Now I have three texts, and I'm not
going to stay by the texts, I'm going
to preach all over the Bible.
But I read three texts.
Job 36, 4, He that is perfect in
knowledge is with thee.
He that is perfect in knowledge.
Perfection of knowledge is attributed to God here.
Psalm 147, 5, Great is our Lord, and
of great power.
His understanding is infinite.
And here is the infinitude of God, and
his understanding is said to share this infinitude.
Then in Hebrews 4, that very familiar passage,
Neither is there any creature that is not
manifest in his sight.
For all things are naked and opened unto
the eyes of him with whom we have
to do.
Now these texts say that God's understanding is
limitless, that his knowledge is perfect, and that
there isn't a creature anywhere in the universe
that isn't plainly visible to his sight.
But everything is naked and open, nothing shut
before the eyes of God.
And that's what it says.
So I am to preach tonight on the
divine omniscience, one of the attributes of God.
An attribute, as I have said in a
previous sermon, is something which God has declared
to be true about himself.
God has declared by divine revelation that he
is omniscient, that he knows everything.
And human reason kneels and does homage before
this divine revelation.
Now the mind staggers under this kind of
truth.
Emerson said that if a man were to
start the day he was born and read
day and night without taking time out to
eat or sleep for 70 years, a full
lifetime, and stop, he would only be able
to read a little section in the British
Library, just a little section on one wall
of the British Library.
And when we consider how much there is
to know and how little we know, and
how those who know so very much know
so very little, I remember that when the
great English lexicographer, Dr. Samuel Johnson, was compiling
the first English dictionary, he defined a horse's
hock as a horse's knee.
And of course it wasn't, and some afterward
at a party or gathering somewhere, some society
lady turned to the great doctor and said
she thought she would get a rise out
of him, and perhaps that he would give
her a long learned lecture.
He was known as the most learned man
in England.
She said, Dr. Johnson, why did you define
a hock as a horse's knee?
He said, ignorance, madam, sheer ignorance.
And he was the most learned man in
all England.
But he admitted that he was ignorant on
some things.
Will Rogers said everybody's ignorant, only we're just
ignorant on different subjects.
And when it comes down to knowing anything,
really, I am very discouraged when I go
to a library.
When I come out, I feel as if
I knew absolutely nothing at all, which, if
the truth were known, is a whole lot
nearer to the fact than anything else that
I know.
I was on my way out to receive
one of the degrees that different colleges, a
couple of colleges, have bestowed on me, and
I said the only thing that I can
see that's learned about me is this pair
of glasses.
I said they're going to give a degree
to a pair of glasses.
I still think they do that.
The man has his hair slicked back and
has a pair of learned-looking glasses.
They call him a doctor.
But we don't know very much, really.
And when we come to the consideration of
the great God who knows all there is
to know with perfection of knowledge, we stagger
under that, I say.
And the weight of the truth is too
much for our minds.
When Isaac Newton, the great English scientist, was
an old man, he had been a great
astronomer and a great physicist and scientist.
And when he was an old man, they
said to him, Dr. Newton, you must have
a tremendous store of knowledge.
He said, All that I know is like
this.
I remind myself of a little boy walking
along a seashore picking up shells.
And he said the boy has a handful
of shells in his little hand, but he
said all around him is the vast seashore
stretching in both directions as far as the
eye can see.
So he said, All that I know is
simply a handful of the seashells of knowledge,
that's all.
But the vast universe of God is filled
with knowledge that I do not possess.
Now, remember that when we talk about God's
all-knowledge, we're talking about what we call
a rational approach to God.
We're approaching God rationally.
There are two ways to approach God, theologically
and experientially.
A lot of people can know God experientially
and not know what I'm preaching about tonight.
But it's good to know both, because the
more you know about God theologically, the better
you can experience God experientially.
The English say experimentally, and I say experientially,
and I claim I'm right, because experimentally means
in the nature of an experiment, and experientially
means in the nature of an experience.
And I'm talking about an experience, not an
experiment.
I do not believe in experimenting with God,
I believe in experiencing God.
