of atonement keeps His face forever turned toward his people and toward repentant sinners.

And then there is self-love, self-love. We make a joke out of this, but we never should make a joke out of it, because self-love is a cloud of concealment, a cloud of obscurity. And even the Christian who has offered himself to Christ and has believed and is converted, that Christian can keep a cloud of concealment over him simply by loving himself. And to fall out of love with yourself is an accident. That is, I mean a hurt. It hurts you like falling off of something.

And then self-gratulation and self-admiration. These self-sins, they’re there and as long as they remain there, and then, the odd thing about it is that the scribes have excused these and proved that they should be there, and you can’t do anything about it. And yet we cry within us, oh, that the candles of my soul might burn brightly even now.

Oh, that I might know the divine illumination of my Savior Jesus Christ. And we groan with the groan that goes back to Paul in Philippians, it goes back to David in the Psalms, that we might come into a warm, personal, present, lasting fellowship with Jesus Christ that lifts us and irradiates our hearts. And yet we can’t because we admire ourselves and we’re not going to have anybody disturb us. And we congratulate ourselves or we love ourselves.

And then there’s money. Money these days gets between, betwixt thee and thy God, as the Brother [in Cloud of Unknowing] calls it, gets betwixt thee and thy God.

Some evangelist years ago in my hearing pointed out that you can take two dimes and shut out a landscape. You can take two dimes with you to the Great Smoky Mountains and go clear to the top knob of the Great Smokies and with two dimes shut out all the glorious, green, rolling, blue-capped vista of the Great Smokies. Just put them in front of your eyes and put them close enough. That’s all it takes. The mountains are still there smiling in the sun, but you don’t see them because there’s a dime in front of each eye. It doesn’t take much money.

We who don’t have much money are always taking snide remarks at the rich man. But brother, you can be rich and only have ten dollars, because if it is between you and your God, then that cloud is concealing God from you.

And then there’s people, just plain people. The Lord tells us that we shouldn’t be afraid of man with his breath in his nostrils. And yet there are people who are Christians, who have a cloud of fear above them, constantly a cloud of fear. They want to fit in, gear into society. And the sociologists tell us we must do this, that we must adjust to society. And the schools are busy instead of teaching the history and writing and reading and arithmetic and all the rest, they’re teaching the children to adjust so as not to be queer and to get along well. Well, if you’ve got that as your goal, you have a cloud over your heart, my Christian friend.

And then there are our friends. And then there’s the position we hold, whatever it may be. And then there’s loved ones. And this is the tenderest and perhaps the hardest. But that’s all got to go. You say, then what do I do with this? If this cloud is over my head as a cloud of concealment and my Father is smiling at me and I can’t see His face, what shall I do? Well, the old Brother suggests, and I borrow it and suggest to you as a beautiful illustration, he calls it, a cloud of forgetting. He said, put this cloud that’s above you under your feet as a cloud of forgetting.

And Paul said exactly the same thing, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth under those things which are before. You see, the things which were behind Paul were a cloud. And if they’d been in front of him, they’d have shut out God, but he put them behind him. His defeats, his mistakes, his blunders, his errors, his wrongs, the times he’d fallen on his face and the time the Lord had to rebuke him for his pride and all this, he put them behind him and under his feet as a cloud of forgetting.

And the old man of God says, put them under you and have them not betwixt thee and thy God. Right so put a cloud of forgetting beneath thee, betwixt thee and all the creatures that ever God made. We’ve got to get that cloud of forgetting under our feet. And of course, that’s the job of the Christian.

And that’s why I’m preaching like this. And some are understanding and are going to do something about it. Others are not. Others have come up to Kadesh Barnea once a week for years and have turned back into the wilderness and wonder why there’s sand in their shoes. It’s because you would not go on at Kadesh Barnea. Right so put a cloud of forgetting beneath thee. And all this that had been a cloud of concealment now becomes a cloud of forgetting.

Now the face of God I repeat is smiling still and not all the clouds I’ve mentioned and not all the clouds the devil can blow up there, and the devil can blow up a storm and put it between you or betwixt you and the face of your God experientially. But remember that God is waiting within the veil or to change the figure he’s waiting for you to move up, to move up.

I remember getting on a plane at LaGuardia Field in New York some years ago. It was about I would say three o’clock in the afternoon. And the smiling, relaxed, friendly pilot came out and made a little speech. He knew that old duffers like me would worry about because it was a raining miserable day like as we get here sometime, just plain miserable. And he said, now we are leaving in a moment. And he said the situation is this, friends, in 15 minutes we’ll be in the sunlight. In 15 minutes, we’ll be in the sunlight. And he says the weather reports show that it will be clear from here to Chicago, and sure enough it was.

You had experiences like that. And so we got into that plane almost feeling our way there through the smog and the mist. And in 15 minutes we’d put the cloud under our feet and the bright shining sun above. And as we rose even the cloud became white beneath us.

You who’ve flown a lot have had the experience of seeing that gray, great billows of whipped cream that are underneath you, white as whipped egg. And when you were underneath them and looked up they were a misty, miserable, smoggy thing that shut out the sun. But in 15 minutes you put them under your feet. And oh, brother, isn’t it nice to take off in the smoke and rain and fly all the way 900 miles in the sunshine.

