Tag: attributes

“That We May Know Him“

That We May Know Him

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

March 17, 1957

Now, tonight I want to talk about this, that I may know Him. In the first place, I believe that God created the heaven and the earth and all things that are therein. Everybody that believes it, would you risk an amen?

I believe that God made the heaven and the earth and all things that are therein. And I believe that He made all living creatures, and He made each one with a kind of life peculiar to it, with a kind of life which He chose for it. And then He adjusted that kind of life to an environment which He chose for it.

And as long as each living creature stays in its own environment and lives the kind of life God gave it, that creature fulfills the purpose for which it was made. And God being who He is, there can be nothing said of any creature higher than this. He fulfilled that for which God made him.

Now that’s all. You can’t go higher than that. You can put statues in the park. You can write their names on the walls of famous buildings. You can give them prizes of all sorts, Nobel Prizes and Pulitzer Prizes and every kind of prize. Or you can canonize them if you wish.

But when it’s all been said, you cannot say any more of any creature than this. God made him, gave him a certain kind of life, gave him an environment to inhabit. And he has lived in that environment and in relaxed confidence has lived the kind of life God gave him.

Now that’s all. The angels and archangels and seraphim and cherubim and saints and apostles and prophets can’t go any further than that. Now it says here that the angels, which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation, God hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, under the judgment of the great day.

And here we see a certain order of being, or a certain number of beings of an order that left their first estate. That is, they left the place for which they had been created. And anyone, anybody, any intelligent creature, any moral creature anywhere that leaves its proper sphere and estate will know only endless defeat and pain, because they’re not fulfilling the end for which they were created. Now that I say generally of any living being anywhere.

And incidentally, brothers and sisters, you and I are willingly poverty-stricken because we’re scared stiff. We’re afraid to use our religious imagination and we’re afraid to believe what the Bible teaches us. The Bible talks about angels and archangels, at least one, and seraph and cherubims and watchers and holy ones and principalities and powers. And you and I insist on people, that’s all. We are afraid to rise and let our faith-filled imagination encompass the wonder of the filled universe, filled with beings.

Now, God created man in His own image, and of no other creature is this spoken. I cannot find in the Scriptures where God said He ever created a seraph in His image nor a cherubim with all of his faces and his wings, nor an angel or archangel or principality or power.

But it says that God made man in His image. God said affectionately, let us make man in our own image, so in the image of God created he him. And blew into him the breath of life and man became a living soul. So that man, now hear this, you can take this out, misapply it, misquote it and make a radical out of me if you want to do it, but I’m sure you won’t.

But as originally created, man was more like God than any other creature that ever was created. As originally created, man was more like God because of no other creature did God say that he made them in his own image. And a wise old German Christian said this, there is nothing in the universe so much like God as the human soul.

Now of course he took for granted and meant that man’s soul was sinful and lost. And in that sense, sin is not like God and the soul that sinneth it shall die. But there is something basic in human nature and in the soul of man that can become more like God than anything else in the universe. I wish we could believe that.

I wish that we could accept that as a part of our creed to not be afraid that if we state it and say we believe it, somebody will charge us with believing man’s all right.

Man’s not all right. Man’s a fallen creature. Man went down like an automobile that left the highway at a curve and went over a gully down in among the rocks. And man is not all right. Man is lost.

Man is not damned. I heard a preacher this afternoon talking about my poor lost damned soul. No, no, never call yourself damned, brother. You’re lost if you’re not converted. You’re lost but you’re not damned. That’s another thing altogether.

But God created man to know Him and He created man to know Him in a sense and to a degree which no other creature can know God. The creatures that are in the presence of God may not know God as well as the man soul which God has made in His image. Don’t you see, don’t you see that there has to be a degree of life there which enables a man to know God.

Don’t you see that the cat there under your table or the dog there lying on the rug, you’ll put a record on. You put on something by Mozart or Beethoven, and he’ll never even open a sleepy eye because there’s nothing in that cat nature that can understand Beethoven or Mozart. Put on, as we have at home, some of the fine records of London, the great choir there singing Christmas carols.

Well, no dog will get up and go over and sit down and gaze in spite of that little ad. He knows his master’s voice. No dog ever looked into a phonograph. If he did, it was curiosity. He can’t appreciate it because he hasn’t got the kind of life that can appreciate it. But a two-year-old baby. . .

We thought at first that our grandchildren were unusual because when you’d play the music, they’d sway their little bodies and then we find out all babies do that, that everybody’s like that, that it’s built into them, they’ve got it in them to do it. God put them into the rhythm of the universe. And I’m not afraid of rhythm, I don’t go for Elvis Presley, but I’m not one afraid of rhythm because the beat of God, the up, down, north, south, east, west, it’s God the musician in His universe.

And so, the little babies are born into the stream of it, as a fish is born into the water, into the stream. And when they’re old enough to hear music, they’re old enough to smile and sway to it. Because it’s the dance of life, it’s God gave them that kind of nature.

Now, my brother, God made us to know Him in a way that no other creature can know Him. He made us to know Him to a degree that no other creature can know Him because no other creature has quite the capabilities that man has. Certainly, the angels have capabilities, they’re holy angels and they obey God. And certainly the seraphim around the throne shine in the fire of God and they know God.

But they don’t know God as man will know God when redemption has been completed. For God means that man should be higher than the angels. God made him a little while lower than the angels that he might raise him higher than the angels. And when it’s all over and we know as we are known, we shall rank higher in the hierarchy of God than the very angels themselves.

My brethren, man by his sin lost this knowledge. He lost it. I read about it over here in Romans, the first chapter, because that when they knew God they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which were not convenient, as one version says, to do disgraceful acts.

So that man by his sin lost this knowledge of God. So that now man, though he has the potentiality to know God in a way no creature in heaven can know God, he still doesn’t know God because his conduct is unworthy of his high origin and his heart is filled with a huge emptiness, if you know what I mean.

