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“The Voice of Conscience”

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The Voice of Conscience

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

June 28, 1953

Let me read a very unpleasant and very wonderful passage of Scripture, and take one verse, the ninth, as a sort of start for our talk tonight. The eighth chapter of John, the opening verses. Jesus went out onto the Mount of Olives. And early in the morning, he came again into the temple. And all the people came on to Him and sat down and He taught them. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they say unto Him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now, Moses in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. What saith Thou? This, they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So, when they continued asking him, He lifted up Himself and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

And again, he stooped down and wrote on the ground. And to they which heard it being convicted, by their own conscience went out one by one beginning at the eldest even under the last. And Jesus was left alone. I’d like to have seen that parade wouldn’t you? Dignified old boys with gray beards, clear down to the youngest kid. And Jesus was left alone with a woman standing in the midst.

When Jesus had lifted up Himself and saw no one but the woman, He said unto her: woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? And she said, no man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. Verse nine, and they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the youngest. Now, tonight I am to speak on the voice of the human conscience.

Now, hell, hell by means of pseudo, learned propaganda, has brought into disrepute many of life’s verities; and among these is conscience. When conscience is mentioned now in learned circles, it is mentioned only with a smirk; and where it is used seriously, it is necessary that we must defend the whole concept of human conscience. That seems almost unbelievable, but it is true.

But tonight, I will not defend and I will not ignore. I cannot ignore that which the universal wisdom of the race has approved. The universal wisdom of the human race has approved the idea of there being a conscience within the heart of a man and I will not ignore that which the universal testimony of all peoples in all ages have agreed to a lot. Neither will I defend that which the Christian Scriptures take for granted mostly, and in some instances teach flatly. If you will go through your concordance you will find that conscience is mentioned very many places. And the idea which the word conscience embodies, is mentioned throughout the entire Bible not once or 10 times or 100 times but underlies the whole structure and is part woven into the entire Bible.

Now I want to tell you what we mean by conscious, as I am able; and then point to this Bible example of its operation, and then show that it is a voice which is calling and then show what it’s done to people. It sounds like a big order, but it won’t take too long. Now, what we mean by conscience is that which always refers to right and wrong. Conscience never deals with theories about anything. Conscience always deals with right and wrong, and the relation of the individual to right and wrong. You will notice a strange thing here, that conscience never deals in plurals. It always deals in singulars.

There is only one place in the entire Bible where conscience is used in the plural. That is when Paul is talking and says that He commends himself to their consciences. Everywhere else, it is made to be singular as when it says, they, being convicted by their conscience, not consciences, but conscience. They been convicted by their conscience went out. And always it is so that conscience in the Bible refers to right and wrong and is individual and personal and singular.

Now, it is individual, and it is exclusive. I say that it never permits plurals. It excludes everybody else. If those dozen or two dozen, however many there were, that had ganged up there. If they could have thought of themselves as a group, they could have drawn courage from the idea, and they might have been able to brazen it out. But conscience never let you lean on anybody else. Conscience singles you out as though nobody else existed. The Bible doesn’t say that when they went out, they went out in a mass. They went out one by one. Each one went out driven by his own conscience.

Now, the word conscience here, means, a moral sight. It means to see completely. It means an inward awareness. It means to be secretly aware of. Now that’s the psychological definition for it. But there is a ground of conscience. And that’s what we’re concerned with here tonight, not its psychological definition, but with the ground of human conscience. And that ground of human conscience is the secret presence of Christ in the world. Christ is in the world. And the secret presence of Christ in the world is the ground of human conscience. It is a moral awareness. A verse that I very often quote for it is a verse very basic in my theology, is John 1:9, that says that that is the light, Jesus, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. And that Light in the world, that Secret Presence in the world, which lights every man that comes into the world, that is the ground of moral conscience. However, it operates, that is its ground. That’s why it’s here. That’s what put it here, that the living, eternal Word, is present in the world, present in human society, present here, secretly present here and giving to humanity a secret awareness of moral values. A secret awareness

Now I know there are some who tell us that when the Bible says that we are dead in trespasses and sins, that it means that we are dead in a very literal sense of the word. And being dead therefore we have no moral awareness. But I think that kind of exegesis is so bad and so confused and so confusing, that it should be ridden out of town on the first rail that could be commandeered from a farmer. It just has no place at all in the Scripture, it has no place there, because the Bible says that I am dead in sin, therefore, that I am like a dead man. I can’t be talked to nor persuaded nor argued with nor convicted nor convinced nor pleaded with nor frightened nor appeal to. I’m just a dead lump.

Now, here we have a Bible example. In John 1:8-11. They were very strict moralists, those Jews. That is, they were when nobody was looking. There were, when they could get away with it. And they found a poor, wretch of a woman. And they didn’t give any care whatsoever about the woman. Neither did they care anything about the broken law. Neither did they care anything for the Jewish church, or as men say, the Society of Israel. They only had one thing in mind. They were going to take this religious teacher that was embarrassing them, and they were going to silence Him for good. They were going to get Him to commit Himself to a statement that they could use against Him and take the hide off of Him and drive Him out with loss of face, discredited forever. That was their business. The woman was a pawn, a cat’s paw, no more. They had no love for her. They had no hatred of her sin. They hated Jesus and they would do anything to get at Jesus. So they dragged this poor, miserable woman into His presence. And they said, here a harlot. Here she is.

And God in His sovereign mercy raises me from the dead, gives me the new birth, regenerates me, and then I am prepared to listen. It’s all wrong brethren. When the Bible says we are dead in trespasses and sins, it means that we are cut off from the life of God. And that’s all that it means. But that in itself, I suppose is so bad, that it’s impossible to think of anything worse. But that same man that is cut off from the life of God, and so dead in sin, that same man has a moral awareness. That same man has a secret inner voice that is always talking to him. It’s the Light, that lightet every man that cometh into the world. It’s a singular voice in the bosom of every human being, accusing or else excusing him, as Paul put it. Now, that’s what I mean by conscience.

Now the law of Moses said we are to stone her to death. What do you say? And if he had said stone her to death, and they had stone her to death, the Romans would have put Jesus in prison and that would have been the end of him. If Jesus had said, let her go, they’d have said, we always knew you’re against the law of Moses. And that would have been the end of Him. They would have discredited Him before the law. But I admit, ladies and gentlemen, that I get considerable personal, private, highly individualistic delight out of the way He handled that bunch. He knew them. He knew them. He knew that bunch of hypocrites. He knew they didn’t have any love for that women. He knew they didn’t have any love for the law. He knew they only hated Him. And he knew this whole thing was a frameup.

Not only that he knew those old boys, their phylacteries, their long robes, their sanctimonious look, their pious, nasal breathing and all that pseudo spirituality and artificial godliness, He knew the whole business and He knew what they had done down the years. And they said, alright, we’re supposed to stone her. What do you say? And I think there was a twinkle in the heart if not in the eye of Jesus. He looked those old boys over and He said, fellows, let the one of you that never sinned, get the first rock. And immediately being smitten by that inner voice, they sneaked out. One went out and he was ashamed to say anything to the other one.

And each one slipped out quietly by himself, all alone, because it is in the power of conscience to isolate the human soul and take away all of its hopes and helps and encouragement; isolate it and hold it alone in the universe before the bar of God. Each one of them sneaked out. Some of those pious old boys thought because they were old, and they had forgotten their early sins that God had forgotten them. But as soon as the voice of Jesus aroused them within, they remembered, and they sneaked out. And they sneaked out afraid to look up for a fear that God would start throwing stones at them. For they knew they were just as guilty as she was.