Now that’s what I mean. You’re going to have to put this under your feet. You’re going to have to get busy about it and do something about this. And more than sit and take in some more, you’re going to have to work on yourself. And yet I wonder if you are? I wonder if I’m not contradicting myself.

For he says, he wills thou do but look on him and let him work. I wonder if it isn’t better more accurate to say that if you’ll consent to put the clouds under you, he’ll put the clouds under you.

What does a man do in an airplane? Now I, being of the nervous type, I help the pilot. I keep balancing the thing as we turn. Now really, I do. But what help am I giving to the pilot that great big, good-natured fellow sitting up there grinning. What does he care about a little fellow weighing 159 in the summer and a little less in the winter. What can I do to that great big four-engine monster. Not at all, but I help him the best I can.

But he gets you up there into the sunshine. Look on him and let him alone. That’s all.

But you’ve got to be willing that cloud get under your feet. I know a lot of people that’ll never go up. A lot of them. Oh, they have every excuse in the wide world but they’re just not going up. They’d rather stay right down here in the smog. And they do. The sun shines brightly and they think the sun isn’t shining when it is.

Now put it under you, my friend. Put it under you. What is it? Well, I’ve said money, people, friends, position, loved ones, fear, all that I claim and call my own, ambitions, pride, stubbornness, self-will, and anything else the Holy Ghost may point to in your life, only you know what it is. He is a jealous lover and he suffereth no rival. And whatever rival there is, is a cloud between thee and thy God.

Now, I don’t say that that you’re not joined to Him. I do not say that you are not read justified. I say that this we’ve talked about, this wondrous divine illumination, this ability perfectly to love Him and worthily to praise Him, that has been choked out and smitten down and taught out of us for a generation.

This, this we lack, and we lack it because we will not put under our feet the cloud of obscurity. We let it rise between us and our God. My brethren, if you will put it underneath you, why you will find that it hides all the past and all that has bothered you and that that shames you and worries you and grieves you. It’s down there and it’s out and it’s gone and there’s nothing but the clear sky above. But if you have put the cloud under you, then he wills thou do but look on him and let him alone.

Simpson wrote a song that nobody ever sings anymore for two or three reasons. One is the tune’s bad, the second is nobody experiences it much. It is, I take the hand of love divine, I count each precious promise mine, with this eternal counter sign, I take, he undertakes. I take thee, blessed God, I give myself to thee, and thou according to thy word dost undertake for me.

Christ doesn’t have to die again. No cross needs ever to be erected again. No value needs to be added to the atonement. The face of God smiles on His people, but the cloud’s hiding Him. Your cloud, my cloud. But you say that’s true of sinners, that’s true of backsliders, but that couldn’t be true of good gospel people. It is true of the masses of the people.

And because that cloud has been above them, and because they’ve been taught they can’t rise, they’ve rushed to get a little heartbeat from the theater, rushed to get a little bit of warmth, the feeling from hillbilly ballad singing, religious songs, and theatrics, and all the rest. I don’t blame them. They’ve been cheated, and the lawyers [textualists] have wronged them, as in the days of Jesus. Jesus walked among men in that day with His eyes bright and His vision keen, and He said to them, whatever they tell you, do because they’re theologically right, but don’t be like them. And they said, we’ll kill that man, and they did kill that Man. But He rose the third day and sent down the Holy Ghost into the world, and He’s mine and yours, our sweet possession. And don’t you let anybody tell you how much you can have of Him. Only God can tell you how much you can have of Him.

Don’t you let anybody take you aside and tell you now not to get excited, and not to get fanatical, that you’ve got all that there is. And brethren, don’t you let any of that happen to you. Just as sure as God lives, now hear me, just as sure as God lives, if we continue in the direction we’ve been moving in evangelical circles, gospel circles, that which is now fundamentalism will be liberalism in a short time.

We’ve got to have the Holy Ghost back, and we’ve got to have the face of God shining down, and the candles of our souls burning bright, and to sense and feel and know the wondrous divine illumination of Him who said, I’m the Light of the World.

Now does that make a fanatic out of you. Come on, let’s us little fanatics just go and be joyful in the Lord. If that’s fanaticism, what a sweet fanatic it makes out of a man. What a happy wonder it is to be a fanatic.

No, no, that’s not fanaticism. It’s fanaticism when you revolt against the Scriptures, imagine things, go do weird things, and misinterpret the Word of God, but you can’t show where one line of the Word of God has been misinterpreted by what I say. Not one line. It’s all here. The doctrines of the faith, the faith of our Father’s living still.

Well, what about it? I take, He undertakes. Now, if you put in, if you’re willing tonight to put that cloud of self and cloud of self-love and cloud of fear and cloud of stubbornness and cloud of pride and cloud of greed and cloud of ambition under your feet, then there’s nothing for you to do. Nothing.

For all has been done, nothing for you to do. You can’t climb to heaven on a rope ladder. There’s nothing for you to do. I take the hand of love divine. I claim each precious promise mine with this eternal countersign. I take, He undertakes. I take thee, blessed Lord, I give myself to thee, and thou according to thy word does undertake for me.

