Tag: God

Categories
Messages

Tozer Talks

” The Kingdom Lies Not in Words “

June 16, 1957

I want to read a section from the book of 1 Corinthians, fourth chapter. Let a man says Paul, let a man, so count of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful. But with me it is very small thing that I should be judged of you. Yea, I judge not mine own self. For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord. He said, these charges you bring against me, I don’t know any of them that are true, but he said, I’m not hiding behind that. He that judges me is the Lord. Therefore, judge nothing before the time until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and we’ll make manifest the counsels of the heart. And then shall every man have praise of God. In verse 15, he says, for though he has 10,000 instructors in Christ, yet have you not many fathers, for in Christ Jesus, I have begotten you. Since you believe, said Paul, through my preaching, 10,000 people have instructed you, but don’t forget, I preached the gospel that won you, Wherever I beseech you be ye followers of me. For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church. Now some are puffed up, as though I would have not come to you. But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will. And then I will know not the speech of them, which are puffed up with the power. For the kingdom of God is not in Word, but in power. What will ye? Shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love, and in the spirit of meekness? Or are you going to accept the truth and begin to obey it so that I can come in love and in the spirit of meekness? Now, that’s what Paul said in partly in that fourth chapter of First Corinthians epistle.

Now Paul, had authority, there’s no getting around that. He had the authority of the chief apostle. He was appointed by the Lord for several things, one of them being to receive and shape church truth. The man Paul received the revelation from God which was behind. Jesus said, I have many things to say to you, but you can’t receive them yet. But when the Spirit of God comes, He will reveal these things, and He will take of Mine and will show them unto you. And that Spirit that came entered to Paul when Ananias prayed for him. He was filled with that same Holy Spirit. And he received that which was behind. And he was the mold in which God poured it. And then he was also appointed by the Lord to set up a system and polity for the church, for there was system and there was polity. And he was appointed by the Lord to embody all authority that there was in the meantime. And then, perhaps most important of all, to show by example, the Christian way. He said, I sent to you Timothy, my beloved son and faithful in the Lord, and He will bring to your remembrance my ways, which be in Christ.

See the man of God here was having his authority under cut by schismatic men who came in and taught that Paul was not a real apostle. They said the reason Paul isn’t a real apostle, he never saw the Lord. The other apostles walked with Jesus while he walked among men, but this man Paul was not, is not an apostle. And we can prove it by the fact that he never walked, he came after Jesus died and had risen. That was their argument. They overlooked the vision Paul had of Jesus of one born out of due time.

And these schismatic and dividers of the church had to repudiate Paul’s authority in order to establish their own. And they attacked Paul and as far as Paul was personally concerned, he said, it didn’t matter. He said, it’s a very small thing with me that I should be judged by you. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t care. He said, I don’t even judge my own self, I’m in the hand of God. But he knew that if he was going to have any authority, he was going to have to establish that authority. And so, we sent Timothy, to tell them about Paul and straighten them out. And then finally, he warns them this, he said, now I’m coming in the will of God one of these times to you. And it’s alright for you while I’m not there, to listen to these schismatics and these puffed-up fellows. Isn’t it strange that there isn’t anything new under the sun?

I remember years ago, there used to be a writer for The Daily News. What was his name? He died finally, but a very wonderful writer up on the literary level. And he once went to see the old Greek play Lysistrata. And he came back after seeing it and he reported it in his column. He said, I went to see the old Greek play by Aristophanes. And he said, I came away deeply discouraged. And he said, here’s what discouraged me. Not that it wasn’t well written, not that it wasn’t well done. But he said, I came away convinced that nobody had been able to think of a new joke in 2400 years, that everything old Aristophanes wrote into his funny play, he said, is floating all around here.

Now, that was a worldly man talking about a worldly thing. But the same thing is true in the spiritual life. So many of us imagine that we’re original. There’s nobody original except Adam. And if you find puffer-uppers and men who are puffed up now, Paul wrote in the eighteenth verse, now some are puffed up, and some are puffed up thinking that I won’t come. But when I come, he said, and I’ll do it shortly, I’ll make a test. And I’ll not test the words of these men, but I’ll test their power. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.

Now, here’s what I want particularly to emphasize. The kingdom of God doesn’t lie in words. I am among a few who are trying to tell the church that in this day. I was encouraged Thursday, as you know, I spoke and Brother McAfee sang and we kind of took Wheaton over Thursday. And after the last talk, Dr. Redmond came over and said, well, God bless A.W., keep telling them. There are a few that see it, but not very many yet. But re-see, or see over again, see again what they saw back there, that the kingdom of God is not in words but in power.

You see, the words are the form of truth. They’re the outward image of truth only. And they can never be the inward essence. And words are incidental. They’re incidental. If I were to say, now everybody here that can speak Swedish, bring your New Testament next Sunday. And everybody that speaks German bring yours, Norwegian yours. And so, we have a half a dozen different languages. And I would say now read that fourth of Revelation. It would be quite a revelation or First Corinthians. It would be quite a revelation to us to hear that the words were only incidental. It was the meaning that matters.

Somewhere in the middle of this all there is a meaning, a spiritual meaning. And the six different people embody that meaning in six different set of words. And those words were not alike, or only occasionally alike. We ought to remember that. We ought to know it. The kingdom of God is not in words. They’re only incidental and they never can be fundamental. When fundamentalism ceased to emphasize fundamental meanings and began to emphasize fundamental words, and we shifted from meanings to words and from power to words, we began to go downhill.

Now, there’s an essence of truth. And it may follow the form of words, as the kernel in an English walnut follows the configuration of the shell. But the shell is not the kernel and the kernel is not the shell. And so, while the truth follows the form of words, it sometimes deserts it. A great error is in holding the form to be essence, and putting the kingdom of God in words, so that if you’ve got the words right, you’ve got the whole thing. And if you can get a better set of words, you have more truth. Not necessarily at all.

Now, words deceive even good, honest Christian people. They deceive because we feel that if we mumble words, there’s certain safety in mumbling words, and that there’s a power to frighten off Satan if you mumble certain words. Now, my brethren, if a man is as just as plainly ordinary as I am, and not afraid of words, would you ask me please why the devil should be afraid of words? The devil, who is the very essence, was of ancient created wisdom back there, and had the perfection of beauty and the fullness of wisdom, and whose power lies in his shrewdness and in his intellectual brilliance, can you tell me how that devil should suddenly become so foolish as to be afraid of a word, or afraid of a motion, or afraid of a symbol? To keep the devil away, I put a chain around my neck, or to keep the devil away, I make a motion with my fingers in front of my face. I wonder what a man without any arms would do, an amputee, if the devil came after him, and he couldn’t make the sign of the cross. I hadn’t thought of that till now, but it’s worth considering anyhow.

But the devil isn’t afraid of words and he isn’t afraid of symbols. You can surround yourself with symbols, religious symbols, Protestant or Catholic or Jewish, and you haven’t helped yourself in the slightest, because the devil isn’t afraid of a symbol. He knows better. Do you ever see the little child it’s afraid of a false face? Put a false face on and the little runs and yells. But if the child did that when he’s sixteen, you’d be ashamed of him. We assume as we grow up, we know that false faces don’t mean anything. And words don’t mean anything as words. But if we imagine if we say certain words, we will have power, they have power to bring good. If we say certain other words, they have power to fend off the devil.

And there is safety in mumbling words. And if we fail to mumble the words, we’re in for it. And if we remembered to mumble the words, we’re all right. That’s just paganism under another form. And Paul told them plainly, for these were pagans, recently but only lately converted. And he said, you’ve got a lot of you Greeks, you’re Greek and the Greeks love oratory, and they love fine language and they produce a lot of fine literature. And he said, you Greeks, you love fine words, but he said, I don’t come to you with fine words. I come to you, in this second chapter, I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but instead a demonstration of Spirit and of power, that your faith should stand in the wisdom, not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. So, we ought to throw this off. You may feel a little bit mentally naked when you throw all this off. You know, it’s one thing that we do when you strip superstition away from a man, he feels terribly naked for a moment. But until we strip off our superstition, the Lord can’t put on us a cloak of truth.

Now, the Kingdom lies in power. Its essence is in power. The gospel is not the statement that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. The gospel is the statement that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures plus the Holy Ghost in that statement to give it meaning and power. And just the statement itself, never will do it. Have you wondered at times as I have, why those churches, some of them, who drill their young people from their childhood in the Catechism, and teach them the doctrines so that they’re positively instructed in the word of the Truth, yet somehow strangely failed to get them through to the new birth. Have you noticed that? And we’re not referring by name to any denomination. And I have nothing against the Catechism. I think it’s a fine thing for young people.

But have you noticed that there are whole generations of so called Christians who are drilled in the Catechism, and who know the doctrine, and can recite the gospel as well as the law, and still never manage to break through to the new birth. They never come through to that shining wonder of inward renewal. The reason is, they are taught that the power lies in the words. And if you get the words, you’re all right. Whereas Paul says, the kingdom of God doesn’t lie in words at all. The kingdom of God lies in the power that indwells those words. And you can’t have the power without the words, but you can have the words without the power, and a lot of people do. So that the power of the Spirit operating through the Word, that’s the gospel. It’s the statement of the fact that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. That He rose again, and that He was seen of many and that He’s at the right hand of God and will forgive those who believe on Him. That’s the gospel in its shell, that’s the shell of the gospel, but the power must lie in there, or there’ll be no life in it.

So Paul appealed away from man given authority. And he appealed away from talk, however eloquent. And he appealed away from even his own position, and appealed direct to the power of the risen Lord who manifest true the Spirit. And he said, I want you to know, and I sent Timothy to try and straighten you out and remind you, that it’s the power of God that talks, not a man’s mouth.

Now, the appeal, I say was to the power of the risen Christ. And my brethren, if this church and the people who compose it, are not living in a constant miracle, they’re not Christians at all, because the Christian life is a miracle. It is what the ark of Noah was in the day of the flood. It is completely separated from that flood and yet floating upon it, completely separated from it. It was what Jesus was when he walked among men, right in the middle of them and yet separate from sinners and higher than the highest heavens. There operates within the true Body of Christ a continual energizing by the Spirit that makes a continual miracle. A Christian is not somebody who’s believed only. A Christian is somebody who has believed in power. And the working of the power is a moral power. It has power to expose sin to the sinner’s heart.

Nobody will ever be truly saved until he knows he’s a sinner. And nobody will ever know he’s a sinner, truly know he’s a sinner by simply threatening him or warning him or telling him. You can go to a man and say you’re a sinner. You swear and lie and you’re wrong. You’re evil. He’ll grin and shake his head and say, I know, I know I shouldn’t do those things. But I guess we’re all human. You haven’t convinced him. You can read Plutarch and Aristotle, and Herbert Spencer and all the rest of the books of ethics, and showing him he’s dead wrong, and he still will never know what it is to be a lost sinner. You can threaten him that if he doesn’t look out and doesn’t straighten out his ways, the atom bomb will get him or Khrushchev will be over. And you’re still haven’t convinced them. You haven’t told him anything he didn’t know.

But when the Holy Ghost is come said Jesus, He will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. When Peter preached at Pentecost, the Scripture says, being pricked in their hearts, they cried out and said, what shall we do to be saved? And that word pricked they say, Wayman says, is a word stronger and deeper than the word pierced, where they pierced the heart of Jesus with a spear. The words of Peter in the Holy Ghost, the new, baptized prophet and apostle, the words of Peter penetrated like, like a Donee spear, so deep, deeper than the spear had gone into the heart of Jesus on the cross, when forthwith came water and blood.

So my brethren, the Holy Spirit isn’t something that we can argue about. Or somebody that we can say, well, you believe your way and I believe my way. The Holy Spirit is an absolute necessity in the church, an ungrieved Holy Spirit. Because there’s a power in the Spirit to expose sin and revolutionize and convert and create holy men and women, and nothing else can do it. Words won’t do it. Instructions won’t do it. Line upon line, precept upon precept won’t do it. It takes the power to do it.

And then it’s a persuasive power, convince and persuade and break down resistance. And it’s a worship power, to create reverence and excite ecstasy. If we were to put statues all around this place, and have candles burning here, and have beautiful Italian made glass, colored windows, pictures of shepherds and altars and all that, and I were to come in here in a long black robe, you’d have a sense of, well, I think you, probably you being you, you’d probably have difficulty restraining your mirth. But if you’ve been brought up to it, you wouldn’t. You’d think that reverence.

No Brethren, reverence is not created by beautiful windows, although I like to see them, nor by symbols. Reverence is the astonished awe that comes to the human heart when God is seen. And that, the Holy Ghost can do through the Word, and that nobody else can do. I can imitate holy tones, all I will, and we can try to be just as religious and ecclesiastical as we can and still want when it’s all over, the feeling we get is psychological or aesthetic at best. But when the Holy Ghost came upon the early church, they darest not join themselves to them. And in 1 Corinthians, the sinners fell on their faces and said, God’s in this place of a truth.

So, there’s a power to bring reverence to excite ecstasy, to bring worship. It lies in the Word when it’s given in power. And the power of the Holy Spirit brings a magnetic, is a magnetic power to draw us to Christ. And will exalt Him above all else and above all others. And in this church, we must demand more than correct doctrine, though we dare not have less than correct doctrine. More than right living though, we do not have less than right living. More than a friendly atmosphere, though we dare not have less than a friendly atmosphere. We must demand that the Word of God be preached in power, and that we hear it in power. For in First Thessalonians, you remember, Paul wrote and said to them there that the gospel came not unto you, I know a little better, he said, that you’re the elect of God, and here’s how I know it. Our gospel came not under you in Word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance. That is, not only Paul had the power, but the gospel could run in power, because it was heard by them in power.