That law that thou shalt stone the wicked woman was meant for holy people who weren’t wicked. It was not meant that a wicked man could stone a wicked woman. It was never meant that one sinner could put another sinner to death. It was never thus meant, and Jesus knew it. And these old hypocrites, when they ran into Jesus, brother, it was like a cat running into a mowing machine. And they came away each one of them licking his wounds. I don’t know whether they went straight home, or just how. They didn’t dare look at each other. Because each one was ashamed. Now, that’s how this conscience business works.

It smites the inner life. It touches the heart. It isolates it. It sets us off all by ourselves. You know, to my mind, I don’t want to anticipate next Sunday night’s sermon. But to my mind, that is going to put the hell in judgment; that each one of us must go alone. If twelve men are led away to be shot, they can get some moral support from each other. And the very fact there’s another fellow one on each side of you that’s sharing your tragedy, gives your moral support. But isolate them and lead them one at a time not knowing that there is another, and that moral support is all taken away. It will be the cosmic loneliness of judgment that will put hell in it.

Gangsters can meet together after dark, a dozen of them and take courage from each other. And wicked classes everywhere can meet and shout and work up steam and take courage from each other, but the lonely soul, lonely in a universe with only that soul and an angry God. That’s the terror of a conscience. And that’s exactly what the conscience does. It singles the man out. So God has then given us a faithful witness inside of our own hearts.

Now, I believe that. I preached one time up in Minnesota on the conscience. I don’t remember what I said exactly. Maybe it was pretty bad. But one old fella said he got a great burden, a great burden. He said he had the Holy Ghost burden because of my sermon, it was so terrible and unscriptural. He didn’t believe in conscience obviously. And the Bible School bigwig was there. He called me aside and told me he didn’t believe in it either, or words to that effect.

What has happened when we no longer believe in the human conscience? That the conscience is pushed aside. I say that hell has done that by her propaganda. She has used the bubble-headed dreamy-eyed boys with pseudo learning who know just enough to be pitifully ignorant. And just learn long sesquipedalian words in order to cover up their own pitiful lack of knowledge. And they have laughed conscience out of court. And the church is afraid to admit the conscience. The Bible isn’t afraid to admit it. It says bluntly, being convicted by their own conscience they went out one by one; conscience stricken, smitten inside, struck by a stroke from heaven, they walked out of there, each one of them, down the steps and out onto the sidewalk and sneaked away. That’s what conscience does. It’s that inner voice that talks inside of you?

Now, one way the devil has of getting rid of things is to make jokes about them. I want to warn you brother, look out for the corruption of your mind by the papers and magazines and radio jokes; watch out for the corruption of your mind. There’s legitimate humor and we all admit that. And I think it’s in us by the gift of God. But whenever that humor takes holy things for it’s object, that humor is devilish at once. One of the slick jokes you hear is the conscience is set in you which makes you sorry when you get caught. Now, that’s supposed to be funny. I tell you that it is not funny. It’s tragic that anybody can yield so to the propaganda of hell as to joke about that which is no joke. There are some things ladies and gentlemen that are just not joke-worthy. They just don’t belong in the field where you can joke about it.

I respect that old New Englander who would never allow anybody to joke about love or death in his presence–Emerson. Anybody that started to crack a joke about love, and he saw that love was going to be the object of a joke, any kind of love, he frowned them down to shut them up. And if they joked about death, he frowned them down and refused to allow them to joke about. There are some things that are not the proper objects of humor, and one of them is conscience. That power that God has set in the human breasts, suddenly to isolate a soul and hang it between heaven and hell; lonely as if God had never created but one soul. That’s not a joking matter. The Light that lighteth have every man that comes into the world is not a joking matter. The eternal universal presence of the luminous Christ is not a joking matter. That’s too serious to be dealt with lightly. Joke about politics if you must joke. They’re usually funny anyway, but don’t joke about God. And don’t joke about conscience nor death nor life nor our love for the cross nor prayer.

We have become in our day the greatest bunch of sacrilegious jokesters in the world. I’ve even seen pictures in magazines and newspapers of people who had taught their dog to pray. They thought it was a very humorous thing to show a little spotted dog with his paws crossed and his eyes shut bowing in a bed. The Bible says beware of dogs. And I might add beware of the fools who teach dogs to pray. Beware of any who take lightly that which God takes seriously. God will give you a whole world of pleasant things. The birds will sing in your backyard and the kids will romp over your lawn if you have a lawn. And a thousand things will happen in the day that can be dismissed with a pleasantry. So, your sense of humor won’t die. There’s plenty to laugh at in the world. Be sure you don’t laugh at something that God takes seriously. Conscience is one of those things. And remember that the conscience is always on God’s side. Always on God’s side, and He judges conduct in the light of the moral law. And as the Scripture says, excuses or accuses.

Now, this is one voice that we’ve all heard. There’s a little song that says, I think when I read the sweet story of old when Jesus was here among men, how he took little children as lambs to His fold, I should like to have been with Him them. And I understand that, I think it’s a very pleasant little song. But oh, it couldn’t be further from the truth. For you wouldn’t have been better off if you had been here when Jesus was on earth. Not a bit better off. You’re better off now. It’s expedient for you that I go away, He said. So, you’re better off now than if you had been here when Jesus was on the earth. And that same little fallacy would say, if I had heard Jesus; if I had just heard Jesus, do you know that there were thousands who heard Jesus that had no idea what he was talking about. You know that some of His own disciples had to wait for the Holy Ghost at Pentecost to know what Jesus was talking about. If I had only heard Jesus, we say. No, no, my brother, you would have heard a voice, as far as you’re now personally concerned, equal to that voice of Jesus, and that’s the voice of the inner conscience. For it is the voice, It is the Light, that lighteth every man, changed from light; for that’s what it means–moral illumination. It’s there. Some say, if I could have heard Paul. Others will say, if we could only have heard so and so.

They’re now doing this little thing. One more thing I’m against. They’re taking the big preachers and putting them on tapes and taking them to churches where they haven’t got anything, only little preachers, so that the congregations won’t have to be starved, they say by listening to little preacher. They can hear the big preacher. They take somebody like Graham or some other of the big preachers of the day. And they will put him on a tape and bring him to church. And then the little preacher can sit around twiddling his thumbs while the big preacher preaches to the congregation.

Fallacy, brethren, fallacy, thousand times a fallacy. If we could have Paul on tape recording and let him stand here and preach, he could do no more for you than the Holy Ghost can do with the Book and the human conscience. If I had only heard Simpson. You’ve heard a truer voice than Simpson and a more wonderful voice. You’ve heard the first voice and the last voice. You’ve heard the voice of the Light within the heart. You’ve heard that which the accusers of the woman heard. You’ve heard that inner voice always preaches to each man singly.

That which follows and goes on and tracks and traces it through, and there’s a nemesis on our trail. You’ve heard that voice. And it’s sheer hypocrisy to say, If I only could have heard Moody or some great preacher. A congregation of half-saved Christians will sit and pay no attention to the Light that lighteth of everyman and ignore the voice that sounds within them. And then say, now, we’ll have a tape recording of Paul Reese or Billy Graham. Sure, we’ll get somewhere. Oh, my bethren, not to detract from those great men; only to say, that’s not what that church needs. That church needs to listen to the inner voice and do something about it.

Don’t forget Paul had his hypocrites, Peter had his Ananias and Sapphira. Jesus had His very Judas. And the history of the great preachers and great evangelists has not been 100% history. All always they had men who heard their voices and didn’t know what they were hearing. You’re hearing a more eloquent voice than mine, my brethren/ You’re hearing tonight a voice that’s more serious than any preacher you’ve ever listened to.

