Delighting in God

The Effect Of Our Perception Of God

Our hearts sing in praise and adoration as we experience Thy presence, O God, in our day-to-day living. It would be one thing to worship Thee one day, but to be able to worship Thee every day, and all day long, is the great joy of knowing Thee. Amen.

Somebody asked Charles Spurgeon once if he ever preached a sermon more than once. “Do you think,” he replied, “I would throw away the ax after I cut down the tree?” I know exactly how he felt, and I feel the same way.

You run the risk of repeating yourself if you teach for very long. I am of the nature that if what I am saying is helpful, not only do I want to repeat it, but also I give everyone permission to repeat it without giving me any credit. After all, it is the message that really matters.

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I think everybody ought to have the privilege of using any of the Lord’s weapons belonging to the Lord’s people, except their armor. Remember, Saul’s armor did not fit David, and I will never wear anybody’s armor except mine.

Let me outline a few things along this line of knowing God.

The first is that life is a serious thing, and this is a serious world in which we live.

I am encouraged that there are still among us enough seri¬ous-minded people who realize the seriousness of life and are honestly concerned about how they can meet and conquer life and death—about how they can salvage something out of the wreck of this world and how they can save their own souls out of a disaster.

“Save yourselves,” Peter cautioned, “from this untow¬ard generation.” If an apostle said this, I think I can whisper it today.

I think there are some who want to save their souls from this untoward generation—this coming crash and downfall of the world. In light of this, I would like to give them counsel, not from a perfect man, but from someone who has walked with God, who has loved and lived the Scriptures for quite a while, and who has no other motive except to do you good.

Nobody can get my ear or my respect if I know he has a hand extended. I do not think this is such a spiritual thing; I have no conscience about it at all. I plug my ears against the man who I suspect is just out to get something.

However, no man can talk too strictly to me if I know he loves me and does not want anything I have. And no man can be too eloquent for me to walk out on if I have a suspicion that he wants something I have.

If we are going to save ourselves from this untoward generation and salvage something out of the world, I think four things need to be put in focus in our everyday lives.

I am positively sure after many years of observation and prayer, that the basis of all our trouble today in religious circles is that our God is too small, that our God is not big enough. This cannot be repeated too many times.

I do not think we can make God big, because that is completely beyond our ability. We cannot have an imaginary God. We must see God as He has delighted to reveal himself, especially in the Word of God.

I believe that the most important verse in the Bible is—and this is a very hard thing to say because the Bible is such a magnificent book—“In the beginning God…”

This is the most important verse because that is where everything must begin. God is the fountain out of which everything springs, and He is the foundation upon which everything rests. God is all in all.

I am quite sure that if we would begin to see our God bigger, we would also begin to see people smaller. This is the day of the magnification of slick personalities, and as we magnify slick personalities, we are, in fact, minimizing God. We have church meetings in which we never see God at all. We see only the servants of God, which is a tragedy.

I am afraid that we have a lot of hero worship in the church of Christ today. We are magnifying the messenger and consequently minimizing the message. The message should be of such a nature that it overshadows the messenger.

God moves according to an eternal purpose, and He carries on after His plans. He does not need anybody to direct Him, correct Him, or qualify what He has to say. The most astounding and powerful phrase in all of Scripture is “Thus saith the Lord.” After that, nothing more needs to be said, God is enough.

The creeds have taught us that God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. With the contemplation of God’s majesty, all eloquence fades into the shadows. Mans’s eloquence cannot rise high enough to give praiseworthy enough to this One we refer to as the mysterium tremendum.

Man’s language can never be adequate enough to fully express the worthiness of our God. Many wordsmiths throughout the years have tried to honor God with language. Language can never fully express God in all His majestic wonderment. We try, and the hymn writers have done a great job of doing it, but even they fall short of the glory that belongs only to God.

Sometimes in our prayers, we get rather eloquent. I have discovered that when I am the most eloquent in my prayers, I am not getting very much accomplished. My eloquence sometimes gets in the way of really connecting with God.

I tell you, our feelings can never be boiled down to mere words. There is something about God that is so majestic and so awe-inspiring as to frustrate expression.

I have been an eager reader of Shakespeare, but even he lacks the ability to articulate the majesty of God in words and phrases that are worthy of God. No matter what we say, no matter how we say it, our God is bigger.

When I try to express my love for God, words get in the way, and sometimes I am even brought to a place of silence. It is in the silence that my appreciation of God raises itself in a worthy manner.

If I had the talent and ability of Shakespeare, of Francis Bacon, of Henry Thoreau, of John Milton—the list could go on and on—I could never adequately express to God what is worthy of Him. To know God in the fullness of His revelation is to feel a deep sense of inadequacy in our worship.

Those who are happy with their worship have probably never been in the presence of God. When I am on my face before God in worship, there is such a feeling of inadequacy as I come before this holy One. How can I come as imperfect and limited as I am and bring to the holy, unlimited One that which is worthy of Him?

Why is this? Why is it that I have difficulty expressing in my worship what is worthy and acceptable to God?

The basic reason is the flesh. God cannot accept anything of the flesh. No matter where you go in the Scriptures, you will find that the flesh is always contrary to God’s will. The flesh needs to be dealt with in our everyday lives. Nothing of the flesh is pleasing unto God.

The greatest expression of the flesh is entertainment. The world has honed this to absolute perfection. Entertainment has taken over in our culture today, and nothing can be done apart from it. The error that we make is this: We think we can obtain God. We believe that what we do and how we do it will bring a sense of pleasure to God.

What we need to understand is that God cannot be enter¬tained, especially by the flesh. Once we get this into our heads, we begin to look at our relationship with God a little differently. God is not going to entertain me, and God is not going to be entertained by me. This fact rules out a lot that passes for worship today.

Entertainment is simply the demonstration of the flesh at its finest moment. Because this is acceptable in the world, many think it is acceptable to God. Most of our church worship services are simply religious entertainment.

If it is entertainment, it is really not of God. Worship and entertainment are not synonymous, yet many in our evangelical churches today think they are. Sunday morning to some has become a time of religious musical entertainment, thinking that it is pleasing unto God.

The God of the Bible is of such a nature that He is worthy of that which is compatible with His nature. Entertainment is not compatible with the nature of God. If we are going to please God, we need to please Him on His terms. If we are going to worship God, we must worship Him on His terms.

Dealing with the flesh in the church today is probably the most difficult thing that we will ever do. If we can deal with the flesh elements in the church, we will release congregations to positions of worship acceptable unto God.

Although I am not dealing with the gifts of the Spirit in this book, I simply would point out that God can be served and worshiped only through the gifts of the Spirit. Mans’s talent falls far short of that which is pleasing unto God. The flesh cannot do the work of the ministry or the worship of God. Somehow we have lost this concept.

What are some people going to do if they get to heaven and find out there is not one bit of entertainment throughout all the golden streets? The Golden Streets are certainly not Broadway. Heaven is not a place of entertainment.

Heaven is a place of worship, and the object of the worship is God. The more I know about God, the more I will begin to understand what kind of worship is acceptable and what is not acceptable. This is why it is important for me to have a clear, precise perception of God as He truly is.

Once I understand God and the worship and the ministry that are acceptable to Him, I need to move on to one area, which is to magnify God in everything I do. Again, let me point out, that the flesh cannot magnify God.

I need to deal with the flesh so that I can magnify God in every aspect of life. If there is one aspect of my life where God is not magnified, there is no aspect of my life where He is worthily magnified.

Dealing with the flesh is a very serious matter because it brings me to the point of worthily magnifying God. What does it mean to magnify God?

To put it bluntly, it simply means to make God big in your life. The more you get to know God and understand His holi¬ness, the more you will begin to magnify God in your life, and then God will become the biggest thing in your life.

If something in your life is bigger than God, I can assure you that God is not in your life. The goal that I have as a Christian is to magnify God. The great discipline of the Christian life is to live in a way that magnifies God.

The word that is used in this regard is to mortify the flesh. That is simply to turn your back on the flesh and reckon your flesh to be dead.

“I am crucified with Christ,” Paul said, “nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

This is to put a death sentence on everything about my life. I cannot be one way on Sunday morning and different come Monday morning. I cannot be one way when I am around Chris¬tians and completely different when around other people.

Some claim to have mortified the flesh, but they still have the spirit of resentfulness, they still love money, and they still have a temper. Either mortify the flesh or the flesh will destroy you and your Christian testimony.

I must confess some of the most delightful meetings that I have been in have been where God is present in such awesome power that the people were afraid to move. At times, the presence of God was so thick in the assembly that nobody could even whisper. God was indeed in that place.

If more of our churches would experience this on a regular basis, the trend for entertainment would quickly disappear. There is no entertainment anywhere or by anyone that can compare with the manifest presence of God upon an assembly of believers.

As we mature in the Lord, we lose our desire for the toys of religion. They are no longer satisfied, and the only thing that really satisfies is God’s presence in our midst. It is not about a good show. It is not about being entertained and enthusiastically lifted up.

If I can be lifted up enthusiastically, I can come crashing down too. But when I am in the presence of God and He manifests himself to me, there is nothing artificial. I can never get over that experience, the experience of practicing the presence of God. Again, let me say, that we must deal with the flesh.

I have been accused many times of being radical, and I do not mind that at all. I think you have got to be a little bit radical if you are going to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, so I am not afraid of being radical. If you really want to see an increased experience in the presence of God, let me offer a few suggestions.

Go home and begin pulling the plug on all those things in your home that are simply there for entertainment. I am talking about your radio, your TV, and maybe even your telephone.

I know we need the telephone for a lot of reasons, but there are times when we need to cut ourselves off so completely from the world that all we have left is God. That is all right with me. I want to be in such a situation that all I have is God.

You do not need to know so much, and you do not need to have so many things. If your life is down to the basics, it will enable you to hold on to the faith once delivered to the saints, for as Brother Lawrence has said, “Practice the presence of God.”

One last thought along this line would be to cultivate a servant’s attitude!

David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep. I firmly believe that no man has any right to die until he has served his generation. As a Christian, when I die, I want to make sure that the world around me is in debt to me because of my service.

When John and Charles Wesley came into the world, they were in debt to their mother, to their father, to their nurse, and to everyone who served them. They did not die until they turned the tables on the world, and now the world and the church of God are in debt to John and Charles Wesley.

It is hardly possible to have a church service without singing one of Charles Wesley’s hymns.

Down the line, we could go to the Great Hall of Faith. One by one we could see those who have come into the world owing everybody everything, and then when they died, they reversed the tables, and now the whole world is indebted to them. Why?

Because they had a servant mentality. This is crucial, and it flows from a proper perception of who God is.

You cannot serve the last generation, because it is gone. In addition, you can only indirectly serve the next generation, but you can serve this present generation. Too many Christians are simply religious sponges; they absorb and absorb and absorb, and that is about all there is to their lives.

However, the Lord wants us to serve, to do things for people, to put people in debt to us. As we magnify God, crucify the old man, simplify our lives, and cultivate a servant attitude, we put this generation and generations to come in debt to us.

