Welcome to From the Pulpit and Classic Sermons.
Each week we bring you a different message
from some of history's greatest speakers in the
Christian faith, and powerful sermons for modern preachers
too.
This week we have A.
W.
Tozer with his message on 1 Peter, Part
10.
In the first chapter of 1 Peter, beginning
with verse 9 and leading to verse 12.
Receiving, receiving the end of your faith, even
the salvation of your souls, of which salvation
the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who
prophesied of the grace that should come unto
you, in certain what, or what manner of
time, the Spirit of Christ which was in
them did signify, when it testified beforehand the
sufferings of Christ and the glory that should
follow, unto whom it was revealed, that not
unto themselves, but unto us.
They did minister the things which are now
reported unto you by them that have preached
the gospel unto you, with the Holy Ghost
sent down from heaven, which things the angels
desire to look into.
Now, it so happens that there seem to
be three major truths here which will divide
themselves up nicely.
There is a curious truth, or a singular
truth, anyway, singular truth, and a rather rare
truth, and a remarkably reassuring truth.
The singular truth, singular because it is not
much mentioned in the Bible, that salvation is
such a heavenly and mysterious thing, that the
very prophet who foretold it didn't understand and
actually searched and inquired diligently concerning the salvation
about which they were writing.
They knew only that they wrote of some
favored people who were to come, who were
to receive remarkable, fabulous wealth at the hand
of a kind, gracious God.
But they didn't understand it much.
And then there is the rare truth that
the Old Testament prophets had the Spirit of
Christ.
I want to mention that later.
And then this reassuring truth, that our salvation
is known and talked about in heaven, and
is admired by the unfallen angels, that it
is not a recent thing, not even relatively
recent, but very, very old, and that it
is the theme of all the inspired prophets
since the world began.
Now let us look at this singular truth
about the prophets.
And it says here that the prophet who
prophesied unto us of the grace that should
come, they searched what or what manner of
time the Spirit of Christ which was in
them did signify, when it testified beforehand the
sufferings of Christ and the glory that should
follow, and that it was revealed unto them
that not unto themselves, but unto us they
did minister the things which we now here
preach.
Now a lot may be learned about biblical
inspiration here.
There are many theories of inspiration.
And I suppose that I might as well
say that I do not believe that evangelical
truth necessarily must accept any one theory of
inspiration.
So long as we believe that the holy
men of God spake as they were moved
by the Holy Ghost, and that not one
jot or tittle of the scripture shall fail
until all be fulfilled, I believe that that
fulfills the requirements for belief concerning inspiration.
But some persons believe that the inspired writers
wrote only what they knew.
They were simply religious reporters, reporting intelligently and
spiritually on what they knew about them, and
then that they exhorted and consoled and rebuked,
giving application to what they knew to the
hearts of the people.
Now that doesn't go far enough, for the
fact is that sometimes the prophets were moved
to speak of things that they themselves did
not understand.
They heard the Spirit's voice witnessing within them
about wondrous things, and they spoke what they
heard, but they did not know of what
they spoke.
It was a relatively easy matter for a
prophet to understand, say, when God revealed that
Babylon should fall, or that Israel should be
taken captive, or that Ahab should die and
the dogs should lick his blood, or any
of the scores of prophecies concerning historic events.
That was a relatively easy thing, and I
suppose that every prophet understood it.
If I had a prophetic foresight that New
York was to be destroyed by an atom
bomb, and I were to write it down,
I could understand my own writing, it would
be simply a question of visualizing the destruction
of that vast city, so that a great
many of the prophecies of the Old Testament
were, we'll say, on the rational level.
They could be understood easily by the prophets
who prophesied.
But when they entered the wondrous golden world
of grace and mercy and salvation and incarnation
and resurrection and atonement and ascension and the
sending of the Holy Ghost and the new
birth and the bringing to being of a
people made again in the image of God,
all this staggered the prophets.
They couldn't get it.
It wasn't simply a question of historic fact,
it was a question of marvelous spiritual understanding,
and they didn't have it.
So they prophesied about others.
They were included, of course, but that wasn't
what was in their mind at the moment.
They were prophesying for the future.
Then they died, not having received the promise.
But the prophecies were perpetuated by divine inspiration
and by translation as we have them today
in our Bible.