I once entered a little gathering in New York City. It’s a small group and I heard a minister there talking to a noonday crowd and he said something I’ll not soon forget. He said, we assume that if a man has heard the gospel, he’s been enlightened. But it’s a false assumption. Just to have heard a man preach the Scripture doesn’t mean necessarily that you have been enlightened. No. It’s the voice that enlightens, brethren. It’s the Holy Ghost, the point of contact. The Spirit of God speaking soundlessly within. That’s what illuminates a man. That’s what brings him, makes him accountable to God. Just the falling of the words of a text on the human ear may not mean anything. But that inner voice means everything. And a man has not been illuminated until that Voice begins to sound within him. And that Voice is the voice of conscience, the voice of conviction, the Holy Ghost talking inside of a man.

Now, I want you to notice what men do to their consciences sometimes. 1 Timothy 1:5, it tells us here, now, the end of the commandment is love out of the pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned, from which some having swerved, have turned aside unto vain jangling. Now, here we have it, some people have had a good conscience or have turned away from a good conscience like a stubborn horse, they have turned aside and wouldn’t listen to it. And they will religion has become mere, vain jangling.

They are the careless living Christians. There is a penalty for careless living, ladies and gentlemen, whether we know it or not. There is a penalty for careless living. And we see these victims who are now vain janglers. They talk just as loudly as ever about religion, but it’s empty jangling, because they have put away a good conscience. All the sermons in the world will be wasted if there is not a conscience, a clean void conscience to receive the truth. 1 Timothy 4:1, 2, we read there, the Holy Ghost tells us about certain ones who speak lies and hypocrisy having their conscience seared with a hot iron. Now there, we have this seared conscience. Before, we have the conscience that’s been turned aside here we have the seared conscience. And I want you to know brethren that these who had this seared conscience went into false doctrine.

We wonder how it is that it’s possible for a man who wants was brought up in the word of truth, suddenly to turn away from it into some false religion. To say his mind got confused. No, no, let’s be honest about this. False doctrine can have no power upon the good conscience. A false doctrine falls harmlessly on a good conscience. But when a conscience has become seared, when a man has played with the fire and burned his conscience and seared it and callused it until you could handle a hot iron and sin without shrinking.

Then there’s no longer any safety for the man. He can go off into Christian Science. He can go off into Unity. Go off into Jehovah’s Witnesses. He can go off into any one of 50 varieties of false religion. Kenneth Banghard who was one of the leading newscasters of the day, I heard him say the other night in a newscast that Buddhism is growing in America, and that there are more than 100,000 Buddhists in the state of California alone. Why are there 100,000 Buddhists in the state of California? Because there were at least that many people whose consciences went hard under the preaching of the Truth. And because their consciences were seared and they could no longer hear the voice of the Spirit, God let them believe a lie that they might be damned. If there are 100,000 in California, it must run into the millions when you take in the rest of the 47 states.

They’re not Arabs. They’re Americans. Some few, of course, may be Orientals But they are converts being made by the hundreds and even thousands, for the Swamis and Yogi’s had come to this country. Why will a man who went to a Methodist or Baptist Sunday school when he was a boy, learn the 10 commandments and part of the Sermon on the Mount and the story of Christ’s birth and death and crucifixion and death and resurrection from the dead? Why should he turn to Buddha or Mohammed? The answer is, he fooled with the inner voice and he wouldn’t listen to the sound of the preacher within him and God turned from him and let him go. And with a seared conscience, he wandered into the arms of Buddha, or the arms of Mohamed. Titus 11:15,16 says that even their conscience is defiled, you see there. We have a seared conscience and a defiled conscience. Now, these are the ones who are corrupt inwardly. Their thoughts are impure. And their language is often soiled. I am just as afraid of people with soiled tongues as I am of a man with a communicable disease. For a soiled tongue is evidence of a deeper disease.

When we were bringing up our boys, they were always, of course, anxious as all parents are about the various diseases. And one of them got something or other and I dashed off to the library and went to the medical section. And I was afraid it was scarlet fever. I don’t know why I didn’t call a doctor. Anyway, I went to the library. And it said scarlet fever has one invariable symptom. Many of the other symptoms can be duplicated and overlap other diseases, but there’s one invariable symptom that you can always tell it’s scarlet fever. There’s the strawberry tongue. So, I went back home and examined the boys tongue and found it wasn’t strawberry. And he didn’t have scarlet fever. But I was frightened. And there was the symptom. And that strawberry tongue is evidence of the presence of a million destructive microbes within the system. And when I find the defiled tongue in a human head, I don’t care if he’s just finished a sermon. I don’t care if he’s prayed a half an hour on his knees. If he can go around the corner, to the drugstore and over a soda can utter defiled language; I’m afraid of him. He’s got a disease. Even their consciences are defiled.

Now, these end up reprobates says the Holy Ghost. I’m afraid of that word reprobate, terribly afraid of it. Something that’s been washed up, a moral shipwreck. Something that has been washed up on the beach and beaten with the sand and baked with the sun and whipped to the winds until nobody wants it anymore. It is no good anymore, a derelict or reprobate. And I’m afraid of it. And even Paul said, let men think of us what they will and explain it as they may. Paul said, I watch my Christian life, lest when I preach to others I myself should be reprobate. Paul said it.

Now, I only close by saying that it is or may be fatal to silence the Inner Voice, the voice of the human conscience and to silence it. For instance, when that voice is protesting outrage protests at the plain habit of lying. When it is eloquently pleading against the habit of dishonesty. When that inner conscience is taking us to task for our jealousies or some other sins, it’s always perilous to resist that conscience and to pay no attention to that Inner Voice. It’s a perilous thing to do.

So, I want to ask you tonight friends, I’m deliberately letting God do the talking. I want him to talk to your spirit, your inner deep heart. Even in this small congregation tonight there’s a conscience here. That strange conscience that can’t lean on anybody. It can’t share the blame with anybody. That conscience that singles us out and isolates us and makes us stand alone, and says, thou art the man and makes us lower our heads and sneak out one at a time. That he’s here and I’m grateful for it. You see, if there wasn’t anything like that here, or in the world, we would all become beasts in very short order. We would all degenerate morally. And in hell, where that Voice is not and where the conscience no longer exists; it is written, he that is filthy, let him be getting filthier still. That’s the Holy Spirit talking to you. That voice is there. That inner preacher, that preacher that won’t preach to a crowd, but only the single individual soul is there.

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Do to an unforseen illness, we are going to have repeat some earlier Tozer Talks messages. I hope this will be completely argreeable with you. Phil Shappard, administratorl.

Sunday, December 17 Tozer Talks 023 – Vine and Branches #1 “Fruit, More Fruit and Much Fruit”

Sunday, December 24 Tozer Talks 024 – Vine and Branches #2 “Life in the Vine”

Sunday, December 31 Tozer Talks 025 – Vine and Branches #3 “Abiding in the Vine”

I

“The Grand Mystery of Salvation”

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The Grand Mystery of Salvation

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

October 18, 1953

In the first chapter of 1 Peter, beginning with verse nine and reading to verse 12: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ, which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.

Now, it so happens that there seems to be three major truths here which will divide themselves up nicely. There is a curious truth, or a singular truth, and a rather rare truth and a remarkably reassuring truth. The singular truth, singular because it is not much mentioned in the Bible, that salvation is such a heavenly and mysterious thing. That the very prophets who foretold it, didn’t understand it and actually, searched and inquired diligently concerning this salvation about which they were writing. They knew only that they wrote of some favored people who were to come. Who were to receive remarkable, fabulous wealth at the hand of a kind, gracious God. But they didn’t understand it much.