And so, when the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God through the Word, preaches in power and it’s heard in power, then the objectives of God are wrought out, and men are made holy, and sins forgiven, and the work of redemption is done.

And briefly now, the way to attain it, is through prayer and faith and surrender, the old-fashioned ways, and I know of none other. Prayer and faith and surrender, pray and as you pray, surrender, and as you surrender, believe, and that’s for all of us. It’s for all of us. You as God’s people have every right in the Scriptures, every scriptural right to demand to hear the Word in power, and if you do not hear the Word and power, you have a right to rise up and ask why. If you’re hearing nothing but teaching, nothing but instruction, if there is no evidence of God in it, then the preacher can’t say I appeal to God, to say whether this is true or not. If this can’t be, then you have a right to demand somebody come that can.

On the other hand, any man who stands here to preach has a right to expect that you believe in power. And that we’re so close to God and so surrendered and so full of faith, and so prayerful that the word of God can work in power. Shall we not believe God for that kind of church here? For the kingdom of God is not in words. The kingdom of God is in power. And you can take the little Alliance manual and read it and sign your name under the bottom of every page. It won’t mean one lonely thing to you. But, if the word of God is in power, it means everything to you.

So, let us trust God for correct doctrine. We dare not have less, but we must have more. Right living, we dare not have less, but we must have more. Let’s be a friendly church, but beware lest it be simply a friendly church. It’s amazing how socio-religious or religio-social atmospheres can permeate a church so that it’s hard to tell which is of the Holy Ghost and which is simply nice social contacts. I believe that both ought to be there, and I believe they can both be there. And I believe that when the early church met and broke bread, they fulfilled both their spiritual communion and their social fellowship. So, there’s no reason why they can’t be fused. There isn’t any reason why the warm, cordiality of social fellowship can’t be made and can exist with the indwelling Holy Ghost, so that when we meet and shake hands and sing and pray and talk together, we’re doing both these things. We’re having social fellowship, plus, the mighty union and communion of the Holy Ghost. Let’s be very careful that it’s both. Not one only, to try to destroy or prevent social contact and social fellowship is to grieve the Spirit for the Spirit made us for each other. And He meant that there should be social fellowship and friendliness together. He meant that we should break bread, not only formally in a church, but be times when we meet. And He meant that we should know each other by our first names and have our social fellowships. He meant it, and the churches that try to destroy that, succeed only in getting a lopsided and fanatical type of church. But be very careful my friends, lest that we don’t mistake the one for the other.

So, let’s have a friendly church, and let’s have a morally right church, and let’s have a church where correct doctrine is taught. But let’s also have a church of which any man can come here, and say when he goes away, I know the entrance I had unto you, that I could preach unto you not in Word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, because you are the kind of people that could take it. I say this is most important. For the kingdom of God lies not in words, but in power.

.

Categories
Messages

Tozer Talks

“Consider Your Ways”

June 9, 1957

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

.

Categories
Messages

Tozer Talks

“Prepare By Prayer”

June 9, 1957

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

.

Categories
Messages

Tozer Talks

“God Manifesting Himself in Adversity-Message 2”

March 15, 1959

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

.

Categories
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.

.

Categories
Messages

Tozer Talks

PDF Formatted TranscriptDownload

“A Look at our Worship of God”

October 27, 1957

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

.

Categories
Messages

Tozer Talks

PDF Formatted TranscriptDownload

“A Definition of Worship”

October 20, 1957

Now, let me read what the Holy Ghost said through the mouth of the prophet David. Psalm 8, O Lord, Our Lord, O Jehovah Our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth. Who hath set Thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings has Thou ordained strength. Because of thine enemies, Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider Thy heavens, and the work of Thy fingers, the moon, the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the Son of Man that thou visitest him? But thou has made him a little lower than the angels, and has crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:  All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;  The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.  O Jehovah our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!. And there is that verse in Psalm 45:11, which I have used every night on this series, “So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty. He is thy Lord, worship thou Him.

And I have been developing a thesis. It is that God made us to worship. That is why we were created. Everything has its reason for being here. We have this reason that we might worship the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And we sinned and lost the glory and fell; and the light went out in our hearts. And we stopped worshipping God and set our affections on things below. But God sent His only begotten Son. He was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried, and rose the third day from the dead, and sitteth at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens in order that He might restore us again to worship. Indeed, not only restore us again to worship, but put us so much higher, as much higher as Christ is higher than Adam. For all we could do in Adam was to be equal to Adam. But in Christ, He raises us until we shall be like Him. So that actually redemption is an improvement upon creation.

Now, what is it to worship? Usually, I can’t find definitions; I am unable to define them. I don’t know anybody that said what I want to say. Probably, somebody did say it and say it better. But I define the word worship as I see it. It probably is an imperfect definition, but it is close and it’s what my heart said, that to worship is to feel in the heart. Now to feel in the heart, not to strike a certain pose necessarily, and not to go through a form of a word necessarily, but to feel in the heart and express in some appropriate manner. It may be through a form of words. It may be through song or the sounding of the Scriptures, the sound of the reading of the Scriptures. It may be in awesome silence. It may be in loud praise. But, it is to feel in the heart and express in some manner, a humbling, a humbling. There’s no pride in worship. Never.

A fellow who leaps up when he’s announced, rushes over, slaps the pulpit and begins to talk fast, he’s not worshiping. He belongs on Broadway, not in a pulpit. A humbling, to feel in the heart and express a humbling, but delightful sense of admiring awe, and astonished wonder, and overwhelming love in the Presence of that most ancient mystery, that unspeakable Majesty which the philosophers have called the mysterium tremendum, but which the prophets call, the Lord our God.

Now, that is the definition which I have given for worship. And it is for this reason that we are redeemed. We are not redeemed that we might not drink, though the redeemed man will not be a drinker. We are not redeemed that we might not smoke, though the redeemed man is not likely to smoke, unless he’s been brought up in an atmosphere where he doesn’t know any better. I think some Christians have used the weed because they’ve been brought up in an atmosphere where they never were taught anything else and they love God and puff their pride. If that shocks any of you are hyper fundamentalist, it’s a good for you to get all shook up. Well, that’s true. I believe it’s true, nevertheless.

But God does not redeem us that He might stop our smoking, though He certainly will get the fire out, that kind of fire if we are redeemed. And He doesn’t save us that we might escape hell, though we will escape hell. For we shall not perish but have everlasting life. But He redeems us that we might worship again. That we might take our place again, even on earth, with the angels in heaven, and the beasts, and the living creatures. And we might feel in our heart and express in our own way, that humbling, but nevertheless, delightful sense of admiring awe and astonished wonder and overwhelming love in the presence of that Ancient Mystery, that unspeakable Majesty, the Ancient of Days.

Now my brethren, that’s a definition. And I want you to notice, as you probably have, that I had said “that, that, that.” Why did I not say He? Why did I say “that” most Ancient Mystery, that unspeakable Majesty? Why did I not say He instead of that? Because the human heart in its present state, in the presence of mystery, always says some thing before it says some one.

In the book of 1 John, I’ll notice that later, but I wanted to call attention to it now. The Holy Ghost says, That which was from the beginning. That which we have heard. That which we have seen with our eyes. That which we have looked upon and our hands have handled and the Word of Life. For the Life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you that Eternal Life, that Eternal Life which was with the Father and was manifest unto us. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto to you.

Now, that was an inspired apostle speaking, and he said, that, that, that, which, which, not who, whom, He, but “that which.” And in the presence of the Overarching Mystery, the human heart reaches up and leans out and feels and says, “some thing.” And it always says some thing before it can say some one. Why did John say “that” instead of He? Because, at the root of human thought, there is an “it.” In the root in human thought there is that, that. The human heart searches for the original substance, for being, for empathy.

Do you remember the little word essentia in Latin, which means to be actual being. And it’s this the human heart struggles for. In the midst of the whirling waters of humanity and sin and time and space, man’s heart struggles for the rock of being. The rock of essentia of the essential, that actual being. And our fathers knew that when they talked about the substance of God, or when they talked about the essence of God, or when they said that the sun was of the essence of the Father, or when they said, the Spirit was of the same substance as the Father and the Son. Back to the personality, back of the “He” was the “That” which was with the Father. And then as we go on, God’s personality emerges, as God manifests Himself. But the first thrust of the human heart out, the first leap of the human spirit out of the swirling waters is for that rock of being, where he says, “that which was with the Father.” And as we reason and pray and meditate and read the Word of God, “that” becomes He. He says, When you pray, say our Father which art in heaven.

There lived once in the 17th century. A man by the name of Blaise Pascal. Pascal was probably the greatest mind of the 17th century, and I personally think the greatest mind France ever produced, though I am probably not in position to pronounce on that. It would take a great deal of scholarship to say for certain. But this man goes down in history and is found in all the books and in the encyclopedias and in the histories of science and mathematics as probably the greatest thinker of the 17th century. He was a scientist. He was a mathematician, and he was a philosopher. He didn’t write much, but what he wrote has been seminal. It has come like the seed of God in the minds of men. Well, this man astonish the learned world by his works on mathematics, particularly geometry, when he was only in his early 20s.

But later on, Pascal became interested in theology, and then found God and became a Christian. And while he went on with His scientific work, he began to write about God and Christ and redemption and revelation. He wrote with such wondrous clarity and insight that he startled the learned of the universities of his time. And Pascal wrote a little testimony, and he folded that testimony up and put it in close to his heart. And all his life he carried it here close to his heart. And I think died with it close to his heart. And this is only part of it. It isn’t very long, but I’m giving you only part of it. A little of it’s written in Latin and the rest was translated into English and here it is. Pascal said, from about half past ten at night, to about half after midnight, fire. He cuts it off there. He doesn’t go on. He just cuts it off and then prays, O God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers, nor the wise. Security, security, feeling joy, peace, God of Jesus Christ, thy God shall be my God. Imagine one of the greatest minds of the last 1000 years carrying this against his heart. Forgetfulness of the world and of all, save God. He can be found only in the ways taught in the Gospel. O Righteous Father, the world hath not known thee, but I have known thee, joy, joy, joy, tears of joy. He kept that in against his heart while he studied the heavens and wrote his great books. But he repudiated the God of the thinker and of the philosopher, and sought the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who can be found only in the ways of the gospel. Fire, Fire, he said, from 10:30 to 12:30, for His sake, I repudiate the world.

My brethren there was worship. In Luke 2:11, the Holy Ghost said, or the angel said, it was all God’s revelation. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior which is Christ the Lord. Now comes the bliss and wonder of revelation and manifestation. And to the thirsting, searching mind that is crying for that, and it and substance and essence and being, the angels sing, behold, there is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. He is thy Lord, worship thou Him.

Now, God has given us this object of our worship. He is person, but He’s also Being. He is One, but He’s also that, that Ancient Mystery, that unutterable Majesty in whose presence angels tremble and the creatures that have gazed for centuries on the sea of fire, fold their wings and cry, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. He is Lord of all. I want to speak of only two things of which He is Lord this night. I’ll finish it two weeks from tonight if I can. I think I will be able to.

Well, He is Lord of all, and you will find that over in the book of Acts. He is Lord of all, said the man Peter. And He is the Lord of all Being. And that line is borrowed out of a hymn which we’re going to sing later. But He is the Lord of all Being. What I’ve said tonight is just as orthodox as Augustine, and just as evangelical as Dwight Moody. So don’t imagine because I’m using language you’re not familiar with, that I am off the deep end somewhere. But He is Lord of all Being. That is, He’s the Lord of not all being. that would have been a poor, cheap way to say, Lord of all beings, a kind of boss over the beings. No, He’s that, but that wasn’t what the man meant, nor what he said, He is the Lord of all Being. He is the Lord of all the concept of being. He’s the Lord of all possibility of being. He is that and that is He. And He’s the Lord of all actual existence. This is the Lord.

And so my friends, when we worship Him, we encompass all science and all philosophy. You know it, all science and all philosophy. Science is great, philosophy is greater, theology is greater still, and worship is greater than all. For worship goes back of what science can go, back of where human thought can penetrate, and back of all the wordings of theology, and back to the reality. And when the Christian gets on his knees, I’ve said before and repeat, that he’s having a meeting at the summit. He can’t get beyond that. There isn’t an archangel that can go higher than he can go. There isn’t a cherub that can burn his way higher than he can go. For he is worshiping that Awful Mystery, that Overwhelming Majesty, in humbling, but delightful love. He’s worshipping his God.

And so I tell you, that when we’re called to be Christians, were simply not called only to give up a few little things and to be saved from doing a few bad things. All of that is, simply; it’s what a bird is to a Spring day. It’s what a swallow is to the Summer. And one swallow doesn’t make a Summer. Neither does giving up beer make a Christian. The swallow will come with the Summer, and the giving up of all this trash will come with the Christian’s new birth. He’s been born again that he might push through, and press in and pass the blood sprinkled way, and find that after which the minds of men sought and seeked. Whether it be the most superstitious creature that knows nothing, eat human flesh and wears no clothes and cries after that some thing. Whether it be the learned theologian, He leads us into that. For “That” is none other than He who came and was born of the Virgin Mary, to suffer under Pontius Pilate. He is no lately come One. No new One to add to Buddha and Mohammedan, Zoroaster. He goes back of all.