Revive Thy Work, O Lord

Revive Thy work, O Lord,
Thy mighty arm make bare;
Speak with the voice that wakes the dead,
And make Thy people hear.

Revive Thy work, O Lord,
Disturb this sleep of death;
Quicken the smoldering embers now
By Thine almighty breath.

Revive Thy work, O Lord,
Create soul-thirst for Thee;
And hungering for the bread of life
O may our spirits be.

Revive Thy work, O Lord,
Exalt Thy precious name;
And, by the Holy Ghost, our love
For Thee and Thine inflame.

Revive Thy work, O Lord,
Give Pentecostal showers;
The glory shall be all Thine own,
The blessing, Lord, be ours. –Albert Midlane(1825-1909)

 

Our Perception of God Navigates Our Prayer Life

O God, my greatest joy is the joy I find in that secret fellowship with Thee. Nothing else fills my heart with such excitement and enthusiasm as coming into Thy presence, knowing that I am welcome. May my life today be saturated with prayer and praise because of who I know Thee to be. Amen.

Yet I find it rather strange, when you get down to the practical aspects, that very few Christians really engage in the discipline of prayer to the extent that is available to them in their Christian experience.

It was George Mueller who observed that he had so much to do that he could not afford to spend less than four hours a day in prayer. There was a man who understood the place of prayer. We would say that we have so much to do we cannot afford to spend time in prayer.

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Compare our lives with the life of George Mueller, and see who really had the best idea of prayer.

When Jesus died on the cross, rose the third day from the grave, ascended into heaven, and was seated at the right hand of God the Father, He established for us access to the very ear of God. I am not sure if Christians realize the dynamics of this access.

We now have access to the ear of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a humbling concept to process as I ponder and meditate on my relationship with God.

My relationship with God is not arbitrary, nor is it ritualistic. Rather, it is a personal experience, and it is more than a monologue—it is a dialogue. I am afraid most Christians have not progressed to the dialogue aspect of their prayer life.

Our perception of God is what really establishes the perimeters, if you please, of our prayer life. We need to understand that prayer is not a meritorious act. We do not earn anything because of it. We pray because God hears, and God hears us because of Jesus. Because of Him, God the Father has a good heart toward His people.

The pagans pray to sticks and stones and all sorts of man-made things, without any merit in their prayers whatsoever. The impressive thing, and the most disappointing, is their utter commitment and discipline to this bogus prayer life. God hears us not because our prayer is good, but because God is good.

One dear brother used to cup his ear and say, “God stoops and cups His ear to hear me pray.” The dear brother was not far from the truth. Prayer is the means that God has of knowing that we are ready to receive what He wants us to have.

My perception of the goodness of God will guide me in my prayer. I need to, understand that I do not have to talk God into doing something that He may not want to do. Listen to some of the prayers at a prayer meeting, and you would think people believe they can talk God into something He does not want to do. This is absolutely not true.

God cannot be talked into doing something He does not want to do or that is against His character and nature and attri¬butes. I cannot convince God to do something because I want Him to do it. I am not in the position, nor is anyone else, to negotiate with God on my terms.

The more I begin to understand the goodness of God, the more I begin to understand my relationship with Him, and the more I begin to understand what prayer is all about. God’s good¬ness is the ground of our expectation when it comes to prayer. What can we really expect God to do?

The more I get to know what kind of God is, the more I will begin to understand what my expectation from Him is and what His expectation of me is. It goes both ways, you know. Most confusion in my prayer comes from my not fully understanding what God’s expectation of me is.

Remember, prayer is not trying to conform God to our situation, but rather our conforming to Him.

When I go to God, confess my sins, and trust Him to forgive me, by faith, I accept His forgiveness. I am expecting God to forgive me because I know that God is good and desires to forgive me because of Jesus’ sacrifice for me. Does the merit lie in my faith? Never.

It lies in the good God who forgives because He is gracious, kind, and ready to forgive.

So many Bible verses blossom and flower when we think of the goodness of God.

The goodness of God leads us to repentance, Paul says in Romans: “Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” (Romans 2:4).

David said in the Psalms, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever” (Psalm 23:6). As I begin to understand the goodness of God, I understand that He takes no pleasure in judgment.

He does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked. God does judge, though. I believe in the judgment day and that every man shall receive according to his deeds done in the body. I believe there shall be a resurrection of the just and the unjust, and there shall be a resurrection of man unto eternal life and of man unto damnation.

I believe that. Yet God takes no pleasure in judgment. David says that the Lord will rejoice over thee for good. God is delighted to shower our lives with His goodness.

When I was a young boy, I used to hear a little song:

In the Shadow of His Wings

In the shadow of His wings
There is rest, sweet rest;
There is rest from care and labor,
There is rest for friend and neighbor;
In the shadow of His wings
There is rest, sweet rest,
In the shadow of His wings
There is rest (sweet rest). -Jonathan B. Atchinson (1840-1882)

If only we could realize that God is that kind of God, we would never have a hangdog look and feel in our hearts. We would never need to go away with a deep sense of inferiority. There is quite a difference between real repentance and a feeling of inferiority that makes you feel “I am no good. There is no use to pray; I am just no good.”

Of course, you are no good. God is good, and because He is good, we can dare to take advantage of His goodness. God’s door is always open for any of His children who have done wrong, so they can come to the point of saying, “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Recently, as I spent a little time with the Lord each day, I was overwhelmed with how kind God has been to me. How utterly good He has been. If it were not for the grace of God, I would be roasting in hell or languishing in jail somewhere.

God’s goodness has surrounded me and pardoned me and forgiven me, and His loving-kindness has made my life reasonably decent, only because He is good, not because I am good.

I have a little book I have never been without for years. It is a little prayer book, which I wrote myself. I guess it is maybe seventeen or eighteen years old, and I carry it around wherever I go. I write my prayers, and I have a little understanding with God.

Because I, by nature and conduct, have been the worst man that ever lived, I want God to do more for me than for any man that ever lived. I have a right to ask that because where sin abounds, grace doth much more abound.

And if the goodness of God specializes in hard cases, and if the goodness of God can shine brighter against the dark sky, I will provide the dark sky. Shine on, O goodness of God.

When I was a young man, I used to ride the railroads—that is, I used to sneak on board and ride them for free. When I was converted, God began to convict me of that, and I wanted to make up for riding the train all those years without paying. I had been riding around at the expense of the railroad company, and I owed them something.

So I Wrote To The Traffic Manager And Said:

Dear Sir;

I have been converted to Jesus Christ and I am a Christian now, and I want to straighten out my life. A little while back I rode from here to there, from there to here, without paying, and I would like you to send me the bill. I want to pay up.

Not long after, I got a return letter on one of the official B and O pieces of stationery. I opened the letter and read:

Dear Sir;

Your letter has been received. We note that you have been converted and want to live a Christian life, and we want to compliment you on this new act. We compliment you on becoming a Christian.

Now, about what you owe us. Weather suppose you did not get very good service on our line when you traveled, and therefore we will just forget the whole thing.

Sincerely yours,
Traffic manager

I kept that letter for a long time. My conscience was clean and free. God was good to me. I could not pay the bill; I did not have enough money.

May I encourage you that God is a just holy and good God. I know God is severe with unbelief and sin, but God is good, infinitely good, always good. And if you need Him, God will always be there for you.

Sweet Hour Of Prayer

Sweet hour of prayer! Sweet hour of prayer!
That calls me from a world of care.
And bids me at my Father’s throne
Make all my wants and wishes known.

In seasons of distress and grief
My soul has often found relief
And oft escaped the tempter’s snare,
By thy return, sweet hour of prayer!

Sweet hour of prayer! Sweet hour of prayer!
The joys I feel, the bliss I share.
Of those whose anxious spirits burn
With strong desires for thy return!
With such, I hasten to the place
Where God my Savior shows His face,
And gladly take my station there,
And wait for thee, sweet hour of prayer!

Sweet hour of prayer! Sweet hour of prayer!
Thy wings shall my petition bear
To Him whose truth and faithfulness
Engage the waiting soul to bless.
And since He bids me seek His face.
Believe His Word and trust His grace,
Til cast on Him my every care,
And wait for thee, sweet hour of prayer!

Sweet hour of prayer! Sweet hour of prayer!
May I thy consolation share,
Still, from Mount Pisgah’s lofty height,
I view my home and take my flight.
This robe of flesh Til drop, and rise
To seize the everlasting prize,
And shout, while passing through the air,
“Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer!” -William W.Walford(1772-1850)

Our Perception of God in Creation

All of creation, O Lord, sings of Thy praise. I look to the hills and think of Thee. The mountains show Thy majesty and strength. From the rivers, I see the flowing grace and goodness of Thy very nature. All creation joins in praise unto Thee, and so do I. Amen.

God’s fingerprints are all over creation. The more we delve into the mystery of creation, the more we begin to see God’s fingerprints. Not all scientific discoveries can eliminate it; they only strongly suggest that behind everything is a creator. To disavow a creator is to compromise intelligence. Nothing has appeared without something or someone behind it.

Who is this creator behind everything? is the question that really needs to be answered. This creator is the God who created all things, and He created everything with a purpose.
Nothing throughout all creation is meaningless or purposeless. I will never be able to understand the purpose until I understand who is behind all of this.

Unfortunately, we have left nature and creation to the scientists who are trying to unravel the mystery of our universe. It is my opinion that nature should automatically lead us to God, who is described to us in the Word of God as the Creator. If you have nature without the Word of God, you have a mysterious somebody, but no personal connection.

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I do not approach this as a scientist, but as one who is deeply in praise and worship of the creator. Everything in creation sings the praises of this mysterious creator. I cannot explain creation, but I can see through creation the marvelous fingerprints of a God who is magnificent, awesome, and wonderful.

All we do is take the best qualities in a man and project them upward, and then we have God. If we see a kind man, we say, “All right, then God must be kind,” and we project that kindness out of the heart of man up to God and say, “God is kind, and He is infinitely kind,” and then we preach and teach about it.

When critics say our concept of the heavenly Father is only a manufactured one, they say, in effect, “I know that God isn’t the way you say He is.” To answer that, ask, “All right, how did you find that out? You can only find it out by either discovery or revelation.

When did you discover God so that you can tell us what kind of God He is, if you did not discover Him, then you had a revelation. Will you please tell us where the revelation came from? What is the revelation?”

It presumes that the critic knows something about God that we do not know, the Bible doesn’t know, the prophets and apostles did not know, Jesus our Lord did not know, and church fathers and martyrs and reformers did not know.

People might also call you an anthropomorphic obscurantist, meaning you cover things up and keep them obscure. We do not believe that. We believe sinners cover things up and keep them obscure, and that the children of God do all things in the light.

The obscurantist is the one right now who is sitting somewhere drawing up a dirty contract, a crooked contract to cheat a widow out of her property. There is your obscure fellow. He is hiding in the darkness, but the children of the light come into the light.

When I say God is love, they say, “That’s what you would like to have God be like, and because you like to see love in people, you like to see love in God.” The whole thing is nonsense to me.

If God made man in His image, is it not reasonable to believe that the best things in a man would be the nearest to what God is? If you would like to see a mother showing tenderness over her baby, then where do you suppose she got that tenderness?

