Now, I've been preaching on worship over the
last week, submitting last Sunday when I was
in New York, of course.
And my, as they say, overall text has
been Psalm 4511.
So shall the King greatly desire thy beauty,
for he is thy Lord, worship thou him.
Tonight I want to add these words, at
least.
Tonight's sermon is going to be chiefly Scripture,
so if you are allergic to a lot
of Scripture, you'd better stay home.
These words from the 45th Psalm.
And gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O
most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty.
And in thy majesty ride prosperously, because of
truth and meekness and righteousness.
Now, that's strange.
Glory and majesty and meekness here altogether.
But here they are.
Now, previously, I have talked to you over
the last night, Sunday nights, about worship.
We were created to worship God, that's why
we were born.
We fell, lost the glory and the worship.
Christ came to redeem us that we might
worship, that's why we were redeemed.
Then I went on from there to talk
about the Lord.
And I reminded you of the text where
Peter said, He is Lord of all.
And David said, He is thy Lord, worship
thou him.
Then I talked on the Lord of all
being, and the Lord of all life.
Tonight I want to talk about the Lord
of glory, if I get to it, the
Lord in meekness.
Now, the inspired psalmist here wrote, and I
want to give you what the Holy Ghost
said through the mouth of a psalmist.
He said, Jehovah-Rena, Jehovah-Rena, let the
earth rejoice, and let the multitude of the
isle be glad thereof.
Clouds and darkness are around about him, righteousness
and judgment are the habitation of his throne.
Wonderful to know that somewhere in the universe
there is something that's sound and right.
I often quote with a bit of good
humor the saying of the serious-minded old
man of God, who said, If you would
be peaceful and have peace in your heart,
don't inquire into people's lives too closely.
The idea is you'll be shocked if you
do.
And I suppose there isn't a throne but
what there's a rat gnawing somewhere in the
throne.
Maybe he's got the crown on his head.
But here's a throne that's filled with righteousness
and judgment.
And a fire goes before him, and lightning
enlightens the world.
The hills melt like wax at the presence
of the Lord, at the presence of the
Lord of the whole earth.
The heavens declare his righteousness.
And you can search till you die, and
search for a million years beyond, and you'll
not find anything wrong there.
The throne of God stands right, and the
God who sits on that throne is right.
He is the God of righteousness.
And the heavens declare his righteousness, and all
the people shall see his glory.
For thou, Lord, art high above all the
earth.
Thou art exalted far above all gods.
Now that's part of what the 97th Psalm
says about him.
And after man had fallen and lost the
vision of the glory, and lost it.
That's what's the matter with us, my friends,
that's what's the matter with us.
We've lost the vision of the glory.
But after we'd fallen and lost it, the
man of God, the martyr Stephen, said and
began his great sermon, the God of glory
appeared unto Abraham.
The God of glory appeared unto Abraham, and
God began to reveal the glory that had
been in eclipse.
Now, you know that when a thing is
in eclipse, it doesn't mean that its light
has diminished any, nor that its glory has
in any way diminished.
It means merely that there is somebody between
us and that shining frame there that is
said to be eclipsed.
When the sun is eclipsed, the sun is
not one degree cooler than it was before,
nor does its flames flash out from its
surface one inch shorter than it did before.
It's still as hot and still as big
and still as powerful and free as before
it went into eclipse, because it's not the
sun that's eclipsed, it's us that's eclipsed.
And we ought to get that straight.
The eclipse of the sun means the eclipse
of us.
The sun is all right, and so the
great God Almighty.
I have a book, I haven't read it
yet, written by the great Jewish theologian Buber,
and it's called The Eclipse of God.
I haven't read it, so there's nothing I'm
saying tonight out of it.
Someday when I get time, I'm going to
read it, I hope.
The Eclipse of God.
All he could mean, being a Jewish theologian
and knowing his Old Testament, is that there
has been a shadow between us and God.
God is not in eclipse.
The glory of God shines as bright as
ever, and the God of glory began to
appear to people.
He appeared unto Abraham.
And in the development of his redemptive purpose,
he began to show what he was.