So, no Christian ever has to be ashamed and say I’m no philosopher. Don’t be foolish, you are. You say, I’m no scientist. Don’t be foolish. You are. The man who pushes back past where science can go and on through past where minds can think, into the presence of the Lord of all, and in meek devotion and in holy rapture and awestruck admiration, cries, holy, holy, holy. He’s vaster than the philosopher, wider, bigger, grander than the science.

Were you greatly moved by the little satellite that they shot into the air the other night? To tell you the truth I was bored and I’m bored now. They shot it into the air 350 miles up and it’s going at 17,000 miles an hour, giving of a beep, beep, beep. Poor little thing. But everybody got excited and said, oh, what have we done?

I remember when an old man came down from the hills of Tishbe, dressed in camel’s hair and girded about the loin with a golden girdle. He had never, not a golden, leather girdle. He had never seen a king, and the palace was unknown to him.  The pine trees had been his temple. The sound of the wind had been his work. And the stars at night had spoken to him and whispered of the Lord God of his fathers. And he knew the Word. But, he walked boldly into the presence of a degenerate, decadent king and said, I am Elijah. I stand before God. He was bored with royal, red tape. Bored with scepters and crowns and cheap little barber chairs set up and called thrones. He was bored and said, I’ve spent my years standing in the presence of the Ancient of Days and I’m not afraid of kings. I’ve come with a message, there will be no rain. Then he disappeared, walking in rustic dignity out of the presence of that puppet king, hen-pecked mouse that he was. A cheap utensil used by a Baal-likish woman by the name of Jezebel.

So when the whole world exploded, oh, they’ve sent up a satellite. Well, they’re good at satellites, they’ve gotta love it. And I’m bored with it. I’ve stood in the presence of Him Who encompasses the universe and holds it in His hands. He calls the stars by name and leadeth them forth as a shepherd leads forth his sheep across the green blue heavens above. Am I therefore going to fall down and worship and say how wonderful? I worship the Lord of the sun and the stars and of all space and all time and of all matter and all motion. Therefore, I am not too excited.

He is the Lord of all beings, not of the philosophers, not of the wise man, but the revealed God, the God who reveals Himself, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And since He is the God of all being, He is the enemy of all not being. Therefore, when some fellow with a highly illustrated book, rushes up your sidewalk and wants to play you a little disk, shut the door, shut it kindly like a Christian but shut it. For he wants to talk to you about annihilation. There’s no such concept in the whole Bible as annihilation. The Lord of all Being is the enemy of all not being. God knows nothing of not be; He only knows be.

The second and last, He is the Lord of Life. Turn to John, That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, and which we with our eyes have you seen which we looked upon and our hands have handled the Word of Life. For the Life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you that Eternal Life which was with the Father. And was manifested unto us, that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you that ye also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.

So there He is the Lord of all life. He is the Lord of all says Peter. He is thy Lord, worship thou Him, said David. His is of Light, the sole Fountain. There isn’t any other Light. He is the fountain of that Light. It’s all the light we know comes from the sun, that is all we know I suppose, the stars give off light and all that, but we’re thinking as plain people now looking up at the sun. It comes from the sun, and so all light comes from God, from Jesus Christ, the Son.

And when the man of God said, Thou of life the Fountain art, freely let me take of thee, he was like Elijah in the mountains of Tishbe. He had gone past Shakespeare and past Homer. He’d gone past all the philosophers and the wise, and was worshipping in the presence of the Lord of Life. Thou of life the fountain art, freely let me take of thee; spring thou up within my heart, rise to all eternity.

You can go into the average library; I say this with great care. You can go into the average library and you will not find an whole shelf, whole shelves as big as the side of the wall of this church. Almost anywhere you want to go on the writings of man. You’ll not find anything as magnificent as those four lines, Thou of life the fountain art, freely let me take of thee, spring Thou up within my heart, and rise to all eternity. For the books stop when the undertaker comes. The books and the plays and all the celebrities, it all stops when the undertaker come. This man says spring thou up within my heart, rise to all eternity. And when the stars have faded out and all the suns have burnt themselves away, we’ll still be with Him. For He is the Lord life. He is the Lord of the essence of life. He is the Lord of all the possibility of life. He is the Lord of all kinds of life. And there is no life of which He is not found. Since He is the Lord of life, He is the enemy of death.

And let me read again. Now is Christ risen from the dead and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order, Christ the first fruits afterwards, they that are Christ’s that is coming. Then cometh the end when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father. All He shall put down all rule and all authority and power, for He must reign until He hath put all enemies under His feet. And the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

Since He is the Lord of life, He is the enemy of death. And He came down and went into this cave where death snarled and snapped its jaws. He went in there with it, in the darkness. They called it a cross on a hill, but it was a cave where the snarling dragon lay and broke its filthy jaw, and rose again the third day from the dead, and threw teeth in all directions never to be gathered again together.

And He is the enemy of death. The enemy of my death and the enemy of yours. He is the Lord of life. What does that mean to us? I ran into this written by an old German man many years ago. Jesus lives and so shall I, death by sting is gone forever. He who deign for me to die, lived the band to settle. He shall raise me with the just, Jesus is my hope and trust. That’s what it means. Jesus lives and death is now but an entrance into glory. Courage then my soul for thou hast a crown of life before thee. Thou shalt find thy hopes were just, Jesus is the Christian’s trust. But the old brother was evangelical and evangelistic, and he couldn’t closes his hymn without giving the poor sinner outside there a chance to come in. So he said, Jesus lives and God extends grace to each returning sinner. Rebels, He receives as friends and exalts the highest honor. God is true as He is just, Jesus is my hope and trust. Jesus lives and God extends, grace to each returning sinner, and rebels He receives as friends and exalts the highest honor.

That’s what it’s all about my brethren. I wish the world could hear it. I wish the world could hear it. I’d like to tell it to the whole world. I’d like to write it into books. I’d like to have it circulated. I like these ideas to get hold of the minds of men until a new day would dawn in evangelical circles. But I don’t know. I remember that Keats said, when I have fears that I may cease to be before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain. And he did. Teeming brain into which he dipped his pen and wrote his imperishable poems.  This same Pascal of whom I have, from whom I’ve quoted tonight, Fire fire, joy, joy, tears of joy, he said. And he said, I’m going to write. I’m going to write so that the world will get it. He took notes madly, but he died before he got to print. So, all we’ve got is his notes.

I would like to be able to write a book or two. I’d like to be able to make my voice heard all over the world, to the poor, poor church living on cheap fiction with the name of Jesus in it. Living on the smiles and bows of converted celebrities. Living to sing cheap songs about once I smoked and now I don’t. Once I drank beer, now I don’t. Thank God you don’t brother. It’s cheaper not to and healthier. But, if that’s your concept of Christianity, you haven’t even seen the door of the outer chambers, let alone the Holy of Holies, or the Sanctum Sanctorum. Let’s push all in. Let’s move on and let’s tell the world why He died and why He lived. That a people once made to worship Him, who had lost their harp and lost their tongue and lost their desire even to worship; now caught and renewed and quickened and made live and enabled to worship again. And it works my brethren, it works.

In 1935 I think it was, I recall, Jaffrey moved down from Indo-China to the country they call Borneo, now called Kalimantan. There he found headhunters. Men with poisoned little arrows which they shot through long blowguns. You can see one of them downstairs in the missionary room. And they hunt those heads, shrink them and hang them up. And He went in there and prayed through, and almost died one night, and praying through, God began to work. Headhunters began to get converted.  Older men everywhere all over that era began to get converted. They built their chapels with joy. They threw their idols away and then with joy, they gathered up the shrunken heads they had themselves taken, threw them into the boiling river and they were carried away out into the sea. And they built their chapels. Now in their language they talk about Jesu, Jesus Christ the Son of God. It works my brethren. It works. It works. Of course, He saved them from headhunting, and that’s what He saved them from. What did He save them to? To kneel in a simple bamboo chapel and worship the Lord God Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and Jesus Christ his only son. That’s what He saved them too, and that’s all that matters.

Jesus lives and offers to returning sinners a place in His heart. He might restring your harp and give you back your organ again. The organ that can play the anthems and join with the hosts of others. Dear God, how far the church has wandered and how far from being the kind of Christians we ought to be. Put away fleshly things. Put away worldly things. Put away the cheap twaddle of fallen Adam’s brood and turn your eyes upon Jesus, the Lamb of God. Your mind will be cleansed and your heart will be cleansed and trust the Holy Spirit to fill you with a spirit of worship again that you may join the angels and the redeemed, and prophets and saints and martyrs singing the songs of the Father who loved you and the Son who loved you, and the Holy Ghost who is the Spirit of the Father and the Son.

.

Categories
Messages

Tozer Talks

PDF Formatted TranscriptDownload

“Worship the Lord of Glory and Meekness”

October 6, 1957
Now I’ve been preaching on worship over the last weeks thou missing last Sunday when I was in New York of course. And my, they say, overall text has been Psalm 45:11. So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty. For He is thy Lord, worship thou Him.

Tonight, I want to add these words, at least tonight’s sermon is going to be chiefly scripture. So, if you are allergic to a lot of Scripture, you would have better to stay at home. These words from the 45th Psalm, Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty. And in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness. Now, that’s strange, glory and majesty and meekness here all together, but here they are.

Now previously, I have talked to you over the last nights, Sunday nights, about worship. We were created to worship God, that’s why we’re born. We fell, lost the glory and the worship. Christ came to redeem us that we might worship. That’s why we were redeemed. Then, I went on from there to talk about the Lord. And I reminded you of the text where Peter said, He is Lord of all. And David said, He is thy Lord, worship thou Him. Then I talked on the Lord of all beings and the Lord of all light. Tonight, I want to talk about the Lord of Glory, and if I get to it, the Lord in meekness.

Now, the inspired Psalmist here wrote, and I want to give you what the Holy Ghost said through the mouth of the Psalmist. He said, Jehovah reigns. Jehovah reigneth. Let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof. Clouds and darkness are round about him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne. Wonderful to know that somewhere in the universe, there is something that’s sound and right.

I often quote, with a bit of good humor, the saying of the serious-minded old man of God who said, if you would to be peaceful and have peace in your heart, don’t inquire into people’s lives too closely. The idea is, you will be shocked if you do. And I suppose there isn’t a throne, but what there’s a rat knawing somewhere in the throne. Maybe he’s got the crown on his head. But here’s a throne that’s filled with righteousness and judgment. And a fire goes before Him. And lightning enlightens the world. And the hills melt like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. The heavens declare His righteousness. And you can search until you die in search for a million years beyond and you’ll not find anything wrong there. The throne of God stands Right and the God who sits on that throne is Right. He is the God of Righteousness. And the heavens declare His righteousness. And all the people shall see His glory. For Thou Lord, art high above all the earth. Thou art exalted far above all gods. Now, that’s what part of what the 97th Psalm says about Him.

Now, after man had fallen and lost the vision of the Glory and lost it. That’s what’s the matter with us, my friends. That’s what’s the matter with us. We’ve lost the vision of the Glory. But after we had fallen and lost it, the man of God, the martyr Steven said, and began his great sermon, the God of Glory appeared under Abraham. The God of Glory appeared unto Abraham and God began to reveal the glory that had been in eclipse. Now, you know, that when a thing is in eclipse, it doesn’t mean that its light has diminished any, nor that its glory has in any wise diminished. It means merely that there is some body between us and that shining frame there that is said to be eclipsed. When the sun is eclipsed, the sun is not one degree cooler than it was before. Nor does its flames flash out from its surface one inch shorter than it did before. It is still as hot and still as big and still as powerful and free as before it went into eclipse, because it’s not the sun that’s eclipsed, it’s us that’s eclipsed. And we ought to get that straight. The eclipse of the sun means, the eclipse of us. The sun’s alright, and so, the great God Almighty.

I have a book. I haven’t read it yet, written by the great Jewish theologian Buber, and it’s called, “The Eclipse of God. ” I haven’t read it, so there’s nothing I am saying tonight out of it. Someday when I get time, I’m going to read it I hope, “The Eclipse of God.” Well, all he could mean being a Jewish theologian and knowing his Old Testament is that there has been a shadow between us and God. God is not in eclipse. The glory of God shines as bright as ever. And the God of glory began to appear to people. He appeared unto Abraham. And in the development of His redemptive purpose, He began to show what He was. You see, we were in pretty bad shape. Read the first chapter Romans if you want to know how bad we were, the world was. We had gotten down to where we not only worshipped a man, which was bad enough, but we worshipped a beast, which was worse. Not only did we worship beast as a human race, but we worshipped birds and fish and serpents, crawling, slithery serpents, we worshipped them. If that wasn’t bad enough, we worshipped bugs and beetles. We worshipped clear down as far as with anything that could wiggle or crawl. They got down on their knees and said, Lord, my God. Now, that was how bad our minds were in eclipse, for it was our minds and not God. Then, God began to appear out from behind the cloud, and the God of glory appeared to Abraham, and he revealed His Oneness.

Now, that was the first thing God revealed about Himself. He didn’t reveal His holiness first. He revealed His Oneness first. It was an insult to the great God Almighty to think that there were two or three God Almighties. Did you ever stopped to think, and this reminds me, I’ve got to get around to writing on the attributes of God before I die. So, I leave this to remind the people that there can’t be two Almighties. And there can’t be two Infinites. And there can’t be two Omnipotents. Did you ever think about that? Yeah, I don’t know. You know, shake your head a little bit and see if you can get the cells to functioning and think about it. Is it possible for two beings to be Almighty? For if one Being had all the power there is, then where would the second being come in? He couldn’t have all the power there is. He couldn’t have two beings having all the power there is.