They heard the spirit voice speaking within them,
and they uttered forth what they heard.
But as prophets, they were able to prophesy.
But as individual men, they had to examine
and search, and I wondered as I read
it, what they searched.
Did they search some other prophet's writing, or
did they search their own heart, or did
they seek in the sense that the scripture
says, Seek and ye shall find?
It doesn't say seek what.
And every creature has his own interpretation, and
I suppose they're all right, because that's actually
usually the case with the word of God.
It is, what should we say?
It has a multitude of applications, so that
if one man says it means this, and
another says it means that, and three others
say it means three other things, they are
not contradicting each other.
They may easily be complementing each other.
I have no objection to various interpretations provided
the brother doesn't say, Now accept my interpretation,
or I rule you out.
Then I'm sorry for a mind as razor
-narrow as that, narrow as the razor's edge.
But these prophets prophesied of things to come,
and that was a wonderful truth, and a
curious one, that prophets reported on things they
did not themselves understand.
And then here is a rare truth, in
that there isn't much about it in either
Old Testament or New directly.
But it is here bluntly stated in unmistakable
language, it is that the Old Testament prophets
had the Spirit of Christ.
But the word had is not good enough
here, for it says the Spirit of Christ
which was in them.
The preposition is in.
Now this destroys what some people have called
the geographical interpretation of the Holy Ghost.
I would call it the prepositional interpretation of
the Holy Ghost.
You know that there are those who bear
down very heavily on the on and the
with and the in.
They say about the Holy Spirit that he
was on the Old Testament scene, but not
in them.
That he was with the apostles before the
Pentecost, but not in nor on.
That he after Pentecost got in with the
people.
That makes preaching easy, because all you have
to do is look for prepositions, and that's
a relatively easy way to handle the word
of God, just watch the prepositions and hook
your little comment on the preposition.
But I've never been able to believe that
God was such that he played in the
marketplace and that he built his truth out
of curious little blocks.
No, the Bible doesn't tell us only that
the Holy Ghost was on, but it says
here that he was in.
Now, that ruins some people's theology.
That little preposition here in Peter ruins it,
because they say the Old Testament prophets and
saints never had the Holy Ghost, he was
only on them.
He came and rested upon them, the dove
lighted on the roof but never came inside
the dwelling place.
And you've got to believe that or else
they won't admit you into their little narrow
field of thought.
But they say in the New Testament he
came with them.
And they quote Jesus as saying, he is
now with you, but shall be in you,
meaning himself as the with.
And then when the Spirit came at Pentecost,
he filled them, and so the Spirit was
in them.
Now I believe the Holy Ghost was on
the Old Testament prophets.
I also believe the Holy Ghost comes on
New Testament Christians.
I believe that the Holy Ghost was in
the Old Testament prophets, for Peter says so,
and I must take Peter's word for it,
in spite of the commentators.
Now there is all this confusion here, and
I do not want to get ironical about
this, though I fear an ironical quality has
crept into my voice.
But here seems to be the fact that
there is all this confusion on this subject
for a number of reasons.
One, it results from letting the element of
curiosity crowd out the element of practicality.
If Bible teachers could only remember that the
holy men who spake as they were moved
by the Holy Ghost and gave us divinely
inspired truth, never for one remote moment ever
meant to give us anything to satisfy our
intellectual curiosity.
They meant to give us truth to transform
us, spirit and soul, and bring us into
holy living and holy believing.
They never intended that we should have rattles
to play with.
I have been to Bible conferences and I
have heard teachers of not only one, but
many schools of religious Christian interpretation that gave
me the impression that they were proud of
their ability to bring things out both old
and new, and particularly new.
And when after they had settled a hash
of the ordinary, simple interpretation of a thing,
they gave you some curious interpretation, they had
enjoyed the theology from a curious standpoint.
And I believe that this will lead us
astray just as sure as you live, just
as soon as I accept the doctrine or
the idea that the Bible is a book
of theological toys to be played with by
tender saintlings, I have missed the purpose of
the scripture and I have no proof that
I won't be in false doctrine before very
long.
For the Bible was given us not to
satisfy our curiosity, but to sanctify our personality.
Another thing that has resulted in this confusion
about the Holy Spirit being on and in
and with and so on, is the carnal
urge to rightly divide.