See, we were in pretty bad shape.
Read the 1st chapter of Romans if you
want to know how bad we were, the
world was.
We had gotten down to where we not
only worshiped a man, which was bad enough,
but we worshiped a beast, which was worse.
Not only did we worship beasts as a
human race, but we worshiped birds and fish,
and serpents, serpents, crawling, slithery serpents.
We worshiped them.
Now, that wasn't bad enough.
We worshiped bugs and beetles.
We worshiped clear down as far as anything
that could wriggle or crawl.
They got down on their knees and said,
Now, that was how bad our minds were
in eclipse, for it was our minds and
not God.
Then God began to appear out from behind
the cloud, and the God of glory appeared
to Abraham.
And he revealed his oneness.
Now, that was the first thing God revealed
about himself.
He didn't reveal his holiness first.
He revealed his oneness first.
It was an insult to the great God
Almighty to think that there were two or
three God Almighty's.
Did you ever stop to think, and this
reminds me, I've got to get around to
writing on the attributes of God before I
die, so I'll leave this to remind the
people that there can't be two Almighty's, and
there can't be two infinites, and there can't
be two omnipotence.
Did you ever think about that?
Shake your head a little bit and see
if you can't get the cells to come
to me.
And think about it.
Is it possible for two beings to be
Almighty?
For if one being had all the power
there is, then where would the second being
come in?
He couldn't have all the power there is.
He couldn't have two beings having all the
power there is.
Then when we come to infinitude, infinitude means
boundless, limitlessness, in its complete, absolute sense.
So how could there be two beings who
were absolute?
There could be one, but there couldn't be
two.
You see, it is metaphysically impossible even to
think of two beings who were absolute, who
were infinite, who were Almighty, who were omnipotent,
or any of the other attributes of God.
But we didn't know that, and so we
worshipped everything that would move.
And if it didn't move, we got down
front of it and worshipped it anyway.
They worshipped everything.
They worshipped trees, and they worshipped the sun
and the stars, and they had gods everywhere
worshipping them.
It seems strange and almost humorous to you
and me, but it was a long way
from being humorous when God Almighty told the
people, that here, O Israel, the Lord thy
God is one Lord, in him only shalt
thou worship.
That was the oneness.
Now, the scholars call that monotheism, of course.
That is their way of hiding the meaning
of it from the people, and giving the
people the impression that they are very learned.
But all monotheism means is there is one
God, and there is one God, and we
thought there were many.
The human race thought there were many.
I have a book on the gods by
Cicero.
A great book on the gods, but Cicero,
mighty man he was, thought that there was
more than one god.
So God said, now, the first thing you're
going to have to get straight is that
I've got no rival.
There is no other god but me.
Here, O Israel, here, O Israel, the Lord
thy God is one Lord, in him only
shalt thou worship.
Centuries later, a Christian sang this.
You can't sing it.
I don't think anybody could write music to
it, but he sang it anyhow, and it
hurt, and I sing it in mine.
One God, one majesty, there is no god
but thee, unextended, unbounded unity.
Awful in unity, O God we worship thee,
more simply one because supremely free.
Unfathomable, see, all life is out of thee,
and thy life is thy blissful unity.
The Christians knew this.
All things that from thee run, all works
that thou hast done, thou doest in honor
of thy being one.
Blessed be thy unity, all joys are one
to me.
The joy that there can be no god
but thee.
Now, this was what the Christians sang, and
this is what Christians believed.
See, this is what Jesus taught.
And little by little, God came out, from
behind that eclipse.
And I tell you, I like to go
back to the book of Exodus if I
feel I mount anything, or I get awestruck
a little by a queen or a president
or somebody.
I like to go back here to the
book of Exodus where it says, The Lord
said unto Moses, Lo, I come in a
thick cloud.
I'm coming in a thick cloud, that the
people may hear what I speak unto thee,
and believe thee forever.
Moses told the people, and the Lord said
to Moses, Go unto the people and sanctify
them today.
Get them all clean and ready.
Didn't come rushing in to that awesome presence.
You had to get ready and get sanctified,
he said.
