Tag: Pride

“Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled”

Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

June 19, 1955

In John 14, verse 1, let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in Me.

Now, I approach the passage that lies ahead of us, John 14, 15, 16, particularly these opening verses with feelings that are somewhat mixed for two reasons. This passage is to the believing and enlightened heart a gallery filled with the most ravishing beauty. It is a treasure house where it is located. It seems to me the very gold with which the streets in heaven are paved, and the very jewels that are on the walls of the city of God.

And yet, this passage, particularly these opening verses of John 14, this passage has had the hard fortune of being made into a funeral text almost exclusively. And yet, it is not a funeral text, clearly it is not a funeral text.

And that leads me to say that the usefulness of many Scriptures and many hymns has been limited not by the Scripture or the hymn itself, but because they have been applied in a way to limit them.

For instance, here is John 14, let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in me, and in my Father’s house are many mansions. That’s not a funeral text, there was nobody dead there, they were burying nobody. This was Scripture preliminary to our Lord’s death certainly, but He was not talking about His death, He was talking about and to His people.

And then 1 Corinthians also, that brilliant and penetrating passage dealing with the future, the future life and the glorified bodies of men. That has been turned into a funeral sermon, and you never hear it any other time.

And then Revelation 21, that passage that says, I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, well, that passage had nothing to do with a funeral. It says that that city was prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. That’s a wedding passage, not a funeral passage. And yet you never hear Revelation 21 except at a funeral. You never hear John 14 or 1 Corinthians 15 except at a funeral.

Have you noticed that the hymns of the Incarnation are limited to Christmas season, when everybody’s too busy to give them much attention? And the hymns of the Resurrection are limited to the Easter season.

Now that is the way we do it, and yet it is just in the daily grind that we need these passages. It is just in the kitchen and the office and the home and the school and the shop and the factory and on the highway. It’s just in the downright tough business of living that we need John 14. It’s not when we die only, but it is when we’re alive here on the earth.

And we need Revelation 21. We need the knowledge that there is a city foursquare adorned as a bride for her husband coming down from God out of heaven. We need to know it then. And it is the Incarnation that would cheer our spirits, the knowledge that God has come to dwell with mankind. Why limit that to Christmas? Yet we do it habitually. And Christ the Lord is risen today, hallelujah, sons of men and angels say hallelujah. We limit that to Easter and hear it one time out of the year.

Now I believe that this is all wrong, because I believe that the power of the Incarnation lies not in one time a year but lies and resides in the church of Christ for all the year round. I believe that the glory of the Resurrection is not for one Sunday out of the year, but it is for fifty-two Sundays out of the year, plus all of the days that lie in between.

Now our Lord Jesus Christ said, now that’s the reason that I hesitate to enter this, because people say, Brother Tozer is preaching a series of funeral sermons, I think I’ll stay home and watch television. I hope you don’t get that idea, because this is not Scripture that you use at funerals only, but it is good for all the days and all the times.

Now our Lord said, let not your heart be troubled, and this presupposes a world of troubled hearts. The wicked are like the troubled sea, says the Holy Ghost, that cannot rest. Sin, you see, has destroyed our peace. You know, it is a noteworthy thing that the only place where you will find distress and disharmony and lack of uniformity is in the realm of the moral. You never find it anywhere in nature.

The sun sets and rises in peace, and rises and sets again in peace, and it can be predicted for centuries to come. And if you look on the front page of your newspaper, it will tell you exactly the minute the sun will rise and the minute the sun will set. And if they wanted to do it, they could tell you the phases of the moon all the way through, and they could tell you what star would be in the ascendancy at what given day and what given moment. Their heavenly bodies move in perfect and beautiful precision.

And so, it is with the seasons. They come and go harmoniously, and the wild geese fly to the north at the right time and back to the south right at the exact time, and all of nature moves harmoniously. And it is even so with man’s machinery. Man has invented machines that are better than the men who invented them.

We had a clock back there that amazed us one day by stopping. It was an electric clock, and you know how long it had been running without a drop of oil, without anybody tinkering with it, nor touching it, nor even dusting it, nor cleaning it. It had been running nearly twenty years in this auditorium. And when it stopped one day, we said, what in the world has happened? We forgot that man had made an electric clock that for nearly twenty years kept perfect time and never had any disharmony, nor trouble, nor discord, never quarreled with itself, had a nervous breakdown, or got a complex.

Man made a machine that’s better than he is, a machine that can do what he can’t do. It is only when you enter the realm of morals, where there is will and personality, where people are made in the image of God, it is only there that you find disharmony.

Now I call attention, this is not really a part of the sermon, but I call attention to the fact that man can make a machine that will run untended for days and weeks and months and will with great and beautiful precision do what it was created to do.

But that same man, strange and contradictory as it may seem, that same man capable of making a machine that can run smoothly and with perfect internal harmony, that same man can’t achieve the harmony that he can put into his machine. The reason being that the machine works according to mathematical laws and mechanical laws, whereas man runs all twisted and crooked and out of order because sin has done him in.

The clock can’t sin, the birds that fly north and south aren’t sinners, and the heavenly bodies as they move haven’t sinned, and the seasons come and go without sin, and the worm crawls on the leaf without sin, wraps himself in a cocoon and stays so many weeks and comes out a butterfly in the spring. There’s been no sin there to disrupt the order of nature. But if you want turmoil and agitation, you’ll find it in the realm of personality and morals.

And does not this reveal something, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that men can make machines where there’s no discord in, and that the heavenly bodies and all of nature can run in harmony, and it’s only when we come into the realm of personality and morals that we find turmoil and agitation?

Does not this tell us something about ourselves that we’d rather not hear? Does it not tell us that people are spiritually sick? Doesn’t it tell us that there is in the human mind and heart a foreign, wild element that shouldn’t be there? Doesn’t it tell us that man has broken loose from his central sun and is no longer revolving in his proper orbit? Doesn’t it tell us that he’s a vagabond and a fugitive on the earth and a stranger from God? It certainly does.

Jesus said, Let not your heart be troubled. I’m so glad to tell you that the Man who said that a little while later went out and died on a cross. The Man who said that didn’t write it into a book and draw all royalties that would buy Him a yacht. The Man who said that went out and died on a cross to make it possible for a man to have the peace that he’s never had, and when He said, Let not your heart be troubled, He went straight from saying that to die to make it possible.

I can listen to Him. I can’t listen to the man who writes a book on how to have peace of heart or peace of mind or have peace of conscience, because he is a bestseller and he’s driving a huge car on the proceeds from that book and never turned his finger for anybody. But I can listen to the One who said, Let not your heart be troubled, because He went out on a cross to make good on that, and died and rose again and is at the right hand of God now to make good on that.