So experiential is the word that I'll use,
and if any of you dear English people
have heard it called experimentally, you'll forgive the
dumb American, because I insist that I'm right
on that point.
Now, this rational approach to God, that is
what I can get into my head.
You can't get too much into your head,
really.
And what I can get into my head
about God isn't so much.
But that's one way to approach God, is
through theology, through your intellect, through doctrine.
But the purpose of doctrine is to lead
you to see and to know God experientially,
and know God for himself, for yourself.
But until we know God for ourselves, until
we know God theologically, we're not likely to
know God very well experientially.
Now, remember that reason can best think of
God in negatives.
I think I mentioned this before, but it's
good to remind you of it again.
The old mystic philosophers and devotional writers say
that we can best conceive of God by
conceiving and thinking of what he is not.
We can always know what God is not,
but we can never know quite what God
is, because the greatness of God's mind leaves
all our soaring thoughts behind.
God is ineffable, inconceivable, and unimaginable.
Those are long words, but it's good for
you to get hold of them and learn
them.
There would be a lot less pride in
the Church if we just knew that God
was inconceivable, unimaginable, and ineffable.
Nobody wants to talk like that anymore.
They want to read Pogo.
They say, well, let's sing happy, happy, happy,
happy, and then go have a soda and
read Pogo.
And they expect, of course, to wear a
crown as big as a oyster when they
get to Heaven, but it's not going to
be so, my brother, it's not going to
be so.
We're going to find when we get to
Heaven that we're going to have to .
.
It's good that we've been acquainted with some
of these things.
What does unimaginable mean?
It just means that you can't project him,
you can't imagine God, you can't think of
what God is like.
One man I heard about used to sit
in a chair, and he'd kneel down in
front of that chair, and he'd say, Now,
Jesus, you take the chair.
And then he'd imagine Jesus on the chair,
and he'd imagine .
.
I never cared for religious pictures.
I don't know what you think about it,
but I never cared for religious pictures.
I'm always horrified when I go to an
art institute and I see Michelangelo's picture of
the creation.
God Almighty lying on a cloud, an old
bald-headed man pointing his fiery finger down
at Adam, and Adam coming to life.
Can you imagine conceiving of God as a
bald-headed old man?
I think the artists would have done us
a wonderful favor if they had reverently laid
down their brushes and never tried to paint
the figure of God, because we don't know
what God is like.
And if you can think it, it isn't
God.
If you can think it, it is an
idol of your own imagination.
If you don't believe what I'm saying, read
what the Holy Ghost says back here in
the book of 1 Corinthians.
Here's what he says.
For what man knoweth the things of a
man, save the spirit of man that is
in him.
Even so, the things of God knoweth no
man but the spirit of God.
And I'll say to you, my friends, that
you will never know what I'm talking about
without the illumination of the Holy Ghost.
When we crowded the Holy Ghost out of
the church and took in other things instead
of the Holy Ghost, we put out our
own eyes.
And the church is filled with blind men
who see not, because the Holy Ghost has
never opened their eyes.
Lydia could not believe on Christ till the
Lord had opened her eyes.
Those disciples could not believe on Christ there
in Emmaus Road until he had opened their
eyes.
Nobody can see God nor believe on God
until the Holy Ghost has opened their eyes.
And when we have grieved the Holy Ghost
and quenched the Holy Ghost and neglected him
and crowded him out and substituted other things
for him, we've made blind men out of
ourselves.
And even the evangelical church is staggering along
blind because we have flippantly believed that we
know how to do it.
And so we rise and shake a stick
at an audience and they all sing, and
a lot of the singing is not far
removed from rock and roll.
And it's the same spirit, the same spirit
that causes young people to scream half the
night, singing gospel songs.
Have you heard of the gospel song fests
they have in the States?
I don't know whether they ever got over
into Canada or not.
I hope not.
Maybe one little voice up here will help
to prevent it.
And they're all night long, and all they
are is a bunch of sex-ridden, lusty,
money-loving, proud, cocky persons who have no
knowledge of God at all.
Yet they sing about Jesus and the blood
of the Lamb and heaven and all the
rest.