And so that’s what’s the matter with us. That’s why we have these crises all the time. That’s why the President was killed in Iraq and the newscasters are worried immediately lest the next man who is elected president will be anti-American and may turn out to be anti-missionary.

Well, what’s the matter with us? They told us that science and philosophy and psychiatry and psychology and sociology and all of this should make the world a better place in which to live, and we could all, men could all be their brothers, each other’s brothers. But we’re hating each other more than ever since the beginning, and there’s more hatred and more suspicion and more treachery and more spying and more espionage and more treachery and more selling out than ever there has been since the beginning of the world.

What’s the matter? It’s because man is filled with a vast emptiness. He was created to know God, but by his sin he chose the gutter and would like not to have God in his knowledge. And so man is like a bird shut in a cage or like a fish taken from the water.

And so, man instinctively craves for the image and misses it, misses the eternal being, misses the life, misses the light, misses the friend. And that’s what’s the matter with us, and we don’t know it. Why do fifteen kids get into an old banged-up car with pipes and hammers and go out on the prowl, looking for anybody, not anybody in particular, but anybody? Because down in the deep soul of them is the knowledge that sometime they’ve got to die, that this world isn’t enough, and there’s a longing they don’t understand. And so, it turns in on them and turns astray and becomes perverted. And like the alcoholic, they choose the gutter and love the gutter.

Now, what does the Bible teach about them not knowing God, the sinners? Well, it teaches that God can be known. It teaches that God has not abandoned the human race as He abandoned the angels that sinned. Why did He abandon the angels that sinned? Because they were never made in the image of God in the first place. They were made moral creatures, capable of moral and spiritual perception, but they were not made in the image of God.

Why did not God abandon man? Because man was made in the image of God. And so God gave man a chance and sent a Redeemer.

How does the Bible teach that man can know God? It teaches that in Christ and through Christ, He is the image of the invisible God, the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person. Our old Father said this about Him, I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of Him before all ages. God of God, light of light, very God of very Gods, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. And this is what the Bible teaches. It teaches that everything the Godhead is, Christ is.

Don’t listen to the liberals who say God revealed Himself through Christ. Don’t listen to the liberals who say that Christ reflected more of God than other people did. Don’t listen to the liberals who say that as one piece of metal might be more radioactive than another, so certain individuals are tuned to God in a way that other individuals aren’t, and they are therefore religious geniuses, and that Jesus Christ was the supreme religious genius, catching and reflecting more of God than any other man.

Don’t listen to that, because all that amounts to is to insult Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was not a reflector of deity only, though He was that. He was not a revealer of deity only, though He was that. He was, and is, and always has been, and never can cease to be, God, light of light, God of God, very God of very Gods, begotten, not created. And so that all that the Godhead is, Christ is.

And so to know Jesus Christ is to be back at the ancient fountain again, back at the ancient fountain again. I don’t say this is a result of advancing years, because I felt this way when I was converted at seventeen. I certainly didn’t have it developed as far, but I went back to the roots of my being.

And I tell you, my brethren, that we have pushed our way on into artificiality so far that it’s a wonderful thing by one wonderful swift act of our souls in faith and prayer to go back to the ancient fountain of our being and start over again. And there, know God for ourselves, all over again, back where Adam started, back beyond where Adam started, back beyond where the world began, back beyond where the angels began, back at that ancient, glorious, trembling fountain we call the being of God, the Triune God.

And in Jesus Christ we go back there. In Jesus Christ we leave all the environs and we go back to the ancient source of our being, fixed on this blissful center, rest, old John Newton wrote.

Now rest my long-divided heart, fixed on this blissful center, rest. And so back at the ancient source of our being we find the beginnings and start all over again in Christ. That I may know him, said Paul, that I may know Him.

Now my question tonight is why Christians know Christ so little and know God so little. Now I’d like to say to you this, that not all of the Godhead can be known. If this discourages any of you, it will be a most wonderful thing for you, because a real good shaking down is good for Christians sometimes, a shaking them back to where they belong. And if any of you have the idea that you know pretty well all that can be known about God, you’re just about to burst. Let me warn you, just about two more foot-pound pressure and you’ll blow. And when you blow it will take God a long time to get you back together again.

Brother, not all of the Godhead can ever be known, because that being that was capable of knowing all of the Godhead would have to be equal to the Godhead. Just as you can’t pour a quart of water into a vessel holding less than a quart, so you can’t pour all of the Godhead into an experience of anyone being less than God.

Now, I have quoted before what some of the ancient fathers said in arguing for the Trinity. They said, look at it like this, God the Eternal Father is an infinite God and His name is love and He is love.

And so, the very nature of love is to give itself. And He could not give His love fully to anybody that was not fully equal to Him. And so there we have the Ancient Son who was equal with the Father. And the Eternal Father poured out His love into the Son who could contain it and contain all of it, because the Son is equal with the Father.

And then said these wise reasoning old brethren, they said for the Ancient Father to pour His love out on the Son would mean that a medium of communication had to be there equal to the Father and the Son, and that was the Holy Ghost.

So, there you have the Trinity, the Ancient Father in the fullness of His love pouring Himself through the Holy Ghost who is in being equal to Him and to the Son who is in being equal to the Spirit and the Father. So not all of the Godhead can be known by man. The limitless infinite sea of being we call God, filling and surrounding and enfolding and upholding, but all that can be known of God is revealed in Christ. And when Paul said that I may know Him, that I may know Him, no, no, here’s not intellectual at all. You don’t know God as you know the multiplication table or know the Morse code.

When I was a kid, sixteen or so, I learned the Morse code, and I could send and receive messages or—not too well, but I was working on it for a while, anyhow. We’re over the old telegraph instrument. And like you can know almost anything, there’s practically nothing you can’t learn. But it’s intellectual.

