Post by Admin on Apr 2, 2024 16:01:07 GMT -5
11. THE GOODNESS AND MERCY OF GOD
I shall not make the slightest effort to make this a sermon. It will be more in the
direction of a Bible reading than a sermon, my object being to place the weapons of
warfare, of Christian warfare, of evangelism, in the hands of the congregation, so that
there shall not be one preacher, but hundreds of preachers.
You will remember that previously I explained how the providence of God broke up
a great meeting of tremendous power and joy, and for the special purpose that those
who had been converted in that meeting should go to their homes and speak the
word of life to their neighbors, and how in a remarkably short time the fire that
seemed to have been scattered by the persecution of Saul of Tarsus had simply been
scattered as to its separate firebrands over an immense section of the earth’s surface,
and each brand, as it fell in one particular territory, became a fire, and how in a very
short time the Word of God was preached throughout the whole world in that way.
There was not a traveled road in the world but witnessed something similar to that
which occurred to Philip and the eunuch. And in every clime, on the shores of all the
great seas, on the borders of the great rivers, and on the islands everywhere, there
were men going and coming, speaking of what they had experienced, and telling
what they knew of everlasting life. Instead of being one meeting, it made a thousand
meetings.
Now, when you go out to work for Christ, remember, first, what I told you this
morning, to go out imbued with power from on high; to go out with the Word of God
as the only offensive weapon, but to go out panoplied, putting on the armor of God,
as explained to you this morning. Now, as you go, either with a vest pocket
Testament or a portable Bible, you want to be able, without having to refer to a
preacher, to show the person some things yourself.
And indeed there are reasons why you can do this more effectually than any
preacher. In the first place, a great many people do not go to church. When they go,
they are in the habit of regarding what the preacher says as pertaining to his office, as
perfunctory, and it does not make the impression on their minds as does a friend
when he sits down and says, “Now here, I am just like you are. I am a man of
business as you are. You and I know each other. I am no preacher, but I have
something I did not have. I want to tell you about it, and suppose you and I sit down
here and let’s read some passages of Scripture. If you wish me to, I shall mark some
passages of Scripture for you. If you haven’t a Bible, I shall make you a present of
one, if you will accept it. I shall mark these passages for you, and when you go
home, I want you to sit down and in a quiet corner carefully read these Scriptures.
Will you do it?” That is bound to make an impression upon a man.
Now, suppose every member of this church, with such a marked Testament or
Bible, understanding it sufficiently himself to he able to re-mark another book, and
after earnestly praying God’s blessing upon what he said or did, should take hold of
such people as he feels that he can approach and make it a personal matter we
would have a great revival and would not have to wait twenty years for it.
Now, with this view of the subject, note the first Scripture to which I wish to call
your attention. My method is this: When I get a group of Scriptures on one subject,
on a blank leaf of the Bible I write the first Scripture and state what is the subject.
Then I turn to that Scripture and by the side of it I mark the next one. And then when
I get to the next one, I mark by the side of that the third one. Why, I remember once
I had a Bible where I could just take a start on one subject with just one sentence on
the fly leaf and find from that one referring me to another, four hundred eighteen
passages of Scripture on all the important questions likely to cone up.
Now, first of all, you will have to disabuse the mind of the one whom you wish to
lead to Christ, of his misconceptions with reference to the character of God. God is
not as he thinks He is. God has revealed Himself, and that revelation you have, and it
will always do good to sit down by him and make him see what are God’s
characteristics as God reveals them.
The first Scripture, then, is the thirty-fourth chapter of Exodus, the sixth and seventh
verses:
“And the Lord passed before him, and proclaimed, The Lord God, merciful
and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping
mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin and that will
by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the
children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth
generation.”
Nowhere in the Bible can you find such a comprehensive picture of the character of
God as is contained in those two verses. That great revolutionary preacher that I
mentioned in a sermon, who said that God must have had some great end in view in
the preservation of the life of Washington before Fort Duquesne, preached a series
of sermons upon these two verses, and very remarkable sermons they were indeed.
Now, you want to get before the mind the character of God as merciful, as
longsuffering, as gracious, as forgiving iniquity.
And yet God will by no means free the guilty, but will visit, according to the power of
the natural law, so far as this world is concerned, the iniquities of the fathers upon the
children and the children’s children, and who will also visit the good actions of the
father upon the children add the children’s children. The law works both ways. And
it is one of the most important laws to which the human mind can be directed ¾ the
law of heredity, the law of a man’s influence on those who come after him, and
which you could not shun if you should try. The things that you do now are going to
touch your children’s children, either for good or evil, and there is no way of
avoiding it.
Following out the same line of thought, the next Scripture I ask you to mark is the
one hundred third Psalm, from the eighth to the fourteenth verses:
“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.
He will not always chide; neither will He keep His anger forever. He hath not
dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For
as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that
fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our
transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord
pitieth them that fear Him. For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that
we are dust.”
I read that passage of Scripture once at a funeral. It was the pious wife of an infidel
who had died. He never went to church, but he heard me read that passage, and, as
he stated, for weeks and weeks every word of it was ringing in his ears - an
exhibition of the character of God that he had not conceived of - and it touched him
more than any religious service of his life.