Rightly dividing the word of truth turns out
to be vivisecting it usually, and it bleeds
to death in the hands of the man
who holds it, and then he carries a
dead, pale text around with him and rams
it down everybody's throat.
The carnal urge to rightly divide, I think
it arises from intellectual pride.
And then there is what we call trying
too hard.
I think I might lay this Bible down
a minute and make an inane comment or
two on that subject, that in trying to
understand the scripture, we are in grave danger
of trying too hard.
It is very rarely that we can screw
up our belt tight to the last notch,
grit our teeth and say, I'm going to
get this.
God never has very much place for old
Adam.
He bade old Adam good-bye and said
that the end of all flesh should come
before him, and God has never put any
confidence in the flesh from that hour down
to this hour.
Now remember that when the Old Testament priests
went in to offer their sacrifices, they did
not dare wear wool clothing, because wool made
them perspire.
And I suppose that God was saying to
the Jewish priesthood, now don't mistake perspiration for
inspiration, and your human perspiration will not glorify
me, therefore wear linen clothing so you can
keep cool.
And serve me scripturally and spiritually, but calmly
and coolly.
And don't imagine that by trying hard you'll
get anywhere, climbing Jacob's ladder with white knuckles
and tired muscles.
There's a lot of paganism in that, and
the Lord wants to kill all that and
let the Holy Ghost take over.
When Jesus sweat blood in the garden, that
was quite another matter.
That was not old Adam trying too hard,
that was the Holy Ghost coming upon a
man till he nearly burnt him up.
That was the prayer spirit laboring on the
man till he nearly killed the man.
And I believe in that, but I also
believe that theologians who push too hard usually
fail to see the point because they're not
relaxed.
Now, Paul used the illustration taken from the
arena and boxing and wrestling, and I suppose
I can without being unspiritual.
And we might take baseball, which I never
see, I've seen one game in 17 or
18 years and probably won't see another one
for another 18.
Maybe never till the Cubs win the pennant
again.
But we like to say this about baseball.
They say that a young man who is
a 300, 325 hitter suddenly goes into a
slump and he couldn't hit a pumpkin when
it comes up to the plate.
Why?
They say often it's because he's got tense
and pushing too hard, that he goes all
tense into the batter's box, but when he
gives up and says, what's the use, I
couldn't hit the basketball, then he starts to
hit again, because he gets off the tension,
he isn't trying too hard.
And I've met many Saints who are trying
too hard.
I remember one time, I think I told
you this before, but it'll bear repeating, and
man has been here as long as I
have had to do some repeating, but I
remember at a watch-night meeting 20, 30
some years ago, that we were all around
there praying, they were testifying, and one very
godly man, now he was all that, he
was a very godly man.
And I was sitting beside another godly man,
a missionary under the African mission, Reverend Mr.
Sawulka, who had just lately gone to heaven,
they found him beside his motorcycle out in
the bush where he had given his life
to the Lord Jesus.
But anyway, this Sawulka was sitting beside me,
and this friend of mine, Everett, he jumped
to his feet and he gripped his knuckles
together, hands together, and in a spasm of
Adamic determination, he told us his plans for
the New Year, how he was going to
serve God.
And my quiet, saintly friend beside me touched
my arm, and he whispered, Brother Everett, it's
screwing his violin strings.
He said he won't be able to keep
it up there for the year.
And I was a young fellow then, and
I remember it, and I think he did.
He screwed it too tight.
You can throw your flesh in and with
strong religious determination break your teeth and batter
your own head black and blue and never
get anywhere.
You can do that in theology, too.
The simplest explanation of any text is just
what it says there.
Just read it, get on your knees, and
as Mark Twain said, the passages he couldn't
understand never bothered him, but the ones he
could understand made him sweat.
And you'll have time enough following the text
that you understand without seeking to pry curiously
underneath the surface and bring up some esoteric
meaning that God never found there.
I spent from Wednesday to Sunday night last
week in Dr. Simpson's old church in New
York City down off Times Square.
And I preached one night, and I said
merely as a matter of passing, you don't
have to believe it, nor does it mean
much, it was just a passing thought.
I said, you know the angels are pure
spirit and the animals are flesh, but man,
this wondrous being, is both spirit and flesh.