Then when we come to infinitude; infinitude means boundless, limitlessness in its complete, absolute sense. So how could there be two beings who were absolute. There could be one, but there couldn’t be two. You see, it is metaphysically impossible even to think of two beings who were absolute or infinite, or who were Almighty, who were omnipotent, or any of the other attributes of God. But, we didn’t know that, and so we worshiped everything that would move; and if it didn’t move, we got down in front of it and worshipped it anyway. They worshipped everything. They worshipped trees, and they worshipped the sun, and the stars, and they had gods everywhere, worshipping them. It seems strange and almost humorous to you and me, but it’s a long way from being humorous when God Almighty told the people, hear O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord, and Him only shalt thou worship. That was the Oneness.

Now, the scholars call that monotheism of course. That is their way of hiding the meaning of it from the people and giving the people the impression that they are very learned. But all monotheism means, is there is one God. And there is one God and we thought there were many. The human race thought there were many. I have a book on the gods by Cicero. A great book on the gods, but Cicero, mighty man he was, thought that there’s more than one god.

So God said, now first thing you’re going to have to get straight is that I’ve got no rival. There is no other God but Me. Hear O Israel, hear O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord and Him only shalt thou worship. And centuries later, a Christian sang this and you can’t sing it. I don’t think anybody could write music to it, but he sang it anyhow in his heart and I sing it in mine. One God, one Majesty, there is no God but Thee, unextended, unbounded unity. Awful in unity, O God, we worship Thee more simply One, because supremely Three. Unfathomable sea, all life is out of Thee and Thy Life is Thy blissful unity.

The Christians knew this: all things that from Thee run allwards that Thou has done Thou doest in honor of Thy being One. Blessed be Thy Unity. All joys are one to me. The joy that there can be no God but Thee. This was what the Christian sang, and this is what Christians believe. This is what Jesus taught. And little by little, God came out from behind that eclipse.

And I tell you, I like to go back to the book of Exodus if I feel I amount to anything, or I get awestruck a little by a queen or a president or somebody. I like to go back here to the book of Exodus where it says, The Lord said unto Moses, lo, I come in a thick cloud. I’m coming in a thick cloud, that the people may hear what I speak unto thee and believe they forever, Moses told the people. And the Lord said to Moses, go unto the people and sanctify them today. Get them all clean and ready. You didn’t come rushing into that awesome Presence. You had to get ready and get sanctified, he said; and let them wash their clothes and be ready the third day. For the third day Jehovah will come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai. And Brethren, I don’t know what Life magazine would have done about this. I suppose they’d have wanted to photograph it. But thou shalt set bounds unto the people around about saying, Take heed to yourselves that ye come not near the mountain nor touch the border of it. Whosoever touches the Mount shall be surely put to death. What a contrast between this great God and the gods that they could handle and lug around and put them under their pillow, and put them up on the front part of their automobile to keep them out of accidents, which they don’t. And there shall not a hand touch it, He said, but he will surely be stoned or shot through, nor shall beast or man shan’t leave. And when the trumpet sounded long, then you come up to the Mount.

Now my friend, there, there was something, there was something. When the trumpet sounded long, you come up to the Mount. If anybody is presented before a queen or a king, they practice for days and days exactly how to say and how to approach. But here, he says, this great God, you’re coming up before Him, and nobody else can come and if He comes and even touches this mountain, he’ll drop dead and shrivel. Moses went down and sanctified the people and they all washed their clothes. And he said, now, be ready. It came to pass on the third day in the morning.

Have you ever stopped to think how many things God did in the morning? He said in the morning that there was thunder and lightning and a thick cloud upon the mountain. The voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, and all the people that was in the camp trembled. And Mount Sinai was all together under smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire. And the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace. And the whole Mount quaked greatly. And the Lord said unto Moses, go down and charge the people lest they break through and gaze and many of them perish. And let the priests also which come near to the Lord, sanctify themselves lest the Lord breakthrough on them.

There was God coming out from behind, coming out from behind that cloud. Then He began to reveal other things about Himself. And listen now, He said, The Lord your God is one Lord and He’s the Lord of Lords, and He’s a great God, and He’s the God of Gods and He’s mighty and He’s terrible.

Do you know what we’ve done? Do you know what we’ve done? We’ve brought God down until nobody can respect Him anymore. We’ve brought Him down. In New York City, I said last week, when I was preaching there. I said, I’m on a quiet little crusade, not as big as the one over at Madison Square Garden, but a quiet little crusade to bring worship back to the church. And a fine-looking English gentleman said to me as we were moving out of church, he said, Brother Tozer, I want to be a member of your crusade. He said, for twenty-seven years, I’ve been a missionary in the Far East. And he said, I’m old now, and I think we ought to get back to worshiping God again. That mighty and that terrible God.

And the gospel has gone down now to the place where it’s only good for what you can get out of it. When we forget that the Lord said, when you pray, say our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. And I don’t hesitate to say this to you, sir, that God Almighty would rather glorify His name than save a world. That God would rather that His name should be hallowed before all the myriads of created intelligences, than a sinner should be saved, or that a world should be redeemed. In the mercy and wisdom of God He so arranged things, that He can redeem the world and magnify His own glory.

But you and I have the first duty and obligation to honor God. Not the first duty and obligation to help people. That’s modernism, and they’ve had that thrown in on us. And our puritanic forefathers and our Dutch and Scotch fathers who said, let God be right if the world falls; they have been shoved aside now. And they tell us that God is so very kind and lowly and humble and meek and approachable, that we’ve taken all the meaning out of it. Think of this, fear this glorious and fearful name, Jehovah thy God. Shall not His Excellency make you afraid and His dread fall upon you? And with God is a terrible Majesty. And darkness is around Him and His pavilion roundabout were dark waters and thick clouds of the sky. And who is this King of Glory, Jehovah, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle? He’s the King of Glory and blessed be His glorious Name forever. And when you pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Honor and majesty are before Him. Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary. And the glory of the Lord shall endure forever. And I will speak of the glorious honor of Thy majesty and Thy wondrous works. I’m just giving you what the Bible says about Him. God is coming out from behind the cloud, or bringing us out from behind the cloud to show how great He is. A glorious voice He said, shall cause to be heard, and shall show the lightning down in each arm with the indignation of His anger and with the flame of a devouring fire.

Now that’s Old Testament, but somebody says in the New Testament, we have the meek and lowly Jesus. Well, we do, and I want to talk in closing about the lowly Jesus too, and the meek Jesus, but I want you to know that the meek Jesus is a long way from being the Jesus of Salman’s bearded, feminine head. Now I’ll tell you this, I don’t know why, why I preach like this I don’t know. I preach my congregation down to the bone, and nobody comes here unless he’s dead in earnest to do the will of God. Everybody else passes us by and goes somewhere else. But anyhow, I’ll say this to you, that I don’t believe in these feminine heads of Christ. I wouldn’t have one in my home any more than I would have a statue of the Virgin Mary. I wouldn’t have one around, because that’s not Jesus. That bearded, weak-looking, plaintive fellow that’s looking around for somewhere to hide or somebody to bless. At the name of Jesus says the Holy Ghost, every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And our Lord Jesus Christ, which in His time, He shall show who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of Lords, and only had immortality dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto and whom no man has seen nor can see. To Him be honor and power everlasting, amen. That’s New Testament brother, the only wise God our Savior be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

That’s New Testament, then this Jesus Christ, the of Whom we speak, He is Lord of all. He is Lord of all being and He’s Lord of all life, and He’s the Lord of all majesty and all glory. And I understand the Quakers perfectly well when they had what they called “an opening.” A Quaker believed in an opening. Do you know what an opening is? It meant that there had been an opening, in that the light of God had flashed into their hearts, and that they had seen something. We don’t now, we take a course, but in those days, they had an opening; they got an opening from God. Some older brother would get up and say, “Well, I was in prayer last evening, and I think I had an opening. And I saw the Scripture says this about God,” and he gave his little testimony and sat down, rearranged his beard and sat quiet, and we make fun of them, but they had openings, my brethren.

And heaven is closed to the average one of us now, because this mighty God who makes the lightning down in His arm to be heard is gone completely and in His place, we have a stream-lined sack of a weakness, and we call that God. But God says, “When you pray, say, hallowed be Thy Name, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. That’s first. That’s more important my friends. It’s more important that the church of Christ should honor the God of glory, than that they should even preach the gospel to the heathen. But it is so in the will of God that preaching the gospel to the heathen and getting them saved will, as Paul said, bring more people to praise Him, so that we glorify God by winning more people. But, if you had to take your choice, honoring God would be first.

I don’t know who’s going to do it. I talked with James Stewart of the European missions, and with Stacy Woods of the Intervarsity, and with some of the other brethren. And we pretty much agreed; we stood around there and looked at each other and said, well, when is this thing going to get together and start to flow. When is there going to be enough of these people who see as we do and believe in the high honor of God and the need for the exalting of God and the bringing of worship back to the world again? When is there going to be enough that we can be more than a little puddle here and the little puddle there? When can we get together and become a flowing river? Nobody had the answer yet. But one of these days, God is going to give us the answer all right.

And if there’s anything that we’ve got to have in the Church of Christ, it is that we should get back to the God of our fathers, known of old, Lord of our far-flung battle line. Back again to the holy, holy, holy God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and not to the God of our imagination. Not to the weak God who we push around, but to the great God Almighty.

Well, He’s that great God. And if I had to stop, I’d stop right there. But I’m glad to tell you also that in this 45th Psalm, there is not only majesty, but there is meekness here. And Thy majesty, in Thy majesty ride prosperously, because of truth and meekness. He meeked Himself. That’s no verb anymore. Meek is an adjective now and meekness a noun, but there’s no verb anymore. Meek isn’t a verb, but it ought to be a verb and it used to be and from now on is going to be. And He meeked Himself down. He meeked Himself down.

Listen, while I show you what the Holy Ghost said about Him. Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought not His position in the form of God something to be hung on to, but made Himself of no reputation. Do you see, the only person that dare make himself of no reputation is somebody who is sure of his reputation. He could void His reputation because He knew it was safe. The fellow who isn’t sure of himself has to defend it all the time and run about defending his reputation. And if he hears anybody saying anything about him that might sully his reputation, why, he writes a hot letter. But He made Himself of no reputation. Why? Because He knew who He was. He knew that He was this mighty Lord God that made the mountain to quake. He knew He was this mighty Lord God whose pavilions round about Him were dark water and thick clouds in the sky. He knew He was the King of Glory, the Lord of majesty and blessed be His Glorious Name forever. He wasn’t afraid to void His reputation for the sake of redeeming a lost world.

So, He made Himself of no reputation. Now, that’s one thing, but it’s quite another thing to take on Himself the form of a man, the form of a servant. And that’s something, look, the Great God who had given orders all His life, all His life, and He had lived before the world was and had Being before creation was. And now, He becomes a servant. Not only no reputation, but a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And after He had become a man, He humbled Himself still further and became obedient under death. And then, that was not low enough, so He died, even the death of the cross. If He had come from glory down, and had lived His lifetime out and gotten old and died in His bed, surrounded by weeping friends, it would have been terrible to think that the great Lord God Almighty, whose strength and beauty were in His sanctuary, that that Great God Almighty, He should die. But, He died in the worst form known to the time. He died on a Roman cross; nailed up there on a Roman cross to wriggle and sweat, and His bones pulled out a joint and His lips cracked and His eyes glazed. He died like that, even says the Holy Ghost, the death on the cross. What wonderous, wondrous condescension that He should be so meek.

My dear friend, I want to tell you this. If you ever get saved, and if you ever move into that heaven of God and walk through those holy gates and look upon the Silver Sea, it will not be because of anything you are. And it won’t be because He changed His mind, or because He lost His crown or His power. It will make some of you mad I suppose, but you’d get over it. But you know, this nice, little housewife that’s running around over in Washington. They have trimmed her down and trimmed it down and trimmed it down and taken away her dominion. She has no power. She’s a nice little woman. I like her. I like her two kids. But, they trimmed her sails. And it’s not the old kings, George and the rest that could say,have his head off! She never says, have his head off. She said, I’m so glad I’m here.

And you see, the majesty is gone brethren. The majesty is gone. The glory is gone. And they keep pumping it up. And it’s all right. If it’s all they have got, they might as well make the most of it. But brethren, I say to you that nobody has ever trimmed down the majesty of the Great God Almighty. And when Jesus Christ became a man, He didn’t lose anything. The theologian Lightfoot said, He’s veiled His glory, but He did not void it. The man who walked about in Jerusalem dust-covered feet and disheveled hair, walking in the wind from one place to another, was the same Lord God who could make the mighty liking down of His voice to sound throughout the world.

This is our Christ, this is our Jesus. And I recommend to you, my friend, that you seek to know Him as He is in His Majesty in order that you might know how mighty fortunate you are. If He had stood by His Majesty and had not been willing to meek Himself down, you would have been in bad shape. You would have been along with angels that sinned and the demons that sinned and left their first habitation. You would have gone down, and there wasn’t anything in you that could save you. When you started down toward the pit, there wasn’t an angel voice raised round the throne of God, not one.
When you started down toward the pit, the day you took your first step or before and started down toward the pit, not an angelic voice said, God, what are you doing? Don’t let that fellow perish. Don’t let that woman die. Not a one for justice. Justice and glory and majesty demanded that we all perish together, and go to the hell were the devil and the fallen angels are. And to save us from that, God would not have voided His Majesty. Keep that in mind, sir.