Now turn to the New Testament (<610309>2 Peter 3:9, 15). I want to bring out that
thought of God’s mercy: “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise as some
men count slackness; but is longsuffering to usward,” that is, when He says He is
going to punish iniquity, and some men say He is very slack about it, He lets them
run a long time. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise as some men count
slackness, but is longsuffering to usward.
Now, you sit down by a man and get that thought in his mind:
“Here you have been sitting ten, twenty, thirty, forty years, and some of your
sins have been awful. You have sinned against heaven with a high hand and
an outstretched arm until at last you have been filled with impurity. Because
the sentence against an evil deed was not speedily executed, you have fully
set your heart to do evil. Now, I want to tell you why God did not strike you
down. He loved you. He didn’t want to send you to hell. He wanted to save
you. He wanted you to come to Him. And His longsuffering is to be
construed in that direction. And it shows how much you misunderstood itHis goodness, His grace, and His mercy.”
Now, I do hope that when you go out to evangelize you will not misrepresent the
character of God, the God of love and tenderness and mercy. It does not make any
difference how old a sinner is, just so he is not in hell. Just so he is alive. You go.
You have the commission. The authority is on you to go and say to him: “Gray headed as you are,
few as your days are that remain, near to judgment and hell as
you are, God loves you. God has borne with you and the construction that is to be
put upon His longsuffering is that He wants you to repent.”
Now, let me read you another Scripture on that. <450204>Romans 2:4:
“Or despisest thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and
longsuffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to
repentance?”
What did His goodness mean? What did He mean by not letting you die when you
were sick that time? What did He mean by allowing you to recover when your life
was suspended by a brittle thread and it just seemed to be an even thing as to
whether you were dead or alive? Why did He let you get well? Didn’t you know, if
you don’t know now, that it was God’s goodness in order to lead you to
repentance?
Now, in this direction I shall ask you to mark only two other Scriptures -
John3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Why is it that we get such a conception in our minds about God - that He is distant,
that He is a tyrant, that He is unapproachable; that we should look upon Him as a
thief looks on a sheriff? “God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son”
to die for that world. Don’t forget that. You ask him to sit down and look at that.
“You study about that. Surely that thought has never gotten into your heart.”
Then, the last Scripture, Luke, the fifteenth chapter. I dm not going to quote. I am
merely going to call your attention to what it is about. It commences this way: “Then
drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners for to hear Him.” And He spoke
the parables about leaving the ninety and nine and going after the lost sheep, and
searching for the lost piece of money, and the old father’s welcome of the prodigal
son. Now, that is the most life-like representation of God that there is in the Bible.
Why? Jesus was sent into the world to reveal the Father. Jesus is the express image
of the Father. He came and laid bare the heart of God to the world, to show God’s
state of mind toward the world. And there it is.
I dare any man living who has not sinned the unpardonable sin to sit down and read
that fifteenth chapter of Luke, and particularly where you get to that picture of that
wayward and sinful son, without any excuse in the world for his sins, yet coming
home in rags, coming home, knowing that he has no right there, and yet that father
looking for him and running out to meet him, putting his arms around his neck and
kissing him and bringing out the robe and putting the ring upon his finger, and the
feasting, because the dead is alive and the lost is found. Oh, what a picture of God’s
heart is that fifteenth chapter of Luke!
Another point. When you go out to lead men to God, you go out with these two
passages of Scripture as embodying everything in the way of an entrance to God:
John 10:9 and 14:6. I shall quote them: “I am the door: by Me if any man enter in,
he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.” “Jesus saith unto him, I
am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.”
Now you have got to keep the eye of the sinner upon that. You don’t try to go in
any other way. Here, this is the door - Jesus. This is the way - Jesus. This is the truth
- Jesus. This is the life - Jesus. Keep his eye on that all the time; never let it waver.
Don’t let him look to the Virgin Mary. Don’t let him look to the church. Don’t let him
look to baptism. Don’t let him look to communion. Don’t let him look to angels.
Keep his eye upon the door, the way, and the truth, and the life. Oh, never let him
see anything else!
Now I want to give you just a few passages in speaking of Jesus and the door. If
ever you say in your heart that He is just a man, you had just as well quit. Nobody
will listen to you. Indeed, what you say would not be worthy of being listened to.
Prominent before his eyes, enshrined in his heart must be this supreme thought, “The
divinity of Jesus Christ.” God alone can say it.
Now, I shall just give a few easy passages that you can use as well as anybody else,
and here they are. They are very short. Isaiah 9:6: “For unto us a child is born,
unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name
shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The
Prince of Peace.” Nobody has ever questioned the application of that Scripture to
the Messiah, and that is the Scripture that is applied to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, take this next Scripture before we leave the prophets - Daniel, seventh
chapter, thirteenth and fourteenth verses: “I saw in the night visions, and behold one
like unto the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of
days, and they brought Him near before Him. And there was given Him dominion,
and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve Him;
His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom
that which shall not be destroyed.” This is a prophetic picture of Christ’s ascension
after His resurrection.
Now, let us come to the New Testament a moment, in the twenty-sixth chapter of
Matthew, sixty-third verse. When you use that, always use the parallel passage in
Mark. You can look it up. The reference will tell you. I used that Scripture in a
meeting. A lawyer present said he had never heard it before in his life. And after the
sermon was over, he came up and asked as a special request that I mark that
Scripture. He said, “Of all the things I have yet heard from the Bible, that impresses
my mind the most as to the divinity of Jesus Christ.” It did not so impress my mind,
but it did his.