Ah, do you want Him to undertake for you? Some of you dear Christians have been walking around under a cloud for a long time. You can’t get above, you just can’t. Because you’ve tried to pray your way above it, you’ve tried to believe your way above it, but it doesn’t work that way. You can’t. You’ve got to put it under your feet and rise above it and put all these things betwixt thee and all the creatures God ever made. And look away to the sunlight. And then you relax for there’s nothing you can do.

What can a man do? He can’t fill himself with the Holy Ghost. He can’t cleanse his own heart. You can’t crucify yourself. You can’t. God has to do it. And He’ll do it. And He waits to do it. And He waits optimistic and friendly and, on your side, wanting to help you, willing to do it, anxious to do it, if we could use the word anxious as touching God.

But we sit back, and we’re discouraged and we’re blue. And we’ve been to so many altars and we’ve read so many books and we’re all confused. And still the sun shines and still the cloud hovers. And still, God’s poor people won’t crowd it under their feet. Into the sunshine in 15 minutes, said the boy. Into the sunshine in 15 minutes, says the man of God to you tonight, if you’ll put it all under your feet, dare to put it under your feet and look away to the Lord Jesus. Not trying to tell Him what to do nor how to do it, but look on Him and let Him work.

And over the next hours and days and weeks, you will move upward into a place of spiritual restfulness and power, such as you never knew before. And you’ll have a marvelous deliverance from bondage, a marvelous freedom. You’ll believe in the Scriptures. You’ll believe in the Word of God and its verbal inspiration, its full, plenary authority. You believe in it and yet out of it, there will come a fragrance and a radiance and illumination that you never dreamed of before.

Are there those here that can say, amen, that know what I’m talking about? Amen? You know it’s so. But it isn’t talked about very much. And so that’s why we’re where we are.

Now, what about you this evening, dear friend? What about you this evening? Now, I’m not and cannot do the work of the Spirit. And I do not want to intrude any human effort, however reverent, into the work of the Spirit. For it must be the Spirit’s work. But what could be better and nicer and more scriptural and more restful and logical than that a company of believers should pray together about things?

Well, don’t you think that’s all right? You think that, could there be any objection to that raised by anybody? If I thought anybody could raise a valid objection, I wouldn’t ask. But it seems to me the New Testament teaches the Lord’s people met and prayed together, doesn’t it? And they prayed for each other. And the strong ones prayed for the weak ones. And the ones that had fallen, the others prayed for them and helped them. And in one instance they met and prayed together and the place was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.

That was in the Book, too. That’s in the Bible. It was until they ruled it away and said it couldn’t be for us. And the blessed Holy Dove was forced to fold his wings and be quiet while the saints that believed it in years gone by, they radiated in the joy of it. But we’ve been slapped down and said, now you shut up. We scribes will tell you what to believe about this. But our hearts tell us the scribes are wrong. And our longing souls tell us that the hymn writers and the devotional writers and the persons whose biographies we read, they were right.

Paul Rader, years ago, preached a sermon on,” Out of His Belly Shall Flow Rivers of Living Water.“ Two men took him aside afterwards and said, Mr. Rader, you’re all wrong. It was a good sermon, but you’re dispensationally incorrect. He sat and listened. And they said, we, we thought you’re, we know you’re a good preacher and you’re a good brother, but you’re wrong in your interpretation.

And they were eating. He said, he noticed one of them bow his head over his meal. Pretty soon he saw the tears come off the end of his nose. His shoulders, big shoulders, shook. He said, Brother Rader, we have the interpretation, but you have the rivers.

You see, stick to your interpretation, brother. But at any cost, some people want God and they want all God wants them to have in this generation, now, right here on this earth. What about it, friends?

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“Looking Forward in Christ“

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Tozer Talks · Looking Forward in Christ

Looking Forward in Christ

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

December 28, 1958

For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring. And they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the watercourses. One shall say, I am the Lord’s, and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob, and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord and surname himself by the name of Israel. Thus saith the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts. I am the first, I am the last, and beside me there is no God.

Thus saith the Lord to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him. And I will loose the loins of kings to open before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates shall not be shut. And I will go before thee and make the crooked places straight, and I will break in pieces the gates of brass and cut and sunder the bars of iron. And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places. Thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name.

I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. I am the Lord, and there is none else. There is no God beside Me. I girded thee, though thou hast not known me, that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things. Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness. Let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together. I, the Lord, have created it. Part of Isaiah 44 and 45. Let us pray.

Our Father, we thank Thee by the wonder of the Spirit in working. Thou dost take these words drawn from an old, old book, written to a people that we are separated from by origin and by every human thing. And yet by Thy Spirit they are applied to us as though they were written for us and sent down just this morning.

We bless thee for these encouraging, hope-filled words. We thank Thee not only that Thou hast made them applicable to Israel and fulfilled them in Israel and will yet fulfill them, but we thank Thee for the thousands and multiplied thousands who have slept off, resting their heads upon such comforting words, who have gone into battle, who have gone to far parts of the earth, who have faced impossible situations trusting in these words. And Thou dost never, never let them down, but Thou dost bless them and keep them.

O Father, we pray Thee, Jesus Christ our Lord, that Thou wilt help us now, since our fathers trusted Thee and were not forsaken. Grant that we may trust Thee, and we know we shall not be forsaken either.

