“The Victorious Leading of the Lord“
The Victorious Leading of the Lord
Pastor and author A.W. Tozer
May 25, 1958
Please turn to the 23rd chapter of Exodus. Exodus 23, everybody, let’s look at that, beginning with verse 20 on. This has been and will be, for some time, the scriptural basis for my series of talks on the victorious leading of the Lord, the angel before thee.
Now, the passage I particularly want to use is this one. If thou shalt indeed obey His voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries. In verse 27, I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come. And I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.
Now, it is necessary, if we’re going to get anything out of this, it’s necessary that we believe. Once more I repeat that this has been my life chapter for thirty years, more than thirty, about thirty-two. And I have paid no attention to those who would not accept it as being for New Testament Christians. I believe that it is. And in order for us to get anything out of it, we’ve got to believe.
Not that this was written to us, for we well know better than that. We know historically this was written to Israel. But as I have tried patiently to explain from night to night, the spiritual laws here disclosed are operative in the kingdom of God.If we do not believe this, we limit ourselves tremendously. If we insist upon putting everything in its dispensational pigeonhole, we end up with nothing but the Book of Romans, and we don’t understand it.
But we’ve got to believe. And if you don’t believe, if thou shalt not believe, thou shalt not be established. And if you don’t believe, then I have no message for you at all. But if you believe, and will believe, that the spiritual laws here disclosed are operative now in the kingdom of God, I wish God’s people could see that. That while there are different dispensations, there is only one God and only one human race. And God never changes his mind and works one way one time and one way another.
There are those who believe that in the Old Testament, God saved by law, and in the New Testament he’s saved by grace, and no sillier thought could ever be entertained. A man would have to spin around for a half an hour to get that much many bubbles in his head to believe a thing like that. That in the Old Testament, law, men were saved by keeping law. In the New Testament, they are saved by believing. In the Old Testament, they were saved by law. In the New Testament, they are saved by grace. All this is wrong. It never was taught in the Bible. It isn’t taught in the Bible. It is a fiction, pure and simple, imposed upon us by Bible teachers.
The simple fact is God never saved anybody from Abel to this hour in any other way than by grace through faith. And you’ll find as much about faith in the Old Testament as you do in the New, and you’ll find as much about grace in the Old Testament as you do in the New.
The word, grace, occurs over and over in the book of Psalms. I don’t think the word grace, the actual word, grace, would be found as often in the Old Testament, but the idea of grace goes all through the Old Testament Scriptures. God saves by grace in the Old Testament as He saves by grace in the New. And a righteous man is justified by his faith in the Old Testament as in the New.
In fact, when Paul wanted to get established in the doctrine of justification by faith, he had to go back to the Old Testament to get it. And it was David in the 32nd Psalm who talked about the man who was justified by believing, and it was the minor prophet in the Old Testament who talked about justification by faith. So that the same spiritual principles that operated back there operate here. It’s such a liberating thing if the people of God could only believe that. We must believe, I say, that these laws, our spiritual principles are ours and they’re operative now toward God’s redeemed children everywhere.
Now, if we don’t believe this, by our unbelief we can hinder ourselves. We can hinder the operation of these laws by not believing in them. We can impede our progress in the Christian life, and most people’s progress has been impeded terribly. We can interfere with the Lord’s leading of us, and we can wander aimlessly around in the desert when we ought to be over in the land feeding on grapes of Eshcol.
Now, I want to talk a bit before I enter into the main part of the sermon about how you can identify unbelief. Unbelief is not the attitude of the atheist. Unbelief believes all the promises. That’s the subtle thing about unbelief, it believes all the promises. Every last one of them. Unbelief, I suppose there are some unbelievers that don’t believe anything in the Bible, but I’m talking a bit about unbelief up on the level of Christians and in the kingdom of God.
Unbelief believes all the promises for someone else, somewhere else, some other time. That’s how you can always tell unbelief. Unbelief says, I believe some other time, not now. I believe that God will do these things for some other people, not us, somewhere else, not here.
