Month: August 2021

Tozer Talks

Post author By pshappard
Post date August 29, 2021

“Consider Your Ways”

June 9, 1957

I have two texts. They are found in Isaiah 1:18. First, the words of the Lord, come now and let us reason together saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land, but if you refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with a sword. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. I’m only concerned tonight with that opening word from God, come now and let us reason together. Then in Haggai, the first chapter. Haggai 1:5, and also the same is repeated in the seventh verse. Now therefore, thus saith the Lord of Hosts, consider your ways. Consider your ways. Come, and let us reason together.

I want to reason with you a little bit tonight. And I’ll start by saying that what you already know, that the difference, the chief difference anyway, between a man and an animal, is that man reflects, and the beast does not. A man and an animal, the man and the animal, they start out with about the same amount of data. And the same kind. When a new puppy is born into the world, or a new calf, they have about the same data furnished to the senses. The sun is there, or it isn’t there. It’s a warm day or it’s a cold day. Things are comfortable or they’re not comfortable. The mother is near or she isn’t. The data is about the same. The senses tell the newborn calf, is about what they tell the newborn baby. So that, we begin just about where the beasts begin.

And the Bible doesn’t hesitate to say that man and beast are very much alike. It also says that there’s a gulf fixed between them, the difference it’s so vast that it can never be explained. But it also says that there is a certain likeness there. But the chief difference will begin to manifest itself very early. For the man reflects and the beast does not. The calf born on the range or in the barn, lives by its instincts. And it can grow to be old and die of old age if they’re permitted to do it, and still, it will be living by its instincts. It will have learned very little, and what it learns, will be very low grade and require practically no cogitation.

But a child of three years old is already a walking question mark. You know that. The child reflects and the beast does not. The man can reflect and the beast apparently cannot. Both are hurried into the world, as the Poet has said, hurried hither without asking. Nobody asks to be born. No animal asks to be born. But after they are born, the man begins to ask questions and the animal never does. This is the difference. The farmer and the horse; there aren’t many left but will for the sake of the argument invent a hypothetical horse, put him out at the head of a plow and start him through the field. And as you go by, you will find that they are a good deal alike, the tired, dusty man and the tired, dusty horse.

But, there is a difference that is as vast as the difference that separates heaven from hell and the earth from the stars above. It is the difference in ability to consider our ways. No horse ever stops to consider his ways. The man often does. But even though we almost always at some time in our lives do consider, it is a tragic fact that after a while we stop it, and most people do not reflect on their own ways. They may reflect, but they do not reflect on their own ways. Do you know what I wish, and wishing is a word I don’t use–much. It’s only a carelessly used word. And to me, it simply means that it’s a wild imagination that I can give nobody to. But do you know what I wish? I wish that I could get the men of the city of Chicago and environs, or of St. Louis, or of Milwaukee, or of New York or Brooklyn, or Pittsburgh or Cleveland or Detroit or Cincinnati. I wish that I could get the males above the age of eight, and under the age of 100, just one week to give as much consideration to their own souls as they give to the standings of their particular teams, and I have named the cities that have the teams, to their own ball clubs.

Now, I just wish it. I wish that as many people today, as many men today in the city of Chicago had spent, say, there was a doubleheader today, that would take about how many hours, about four hours? I wish and I could pray, that we could get as many, I don’t know how many were there. I know they were there. But I suppose maybe, there were 35,000; I would guess that. And if we could get 35,000 people to spend four hours considering their souls, and their lives and their futures with the concentrated attention that they considered the strike outs and the stolen bases and the rest. Now I don’t mean there’s anything wrong with strikeouts and stolen bases. This isn’t an attack on Billy Pierce, or whoever pitched today. This is merely saying that as soon as a three year old asked basic questions, but a thirty year old is long past that. The three year old says, Mother, where did I come from? You came from God. How did I get here? Well Jesus sent you. Is there a God Momma, and can God see me? And if I’m in a room with no doors or windows, one little chap actually asked, could God see through and see me?

Well, those are basic questions, but who was going to win the pennant? That’s not a basic question. And yet people for at least four hours today, listened, or watched and listened to men playing a game of arbitrary, that is, the thing was arbitrary. Did you ever stop to think of the foolish, arbitrary quality of the game. Now, this doesn’t mean I’m attacking it. It’s relaxing I suppose. But, did you ever stop to think that a fellow throws a ball that has been made for him to throw, at with great pains it’s made for him to throw, and he has neglected his soul, and neglected God, and neglected heaven in order that he might get skill enough to throw that thing, in a strike zone, at least three times before he threw it out of the strike zone four times. Now, who said three and four?

Somebody, Abner Doubleday they say invented that gadget. But brother, did you ever stop to think it’s, it’s arbitrary and whimsical. You can say a man’s out on four strikes, and just as easy, and where is there any law in the universe that says three strikes and you’re out? That’s invented. And furthermore, what happens to that ball? There’s a little, artificial spheroid that is flying through space. And oh, we’ll get 60 miles an hour. That’s a guess, a rough guess. And somebody will hit it. And 35,000 people are screaming themselves hoarse about that. Now, what’s the difference where it goes? It could fall down a gopher hole. It could get lost under a board or plank someplace. It could go over onto the street and fall into the sewer, or Mickey Mantle could catch it. What’s the difference my brethren. You see, don’t you? Now this isn’t, I repeat for the third time to say that there’s anything wrong with it. But the point is, it’s arbitrary and nothing is settled when they’ve settled it. Nothing is settled. You say, well, he got him out, but got him out. What does that settle? That’s an arbitrary expression that doesn’t have any root in nature anywhere. And so of all games, and so with most of man’s activities.

I saw today in the restaurant a rather intelligent looking woman. Brother McAfee and I ate after the broadcast and I saw a rather intelligent looking woman sitting there, and she was the very essence of concentration, serious face and sober with a pencil in her hand neglecting her friends around her conversation that died. What do you suppose she was doing? I’ll give you three guesses. Yes, sir. You’ve got it. She was working a crossword puzzle. Now, what is she accomplishing I’d ask you? Nothing, nothing at all. It’s the same with card games and the same with almost everything we do.

I heard old Gus Johnson, a great Swedish preacher from the Twin Cities, Gus Johnson. I heard him years ago with sort of a dry, wry sense of humor, saying that he was out on the golf course with his son. He never played but he was out there that day and his son was above on it. Then he said he started to talk and his Son said, shoosh, shoosh, Dad, don’t speak. He said, what did he care about putting. He said he wanted to talk. He didn’t care about putting. Well brother, now all this is arbitrary and I suppose it’s relaxing, and if you don’t die of a nervous breakdown and sue, then your outlook may not be quite as large and all embracing as it would have been if you hadn’t putted. I don’t know though whether they increase them or make them smaller, but we’ll ignore that.

But man spends this magnificent intellect that God’s given him. This, this brilliant thing that can flash out like silver streams of light. And you can reach back and take hold of the history and pull it up too, and you can reach out into the future and pull it back, and can examine stars and moons and satellites and the depths of the earth and the deeps of the sea and hold them before him. He’s got all that. You’ve got all of that. How long since you’ve used it?

And think now of this imagination, this ability to consider that we have. God says, consider your ways. Come now, let us reason together. God is calling us to this my brethren. And He’s saying this to men who won’t have long to live. They won’t be here very long. They won’t be around very long. I won’t. You won’t. You say, it’s all right to say you won’t, but I’ll be. You may be a little longer, maybe not as long. But what is a few years against the solemn space we call eternity. What is it amount to anyway? What’s the difference? Look, back in the days of Caesar or on the days of Hotep, the educator of Egypt before Caesar’s day. One man died at twenty. One died at thirty. Once died at seventy and one died at ninety. There they were, separated by a spread of seventy years, and yet I ask you if it really matters now, who died at twenty and who died at fifty and who died at seventy and who died at ninety? No. What’s the matter of fifty years set against 5,000 years, and set against eternity.

And so, with that backdrop against that backdrop of eternal years, God says to us, consider. Here, I’ve given you, I’ve given you something to consider, consider it makes no difference who won today. It makes no difference whether he sunk that putt or not. It makes no difference. Think on something eternal. Think about something that matters. Give a little time to something that matters. And I believe that the great God of justice and wisdom and logic and common sense in the heavens, giving to man as He does give to man such an amazing power to reflect.

I believe that that God expects that man to reflect, and if he will not do it, and if he will spend hours and hours day after day and week after week, thinking about things that don’t matter and neglect the one thing that does, I see no place where God is any under any obligation to take that man to heaven. God puts a door there and doesn’t hide it. God puts a door there and the very stars in their courses tell where it is. God puts a door there leading into the Kingdom and God calls and He waits early and He stretches His hands out and He says, come, come, come. And He calls and He invites and exhorts and He urges in a thousands ways and keeps it up for a lifetime. And yet if a man chooses to ignore that call and refuses to see that door, I want to ask you by what moral logic is God required to pick the man up by the scruff of his neck and take him to heaven, when he spent a lifetime fooling with things that don’t matter; and refuse to consider the one thing that does.

God says, consider your ways, and come now and let us reason together. And it’s a deep wrong a man commits, a deep wrong you’ll commit tonight against your own soul if you sit there and taste a sermon and judge about whether it was as good as the one you heard this morning or the one I preached sometime before or somebody else preached. What a terrible thought, with the judgment coming in your life heading away that we should taste and compare instead of do something about it. The deep wrong we do our own souls to vegetate like irrational creatures. Or to spend our God-given faculties that were made to engage not stars and planets, but angels and seraphim and God Himself. I say we do a terrible wrong against our own souls when we use such faculties as we have to fool and play and neglect our souls. For what is your life James asked, what is your life? You possess the most precious thing in the world?

I was out in the country the other day with Brother Ty, Brother Olson and McAfee. And who else? Rex? We ought not to forget him. We were out there and we saw 100 Hereford steers being fattened for the market. Great, fine looking fellows they were, I guess they weighed 650 pounds. A man said he thought they would average 800. Well, they had everything apparently. But they lacked one thing. They lacked that which the poorest man in Chicago has. The skid row bum that lies tonight in a stupor on Madison Street has what the finest blooded steer doesn’t have. He has a soul. He has a life given from God. He has that which will have no termination, but will be on and on and on. What is your life? You possess it. And it’s the most precious thing in all the world, for it gives meaning to everything else. It’s the loan of God to you. I don’t know how God makes souls, but I know God lends them to us. It’s a loan of God.

And when the little new baby squalls his protest to the round world, his mother cuddles him warm against her breast. God has lent him a soul. And God says to that little one later when he can understand it, consider thy ways. Come now, let us reason together. Though your sins be scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. And God does not expect that one to whom He has lent a soul to act like one to whom He has not lent a soul for you cannot use the personal human pronoun “one” about an animal. God doesn’t expect us or expect that animal, however blooded and however fine to respond, because there’s nothing there to respond, but God has given us a soul.

And though I were to suffer and have to suffer the pains of the damned for 1000 years, I wouldn’t give up that which I know to be my soul. My soul, that in me that is likest to God of anything in the universe. I wouldn’t give it up. I wouldn’t give it up. And no purgatory where a soul in a man must roast or boil or broil in some purgatory for 1000 years. I say he’s fortunate and lucky and ought to thank God in the fire, that he still has his soul. I don’t believe in purgatory but I say if it even if it were, I would still say a man is lucky to have a soul.