And then there is the rare truth that the Old Testament prophets had the Spirit of Christ. I want to mention that later.

And then this reassuring truth that our salvation is known and talked about in heaven and is admired by the unfallen angels. That it is not a recent thing, not even relatively recent, but very, very old, and that it is the theme of all the inspired prophets since the world began.

Now, let us look at this singular truth about the prophets. And it says here that the prophets who prophesied unto us of the grace that should come, they searched what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify; when it testified beforehand, the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. And that it was revealed unto them that not unto themselves, but unto us, they did minister the things which that we now hear preached.

Now, a lot may be learned about Biblical inspiration here. There are many theories of inspiration. And I suppose that I might as well say that I do not believe that evangelical truth necessarily must accept any one theory of inspiration so long as we believe that the holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, and that not one jot or tittle of the Scripture shall fail until all be fulfilled. I believe that that fulfills the requirements for belief concerning inspiration. But some persons believe that the inspired writers wrote only what they knew. They were simply religious reporters, reporting intelligently and spiritually on what they knew about them. And then that they exhorted and consoled and rebuked, giving application to what they knew to the hearts of the people.

Now, that doesn’t go far enough. For the fact is, that sometimes the prophets were moved to speak of things that they themselves did not understand. They heard the Spirit’s voice witnessing within them about wondrous things and they spoke what they heard; but they did not know of what they spoke.

Now, it was a relatively easy matter for a prophet to understand, say, when God revealed that Babylon should fall or that Israel should be taken captive or that Ahab should die and the dogs should lick his blood, or any of the scores of prophecies concerning historic events. That was a relatively easy thing, and I suppose that every prophet understood it.

If I had a prophetic foresight that New York was to be destroyed by an atom bomb and I were to write it down, I could understand my own writing. It could be simply a question of visualizing the destruction of that vast city. So that a great many of the prophecies of the Old Testament were, we’ll say, are on the rational level. They could be understood easily by the prophets who prophesied. But when they entered the wondrous, golden world of grace and mercy and salvation and incarnation and resurrection and atonement and ascension and the sending of the Holy Ghost and the new birth and the bringing to being of a people made again in the image of God, all this staggered the prophets.

They couldn’t get it. It wasn’t simply a question of historic fact. It was the question of marvelous, spiritual understanding, and they didn’t have it. So, they prophesied about others, and they were included of course, but that wasn’t what was in their mind at the moment. They were prophesying for the future. Then they died not having received the promise. But the prophecies were perpetuated by divine inspiration and by translation as we have them today in our Bible.

Now, they heard the Spirit’s voice speaking within them and they uttered forth what they heard. But as prophets they were able to prophesy, but as individual men, they had to examine and search. And I wondered as I read it, what did they search? Did they search some other prophet’s writing, or did they search their own heart? Or did they seek in the sense that the Scripture says, seek and you shall find. He doesn’t say seek what.

And every preacher has his own interpretation, and I suppose they’re all right because that’s actually, usually the case with the Word of God. It is, what should we say; it has a multitude of applications, so that if one man says it means this and another says it means that and three others say it means three other things, they are not contradicting each other. They may easily be complementing each other. I have no objection to various interpretations, provided, the brother doesn’t say, now, accept my interpretation or I rule you out. Then I’m sorry for a mind as razor narrow as that. Narrow as the razor’s edge. But these prophets prophesied of things to come. And that was a wonderful truth and a curious one, that prophets reported on things they did not themselves understand.

And then here is a rare truth in that there isn’t much about it in either Old Testament or New, directly. But it is here, bluntly stated, in unmistakable language. It is that the Old Testament prophets had the Spirit of Christ. But the word had is not good enough here; for it says the Spirit of Christ which was in them. The preposition is “in.”

Now, this destroys that what some people have called the geographical interpretation of the Holy Ghost. I would call it the prepositional interpretation of the Holy Ghost. You know, there are those who bear down very, very heavily on the “on” and the width and the end. They say about the Holy Spirit, that He was on the Old Testament saints, but not in them. That he was with the apostles before the Pentecost, but not in nor on; that after Pentecost, got in the people. That makes preaching easy because all you have to do is look for prepositions, and that’s a relatively easy way to handle the Word of God. Just watch the prepositions and hook your little comment on the preposition. But I’ve never been able to believe that God was such that He played in the marketplace and that He built His truth out of curious, little blocks. No, the Bible doesn’t tell us only that the Holy Ghost was on, but it says here that He was in.

Now, that ruins some people’s theology. That little preposition “in” here in Peter ruins it, because they say, the Old Testament prophets and saints never had the Holy Ghost. He was only on them. He came and rested upon them. The dove lighted on the roof, but never came inside the dwelling place. And you’ve got to believe that or else they won’t admit you into their little narrow field of thought. But they say in the New Testament, He came with them. And they quote Jesus as saying, He is now with you, but shall be in you, meaning Himself as the with. And then when the Spirit came at Pentecost, He filled them and so the Spirit was in them.

Now, I believe the Holy Ghost was on the Old Testament prophets. I also believe the Holy Ghost comes on New Testament Christians. I believe that the Holy Ghost was in the Old Testament prophets, for Peter says so and I must take Peter’s word for it in spite of the commentators.

Now, there’s all this confusion here, and I do not want to get ironical about this though I fear an ironical quality has crept into my voice. But here seems to be the fact that there’s all this confusion on this subject for a number of reasons. One, it results from letting the element of curiosity crowd out of the element of practicality. If Bible teachers could only remember that the men, holy men who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost and gave us divinely inspired truth, never for one remote moment, ever meant to give us anything to satisfy our intellectual curiosity. They meant to give us truth to transform us, spirit and soul, and bring us into holy living and holy believing. They never intended that we should have rattles to play with.

I have been to Bible conferences, and I have heard teachers of not only one, but many schools of Christian interpretation, that gave me the impression that they were proud of their ability to bring things out, both old and new, and particularly new. And when after they had settled the hash of the ordinary, simple interpretation of a thing, they gave you some curious interpretation. They had enjoyed the theology from a curious standpoint. And I believe that this will lead us astray just as sure as you live. Just as soon as I accept the doctrine, or the idea, that the Bible is a book of theological toys to be played with by tender seedlings, I have missed the purpose of the Scripture and I have no proof that I won’t be in false doctrine before very long. For the Bible was given us not to satisfy our curiosity, but to sanctify our personality.

Now, another thing that has resulted in this confusion about the Holy Spirit being on, and in, with, and so on; is the carnal urge to rightly divide. Rightly dividing the Word of Truth turns out to be vivisecting it; it usually bleeds to death in the hands of the man who holds it. And then he carries a dead, pale text around with him and rams it down everybody’s throat. The carnal urge to rightly divide; I think it arises from intellectual pride.

And then there is what we call trying too hard. I think I might lay this Bible down a minute and make an inane comment or two on that subject. That in trying to understand the Scripture, we are in grave danger of trying too hard. It is very rarely that we can screw up our belt tight to the last notch, grit our teeth, and say, I’m going to get this. God never has very much place for old Adam. He bid old Adam goodbye and said that the end of all flesh should come before Him. And God has never put any confidence in the flesh from that hour down to this hour.