Those are the three errors that unbelief makes. And faith changes it around, and faith says, if some other time, why not now? If some other place, why not here? And if someone else, why not us? You can always tell faith, for faith is ready to believe if God did it for Moses, He’ll do it for me. If He did it for Isaiah, He’ll do it for you. Faith is always ready to say, if some other time, some other place, to some other people, why not now, here, and us?
Now, let us look. If thou shalt indeed obey my word and do all I speak. Now, the question comes up, does this disqualify everybody who has slipped? Since the Lord says, if thou shalt indeed obey and do all that I speak, then does this disqualify the people who have failed God, who have slipped, who have failed, who have lapsed, who have disobeyed, somewhere back down the line? Is everybody that has ever failed or lapsed or fallen, tripped or fallen on his face in the kingdom of God, is he mournfully to walk away into the shadows and say, this spiritual principle doesn’t apply to me because it applies to the person who is obedient, and I have failed the Lord? Well, let me answer it. Circumstances being what they are, and what are the circumstances? Well, the circumstances of our fall, to begin with. We are a fallen race. The circumstances of our inborn depravity, and the circumstance of our weakness and of our flesh, and the circumstance of there being a devil and sin in the world, that being true, then God could not possibly be naive enough to make His plan depend upon the indefectibility of His people.
I’ll explain what I mean by that. I mean that if the Lord is going to do anything for us at all, knowing us as He does, and He does know us, taking into account all the circumstances, and He does take them into account, if God is going to do anything for us, then He does not make His promises dependent upon our never defecting, our never lapsing, our never failing. For Him to do so would indicate imperfection in the Godhead.
Because if God believed in me and you, and said, Now I will bless my people, and I will make promises, and I send an angel before them, but only on the ground that they be perfect, then God would be starry-eyed and unrealistic, and He wouldn’t be the wise God that He is. But being the wise God that He is, and knowing us as He knows us, and being perfect in all His attributes, then God has thought ahead of us on this, and God has fixed it so, while He doesn’t want us to be imperfect, and He doesn’t excuse us when we fail, He has a way of curing us.
A mother does not want her children to be sick. She doesn’t want them ever to run a fever or to get a disease. She doesn’t want it, but she’s studied up and she’s in touch with her doctor, and if anything goes wrong, she thinks ahead and goes after it.
And so, God says, little children, these things write I unto you, that you what? Sin not. I don’t want you to sin. Don’t imagine I’m preaching here that imperfections and falling and lapsing is a part of God’s plan for us. It definitely is not a part of God’s plan for us.
But God being the realistic, wise, perfect God that He is, knows us too well to trust us too far. So, He has fixed it so that if we should fail Him, instead of surrendering and saying, O God, I give up, I’m going to go back into Egypt, we say, O God, pardon me, forgive me for Jesus’ sake and I’ll start over right here.
I want to read what a dear old German said. He said, it’s further written that love hides a multitude of sins. Perfect love and confidence cannot be where sins are, but love does hide completely. Love knows nothing of sin, not that man has not sinned, but sins are blotted out at once by love and they vanish as if they had not been. This is because whatever God does, He does completely like a cup running over. Whom He forgives, He forgives utterly and at once, much preferring great forgiveness to little.
Complete confidence is like that, he says. Moreover, to be forgiven much is to love much, as our Lord Jesus Christ said. Now that’s a quotation from an old devotional theologian of several hundred years ago, and he might have said that to us just five minutes before and would be as fresh, it would be no less fresh.
Now this, I’d like to tell you most, most to encourage your heart, that the Lord wants us to be obedient and He will not overlook, He won’t let us pile up a lot of wrongdoings, He won’t let us go one way and have Him try to lead us the other. There’s got to be an approximation of faith and belief and obedience, and if we should fall, He’s a Shepherd and He’ll help us to our feet again if we want to get up.
Granted that, now, and granted that this is for you and me, that if it was for Fletcher, it’s for us. If it was for Calvin, it’s for me. If it was for Wesley, it’s for you. If it was for anybody, it’s for anybody. And until you get there, you won’t have the buoyancy in your spirit that ought to be there.