And we pray Thee, O God, Thou wilt be with our people scattered round over the earth, be with the nations which we are apart, down on our human side as our President, and we pray Thee for the Congress soon to convene again.

We pray thee, O Lord God, for those who labor in these high places, simply men, poor men, men with breath in their nostrils, and, O we ask Thee, Father, thou wilt make them able for their jobs. And we pray Thee for Thy work round the world in the cause of missions, wherever there are men and women preaching the gospel.

We pray Thou wilt bless every radio program, Thou wilt bless every effort of men and women to get a language, to learn it, to preach in it, and to win people and teach them and instruct them in the way they should go and baptize them and make them into little groups that form churches.

Help Thou, we pray Thee, our God, this day. Give us a cheerful outlook on life, and let us expect that we shall see a performance of all things promised us. Bless the sick and the bereaved and the troubled and the distressed. We ask it in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.

In the book of Hebrews, the twelfth chapter, beginning with verse 22, But ye are come unto Mount Zion, unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.

And then a passage in Acts 14, verses 21 and 22. And when they had preached the gospel to that city, that is, Derbe, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch, confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must, through much tribulation, enter into the kingdom of God.

Now, this being the last Sunday of a very eventful year, and being a kind of springboard over into a new year that will, for our church, be a momentous year, and for the whole world, I want to summarize, and sort of add up, some of the things that I find in the Book, and tell you what it’s all about, and why we’ve got to go on.

In the book of Hebrews, I read to you that we are come unto. And the real work of any minister of the gospel is to present Christ in such a way that people gather unto Him. He says that wherever there are those gathered unto Him, in His name there am I in the midst of them.

Now, when we meet His conditions, and they’re not hard, really, they’re not hard. When we meet His conditions, we are a church. I wish that I had, in the very earliest time of my Christian life, been taught of the wonder of the Church. I had to learn it by myself. Not even in the Christian and Missionary Alliance is the emphasis placed, where it belongs, on the assembly of the saints, the gathering of the people unto Christ. We believe it, of course, everywhere, but the emphasis doesn’t fall there as much as I feel that it should. But when we meet His conditions, we have His unseen presence.

Now, this I want to say again, this is a summary, and I’ll probably say many things I’ve said before, but I want to repeat that we gather unto Him, and when we gather unto Him, we have that unseen Presence. Now, this to me is more important than anything that possibly could be offered to me, that we are met where Jesus sheds the oil of gladness on our heads.

And the conditions are unto me, not unto a favorite preacher. It is too bad that churches follow preachers. This I say is too bad, but it’s true in a measure, I suppose everywhere. But we do not please our Lord when we gather to a man, no matter how good a man he may be. We do not please our Lord when we gather unto a name, no matter how great the name may be, except it be that Name which is above every name. And He says that we are to gather in My name, and that means not in the name of any denomination.

We are met here this morning not in the name of a denomination. Or if any have come in the name of a denomination, then I would kindly ask you to rethink this and see whether you are serving God rightly. For we are not met in the name of a denomination, neither are we met in the name of a cause.

That is why I sometimes look rather with a dull interest upon those gatherings, those bristling, scintillating gatherings that are met unto a cause, met to promote a cause. No, an assembly of Christians never meets to a cause. They meet in the name of a Person, and they gather in Christ’s name, not in the name of a cause.

Now, there are many causes, many excellent causes, the cause of foreign missions, the cause of world evangelism, the cause of jail work, or many, many, many causes that are being promoted by the people of God, and properly so. But if we meet in the name of our cause, it won’t be very long until the cause becomes the center of attraction and Christ fades into the background. And that is always bad. Christ must be first and let him tell us about the cause.

We are met to worship. We are met to worship, to worship the Triune God. And then as we worship the Triune God, He’ll whisper the cause to us. He’ll whisper to us what He wants us to do.

And then we’re not met in the name of any peculiar doctrine. We are Protestants, of course, and we stand for all the truth, the doctrines of the truth, but we’re not met in the name of a doctrine. We are gathered unto Him today. And we are gathered sort of as the lame were gathered there at the troubled pool in the fifth chapter of John. You remember why they came there to that pool? Because an angel went down once a year and troubled the waters, and whoever was in first, he got healed, according to the story we have here.

And, oh, I suppose that maybe there were times during the year when there weren’t so many there. But when it came around about the time of the troubling of the waters, or when they hoped the waters would be troubled, then they gathered and lined up as they do in front of a ballpark or somewhere else, and waited long in turn. And Jesus Christ, our Lord, came, and he became to them the Healing Pool. He has been to many thousands the Healing Pool. Do you know, my friends, that if your heart is all right, you can stand almost anything else.

If your heart is all right and you’re restful inside and you’re relaxed inside your spirit, in your heart, and everything is all right between you and God, you can stand just about anything. There’s almost nothing that will get you down if you’re restful inside your spirit, if your heart is warm.

Any of you who may be having troubles of any sort, financial troubles or home troubles or any kind of troubles, I recommend that you take a few hours off. You can do it. You say, but I haven’t the time. Certainly, you have the time. You could fall down and break a hip, and then you’d have time. Take days, weeks off. You could get hit with a car and you’d have time. You could have a heart attack, and you’d take time. You can have time, all right. Take some time off and go before God and do this.