Now remember that when the Old Testament priests went into offer their sacrifices, they did not dare wear wool clothing, because wool made them perspire. And I suppose that God was saying to the Jewish priesthood, now, don’t mistake perspiration for inspiration. And your human perspiration will not glorify Me. Therefore, wear linen clothing so you can keep cool and serve me scripturally and spiritually, but calmly and coolly. And don’t imagine that by trying hard you will get anywhere. Climbing Jacob’s ladder with white knuckles and tired muscles; there’s a lot of paganism in that. And the Lord wants to kill all that and let the Holy Ghost take over.

Now, when Jesus sweat blood in the garden that was quite another matter. That was not old Adam trying too hard, that was the Holy Ghost coming upon a man till he nearly burned him up. That was the prayer spirit laboring on the man until he nearly killed a man. And I believe in that. But I also believe that theologians who push too hard, usually fail to see the point because they’re not relaxed.

Now, Paul used the illustration taken from the arena and boxing and wrestling; and I suppose I can without being unspiritual. And if we might take baseball, which I never see. I’ve seen one game in 17-18 years and probably won’t see another one for another 18; maybe never till the Cubs win the pennant again. But we would like to say this about baseball. They say that a young man who stays a .300 or .325 hitter, suddenly goes into a slump and he couldn’t hit a pumpkin when it comes up to the plate. They say often it’s because he has gotten tense and is pushing too hard; that he goes all tense into the batter’s box. But when he gives up and says, what’s the use, I couldn’t hit a basketball. Then he starts to hit again. Because he gets off the tension. He isn’t trying too hard. And I have met many saints that are trying too hard.

I remember one time, I think I told you this before, but it’ll bear repeating; and a man who has been here as long as I have, has to do some repeating. But I remember at a watch night meeting 20-30 years ago, that we were all around there praying. They were testifying, and one very godly man; now, he was all that. He was a very godly man. And I was sitting beside another godly man, a missionary under the Africa Inland Mission, Reverend Mr. Solunca, who had just lately gone to heaven. They found him beside his motorcycle out in the bush where he had given his life to the Lord Jesus. But anyway, this Solunca was sitting beside me. And this friend of mine, Everet, he jumped to his feet and he gripped his knuckles together, hands together, and in a spasm of Adamic determination, he told us his plans for the new year, how he was going to serve God. And my quiet, saintly friend beside me, touched my arm. He whispered; Brother Everet is screwing his violin string to tight. He said, he won’t be able to keep it up there for the year. And I was a young fellow then and I remember it, and I think he did. He screwed it too tight.

You can throw your flesh in. And with strong religious determination, grit your teeth and batter your own head black and blue and never get anywhere. We can do that in theology too. The simplest explanation of any text is just what it says there. Just read it; get on your knees. And as Mark Twain said, the passages he couldn’t understand never bothered him. But the ones he could understand made him sweat. And you will have time enough following the text that you understand without seeking to pry curiously underneath the surface and bring up some esoteric meaning that God never found there.

I spent from Wednesday to Sunday night, last week in Dr. Simpson’s old church in New York City down off Times Square. And I preached one night, and I said merely as a matter of passing, you don’t have to believe it. Nor, it doesn’t mean much. It was just a passing thought. I said, you know, the angels are pure spirit, and the animals are flesh, but man, this wondrous being, is both spirit and flesh. And I went on to something else. That was just a little bracketed saying I gave and it’s true.

Afterwards a man with a face like a mask, thin and cold, thin eyes and completely expressionless face, said, what did you say about the beasts not having a spirit? And he looked down. I could just see him. He had taken that argument to all the preachers that visit New York and made it #97 now. And he said, did God not make His covenant with all flesh? And then, he looked down, as if just say I won’t hit him again. He’s wounded. And I saw what I was into at first; I treated him as a brother and tried to reason; and then suddenly I saw there was no use. And I said, I perceive, sir, that you are a theological mechanic and more concerned with the letter than with the spirit. I worship the Most High God. Goodbye, and I left him. He came back to all the meetings, but he never bothered me anymore.

Now this fellow had gotten from somewhere, I don’t know where, the idea that a dog has a spirit, and that when God made a covenant with Adam, he included the dog and the dog knew it, I guess, and probably signed the covenant. But it’s all very silly, and if it’s true, it doesn’t mean anything. What do I care about horses and sheep and dogs and mountain lions? God never said, go into all the world and preach the gospel to my horses. He died for people. He came to seek that which was lost, and we’re the last ones.

Lo and behold, when He came and considered being with God not to be hung on to, but lowered Himself and took on flesh, it was not the flesh of the beasts, but the flesh of the man. And it was a man that went out to Calvary, not a dog or a bear. So, if there is some hope for the beast, let there be hopes. I think John Wesley thought there was. But if there is, that’s not within my field of interest at all. I can’t know everything. I can only know a fraction of anything.

So why not stay by the Truth as it affects me. I could spend my life attacking creatures on whether an animal has a spirit or not and never read the Sermon on the Mount once. But it’s infinitely more important that I read the Sermon on the Mount and yield my heart to obey it than it is that I settle curious things concerning prophecy or concerning any other phase of Christian truth.

Now, the simple truth is that the Old Testament prophets had the spirit of Jesus and that’s here as a very rare truth. The Spirit of Christ which was in them is here in the Bible. And they prepared the world for the advent of the Savior, because it was the Savior, Himself, in them; the Spirit of the Savior in them prophesying. And they witnessed the Christ in type and symbol and historic situation and in the writings of the prophets.

And this explains why Christians love the Old Testament. That’s why you may have wondered why you like the Old Testament so and you can read it and mark it and love it, and yet, you know, it belonged to an ancient dispensation, and the New Testament is your book, no. The New Testament isn’t your book any more than the old was. You cannot separate the one from the other. They are an organic whole. And the Spirit of Christ was in the Old Testament and Christ is in the New Testament; and you have one and the same thing.

There are passages that don’t refer to you, and yet you feel an affinity for them. You read the book of Deuteronomy, which has to do almost wholly with Israel. And yet your heart warms and leaps and rejoices in your marked passages and you say, I wonder why. Why do I love the Old Testament? Ah, it’s because the Spirit of Christ which is in them did testify. And you who are born again, recognize the same Spirit that dwells in your breasts in some major at least, and there’s an affinity there. And that’s why the Old Testament should be read. And that’s why we should preach from the Old Testament.

Now the reassuring truth, that redemption is famous in heaven and was famous in ancient times; and that the plan of God to redeem the fallen race excited wonder and admiration among the very angels; which things angels desire to look into. I don’t know how much they ever found out. But the angels were stirred to desire to know this wondrous redemption.

Now, why were the angels admiring so greatly this truth? I believe it’s for three reasons. Because of the being that is to be redeemed. If we could ever make people see three things about themselves. One is, what wonderful creatures they are; and the second is, what hopelessly sinful creatures they are. And the third is, what great hope there is in Christ.

I think we could settle a lot of our problems, but we either take the attitude that we’re sinful and then begin to tramp ourselves down to the level of the gopher and the rat, or else, we take the idea that we’re not sinful and deny that we’ve sinned and push ourselves up. Both are true, brethren.

We were made in the image of God. And we’re made only a little lower than the angels and are to be higher than the angels. That’s what we were. That’s what we potentially are. But without the new birth and redemption and forgiveness and cleansing, we’ll find our place to that hell that’s reserved for the devil and his fallen angels. Those two truths are not self-contradictory. They are two sides of the same truth. But man was made in God’s image; and God for that reason sent his Son to die for them. Therefore, nobody ever ought to think low of himself, though he ought to remember how humble and little and sinful and hopeless and broken he’s been before his God.

