I'm still in Philippians 3, and you know
it.
I'll not grind it out again by reading
it once more.
In 7 to 15 of Philippians 3, beginning
with, But those things which were gained to
me I found at loss for Christ.
As for the knower, he said, they found
in him not having thine own righteousness, but
the righteousness which is of God's own sake.
For by this, few things I might attain,
and not as though I had all already
attained, either were already perfect.
But I follow after, and I forget the
things that are behind, and I stretch forward,
and let us therefore as many be perfect
be as much.
Now, this man, this most aggressive man, this
boldest man, this surest footed man, and this
sincerest man.
And if you think I'm overstating it, let
me read to you some things he said.
The Holy Ghost witnesses that in every city
bonds and afflictions await me, but none of
these things know me.
Neither count I my life near unto myself,
so that I might finish my course in
my ministry.
First Corinthians, he said rather heartily, Though ye
have ten thousand instructors in Christ, ye have
one father.
Ye have not many fathers, for in Christ
Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.
Therefore, be followers of me.
First Corinthians again, fifth chapter, he said, I
have judged already what to do concerning this
man that has done this deed.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,
with the power of the Lord Jesus, I
have decided to deliver such a one that
is taken for the destruction of the flesh,
that his spirit may be saved in the
day of the Lord Jesus.
In relation he said, And henceforth let no
man trouble me, let me alone.
I bear in my body the marks of
the Lord Jesus.
Now those are only five texts, if you'll
find them all through Acts and the Epistles.
There was a sure-footedness about the man,
and a deep crawling on his stomach.
This man knew what he believed, knew where
he stood, he knew his God, he knew
his confidant, he was a great cosmic confidant.
But that same man was yet the most
self-disgustful man.
Listen to this, late first Corinthians, I am
the least of the apostles, and there not
need to be called an apostle.
It is only by the grace of God
that I am what I am.
Second Corinthians, We have this stranger in earth
and vessel, that the excellency of the power
may be of God, and not of our
persimmony.
This is a faithful saint, and worthy of
all acceptance.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners, of which I am chief, Roman.
For I know that he is in my
natural place, in my body, in my natural
nature, in whom Saint Paul saw.
For I know that in me dwelleth no
good thing.
Now I haven't exhausted these texts, I've only
given you four or five proof texts on
each side.
And therefore we may properly conclude that Paul's
great personal triumph on his side resulted from
an entire and radical distrust of himself.
And that's what I am going to preach
on tonight.
Self-distrust as the last great obstacle, or
self-trust as the last great obstacle to
spiritual triumph.
And this man Paul didn't trust himself.
Before man he was bold as a lion.
Before God, he couldn't say too much against
himself.
He had no confidence in himself at all.
And the confidence of the man in God
was in inverse proportion to his confidence in
himself.
As far as he trusted himself, he did
not trust God.
As far as he distrusted himself, he was
thrown out before God.
Now self-trust, the respectability and self-assurance
which comes by education, birth, what you hear
about yourself, what do your friends tell you
about yourself, and all the tests you make
of yourself, self-trust is the last great
obstacle to go out of the light.
Thou shalt cling after the thing that's gone
till it is gone.
And that is why we wade around the
deep river of God as animals around the
waterhole, afraid to go in.
We never do quite get in.
There was an old man that I want
to quote a little tonight, not boringly.
He had a wonderful name, I think, Lorenzo
Cipolle.
I think that's a wonderful name.
Well, Lorenzo Cipolle was one of those strange
codices who, during his lifetime, he had a
running fight, more or less, and was considered
more or less a heretic because of his
angelical views of the way back before 100
years.
And this man said this, this trust in
yourself is so necessary to you in this
combat that without it you must hold it
certain.
What I liked about the, what this man
had said, and Paul and others, is the
clear, sharp, language they use, and without any
as-it-were stuff, without any of that,
as-it-were and so to speak, and
possibly, none of that.
He said, this trust of yourself is so
necessary to you in this spiritual combat that
without it you must hold it certain that
you will not be able to obtain the
desired victory.
This trust in self.
And he said, we are much too easily
inclined by our corrupt nature to a false
opinion of ourselves.