That love we have for each other, where did we get it? That pity we show for one another, where did we get it?

We got it all where we got our life. We got it from God, and though we are fallen and lost, this decency came from the heart of God.

“If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” (Matthew 7:11).

So instead of running and hiding and admitting we are ignorant, we stand right up to these critics and name-callers and say, “Keep your long names. I believe in God and I believe God made me in His image, and I believe that every good there is in humanity came from God.”

God is not the goodness that humanity has projected upward. The man was made in the image of God, and any decency that may be left in our fallen nature came from the heart of God.

God is kind, and this is taught or implied throughout the entire Scriptures.

You studied the multiplication tables—2 x2 = 4, 2×3 = 6, 2×4 = 8, and so on—those are data, mathematical facts. They will remain the same for the rest of your life. Right on up through to the highest possible reaches of mathematics, it will still be true that 2×2 = 4.

Then there is this datum of truth: God is good. You can go out into the world and see accidents, polio, murders, and all the rest, and when it is all finished, it does not change the fact that God is good.

You can go down where men cheat each other and lie and misuse figures for their purposes and make 2 x 2 = 7 so they can fill their own pocketbook, but that does not change the fact that 2×2 = 4.

Therefore, you can see everywhere among men that they have fallen in evil ways. You can see cruelty and darkness, but it does not change the fact that God is good. That is the datum of truth. It is a foundation stone of all our beliefs about God.

It is necessary for human sanity to believe that God is good— that the God who is in the heavens above is not a malicious

God or an unkind God or a God who promotes evil, but a God who promotes good. To allow God to be any other kind of God would be to upset and completely change our moral standard for mankind.

It would mean turning heaven into hell and hell into heaven. It would mean that good could be bad and bad could be good, and God could be the devil and the devil could be God.

Many times we try to rest our faith on texts and promises. True faith can rest only on the character of God. I believe, and I have faith because I believe in the One in whom my faith is placed.

I believe in a God who is good, and I never worry that God, behind my back, will mistreat me. I never need to worry for fear God will catch me when my back is turned and do something malicious, for there is no malice in the heart of God, only love. There is only goodness in the heart of God; that is all. Therefore, I need not worry.

Oh, what a contrast between the Christ who walked among men and the evil men among whom He walked—the malicious, beard-pulling, whispering men and the calm, quiet, loving Jesus with a tender look on His face for every harlot at His feet, every babe on the lawn, every sick child, and every pain and sorrow in the world.

He walked among men with goodwill, and the men among whom He walked accused Him of His goodness and wished He were dead.

When they nailed him on a tree, they did not change His goodness. He did not turn on them and curse them. He said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” They could kill Him, but they could not destroy the goodness in His heart, His goodwill toward men.

I would like to point out something you may have overlooked. It is that God’s goodness is the grounds of our expectation. We evangelicals have gone overboard and thrown out some very wonderful treasures.

Our Puritan fathers and the old Presbyterians and Congregationalists and Baptists and Methodists used to preach about what they called natural theology and they did not hesitate. They were not liberals or modernists; they were the church fathers and taught what they called natural theology.

They said that God revealed himself in nature and that there was a theology that could be built just by looking around you. We all know that is true, but we are afraid to say that today; we are scared stiff.

We are afraid somebody will come along and beat us over the head with a Scofield Bible and say, “Now, wait a minute here—you’re a liberal.” No, no, my brother, I am no liberal. I hope I am liberal, but I am not liberal in theology, and I am not a modernist.

But I believe that God has, through His creation, declared certain things to be true of himself. I know the Psalms say so, and the prophets say so, and Paul says so. When I go along with an apostle of the New Testament, a prophet of the Old Testament, or a psalmist of both testaments, I feel that I am in pretty good company, and I am not too badly frightened.

I take great comfort in the fact that this is my Father’s world. When sin came into the world, it brought into creation an element contrary to the character and nature of God. The apostle Paul put it this way, “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Romans 8:22). Even nature is suffering because of the sin of man.

What this world of ours will be like when sin has been finally and eternally removed from all creation is something we can hardly think of. Let them think of us as they will, and let them call us what they will. Our hope is in the fact that this is our Father’s world, and He has this world’s best interest in mind that will stand throughout all eternity.

This is My Fathers World

This is my Father’s world,
And to my listening ears;
All nature sings and round me rings The music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world:
I rest in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
His hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father’s world,
The birds their carols rise,
The morning light, the lily white,
Declare their Maker’s praise.
This is my Father’s world,
He shines in all that’s fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass;
He speaks to me everywhere.

This is my Father’s world,
O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems often so strong,
God is the Ruler yet.

This is my Father’s world,
The battle is not done.
Jesus, who died, shall be satisfied,
And earth and heaven be one. -Maltbie D. Babcock(1858-1901)

 

The Perception of Our Fullness in Jesus Christ

O Lord Jesus Christy Thou who is the Living Word, L invite Thee to live in my heart and flow from me into the world around me. Let me deal with those issues in my life that would hinder Thee from doing all that Thou wouldst do in and through me. Amen.

Everybody talks about the Bible, and yet I wonder sometimes how much of the Bible they really believe in. From my experience with the Scriptures, there are only two ways to deal with them.

One way to deal with Scripture is to pull it down and understand it in the light of our personal experience. The other way is to rise up into Scripture and understand it in the light of its own intention and its own purpose.

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Mostly, we reach up and pull the Word of God down until it is familiar until it is on our level, and we do not get under much conviction.

Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians is usually read by God’s children in light of their limited attainment:

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. -Ephesians 3:14-19

I fear this is the trouble with most Christians today. We have developed what I call a psychology of ignoble contentment. We want to be comforted when we ought to be stirred up and made discontented. A noble discontent is always more desirable for a Christian than an ignoble contentment.

Too many these days are going about the country making contented Christians. This is one of the worst possible things that could be done in the church—make a Christian content. We should not want contentment, but a thirst and hunger after God.

As long as we are without the thirst and hunger, we will be content. A man who is neither hungry nor thirsty does not go to a restaurant or step up to a water fountain. It is only when he is hungry or thirsty that he looks for a way to satisfy himself.

There must be a better place for most of us Christians than we have found up till now.

Every time this is said, somebody rushes out from behind a bush or crawls out of the woodwork somewhere and says that he or she is what we are talking about. Every time I write an editorial to the effect that the church needs prophets, somebody will write and say, “You’re right, and I am the man.

” When you talk or write about the deeper life and say to God’s people they ought to be more spiritual than they are, somebody comes rushing out all aglow and says, “That’s right, and I’ve got it.”

If you follow those people around, you will find as a rule that they do not have what they think they have. I have not seen very many people who have anything I want in the area of spirituality.

I do not want to judge people, but just look at modern fundamentalism and evangelicalism and ask this question: Is this what Jesus Christ was talking about when He told us what was going to take place after He went into heaven? I do not think so.

If what I see all around me these days is what Jesus described, then He was guilty of greatly overselling His product. He was guilty of great exaggeration, because have you noticed here that the Lord Jesus Christ raised expectation by description?

For instance, in John 4:14, Jesus said, “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.” And in John 6:35.

He said, “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger.” In John 7:38, Jesus said, “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”

In John 14:26, He said that the “Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things.” In John 15:26, He said this Comforter “whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me,” and in John 16:8,

“He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” In John 17:24, He said, “That they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.”

Are these things a reality among Christians today?

When we come to the episodes, they are constantly describing something that is of a different flavor from what we find around us today in even the best of evangelical circles.

Read the New Testament without prejudice, with an open mind, and catch the flavor, catch the spiritual fragrance, and then sniff around where you go to church and the people you associate with and see if it smells the same. There is a synthetic something about modern Christianity, and it is not the same as what we see described here.

The Corinthians were about the least spiritual of the people to whom the apostle wrote, yet if they were to come into the average church today, they would set things on fire because they were gifted people. They were people that would fall on their faces and say, “God is in this place.”

They had something; they had a supernatural something. There was some carnality hanging around that Paul tried to get out, but there was also a lot of spirituality there, and to compare even the Corinthian church with our average church today would be ridiculous, just plain ridiculous because we just do not have what they had.

We just are not where they were. We are far beneath them. We have pulled the New Testament down, and all those high promises and expectations have been dragged down to the level of our mediocrity.

The man of God admonished, “Let us go on unto perfection.” I would like to say that there is a better place spiritually than you now possess. There may be a rare few who have climbed the mountains and from those delectable mountains have seen the city of God.

It may be that you are about to step over the river and enter into it. It may be, but most of the Lord’s people these days are not quite there yet. There is a better place for you, and I want to direct you to that better place. To do so, I want to make you just as dissatisfied as I possibly can because it is the only hope for any of us.

There is a better place for us, and we do not have to alter our doctrine to get there. You can be a spiritual, godly, Christ-like, worshipful person and never change your doctrine at all.

We have all the doctrine we need. We do not need to import anybody to teach us any new doctrine. It is not something new I need to learn. It is something new I need to experience, and what I experience lies within the framework of the simple gospel as we know it.

We got the tree, all right, The trouble is, the tree is not blooming. Fundamentalism and evangelicalism are a tree in winter. It is not dead, because there is life in it, all right, but it is not flowering.

God never meant the tree of correct doctrine to stand stark and cold with the wind whistling through its bare branches. He meant the tree of correct doctrine to blossom, flower, and bear fruit.

We do not have to hunt up some Greek teacher and get the marginal annotation from another translation or have someone come from a foreign country to tell us all of this.

All we have to do is get down on our knees with our New Testament and pray through that boundary The ladder that stood up on the earth with its top reaching halfway up is still there, and we do not need anything else, just our knees and a New Testament.

What is our trouble today?

Our trouble is, that we hear sermon after sermon and do not get anywhere. Why do we push and push the old cart up the hill, and then slip and have to go back down and get it the next Sunday morning, and push it up again?

The average church consists of fifty-two futile efforts that go on per year, plus perhaps two or three thrown in that we call “revival efforts.” I think we should call them revival efforts rather than revivals. In some parts of the country, they call them protracted meetings. I think that perhaps is more honest. But we always slip back to where we were before.

Spiritually, we hop up on Sunday, but then slip back on Monday. Then we come, repeat it Wednesday night maybe, and do the same thing on Sunday. In light of the soon coming of the Lord, it is a terrible thing; in light of the fact that some of us have not got too long yet to go, it is a terrible thing.

Why is this happening? This is happening because we have a lack of desire. We do have not the desire we ought to have, and God’s people are not hungry and thirsty anymore. Occasionally I run into somebody who is so hungry and thirsty that he is practically in agony. I do not worry too much about him, because I know he will get somewhere.

Why is there so much light now among God’s people, yet so little delight? The Lord’s children do not have much joy in God anymore. We have to whip it up, which is why we have song leaders who are as smooth as a willow in the wind and could dance anytime they want to and know just how to whip us up and finally get us going.

Why is it that we have no delight in God and have to get it somewhere? I will tell you what I would rather do. I would rather hear a half-hour concert of folk music than to be in a so-called Christian meeting, where they have to whip me up all the time, wave their arms grin, and show all thirty-two teeth in order to get me going.