And let them wash their clothes and be
ready the third day, for the third day
Jehovah will come down in the sight of
all the people upon Mount Sinai.
Brethren, I don't know what Life magazine would
have done about this.
I suppose they'd have wanted to photograph it.
But thou shalt set bounds unto the people
round about, saying, Take heed, dear selves, that
ye did come not near the mount, nor
touch the border of it.
Whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put
to death.
What a contrast between this great God and
the gods that they could handle and lug
around and put them under their pillow and
put them up in the front part of
their automobile to keep them out of accidents,
which they don't.
And there shall not a hand touch it,
he said, but he'll surely be stoned or
shot through.
For in shall a beast or a man
shan't live.
And when the trumpet soundeth long, then you
come up to the mount.
Now, my friend, there was something.
There was something.
When the trumpet soundeth long, you come up
to the mount.
When anybody is presented before a queen or
a king, they practice for days and days
exactly how to say and how to approach.
But here, he says, this great God, you're
coming up before him and nobody else can
come.
And if he comes and even touches this
mountain, he'll drop dead and shrivel.
Moses went down and sanctified the people and
they all washed their clothes.
And he said, Now be ready.
It came to pass in the third day
in the morning.
Do you ever stop to think how many
things God did in the morning?
He said in the morning that there was
thunder and lightning and a thick cloud upon
the mountain, the voice of the trumpet exceeding
loud.
And all the people that was in the
camp trembled.
And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke
because the Lord descended upon it in fire.
And the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke
of a furnace.
And the whole mount quaked greatly.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Go down,
charge the people, lest they break through and
gaze.
And many of them perish.
And let the priests also which come near
to the Lord sanctify themselves, lest the Lord
break through on them.
There was God coming out from behind, coming
out from behind that cloud.
Then he began to reveal other things about
himself.
And listen now.
He said, The Lord your God is one
Lord, and he is the Lord of Lords,
and he is a great God, and he
is the God of Gods, and he is
mighty and he is terrible.
You know what we've done?
We've brought God down until nobody can respect
him anymore.
We've brought him down.
In New York City, I said once last
week when I was preaching there, I said,
I'm on a quiet little crusade, not as
big as the one over at Madison Square
Garden, but a quiet little crusade to bring
worship back to the Church.
And a fine-looking English gentleman said to
me, as we were moving out of the
Church, he said, Brother Tozer, I want to
be a member of your crusade.
He said, For 27 years I've been a
missionary in the Far East.
He said, I'm home now, and I see,
and I think we ought to get back
to worshiping God again, that mighty and that
terrible God.
And the gospel has gone down now to
the place where it's only good for what
you can get out of it.
When we forget that the Lord said, When
you pray, say, Our Father which art in
heaven, hallowed be thy name.
And I don't hesitate to say this to
you, sir, that God Almighty would rather glorify
his name than save a world, that God
would rather that his name should be hallowed
before all the myriads of created intelligences, that
a sinner should be saved, or that a
world should be redeemed.
In the mercy and wisdom of God, he
so arranged things that he can redeem the
world and magnify his own glory.
But you and I have the first duty
and obligation to honor God, not the first
duty and obligation to help people.
That's modernism, and they've had that thrown in
on us.
And our Puritanic forefathers and our Dutch and
Scotch fathers who said, Let God do right
if the world, or let God be right
if the world falls, they have been shoved
aside now.
And they tell us that God is so
very kind and lowly and humble and meek
and approachable that we've taken all the meaning
out of it.
Think of this.
Hear this glorious and fearful name, Jehovah thy
God.
Shall not his excellency make you afraid and
his dread fall upon you?
And with God is a terrible majesty.
And darkness is around him and his pavilion
round about were dark waters and thick clouds
of the sky.
And who is this King of glory?
Jehovah, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in
battle.
He's the King of glory.
And blessed be his glorious name forever.
And when you pray, say, Our Father which
art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Honor and majesty are before him.
Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.
And the glory of the Lord shall endure
forever.
And I will speak of the glorious honor
of thy majesty and thy wondrous works.
I'm just giving you what the Bible says
about it.
God's coming out from behind the cloud.