My brethren, we must come to God reverently.
We must come to God on our knees.
You always see God when you're on your
knees.
You never see God when you're standing boldly
on your feet in full confidence that you
amount to something.
God, I say, is unimaginable and God is
inconceivable.
That is, you cannot get it into your
head what God is like.
We can't visualize God's being.
But the rule is, if you can think
it, God isn't like that.
God is not like anything you know.
God is not like anything you know except
the soul of a man.
There's an old master record, the German saint,
who said that the soul of a man
was more like God than anything in the
universe.
He made God in his own image.
You can't see a man's soul, and therefore
you've never seen anything that is like God.
You've never heard anything that is like God.
You've never touched anything that is like God,
except within your own heart.
If God has touched, then you've seen and
felt and heard inside your heart.
And so God lies beyond our thoughts and
towers above them and escapes them and confounds
them in awful incomprehensible terror and majesty.
This is the God we adore.
And it will pay us as Christians, my
brethren, to get back to the knowledge of
God again, the triune God, God the Father,
Son and Holy Ghost.
To get back that we worship him, talk
about him and talk about him reverently and
never joke about him and never think anything
or any word that is light about him,
but put God where he belongs.
Now, I say that I have been driven
to the use of negatives about God.
You know, when you preach on the self
-sufficient existence of God, you say God has
no origin, and that's negative.
And when you preach on God's eternity, you
say God has no beginning, and that is
negative.
And when you preach on the immutability of
God, you say God has no change, and
that's negative.
And when you preach on the infinity of
God, you say that God has no limits,
and that is negative.
When you preach on the omniscience of God,
as I do tonight, you say that God
has no teachers and cannot learn.
And this would stop a lot of praying
and cut down the volume of a lot
of prayers if we only could find out
now that God can't learn anything.
The average church deacon takes anywhere up to
20 minutes every Sunday giving God lessons.
And God can't learn, my brother, he can't
learn because God already knows everything there is
to know.
And he knows the thing that you're trying
to tell him, and he knows it more
perfectly than you do.
Well, now the scripture takes this negative method,
too.
Scripture says, The Lord fainteth not, never weary,
and cannot lie.
It says, Thy the Lord change not.
And it says, Nothing is impossible with God.
And it says, God cannot deny himself.
And all of those things are, of course,
negative.
Now, if somebody gets discouraged and charges me
with being negative in my outlook, well, let
me read what our Lord Jesus Christ said
here in the 11th chapter of Matthew.
He said, At that time Jesus answered and
said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of
heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these
things from the wise and prudent and hast
revealed them unto babes.
Even so, Father, for so it seemed good
in thy sight.
All things are delivered done to me of
my Father, and no man knoweth the Son
but the Father, neither knoweth any man the
Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever
the Son will reveal him.
I cannot know with my head, but I
can have it revealed to my spirit by
the Holy Spirit.
And so my knowledge of God is not
the knowledge as Paul said in 1 Corinthians
2.
He said, When he came unto them, he
came determined that it would not be with
excellency of speech or wisdom declaring unto you
the testimony of God, for I determined not
to know anything among you.
And remember, there was a Grecian city and
there were philosophers there.
They had their philosophers at any rate, and
they thought in the context of Greek philosophy.
And Paul was a thinker, too, and a
philosopher.
But he said, When I came to you,
I came not using big words.
I came determined to know no one except
Jesus and him crucified.
And I was with you in weakness and
fear and much crumbling.
And my speech and my preaching was not
with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in
demonstration of the Spirit and power, that your
faith should not stand in the wisdom of
men but in the power of God.
You see, if your faith stands in human
argument, somebody is a better arguer can argue
out of it again.
The man can come along and argue you
into something.
A bigger man can come along and argue
you out of it.
But when the Spirit of God reveals truth
to your heart and God manifests that truth
to your heart, then nobody can argue you
out of it.
Nobody can argue you out of it.
If you know God through Jesus Christ the
Lord, nobody can argue you out of it.
I've mentioned this before, but when I was
a young fellow in my twenties, I used
to read more philosophy than I did theology.
