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” Dangers of Prosperity and Adversity “

“Message #2 in Dangers in the Way and How to Avoid Them “

March 27, 1955

David says, The Lord is his Rock, and his Fortress, and his Deliver, and his Strength, and his Buckler, and his High Tower. Verse two. The inference we draw from this is, that the man David must have needed a rock, a place to hide, a fortress, a deliver, and a horn of salvation and a high tower. There must have been dangers from which David had to hide, and weaknesses which, for which he needed strength, and arrows aimed at him for which he needed the shield of a buckler.

So, I am dealing these few Sunday mornings up to missionary convention time, and maybe I’ll resume it after that for a couple of Sundays; on the dangers that are in the Christian way. And this Psalm, I have said is a mirror of life. And it indicates that there are dangers in the way. That the way to heaven is hedged-in by perils to our souls. Now, to ignore these perils, is to reject the Bible. The Bible is not only rejected when a man stands and boldly declares, I do not believe the Bible. I believe that the Bible is a saga full of myths. I do not believe the Bible. That’s a rejection of the Bible, but at least it’s an honest rejection of the Bible.

The Bible is more insidiously rejected when a man rises and says, I believe the Bible and then ignores the teachings of the Bible on his own pet subjects. We’re all likely to do that. I’m likely to do it. I want you to pray that I may never do it, that I might be wise not to do it. But well-intentioned men, without meaning to ignore the Scriptures or to deny them, have ignored the dangers in the Christian way and so they have taken away the markers on the highways.

Can you imagine if it were possible, to sabotage this country all over on one night, say, and take down all highway markers from Maine to California, from the Gulf to the Canadian border, not one left? Can you imagine how many thousands of people would be killed the next evening? Thousands would die the next evening, because our Department of Highways have carefully marked dangerous places, warned to slow down, warned even in some places to put in second gear, and so on. The idea is, there are dangers, you don’t have to stop and go back, and you don’t have to drive all jittery and afraid, because the dangerous places are marked. And if we pay attention to the markers and drive with some degree of relaxed care, the possibility of an accident will be cut down to an infinitesimal minimum. But if we pay no attention to the markers, or if the markers are removed, then comes the danger and then multiplies the dead. So, to ignore or remove their markers on the highway is of course to do a great disservice, a dangerous disservice to the people of God. I mean to show these dangers in pairs.

Today, I want to talk about the danger of prosperity and the danger of adversity. We’ll talk about the danger of prosperity first, and we might as well call it financial prosperity to begin with. Now, it is a solemn thought to me that the history of mankind and of nations and of churches shows that we trust in God as a rule when there is nothing else in which there is nothing else to trust. Do I wish it were possible to be realistic and honest and still tell a different story? I’d love to do it. But a Christian, I have insisted, ought to be a realist. That is, he ought to stay by the facts as they are, not invent them and not twist them, but stay by them as they are. The simple fact is, that the history of men, Israel and the church and of nations and individual churches as well as individual men; the history shows that we trust in God last, and we tend to trust in God when we have nothing else in which they trust. And as other trusts appear, we turn from God to them, and excuse ourselves eloquently by saying that we are not trusting them. We are really trusting God. But we do trust them nevertheless.

Now, I thought that to support this, I had better give you some Bible. So, I have selected an Old Testament passage and the New Testament passage. The Old Testament passage is found in Deuteronomy 32:9 and following. Here’s the story of Jacob, that is, Israel. For the Lord’s portion is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him, that is, he found Jacob and from Jacob came Israel, the nation of Israel. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. And Jacob himself testified that all he had then was a staff with a little bandana hankerchief on the end of it over his shoulder. That’s all he had. With my staff I came over this brook and lo, I am become two bands. That was Jacob’s testimony. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: So, the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him. He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock; Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.