Now notice what He says, I will be an enemy to thine enemy and an adversary to thine adversary. Now why does He talk about enemies and adversaries? Because He’s going before you to lead you into that glorious place He has for you right now down in this world, and He being the realistic God that He is and knowing what He knows, He knows that the devil won’t take this lying down. I admire the old scoundrel. I at least like a man who will fight for his rights, or fight for the thing he conceives to be his rights, and the old devil won’t allow any Christian to take one forward step without protesting it.
Modern teachers are trying to make pussycats out of Christians, but the devil’s no pussycat. He’s a roaring lion going about seeking whom he may devour. And he’s going to oppose you and straddle clear across the way, as John Bunyan said in Pilgrim’s Progress. He’s going to straddle clear across the way and try to keep you away from the delectable mountains and from the city of God.
So, you figure on enemies. You say, who are they, communists? No. Who are they, liberals? No. Communists and liberals and all that gang, they’re a thousand miles from you, friend. Don’t blame your backsliding on the liberals. Don’t blame the fact that you haven’t gone forward ten feet in ten years. Don’t blame that on the communists. They’re bad enough, God knows, and there’s a hell waiting for all such, but don’t blame somebody else for your own weaknesses and faults.
The trouble is, you’re not obeying and not doing what you should, not believing, and the angel of God can’t lead you. The Spirit of God can’t lead you because of your own fault. Don’t let’s blame the Catholics and say, it’s the priest. There’s no priest big enough in all the wide world. He was fourteen inches between his eyes and had horns four feet high. He still couldn’t stop you, not stop you one inch, if you want to go on.
Well, He says, I will be an adversary to your adversary. Now what’s the difference between the adversary and the enemy? Well, I suppose I ought to identify the enemy. I said who he was and now who is he? Well, the devil is your enemy chiefly, and demons and people and circumstances, those are your enemies. And the devil’s back of the whole business, just as the communists in Moscow are back of all of this stuff that’s going on around over the world. There’s one old devil in the Kremlin there, some they say there’s twelve devils in the Kremlin, and all this devilishness streams out from there.
So, there’s one devil called Satan and that dragon and the old serpent, and he works through demons, through people, and through circumstances to keep you from being led into the way which God has prepared for you, that beautiful, rich, fruitful way. And he works to oppose you, and he’s going to oppose you, and not only that, he’s too strong for you. You’ll never be able to whip him, you’ll never be able to beat him, you’ll never be able to outthink him, and there isn’t a gadget that’s ever been invented the devil’s afraid of. These theological screwdrivers and sanctified light meters, and all of these gadgets that men have invented in the kingdom of God in the modern day.
You know, a preacher nowadays has to be an engineer, a chemist, a chef, and an artist, and a sign painter, and he’s got to have at least a brush-up course in engineering in order to be able to preach at all. I wonder how our fathers managed with the hymn book and the Bible. I wonder how they got along. Maybe that’s why they had fire and all we’ve got light, and it isn’t even the light of God, it’s the light of a bulb.
Well, anyhow, I didn’t intend to say that, but I thought I’d throw that in. That the demons and the people and circumstances, they’re your enemy, and they’re too big for you because the devil’s back of them. He’s pouring in plenty of money and plenty of arms and ammunition, and he’s out thinking you all the way along.
The young fellow that struts out and says, I’ve got ideas. Yeah, you have, but there’s one idea that you ought to get, and that is how little and worthless and weak and helpless you are. Until you find that out, you’re a sucker for the devil and a victim of his power and his wiles.
So God says, now I’m leading you out, and I’m leading you in, and all I require of you is that you do what I say and go along with me and read your Bible, obey it and believe it, and come cheerfully along with me, and I’ll take you in. But I’m going to have to take you the rough way, and I’m going to have to take you the way that is surrounded by enemies. I’m going to be on the left of you, on the right of you, and in front of you, and all around you, but I’ll take you through.