We just do not have the delight that the Scriptures promise us. We have replaced the light with what we call methodology. A group of men will sk around and have what they call a panel discussion.

It used to be the worship service would burst forth, and everybody’s delight brought other people in, and they got convicted before God because of the sheer delight of the spiritual life around them.

Now it is methodology. We are teaching methods. The panel discussion is made up of twelve people who do not know what they are talking about, and who are sitting around pooling their ignorance. That is the way we get on now. There is much light, but not much delight. We have a great deal of truth, but it is not blossoming.

We need to see great saints once again in our fellowship. The greater the saint and the holier the man, the less likely he is to admit that he amounts to anything. However, in those saints of the past, did have a treasure, they did see visions of God, they did have heaven open up to them, and they did have great freedom and great peace and great joy and great delight and great intimacy with God.

They may not have had it every day, but they did have those experiences, and God had it written in the great “Hall of Faith” in Hebrews 11.

Some people just get old and become spiritually mediocre. They have been a Christian for years and have served in the church, but they still have a spirituality that is mediocre at best. We used to ask a very pertinent question: “Are you as spiritual as you were last week?” Nobody does that now.

Everybody takes for granted their spiritual situation, which in my opinion is not a good thing to do. We need to inquire, “How’s your soul this Sunday morning, brother?” Rather, we say, “Who won the game last night?”

As you look at the saints of old, you might want to ask, what made these saints the kind of saints that they were? It was the intensity of their desire after God. They wanted God more than they wanted anything else.

They wanted God more than they wanted ease, comfort, fame, wealth, friends, or even life itself. They wanted God, the triune God, so their hearts panted after God as the deer pants after the water brooks.

Jesus Demands This Heart of Mine

Jesus demands this heart of mine—
Demands my wish, my joy, my care;
But, ah! How dead to things divine,
How cold, my best affections are!

’Tis sin, alas! With dreadful power
Divides my Savior from my sight;
Oh, for one happy, shining hour
Of sacred freedom, sweet delight!

Oh let Thy love shine forth and raise
My captive powers from sin and death,
And fill my heart and life with praise,
And tune my last expiring breath. -Anne Steele(1717-1778)

Restoring Our Perception of God

Our hearts, O God, ache as we think of how far we have fallen from Thy glory. We pray Thou wilt restore to us once again the glory of who Thou art. Forgive us for falling so far short of the glory that has established Thy name. Forgive us for allowing elements of the world to crush the glory that only belongs to Thee. Restore us to that place where once again we delight in Thee. Amen.

My major concern is not to focus on the negative aspects of the church today. Certainly, those things need to be pointed out with clarity, and we need to see the dire situation the church is in today. We dare not gloss over the spiritual losses if we are going to be honest and true to the Word of God.

“Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin” (James 4:17).

Of what value would a doctor be if when examining his patient he ignored some symptoms detrimental to his patient’s health? Because of his medical profession, he bears an obligation and responsibility to deal with the medical well-being of his patients. If he sees something wrong, he has an obligation to point it out and then recommend or prescribe a cure.

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That, then, is the purpose of this book: to be faithful to point out that the evangelical church today has some serious spiritual problems, the primary one being a loss of the perception of God that has been its hallmark since its inception.

I do not believe we can ever regain our lost perception of God until we are brought to consider once again the perfection of God. We must restore the biblical concept of God’s perfection made so clear to us.

I do not believe we can know everything about God. God is so vast that there is actually no way we can comprehend in its entirety the glory of our God. What we can do is fully comprehend those things He has revealed to us by the Holy Spirit through the Word of God.

The awesomeness beauty and perfection of our God need to be the focus of our evangelical churches today. All efforts need to be directed here. I know the temptation is to correlate the church with the world in our misguided attempt to reach the world.

But you cannot reach the world by becoming like the world. The only way to reach the world is to become something altogether other than the world. That is what we have in Christianity.

Once again we need to preach sermons in this regard. Songs need to be written and sung on this theme. We need once again to cultivate the inwardness of our Christianity and set that theme on fire in our generation.

Oh, for the fire of the Holy Spirit on our congregations once again, but not the artificial fire of human ingenuity. Sometimes we have the desire to see something happen, and we do everything within our human ability to make it happen. This is not the source of the fire needed in our churches today.

If we are to restore a holy perception of God, we need to do it in such a way that it honors God’s character and nature. We need to push and push in this direction until men and women are caught in this holy flame of desire for God.

Personally, I have a passion to turn people away from the externals of religion and help them experience the marvelous internals of our Christianity that God has established for us. I know the difficulty of this task.

My prayer is that God will raise up men and women who will be so aflame with the fire from the altar that nobody can put out the flame. Today’s church needs once again to see the glory of God.

I know that people today are interested in sermons on how to be better people get along in the world and be prosperous. Many preachers accommodate this thirst for the superficial, and rarely do you hear anyone simply preaching about God.

There are a few out there who are interested in this theme, but not enough preachers who are so committed to it as to stir up a movement in our generation in this direction. I pray that God would set the hearts of many preachers on fire for this one thing.

Let us forget all the other superficial stuff and press on to the perfection of our God and manifest Him in this generation.

I would like to see in the church today a restored perception of God in His majestic holiness.

Once again, we need to show God in His glory as it was in the days of Moses. It was a bold Moses who approached God: And he said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me and live. And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: And it shall come to pass, while my glory-passeth by, that I will put thee in a clip of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.

Exodus 33:18-23

I believe we need this kind of boldness today if we are ever going to have restored to us the awesomeness of the God we serve and worship. Where are those men and women who will step out on a limb, so to speak, and demand to see God’s face, those who will not give up until they encounter God in personal experience?

It will cost us to do this, and many are not willing to pay the price. As God is my witness, this is my prayer, not only for me but also for all those who would follow in His train. We need to get to the mountain of holiness and encounter God in the majesty of His perfection.

And as Moses was not the same when he encountered God, neither will we be the same when we come face-to-face with God.

If we are to recapture our perception of God, we need to comprehend His perfection. We need to pierce the Cloud of Unknowing and enter into the perfection of our God.

I have used the word perfection, and I need to define what I mean by this. Consult Webster’s dictionary and perfection means “the highest possible degree of excellence.” Perfection means that which lacks nothing it should have and has nothing it should not have. It is fullness, completeness, not lacking in anything, and not having anything it should not have.

That is what I mean when I use the word perfection.

The difficulty is that we define perfection from our perspective. Consequently, it does not give us a good view of God when we think of the perfection of God. We think of perfection in a relative sort of way.

If you have two things and one is better than the other, we assume the better one is to be the perfect one. In this regard, perfection means it is better than something else. And we use this all the time from a human perspective.

In music, for example, one singer is better than another, so we assume a state of perfection for the better singer. But you can always find another singer who sings better. Then their performance slides into second place. Perfection cannot go up or down when we think about God.

Parents believe that their baby is perfect. In their eyes she is. But how can everybody’s baby be perfect? There is a relative aspect when we use the word perfection. Our perfection is better, in our own eyes, than someone or something else.

In this regard, our use of perfection is focused on created things. Even singers whom we consider perfect, in a few years, may lose some of the perfect quality of their singing. As they get older, they lose some of that quality.

The baby who was born absolutely perfect will grow up to be a rather imperfect adult. Our idea of perfection has a “now” perspective to it.

When we come to God and the use of perfection with God, this does not stand. What applies to a creature can never apply to the Creator. A creature has ascending and descending levels of perfection. But when we come to the Creator, there are no ascending and descending levels of perfection. What God is at any one moment is what God is all the time.

As the Uncreated One, God has no degrees. With us, degrees are what identify us. One day we will be happy. The next day we are down in the dumps and do not know what we are going to do next. One day we have joy. The next day we have sadness. We are up and down and up and down all the time.

When we come to God, we cannot compare God with anything or anyone else. There are two categories: the Creator and the creation. What is true in one category is not true in the ‘ other.

“To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One” (Isaiah 40:25). What God is saying is that we cannot compare Him with anything or anyone. He is incomparable.

One of our difficulties is in trying to define God. I believe that in the Scriptures God gives us leeway in this area because there are no words to exactly describe and define God. He is beyond definition and description. Yet there is a desire on our part to know God and to follow after Him. What we know about God is really just a sliver of who God really is.

We have to try to organize what we know into little pigeon-holes. That is for our benefit, not God’s. You cannot put God in a pigeonhole. Whatever God is, He is all the time. When we think of the attributes of God, we study them individually, but with God, there is no dividing of one attribute from another.

Whatever God is, He is. When we talk about the unity of God and His attributes, we sometimes think of all of the parts of God working together harmoniously. That is an inadequate picture of God. God is not made up of parts. God is God.

A man of God wisely once said that God’s attributes are numberless. We can know a few of God’s attributes; and an attribute, as I have explained many times, is what God has revealed about himself to be true.

Our problem comes when we try to understand God. We work piece by piece, and then we try to put all the pieces together. Again, God gives us leeway in this area. He knows how limited we are. But as limited as we are, God is unlimited.

Take the human body, for example. Health for us is when all our parts are working together harmoniously. When one of our organs is out of alignment with our other organs, we have some physical issues. Everything must work together.

Yet some people are missing some internal organs and still live. There are some who have had heart transplants and are living because of that. Because we are made up of parts, we have health issues.

Our problem is when we take this human experience and place it on our understanding of God.

When we say that God is a God of love, what we mean many times is that God does not hate. Yet there are many Scriptures that tell us about the anger and hate of God toward sin and the sinner.

This does not mean that God’s love works at one time and then, changing gears, His hate works at another time. Changing gears may work in an automobile, but it does not work with God. God has no gears to change.

God is what He is in one harmonious unity of uncreation.

Now, because of the unity of God, there is no limit to whatever God is. For example, there is no limit to His mercy. God is as merciful to one person as He is to another. On the other hand, what about God’s grace? God’s grace is just as available to one person as it is to another person.

The fact that some people are not experiencing the mercy and grace of God in their personal experience is not God’s fault. God made a way for us to experience Him in all His fullness, and that way is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, “I am the way” (John 14:6).

There is no limit to the goodness of God. God is as good to one person as He is to another. Experiencing that goodness on a human level is our challenge. We can experience as much of God’s goodness as we are willing to experience.

God does not set a limit on how much of His goodness His grace His mercy or His love we can experience.

The more we delve into the beauty of God, the more we are surrounded by an unlimited sense of His beauty. God wants to declare this beauty upon our lives. God wants to pour into us the unlimitedness of all of His attributes nature and character.

Our problem is our limitation determines how much of God we can experience.

The thing that I have discovered is simply this: The more I experience God, the more my capacity to experience God grows. Each day as I walk with God and allow the Holy Spirit to reveal to me who God really is, the more my capacity grows in worshiping and adoring this God.

What this means is that my worship grows and grows as my perception of God grows. God cannot grow. My perception of God grows as I experience Him day after day. I should be more capable of worshiping God today than I was ten or twenty years ago.

As I move toward God, my capacity to understand God grows deeper and deeper.