Or bringing us out from behind the cloud
to show how great he is.
A glorious voice, he said, shall cause to
be heard and shall show the lightning down
at his arm with the indignation of his
anger and with the flame of a devouring
fire.
Now, that's Old Testament.
But somebody says in the New Testament we
have the meek and lowly Jesus.
Well, we do.
And I want to talk in closing about
the lowly Jesus, too.
And the meek Jesus.
But I want you to know that the
meek Jesus is a long way from being
the Jesus of Solomon, bearded, feminine head.
Now, I'll tell you this.
I don't know why I preach like this.
I don't know.
I preach my congregation down to the bone.
And nobody comes here unless he's dead in
earnest to do the will of God.
Everybody else passes us by and goes somewhere
else.
But anyhow, I'll say this to you, that
I don't believe in these feminine heads of
Christ.
I wouldn't have one in my home anymore
than I'd have a statue of the Virgin
Mary.
Wouldn't have one around because that's not Jesus,
that bearded, weak-looking, plaintive fellow that's looking
around for somewhere to hide or somebody to
bless.
At the name of Jesus, says the Holy
Ghost, every knee shall bow of things in
heaven and things in earth and things under
the earth, and every tongue shall confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of
God the Father.
And our Lord Jesus Christ, which in his
times he shall show who's the blessed and
only potentate, the King of kings and Lord
of lords, and only hath immortality dwelling in
the light which no man can approach unto
and whom no man has seen nor can
see, to him be honor and power everlasting.
Amen.
That's New Testament, brother.
The only wise God, our Savior, be glory
and majesty to him both now and ever.
Amen.
That's New Testament.
And this Jesus Christ of whom we speak,
he is Lord of all.
He is Lord of all being and he
is Lord of all life, and he is
the Lord of all majesty and all glory.
And I understand the Quakers perfectly well when
they had what they called an opening.
The Quaker believed in an opening.
Do you know what an opening is?
It meant that there had been an opening
in that the light of God had flashed
into their hearts and that they had seen
something.
We don't now.
We take a course.
But in those days they had an opening.
They got an opening from God.
Some older brother would get up and say,
Well, I was in prayer last evening and
I think I had an opening.
And I saw the scripture says this about
God.
And he gave his little testimony and sat
down, rearranged his beard and sat quiet.
And we make fun of them, but they
had openings, my brethren, and Heaven's closed to
the average one of us now.
Because this mighty God who makes the lightning
down in his arm to be heard is
gone completely and in his place we have
a streamlined sack of weakness.
And we call that God.
But God says when you pray, say, Hello,
be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will
be done in earth as it is in
Heaven.
That's first.
That's more important, my friends.
It's more important that the Church of Christ
should honor the God of glory than that
they should even preach the gospel to the
heathen.
But it is so in the will of
God that preaching the gospel to the heathen
and getting them saved will, as Paul said,
bring more people to praise him so that
we glorify God by winning more people.
But if you had to take your choice,
honoring God would be first.
And I don't know who's going to do
it.
I talked with James Stewart of the European
Missions and with Stacy Woods of the InterVarsity
and with some of the other brethren, and
we pretty much agreed.
We stood around there and looked at each
other and said, Well, when is this thing
going to get together and start to flow?
And when is there going to be enough
of these people who see as we do
and believe in the high honor of God
and the need for the exalting of God
and the bringing of worship back to the
world again?
When is there going to be enough that
we can be more than a little puddle
here and a little puddle there?
When can we get together and become a
flowing river?
Nobody had the answer yet.
But one of these days, God's going to
give us the answer, all right?
And if there's anything that we've got to
have in the Church of Christ, it is
that we should get back to the God
of our fathers, known of old, Lord of
our far-flung battle line.
Back again to the Holy, Holy, Holy God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
And not to the God of our imagination,
not to the weak God whom we push
around, but to the great God Almighty.
Well, he's that great God.
And if I had to stop, I'd stop
right there.
But I'm glad to tell you also that
in this 45th Psalm, there is not only
majesty, but there is meekness here.
And thy majesty, in thy majesty ride prosperously
because of truth and meekness.