The high priest had assembled the Sanhedrin, which was the highest court of the
Jews, having jurisdiction not only of ecclesiastical matters but of all civil and criminal
matters. It was the Supreme Court, and before that court certain offenses had to be
tried, for instance, the offense of blasphemy. Jesus was tried before that court under
the charge of blasphemy, in that He assumed to be God. And according to the
jurisprudence of that people, when one was a Jew, he might, if he consented, be put
on the witness stand, with a fair notification, however, that his testimony, if it led in
that direction could inculpate himself. The high priest put Jesus Christ on the witness
stand before that court; put Him under the most solemn oath that any one could be
put under: “I adjure thee, by the living God, tell me, art thou the Messiah?” Thus
sworn, with uplifted hand, Jesus said, “I am; and hereafter you shall see me ascend
up to the right hand of the throne of God.” The effect of that is based upon the
character of Jesus Christ as a truthful man; the purity of His life, and the veracity of
His life, and the soundness of His intellect; so that He had every qualification of a
truthful witness.
Now, the next Scripture. In the twenty-eighth chapter of Matthew and eighteenth
verse, He claimed universal authority: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in
earth.” Listen! How soberly He said it! Listen! To what a practical end He said it!
He was to send them out as I am asking you to go out, to evangelize, to lead people
to Christ, and He’ predicated the “go” upon the statement that all power in heaven
and in earth is His; all authority. And you need not go out if that is not true.
Now John, the first chapter. I shall not specify a verse. Just that first chapter of John.
But here is the thought of it: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with
God and the Word was God, and by Him were all things made that are made, and
the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. That announces the preexistence of
Jesus Christ in the beginning, that a child was to be born, but that that child was to
be the everlasting Father, who in that birth was taking upon Himself human nature for
the purpose of salvation.
In the eighth chapter of John and the fifty-eighth verse, He used this language. The
Jews had asked Him this question: “Art thou greater than our father Abraham? Why,
you are not yet fifty years old; and you greater than Abraham?” Now listen to His
reply: “Before Abraham was, I am,” using the Jehovah-name of the Old Testament,
the .”I Am.” You remember when God sent Moses to Pharaoh, he said “I Am hath
sent me unto thee.” That is the self-existent Being, the One whose existence is
underived, being contained in Himself.
Notice again in the seventeenth chapter of John and fourth verse. He is going to pray
now. He knows He is about to die. Now listen to His prayer: “Father, I have finished
the work which Thou gayest Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with
the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.” These are His statements. I
ask you to notice how He said them. He said them on oath. He said them in prayer.
He said them in controversy, in every conceivable way; and He said them when He
was sending men out to preach His gospel to every nation upon the face of the earth.
Standing there with the majesty and dignity of God, He said, “You go out in My
name. All authority is Mine. And you tell them to repent and believe and he saved.”
Philippians, second chapter and from the fifth to the eleventh verses:
“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus who, being in the
form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself
of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in
the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled
Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is
above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of
things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of the Father.”
It does not make an atom of difference how that remarkable fact is to be disproved,
and there has been diversity of interpretation of it, but you cannot interpret it in any
way that does not clearly establish the preexistence and the divinity and the universal
sovereignty of Jesus Christ.
The next Scripture is the first chapter of Colossians, sixteenth and seventeenth
verses, where it is distinctly stated that Jesus in His preexistent state created the
world:
“For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth,
visible and invisible, whether they be throngs, or dominions, or principalities,
or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him: and He is before all
things, and by Him all things consist.”
When you read the first chapter of Genesis which says, “In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth,” you are to read it, “In the beginning God, the
Son, created the heaven and the earth.” Jesus was the Creator, the One who
thousands of years afterward became a babe in Bethlehem of Judea. Now, the other
Scripture I shall not quote, I shall ask you to mark it - all of the first chapter of the
Letter to the Hebrews. I could give you a great many more, but those are enough on
that point.
Now, I am coming to a matter a little more practical, that relates to the character of
God and the divinity of Jesus Christ. Remember that I told you you should keep the
eyes of the man on a certain Door, and no other door; on a certain Way and no
other way; on a certain Truth and no other truth; on a certain Life and no other life.
And that Door, Way, and Truth, and Life is Jesus Christ. Now, when you get his
eyes there, though he is asleep like I described to you; though dead in trespasses and
in sins; though he cannot hear; though he cannot see; though he cannot spiritually
discern; though that heart of his he hard as granite, you are to put motion into him.
What must you tell him to do? You are to put motion into him by your direction.
Well, now you say, “What good will that do?” Go and ask the prophet. When God
pointed to the dry bones of the valley and said, “Can these bones live?” he
answered: “Lord, thou knowest.” You go and stand right over them and tell them to
live, and when you tell them to live, you invoke the Spirit to come and breathe into
them that they may live. Just like Jesus said to the man whose hand was paralyzed:
“Stretch out your hand; don’t say you can’t do it; do it.”
You have made a grand point when you are dealing with unconverted people if you
never allow them to lie down upon this thought: “I must do.” That is what they must
do. They must! They must! They are lost if they don’t move. And after you get them
to take a step that is not broader than the ninetieth part of a hair, you have won the
main question. If their hearts are hard as granite, you have won over half the battle
when you have put within their hearts the purpose to stir themselves.