To save us from that, God would not have diminished His glory by one candlepower. To save us from that, God would never have unhallowed His hallowed name. And that’s why He taught us to say the very first thing when you pray, say, hallowed be Thy Name. And if you haven’t time to pray anything else, pray, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. And, if you don’t have time, at least pray that. To rush into God’s presence, and begin to beg, I think is a shoddy thing, when the Great God Almighty meeked Himself. Such Majesty meeked itself downward.

So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty. Why did He do it? Because He greatly desires thy beauty. And the beauty in you is not the beauty you have, but the beauty that He could make you and put in you. It was what Shakespeare called the borrowed majesty, the borrowed majesty that belongs to you. Even the poor tramp who stumbles tonight, bleary-eyed and unshaven on Skid Row, has within buried some of the the borrowed majesty. For God made us in His own image. That doesn’t save us, but there was something there that God called beauty. And so, He came down. He didn’t come down because He had to.

Never think you can put God in a fix or get God in a tight spot. Never. Never. God never gets into tight spots. And God never allows Himself in any wise to be taken over by a man and get into a tight corner and have to do something because He doesn’t want to do. Never. The Great God came down because He desired us. And He desired us because He made us in His image. That’s all. He made us in His image. And He saw the poor, tattered relics of the family resemblance. And He knew that there was that in us which could respond. He knew, that though fallen and lost and certainly doomed, there was that in us which could respond. For that, you ought to thank God for every day you live.

If anybody here grumbles and complains and doesn’t keep thanking God, I’m sorry for you and I hope you’ll repent. For no matter what happens to us we ought to be able to thank God that there was something in us that could respond. Aren’t you glad there was something in us that could respond? And, I’m not even sure that if God hadn’t put it there in the first place, that you could have responded and at all. Because, if I understand the book of John correctly and the book of Romans correctly, I think I do, I don’t believe there’s anything in mankind that can respond except that is has first been moved upon by the Holy Ghost. Brother, I believe in the prevenient workings of the Holy Ghost. If that isn’t election and predestination I don’t know what it is, but it must be, though I’m not supposed to teach either. But, Jesus my Lord said that no man can come to me except the Father draw him. No man can come, and we say, “come on, come on, come on. And He said no man can come except the Father draw him. And if the Father draw him, he’ll come and I’ll give him life, and I won’t cast him out.

So, he said, you believe not because you’re not my sheep. And He didn’t say you’re not my sheep because you don’t believe. We’ve turned it around because we’re scared. We’re afraid to face up to the Sovereign Majesty of the God of our fathers. And so, we say the reason you’re not God’s sheep is you don’t believe, but He said, the reason you don’t believe is because you’re not my sheep. I have not chosen you.

Now, I realize that there has been an awful lot of abuse as the Queen said, O Liberty, what sins have been committed in thy name. We can only say John Calvin, what crimes have been committed in thy name. But nevertheless my brethren, we are a snooty bunch of self-satisfied sinners. We think when we get good and ready of whatever God thinks of it, we’ll come back home and it’ll be God’s business to receive us and he can’t help Himself. Brother, we had better get away from that. You can walk out of here and down the steps, and sin against the Holy Ghost, and be as cold as an icicle from this time till you’re dark, and God doesn’t owe you one thing. We so preach the gospel as to make grace cheap and God cheap, and make God oh that’s something.

A man in this church years ago, he’s not here now, was quite put out because I said God didn’t owe us anything. He came down to the front and argued with me and said God did. What does God owe you except damnation? What does God owe me except damnation? What is it He owes the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Pope, except damnation. We have sinned. We have sinned. We have veiled the glory of God and we’ve taken our place with the fallen crew and the black bats and the squirming serpents, and if we’re ever saved it will be because Majesty meeked itself down to find us. And Majesty didn’t have to do it because Majesty wasn’t afraid of itself. We rush to defend God.

I wouldn’t write one line in defense of God. When old Zerubabel was it? When Gideon tore the altar down. Wasn’t his father’s name Zerubabel? If I’m wrong, excuse me names, you know. A name by any other name would be just as bad. But when when Gideon pull the altars down, somebody said, kill Gideon, kill Gideon. He’s pulled down the altars of Baal and Gideon’s father said, that’s a weird one. He said if Baal’s a god, why didn’t he look after himself. He said, do you have to run out there and defend him. He said, let Baal plea, and if Baal is what he claims is, let him punish my son. He said, I’m not going to defend him, and I won’t defend God. I won’t write a line in defensive of God. A God I have to defend can’t take me across the dark river. He can’t save my soul from the magnetic tug of hell. If the God I have to defend can’t deliver me from the machinations of the devil, can’t do it. Ah, my God doesn’t need my defense. He’s the Lord of Glory, mighty and great is He. And He meeked Himself down.

You ought to thank God every day in red-face chagrin that you ever sinned and God had to meek Himself down to help you. He became meek because He was Majesty. And why did He do it? Listen and I’ll read these few verses in closing. I saw no temple therein for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. The city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God, did lighten it, and the Lamb is the Light thereof.

I have no doubt but there are many Christians running around over the country right now that believe that when they go to heaven, there will be a brass band a mile long to meet them. But I see here that they didn’t even need moon or sun, but the glory of God lightened all heaven and the Lamb is the Light thereof. And as the poet said before, Thine ever-blazing throne, we asked no lustre of our own. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it. And kings of the earth do bring their glory into it. The kings of the earth bring their glory, throw down their crowns, toss their scepters, take off their purple robes, and throw them at the feet of the One who was Majesty and is Majesty, but in His infinite love, meeked Himself to save us. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day; and there’s no night there, and they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it. Isn’t it awful that this passage like this has been given the funerals nothing else? Nobody ever reads it unless he’s at a funeral. And I Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify unto you that these things in churches. I’m the root and the offspring of David, the bright and the Morning Star.

When you look up Brother, don’t look for the Sputnik. I am the root and the offspring of David the bright and the Morning Star. And the Spirit and the Bride say come, and him that heareth say, come and let him that is athirst, come. And whosoever will, let him come. Here’s the Root of David and the offspring of David and the bright and Morning Start meeking Himself down to call you to Him. You deserve nothing but death, but He died that you might be called to Him. Wonderful, wonderful. Was it any wonder that David said, my heart is inditing a good matter. I speak of the things which I have made touching the king. Thou art fairer than the children of men. Grace is poured forth by thy lips. Is it any wonder, what a wonderful, gracious God He is. He’s a God of sovereignty before He’s the God of grace. And if the church in America would restore again the teaching of the sovereignty of God back into the churches, sinners would be converted, not half-converted. And this that the missionaries told us, I believe in it. I believe in it. They said they postpone their baptism until they get delivered from their temper. They postpone their baptism until they can find a sin in their life. But we stampede the baptismal waters, careless and unconcerned because our God is not the sovereign God of our fathers. He’s a home-made God put together out of pieces of poetry and stories and ideas preached to us by people who don’t know better. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus, when he said, Jesus said when you pray, say, Father, first of all, help us. Thy name should be hallowed and that Thy Kingdom should come. That Thy will should be done all over the universe, down here as it is up there. Let that be first, and the other things fall in line. Blessed be God and blessed be His holy Son, Jesus Christ. This way we ask in Jesus’ name.

.

Categories
Messages

Tozer Talks

PDF Formatted TranscriptDownload

“God’s Great Purpose in Redemption-Worship”

September 29, 1957

So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty, for He is thy Lord, worship thou Him. As you can see, there’s desire on both sides, the King greatly desires the beauty of his bride. And the bride is exhorted to worship Him who is the Lord. He is thy Lord worship thou Him.

Now, I’d like to say that I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was begotten of Him before all worlds, who is God of God, the Light of Light and the very God of very God and begotten and not made. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life, which proceeded from the Father and the Son, in which with the Father and Son together, is worshipped and glorified. And I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary. And He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, and was buried. On the third day, He rose again from the dead, and sitteth at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens.

Now, why was this? This we all believe, but why was? It had a purpose. Not to give you peace of mind, though that’s part of it. Not to deliver you from bad habits, though, that’s part of it. But what was the great central purpose of the Great God who never does anything without a purpose in all this rich, gold and glorious odyssey of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

It was that He might make worshipers out of enemies. It was that He might take those whose backs were to Him, backs to Him and turn their faces to Him. It was that He might persuade those moral beings who had forgotten how to worship, to turn around again and bow in ecstatic adoration before the presence of the Triune God. So, the purpose of Christ in redemption was not to save us from hell primarily, but it was to save us unto worship, that we might become again worshipers of the living God.

Now, I’d like to state that worship is the normal employment of moral beings. That moral beings worship God normally as a bird sings. Normal beings worship God; that’s their normal employment. And if you look in your Bible you will find that every glimpse of heaven shows the people there, the persons, the beings there, worshipping God.

Let me take the time to do what I know sometimes bores some people, and that is read a little from the Scriptures. Listen to this. It came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river Kebar, that the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. In the fifth day of the month, the word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Kebar and the hand of the Lord was there upon him. And I looked and behold a whirlwind came out of the North, a great cloud, and the fire unfolding itself. And the brightness was about it. And out of the midst of it thereof is the color of amber. Out of the midst of the fire, also out of the midst thereof there all came the likeness of four living creatures. And the likeness of the firmament upon the heads of the living creatures was as the color of the terrible crystal stretched from over their heads above. And under the firmament were their wings straight and one toward the other. Everyone had two which covered on this side and everyone had two which covered on that side their body. And when they went I heard the noise of their wings like the noise of great waters as the voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech as the noise of an host. When they stood, they let down their wings, and above the firmament that was over their head was the likeness of a throne as the appearance of a sapphire stone. And upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness of the appearance of a Man upon it. And I saw as the color of amber as the appearance of fire round about within from the appearance of his loins, even upward. From the appearance of his loins, even downward, I saw as it were, the appearance of fire, and the brightness round about. As the appearance of the bowl that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so is the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of One that spake.

That’s the Old Testament, come to the new. After this, I looked, and behold, the door was opened in heaven. And immediately, I was in the Spirit and behold, a throne was set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. And He that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardin stone and there was a rainbow round about the throne in sight like unto an emerald. And I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white rainment and they had on their heads crowns of gold. And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices, and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God, and the beasts and those give glory and honor and thanks to Him that sat on the throne Who liveth forever and ever. The four and twenty elders fell down and worshiped Him that liveth forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne saying, Thou art worthy O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power. For thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are, and were created. And I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts. And in the midst of the elders stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God. And He came and took the book, and they sang a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof, for Thou wast slain, and has redeemed us to God by that blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people and nation. And behold, I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the Beast and the elders. And the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. Every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I, saying, blessing and honor and glory and power belong to Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever. And the four beasts said, amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshiped Him that liveth forever and ever.

Now, there my brethren is a picture of heaven, just a little peep into heaven. Just cup our ear and listen and we hear it for it’s going on now. It’s not something that’s prophetic only. It’s prophetic in the sense that it will be in the future, but it’s present in the sense that it also is now. And my friends, our Lord taught that worship is a moral imperative.

Now, let me read to your brief passage only, from the book of Luke. Listen, And when He was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen; Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest. And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. It’s a moral imperative my brethren, and God will have somebody worshiping him if He has to raise up a talking, shouting, singing stone.

Now, we have a little song we sing some times, and I want you to note it. I just want you to note it. It says, bless, Oh my soul, the living God. Call home thy thoughts that are roam abroad. The old man of God believed as I believe tonight. That when our thoughts are roaming all over the face of the earth, and are not centered on God, that they’re away. They’re like a stray dog out in the alley. They’re roaming away from home. Call home thy thoughts that are roam abroad. Let all the powers within me join to work in worship so divine. What work is there? What worship is there so divine as worshiping God. Bless oh my soul that the God of grace, His favor claims the highest praise? Why should the wonders He hath wrought be lost in silence and forgot. Another one tells us that it is a guilty silence and cries break to his tongue, break my tongue thy guilty silence. That when a man or a woman born to worship God is not worshiping God, the very silence of his tongue denotes guilt in his heart. And the man who did not worship God today has a guilty tongue. For worship is a moral imperative. Worship belongs to heaven and to all beings that are moral beings, not to the beasts. Not to the birds that fly and the worms that crawl, but all beings with moral perception and intelligence. It is the business of our tongues to be worshipping God and when we do not we are guilty.

Now, I would like to tell you this, that worship is the missing jewel in evangelicalism today. The church has decked herself with everything. I read yesterday in the newspaper that the churches have been building all this summer, and that we were running into a whole welter of dedications. Now, God bless them, and I’m glad for every building that went up this Summer. We happen to be in a boom. You’ve heard about it. Everybody has more money than is good for him. And so the churches are building, and that’s all right. We’ve decked ourselves with every kind of ornament. We have everything. But there is one shining gem that has been lost to the church. And it has been lost even to the evangelical church.

I got a letter this week, I don’t know whether those friends are present tonight or not. And if they are they will understand. I got a letter from a woman. And she said Mr. Tozer, we were out to hear the sermon on worship, and I’d like to tell you this, that my husband who was a Parsi, that is, Zoroaster fire worshiper, had to teach me to worship the Savior, even though I was brought up in a certain denomination. I had to learn from my converted Parsi husband to worship God. Worship, my friends is the missing jewel in evangelicalism. And the awesome and wonderful jewell with its mysterious luster has been all but lost to us. We meet together and we go through rituals and forms, but worshipping God is something else and we’ve forgotten to worship God.