What potentialities, what bounded possibilities, God has given to the man with a soul. You know, young people, you have a soul. Some dear young people, God bless them these days, don’t know they have anything but glands. They live on their glands, they run on their glands. Yes, you have a set of glands alright, and God gave them to you and you oughten to be ashamed of them. But in addition to having glands you have a soul. To think how many millions tonight in this great favored land of ours who don’t know they have anything but glands. They live, they live by their glands and their nerves. And whoever can stir the glands of the greatest number of people can make a million dollars a year. Elvis is doing it. And Elvis has never stirred anything but the glands of the people, the feeble minded, the oversexed, the old and disappointed, and those who have forgotten that they have a brain in their head.

Now, this life that God’s given us, this soul is what you make it. Come and consider, think a little about it. Consider your ways. Think of that soul of yours. God won’t accept the responsibility for making it, any more than what it is now, because God gave it to you with potentialities. It’s as though I were to take twenty pounds of the finest clay to a potter and commission him to make me a vase. I wouldn’t be responsible for anything but the plan. I would say, I want the vase to be so high, so large. I want it to be decorated this way and I want it to be painted and varnished and burnt and painted and varnished and burnt again. I could give him the instructions of what I wanted. But if I came back and found a cheap pot all askew, lumpy and hopeless, I wouldn’t be responsible because I had furnished the finest clay and I had laid the plan and I had given the commission. And the potter who couldn’t come through deserves no pay.

God has put in your hands that which is finer than the finest clay. God has given you a soul. Think what men have done with their souls .We were just looking, Brother Chase and I tonight tonight and Mc Afee, looking at a book up in the study by Bernard of Clairvaux. Why, there’s music even in the words, actually you can sing it Bernard of Clairvaux, beautiful, beautiful. He’s the man who wrote, Jesus The very thought of the with sweetness fills my breast but sweeter far thy face to see and in thy presence rest. Bernard of Clairvaux, his soul wasn’t of any finer clay than yours or mine using an illustration for certainly the soul is not made of clay. And the body is made of the clay.

But the soul that God put in Bernard of Clairvaux is no finer than the soul he put in you or me or Al Capone. And God isn’t responsible, if with the life and intelligence in the Word of God before us and the pleading of the Holy Ghost, we do nothing about it. You can’t blame heredity. Blaming heredity when Esau and Jacob were brothers. You can’t blame environment. When one shall be taken and the other left. Two shall be sleeping in one bed. Two shall be plowing in the field, that’s environment. If environment made the soul then there would be no distinction. The two shall be sleeping in one bed one shall be taken on the other left. Maybe they’re brothers or sisters who slept together from the time they were born. Maybe there are two brothers or a father and son plowing there in the field, one shall be taken and the other left.

So, what happens to your soul You can’t blame on heredity and you can’t blame it on environment. And if you’re so infinitely, shoddily cheap as to blame it on your parents, and the way you were treated at home. I haven’t any any sympathy nor any message, I’m afraid. He says I had to go to school, and I didn’t have very good clothes. And so I felt ashamed, and I got an inferiority complex. And my parents were very religious, and they took me to church and made me go to Sunday school and I had holes in my shoes. And that turned me against religion. And that’s why I’m not a Christian. Oh, my brother. What a mousy attitude that is to take. What a cheap attitude. What an excuse. And the thinest thing in the world is an excuse. And the only thing smaller than an excuse is a man who try to hide behind it.

And so we blame our parents, or our heredity, or our environment. When Esau and Jacob had the same parents and one was loved of God, and the other driven from God’s presence, when one shall be taken and the other left at the coming of Christ. So what is your response? Think about it a little won’t you? Think about it, young people. You can’t live forever on thrills. You can’t live on the uprushing of your glands. You can’t live on parties. You can live on long protracted telephone conversations and witticisms and funny remarks. Think on your ways. Consider your ways. Come let us reason together. God sent His Son with power to save from death and darkness in the grave. And He calls you tonight and says consider and think on your ways.

Tags Contemplation, God

Messages

Tozer Talks

“Prepare By Prayer”

June 9, 1957

In the 26th chapter of the gospel as recorded by Matthew, verses 31 to 46, verses 31 to 46. I wonder if we couldn’t read that responsively too. So, we’d all have a part in it beginning with verse 31, of Matthew 26. And going down to an including verse 46, Matthew 26:31-46. Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee. Peter answered and said unto him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended. Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. Peter said unto him, Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Likewise also said all the disciples. Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me. And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. And he came and found them asleep again: for their eyes were heavy. And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. Then cometh he to his disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand that doth betray me. And now the 41st verse, watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Now in the passage which we read and that which immediately precedes it and follows it, we have the record of the most critical event in the history of the world. I think there can be no doubt of that at all, that it had about it and upon it, more mighty historic significance. Greater human weight of wheel and woe than any other event, or series of events in the history of mankind. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of men, was about to be betrayed into the hands of sinners. He was about to offer His holy soul, to have poured out upon that soul, the accumulated putrefaction and moral filth of the whole race of men and then carry it to the tree and die there in agony and blood.

Now there was One present, the One most vitally concerned, who anticipated this crisis and prepared for it. That one of course was Jesus. And He prepared for it by the most effective preparation known in heaven or in earth, namely prayer. Our Lord prayed in the garden. Let us not pity our Lord, as some are inclined to do. Let us thank Him that He foresaw the crisis, and that He went to the place of power and the source of energy, and got himself ready for that event. And because He did this, He passed the cosmic crisis triumphantly.

And I say, cosmic crisis, because it had to do with more than this world. It had to do with more, even than the human race. It had to do with the entire cosmos, the whole wide universe. For the Lord was dying that all things might be united in Him, and that the heavens as well as the earth might be purged; and that new heavens and new earth might be established that could never pass away. And all of this rested upon the shoulders of the Son of God, here this night in the garden. And he got ready for this. I repeat in the most effective way known under the sun, and that is by going to God in prayer.

But over against that, were his disciples. They approached the crisis without anticipation. Partly they didn’t know, partly they didn’t care. Partly, they were too unspiritual to be concerned, and partly they were sleepy. So carelessly and prayerlessly and sleepily they allowed themselves to be carried by the rolling of the Wheel of Time into a crisis so vital, so significant, so portentous, that nothing like it has ever happened, I repeat, in the world, and never will happen again. And the result of their failure to anticipate was that one betrayed our Lord, one denied our Lord, all forsook our Lord, and all fled away.

And then Christ gave them here in the text read, Christ gave them these words as a sort of a little diamond set in this great ring. He said, watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation. For the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. And this is what I want especially to talk about now. And I want you to know that this prayer that Jesus made that night in the garden, was an anticipatory prayer. That is, He prayed in anticipation of something that He knew it was coming in the will of God; and He got ready for it.

Now, this is what I want to emphasize and lay upon your conscience this morning, that you practice an anticipatory prayer, because battles are lost before they’re fought. You can write that line across your heart or across your memory, and the history of the world and biography will support it, that battles are always lost before they are fought.

It was true and is true of nations. It was true of France in the Second World War. There are those of us who date back, who were grown up at the time of the First World War, and we remember how the cry electrified the world, “they shall not pass” and pass they did not when France in her strength rose and opposed herself to the hordes of the Kaiser. But only twenty-five years and a little more, twenty-six at the most later, the hoards of Hitler came down, and France surrendered almost without firing a gun. And to this day, men don’t know why. Only last week I saw that some angry Frenchman has written a book, flailing his own country and lashing his people that they surrendered with scarcely a fight.

But why did they lose the battle? Why did France surrender? She surrendered because between the hour, her finest hour when she cried, they shall not pass, and her disgraceful surrender, she had gotten rotten and decayed; politically decayed and morally decayed, and spiritually decayed, and like an old tree filled with dry rot. When the tanks of Hitler came sweeping down like a stormy wind, France went down, and she’s never risen since. And she still manifested the same spirit in her politics and in her social life that caused her to lose the Second World War.

Now my friends, if that can be true of nations, and history will support it, it’s also true of pugilists. They say of fighting men, that they leave their victory in the nightclub. And while I’ve never seen a fight and I don’t attend them, they still do illustrate and Paul used these games to illustrate and so can I. They do illustrate the fact that a man to be at fighting peak must take care of himself. And when a man, has some have gained world acclaim and become very popular, they find themselves going to the nightclubs and drinking and staying up all night and sleepilly loafing in the day. And then there comes the time when they’re to fight again. And though they try desperately to get ready by what they call training, the night clubs have taken too much out of them.

So, they go into the ring and collapse in the fifth round, and people say how could it be that this might be, world beater should go down so disgracefully before a man who was not rated who wasn’t supposed to be good? The answer was not is, that he lost the fight before he went into the ring, not when they counted him out there on the floor face down and unconscious, but as he drank wine and stayed up and danced half the night or all of the night. He left his victory in the nightclub they say.

It was also true of Israel, up on a higher level. Back yonder in the Old Testament times, you will find that when Israel went in righteous and prayed up, she never lost a battle. But when she went in filled with iniquity and prayerlessly, she never won a battle. Israel never lost the battle the day she fought it and she never won a battle the day she fought. She always lost her battle when she worshipped the golden calf or sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play or when she intermarried with a nation or when she neglected the altar of Jehovah and raised up a heathen altar under some tree. It was then that Israel lost her battle.

And so, it was by anticipation you see. It was before it happened that she lost, and it was true the disciples here as I’ve already mentioned. They didn’t lose the day that in the morning when one of them cursed and said he was not a disciple and another one kissed Jesus and said, here’s the man go take Him. And when even John who loved Him forsook Him and fled, and they all sneaked away and melted into the night. That was not when the collapse came. The collapse had started the night before, when tired and weary, they lay down and slept instead of listening to the voice of their Savior and staying awake to pray. If they had stayed awake and prayed alongside of Him and heard His groans and seen His bloody sweat, it might have changed the history of the world, and certainly it would have changed their history.

But not only are battles lost before they’re fought, battles are also won before they’re fought. Look at David and Goliath. Everybody knows the story. We tell it to the children and the artists painted, and it’s got a place in the thought and literature of all the world. How little David, with his ruddy cheeks, went out and slew the mighty, roaring, breast-beating giant eleven feet tall and with a sword like a Weaver’s beam. And get, tiny, little, stripling David went out and with one stone lay him low and with his own great sword which David could hardly lift, cut off his head and carry that huge head by the hair, and display and lay it before shouting, triumphant Israel.

When did David win that battle? When did he win that fight? When he walked quietly out to meet that great, boasting giant? No! Let somebody else try it and the words of Goliath would have been proved true. Why, I’ll tear you to pieces and feed you to the birds, he said. And under other circumstances, he would have done just that. But David was a young man who knew God. And he had slain the lion and the bear. And he had taken his sheep as the very charge of the Almighty. And he had prayed and meditated and lay under the stars at night and talked to God. And had learned that when God sends a man, that man can conquer any enemy no matter how strong. And so, it was not that morning on the plain there, between the two hills that David won. It was all down the years to his boyhood when his mother taught him to pray, and he learned to know God for himself.