He meeked himself.
That's no verb anymore.
Meek is an adjective now, and meekness a
noun.
But there's no verb anymore.
Meek isn't a verb.
But it ought to be a verb, and
it used to be, and from now on
it's going to be.
And he meeked himself down.
He meeked himself down.
Listen while I show you what the Holy
Ghost said about him.
Christ Jesus, who being in the form of
God, thought not his position in the form
of God something to be hung on to,
but made himself of no reputation.
You see, the only person that dare make
himself of no reputation is somebody who's sure
of his reputation.
He could void his reputation because he knew
it was safe.
The fellow who isn't sure of himself has
to defend it all the time, run about
defending his reputation.
And if he hears anybody saying anything about
him that might sully his reputation, why, he
writes a hot letter.
But he made himself of no reputation.
Why?
Because he knew who he was.
He knew that he was this mighty Lord
God that made the mountain to quake.
He knew he was this mighty Lord God
whose pavilions round about him were dark water
and thick cloud of the sky.
He knew he was the King of glory
and the Lord of majesty and blessed be
his glorious name forever.
He wasn't afraid to void his reputation for
the sake of redeeming a lost world.
So he made himself of no reputation.
Now that's one thing, but it's quite another
thing to take on himself the form of
a man the form of a servant first,
really.
And that's something.
Look, the great God who had given orders
all his life, all his life, and he
had lived before the world was and had
being before creation was, and now he becomes
a servant.
Not only no reputation but a servant and
was made in the likeness of men.
And after he'd become a man he humbled
himself still further and became obedient unto death.
And then that was not low enough so
he died even the death of the cross.
If he had come from glory down and
had lived his lifetime out and gotten old
and died in his bed surrounded by weeping
friends, it would have been terrible to think
that the great Lord God Almighty whose strength
and beauty were in his sanctuary, that that
great God Almighty should die.
But he died in the worst form known
to the times.
He died on a Roman cross, nailed up
there on a Roman cross to wriggle and
sweat and his bones pull out of joint
and his lips crack and his eyes glaze.
He died like that.
Even, says the Holy Ghost, the death on
the cross.
What wondrous, wondrous condescension that he should be
so meek.
My dear friend, I want to tell you
this.
If you ever get saved, if you ever
move into that heaven of God and walk
through those holy gates and look upon the
silver sea, it will not be because of
anything you are.
And it won't be because he changed his
mind or because he lost his crown or
his power.
It will make some of you mad, I
suppose, but you'll get over it.
But you know this nice little housewife that's
running around over in Washington?
They've trimmed her down and trimmed her down
and trimmed her down and taken away her
dominion.
She has no power.
She's a nice little woman.
I like her like her two kids.
But they've trimmed her sails.
And she's not the old King George and
the rest that could say, have his head
off.
She never says, have his head off.
She said, I'm so glad I'm here.
And you see, the majesty is gone, brethren.
The majesty is gone.
The glory is gone.
And they keep pumping it up.
And it's all right.
It's all they've got.
They might as well make the most of
it.
But brethren, brethren, I said to you that
nobody has ever trimmed down the majesty of
the great God Almighty.
And when Jesus Christ became a man, he
didn't lose anything.
The theologian Lightfoot said he veiled his glory,
but he did not void it.
The man who walked about in Jerusalem with
dust-covered teeth and disheveled hair walking in
the wind from one place to another was
the same Lord God who could make the
mighty lightning down of his voice to sound
throughout the world.
This is our Christ.
This is our Jesus.
And I recommend to you, my friend, that
you seek to know him as he is
in his majesty in order that you might
know how mighty fortunate you are.
If he had stood by his majesty and
had not been willing to meet himself down,
you'd have been in bad shape.
You'd have been along with the angels that
sinned and the demons that sinned and left
their first habitation.
You'd have gone down and there wasn't anything
in you that could save you.
When you started down toward the pit, there
wasn't an angel voice raised round the throne
of God.
Not one.
When you started down toward the pit the
day you took your first step or before
you started down toward the pit, not an
angelic voice said, God, what are you doing?