Well, you say, God, how can we do it? How can we advance under such tremendous firepower aimed against us? How can we advance? Well, God says, I’ll handle your enemies and your adversaries.
Now, the difference between an enemy and an adversary is very fine. It’s really splitting your hair nicely, but as I see it, an enemy is one who is hostile to you, who has ill will and an attitude of hate toward you, but who may be inactive temporarily. An adversary is an enemy in action. The enemy may lie back and sulk, but the adversary is up after you, and they may be the same fellow under two different phases, the enemy and the adversary.
And God says, these enemies of yours and these adversaries of yours, they’re too big for you. Don’t imagine that you can ever study up on how to win over them. Don’t imagine you can ever read a book on how to beat the devil. You can, but don’t bother. Better read the comic strip, because that book is wrong. You never, you never can win, and you never can defeat him. You’re not as smart, you’re not as wise, you’re not as knowing, you’re not as powerful, and you’re not as sly, and you’re not ubiquitous.nHe’s so fast that he can get around you.
They used to say about Henry Armstrong, the prizefighter, that he fought, he fought and struck so fast that blows came from all directions, that the fellow that was fighting thought he had half a dozen adversaries in there, because Henry was pumping them in from all directions at once. Well, that’s the devil for you. You never know where to locate him, because if you say, I’ve got him, he’ll hit you from the other side. But he’s too much for you.
So God says, God says, I will be an enemy to your enemies. In other words, I will identify myself with your enemies so completely, and you with me, so completely, that every enemy you have, I take as my enemy. Every adversary that you have, I take as my adversary.
And I want this church to hear this. I want the people of this church to hear this. I want you to get that chin up off of your Adam’s apple. And I want you to hear God say, if you’ll just listen to me now, and be good and obey me, and do what I tell you, you won’t have to worry, because these laws operate now. They operate as powerfully as the law of gravitation.
God says, what I’ll do to the enemy, I will become your enemy. Let’s read verse 27. I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come. And I will make all thine enemies turn their backs upon thee. Now, how to treat our enemies? I will send my fear before thee.
Now, religious persons, for the most part, try to send their fear before them. I’ve seen this lots of times. Somebody, you know, that had a degree and was elected to something, if you criticized him, he swells up and looks dignified and stuffed shirtish and stands on his record. Oh, no, come on down off the pedestal, boy, because the devil isn’t afraid of you nor your record. He isn’t afraid of your swelling up and huffing and puffing. God says, I’ll send my fear ahead of you. He didn’t say, I’ll send your fear ahead of you. The devil isn’t afraid of you, and he isn’t afraid of me. He is afraid of God, and God’s the only one he is afraid of.
Devils, of course, there is a sense in which the fear of a man who has God in him, Satan’s afraid of the man who has God in him, I realize that. But it’s God he’s afraid of and not the man. I said God, I think, but I mean Satan is afraid of the man that has God in him, but he’s not afraid of the man without God.
So, keep that in mind. And instead of swelling up and standing on your record, I’m a Christian. I want you to know that you, you, this, this is, this is an impudence and a terrible thing for you to accuse me of this.
And so we defend ourselves and argue and write letters and get insulted. Nobody can insult a Christian. You’re only insulted if you’re insultable. But a Christian oughtn’t to be insultable. Nobody can insult Jesus Christ. Nobody ever could. They abused Him and condemned Him and lied about Him and called Him a devil, but they couldn’t insult Him.
A fellow that suddenly gets tart and brittle and acts insulted and walks out not angry, but very dry, he thinks he’s sending the fear of him ahead of his face. No, he’s not. He’s just making a donkey out of himself, is all. God says, I’ll send my fear before thee, but we write letters. I understand that you said that I believed so-and-so, or that I did so-and-so. Come on now, friend, don’t try to defend yourself. He that defends himself has himself for his defense, and he hath no other.
But he that humbles himself and looks to God has God for his defense, and I don’t know how you’d want any more than that. God will look after the man who lets God look after him. But the fellow that struts out and says, now, you have impugned my honesty. You have reflected upon my uprightness. Oh, dear, dear.