When Paul said that I may know Him, he did not mean intellectually. He meant by experience, personally and consciously. He meant that I may know God personally, myself, spirit touching spirit and heart touching heart and conscious knowledge of God.

You know, the old Henry Suso, when I get to heaven, I’m going to hunt some of these old fellows up. I’ll be satisfied to sit and just gaze for a thousand years, but after that, if I get enough courage, I’ll go hunt up some of these dear old brethren. One of them will be Henry Suso. Henry Suso said this, there is a vast difference between hearing a sweet lute sweetly played and merely hearing that one has been played.

Now, it’s one thing to hear that there’s been a concert, it’s another thing to have heard the concert. It’s one thing to hear that there has been a planet suddenly discovered, but it’s another thing to have gazed on that planet. This describes almost all Christians, not all, certainly, but a great many, a too high percentage of Christians. They’ve heard there’s a sweet lute that’s been sweetly played, but they’ve never heard it themselves. They know God only by hearsay.

And I don’t want to be harsh and hard on people, friends, but it’s my conviction, a growing conviction with me, that that’s what’s the matter with us now, what’s the matter with the Church on earth, the Gospel Church, the believing Church, that we tend to know God only by hearsay. Some have never heard of Him except by hearsay, and others have heard Him and known Him, but only faintly. We’ve heard only faint echoes of God’s voice instead of ever hearing the voice of God.

You can always tell a man or a woman who’s been into the Presence and come out. There is a vibrancy in the testimony that you don’t find anywhere else.

I claim I can know as much about a place by reading about it as most people who go there. But everybody that goes and travels abroad and comes back, they always smile at that. If you’ve actually been there, you’ll know it in a way you can’t know if you’ve only read a book about it.

But most Christians have only read a book about God, that’s all. They’ve heard the faint echo of the voice of God, they’ve seen a reflection of the light of God, they’ve seen a photograph instead of God Himself, and their personal knowledge of God is very slight.

I don’t want to hurt your feelings, though I will if I have to, but I would say that I am afraid that a lot of us here, for all our reputation, we don’t know God for Himself very much.

Church attendance and fellowship and singing, we lean on each other all the time, and we have social fellowship and religious activity and all the various religious props and lean on each other. But that’s one thing, my brethren, that’s one thing. Jesus had that, He had His brethren, He had His work to do, He had His healing and raising from the dead and opening eyes and unstopping ears and answering questions and blessing people, He had that. But He also had a personal knowledge of God that was strong and real and individual, so that when He went into the mountain to pray and waited on God all night, He didn’t feel that He was alone, but God was there.

In our modern Christian service, it’s do this and do that and go here and go there, and the result is we know God only by hearsay, we hear of the sweet lute but we never hear it played for ourselves. We want things instead of God.

You see, God wants to give Himself, God wants to impart Himself with His gifts. Separated from God, every gift is dangerous, any gift is dangerous. If I were to pray for all the seventeen gifts in the epistles of Paul, the gifts of the Spirit, and I got them all, it would be dangerous to me, if in giving them God didn’t give Himself with them. God wants to give you Himself. Didn’t I say a while ago, and isn’t it true in the Scriptures, that when God creates an order of life, He creates an environment for that life?

And when God made man in His image and redeemed Him by the blood of the Lamb back to that image, is not God the environment of the Christian? The great sea we call the ocean is the environment for whales, and the air is the environment for birds, and the earth is the environment for the nightcrawler and the mole. But the heart of God is the environment for the Christian.

And God meant that we should live in that heart of God. And the great grief in heaven is that we want God’s gifts and don’t want God. And even in the Church today, even in the Church it’s the same.

And if God gives you a rose without giving you God, He’s giving you a rose with a thorn. And if He gives you a garden without giving you Himself, He’s given you a garden with a serpent. And if He gives you wine without giving you God, He’s given you that with which you may destroy yourself.

Now, God wants to give you Himself, and you and I, we’ve got to repudiate this modern seeking God for His benefits–what we can get out of God. You write a book—anybody can write a book now and sell it, anybody—all you have to do is write a book on “17 ways to get things from God,” and you’ll have immediate sale, “14 ways to have peace of mind,” and away they go by the ton. “How we can bring God to our service,” and the printers can’t keep up with the books. We want God for what we can get out of Him. And that’s the great blight that rests upon us, brethren, the great blight that rests upon us.

The Sovereign God wants to be loved for Himself, and He wants to be appreciated for Himself. And more than that, that’s only part of it and not even half of it. The other part is that He wants us to know that when we have Him, we have all the rest.

Jesus said it in another way, “Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and his righteousness, the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” Why does God forgive sin? He forgives sin because sin is the shadow that stands between Him, God, and us. And if God is ever going to know us and we know God, the shadow has to be removed so God forgives sin.

Why does God pour out His Spirit on us when we trust Him and believe that He will? It’s in order that the Spirit, when He comes, will take the things of mine and show them unto you. Why does God answer prayer? In order that in answering prayer He might unveil His own face to us? And why has God given us the Scriptures, that through the Scriptures we might know God?

The Scriptures, my brethren, are not an end in themselves. You hear them talked about as though they were an end in themselves. No man can believe more fully in the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures as originally given than I do.

But verbal inspiration or any other theory of inspiration, when it makes the Bible an end in itself, is a dangerous thing, because the purpose of the Bible is not to lead you to the Bible. The purpose of the Bible is to lead you to God.

And the Bible is a lattice through which we look and see our beloved gathering lilies with the dew on his hair, as we read in the Song of Solomon. The Bible is the ladder, the Bible is the means of communication, the Bible is the entrance in, and the Bible is never an end in itself.

But the modern vogue is, use God, use God. Oh, that God would raise up somebody that could say this, that could make His church see it, that could make the orthodox church see it, the Bible people, the fundamentalists, the evangelicals, that he’d raise up somebody that could make us see it.

