We now present Dr. Bob Jones Sr., internationally
known evangelist and founder of Bob Jones University,
who during his earthly ministry was one of
God's great warriors for the faith.
O Lord, thou hast searched me and known
me.
Thou knowest my down-sitting and my uprising.
Thou understandest my faults of all.
Thou compassed my path and my lying down
and art acquainted with all my ways.
For as there is not a word in
my tongue, but, O Lord, thou knowest it
altogether.
Thou hast beset me behind and before and
laid thine hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.
It is high.
I cannot attain unto it.
Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or
whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art
there.
If I make my bed in Sheol, Hades,
or Hell, behold, thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the elements parts of the
sea, even there shall thy hand lead me,
and thy right hand shall hold me.
If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover
me, even the night shall be light about
me.
Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee, but
the night shineth as a day.
The darkness and the night are both alike
to thee.
Now what do these verses say down to
that place?
Well, in simple language, they say this.
God knows more than we know.
He knows all things.
He knows everything in the universe.
He knows all the laws of the universe.
He knows why we do what we do.
He knows our frame, the Bible says.
He remembers that too, thank God.
One of the most comforting verses in all
the Bible is, Thou knowest my frame, thou
rememberest that I am dust.
Now, He doesn't condone or justify any sort
of weaknesses I have, but He understands them.
It's a wonderful thing to have a God
that understands my weaknesses.
He understands my weaknesses.
He remembers if we're made out of dirt.
He knoweth our frame.
He knows all about us.
He's an all-wise God.
Now, if He knows all about us, He's
sympathetic in His attitude towards us.
He doesn't condone sin.
He'll punish sin.
Like a judge I told you one time
about on the bench that sentenced some boys
to the penitentiary, some young men, and I
saw tears roll down the judge's cheek.
He was a tender judge, sympathetic judge, but
a just judge.
Now, He did His duty, though His heart
was breaking.
I cannot believe that God Almighty ever lets
a man go to hell without a pain
in his loving heart, because God's a God
of love.
He so loved the world, He gave His
only begotten Son, and who said believe in
Him should not perish but have a lasting
life.
Now, a God that loves sinners, certainly He
doesn't let a sinner go to hell without
a pain in his heart.
Love can suffer and feel pain.
God's a God of love.
He's also a God of justice.
Now, God knows all about us.
He's sympathetic.
He'll punish us however tenderly He may feel
towards us if we deserve punishment, but He
loves us.
Now, knowing our strength and knowing our weaknesses
and knowing our shortcomings, He knows what we
need and knows how to supply the need.
So, it's a wonderful thing to have a
God that knows, isn't it?
Isn't it a wonderful thing to have a
Heavenly Father that knows us and knows what
we need and where we're weak?
He's so wonderful.
No one of the psalmists says that's too
far for me to reach, that's too high
for me, that's so much above me I
can't understand it, but I know it's so.
You can know a good many things that
you can't quite understand.
You may not understand the law that makes
the sun come up in the morning, but
you know it rises in the morning.
You may not know the law that makes
the sun go down in the evening.
A little child doesn't know the law, but
he knows the sun's coming up.
You can know things you can't understand.
And that's a wonderful thing, though, that we
look up to God and we know that
God knows so much that we don't know
and can't understand, but we know enough about
Him that He loves us and He's sympathetic
and tender and pities us.
Now, we have a God that knows, the
psalmist said.
Now, next place, we have a God that's
everywhere.
He's there with the goods to deliver when
we need to have the goods delivered.
That's the kind of God He is.
If I take the wings of the morning
and fly away, you can't get out of
reach of God.
Where would you go?
He inhabits eternity.
You can't find anywhere God is.
Eternity?
You can go back and back and back
and back forever.
You're still in eternity.
You can go on and on and on
and on forever, and you're still in eternity.
You can go up and up and up
forever, and you're still in eternity.
You can go down, down, down forever, and
you cannot find the flooring in the house
of eternity.
Now, the Bible says God inhabits eternity.
That's His dwelling place.
Thus say the high and lofty one that
is habith eternity.
The house of God is eternity.
God's everywhere.
Now, isn't that wonderful to have a God
like that?
You know, you think about old Elijah getting
out there one day, and the false prophets
going to see what their gods could do,
and they were there for the same.
We're going to demonstrate what kind of gods
we have.
And the God that answers by fire, He's
God.
So they put on the wood and cried
out, so there God stands.
But their gods couldn't answer.
Their gods were helpless in the hour of
crisis.
But old Elijah said, I'll show you what
kind of God I have.
And he called out, called out for God
to come and answer by fire.
And God came.
Isn't it wonderful to have a God that
you can, when I'm speaking respectfully, I hope
irreverently, isn't it wonderful to have a God
that you can show off?
You know, I get such a thrill out
of this thing.
I get Bob Jones University, if you'll excuse
me just a minute.
I want you to listen to me.
You know, I think about these schools in
America, with their conventions, with all their backing,
great memberships in the denominations, rich men on
their boards, all the influence of great membership.
I can see how they can build schools,
humanly speaking.
I can say, well, they've got a school
out there, they've got a lot of folks
to help them.
State convention, great big annual conference, a big
Presbyterian Synod.
They've got help.
You can look around and see the source
of their help.