They called Jesus a devil and nailed Him on a cross. And we go around looking dignified and swelling up and standing on our record. One man one time sat in a meeting, and I wasn’t fussing, I was just sitting there trying to be good. And they were, this young fellow, he slapped me on the knee and he said, I’ll match my ministry with your ministry any day.
Well, I wasn’t matching ministries, nothing for me to worry about. So I just let him match and said, shut up, and never answered. And last I heard of him, he divorced his wife and married a 16-year-old girl and was running a cleaning and pressing establishment.
That’s what happened to his ministry. He was out matching ministries, oh no. Don’t compare yourself with anybody. Don’t defend yourself against anybody. Don’t write a hot letter and try to get untangled. Just say, Lord God, behold, here he is. Look at him.
Remember when Hezekiah’s enemies came and cursed and swore and used obscene language on the wall? Hezekiah took the letter, that beastly, ugly letter, took it in, turned it around so God could read it and said, God, look. God said, that’s all right, I’ll handle that. He said, I’ll take care of it. He said, I’ll put a hook in his jaw and out of here he’ll go. Hezekiah got up and brushed off his knees and said, all right, God, I knew I couldn’t do it because I’ve only got just a little handful of soldiers, and they’re half scared to death. But he said, if you’ll take care of it, I’m not afraid of Assyria.
So, the Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold and his cohorts were something in silver and gold, but before the night was over, they lay dead. 185,000 of them. Hezekiah never as much as used a water pistol. No, never did. He just took it to God.
Now, I’m not fooling. I’m preaching serious truth to you here. And here’s some of you fellows are going to be preachers in the time to come. Somebody’s going to start a rumor about you. And you’re going to write in to the district superintendent or the bishop and try to get it untangled. Never do it, boy, never do it. I will be an enemy to thine enemy and an adversary to thine adversaries. And if God takes him on, why should I worry about it?
Maybe I told this some years ago, but I knew a preacher, a Southern preacher, a great man of God years ago. Hent into a neighborhood and began to hold a meeting in the church. And the town big shot, who owned about everything. And what he didn’t own, he bossed just by his chin, going around sticking his chin out, everybody’s afraid of him. And he hated the meeting. He hated it, hated evangelists and evangelism and God and church in general.
So he hired a brass band and went across the street and on his lawn across from the church. He was bothered by their singing, so he hired a brass band. And every night at 7:30, when the meeting would start, his brass band would start and away it would go. And of course, all they could do was to close the church house and go home. And that went on night after night until finally this good brother said, I gave it up. He said, nothing I could do.They just brass banded me out of the town. Oh, he said, they wanted me to do something about it. No, he wasn’t going to do anything about it. He’d committed it to God.
So, he, a short while after that, got a call. He said, come quickly, this fellow that hired the brass bands on his deathbed, and he wants help. And he raced there, but as I recall, got there too late. And there he was, stiffened out, and his soul in hell. And they came to him and they said, Reverend, would you preach the funeral sermon for this man? Yes, he said, I will.
So, he said he was going to preach on the love of God. I suppose it would be John 3, 16, for God so loved the world. He said he went down on his knees and said, Father, I got to preach a funeral sermon for the man who had run me out of town, literally with a drum. And he said, what’ll I say? And God said, take your text. And the rich man died, and in hell, he lifted up his eyes. And the preacher said, oh, no, God, no, no, I couldn’t do that. It’d be awful. He said, they’d ride me out of town on a rail this time. He said, I couldn’t. God said, you do what I tell you. No, no, God, he said, I want to preach on love. He said, I want to show I love the poor man.mNo hard feelings. God said, you do what I say.
So when the day of the funeral came, the preacher walked in, in fear and trembling. And the whole town was out, you know, they’re afraid of the old guy even after he’s dead. And the whole town was out, and they gathered from everywhere. And the preacher got up and took his text. The rich man died, and in hell, he lifted up his eyes. He preached a sermon about the rich man who died and gone to hell, and here he was lying right in front of them.