And He can build into your heart with such precision a work that will be as harmonious as the heavenly bodies and that will run with all the smoothness of those bodies. Let not your heart be troubled. That indicates that a man does have some control over his heart, particularly a saved man. Don’t let your heart get disturbed, let it not be troubled.

Now I want to talk a little about how men try to find peace. They try to think away their troubles, that’s one way of doing it. But do you know when you think them away what happens to them?

There came a man over here years ago by the name of Émile Coué, he was a Frenchman. He said, when you get up in the morning, take a deep breath, stand and square back your shoulders and say, every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.

It was a big joke throughout the United States, a big joke. Every day and every way I’m getting better and better. Every day and every way I’m getting better and better. He said that that would create a positive conviction within your heart and that you would wonderfully move in the direction. It was sailing on the beam before there was any beam. He was creating a beam with a string and some buttons. And the beam was, in every day, in every way I’m getting better and better. And one day he dropped dead. He died, did you know that? He dropped dead, God bless him.

I don’t know where he is, but I know that you can think your troubles away, but they come back on you. And if you drop dead, they come back on your family and very likely come back on you and the world to come. No, you see, the disease is too deep. You can’t cure it by thinking about it.

They tell me now, this I say with caution because I have not checked it with doctors and nurses who might have had experience with it. But they tell me that one ingredient or a mental ingredient, one psychological ingredient in tuberculosis is the cheerfulness of the patient, that when everybody else knows they’re dying, they think they’re going to be all right. And when everybody knows they have only a few weeks to live, they’ll be laying plans for months and years to come and be as cheerful as can be.

Now, I don’t know if that’s true. I know it’s true in the case I know about. A woman was buying a farm and she was moving and she was going to do this and that and everybody knew the poor woman was dying. Now, something about it, cheerful and optimistic, I don’t know what it is, but they say that’s characteristic of certain forms and certain stages of tuberculosis.

And that’s also characteristic of certain developments in human sin, that we can cheer ourselves up and believe we’re all right when we’re dead wrong and God knows we’re on our way to judgment. But we get a strange optimism, an unusual sense of well-being, and everybody in heaven knows and God above knows that in a very short time we’ll be gone, and we’ll face our Maker without a protector or a shield to account for the deeds done in the body. Everybody knows it but the victim.

So, some try to get peace by thinking their troubles away. Others try to get peace in a more practical and direct manner by amusements. Now you probably won’t like this and some of you will go home and say, I think the old man is getting some strange notions, but you know what I believe, ladies and gentlemen? I believe that amusements were created by the devil to take the minds of dying men off of their dying. I believe that entertainments and amusements are the work of the enemy to keep dying men from knowing they’re dying, and to keep enemies, men who are enemies of God, from remembering that they’re enemies.

Today there were thousands, I would guess a couple of three hundred thousand people watching doubleheader ballgames. Now that in itself is harmless, of course, but if those several hundred, maybe three hundred thousand people today, or two hundred thousand that watch ballgames, had taken those two or three hours with their Bible to settle eternal issues, heaven would be populated, and hell would be less full than it will be.

But fallen human nature plus the work of the devil have given us something to keep us thinking harmless thoughts and pleasant thoughts in order that we might not settle the matter of our eternal soul’s welfare. The man who comes home at night, God in his heaven knows, and nobody else does, that just three weeks away is a coronoid thrombosis that’ll drop him on the sidewalk. God knows it, and he doesn’t, and his family doesn’t. If he knew it, he’d be calling in the preacher and reading his Bible and getting straight with God.

But why isn’t he going to call in anybody and get right with God? Too many funny things on the radio, too many funny things on TV, too many life magazines, too many comic strips, too many things that he can do, too many bowling clubs, too many theaters, too many night ballgames, too much everything to take his mind off of the fact that his troubles are real and that the agitation and disharmony and discord within him are the result of his fall and his sin. And if he could know that and didn’t have so many things to take his mind off his troubles, maybe he would get to God and get delivered from his troubles.

Now if that’s radicalism, you can quote me, I don’t care. I believe that. I believe that play and all of these things which might in themselves be harmless, I suppose in heaven there will be play.

Somebody told me the other day, God bless them, I don’t remember whether it was a man or a woman, but somebody said to me, do you know, Mr. Tozer, I believe there will be children in heaven. I don’t think that heaven, be it the human race, I don’t think it would be normal without having children in heaven. I don’t know about that, I have no authority on such matters, but if we don’t have any children to run around up there and make it a nice place to live, we’ll have something equivalent to them, if there is any equivalent for them. We’ll have something up there like it, I’m sure, I’m positive of that. And I believe that God will give to His people delights, and plenty of delights.

Old John Flavel wrote a brilliant and convincing sermon a century or so ago, showing that heaven wasn’t a place where you quit living and where you reached your goal and where maturity stopped all activity. But he said as long as the ages rolled, there would be happy, joyous activities, growth and development on toward Godlikeness forever. I believe he’s right. I believe that when earth’s last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried and the oldest colors have faded and the youngest critic has died, we shall rest in faith we shall need it, lie down for an e’en or two, till the master of all good workmen shall set us to work anew.

And then writes Kipling how we shall go on and on working through the ages. I believe that. And I believe there will be pleasure, and I believe that there will be entertainments and amusements and all to take the heart of man and make it glad.

But then a man will have a right to rest and he’ll have a right to those things. But a sinner has no right to anything. He has no right. I mean his own moral right. No sinner has a right to look at a TV screen until his soul has been right with God. No man has a right to take an evening off to watch a ballgame whose soul is not right with God. He has no right to do it. He’s sinning against himself, he’s committing spiritual suicide, he’s killing himself, doing anything until he gets right with God. So that amusements are at least used, if the devil didn’t send them, since man’s sinful heart is using them in amusements and competitive sports.

And then of course there’s always this other terrible things, alcohol and narcotics. Men drink, say the psychologists, to escape from themselves. And it is my conviction that much of the love of music in the day in which we live, certain kinds of music particularly, is nothing and can be explained only as an escape from themselves.

I’ve been in music stores looking over some good records, trying to find some nice and good records, and we’ve got some wonderful records. And I have seen them come in with Levi’s so tight that only God, I think, knows how they got into them, and sideburns, and too much hair, and a general dirty look that indicates, you know, a lack of something. And then go into one of those rooms and sit there entranced and listen to the wildest music. And they buy them by the tens of thousands, buy them by the millions. Why? To escape from themselves. The average young fellow can’t live with himself, he’s got too much trouble inside.

So, all the carefree hours of youth, that’s what you think. If you’d get into the heart of the average young fellow in these late teens, you’d find not peace there at all, but trouble. Get into the heart of the average young woman full of quips, and fun, and jokes, and springy step and all the rest, and you think, oh, to be young.