I am going to give you the Scriptures on it; and it is dead men and dry bones and
carnal people and people who have not an atom of power within themselves. I shall
commence with Amos, the fifth chapter, fourth and eighth verses: “For thus saith the
Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye Me, and ye shall live.” “Seek Him that
maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning,
and maketh the day dark with the night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and
poureth them out upon the face of the earth: the Lord is His name.” “Seek Him.”
Well, you say, “That is too much like a Methodist, a seeker.” I don’t care whom it is
like; it is the Bible. The man who is saved must be a seeker, and unless he becomes
a seeker, he is lost world without end.
Another point: Never let him loose. If you allow him any margin beyond the margin
that this Scripture gives, you have lost your hold. “Seek ye the Lord while He may
be found, that is, he has not a thousand years to do the seeking in. Get that thought in
his heart like an unquenchable coal of fire - that his seeking must be urgent; that it
must be immediate; that there will be a time when the seeking will do no good; that
he must seek the Lord while He may be found and call upon Him while He is near.
I want to bring that thought out a little more. The thirty-second Psalm and sixth
verse. Mark that: “For this shall every one that is godly pray unto Thee in a time
when Thou mayest be found.” There is a time when Jesus may be found. There is a
time when He is not to be found, and the godly man must never forget when he prays.
I want to develop the thought. In the New Testament, Matthew, fifth chapter,
twenty-fifth verse:
“Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art still in the way with him;
lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver
thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, thou
shalt by no means come out thence, until thou hast paid the uttermost
farthing.”
Now, here you have a man, a sinner. He has an adversary, and God is his adversary
in the matter of that sin, and it is your business to bring about an agreement between
that man and God. And you are to impress upon his mind that this agreement should
be speedily effected; that it should be quickly done; that at any time on earth He
pleases, God can cast him into the prison of death and reserve him unto the judgment
of the great day and then cast him into the eternity of hell, and that he can never
come out. You must make that fight all the way along.
Hurriedly, let us look further, to the sixth chapter of Matthew, thirty-third verse:
“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Now, he is seeking
money, lands, houses, clothes, worldly honors. He says, “After a while I will talk to
you.” You just stand right there: “No, No, No! You must first seek the kingdom of
God and His righteousness and then all these things shall be added to you
afterwards. Here, this is the first; this is the most important; this is the most urgent.
First seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness.”
You will see the emphasis that all the Scriptures put upon the “seek.” The thirteenth
chapter of Luke, twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth verses: “Strive to enter in at the
straight gate; for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”
“When once the master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and ye begin to
stand without, and to knock at the door saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and He
shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are.” And you point to an
open door; Jesus is the Door, and you say, “Enter! Enter!” and he says, “After a
while.” “Enter it and enter it now.” “Well, at a more convenient season.” “Agonize to
enter,” for I tell you there is a time going to come when that door will be shut, and
after God shuts it, your soul will be as certainly lost as was the life of the antediluvian
when God shut the door of the ark forever.
John 7:34 compared with the eighth chapter, twenty-fourth verse: “Ye shall seek
Me, and shall not find Me, and shall die in your sins: and where I am, thither ye
cannot come.” Now, when you try to lead a soul to Christ and you try to put the
seeking into his heart, it must be this kind of seeking, for there is a seeking that is
unavailing; there is a praying that is unavailing.
2 Corinthians 6:2: “For He saith, I
have heard thee in a tine accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee:
behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”
Hebrews 3:7-13: “Wherefore as the Holy Ghost saith, Today if ye will hear His voice, harden
not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the
wilderness: when your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My works
forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do
always err in their heart: and they have not known My ways. So I swear in
My wrath, They shall not enter into My rest. Take heed, brethren, lest there
be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
But exhort one another daily, while it is called today, lest any of you be
hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.”
Jeremiah 29:13: “And ye shall seek Me, and find He, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart.”
Hebrews 2:1: “Therefore we ought to give more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.”
These Scriptures point to the danger in delay. Now Romans 2:4: “Or despise thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and
longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?”
These last Scriptures are all upon this point, that there is danger in delay. How can
you escape if you neglect them? There is danger in neglecting. All bear upon seeking,
and all bear upon this solitary idea that in some way by the help of the Spirit of God
you get the impression upon the mind of the person to whom you are talking that he
must move or he is lost, and that immediate action is what is called for.
The Bible reading is over. I have never done anything more gladly or with more
pleasure than I do this. My heart is glad that even for one more time I have pointed
ungodly people to a present Savior. I am glad that the character of God as outlined
in His Book, is a character of love and goodness and infinite compassion and
longsuffering, a character who has foreborne years and years with the most
impenitent and the most ungodly with a view to their salvation.
Oh, I thank God that I can look from that character to the Authority, “All authority in
heaven and on earth,” and know that by that Authority I am commissioned to stand
and knock at every heart and say, “Here, I have a message to deliver. I have a
message for you right now. Wake up and hear it. Come out and hear it. It is a
message of life, of death. Will you hear it?”
There is not a sinner who needs to go on unsaved. There is not a soul who is lost
who needs to be lost. Oh, if I could get that thought to you, a present Savior, now,
right now, before anything else! Now! Taking precedence of everything. First! Now!