Of course, the opposite is also true. As I move away from God, my capacity begins to shrink. How many Christians are experiencing a shrinking capacity to worship God? Perhaps that is the reason why our music today is so superficial.

Zion, On the Holy Hills

Zion, on the holy hills,
God, thy Maker, loves thee well;
All thy courts His presence fills,
He delights in thee to dwell.
Wondrous shall thy glory be,
City blest of God, the Lord;
Nations shall be born in thee,
Unto life from death restored.

When the Lord the names shall write
Of thy sons, a countless throng,
God Most High will thee requite,
He himself will make thee strong.
Then in song and joyful mirth
Shall thy ransomed sons agree?
Singing forth throughout the earth,
“All my fountains are in thee. ” –The Psalter

A Defective Perception Of God

Our Father in heaven liberates me from myself and makes me aware of the gulf between Thee and me. Lead me down the path to right that which is wrong and lead me into the way of reformation. I need a great move in my heart of the blessed Holy Spirit. Restore the fragrance of Thy presence. Amen.

In spite of the amazing advances that we have seen in the church, one great overwhelming loss troubles me greatly. The gains are wonderful, but they do not offset the one devastating loss, and that is the loss of a proper perception of God.

If we are going to offset the losses in the evangelical church over the last generation, something drastic needs to take place. I am hesitant to use the word revival because it is used rather carelessly. Perhaps the word reformation is more in order here.

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Everything seems to be a revival. I saw a sign that said, “Revival Tonight at 7 p.m.” What I want to know is, how do they know a revival is going to take place at that particular time?

Perhaps it is because we have changed the meaning of the word revival, and we need to upgrade our vocabulary. Revival is not just getting together for some religious hootenanny. If you study the history of revival, you will come away with a deep sense of reverence for this concept.

In history, the revival was indeed a move of God among His people to bring them back. It seems strange to me that the average gospel church wants to go forward, but forward in the wrong direction. When revival takes place, God brings us back, back to where we left God, where we left our first love. That is the key element.

Revival is to breathe new life, but not just any life; it is the breath of God upon an assembly of believers. Revival can take place only among God’s people and can be done only by the Holy Spirit.

One of the churches in Revelation was deemed luke¬warm. They were neither cold nor hot. They started out right, had good intentions, and were on a good path, but somewhere along the way, their love for God went flat.

When the great Welsh revival came to the little country of Wales in 1904 under the leadership of Evan Roberts, God had something to work on. This is a problem today. There is not much for the Holy Spirit to work on when it comes to a move of God in our midst. Back then, the Holy Spirit had something to work on.

At times, the pastor on a Sunday morning never preached a sermon because God was working in such a way that he never got around to it. The Holy Spirit was moving in such a wondrous, overwhelming way that nobody could interject themselves. All they could do was sit in the awesome silence of God’s presence.

They sang hymns from The Psalter, the Holy Spirit moved in the congregation, and nobody could preach. As a result of this spiritual discipline, the people’s perception of God was high and lofty, enabling the people who truly believed in God.

My contention is that we have lost this lofty perception of God, and the church today, the evangelical church, is thin, anemic, frivolous, worldly, and cheap. I do not know how else to describe it.

In those revival services of days gone by, the people lost all track of time and were conscious only of the presence of God at work in their lives. Now the only thing people are conscious of in our churches is a spirit of entertainment and fun and frivolity, and “How soon will this be over so I can get back to the real world?”

One of my biggest concerns is in the area of preaching. We no longer have the kind of preaching that stirred congregations of the past. I am not one to be constantly looking back, but I think we can look back and see how far we have come.

I do not believe we can go back. However, I think we need to understand that the preaching from the times of the early apostles up through men like John Wesley and then Charles Finney is quite different from today.

I realize the times have changed and the great temptation is to try to keep up with the times, whatever that may mean. The preaching that has stirred the church the most has been hard preaching of the Word of God, irrespective of the feelings or trends in the culture.

This preaching was not to entertain, but rather to stir the hearts in worship of God. The focus of the preaching was God.

Read the famous sermon by Jonathan Edwards “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” The sermon so stirred New England that it gave birth to what was later called the Great Awakening.

Moreover, that sermon and sermons like it brought congregations to a sense of holy fear and dread of God. We do not fear God anymore. We do not dread Him anymore. He is our buddy and wants only to help us be the best kind of people we can possibly be.

Today preaching focuses on entertaining. If we can entertain the people, we can keep them. If we cannot keep the people, the church cannot grow. Therefore, whatever gets the people in and keeps them, that is what preachers are committed to. And that one word, entertainment, is in my mind a blasphemous word in the Christian culture.

The kind of preaching that stirred the church in the past is the preaching we need in the church today.

I almost hate to mention reading material. I think of the great classics that have blessed the Christian church for centuries and how God has used that literature. Today the literature—if you want to call it that—has been so dumbed down so as to not stir up anybody to holy passion. Today literature is cheap junk that I believe should be shoveled out and thrown where it belongs.

From a rather personal perspective, I would like to be the pope for about twenty-four hours, just long enough to get a bull going—a papal bull. My first papal bull would read something like this: “I hereby prescribe all religious junk published in the last year to be thrown out.” Just as soon as they got rid of it all, I would give back the pope position and retire.

Then listen to the songs being sung in so many places. Ah, the roster of the sweet singers. There is Isaac Watts, the little man that nobody would marry because he was so homely, but he T wrote hymns, and what hymns he did write. Meditating on an Isaac Watts hymn will take you further into the presence of God than any song sung today.

Also, there was Nicolaus Zinzendorf, an accountant and wealthy businessman, who was marvelously converted to the Moravian church. He became the leader of the church, and under his ministry came a great revival.

Some of his hymns were “Jesus, the Lord, Our Righteousness”; “O Come, Thou Stricken Lamb of God”; “Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness”; and “Jesus, Still Lead On.” Ah, and what hymns?

Then there were men like Charles Wesley, Isaac Newton, William Cowper (“There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood”), James Montgomery, Bernard of Cluny, and Bernard of Clairvaux. Then there was Paul Gerhardt, Tersteegen, Kelly, Anderson, and Toplady. The list goes on and on of the sweet singers of God.

Some of the junk sung today should not be tolerated in our churches. The reason it is tolerated is that our church leaders do not know any better. Sad, but true, we have the blind leading the blind today.

Our singing is too frivolous and meaningless and does not give God His rightful due. This tragic and frightening decline in the spiritual state of the church has come about as a result of our forgetting what kind of God our God is.

Unless we get to know what God is like, we know God, and we will accept all the superficial nonsense that passes for Christianity today. Our perception of God determines our perception of worship.

What is it that the church has lost?

When I say lost, please do not think everybody has lost it, because God always has His seven thousand who have not kissed Baal or bowed down to his image.

If we are going to make any kind of progress, we need to understand what we have really lost.

At the very foundation of our loss, today is what I call the “vision of the majesty on high.”

Today we are democratic in distinction from autocratic; we slap our kings and leaders on the back and call them “Bud” these days. The concept of majesty is gone from the world, and in particular, it is gone from the church.

Majesty is a word nobody uses today. But we just do not know what the word means anymore. We have become the generation of the common man and have managed to beat down every uncommon man until he is a common man.

And if anybody by sheer hard study, prayer, and work sticks up his head a little above the rest, we beat him down and call him “Bob” just to prove to him that we are somebody and he is nobody. We have lost the concept of majesty.

I mourn this loss of majesty that I see permeating the church. I believe it would do every Christian good to read through the book of Ezekiel, preferably on their knees. In this book of that old prophet, there is that terrible, frightful, awful passage where the Shekinah, the shining presence of God, flies out from between the wings of the cherubim and goes to the altar.

From that altar it rises and goes to the door and, with the sound of whirring wings, to the outer courts and to the mountain, and finally into glory.

The Shekinah glory that followed Israel disappeared. Perhaps God could take it no longer, so He pulled out His majesty and the Shekinah went with Him. I wonder in how many churches this would be true. I wonder how many churches really have experienced the overwhelming majesty of Gods presence in their worship.

I feel too many are experiencing the silence of God. God has no welcoming invitation into the worship services today. Everything is programmed. Everything is developed from the mindset of mankind to please mankind. Once again, we need to see the terrible, majestic, awesome presence of God, the holy Shekinah, in our worship times today.

One hour in the presence of the majesty of God is worth more to you now and in eternity than all the preachers, including me, who have ever stood up to open their Bibles.
To study the history of the Christian church down through the ages, it is easy to see that she lived on the character of God alone.

Unlike religions that have come and gone throughout the centuries, Christianity surpasses them all, especially in this one area: magnifying the character of God.

Religion is all about work and gaining God’s approval. History shows us that this is impossible.

Christianity is all about worshiping God, celebrating and delighting in the amazing character of God. No other religion has risen as high as Christianity in its relationship to God. Everything about Christianity is focused on God.

The church has preached God, prayed to God, declared God among the nations, honored God, and elevated God in every generation. When the church is acting like the church, God is being exalted among the nations.

For some reason, the church has grown bored with this. It is hard to explain why, but we have succumbed to the lowly concept of God expressed in religion. Where once we had a high and lofty perception of God, we have allowed, for some reason, the world to redefine our God for us. Instead of taking our God to the world, the world is bringing a god to us that is acceptable to them.

The world wants a pal, a partner, and even, as someone has said, “The man upstairs who likes me.”

Even Hollywood has injected itself into this act. An actress from California happened to be in New York City, crawling around among the saloons, blowing smoke and soaking up liquor. She got into a religious conversation with somebody who happened to ask if she was a religious person.

“Yes,” she said, “I am a religious woman. The fact is I know God. Do you know God?”

The man looked at her, smiled, and said he did not know God.

“Well,” she said, “you better get to know God. You will find if you get to know Him, He is a living doll.”

So, we have God as a “living doll.”

No religion in the world that I know of would treat its God the way we Christians treat our God. We have the true God, yet we do not treat Him with the respect and dignity that the heathen treat their gods.

I must confess there are times when I am tempted to turn my back on a lot that passes for Christianity in our day. In my opinion, it is not Christianity, and something needs to be done to rattle the cage to get people to see how despicable their concept of Christianity has become.

We have taken all the carnal expressions of the world and put them on God. Prayer is “going into a huddle” with God. I have heard this expression, and I only can conclude that it comes from people who do not have a proper perception of God.

To know God and then disrespect Him is the epitome of hypocrisy. For many people, prayer is simply a way to convince God to give you something you want. That kind of prayer never gets above the ceiling.

For many today, God is only the top celebrity—that is all. If God were to come to earth now, they would sign Him up for some television show immediately. They would have a story called This Is Your Life, and then tell God how He got the way He is. God is only the top celebrity, and in the meantime, Christianity has lost its dignity when it comes to the things of God.

I do not believe we need more religion; we need a better kind of religion. My great burden these days and for many years has not been for an extension of the kind of religion we have now.

It has to be an improvement of the kind we have and then an extension of that. The one great loss we have suffered in the evangelical world, the one great overwhelming, calamitous loss that has been the cause of all these other losses is one: a loss of God.