Then there was Jacob. Do you remember that after twenty years, he was to meet his angry brother who had threatened to kill him. He had never seen him. He had gotten away so that Esau couldn’t kill him. And now he was coming back. And the Lord revealed that the next day they would meet there on the plain beyond the river Jabbok. And the next day they met down on the plain, and they threw themselves into each other’s arms, and Esau forgave Jacob. And Jacob conquered his brother’s ire and his brother’s murderous intent. When did he do it? Did he do it that morning, when he walked out to meet his brother and crossed over the river? No. He did it the night before when he wrestled alone with his God. It was then he prepared himself to conquer Esau. Esau being the sulky, hairy man of the forest who had solemnly threatened by oath that he would slay Jacob when he found him. How could he cancel that oath? How could he violate the salty oath taken after the manner of the East? God Almighty took it out of his heart when Jacob wrestled alone by the river. Always it’s so. And Jacob conquered Esau the night before, not when they met, but the night before they met. And so it was with Elijah. Elijah defeated Ahab and Jezebel and all the prophets of Baal and brought victory and revival to Israel. And when did he do it? Did he do it that day on Carmal?

I counted as I sat here. Not that I wasn’t enjoying the service, for I certainly do enjoy every second of it, all the singing and all the rest. But I counted the words. Do you know how many words there were in Elijah’s prayer? After Baal all day long had prayed and leapt on the altar and cut themselves till they were bloody, then Elijah walked up at six o’clock in the evening, at the time of the going of the evening sacrifice. Elijah walked up and prayed a little prayer. Was it a prayer that took him twenty minutes as we sometimes do in prayer meeting and shut others out? Was it a long eloquent prayer though it was a blunt-read little prayer of exactly sixty-six words in English, and I would assume fewer in Hebrew.

So, there was your prayer. Did that prayer bring down the fire? Yes and no. Yes, because if it hadn’t been offered, there would have been no fire. No, because if Elijah hadn’t known God all back down the years and hadn’t stood before God during the long days and the months and years that preceded Carmel, that prayer would have collapsed by its own weight, and they’d have torn Elijah to pieces. So, it was not on Mount Carmel that Baal was defeated, it was in Mount Gilead. For remember that it was in Gilead, from Gilead that Elijah came. And I feel I am always a better man after reading this story. How that great, shaggy, hairy man dressed in this simple rustic garb of the peasant came down boldly, staring straight ahead, and without any court manners or any knowledge of how to talk or what to do, walked straight in smelling of the mountain and the field, and stood before the shrinking, timid, cowardly, henpecked Ahab, and said, I’m Elijah. I stand before Jehovah. And I’m just here to tell you there’ll be no rain until I say so. Goodbye. That was a dramatic moment, a terrible moment, a wonderful moment, but back of that were long years of standing before Jehovah. He didn’t know he was to be sent to the court of Ahab, but he had anticipated it by long prayers and weightings and meditations in the presence of his God.

Now, my brother, there are crises that wait for us out there, as there was a crisis that faced Jesus and His disciples, and David, and Israel and Daniel and Elijah and all the rest. There are crises that wait for us. I want to name a few of them briefly. One of them is acute trouble. Now, I hope it doesn’t come to you, but the history of the race shows that it comes to us all at some time. And when sharp trouble, with its shocking, weakening sting, comes to us, some Christians meet it unprepared. And of course, they collapse. But is it the trouble that brings the collapse? Yes. And no. It is the trouble that brings the collapse, in that, they wouldn’t have collapsed without the trouble. But it is not the trouble that causes them to collapse, because if they had anticipated it and prepared for it, they would not have collapsed. The man who goes down unto trouble, says the proverb, his strength is small. And his strength is small, because his prayers are few and lean. But the man whose prayers are many and strong, will not collapse when the trouble comes.

Then there’s temptation, temptation that comes unexpected and subtle, and it’s too unexpected and too subtle for the flesh. But anticipatory prayer gets the soul ready for whatever temptation there may be. Was it the day that David walked on the roof top that he fell into his disgraceful and tragic temptation? No, it was his long gap that the historians say was in between, and they don’t know what David was doing. I know one thing David wasn’t doing, he wasn’t waiting on his God. He wasn’t out lying, looking at the stars and saying, the heavens declare the glory of God. He did that. But that’s the time he wasn’t doing it. And so, David went down because the whole weight of his wasted weeks before, bore down upon him. So, temptation can’t hurt you if you have anticipated it by prayer. And temptation will certainly fail you if you have not.

And then there’s Satan’s attacks. Now Satan’s attacks are rarely anticipated because Satan’s too shrewd to be uniform. You see, if Satan established a pattern of attack, we’d soon catch on to his pattern. If I could go to the games to illustrate. I’ve never seen but one ball game in twenty years and no prize fight. But, if you allow me again, as Paul, to illustrate. If the devil were to be uniform and regular in his attacks, the human race would have found him out a long time ago, and poorest old church member would have known how to avoid him. But, because he is not uniform, but highly irregular and mixes things up, He’s deadly if we haven’t the shield of faith to protect ourselves.

Take the pitcher for instance, he doesn’t start throwing when the first inning begins and throw this same ball in the same place for nine innings. If he did, then the score would be 128 to nothing. But what does he do, he mixes them up, and the batter never knows where they’re going to appear. First up, then down and in and out and lo, then fast, then down the middle. He mixes them up. It is the absence of uniformity that makes the pitcher effective. And you think the devil isn’t as smart as dizzy Dean or Billy Pierce.

Do you think the devil doesn’t know that the way to win over the Christian is to fool him by irregularity. Never attack him twice the same way in the same day. Keep coming in from one side one time, another side, another side like the boxer. You think that boxer goes in there and gets himself rigidly stereotyped; he leads with his left, he strikes with his right, he moves back two steps, he moves forward two steps Why are the commonist stumble bum would win over a fighter like that. A fighter has to use his head too. And first, he attacks from one side, then from the other, then dashes in and backs away, then pedaled backward, and then then charges, and then it’s left and right then, feignt then, sidestep, and then weaves and bobbs, then; you know how to do it.

You won’t believe this, but I used to fight when I was a kid, a young fellow. You wouldn’t believe that would you? You’d think that anybody big enough to lift a boxing glove would be able to knock me down, but I was never knocked off my feet. I was too fast. And my brother, that’s the way to do it. The devil doesn’t come in always the same way. Every one of us, any of us could figure him out. But he will come at you today like a wild bull of Bashan, and tomorrow he’ll be as soft as Ferdinand. And the next day he won’t bother you at all. Then he’ll fight you three days in a row and let you alone for three weeks. Remember, it was said of Jesus after the three temptations, he left Him for a season. Why? To get the Lord to drop his guard, of course.

And so, the devil fights like a boxer. He pitches them in like a skilled pitcher. He uses strategy. Now, I say that’s why it’s pretty hard to anticipate; you don’t know what he’s going to do next. But you can always put a blanket anticipation down. You can always figure that the devil is after you. And so, by prayer and watching and waiting on God, you can be ready for his coming, when he does come, and you can win. Not the day he arrives but the day before he arrives. Not the noon he gets to you, but the morning before the noon. And the only way to win then consistently my brethren is to keep the blood on the doorpost. Keep the cloud and fire over you. And keep your fighting clothes on. And never allow a day to creep up on you. Never get up early in the morning and look at your clock and say I’ll miss my train and dash away. If you must dash away, take a New Testament along. Instead of reading the Tribune, read your New Testament on your way to work. Then, bow your head and talk to God. Get ready. I don’t recommend that. It’s too fast and too uncertain. But I say, rather than not pray at all, grab prayer somewhere in the morning. I met God in the morning when the day was at its best, said Cushman.

So, I recommend never let a day creep up on you. Never let Thursday floor you because you didn’t pray on Wednesday and never let Tuesday get you down because you were prayerless on Monday. And never let three o’clock in the afternoon floor you because you didn’t pray at seven in the morning. See to it that you get prayed up somewhere.

Now, I have 1-2-3-4 that are recommendations. And I’ve got eight minutes. That means two minutes apiece and I will turn you loose to go out into the sunshine and think over these things. But you want to take down these four little thoughts that I’m going to leave with you to close, the little conclusion. All sermons should have conclusions. Never act as if things were all right. Now, if the devil lets you alone a while and you’re not in much trouble and you’re reasonably happy and reasonably spiritual, you’re likely to develop a complex that says, well, things are all right, and you’ll neglect your prayer life and you don’t watch and pray.

Remember, as long as sin and the devil and disease and death are abroad in the land, like a virus, like a contagious disease, things are not all right. And you’re not living in a healthier, wholesome world, healthful world; a world that is geared to keep you spiritually healthy. This vile world is not a friend of grace to lead us on the God. It’s the opposite. So instead of assuming that things are all right, assume that they’re always wrong. And then prepare for them and anticipate them from whatever direction they come. That’s number one.

Number two is never trust the devil and say things are all right. The devil business is overdone and I won’t pray today. I’ll wait till Wednesday. Never trust the devil. Just as you can’t trust a communist, you can trust the devil, because it’s from the devil, the communists learn their techniques and get their psychology and justice. No statesman worthy of your vote or trust ever ought to trust a communist as long as he’s a communist. So, we never must trust the devil, never. Never imagine that he’s smiling. Never look at a picture of him by Dorre or somebody and say, oh, he’s not a bad looking devil. Perhaps all this is more or less, it’s like Santa Claus and Jack Frost. It’s only imaginary. Never trust the devil.

Always anticipate any possible attack by watching and praying, for the spirit though it’s willing, the flesh is terribly weak. Again, never become overconfident for the very reason I’ve stated that our Lord stated the flesh is weak. Never become over confident. Many a man has lost a fight from overconfidence. And many a businessman has lost a business because he was overconfident.

And fourth, never underestimate the power of prayer. Watch and pray said Jesus and He wasn’t talking poetry. Watch and pray said Jesus; and he practiced it. And won because he did practice it, and caught the spinning world that sin had thrown out of gear. Caught them in the web of His own love and redeemed them by the shedding of His own blood. He did it, I say, because He readied Himself for that awful event, and that glorious event, by prayer the night before. And by prayer in the mountains and other times, and by prayer down the years to his boyhood.

Never underestimate the power of prayer, and remember that without it, you cannot win, and with it, you cannot lose. Granted, of course that it’s true prayer and not saying of words. Granted your life is in harmony with your prayer. If you pray you cannot lose. And if you fail to pray, you cannot win. For the Lord gave us the example of anticipatory prayer, getting ready for any event by seeking the face of God in watchful prayer at regular times. Then no matter what happens, like Jesus Christ our Lord, like Daniel and Elijah and the rest, you can go triumphantly through, for prayer all the way wins.

Tags God, Prayer

Messages

Tozer Talks

“God Manifesting Himself in Adversity-Message 2”

March 15, 1959

This is the second and last in a little series, sermons, series of tools that could be called a series on God appearing in adversity. Numbers, the twentieth chapter. Then came the children of Israel, even the whole congregation. I think I’d better break in right here and say, don’t be worried about anything, because that’s just a stiff north wind and it’s rattling things. Everything is well built; it won’t fall down. But it just noisy. Nobody’s bothering anything. It’s just the wind. They tell me on the Northside, they’ve got snow. God spared us out here up to now.

Then came the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, into the desert of Zin in the first month: and the people abode in Kadesh; and Miriam died there, and was buried there. And there was no water for the congregation: and they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. And the people chode with Moses, and spake, saying, Would God that we had died when our brethren died before the LORD! And they didn’t wish anything of the sort, but that was the way of getting at Moses. Why have ye brought up the congregation of the LORD into this wilderness, that we and our cattle should die there? Wherefore have ye made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in unto this evil place? It is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink. They could have been over in the land if they had gone. Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they fell upon their faces, at least Moses and Aaron did. And the glory of the Lord appeared unto them.