No, don’t you remember when you were afraid of everything, and you were worried about everything, and you were afraid to go to bed, and you were miserable? Don’t you remember when you were young? All the trouble and distress there is in the world, you can’t cure it with music. You can’t cure it with fast music, and you can’t cure it with soft music, and you can’t cure it at all except the One who came and said, let not your heart be troubled, and went out and died to make it possible. He can cure it. Christ gave the prescription, believe in God. Believe in Me. Believe in God. Now, He didn’t say understand God. You see, we got into our present confusion by unbelief, and unbelief is a fundamental loss of confidence in God. That’s unbelief.

Men say, oh, I wish I could believe. You know what you’re saying? You’re saying, I wish I could stop thinking that God isn’t trustworthy. A fundamental loss of confidence in God, that’s unbelief, and that’s what got us into our present condition. Is this so bad, then? Is this so bad? Why do you preachers talk about unbelief? Is it so bad?

Well, let me illustrate it. You go up to a friend of yours, a neighbor, or a friend of yours, a fellow with whom you bowled or played cards or something else. You go up to him sometime, look him in the face and say, Jim, I have lost confidence in you, I no longer trust you, I no longer believe what you say, I no longer have any confidence in your character. You know what would happen? You’d lose him like that.

There would be instantaneous alienation of heart between you two. Maybe for a minute he’d plead and say, but Ed, what do you mean? What have I done? What have I done? Well, I find it totally impossible to believe in you, Jim. I find it totally impossible to have any confidence in your character, in your honesty, in your trustworthiness. I have absolutely no confidence in you. I can’t trust you. I wouldn’t trust you with a dime. By that time, you and he are no longer friends.

Now turn that same thing on to the Mighty God in heaven above. For nobody would have the courage to say that, but that’s what unbelief says, nevertheless. Unbelief says, I have no confidence in God. God says it, but I don’t know whether it’s so. It’s in the Bible, and I believe the Bible, but still, I can’t believe it for myself. I can’t pump up any confidence in God myself. Ah, that’s dreadful because of who God is.

I quoted over the radio what St. Anselm said about God. He said, God is that which needs nothing to make Him complete, but which everything needs to make Him complete, is complete. God is that which everything needs to make it complete. There isn’t a star that’s complete without God. There isn’t a sea that can roll without God. There isn’t a mountain that can stand without God. There isn’t a bird that can sing without God. There isn’t a worm that can crawl without God. There isn’t a planet that can revolve without God. There isn’t an angel that’s complete without God. There isn’t a human soul that’s complete without God.

Withdraw God from creation and you have chaos and all night. God is that which everything needs to make it complete, but God is that which needs nothing to make him complete. He is complete in himself without any addition, but nothing is complete without God. God is the adhesive agent that holds the entire creation together.

So, loss of confidence in God, you know what results. Loss of confidence in God means internal chaos. Faith brings peace. Believe in God. And doubt brings discord, disharmony, and trouble.

Heaven is going to be a place of perfect peace because it will be a place of perfect confidence. Nobody in heaven will be whispering behind his hand about God. Everybody there will have perfect, restful confidence in the character of God. So we’ll have perfect confidence and perfect peace.

Hell will be a place where there will be no confidence in God, hence perfect hell. Hell will be hell not because of fire and worms, though they’re in the Bible too, but hell will be hell because there is no confidence in God and all faith is banished into night. Earth, on the other hand, is a place where there is a little faith and a little peace and much unbelief and much trouble.

And always remember that trouble goes along with unbelief and peace goes along with faith. But faith in what? Faith in whom? A man pulled out a fountain pen one time and he said, I believe in faith. Faith in that fountain pen, if I have enough faith in that fountain pen, I can move mountains.

I was buying some books the other day, that is, I was in looking over books, and I saw one, Faith Made Them Champions. I didn’t read the book, I wouldn’t be caught dead buying it, but I know what it said because I looked through it. I have a way of getting an education at the expense of the man who sells the books, browsing around. And what it said was that this one was a golf champion because he had faith. This one was a baseball champion, he had faith. This one was a great theatrical leader, he had faith.

All having faith, faith in what? Faith in a fountain pen? Oh no, brother, ye believe in God, believe also in Me. The faith I have in a fountain pen will come back to plague me and curse me, but the faith I have in God stabilizes me and the universe.

Believe also in Me, said Jesus. Let not your heart be troubled. What are you going to do then? Take a hold of your heart and steady it as old what’s-his-name steadied the ark? No. You can’t make your heart behave by hanging on to it and putting cushioned springs under it. Your heart will be agitated like hell and filled with confusion and misery until you believe in God and believe in Christ. That stabilizes the heart, puts the stabilizer on and holds it steady. Well, believe also in me.

Now, I want to say, and I might as well say it now, that faith in Christ is possible only where there is a previous faith in God. Ye believe in God, believe also in Me. Believe in God. Most versions don’t have the word, ye, on it, just says believe in God, believe in me. I have said a hundred times and maybe more from this pulpit that the greatest thought the mind can entertain is God and the greatest word in the universe is God is. Until we can say, I believe God is, you can never believe in the Son of God. It takes a previous faith in God.

There is a lot of talk about the unbeliever coming to the great companion, the great white companion, all that stuff. The man upstairs, all nonsense.

There’s got to be a basic faith in God. How could there be a Son of God until there was God? How could God give His only begotten Son if you did not believe there was a God to give His only begotten Son? Believe in God. And Jesus Christ, our Lord, said, believe in God.

In another place, Mark, the eleventh chapter. So, I say believe in God tonight. Dust off your brain and think a bit and say to yourself, I’m going to believe in God. I’m going to believe in the character of God. I’m going to believe that God doeth all things well. I’m going to believe what the Bible says about God. I’m going to be a believer in God. Believe in God. Get that settled.

God is. God created. God made. God spake. God is here. Believe in God. And having believed in God, believe also in his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

You can believe in God in the sense that you could believe He is, and that’s some confidence. You can believe He’s holy, and that’s more confidence. You can believe He’d just, and that’s more confidence. You can believe He’s love, and that’s still more confidence.

But how can you get right with a God who is holy and just unless there is somebody to take away that alienation? When your heart down in the years somewhere said, I can’t trust God, you notified God you no longer believe in Him or never did believe in Him. You believe He’s up there, but you don’t believe that you can trust Him. And you live your life to show you’re not trusting Him. So that’s alienation. It’s alienation. Paul called it reconciliation. He said, be ye reconciled to God. There’s reconciliation needed there.

So, this Jim and Ed that I talked about, Ed goes to Jim and says, I don’t have confidence in you. I believe I can’t trust you. I can’t trust your word. I can’t trust your conduct. I wouldn’t trust you in my home. That’s alienation. That’s enmity.

How are they going to get together? Who’s going to take one in one hand and one in the other and bring them together? Who’s going to do it? I don’t know that. But when man said by his conduct, I don’t have any confidence in God, and that great alienation took place and the soul of man was broken off from the heart of God, I know there was somebody who knew how to get them together. God became man.