Don't let that fellow perish.
Don't let that woman die.
Not a one where justice, justice and glory
and majesty demanded that we all perish together
and go to the hell where the devil
and the fallen angels are.
And to save us from that, God would
not have voided his majesty.
Keep that in mind, sir.
To save us from that, God would not
have diminished his glory by one candle power.
To save us from that, God would never
have unhallowed his hallowed name.
And that's why he taught us to say
the very first thing when you pray, sir,
hallowed be thy name.
And if you're having time to pray anything
else, pray hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom
come and go.
If you don't have time, at least pray
that.
To rush into God's presence and begin to
beg, I think, is a shoddy thing.
When the great God Almighty meeked himself, such
majesty meeked itself downward.
So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty.
Why did he do it?
Because he greatly desired thy beauty.
And the beauty in you is not the
beauty you have, but the beauty that he
could make you and put in you.
It was what Shakespeare called the borrowed majesty.
The borrowed majesty that belonged to you.
Even the poor tramp who stumbles tonight, blear
-eyed and unshaven on skid row, has within
him buried some of the borrowed majesty where
God made us in his own image.
That doesn't save us.
But there was something there that God called
beauty, and so he came down.
And he didn't come down because he had
to.
Never think you can put God in a
fix or get God in a tight spot.
Never, never.
God never gets into tight spots and God
never allows himself in any way to be
taken over by a man.
Get into a tight corner and have to
do something because he doesn't want to do.
Never.
The great God came down because he desired
us.
And he desired us because he made us
in his image.
That's all.
He made us in his image.
And he saw the poor, tattered relics of
the family resemblance.
And he knew that there was that in
us which could respond.
He knew that though fallen and lost and
certainly doomed, there was that in us which
could respond.
And that you ought to thank God for
every day you live.
If anybody here grumbles and complains and doesn't
keep thanking God, I'm sorry for you and
I hope you'll repent.
For no matter what happens to us, we
ought to be able to thank God that
there was something in us that could respond.
Aren't you glad there was something in us
that could respond?
And I'm not even sure that if God
hadn't put it there in the first place,
it could have responded at all.
Because if I understand the book of John
correctly and the book of Romans correctly, I
think I do, I don't believe there's anything
in mankind that can respond except that it's
first been moved upon by the Holy Ghost.
Brother, I believe in the prevenient workings of
the Holy Ghost.
If that isn't election predestination, I don't know
what it is, but it must be.
Although I'm not supposed to teach either.
But Jesus, my Lord, said that no man
can come to me except the Father drawing.
No man can come.
And we say, come on, come on, come
on.
And he said, no man can come except
the Father drawing.
And if the Father drawing, he'll come and
I'll give him life and I won't cast
him out.
And he said, he said, you believe not
because you're not my sheep.
And he didn't say, you're not my sheep
because you don't believe.
We've turned it around because we're scared.
We're afraid to face up to the sovereign
majesty of the God of our fathers.
So we say, the reason you're not God's
sheep is you don't believe.
But he said, the reason you don't believe
is because you're not my sheep.
I have not chosen.
Now I realize that there has been an
awful lot of abuse.
As the Queen said, O Liberty, what sins
have been committed in thy name.
We can only say, John Calvin, what crimes
have been committed in thy name.
But nevertheless, my brethren, we're a snooty bunch
of self-satisfied sinners.
We think when we get good and ready
and whatever God thinks of it, we'll come
back home and it'll be God's business to
receive us and He can't help Himself.
We'd better get away from that.
You can walk out of here and down
the steps and sin against the Holy Ghost
and be as cold as an icicle from
this time until you die.
God doesn't owe you one thing.
We so preach the gospel as to make
grace cheap and God cheap and make God
owe us something.
A man in this church years ago, he's
not here now, was quite put out because
I said God didn't owe us anything.
Came down to the front and argued with
me and said God did.
What does God owe you except damnation?
What does God owe me except damnation?
What is He going to owe the Archbishop
of Canterbury or the Pope except damnation?
We have sinned.
We have veiled the glory of God and
we've taken our place with the fallen cruel
and the black bats and the squirming serpents.