I used to read more of the books
of the psychologists and philosophers.
And I would read them by the yards
and yards.
And I had many, many, many books and
read them in long sessions with them and
tried to make myself acquainted with what the
great minds of the ages have thought.
And sometimes I would run into somebody that
would have an argument I couldn't answer.
And it would make it look bad for
the Bible and bad for me.
Then I would get down on my knees
and I would say with joy in my
heart, Lord Jesus, this man got to me
too late.
I found thee, and though I can't answer
his arguments, I have thee and I know
thee.
And I would have a joyful time of
worship on my knees.
My head couldn't enter, but my heart was
already in.
My head didn't know it, but my heart
was already on its knees saying, Holy, holy,
holy is the Lord God Almighty.
Well, from that time later then, I learned
that nobody knows enough successfully to contradict the
word of God.
Nobody knows enough.
Some people think they do, but they don't.
One man said, Sometimes I'm troubled by the
foundations of my faith.
But he said, When I'm worried about the
foundations, he said, I dive deep down into
the Bible and examine the foundations.
And I always come back out and shake
the water out of my hair and sing
how firm a foundation ye saints of the
Lord is laid for your faith in his
excellent word.
You may be sure nobody knows enough to
contradict the word of God.
Well, now about the divine omniscience, God knows
himself.
And because according to Paul, God knows himself.
He said, The spirit of God knows God,
and God thus knows himself.
And God being the source and the author
of all things that there are and containing
all things, then it follows that God knows
all things and that God in one effortless
act knows instantly and perfectly all things that
can be known.
That's the logical definition, which some of you
students will remember reading.
That in one effortless act, God knows instantly
and perfectly all things that can be known.
In one effortless act.
It's good, isn't it, sometimes to be around
somebody that can do things easily.
They don't have to strain till the muscles
stand out in their necks, the cords stand
out in their necks.
They don't have to do it easily.
I like to hear somebody take a high
note and hold it.
We have a record of Gallo Cucci, the
great Italian soprano.
And there seemed to be no talk to
her voice at all.
She'd go way up there, up over the
staff and beyond it and up over the
top of the book and care up to
the ceiling and then threaten to soar away
into the blue and never strain one muscle
at all.
It's nice to know somebody can do something
without effort.
Most of us have an awful time getting
anything done.
I've written some books and, boy, it's cost
me sweat and blood.
But when it comes to God, God does
everything he does effortlessly.
There's no effort.
God never strains.
He never says, Oh, this is going to
be a hard one.
Never, never.
God is able to do, as I said
before, anything as easily as he's able to
do anything else.
Because God being infinite or God being omnipotent
can do anything as easily as anything.
So God, in one effortless act, knows instantly,
not a little at a time, but instantly
and perfectly all things that can be known.
Now, that's why I've said that God cannot
learn.
And that's why I've said that if we
realize that God couldn't learn, we can shorten
our prayers quite a little and step up
their power.
Because there's no reason to have to tell
God things that God knew before you were
born.
God knows the end from the beginning.
And he knew it long before it happened.
Long before your parents met, God knew you'd
be sitting here tonight.
Long before their parents met, he knew you'd
be sitting here tonight.
Long before Canada was a country or long
before England was a nation.
Long before the Roman Empire dissolved and long
before the Roman Empire was formed, God knew
all about us and knew exactly everything about
us.
Knew every hair on our head, knew our
weight, knew our name, knew our major, knew
our past, knows our past.
He knew it and he knew it before
we were born.
He knew it before Adam was.
When Adam walked in the garden with God,
God knew all about Adam, all about Eve,
all about their sons, all about the human
race.
There isn't an astonishing thing.
God never gets astonished.
People get astonished.
They say, It's astonishing, this thing.
This thing astounds me.
God never astounded because God already knew it,
you see.
And he's never surprised because he already knew
it.
You can take a bishop or a cardinal
or a pastor or a doctor or somebody
and he can turn a corner, you know,
and get the surprise of his life.
But God never turned a corner and got
surprised.
For a simple reason, God was already around
that corner before he turned it.
And God already knew before he found out.
You know what I mean?