So, we keep these two thoughts in suspension; that though we were originally in the image of God, we stained our souls and ruined us and brought judgment in hell and death upon us. But then, that God for Christ’s sake, saves us, redeems us for another’s worth and merit, and restores us again to the image of God.

We shall someday stand a little higher than we anciently stood in the lines of our forefather Adam. Those are wonderful truths and they’re reassuring truths. It’s wonderful being man. Angels are interested in it.

And then, the second reason is the astonishing mercy of God. If God gave us our desserts, brethren, there wouldn’t be one of us here this morning. Not one. Not one. You, kind-faced old lady that has spent your lifetime looking after children and then looking after grandchildren, and living the best you’ll know how. You wouldn’t be here. You would be in hell too. And you, honest businessman that never cheated in your life and that are upright and good and honest and a worthy, exemplary citizen, you’d be in hell too. And everybody that is above the age of responsibility belongs there. And whoever denies that he does, will go there. And oh, the astonishing mercy of God that He should come to us, who? Because of what we were in Adam, made in the image of God. We went down lower and further than we would have gone.

In the Henry plays by Shakespeare there was a prince called Prince Hal. I think it was Prince Henry the fourth if I remember correctly. But Prince Hal, Harry, they call him, was of course a noble prince, a son of the king and heir apparent to the throne. He must live like the noble man that he was. But instead of that, he forgot his noble standing and went and frequented the pubs and drank sack, whatever that is, I suppose English beer, along with Falstaff and the other bloated, big-bellied, beer drinking, liquor consuming crowd.

Nobody minded to see fat old Falstaff there. He had not come down to go to the saloon. But the royal prince had come down. Therefore, he was infinitely more to blame because he had come down so far. And so, if we had never been anything, our sin might be forgiven or overlooked or excused. But as men made in the image of God with moral perception and conscience and ability to grasp spiritual truths, for us to go down where we’ve gone.

Oh, the grace and mercy of God that we should be saved. And that’s why the angels stood with open eyes and said, how can it be that such creatures as they, should be treated as they are by the great God who loves us?

And the third is, and this is most important, because of the one who would rescue us, the One, Christ Jesus our Lord. Now, as we see these angels looking with reverent wonder and these prophets who prophesied since the world began, wondering what it was all about and dreaming and hoping they might know. We can only say that our foundations stand sure. It’s not a new religion. Not Mrs. Eddy in a fit. Not Father Divine with his old bald head and his angels, concubines. Not Joseph Smith, in his curious plates dug up under an apple tree. But before the world began, this was in the mind of God, ancient as the sun. And before the sun burned in the heavens to redeem you and me, it was in the mind of God. Angels desired to look into it.

You know, I heard about an old gentleman, a dear old saint of God. He was realistic, and he didn’t say as lots of Christian do, they never have a doubt. No, I never have a doubt–hypocrites. They do have a doubt, but they won’t admit it. But this old fella was a realist. And he justified, he said, I admit I have doubts sometimes. He said, I’ll hear an argument, or somebody would advance an idea and it’ll stun me for a little. And he said, when I have such doubts, I always dive down to the bottom and examine the foundations of my faith. And he said, every time I have done it yet, I have always come to the surface singing how firm a foundation ye saints of the Lord is laid for your faith in His excellent word. So, that’s all I meant to do this morning was to remind you and examine the foundations a little. And now let’s sing, How Firm a Foundation. All right.

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“The Glory of That Which Cannot Be Seen with the Mortal Eye”

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The Glory of That Which Cannot Be Seen with the Mortal Eye

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

October 13, 1957

A very familiar and often used passage of Scripture, 2 Corinthians 4:14-18:  Knowing that He which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God. For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Now, I think it doesn’t take a great deal of intelligence to know that the man of God, who spake as he was moved by the Holy Ghost, is contrasting two kinds of seeing here. He was not advising us to try to see the invisible with our naked eye. He said that there were two kinds of seeing, the external eye that saw the visible and the internal eye that sees the invisible. And while we cannot go through life and not see the visible unless we should be among the unseeing persons whose eyesight has failed them. They’re not many, thank God, but a few of our friends are like that. And others of us get along by means of lenses out in front. But for the average human being manages to see things as he goes about, and Paul is not telling us not to. But he is saying that there is a gazing, a looking, and that it is to be done with the inward eye and not with the external.

Now life, all about us, is charged with mystery. I’ve said this so many times that you must be weary of my saying it, but it is this that gives a quality, all the quality, all the value there is to life, is that mysterious part of it. The part that can be explained does not explain the value of the life. We can study anatomy and biology, and know all about children, babies. But that doesn’t explain why people love babies. There isn’t any explaining. You can paint and write poetry and orate until we’re blue in the face, and yet, there is an overtone, a rainbow color of emotional color about it all that makes babies precious to us.

And so, with almost everything, we can explain it and look and see physically, but that doesn’t explain it. That is the basis of it. That’s the foundation upon which it may rest. But there is a glory in the imponderable things, the instinctive things; the things that are unlearned. That is, they’ve not been learned. They are just there. They give the meaning to life, the glory of our lives, the value of them; that by which and for which we live, lies in the intangibles, the imponderables, the things that we can’t get at, but we can see with the inward eye.

For instance, it is not what’s before us. It’s who sees it that matters. It’s two men, a farmer and an artist who take a walk out, they’re friends. And temporarily, they’re together and they take a walk out of an October afternoon. And the farmer sees the corn and the fat cattle, and he’ll talk and talk well and pleasantly about having to bring in this machine and it’s about time to take those 100 off of that particular field and bring them in or shift them to another field. And what he sees there is what you can buy and sell and put in the boxcar, and weigh and measure and evaluate in terms of dollars and cents. He sees the soil and the cow and the steer and the corn shock.

But all the time, the artist is all thrilled. He sees the cattle, but he doesn’t know how much they cost. He sees the corn shock but has no idea of its value. What he sees is that which can’t be weighed nor measured nor bought nor sold, but nevertheless gives value to living in the world.

The other man is fixing it so we can physically live in the world by having milk and meat and vegetables. But the other man says, all right, you’ve made it possible for us to live in the world, but why live in the world? Why? Why? Well, when he sees the blue skies and the fleecy clouds and the colored leaves, he knows why. You can’t explain it. You can’t write a book on, “Is Life Worth Living.” It either is or it isn’t. Everybody knows that it is, that has felt the thrill of a love and known the glory that belongs to God. And everybody knows. You can’t prove it. You just know it.

Or you take a dog who may be running out the night and may for a moment take a quick, casual glance at the starry sky. Well now, dogs have eyes, and they have pretty keen eyes. They go on their sense of smell more than eyesight, but they still have good eyes, and they see it. The dog, he sees the moon hanging there and he sees the stars. He sees them. But what does he do about it? Nothing at all. He’s looking for a coon or for some other animal that he may pull down and eat. But he sees the stars.

But David goes out and the dog runs alongside of David. And David sees the stars. And so, David writes the eighth Psalm. My God, how wonderful thou art. Thy Majesty, how great; and talks about the stars by night and the moon and the heavens above and what they tell about God. Forever singing as they shine, the Hand that made us is divine.

Now, both eyes saw the heavens, but the eyes of the dog saw nothing. The eyes of the spiritually inspired poet, David, saw the wonder and the glory of it all. It’s the intangible thing, the thing you don’t learn, the thing that’s there because you’re human; because God made you and stamped you with the royal imagery of Himself.