We’ve undergone for so long, indoctrination and brainwashing in a kind of creed that makes God to be our servant instead of our being God’s servant. And we write tracts on how, if we pray, God sends money, and He does. I’d have starved to death the first few years of my ministry if I couldn’t have prayed money in, my wife and I.

So, I believe God sends money, but it’s pretty cheap when we get all excited because God sends money. Somebody over in the Baliem Valley was praying for money to buy an outboard motor, they needed an outboard motor. Of course they were praying for it. Don’t you think they weren’t praying for it? And somebody over here heard them, and so we’re sending $350 to buy them a motor over there. I believe in that.

But that’s what you might say, that’s down on the level of the routine. There’s something grander and higher and finer and richer than that. And if God doesn’t give Himself over there along with the motor, they’ll wreck that motor themselves.

God wants to give gifts, but every gift He gives, He wants to give Himself with His gift. And that’s the wonder of it, my brethren. He wants to give Himself.

But nowadays, use God, use God, use God to get you a job. Use God to give you safety. Use God to give you peace of mind, and heaven at last.

All right, but God is searching for those who will say, God, I don’t know. My heart craves Thee, I want Thee. My heart is, my heart is pained, nor can it be at rest till it finds rest in Thee. And I’d rather have Thee and nothing than to have everything rolling in my way. You can’t be sure God’s making you a prosperous businessman. You can’t be sure at all. You’re prospering, you say, because you tithe. Well, go ahead and tithe, double it, it’s all right with me. I think you should. But your prosperity may not come from God at all. It may be the economic level of the day in which you live. It may be you’re pretty sharp, cutting corners.

It’s better to have God and a dime than have all the riches in the world and not have God with it. God is searching for those who will put beneath the cloud of forgetting. The brother said, all the things that ever God hath made, for he is a jealous lover, and he suffers no rivals. And he don’t want anybody to stand in there and take his place or even remotely take his place. He wants us to seek him, to seek God.

Incidentally, quoting Wesley, somebody asked him about seeking and he said, well, let me tell you something. If anybody comes preaching, telling you to seek any more than more love, don’t listen to them. Don’t listen to them. The only preaching you ought to listen to is that which says, seek more of God. Seek to know the Triune God. You can’t all know all the Godhead. You can know all the Godhead revealed in Christ to your soul infinitely more than you now know.

And if the church of Christ would come back to this and would get sober-minded and serious and stop fooling and would begin to seek for God Himself, then all the gifts of God would come along with God and all the blessings of God would come along with God. We want the fullness of the Spirit. We want clean hearts. We want a principle within. We want love divine, all love excelling. We want all of that.

But if we seek those things apart from God, we’ve only found a rose with a thorn. But if we find God, then we find all of these things too in God. And better I say a thousand times, know God through Jesus Christ intimately. But you say, I have accepted Christ and I’m converted. Oh, very wonderfully good. That’s good. But do you know Him?

The man Paul had been converted to, and he was one of the world’s great Christians when he wrote that, I may know Him. That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering, being made conformable unto His death.

He was plowing on and plowing ahead, and it appeared to be that the knowledge of Jesus Christ, what he called the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord.

My friend, this is what you and I are here for. Somebody wants to know what the deeper life is. I almost withdraw from the term anymore. I almost shrink from hearing it because everybody’s talking about the deeper life, but nobody seems to want God. God’s the deeper life, Jesus Christ is the deeper life.

And as I plunge further into the knowledge of the Triune God, my heart moves out into God further, and there’s less of me and more of God, and the life becomes deepened and strengthened in God. So that this is the next step, that I might know Him, and anything that keeps me from knowing Him is my enemy.

If it is a friend that stands between Him and me, that friend is an enemy. If it is a gift that stands between Him and me, that gift is an enemy. If it is an ambition that stands between Him and me, that ambition is an enemy. If it is a defeat I had once, and I allow that defeat to get me down and stand between Him and me, I’m to forget that, forgetting all the things that are past, I plow forward and press on. And if it’s a victory that I had back there, that victory stands between me and the knowledge of God. I’ve got to put that victory behind me.

Oh, I suppose I might as well have stayed in bed. I don’t know whether anybody knows what I mean. Maybe by the grace of God you do, I think some of you do.

Dear friends, do you see what I mean, that all of this cheapening of the gospel by making God our servant, God running around with a basket, giving away presents, or throwing dimes like John D. Rockefeller, and we scramble for the dimes, shiny new dimes, and then write tracts about it. I found a dime that had the image of God on it.

Wonderful, isn’t it, but nothing compared with the deep knowledge of God Himself. To know Him, and you know this knowledge of God, nobody can argue out of you. Nobody can argue out of it. They can come and point a stiff, angry finger at you and call you every name the law permits. And when they’re through, you’ll feel bad about it, but you still know you know God.

They can come and argue with you and give you Scripture to prove you’re all wrong, and when they’re finished, you can say, well, you’re a pretty good expositor, but I happen to know God. You got to me too late. You’ve come to prove I can’t, and I met God before you ever came to prove it. So we can know God for ourselves, that I might know Him.

So, dear friends, some of you are finding Him, I know that. Some of you are plowing through. I’ve gotten letters, I’ve gotten phone calls, I have had personal conversations, and I know that some of you are finding the Lord in a new, rich, deep, and wonderful way over these last weeks, and I’m glad. But how about the rest? Shan’t we seek Him?

Now, let’s pray.

Now, before we do pray, why, we’re going to find out if there are those who would say, I want you to remember me. Your own longing heart is talking back to you, and the yearning within you is bigger than you are, and you’re not clear, maybe, quite about it all, intellectually, but your heart cries for God, and you want to know what Paul knew, and you want to know what God has revealed and given to the experience of his saints down the years, and you say, pray for me, Mr. Tozer, that I might have the spiritual courage and the faith to rise and put behind me and under my feet whatever it is, friendships, or ambitions, or hopes, or plans, or gifts, or victories, or anything that prevents me from knowing the Lord Jesus.