Well, you know the result of that? And that little southern town, the result of that was the wife of the dead man, the widow got converted. The children of the dead man got converted. As things spread like wildfire, they reopened the church without a brass band. And in a short time, a fire of revival struck the whole town. But it took one man going to hell to get it.
God says, I’ll be an adversary to your adversary and an enemy to your enemy. Use your typewriter for something better than writing hot letters of protest. Don’t fight anybody. We try to fight people and only succeed in getting our noses bumped and our hearts injured, and nothing happens.
God says, I’m acting for you, and I’ll take your place, and I’ll accept your enemies as my enemies, and they’ve got to deal with me. And I’ll make them turn their backs on you. You’ll see the face of the enemy, but pretty soon all you’ll see is his back. No enemy can stand before you all the days of thy life. God throws a secret and mysterious fear in an enemy.
I’m a fighter by disposition, and if God hadn’t given me this when I was a young man, still in my twenties, I suppose that I would have been one that had joined some of these fighting fundamentalists as being a fighter, because I got it in my disposition. But I’ve never written a letter of protest. Did I ever? I don’t recall that I ever did since. If I did, I shouldn’t have, and if I did, I know that I got the worst of it. But I can’t recall having done it.
So. people write me letters, and I never reply. Or if I do reply, I write them one of the neatest little disclaimers you ever heard in all your life. People write me and tell me that I am a terrible fellow, and I write back and say, Dear friend, your charges are such that it would not be the coming of me to defend myself against them. Therefore, I must ask you to pray for me until I become such a man as you want me to be. Sincerely yours.
My wife said that was hypocrisy. I don’t know whether she’s right or not. But I mean it, I mean it, I mean it. If he’s got something on me and he really sees weaknesses, he can pray for me.
But don’t imagine I’ll defend myself, because just as soon as you start defending yourself, your knuckles get skinned and your knees get stiff. Get on your knees and the Lord will take care of your enemies. I’ll make them turn their backs upon you. You can destroy every enemy without lifting your hand or raising your voice, by turning them over to God. Accept the covenant and vow never to defend yourself.
Years ago, Dr. Simpson was going through the country putting on missionary meetings. He was quite a preacher, and people came to hear him in numbers. They do that with only a few preachers in a generation. He was one of them. And he’d go to a town and have a big hall and they’d come and hear him, then he’d go to the next town.
So, a certain enemy of his decided that he was going to go ahead of Dr. Simpson just about a day or two and ruin him. So he went, thought he’d start in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He’d hire the big hall there, knew Simpson was coming in say on Sunday, and he got there on Friday and announced he would preach and he was going to undercut Dr. Simpson. Dr. Simpson wanted not to get anybody, just trying to preach missions and the victorious life. He wasn’t mad at anybody.
This fellow didn’t like Simpson. So, he was quite a preacher too and could draw crowds. So, he had a supper one night just before the first meeting. He had a supper and he had a piece of fish. And he was sitting there, I suppose, thinking over the sermon, the pulverizing, devastating, annihilating, decapitating sermon that he was to deliver against Dr. Simpson. And suddenly he began to shake and rub his neck and said to somebody, I think I got a bone caught in my throat.
And sure enough, God used a whale to swallow Jonah. And he used a fish bone to stop the enemy of a good man. And that fellow never did get to preach that night. He had to go to a doctor and have some kind of a minor operation, if I remember, have that little silver fish bone pulled out of his epiglottis. The result was he gave the whole thing up in disgust and went back home. Somebody told Dr. Simpson, Dr. Simpson said, oh, him, I turned him over to God long ago and he went off about his business.
It’s always that way, my brother. If you want to fight your battles, you fight your battles and you lose nine times out of ten. But if you want to win nine times, ten times out of ten and not have to do any fighting, you believe what God says. I will be an enemy to thine enemies and an adversary to thine adversaries.
And for these 32 years, I’ve never asked for money. I’ve never asked for a raise. I’ve never asked for a job. I’ve never written and asked if I could come. And I’ve never grumbled if I got little. And I’ve never demanded more. And very often, uh, not very often, but sometimes at least, I come out in the hole in some of my meetings, financially. But God says, now you, I’ll take care of your money, and I’ll take care of your enemies and I’ll take care of everything. I’ll go ahead of you.