God appearing in adversity is the name of this two, this little series of two sermons. I pointed out that if we were the kind of people we ought to be, and that we’re going to be sometime when we’re perfected, we wouldn’t need adversity to drive us to God. God could appear to us in prosperity. But being the kind of people we are, there seems to be a little spiritual law that God appears to His people in adversity more clearly than He does in prosperity. It was so with Moses. As long as everything went alright, they just went on. And when Moses got in a jam, then he ran for the door or the Tent of Meeting. And then the glory of God came down; and Moses had a visitation. God revealed Himself to Moses. And I pointed out last week that this is true all through the Scriptures; that it is not just an isolated instance, but that it’s true all through the Bible.

Now, Moses endured adversity. And Moses was a liberator. For 400 years, the people had been in Egypt, and for maybe 350 years they had been slaves. When they first went down there, they were not slaves. They were given rather a fine reception as long as the pharaoh that knew Joseph was alive. But when the one died that knew Joseph and the new one arose, and a new generation arose, then they put the Jews under bondage. And they had been under that bondage now for seven generations we would say now, seven generations, 350 years, or perhaps more than seven generations.

And now comes the man of God, Moses, sent by the Lord God to deliver them completely, and he did. He had been successful in everything he had tried up to now. He had done the impossible. He had pulled out a small nation of slaves out from the midst of a great nation and the job was just about parallel to one man going over and liberating Czechoslovakia from the Russians. For Egypt was, if not the greatest, one of the very greatest nations in all the world at that time, and was very populous, very rich, very powerful. And Israel was very poor, very plain, and very weak, scattered about everywhere, a nation of slaves.

And Moses came and did the impossible. He went in in the name of the great I Am that I Am, and delivered the Jews from their Egyptian bondage, led them across the sea into the wilderness on their way to the Holy Land. And yet, do you know that Moses had to endure from the very people that he was liberating who still had lash marks on their backs, who still had teeth knocked out, that were knocked out by the handle of the slave driver’s whip. Who still had eyes couldn’t see because of the brutality they got, and who were limp because of the beatings they had taken; they still bore upon them the marks of their slavery and bondage and oppression. And the very man that was sent of God to lead them out, had to take from them, impudence and abuse, and disobedience and threats against his very life.

Now there we see something that’s been true also in all history. All you have to do is read the Bible and you’ll find the whole human race. Don’t you Dutch people lean back and say, well, that wouldn’t be us. You’re just like everybody else. And you Swedes too, and you Scotsman and Englishman, and we mixtures who hardly know what we are. We’re all like. Humanity is all alike. Ukrainians are like that too, Brother Fetlock. We’re all like, we’re all alike. And it’s in us. It’s the devil in us, in the human race. And the result is that we don’t know our friend.

And when a Man stands up to keep us free, we scorn Him and condemn Him and spit upon Him. And when a man stands up and smiles and bows and kisses babies, with the firm intention of putting us under everlasting bondage, we make a great hero out of him. But if he’s dead long enough, then we glorify Him as we do Lincoln, and Washington. But what Washington had to go through, read history and see. The abuse Lincoln had to take, go down and ask for the old files of the newspapers, back to the days of Lincoln and see the cartoons, lampooning this fellow, calling him an ignorant ape. He had to endure it, then. But after it’s over, and where he’s dead long enough, then we make heroes out of him. That’s all you have to do is be dead long enough, and they discover you are all right. But if you happen to be alive, and you’re on the side of freedom and liberty, they’re against you. And they were against Moses. So he had to take their incidence. There wasn’t one of them there worthy to shake hands with him, and yet they scolded him, abused him as if he was a common dog, and even threatened his life.

We have right in our own United States of America now, men who are dangerous man, because their tendencies and direction is toward centralized government and ultimate dictatorship. And yet, they’re the big heroes. We have serious minded, noble men who stand against all that, and they have to take a barrage of continual abuse from everybody, including the newspapers and radio commentators.

Now, it was a painful thing. It must have been a painful thing for Moses here; it must have been painful and discouraging, and at times, as I’ve said, dangerous. But in it all, there was a personal manifestation of God. And I don’t want to introduce my own personal feelings into this, but I’d like to tell you this much. I’d like to tell you that I have a covenant with God. That if He can manifest himself more fully to me by bringing discouragements and adversity, then I want it. I want it.

Now, I don’t know how much I’d be able to take. I might be like a little farm boy asking his Daddy whether he can push this wheelbarrow, and he couldn’t even lift a wheelbarrow. He’s asking for more than he’s able to bear and I don’t want to ask for more than I’m able to bear. But I think all of us together ought to unite in this, O God, let us have enough adversity to drive us to Thee. And don’t spare us Lord, except remember, were made of dust and don’t put more of a load on the dust than the dust can take, but put all we can bear. Because it’s in adversity that God appears.

A personal manifestation of God came to Moses when the people were against Moses in the time of adversity. And Moses got the confirmation of his divine call. You know, that’s a good thing. There are those who say, well, it’s all faith and by faith and there we stand we let it faith. Naked faith as Wesley scornfully called it. But the men nowadays without scorn call it naked faith. But I noticed that in the Scriptures, men were human enough, even though they were prophets and seers and kings and priests and liberators, they had to have an occasional renewal of their commission. They had to have God sometimes pat their head and say, remember, I’m on your side, and remember, I called you. And Moses had to have that. And Moses did have that. Don’t ever try to get more spiritual than the apostles and the prophets my brethren, never try it.

I read books occasionally or hear sermons droning over the radio. A fellow was trying to make us more spiritual than the prophets. They are always saying, now, the key word is. There are no keywords in the Scriptures. There aren’t any. Nobody needs to come to me and say, the key word here. There are no key words anywhere. A man gets a letter from his girlfriend, he’s way over there in Germany or Japan, serving his country in uniform, and he gets a letter from the girl he’s going to marry. So, he goes over and sits down on his bunk and looks for the keyword. He doesn’t do anything of the sort. He reads it to see what she has to say.

A man’s uncle dies and the lawyer calls him in and starts to read the will. He has reason to believe he’s inherited a lot of money. And he stops him and says, now let’s go about this in a proper manner. Let’s rightly divide this, find the key word. A lawyer would laugh at him. Find the key word? He said, aren’t you interested in knowing you have $100,000 coming. How do you care how it’s worded? These brethren who go in for the keywords and who insist upon you just believing the keyword, and then gritting your teeth and bearing it until the Lord comes.

I don’t go along with them at all brethren. I believe the Lord is coming and I believe there are times when you have to live by faith that’s as cold and hard as a rock. But that’s only occasionally. Most of the time, faith blooms and blossoms and brings forth fruit. And it shows evidence and has confirmation from God if it’s real faith. And Moses did, Moses had his call. He had his call. He could have said, I have my call; I know where I’m going, but God came and confirmed his call and assured him and gave him courage and help. Don’t try to be more spiritual than Moses. A lot of men try to get us to be more spiritual than Moses was, or Paul. I’ll be satisfied if I can, if when I walk up and stand alongside of Moses, I’d be satisfied if I can see over his shoe sole. At least I’ll be happy and surprised.

Well, I’d like to say to you that the cup of adversity is for everybody. You’re going to have to drink it friends, you’re going to have to drink it. Don’t try to get out of it and don’t think, well, if I can just hold on until the bell rings, I’ll make it. The man who fights by hanging on, waltzing with his partner, till the bell saves him. No, it won’t work that way dear friend. It won’t work that way. Break loose and put up your fists because you’re in a fight and you’re in trouble. And you’re here and the devil is here and the flesh is here and sin’s here and the world’s here and you’re here, and you’re not in heaven yet. And there’s a battle on and so don’t try to get out of it. Don’t try to get out of it because you’ll only find that you’ve gotten in worse at last.

The cup of adversity is for everybody, and we being who we are and what we are, that’s most necessary that we notice that; that we being who we are and what we are and the world being what it is. Too much and too long continued prosperity is not good for us for numbers of reasons. One is, that it obscures the vision of God. For some strange reason, the happy, prosperous Christian who’s having no trouble at all, slowly, the vision of God is obscured. And God has to send a thunderstorm and wind to rattle the windows of the house and strike the tree over yonder, and rain till the gutters run. And then when that’s all over the air is clear again, and the vision of God comes back. That has to be. I wish it didn’t you know. I wish that the Lord could walk with us as He did with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day, but usually it isn’t the cool of the day when the birds are singing and everything’s quiet that God appears usually when you’re being abused and threatened and in trouble or there’s adversity of some sort. But that cup of adversity is for everybody.

Did you know that brutal and heart wounding adversity does two or three things? It disengages us from the snares of mortality. It disengages us from the world. Everything down here is mortal. Keep it in mind friend, keep it in mind. Keep it in mind. Everything down here is mortal. One of the seven sages of antiquity gained his earthly immortality by this saying, this too must pass away. And everything must pass away and you mustn’t forget it. Don’t get carried away by the new chrome trimming. Don’t get carried away by the new picture window. Don’t get carried away by the new style. Don’t get carried away by the six lane highways and a wonderful view. I don’t say you can have those things. It’s perfectly alright with me. If you can afford them, have them and you won’t bother me. Only one thing, don’t let him get you. You drive your car, but see to it that no car drives you! Own your home, but see to it no home owns you.

And adversity disengages us from all of this and shakes it off. And the man whose fine clothes has begun to own him. When you get to cancer, he finds that clothes aren’t that much after all. When he loses his business or his wife dies, or his child becomes a delinquent, or his business goes to pieces, or his property value goes down until he loses money and he’s in trouble, or his neighbor next door threatens to break his neck and he can’t make up with him and he’s can’t get things straightened out. The fellow is in trouble. He wants to live for Christ and he’s determined to live for Christ, but from one direction or another, troubles coming. That disengages him. He doesn’t like it, but it disengages him. It cuts him all the way around.

Somebody said a consecrated man was a man that God could pass his hand the whole way around and not find any strings any place. The man is completely separated from everything all the way around, and adversity does that. I wish I could tell you prosperity did, but it doesn’t. Prosperity tends to make the skies cloud over and the vision of God dim. Adversity does the opposite. There will be a day when there’ll be no adversity anywhere and you and I perfected. We will be able to live as the angels live and shall be like the angels in heaven, said Jesus, but not now.

So, I say this brutal adversity not only disengages you, but it prevents the fatal mistake of receiving this world as your final home. And there was never truer hymn written, it’s Doggerel alright, I’ll admit it. But there never was a truer song written than the one that says this world is not my home. This world is not my dwelling place. What is the rest? I don’t know, but it’s good song, second rate song, but it’s a good one. This isn’t your home friend. It was your home one time.

What is your home? See all these people moving up and down the street here going out to get cigarettes and then a Sunday paper and go back in sit down. And when they’re weary of the Sunday paper, they turn on the TV. That’s how they spend their Sundays. And then the afternoon they’ll begin to drink. This is their home. Or, see these fine people out in Beverly Hills or up on the north coast. A $1000 or $1500 a month for an apartment, maid service, and three or four cars out there in front waiting for them. But this is their home. And that’s the most terrible thing you can say about a man. This is his home, fallen earth, full of bones. This is his home. And if you could send a chemist out and let him analyze the surface of the earth, all around the Earth, he’d find blood and hair and gristle and bones. Human blood and hair and gristle and bones, the evidence that this fallen world is man’s poor home.