Without any foundation at all, we sleep painfully
in our own sleep.
Now, this, to continue, is a defect very
difficult to understand, and most misleading in the
eyes of God, who loves us and desires
in us a loyal recognition of every grace
and every virtue conceived from him alone, who
is the fountain of all good, and that
nothing, not even a good thought, can come
from us except it be of his will.
Now, you can be converted, born again, and
walk around and testify for 100 years, and
never find yourself.
In this case, you haven't been around 100
years, but you haven't found yourself yet.
Now, you find out what power I have
found, and what we did, we quote, but
never actually done.
That this obstacle to spiritual victory is self
-trust, and the sin has been put away.
Every sin that we know has been put
away in our search for God, and after
all the self-sins that we know about
have been crucified, we've stopped boasting, we've stopped
loving ourselves with hate, and we've put away
the hope of letting self-truth go where
it can, and think that we're doing it
wrong.
And we've reckoned ourselves in dreams of the
dead, have died under sin through dreams cut.
After we've humbled ourselves, we will permitly begin
to imagine, after we've humbled ourselves, when self
-truth may be stronger than it was before,
because it has no foundation to build on.
So, after we have put away our sins,
and after we have given up our wealth,
and after we have taken a full position,
and allowed ourselves to be shoved around, and
after we have been, Moses had been loved
in the dark.
Family, self-trust, whispered in consolation.
And a lot of people take that consolation
of self-whispering there for the Holy Ghost,
and that's why you're so woke when you
think you're strong.
Self-consolation or self-trust whispers like this,
but now, and you
put things behind you, and you confess and
humble yourself.
Now, you may trust yourself, of course you've
got to help yourself, and you may expect
the victory to come, and power to be
at your side.
You're not one of these dead ones, you're
one of these evil-eyed ones, self-tells
you.
And it's cost you a lot, hasn't it,
brother, self-tells you.
And you, you've had to part with friends
in order to push on, hasn't you, self
-tells you, rubs your back nicely downward, and
you enjoy it so much.
Self says, you put things behind you, haven't
you, yes, and you humble yourself.
Now, you may trust yourself, you're up there,
you're getting somewhere.
Of course, you understand it's got to be
God's help, but you may expect victory now.
Now, that's self-trust, brother, and almost all
the joy the average Christian has is the
back-stretching that self gives.
That's all the pleasure he gets, is the
back-stretching that he gets from self.
Take a cat, and scratch it between the
ears, and it'll close its eyes, and he's
called hunkered down, that is.
Back in Pennsylvania, that brother knows what hunkering
down means, hunkering, just, you know, crouching.
I think that's an old Scotch word, and
quite familiar to me as my boy.
Well, the cat will do that, because they
love to be scratched.
A cow will come and put her head
over the fence, and scratch it between the
ears, and pet her, and she'll love and
stand there.
Well, now, self is always scratching the ears
of the people of God.
And the further they go on into the
will of God, and the deeper they go,
the more back-stretching they get, the more
ear-stretching.
And self says, well, certainly you know better.
You've read Tom Seacantus.
And you, you're different.
You love the old him.
And you, none of this junk for you.
And you're a separated Christian.
None of these movies for you.
None of this crazy modern stuff for you.
You're better.
And you don't know what's happening to you.
You're feeling good.
And your feeling good is strictly you're being
scratched by a self that hasn't yet died.
Your self-trust is there, after you think
it's gone.
Now, why is self-trust so wrong?
Self-trust is so wrong because it robs
God to give to man.
God says, you have robbed me.
And you say, where am I?
Well, that was under another context.
But we rob God, and we take away
from God this thing that the brother wrote
about, that he is, that God is the
fountain of all good.
And that nothing, not even a good thought
can come from us except the fountain of
God.
We take that away from God, and we
give it to our converted and sanctified selves.
And it's just as bad, just as bad
as it can be, because it takes away
from God the ultimate, the final trust.
It misjudges God and man, and holds God
to be less than he is, and man
to be more than he is.
And this is mainly the trouble with it.
We think God's less than he is, and
man's more than he is.
And we can go to school and study
theology and learn how God is the source
and fountain and all the rest, and learn
about the attributes, and still, in our hearts,
still believe God is less than he is,
and we're more than we are.