And I went on to something else.
It was just a little bracketed saying I
gave, and it's true.
Afterwards, a man with a face like a
mask, thin lips, and cold, thin eyes, and
a completely expressionless face said, what did you
say about the beast not having a spirit?
And he looked down, he'd been, I could
just see him.
He had taken that argument to all the
preachers that had visited New York since May
of 97.
And he said, did God not make this
covenant with all flesh?
And he looked down, much as to say,
I won't hit him again.
He's wounded.
And I saw what I was into.
At first I treated him as a brother
and tried to reason, and then suddenly I
saw there was no use.
And I said, I perceive, sir, that you
are a theological mechanic, more concerned with the
letter than with the spirit.
And I left him.
He came back to all meetings, but he
never bothered me any more.
Now, this fellow had gotten from somewhere, I
don't know where, the idea that a dog
has a spirit, and that when God made
a covenant with Adam, he included the dog,
and the dog knew it, I guess, and
probably signed the covenant.
But it's all very silly, and it truly
doesn't mean anything.
Why do I care about horses and sheep
and dogs and mountain lions?
God never said, go into all the world
and preach the gospel to my horses.
He died for people.
He came to seek that which was lost,
and we're the lost ones.
Lo and behold, when he came and considered
being with God not to be hung on
to, but lowered himself and took flesh, it
was not the flesh of the beast, but
the flesh of the man.
And it was a man that went out
to Calvary, not a dog or a bear.
So if there's some hope for the beast,
let there be hope.
I think John Wesley thought there was.
But if there is, that's not within my
field of interest at all.
I can't know everything.
I can only know a fraction of anything.
So why not stay by the truth as
it affects me?
I could spend my life attacking preachers on
whether an animal has a spirit or not,
and never read the Sermon on the Mount
once.
But it's infinitely more important that I read
the Sermon on the Mount and yield my
heart to obey it, than it is that
I settle curious things concerning prophecy or concerning
any other phase of Christian truth.
Now, the simple truth is that the Old
Testament prophets had the spirit of Jesus.
And that's here as a very rare truth.
The spirit of Christ which was in them
is here in the Bible.
And they prepared the world for the advent
of the Savior, because it was the Savior
himself in them, the spirit of the Savior
in them prophesying.
And they witnessed the Christ in type and
symbol and historic situation and in the writings
of the prophets.
And this explains why Christians love the Old
Testament.
That's why you may have wondered why you
like the Old Testament so, and you can
read it and mark it and love it,
and yet you know it belonged to an
ancient dispensation, and the New Testament is your
book.
No, the New Testament isn't your book any
more than the Old was.
You cannot separate the one from the other,
they are an organic whole, and the spirit
of Christ was in the Old Testament and
Christ is in the New Testament, and you
have one and the same thing.
There are passages that don't refer to you,
and yet you feel an affinity for them.
You read the book of Deuteronomy, which has
to do almost wholly with Israel, and yet
your heart warms and leaps and rejoices and
you mark passages and you say, I wonder
why.
Why do I love the Old Testament?
Ah, it's because the spirit of Christ which
is in them did testify.
And you who are born again recognize the
same spirit that dwells in your breast, in
some measure at least, and there is an
affinity there.
That's why the Old Testament should be read,
and that's why we should preach from the
Old Testament.
Now the reassuring truth, that redemption is famous
in heaven and was famous in ancient times,
and that the plan of God to redeem
the fallen race excited wonder and admiration among
the very angel, which things angels desire to
look into.
I don't know how much they ever found
out, but the angels were stirred to desire
to know this wondrous redemption.
Why were the angels admiring so greatly this
truth?
I believe it's for three reasons.
Because of the being that is to be
redeemed.
If we could ever make people see two
things about themselves, or three things about themselves.
One is what wonderful creatures they are, and
the second is what hopelessly sinful creatures they
are, and the third is what great hope
there is in Christ, I think we could
settle a lot of our problems.
But we either take the attitude that we're
sinful and then begin to tramp ourselves down
to the level of the gopher and the
rat, or else we take the idea that
we're not sinful and deny that we've sinned
and push ourselves up.
Both are true brethren.
We were made in the image of God,
and were made only a little lower than
the angel, and are to be higher than
the angel.