Look and live! O, dry bones, live! By the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in
the name of the Omniscient Spirit, I command you to come out of the darkness into
the light. Throw off the shackles and chains of Satan. Come to freedom and
salvation.[/font]
I shall not make the slightest effort to make this a sermon. It will be more in the
direction of a Bible reading than a sermon, my object being to place the weapons of
warfare, of Christian warfare, of evangelism, in the hands of the congregation, so that
there shall not be one preacher, but hundreds of preachers.
You will remember that previously I explained how the providence of God broke up
a great meeting of tremendous power and joy, and for the special purpose that those
who had been converted in that meeting should go to their homes and speak the
word of life to their neighbors, and how in a remarkably short time the fire that
seemed to have been scattered by the persecution of Saul of Tarsus had simply been
scattered as to its separate firebrands over an immense section of the earth’s surface,
and each brand, as it fell in one particular territory, became a fire, and how in a very
short time the Word of God was preached throughout the whole world in that way.
There was not a traveled road in the world but witnessed something similar to that
which occurred to Philip and the eunuch. And in every clime, on the shores of all the
great seas, on the borders of the great rivers, and on the islands everywhere, there
were men going and coming, speaking of what they had experienced, and telling
what they knew of everlasting life. Instead of being one meeting, it made a thousand
meetings.
Now, when you go out to work for Christ, remember, first, what I told you this
morning, to go out imbued with power from on high; to go out with the Word of God
as the only offensive weapon, but to go out panoplied, putting on the armor of God,
as explained to you this morning. Now, as you go, either with a vest pocket
Testament or a portable Bible, you want to be able, without having to refer to a
preacher, to show the person some things yourself.
And indeed there are reasons why you can do this more effectually than any
preacher. In the first place, a great many people do not go to church. When they go,
they are in the habit of regarding what the preacher says as pertaining to his office, as
perfunctory, and it does not make the impression on their minds as does a friend
when he sits down and says, “Now here, I am just like you are. I am a man of
business as you are. You and I know each other. I am no preacher, but I have
something I did not have. I want to tell you about it, and suppose you and I sit down
here and let’s read some passages of Scripture. If you wish me to, I shall mark some
passages of Scripture for you. If you haven’t a Bible, I shall make you a present of
one, if you will accept it. I shall mark these passages for you, and when you go
home, I want you to sit down and in a quiet corner carefully read these Scriptures.
Will you do it?” That is bound to make an impression upon a man.
Now, suppose every member of this church, with such a marked Testament or
Bible, understanding it sufficiently himself to he able to re-mark another book, and
after earnestly praying God’s blessing upon what he said or did, should take hold of
such people as he feels that he can approach and make it a personal matter we
would have a great revival and would not have to wait twenty years for it.
Now, with this view of the subject, note the first Scripture to which I wish to call
your attention. My method is this: When I get a group of Scriptures on one subject,
on a blank leaf of the Bible I write the first Scripture and state what is the subject.
Then I turn to that Scripture and by the side of it I mark the next one. And then when
I get to the next one, I mark by the side of that the third one. Why, I remember once
I had a Bible where I could just take a start on one subject with just one sentence on
the fly leaf and find from that one referring me to another, four hundred eighteen
passages of Scripture on all the important questions likely to cone up.
Now, first of all, you will have to disabuse the mind of the one whom you wish to
lead to Christ, of his misconceptions with reference to the character of God. God is
not as he thinks He is. God has revealed Himself, and that revelation you have, and it
will always do good to sit down by him and make him see what are God’s
characteristics as God reveals them.
The first Scripture, then, is the thirty-fourth chapter of Exodus, the sixth and seventh
verses:
“And the Lord passed before him, and proclaimed, The Lord God, merciful
and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping
mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin and that will
by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the
children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth
generation.”
Nowhere in the Bible can you find such a comprehensive picture of the character of
God as is contained in those two verses. That great revolutionary preacher that I
mentioned in a sermon, who said that God must have had some great end in view in
the preservation of the life of Washington before Fort Duquesne, preached a series
of sermons upon these two verses, and very remarkable sermons they were indeed.
Now, you want to get before the mind the character of God as merciful, as
longsuffering, as gracious, as forgiving iniquity.
And yet God will by no means free the guilty, but will visit, according to the power of
the natural law, so far as this world is concerned, the iniquities of the fathers upon the
children and the children’s children, and who will also visit the good actions of the
father upon the children add the children’s children. The law works both ways. And
it is one of the most important laws to which the human mind can be directed ¾ the
law of heredity, the law of a man’s influence on those who come after him, and
which you could not shun if you should try. The things that you do now are going to
touch your children’s children, either for good or evil, and there is no way of
avoiding it.
Following out the same line of thought, the next Scripture I ask you to mark is the
one hundred third Psalm, from the eighth to the fourteenth verses:
“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.
He will not always chide; neither will He keep His anger forever. He hath not
dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For
as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that
fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our
transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord
pitieth them that fear Him. For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that
we are dust.”
I read that passage of Scripture once at a funeral. It was the pious wife of an infidel
who had died. He never went to church, but he heard me read that passage, and, as
he stated, for weeks and weeks every word of it was ringing in his ears - an
exhibition of the character of God that he had not conceived of - and it touched him
more than any religious service of his life.
Now turn to the New Testament (<610309>2 Peter 3:9, 15). I want to bring out that
thought of God’s mercy: “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise as some
men count slackness; but is longsuffering to usward,” that is, when He says He is
going to punish iniquity, and some men say He is very slack about it, He lets them
run a long time. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise as some men count
slackness, but is longsuffering to usward.