Now, religion has tried, always tried, any religion, all religions, with possibly except Buddhists, have tried to show the glory that belongs to that which can’t be seen as over against that which can. And I suppose it’s an open question whether it’s better to have no religion or to have a wrong one. I suppose it’s an open question. But I would say that religion may have done the world some good, even the poor, pagan, animistic religions may have done the world some good in that they did do this. They did and they have taught the world, did teach and have taught the world that there is something; there’s another world than this. That this isn’t it. That you can have all of this and lose your own soul and be nobody. The Parsis know that and the Mohammedins know that. They all know that. And certainly, it is the very essence of the Old and the New Testament.

And the busy men have not taken this very seriously. They have reversed the apostle’s text which says the things that are eternal, that are seen, are temporal, but the things that are unseen are eternal. And they’ve reversed it and edited it a bit. And while they would agree that this is true in their living, they prove that when they quote it, they mean it like this: for the things that are invisible and unseen are rather shaky and unreal, but the things you see they are the real thing.

Give me, said the communists in early days and the socialists and the agitators, give us something here. Don’t put it off until the world over yonder. And they parodied our songs and said you will have pie in the sky by and by. And thus, they turn the attention of people from God to earth, and from heaven above to this veil of suffering and woe. And they put their emphasis upon the things that can be seen. And they said, don’t talk to us about invisible things. Talk to us about things we can get our teeth in. We want to have more. We want to have bigger cars and bigger farms and better cattle. And we want our women to dress better and we want to dress better. We want to be paid more and we want to work shorter hours. Don’t talk to us about heaven. We want to know about earth.

Well, this reminds me of what the man Paul said a little further back in his Corinthian epistles. He said, howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor one of the princes of this world that come to not. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. Even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory, which none of the princes of this world knew. For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. Then he goes on to say, eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of a man the things which God has prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.

And here, we break away from the, give us more of this, now. Give us what we can see and weigh and measure and feel and touch. And we rise to the wisdom that says I must have something to see and hear and touch. I’m a human being. God has given me a body. And it’s got to be stoked occasionally like a furnace. It’s got to be gassed up occasionally like a car. I have to recharge it sometimes, and so I will not despise God’s humble gift of pumpkins and corn and fat cattle. I won’t despise it. But I will only say these are temporal.

And the things that are seen are temporal, whereas the things that are not seen are eternal. The woe of the world has been its bondage to visible things, reflecting men in all parts of the world at all times, not only religions, but philosophers themselves were not particularly religious, that held this to be the prime curse of the world. That we are victims to the things that we can see. That we’ve allowed ourselves to be chained down to visible things. And it’s a great error to hold that the things visible are ultimate reality. They are not ultimate reality. They are evanescent. They’re passing. They’re like a shadow across the meadow on a cloudy day. But the things that are not seen are the eternal things.

The things that are seen are the balls and chains that are on the ankles of the race and hold us back so we can’t fly. Our feeble wings will not lift us because we’ve got a ball and chain. The farmer has his acres and his fat cattle, and the worldling has her jewelry.

I thought if you were to offer a woman a hangman’s noose, she would scream, turn pale and perhaps faint. But offer her a $10,000 necklace and she’ll strut around even though she’s in danger of her life. She’ll strut around with that thing. And I wonder which is the more dangerous, the hangman’s noose, which with a quick snap ends at all, or the $10,000 or $20,000 necklace that binds the spirit of the woman, binds the spirit of the woman and holds her down, holds her down. She’s got her head in a noose and doesn’t know it.

Or the businessman with his profits and his interest and his bonds. I wonder if any of you have ever happened to notice the word bonds. I wonder if the bonds issued by great companies or by a government, which we so eagerly buy and put away, may not be bonds in more ways than one. I think it is entirely possible that it should be so.

Somebody sent me a book recently, a republished, written by an old man of God who lived in England a couple of hundred years ago. It deals with the whole question of laying up treasures on earth. Now, I think he carries it further than I would carry it. But I think we Christians need to rethink this whole business of profits and bonds and treasures laid up. They may be bonds; indeed, to bind us and hold us to the earth.

The man of God talks about the evidence of things not seen. Remember my brethren, when I preach what some enemies call mysticism, which is only the Word of God, that I am not asking anybody to look at a dream world. No, no. I don’t believe in dream worlds. I don’t believe in imaginary worlds. I don’t believe in anything imaginary. I don’t like imaginary stories. That’s why I don’t like fiction, particularly. I don’t particularly like Christian fiction at all. Because it’s imaginary. There’s nothing there. I want to be able when I talk about a thing, to be able to go and say, look, there it is. That’s what I’m talking about. There it is.

I can’t go along with the fairy tale tellers who have the woods populated with little dancing girls, little waspies or whispies that come crystallized out of the sky. It’s pleasant I suppose to talk about it, and there have been operas written about it. And there have been plays such as Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s pleasant, you know, to listen to it, like listening for 20 minutes to, say, one of these little music boxes. But after that, I want to get away from it and get down to something solid. Is there any anything there that it is talking about?

And when Scripture says that faith is the evidence of things not seen. Faith is not a place where you go and hide. It’s not a retreat from reality. It’s a gateway to reality where we see the real things. We’re not asking anybody to accept imaginative things or imaginary things. We are asking them to build their faith on that which is.

Abraham saw a city that had a foundation whose Builder and Maker was God, but Abraham never saw it with these external eyes. He saw it with his inner eyes. And that was not an imaginary thing. We’re not asking him to become dreamy and write silly poetry about it. We ask him, Abraham, look, look, there’s a city, a city. Look quick, you won’t see it long. There it is. You’re a busy man. And you’ll only get a glimpse, but there it is. And Abraham looked quick and saw it with his inner eyes. Somebody said after that he never would live in a city. He lived in a tent. He couldn’t stand any city after he’d seen that one, by comparison.

So, instead of ghosts and fairies, we believe in reality. God reveals the real world, having substance. And it can’t be seen with the outward eye, but it can be experienced with the inward eye. And it is, I repeat, the only ultimate reality.

You know, I am made to wonder at the wisdom of the Christian. And I repeat that we ought not to be apologetic the way we are. We ought not to gaze with awe and wonder at great minds, great minds. Paul called them the princes of this world, and the mighty and the wise. The man who said it was not a poor little fellow saying sour grapes, I don’t want greatness. He was great. Six they say, six great minds have been in the world and Paul’s was one. Of all the millions, six great minds. And so, this man Paul was not, sometimes we evangelicals don’t have any education, so we preach a whole sermon to prove it’s no good anyhow. Like the fox that leaped with a great myth and said I don’t like them anymore.

So, this sour grape business, we’re not talking about sour grapes. They don’t have anything we want. The mighty, the great’s of the world. The Christian has a wisdom that’s not of this world. A Christian penetrates, passes through, sees, touches, and handles things unseen. He’s learned to distinguish that which has value from that which has no value. He’s learned the correct table by which he judges things. And so, he no longer wastes his money.

I read; in the rare times I pick up the Reader’s Digest. Every article is written by the same fellow, obviously, they all in the same way, anyhow. But I got ahold of it. And I read an article in there about a man and his wife who are psychologists and who had degrees in education and psychology. Their whole life is given over to training animals: turkeys, chickens, pigs, ducks, dogs, cats and other animals. And they spend their lifetime learning the psychology of a duck and learning how to bridge across from the duck’s low-grade mentality or a turkey’s low-grade mind to their human minds.

Well now, if a fellow had a good, honest job, and was doing mankind some good and he did that in the evenings to get his mind off of his troubles, I’d say maybe that would be all right. But my God in heaven, to spend your lifetime learning the psychology of a turkey.

Well, Christians have risen above it, beloved. They’ve risen above it. I can understand how a fellow might want to see a ballgame sometime. But to give the best years of your life throwing a hunk of matter around covered with a skin of a horse and worrying about it. I just don’t see it. How can you give yourself to it.