Would you raise your hand, and we’ll pray for you. Anybody here that would say, I do want you, Mr. Tozer, put their hand up, we’re going to pray, and say, yes, God bless you. And who else? You want to know Him, yes, back there I see you. And who else? You want to know Him, yes, yes, yes.

I’m glad for the hands that have gone up, now let’s have a little time of prayer.

Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. We thank thee, Lord Jesus, that when we come to Thee we go back to the beginning. We go back of Paul and back of Moses, back of Abraham, back of Adam. We go back to the beginning, the light that shineth and lighteth every man. And in Thee we see the Father, and through Thee we know the Father.

We pray for these who have requested prayer tonight. In the name of Thy Son, Jesus, we pray, Father, that Thou will take these young people and these older ones, and lead them in deep pastures and green pastures, and through ways that may be rough and hard and even painful and chastening, but lead them, Lord, lead them until all is behind them, everything’s behind them, and they’ve put behind them everything, everything, what they were and what they are and what they’re proud of and what they’re ashamed of and what the victories they’ve had and the defeats they’ve had and the mistakes they’ve made.

Oh, we pray Thee, lead these friends on and teach them how to look forward and not backward and seek Thy face.

We know, Father, that when we talk about these things, some come because they feel that they’ll be given a capsule which they can swallow or a text they can memorize or some one little trick they can do.

O Lord God, it is not thus received, but rather by the cultivation of the knowledge of God in Christ Jesus, by faith and humility and prayer and trust and confidence and obedience, and the pressing onward until at last the mountaintop appears in view, and up out of the mist we come to the sunlight.

Come, Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove, come with all thy quickening power. Come, we pray Thee and shed abroad the Savior’s love that it may quicken ours.

We pray for all of these, and then we pray, Lord, for some who didn’t request prayer for anything, but who should have and who perhaps are this night without even salvation. And we pray for all the churches that are bringing their service to close right now or will be within half an hour or so.

Bless them all, Lord, and grant, we pray Thee, that every net may have fishes, and that every shepherd may find lost sheep, and every father see sons come home. Let there be victory in the Church of Jesus Christ this night. We pray Thee throughout all this area.

To Thee we’ll give praise. We ask this thing through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

“The Knowledge of God 2”

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

July 1, 1956

This is the second in a series of four talks on the three degrees of divine knowledge. I spoke last week, in a preliminary sermon of what I mean by the knowledge of God. And then, today and next Sunday and the next, I want to deal with these three degrees of divine knowledge.

Now, briefly I’ll sketch that there are three degrees of knowledge possible to a Christian, that gain by reason. And I will use as a general text, Romans 1:19, 20, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things which are made, even His eternal power and Godhead.

Now, this is tight writing, there’s no poetry here. This is the philosophy of theology. This is theological philosophy. This is a Christian philosopher thinking tightly about truth and revealing it. And he says in effect that reason can know through what it sees in nature, the invisible God, and His eternal power and Godhead. The second degree of knowledge is that which is revealed through faith. And in Hebrews 11:3, we have one text out of very, very many. So many that we’re embarrassed to select one and leave a whole book full of them not read. This is Hebrews 11:3; through faith we understand that the world was framed by the word of God. So, the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. There’s an invisible source back of the visible creation that is revealed through faith.

And then, the third is, that which is revealed to our spirits by the Holy Spirit in spiritual experience. 1 Corinthians 2:9-14, but as it is written, eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man the things which God hath 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. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

Obviously, here, it takes the Holy Spirit to lead us into this third, and furthering degree of knowledge, further on than reason, even further than faith. It is the Holy Ghost Himself. Which thing also we speak not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches. Comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man, receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. The natural man can know God’s eternal power, the Godhead through reason. But the natural man, that is the unregenerate man, cannot know the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them because they’re spiritually discerned.

I pointed out that these three degrees of knowledge corresponded to the outer court of the temple, which was open to the sky and enjoyed the light of the sun by day and the moon and stars by night; that is, natural light. The second degree, corresponded to the holy place–faith–where there was light from the candlesticks, but no light from the stars nor sun nor moon. No natural light came there. We have to believe whatever reason says. And then, the Holy of Holies, the Sanctum, where there was no light from the sun or moon and no light from the candlestick made by man, but the light came alone from the Divine Presence, even the Shekinah which dwelt between the cherubim. And that corresponds to the third and last degree of knowledge, which is the immediate, unmediated knowledge the spirit can have of God through the Holy Spirit.

Now, nature is a teacher of theology, and I want to talk about that this morning. Next Sunday, I’ll talk about that knowledge which is revealed to us by faith, in which reason can neither support nor deny. The third Sunday, I’ll talk about that knowledge which is given to us by the Holy Spirit.

Now, the knowledge of God by reason. And I say again, that nature is a teacher of theology. It was Dante that said that nature is the art of God Eternal. And if nature is the art of God, then we can learn much about the Artist from the art. That is so well known that I hardly need to repeat it. Pascal, the greatest mind probably that France ever produced, certainly the greatest French theologian that ever lived and Christian, said that nature is an image of God; so is near perfect because it is an image of God, but not all together perfect because it is only an image of God. I’ll repeat that another way. That nature being the setting forth of God, the garment of God, is near to being perfect, because it is God’s image. But it is not absolutely perfect, because it is not God, but only the image of God. And you remember that Milton when he was blind in that magnificent Paradise Lost, bemoaned the fact that he was blind and said something to this effect that, from the book of knowledge, the fair book of knowledge presented a universal blank to him now of nature’s works. And wisdom at one entrance was quite shut out because he could not see. Therefore he said, this universal Book of Wisdom has been shut, one page has been shut to me because I can’t see.