There was once a noble being and it disturbs me. I don’t know too much about this now, and don’t press me for a very careful exegis, because I’m not sure I know who this is. But, I read about it in the inspired Word of God. He forgot to worship. Listen, thou hast been in Eden the garden of God. Every precious stone was thy covering. The workmanship of thy tablets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day the tower was created. Why did he have tablets and pipes, which are of course musical instruments? Why did this creature, this anointed cherub that covereth; why did he have in his divine workmanship, these instruments built-in? He was a walking organ, a walking harp. God made him so. I have set thee so, it goes on to say. Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God. Thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. I read quite a little about fire tonight. But don’t forget my brethren, that when we come to try to understand what God is like, the best we can do is to talk about spirit and fire. Now, physical fire is not God. And God warned against that and said, when thou gazes up into the sky and sees the sun, or the stars by night, do not fall down and worship them. For that is an abomination unto Jehovah thy God for so did the nations around thee.

So, we’re not fire worshippers, but we recognize that God dwells in fire and these creatures came out of the fire and stood with their six wings. With twain they covered their faces, and with twain they covered their feet, and with twain they did fly. When the Holy Spirit came upon them at Pentecost, He came with fire, and sat upon each one of them. It is as near as God can get to telling us what He’s like, that strange, mysterious, lustrous, shining, beautiful thing. And thou wast perfect in thy ways, from the day that thou was created till iniquity was found in thee. And he who had come beautiful beyond all description, with his worship built-in, and who is permitted to walk up and down amidst in the shining holy stones of fire, now finds iniquity there. God finds iniquity in him, therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God. And I will destroy thee old covering cherub from the midst of the stones of fire. I believe that’s Satan if I should be wrong in my exegis, it’s some being, for I read from Ezekiel 28. And if a great being like that, should could be cast out, and would be and was cast out of heaven because he forgot the purpose of his creation. If he forgot that his tongue was made to sing the praises of his Creator. If he could be cast out, hurled down from heaven, shear over the crystal battlements, then I asked you, is it not possible the church that forgets to worship God is in danger of losing her place among the stones of fire?

Is it not possible that the church that doesn’t worship, that only meets and knits or only meets and reads, or only meets and things, or only meets and fellowships, or only meets and eats? Is it not possible that that church may lose her candlestick? Jesus said at one time, you remember, to the Ephesian church, I will pluck out thy candlestick. I’ll remove it. I don’t know what that means exactly, but I don’t want it to happen to me. If God were to wake me tonight at two, or tomorrow morning at two or three o’clock wide, stark awake and say to me, I am removing the Alliance candlestick from the corner of 70th and Union. I wouldn’t have to write to Moody Monthly to find out what it meant. I wouldn’t have to look up the various commentators to see what it meant. I’d be terrorized. And I’d fall on my face and cry, O God, these are Thy people. These are Thy people. Turn not away, my God from these Thy people, for they belong to Thee. And what will the heathen say if you destroy Thy people? I don’t have to know all that means. I only know that it’s terrible enough just to read it. I will take thy candlestick out of its place.

So, there’s danger that we Christians should simply be utilitarian Christians, using Jesus Christ as an escape hatch from hell. That we should simply use the Lord as we use insurance and social security, and whatever else fits into our scheme of self-promotion. But worship, worship my brethren, God has made us to worship. And the man who doesn’t know how to worship, doesn’t know, doesn’t know the purpose of his creation. I’d like to analyze worship if I could a little bit. It can’t be done. It lies beyond. It lies beyond the intellect. But we can we can stand and at least admire, and walk around her holy battlements, and see the Gates of Jerusalem and look a little.

Now, what is it? I think that worship is an attitude. It is a state of mind, a sustained act, if you could allow that, subject to degrees of perfection and intensity certainly. Because, not even the Apostles could worship God always with the same degree of intensity. And all the great mystics and devotional writers that I have heard of during the years, and have read about, and seen their hymns and their devotional works. They all claim that the intensity and degree of worship rises and falls; that it’s impossible to sustain it too long. Even on the mountaintop there, they could not stay too long. The Lord said, go on down the hill. So, I do not claim that this is to be a continuous, unbroken, and yet it is to be unbroken in some measure, because it embodies a number of factors; mental, spiritual, and emotional; worship does.

And let me let me point to some of the factors. One is boundless confidence in the character of God, and nobody can worship God unless he has this boundless confidence in the character of God. You see, confidence is necessary to respect. You cannot respect anybody you have no confidence in. And of course, you cannot worship anyone you do not respect. So that we have to have respect raised to the nth degree. We must have respect that believes with absolute confidence in God, in the character of God, in the being of God. And worship rises or falls, depending upon the idea that the church has of God, whether it’s high or low.

Now, it so happens that the evangelical concept of God is very low today. An Englishman by the name of Philips, the man who has made the translations, wrote a little book that somebody put in my hand called, “Your God is Too Small.” Well, it’s true, the God of the evangelical is too small. We can put Him in our pocket, or put Him up by the way some of our friends do to keep us from having accidents. I threatened to buy brother Ericson a plastic saint put up in front of his car to keep him from having accidents. It doesn’t protect you from policemen, because I saw a policeman tagging a car that had a plastic saint on it one time. And I said to the cop, well, I’ve learned one thing saints don’t protect you from cops. He said, No, they don’t. I’ve got so many to tag and I’m out tagging them. And he said they’re following me around. If I don’t do it, they will get me.

So, this God we have now, this God isn’t much bigger than St. Christopher, and the God of popular Christianity can’t be worshiped, because He isn’t respected. And He isn’t respected, because He’s not big enough. And the Sovereign God of our fathers that we sing about, the God of Abraham that the Jews sang about, the God of Abraham praise. And that Mighty God, that Mighty God, brought men to their knees with great respect. And so, boundless confidence is first, and the second is admiration.

Now, admiration is the appreciation of the excellency of anything. And man is made capable of appreciating excellency. If you were to bring a canary or a nightingale or a mockingbird in here, and play this piano to it, I suppose it would, I’ve understood the canaries will sing when you turn the radio on. I guess they do appreciate a little but they certainly wouldn’t be able to appreciate as much as an audience like this. They certainly wouldn’t be able to understand the beauty of music, and certainly the lower creatures have not in them the ability to appreciate or to admire, as we do. God has made us with ability to admire.

And then, He has given Himself to us as the object of our boundless unlimited admiration. And this can grow, this admiration. It can grow in knowledge and in depth until it fills the heart with wonder and delight, to admire God, just to admire God, not to admire people. I quite agree with the young man’s prayer here tonight, “O God save us from people and from big shots.” He didn’t use that, he won’t use slang the way I do, but save us O Lord from people. We’re always hearing, the big fellow did this, another big fellow did that, another big fellow did that. And I feel like crying, O God, we have heard man’s voice and we’re weary.

Speak Thou to us, O Lord, for I want to admire God. I can admire man who was made in the image of God, but my admiration for man is only because he was made in the image of God. God is the object of our admiration, my brethren. And when we admire, did you ever hear music? You know, there are some things that are so wonderful that you can’t use them. Matthew Arnold said about the poetry of Burns. He said that some of the poetry of Burns is so piercingly, piercingly, so penetratingly pathetic, such piercing pathos in it that it hurts you. You can’t read it. You can’t read it. And have you ever heard a piece of music that hurt you? Hurt you that you bent over with pain when you admired it to a point where it got the better of you. And there are certain great works of literature like that, certain great passages in Milton and Shakespeare are so great that the average rank and file can’t rise to take it. It is too grief and wonderful.

So, when we admire enough, it becomes a delightful pain. It becomes an enjoyable agony within the bosom. Agony? Why? Because we’re not big enough inside. God is going to make us bigger, He’s going to make us. Paul cried, “Be thou enlarged. Thou art constricted,” he said within your heart. Be enlarged. And He wants to make us big enough to admire God, and admire Him with wonder and delight.

And then, following in this analysis, is fascination. That is, it’s to be filled with a moral excitement. I have never have been able to understand, and I can’t to this day, the solemn, sad, long face, composed, poised, self-possessed, temperate, and cold people who sing hymns, and are not affected by them. Who hear the Scripture, but are not affected. Who pray in a monotonous drone. I have not been able to understand them because the fascination of worship is a moral excitement. And it excites us inside. And by excitement, I use the word means when I say excitement. There’s an excitement about love, an excitement about adoration. And this fascination, it captivates and it charms, and it entrances. And the Christian who’s ever seen God in holy worship, I’d say he’s been struck with astonished wonder at the inconceivable elevation, at the magnitude and splendor of the being we call God.

And I pray that God will send to us again. I pray that he will send to us again men out of the fire. Men who’ve walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Who can come back to the world, not to be great founders or great promoters or great mixers, but whose presence with us, is as the presence of an angel. When they looked upon the face of Stephen, they saw his face as the face of an angel, because he said, I see Jesus lifted up. I see him standing. And his face shone. And the shining of the face of Stephen has done more to illuminate the church of the living God than 10,000 theologians and cold teachers of the Law.

My brethren, we need men out of the fire again. We need bold, terrible men. We need men and women who have fought their way, and prayed their way, and been scorned maybe and called fanatics and scoffed at, and named every name, as the song says, the colored song, when they’ve called me everything but a Christian. They were Christians, but they called them everything but a Christian. And some of these will have to go through the fire and be called everything but a Christian to push in and beat their way past the flesh and the world and the devil and cold Christians and dead deacons and elders that are cold, and the general level of things. And they’ll have to push themselves in until they’re fascinated by what they see and find there.

Elijah came down from the mountains of Tishbe girded about the loins with a leather girdle and walked into the presence of the king and said, “you don’t know who I am, but I am Elijah. I stand in the presence of God.” And that’s why he could command fire when the occasion required it. And Ezekiel, before God ever allowed him to be a preacher at all had to have this first chapter experience that I read part of tonight. Isaiah before he could ever write his great book, had to see God high and lifted up with His train filling the temple and had to hear the vibrant voice of the seraphim crying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. And so it was with some of the other prophets, Jeremiah. And so it was with some of the apostles. Paul could never, that stiff, cold, hard man of theology and logic. He never would have been the blazing apostle surific in his feet, except he had that experience on Damascus Road when God’s light shone round about him, brighter than midday and blinded him for three days.

Oh, that we might raise up some people. I don’t care whether they’re Baptist, Presbyterians, Reformed, or what they call themselves, I wouldn’t ask God to let them come out of this society of ours. If we have lost our worship, then our candlestick will be removed. I would only pray that God would raise them up, that his all. As old brother MacArthur used to say, “I’ll follow the man with oil on his forehead.” And I’ll follow the man with the flame that sits there. And I don’t care what denomination he calls himself.

So fascination, the inconceivable brightness, the unbelievable elevation, the magnitude and the splendor of God. When it shines in upon a human heart, it changes things brethren. And we’re not what we used to be. He doesn’t kill our sense of humor, but it chastens. It doesn’t destroy all fun, but it takes levity out of the system. So, we never can again be anything but serious-minded men and women. And I pray God it may be so.

But passing on to adoration, adoration. Adoration of course, is the state of adoring. It is to love with all the power within us. It is to love with fear, and with wonder, and with yearning, and with awe. Our trouble is, dear people, we have hearts as big as the world, and the object of our love is small as little peas in a pod. That’s our difficulty. That’s what’s the matter with the people out on the highways tonight. That’s what’s the matter with the women who keep the houses down here. That’s what the matter with the men who stand and belch over the bar and drink their beer in some saloon tonight. That’s what’s the matter with the women who go into weird cults up on the Gold Coast because they have too much of their husband’s money to know what to do with. That’s what’s the matter with the people who are out tonight raising hell all over the world. God has given them ability to love, and they can’t find anything worthy of their love.

Out in Hollywood, it leaps like a drunk bird from one bow to another. It jumps here and then shuts it off, and jumps there and shuts it off, and jumps there until they’re married as much as three and four and eight to ten times because they’re trying to find something to love and they can’t find anything worthy of their love. God made them too big inside. Thou hast set eternity in their heart. Even a fallen man. Even the fallen cherub never found again an object worthy of his love. And all the devils that have fallen in the being, the angels that fell out of heaven, have never found an object worthy of their love. Never. Never. That’s why I grieve when I see someone made in the image of God off on a little sidetrack doing silly things, foolish things. Little, spending their lives doing little things.

There died some year or so ago, a great woman, the greatest women athlete probably that ever lived, Babe Didrikson. And I was discussing Babe Didrikson with one of the men of the church. Penetrating mind he has and he said, “well, she was a great woman, unquestionably. But it seems too bad that she should have dedicated her greatness to jumping over things and knocking little balls and doing little things that were unworthy of her affection.” If you want to do that and keep you in good shape, all right. I stretch a rubber bands in order to keep healthy. And so, you’ll go ahead and do that if you want to. I don’t mind, to dedicate your life to it, my friends, to dedicate your life to it. There are men who start the last of April and end the first week in October, and every day except when they’re traveling, they’re looking at ballgames.

Well, it seems to me this is an awful, when God has made our heart as big as the world that we should pick out a tiny little object and kneel before it and worship, or at least love it so much. And Jesus when they came to Him and said, what is the great commandment of the Law, He said, this is the greatest commandment, thou shalt love the Lord that God with all thy heart and with all thy mind and strength and with all the power in you, you are to love God. So, adoration is love with fear and wonder and yearning and awe. When Jesus walked among men, He affected them two ways, and sometimes, two ways at once. He affected them with a magnetic drawing, and He affected them with a fear that repulsed. And the same heart that yearned for God with a great yearning, also an awesome fear, might have been repulsed by the greatness and elevation and magnitude of the being we call God.