And thus, it's like the moon.
Suppose the moon could talk and think and
have a personality.
And the moon should begin to say, well,
I shine.
I shine on the earth.
And I, every time that I'm around where
I can reach the earth, I see the
earth become beautiful.
And somebody would come and say, well, listen,
don't you know that by yourself you're a
bird's ash?
Don't you know that you've been discovered and
found out?
You don't shine at all.
You reflect.
It's the sun that shines.
And I could see myself telling the moon,
well, you're letting your light shine as if
you're doing a good job.
I notice when you're not up, the whole
side of the earth lies in darkness.
But when you come lightened up and begin
to see the roofs of houses, and you
do a fine job, and the moon would
nod and say, well, the glory belongs to
God, and by the grace of God I'm
like this.
But all the time the moon thinks it's
shining.
When the moon isn't shining at all, it's
reflecting.
And St. Paul could boldly shine and talk
about it because he knew that he wasn't
shining at all.
He knew that he didn't have a thing
that was set for heaven.
It was the grace of God in him.
And if it was God and not him,
he completely and radically distrusted himself.
Now, no man ever really knows about himself.
He doesn't know how he feels.
Just as no man really knows what he
sounds like.
Everybody thinks he sounds right until he hears
himself on tape.
One of the most humbling things that ever
happened to me happened about 10 years ago
when I had my first sermon preached on
Erechtheion.
After I heard that, I never could stand
the sound of my own voice.
Well, that thing didn't lie to me.
And I heard myself on tape dozens of
times trying to work something out that I
could use.
But it always sounds terrible.
But up to that time I had been
told that I had a prime teaching voice,
people coming, good voice.
But I heard myself.
Nobody needed any more to talk to.
I heard it.
I listened to it.
I'd been forced to hear it.
But no man knows the sound of his
own voice until he hears it.
And no man knows how weak he is
until God gets exposed.
And nobody wants to be exposed.
But God has to expose.
And what we consider our strength is our
weakness.
If you will think over your life forever
and do carefully in prayer and put down
on the pad the things you think are
your virtues, those are your weaknesses.
And those very virtues are your sources of
trouble.
And the only way you can deal with
yourself is look away and look under him,
as I've been telling you.
And stop thinking about yourself at all.
Now, nobody can know how weak he is.
Nobody can know how bad he is until
he's been exposed by the Holy Ghost.
And nobody wants to be exposed.
And nobody knows how unstable he is.
You remember that fellow in the Old Testament
that said, is thy servant a dog that
I would do a thing like that?
Apparently he meant it.
He went straight home and did it.
The prophet said, you're going to murder your
master.
He said, is thy servant a dog?
The prophet didn't reply.
He went home and put a pillow over
his nasty face and smothered him to death.
You remember a certain great old bold fisherman
who stood up and said, let everybody else
run from you, Lord, I'll not.
The Lord said, before the cross grows Christ,
you will.
And he did.
Now, you will find that nobody knows how
unstable he is.
And that's why it's dangerous to trust our
goodness.
That's why it's dangerous to trust our virtue,
because we're unstable.
Now, how then do we learn this stuff?
Well, this stuff is indeed the work of
God's hand, says the man.
And he's accustomed to give it to his
dear friends in four ways.
So I want to tell you, this takes
the hide off, but here are the four
ways that God teaches this trust.
There may be some others, but these four
are valid ways.
He says, it's the work of God's hand
that's this trust.
Now, I can't put it to room for
you.
That's too bad.
I saw a cartoon once of a fellow
with a hole in the top of his
head and a funnel, and somebody was pouring
it in.
And I've always had a kind of a
goofy longing that I could do that with
congregations.
Just trip him and don't take all that.
Put a funnel in and pour it in,
but you can't get it that way.
All any preacher can do, and I don't
care who he is, but he can do
all he can do is say, all you
can do is preach to the Lamb of
God and on your own.
And if you don't make it, it's not
the preacher's fault necessarily.
If he hasn't been quite honest enough, hasn't
been quite severe enough, hasn't been quite powerful
enough, maybe, but at least if he's done
that one thing, that's all.