That's what we were, and that's what we
potentially are.
But without the new birth and redemption and
forgiveness and cleansing, we'll find our place to
that hell that's reserved for the devil and
his fallen angels.
Those two truths are not self-contradictory.
They are two sides of the same truth.
Man was made in God's image, and God
for that reason sent his Son to die
for them.
Therefore nobody ever ought to think low of
himself, though he ought to remember how humble
and little and sinful and hopeless and broken
he's been before his God.
So we keep these two thoughts in suspension,
that though we were originally in the image
of God, we stained our souls and ruined
us and brought judgment and hell and death
upon us, but then that God, for Christ's
sake, saves us, redeems us for another's worth
and merit, and restores us again to the
image of God, and we shall someday stand
a little higher than we anciently stood in
the loins of our forefather Adam.
Those are wonderful truths, and they're reassuring truths.
This wonderful being man whom angels are interested
in.
And then the second reason is the astonishing
mercy of God.
If God gave us our deserts, brethren, there
wouldn't be one of us here this morning.
Not one, not one!
You kind-faced old lady that has spent
your lifetime looking after children and then looking
after grandchildren and living the best you knew
how, you wouldn't be here, you would be
in hell, too.
And you honest businessmen that never cheated in
your life and that were upright and good
and honest and a worthy, exemplary citizen, you'd
be in hell, too.
And everybody that is above the age of
responsibility belongs there.
And whoever denies that he does will go
there.
And oh, the astonishing mercy of God, that
he should come to us, too, because of
what we were in Adam, made in the
image of God.
We went down lower and further than we
would have gone.
In the Henry plays by Shakespeare, there was
a prince called Prince Hal.
I think it was Prince Henry IV, if
I remember correctly.
But Prince Hal, Harry they called him, was
of course a noble prince, son of a
king and heir apparent to the throne.
And he was therefore under the law of
nobis oblige.
He must live like the noble man that
he was.
But instead of that, he forgot his noble
standing and went and frequented the pubs and
drank sack, whatever that is, I suppose English
beer, along with Falstaff and the other bloated,
big-bellied, beer-drinking, liquor-consuming crowds.
Nobody minded to see fat old Falstaff there.
He had not come down to go to
the saloon.
But the royal prince had come down, and
so therefore he was infinitely more to blame
because he had come down so far.
And so if we had never been anything,
our sin might be forgiven or overlooked or
excused.
But as men made in the image of
God with moral perception and conscience and ability
to grasp spiritual truth for us to go
down where we've gone.
Oh, the grace and mercy of God that
we should be saved.
And that's why the angel stood with open
eyes and said, How can it be that
such creatures as they should be treated as
they are by the great God who loves
us?
And the third is, and this is most
important, because of the one who would rescue
us, the one Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now, as we see these angels looking with
reverent wonder, and these prophets who prophesied since
the world began, wondering what it was all
about and dreaming and hoping they might know,
we can only say that our foundations stand
sure.
Not a new religion.
Not Mrs. Eddy in the pit.
Not Father Divine with his old bald head
and his angels, concubines.
Not, not Joseph A.
Smith and his curing plates dug up under
an apple tree, but before the world began,
which was in the mind of God.
Ancient is the sun, and before the sun
burned in the heavens, to redeem you and
me was in the mind of God.
Angels desired to look into it.
You know, I heard about an old gentleman,
dear old Saint of God, who was realistic,
and he didn't say it like the Christians
do, they never have a doubt.
No, I never have a doubt.
The Catholics, they do have a doubt when
they won't admit it.
But this old fellow was realistic, and he
testified, he said, I admit I have doubts
sometimes.
He said, I'll hear an argument or somebody
will advance an idea and it'll stun me
for a little.
And he said, when I have such doubts,
I always dive down to the bottom and
examine the foundations of my faith.
And he said, every time I've done it
yet, I've always come to the surface singing
how firm a foundation these saints of the
Lord have laid for your faith in this
excellent work.
That's all I meant to do this morning.
You've been listening to the From the Pulpit
in Classic Sermons series.
This week you heard A.W. Tozer with
his message on 1 Peter, Part 10.
Tune in next week to hear George Verwerf
speak about discipline on From the Pulpit in
Classic Sermons.
We'll be right back.