And so, He could represent God because He was God, and He could represent man because He was man. And He laid a hand on them both and brought them together. Believe also in Me. Not fountain pens, positive things. Believe in me, Jesus Christ, who am your Brother.

So, He, takes us by the hand and introduces us to the Father. And what is repentance but getting on our knees and telling God we’re sorry we’ve been such heels, as to doubt him? What is repentance but getting before God and saying, O God, I swallow and take back every word I’ve ever said and every thought I’ve ever entertained about Thee that wasn’t holy. I take it back, God, I’m sorry. That’s real repentance.

Real repentance isn’t saying, O God, I stole a dollar from my wife and I turned back the speedometer on my car 10,000 miles when I turned it in and I cheated on my income tax. I suppose that’s a kind of repentance, too. We ought to straighten up those things, surely. But that’s not real repentance, that’s only surface stuff.

Real repentance is going down before God and apologizing to the Majesty in the heavens for our wretched, shoddy treatment of the Holy God. And down on our knees we say before Him, O God, I’ve lived as if you didn’t exist. And I’ve doubted you and I’ve worried and I’ve worried, forgetting that you were there ready to look after me. And I’ve passed over your promises and neglected the Bible and I’ve read everything else and neglected Thy word.

O God, I apologize before Thee right now in the name of Thy Son, for ever doubting Thee. That’s real repentance, brethren. The other things come along, certainly, but that’s basic repentance. Apologize to God Almighty for the shoddy way you have treated Him. Believe in God.

But you’d never straighten that out, never straighten it out. Justice would hound you through the dark recesses of the millenniums to come and find you at last and punish you for the way you have treated God, except you have a daysman, a brother, a kinsman, One who took your mortal flesh to dwell among us and died on a cross to reconcile us to God. He finds us and He reconciles us and He presents us to His Father, and the Father forgives.

My God is reconciled, His pardoning voice I hear. He owns me for His child, I need no longer fear. With confidence I now draw nigh, and Father above, Father I cry.

Reconciled through the blood of the Son, reconciled through Him who died for us. We don’t need angelic helpers; we don’t need saints and virgins. God bless them all, I’m glad they existed, but we don’t need them to help us.

We only need Jesus Christ, who the Bible says is God, and the only mediator between God and man Himself, man, Christ Jesus the Lord. You believe in God, believe also in Me. And You know something, that’ll bring harmony to your heart.

I’m too nervous a man, too imaginative a man, too sharp and able to see things coming and know what’s happening, ever to be a man of any peace, I’d have a nervous breakdown, I’d be gone, would have been years before, except there was a fundamental peace that came because I believe in God and believe also in His Son, Jesus Christ.

Let not your heart be troubled, believe in God and believe in Me, his Son. So simple, so wonderful, it’s faith. Unbelief got us into this mess, faith gets us out. A restoration of confidence in God through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Are you a believer tonight? Do you believe in God? Do you believe in the God of the Bible? Not a homemade, manufactured God of poetry and nonsense, but a God who made heaven and earth, the God who holds up the universe. Do you believe in Him, do you? Do you believe in His Son, Jesus Christ, who died for you. Do you believe in Him? If you do, you have a right to get up and say, my God is reconciled, his pardoning voice I hear, that’s salvation, that’s salvation, that’s how you’re saved, that’s the way you’re saved.

You’re saved by believing in God and his Son, Jesus Christ, and then act in it if you believe it, and tell people you believe it, and the wonderful miracle takes place in your heart. Peace comes, instead of the distress and looking forward to the future.

I never was near death, that I know of, but a doctor scared me nearly to death here a couple of years ago. Between McAfee and the doctor, I was about one short jump from the grave. They wouldn’t even let me walk in. I never was so humiliated in my life. A young woman wheeled me into the hospital room. I could have walked. Not only that, they wouldn’t even let me undress. The doctor told them I was a heart case, watched me, I was about to go. And I never was so humiliated, and I said, ah, let me alone, I’ll undress. She said, no, you won’t. They dragged my clothes off of me and got me into a night gown. And I thought, well, if it’s getting this bad, I must be pretty bad off.

So, I lay there thinking of the world. I’ve always been afraid, you know, I was afraid of the wind when I was a kid, and afraid of dogs, and God knows what I wasn’t afraid of, and I thought it would be time for me to start getting scared.

So, I began to think it over. And I’ll tell you this, there came a great sense of absolute peace, because He had died. And I said, God, maybe I haven’t long to hang around here, but I want you to know one thing, I’m at peace. The blood of Jesus Christ is between me and hell, between me and judgment, between me and any possible harm or loss in the world to come. Then I got all right. And I’m all right now, and the doctor even backed out and told me there’s nothing wrong with my heart. He told me my heart was better than his.

So maybe they just scared me in order to, for a few minutes, let me know whether I could die or not. I had never known before, you know, whether I never went upstairs except three at a time, or two at a time in my life. So there’s peace for those who believe in God and believe in Jesus Christ.

Peace, peace, peace, thank God. Not the lip piece of the Father Divine, not the cheap piece of the psychologist, but a solemn, profound, deep peace that goes to the roots of your being. Believe in God, believe also in me, and then face the world. Amen.

“Jesus’ True Enemies-The Religious Pharisees and Scribes”

Jesus’ True Enemies-The Religious Pharisees and Scribes

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

May 12, 1957

We shall operate, Lord, through us, and that what’s done shall be Thee doing it, and not us. Let Thy blessing be over us. Thou hast been with us, Thou hast been here tonight, and we have quietly heard Thee speak, and heard Thee sing, and we’ve heard Thee singing over Thy church, and joying over them with joy.

Now we beseech Thee that the opening of the Word may be in the Holy Ghost. Let Thy blessing be upon this great city, bless Allen Redpath on the north side, Dr. Hager way out south, and Fesmire Brothers in their churches, and the many other churches round about us. Some gospel churches and some not, but wherever there are gospel churches, O Lord, God bless them this night, Father. And let Satan, let there be out of his vicious hands some who were up until today his slaves. We ask this in Christ’s name. Amen.

In the fifteenth chapter of the book of Luke, the very famous chapter, for it has in it those three parables of Jesus, the opening two verses: then drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners for to hear Him. And the Pharisees and the Scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.

Now there were two kinds of sinners here, publicans and sinners, and they were the nonreligious sinners. And then there were the pharisees and scribes, and they were the religious sinners. Four people, four classes of people, publicans, sinners, pharisees, scribes, and they were all sinners. Only the pharisees and scribes didn’t know they were, and the publicans and sinners knew they were.

Now, it is a most solemn and significant thought that the conflict of Jesus when He was on earth was with religious people. And if you press it further, you will find that the conflict of Jesus was with Orthodox people.