Now, there are four things, says the dear
old man of God, and what he says
is supported and confirmed by almost all of
the devotional writers and the great hymnists and
biographers or persons about whom biography works.
He says, sometimes it comes by holy inspiration.
Now, that'd be the best way to get
it.
The best way to find out you're no
good is to have God flash a holy
inspiration into your soul and just let you
know about it.
I think that's happened to some people.
I think it has.
Brother Lawrence, you know, Herman, Nicholas Herman, Brother
Lawrence, said it happened to him, and he
said for 40 years he never was out
of the presence of God alone, never out
of the conscious presence of God.
He said, when I took the cross and
decided to obey Jesus and walk in his
holy way, he said from reading around and
hearing, I gathered that I have to suffer
a lot.
He said, for some reason, God never counted
me worthy of much suffering.
He just let me continue to trust him.
He said, I put all my self-trust
away, and I'm trusting in God completely.
To paraphrase, he's tearing his cross, he said,
and believing that he's in me and around
me and near me, and praying all the
time.
And he said he'd never given me very
much suffering to do.
And I have told you, it's cited quite
a little bit of attention around over this
country, about little old Julianne.
There's a lady Julianne, and they're searching for
her books and all the rest now.
Well, she only wrote one, and outside of
that one experience she had, when she got
her three wounds, she never had too much
suffering.
After that, God gave by a holy inspiration
light to her heart, and she knew instantly
she was no good, and Jesus Christ was
everything, and she stayed right there until she
died, growing every day.
That'd be the easiest way to get it,
would be for the Lord to come and
give by a sweet, sudden hole of inspiration
within our hearts and the scriptures tell us
how bad we are.
If you say, Mr. Closer, I already know
I'm bad.
I'm a believer in total depravity.
You can be a confirmed believer in total
depravity, and be as proud as Wilson, and
trust yourself so as to shut out the
place of God and prevent victory.
Theological total depravity isn't what you make here
at all.
I happen to be one of those who
believes, according to the scriptures, that man is
a sinner by birth, and an alien by
birth, and a sinner by choice.
I believe that.
I never believed anything yet.
I never had any trouble with theology.
Some people are always writing, they're in difficulties
with theology.
Either I don't have sense enough, or the
deities of God preserve me, because I never
had any worry about total depravity and all
that, and how I can inherit the evil
from my father.
I don't know a thing about it.
All I know is, as soon as I
was big enough as him, I went into
the business.
And I know that every child I've ever
known or seen no matter who you are,
I said to the boys upstairs, I said,
you know, every race and every nationality has
its vice, doesn't it?
Everybody, and he said, yes, all but the
Irish.
But every nationality, everyone has his own vice.
The vice that stands out.
Beaten up to one place, did something else,
and they all have one vice.
What's the reason?
At least one.
God knows there may be thousands, but at
least I'll send, because we're all like, we're
born bad.
And we can believe that and accept it
and teach it only to others.
And those who most trust themselves may yet
be the ones who are most often cruel.
All our righteous messes are but filthy rags.
Careful to put the F on the end
and confirm the fact that it's not singular
but plural.
Our righteous messes are filthy rags.
Now, you see, it takes the Holy Ghost
to tell you you're bad and make you
sick.
It takes the Holy Ghost to tell you
you're weak and make you sick.
It takes the Holy Ghost to tell you
you're weak, and you can go through and
get a degree that long, and come out
and still go proudly out to be a
preacher, or proudly out to be a missionary,
or a Bible teacher, or whatever.
He says, God is at war.
He's in his friends, they're telling, showing his
friends, speaks in self-distrust, sometimes with holy
inspiration, or sometimes with harsh courage.
That's more where I come from.
Sometimes with harsh courage.
I don't know who we could use for
a better illustration than the man Job.
We pity Job so with human sympathy, and
we sort of have to take Job's part
against God if we don't watch ourselves.
And we certainly take Job's part against his
wife.
The only good thing I know about all
that was that she was never heard of
again.
I don't know what happened to her, but
she got out of the picture.
But have you noticed that this man Job
was a long way from being a humble
man?
Do you ever notice it?