The highest God, maker of heaven and earth—that awesome God before whom our fathers fell—that God has left us, and in His place has come that God of the half-saved, who want to get chummy with God and treat Him like the chairman of some committee.

Religious Fear

We also have lost from our gospel Christianity—almost together—what used to be called “religious fear.” We have practically no religious fear in our time, and along with our loss of religious fear has come a corresponding flippancy and familiarity toward God that our fathers never knew.

The God of our fathers has been replaced by many other gods who are in no way able to actually replace our God. The problem with that is this god is not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but a god of thought—a god of our empty heads— and the result is that he can never surprise anybody, he can never transcend anything, he can never beat anybody down, he can never crush anybody, he can never lift up anybody.

He is just a nice, comfortable god to have around, halfway between Plato and John Wesley.

The Art Of Worship

With the loss of the concept of majesty comes the loss of the art of worship. We no longer worship. I am not sure what we do, but it does not contain the reverence and the awesome wonder about God that our forefathers cherished.

The only worship that is acceptable is that which is in complete harmony with the holy character and nature of God. After all, it is God whom we are worshiping, not ourselves.

The Loss of Our Inwardness

If Christianity is anything, it is an inward religion. Jesus said that we are to worship in spirit and in truth. We have such a tough outer shell that it is almost impossible for us to have those inward moments basking in the presence of God.

The Loss Of An Awareness Of The Invisible And The Eternal

The world is too much with us, and we have it with us all the time and all around us so that the invisible and the eternal seem to be quite forgotten. At least we are not aware of it. We are only briefly aware of it when someone dies. We are people of the “now generation.”

The Loss Of The Consciousness Of The Divine Presence

Our churches today have lost consciousness of God’s divine presence because we have lost the perception of the deity that makes it possible. Come to church on Sunday and you may feel a sense of God and His presence, but when you leave, you leave that behind.

Never should we leave the sense of God behind us. However, we have lost awe, wonder, holy fear, and spiritual delight. We have lost the high and lofty perception of God that God honors.

If we have lost that which is inward and gained only that which is outward, I wonder if we have gained anything at all. I wonder if we might not be in a bad state, spiritually speaking. I believe that we are and desperately need a fresh manifestation of God’s power.

I Sing The Mighty Power Of God

I sing the mighty power of God,
That made the mountains rise,
That spread the flowing seas abroad,
And built the lofty skies.
I sing the wisdom that ordained
The sun to rule the day;
The moon shines full at His command’
And all the stars obey.

I sing the goodness of the Lord,
Who filled the earth with food,
Who formed the creatures through the Word,
And then pronounced them good.
Lord, how Thy wonders are displayed,
Where’er L turn my eye,
LfL survey the ground L tread,
Or gaze upon the sky.

There’s not a plant or flower below,
But makes Thy glories known,
And clouds arise, and tempests blowy
By order from Thy throne;
While all that borrows life from Thee
Is ever in Thy care;
And everywhere that we can be,
Thouy Gody art present there. –Issac Watts(1664-1748)

 

Our Perception Of God And The Church

O God, my heart is empty because I can find nothing to adequately fill it. I need Thee to fill me with all the fullness of Thy perfection. Lead me, O God, in the path of righteous¬ness that I might discover Thee and the truth of Thy character and nature. Amen.

Anyone who has been even a casual observer of the evangelical Christian church over the last generation or two would agree when I say there has been significant growth, which has been affected by the overall perception of God in our midst.

I am often accused of being negative, and I struggle with it, but I also like to put forth the true picture. Some wonderful advancement in the Christian church has been a blessing, of which I am grateful to God.

It all boils down to what a man believes about God. His perception of God becomes the foundation upon which he builds his whole life, and out of that flows the spirit of worship, and out of his worship flow service and ministry.

Read and Learn More Things That Delight The Heart Of God

I need to lay down something rather important—that is, the church’s witness, if it is going to be valid, has to be related to its times. A sermon to be preached, a book to be published—if they are to mean anything—have to relate to the day in which they are given.

Nothing of any value has ever come out of a vacuum. Therefore, what I have to say will be in the context of the current religious situation. If we are going to know anything about a spiritual situation, we need to take a very close and honest look at the whole situation at hand.

I want to look at the evangelical situation for the moment. I am not interested in anything but the situation of the evangelical church, that is, I have nothing to say about liberal or modernistic churches.

If we’re going to know where we are and where we are going, we need to know how we got here and what kind of spiritual situation we are in. We are going to have to appraise ourselves in light of our gains and our losses.

Allow me to outline some of the gains I see in the evangelical church of today.

The Religious Spirit

The first I will mention is the fact that in the last generation, there has been an amazing resurgence of the religious spirit. Religion has become quite popular in our time, and it is always easier to evangelize when you are in friendly territory. Everybody seems to know something about Christianity and God and Christ and the j gospel. It gives us a platform to do our work.

Many have been greatly fooled by this. They believe because there is more religion in the world the world is better. We forget that there is simply a mighty resurgence of the religious spirit, and it has affected every religion in the whole wide world: Shintoism, Buddhism, Islam, and all the various “isms” and fringe cults, virtually all the religions of the world.

In this upsurge of the religious spirit, evangelical Christianity has also felt a resurgence of religious feeling and has made quite a bit of gain.

I can remember back when my hair was black—and I had some—you had to be a doubter or an agnostic or an outright unbeliever to be respectable intellectually. Now we have witnessed quite a change, for you can believe in God and still not blush, and keep your respectability.

Churches

One thing we need to rejoice in is the growth of the evangelical church in our generation. Gospel churches are starting and growing and maintaining a significant presence in our culture. This can only be a good thing.

I am not sure if our Bible colleges and seminaries are keeping up with the need for pastors, ministers, and workers in these congregations. All of this represents a wonderful accomplishment, and I would be the last person to criticize the resurgence of evangelicalism in our country today. I celebrate progress if it is truly progress and pray for it to increase until Jesus comes.

Christian Education

Never before in the history of the church have we had more institutions to educate and train Christian workers than we do today. It is important that we have such institutions.
It seems that hardly a day goes by but somebody is starting some new Christian college, seminary, or Bible institute.

By this, we have the means by which we can train people for the work of the ministry and fill these growing churches. I do not think the church has ever had a better-trained group of ministers and workers to guide the church than it does today.

I want to go on record as saying that I fully believe in Christian education. I believe a person should get as much education as they possibly can. I am never against that

Christian Publishing

Today more books are being published than ever since the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1440. I am most grateful for the invention of the printing press and its development down through the years, making it possible for gospel literature to be published.

We are blessed with an increasing flood of periodicals and tracts, along with an increase and improvement in the methods of communication like never before.

Stop and think time of the busy, nonstop presses that are pouring out these days tons of religious literature. Everything that you could imagine, we have; you name it, and somebody is publishing it or will publish it. The evangelical church is certainly getting its message out.

Communications

Communication is an area that is rather fascinating. During my lifetime, communications have literally exploded. It seems that there are no limits to the development of communications technology.

As’ churches take advantage of modern technology and communications, they are able to spread the gospel throughout the world. In thinking about that, I wonder if there is a place anywhere in the world that cannot be touched with the gospel message.

Is there a limitation to our communication of the gospel in our generation? And along with communications comes trans-portation. We are able to get to places quicker than ever before. Out on the mission field in years past, it took missionaries weeks to get from one place to a village they wanted to evangelize.

Today, with the advancement of communications and transportation, they can get to that place in a matter of hours.

Christian Missions

There are also more mission missionary activities and world evangelism than ever before. It would be impossible for anyone to count how many organizations there are along this line, and they are growing each year.

We have more missions now than we know what to do with, and evangelism is riding very high. It is popular and gaining great momentum in our culture. The funding for these mission endeavors is growing every year. Evan¬gelicals are contributing financially to the work of the ministry and missions.

We have evangelistic organizations to reach everyone: organizations for the evangelization of children, young people, housewives, Native Americans, railroad men, artists, and just about anybody. You name it, and I probably can find an organization that is busy evangelizing that particular group of people. No one has an excuse for not hearing the gospel today.

I would challenge you to find a group anywhere in the world, or a language anywhere in the world, to which somebody is not taking the gospel. We have so fine-tuned the gospel message to reach every tribe tongue and nation. This, of course, is the focus of the Great Commission.

We are successful in evangelizing people, which is why we have greater numbers and why we have to have more committees and more schools. Much good is coming out of this.

I must say that I am all in favor of using the latest means and methods as long as they do not in any way compromise the message. Whatever makes the message secondary should be eliminated. We are obligated to God to get the message out to the world by any and all means at our disposal.

Our sacred obligation is to make sure the message is delivered unaltered, uncompromised, or “improved upon.”

All of this, as I said, is much in our favor, and I want to acknowledge as much as I can. I pray daily for those who are involved in reaching the unsaved for Christ. This is a priority in our evangelical ministry.

When we talk about gains, we need to have a time of evaluation. A businessman learns at the end of the year how his business stands by balancing his losses against his gains. If he has more gains than losses, he has had a successful year, and he stands to increase his business the following year.

If, however, he experiences too many losses, he probably will be out of business by the next year. Gains and losses need to be under control and evaluated. This is the rule of business.

The church, however, is not a business. Let me be clear on that point. But just as everything needs to be evaluated, the good and the bad duly noted, so in the church we need to have peri¬odic evaluations as well.

If we are going in the right direction, then we need to continue to go in the right direction and thank God for His leadership. If there are some problems and difficulties, then corrections need to be made to bring us back to where we need to be.

As an editor, I know a manuscript needs to be reworked quite a few times before it is publishable. A good editor needs to edit out all unnecessary words and phrases so that the piece can be strengthened. I believe the same needs to be done in the church.

We need to look at what we are doing and evaluate those things that are unnecessary and that are weighing down the church. I believe we need some very serious editing in the evangelical church today.

We need to evaluate where we are and what we are doing, by some measure. What is that measure? How do we know if what we are doing is correct or not?

Moses was instructed to make sure that the Tabernacle was “according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount” (Hebrews 8:5). Moses did not have the authority to improve upon God’s design.

The pattern God gave Moses was not a suggestion, and then Moses could take artistic license, as we say. The tabernacle, in order to be approved by God, had to be according to the pattern shown to Moses.

The pattern was a revelation to Moses, and Moses was faithful to that pattern.

This is where we need to get back to in the church. We need to understand what the pattern is, and that God has given us a pattern. Everything we do must be in complete harmony with that pattern. To improve upon the pattern, to compromise the pattern is to incur God’s displeasure.

I am sure Moses could have assembled a group of talented, artistic people to examine the pattern and then develop something far more elaborate than what God had in mind. I wonder if that is what is happening today. I wonder if we are not going beyond the pattern God has given us in the New Testament church.

In our evaluating the great advances and victories in the Christian church, we need to compare it to the New Testament pattern. This involves some painstaking evaluation and going back to the original drawings.

The Church’s One Foundation

The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lordy
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven he came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood, he bought her
And for her life, He died.

‘Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war;
She waits for the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
Stilly with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.

Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won.
With all her sons and daughters
Who, by the Master’s hand
Led through the deathly waters,
Repose in Eden land.