Now, I don’t want to labor this, and I have no wish to make myself odious, but it’s here, and all you have to do is read the New Testament, and you will soon find that there was a sharp line of demarcation drawn with the Lord Jesus on one side and His enemies on the other.

And in the day in which we live, when we think of this conflict of Jesus with His enemies, we put it like this, Jesus over here, and along with Jesus, Alliance and fundamentalist people, and full gospel people, and presidents of Bible institutes, and professors of homiletics, and good church workers, and good board members in Jesus, and evangelists in Jesus, and pastors in Jesus, and good Bible church people in Jesus, that’s on the one side.

And over on the other side, liberals, and horse racers, and Catholics, and men who run saloons, and gangsters, and juvenile delinquents, and harlots, and thieves, they’re over on the other side. Now that’s the neatest division that can be made of humanity. The only trouble is, brothers and sisters, it just isn’t that way.

When our Lord Jesus Christ was on earth, here was the division. Over here was Jesus, and over here was his enemies. And on the side of Jesus, over on his side, there were the harlots, and the publicans, and the sinners, and the cripples, and the blind, and the dumb, and the deaf, and the pagans, and the sick.

And over on the other side were the rulers of the synagogues, and the fundamentalists, and the Pharisees, and the church workers, and the cantors, and the Scripture readers, and those who read the Law of Moses daily or weekly in the synagogues.

I think it’s one of the most awful thoughts that the human mind can entertain, that Jesus Christ, when He came down from heaven’s pure glory to walk among men, that unsullied soul of His that never knew the faintest shadow of a wrong thought, that Jesus who was higher than the highest sinners and removed infinitely from them, yet walked among them without soil, and that the only enemies He found when He was here were not only religious people,

But His own religious people, the Jews, and His people who expounded the Scriptures rightly. He did not rebuke their position, their doctrinal position. He did not rebuke them and say, you don’t expound the Scriptures right. You don’t rightly divide it. Here you’re wrong on page 3, chapter 8, verse 6. You’re wrong. He didn’t say that. For those His enemies were the expounders and the conservators of orthodoxy, and the very ones where righteousness should have dwelt. But nevertheless, they were those who said, this man receiveth sinners, and they could tighten up their white lips and hiss that word sinner to make it sound like a serpent.

My brothers and sisters, I draw from this this conclusion that religion without love is a dangerous thing. And if I were going to go through life and finally perish at last and be without God in the world to come, and only wanted to have as good a time as I could while I was going through the world, I would choose deliberately and of purpose to live among irreligious people who don’t go to church and who do not particularly care to hear the Word of God and who would rather sing a popular number than sing a hymn, provided those on the other side. That are the ones who do love to go to church and hear the hymns sung and the gospel preached had not love in their hearts.

Because religion without love can be as damning and as destructive as the worst atheism in the wide world. And these unblessed religionists that hounded and dogged Jesus, they did it, they hounded and dogged Jesus until finally they put Him where they had planned to put Him on a Roman gibbet. And there he hung and blood streamed down off His side and ran off His toes in stringy dribbles down onto the hard rocks below.

And they who put Him there were not the unbelievers. They were not the Romans. They were not the pagans. They were not the harlots. They were not the publicans. They were the Scribes and the Pharisees and the priests and the high priests and lovers of the synagogue and the good and moral people. They put Him out there to die. And now I say to this to you, sir, that there is such a thing as a morality that is infinitely iniquitous.

There is such a thing as a righteousness that is boundlessly vile. There is such a thing as a goodness that will be fuel for the fires of hell. There is such a thing as a morality that spits in the face of God.

And so, these religionists, these good moral people, who had no idea in the wide world but what they should finally go sweeping into heaven and have God Almighty himself come forward and take a bow and admit them into the holy and eternal world with great rejoicing. And yet here was that same God whose heaven they hoped to enter. There was this same God, and so they indicted Him and convicted Him and executed Him on charges which have since become His glory. And every charge is a new jewel around His head. Let’s look at some of them.

These religionists said about Him that this man claims that he, if we destroy him, he’ll be able he’ll be able to raise up this temple in three days. They said, listen to this blasphemer, listen to this sinner, and they hissed the word out with sibling sarcasm. Listen to this sinner. He says that if we destroy the temple, he’ll raise it up in three days.

And in their self-righteous blindness, they didn’t know that what He meant to tell all the poor dying world was that God has given Me a temple and this temple is My body. And someday you’re going to destroy it on a cross. And in three days, it’s going to be raised again from the dead. And I’m going to come out of the tomb and I’m going to establish immortality and life and bring it to light through My gospel so that all the dying world can live if they will. And all those that are marked with mortality shall become immortal. And all of those who are going down to the grave shall find suddenly that grave expand to the vast capacity of the broad heaven itself and they shall rise again as heroes again. And they didn’t know that’s what He meant.

And so, they took Him out on a cross, poor blind righteous men, and nailed Him up there to die for saying that He was going to raise up the temple in three days. And I don’t know how you think about it, but the older I get, the more I thank God for immortality. Not that I have it now, for I do not have it now. Don’t you imagine you do. You don’t. You have eternal life, but immortality is something else and only one man has it and that’s Jesus, having alone having immortality, the Scripture says.

But when He comes back in His glory, He’ll impart immortality to all those He raises from the dead and changes on their feet to take to be with Him in the glory. And I’m thankful to my Heavenly Father for that immortality.

Sometimes, I tell the story at funerals. There are some stories, you know, that get to funerals as often as certain morbid ladies. And this is one of them, but it’s a true one and it’s a good one. They say that when Edmund, king of the Saxons, way back in the 6th century, there were Christian missionaries who came from, I don’t remember what land, and they asked permission formally to preach the gospel within the confines of Edmund’s territory.

And Edmund, being a pagan, didn’t know what to tell them, so he called his advisors together. And here they came together from everywhere. And among other things on the agenda, as we’ll hear next week’s agenda, among other things on the agenda, this was one. Shall we or shall we not admit these Christian missionaries inside our kingdom to propagate their religion?

And after they had debated it back and forth a while, an old general, scarred with many a battle, got to his feet, asked for their permission to speak, and then he said this, in effect, to the king. He said, your majesty, I have heard the remarks, pro and con, whether we should or should not admit the Christian missionaries into the kingdom. But he said, I think we should, and here’s why. He said, you know how it is in our banquet hall, sometimes in the winter night, we gather together and the fires are lighted and it’s warm and there is music and feasting and drinking and we’re all having a joyous time and it gets too hot and someone throws a window open and another window open and out of the night, driven by the storm, there flies in a bird. Wing weary and cold, she shivers in and flutters in fright around among the lights and settles for a while and leaps up and circles again. And then when she’s warm and refreshed, she goes out the window on the other side and has gone into the night and we don’t know where she came from and we don’t know where she went.