Now, you sit down by a man and get that thought in his mind:
“Here you have been sitting ten, twenty, thirty, forty years, and some of your
sins have been awful. You have sinned against heaven with a high hand and
an outstretched arm until at last you have been filled with impurity. Because
the sentence against an evil deed was not speedily executed, you have fully
set your heart to do evil. Now, I want to tell you why God did not strike you
down. He loved you. He didn’t want to send you to hell. He wanted to save
you. He wanted you to come to Him. And His longsuffering is to be
construed in that direction. And it shows how much you misunderstood itHis goodness, His grace, and His mercy.”
Now, I do hope that when you go out to evangelize you will not misrepresent the
character of God, the God of love and tenderness and mercy. It does not make any
difference how old a sinner is, just so he is not in hell. Just so he is alive. You go.
You have the commission. The authority is on you to go and say to him: “Gray headed as you are,
few as your days are that remain, near to judgment and hell as
you are, God loves you. God has borne with you and the construction that is to be
put upon His longsuffering is that He wants you to repent.”
Now, let me read you another Scripture on that. <450204>Romans 2:4:
“Or despisest thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and
longsuffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to
repentance?”
What did His goodness mean? What did He mean by not letting you die when you
were sick that time? What did He mean by allowing you to recover when your life
was suspended by a brittle thread and it just seemed to be an even thing as to
whether you were dead or alive? Why did He let you get well? Didn’t you know, if
you don’t know now, that it was God’s goodness in order to lead you to
repentance?
Now, in this direction I shall ask you to mark only two other Scriptures -
John3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Why is it that we get such a conception in our minds about God - that He is distant,
that He is a tyrant, that He is unapproachable; that we should look upon Him as a
thief looks on a sheriff? “God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son”
to die for that world. Don’t forget that. You ask him to sit down and look at that.
“You study about that. Surely that thought has never gotten into your heart.”
Then, the last Scripture, Luke, the fifteenth chapter. I dm not going to quote. I am
merely going to call your attention to what it is about. It commences this way: “Then
drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners for to hear Him.” And He spoke
the parables about leaving the ninety and nine and going after the lost sheep, and
searching for the lost piece of money, and the old father’s welcome of the prodigal
son. Now, that is the most life-like representation of God that there is in the Bible.
Why? Jesus was sent into the world to reveal the Father. Jesus is the express image
of the Father. He came and laid bare the heart of God to the world, to show God’s
state of mind toward the world. And there it is.
I dare any man living who has not sinned the unpardonable sin to sit down and read
that fifteenth chapter of Luke, and particularly where you get to that picture of that
wayward and sinful son, without any excuse in the world for his sins, yet coming
home in rags, coming home, knowing that he has no right there, and yet that father
looking for him and running out to meet him, putting his arms around his neck and
kissing him and bringing out the robe and putting the ring upon his finger, and the
feasting, because the dead is alive and the lost is found. Oh, what a picture of God’s
heart is that fifteenth chapter of Luke!
Another point. When you go out to lead men to God, you go out with these two
passages of Scripture as embodying everything in the way of an entrance to God:
John 10:9 and 14:6. I shall quote them: “I am the door: by Me if any man enter in,
he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.” “Jesus saith unto him, I
am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.”
Now you have got to keep the eye of the sinner upon that. You don’t try to go in
any other way. Here, this is the door - Jesus. This is the way - Jesus. This is the truth
- Jesus. This is the life - Jesus. Keep his eye on that all the time; never let it waver.
Don’t let him look to the Virgin Mary. Don’t let him look to the church. Don’t let him
look to baptism. Don’t let him look to communion. Don’t let him look to angels.
Keep his eye upon the door, the way, and the truth, and the life. Oh, never let him
see anything else!
Now I want to give you just a few passages in speaking of Jesus and the door. If
ever you say in your heart that He is just a man, you had just as well quit. Nobody
will listen to you. Indeed, what you say would not be worthy of being listened to.
Prominent before his eyes, enshrined in his heart must be this supreme thought, “The
divinity of Jesus Christ.” God alone can say it.
Now, I shall just give a few easy passages that you can use as well as anybody else,
and here they are. They are very short. Isaiah 9:6: “For unto us a child is born,
unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name
shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The
Prince of Peace.” Nobody has ever questioned the application of that Scripture to
the Messiah, and that is the Scripture that is applied to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, take this next Scripture before we leave the prophets - Daniel, seventh
chapter, thirteenth and fourteenth verses: “I saw in the night visions, and behold one
like unto the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of
days, and they brought Him near before Him. And there was given Him dominion,
and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve Him;
His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom
that which shall not be destroyed.” This is a prophetic picture of Christ’s ascension
after His resurrection.
Now, let us come to the New Testament a moment, in the twenty-sixth chapter of
Matthew, sixty-third verse. When you use that, always use the parallel passage in
Mark. You can look it up. The reference will tell you. I used that Scripture in a
meeting. A lawyer present said he had never heard it before in his life. And after the
sermon was over, he came up and asked as a special request that I mark that
Scripture. He said, “Of all the things I have yet heard from the Bible, that impresses
my mind the most as to the divinity of Jesus Christ.” It did not so impress my mind,
but it did his.