And the result is, now I know I have a friend, God bless his memory, he’s still alive. But, uh, he, uh, he and I began to preach about the same time. And he fights everybody. And I don’t think I ever met him that he wasn’t two sizes larger than normal, huffing, huffing, huffing, puffing, puffing. Superintendent, you wronged me, I tell you, it wasn’t fair.
And, uh, he and I went along together and God met me and taught me 32 years ago what to do with the fellas that are not fair to you. Just pay no attention to them. Turn them over to God, mention their name on high, and then go about your business.
And this dear brother’s been getting littler and littler all these years, trying to get big enough with his enemies. One of these days he’s going to go on, retire and move to Carlisle or some other home and sit there and sulk over the way he’s been treated by his enemies. And my enemies have never done anything to me only to drive me to my knees.
I told you when I began to preach, I was going to do some testifying, and I don’t apologize. This is too real to me to make it into an ordinary objective sermon. It’s real. I live in this.
So, God looks after His people, and He’ll go ahead of them, and He’ll lead them into that wonderful place, if you’ll just obey Him. Some other time, Lord? All right, if some other time, then why not now? If you did it some other time, why not now? If you did it for some other people, why not us? If you did it somewhere else, why not here, says faith.
And the wise anointed eye will see tonight, and the anointed ear will hear, and the illuminated heart will understand, and the others will go out huffing and puffing and saying, he wasn’t dispensationally correct. Go on your way, bud. Have your dispensation, and when it’s all over, you’ll end up bruised and beaten and cold and hard and brittle and stiff.
And the ones who are ready to be malleable and obedient and believe God and go ahead, they’ll be way out there so far you can’t even hear them whistling anymore. And you’ll be coming stumbling along behind, trying to beat everybody’s skull in, and do it in a good dispensational way. You obey God, brother, and everything will be all right.
Are you ready to believe that? Are you ready to believe it? Is this church ready to believe it? Sure. This church, we’ve been led down the years, we’ll be still led. Don’t you worry about it. Don’t worry at all. Keep cheerful. Every time you wake up at night, thank God everything’s all right in your Father’s house.
When you get up in the morning, bless God before you get your coffee. Thank Him before you get your your eye opener. Praise him. Keep on doing it. God wants to be praised. He wants to be loved. He wants to be blessed. He wants to have people going cheerfully along.
I wrote a phrase the other day, God’s redeemed children, and the thing struck me one night. I said, isn’t this wonderful to be one of God’s redeemed children? Belong to God, to be redeemed. No more auction block, no more shackles, no more slavery. Free as a bird that flies. God’s redeemed child. You look at me, you go ahead.
Now, I’ve got an awful lot more to say on this same subject. We’ve got to talk next time about these parasites and highlights and satellites and Jebusites and all the rest. And what all this means, what all this means when translated into its spiritual meanings in the New Testament. And about bowing down, I want to talk about that next Sunday night.
Well, it’s time to go home. Let’s stand.
Thank Thee Heavenly Father tonight that we have a Friend, oh, such a friend, that He loved us ere we knew Him. And we thank Thee that as the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so are the Lord’s round about His people. And the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him and delivereth them. We thank thee, Father.
We thank Thee we love everybody. We love the people that don’t like us. We love the people that are bitter and wish we were dead. But Lord, we thank thee they can’t kill us by wishing. And they haven’t got the courage to do it any other way. We thank thee, Heavenly Father, thou dost turn the edge of every sword. We bless Thee for the back of necks that we see. Here’s one and there’s one. He huffs and puffs and then turns his back when the fear of God strikes him.
Oh, help us, Father, we beseech Thee to live in Thy love and dare to obey and be obedient and try to remember everything that Thou hast promised and live in it. And then see our enemies go down before us and go in and inherit the land of the parasites. It’s our land and we’re going to take it.
And all the people said, Amen, we’re dismissed.