And people come out of the other Bob
Jones University and they say, well, this school,
a denomination school?
No.
Well, what kind of school?
It's just a Christian school.
Well, who's back of you?
Well, there's nobody special except God, except God.
You know, we want Bob Jones University out
here to be a place where we can
show God off, right?
And folks come around here and say, how
did it happen?
We say, God.
And we're telling the truth You can't tell
me.
You can't tell me we did it.
I didn't do it.
Bob didn't do it.
Nobody around here wants anybody to think any
of us did it.
God did it.
It is wonderful to have a God that
you can point to and say, God did
it.
You know, I'm going to talk on the
errors that people are making in modern Christian
programs.
The things that they are doing, so many
things that they don't mean to do it,
but they're hiding God.
It's so easy to hide God.
So easy to hide God behind ambition, structure
stuff.
You can have a showman ship that's so
big, if you don't watch out, you won't
find God.
You know, I've seen that so many a
time.
I remember after World War I, when I
spoke at the Methodist Centenary of Columbus, Ohio,
and spoke at the Evangelistic Hour, the great
big tent, and Bishop Cannon was there, and
the Chandler Committee, I think I told you
about before.
And one day, a modern type preacher walked
up one of those good old time camp
meeting country Methodist preachers.
You know, it's a wonderful thing, those old
time fellows.
They were great boys, those men were.
So he walked up to him, and I
was standing there, and I got an idea
myself.
I've used it many a time since.
Most I've learned, I've just picked up listening
to some fellow out in the woods.
I get more from some of those fellows
than I can some of these highbrow PhDs.
So somebody said, isn't this the biggest religious
show you ever saw?
This old countryman said, I've been looking around
here for God.
I want to find God around here.
So I went on over there, and I
said, you can get your show so big
if you don't watch out, you won't see
God.
And they'll think of the great showmanship, the
crowd, the crowd, the throngs.
You have to be careful when you put
up nice modern buildings like that out here
at Bob Jones University.
Don't watch out, people come by and look
at the buildings and say, isn't that a
remarkable, rather modernistic type plant out there, isn't
it?
Have to be awfully careful.
If you don't watch out, you'll be shoving
God around, and God won't be shoved around.
You can't treat God Almighty like that.
Did you know you can get your ritualism
so wonderful and spectacular and attractive?
And ritualism's all right, I'm not talking about
it.
Have to watch out.
Every time we put up a new building
out here, we preach a little harder, a
little straighter.
And every time we get a new PhD
in the faculty, we put on a little
more spiritual emphasis.
You have to watch out.
If you don't watch out, if you don't
watch out, sooner or later, you lose sight
of God.
The Bible always lifts him up every time
there is God, God, God.
And the Bible says, pride goeth before destruction,
and the Holy Spirit before fall.
Have to watch out.
Many women, it's a wonderful thing to have
a great God.
It's so wonderful to have a God that
you can show off.
You know, I'd like to get around some
of these little poor, miserable heathens, and let
them show me that little house garden I'd
like to point to the date on and
say, look what my God's doing.
And then when the evening comes and the
sun goes down and the curtain of night's
being drawn, and I watch the stars come
out, and somebody says, yes, my God.
I say, look up yonder, my God, he's
busy lighting the stars in the sky.
It's wonderful to have a God, isn't it?
Big God.
A God that knows all things.
A God that's everywhere.
And yet it's a little scary, because the
psalmist says here, he sees when it's dark.
He's a God from which men can never
hide.
That's what I want to talk to you
about this morning, but I didn't get to
it.
Maybe I'll get to it some other time.
The psalmist said he's a God.
A God you can't hide from.
A God you can't get away from.
What a God.
Say, listen, do you know him?
Oh, I didn't ask you if you're a
church member.
Maybe you're a Methodist, a Baptist, a Pentecostal,
an Episcopalian, Protestant or Catholic.
I didn't ask you that.
I asked you if you know God.
When you say our Father, do you know
what you're saying?
Is he your Father?
You've no right to call him your Father
unless you're converted.
We are children of God by faith in
Jesus Christ.
It's presumptuous for you to call my Father
your Father unless you've been born again.
You have to be born again to call
him Father.
You become a child of God when you're
born a second time.
And you become a child of God by
faith in Jesus Christ.
As many as received him then gave you
the power or the right or the authority
to become children of God.
Now, don't call my Father your Father unless
he is your Father.
If he's your Father, we are brothers and
sisters.
It's all right, but don't you try to
claim my Father for yours if you're not
a Christian, because he isn't.
But isn't it a wonderful thing to be
saved, to be a Christian?
Call God Father.
That's what the psalmist is talking about.
God everywhere knows all things and sees all
things, and he's my Father, our Father.
We're so glad we can say that.
We don't deserve to say it.
We're not worthy of it, except he's always
made us worthy because we trusted Christ.
Gave us a new life.
We haven't been good children.
We know that.
We're awfully sorry.
We try to be better.
Help us to be better.
Forgive us for all our weaknesses and shortcomings,
and help us to be good children, faithful
to Jesus Christ.
We pray in his ever precious name.
Amen.
You have just heard Dr. Bob Jones, Sr.,
internationally known evangelist and founder of Bob Jones
University, who during his earthly ministry was one
of God's great warriors for the faith.
This program is sponsored by Bob Jones University.