I recommend you do this. Do it before the new year comes in. I recommend that you go and write down your faults and flaws and sins on a piece of paper and lay them before the Lord. And then turn to the Scriptures that tell you that if you confess your sin, you’ll be forgiven, and God will cleanse from all unrighteousness. And get your soul shriven. Get it bathed completely. Get it washed. Get it forgiven. Get it so that you’re not troubled.

If your conscience isn’t bothering you, but God seems close and everything’s all right, it’ll be a healing pool to you, my friend. And even if you are troubled about the matter of physical healing and you do have difficulties, physical difficulties, you’ll find you can bear up under a physical difficulty with great equanimity if you have a restful heart. But the troubled heart, who can bear?

And then we’re gathered today unto Jesus Christ as the Jews gathered to Joseph. You’ll remember when Joseph went down into Egypt that he was the sort of the key to the whole thing. And when he went down there, things started going bad for the folks back home. Then came troubles and then the hour when there was a famine in the land and they went down to Egypt and there they found Joseph and they had to keep going back to Joseph. And finally, they went back and gathered around him and he stood for them before the great land of Egypt and before Pharaoh and he got them a place and got them established and got public favor on them. It was either Joseph or starvation.

So, we gather to Jesus Christ. Not one of two possibilities, nor one of three possibilities, or one of ten, but one of one. It is either Jesus Christ or starvation. And so we gather today to Jesus. And I wish we could keep that in mind. And I wish that sense would suddenly come over us that we are gathered unto him, unto Mount Zion, unto the city of the living God, unto the innumerable company. Not we are going to be gathered, but we are gathered unto, it says. In the present tense, we are now gathered unto. We’re gathered unto that which, though invisible, is completely real and trustworthy.

And then we’re gathered unto Jesus as disciples gathered to a school, as students to a college. We’re learners from Jesus. I often think of that famous saying of the great educator Mark Hopkins. They said, if you put a boy on one end of a log and Mark Hopkins on another, you had a college. Just let Mark Hopkins sit there and talk to a boy on a log and you had a college. And so we learn about the things we are to be taught by our Lord.

Well, Jesus Christ, of course, is the whole faculty. He’s the whole teaching staff. By the Holy Ghost he reveals truth to us. And we’re thus disciples gathered unto Jesus, nobody knowing it all and nobody being the final word.

Occasionally somebody will write me. I have a letter now that I have to answer, saying, I’d like to know about thus and thus.  Whatever you say, we’ll accept. Whatever you say, we’ll believe. Now I don’t want any reputation like that. I don’t think it’s very widespread, but a few people foolishly believe that if I say it, that’s it. I don’t like that at all, because I could be wrong.

I remember once hearing Dr. L. H. Zimmer, that great German preacher who established that great church that’s still going on, the largest church in the Alliance with a missionary offering of nearly $100,000 a year. Why, I heard him stand up in the New York board meeting with President Schuman there and the vice president, I think I was vice president at the time, and the others gathered around there, the leaders in the Alliance, and some question came up, and they said, well, Dr. Simpson believed this way, and somebody read a passage from Dr. Simpson, and that great preacher got up, put his hands on the table in front of him and said, brethren, Dr. Simpson could be wrong.

And I’ve enjoyed that. I’ve enjoyed remembering it, that here was a man, though a loyal to his society and a loyal to his fellowship, yet he was not going to take the word of a man. Any word I give you might easily be temperament.

My opinions could rise out of temperament, out of a background you know nothing about, out of just sheer ignorance.

I remember when Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great lexicographer, made the first English dictionary. He defined the word hock, and he said the horse’s elbow. And gathering afterward, a literary gathering, some woman who wasn’t too delicate said to him, Dr. Johnson, why did you define hock as a horse’s elbow? And she expected, of course, a very learned defense of his position. He stopped eating long enough to look her full in the face and said, ignorance, madam, sheer ignorance, and went on eating. Even though he was perhaps the most learned man in England, or one of the most learned men that England ever knew, he still was willing to admit, I did that because I was just plain ignorant. And it’s entirely possible for a man with all the best intentions in the world to say things that are not so.

But Jesus Christ is the teacher, and we come unto Him and the anointing which you receive of Him abided in you, and you need not depend upon your teacher altogether. You can use him, and he’ll help you, but don’t lean on him. For that same Anointing teaches you all things, says John.

So, we gather unto Jesus because we’re so tragically ignorant and so filled with truth that isn’t the truth at all, but something else that we need to get rid of.

And then we’re a spirit-drawn company also. You know, I was meditating over this and thinking of what draws people.

I have a friend, I don’t know why I could call him a friend, he’s a very jolly fellow and very friendly to me and to Mr. McAfee when we go down for tickets. He is always friendly, and he’s a barn dance fan. And he’s a nice, kind, middle-aged man, but he just loves barn dances, square dances, and that’s all he wants to talk about. And sometimes I tease him a little and say, how are you coming? Oh, wonderful, wonderful. He even invited me to join, but I don’t think I want to at my age. But when they gather together, they gather unto barn dancing.