So, your majesty is the soul of a man. We come in the window we call birth, and we flutter around a while in the world and then we go out into the darkness through the window we call death and nobody has been able to tell us where we came from nor where we’re going and these Christian missionaries claim they know. And I would therefore speak in favor of these missionaries coming in and telling us where we came from and why we’re here and where we’re going when we go out into the night again through the window of darkness. And he won his case, and the missionaries went in and the Saxons became evangelized.

And I tell you there was wisdom coming from that wise old general. Jesus Christ brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, and they nailed Him on a cross because He said I’m going to do it, destroy this temple and I will build it again in three days. And He was saying to those that could hear Him I have come to bring immortality to the world. But they in their self-righteous blindness went in onto Him in fury and nailed Him to a cross. And so, the ages have glorified Him for the immortality that they crucified Him for.

And then there was the healing on the Sabbath day. Do you remember that? He didn’t mind, He stopped and healed people on the Sabbath day. Our Lord was so informal about everything and so completely relaxed and at ease. And He did everything that He did so spontaneously and without fanfare. And there was no program printed and nobody knew exactly what was going to happen.

Love was at work. Love was walking around on the earth. A Love that could destroy men in hell, but a Love that could heal them when they were sick. And this Love was walking around on the earth

And so, when He came to the sick, while He saw some fellow over there that was suffering, and He just went over and healed Him. And they said we can’t stand this it’s against our tradition. Why Rabbi so-and-so, D.D., said that we weren’t to do anything like this; and it’s written in the book, and don’t they know what the Talmud says? And they’re going a contrary to the laws of our fathers.

And so, they glared at Him while He made the pain disappear. And they glowered at Him while blind milky eyes covered over with a film of night suddenly became light and they saw for the first time the blue sky above and the green grass below. And they said we can’t have this. If this man continues to heal on the Sabbath day, he’ll disrupt our whole constitutional setup and we rabbis will be without a job.

And they said we’ll get that fellow as soon as we can. They couldn’t do it too fast because they’re afraid of the public, afraid of the people. But as soon as they could get to Him, they nailed Him on the tree. And they stood back and watched the blood dribble down off His toes onto the rocks below. And they crucified Him because He loved people when they were sick and healed them.

Now, the ages have glorified Him because He loves people. And I’d like to tell you this brothers and sister, He loves people. I want to love people. I have a little book in my pocket that’s got a prayer in it. God help me to love people just as you love people.

Now loving people doesn’t mean being a soft, pussy, mousy, smiling, smirking fellow. The typical pastor doesn’t mean that necessarily. That was the Pharisees. They loved them technically and legally.

Jesus loved them actually and really. And so, He just walked among them, and He loved them, and He healed them. And principles and laws and regulations weren’t so much to Him, but love and people they were everything. In all the wide world there are people now that can thank Him that He loves people. That He loves just plain, sick people and tired people and old people and bereaved people.

And so, they nailed Him on the cross because He healed on the Sabbath day. And He said don’t you know that God made the Sabbath to be a blessing to people and not people to be crucified on a Sabbath? But they said, we can’t take that because that’s contrary to our rules.

Then another charge they brought against Him was that He exposed the octopus we call priestcraft. He exposed it. And here they were, and we’ve got countries now that are priest-ridden to a point where the priests are the boss. You can’t get married without paying the priest. You can’t get born without paying the priest. You can’t get buried without paying the priest. And you can’t get your grandmother out of purgatory without paying the priest. And you’ve got to be paying, paying, paying. Always they’ve got their soft white palm out after something.

And they were that way in Jesus’ day. And our Lord Jesus Christ walked quietly among them. Love was in his heart and a blazing penetration in His eyes. And He saw through all of their of their little schemes and saw how they walked quietly around and stroked their learned beards and shook their holy phylacteries in order to awe the public and make the common fellow down there, these poor fellows that know not the law, think they were somebody.

And Jesus Christ came down and walked among them with a quiet smile on His face. And here was old Rabbi Ben somebody or other and he had a garment on him. They’re all ironed out pretty. And his beard was combed down to the last whisker and curl and his hair was done beautifully. And everything about him was religiously impeccable.

But Jesus looked past his garments and saw the maggots crawling inside of his heart and the serpents squirming through his soul and the black darkness and night in his heart. And He walks right up to the priest and tells him off. And the priest isn’t going to take that. He just isn’t going to take it because he’ll have to go to work if they ever find him out. If they ever discover what kind of a scoundrel he is inside, he’ll have to go to work and he hasn’t learned anything. And so, he’ll be in a tough place. And I think there’s a lot of Christianity running in this country today; just running faint yet pursuing.

Some young fellow just started out thinking he was called to preach and discovered afterwards that he was called by his mother-in-law or his wife or his mother. And if he could gracefully get out of it and if he could do anything else, he’d quit. But he’s never learned to do anything else, and he needs his retiral. So, he’s continuing on, waiting for the bell to save him from the ropes.

Brothers and sisters, that’s priestcraft. And they don’t have to look to the Roman church to find priestcraft. They found it in the day of Jesus, and I believe it’s here today. I pray that God will deliver us all from the octopus of priestcraft. And we thank Him today that He did. And He took the key away from the priest and He hung it on His own belt.

And when John saw Him up yonder walking among the golden candlesticks, he saw a belt around His waist. And on that belt, he saw two keys. According to what I hear, those keys are in the Vatican. But according to what the apostle John said, those keys are on the belt of the Savior, hanging around His waist.

They are the keys of death and hell. And nobody else gets them, nobody, no school, no denomination, no conference, no council, no college of cardinals, no bishops and no popes, no rabbis. He took the key away from the priest and put it on His own belt. And He opens heaven and hell as He wills for those that love Him. I’m glad for that, aren’t you? And yet they crucified Him for the very charges that I have named.

And then they said also, this man receiveth sinners. They said this man receiveth sinners and they whispered it and they hissed it and they made it to be an accusation and a charge against Him. This man receiveth sinners and the whole centuries have praised Him that He takes in the sinners.

John Newton thanked God He received sinners. Jerry McCauley thanked God he received sinners. And Mel Trotter thanks God He received sinners. And D.L. Moody thanks God He received sinners. And old Augustine thanked God that He received sinners. And old brother Lawrence could thank God that He received a big, awkward, crippled sinner. And all down the years we’ve thanked Him for that which they cursed Him for. And we’ve praised Him for that they crucified Him for.

And they nailed Him on a cross because He wouldn’t admit that righteousness was an external thing, a keeping of rules and regulations but it was something of the heart. He knew that righteousness was of the heart, and they said righteousness is of the rules. And they took the rules and nailed Him on the cross and drove a rule in one hand and a rule in another hand and a regulation in His foot and a bylaw in His other foot; nailed Him up there and said we’ll crucify this man because he dares, he dares to receive these sinners. And we know that they’re sinners, these sinners. And they spat and turned their backs. And He went out to the cross and bled. And He bled for the very persons in whose faces they spat; this man receiveth sinners.