God knows all things.
Now, it's nice to sit down and talk
things over with God.
I know that.
The Psalms are full of that and the
history of the saints and the biography of
the saints and the hymns.
It's good to talk to God.
And in that sense, we talk to God
about things he already knows.
This idea of giving God lecture, I never
did believe very much in it.
I remember once of a man down in
the States getting converted.
He was a bum.
That is, a hobo, a tramp, and a
no-gooder.
He never paid income tax because he never
had any income.
And he got converted.
He really got converted.
And they got to pushing him around, you
know, and pushing him up and pushing him
up.
He was a big shot.
He was called here to testify and he
was called there to testify and he got
a good suit and two shirts.
And it went to his head.
So he took a few lessons, you know,
from the theologians and from the pastors.
So one day, one day he got up
to pray and he said, Oh, thou that
sitteth upon the circle of the universe.
And one of his pal bums who had
been converted along with him grabbed his coat
pail and said, Tell him you're a tramp,
converted tramp.
Tell him, he said.
And so he got, he changed it immediately
and got his old voice back and said,
Oh God, you know what a sinner I've
been, but I thank you.
Then he was praying, you know.
He was praying as soon as he got
back to normal.
But he got up there talking about the
circle of the universe and was still big
for him.
Too big, altogether too big.
I love to hear people pray, but I
don't like to hear them pray the same
prayers year in and year out, day in,
day out, time in, time out.
That's why I don't always go to all
the prayer meetings I might because I know
what they're going to say.
Anyhow, and so why not just say as
the cowboy did when he wrote his prayer
on a card and stuck it on the
head of his bed and when he got
into bed he said, Lord, them's my sentiments
and went to bed.
And I don't know why, I don't know
why I should have to go and spend
a half hour on my bony knees listening
to some old deacon lecture God for three
quarters of an hour.
I can't see it.
God already knows, Doctor.
He already knows, Deacon.
He already knows, Pastor.
God already knows.
He cannot learn.
You see, if there was anything God could
learn it would mean that God didn't know
that before.
And if he didn't know it before then
he didn't know everything.
And if he didn't know everything he wasn't
perfect.
And if he wasn't perfect he wasn't God.
So the God who can learn anything is
not God.
God already knows all that can be learned,
all that there is to know and he
knows it instantly and perfectly and without strain
and without self-consciousness.
He knows it all.
Now that's what Paul meant to remember back
here in the Book of Romans if I
can find it here in a hurry when
he said in the Book of Romans about
the eleventh chapter he said, Oh, the depths
of the riches both of the wisdom and
knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways
past finding out!
For who hath known the mind of the
Lord or who hath been his counselor?
For who hath first given to him and
it shall be recompensed again?
For of him and through him and to
him are all things to whom be glory
forever and ever.
Amen.
Now there is a picture of God having
no counselor.
There is another negative expression.
God had no teacher.
He never went to school to anybody.
Paul went to school to Gamaliel and Augustine
went to school and Luther went to school.
But God never went to school.
Who could God go to school to?
You ask me.
What archangel could God call in and say
to him, Archangel, I'd like to get a
little information here about this.
Why, the President of the United States has
his men all out over the United States
with their ears to the ground.
You heard about the politician that had his
ears to the ground burning the midnight oil.
And these men who were having their ears
to the ground and burning the midnight oil,
they're trying to find out what the public
wants.
They're saying, now what does the public say?
And as soon as a politician finds out
what the public says, he gets up and
boldly announces, them's my convictions.
And he gets elected.
But he got elected by finding out what
the public wanted him to know.
Well, can you imagine God calling a star
chamber composed of seraphim in and saying, now
there's a galaxy out here so many light,
billion light miles away.
It's kind of got out of my range.
I'd like to have you visit it and
bring back information so I'll know how to
run my universe.
I couldn't worship a God like that.
I'd pity him.
I'd say, what a wonderfully big universe for
such a small God.
He has to send an archangel out after
information.
No.
God never sends anybody out after information.
God has it instantly and perfectly and effortlessly.
And God knows all that there is.
And God never discovers anything.