The high priest had assembled the Sanhedrin, which was the highest court of the
Jews, having jurisdiction not only of ecclesiastical matters but of all civil and criminal
matters. It was the Supreme Court, and before that court certain offenses had to be
tried, for instance, the offense of blasphemy. Jesus was tried before that court under
the charge of blasphemy, in that He assumed to be God. And according to the
jurisprudence of that people, when one was a Jew, he might, if he consented, be put
on the witness stand, with a fair notification, however, that his testimony, if it led in
that direction could inculpate himself. The high priest put Jesus Christ on the witness
stand before that court; put Him under the most solemn oath that any one could be
put under: “I adjure thee, by the living God, tell me, art thou the Messiah?” Thus
sworn, with uplifted hand, Jesus said, “I am; and hereafter you shall see me ascend
up to the right hand of the throne of God.” The effect of that is based upon the
character of Jesus Christ as a truthful man; the purity of His life, and the veracity of
His life, and the soundness of His intellect; so that He had every qualification of a
truthful witness.
Now, the next Scripture. In the twenty-eighth chapter of Matthew and eighteenth
verse, He claimed universal authority: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in
earth.” Listen! How soberly He said it! Listen! To what a practical end He said it!
He was to send them out as I am asking you to go out, to evangelize, to lead people
to Christ, and He’ predicated the “go” upon the statement that all power in heaven
and in earth is His; all authority. And you need not go out if that is not true.
Now John, the first chapter. I shall not specify a verse. Just that first chapter of John.
But here is the thought of it: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with
God and the Word was God, and by Him were all things made that are made, and
the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. That announces the preexistence of
Jesus Christ in the beginning, that a child was to be born, but that that child was to
be the everlasting Father, who in that birth was taking upon Himself human nature for
the purpose of salvation.
In the eighth chapter of John and the fifty-eighth verse, He used this language. The
Jews had asked Him this question: “Art thou greater than our father Abraham? Why,
you are not yet fifty years old; and you greater than Abraham?” Now listen to His
reply: “Before Abraham was, I am,” using the Jehovah-name of the Old Testament,
the .”I Am.” You remember when God sent Moses to Pharaoh, he said “I Am hath
sent me unto thee.” That is the self-existent Being, the One whose existence is
underived, being contained in Himself.
Notice again in the seventeenth chapter of John and fourth verse. He is going to pray
now. He knows He is about to die. Now listen to His prayer: “Father, I have finished
the work which Thou gayest Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with
the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.” These are His statements. I
ask you to notice how He said them. He said them on oath. He said them in prayer.
He said them in controversy, in every conceivable way; and He said them when He
was sending men out to preach His gospel to every nation upon the face of the earth.
Standing there with the majesty and dignity of God, He said, “You go out in My
name. All authority is Mine. And you tell them to repent and believe and he saved.”
Philippians, second chapter and from the fifth to the eleventh verses:
“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus who, being in the
form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself
of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in
the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled
Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is
above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of
things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of the Father.”
It does not make an atom of difference how that remarkable fact is to be disproved,
and there has been diversity of interpretation of it, but you cannot interpret it in any
way that does not clearly establish the preexistence and the divinity and the universal
sovereignty of Jesus Christ.
The next Scripture is the first chapter of Colossians, sixteenth and seventeenth
verses, where it is distinctly stated that Jesus in His preexistent state created the
world:
“For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth,
visible and invisible, whether they be throngs, or dominions, or principalities,
or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him: and He is before all
things, and by Him all things consist.”
When you read the first chapter of Genesis which says, “In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth,” you are to read it, “In the beginning God, the
Son, created the heaven and the earth.” Jesus was the Creator, the One who
thousands of years afterward became a babe in Bethlehem of Judea. Now, the other
Scripture I shall not quote, I shall ask you to mark it - all of the first chapter of the
Letter to the Hebrews. I could give you a great many more, but those are enough on
that point.
Now, I am coming to a matter a little more practical, that relates to the character of
God and the divinity of Jesus Christ. Remember that I told you you should keep the
eyes of the man on a certain Door, and no other door; on a certain Way and no
other way; on a certain Truth and no other truth; on a certain Life and no other life.
And that Door, Way, and Truth, and Life is Jesus Christ. Now, when you get his
eyes there, though he is asleep like I described to you; though dead in trespasses and
in sins; though he cannot hear; though he cannot see; though he cannot spiritually
discern; though that heart of his he hard as granite, you are to put motion into him.
What must you tell him to do? You are to put motion into him by your direction.
Well, now you say, “What good will that do?” Go and ask the prophet. When God
pointed to the dry bones of the valley and said, “Can these bones live?” he
answered: “Lord, thou knowest.” You go and stand right over them and tell them to
live, and when you tell them to live, you invoke the Spirit to come and breathe into
them that they may live. Just like Jesus said to the man whose hand was paralyzed:
“Stretch out your hand; don’t say you can’t do it; do it.”
You have made a grand point when you are dealing with unconverted people if you
never allow them to lie down upon this thought: “I must do.” That is what they must
do. They must! They must! They are lost if they don’t move. And after you get them
to take a step that is not broader than the ninetieth part of a hair, you have won the
main question. If their hearts are hard as granite, you have won over half the battle
when you have put within their hearts the purpose to stir themselves.