But when you became a Christian, you changed at homes. When you became a Christian, you were born from above. That’s why the Bible says except a man be born again, from above, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven. We were born the second time; we’re born from above. Our homes all together changed. This is no longer our own. God and the kingdom and the presence of God, that’s our home. And there we go. Now, you’re living here for a while. You’re living here, just as a man might go up into the north woods to fish and live up there two weeks. That isn’t his home. He’s just living there while. Just as a soldier in the barracks somewhere in Japan or Germany, he’s living there a while, but that isn’t his home. He longs for the hotdog stand and the country crossroad and the winding highway and the long corn stalks of Iowa. He wants to see his country again. It’s not beyond many a boy to weep after he has gone to bed at night. He’s got a bass voice and big strong fellow and he wouldn’t let anybody know how homesick he is. But he’s homesick and he wants to go home.

For the world has its home and this is it. Reality may be revealed by the degree of comfort he takes in the world. If he feels this is his place. If this is his home, why he’s not much of a Christian. I listen to interviews sometimes, and they are people who have come from other countries here. When they get interviewed by the newsman and when somebody asks somebody from another country, do you think you’d like to stay in America? And they say, oh no, no, I like to visit here, but I have my friends back at my home. I’m proud of them. I’m glad for them. Breathes there a man with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said, Scott said, this is my own, my native land. And our native land is above. Our citizenship is in heaven from whence also we look for a Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord. Your spirituality and your preparedness to meet the Lord may be determined by how much you feel at home here. If this is your home, you can have it. But Abraham refused. He saw Jesus’ day and was glad and looked forward and looked in faith way beyond our time yet. He wouldn’t build a city; he built a tent.

Now, another thing that adversity does and hardships and when things begin to break against you, as a church, or as an individual, or as a family. It opens a door in through which God can walk, shining and healing and fragrant. God walks into the door of adversity, smiling and shining and healing and sweet and fragrant and reassuring. So, I don’t think we ought to back out on it. I think we ought to pray, lead us not into temptation O Lord, but send us whatever is good for us. My times are in my hands. My God, I wish them there. And I don’t want to take my future out of the hands of God. I don’t want to take the future of this church out of the hands of God.

So I say you must expect a little trouble down the way. But if you look for God in it, you’ll find Him. Go to the tent of meeting. Don’t try to fight it with your bare knuckles. Run to the tent of meeting. Go where God meets with men. Get down on your knees and you’ll see a cloud and a fire, and you’ll hear God’s speak. Take the long view of everything. You know, faith always takes the long view. Men go up and down the country preaching a short view of faith, a myopic faith. A man has a wart on his hand and he prays for it and it’s instantly healed. He’s got a he’s got a short new faith. And they make a career out of that, make money out of it and buy farms from the sickness of the people, because they’ve got a short view of everything. Their faith is a short, myopic view; get up close.

No, Faith is long-range my brethren. Faith takes the long view of things and says, wait a minute here now. We’ve got to think about tomorrow, next week, next year, next decade, maybe next century if the Lord tarries. Whether He tarries or not, take the long view. When trouble comes, don’t look at the trouble, look above it or over past it. Take the long view of things; for faith takes the long view and God will appear to you and to your heart. And you will live and understand it. You will live and understand it. Did you know there’s another little old song that isn’t much of a song but there’s truth in it, “We’ll understand it better by and by. There are things you don’t understand now that you will understand them by and by. You will know why it all was. And at that time, you will thank God with all your heart. You’ll thank God that it was so.

I knew of an instance of a woman. She was a little bit severe. And she said to one her family, now, you’re working, you pay in. They made her pay and she did pay. And she had to pay and her mother said now, it’s alright, you’re living here, you’ve got to pay. She did pay, paid in every week. And when she got married, her mother gave it all back to her and said, I wasn’t keeping that. I had that in the bank for you. You know, you know that this is the way God does things. God frowns a bit and says, now, come on, obey. We say God, I don’t see how I should, you expect that of me. I’ve got woes enough. And God says you’re here and you’re accepting my blessing and my grace. Do as I say, and we do as He says, then crisis comes and God says, here it is. I didn’t want it. I just wanted to know I could have it and hand it back to you, with interest.

Well, you will be the richer if you listen to what I tell you. You’ll be the poorer if you don’t. And I repeat what I said as I closed last Sunday, that over the next months, we may see more of God than we have over the last years. But I’ll tell you something else, we’ll see more trouble too. We’ll see more adversity over the next weeks, months than we’ve seen for a while, but we’ll see more of God.

I was reading an old hymn book this morning, 159 years-old, and I ran unto a hymn I never heard sung. Maybe some of you have sung it, but I never did and never heard it. It was written by John Newton. One of the few Calvinistic mystics that ever lived in the world. And here is what he said and I will read it and close my sermon. He said though troubles assail and dangers affright, though friends should all fail and foes all unite, yet one thing secures us whatever betide, the promise assures us the Lord will provide. The birds without barn or storehouse are fed, from them let us learn to trust for our bread. His saints what is fitting shall ne’er be denied, so long as it’s written the Lord will provide. When Satan appears to stop up our path and fills us with fears we triumph by faith. He cannot take from us though oft he has tried, the heart cheering promise the LORD Will Provide. He tells us we are weak, our hope is in vain. The good that we seek we ne’er shall obtain. But when such suggestions our graces have tried, this answers all questions the Lord will provide. No strength of our own nor goodness we claim, our trust is all thrown on Jesus’s name. That’s the way he pronounced it then. In this our strong tower for safety we hide, the Lord is our power the LORD Will Provide. When life sinks apace, and death is in view, The word of His grace Shall comfort us through; Not fearing or doubting, With Christ on our side, We hope to die shouting, “The Lord will provide.”

Ah Brother, they were Christians in those days. They faced up to death and trouble and then looked up and said, well thank God it’s still written, the Lord will provide. God appears in adversity brethren. So, if you see adversity on the horizon, look a little further and you’ll see God. Amen.

Tags Adversity, God, Moses

Messages

Tozer Talks

Post author By pshappard
Post date August 8, 2021

“God Manifesting Himself in Adversity”

March 8, 1959

About 14 years ago, I preached on a text, and I want to preach on that text again because it seems very appropriate to this hour. And I am going to divide it up into two sermons and to have sermons from the sixth verse of the twentieth chapter of Numbers this morning and next Sunday morning. There will be two distinct and separate sermons, but will be united and related to each other as twin sisters might be related, separate, individual, and complete in itself, but related closely to another.

Now, the twentieth chapter of Numbers. Suppose we just read that together. Why don’t you join me in reading that and then you’ll feel you at least have the Word if the sermon that follows isn’t much good. Chapter twenty of Numbers, verses one to six, everybody. Then came the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, into the desert of Zin in the first month: and the people abode in Kadesh; and Miriam died there, and was buried there. And there was no water for the congregation: and they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. And the people chode with Moses, and spake, saying, Would God that we had died when our brethren died before the Lord! And why have ye brought up the congregation of the Lord into this wilderness, that we and our cattle should die there? And wherefore have ye made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in unto this evil place? it is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink. And Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they fell upon their faces: and the glory of the Lord appeared unto them. Now we’ll stop there. And verse six is the one that will get most of our attention.

Moses went from the presence of the assembly unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. Now, if you have any other version beside the King James, that is, almost any other, all others which I’m acquainted. That says the tent of meeting. It was a tent in the middle of the camp where God met with Moses, or with Israel; where God revealed Himself. It was the tent of meeting, called your tabernacle and the meeting of the congregation. So, we have a tent of meeting, a place where God met people.

Now, what I want to say to you, and I want to take two sermons to say it. It is that God manifests Himself to people in varying degrees of intensity and clarity, but that usually, He manifests Himself in adversity. I wish we were better Christians than we are. I wish we were such good Christians that God would manifest himself in prosperity, but He usually doesn’t. He usually manifests Himself when you’re in trouble. That’s because you are like you are. And that’s because I’m the kind of man I am. And Moses and Israel were the people they were. And so, God manifested Himself in the time of Moses’ difficulty. They were on Moses. They were grumbling and criticizing. And it was all but a riot. If they just had a leader or two, there could have been a riot.

Now, this is repeated with slight variation throughout the Old Testament, the history of the Old Testament. If you go back, say to Abraham and learn how Abraham and the hour of great trouble, in the hour when he lay at night for the sacrifice, the deep sleep. The birds came down just before he went into that deep sleep. The birds came down and he had to keep them away from the sacrifice. There, with deep sleep and darkness upon him, God revealed Himself and said, Abraham, don’t be afraid. Your seed will be like the sand by the seashore.

Later on, Jacob when he was in trouble on his way traveling across the dreary wilderness, waist and howling, God appeared to him by a ladder set up from earth to heaven. Later on, when Jacob was about to meet his brother Esau and was afraid, God met him again by the river. He changed him from Jacob to Israel. You can trace the whole history of Israel down through and practically every time when a man was in trouble, under pressure, if he was the right kind of man, then God made Himself known.

There are two or three reasons why He doesn’t make Himself known at other times. One is, a man doesn’t need it so much when he’s not in trouble. The second is, we are not focused toward, our souls aren’t focused toward when we’re not in trouble. And then, maybe a third reason would be that God wants us to walk by faith most of the time and trust Him there even when He’s not manifesting Himself. I think probably that’s the most important of the three reasons.

Now, the glory of the Lord appeared to the man Moses. He went over by the tent of meeting. He separated himself a little from Israel and went over by the tent of meeting and waited to see what God would do. And the glory of the Lord appeared there unto Moses. Now don’t ask me to explain what the glory of the Lord is because I cannot do it. No man can do it. God is what the theologians call, inscrutable. God is what the theologians call incomprehensible. And God cannot tell us what He is. He can only tell us what He is like. And thus He is translating downward into understandable human terms, or the best God could do. Not because God was unable, but because we were unable to take it. The finest French chef that ever cooked up a meal, and what a terribly prosaic way to talk about the doings of a French chef in cooking up a meal. But the finest French chef that ever prepared a gourmet’s delight; if he were feeding a three-month-old baby, he’d have to translate himself downward into the terms the baby could take. He would have to give him the formula and follow it closely. And all of those spices and those fine sauces that he took such delight in and made many French sounds of joy over, he couldn’t use them on the baby. He would have to translate himself downward into infant terms. And it wouldn’t be his fault. He might easily be in great demand in hotels and restaurants around the world, but the baby wouldn’t care. He could only take milk. Perhaps just a bit of juice at it.

And so God, who brings angels to their knees and causes the seraphim and cherubim to cover their faces and cry holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. Yet, we being such infants, God has to translate Himself downward to us and put Himself in terms we can understand. So, he says, the glory of the Lord appeared unto Moses. I suppose that glory was a light. I suppose that glory was a sound. I suppose that that glory was a hidden and yet revealed something too terrible and wonderful for Moses to understand, but terrible enough to keep Israel at a distance and wonderful enough to bring Moses to his knees. This was God seeking to show Himself to human eyes and being unable to do it because of human sin. For Always remember that human sin is a cataract on the human eye. And even when it’s removed, even when we’ve been delivered by the blood of the Lamb, we still have somewhat of the veil over our faces until the time that we shall see Him as He is, and shall be transformed and glorified, and be given a body like under His glorious body.

Now, here is the second thing I want to tell you. The first being that God manifests Himself in adversity, but the second thing is, He doesn’t manifest Himself to everybody in adversity. There are those to whom He cannot manifest Himself in adversity. But Moses happened to be, by the grace of God, one to whom He could. He could appear to Moses because Moses was the kind of man that could receive the impression.