Now my brethren, I do not quote these men only to say what I want to say better than I can say it. And in speaking of the knowledge of God in nature, I would have it understood that I am not trying to show off any learning or am I trying to go exhibit any particular penetration, but rather I would approach it on my knees. And I would approach it in the spirit of Sir John Bowring who wrote this great, these great words. Almighty One, I had bend in dust before Thee, even so veiled cherubim, in calm and still devotion, I adore Thee, all wise, and all present Friend. Thou to the earth it’s emerald robe hast given or curtained it in snow, and the bright sun and the soft moon in heaven before Thy presence bow. Thou Power Sublime, Thy throne is firmly seated on stars and glowing sun. Oh, could I praise Thee; could my soul elated waft Thee seraphic tones. Had I the lyre of angels, could I bring Thee an offering worthy Thee, in what bright notes of glory would I sing Thee blessed notes of ecstasy. And I only want it understood that I bend in dust before Him as veiled cherubim and in common still devotion I adore Him. All-wise, all-present Friend.

So, nature teaches us certain things about God. And reason can understand them. And this is one of the reasons why man is guilty before he ever hears the gospel at all. Some people say, why send missionaries to the heathen when they even are in innocence. And if they don’t hear the gospel and don’t hear about Jesus, they will not be able to reject Jesus and thus bring guilt upon themselves.

Now, this saying comes from a misunderstanding of the whole thing. The heathen are not lost because they reject Jesus. They are lost because they have known from the beginning that God is, and certain things about God. And yet have loved darkness more than light and have continued in their darkness and have loved sin and iniquity and have exalted their own ego above the throne of God and have lived wicked, opinionated, self-contained, godless, unbelieving, and obscene lives. And when they hear of Jesus, if they reject Him, they will add one more final sin to their terrible list, but it will only be one. The heathen are already lost, because that which can be known of God is revealed in them so that they clearly understand it, even His eternal power and Godhead.

Now, I will point out some of the things that nature teaches. One is, that God is. By looking around on the world, every people and tongue and tribe has concluded that God is. And there is not a language among the thousands of languages spoken by man in all history and in all the world today that does not have a name for God. Reasonable beings gazed down or up or out or around and whispered God. They knew that God was. Only the fool says in his heart there is no God. And there are not many of such fools. There are many sinners, certainly, and there are many millions who will have their own way whether God is or is not. But there is scarcely one in a million, that will say, there is no God. Mostly God is found in the language of mankind, whether it be the language of a forgotten tribe, or whether it be some great language, such as Latin or English. And thus, the nations of the earth, and all times and places and under all circumstances, have looked out and up and around and down, and have exclaimed–God is. But it teaches us more than that God is. It teaches us that God is eternal.

Now we are soul constructors that we must ask, where did this come from? You know, my brethren, we think what we think and are as we are because of the way we’re constructed. Any anatomist will tell you that you walk the way you walk because of your body structure. I couldn’t, for instance, walk like the big tall usher here for the simple reason I don’t have his body structure. And he wouldn’t want to walk like me, because he doesn’t have mine. We walk the way we walk because of our anatomical structure. And so, we think the way we think because of our mental structure. God has made us a certain way. And one thing that God made us to ask is, where did this come from?

When we look at a thing, or discover or run upon it, our minds make us say, where did this come from? How did it get here? And experience teaches the antecedent. Always remember that. That experience, even from the newborn babe to the ancient sage, always teaches the antecedent. The Explorer goes far into the hidden jungles of South America, and there he finds a building. And long, long it’s been forgotten and gone and it’s almost rotten down. But he says, where did it come from? How did it get here. And into his mind comes the thought of antecedent intelligence. And he says, this didn’t make itself. It didn’t pile itself up here and make its windows and doors and its roof and it’s entablature and its arches. It was built by somebody. So, the idea of antecedent comes into their minds.

A man is traveling where he believes no man has ever been, and he sees a track and he knows it to be a human footprint. And he says, who put it here? Somebody was here before that track was made. So, he goes back to antecedent again, and says, before the track was the foot, and before the track was made, the foot was here. Or he looks about him at the fauna of the earth, anywhere from the great mastodon or the whale that swims in the sea or the tiny mouse that runs under the rock, and says, how did it get here? And you can trace it back and back and back and back and back through generation and generation and generation. And through the simple knowledge of biology and the facts of life, he knows how that mouse got here, by its father before it and its father before it.

And so, he goes back to the first mouse and says, antecedent again, and puts a capital letter there. He says before the first mouse was a God who made mice. Before the first elephant, was a God who made elephants. Before the first bird spread its wings, was a God who made birds. For he gazes up into the heavens above and sees the stars and says, who put that there? Where did that come from? It’s as natural for him to ask that question as it is for a lame man to limp. It’s in his structure. He can’t help it. It’s in his mind. Who put that star there? Where did that sun come from? And then again, the word antecedent leaps into his mind. Something was before that star was there. He looks out at mankind, and sees men running up and down in the earth, and says, where did we come from?

We all know we can trace our genealogy back. We can know where our father was, our grandfather, our great-grandfather. Most of us Americans are lost after we get back about three generations. But we know that whether we can identify our ancestors or not, we had ancestors back to the first one who stood up on the earth. And before that first one, was a God who made men. So we have the word antecedent. Always, always we look in any direction and say that He did it, He did it, He did it. And we may have different names for Him and different conceptions of Him, but always reason cries, He did it. He was there first. He created the world, so He must have been before the world. He created time, so He must have been before time. And if He was before time, then He is eternal.

So, His eternal power and Godhead are revealed simply by looking around about us. We don’t have to hear the gospel or know the Bible, we only have to see around about us a bit, and we know this, and all our excuses are taken away. And there we stand with the veil pulled aside and in the presence of the great and Almighty God, all-wise, all-present Friend.