I suppose it’s harmless enough, I don’t know. I never did and don’t intend to start it. I don’t recommend it. But they gather for that. Others gather for literary reasons. Some gather to hear concerts, and that’s a legitimate thing. Some gather to hear political speeches, that’s a legitimate thing. Some gather to hear scientific papers read, and that’s a legitimate thing.

Well, there are many reasons why people gather together, but a church gathers for only one reason. They are a Spirit-drawn company gathered unto Jesus Christ the Lord. They’re gathered to Him, and that’s their reason for gathering. And there isn’t any other reason, or if there are other reasons, there are secondary and tertiary and on down the line. They are not primary. Spirit draws us together, and we are gathered as a delegation. We are gathered as a delegation unto that, making up that company.

I don’t know whether I overdo this or not, but I think that this is one of the most delightful passages in the entire Scripture. We are come, we are come unto Mount Zion, of course that’s a spiritual Mount Zion, unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels.

God, why can’t I see the angels? Why are we so blind? Why are we so given up to mechanical things and material things? Why do we see walls and chairs and seats and pulpits and pianos? Why don’t we know that we are gathered unto an innumerable company of angels and to the General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel. And there we are gathered unto all these, these are thy riches, O Israel, and these make you rich, and you need very little else.

Well, you know when Moses blew the trumpet, all Israel gathered together, whatever they were doing, women busy in their tents with their housework, taking care of the baby, and men busy doing whatever the men were doing, and the children busy playing.

But when the high note of the silver trumpet sounded, all Israel gathered unto Moses. And then the trumpet sounded again, and the clouds started, and away they went through the wilderness on their way to the promised land. Then they were on the way, and that comes to my second text, where they met these men of God, and they exhorted and confirmed the souls of the disciples, and exhorted them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation come into the kingdom of God.

Now we are coming up to the end of the year, and some of us have lost loved ones from our home this year. Some of us have had loved ones leave and go to far parts of the world, and we have all lost good Christian friends who have moved away to many parts of this country and have gone from us. There have been distress and trouble, and many of us have suffered physically this year.

There have been a lot of troubles, but I want to exhort you to go on this morning. I want to exhort you. I don’t want to teach the Bible to you because you know your Bible, but I want to base my exhortation upon what you already know about the Bible and teach you that you ought to go on.

Why? Why? If I had to answer the devil, I wouldn’t honor him by talking to him. I wouldn’t. If he were to come, I wouldn’t answer him. I would not reply. But if I had to answer him or had to answer anybody, let’s settle for communists. Let’s say that some communist would come to me and say, now you are entering into a new year. You’ve been a Christian during 1958, and you’ve had a lot of troubles and all the rest. What’s the idea of your going on?

You know what I could say to that man? I could say to him, oh, my brother, I’m a weak man and I may backslide before Groundhog’s Day and have to be prayed back again, I don’t know, because let him that standeth take heed lest he fall, and I don’t know, I’m not boasting. Peter boasted and then he denied his Lord before nine o’clock the next morning. So, I’m not boasting and saying what I’m going to do, but I’m going to give him reasons for hoping that I’ll be doing, what I think I’ll be doing, and that is following on in the way.

Well, Earth’s greatest figure leads on out of there. Never forget that my friend. We have great figures, great men, you know, and they come up and go down and come up and go down, but He came up and never went down and never went into eclipse. He’s the star that never sets and never has and never will, and He’s the bright morning star and He shines out there and He leads on.

Some will be following Bob Kennedy this year or next and some will be following Paul Douglas and some will be following somebody else. And those men, I suppose, mean well and are as good as the average rank and file of men. I’m not speaking against them at all. I only say that I’m not following any man. I’ve not picked any man I want to follow.

I thank God for Wesley, I thank God for Henry Suso and John Tauler and Augustine, and I thank God for the great hymn writers and the good men who have written good helpful books. Of course, I’m grateful for all of them, but I’m not following any of them, because the world’s greatest Figure stands there supreme above them all, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

They’ve had Him in a manger over the last few days, the last ten days. He’s been shrunk back to a babe again and they’ve been carrying Him around in plastic, and He’s been a babe in the manger. No, no, that babe hasn’t been in that manger for nearly two thousand years, my friends. And though we celebrate the birthday, what we think is the birthday, though nobody knows, remember that that Babe hasn’t been in that manger for two thousand years.

Jesus Christ, our Lord, is not a babe anymore. He is the man Christ Jesus, having gone through death and risen and now living at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens. He certainly is the Shining Star. He’s the greatest of all Adam’s sons, because He’s also the Son of God.

So, I couldn’t follow anybody else. I don’t know anybody else who could I follow. Could I follow Socrates. Socrates is dead and he never rose from the dead. Should I follow Joseph Smith? Joseph Smith is dead too. Could I follow Mary Baker Eddy? She died. They expected her to rise, but she disappointed them. She’s still dead, and the way things are, I don’t ever want to see her or have her get up.

But Jesus Christ rose and lives, and He has the appeal and the magnetic attraction that no other one does in all the wide world. So, I could reply, well, I’m going to follow anybody, right or wrong, I’m going to pick the greatest of them all, whose name is Jesus. So, the best I know, I’m going to be a follower of Jesus Christ the Lord.