He was a praying man, and he was
a man who made sacrifices, blessed his children
had sinned the night before at their party.
He couldn't do it at any time.
But listen to him now, long before the
latter third of his long time, he said,
well over Job's opinion, it's terrible.
And I know better than Job, it's terrible.
You see what he said, he remarked, As
I was in the doors of my work,
and the people did not God be upon
my family.
When the almighty was yet with me, and
my children were about me, when I washed
my steps with butter, and the rock poured
me out rivers of oil.
When I went out to the gate to
the sewer, and when I prepared my seat
in the street.
He was the big shot, you know, that's
what they did then.
They didn't have a city hall, they had
a place at the head of the street,
and there the big shot sat.
When the young men saw me, he said,
they hid themselves, and the aged rose and
stood up.
Who was this coming down the street?
Well, no bonus for you.
Oh, he said, here I am lying, now
in this ash pile, a miserable wreck.
They cast me out, nobody broke for me.
He said, the day was when I went
down the street, the young people hid themselves,
the old people stood up.
And princes were plain talking, they laid their
hands on their mouths.
You think Brother Job was an ordinary rag
-picker?
Brother Job was a great man.
And he knew it, and that was the
trouble, and that's why he had to have
all that happen to him.
If you're great and don't know it, nothing
will happen to you.
But if you happen to suspect it, and
you love God, things will start to happen
to you.
And if they don't, it's because you're not
far enough along to the Lord to touch
them.
He said, the nobles held their peace, and
their tongues cleaved to the roots of their
mouths.
When you heard his blessing song, and I
delivered the poor when they cried, the blessing
of the poor was upon me again.
That was Job.
He was just telling them what kind of
fellow he used to be, and you're all
so smart about this, this was a half
-crack.
It was a half-crack.
He had been fraternal now long, sitting on
an ash-pile with his enemies all around
him.
But as time of God went on, and
he fell over his foot, and discouraging began
to bump into the soul of the man.
And then we'll not go into it, but
you know how that time came when he
said, Oh God, I've been talking and talking
and talking, but now I've shut up.
I've put my hand over my mouth.
I am thine, oh God.
And when he got that lesson, then the
Lord said, All right, go now, pray for
the rest of them.
So he prayed for the rest of them,
and God gave him back twice more.
Well, harsh virtues.
You know, I sound as if I belong
to the 17th century.
Nobody talks like this anymore.
You don't hear anybody talk about it.
That's why everybody has to ring a cowbell
to get a little bit of playing.
That's why they have to bring in the
talking horse in order to have any fun.
Say, John 3, 16, bring in the horse.
And they all quote John 3, 16, and
then have the horse plow the ground to
show how many apostles there were.
Twelve times for an apostle.
That's why, because nobody wants to hear anything
about our dear heavenly father being want to
teach his children self-trust by, distrust by
harsh virtues.
Now, some of you will say that man
told you the hard news.
You like to lay on the light.
You know what?
If I could, I'd preach on the 23rd
Psalm every day for a year, every Sunday
for a year.
Then after I was through with the 23rd
Psalm, I'd pick up the 53rd of Isaiah.
Then when I was through with that, I'd
preach on 1 Corinthians 13.
But if I did that, do you know
where you'd be in the meantime?
You'd be the spongiest, softest, sweetest bunch of
no good that God ever got together.
God has to give us harsh scourge in
something.
It'd be like feeding your family nothing but
sugarcoats.
You know what would happen to them?
They'd lose their teeth when they're twelve years
old.
There has to be some solid stuff.
The harsh scourge.
We talk about it briefly and pass it
by.
Nobody puts any emphasis there.
Then the third, the third way is sometimes
with violent and insuperable temptation.
Violent and insuperable temptation.
When we're violently tempted and for a moment
insuperably tempted, we're inclined to throw in the
white towel and say, God, this is no
use.
No use, I'm no good.
I've read about moody and Augustine, all the
rest.
But no use, God, you don't want me.
I'm finished.
Forgetting that God is wont to teach his
friends self-distrust sometimes by violent and insuperable
temptation.
And sometimes when something blows up on you
that you thought was dead and buried years
ago, instead of your taking it as a
proof that you're not a Christian yourself, you
ought to take it as a proof that
you're nearer home today than you were yesterday.