I know one fellow, and if you’ll excuse me and not think I’m boasting about it. I know one fellow that had a letter from the Boston Red Sox asking him to come. And he said, I’ll keep the letter, but I won’t waste my time amusing people. And that was one of my sons. I’m glad he learned that much. I won’t waste my time amusing people. There’s too much reality in the world to spend your time amusing people.

The Christian has learned what’s real and what isn’t real. The worldling doesn’t know shadow from substance. And sometimes he’ll give his life to a shadow and find in the end that he’s missed the substance. But a Christian knows where substance is. God has given him x-ray eyes that he can see through shadows. And he won’t waste his time on shadows. He won’t waste his talents nor his money nor his efforts; and the Christian has found the everlasting reality.

I tell you; I don’t know what it is in my heart, but I assume it’s in everybody’s. But I could never, never, never, let myself rest unless I knew eternity was in this thing. I am not going to be around here long, and neither are you. For us to give our time to that which we can’t keep.

So, somebody said to you, let’s put it like this by way of a rather awkward illustration. Suppose somebody said to you, I have a beautiful house which I have built, but for reasons I’m not going to occupy it. It’s a split level. It’s a $72,000 house; it’s got all the trimmings. And I’m going to give it to you on the condition that you give up your friends. And you give up prayer and you give up church and you give up prayer meeting and you give up your Bible. I’m going to give it to you. How long can I keep it? Five years, just five years. I’ll give it to you in ’57 and in ’62, it comes back to me again. Now, those are the terms. You can just have this beautiful, gorgeous home for five years, and then it comes back to me again and you’re out on the sidewalk.

Is there a man with soul so dead that he would accept a fool thing like that? Is there a man with soul so dead and a heart so leaden that if he would accept a house, however costly and beautiful, and however well-appointed and charmingly situated, if it meant that he was to give up friends on earth and friends in heaven, and have it only five years and then be kicked out on the sidewalk?

Well, that’s an illustration only which I combed out of the air just now. Here is the application of it. And it is this, that the world says to you, now here, I’ll give you this. It’s not real and won’t last. And after a certain time, you’ll have to give it up. You’ll be out on the sidewalk with no friend in heaven or earth. But for a little while, I want to give it to you, the terms and conditions being, that you should cut down on this religious business. Oh, we’ll let you believe in God and all that, but cut down on this religious business and neglect your soul and you can have all this.

Well, we don’t have to make illustrations. Did not the devil say to Jesus, all this I will give thee and the glory of it, for it is mine and I can give it to whom I will. And Jesus, with not one penny in his pocket, no, not one dime in the bank said, get thee behind me Satan. For the Lord Jehovah thy God shalt thou serve. And Him only shalt thou worship.

Well, the unseen. We live for the unseen. We live for God and for Christ and for the Holy Ghost. We live for the new generation. The new age they call it. Back in the 30s, communists were crawling like maggots in and out of Washington and in and out of the State Department; in and out of the White House, all over the world and into our cities. Nobody had risen to do anything about it. Nobody dared to point and say that’s a snake going there, nobody. And they were writing their poetry, and you could buy it anywhere. And I got three volumes of their poems, three volumes. I read them and they deal about the new age and the glory of the new world that is being born. But what kind of a new world is it? It is a world where you make more money and eat better, but die, nevertheless.

Lenin lies dead. Stalin lies beside him. And old bald Khrushchev will lie there soon, all together apart from the fact they can come through on their extravagant promises, which they can’t.  All aside from that still, if they could bring Utopia to the world, and every man could be rich and every woman beautiful and all humanity healthy, they still can’t make good on their new age because they’ll die. And whatever doesn’t take that awesome, awful, startling, terrifying fact into account is no good at all. No good at all. Socialism, Communism, any other the isms, or all the good that men have done to make it easier for people to live, I’m grateful. I’m grateful for unions and I’m grateful for agitators and radicals that got the five-year-old kid out of the textile factory. I’m glad for all that that’s been done over the years, inspired by Christians, incidentally. I’m glad for it. I’m glad for the agitation that got the slave free. I’m glad for anything that makes it easier to live. But I deplore when that becomes an end in itself.

And they tell us now, now we’ve got liberty and freedom and prosperity and everything. I’ve got so I don’t like to hear any talks from Washington anymore. It’s ominous. They’re all telling us how well off we are– watch it my brethren–how well off we are. There’s nothing like it since the world began. No. But every man must die and come to judgment. And if there’s nothing beyond that, then I refuse to be concerned with it. I absolutely refuse.

Jesus Christ came to Judaism, and he found a religion that stood in meats and drinks and carnal ordinances, that had a heart and a soul and a spirit, but it also had much external. Examples and shadows of heavenly things, but not those heavenly things. And Jesus Christ our Lord swept all the shadows away and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel and projected the eternal into the temporal, and the everlasting into the passing and said, I go to prepare a place for you. That where I am, there you’ll come. And he talked about it as a man talks about the house that he’s bought or the farm that he owned. It was real. But he said, It’s spiritual. This is a spiritual thing. He swept away the shadows and said God is Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

But He left two symbols. Before coming down here I read some lines by Martin Luther. Martin Luther said, gentlemen, there are only two sacraments, not seven. The Lord’s supper and baptism. He said, I want you to know that all these offices and days and forms and feasts are all wrong. The Word of God and the Holy Ghost, that’s all we need. Luther said it. You wouldn’t think so now, but Luther said it. I’ve got it up here. Luther knew that all days and all of this we go through is just an external thing. The reality is God. Jesus Christ came to Judaism, locked in those things and swept them all away. He said, the kingdom of heaven is within you. And if you worship God, you must worship Him in spirit and in truth. And where two or three are gathered in My name, I’m there in the midst; and there is your church.

But he allowed us two visible symbols that we might not be cast wholly out on the invisible. We might at least be anchored enough so that while we have a body and an eye and a tongue, that there might be something physical that would be a symbol. And He gave it to us as a man gives a ring to his bride. Not as a substitute for Him. But as a poor little reminder of Him when He’s away. Just a symbol, a little sign. And He said, now, there are two visible symbols, bread and wine. The bread to tell of my broken body and wine to tell of my shed blood. As often as ye meet together. The world wonders what you’re doing and peeks into see, and they see you eating the bread and drinking the wine and, oh, you’re thinking of Me.

And so, the weak that can’t quite get things by faith, but demand a little prop from the outside. He said, all right, bread and wine. I give you this. I’ll give you this now. And as often as you do it, you do it in remembrance of me. But in itself, it’s nothing. It’s what it stands for. It’s what it symbolizes. It’s the ring on the finger of the bride to remind her that her bridegroom is in the glory waiting for her. And they tell of the realities that are eternal.

We’re going to have communion right away. And it’s not for members of this members of this church only, but the members of the Body of Christ. Here is a little prayer I want to read to you before we gather at the front. O Bread, of Life from heaven, to weary pilgrims given. O Manna from above. The souls that hungry feed Thou. The hearts that seek Thee. Lead Thou with Thy sweet, tender love. O Fount of Grace redeeming, O River ever streaming from Jesus’ holy side. Come Thou Thyself bestowing on thirsting souls and flowing till all are satisfied. Jesu, this feast receiving Thy Word of Truth believing, we the unseeing adore. Grant, when the veil is rended, that we to heaven have ascended may see Thee ever more. Take those four words. We the unseeing adore. So, we’ll have the communion service now and adore the unseen Presence. And then we’ll gather while we sing.