This is not only to love, but it’s to feel a possessiveness, a crying mind. Go through your Bible and see how many times that men say mine to God, my, mine, to God. They tell us the personal pronoun shouldn’t be used in religion. That’s the difficulty with it. We’re using it about ourselves, and about what we’ve done, and about where we’ve been, and about who we know, and about what we own. But we’re afraid to use it about our relation to God. And one of the great theologians, who was it, Luther that said, the whole heart of religion lies in its personal pronoun.

And when the human heart cries with the Psalmist, or a prophet or an apostle or a mystic, “mine, mine, mine, God is mine.” And when the human heart worships God and says, mine. God says, Yes, I’m, I’m yours. So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty? For He is thy lord, worship thou Him. And the times all this rises to the place of breathless silence, wrapped in deep adoring, silence, Jesus, Lord, I dare not move, lest I lose the smallest saying meant to catch and hear love.

Now, when all these are present, these mental, emotional, and spiritual factors are present continually; they’re present in varying degrees, but when they’re present, they’re present in song and in praise and in prayer, and in mental prayer, in inward prayer, and the ejaculatory prayer, kept blazing by long seasons of prayer. They condition our thoughts, and our words and our deeds. And they give us a philosophy of life. They give us an outlook, a vantage point. They give us what the moderns like to call a scale of values. That’s all right, because the liberals use it, don’t throw it away. But they give us a scale of values. We value some things more than others and we learn what is valuable and what isn’t. And it hallows every place and every time and every task. And it can do that for all of us. And it gives back the glory which Jesus had with the Father before the world was. It prepares the heart to worship.

When Jesus said come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. He talked about a burden. And what was that burden? It was the burden of the tuneless heart. It was the burden of the voiceless nightingale. It was the burden of the heart that was capable of tremendous, all but infinite love that couldn’t find an object. It was the burden of the man whose tongue was made to praise God, but it had been guilty in his mouth for all the years. And what is the rest? The rest is among other things, the rest of adoration.

My brethren, you will learn more in a half hour of adoring silence in the presence of God with your Bible than you will learn in all the schools, and I believe in the schools. I’ve supported the schools. I’ve promoted them. I preached to their people. I have done everything possible and I’ve never talked them down. But you will learn more of God, Wesley said it, Augustine said it, Thomas à Kempis said it, and I’ve repeated it a thousand times; but a little while spent adoring, a little while spent caught between fear and fascination, between joy and repentance, or the sharp pangs of repentance, adoring God, you will learn more, more of light, more, more of light than you will ever find at any other time.

O Father, we beseech thee for all of these. Take them through the fire and through the flood, but above all things, to the blood. And if they have to sit by the river Kebar as Ezekiel did, or be thrown down into a pit as Jeremiah was. or be surrounded by dancing, fanatical foes as Elijah was, or be on the Isle of Patmos as John was, or to fall flat down in a faint as Daniel did, oh, whatever the cost we pray Thee, make Christian worshipers out of these men and women. This we ask in Jesus’ name.

.

Categories
Messages

Tozer Talks

PDF Formatted TranscriptDownload

“He is thy Lord, worship thou Him”

September 22, 1957

The 45th Psalm, Psalm 45, here’s a man of God so delighted with God and his relation to Him. It doesn’t say David wrote it, but I think I can smell David’s garments. Here, we sense David’s presence. Whoever it was, he was a great worshiper. And he says, My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king: my tongue is the pen of a ready writer. That’s introductory, then he turns to God Himself, and says, Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips: therefore God hath blessed thee for ever. Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty. And in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things. Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad. Kings’ daughters were among thy honourable women: upon thy right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir. Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house; So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him.

Here’s the truth upon which we build. Simply this, that God made everything for a purpose, and the purpose in making man was to have somebody capable, properly and sufficiently to worship Him. To satisfy His own heart, but that man fell by sin, and now is failing to carry out the creative purpose. He is like a cloud without water that gives no rain. Like a sun that gives no heat, or a star that gives no light, or a tree that no longer gives any fruit, or a bird that no longer sings, or a harp that’s silent and no longer gives off music. Now, that is the thesis which I’m developing. And I want to go on from there and talk about worship tonight. He is thy Lord, worship thou Him.

Now here is something that we want to settle and that is that God wants us to worship Him. The devil would like to tell us, or our own unbelieving mind, that God does not particularly want us to worship Him. It’s we owe it to Him, but that God isn’t concern. But the truth is that God wants us to worship Him. We’re not unwanted children. God wants us to worship Him, I repeat. Why else would it be when Adam had sinned and broken his fellowship, and the heart of Adam had become unstringed and the voice of Adam had died in his throat. Why was it that when God came in the cool of the day to talk with Adam, He couldn’t find him and cried Adam, where art thou? It was God seeking worship from an Adam that had sinned. And our Lord in Luke 4 says, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve. It is not only desired that we worship God, but that He has commanded us to do it. And if you noticed in the Psalm 45 here, “so shall the king greatly desire thy beauty.” God finds something in us. It is something that He put there, but it’s there.

My friends, unbelief is of several kinds, or rather, there are several phases or facets to unbelief. And one of them is that we don’t think we’re as bad as God says we are. That’s one. And if we don’t have faith in God’s Word concerning our badness, we’ll never repent. Then there is another facet of faith. It is this, that we don’t believe that we’re as dear to God as He says we are. And we don’t believe that we’re as precious nor that he desires us as much as He says He does.

If everybody listening to me tonight, and myself included, could suddenly have a baptism of pure, cheerful belief that God wanted me, and that God wanted me to worship Him, and that God wanted me to pray and admire Him and praise Him, it could transform this Christian fellowship and change us overnight into the most radiantly, happy people on the North American continent. So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty, and He is thy Lord, so worship thou Him.

And it’s written in 2 Thessalonians about when the King shall come and Jesus shall come to be glorified in His saints and admired in all that believe. That is, that God is admired, not the people admired, but God is admired. And then, more than these proof texts that I have given is, and more convincing, the whole import and substance of the New Testament, of the Bible, of all the Bible is, that God made us to worship Him. And when we are not worshiping Him, we’re failing in the purpose for which we were created; that we’re stars without light and sun without heat and clouds without water and birds without song and harps without music. We simply are failing, and falling short.

But I want to be very clear about this, and I want to say now, that we cannot worship Him as we will. The One who made us to worship Him, also has decreed how we shall worship Him. We cannot worship God as we will. God does not accept just any kind of worship. He accepts worship only when it is pure, and when it is indited, to use the scriptural term by the Holy Ghost. You see, God has rejected almost all the worship of mankind in our present condition. Though God wants us to worship Him, and commands us to, and asks us to, and obviously was anxious and hurt when Adam failed to worship Him. Yet nevertheless, God condemns and rejects almost all the worship of mankind for reasons which I’m going to show you now. Let us break up the worship of man. They rejected worship, the worship that God won’t receive. Let us break it up into Cain worship, and Samaritan worship, and pagan worship, and nature worship, for there are at least those four kinds of worship that are abroad in the earth and God rejects all of them.

There’s Cain’s worship. You know well what that was. I assume you are a Bible reader and you know that while Abel offered unto God the sacrifice of blood, Cain offered no sacrifice of blood. He came with a bloodless sacrifice and offered flowers and fruit and of the growth of the Earth to the Lord. And this attempted worship rested upon three errors. It rested upon a mistaken impression of the kind of God, God is. Cain was born of fallen parents, and Cain had never heard the voice of the God in the garden. And when Cain came to worship God, he came to a god other than God, he came to a god of his own imagination.

And then, the second error is, that man occupies a relation to God, other than what he does. You see, a lot of religious people are mistaken. They assume that we humans, as humans, that we occupy a relation to God which we do not occupy. They think we are God’s children. And we talk about “O God and Father of mankind,” when the Bible does not teach that God is the father of mankind.

Then, the third error is, that sin is less serious than it is in fact, so that Cain made all of these mistakes. He thought God was a different kind of God from what He is. He thought he was a different kind of man from what he was. And he thought sin was less vicious and serious than God said it was. So, he came cheerfully bringing his sacrifice and offered God worship, which we simply call Cain worship. It was the worship without atonement. So, always keep this in mind. That while God says, “He is thy Lord, worship thou Him,” and while He calls, “where art thou, and while He commands we must worship Him in spirit and in truth, He bluntly and summarily rejects worship that is not founded upon redeeming blood.

And then there’s Samaritan worship. You know about the Samaritans, how under Omri and Ahab and others, the city of Sameria became a religious center. And Jerusalem was rejected as the place. God said, “in this temple, in this place I will put my Name and there you shall come, and there you shall, I shall reveal myself and turn this way and hear,” said Solomon, from Thy place in heaven, O God then forgive.” And the temple in Jerusalem was set up as the place where men should worship. But the Samaritans were heretics, and they were heretics in the right sense of the word, because heretical doesn’t always mean that we are false.

A man can be a heretic and not teach anything particularly false. Did you know that? A heretic is not necessarily one who teaches, say that there is no Trinity, or that God did not create the earth, or that there is no judgment. They are heretics too. But heresy doesn’t mean to teach wrong. The very word “heretic” means one who picks and chooses. So that the Samaritans were heretics in that they chose certain parts of the Bible, the Old Testament. They had the Pentateuch and they said, Now, we accept the Pentateuch, but we reject David and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel and 1 & 2 Kings and the Song of Solomon, and they named all of the rest of the Scripture except the Pentateuch and they said, we believe and then they did some translating. Did you know, you can translate anything and prove what you’re out to prove. Anybody can do that. All you have to do is to say, I know the Greek and I know the Hebrew and after that, they’re on their own.

So, they translated the old Pentateuch in a manner that made Samaria the place of worship. And they said, here is Samaria, the place of worship. And of course, they were hostile to the Jews who said, no, no, our fathers worshiped in Jerusalem. God gave them this hill Moriah. And here on this hill, this hill, David took this Zion Hill, and there he made the temple, or Solomon, his son built the temple, and there is the place where people should worship. There, Christ came. They said, no, no, we’re to worship in Samaria. And but yet, they accepted the Pentateuch. They accepted as much as the Bible, the Bible as they want.

Now, I don’t think that I will have to spell it out and mark it in red ink for you to see how much heresy there is these days, believing what we want to believe, emphasizing what we want to emphasize, and following along in one path, but rejecting another, doing one thing but refusing another; and thus become heretics in that were pickers and choosers among the truths of God. And that is Samaritan worship.

And then, there’s pagan worship. It would take a five-foot shelf of books for me to attempt, even if I were able to do it. I could do it the way the rest of them do, to take a course of reading for a year, and then write the book. They all do that. But, I could go back if I wanted to and search into the worship of the early Egyptians. In fact, I do have their books, the Egyptian “Book of the Dead” and the Upanishads and the writings of Zoroaster, and Buddha; you know he didn’t write, others wrote for him, and the Laws of Manu and all the rest. If we wanted to do it, we could make a case and preach for two weeks if anybody would listen about the worship of the pagans, the heathen worship. Paul talks about it. And Paul hasn’t a kind thing to say about it. He condemns it outright and downright, and says, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imagination. Their foolish heart was darkened. And down they went from God to man, and from man to bird, from bird to beast, from beast, to fishing, to creeping things that wriggled on the earth. That was man’s terrible trip downward in his worship.

And then there is nature worship, I admit and frankly say to you that I have more sympathy with this than I do liberalism. But at the same time, it won’t do, for nature worship is but the poetry of religion. You know, religion does have a lot of poetry in it, and it properly does have and should have. We sang a lot of poetry tonight didn’t we, a lot of poetry. And most everybody smiles and shrugs and says, oh, I’m no poet. I don’t care for poetry, but they do. They do. You get a fellow excited and let him tell you something he’s seen. And instantaneously he’ll fall into metaphors and similes and figures of speech. He’s a poet and they say, he doesn’t know it. And we’re all poets. We’re all poets and religion brings poetry out more than any any other occupation that the mind can be engaged in. And there’s a lot that is very beautiful about religion. There is a high enjoyment in the contemplation of the Divine and sublime. And the concentration of the mind upon beauty always brings a high sense of enjoyment.

Well, that’s nature worship. And some mistake this nature worship, this rapt feeling, for true worship. You remember that Emerson said, and Emerson was no Christian; Emerson said that he once he had on occasion walking across a field at night after a rain, with the sun shining on the little puddles of water all over the meadow. He had suddenly been, his mind had been elevated to a place of such happiness that he was full of fear. He said, I was so happy, I was afraid. He was simply a pagan poet is all. And a lot of, a whole lot of worship that’s going on these days is nothing else but pagan poetry, nature worship. Some mistake the music of religion as true worship, because music elevates the mind. Music raises the heart to near rapture. Music can lift our feelings to ecstasy. Music has a purifying, a purging effect upon us. So that it’s possible to fall into a happy and elevated state of mind with a vague notion about God and imagine that we’re worshiping God when we’re doing nothing of the sort. We are simply enjoying; it is that which God put in us in which even sin hasn’t been able yet to kill. I don’t think there’s any poetry in hell. I can’t think there’s any poetry in hell. I can’t believe that among the terrible sewage of the moral world there’s going to be anybody break into similes and metaphors. And I can’t conceive of anyone breaking into song in that terrible hell. We read about it in heaven because it belongs there. But as far as I know my Bible, we never hear about it in hell. We hear about conversation in hell, but we don’t hear about song because there’s no song there. There’s no poetry there. There’s no music there. But there’s plenty of it on Earth; even among the unsaved persons, because they were once made in the image of God.