O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with Thee:
There, past the border mountains,
Where in Sweet Vales the Bride
With Thee by living fountains
Forever shall abide! –Samuel J. Stone(1839-1900)

The Basis Of Our Perception Of God

O God, help me collect my thoughts and focus on them. I am so prone to wander and speculate, but, O Lord, lead me in the way of knowing Thee in such a way as to understand who I am and why I am here. Lead me on into Thy perfection in Jesus’ name. May L be worthy to know Thee in all the fullness of Thy divine revelation. Amen.

Even to talk about God requires a capacity beyond human ability. I know everyone talks about God, but in the context that I have set before us in this chapter, no one can truly talk about God in a way that is worthy of the God we are talking about.

No man can preach about God worthily, no man can write about God worthily unless that man knows God beyond his human ability.

I do not approach the subject as a scholar or a theologian. I believe in theology. I think nothing is more wonderful than theology, which is simply the study of God. All theology begins with God and ends with God, or it is not true biblical theology.

Read and Learn More Things That Delight The Heart Of God

Much that passes for theology today is simply the educated man trying to explain God through his own logic and reason. I assure you, there is plenty of logic and reason with God, but it does not stop there. If all we had was logic and reason, we would never penetrate that Cloud of Unknowing that keeps most people from truly knowing God.

We make a grave error when we approach such a subject as an expert. The church is full of experts these days, and they have only added to the confusion of our perception of God. The only way to approach the subject is as a worshiper. All the technical aspects of theology fall short of truly penetrating the manifest presence of God.

I am not giving a lecture on what I think about God. What I am doing is giving a witness, a testimony, if you please, of my journey into the heart of God. My witness is not for the head, but for the heart that has a burning passion to know God.

At the risk of repetition, it was Saint Augustine who really understood this and wrote in his confessions, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee.” This man of God understood what many do not understand today.

We were created for a purpose, and until that purpose is fulfilled, we are in a restless state. Nothing outside of us can bring the rest and peace we were created for and yearn for.

The pleasures of the world fall far short of this. Not all the exterior aspects of the world can penetrate that sacred barrier of the soul reserved only for God. Our worship today is too emotional and fails to quiet our souls to fully experience the presence of God.

It is my objective in this book to lead the hearts of believers toward God, in whom they will discover their purpose and find their rest.

In years gone by, men were quite unsure of themselves, but that day is far gone. Today we are very sure about ourselves, so sure about everything except the things that we should be sure about. We have majored in the minors and lost our true significance. More people back then had the mindset of Thomas Black- lock, who said, “Come, O my soul, in sacred lays [levels or stra- tums].”

Personally, I think it might be a good idea when we get together on Sunday mornings to make a point to call our souls “in sacred lays.” Of course, today congregations have no idea of what this truly looks like. This is something that needs to be explored today, and we need to follow the Blacklock prayer:

Come, O my soul’ in sacred lays
Attempt thy great creator’s praise:
But oh, what tongue can speak His fame?
What verse can reach the lofty theme?

When we begin to think about God, we are thinking about that which is beyond our ability to fully comprehend and beyond the limit of human intelligence. Very plainly put, if you can conceive it, it is not God.

I want to concentrate on the perfection of God, which includes all of those characteristics of His divine nature. Once you begin probing into the personality of God, there is no end in sight. It goes on and on as He delights to unfold Himself before our worshiping hearts.

The more we know about God and the more we know Him intimately, the more we will begin to understand ourselves and that wondrous and mysterious connection we have with Him. God’s attributes dictate the praise and worship acceptable to Him, and if it is not acceptable to Him in any regard, it is not suitable worship.

We must evaluate our worship in light of the One we are worshiping. No one can do that and do it worthily, for who of us is capable of anything like that? The One we are worshiping dictates our worship.

In “Idylls Of The King: The Passing Of Arthur,” Alfred, Lord Tennyson Put It This Way:

More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.
Wherefore, let thy voice rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friends?
For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.

Quite frankly, I am dealing with the One you must believe in before you can deny Him: the One who is the Word, the One who enables us to speak concerning Him. On our own, we could produce only a caricature and a poor one at that, and certainly not worthy of our worship. I refuse to worship anything of my own making.

I readily admit I am not qualified in myself to present such truths about God. The more I delve into the subject at hand, the more I realize how much I really do not know. Sometimes we can become so arrogant that we think we believe, but we are blinded to certain aspects of the truth.

I certainly want my heart open to everything that God would reveal to me. The thing that must really be understood is that our knowledge of God cannot be acquired simply through academic processes. What we really know about God is what He has faithfully revealed to us.

When Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to the disciples, they still could not believe it. Belief is not based upon seeing, because if it were, they would have believed that Jesus had risen from the dead when they saw Him.

It took a spiritual application of revelation that cannot be brought about by reason or logic. When their eyes were opened, which is only done through the work of the Holy Spirit, they were able to believe.

What the Holy Spirit does not reveal to us is not worth knowing.

It is my contention that everything we do in some way reflects our perception of God. It does not take long to understand a person when you begin to understand his or her perception of God. I believe it is critical that our perception of God is worthy of God and that it reflects the truth revealed to us about the God of the Word.

Even those who do not believe in God make a god out of not believing in God. What is it that you really believe and think of when you hear the word God? Your perception of God determines everything about you. For this reason, our perception of God needs to be based on a solid foundation that will not let us down under any circumstance.

We need to really understand the history of man’s progressive degeneration. Some believe man is on his way up. The evidence, however, does not support this idea at all. If man were on his way up, why is he still wrestling with the sins of his forefathers? Why is it that man has not solved his problems, but seems only to add to them?

The story begins in the Garden of Eden. It was there that man began. Adam was created in the image of God, and upon his creation, God said about him, “It is good.” There was no imperfection anywhere to beHound in him. Such was also the case with Eve.

Some seem to say that a man’s environment is what brings him down. A young boy growing up in the ghetto in the middle of the city does not have a chance. The other side of that is a young boy growing up in the suburbs, who has all the advantages of life, will turn out great. Evidence points in a different direction.

Adam and Eve were in the perfect environment. No sin was to be found anywhere in that wonderful garden—no imperfection of any kind, nothing that in any way would cause a man or a woman to turn their back on God. Enter Satan, man’s enemy.

Up until this point, Adam and Eve had a good perception of God. He walked with them in the cool of the day. They had fellowship with Him that can only be imagined and envied from our side of the garden. They knew who God was. Then Satan threw in a seed of doubt, and the history of man took a downward spiral.

Satan cast a bad reflection on God that caused Adam and Eve to question who God was and if He really had their best interests at heart. We all know where the story goes after that.
This progressive degeneration has been the theme of man’s history since that time.

Man’s perception of God began to leave his mind, and he adopted the agenda of Satan: “I will be like the Most High.” Since that time, man has tried to rise above God, only to fall into a downward spiral that eventually ends in the pit of hell.

The consequence of all this is that man lost his confidence in God. As a result, people do not have faith in God. We can look at the great men of faith. One that I like is George Mueller. The question people ask is “Why can’t I have the faith of George Mueller?”

The only way you can have the faith of George Mueller is to have George Mueller’s confidence in God. This is not something that comes from textbooks or lectures or any of the technical aspects of religion that are so prominent today.

This confidence in God can come only when we begin to know God as He really is. It is my contention that only a true worshiper can know God.

Religion can teach you about God. Cold, textual theology can teach you about God. But neither can really bring you into the presence of God, where you begin to know God and have confidence in the God that you know.

I contend that our faith in God comes naturally and automatically as we begin to know Him personally—not just know about God, but have a personal encounter with the living God, an encounter that is not boxed in by reason or logic. A true encounter with God lifts us above everything we can know, and we begin to pierce that Cloud of Unknowing and come into the presence of God.

Faith is not something we struggle to build. Rather, faith is knowing God, believing in God and what He says about himself, resulting in confidence in God and His character. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).

If we have to struggle to try to drum up faith, it will be a pseudo-faith and nothing that will enhance our walk with God. Our confidence in God will plummet, and we will begin looking for a replacement. I am so afraid that the Christian church today has found its replacement in entertainment and social activities.

But my task is to give a report on the character of God, or as I like to state it, the perfection of God. I want to tell you what God is like, and when I am telling you what God is like, if you read and listen with an open mind, you will find faith springs up automatically.

It takes the restored knowledge of God to bring forth our faith. I do not believe there was ever a time in the history of the church when we needed this more than we need it today.

Someone once complimented me by telling me they thought I was a good preacher and they got a great deal out of my sermons. When I was younger, I might have agreed, but I have listened to recordings of some of my sermons and they sound awful, to tell you the truth.

I do not claim to be a good preacher. However, I do preach about good things, and that is what makes a vast difference between a good preacher and preaching about something good. I am preaching about something good when I am preaching about God; I am now writing about that which is good and above everything else we could even think about.

This is the core and center and source of all theology and all doctrine and all truth, all life and all matter and all mind, all spirit and all soul. This is the great need of the hour because the situation, as I see it in churches today, is very serious. It is not how well we say it, but rather how well we believe it.

Knowing God is to understand our reason for existence—our purpose in life. Life is so short that many people waste it trying to find themselves—outside of God. This knowledge transcends reason and comes to us only by way of divine revelation and illumination.

Keep in mind, that ideas of God not rooted in revealed truth give way to human speculation and certain untruths about God, and disqualify any worship we might try to give to God.

My prayer for you is that this book will stir up in you a holy passion to know God. The sooner this book is unnecessary, the sooner you will begin to discover your relationship with God, and when that takes place, your soul will begin to sing the song of worship and praise and adoration.

Come, O My Soul, In Sacred Lays

Come, O my soul[ in sacred lays Attempt thy great creators praise:
But oh, what tongue can speak His fame?
What verse can reach the lofty theme?
What verse can reach the lofty theme?

Enthroned amid the radiant spheres,
He glory like a garment wears;
To form a robe of light divine,
Ten thousand suns around Him shine,
Ten thousand suns around Him shine.

In all our Maker’s grand designs,
Almighty power, with wisdom, shines;
His works, through all this wondrous frame,
Declare the glory of His name,
Declare the glory of His name.

Raised on devotion lofty wing,
Do thou, my soul, His glories sing;
And let His praise employ thy tongue
Till listening worlds shall join the song,
Till listening worlds shall join the song. –Thomas Blacklock(1721-1791)

 

The Reality Of Our Perception Of God

O God, my heart pants for Thee as David’s of old did. I long to know Thee in all the beauty of Thy self-revelation and in all of Thy perfection. The way into Thy heart may be difficult and treacherous, but I can bear the difficulties as long as I discover in them the fullness of Thy character and nature. Amen.

Whenever you find a man of God, you will also find an overwhelming passion for God that is almost beyond your control. Not a curiosity about God, but a deep passion to experience God in all of His fullness. To know God is the one passion that drives a man into the very heart of God.

Our Bible abounds with Scriptures highlighting this very passion. Indulge me two of my favorites.

David Passionately Writes: As the heart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?