Now, I’ll tell you another thing. Have you ever stopped to think about it? You Christians have invested an awful lot now. You’ve invested so much now. Think of you older Christians, what you’ve invested. Think of what some of you could have had if you hadn’t invested so much in the kingdom of God. Think about it now, some of you.

Look back over your lives and think how much you’ve given to the Lord’s work. Think of the tens of thousands of dollars and running into the perhaps hundreds that some of you have given to the work of the Lord. Think if you had that now, what a split-level home you could have with a picture window, and what all you could have, and how you could go to Bermuda. And up into Canada when it gets hot.

But you invested, you invested in this Kingdom. You know, there’s such a thing as putting so much in that you’d be a double-barreled fool if you gave the whole thing up. You’ve just invested so much you can’t afford to go back. You can’t afford to say, well, I’m not going to work so hard at the things of God this year because I just feel that I deserve a little vacation from it all. No, no, no.

You don’t deserve any vacation because you’ve laid up your riches in heaven, and there they lie, and there they are, and they’re there for you. And so therefore let no man take thy crown, and let no man take away thy riches. I’ve put so much in and have so much there that there’s no place else to go.

Peter said, Lord, to whom shall we go? Can you think of anybody? Can you think of anybody? I can’t think of anybody that I’d want to follow because I’ve put so much in the following of Christ that my riches all lie there anyway. Would you want to follow the latest scientific venture? I just learned a horrible thing this week, this last week, a horrible thing. I think it’s one of the most awful things.

I said last week that if anybody went to the moon that I didn’t want to go. But I don’t know, but I may change my mind about that now. Because you know what I have learned this last week? I have learned that the Ford Motor Company and the Coca-Cola Company have for the last couple of years foreseen the talking satellite, foreseen it.

Only a few days ago President Eisenhower was saying peace on earth, goodwill to men from a hunk of metal flying around up in the air, that satellite. But you know that those two companies, the advertising departments of those companies had foreseen this two years ago and have been quietly working to put their advertising in a satellite and send it around the world, changing the language with the longitude or wherever it is. If it’s going over Holland it’ll be saying drink Coca-Cola in Dutch and when it gets down to France it’ll be saying drink Coca-Cola in French and when it gets into Africa it’ll be saying drink Coca, I don’t know, I think the moon might be a place of refuge, a place to hide in an hour like this.

How much longer is God Almighty going to let the peddlers take over His world? God made a garden eastward in Eden and he put flowers and trees and beauty there and put men there to relax and rest under the shady bowers.

But we’ve gone mad in our selling. And over the radio this last week when you’d be listening to a beautiful Christmas carol, the next would be, and so the thus and thus beer company sends you their finest holiday greetings. And then they would break into an anthem telling about Burpo Beer, the finest beer on the market. I wonder how much longer God Almighty is going to allow this thing to go on. I don’t know, brother, I don’t know.

But I do know this, that you and I are going to see some tribulations ahead, we’re going to see some hard times. We’ve spent a lot of time, some of us have, we’ve had so much money and so many fine things and so many gadgets and we’ve pushed so many plastic buttons and had so many little machines hum into our workforce. We haven’t known in this country what it is to endure anything.

And when we got so we had a few people out of work, we sighed a sigh like the Israelites in bondage and called it a recession. And yet everybody had everything. Brethren, we’ve got some troubles out there ahead and how are you going to go into them? You’ve got to go into them one way or another.

And I recommend you go into them following the Lamb, whithersoever He goeth, because you can’t even think of anything else now, it’s too late. You’ve been a Christian so long, some of you, that even if you’ve only been a Christian twenty minutes, you’re a child of God and your name’s written in the Lamb’s Book of Life and God holds you in His hand and no man can pluck you out of His hand.

Well, another thing, some have loved faces looking down. I’m a very cautious man and I speak on these tender things only very rarely. Some have faces looking down and they expect you, you’re discouraged and want to quit and say, ah, I’m giving the whole business up.

I tell you that there are faces looking down, they say that it used to be among the sheep, an old shepherd when he wanted to get his flock across a river, he’d carry the lambs over and then the old sheep would swim. They’d swim across because the lambs were already over there.

A lot of people, any of you that have been a long time around our church ever sat down and counted up how many have gone from us these last times? Most recent one was Helen Asplund. They’ve gone, they’ve gone, they’re not going down the valley one by one with their faces toward the setting of the sun. Whoever wrote that ought to have his liver looked into because he was sick. We’re not going down the valley one by one, we’re going up the mountain toward the sunrise, one after the other.

Am I going to live long enough to bury a whole generation? I’ve almost done it, a whole generation of God’s dear Saints, and I’ve laid them away all around this whole area. I’ve planted seeds in the ground by the grace of God and sent earth to earth over I don’t know how many scores. Their prayers aren’t dead. He catches all our prayers in his bottle and all our tears, and their prayers haven’t become ineffective because they’re gone. They’re still effective, yonder, and I know they’re praying for me.

Godliness pays big dividends, my friends, and no matter what the future may hold, what it may be there next year, godliness pays big dividends. It’s always right to be right, and it’s always best to be on God’s side and to take God’s side and to live right.