Then verse 15, but Jeshurun, that’s still Jacob. It’s God’s pet name for Israel, but Jeshurun waxed fat. It was God that made him fat. God gave him butter and milk and honey. You can’t eat butter and milk and honey and not get fat. He says here, I gave him butter and milk and honey and lots of it, and gave him the increase of the fields and gave him the fat of wheat and the pure blood of the grape. But the result was Jeshurun waxed fat. And when he waxed fat, he got independent and sassy, and he kicked. Thou art waxen fat. Thou art grown thick. Thou art covered with fatness. Then he forsook God which made him and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation.

Now when he was wandering in the desert place in the waist howling wilderness because all he remembered wasn’t the wind was howling, it was like tigers, wolves and bears, not tigers in that land, but wolves and bears. And these wolves and bears were dangerous and so Jacob had to hide in God or else get eaten up. And as long as he was hiding in God, he was all right. But as soon as he got fat, and grew thick and forsook God which made him and lightly esteemed the Rock in his salvation. They provoked him to jealousy was strange Gods. With abominations provoked him to anger. They sacrificed unto devils and not unto God. The gods whom they knew not. The new gods that came newly up whom their fathers feared not. And the remark, remember this, that there would have been eloquent defense of these gods made by men; magazine, articles written and books, and when committees meet strong defense in favor of wisdom and the fact that we mustn’t miss the boat, and that after all, we got to give them something to do.

And so, they will sacrifice unto devils and not under gods, the gods whom they knew not, the new gods that came newly up whom your fathers feared not. But of the Rock that begat them they were unmindful. And thou has forgotten God that formed thee. And when the Lord saw it, he abhorred them because of the provoking that his sons did. And his daughters and He said I will hide my face from them. I will see what their end shall be. For they are a very froward generation. Froward you know, means bold with a hard forehead, brassy, children in whom is no faith. Now, they used the very prosperity that God gave them as a stumbling block.

Now we come to the New Testament. You think humanity would have changed over the hundreds of years. See, when was that back there about 1450 B.C. and this is about 50 or so, A.D.? So, there we have about 1500 years and in that 1500 years now Christ has come and died and ascended to the Father and sent the Holy Ghost and the church has been formed, and now an apostle writes to a church in Laodicea. Third chapter of Revelation. and unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, these things, saith the amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou art cold or hot, so because thou art neither lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I’ll spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou saith, I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing. And knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. In case you think he’s severe, notice he says, as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous therefore and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. This pitiful condition of the church in the latter days. Rich increased with goods and endowed, beautiful buildings, and the Savior standing outside trying to get in.

Now, there’s the New Testament example. And then we find in Luke 20:12, and 13, and on, the rich fool, who said, I will tear down these barns. They are not adequate. And I will build larger barns in order that I might house my increase crops. And God said bluntly, you fool, you’ve got to die. And you can’t take these barns to the other world with you. Then, whose will these things be?

Now, there we have plenty of Bible and I only quote these verses, because I can’t read the Bible all morning here. The whole Bible teaches this, that plenty, however justly it may be acquired, constitute a great danger, constitutes a great danger. John Wesley admitted this frankly, I’ve told you this before but it fits into perfectly here and illustrates from a classic source. So, I’ll repeat that John Wesley, after his Methodist society got going, and they had circled the world, and they were growing in number, Wesley admitted one time in print, this. He said, we are in a peculiar paradox in our Methodist societies. He said, I have noticed something. I have noticed that as soon as a group of people meet together and form a society, and subscribe to the New Testament doctrines, and bring their lives into line with the truth, they immediately get honest, frugal, saving, hardworking, and upright and industrious. And the result is, they lay up money. Then he said, as soon as they get some money, they begin to trust it. And as soon as they begin to trust their money, they cease to be holy and spiritual and frugal and hardworking and honest and good. And so, they backslide.

And so, he says, here is the vicious circle. Get right with God and you’ll become frugal, saving, honest, hardworking, serious. That makes you tend to get rich. When you tend to get rich, you tend to backslide. So, he said, here’s the vicious circle. What are we going to do? Well, leave it to John Wesley. He wasn’t going to be licked by a vicious circle. He said I have the answer. He said, be honest, holy, hardworking, frugal, saving. Get all you can and then give it all away. And he said, you’ll never backslide because you’ll never have anything there to backslide with. He said, get all you can in order that you may give all you can and continue to trust God and work hard and get more and give that away. He said, and that way, you’ll never backslide.