And he never finds out anything.
And he never wonders.
And he never seeks information.
Now somebody will remind me of that passage
back in Genesis.
I will go down now and see if
these things be true about that city of
Sodom.
Well, you know why God said that.
The God who had made Sodom and who
contained all his universe and who knew the
end and the beginning, he knew what was
so or not.
But he was dealing with people.
Sometimes our Lord asked people questions, but he
didn't ask for information because the Holy Ghost
said he himself knew what was in every
man.
He just asked to draw the man out,
you know.
Same as you'll go to a five-year
-old boy and you'll say, Hey, Johnny, who
was the first Prime Minister of Canada?
Well, you know already.
You're not asking for information.
Reminds me of the boy who went to
school for the first day.
He came back and announced he wasn't going
back.
And they said, Why?
Well, he said, The teacher is the dumbest
woman I've ever seen in all my life.
He said, Nobody is dumber than all the
world.
He said, She beats anything I've ever heard
of.
He said, She knows absolutely nothing at all.
She has to ask me everything.
And when we're asking questions of people, we're
drawing them out.
We already know, but we're drawing them out.
So God said, I'll go down now and
I'll see.
Jesus, our Lord, asked questions of his disciples,
but he knew already.
So God knows.
Great consolation to me to know this.
God knows instantly and effortlessly and perfectly all
matter and all matters and all law and
all laws and all space and all spaces
and all principles and every principle and all
mind and all spirit and all soul.
And God knows all causes and all relations
and all effects and all desires and all
mysteries and all enigmas and all things unknown
and hidden.
There are no mysteries to God.
There are mysteries to you and me.
We don't know.
Oh, behold, how great is the mystery of
Godliness, God manifest in the flesh.
The theologians have reverently tried to discover down
the centuries how the infinite, illimitable God could
condense himself into the form of a man.
It's a great mystery we don't know, but
God knows and God isn't worried about it.
That's why I can live a good Christian
life and a peaceful Christian life even though
I'm not a man that takes things very
easy.
I remember two people once that were quoted
to me.
They were discussing whether to go to church
to hear me preach or not.
This was years ago when I was worse
than I am now.
And one of them said, Let's go hear
Tolder tonight.
And the other one said, Oh, no.
He makes me nervous.
Well, I don't want to blame them at
all because I make myself nervous.
But that's physical.
That's physical.
That has nothing to do with the spirit,
nothing to do with the soul.
I can rest in peace and I'm not
worried about these things that are shooting around
the earth.
I'm not worried at all.
I'm not worried about cruching.
I'm not worried about and all the rest
of those fellas over there whose names you
can't pronounce because God's running his world and
he knows all about it.
He knows where these men will die and
he knows where they'll be buried and he
knows when they'll be buried and he knows
when old Kay will have his heart attack
and tumble over and they'll bury him out
of sight.
God knows that now.
He knew that before Kay was born.
He knew that when Kay was a little
baby nursing at his mother's breast, a poor
little tender Russian baby.
He knew that.
He knew it before the devil entered into
him and made him into the beast he
is now.
He knew it.
He knows it all.
God knows all enigmas and all hidden things
dwelling in light no man can approach unto.
And he knows his people.
Now with this I want to bring my
sermon to a close, but he knows his
people.
You who have fled for refuge to him,
Jesus Christ the Lord, he knows you.
And you're never an orphan.
You're never out somewhere and nobody knows where
you are.
See, a Christian's never lost because he may
think he's lost.
He may be in the Minnesota north woods
hunting deer and get lost.
But he's not lost.
The Lord knows where he is.
And the Lord knows all about him.
And the Lord knows about his health.
He knows about his business.
Is that a consolation to you that our
Father knows?
He knows it all, the bitter tears, how
fast they fall.
And that he knows and tempers every wind
that blows.
Is that a consolation to you?
It is to me.
It's a consolation to me to know that
I know not where God's islands raise their
fronded palms in air.
I only know I cannot drift beyond his
love and care.
So now I think that you could relax
a lot.
Some of you are running high blood pressure
and what the doctors call hypertension.