You let two people go out on a day, two men go out. Let an artist and hunter go out on the same Fall Day. And the artist, even though he’s carrying a gun, he’d probably never get a shell in the chamber. He’ll be so busy admiring the landscape, the color of those leaves over there, and that yellow oak, and those fiery red maple leaves, and that green, silver stream that flows between those brightly colored hills, and that little farm cottage down there. He will never see a rabbit because he, nature can manifest itself to him. He can see and feel; the very clouds talk to him and the wind across his cheeks says something. But the hunter, who has paid tremendous, lots of money for clothing that he doesn’t need, just a pair of overalls and a new shirt would do, but he’s all fixed up. And he has himself a big gun with the stock all engraved. He’s proud of that and hangs it over the mantel. And he goes out there and sees nothing but rabbits. And if he doesn’t see a rabbit, he comes home absolutely dejected and miserable. He’s ashamed to go home. I didn’t get a thing. I wasted a day. And the man who is susceptible, who is impressionable comes home and talks for a week about the glories of that wondrous landscape. It just depends on what kind of impressionability there is there if nature can talk to you or can’t talk to you. And when a man wants to shoot a poor, little harmless bunny rabbit and the rabbit doesn’t cooperate, he can be miserable. But that’s all he sees.

I went hunting one time with a one-eyed man for rabbit. By the end of the day, the one-eyed man had all the rabbits and I had the exercise. But he was kind enough to give me the rabbits. I thought I’d let you know I wasn’t against hunting; I was just illustrating.

Now, Moses happened to be one to whom He could appear. But you know, most people, God can’t show Himself, even in adversity He can’t. The three things about Moses I want to talk about and make it brief. One is, that Moses was God-hungry and the second that Moses was a man of faith, and the third that Moses was an obedient man. Now these three, Moses was God hungry. Never forget that Moses said, O God, show me thy glory. And it was the seeking after the glory of God, the manifestation of the glory of God. That was why God could reveal Himself. The rain falls on the sidewalk and runs off again. Rain falls on the poor and thirsty earth and sinks away, and you can almost hear the earth enjoying it. God pours Himself out upon a congregation and the poorest, thirsty hungry hearts receive Him with delight. But there are always those who sit around the edges, hardened, critical and steely of countenance, and the waters of Shiloh run off from them and never a drop of it sinks in.

Moses was a God-thirsty man. Most of us have learned to live with mortality. We’ve learned to live with time We’ve learned to live with temporal things. Moses hadn’t. Moses had to have God or Moses would have died. And then Moses was a man of faith, and the curse of unbelief lies upon us too much. Moses was a man of faith. He believed God. He dared to believe God. He made some mistakes. Sure, he did and you’ll be able to criticize Moses if you’re looking for faults. It certainly didn’t come through one hundred percent. Right in this very chapter here, Moses made mistakes. But Moses nevertheless was a believing man and a man of faith. And God can reveal Himself to a man of faith just as the waves of radio can reveal it themselves to the tube that sensitive.

Even while I’m talking to you now, everything is going through this building. George Washington wouldn’t have believed this, but you know it’s true. Abraham Lincoln would have smiled and told a joke about it, but it’s true. Our speeches, sermons, newsmen are telling about the latest time that Khrushchev cleared his throat and how everybody in the West leap to attention. And there’s everything going on. And of course, there’s a lot of jazz and other stuff. We’re glad we don’t have to hear it, going right through this building now. But you’re not sensitive enough to hear it. If you had a tube, a few tubes properly arranged, and a few other little gadgets, you’d hear it.

Do you remember that lady that claimed that her hair pins were sensitized so she can hear radio. It was in the newspapers about two years ago and there was big talk about it. I think she was kidding with her fingers crossed and her tongue in her cheek and was having some fun with the newspaper man. She said, my bobby pins are sensitive. And she said I can hear a radio program. I’m tuned in. Well, I don’t know where she is now. Maybe she is tuned in. But there’s such a thing as having God manifesting Himself and we don’t know it, God’s speaking and we don’t hear it, God shining and we don’t see it, God revealing himself and we don’t know it, because we meet God’s overtures in cold unbelief.

If you ever have the experience riding around on buses. I have had this experience quite a number of times. You feel good you know. Maybe something’s nice has happened, or it’s stopped snowing and you feel good and you would like to say hello to the driver. You’d like to comment. But he turns a fishy pale, cold, foreboding eye on you and you go on and get off at your stop and don’t say a word. Something dies inside of you. Something nice that you would have liked to passed on, but you can’t.

Sometimes there will be a driver that will be so friendly and he’ll talk and speak to you when you get on. Out here on 95th Street and there road over to Vincents, one driver fought all the way over with a passenger about a dime. All the way over he fought. If he hadn’t been a big fellow and I hadn’t been afraid what he would do, I’d offered him a dime and told him keep still. But he fought all the way over about a dime. And I transferred to Vincents and other man driving; and when I got on the man said, good morning. I paid my fare and I stooped over him and said, what a difference between you and that last driver. And I told him what I told you about that last driver. He said, that don’t pay, that don’t pay. I said, you know it’s fun riding a bus with a fellow like you driving. And I said to this man, thank you. He said, well I try to be friendly. Well, he was. But you never know whether to let yourself go in a friendly overture for fear you will get spiked.

So God, always the friendly God wanting to manifest Himself and to show Himself to people. But some, God gets cut off that harsh and hard. We meet him with a stony stare and unbelief. Others, simple-hearted people believe, and God can manifest Himself. Moses was a man, simple in his faith, though profoundly educated, and a great man, yet he had the simple faith of a child.

And Moses was an obedient man and I want you to know that this man intended to go on with God if it cost him everything. He gave up a place close to the throne, you know. He gave up being a prince in Egypt to go along with the covenant of the seed of Abraham and went out and spent forty years keeping sheep when he could have had those forty years shaking hands with the plenipotentiaries and ambassadors from all over the world. He allowed his religion to cost him something, Moses did. The trouble is now, our religion doesn’t cost us anything. It’s cheap. Cheap grace, cheap faith, cheap heaven, cheap eternal life, cheap Savior. And Moses, it cost him something. In our day, religious people go floating around, making decisions, passing judgment, writing stuff, making speeches, but it never cost them a dime. It cost Moses everything.

I tell you; it is futile to try to have religious comforts and appropriate religious consolation without obeying spiritual laws. No use to try. And that is the great woe of our time. This happens to be the most religious period that I can remember. One dear friend of mine, who is now in heaven, he was a preacher and he wasn’t too much of a preacher, but he rose one day in oratory and said, this is the worst world I’ve ever lived in. And I often say, I hope it’s the worst one he’ll ever see. And I think it is, because he was a good man; and he’s no doubt with his Lord. But all I can say is this is the worst period that I’ve ever lived in when it comes to religion. We’ve got more religion now. It’s running out people’s ears. But it’s an ominous and deadly thing, because it is an effort to appropriate spiritual comforts without obeying spiritual laws. It’s trying to get God to help you without obeying God, and it’ll never work. It will never work.

Moses didn’t try it. He wanted help from God and he went God’s way. He withdrew himself and went over and stood by the tent of meeting and said, I don’t know what you mean to do God, but if you don’t do something, they will. And God came down and stood in a cloud and manifested Himself to Moses and the people. And the people shrank back in fear and Moses knelt in holy awe. Moses would have to pay the price for this. The unregenerate heart, the traditional Christian, the social Christian, the poetic Christian, the psychological Christian, the nominal Christian, they want comfort, they want God’s comfort, but they don’t want God. They want God’s peace, but they don’t want God’s cross. Moses wanted both and he got both. And a man will not obey our own God and Christ, let him prepare to live and die by himself. Let him prepare to live and die alone. And let him prepare for judgment alone.

How could the prodigal son hope for a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet and a robe on him. How could he hope for it, if he stayed in the foreign country? He had to come home to get it. His father had rings and he had robes and he had shoes and he had orchestras and music and ready to have a feast and a party. But the boy had to come home. He said, I will arise and go to my father. But in America, we’re staying in the far country and still wanting God’s ring and God’s robe and God shoes. And the same fellow that will be sponsored by cigarettes and booze, will sing all God’s children got shoes. All God’s children got wings. He wants God’s wings and God’s shoes, but he won’t pay the price of obedience to God’s Word. Moses would.

The prodigal had to come home and we have to too. We have to be obedient. But you know, for everybody that believes, and I know that the majority, if not all of you here today are believing men and women. And I believe that you are wanting to be obedient men and women. And in a greater measure than most places, I would say I think your God-hungry men and women. I pray it may be so.

So, what I have to say and what I’ve said applies to you. Because, while we’re not like Moses in degree, we are like Moses in kind, you see. There’s a difference between degree and kind. Two men stand over there, one of them, four foot, five inches tall. The other one, six foot four. They’re the same in kind, but they’re not quite the same inside. So, a man can be a believer, an obedient believer, and a God-hungry believer, and still not be the stature of Moses. Nobody claims to be. We only claim we want to be, and we are growing. So, I’m not looking for perfection. I’m only saying I hope that you’re God-hungry and that you’re obedient and that you’re believing. And if you are, you have a right to claim this, God appearing in adversity.

I’m going to close with this thought. I want to leave it with you. I dare to prophesize; I dare to do it. I dare to tell you this, that over the next few months, you’re going to see more of God than you’ve seen over the last few years. Do you know why? Too much prosperity, too much peace, too much getting along, too much enjoying ourselves, too much spiritual pleasure. It’s all good and all right. But the Lord said, well, that crowd over there on the corner, they’ve enjoyed themselves tremendously, and it’s wonderful, we’re glad, but they’re going to have to learn that I appear in adversity.

So, you will see more of God over the next few months than you’ve seen over the last few years, and if I’m mistaken about it, write me off as no true prophet. But I think I’m right. God appears to people that are hungry for Him to appear. He appears to people who will pay the price. He appears to the daring people. You’ve all heard the old story of the colored brother when they said, he believed God, you know. And they said, if God told you to jump through that wall, what would you do? He said, it would be my business to jump and God’s business to have a hole in that wall.

And that’s what I say. We must believe in God, and it’s God’s business, if we dare to trust Him. If you don’t put God to the test so to speak, and dare to go out and be adventurous, you will never be able to see the glory of the Lord in the land of the living. Even this morning, even this morning here, the Lord’s table, this sweet time of fellowship around the Lord’s table, when we touch and handle things unseen. And the invisible presence of the Most Holy One is with us. It takes a certain amount of adventure, a certain amount of believing, a certain daring approach to God and thirst after God. If you don’t have it, you sit and shrug your way through another communion service. But if you have it, you can drink of that same drink, and eat of that same bread.

I pray that we may this morning have faith and obedience, and a bit of daring and a yearning after God. For if we have, He will manifest Himself. And the tighter the squeeze, the more He will manifest Himself. The greater the trouble, the greater the manifestation. That’s always been like that and it’s that way today.

Tags Adversity, God, Moses

Messages

Tozer Talks

Post author By pshappard
Post date August 1, 2021

PDF Formatted Transcript Download

“A Look at our Worship of God”

October 27, 1957

Tonight I want to draw to a conclusion a series of talks on worship which I have been trying to give. And you know the text has been one from the old and one from the new. So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty. For he is thy Lord, worship thou him. Then, Peter’s words in the tenth chapter of Acts. He is Lord of all. Tonight, I want to read from the Song of Solomon, Solomon’s song, chapter five, verse eight and following. I charge you O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved that you tell him I am sick of love. That is, I’m lovesick. And they asked her, what is thy beloved more than another beloved O thou fairest among women? What is thy beloved more than another beloved that thou does so charge us? She replies, my beloved is white and ruddy, chiefest among 10,000. His head is as the most fine gold. His locks are bushy and black as a raven. His eyes are the eyes of doves by the rivers of water washed with milk and fitly set. His cheeks are as a bed of spices and sweet flowers, his lips like lilies dropping sweet-smelling myrrh. His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires. His legs are as pillars of marble set with sockets of fine gold. His countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet, yay, he is all together love. This is my beloved. And this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.