Now, I thought that was a classic, brethren. And that’s exactly what John Wesley did. They would have laid the wealth of England at his feet. At least the common people would have. But when he died, he died with twenty-eight pounds. Five times twenty-eight, what’s that, over 100 to 125 or so dollars he took with him. I don’t mean he took with him, but he could have taken it with him and taken with him was in order. But he left it, about $130. Now that after a lifetime. He lived eighty-three years and died with $130 to leave behind. He didn’t have to make out a will. It took more than that to bury him.

Now, that was John Wesley. Brethren, unaccustomed with plenty is pretty deadly if you don’t know what to do with it. No boy gets so arrogant and so reckless as a boy who is newly rich. And no girl gets so extravagant and so wild as the girl into the big city making good money. I don’t say that always happens, but I say the temptation is there. Anybody brought up, they say, that men brought up in money, they can wear the old clothes. I said about one old fellow who was going around in an old suit that even I wouldn’t have worn. He said, he can afford to do it. Everybody knows he’s rich. But the fellow that has just come into the money, he wants to prove it by the way he dresses and what he drives and what kind of a house he lives in. But the man who’s has money and inherited money, he doesn’t tend that way because it’s nothing to him. He’s bored with it.

So, unaccustomed plenty is especially deadly to a Christian. Oh, what mine eyes have seen over the years. I have seen young men who while they were in high school and college, struggled and fought and prayed and loved God and got along on little. And then they met a girl and she had had the same experience fighting her way through and working after hours to get, not to continue and help with a home and she had little and he had little and then they met each other and they got married and then they got out of school and settled down and got good jobs, and used his sanctified Christian intelligence to get a good position. And pretty soon the money was coming his way hand over fist and they moved into a finer home, got a bigger car and a bigger television set, and finer of everything. And they began to come to choir less often and prayer meeting rarely and the church less frequently and they take long holiday excursions and then longer ones. And pretty soon, they backslid. I’ve seen it happen over the years. I’ve seen it happen. Brethren, it’s always dangerous. Prosperity is dangerous for a Christian.

Now, what can you do? Is this, is this, am I saying I wish all my people were poor people? If all the people were poor, poverty-stricken people, how would we ever manage to keep missionaries on the field? How would we ever promote publishing societies? How would we ever get books out to the public? How would we ever keep schools going? How would we finance God’s work so as to keep our missionaries going, our radio programs alive, our books flowing out? How do we do it? No, it is not God’s will that His people should all be poor. It’s God’s will that his people should prosper, but know what to do with prosperity.

Now, I’ll give you three rules and if you care enough about it to take this down, I think it may help you. I give you three rules what to do with prosperity. First of all, thank God reverently. You never ought to receive anything, never ought to receive a raise, never ought to receive anything, but that we do not go to God and reverently thank Him and acknowledge the source of it. And know that it cometh from the Father of Lights, from whence every good gift comes. Thank God reverently. Second, share it generously. If you do not share it generously, it will begin to canker and rust on your spirit and soul. And the bigger the bank account, the smaller the heart, unless you share it so generously that your conscience feels good about it and God is satisfied. And then, walk circumspectly, those three things. If you have plenty, thank God reverently. Share it generously and walk circumspectly.

Now, if you want some Bible on this walking circumspectly, I don’t feel it necessary to quote scripture on the other two, because it’s just an essence of Scripture. But I do want to give you a passage or two here, a verse or two here from Luke 21. And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. Now, here of course it means prosperity. Your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting. And of course, that is overeating and drunkenness. And of course, that’s drinking. The cares of this life. The poorer a man is, the fewer cares he has; and the more he gets, the more cares he has. And if he allows his heart to be overcharged, numb, overwhelmed with these earthly things, the day of Christ shall come upon him unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, watch ye therefore and pray always, that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.