A long time ago in the little town of Akron, Ohio, an ignorant young donkey of a fellow who didn’t know his right hand from his left and could scarcely find his way home after six o’clock at night and couldn’t remember his own phone number, met this Savior, met this Savior. And brother, long before I was preaching, I had met this, Savior. And this Man received a sinner, a sinner.

Now I can’t sing, Brother McAfee, as you know, and you never let me forget it either. Neither does anybody else let me forget it, but I’m going to surprise you one of these days when I really let go. But I am going to sing one of these times. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust.

Remember, Brother Miller, what it says back there in Isaiah? Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust, and the earth shall give up her dead. And then is when I’m going to sing. And I read here this. And he came and took the book out of the right hand of Him that sat upon the throne. And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and the four and twenty elders, I like this better than if I knew who they were.

A lot of people spend a lifetime trying to dig around among the Greek roots to find out who these people are. I get more of a kick out of it not knowing who they are. I don’t know who they are. The four beasts and the four and twenty elders.

Now here’s the place for a man who hasn’t anything better to do to spend two years and three months figuring out who they are. I don’t know who they are. I know they have a right to be up there and I know that they’re the living creatures and I know that.

And I know they’re four and twenty elders and I don’t know why they’re twenty-four. Seven is a perfect number and there were twelve apostles. I don’t know. Maybe part of them were from Israel and part the other half from the church. We’ll let the teachers figure that out.

In the meantime, I’d just like to look at these four beasts and twenty elders and see them in prophetic vision falling down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps and golden vials full of fragrances, incense, and which are the prayers of the saints. And they sung 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 Thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation and has made us unto our God, kings and priests and we shall reign on the earth.

And behold, I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands. The only place where you’ll go to find bigger numbers than you find in the Washington budget is in Revelation 5:11, where it says the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands which is a way of saying they couldn’t be numbered; saying with a loud voice worthy is the Lamb.

And I’m going to be singing in that choir, worthy is the Lamb that was slain. And even up there, they won’t forget it with their glorified bodies they won’t forget the Lamb. With their glorified brains they won’t forget the blood. And with their glorified persons they won’t forget there was a Lamb slain.

Worthy is the Lamb to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. And it rises in crescendo and volume as it goes upward and upward. And every creature, which is in heaven and on earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea and all that are in them heard I say blessing and honor and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb forever and ever. And the four beasts said, amen. And the four and 20 elders fell down and worshiped Him that liveth forever and ever.

So, you see my friends, this man received sinners. And the very fact that He received sinners is what caused all this commotion in the heaven up yonder. Now, no pharisee would dare have been there because it would have been too noisy for the pharisees.

And the scribe didn’t have anything anywhere that he could lay his finger on. Where does it say it in the manual? It wasn’t in the manual. It wasn’t in the manual, but it was in the hearts of the people. And it wasn’t planned. It was spontaneous. The Lord loves a spontaneous, a spontaneous affection.

Well, it’s kissing when you meet and kissing when you part and all that kind of thing. That isn’t so, so much maybe because you’re supposed to do that. But I got a little love tap here some time ago that I hadn’t forgotten yet. I guess maybe it was three months ago now when one of our little grandchildren, now four, just turned four, went out of the house. I do have to admit it, myself. He’s a pretty handsome little guy.

And he was running around there, full of joy. And I had a little cold, so I didn’t want to give it to him. So, I didn’t want to face him. So, I slipped up behind him and I stooped down and put my hand on his shoulders. And I whispered to him, you’re a nice little boy. And he reached around, gave me a spontaneous pat and said, you’re a nice grandpa too.

Now that wasn’t planned, brother. If we had planned that, it would have ruined it. But it was a spontaneous burst of affection. I didn’t know he felt that way about me. I really didn’t. And he never had been taught etiquette. He just did that because he liked me.

And up there in that glory, there are those who weren’t trained how to do it. They just do it. They just, just open their hearts and it comes out. And that’s, that’s what God loves.

Well, I was going to preach about these different people that came to Jesus, but I’ve had a nice time talking about the fact that anybody could come. This man receiveth sinners; so, I’ll break my sermon in half and preach the other part of it sometime again, God willing.

But now I’d only like to close by saying to this to you, that this Man received sinners and He receives all kinds of sinners. He receives them if they come. And when they come, they cease to be sinners. They are now believers, and they are now children of the Most High God.

But you know, you’ll never come as long as you allow self-love and self-righteousness to be in your heart. You’ll never come. The pharisees didn’t come, and the scribes didn’t come and the lawyers didn’t come. They came and asked questions, but we don’t read where they came.

But the harlots came, the publicans came, and the outcasts came, and the ostracized people came. And you know what I’m afraid of, dear people? I’m afraid that we are a self-righteous people. I hate to hear people say, well, the hillbillies are pushing in in this section. Colored people are pushing in here. The lower-class people are pushing.

Who are the lower-class people? Do you know, anybody here know? Who were the low-class people there? Were they the harlots and publicans and sinners and drunkards and irreligious people who didn’t darken the church door and ten years? Were they the low-class people? Not in the eyes of Jesus.

The low-class people were the theologians and the religious philosophers and the Talmud scholars and the Torah explainers who wore the robe of righteousness and the phylacteries to show how much they prayed, but who didn’t know God when they saw Him in the face; who could look in the face of God and didn’t know it was God.

And a kicked and bruised and downtrodden and betrayed harlot could be dragged in by the heels into His presence and look in His face and gasp and say, why it’s God. And the pharisees went away snapping their sharp teeth together and hissing, He receives sinners. But the poor woman whose sins were physical looked up and said it’s God. But the expounders of the law didn’t know God when they looked in His face.

My brethren all I want to bring this to a conclusion and say is, that it’ll pay you and me to do an awful lot of heart searching. It’ll pay us not to take too much for granted and it will pay us to go before our God and lie very low. Just let me have a thought that another man is lower than I am even though he’d be a raper from the Park Forest Preserves.

And I’m a pharisee and you, woman, think for a moment that there’s any difference in the sight of God, and that you are superior to the woman who burns the red light to make a living, and you’re a pharisee. Humility and penitence and self-accusation and fear of the Lord are dear to the eyes of God and sweet to the heart of God. And wherever there’s penitence it comes up like a glorious puff of incense into the very nostrils of the Most High God.

And wherever there’s self-righteousness and self-assurance and a feeling of superiority over Jehovah’s Witnesses and over the liberals and over the Catholics and over the people who know not God, just you feel superior to them, just let one impulse of superiority enter your heart and it stinks in the holy nostrils of God. To be a righteous man and not be a self-righteous man is the work of the Holy Ghost.