Now, the Song of Solomon, sometimes called canticles, another word for song, is a song of love. It is the song of the shepherd and his fair young bride to be, and a rich and worldly rival is seeking to draw her away from her shepherd lover. And then after much dialogue in unutterably beautiful poetry, it is summed up in 8:7. It says many waters cannot quench love. Neither can the floods drown him. If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contempt. That is the sum of it. The strong melody of love that runs through this is heard sounding all through to the climax.

Now, our Lord Jesus Christ is the Shepherd. This has been believed by the church from the beginning, and the redeemed church is the fair bride. And in an hour of distress, she tells the daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, tell him that I am sick of yearning for him. And of course, they asked her the question, why, why do you come to us like this? We we have boyfriends too. We know lots of fine young men. What is it about your beloved more than any other beloved, that you’d send us out over the country hunting him up to tell him the bride is sick of love. Then she answered, my beloved is white and ruddy. I’ve read it. And this is my beloved and he is all together lovely. This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.

And to that question, what is thy beloved more than another? David also answers in the 45th Psalm. He says he’s fairer than the children of men. Grace is poured forth from his lips. And he rides forth in might and glory and majesty and prosperity and meekness and righteousness. And his throne is forever and ever. He goes on to describe him in what he calls a good matter touching the king. His pen is the pen or a ready writer; his tongue is the pen of a ready writer. Then Peter rises higher than all of them put together, this apostle, and simply says in one great broad sweep, He is Lord of all. Now, this is our beloved. This is the one that we have been born to worship. This is the one that God made us to worship. And let’s talk a little bit about what He is the Lord of. I have already over the nights preceding this have talked about His being Lord of Life and Lord of Being and so on.

And now, I speak of His being Lord of wisdom, briefly. He is Lord of wisdom and in Him is hidden all wisdom, and all knowledge, and it’s hidden away. And all the deep, eternal purposes are His. Because of His perfect wisdom, He is enabled to play the checkers across the board of the universe, and across the board of time and eternity, making everything work out right. I don’t mind saying to you dear people that if all I knew of Christianity was what I’m hearing these days mostly, I don’t think I’d be too interested. I don’t think I’d be much interested in the Christ that we were always trying to get something out of. Always something and if you don’t have it and he had it, you go to Him to get it. Well, now that is a part of the Bible of course. But it’s rather, the lower side of it. The higher side of it is, who He is and who we’re called to worship. What is thy beloved? Not a word was said there about what He had for, but just the fact that He was something. She described him in language that could be indelicate in her passionate out pouring. What is your beloved? Why she said, he’s white and ruddy. He’s chiefest among 10,000 and his eyes are like the eyes of doves by the rivers of water washed with milk, and fitly set. And his cheeks are a bed of spices and his lips like lilies dropping sweet smelling myrrh. His mouth is sweet, yay is all together lovely.

And she didn’t say, why, don’t you know why I love him? Because when I’m tired, he rescues me. And when I’m afraid, he takes my fear away. And when I want a job, he gets it for me. When I want a bigger car, I ask him. When I want to have health, he heals me. And now He helps His people, and I believe. And a young man here tonight who prayed a year for a car and God gave to him. I believe in that. I believe that God does those things for people. The first few years of my ministry, if I couldn’t pray and ask God for things, I would have starved to death and not only that, but dragged my wife down with me.

So, I believe in answered prayer, alright. But then, that’s not all. Certainly, that’s not even, that’s the lowest section of it. He is the Lord of all wisdom. And He is the Lord of the Father of the everlasting ages. Not the Everlasting Father as it says in our King James Version, the Father of the everlasting ages. He lays out the ages as an architect lays out his blueprint. He lays out the ages as a developed real estate development man lays out a small town and then builds as our friend Buckles did down here. He lays it out and then builds hundreds of houses on it. And so, He is not dealing with buildings and local developments. He’s dealing with the ages. And He is the Lord of all wisdom. And because He’s perfect in wisdom, He is able to do this. And history is the slow development of His purposes you see.

You take a house that’s being built, the architect has drawn it down to the last tiny little dot and the tiny little x. He knows everything about it, written his name at the bottom, and turned it over to the contractor. And he has farmed it out to the electrician and the plumber and all the rest. And you go down by there some time and you say casually, I wonder what that’s going to be. It’s a mess now. There it is. There’s a steam shovel in there with its great ugly nose plowing out a hole and throwing it up on the bank or into trucks to haul away. And they’re unloading bricks there. It’s just a confused conglomeration of this and that. And you say, what’s this? And then, you come back by their six or eight to ten months later and you see a charming house there. The landscapers have even been in and the trees, the evergreens are standing there with little green spikes beside the windows, and it’s a beautiful thing. And a child playing on the lawn.

Well, we ask you to believe my friends that the Father of the everlasting ages, the Lord of all wisdom, has laid out His plans and He is working toward them. And you and I go by and we see a church all mixed up and we see her sore distressed by schisms rent asunder by heresy distress. We see her backslidden in one part of the world and we see confusion in another part of the world and we shrug our shoulders and say, what is thy beloved anyway? What is all this? And the answer is, He is the Lord of the wise ages and He’s laying it all out. And what you’re seeing now is only the steam shovel working. That’s all, only the truck backed up with bricks. That’s what you’re seeing. You’re only seeing workman in overalls going about killing time. That’s all you’re seeing. You’re just seeing people, and people make you sick because of the way we do, the way we backslide and tumble around and get mixed up and run after will-o’-the-wisps and think it’s the Shekinah glory. And hear an owl hoot and think it’s the silver trumpet and take off in the wrong directions, and spend a century catching up on ourselves and backing out.

And history smiles at us, but don’t be too sure brother. Come back in another millennium or so and see what the Lord of all wisdom has done with what He’s got. See then what He’s done. He’s the Lord of all wisdom, and history is the slow development of His purposes. And He’s the Lord of all righteousness. You know what? I’m glad I’m attached to something good. That there’s something good somewhere in the universe. Now I couldn’t possibly be, I couldn’t possibly be a Pollyanna optimist. I was born wrong. I would have had to have a different father and mother and a different ancestral line back at least ten generations if I could for me to have been a Pollyanna, plum pudding philosopher that believed that everything was good. And I can’t believe that. I don’t think it’s true. There’s so much that isn’t right everywhere and we might as well admit it. We just might as well admit it. If you don’t believe it, leave your car unlocked out there and then go out and see you get a bigger sermon than I can preach to you, It will be gone.

Righteousness, then we imagine that we’ve got the Pharisees who think they’re righteous and they’re not. They’re just self-righteous hypocrites. And we’ve got politicians that lie and make all kinds of promises which they don’t intend to keep. And the only honest one that I’ve known of in my lifetime has been Wendell Wilkie. When somebody challenged him with a promise that he made during a campaign, he said those were just campaign promises. He was the only one that I know of honest enough to admit he lied to get elected. He didn’t get elected, but he lied anyhow and admitted it, which was something. Righteousness is not found. If you think it is, get on a bus somewhere when there’s a crowd, and you will find that no matter how old and feeble you are, you’ll get the rib or two cracked or at least badly dinged by the elbow of some housewife on our way home. And we’re just not good. People are just not good. Among the first things we learned to do is something bad and something mean. Sin is everywhere. I don’t know whether Brother McAfee’s song, I told him I never cared much for that song but he loves it and sings it and has other people singing it. And I have begun to like it myself. I want a principle within. To cry to God for a principle of holiness within us to make us strong against the world and the evil outside of us. I’m beginning to see John must have had something there.

And you know brother and sister that this is reformation Sunday? Well you know that there’s iniquity are everywhere and I want to be joined to something good. You say well, I’m an American, I’m an American too. I was born here didn’t cost me a dime to become an American because my father little and my mother but didn’t cost me a dime. I’m an American, and I’ll never be anything else, but an American. And when they bury me there’ll be a little bit of America as the poet said, wherever I may be placed.

But, you have got to be pretty much of a, you gotta be an awful sissy to believe in the total righteousness of the United States of America. Don’t you? You’ve got to be an awful fool, really an awful fool. That buzzard’s nest up there at Washington. God bless them. It doesn’t make any difference whether they’re Democrats or Republicans are in there. They’re a bunch, of a lot of them at least, a bunch of crooks. And they mean alright, but they’re Adam’s fallen brood doing the best they can. We’d probably do worse, so we can pray for them and ask God to have mercy on them, but that’s about it.

But here we go and turn on the radio to try to get something educational, or something cultural and all you get is songs sung about automobiles and cigarettes. Well, it’s not a good world we live in, it’s a bad world. And you can become a Protestant, all right, that doesn’t help much. You can become an American, or be an American and that doesn’t help too much. But when you attach yourself to the Lord of Glory, you’re connected with something righteous, something that’s really righteous, not pollyannish, but something really righteous. He is Righteousness itself. The call of the concept of righteousness, and all the possibility of righteousness, are all summed up in Him. But unto the Lord, unto the Son he said, Thy throne, O God is forever and ever, a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Therefore God, Thy God hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows.

So, we have there a perfectly righteous Savior, a perfectly righteous Savior. They spied on Him. They sent the enemy to search into His life. Can you imagine if Jesus had made a mistake anywhere down the line. Can you imagine if Jesus’ foot had slipped once, even once down the line? Can you imagine if Jesus had lost His temper once, or if Jesus had been selfish once? Can you imagine if Jesus had done one thing that you and I take for granted even once? Can you imagine that all the sharp, beady eyes of hell were following Him trying to catch something out of his mouth? And when the end of His days had almost come, He turned on them and said, which of you convicteth me of sin? Not a one of you.

Righteousness was His and He’s the High Priest and if you go back to the Old Testament, you will find that when the high priest went into the holy place, he wore on his shoulders and on his breast, certain affairs that were prescribed. But upon his forehead, he wore a miter and who knows what was on that miter? Holiness unto the Lord. He was saying the best he could. Even that man had to have a sacrifice made for him. But he was trying to say in symbol what has been fulfilled in fact, that when He the High Priest of all high priests came, He would wear on His forehead, Holiness unto the Lord. And when they in mockery crashed down that crown of thorns upon His brow; if they’d had the eyes of a prophet, they could have seen a miter there, holiness unto the Lord. He is the Lord of all righteousness and the Lord of all mercy, because He establishes His kingdom of reclaimed rebels, Jesus does. He redeemed them and he won them and he renews the right spirit within them. But every body in this kingdom is a redeemed rebel.

Do you know what we think about people that have betrayed our country? We scarcely forgive them. We forgive them, but we always look askance upon them, those who have fallen in as some have into communism, and have spied for the, or at least have helped the communistic scheme. And then they’ve gotten their eyes open, and have turned away from it and gone to the FBI, admitted it and straighten their lives out, and even them we look at with a bit of doubt.

But did you ever stop to think that Jesus Christ hasn’t got a single member of His kingdom anywhere that wasn’t a former spy and rebel for the enemy. Have you ever thought of it? If it’s bad for a man in Washington, or Oak Hill or University of Chicago to get secrets, and take them and tell them to the enemy. If that is bad, and it is bad, and they hang him for it, why, how much worse to be over on the side of the enemy against the Lord of Glory as all sinners are. And don’t forget, at all sinners are.