Now, there’s an urgent exhortation that we might watch carefully, lest prosperity with its surfeiting, it’s over eating, it’s careless drinking and the cares of this life, unfit us for that day, and we should be caught like a little animal in a snare, when our Lord comes. Rather we ought to pray that we might be worthy to escape these things, and stand before the Son of Man.

Now, it’s an odd thing, but not only is prosperity dangerous, but adversity is dangerous. Brother Van Kepple who incidentally is in the hospital, and need your prayers, getting on all right after surgery. He often quotes when he arrives to testify, give me neither poverty nor riches, lest if I’d be rich I forget God, and lest if I be poor, I’d be tempted to steal. That was a wise practical little verse of the man of God in the Old Testament,

Now, adversity, that is financial reverses or physical afflictions. We’ll deal with them in turn. Financial reverses, that is, that’s the exact opposite of prosperity. And yet it is dangerous too, especially if it follows prosperity. Some people are so habitually in a state of financial reverses. I think they call that monetary impecuniosity. That is the name for it. But a lot of people are in that state so much that that there is nothing to react from. But if you’ve been reasonably prosperous and then you have reverses, it’s especially dangerous because prosperity tends to make us soft. We’re soft compared with our fathers. Now, don’t imagine we’re not.

I rather am glad we are. I’m glad we are. Our sons are getting taller, and our women stay younger looking longer. Down in the hills where a child goes to work in the cornfield at five, and plows at eight, and women milk half a dozen cows and churn the butter and hoe in the garden and help their husband in the field, they are old ladies at thirty. I know, I’ve been around a little. And at thirty, they’re old ladies, wrinkled and weary-looking with a thick, fuzzy voice and a drooping, disgusted attitude toward the world. Too much work and poverty can beat you. And it’s never good. The poets and the philosophers have all sung the praise of poverty. And about the only literary man I ever knew that had honesty enough to come right out and say he didn’t believe in poverty was Dr. Sam Johnson. He said, you can talk about it all you want to, it’s a, it’s a horribly, debilitating and discouraging thing and I don’t believe in it.

Well, too much poverty will beat you down and sicken you and weaken you and make you old before your time. But, if you’ve had prosperity, and then you’re plunged into reverses, you are likely to blow up because you’ve been made soft. Too much prosperity will make you soft. Too much poverty will do what I’ve described a moment ago. So, what do we do about it all? Well, to have prosperity suddenly removed from us means that it’s likely to take away the rock of our trust and plunged us into panic.

Now about physical afflictions. It’s an odd thing, how people react to physical illness, two opposite ways. Some react by using it as a means of grace. David said, before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I’ve kept Thy word. David got ill and while he was was ill, he had time to think it over and pray and wait on God. And he used his affliction as a means of grace. But there are others, who as soon as they’re touched with physical affliction, they throw in the towel. And I suppose, I ought to be ashamed to admit it, but I am in second category. People say, oh, I have been ill two weeks and what a time I’ve had waiting on God and getting caught up on my prayer and all the rest. And if I get a cold in my head, I’m finished until the cold gets out of my head again. If others don’t pray for me, I admit I don’t get very far. I can’t get a hold of myself.

My father was a strong man, a wirery, strong, tough man, and so far as I knew, I don’t think he was ever afraid of anything on four legs or two. I never knew anything my father was afraid of. He was completely fearless almost to the point of psychopathically fearless. But when he got a cold in his head, he became a whimpering baby. And everybody had to run after him and look after him. And he would moan, sigh and look around for sympathy. And it didn’t do him any good to get sick. That’s just as sure as you live. And his son follows in his footsteps.

But some people know how to use physical affliction. David did I say. Before I was inflicted, I went astray. He said, I got careless. But when I got sick, I had time to think it over, and I got right with God. Now, in any case, these are dangers, financial reverses or physical afflictions. But this little verse has comforted me, if thou faintest in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. I don’t know why that verse comforts me, but it does. It doesn’t promise anything. It just makes a rather uncomplimentary statement about a man. And yet, I get help out of that verse. If thou faintest in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. It’s in one of the Proverbs.