It's because you're worried.
You don't know and you think nobody else
knows.
Well, I have news for you.
He that is perfect in knowledge is with
thee.
And he knows.
And if you'll trust him, he'll bring you
out all right.
He is perfect in knowledge and he will
lead you through and will bring you out.
And when you come out, you will know
that everything God did was right.
There's a German song.
I think Bach wrote it.
How does it rhyme?
It goes like this.
What God has done is rightly done.
It's part of an old German chorale.
And surely we can all echo it and
say amen.
What God has done is rightly done.
Now, he doeth all things well.
Do you believe it, my Christian friends?
You believe that God does everything right and
that God's dealing with you right.
Some of you married men that you wished
you hadn't married.
Well, you say, how could that be right?
Don't ask me.
I didn't say I knew.
I only told you that you belong to
one who does know.
And some of you men have married gals
that didn't turn out to be the angel
that you thought.
My dear old friend Tom Hare, he loves
the ladies.
That is, he prays with them and prays
for them.
And every time he goes to, he gets
a bunch of old ladies around him.
And they are his prayer helper.
And he calls them his angels.
He's Irish.
He calls them his angels.
He was down in Orlando, Florida, and they
were visiting in the home of an old
Swede.
And the Swede took Brother Tom to task.
He said, Brother Hare, he said, you call
the women angels.
He said, I want you to know my
wife's no angel.
He said, if you just knew my wife
as well as I know her, you'd know
she's no angel.
I said, well, maybe she's not exactly an
angel, and you may not have the easiest
time getting along with her.
But listen, big boy, God knows all about
you.
And he knew that even if it was
a mistake, that it's a mistake that God
will overrule.
You know, God can take nothing and make
something out of it.
I heard of a woman one time who
had a great goiter hanging here on her
neck, and she was prayed for and it
disappeared.
And somebody said, I don't understand it.
What happened to it?
And the evangelist said, well, all I know
about it is if God can make something
out of nothing, he can make nothing out
of something.
And I think that that's a pretty good
argument, that if God can make something out
of nothing, he can make nothing out of
something.
And so God can take nothing and make
something out of it.
And God can take your mistakes, and God
can polish those mistakes.
You've all heard the old story that the
preachers tell about the beautiful cathedral window that
was cracked.
Some kids or somebody shot into it, BB
shots or through pebbles, and it was cracked
all over.
A beautiful, extensive thing.
And they sent for one of the finest
artists in the land, and they said, what
can you do?
He said, leave it to me.
And he went to work on that.
And he began with these fine chisels, and
he began cutting however he did it, that
glass.
And he made artistic lines, and wherever there
was a break, he turned that into a
beautiful thing and carried it on around and
made a loop, and it was all over.
The sun shone in on one of the
most beautiful pieces of art glass in the
world, and yet it had been cracked to
start with.
I remember that passage back in the book
of Psalms that says, Though ye have lain
among the pots, yet shall ye be as
doves with wings of silver and pinions of
yellow gold.
Now what does that mean?
It means that a poor dove got down
there in among the old cans and broken
pots, the old places where there were old
rusty automobiles and old mattresses and old junk,
you know, that people had lugged out.
And somebody shot an arrow up and hit
this little dove, and she went tumbling down
and landed down there.
It wasn't dead, but she was in bad
shape.
And she waited around there in God's sunshine
for a while and picked a few seeds
here and there and waited for nature to
heal up her wing.
And when nature healed up her wing, one
day she felt she was ready to go.
And the sun was bright and the other
birds were up there.
So she tried out her engines and said,
I believe I can make it.
Revved up the motor and off she went.
And as she circled around, some woman said,
Oh, look at the beautiful dove shining in
the silver.
He asked her husband, he said, Look at
the gold along the edges of her wing.
She had just been among the pots a
little while before, down in the junk pile.
But now she rose by the grace of
God into the sunshine.
That was David's way of saying that God
can take nothing, that He can take the
poor wrecks of you and me and can
change us and can work on us and
make us into doves with wings of silver
and gold.
Ah, the unblessed man, the man without God.