Read and Learn More Things That Delight The Heart Of God

Psalm 42:1-2

As far as David had many things in his life and was not a perfect man by any stretch of the imagination, yet I can safely say that his hunger for God was the thing that lifted him above everyone else and made him a man after God’s own heart.

David desired God at any cost, and reading his story, we discover what that cost was.

In The New Testament, We Have A Man By The Name Of Paul, Who Wrote: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

Philippians 3:10-11

To know God was the overwhelming passion of the apostle Paul, and nothing else in his life mattered neither life nor death. If we can understand a man’s passion, we can begin to understand why he does or does not do certain things.

This passion for God was not a casual thing. To truly know God as He desires and deserves to be known is not a casual thing, but a lifelong pursuit that ends only when we see Him face-to-face.

I have used the word passion, and I need to explain myself. Passion can be defined in two ways. First, there is the passion of the heart, and then there is the passion of the mind. Often these two are confused or used interchangeably.

The difference is that the passion of the mind is swayed by outside influences, whereas the passion of the heart delves into the deep things of God. John the Beloved wrote, “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

The passion of the heart has the greater power in a person’s life—the power to transform into true godliness that which is acceptable to God and meets His requirements.

Unfortunately, most people waste their passion on temporal things, such as sports, entertainment, and vacations, whereas the man or woman of God focuses on that which can truly satisfy the heart. The ways of passion undermine our integrity.

Our passion for God should lift us above the elements of the world into the heavenly spheres, where God’s praise is supreme.

I need to point out that there are three basic levels of knowing God.

First is the intellectual level. This is based entirely upon the evidence at hand. Later on, we will examine the idea that we can find God in nature. However, the intellectual level is where we begin. God gave us a mind and expects us to use it, especially in the area of knowing Him. Scientists have explored our world in great detail, and all you need to do is examine the evidence.

The intellectual level goes only so far. The next level is theological. This is organizing truth into what we call doctrine. Theology is great, and I believe in theology, which is simply the study of God, What could be more exciting than that?

All theology must be based upon the Word of God. Theology is not an end in itself but rather points to the One who is greater than theology. When theology becomes an end in itself, it ceases to be a way into the knowledge of God.

What people need today is truth—truth organized in a way that allows us to understand what God is about. The primary problem with theology is that we have organized it according to man’s prejudice. Theology should be the study of God, not our human interpretation of God.

That is where we encounter problems. Is God a Calvinist or is He an Arminian? According to some theology, you must be one or the other.

We have the intellectual level and the theological level, but that is not enough. Let’s move on to what I call the mystical level.

I always get in trouble when I use the word mystic. I know this word has been abused and misused, but I am not afraid of controversy. I think the word mystic covers quite nicely what I am trying to say.

Down through the years, there have been great evangelical mystic writers. These writers were so in tune with God that all of them, without exception, suffered persecution at the hands of church authorities. Their concept of God was so pure and lofty and holy, that the average person could not grasp it.

When I talk about the mystical level of knowing God, I am speaking of that which pierces the Cloud of Unknowing—the area that cannot be discerned by human knowledge and understanding, that rises above the intellect and even theology and goes into the area of experiencing the presence of God.

Brother Lawrence put his thoughts about this in his book Practicing the Presence of God. This is what the mystical level is all about.

Yes, we need to have an intellectual level first. And yes, the theological level is necessary to keep within the confines of the revealed Word of God. But all of that leads us deeper and higher, if you please, into the very heart of God. If I am going to know God, I need to penetrate the manifest presence of God, where His character and nature have been revealed to me in never-ending wonder and amazement.

It is simply not enough to know about God. We must know God in increasing levels of intimacy that lift us above all reason and into adoration praise and worship.

David was a man who understood this. He was a man after God’s own heart. In spite of that, he was a man of passion like the rest of us. He had feelings, problems, and difficulties. But in spite of all his human weaknesses, David had a passion for God that lifted him above all of his mistakes and weaknesses and brought him into the very heart of God himself.

Oh, that we would be like David, a man after God’s own heart.

Reading through David’s Psalms always leaves me with a hunger and desire for God. It is not so much a man’s journey that defines him, but his destination and David’s destination was God. David was not searching for a better life. He was searching for God.

He was not looking for recognition, acclaim, or posses¬sions. He was searching for God. Some of that stuff got in his way, but in the end, David’s passion for God won out.

In the New Testament, we have the apostle Paul, who was a man of reason, a well-educated man in his day, and one of the top Pharisees in Israel. He was going places as far as his religious aspirations were concerned. He was deeply devoted to his career and had reasoned himself down the pathway to success.

In looking at Paul’s life, none of his reasoning truly satiated his heart. An emptiness within spurred him on, only to be left empty once more. It was on the road to Damascus that Paul reached the end of reason and encountered God.

He discovered God, and from that moment on, the passion of his heart can be summed up in the phrase “That I may know Him.” No matter what else we know about Paul, if we know this, we begin to understand the real passion of his heart and why he did some of the things he did.

Paul’s Statement In Philippians 3:10-11 Sums Up The Essence Of His Passion For God: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

To know God was Paul’s passion, and nothing else really mattered to him. Three things helped Paul focus on God (from the Scripture quoted above).

The First Was “The Power Of His Resurrection.”

Becoming a Christian is not just nodding to a few truths and then saying, “I accept Jesus.” It is infusing into your life the divine power, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. This is the tremendous work of the Holy Spirit to bring you into the divine world of redemption.

The Second Was “The Fellowship Of His Sufferings.”

This was Paul’s identification with the Christ who died on the cross and rose on the third day. What Paul meant by this was that his Christianity was a result of his relationship with God. And Paul was willing to follow Him at all costs.

This passion of Paul got him into a lot of trouble. I think I can safely say that Paul’s attitude was that Christ’s enemies were going to be his enemies and Christ’s friends were going to be his friends.

Paul did not expect the world to treat him any better than people treated Christ. They crucified Christ, and they finally killed the apostle Paul. All of this was the result of his love for God which could not be satisfied with anything but God himself.

Paul’s third focus was “being made conformable unto his death.”

This was the key to the apostle Paul’s ministry and the passion he had for God. When Jesus died on the cross, it was for our sins. Paul speaks of putting “self” on the cross to free oneself from sin. It was his desire to bring his life into conformity with the death of Jesus Christ so that the resurrection power of Christ could usher him into worship and praise.

These two men, David in the Old Testament and Paul in the New Testament started out from different points of view. They could not have been more different, and no two could have merged into one holy passion for God as they did. A person is known by the passion that drives him day after day through thick and thin.

What is needed today is passion, but more defined, a passion for God, a deep desire to know God as He desires to be known. What I see lacking today is this desire to know God on a personal basis. Other things crowd this relationship out until it is barely recognized in the church today.

In the evangelical church, we seem to have a great deal of passion for everything but God. We look around for activities that consume the resources of our lives. Instead of looking around at the world, we need to look up to the source of our redemption. We are so caught up with all the modern gadgets and methods that we have lost our passion for God.

I need a passion for God that penetrates that thick exterior known as the world, designed by the enemy to keep me away from God. Examining the conditions today, it is apparent our enemy has done a good job of establishing a wall between God and us that is all but impenetrable. Left to our own human resources, it would be impenetrable.

The important thing to keep in mind is that whatever keeps me away from God is my enemy, and only the power of God can overcome it. The trouble today is that we do not recognize the enemy and, in some cases, have even drawn him out to be a friend.

Isaac Watts puts this question before us: “Is this vile world a friend to grace, to help me on to God?” It is a rhetorical question, and the answer is a resounding no. Nothing in this world will in any way feed our passion for God. We must leave the world behind us and pursue to know God in His arena. The closer I get to God, the further away from the world I become.

Coming into the presence of God is not something accomplished in human strength, as I pointed out, but only through the power of the Holy Spirit within me, enabling me to penetrate deep into the heart of God.

The deeper into the heart of God I go, the more the enemy will oppose me, but the more God will draw me. The enemy may be strong, but his strength is limited, whereas God’s grace has no limit. “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

I certainly am not against reason. I believe reason is a great asset in any pursuit in this world. It is essential that we are able to reason from point A to point B. Without reason, the whole world would be in serious trouble.

Scientists can uncover great mysteries by using reason. We live in a very rational world, despite many irrational people, and reason can be a great ally to us if we allow it. The problem is when we bring reason into the spiritual realm.

Reason by its very nature is limited and therefore cannot help us in our pursuit of the unlimited God. Reason may bring us to the door, but only faith can unlock the door so that we may go into the presence of God.

Faith is not unreasonable; it just operates above the reach of reason. Faith enables us to jump from one point on earth into the very heart of God. The human heart has a thirst for God. God created us, and something in us relates to something in God. Until these two are brought together, which happens at salvation, there is a restlessness within the human heart that can never be stilled.

This restlessness is seen in the world around us. The heart of the world is pulsating in a restless effort to discover the purpose of life, but it is always going in the wrong direction, away from God.

God created us with a passion for himself, and it was the fall of man in the Garden of Eden that hijacked that passion and brought man down to the level we find him today. Only through redemption—accomplished by Christ dying on the cross and rising on the third day—can we be brought back to that place of fellowship with God, which is the passion of every human being.

Paul’s declaration “That I may know Him” is the war cry, if you please, of the redeemed soul pursuing God in the power of the Holy Spirit. The most natural thing following conversion is an insatiable desire to know God, which needs to be nourished with the deep things of God.

Peter declared this when he wrote, “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). It is the passion of the Christian to grow, but the focus of our growth must be Christ.

It is wonderful to know all the things around us but to know Christ is the epitome of all knowledge. This is the passion of the Christian.

When I was younger, I sought to read and study everything I could get my hands on. I was a regular visitor at the local library and carried home armloads of 6f books to read every week. I read biography, psychology, history, poetry, philosophy, and, yes, even theology. I could debate people on just about any subject that came up at the time, much to the chagrin of my friends around me.

As I got older and more mature in the things of God, I began to lose interest in those subjects, and I began to have a passion to simply know God. That is when everything changed. All the books I had read in the past faded in the light of knowing God.

It has cost me dearly in my pursuit of God. However, as I look back, it is my pursuit of God that has brought me to where I am today. I desire to know God in all the beauty of the divine unfolding.

I have come to deeply appreciate the great hymns of the church. I realize that men who wanted to know God deeply wrote these hymns. As they searched for God, they put into poetry their findings.

I am a richer man today from reading the poetry based on their findings about God.

Scarcely a day goes by but that, often on my knees, I sing one of the grand old hymns of the church. I certainly am not a candidate for the church choir, but I am a candidate for that heavenly choir that sings to God with such passion for the joy and pleasure of knowing Him.

For A Thousand Tongues

O for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer’s praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of His grace!

My gracious Master and my God,
Assist me in proclaiming,
To spread through all the earth abroad,
The honors of Thy name.

Jesus! The name that charms our fears,
That bids our sorrows cease;
’Tis music in the sinner’s ears,
‘Tis life, and health, and peace.

He breaks the power of canceled sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean,
His blood availed for me.

Glory to God, and praise and love
Be even, ever given
By saints below and saints above,
The Church in earth and heaven. –Charles Wesley (1707-1788)