Now, I have a conclusion here, and of course, the conclusion ought to be the best part of what I’m telling you. So, listen to it, and if you want to, take down a few notes. How to avoid these dangers, the dangers of having too much and the danger of suddenly having not enough. The danger of a big bank roll, and the danger of debt. Opposite ends, related to each other. One is the seamy side of the other. But they’re here and they are dangers. And we need a Rock and a Shelter and a Hiding Place and a Fortress and a Buckler and a Shield and strength. We need help, because these are two dangers, a fat lion and a skinny, scrawny lion. The fat lion is prosperity, and the scrawny, hungry lion is adversity. But they’re both lions and they’re both sources of danger.

Now, how do we have we avoid it? I will give you about four rules. First of all, get thoroughly detached from earthly possessions. If you are not detached from earthly possessions, your every dollar you accumulate will be a blight on your spirit. But if you have an understanding with God that goes clear down in deep into tears and emotions and moves you, your increasing riches will not hurt you at all, because they’re not yours. You will hold them for the Giver as we sing. You will hold them for the Giver. God gave them and you’ll hold them for Him.

A man is a treasurer of General Motors. I don’t know who he is, but the man who is treasurer of General Motors. Well, for General Motors to prosper, it doesn’t hurt him any, because it isn’t his money. He just works for General Motors. And while he can sign checks, I suppose running into the hundreds of thousands and maybe a million dollars, he never signs them except he signs them for the company. He doesn’t say, look how much money I’ve got. He says the company has so much money and I’m the treasurer.

Now, as treasurer, it was called a steward back in the days of Jesus’ time. And Jesus talked about stewards looking after other people’s money. And if you consider your possessions, everything from the garment on your back, to your factory, or office or store or whatever you have, everything, if you consider it as being God’s and you being God’s steward, it won’t hurt you at all. And no matter how much it multiplies, it still won’t hurt you because it’s outside of you. Money never hurt any man as long as it stayed outside of him. It’s when it gets inside of him that the curse begins.

The monks of old times thought that the way to wit at prosperity was to choose poverty, and they took a vow of chastity in poverty. But a man can take a vow of poverty and go into a monastery and be just as proud and can own the very book and the very table in the very cell and can say, this is my cell. You stay out of it. This is my book, let it alone. This is my bunk, don’t you sleep on it, and he can still possess things even if he’s barefooted. He can be a possessor of something.

On the other hand, a man like, well, a man can own lots and still not possess a thing, and be completely cut away from it. For you see, getting rid of the curse of prosperity is not a physical thing. It’s a spiritual thing. A man is not free from prosperity, if you were to give everything away, and live on bread and water. He’d still have self and pride in his heart. But get rid of your possessions. Blessed is the man who possesses nothing, that’s a sermon I preached once, and wrote it later into a chapter in a book, The blessedness of the man who possesses nothing. And if we possess nothing, God will allow us to have lots. But, if we possess anything, we’re cursed by it.

So, get it outside of you. Get thoroughly detached from earthly possessions. Look out for a thrill, if you get a raise. Look out for a thrill if you get more money. Look out for a thrill that comes from possessions. A man had them one time. He built a great, big beautiful city. And he walked around it. And he said, behold this great Babylon which I have built, and God loved him too much to let him be an idolator. So, he struck me. And when he came back into the throne room, he was shaking his head and muttering, and somebody said, what’s the matter with His Majesty? Well, His Majesty went plain off his head, and had to go out into the field and eat with the beef. Seven years until his fingernails were as long as eagle claws, and his hair like eagle feathers. At the end of seven years, he said, my reason came back to me and I knew that the Lord God on high reined over the affairs of men. He had to take seven years in the pasture field to find out what you can know now, if you will. We’re no better than Nebuchadnezzar was by nature. So, let’s get thoroughly detached from earthly possessions.