I must talk a minute to such a
man, even though there be none present.
I must talk to such a man, for
you can talk to them again.
The first thing is I would say that
if there is an unsaved man here, God
knows you by name.
Isaiah 45, verse 4, says, And though thou
knewest me not, I know you by name.
God knows your name, and He knows you
fully, according to the Psalms 139.
And He knows why you are rejecting His
Son.
And He knows your secret sins that you
have hidden.
Now that's one thing you may be sure
of.
You know a person can get away a
long time with sins.
Have you been reading about...
Now listen, you good people, don't tell me
any more about how moral you folks are.
You are no more moral than other people.
I have been reading in newspapers since I
have been up here, and I have been
reading about men who for 20 years have
been robbing their own banks.
Have you been reading about those boys?
They weren't Americans.
They were Englishmen or Irishmen.
They were Canadians.
And you know, we are all alike, really.
You scratch Mrs. Van Snoot, and you will
find her maid.
All the same, you know.
You scratch the doctor, and you will find
the man takes out his garbage.
We are all alike!
All alike!
And so, we can get away with sin
for a long time.
We can rob our own banks and juggle
our books, but one person knows about that,
and that's God.
And God's heaven is locked, and the key
is thrown away as far as that man
is concerned until he gets straightened out.
And God knows your excuses, and he knows
your reasons then, your real reasons that you
hardly know.
He knows your checkered way, and he knows
your light and shade, and he knows the
place where you're going to finally lie down.
He knows that last place that you're going
to sleep.
He knows the name of the driver that's
going to drive you out to that last
place.
He knows all about it, and he knows
and sees what you don't know or see.
He knows why you're not a Christian.
He knows why you're not following his son.
And I ask you, why don't you put
yourself in his keeping now?
There is a great hymn called His Ira.
It's a great old Latin hymn, a long
one, nobody sings it, but I like to
read it.
And in one place, the writer reminds Jesus
Christ, he says, I'll put it in some
prose, he said, Lord Jesus, remember, he said,
why you came this way.
I'm the reason, he said, Lord, because I'm
the reason.
He talked about the terrible eyes of God
and the terrible judgment of God and the
terrible day, that day of terror when no
dead should rise and judgment set, seat, throne
should be set.
And he was praying, and he said, Oh,
Jesus, remember why you came this way.
That's your plea, my brother.
No matter how bad you are, no matter
how crooked, no matter how deceptive and deceitful,
and no matter how you've simulated and dissimulated,
you can always go to Jesus Christ and
say, Now, Lord, you came to earth, why
did you come?
And then say, Lord, I'm the reason.
And the Lord will take you and receive
you to himself.
This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them.
Wonderful news, wonderful news, he receiveth sinners and
eateth with them.
Our Lord said of him in Jerusalem once,
he said, Oft I have stretched out my
hand to you, but you would not.
As a mother hen calls her chicks in,
I've called you, but you wouldn't come.
He's called some of you, but you haven't
come.
Somebody said in prayer tonight in the other
room that there were some maybe in this
church, and he wasn't criticizing the church, it
would be true, I suppose, of almost any
church that had never known God.
I think it's true.
But why not?
Remember, you can't tell God anything, and remember,
you can't excuse yourself for anything, and remember,
your reasons are paper thin, and God sees
through them, but remember, in spite of it,
God loves you, and God invites you, and
God will receive you.
And there's no reason why he shouldn't come.
No reason.
Some of you backsliders hanging around the edge,
and there's always some.
Your heart's cooled off.
You haven't prayed, really prayed, for a long
time.
Remember Jacob who came back to the altar?
Remember the words of John?
If we confess our sins, he's faithful and
just to forgive us our sins.
And when I preach on the justice of
God, I'm going to show that when a
man comes to Jesus Christ in faith, justice
is on his side, as well as mercy.
So it's the just thing for God to
forgive us, as well as the merciful thing.
So we're going to sing tonight.
And any need that you may have, whatever
it is, any need that you may have,
you come and we'll pray about it.
This concludes sermon number eight.
For sermon number nine, next in the series
on the attributes of God, please refer to
tape number nine.