And that your heavenly father is letting this
thing happen to you to show you you're
no good.
Now, back to Brother Lawrence again.
He said that he walked with the Lord
all the time.
But he said, if ever I make a
slip anywhere, he said, I never let it
give me much trouble.
I go straight to the Lord and I
say, now, Lord, that's me.
And if you don't help me, that's what
you can expect, for that's me.
And he said, God, forgive me.
And I went right on from there, not
much trouble.
We are cured sometimes by men who are
trying to help us, and they are trying
to help us, that repentance is a long
-drawn-out affair where we have to beat
ourselves a long time.
And I believe in that kind of repentance
too.
But there comes a time when we realize
that the best way to handle anything, as
Spinolan said, the best repentance is turn toward
God and don't do it anymore.
That's the best repentance in the wide world.
You did something last week that you're ashamed
of and sit here under conviction and condemnation
about.
Say, how can I repent?
The best repentance is to turn to the
Lord, tell him, and then don't do it
anymore.
That's the best repentance in the wide world.
And these penitentiaries will let you fall down
sometimes.
What are they for?
Are they proof that you're not too Christian
to fall?
No.
They're proof that your conscience is tender, you're
very near to God, and that the Lord
is trying to teach you that last lesson
of self-distrust by a violent temptation.
You'll remember Jacob's temptation from Egypt, and you'll
remember Peter's, and all down the years we've
been illustrated.
In the name of the Lord, we are
having the Father's want to teach us self
-distrust by other means not understood by us.
By other means not understood by us.
You know, we're all born theologians.
When anything happens, we all like to run
to the scripture and be able to quote
it and say, now that's according to this
verse right here, isn't it, brother?
Yes.
What does that say in the margin?
We've got it, and we have a certain
confidence in ourselves.
We know just exactly what's going on.
This wise old saint of God said, sometimes
God teaches you self-distrust by no matter
what method, you don't know what's happening to
you.
Have you ever been in that picture?
If you haven't, and I think this is
the ninth sermon on this text, and if
you, if this hasn't happened to you over
the last week, I ought to be in
for it, because I'm doing no good here.
But if you, if you don't know, if
you don't know, you say, well, God won't
even show me what's taking place.
Well, he knows you're a theologian, and he
knows that you're so proud of the way
you rightly divide the word of truth, and
that you can just disjoint the text just
like a butcher getting your chicken ready for
it.
And the word lies all out there carefully
laid out, you know, just where to put
your finger on this, and just where to
put it on this.
You're too smart for God to bless you,
brother.
You know too much, and you can identify
everything.
And the dear heavenly Father knows that you
don't know much after all, and so he
lets things happen to you that you don't
know what's happening to you.
And your friends don't know, and when you
go to somebody you trust, and you feel
that oh, that man's a saint, he'll be
able to tell you, and he looks blank,
and he can't tell you, and that's good,
that's wonderful.
It'd be terrible if we had some holy
Saint Francis where everybody could go to and
find out where they were and all about
it.
God loves you too much, and he's trying
to teach you to trust him and not
people, not lean on people.
I have been so scared that people would
start trusting in me, leaning on me.
God takes the crutches out from under there
once in a while, just take me if
you can trust me.
Now, these means that God uses, you don't
know what they are, and you can't locate
yourself.
If you're a Christian, you know it, and
you love God, and you're sick of all
the nonsense in the world, and you're sick
of all the nonsense in the church, and
your heart's crying after God as though you're
rolling after the rock of books, and your
heart and your flesh cries out for God,
even though you don't need God, and yet
here's this obstacle, you still trust yourself.
You're born again, you can say that, you
can testify to it, you love your Bible,
you have your prayer, you're a good Christian,
but you still trust yourself.
And it made it harder for you to
get rid of it because nobody talks about
it anymore, only a half a dozen of
us, left in fundamental circles, I guess.
They never say anything about it, at least
around this area.
If you're a Christian at all, everybody scratches
back your neck and says, Lord, it's God,
brother, you're born again.
But the Lord says that's only the beginning.