To be a moral woman and not be a foully immoral woman in her morality is the work of the Holy Ghost. To be a good clean young fellow and yet not look down your nose at the poor gang boys with their yellow leather jackets and their Levi’s and their switchblade knives that roam the streets is the work of the Holy Ghost.

And so if God doesn’t work within you to make you humble and meek and lowly, you will build into your heart that which the Pharisees and the Scribes had, that terrible self-righteousness that didn’t know God when they saw Him in the face, that frightening, that frightful and frightening thing that would put words above deeds and laws above people and days above pain and would nail on a tree a Man whose only crime was that He loved sinners and whose only evil was that He would heal the sick on a holy day and with shining eyes would tell the world.

I come to bring you immortality. I come to take away sin and bring you immortality. Those were His only crimes. They manufactured them. They paid lying men and suborned witnesses to lie about Him, but they could bring make nothing stick. Their only crimes they could lay against Him were these I’ve named and one or two more, one of them being this man says he’s God, and I’m glad He’s God for I can’t put myself in the hands of anybody less than God.

One of these times, that heart so faithful it has been to beat, it’s 72 times a minute. Mine does 62 in good weather. 72 times a minute and doctors tell me not to be bothered by it because I’ll last longer because I’m not wearing myself out. See, my heart doesn’t beat so often. It’s got longer to go, but they’re all going to run down one of these days, all going to run down.

And when they run down, nobody will be around to help us, nobody, nobody. Somebody will be on the phone, but you won’t hear it. Somebody will be calling a number, but you don’t know it because that’s the last number you look up. The undertaker’s number. Somebody will be on the phone. They’ll be dialing that number.

You won’t know it. You will be cold and still and quiet, and your fear-possessed soul will be out there. Where will it go? Where will it go? If you have no redeemer but Mary Baker Eddy, if you have no redeemer but Father Divine, if you have no redeemer but some human redeemer, God have mercy on you, amen and amen.

But the Redeemer that came to the world was God, and He said He was God, and they nailed Him on a cross for saying He was God. But Luther beat on his great German chest and said that it takes a mighty Savior to save such a mighty sinner. And He can’t be anything less than God and be able to do what He’s got to be able to do.

And I want to tell you this as long as I am in my right mind. Now if I should be brainwashed somewhere like some men have been and lose my mind, God knows what I would do. If I were caught by the communists and brainwashed and broken, I might go out and do anything.

But as long as I keep my right mind, here are two skinny knees, two of them. They’ll never bow to man, never bow to man. Never will I kiss the toe of a man, never will I kiss the ring of a man, never will I genuflect nor kowtow before a man. But there is a Man whose name is Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary to suffer under Pontius Pilate, to rise again from the dead the third day, to ascend unto the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. He said, I am God and I believe it. And I believe it with everything that is in me. And if I didn’t believe it, there aren’t books enough in all the world.

And I’ve got so many books that they’re piled up like this. If I should die suddenly, I don’t know what anybody would do with my books. I don’t know what they’d have to send for the waste paper to get rid of. I’ve got books, everybody, not a book, not a book, not a one would help me. And I have friends all over this world, literally all over this world. Now that I’ve been preaching, I’m 60 years old, and I’ve been preaching since I was 18.

And so, I’ve made friends, and I can’t go to a town where somebody doesn’t know me. And if I wasn’t too proud to do it, I’d never have to go to a hotel in any city because folks, somebody around there, you know, they know you. But I don’t know a friend I could lean on.

I got friends here, I got friends out here in the audience, but I don’t know a friend I could lean on in that day when my wife is on the telephone calling a number she doesn’t know now, she’s never had to call it. And when that time comes, I don’t know a friend. I don’t know a friend from Martin Lloyd Jones in London, one of England’s greatest preacher, Alan Redpath, one of America’s greatest preacher. Or you can go north and south and east and west and find them. And I know them, and they love me, and I love them.

But they couldn’t help me in that hour when somebody’s dialing a strange number for the first time, saying, come over and get him. Only God can help me, and that man who helps me has got to be God. He’s got to be God. And that man received sinners, and I am the sinner. And I came to Him, born to the Virgin, and a man as I’m a man, but He was God as I am not God. He was God as only God is God, but He’s man as I’m a man.

So, I’m glad for all the things they nailed Him on a cross for, I glorify Him for. Together we shall sing in that day and raise the loud happy anthem in praise of the very charges and accusations they made against Him. And thank Him forever that this Man receiveth sinners.

So, if you’re a sinner, don’t go home and say, I’m too bad. This man receiveth sinners. Jesus Christ will take you this very night if you’ll turn away from your sin and turn unto Him.

Burt Miller, will you come up and lead us in prayer? Let us stand, please. Let us stand. Let us stand.

Now while he’s coming and while we’re waiting to have prayer, is there somebody here that would say, Mr. Tozer, I want you to pray for me. It doesn’t matter what the need is, whatever the need is, put the hand up, we’ll see it. Whatever is the need, put the hand up. Yes, God bless you. Who else? Just put the hand up. We’re going to have prayer here before we close. And so you want us to pray. All right, Brother Miller, please pray.

[Burt Miller Prayer]

Our Father, in the name of this mighty Christ of God, the man Christ Jesus, tonight we would bow not only the knee, but our hearts before him. O we thank thee for Thy matchless grace, infinite grace, that God so loved us as sinners that He came to seek and find us. We’re glad for the work of the Holy Spirit that located us and put in our hearts the desire to seek Him whom to know right is life eternal.

And Lord, like one of so many centuries ago, we can likewise say this poor man, this poor woman cried, God heard and answered and delivered, took our feet out of the miry clay and put them on the rock to stay. Oh, how we thank Thee for seeking and finding us.

Now, Lord, Tthou has spoken to us tonight about having the spirit of a Pharisee and described, Lord, we wonder how many of us are like the elder brother who in his self-righteousness, his self-morality had no love for his wayward lost brother.

Oh, somehow, Lord, help us to locate ourselves as to where we are tonight, as to our attitude toward Thee and our fellow men all about us. Don’t allow us, Lord, to Sunday after Sunday, drink in great truth and hear Thee speak through Spirit-anointed men and do nothing about these, Lord, who are lost and hell-bound. These that we would draw our skirts aside from Lord, all delivers from a self-righteous attitude, we pray.

Put upon our hearts tonight, those of us who know Thee in truth, such a burden for the lost that’ll cause us to do something about it, not just merely pray for them, Lord, but seek to snatch them as brands from the burning. Remember the lassie that raised her hand. Meet her need, Lord, and there’s so many others of us tonight, perhaps whose hands should have been raised, but maybe yet raise them to Thee in our heart’s need. Give us then, we pray Thee, a heart like Thine that shall reach unto these whom Thou art seeking to woo and to win.

In the name of the Christ of the living God, amen.