Two, let’s break the grip of the world’s philosophies, the magazine ads, the radio, television, newspapers, conversation, social groups. That subtle philosophy underlies it all. I’ve got to keep up with the ads. I’ve got to keep up with the ads. I just must keep up with Life magazine. I must. All right, you’re not a very good Christian if that’s got you. A Christian is one who has said good bye to the philosophies of the world. Keeping up with the Joneses, good bye. They make us ashamed to wear a suit if it isn’t the latest cut. Ashamed to drive a car that isn’t the latest. Ashamed to live in a house that isn’t the latest grotesque monstrosity, like a lot of this stuff they’re building now. They make us ashamed to be a little behind the time. But a man who is big enough to know that he’s above all times, is big enough to dare to live boldly where he pleases, in style or out of style. It’s no act of righteousness to be out of style Mama. Maybe you just are slow. And it’s no sin to be in style. The glory lies in giving not one care to either, saying I will live decently and respectively and strike a happy medium and go my way and I don’t care what the world says.

But they feed it into us from the time we’re in kindergarten. They feed it into us and make us ashamed to wear clothing a little too long. Ashamed to not have, if we have a bicycle, it’s got to be the best one. If we have a car, it’s got to be the best one. Whatever we have has got to be the best. If you don’t get free from that, prosperity and adversity will grind you to pieces. Prosperity, if you have it, will kill you and adversity, if you have it will grind you. But, if you will get free from the world’s philosophies and dare to be a Christian standing on your own feet, thanking God for what you’re have and being an independent Christian, neither one of them will grind you. God will take you out from between the nether and the upper millstone.

These are the days when we’re even ashamed not to have traveled. Have you been to Europe? No, poor fellow. Emerson said best thing about travel is to show you didn’t have to travel. He said to travel around the world and come back and find what you’re looking for in your backyard. No, I think traveling is a good thing. But I’m not running around here with a permanent inferiority complex because I’ve not been to London. I’ve been invited often enough, but I’ve been too lazy to go or else fell I had too much to do and didn’t go. But watch it brethren. This using other people as examples and then trying to keep up psychologically so you don’t feel inferior. What a shame, God’s people.

Jesus was never out of Palestine. Jesus never wore a garment somebody didn’t make for Him. Jesus never owned anything that would have sold at auction probably for more than a dollar and a half. Yet, Jesus was the Lord of Glory and the riches of the world were His. He could have spoken to those stones and they’d been gold. He could have spoken to the trees and they’d have turned to rich wheat bread. He could have spoken to the very air and it would have blown riches to Him. And he walked calmly, quietly through the world and left one garment behind me. Not that he despised possessions, No. And if God gave you possessions, thank God for them.

While I was having breakfast this morning, I got up a little ahead of the rest. And when I was having breakfast, I was reading in dear old Thomas Traherne. Thomas Traherne said this, my sermon notes are already made, so I didn’t get anything from him for you particularly and didn’t get my message certainly from him. But he said this, he said God made a wonderful, beautiful world. And he said, some people think you oughten to enjoy it. He said, I don’t agree with them. I think we ought to enjoy all things that God has made, because God made them to be enjoyed. For instance, if somebody gives me a tie and I don’t wear it, it tells the fellow that I didn’t appreciate the tie. And if God gives you a blue sky or a flowing river or a singing bird or a lovely mountain and you say I don’t believe in enjoying earthly things, you’re saying to God, take it back, I don’t like it. So said Thomas Traherne in my language. I believe with him.

Jessie Penn-Lewis, who worked with Evan Roberts in the revival, and some people said, did him no good, teaches that we’ve got to condemn our enjoyment. All of our enjoyments our soul, she said. Soul and spirit are divided. The spirit is the redeemed part and the soul only can be redeemed if we if we deny it. So she says, we are not to enjoy anything in this world, music, art, literature, poetry, beauty, anything. She says sacrifice all of that enjoyment. Keep it unto life eternal.