And if we're ever saved, it'll be because
majesty nicked itself down to find us.
And majesty didn't have to do it because
majesty wasn't afraid of itself.
We rushed to defend God.
I wouldn't write one line in defense of
God.
When old Jeroboam, was it?
When Gideon tore the altar down, wasn't his
father's name Jeroboam?
If I'm wrong, excuse me, names, you know.
A name by any other name would be
just as bad.
But when Gideon pulled the altar down, somebody
said, Kill Gideon.
Kill Gideon.
He's pulled down the altars of Baal.
And Gideon's father said, that's a weird one.
He said, if Baal's a god, why doesn't
he look after himself?
He said, you have to run out there
and defend him.
He said, let Baal pay.
And if Baal is what he claims he
is, let him punish my son.
He said, I'm not going to defend him
and I won't defend God.
I won't write a line in defense of
God.
A God I have to defend can't take
me across the dark river.
He can't save my soul from the magnetic
tug of hell.
A God I have to defend can't deliver
me from the machinations of the devil.
Can't do it.
Oh, my God doesn't need my defense.
He's the Lord of glory, mighty and great
is he.
And he nicked himself down.
You ought to thank God every day and
red-faced chagrin that you ever sinned and
God had to nick himself down to help
you.
He became meek because he was majesty.
And why did he do it?
Listen, I'll read these few verses and close.
I saw no temple therein for the Lord
God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple
of it.
The city had no need of the sun
neither of the moon to shine in it
for the glory of God did lighten it.
And the Lamb is the light thereof.
I have no doubt that there are many
Christians running around over the country right now
that believe that when they go to heaven
there will be a brass band a mile
long to meet them.
But I see here that they didn't even
need moon or sun but the glory of
God lightened all heaven and the Lamb is
the light thereof.
And as the poet said, before thine ever
-blazing throne we ask no luster of our
own.
The nations of them which are saved shall
walk in the light of it and kings
of the earth do bring their glory into
it.
The kings of the earth bring their glory,
throw down their crowns, toss their scepters, take
off their purple robes, and throw them at
the feet of the one who was majesty
and is majesty but in his infinite love
meeked himself to save us.
And the gates of it shall not be
shut at all by day and there is
no night there and they shall bring the
glory and honor of the nations into it.
Isn't it awful that this passage like this
has been given to funerals and nothing else?
Never, never read it.
Nobody ever reads it unless he's at a
funeral.
And I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to
testify unto you that these things in the
churches.
I am the root and the offspring of
David, the bright and the morning star.
When you look up, brother, don't look for
the sputnik.
I am the root and the offspring of
David, the bright and the morning star.
And the Spirit and the bride say come
and let him that heareth say come and
let him that is athirst come and whosoever
will let him come.
Here's the root of David and the offspring
of David and the bright and morning star
making himself down to call you to him,
you to him.
You deserve nothing but death but he died
that you might be called to him.
Wonderful, wonderful.
Was it any wonder that David said my
heart is indicting a good matter.
I speak the things which I have made
touching the king.
Thou art fairer than the children of men.
Grace is poured forth by thy lips.
Was it any wonder?
What a wonderful, gracious God he is.
He's a God of sovereignty before he's the
God of grace.
And if the church in America would restore
again the teaching of the sovereignty of God
back into the churches, sinners would be converted,
but not half converted.
This that the missionaries told us, I believe
in it.
I believe in it.
They said they postponed their baptism till they
get delivered from their temple.
They postponed their baptism till they can't find
a sin in their life.
But we stampede the baptism of waters careless
and unconcerned because our God is not the
sovereign God of our fathers.
He's a homemade God put together out of
pieces of poetry and stories and ideas preached
to us by people who don't know that.
The God and Father of our Lord, Jesus.
When he said, Jesus said, when you pray,
say, Father, first of all, help us.
Thy name should be helped and thy kingdom
should come.
Thy will should be done all over the
universe.
Down here as it is up there.
Let that be first.
And the other things fall in line.
Blessed be God and blessed be his Holy
Son, Jesus Christ.
This we ask in Jesus' name.