Some of you could live a smoother, easier life if you weren’t so faithful, I’ll tell you that. The devil’s told you that, so it’s nothing new to you. You could get along a lot easier if you didn’t give so generously and get up and go to church when you felt like sleeping.

You didn’t get out and do God’s service when you feel like sitting in front of the TV. You could get along a lot easier, put on a little more weight, feel a little more comfortable or uncomfortable. But I’ll tell you, godliness still pays, brothers and sisters, it still pays to follow God. It still pays to be on the good side.

I’ve had funerals of people that I knew hadn’t been very big successes. That is, you know, there hadn’t been great successes as the world or even as the church counts success. But as I thought over their lives, I remembered one thing. If they knew what was right, you could be sure they were always over on that side. God takes that into account. A man knows what’s right, and he’s always over on that side; he’s found over there, and it pays, pays.

Well, another thing is, the best company on earth is in the church, and I’m going to stick to it myself. I’ll have to be chased out of the church, or out of the church, blacklisted and forbidden to enter any Christian assembly, otherwise, you’re going to find me in the house of God on the Lord’s Day, and sometimes in between. Because everything else being said, the best company in the world is the company that meets unto Jesus.

You say, but I happen to know there are some hypocrites there. Yes, so do I, so do I. So did Jesus. One of you shall betray me, said Jesus. And each one said, is it I, is it I, is it I? Even Judas said, is it I? Sure, Jesus had His hypocrites. The first church had their Ananias and Sapphira.

Paul had his Demas, the young man that he leaned on. Here was this old balding apostle, wearing himself to a shred, traveling around up all hours of the night, out in deep, driven out of cities, chased and whipped and beaten and thrown into jail. And he got a hold of a young fellow named Demas. And Demas was all full of fire, and Paul said to God, O God, maybe, this is my boy. And so, he leaned on Demas. And just when Paul got in a tight place, Demas remembered the old crowd and went back. Paul said, Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world. I know that there’s a Demas, he’ll be around, I know it.

I get literature, I could show it to you now, if the janitor hasn’t carried it out and burnt it. I can show you literature that comes, Christian literature that comes from Communism. Christian Communism, Communist Christianity, if there’s such an unholy thing, praising the freedom they have in Czechoslovakia or Russia or someplace else, praising the Communists for their religious freedom. I know that, and I know that there’s a lot wrong with the Church.

But brother, give me five hundred people who regularly gather unto Jesus, and then show me five hundred that don’t, and put them side by side and take your choice. I know that side I’ll be on, if God will bless me and help me, and the people put up with me. I know whose side I’ll be on this year. I say, a man is weak and it’s easy to fall, not fall from grace, but fall in grace. God will keep you.

I’m talking about this miserable business of getting cold or lukewarm. They’ll put up with me, the best company in the world, not this church necessarily, but the church, God’s children, wherever they’re from.

Go into any town, any town, get up in an airplane, say to the pilot, what’s that town down there? And he says, that’s Pittsburgh, all right, land. He lands. Go and hunt the best people, where’ll you go, nightclubs? No, where’ll you go, bowling alleys, pool rooms, saloons? No. If you’re looking for the best people, hunt up a gospel church. They may be a little narrow-minded, may be a little narrow-minded, I don’t say they weren’t narrow-minded Christians, but I do say, nevertheless, they’re the best in the city. And if they’ll put up with me, I want to put up with them.

Well, time is going to be short anyhow. It doesn’t seem very long since we ushered in 1958, now 1958’s a tattered relic, very little left, just a shred or two, then it’s gone, then we enter 1959. I don’t know how many of these years we’re going to have yet, before our Savior comes.

Time is short at any rate, Christ will return, or death will come, but in patience possess ye your souls, for there is a crown at the end of the way. Take heed that no man follows, no man takes thy crown but follow the Lord and trust Him and put your hand in His and He’ll lead you through.

The Son of God goes forth to war, the kingly crown to gain, his blood-red banner streams afar, who follows in his train. Who best can bear his cup of grief, triumphant over pain, God remembers the rest of it, who patient bears his cross, he follows in his train.

So, let’s follow in the train of the Savior this year, let’s expect trouble, let’s expect trouble. Don’t be like the newly commissioned second lieutenant that was thrown suddenly up to the battlefront. He let out a yell and started to run and said, they’re shooting at me. The tough old sergeant said, well, what are you up there for?

So, I say to you, they’ll be shooting at you this year, but what are you up there for anyhow? Of course we’ll be shot at. Some of us will have bullet holes in our ears. Before the year is over, if the Lord lays a hand on us and heals us, if we keep our hearts right and keep right inside, we can endure an awful lot of pressure from the outside. When you’re not right on the inside, you’ll collapse. When you’re right inside, no pressure can collapse you, but when you’re not right inside, you collapse like an eggshell.

So keep right inside, walk with God, make the Book, make the Book, I’ve decided that by the grace of God, I’m going to read the Book more and other things less. Study the Book, learn it, memorize passages. I’m memorizing the Book of Revelation, part of it at any rate. Let’s memorize, let’s study, let’s live by it and above all things, let’s obey and be prayerful, and God will lead us through. He will make the darkness light before us. He will make the crooked straight before us, and all our battles He will fight before us, and the high place He’ll bring down. Amen.