And that’s why I smile when I see an old self-satisfied Deacon, sitting with his hands crossed looking like a statue of St. Francis. He is a very godly man indeed, and very conscious of it. All right, Deacon Jones, don’t you know what you were? You were a rebel and a spy. And you sold out the secrets of the kingdom of God and collaborated with the enemy and lived to overthrow the holy kingdom of God. And that’s all of us. And there is not one of us it doesn’t include, not a one of those. And if you don’t like that, then you’re no theologian. If you knew your Bible, you would agree with me. Because that’s what we all were. But mercy, oh the mercy, Lord of all mercy.

Sometime, I want to preach a sermon on mercy. I don’t think I ever have. Of course, I’ve woven it into all of my preaching. But think of the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ, in utter mercy, utter mercy, mercy of our Lord. He is the Lord of all mercy. He is the Lord of all righteousness, and He sees how bad we are. But He’s the Lord of all mercy, and he doesn’t care. So, in His great kindness, He takes rebels and unrighteous persons, sinners, and makes them His own and establishes them in righteousness and renews a right spirit within them. And then we have a church. We have a cell, a company of believers meet together and He’s their Lord. And he’s the Lord of all power.

Now, here’s some Scripture. Just let me give it to you. After these things, I heard a great voice a great voice of much people in heaven saying, and what do you suppose they were saying? All salvation and glory and honor and power unto the Lord our God. This isn’t hysteria, but it’s ecstasy. There’s a difference. Hysteria is one thing, but ecstasy is another. And this was ecstasy. They said, alleluia and left the “H” off, and said, salvation and glory and honor and power unto the Lord our God. For true and righteous are His judgments. For He has judged the great whore which did corrupt the earth and with her fornication, and has avenged the blood of His servants at her hand. And again they said, alleluia and their smoke rose up forever and ever. And the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell down and worshiped God that sat on the throne saying, amen, alleluia. Here we have it again, no hysteria, but a lot of ecstasy. And a voice came out of the throne saying, praise our God, all ye His servants, and ye that fear Him both small and great, said John.

Do you know, it’ll be worthwhile getting put in a salt mine on the Isle of Patmos to have a vision like that, wouldn’t it? It really would. It would be better to get on to a salt mine and say they had him in a salt mine over there on the Isle of Patmos. That fella who’d lived out on the sea catching fish and walked the sandy shores and smelled the fresh air. Now he’s in a mine, and it’s dark in there and suddenly the Lord lifts him into the Spirit on the Lord’s day. And he hears a voice saying, alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reineth. Let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to Him for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. Do you see, there’s the Song of Solomon in New Testament garb.

To her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And He said unto me, write, blessed are they which are called of the marriage supper of the Lamb. Blessed are they. And he said, these are the true sayings of God, and I fell on my feet to worship Him. And He said, don’t you worship me. I am thy fellow servant of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God. I saw heaven open. I’m waiting around brethren, I’m waiting around. I saw heaven open. Moses did and Isaiah did and Ezekiel did and John did, and I’m waiting around. Paul did. I saw heaven open and behold a white horse. And He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True. And in righteousness, He is the judge and will make war, and His eyes were as a flame of fire; and on His head where many crowns. And He had a name written that no man knew but He Himself. He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood and his name is called the Word of God.

There we have this victorious Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of all power. He is the Lord of all power. Do you know, sin has scarred the world. Back in the state of Pennsylvania, they do what they call strip mining. And I was angry in my heart when I saw what they have done to our lovely Pennsylvania hills. These greedy dogs had gone and with their great machinery, they had stripped away the foliage and gone down into the bowels of the beautiful hillsides and taken out a cheap coal; anything to get a little money. And the government says, when you take it and strip mine, you got to fill it up again or it will cost you $100 an acre. And they grinned and said, it will cost us more than $100 a acre to fill it up, so they pay their fine and leave it there. And when I was back this last summer I drove up, they drove me up back past the old place, and I looked out for when I was there four to five years before. It had lain there like a wounded man. Lain there all gouged and ugly. Where in my boyhood days, it had been beautiful to see as the green trees met the blue sky above. But now, it was scarred and they paid their fine because it was cheaper than to fulfill their promise. And they left her there, that lovely hillside, all gouged and cut and bruised. And when I was back, I could have wept to see how kindly mother nature had gone to work. And where four or five years before it was just an ugly hole. Now the sun and the rain and the wind and the waves and the beautiful rain that God sent down in sheets upon that hillside as I’ve seen it fall many times, had begun to bring out the blossoms that I didn’t know were there, and now nature is covering up her wounds, her scars, her ugliness.

God made the world beautiful and if you go out and make it ugly, God in five years will make it beautiful again. The human race is ugly, ugly though made in the image of God and the potentialities of beauty, ugly in its sin. I think my brethren that the ugliest place in the world is hell. The ugliest place in the universe is hell. And when a man says “ugly as hell,” he’s using a proper and valid comparison. For there is nothing as ugly as hell. But surely Hell is the ugliest place in the universe. It is that against which all other ugliness can be compared. And surely Heaven is the most beautiful place, the place of supreme beauty, with its power that knows no limit and wisdom free from bound, the beatific vision shall glad the saints around. And the peace of all the faithful in the calm of all the blessed inviolet and very divineness, sweetest best, it shall all be there.

So like hell is the ugliest place in the universe. Surely, the most beautiful place will be heaven, for all harmony will be there and all fragrance and all its charm. But between heaven, which is the epitome of all supreme beauty and hell which is the essence of all ugliness, there lies the poor scarred world. The poor earth lies like a pitiful dying woman clothed in rags, that wants was a beauty that could have stood and been admired by the ages, now sin has cut her down and she’s tattered and torn. And from the Nile to the Mississippi and from California to Bangkok, and from the North Pole to the South Pole, wherever human beings go, we find moral ugliness and sin and hatred and suspicion, name calling and all the rest. And the beautiful grace that the Lord made to be His bride, now in her pathetic ugliness, lies, dying, clothed in rags. But Jesus Christ, the Lord of mercy came to save here and took upon Himself her flesh, her own flesh, and was made in the likeness of man and for sin He gave Himself to die. And there’s going to be a restoration and that poor, bruised, dying thing, that poor bruised, dying thing.

Years ago, I read that great book, that great book, I suppose that it’s one of the greatest book ever written of its kind, Les Misérables, the great book by Victor Hugo. And in it, there was one of the most tender and pathetic passages that I think I have ever read in all literature. You would have to go to the Bible to find anything as deeply moving. Here was this young man one of the upper class, the nobles, and here was the woman that he was in love with, you know, they weave that all in. And here in the middle, was a pale-faced little urchin girl from the streets of Paris, who, with her poor rags and her pale, tubercular face, she also loved the nobleman, but didn’t dare say so. So he used her to carry notes. They used her to carry notes back and forth. And this great fellow never dreamed that this poor, sallow-faced girl dressed in rags, had lost her heart to him in his nobility. So, he went to find her and see what he could do to help her, and found her lying on the bed of rags in the tenement house in the low section of Paris. And this time she can’t get up to greet him nor carry a note to his fiancé. So, he says to her, what can I do for you? And she said, well, I’m dying. I’ll be gone in a moment. And he said, what can I do? Tell me, anything. And she said, would you do one thing for me before I close my eyes for the last time? And she said, would you, when I’m dead, would you kiss my forehead?

I don’t know. I know it was only Victor Hugo brilliant imagination, but I know Victor Hugo had seen that in Paris. He’d gone through the sewers there and he had seen, and he knew about it. He knew that you can beat a girl down and you can beat her down and you can clothe her in rags, and you can fill her with tuberculosis and you can make her so thin that the wind will blow her off course when she walks down a dirty street. She can’t take out of her heart that thing that makes her want to love a man. You can’t take that out. God said, Adam, you can’t be alone, it isn’t right. And he made a woman meet for him. You can’t take that out. And Victor Hugo knew it. And he wrote that thing in. I rarely quote from a fiction, but I thought that was worth it.

My dear friends, our Lord Jesus Christ came down and found, found the race like that, consumptive and long and pale-faced and died, and took on Himself all her death, and rose the third day and took all the pathos out, and all the pity out, and now she comes walking on the arm of her, leaning on the arm of her Beloved, walking into the presence of God and He presents her, not a poor, pitiful wreck who he kissed when she was dead. But His happy, bright-eyed bride meet to be a partaker of the saints in light. Worthy to stand beside Him and be His bride in the glory yonder. What is her authority and what is her right and by what authority does she walk into the presence of the Father?

You remember back in that chapter in the book of Genesis where Abraham calls his servant and sends his servant to get a bride for Isaac his son. He goes to the well and finds Rebecca, and says to Rebecca. It makes me homesick just pronounce the name, but says to Rebecca, my master’s son has sent me, and I’ve come for you if you will go. And she said, what are the terms? Well, that you go without waiting around. Now, go with me across the desert and be a bride for my master’s son. She said, I’ll go and when she said I’ll go, he reached into the saddle bag of the great, old camel that he’d ridden out, that swaying ship of the desert. And he took out jewelry and he put it around her neck and put it on her arms and fingers and ankles and he decked her out after the time.

And when she arrived, it was a long trip back there across the desert, you know. The old servant, he wasn’t fooling around. He’d been sent after a bride and he got her, and he was on his way back. And I imagine he was slapping the side of that old bobbing camel as they went across that desert. And Isaac was bothered, he was bothered. His father said, what’s the matter Isaac? And he said, well, I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t get enough sleep last night. And his father winked at his mother and said that he’s got it alrighty. He has it. And he went out it says in a kind of a nice, biblical, dignified way, half humorous, you know it says he was out walking in the twilight at the cool of the day. What was he out there for? He knew that he’d hear in the distance, the tinkling of camel bells. And he know when he heard the tinkling of the camel bells, that there’d be a bride, and a worthy one. She had to be worthy. And he knew something else. How was he going to know her? He’s going to know her by the jewelry she had on. He’d sent it. And when she came back with it. He said that this is her. She would have been English but heard what he probably said, this is her alright. And he knew his bride by the jewelry she wore.

And I don’t know my friends. I don’t want to go get too emotional, but I just think that maybe the Lord of Glory who sent the Holy Ghost of Pentecost to get a bride, I don’t know but what sometimes He may get up from the throne and take a walk and say, I’m listening for the sound of the camel bells. For the bride is getting ready and He will know her. And how will He know her? We sing, we’ll know Him by the prints of the nails. How will He know us? By the jewelry we wear. His, that He sent down. And what is it? The fruits of the Spirit. It’s love and joy and peace, temperance and kindness and all that. We’ll know Him and He’ll know us. And so it says in brusk simplicity. And Isaac took Rebecca and she became his bride. None of this big show stuff, organ blowing. You know, and people walking lockstep down there. He just walked over and said, Honey, I know you by what you got on. Come on over here. And she went to be with him and became his bride. And our Lord Jesus Christ, He’ll know who they are. Don’t you worry. You say nobody knows me. I’m a Christian alright, but I’ve never been heard of out of my block. If you go beyond my block, I’m a stranger. I wouldn’t worry about that. He knows you. He knows who you are and He knows you by the jewelry of the Word. He is thy Lord and He shall greatly desire thy beauty. Worship thou Him!

Tags God, Redemption, Worship