This baby that's there, just in case you're
not hearing, I dare you wouldn't mind it,
but this baby that's there, he's got a
three-month-old, born in Germany, and I
saw a father, Captain Gisk, and I said,
hello, Captain, nice to see you again.
We had a nice handshake in time, and
this good fellow said about his baby, I
said, how is the baby?
Oh, he said, not much of a baby
anymore, brother, so I said, no?
And he says, three-month-old.
He wasn't kidding, he meant that.
He said he's an only father, you know,
and the only one he's had.
Three-month-old, so he's a big boy
now.
Well, sir, now that's so natural and normal
that they watch every move that he does,
in the first instance, in everything.
And our Heavenly Father loves his people like
that, and he loves you like that.
And don't let anybody frighten, don't let anybody
come along with wild stories.
If it was true that everybody that ought
to be killed, if God killed them, we'd
have a different preacher here tonight.
If it was true that every time a
Christian rebelled, God took his baby, we'd have
lost all seven of ours.
If it was true that every time we'd
fail and miss the will of God and
blunder out and do something wrong, the Lord
put us on this shelf, I'd have been
a piece of statuary by this time.
I just don't let them tell me those
things.
I know that.
I know God.
And God isn't that kind of God.
He isn't that kind of God.
He only judges when there's nothing else to
do.
When a lifetime of rebellion and hard unbelief
and sin-loving and violent refusal brings judgment,
then judgment falls.
But the Scripture says it's God's strange work.
God doesn't like to do it.
And when God is sending or allowing violent
and insuperable temptations and harsh scourgings and strange
means that you can't identify, he's not judging.
He's watching you grow.
And if I could use that word about
God, he's proud to see you grow.
Zephaniah says that he will rejoice over us
with joy and he will joy over us
with sin.
And if that isn't a picture of a
father singing over his family, I don't know
what is.
And back in one of the late chapters
in Deuteronomy, it says that the beloved of
the Lord dwells between his shoulders.
And as a lad, I carried my baby
brother that way.
Quick as I can say, God picks us
up and carries us, makes all our bed
in our sickness, and understands our thoughts.
The nose were dust, and he's loving and
patient toward us.
And so God isn't judging.
God isn't angry.
God is just wanting his children to grow.
And he has sometimes to give them some
harsh scourges.
Now what are we to do?
Well, we're to trust him, and love him,
and absolutely count on him.
You know anybody you can count on?
Some people you can count on?
You know anybody you can count on?
You say to yourself, well, let me see,
would Brother so-and-so, would I count
on him?
Well, you know anybody you could count on
if you were wrong?
You wouldn't all count on a friend that
were right.
Suppose you went wrong.
You know anybody you can count on?
Great old French preacher once said, My friend
would pull a great cathedral, but my real
friend should occupy these seats here.
Now it wasn't a student, it was a
realist.
You know anybody you can count on when
you're not right?
Well, I can tell you somebody.
His name is Jesus, and God hath made
this same Jesus Lord in Christ.
So what you're to do is trust him
completely and let him work.
And don't push him, don't struggle, don't beat
the bench and say, God, you gotta do
it now.
If you're in the hands of God and
obeying God, God's leading you.
And know absolutely that God will never let
you down.
He'll never, never let you down.
And then, third thing I say to you
is look around for footprints where you are.
You don't know where you are.
God is trying to teach yourself this trust,
and one of the hardest things, as long
as you know what you're standing on.
They tell me that an earthquake is one
of the most shocking, excuse this pun, it's
not a pun intended, one of the most
shocking things.
If it's a flood, you see it coming.
If it's a typhoon, you see it coming.
If it's lightning, you'll hear the rumble.
But when an earthquake begins, they say that
you lose confidence in your equilibrium.
You lose confidence in kind old Mother Earth
that's been solid.
Long ago, you can remember, she was solid.
When you put your foot down on it,
you never fail.
And then one day, she suddenly goes berserk,
and you almost lose your mind, when you're
suddenly confronted with distrust in the Earth itself.
Well, self-confidence is like that.
You tend to put your foot down on
your virtues, and on your reputation, and on
what you are.
And then when God sends a little earthquake
and upsets, and cracks up and breaks up,
even that old confidence you had in yourself
begins to go.