I am going to give you the Scriptures on it; and it is dead men and dry bones and
carnal people and people who have not an atom of power within themselves. I shall
commence with Amos, the fifth chapter, fourth and eighth verses: “For thus saith the
Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye Me, and ye shall live.” “Seek Him that
maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning,
and maketh the day dark with the night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and
poureth them out upon the face of the earth: the Lord is His name.” “Seek Him.”
Well, you say, “That is too much like a Methodist, a seeker.” I don’t care whom it is
like; it is the Bible. The man who is saved must be a seeker, and unless he becomes
a seeker, he is lost world without end.
Another point: Never let him loose. If you allow him any margin beyond the margin
that this Scripture gives, you have lost your hold. “Seek ye the Lord while He may
be found, that is, he has not a thousand years to do the seeking in. Get that thought in
his heart like an unquenchable coal of fire - that his seeking must be urgent; that it
must be immediate; that there will be a time when the seeking will do no good; that
he must seek the Lord while He may be found and call upon Him while He is near.
I want to bring that thought out a little more. The thirty-second Psalm and sixth
verse. Mark that: “For this shall every one that is godly pray unto Thee in a time
when Thou mayest be found.” There is a time when Jesus may be found. There is a
time when He is not to be found, and the godly man must never forget when he prays.
I want to develop the thought. In the New Testament, Matthew, fifth chapter,
twenty-fifth verse:
“Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art still in the way with him;
lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver
thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, thou
shalt by no means come out thence, until thou hast paid the uttermost
farthing.”
Now, here you have a man, a sinner. He has an adversary, and God is his adversary
in the matter of that sin, and it is your business to bring about an agreement between
that man and God. And you are to impress upon his mind that this agreement should
be speedily effected; that it should be quickly done; that at any time on earth He
pleases, God can cast him into the prison of death and reserve him unto the judgment
of the great day and then cast him into the eternity of hell, and that he can never
come out. You must make that fight all the way along.
Hurriedly, let us look further, to the sixth chapter of Matthew, thirty-third verse:
“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Now, he is seeking
money, lands, houses, clothes, worldly honors. He says, “After a while I will talk to
you.” You just stand right there: “No, No, No! You must first seek the kingdom of
God and His righteousness and then all these things shall be added to you
afterwards. Here, this is the first; this is the most important; this is the most urgent.
First seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness.”
You will see the emphasis that all the Scriptures put upon the “seek.” The thirteenth
chapter of Luke, twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth verses: “Strive to enter in at the
straight gate; for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”
“When once the master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and ye begin to
stand without, and to knock at the door saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and He
shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are.” And you point to an
open door; Jesus is the Door, and you say, “Enter! Enter!” and he says, “After a
while.” “Enter it and enter it now.” “Well, at a more convenient season.” “Agonize to
enter,” for I tell you there is a time going to come when that door will be shut, and
after God shuts it, your soul will be as certainly lost as was the life of the antediluvian
when God shut the door of the ark forever.
John 7:34 compared with the eighth chapter, twenty-fourth verse: “Ye shall seek
Me, and shall not find Me, and shall die in your sins: and where I am, thither ye
cannot come.” Now, when you try to lead a soul to Christ and you try to put the
seeking into his heart, it must be this kind of seeking, for there is a seeking that is
unavailing; there is a praying that is unavailing.
2 Corinthians 6:2: “For He saith, I
have heard thee in a tine accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee:
behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”
Hebrews 3:7-13: “Wherefore as the Holy Ghost saith, Today if ye will hear His voice, harden
not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the
wilderness: when your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My works
forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do
always err in their heart: and they have not known My ways. So I swear in
My wrath, They shall not enter into My rest. Take heed, brethren, lest there
be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
But exhort one another daily, while it is called today, lest any of you be
hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.”
Jeremiah 29:13: “And ye shall seek Me, and find He, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart.”
Hebrews 2:1: “Therefore we ought to give more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.”
These Scriptures point to the danger in delay. Now Romans 2:4: “Or despise thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and
longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?”
These last Scriptures are all upon this point, that there is danger in delay. How can
you escape if you neglect them? There is danger in neglecting. All bear upon seeking,
and all bear upon this solitary idea that in some way by the help of the Spirit of God
you get the impression upon the mind of the person to whom you are talking that he
must move or he is lost, and that immediate action is what is called for.
The Bible reading is over. I have never done anything more gladly or with more
pleasure than I do this. My heart is glad that even for one more time I have pointed
ungodly people to a present Savior. I am glad that the character of God as outlined
in His Book, is a character of love and goodness and infinite compassion and
longsuffering, a character who has foreborne years and years with the most
impenitent and the most ungodly with a view to their salvation.
Oh, I thank God that I can look from that character to the Authority, “All authority in
heaven and on earth,” and know that by that Authority I am commissioned to stand
and knock at every heart and say, “Here, I have a message to deliver. I have a
message for you right now. Wake up and hear it. Come out and hear it. It is a
message of life, of death. Will you hear it?”
There is not a sinner who needs to go on unsaved. There is not a soul who is lost
who needs to be lost. Oh, if I could get that thought to you, a present Savior, now,
right now, before anything else! Now! Taking precedence of everything. First! Now!
Look and live! O, dry bones, live! By the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in
the name of the Omniscient Spirit, I command you to come out of the darkness into
the light. Throw off the shackles and chains of Satan. Come to freedom and
salvation.[/font]