I heard the mockingbird sing down in Virginia. Funny, those people down there, I said, oh, a mockingbird! Some of them said, yeah, I had’t noticed them. They said, I never hear them. You never hear a mockingbird? And here they were, up on TV antennas and on telephone poles and on trees, and on church steeples, singing like an angel. Now, somebody tells me, Tozer, if you like to hear that, you’re unspiritual. Who made that mockingbird? Did the devil put that harp together and throw a bunch of feathers around it, give it a tail and a pair of wings? Did the devil make the mockingbird? No, God made the mockingbird and he said, here’s a little present to you. He let it go out of his hand and it went fluttering around began to sing. Now, I’m not to enjoy it? I am to enjoy it. Sure, enjoy all God’s lovely world, but keep it all out of you. Keep everything out of you. Keep your heart clean, and keep God in your heart and keep everything outside.

The missionary in the South, that is the missionary who’s lived in the South and loved the mockingbird, if he’s called to go to Tibet, or Timbuktu where there’s not a bird, it’s his business to get up say, goodbye to the mockingbird. Thank God for the little delight he’s taken in it and go where never a mockingbird is heard. But the idea that when God gives it to you and it’s where you are, you can’t enjoy it, seems to me to be the height of fanaticism. And I still love to see the moon at night. And when I’m outside Chicago, I love to see the stars at night. So, break the grip of the world’s philosophies and make God everything. God is everything. You can have anything and still it won’t hurt you. If God is very little or nothing, anything will hurt you.

And then lastly, accept your status as a pilgrim. You’re a pilgrim dear friend. You’re not a resident here. You’re passing through, if you’re a Christian. We build no nest here for our hearts. We’re migrating to a permanent home. We’re migratory birds. Some of you that live out a little where such things take place. In another three weeks or four, three, maybe, you will see a brown bird with spotted breast and a white ring around its perfectly round eyes. And it will be down on the ground among the bushes scratching about all by itself. And it’ll be singing the gentlest, softest little song you’ve ever heard in all your life. Now, that’s an oven bird, a migratory bird.

The flight song of the ovenbird is one of the great things to hear on the North American continent, but there are no oven birds in Chicago. The ones that come here are migratory. They’re passing through from where they were, to where they’re going to go. And they just stop around your house long enough to give you a little taste of what their beautiful song is. They’re shy and you can’t get near them. But if you just be patient, you’ll hear them sing. Oven birds on their way from the South to the North to hatch and raise their little brood. Then, next fall, they will be back to scratch under your window again, they’re migrating. God’s children are not resident birds. They’re migratory birds. They’re passing through from where they were to where they’re going. And where they’re going of course is God Almighty’s heaven.

William Cullen Bryant when he was a young fellow just out of law school had passed his bar examination and hadn’t established himself yet as a lawyer. He left home to go to, I believe to Boston if I remember. One of the New England cities to hang out his shingle and being a home-loving boy, he was rather lonely and homesick. And sick at heart as he walked one night. One evening, and as he walked as the sun was going down, he looked up and saw a wild duck migrating. Mostly they travel in flocks, but this old duck must have gotten lost. And he was all by himself. And from seeing this wild duck flying all along, beating its way steadily toward the south, he wrote the famous poem To a Water Fowl. There are several verses, two of them being, Whither, ‘midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? He concludes by saying this, He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright alright.

I heard William Jennings Bryan quote that in that organ voice of his one time. And Bryan, the young Bryan picked himself up and accumulated himself, as they say, and went away with a big smile on his face and wrote this point. He said, I’m a lonely boy here, on the New England shores, but I know God and Christ and that bird tells me that the God who holds him up there safe as he migrates, will help me a migratory man. It will guide me all the way. And the old man of God said, brief life is here our portion, brief sorrow, short life care, but the life that knows no ending, the tearless life is there. We’re migratory birds. We’re pilgrims passing through. This is not our home.

So, let’s get saved from things and people’s opinions and ourselves and our money and our clothing and our possessions. And you’ll have these things, but use them reverently, thankfully wisely, and give them generously. And remember, we’re pilgrims, and that he who guides through the boundless air, the certain flight of the bird, will also guide us until we arrive at last on those shores that are washed by the water that flows from the throne of God. It’s worth waiting for brethren, it’s worth one little sacrifice it costs. Amen.

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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.

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Messages

Tozer Talks

“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.

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