And so while they have lost God from their mind, they still appreciate the sublime. Certain men have written books; Edmund Burke wrote a book on the sublime. Another fellow with an odd name that sounds like watch, an old Latin, wrote a great book on the sublime. And there’s much that’s sublime in the world and beautiful. For beauty, you know, the sublimity, is beauty of the mind in contradistinction to, to use a long word, beauty of the eye and the ear.

Music is the beauty that the ear recognizes. And certain other beautiful things the eye recognize. But when the heart hears nothing and sees nothing, but only feels, then it’s the music of the heart. It is beauty within the spirit. And so, we can have that and still not worship God at all, or be accepted of God. I repeat that we can be nature lovers and nature worshipers, and music worshipers and poetry worshipers and pagan worshipers and Samaritan pickers and choosers and Cain worshipers without blood. And God Almighty sternly rejected all and says, I’ll have nothing to do with it. And Jesus our Lord said God is Spirit and they that worship Him must, now, I want you to see that word, that imperative there. God is Spirit and they that worship Him “must.” The word “must” clears away all mist of obscurity, and takes worship out of the hands of men.

You know, man wants to worship God, but he wants to worship God the way he wants to worship God. So did Cain. So did the Samaritans, and so have they down the years, and God rejected it all. And our Lord Jesus said, God is Spirit and they that worship Him “must.” Now, there’s your imperative. There is no tolerance. There is no broad spirit. There is the sharp, pinpointing effect, so that the every man in his own way policy is completely rejected.

I thought I would like to read in your hearing. Now, don’t brace yourself and say I wish I had stood and stayed home. because it won’t be long. I think there are only eight or nine lines. I picked this out because I said I’d like to have these friends of mine know what I’m talking about, when I talk about the worship that God rejects, the worship that God doesn’t receive; the every man in his own way kind of work. Now, here it is at its purest. This is written by Edwin Markham.

Edwin Markham was a western man and he’s American. He’s dead now. He wrote, “The Man with the Hoe” and Lincoln, and a few other great poems. But when he started talking about God, he talked just like Cain, and just like the Samaritans, and just like everybody else who hasn’t been renewed by the Holy Ghost. Here’s what he said, I choose this as symbolic of, or typical or rather, typical of the whole world of poetry. I have big books of religious poetry that goes way back into the beginning when men first began to write poetry about his gods and it comes down the years.

Now here we have an American who lived in the 20th century, and who was brought up where a church’s steeples were everywhere were jumping up into the clouds and where church bells could be heard every morning. And here’s what this fellow wrote about his search for God. And this indicates what the human mind can do even surrounded by Bibles and church bells. He said, I made a pilgrimage to find the God. Now, this is an American talking, mind you, when I say that, every man in his own way. Every time our dear friend in the White House who has an occasion to mention religion, he’s always careful to grovel before everybody and say, now it’s every man in his own way remember, every man in his own way.

God bless him. He’s a good man. But he’s in a tight spot there. So it’s every man in his own way worship. That’s the religion of Washington and I suppose most everywhere else. I made a pilgrimage to find the God he said. And I listened for His voice at holy tombs. I might comment here, if you will allow, that it seems an odd place to go to hear God. When he was looking for the God he says and he listened for his voice at holy tombs. I don’t know where there is any holy tombs and there’s nobody in a tomb that could say anything. I think you’d get less conversation in a tomb than anywhere else, but we’ll pass that up. I searched for the print of his immortal feet in dust of broken altars, yet turned back with empty heart.

Now, this is typical of about 1000 poems that have been written by more or less frustrated old, frustrated women, and men who came up to Kadesh-Barnea and wouldn’t cross over. People who came to the altar and wouldn’t die. So they write themselves plaintive poems about how they searched for what they call “the God.” But he says now it always turns out this way. I could finish the last lines of these poems It always turns out this way. But he says, “on the homework road, a great light came upon me, and I heard God’s voice singing in a nestling lark.” In the first place, nestling larks don’t sing. But in the second place, in the second place, he said he heard God singing like a bird. And then he said, I felt his sweet wonder and a swaying rose and received his blessing from a wayside well, and looked on his beauty in a lover’s face, saw his bright hand send signals from the sun.

Now, there you have it Brethren. Now, that wasn’t no crazy man. And that was no medicine man from New Guinea. Here’s a man whose poetry is in every anthology. He writes among the minor poets of the world. And he goes out looking for God, the God, he said. And he searches for him the first place in graveyards. He didn’t find him there, and he looked at broken alters. He didn’t find him there. Then, on the way back he hears a bird singing and says, that God. And he sees a happy face lover holding hands with his girlfriend and says that’s God. And he sees a rose waving in the wind. He says, that’s God. And so he comes home and writes himself a poem.

Now that, my dear friends is what you call nature worship. That’s finding God everywhere, and incidentally, finding God nowhere. For that is Cain worship. That is the worship without blood. That’s worship without knowledge. Jesus said, they that worship Him must, and He settled forever, that He’s going to tell us how we should worship God. And here’s a man who said, God formed the living flame and He gave the reasoning mind, then only He may claim the worship of mankind. So that instead of our worshipping God every man after his own fashion, now remember, there’s only one way to worship Him. I am the way, the truth and the life, and no man cometh unto the Father but by Me. And so instead of being kindly and charitable by allowing an idea to stand that God accepts worship from anybody, anywhere; I’m injuring, jeopardizing the future of the man that I allow to get away with that.

And I could not possibly be a politician. I could not. When they met in Chicago here,  the Democrats met in Chicago, they had different preachers open with prayer every day you know. And I confessed in my heart, curled up in scorn when I heard these preachers pray. They were so afraid that they were going to insult a Jew or make the Mohammedan feel bad, that they picked as carefully as though they were walking among men for fear they’d hurt somebody’s feelings and mention Jesus in their prayers.

But, when they got out to San Francisco in the Cow Barn, and they asked a Presbyterian preacher to pray, I could, I think I was lying down listening to the radio, listen to a rebroadcast at night, and I was dumbfounded with joy. That Presbyterian preacher ended, “this we ask in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.” You Jews can take it, you Mohammedens can take it, you atheists can take it, you pussy-footers and every man in his own way, you can take it says the Presbyterian preacher, “this I ask in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. And I’d never make a politician never. Because, if I have to scratch the back of every Samaritan, I can’t do it. And if I have to scratch Cain’s back and say, “you’ll make it too boy.” And if I have to pick up the nature lover and the music and poetry lover thinking is worshiping God because He feels good inside, and pat him on the back and say it’s all right with you, I would be violating my commission as a child of God and a prophet of the Most High.

So, I could never stand and deliver a whole speech. I’d get something in there about the blood and the Redeemer. I’d do like Isaac Watts did when he tried to put the Psalms into meter. He would just get into a Psalm where there wasn’t anything about Jesus, he’d put a verse in. Remember that?  You would always have a stanza in there before he would get through? Well, amen.

And now, God is Spirit and they that worship Him must. And these altars of Baal, these churches where they pray in the spirit of Jesus, and in the spirit of good, and in the name of the great all father, and in the name of brotherhood. They even pray in the name of brotherhood. Well, it’s too bad. And hear now the truth, the Truth Himself. The Truth Himself incarnated says, God is Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.  A worshipper must submit to truth, or you can’t worship God. He can write poems and he can get elevations of thought when he sees a sunrise. He can hear the fledgling lark sing, and fledgling larks don’t sing. And he can do all sorts of things, but he can’t worship God acceptably. Because to do so means that he’s got to submit to the truth about God.  As God is who He says He is, and God is what He says He is. And he’s got to admit that Christ is who He says He is, and what He says He is. And he’s got to admit the truth about himself that he’s as bad a sinner as God says he is. And he has to admit the truth of atonement, that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses and delivers from that sin. And he has to come God’s way. He must have been renewed after the image of Him that created Him. Only the renewed man can worship God acceptably. Only the redeemed man can worship God acceptably.

So, these people who have churches, and pray in the name of the all good and the all father, I’d rather go out and walk in the park with my New Testament than attend them. I don’t know how you feel about it, but I can find my God, not the god in a rose, but I could find the God who sits enthroned on high and by His side sits One whose name is Jesus, having all power in heaven and in earth. I could commune with God walking out on the street, rather than worshiping at an altar of Baal. A Man must have been renewed. He must have had an infusion of the Spirit of Truth.

Somebody prayed somewhere tonight, I heard in one of the meetings. Somebody prayed and said that if the Holy Ghost doesn’t do these things, it will be wood, hay and stubble, and he’s certainly right, wood, hay and stubble. My worship will never reach higher than the top of my own head. And the God in heaven will refuse it as He refused the worship of Cain. For the effort to worship, Cain’s effort to worship, though created to worship God, sin has made it impossible for me to know how to worship God, except truth enlightens me. And I have in my hand, the book that enlightens Me. Here is the light that lighteth every man that will read it. And Jesus Christ is the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, and the light of the human heart and the light of the Book harmonize, and when the eyes of the soul look to the Book of God, into the Living Word of God, then we know the truth, and we can worship God in truth. And we can worship God in Spirit, for remember that in the Old Testament, no priest could offer a sacrifice until he had been anointed with oil. He had to be anointed with oil, symbolic of the Spirit of God. No man can worship out of his own heart. Let him search among the flowers. Let him search among birds nests, in tombs, and wherever he chooses to worship God. He cannot worship out of his own heart. Only the Holy Ghost can worship God acceptably. And He must in us, reflect back the glory of God. The Spirit comes down to us and reflects back to God. And if it does not reach our hearts, there’s no reflecting back and no worship.

Oh, how big and broad and comprehensive and wonderful the work of Christ is. That’s why I can’t have too much sympathy for the kind of Christianity that makes it out that the gospel is to save a fellow from smoking. Well, I think so too.  If anybody is smoking, he’s on fire, and I think that they ought to put that out. Or, that it saves a man from drinking, and I think that any man that will take into his stomach what will knock the brains out of his head ought to quit that. So, I don’t believe in drinking either. But my friends, is that all Christianity is, to keep me from some bad habits; so I won’t play the ponies, beat my wife, or lie to my mother in law? Of course, regeneration will clean that up. Of course, the new birth will make a man right. But the purpose of God in redemption is to restore us again to the divine imperative of worship, so that we can hear God say again, so shall the king greatly desire thy beauty, Psalm 45. For He is thy Lord, worship thou Him. We’re to be worshipers, my friend. The Methodists conquered the world with their joyous religion because they were worshipers. When they ceased to be worshipers, their religion ceased to have the same effect and power that it used to have. But how big and broad and comprehensive it is. God wants you to be regenerated in order that you might be capable of worship. In all these succeeding nights, I want to tell you what worship is. I want to tell you how worship is admiration, how worship is adoration, how worship is fascination.

But I’ll close tonight. I read in your hearing about that man who looked for God everywhere and didn’t find the print of His immortal feet among the broken altars for the simple reason, God isn’t running around there. And there’s a whole lot more like it,  but it all goes the same way. But listen to this man, Glory be to God the Father. Glory be to God the Son. Glory be to God the Spirit, great Jehovah three in One. Glory, Glory while eternal ages run. He knew who he was worshipping, didn’t he? He knew how. He knew why. Glory be to Him who loved us, washed us from each spot and stain. Glory be to Him you bought us and made us kings with him to reign. Glory, Glory to the Lamb that once was slain. Who wrote that? Wesley didn’t write that. Horatio Bonar wrote that, the Scotch preacher. Glory, blessing, praise eternal thus the choir of angels sings, honor, riches, power, dominion, thus His praised creation brings; glory, glory, glory to the King of Kings. There’s worship. He knew what it was all about.

They that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. And when you begin to talk about the Lamb that was slain and the blood that was shed, and God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, then you’re living in truth. You’re worshiping in truth. And when the Spirit of God takes over, we worship in Spirit. So we worship in spirit and in truth.

Oh, friends, God created you to worship Him. And when fundamentalism lost her power to worship, she invented religious claptrap to make her happy. And that’s why I have hated it, and preached against it and condemned it, all down these years. And they’re coming around to my position now by the dozens and scores who used to be afraid to say they’ll open their mouths, or used to be afraid to stand against this claptrap. Ventriloquists with wooden dummies on their knee and wood on top of their necks, worshiping God supposedly. Worshiping God and claiming to serve the Lord. And having the only joy they have is the joy that is of the flesh. And Elvis Presley is a happier man after he gets through with a number, and a lot of Christians are after they work themselves up for half an hour. You don’t have to do it Brother.

The well of the Holy Ghost is an effervescing artesian well and you don’t have to prime the pump. They that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. And the silver waters of the Holy Ghost flooding up out of the redeemed and cleansed heart of a worshipping man is as sweet and beautiful to God as the loveliest diamond that studs a throne.  We need to learn how to worship. I’m going down to Norfolk, Virginia one of these times, not too long. I will be gone a short time, but I’m down there for two days, and they tell me that the Intervarsity from three states are going to converge on Norfolk. And you know what they are coming for? We want you to teach us to worship.

Oh, brother, God will never bless me for that, that is, He will never reward me for that, because I have a theory God doesn’t reward you for doing something you like to do. And I’ll never get any reward for going down there and preaching about something I love to do. But to talk to young college people about worshiping God, what archangel wouldn’t want to do that. What cherabim before the throne wouldn’t envy me. The happy task of trying to turn our young people away from nonsense, to worship the living God. So shall the King greatly desire thy beauty, for He is thy Lord, worship thou Him.

.