And then also, that the theology of nature teaches us that God is omnipotent. Now, reason says so. Reason cries out that God, who must contain all things, and who must bring into being such awful forces as these. Imagine the force of the wind. The poets write of the breezes, of the zephyrs as they like to call them. They kiss the cheek of the child as he plays in the meadow or makes daisy chains beside the brook. Poets have always loved the breeze and the zephyr. But when the breeze and the zephyr rise in a wild, mad fury and hurl themselves upon a town in Kansas or Missouri; In one minute in what was a smiling little helpless, sleepy village, lies a wrecked rubble and the dead are dug out for days out of the rubble. No sun is smiling down. Now, the wind is gone, but still the stretchers carry out the dead. And the wind did it and did it in one minute. Did it in forty seconds, sometimes it will do it.

And the great God who made those mighty winds to roar out of the deep and hurl great chunks of the ocean up onto the seashore. That God must be an omnipotent God. And the lightning that flashes down out of the dark cloud and rends the oak that has stood for 100 years against the storms. That God must be a mighty God. And that God who put gravity in everything and holds the suns and stars together, and holds the pebbles down on the beach and holds the great mountain there on the plain and holds the building down in the city. That great God who made gravity must be a great God.

Think about life itself. Think what power it must take to perpetuate life and carry it on and carry it on. Only rarely, rarely in the course of history has there ever been an extinct creature. Mostly they perpetuate themselves on and on and on. The tiniest little insect that may crawl on your book as you read in the park. And you reach over and carelessly touch it. And then getting rid of it, you crush it unintentionally. And it’s crushed away until it doesn’t even make a mark on the book. A little insect it was. It had a life there, a real life. But before you crushed it carelessly on the corner of your book, it had laid an egg somewhere; begotten itself again. And so, its species goes on and on and on. And think of the power that carries on all grain and all fruits and all life and all birds and fishes and people, and carries it on and on. This great God must be an omnipotent God. But my brethren, it means more than omnipotence. It means that God must be also omniscient. That is that He must have all knowledge.

Have you ever stopped to think that if a man put a machine together and missed on one point, left out one wheel or left out one shaft or one cam or one anything, the machine would probably rip itself apart or at least it wouldn’t work. It’s got to be all there. And the man who puts it together has to know all about that particular machine. And so, the God who put this machine we call the universe together, He had to know all about it. Ignorance of even one thing would ruin everything and bring the universe down in chaos. So that God had to know at once and perfectly all that could be known or can be known about spirit and matter and mind and life and feeling and sensation and space and time and relation and directions and events and deeds and words and thoughts and all the doesn’t fall in those categories. He must know everything absolutely perfectly. For ignorance of any one thing or at least division of one thing somewhere, the wheels of the universe would have ground on and then ground themselves apart.

But the God who made this universe and made it all, from the galaxies to the cutworm. That great God knew all that was. And so the invisible is revealed in the visible, and we and they who know not God, and we who do know God by faith know this at least, that God is an eternal God and that He’s an omnipotent God, and that he’s an omniscient God and knows it all or else his own world would fall apart. But it means more that He’s omniscient. It means that He’s all-wise. They’re not the same. Omniscient means that He has all knowledge. And all-wise means that He has all wisdom to know what to do with the knowledge.

Have you ever run across a well-educated college fellow who couldn’t make a living and his wife had to support him. And he couldn’t get along in society. He wasn’t adjusted. He didn’t know how to say good morning, hid behind a post and slunk down the street. He was completely unadjusted. He couldn’t do anything. And yet, he might have been a PhD. He knew all about Aristotle and Plato and Homer and all about mathematics, but he simply was a learned fool, if I might be so brash. He had a head full of bookish knowledge, but he was ignorantly read and had loads of learning lumber in his head. And he knew nothing really as he ought to know, because he didn’t have wisdom, which told him what to do with the knowledge.

So, God might have been all-knowing and have all the knowledge there is, but lacked the wise skill to make it work. But the great God who had all knowledge, also has all wisdom to know what to do with that knowledge as you know. Observation discovers design. Those who dig in the bowels of the earth for the old races that have passed away and dig up civilizations that are long, long been extinct, they find machinery or hunks of machinery or bits of machinery or flecks of stone chipped out. Or they find funny, little old-fashioned things that they can figure out what they were for. They say design, design, design. They made it. They made this. They find two rocks standing up like this and another rock laying across the top. That’s the first art, and they say design, design.

And the greatest and most beautiful cathedral on the North American continent or in Europe, had to begin with a little rock standing up and another little rock standing up and another little rock laying across. That was design. That was the arch, and from that, all the grandeur of architecture grew; design they say. And if 10,000 years from now, if things should continue as they are, 10,000 years from now, some strange race which you and I can’t figure out, should come upon our Chicago, now covered with the dust blown from the dust bowl of the West, and should go down and down and down, and at last find Chicago and find a kitchen and find the can opener and find a can of salmon still lying there after the passing of the centuries. And the wise diggers into the past would pick up the can opener and brush it off, and say, I wonder what that’s for. There’s design there. And a bright young student would come forward and say, Professor, I see, give it to me. Around and around he’d go and open the can of salmon. Design is the word and everywhere, everywhere from the microbe on up, everywhere design, design.

As a boy I used to see the design. As a boy we used to knock down, or the frost would do it for us, the great chestnut, from the great chestnut trees that used to make beautiful Pennsylvania green, but were later destroyed almost completely by the blight. You used to see those burrs. Some of you have never had in your hand a chestnut burr. Smaller than my fist and almost completely round. And it’s spiked like a porcupine all the way around, as if Mother Nature were saying, let my babies alone. Don’t you bother my babies. And many and many a boy has given up the battle. He’s not able to open that chestnut burr because there were just too many spikes. And so, Mother Nature protected the seed there. And it fell finally and nature opened that burr and the seed fell into the ground and pretty soon a chestnut tree came up. Mother Nature was protecting her seed that she might make another chestnut tree and another one, on down the years.