It's a terrible thing, brother.
But remember this, that you're not alone in
that battle.
Look around for footprints, and whose footprints do
you see?
You'll see his, and you'll see the footprints
of all the great things that ever have
lived down in the Earth.
Oh, brother, out in Hollywood, they say they
have a place, kind of a ungodly, upside
-down Westminster Abbey, where they immortalize some of
the old-sized bulls in concrete.
Some great, uh, some great, uh, actors, great
names, they put his foot in the concrete,
and they let it harden.
See the footprints upstairs?
Here, for as blows you the horn, what
will happen to that footprint?
Well, I'm not interested in that kind of
footprint.
They're aimed in the wrong direction.
They're aimed back the way I aimed, and
I ain't going back there.
So I'm not interested.
I'm not even interested in the bust of
Eisenhower.
I'm not interested in any of these modern
footprints, but, uh, you look around, you'll find
footprints all aimed in the same direction, toward
the feet.
And you'll find the footprints of Jesus and
the footprints of the saints.
And there they are, all aimed in the
same direction.
You look carefully, you'll see some of them
are kind of backtracking a little occasionally.
But they find their way last and go
on.
Now, be absolutely careful and confident and expectant.
We want the Lord to do something for
us, don't we?
We want him to come down on us
with a wave of grace and power.
We want him to come to us individually
if we're not worthy of it as a
congregation.
We want to see a reformation, a revival,
a downcoming with power.
We want to see that.
And we're not going to try to work
it out.
But don't just count me out now.
As the brother said, exclusively out of that.
Include me out of it.
I don't intend to try to work up
anything.
You'll never climb Gates of Black without sweat
and perspiration and hard work.
Look not back, look forward, look on him,
and stop looking on yourself.
And if the ground shakes under you, don't
think it's a proof you're no good.
That is, that you're not getting anywhere.
Just think it's a proof that God's showing
you how worthless you are, but how dear
you are to him.
Once I wrote something, a sentence that I
wondered whether I should have written, but God
knew what I meant when I said, and
repeat it to you tonight, that the only
eccentricity that I can discover in the heart
of God is that a God-like he
is should love sinners as he is.
Even God has that strange eccentricity.
Why does God love us?
A mother may love a boy that he
prayed her and sinned, now on his way
to life in prison.
That seems to be natural.
But there's nothing natural about this love of
God.
It's a divine thing.
It's not pulled out.
It's forced out by the inward pressure in
the heart of the boy.
So God loves you, and he wants to
take you on.
And he will teach you if you'll let
him.
And he'll use the rules, and he'll let
some harsh scourges come.
He may even let you trip.
If that's heresy, all right, fine.
He doesn't want to be harassed all the
time.
He may let you trip.
Not that he wants you to do wrong,
but the only way he can show you
that without him you'd be better now, all
the time.
And so when he says that that thing
happened last week that you're so ashamed of,
instead of that letting you, instead of that
getting you down, instead of you letting it
get you down, you ought to recognize that
it is your father who wants to teach
people self-distrust by violating the superlative in
this.
Sometimes.
That's one of the four ways.
But I think for somebody, you have to
use all three.
You can't change the fourth.
But dear God, you know how wonderful that
is.
You know something?
I rarely know where I'm going, but after
I've been there a year, I can look
back and see the path has been relatively
straight.
You know, the thing about a bird, in
other words, that funny little bird that said
that it flew backwards because it didn't care
where it was going, but it's curious to
know where it was going.
And it's really still just there.
That's been my spiritual experience.
I go to God, I write my prayers
down, I wait on him and remind him.
Nothing seems to happen, and I seem to
be getting nowhere, and then suddenly things begin
to break around me.
And I look back and I find God
has been leading me every step, and I
didn't know.
I didn't know where I was going, but
I can look back and see where I've
been.
And I guess after all, maybe that's about
it.
Yes, I don't want to say look back
always, but at least you have a right
to take a quick look back over the
happy terrain where God has been led you,
up the valley where he has brought you.
But if you're going to trust him, it's
too much to tell you where he is,
and where he is farther on the way
than others.
Amen.