Well my brethren, all throughout nature I see that design. But you know something else? You know that when you once have broken through the burr and gone past the spikes and have gotten inside that burr and break it open on the great rock and falls apart, you know what you find in there? You find two beautiful chestnuts if they’re ripe. They’re beautiful brown from which we get our word chestnut. You’ve heard of chestnut furniture and chestnut horses and chestnut colors, this and that. Well, that’s where they get the word. It’s a brown that I do not think any artists could quite imitate; so beautiful and rich it is. And it has been all this time held and protected by the softest velvet.

That burr that comes down there, cut down by the squirrel or knocked down by the frost or knocked down by a boy. That burr is a spike on the outside to protect it from its enemies, but a soft velvet on the inside to protect itself from the burr, kept there in perfection. Never was there a baby, what do they call it, lined more beautifully and soft than Mother Nature lines the inside of a burr where she keeps her chestnut. She must love chestnut trees. And I’m glad they’re finding their way back again; and small chestnut saplings are found again all throughout Pennsylvania. She’s coming back. In another generation the boys will be back again knocking chestnut trees down as I did 40 years ago.

Now, what does that mean? It means design. It means that in details we see design. And reason cries, if there is design in the details, then there must be a grand design in the whole of nature. The grand total must add up to design. And the great God Almighty in his balance of nature, must be a God All-wise.

And then there’s the God who cares. And this is the last I’ll speak of this morning. I could go on for five hours, but I’ll stop off here. That God cares for His world. God cares for His world, and He put care in the bosoms. He put care in the bosoms of everything. The old cow out in the field with her mellow breath, and her long, mellow, trombone that she blows at milking time. That cow is only a common beast, but she cares for her babies. And when they’re taken away, she’ll bawl for two or three days; literally bawl for two or three days and run up and down and try to get through the fence. She cares. Everywhere in nature, there’s care.

And if I might not be accused of being senile, I might point out that we had four kittens at our house. Three of them are pretty things. And one of them Mother Nature was, I guess, careless or angry, so she put together the homeliest little mutt of a kitten you ever saw in your life. It was supposed to be black, but didn’t quite make it. It looks as if it was streaked with ugly mud. It looks as if it had been born to ride the rumble seat of a broom with a witch on in front on Halloween. That’s what it looks like. But you know what? Last evening, we were sitting out taking a little air. The old momma cat, we had gotten rid of all the other ones. People wanted them but they didn’t want the ugly one. And the old mama cat came with a piece of liver and deposited it down for her little ugly baby. She didn’t think it was ugly, she liked it. She still likes it. And when it goes, finally, if anybody would be foolish enough to take it, she would weep in her poor cat way. Care is found everywhere.

How oft did Jesus say, would I have gathered you under my wings as a hen gathers her chicks. You that never lived in the country, you don’t even know what that means. But I know what it means. And those that have visited or lived even a short time in the country know. Why, there’s a dozen maybe, little furry fellows with their little, round beady black eyes pecking away for whatever they can pick up. And there’s the old hen carelessly scratching and going about with a restful cluck, cluck, cluck. I don’t know what she’s saying to them.  Just sort of reminding them that she’s around.

And then the farmer boy, hears something that the average person wouldn’t hear it all. He hears a high whistle out of sight, way out of sight, but a high, piercing exciting whistle. He knows what it is. He knows it is the hawk. And that old hen knows what it is. She changes from the restful cluck, cluck, cluck, to a high, rapid cluck, and every little chick dashes for her wings. She spreads those wings out and fluffs out all her feathers and they all gather in there. And I have watched with amusement to see, out between the feathers, out in front of the wing, out behind the wing, out in front of the breast, out in all angles, little, white beaks and little, beady eyes. They’re wondering what it’s all about and what’s all the concern about. They know that the mother has gathered them in.

And that’s what Jesus meant. He would have gathered them in. But I mean to give at this application, that that hen has a care there. And so, you’ll find it everywhere. The bees bring in the nectar that the future generation of bees might have honey to eat. And the egg contains not only the germ that will be the bird, but also the food that will feed the bird till it hatches. So, through all nature, there’s care, care. He is the God who cares. He looked at His world and said, behold, it is very good.

And sin came in, and now we have that strange admixture of sin and nature, and sin in nature. But nevertheless, our Heavenly Father cares. I grumble a little because it was going to be so hot today, but I checked myself and apologized to God.

God made his sun and made it to shine down on the earth. And He made moisture. We call it humidity. But if it wasn’t here, we’d all dry up and die, and future ages would find the dried, blackened bodies. But God has given us the sun and the moon, and He’s given us all His beautiful trees. And He’s taught the birds to migrate and the beast to hibernate, and He’s taught man to build and dress against the cold. God cares. He’s the God who cares. I say nature teaches us theology, and that’s taught in the outer court. That’s taught out there where the light of nature beams down. And reason cries and says the Hand that made us is divine.

Now I close with these testimonies. For I’ve only given you an imperfect sketch. It was Pope, Alexander Pope said, all are but parts of one stupendous whole, whose body nature is, in God, the soul. There he had the thought that God was the Soul of the world as you have a soul in your body. The world would be dead, except that God lives in it and makes it live. I think that’s a lovely thought and a true one. And Solomon said, go to the ant thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise. And Christ said, behold the birds of the air. And He said, consider the lilies, how they grow. And the seraphim that Isaiah saw and heard, chanted, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory. And in our famous hymn that we sing, holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabbath, heaven and earth are full of the majesty of Thy glory.

Oh, brethren, nature is a great teacher. And life is a great instructor. And all around about us, whether it’s the bird that flies to our window, or the leaf that flutters outside, or whether it be the great desert of Arizona, or the rocky peaks of Switzerland, or the great broad, undulating ocean. Whether it be farm or city, village, or desert, the invisible God is crying out to us His eternal power and Godhead. There’s something better, and there’s no salvation there. And no one in a million years could be saved by knowing this. We are saved by the next degree of knowledge, that which is revealed to us by faith, and of that we’ll speak next Lord’s day. But today, let us say together Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of Hosts. Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of who is God.